THIRTY-EIGHT: TRENT AND BEYOND
In the midst of all this reforming, the Roman church decides on a counter-attack. It will bring all its people together in Trent, Italy, and discuss the reforms, perhaps suggest a few of its own, but at any event, make a very specific statement to all present and would-be revolutionaries.
When the politics for it can finally be worked out, and this process alone takes 25 years, the council convenes at the Cathedral of Trent, December 13, 1545. (Here I am using facts supplied by The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1967. )
The first point to be attacked was the one which virtually every Reformer held to: Scriptura sola, the Scriptures alone are sufficient as a source of revelation. Here Trent defines that the apostolic traditions on faith and custom that have been transmitted in some sense from generation to generation down to our times are to be accepted with as much reverence as Sacred Scripture. Don't have to understand it. Don't need to argue with it. Don't make us define what we mean specifically. Just obey. We have now spoken.
Luther and others have begun to teach that original sin is not entirely done away at baptism . He notices that he still has evil desire. Rome says this is not sin in the strict sense, so whether you feel sinful or not, by baptism those sins are gone.
Reformers are preaching grace, through faith, as the means to salvation (Ephesians 2:8). Rome says they agree, in part. It all starts with grace, and faith, but must include our works, too. But Paul says that if works is involved at all in our initial salvation, it is no more grace!(Romans 11:6)
But Trent has decided. Our living tradition is more important than your Scriptural argument.
Though Reformers are split as to what happens at the Communion Table, they all agree that the Mass is not an ongoing sacrifice. To this heresy Trent addresses its most voluminous responses, stating the commonly held Roman view in no uncertain terms.
The Catholic notion of Sacrament is defined at Trent. It is said that grace comes to the believer ex opere operato , that is, by means of the physical rite itself, and not by means of the faith of the one receiving the rite. What horrendous evils this teaching admits is beyond description here. Think of it. Whether one believes or doesn't believe, whether the heart is right or not, if he is willing to submit to a Roman rite, such as Roman-style baptism (which by Greek and Biblical definition is no baptism at all), he is at that moment infused with the grace of God! Is there any wonder now as to how so many pagans could have been admitted to the "church" in their sins, bringing their pagan ways with them?
Does Rome bend at all in the Council of Trent? Well, Bishops are to be chosen with more care. They also are to cut back in their pageantry when appointed. They are to become models of humility. But no doctrines change, of course. The Church cannot be seen to have been in any error for all these years.
We return now to the Reformation battlefield, at a bonfire in England, halfway through the Council of Trent:
It is Bishop J.C. Ryle(1816-1900), priest of the Anglican Church but staunch Evangelical, who writes about the English church of his day in an article to that body which asks, "Why were our reformers burned?"
"A very popular history of our English Queens hardly mentions the martyrdoms of Queen Mary's days! Yet Mary was not called 'Bloody Mary' without reason, and scores of Protestants were burned in her reign.
"(Mary's victims) were either to give up Protestantism and receive Popery, or else they had to be burned alive. Refusing to recant, they were one by one handed over to the secular power, publicly brought out and chained to stakes, publicly surrounded with faggots, and publicly sent out of the world by that most cruel and painful of deaths...
"The 6th and 7th leading Reformers who suffered in Mary's reign were two whose names are familiar to every Englishman - Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London, and Hugh Latimer, once Bishop of Worcester. They were both burned at Oxford, back to back, at one stake, on the 16th of October, 1555.
"Ridley's last words before the fire was lighted were these, 'Heavenly Father, I give Thee most hearty thanks that Thou hast called me to a profession of Thee even unto death. I beseech Thee, Lord God, have mercy on this realm of England, and deliver the same from all her enemies.' Latimer's last words were like the blast of a trumpet, which rings even to this day, - 'Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day, by God's grace, light such a candle in England as I trust shall never be put out.'
"We owe to the Reformation an English Bible, and liberty for every man, woman, and child in the land to read it...
"Nothing seems to have alarmed and enraged the Romish priesthood so much as the spread of English Bibles. It was this which cost the martyred reformer Tyndale his life...
"Shall we in this century talk lightly of the great work which they did? Shall we entertain for a moment the idea of forsaking Reformation principles and going back to Rome? ...The man who counsels such base apostasy and suicidal folly must be judicially blind. The iron collar has been broken; let us not put it on again. The prison has been thrown open; let us not resume the yoke and return to our chains.
