In an article in the _Independent_ (New York) entitled "How May We Become More Truly Catholic," Professor Briggs said:
"There were other and in some respects greater reformers in the sixteenth century than the more popular heroes Luther, Zwingli and Calvin. Sir Thomas More, the greatest jurist of his time, Lord Chancellor of England, a chief leader of reform before Cranmer, resigned his exalted position and went to the block rather than recognize the supremacy of the King in ecclesiastical affairs; a true knight, a martyr to the separation of civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Erasmus, { 260} the greatest scholar of his age, regarded by many as the real father of the Reformation, the teacher of the Swiss reformers, was unwilling to submerge learning and morals in an ocean of human blood. He urged reformation, not revolution. He has been crucified for centuries in popular Protestant opinion as a political time-server, but undoubtedly he was the most comprehensive reformer of them all.
"John von Staupitz, doctor of theology, and Vicar-General of the German Augustinians, the teacher of Luther and his counsellor in the early stages of his reform, a man without a stain and above reproach, a Saint in the common estimation of Protestant and Catholic alike, the best exponent of the piety of his age, was an Apostle of Holy Love and good works, which he would not sacrifice in the interests of the Protestant dogma of justification by faith only. These three immortals who did not separate themselves from the Roman Catholic Church, who remained in the Church to patiently carry on the work of reform therein--these three were the irenic spirits, the heroic representatives of all that was truly Catholic, the beacons of the greater reformation that was impending."
[Illustration: FILIPPINO LIPPI, MADONNA WITH FOUR SAINTS]
This position taken by Professor Briggs has come to be more and more recognized as the true one from the historical standpoint in recent years. What has been called the Reformation had in it so many unfortunate political elements that its force for good was frittered away by the abuses inevitably connected with political associations. The counter-reformation, which represented the reaction from the religious revolt of the early sixteenth century, carried with it the truer spirit of Christianity and gradually gathered round it those forces for culture, social uplift and political liberty which mean most for the benefit of mankind and which thrived so well under the fostering care of Christianity. It is only with the breaking up of the ideas and institutions fostered by the reformers that modern progress along these lines has come. Protestantism hurt art, sadly hampered education, ruined architecture, shackled philosophy, discouraged scholarship and, above all, destroyed educational and humanitarian foundations for mere personal profit, and took away the incentive for true charity, its doctrine of salvation by faith only obliterating { 261} the divine significance of good works. In the Appendix, some of these points are emphasized by quotations from well-known authorities, who have summed up various phases of Reformation influence. These writers, though themselves in sympathy with the reform movement in its ideals, see its evil effects and lament them.