Reformatory

“ The Relation of the Reformation to the Renaissance.—The series of revolts from the Catholic Church, generally known collectively as the ‘Reformation,’ may be regarded as closely connected with the Renaissance. As shown in the last chapter, humanism in the North led to a renewed study of the Scriptures and a reform of ecclesiastical doctrines and abuses, and took on a moral and religious color. Reformers arose, like Wimpfeling and Erasmus, who, while remaining within the Church, sought to purify it of corruption and obscurantism. ”

“ The corruptions of a society, recommended by common utility, and justified by universal practice, are viewed by its members without shame or horror; and reformation never proceeds from themselves, but is always forced upon them by some foreign hand.”397 Convinced of this, the protestant leaders had next addressed themselves to the regent, and requested her to employ her authority to bring about a reformation, which could not be much longer deferred, without interrupting the peace of the kingdom. ”

“ It is absurd to say that the revolution of the sixteenth century was a reformation, if by that it is meant that it re-established the primitive doctrines of Christianity, purified the morals of the people, or gave birth to a better ecclesiastical government, it did no such thing. ”

“ In studying the history of the Reformation in England, nothing is more necessary than to keep its different stages distinct from one another. We are too apt to think of the Reformation as if it had been all one process, or at least as if some person or persons had deliberately set it going, with a distinct perception of the results to which it was to lead, and had consciously adapted the means employed to the production of those results. ”

“ Involuntarily, unconsciously, unwillingly, every government found that the Reformation formed part of its scheme and policy. One nation, and one only, had the clear eye and firm hand to make it ostensibly, and of its deliberate choice, the guide and landmark in its dangerous and finally triumphant career. ”

“ It was indeed a world-historical movement, that old reformation of the Sixteenth century, snapping as it did the fetters of a Church that arrogated to itself all power in heaven and on earth, and defiantly asserting supremacy over the papacy. But the reformation of our day is much more radical and universal. ”

“ Greater men than he deny that grace underlies the whole original movement of the reformers, and they talk of the Reformation as a mere revolt from Rome, as a war against papal corruption, as a protest against monkery and the dark ages, brought about by the spirit of a new age, the onward march of humanity, the necessary progress of society. ”

“ But the Reformation, gentlemen, beyond the region of opinions, was a historical fact—an objective something which may be studied like any of the facts of nature. The Reformers were men of note and distinction, who played a great part for good or evil on the stage of the world. If we except the Apostles, no body of human beings ever printed so deep a mark into the organisation of society ”

“ Reform, and radical reform, was indeed sadly needed throughout a system which was encumbered by noxious rubbish, the useless leavings of the middle ages: trial by battle and compurgation, deodands and benefit of clergy, John Doe and Richard Roe. ”

“ NORTHUMBERLAND'S CONSPIRACY.
AMIDST the wreck of ancient institutions, the misery of the people, and the moral and social anarchy by which the nation was disintegrated, thoughtful persons in England could not fail by this time to be asking themselves what they had gained by the Reformation.
A national reformation, if the name is more than a mockery, implies the transfer of power, power spiritual, power political, from the ignoble to the noble, from the incapable to the capable, from the ignorant to the wise. ”

“ The act which commenced with the Protestant Reformation is nearly played out, and a wider and a deeper change than that effected three centuries ago—a reformation, or rather a revolution of thought, the extremes of which are represented by the intellectual heirs of John of Leyden, and of Ignatius Loyola, rather than by those of Luther and of Leo—is waiting to come on, nay, visible behind the scenes to those who have good eyes. ”

“ An appreciation of the issues of the Reformation—or Protestant revolt, as it might be more exactly called—depends therefore upon an understanding of the development of the papal monarchy, the nature of its claims, the relations it established with the civil powers, the abuses which developed in it and the attempts to rectify them, the sources of friction between the Church and the government, and finally the process by which certain of the European states threw off their allegiance to the Christian commonwealth, of which they had so long formed a part. ”

“ But, although a proper and just reformation were allowed to be necessary, even to preserve Christianity itself, yet the passions and vices of men had mingled themselves so far, as to pervert and confound all the good endeavours of those who intended well: And thus the reformation, in every country where it was attempted, was carried on in the most impious and scandalous manner that can possibly be conceived. ”

“ The reformation we propose in its utmost scope is radical and universal. It is not the mere perfecting of a reform already in motion, a detail of some established plan, but it is an epochal movement — the emancipation of a class, the redemption of half the world, and a conforming reorganization of all social, political, and industrial interests and institutions. ”

“ The term reformation signifies "the act of reforming or the state of being reformed; change from worse to better; correction or amendment of life, manners, or of anything vicious or corrupt." In its application to the religion of Christ, reformation means the correction of abuses and corrupt practises that have become associated with the Christian system; the elimination of all unworthy, foreign elements. In other words, it implies restoration, a return to the practises and ideals of primitive Christianity. ”

“ What the world asks now are state reforms and social reforms,—in other words, the reformation of our neighbours. What the Gospel asks, and has always asked, is the reformation of ourselves,—a harassing and importunate demand. ”

“ The Reformation is undoubtedly owing in a great measure to the invincible power of truth, or of opinions which were held as such. The abuses in the old church, the absurdity of many of its dogmas, the extravagance of its requisitions, necessarily revolted the tempers of men, already half-won with the promise of a better light, and favourably disposed them towards the new doctrines. The charm of independence, the rich plunder of monastic institutions, made the Reformation attractive in the eyes of princes, and tended not a little to strengthen their inward convictions. ”

