ROMAN RENAISSANCE.
108
disguised by the fruitfulness of fiction when, moreover, the enormous temporal power granted to the clergy attracted into their ranks multitudes of men who, but for such temptation, ;
would not have pretended to the Christian name, so that grievous wolves entered in among them, not sparing the flock and when, by the machinations of such men, and the remiss;
ness of others, the form and administrations of Church doctrine and discipline had become little more than a means of
aggrandizing the power of the priesthood, it was impossible any longer for men of thoughtfulness or piety to remain in an
The Church had become so unquestioning serenity of faith. mingled with the world that its witness could no longer be and the professing members of it, who were placed them to become aware of or their simplicity and whom their interest corruptions,
received
;
in circumstances such as to enable its
did not bribe .or beguile into silence, gradually separated themselves into two vast multitudes of adverse energy, one tending to Reformation, and the other to Infidelity. XCTV. Of these, the last stood, as it were, apart, to watch the course of the struggle between Eomanism and Protestantism a struggle which, however necessary, was attended with infinite calamity to the Church. For, in the first place, the ;
movement
Protestant animation.
It
was, in reality, not reformation but relife into the Church, but it did not
poured new
form or define her anew. In some sort it rather broke down her hedges, so that all they who passed by might pluck off her grapes. The reformers speedily found that the enemy was never far behind the sower of good seed that an evil spirit might enter the ranks of reformation as well as those of and that though the deadly blight might be resistance checked amidst the wheat, there was no hope of ever ridding New temptations were inthe wheat itself from the tares. vented by Satan wherewith to oppose the revived strength of ;
;
Christianity
had ceased
:
as the Romanist, confiding in his
to try
human teachers,
whether they were teachers sent from God,
so the Protestant, confiding in the teaching of the Spirit, believed every spirit, and did not try the spirits whether they
Were of God.
And
a thousand enthusiasms
and heresies