"Let us have no peace with Rome till Rome abjures her errors and is at peace with Christ. When Rome does that, and not till then, it will be time to talk of re-union with her..."
Let's be honest here. When Protestants were in power in England, they too tortured and killed. It was in reaction to this and her complete rejection of Papal rule, that Pius V in 1570 wrote to Elizabeth to inform her of her excommunication from the Church. But in doing so, he says some things that we need to take note of, and consider seriously:
"He who reigns on high...has entrusted His holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, outside which there is no salvation, to one person alone on earth, namely to Peter the Prince of the Apostles, and to Peter's successor, the Roman Pontiff...to root up, pull down, waste, destroy, plant, and build..." (from Regnas in Excelsis)
I challenge anyone to find hints of such talk in the words of Jesus or Peter.
This same encyclical goes on to call Elizabeth
"heretic and an abetter of heretics...Also we declare that all...who have sworn allegiance to her in any way...are perpetually absolved...from any type of duty in relation to lordship, fidelity, and obedience...We command all ...subjects...that they have not to obey her...We shall bind those who do the contrary with a similar sentence of excommunication."
He says she is not the legitimate Queen of England, that she is not to be obeyed, that to obey her means being kicked out of the church. Yet Paul, living under Nero, tells Roman Christians (Romans 13:1 ff) to obey the present government. Here is another case where the tradition of men finally comes around to a place where it denies the very Word of God.
A reminder here that the heresies for which reformers were done away, besides those alluded to above, include such things as believing in the Spirit's aid to a believer who wishes to understand Scripture, or believing that the Bible contains all that is necessary for salvation, or not believing that the decretals were apocryphal, not believing in indulgences, and a long list of other such things.
Think of it. If the Roman Church had retained its original power, true believers that you know would be annihilated.
A more grisly thought: When Rome regains its world-wide control, true believers that you know will be annihilated.
Canon Law states: (1404, 1405)
"The First See [Papa and company] is judged by no one...It is the right of the Roman Pontiff himself alone to judge...those who hold the highest civil office in a state.."
But, we were hoping the church might change. Let's see.
The first half of the 2nd millennium in the year of our Lord, ends with the Pope Nicholas V authorizing African slaves for the King of Portugal; with Pius II fathering several illegitimate children and speaking openly of the methods he uses to seduce women; with Sixtus IV decreeing that money will deliver souls from Purgatory, and making eight of his nephews cardinals while they are still boys, and becoming more wealthy than the Caesars; with "Innocent" the eighth demanding total extermination of the Waldenses (Protestants of his day), and appointing the infamous Thomas de Torquemada to be Inquisitor General of Spain; and with Alexander the sixth, the "most corrupt of the Renaissance popes" (per Halley), doing most of what the above popes did, with added relishes of his own.
Change eludes us.
In these 1500's appear in greater and greater numbers a group referred to as "Anabaptists." As their namesakes today, that is, the Baptists if one looks at etymology, or the Amish/Mennonites, if one looks at lifestyle, there are quite a variety of these peoples, and one description will hardly cover all, but for the most part Anabaptists refuse to persecute other believers, and reject any state interference, and such unscriptural practices as infant baptism.
And wouldn't you know it? The other Reformation churches, daughters of Rome, just breathing fresh air themselves, refuse fellowship to the Anabaptists!
It is a chilling notion, actually. To think that Bible-believers of our own day would not have felt comfortable at all in most of the reform churches. In fact, they would have been run out of town by some, who feared them as much as they hated the Papists!
Menno Simons (from whom Mennonites are later named), is a possible moderate representative of the Anabaptist movement, and sounds the familiar note :
"They (Romanists) appeal to Origen and Augustine and say that these assert that they have obtained infant baptism from the apostles. To this we reply and inquire whether Origen and Augustine have proved it from Scripture. If they have done so, we desire to hear it. But if not, we must hear and believe Christ and His apostles and not Augustine and Origen."
In this same time period lives and ministers John Calvin, who, quite the opposite of Luther, begins in the priesthood, and later switches to law. His sphere is French-speaking Switzerland, and he likewise desires that the church be founded on "Prophetical and Evangelical doctrine." In a letter to Cardinal James Scolet, mid 16th century, he accuses the Catholic leadership of:
"overthrowing the ministry, of which the empty name remains with you, without the reality. As far as the office of feeding the people is concerned, the very children perceive that Bishops and Presbyters are dumb statues, while men of all ranks know by experience, that they are active only in robbing and devouring. We are indignant that in the room of the sacred Supper has been substituted a sacrifice by which the death of Christ is emptied of its virtues. We exclaim against the execrable traffic in masses, and we complain that the Supper of the Lord, as to one of its halves [the cup], has been stolen from the Christian people. We inveigh against the accursed worship of images...We lament, that by means of human traditions, Christian liberty has been crushed and destroyed. Of these and similar pests, we have been careful to purge the churches which the Lord has committed to us."
