LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.* THE Reformation from Popery in the sixteenth century was the greatest event, or series of events, that has occurred since the close of the Canon of Scripture; and the men who are really entitled to be called the "Leaders of the Reformation" have a claim to more respect and gratitude than any other body of uninspired men that have ever influenced or adorned the church. The Reformation was closely connected in various ways with the different influences which about that period were affecting for good the general condition of Europe, and, in combination with them, it aided largely in introducing and establishing great improvements in all matters affecting literature, civilisation, liberty, and social order. The movement, however, was primarily and fundamentally a religious one, and all the most important questions that may be started about its character and consequences, should be decided by tests and considerations properly applicable to the subject of true religion. The Reformers claimed to be regarded as being engaged in a religious work, which was in accordance with God's revealed will, and fitted to promote the spiritual welfare of men; and we are at once entitled and bound to judge of them * British and Foreign Evangelical Review, April 1860. VOL. I. "LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION, by JOHN TULLOCH, D.D." 1859. 1 and their work, by investigating and ascertaining the validity of this claim. There are two leading aspects in which the Reformation, viewed as a whole, may be regarded; the one more external and negative, and the other more intrinsic and positive. In the first aspect it was a great revolt against the see of Rome, and against the authority of the church and of churchmen in religious matters, combined with an assertion of the exclusive authority of the Bible, and of the right of all men to examine and interpret it for themselves. In the second and more important and positive aspect, the Reformation was the proclamation and inculcation, upon the alleged authority of Scripture, of certain views in regard to the substance of Christianity or the way of salvation, and in regard to the organization and ordinances of the Christian church. Many men have approved and commended the Reformation, viewed merely as a repudiation of human authority in religion, and an assertion of the right of private judgment, and of the exclusive supremacy of the Scriptures as the rule of faith, who have not concurred in the leading views of the Reformers in regard to Christian theology and church organization. In this sense, rationalists and latitudinarians have generally professed to adopt and act upon what they call the principles of the Reformation, while they reject all the leading doctrines of the Reformers. Men of this class usually attempt to pay off the Reformers with the credit of having emancipated mankind from ecclesiastical thraldom, established the right of private judgment, and done something to encourage the practice of free inquiry. But while giving the Reformers credit for these things, they have often rejected the leading doctrines of the Reformation upon theological and ecclesiastical subjects, and have been in the habit of claiming to themselves the credit of having succeeded, by following out the principles of the Reformation, in educing, either from Scripture or from their own speculations, more accurate and enlightened doctrinal views than the Reformers ever attained to. There has been a great deal of this sort of thing put forth both by rationalists and latitudinarians who professed to admit the authority of the Christian revelation, and by infidels who denied it. Dr Robertson in his life of Charles V. spoke of some doctrinal discussions of that period in such terms as justly to lay himself open to the following rebuke of Scott, the son of the commentator, in his excellent continuation of Milner's "History of the Church of Christ." "It is manifest what is the character that Dr Robertson here affects, which is that of the philosopher and the statesman, in preference, if not to the disparagement, of that of the Christian divine. This is entirely to the taste of modern times, and will be sure to secure to him the praise of large and liberal views among those who regard a high sense of the importance of revealed truth, and all 'contending earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints,' as the infallible mark of narrow-mindedness and bigotry." Dr Campbell of Aberdeen, too, who was a very great pretender to candour, has, in the last of his lectures on ecclesiastical history, made it manifest that he considered the chief benefits which the Reformers had conferred upon the world, to be the setting an example of free inquiry, and the exposing of church tyranny, superstitious and idolatrous practices, and clerical artifices, and that he despised all their zealous efforts and contendings in restoring the pure gospel of the grace of God, the true system of Christian theology, as conversant only, according to the common cant of latitudinarians, with metaphysical subtleties and scholastic jargon. But the climax, perhaps, of this practice of paying off the Reformers with some commendation of their services in promoting free inquiry, while all their leading doctrines are rejected, is to be found in the facts, that in our own day such a man as Bretschneider wrote a "Dissertatio De Rationalismo Lutheri," and that Wegscheider dedicated his "Institutiones Theologiæ Christianæ Dogmaticæ," which is just a system of Deism in a sort of Christian dress, "Piis Manibus Martini Lutheri," mainly upon the ground, that he had opened up liberty of thought, and encouraged posterity to advance much further in the path on which he had entered. A somewhat different aspect of this matter has been presented by certain writers, who are not disposed to allow to the Reformers even the credit of having encouraged and promoted free inquiry. It has been alleged that there is little or nothing said in the writings of the Reformers about the right and duty of private judgment, and that the absence of this, combined with their great zeal for what they reckoned truth, and their strenuous and vehement opposition to what they reckoned error, proved that after all they were nothing better than narrow-minded bigots. Hallam, in his "Literature of Europe during the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries,” * Vol. i. p. 270. has some statements to this effect; and the facts on which he founds are in the main true, though they certainly do not warrant his conclusions.* It must, however, we fear, be conceded to Hallam and others who take this view: 1st, that the Reformers were not much in the habit of formally and elaborately discussing, as a distinct and independent topic, what has since been called the right and duty of private judgment; and 2d, that they ever professed it to be their great object to find out the actual truth of God contained in His word, that they were very confident that in regard to the main points of their teaching they had found the truth, and that they were very strenuous in urging that other men should receive it also upon God's authority. And these facts are amply sufficient to secure for them, in certain quarters, the reputation of being narrow-minded bigots. The Reformers did not discuss at much length, or with any great formality, the subject of the right of private judgment as a general topic, but they understood and acted upon their right as rational and responsible beings to reject all mere human authority in religious matters, to try everything by the standard of God's word, and to judge for themselves, on their own responsibility, as to the meaning of its statements. And by following this course, by acting on this principle, by setting this example, they have conferred most important benefits upon the church and the world. The fundamental position maintained by the Reformers was this, that the views which they had been led to form, as to what should be the doctrine, worship, and government, of the church of Christ, were right, and that the views of the church of Rome upon these points, as opposed to theirs, were wrong. This was the grand position they occupied, and they based their whole procedure upon the ground of the paramount claims of divine truth, its right as coming from God and being invested with His authority, to be listened to, to be obeyed, and to be propagated. When the papists opposed them in the maintenance of this position, and appealed on their own behalf to tradition, to ecclesiastical authority, to the decisions of popes and councils, the Reformers in reply pushed all this aside, by asserting the supremacy of the written word as the only standard of faith and practice, by denying the legitimacy of submitting to mere human authority in religious matters, and by * Part I., chap. iv., sec. 60, 61. maintaining that men are entitled and bound to judge for themselves, upon their own responsibility, as to what God in His word has required them to believe and to do. They asserted these positions more or less fully as circumstances required, but still they regarded them as in some sense subsidiary and subordinate. The primary question with them always was, What is the truth as to the way in which God ought to be worshipped, in which a sinner is saved, and in which the ordinances and arrangements of the church of Christ ought to be regulated? They were bent upon answering, and answering aright, this important question, and they brushed aside everything that stood in their way and obstructed their progress. * There can be no doubt that the only satisfactory explanation of the conduct of the Reformers is, that they regarded themselves as fighting for the cause of God; and it is creditable to Hallam that, unable, as he admitted, to understand their theology, and having no predilection on their behalf, he should have seen and asserted this, in opposition to the ordinary calumnies of the papists.* But the great, the only really important, question is, Was it indeed the cause of God? or in other words, was it indeed the truth of God which they deduced from His word, and which they laboured to promote and to enforce? If it was not so, then they have deserved little gratitude, and they can have effected little good. In estimating the value of what God gave to them, and what they have transmitted to us, almost everything depends upon the truth, the Scriptural truth, of the doctrines which they taught and Hallam's statements about Luther and the Reformers are certainly very defective and erroneous, but they have much the appearance of being chiefly traceable to what may be called honest ignorance. He seems to have intended to be fair and candid in his statements regarding them, and he probably was about as much so as could reasonably be expected of a man who was very imperfectly acquainted with theological subjects. He admits (P. 1, c. iv., 8. 61), that " every solution of the conduct of the Reformers must be nugatory, except one-that they were men absorbed by the conviction that they were fighting the battle of God." He describes Luther (s. 59), as a man "whose soul was penetrated with a |