The portion of the Reformation which lay outside the Peace of Augsburg
had another characteristic which distinguished it from the Lutheran
Reformation included within the treaty--it owed much more to Humanism.
Erasmus and what he represented had a greater share in its birth and
early progress, and his influence appeared amidst the most dissimilar
surroundings. Henry VIII. and Zwingli seem to stand at opposite poles;
yet the English autocrat and the Swiss democrat were alike in this, that
they owed much to Erasmus, and that the reformations which they
respectively led were largely prompted by the impulse of Humanism. One
has only to compare the _Bishops' Book_ and the _King's Book_ of the
Henrican period in England with the many statements Erasmus has made
about the kind of reformation he desired to see, to recognise that they
were meant to serve for a reformation in life and morals which would
leave untouched the fundamental doctrinal system of the mediæval Church
and its organisation in accordance with the principles laid down by the
great Humanist. The Bible, the Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds,
with the doctrinal decisions of the first four Oecumenical Councils, were
recognised as the standards of orthodoxy in the _Ten Articles_; and the
Scholastic Theology, so derided by Erasmus, was contemptuously ignored.
The accompanying _Injunctions_ set little store by pilgrimages, relics,
and indulgences, and the other superstitions of the popular religious
life which the great Humanist had treated sarcastically. The two books
alluded to above are full of instructions for leading a wholesome life.
The whole programme of reformation is laid down on lines borrowed from
Erasmus.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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