Reformation and Restoration. By Prof. W. M. Blackburn, D. D. [pp. 348-369]

Reformation and Redtoration.
things. These men looked the inevitable results in the face,
and had too much courage to be appalled by them. In this
they were not unlike their Lord, who saw that one consequence
of his tealching,, life, and death, would be the abandonment of
the Jewish Church as the spiritual fold of His people. But a
far better Church would be educed. The evoking of the
Christian Church from Judaism was not unlike the calling of
the Protestant Church from Romanism. In each there was a
restoration of what was ancient: in the one case, that of the
principle in the ante-jvdaic promises that all nations should
be blessed in Christ; in the other, that of Christ's undelegated
headship over his people, He alone being their lawgiver and
intercessor, the light and life of his Church.
Although the entire movement has passed into history as
"the Reformation," yet the distinction between the reformation and the restoration is based upon fact. It is important
to a right understanding of men, measures, and achievements.
It lays the line between the principles, motives, and aims of
those who were often engaged in controversy, while prosecuting in their degree the same general work. All were reformers, but some were intent upon carrying out their principles
to their full results. Wolsey removed certain evils, but he
would have quailed at the Diet of Worms, where Luther stood
sublimely on the ground of the Holy Scriptures, saying, "I
yield my faith neither to the pope, nor to the councils alone.
Until convinced by God's word I can and will retract nothing.
Here I stand. I can do nothing else. God help me. Amen."
Yet this hero did not go so far as Zwingli, who retained less
of the old system. Cranmer was not willing to takle Calvin's
position. The distinction was made, long ago, when those
who went beyond the earlier reformers and their followers
were called "the Reformed." It was made to mark the different position taken by each class, in reference to the authority
of God's word in matters especially of rite and discipline. The
maxim of such reformers as Luther, Melanchthon, and Cranmer
was, not to condemn anything, which might be expedient, if it
had not against it some indisputable text of the Bible, or a
thoroughly clear and explicit Scripture. Their best defence
is, perhaps, that of Archdeacon Hare: " Hereby it became pos
1871.]
351