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No.6.
The Reformation and Dispensational Beginnings.
pp. 224 - 229
Having considered the spiritual darkness and bondage of the Middle Ages, we now
come to the means that were used by God to break through this terrible state of affairs.
There were at least three: (1) the Renaissance, (2) the invention of the printing press,
(3) the Reformation and all that led up to it.
The Renaissance (literally `a rebirth') prepared the way for the Reformers by opening
men's minds and leading them to a spirit of enquiry and thirst for knowledge. A new
spirit was abroad of adventure and enterprise. In 1453 Constantinople fell to the Turks
and as a result, many great scholars fled to the West, bringing with them treasures of
Greek literature which had been carefully preserved. The use of the printing press spread
knowledge among the masses as never before. At first several of the popes
enthusiastically supported the new learning, not realizing that this new spirit of
independent enquiry would deal a deadly blow to the authoritarian system represented by
Roman Catholicism and the papacy.
In addition to this, opposition arose within the Roman church with such outstanding
men as Marsilius of Padua (1270-1342), a physician by profession. He maintained that
the supreme standard was the Bible and protested against the power of the papacy and the
priests. William of Occam (1280-1347) took much the same line. John Wyclif has been
acclaimed as "the morning star of the English Reformation", and no wonder, when he
declared that "the only Head of the church is Christ. The pope, unless he be one of the
predestinate who rule in the spirit of the gospel, is the vicar of Antichrist". He rejected
transubstantiation, denied the infallibility of the church of Rome, rejected auricular
confession and belief in purgatory, pilgrimages, the worship of saints and the veneration
of relics as being unscriptural. He organized bands of preachers who lived simply and
went throughout the land preaching the Word at a time when the people were absolutely
uninstructed. His most important contribution, and of his followers, was the translation
of the Vulgate into English--the first Bible in our language. As Prof. A. M. Renwick
says: ". . . . . its effects were far reaching, for it brought home the truth to prince and
peasant alike".
But it was the Reformation which gave the death blow to the domination of the
Roman church over Europe and its apostasy. Martin Luther laid the axe at the roots of
the whole papal system and brought freedom of conscience and liberty to all who would
respond. The result of the work of the Reformers who followed was to bring back the
basic truth of justification by faith in Christ apart from works or any visible ecclesiastical
system. This was the first great step in the recovery of truth, and the pushing back of the
darkness and bondage that had been rampant for so long. How sad it is to see many who
profess to be believers, being willing to throw away this precious liberty so dearly bought
for us by the blood of the martyrs, merely for an external unity between the sects of
Christendom, including Rome, who basically has never changed, despite surface stirrings