Peter Waldo,11 a wealthy merchant of Lyons, having an earnest desire to learn for himself the true will of God concerning human salvation, employed two priests, one a man of some learning and the other a practised writer, to prepare for him translations of the Gospels and of other portions of Holy Scripture: the scholar dictated while the other wrote. Copies of these translations, which were originally made for Peter's own use, were distributed freely among the common people, and those who were kindled to religious earnestness were drawn into societies for religious instruction and worship. Laymen began to expound the Scriptures, to preach, and to conduct religious services; they heard confessions, gave absolution, and administered baptism and the Lord's Supper.12 They appealed from the tradition of the Church to the Holy Scriptures. Some of the brethren were appointed to office in the Waldensian societies, but every man that knew the Gospel was free to make it known to others. An opponent represents them as saying: "With us, men and women teach, and he who is a scholar of seven days already teaches others. Among the Catholics a teacher is rarely to be met with who can repeat from memory, letter for letter, three chapters of the Bible; but with us, a man or woman is rarely to be found who cannot repeat the entire New Testament in the vernacular language." 13 They had preserved or recovered the great idea of the priesthood of the commonalty of the Church.

The earliest adherents of Peter of Lyons appear to have had tendencies to asceticism and to have believed that poverty is a necessary element of Christian perfection; but from these errors they soon escaped, and it is the distinction of the Waldensians that in endeavouring to realise the communion of saints they did not, like most of the societies described in this chapter, withdraw men from the ordinary pursuits of life.

It was no part of Peter Waldo's purpose to break with the Roman Church. Like John Wesley in later times, he was

11 Those who assert that the Waldensian Churches have maintained -rather than revived-the tradition of early Christian Churches, contend that they received their name from the valleys in which their faith had been secluded from the general corruption of Christendom, and that Peter of Lyons was not called Peter Waldo till he had received the Waldensian faith.

12 Neander, Church History, viii. 435. 13 Ibid., viii. 431.

willing to recognise existing ecclesiastical authorities, if he and those who shared his faith were permitted to preach the Gospel to the poor, and to associate themselves together for communion with God and each other. Innocent III. was disposed to treat them gently, but the bishops who insisted on severity had a truer understanding of the real nature of the Waldensian movement. It was a protest against the usurpation of the priests, and against the corruption which had infected the fellowship of the Church. It recalled the first age of the Church: it was the prophecy of the Reformation.

CHAPTER IV

THE REFORMATION AND CHURCH POLITY

THE REFORMATION A REVOLT AGAINST THE CATHOLIC CONCEPTION OF THE CHURCH, as the Seat of SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY, THE SOURCE OF SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE, AND THE CHANNEL OF SPIRITUAL GRACE, EMBODIED IN POPE AND BISHOPS-SUFFICIENCY AND SUPREMACY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE-TEST OF SCRIPTURE AS A DIVINE REVELATION-LUTHER'S METHOD: WHEN GOD SPEAKS, MAN CAN HEAR THE RIGHT OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT, THE RIGHT OF EACH MAN TO LISTEN TO THE VOICE OF GOD FOR HIMSELFJUSTIFICATION BY FAITH: DIVINE SALVATION OFFERED TO THE INDIVIDUAL SOUL-INTERVENTION OF PRIEST UNNECESSARYLUTHER ON ORDINATION-PRINCIPLES OF THE REFORMATION FATAL TO THE CATHOLIC IDEA OF EPISCOPACY-LAMBERT'S SCHEME OF CHURCH POLITY, PARTLY CONGREGATIONAL, PARTLY PRESBYTERIAN-LUTHER AND LAMBERT'S PLAN-HIS GERMAN ORDER OF DIVINE SERVICE-CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH DESCRIBED BY LUTHER, BUT PROTESTANTS NOT READY FOR IT.

