Centuries before Luther nailed his theses to the church door in Wittemburg, the Lord was preparing both nations and individuals for the accomplishment of this great work. The weakening of the papal power and the increasing boldness of the witnesses, foretold what was approaching.
In our contemplations of Rome, we must always distinguish between the catholic church and popery, or the ecclesiastical and the temporal power. The church, though fallen and enslaved, was still the church; protestant in heart and faithful in measure to Christ; but to venture in her pious services beyond the defined limits of Roman orthodoxy subjected her to its severe discipline. The papacy vowed destruction on all trespassers. Immorality, irreligion, might be passed over, at least with a slight censure; but heresy or schism—in other words, any form of dissent from the Roman church, must be rooted out by fire and sword, and all heretics consigned by pontifical sentence to eternal death.
During the long reign of papal terror, the true saints of God witnessed and prophesied in sackcloth. But the silver line of sovereign grace was preserved unbroken from the days of the apostles, under the sheltering wing of the living God. He preserved His witnesses from the devouring dragon in the secret places of the earth; in mountains, valleys, and caverns; and in many quiet convents in the remote regions of Christendom.
But it may be interesting, first of all, to renew our acquaintance with the state of Christianity in some of the countries which we have already noticed. In this way we shall naturally fall in with our long line of witnesses, which go down to the days of Luther. And, first in order, we will notice the state of