7. True Position, but a Corrupt Church.--The position that the church, officered by inspired prophets and apostles--men having by virtue of their priesthood and official position a right to the inspiration and revelations of God--the position that the church of Christ so officered, has the right to decide upon all controversies and to determine the meaning of scripture, is, beyond all questioning, a true position. But the difficulty with the Roman Catholic church was that it was no {245} longer the church of Christ, as already proven in Part II of this work. It had no prophets or apostles, no men who had a right to the revelations of God. The popes and bishops of the church taught that revelation had ceased, and they depended on scripture and tradition alone, interpreted by themselves, for their guide. The power the church possessed was usurped power merely, the growth of ages. It had become both arrogant and insolent, and at last intolerable, and when a man was found possessing the courage to resent its presumption and defy it, he found plenty to applaud and sanction his act. 8. True Cause of the Reformation.--We cannot ascribe the Reformation to accidents and mischances, such for instance as the jealousy of Luther because the sale of indulgences was entrusted to the Dominican monks instead of to the order of Augustine monks, to which he belonged[36]--we cannot assign the cause of the Reformation to this, neither can we go to the other extreme and say that the great revolution of the sixteenth century resulted solely from a pure desire to reform the abuses that had arisen in the church or bring back Christianity to its primitive purity. Not a few of the princes that favored Luther in his revolt against the pope did so from other motives than those prompted by a desire to reform the church. 9. Many of the temporal monarchs and princes were jealous of the power exercised within their dominions by the Roman pontiffs, as it lowered the dignity of their own position. They were tired, moreover, of the assumed right of the pope to enter their dominions, and, under one pretext or another, tax their subjects and thus not only impoverish the people, but reduce the revenue of the temporal ruler. It will be found, {246} therefore, that the jealousy, ambition and interest of these princes, and not a desire to establish pure religion, made them factors in the great revolution. (See note 1, end of section.)