Was the Reformation necessary?-III

Jacques Bénigne Bossuet. History of the variations of the Protestant Churches.

Such were the heads of the new reformation. Men of talent, it is true, and not deficient in literature, but bold, rash in their decisions, and puffed up with their vain learning: men who delighted in extraordinary and particular opinions, and therefore aimed not only to raise themselves above those of their age, but also above the most holy of ages past. OEcolampadius, the other defender of the figurative sense amongst the Swiss, was both more moderate, and more learned; and if Zuinglius appeared by his vehemence another Luther, OEcolampadius resembled Melancthon, whose particular friend he was also. In a letter, which, when a youth, he wrote to Erasmus you observe the marks of a piety equally affectionate and enlightened, together with much wit and politeness. From the feet of a crucifix, before which he had been accustomed to pray, he wrote such tender things to Erasmus on the ineffable sweetness of Jesus Christ, whom this pious image represented so lively to his imagination, that there is no reading it without being affected. The reformation which came to trouble these devotions, and account them idolatry, began at that time; for it was in 1517 that he wrote this letter. He entered into religion in the first heat of these disturbances, with much courage and reflection; at an age, as Erasmus observes, too advanced for any imputation of youthful precipitancy. We also learn from the letters of Erasmus that he was greatly enamoured with the course of life he had undertaken, and relished God in peace of mind, and therein lived quite remote from the novelties that were then spreading. However (such is human weakness, so great the contagion of novelty), he left his monastery, preached the new reformation at Basil, were he was pastor, and tired of celibacy, like the rest of reformers, married a young girl, with whose beauty he was enamoured. “This is the way“, said Erasmus, “they choose to mortify themselves“; he could not but admire these new apostles, who were sure to abandon the solemn profession of celibacy to take wives; whereas, the true apostles of our Saviour, according to the tradition of all the fathers, in order to attend to God and the Gospel only, left their wives to embrace celibacy. “It seems“, said he, “as if the reformation aimed at nothing more than to strip a few monks of their habits, and to marry a parcel of priests; and this great tragedy terminates at last in a conclusion that is entirely comical, since, just like comedies, all ends in marriage“. The same Erasmus complains, in other places, that after his friend OEcolampadius had abandoned his tender devotion, together with the church and monastery, in order to embrace this impious and contemptible reformation, he was no longer the same man; instead of candor, which this minister professed whilst he acted on himself, nothing but artifice and dissimulation could be found in him, after he had once entered into the spirit of the party.