LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.

INTRODUCTION.

THE Reformation of the sixteenth century can only be fully understood when we recognise it as the result of a long preparation. On the first view it seems a sudden outburst of spiritual life and intellectual freedom, led on by few great men, whose energy and success appear almost miraculous in the face of the obstacles amidst which they contend; but, on a nearer and more comprehensive inspection, we discern several series of converging forces running through the preceding ages, all tending towards the same end, and whose longgathering impulse, as represented and expressed in the Leaders of the movement, more than anything else, precipitates the crisis. These Leaders must always fix our main attention: they not only cover the scenes of the actual movement by their great figures, but what they said and did forms the highest expression of the spiritual and intellectual influences previously in operation, and which then reached their highest point of development. Yet these men will also be better appre

A

ciated, when we view the gradual lines of advance which they headed, the "increasing purpose" of reform which manifested itself in the earlier centuries, and which, continually stifled and interrupted, nevertheless renewed itself with a deepening intention and meaning. The great actors on the stage become more intelligible and more interesting when we obtain a glimpse of the springs which moved them, and the prior and longmaturing conditions out of which their teaching and influence grew.

The preparation which led to the great crisis of the sixteenth century, may be said to carry us back to the first ages. The light of primitive truth was never entirely extinguished. It flickered indeed but feebly amid the encroaching darkness, yet we can still trace it here and there; and when the earliest Reformers appealed, as they did, to the primitive and apostolical character of their teaching in contrast to the sacerdotal corruptions and abuses against which they protested, there is no reason to doubt that their appeal often rested on a true succession of "simpler manners and purer laws," which had never been altogether lost. This succession appears especially in the south of Europe, along the Mediterranean coast, and in the romantic country which separates Italy from what we now call France. From Vigilantius the opponent of Jerome, and the earnest denouncer of the increasing license. of monasticism in the fifth century, to Claude of Turin in the beginning of the ninth century-who distinguished himself by hostility to the idol-worship patronised at Rome, and who declared, as to the Pontiff

that "he is not to be called apostolic who merely occupies the apostolic seat, but he who fulfils the functions of an apostle,"—there were, no doubt, many witnesses to the like truth and faith which they defended. The same Alpine valleys, which sheltered the last days of Vigilantius, saw the rise of Claude, and it is not likely that in the interval there should have been an entire lack of the reformatory spirit which animated them. There is reason to think, indeed, that the spirit which three centuries later broke out with such intrepid intensity in these very valleys, had lived on from the very first ages, obscure, and often ignorant, but never altogether submissive or absorbed in the ecclesiastical life, which spread from Rome, and sought to mould everything to its own dictates.

Rome, however, made a steady advance during all this period. From the alleged donation of Constantine to the grants of Pepin, it continued to grow in power and in centralised dominion. When, in return for the protection and privileges conceded to it, Leo III. placed the imperial crown of the West on the brow of Charlemagne (800), the Papacy may be said to have been fully consolidated, and to have entered upon the career of triumph which, amid all temporary reverses and disgraceful pollutions, it maintained for five centuries. From the middle of the eleventh to the close of the thirteenth, its career culminated. This is the time of its greatest ascendancy, of its proudest namesGregory VII. (Hildebrand), Innocent III., and Boniface VIII. By the light of these names, separated from each other by about a century,* we trace the highest *1073, 1198, and 1294.