The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

work. The soul of the best men of the time was alive to the wretched
condition into which the Church had fallen. A profound longing for the
Reformation filled the hearts of nations; science, literature, art, discovery,
and invention were elevating Europe, and preparing the way for the
triumphal march of pure religion, the queen of all knowledge. In the Papal
chair sat Leo X., a lover of art and literature, careless and indolent in all
things else. Over the beautiful plains of Germany wandered Tetzel,
senseless and impudent, even beyond the class to' which he belonged,
exciting the disgust of all thinking men, by the profligate manner in which
he sold indulgences. To protect the trembling flame of the truth from the
fierce winds, which, at first, would have extinguished it; to protect it till the
tornado itself should only make it blaze more vehemently, God had
prepared Frederick, the Wise, a man of immense influence, universally
revered, and not more revered than his earnest piety, his fidelity, his
eminent conscientiousness deserved. The Emperor Charles V., with power
enough to quench the flame with a word, with a hatred to it which seemed
to make it certain that he would speak that word, was yet so fettered by the
plans of his ambition, that he left it unsaid, and thus was made the
involuntary protector of that which he hated. These and a thousand other
circumstances were propitious.
But in vain is the wood gathered, and in vain do the winds breathe,
unless the fire is applied. In vain would Luther, with his incomparable gifts,
have risen--in vain would that genius, to which a Catholic writer declares
Luther's own friends have not done full justice--in vain would that high
courage, that stern resolve have presented themselves in the matchless
combination in which they existed in him, had there not been first a power
beyond that of man to purify him, and from him to extend itself in flame
around him. With all of Luther's gifts, he might have been a monster of
wickedness, or a slave of the dominant superstition, helping to strengthen
its chains, and forge new ones, had not the truth of God made him free, had
not the Spirit of God in His Word made him an humble and earnest
believer. Luther was first a Christian,