The very heart and soul of Protestantism is this. Not blind hatred, desire for strife, love of division, negativity, but showing God's people their sins, casting down idols, sounding the prophetic alarm.
Contemporary and admirer of John Calvin, John Knox (1514-1572) dominates the reform in Scotland. Knox's fervor, evidenced by his historic prayer, "Give me Scotland, or I die," gives birth to the strong Scottish Presbyterian Church from which the likes of 20th century greats such as Peter Marshall descend.
A Roman Catholic priest, Knox witnesses early in his ministry the death of a friend and peer, suspected of heresy because he reads a Greek New Testament to his students. The fire that burns this George Wishart at the stake is, within Knox, the fire that finally burns out Roman tyranny in Scotland.
At his own trial, he claims that the Scriptures, rather than fallible ecclesiastical councils or the pope, are the test of truth; that salvation is by faith, not by sacramental observances; that all believers are priests; that purgatory, priestly celibacy, compulsory confession to a priest, the worship of saints, all are of human, not divine, origin. He utterly rejects the Mass as idolatrous.
It was said of Knox, that while "others snip the branches of the Papistry, he strikes at the root, to destroy the whole."
Perhaps he would have literally destroyed if he could have, for there still was within him the Roman desire to do away with his enemies. Oh it was a barbarous age, and in every Catholic Kingdom Protestants are being tortured, beheaded and burned. Tolerance is not in vogue. Nevertheless, we cannot condone what Christ does not condone.
Knox promotes the Lollard belief, and his own, that the pope is the head of the church of antichrist, that the pope and his ministers are murderers. It is thus not a happy day for him when the representatives of that government touch down in his beloved land. It is August 19, 1561, in the early morning, and Knox remembers it as a gloomy day.
Marie (Mary Queen of Scots) was the new sovereign, and she has brought her priests with her. The very next Sunday, preparation begin to be made for
"that idol the Mass to be said in the Chapel; which pierced the hearts of all. The godly began to bolden, and men began openly to speak, 'Shall that idol be suffered again to take place within this realm? It shall not.' "
The ensuing struggle finally does result in Protestantism being established in Scotland.
So for 300 years a consistent plea is heard rising from the pit of man-made religion. "Give us God's Word! Away with hypocrisy! Lord cleanse your church!" Those who seek find, and those who seek more find more. Those who don't seek either hang on to what they have for their own reasons, or get out of religion altogether, to see if there are other alternatives. In these centuries, those other alternatives are summed up by the term "Renaissance."
THIRTY-NINE: THE RENAISSANCE
The word means "rebirth." It refers to the fact that, for a while, some of the shackles of Babylon-Rome are broken. People begin to think for themselves and to act accordingly. The entire Christian faith is rethought. Science, the arts, you name it, all sense the wave of freedom passing over the earth as Babylon retreats and regroups.
On the downside, though, is the fact that much of the rethinking is being done because of the horrid image of Christ that men have seen for these thousand years reflected in its so-called leaders. The Reform movement sometimes doesn't fare much better in men's eyes, as now there are several "papacies" to deal with. This lack of light drives men back to the time when the human spirit was supposed to have had its day, in the era of pagan Rome and Greece.
Is it not a shame to the people of God that they seem to have nothing better to offer than that out of which they came?
So the Renaissance is the rebirth of man, whereas the Reformation is the beginnings of the rebirth of the Church. They cover roughly the same period of history.
Also in this time period is the age of exploration, when entire continents are discovered by Catholic Europe. A map drawn during that day shows just how vast is the Catholic Empire. Though Europe is about to be divided by Protestantism, the "New World" is almost exclusively Catholic, to begin with.
Missionaries and explorers totally overwhelm South America, and force the Pope to divide it between Catholic Spain and Catholic Portugal (Brazil). North America is similarly subjugated by Catholic France and Catholic Spain, interrupted later by Protestant countries.
A new day is dawning. What will Rome do with it?
