Necessity for the Reformation.
CORRUPTION IN THE CHURCH.
THE learning of the schools was pure when compared with the actual condition of the church. The theology of the learned might be said to flourish, if contrasted with the religion, the morals, the instructions of the priests, monks, and people. If science stood in need of a revival, the church was in still greater need of a reformation. The people of Christendom, and under that designation almost all the nations of Europe might be comprised, no longer looked to a living and holy God for the free gift of eternal life. They therefore naturally had recourse to all the devices of a superstitious, fearful, and alarmed imagination. Heaven was peopled with saints and mediators, whose office it was to solicit God's mercy. All lands were filled with the works of piety, of mortification, of penance, and observances by which it was to be procured. Take the description of the state of religion at this period given by one who was for a long while a monk, and in after life a fellow-laborer with Luther,—Myconius. "The sufferings and merits of Christ were looked upon," says he, "as an empty tale, or as the fictions of Homer. There was no longer any thought of that faith by which we are made partakers of the Saviour's righteousness, and the inheritance of eternal life. Christ was regarded as a stern judge, prepared to condemn all who should not have recourse to the intercessions of saints or to the pope's indulgences. Other intercessors were substituted in his stead; first the Virgin Mary, like the heathen Diana; and then the saints, whose numbers were continually augmented by the popes. These intercessors refused their mediation unless the party was in good repute with the monastic orders which they had founded. To be so, it was necessary not only to do what God had commanded in his word, but also to perform a number of works invented by the monks and priests, and which brought them in large sums of money. Such were Ave Marias, the prayers of St. Ursula, and of St. Bridget. It was necessary to chant and cry day and night. There were as many different pilgrimages as there were mountains, forests, and valleys. But with money these penances might be compounded for. The people therefore brought to the convents and to the priests money, and everything they possessed that was of any value,—fowls, ducks, eggs, wax, straw, butter, and cheese. Then the chantings resounded, the bells rang, the odor of incense filled the sanctuary, the sacrifices were offered up, the tables groaned, the glasses circulated, and these pious orgies were terminated by masses. The bishops no longer appeared in the pulpits, but they consecrated priests, monks, churches, chapels, images, books, and burial places, and all these brought a large revenue. Bones, arms, feet, were preserved in boxes of silver or gold; they gave them to the faithful to kiss during mass, and this increased their gains." "All maintained that the pope being in the place of God (2 Thess. 2:4) could not err; and there were none to contradict them." At the church of All Saints, at Wittemberg, was shown a fragment of Noah's ark; some soot from the furnace of the three children; a piece of wood from the crib of the infant Jesus; some hair of the beard of the great St. Christopher; and nineteen thousand other relics, more or less precious. At Schaffhausen was shown the breath of St. Joseph, that Nicodemus received on his glove. In Wurtemberg might be seen a seller of indulgences disposing of his merchandise with his head adorned with a feather plucked from the wing of the archangel Michael. But there was no need to seek so far for these precious treasures. Those who farmed the relics overran the country. They bore them about in the rural districts (as has since been done with the holy Scriptures), and carried them into the houses of the faithful, to spare them the cost and trouble of the pilgrimage. They were exhibited with pomp in the churches. These wandering hawkers paid a certain sum to the proprietors of the relics, with a percentage on their profits. The kingdom of Heaven had disappeared; and men had opened in its place on earth, a market of abominations. At the same time, a profane spirit had invaded religion, and the most solemn recollections of the church, the seasons which seemed most to summon the faithful to devout reflection and love, were dishonored by buffoonery and profanations altogether heathenish. The Humors of Easter held a large place in the annals of the church. The festival of the resurrection claiming to be joyfully commemorated, preachers went out of their way to put into their sermons whatever might excite the laughter of the people. One preacher imitated the cuckoo; another hissed like a goose; one dragged to the altar a layman dressed in a monk's cowl; a second related the grossest indecencies; a third recounted the tricks of the apostle St. Peter,—among others, how, at an inn, he cheated the host, by not paying his reckoning. The lower orders of the clergy followed the example, and turned their superiors into ridicule. The very temples were converted into a stage, and the priests into mountebanks. If this was the state of religion, what must have been the morals of the age? Doubtless the corruption was not universal. Justice requires that this should not be forgotten. The Reformation elicited many shining instances of piety, righteousness, and strength of mind. The spontaneous power of God was the cause; but how can we doubt that by the same power the germs of this new life had been deposited long before in the bosom of the church. If, in these our days, any one were to collect the immoralities and degrading vices that are committed in any single country, such a mass of corruption would doubtless be enough to shock every mind. But the evil, at the period we speak of, bore a character and universality that it has not borne at any subsequent date; and above all, the abomination stood in the holy places, which it has not been permitted to do since the Reformation. Moral conduct had declined with the life of faith. The tidings of the gift of eternal life are the power of God to regenerate men. Once take away the salvation which is God's gift, and you take away sanctification and good works, and this was the result. The proclamation and sale of indulgences powerfully stimulated an ignorant people to immorality. It is true that, according to the church, they could benefit those only who made and kept a promise of amendment. But what could be expected from a doctrine invented with a view to the profit to be gained from it? The vendors of indulgences were naturally tempted to further the sale of their merchandise by presenting them to the people under the most attractive and seducing aspect; even the better instructed did not fully comprehend the doctrine in respect to them. All that the multitude saw in them was a permission to sin; and the sellers were in no haste to remove an impression so favorable to the sale. What disorders, what crimes, in these ages of darkness, in which impunity was acquired by money! What might not be feared when a small contribution to the building of a church was supposed to deliver from the punishments of a future world! What hope of revival when the communication between God and man was at an end; and man, afar off from God, who is spirit and life,—moved only in a circle of pitiful ceremonies and gross practices,—in an atmosphere of death. The priests were the first who felt the effects of this corrupting influence. Desiring to exalt themselves, they had sunk themselves lower. Infatuated men! They aimed to rob God of a ray of his glory, and to place it on their own brows; but their attempt had failed, and they had received only a leaven of corruption from the power of evil. The annals of the age swarm with scandals. In many places the people were well pleased that the priest should have a woman in keeping, that their wives might be safe from his seductions. What scenes of humiliation were witnessed in the house of the pastor! The wretched man supported the mother and her children, with the tithe and the offering; his conscience was troubled; he blushed in presence of his people, of his servants, and before God. The mother, fearing to come to want when the priest should die, provided against it beforehand, and robbed the house. Her character was gone; her children were a living accusation of her. Treated on all sides with contempt, they plunged into brawls and debaucheries. Such was the family of the priests. These horrid scenes were a kind of instruction that the people were ready enough to follow.—D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation.