Such, as we have now described, was the unlimited power of the Romish priesthood at the beginning of this century. No man was independent of the priest. He was lord of the human conscience. His power was absolute both over body and soul, over time and eternity. None could afford to incur his displeasure or to lie under his censure. Excommunication cut the man off, whatever his rank or station, from the church, beyond whose pale there was no possibility of salvation.
It is not a little remarkable that just at this time no danger seemed to threaten this towering, monstrous system of iniquity. From the Vatican down to the smallest congregation the sovereignty and tranquility of the church appeared to be completely secured. The various heresies and commotions which had disturbed her for centuries had been suppressed by fire and sword; the complaints and petitions of her most faithful children had been rejected with insolent impunity; and the warnings of her sincerest friends were neglected or despised. Where were now the Waldenses, the Albigenses, the Beghards, the Lollards, the Bohemians, and the various sectaries? They had been silenced or extinguished by papal management. True, there were many private murmurs against the injustice, frauds, violence, and tyranny of the court of Rome; also against the crimes, ignorance, and licentiousness of her whole priesthood; but the pontiffs had grown accustomed to these murmurings, and could either conciliate with their favors, or defy with their censures, as best suited their policy. '
We can imagine the false woman, according to the language of St. John, surveying with exultation the pillars and bulwarks of her strength. "For she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow." She heeded not the voice that had said, "Her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities." (Rev. 18.)
God's time was come for at least a partial fulfillment of this prophecy. The word of arrest had gone forth. Just when she thought everything was safe and settled forever, the end of her uncontrolled domination was at hand. But how was this to be accomplished? A reformation of the church in its head and members had been the general cry for ages; but all such demands and complaints she set at defiance. What now was to be done? Must some mighty angel come down from heaven to overthrow the despotism of Rome, and break the yoke of popery which has so long bound in fetters the bodies and souls of men? No! such agencies were not required and not used, that God may be glorified. That which the most powerful sovereigns with their armed legions utterly failed to effect, God fully and gloriously accomplished by an obscure monk in Saxony, single-handed.
This was Martin Luther of Eisleben. He was the voice of God that awoke Europe to this great work and called the laborers into the field. But if we would form a just estimate of God's chief instrument in this mighty work, and of the grace that qualified him, we must glance at what is important in the early life of the great Reformer. D'Aubigne, in his love of Luther, speaks of him as having experienced in his own soul the different phases of the Reformation before they were accomplished in the world; and exhorts his reader to study his life before he proceeds to the events that changed the face of Christendom.