Beacon Lights of History, Volume 3 part 1: The Middle AgesLord, John
History
Beacon Lights of History, Volume 3 part 1: The Middle Ages
Lord, John
History
the bulls of the Mediaeval popes."
AUTHORITIES.
Fergusson's History of Architecture; Durand's Parallels; Eastlake's
Gothic and Revival; Ruskin, Daly, and Penrose; Britton's Cathedrals
and Architectural Antiquities; Pugin's Specimens and Examples of
Gothic Architecture; Rickman's Styles of Gothic Architecture;
Street's Gothic Architecture in Spain; Encyclopaedia Britannica
(article Architecture).
JOHN WYCLIF.
A. D. 1324-1384.
DAWN OF THE REFORMATION.
The name of Wyclif suggests the dawn of the Protestant Reformation;
and the Reformation suggests the existence of evils which made it a
necessity. I do not look upon the Reformation, in its earlier
stages, as a theological movement. In fact, the Catholic and
Protestant theology, as expounded and systematized by great
authorities, does not materially differ from that of the Fathers of
the Church. The doctrines of Augustine were accepted equally by
Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin. What is called systematic
divinity, as taught in our theological seminaries, is a series of
deductions from the writings of Paul and other apostles,
elaborately and logically drawn by Athanasius, Jerome, Augustine,
and other lights of the early Church, which were defended in the
Middle Ages with amazing skill and dialectical acuteness by the
Scholastic doctors, with the aid of the method which Aristotle, the
greatest logician of antiquity, bequeathed to philosophy. Neither
Luther nor Calvin departed essentially from these great deductions
on such vital subjects as the existence and attributes of
God, the Trinity, sin and its penalty, redemption, grace, and
predestination. The creeds of modern Protestant churches are in
harmony with the writings of both the Fathers and the Scholastic
doctors on the fundamental principles of Christianity. There are,
indeed, some ideas in reference to worship, and the sacraments,
and the government of the Church, and aids to a religious life,
defended by the Scholastic doctors, which Protestants do not
accept, and for which there is not much authority in the writings
of the Fathers. But the main difference between Protestants and
Catholics is in reference to the institutions of the Church,--
institutions which gradually arose with the triumph of Christianity
in its contest with Paganism, and which received their full
development in the Middle Ages. It was the enormous and scandalous
corruptions which crept into these INSTITUTIONS which led to the
cry for reform. It was the voice of Wycif, denouncing these
abuses, which made him famous and placed him in the van of
reformers. These abuses were generally admitted and occasionally
attacked by churchmen and laymen alike,--even by the poets. They
were too flagrant to be denied.
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