“ The more we read of the history of past ages, the more we observe the signs of our own times, the more do we feel our hearts filled and swelled up by a good hope for the future destinies of the human race.
The history of the Reformation in England is full of strange problems. The most prominent and extraordinary phenomenon which it presents to us is the gigantic strength of the government contrasted with the feebleness of the religious parties. ”

“ It is surely to be charged to the inadequate and wretched hands into which the work of reformation fell, and not to the impossibility of amending the civil and religious institutions of France, that all has succeeded so ill. ”

“ The crisis of the Reformation is not less remarkable for its results than for its causes. The throwing off of the Roman supremacy, in doctrine and ecclesiastical government, was, in those countries in which it was permanently effected, a most complex proceeding. ”

“ But the Nemesis of all reformers is finality; and the reformers of education, like those of religion, fell into the profound, however common, error of mistaking the beginning for the end of the work of reformation. ”

“ History, it is true, does repeat itself, but not on precisely identical lines, and the newer Reformation will be the disestablishment and disendowment of an unworthy Church, and free-trade in religion. ”

“ A monarchy learns by ruling, and an oligarchy of any type has the education of affairs; but the common man, the peasant or toiler, has no experience in large matters, and can exist politically only through the services, devotion, and guidance of educated men. The Reformation, the Reformation that succeeded, the Reformation that is of the Princes, by breaking up educational facilities, largely destroyed the poor scholar and priest class whose persuasion of the crowd had rendered the Reformation possible. ”

“ He had no idea of reforming society from the outside as from a separate world; but he proceeded upon the principle that, as real reformation and progress must be the result of reformed internal conditions, so the reformer himself must be a sympathetic part of his world. ”

“ It is not a little remarkable that the secret of the reformation, namely, the incompatibility of the claims of the church with the rights of the different nations that formed it, should have been so early discovered. ”

“ The English reformation was not consummated until constitutional liberty was heralded by the reign of William and Mary, when the nation became almost unanimously Protestant, with perfect toleration of religions opinions, although the fervor of the Puritans had passed away forever, leaving a residuum of deep-seated popular antipathy to all the institutions of Romanism and all the ideas of the Middle Ages. The English reformation began with princes, and ended with the agitations of the people. The German reformation began with the people, and ended in the wars of princes. ”

“ If, in the early part of this century, the Reformation was as yet without great leaders, it was not, nevertheless, amongst only the laborers, the humble and the poor, that it found confessors and martyrs. ”

“ But where the Reformation was embraced by the great body of a nation, while the ruling powers continued to oppose it, the effect was visible and immediate. The interested and obstinate support which rulers gave to the old system of error and ecclesiastical tyranny, and their cruel persecution of all who favoured the new opinions, drove their subjects to enquire into the just limits of authority and obedience. ”

“ But while looking for progress, it seeks to accomplish it by reformation and not by revolution.
Reformation works by the power of the Word, of doctrine, cultivation and truth; while revolution, or rather revolt, operates by the power of riot, of the sword, and of the club. ”

“ The Reformation was the victory of this class over the archaic type of man, and with the Reformation the old imaginative civilization passed away; but with all its power the monied intellect has certain weaknesses, and neither in ancient Rome nor modern England have capitalists been soldiers. ”

“ The Cause and Leading Principle of the Reformation.—In my opinion the Reformation neither was an accident, the result of some casual circumstance, or some personal interests, nor arose from unmingled views of religious improvement, the fruit of Utopian humanity and truth. It had a more powerful cause than all these; a general cause to which all the others are subordinate. It was a vast effort made by the human mind to achieve its freedom ”

“ After having just mentioned some points of reformation, in which the aid of the legislature might be found necessary, he says, "But this is beside my present design, which was only to show what degree of reformation is in the power of the queen, without interposition of the legislature; and which her majesty is, without question, obliged in conscience to endeavour by her authority, as much as she does by her practice." ”

“ The pivot of all subsequent controversy, dissension, and alienation turned upon the question whether this sharply drawn line was not wholly an arbitrary one, not adjusted by a principle of consistency, but of the nature of a compromise. This question was followed by another: Why should the process of reformation in the Church, so resolute and revolutionary in changing its institution and discipline and ritual, stop at the stage which it has already reached? ”

“ For any body of people to hold that the reformation is entrusted to them, or that they have become the standard for the world, is a self-centered attitude, vastly different from that which regards the reformation as something prophetically due, as having come independent of man, and as being greater than the people who have been favored with its light, and that it is their part to conform to it in principle, doctrine, and everything. ”

“ This fact explains the progressive features of all Anglican political society. Revolution seems exoteric to it; but the tide of reform in legal, constitutional, channels, sweeping away obstructive hindrances, goes onward and upward in its course. ”

“ It is a great and difficult question whether to venture only on a half reformation, which by presenting fewer innovations, may be more easily adopted, or, as the French have tried with success, make a radical reform. ”

“ When we remember the century and a half of wars, so largely excited by ecclesiastical motives, which desolated Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, few can withhold their sympathy from the Christian Humanist idea that the path of reformation lay through a great readjustment of the existing conditions of the religious life, rather than through ecclesiastical revolution to a thorough-going reconstruction ”

“ If the spirit they obeyed, or the principle to which they yielded, led them or pushed them step by step in the way of destruction, to the total denial of the authority of the church, or to transfer it from the pope and hierarchy to Cæsar or the laity, which we know was universally the fact, it is clear proof that the spirit or principle of the Reformation was radical, revolutionary, destructive, not conservative. ”