In England from Wicliffe to Henry VIII - James Aitken Wylie

made; He descended to erect a Temple in which He
might dwell with men upon the earth. The
Omnipotent and Blessed One put forth His creative
power through the instrumentality which He
Himself had prepared, even the Scriptures of Truth,
which He inspired holy men to write. The recovery
of the Holy Scriptures and their diffusion over
Christendom was the one instrumentality, as the
Spirit who dwells in and operates through the
Scriptures was the one Author, of that great
movement which was now renewing the world. On
this supposition only—that this great movement
was not originated by human forces, but created by
a Divine agent—can we account for the fact that in
all the countries of Christendom it appeared at the
same moment, took the same form, and was
followed by the same blessed fruits—virtue in
private life and order in public.
We left Luther in the Wartburg. At a moment
of great peril, Providence opened for him an
asylum; not there to live idly, but to do a work
essential to the future progress of Protestantism.
While Luther is toiling out of sight, let us look
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