The Penn's Grove record., 1903-06-26
A SERMON FOR SUNDAY
A BRILLIANT HISTORICAL DISCOURSE
ON THE REFORMATION.
II Rev. j. g. Wilson Talks Instructiveiy
Of That Period When the Foundation
OF True Religious Liberty Were Laid
Freeing the Mind From T~hralldom.

The Rev. j. g. Wilson Talks Instructiveiy
Of That Period when the Foundations
Of True Religious Liberty Were Laid
Freeing the Mind From Thralldon.
NEW YORK CITY.-In the South Congre-
g~ational Church, Brooklyn, the Rev. j.. G.
Wilson, associate pastor, delivered a dis
course on "Ihe Struggle for Religions Lib
erty," the subject being Europe on the
Eve of the Reformation" The text was
Acts ", 38 and .39:-"And now [ say unto
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 if it be
of God, We cannot overthrow it; lest haply
ye be found even to fight against Cod
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-
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. It assert
ed the fundamental principles upon which
it had proceeded, and succeeded in laying
broad and secure foundations upon which
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 relig-
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 struggle 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
alike. The Reformation itself originated
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
Romans, making them drink it to its dregs.
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 a struggle. It was as impossible for
the obscure and defenseless sufferers to re-
sist their enemies as for a fly to resist the
hand that brushes it. Judged from appear
ances, 1t was a 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 c%averns, known as catacombs. Here
they cherished their faith and worship un-
til the violence of their enemies abated.
their hiding places, disciplined by hard
ship, trained to prudence and foresight by
the peril in which they had lived and with
o 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, if
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 Christian Emperor issued an edict Of
religious federation, 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 inn
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
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,
also, the ambitious and relentless spirit of
the Caesars. Ecclesiastical Rome usurped
the rights of mankind and perverted their
liberties as ruthlessly as did political Rome.
Through successive stages the church
nOuheCu W tiC LuiOuC VI It's PUWCI INT
it was more absolute than the empire had
ever essayed to be-. Men like Gregory the
Great, Leo III. and Hildebrand made the
most astonishing claims, and absolute SUI
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 Wicklif, and in the humber walks
nf Hfo nnnocffnn cbn4a1 sfca1e ~ c,,oh
sects as the A~lbigenses and the W~aldenses,
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 ae-
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-
their memory with a 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 Inquisition, the
most diabolical engine of intolerance and
persecution that human ingenuity ever de-
vised.
It is the fate of all despotisms to work
their OWE destruction by a 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
ofenses by the fragrant immortality of the
clergy, she transcribed her limits and in
voked the long ~slumbering and accumu-
lated wrath of centuries, which burst forth
in the Reformation, disrupted her solid
empire, and caused her the loss of two
thirds of her spiritual children.
Two great movements in the Middle Ages
contributed to hasten the triumph of re-
ligious liberty in Europe. They were the
Crusades and the Renaissance. The rehg-
ious enthusiasm of Europe, dormant for
centuries, was kindled by the fiery elo-
quence of Peter the Hermit, as he preached
"a crusade against the "infdel Turks. for
the purpose ofrescuing the Holy Sepulcher
from their hands. 1t was as when a door
Is suddenly opened into a house where q
fire has been long smoldering, smothered
In its WI smoke. the whole building IS
wrapped in a sudden confagration; or as
when a volcano long extinct bursts into
sudden activity. A spontaneous uprising,
as of one man, unparalleled in history,
took place among all classes of people.
Kings and peasants, priests and lawyers,
merchants and bankers were swept by the