THE

I

HE Protestant Reformation, whatever else it may have been, was a great and successful revolt against that conception of the Church which had maintained its authority in Western Christendom for more than a thousand years. The Catholic Church, according to that conception of it, consisted of those-and of those only-who were in communion with duly appointed bishops. For Christ Himself had constituted the apostles the rulers, teachers, and priests of the Church : to resist their authority was, therefore, to resist the authority of Christ; and the apostles had transmitted to bishops the august powers which they had received from their Lord. It was the function of bishops to preserve the tradition of apostolic doctrine, to administer the sacraments, to absolve from sin, to govern the Church. They delegated some of these duties to priests, but the fountain of authority was in themselves. It was through the bishops that Catholic Christendom was

held together, and was constituted one mystical and glorious society; it was through the bishops that the Church of later centuries inherited the grace and blessedness of apostolic times. But the bishops were confederate under the Pope; and for several centuries before the time of Luther the Pope had been usurping the powers and prerogatives of the episcopate, as the bishops had already usurped the powers and prerogatives of the commonalty of the Church.

The place of the Christian people in the apostolic polity had been lost; and the loss was something far graver than a mere loss of ecclesiastical authority-of the power to elect their own ministers, to control their own worship, and to determine the general policy of the corporate body to which they belonged. The disappearance of the organisation of the apostolic Churches was the visible sign of the disappearance of some of the characteristic ideas of the Christian Gospel. The Christian commonalty had lost their original position in the Church because their true relation to God was denied or obscured. For their certain knowledge of the contents of the Christian Gospel, Christian people had to depend on the priests, whose commission to teach was derived from the bishops. The Scriptures were withheld from the laity; and even those laymen who had access to them were under religious compulsion to receive the interpretation which had been imposed on the words of Christ and of the apostles by the great Councils which represented the bishops of Catholic Christendom. "The faith," -so it was supposed-had been once for all delivered to the bishops, not to "the saints." The episcopate-not "the Church of the living God "--was "the pillar and ground of the truth." No man was permitted to listen to Christ for himself. The holiest women could no longer understand what Christ said to the woman of Samaria at the well, nor the most saintly men what He said to the crowd that heard the Sermon on the Mount. The definitions of Councils were necessary to prevent the words of Christ from leading unwary souls to perdition.

For the grace of pardon, and for that eternal life which was supposed to be given and sustained through the two great sacraments of the Gospel, the Church was also dependent on the bishops, and on the priests whom the bishops authorised

11 Tim. iii. 15.

to absolve from sin, to baptize, and to celebrate the mass. The Christian salvation was accessible only through the appointed ministers of the Church. God was afar off from common men: He came near to them through the sacraments administered by the priesthood.

Against these pretensions the Reformers asserted (1) the supremacy and sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures as the final authority in all questions of religious faith and practice; and (2) the doctrine of Justification by Faith.

II

1. But how are ordinary Christian people to know that the Holy Scriptures contain a divine revelation? How can they tell what books are properly included in the Canon, what books are properly excluded from it? Have not these questions been settled by the authority of the Church-or, in other words, by the authority of the bishops? And if the decisions of the Church with regard to the Canon of Scripture are infallible, may not its decisions with regard to the meaning of Scripture be also infallible?

Or, if the Canon is not accepted on the authority of the Church, must not ordinary Christian people accept it on the authority of theological scholars? How can a merchant, a tradesman, a mechanic, master the evidence which proves that the Book of Jonah was written by an inspired prophet, that the Epistle to the Romans was written by an apostle, that the Gospel of John contains an authentic record of the discourses of Christ? Must not unlearned men depend for the settlement of these questions on the authority of scholars? What is to be done if the opinions of scholars vary? And may not the tyranny of scholars be as grave an interference with Christian liberty as the tyranny of bishops? If devout men and women can never be sure that they have a divine revelation in their hands until learned men have agreed that every book that is bound up in the Bible has a right to be there, the faith of the Church, instead of resting on the strong foundation of the divine Word, rests on the uncertain supports of human learning.

Luther's method of dealing with these difficulties was singularly courageous. It consisted in a bold application