The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1903-07-08
A SERMON FOR SUNDAY
A BRILLIANT HISTORICAL DISC couaSE
ON THE REFORMATION.

Che Rev. j. e. Wilson Talks Instructively
of That Period When the Foundations
OF True Religious Liberty Were Laid
Freeing the Mind From Thralldom.
NEW YORK C1TY.-In the South Congre-
gational Church, Brooklyn, the Rev. j. Z.
Wilson, associate pastor, delivered a dis
course on "The Struggle for Religious Lib
erty," the subject being Europe on the
Eve of the Reformation" The text was
Acts ", 38 and 49,: "And now / say INTO
you, Refrain from these men, and let them
alone; for if this counsel or this work be
Of men, it will come to ;naught, but II 1t be 2e,
ye be found even to fight against God"
Mr. Wilson said:
Let me suggest at the outset that the
struggle for religious liberty and what IS
known as the Reformation are not IN all
respects identical movements. The Refor-
nation was great tidal wave which swept
over Europe in the sixteenth century, out
of the vast and troubled sea of the centur.
les whose waters were greatly agitated by
the struggle for religious liberty 1t was
the elimination of that struggle. 1t assert.
ed the fundamental principles upon which
it had proceeded, and succeeded in laying
true religious liberty could be built, but it
left some of the higher standards and finer
ideals unattained. In that respect there is
much yet to be desired.
In view of the fact that the Reformation
split Europe into two great warning ,rellg-
ious camps, it is necessary to remind our.
selves that up to that time there had been
but one Christian church in Western Eu.
rope. And the sruggle for religious liberty
went on within that church and not out.
side of it, nor against it, after the first
three centuries. Whatever glory and what
ever shame attaches to that church during
the first fifteen centuries is shared equally
by US all, Protestants and Roman Catholic
within the Roman Catholic Church, and
was led by men bred in her schools and
cloisters. We should also remember that
the Roman Catholic Church Of the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries is not the Roman
Catholic Church of the twentieth century
and in the United States.
From a very early age religious differ.
ences have engendered strife and stirred
the most violent passions of men. Although
the Jews tasted the bitterness of persecu-
ton, that did not prevent them from
pressing the same cup to the lips of the
/. early Christians and, with the aid Of the
-,
Then were written the first pages in the
most sanguinary and thrilling story-a
story of unutterable suffering and grim en-.
durance for conscience sake-which his.
tory's pages record. It can scarcely be
called struggle It vas as impossible for
the obscure and defenseless sufferers to re-
sst their enemies as for fly to resist the
hand that crushes it, Judged from appear
ances, it was remorseless massacre: which
crushed its victims into the earth. But the
real forces that were working out the prob
lem were not on the surface. The odds
against which the early Christians were
matched drove them to seek refuge in the
mountain businesses and in the subterra-
mean caverns, known as cataeombs., Here
they cherished their faith and worship unS
After two centuries they came forth from
their hiding places, disciplined by hard
ship, trained to prudence and foresight by
the peril in which they had lived and with
a compact and efficient organization. Their
leaders had improved their long seclusion
to cultivate letters and arts, and soon took
leading places among scholars and men OF
affairs; SO that when Constantine succeed
ed TO the undivided possession of supreme
power in the Roman Empire prudence, il
not preference, moved him to an alliance
with them.
Then began a new phase in the struggle
for religious liberty. The despised and
prosecuted Christians, now risen to places
of power and possessing the throne in the
person Of the Emperor, did not abuse their
trust. Such was the spirit of sweet rea-
sonableness which animated them that the
first Christ ian Emperor issued an edict OF
religious toleration, known as the edict OF
Milan, which granted religious liberty with.
in the empire, on the basis of the sacred
rights of conscience; only those religious
rites were prohibited which involved i'm
morality, magic or sorcery. Not until the
fatal passion for power had been aroused in
them by its possession did the Christians
resort to persecution. The organization OF
the Christian church kept pace with its
spread in Europe. From Rome as centre re
the missionaries penetrated to all parts OF
Europe. They carried with them the love
of the mother church from which they
went and bound the churches which they
planted to her in gratitude and Christian
Fellowship. The confidence and affection
which she won by her generosity and self
sacrifice in the gospel, she soon came to de-
mand as her right, and when at length the
Bishop of Rome secured the political pow
er of his city he aspired to make the tradi::
tional capital Of the world its ecclesiastical
capital also, then. with the policy of mill
tary Rome the Christian church adopted:
the Caesars. Ecclesiastical Rome usurped
the rights Of mankind and perverted their
liberties as ruthlessly as did political Rome.
Through successive stages the church
mounted to the throne of its power until
it was more absolute than the empire had
ever essayed to be. Men like Gregory the
Great, Leo III. and Hiideb brand made the
most astonishing claims. and absolute su.
premacy in all human affairs, and treated
with the utmost severity all who withstood
their claims. Unavailing protests to their
astounding pretensions were raised by men
like John Scotus, Abelard Arnold, of Bres-
cia and Wickliff, and in the humber walks
of life opposition showed itself in such
neither of which desired to separate them
selves from the Catholic. Church, but both
of them desired that its pretensions should
be moderated and its abuses reformed ac-
cording to the scriptural requirements OF
apostolic simplicity and purity. These men
were simple minded and their lives were
pure, but they were subjected to the most
remorseless persecution. Their heroic en-:
durance and unfaltering faith has covered
their memory with halo of glory like unto
that which surrounds the early Christian
martyrs. During the massacre OF the Abb
genses was born the order of the Domini-
cans, into whose hands was intrusted the
institution known as the Inqusition, the
most diabolical engine of intolerance and
persecution that human ingenuity ever de-
vised.
It is the fate of all despotisms to work
their own destruction by fatal disregard
of the limits of human endurance, and
when the papacy added the horrors of the
Inquisition to the usurpation of the most
sacred of human rights. and aggravated her
offenses by the fagrant immortality Of the
voked the long slumbering and accumu-
lated wrath of centuries. which burst forth
in the Reformation, disrupted her solid