“What Do We Owe to the Reformation?”

"A Huge Hodge-podge of Ignorance and Idolatry"

by J.C. Ryle

“The Reformation delivered England from an immense quantity of evils, such as gross religious ignorance and spiritual darkness.

“In the days when the Roman Catholic Church ruled England, before the Reformation, the immense majority of the Catholic clergy did little more than say masses and offer up pretended sacrifices, repeat Latin prayers and chant Latin hymns, which of course the people could not understand.  They heard confessions, granted absolutions, gave extreme unction and took money to get dead people out of Purgatory.  Preaching was utterly at a discount.  As Latimer truly remarked, ‘When the devil gets influence in a church, up go candles and down goes preaching.’

“As to the laity, it’s not too much to say, the bulk of them had no religion at all.  There was no one to tell them of the love of God, the mediation of Christ, the glad tidings of free salvation, the precious blood of Christ’s atonement, and justification by faith.  They could only send for the priest, who knew nothing himself and could tell nothing to others and then at last they receive absolution and extreme unction and took a leap in the dark!

“To sum up all in a few words, the religion of our English forefathers before the Reformation, was a religion without knowledge, without saving faith, and without true hope!  It was a religion without justification, regeneration, and sanctification — a religion without any clear views of Christ and the Holy Spirit.  Except in rare instances, it was little better than an organized system of ...

Mary-worship,
saint-worship,
idol-worship
relic-worship,
indulgences,
formalism,
ceremonialism,
processions,
penances,
absolutions,
masses, and
blind obedience to the priests!

“It was a huge hodge-podge of ignorance and idolatry!  The only practical result was that the priests took the people’s money and undertook to secure their salvation.  The people flattered themselves, that the more they gave to the priest, the more sure they were to go to heaven!

“Such was the ignorance, which was scattered to the winds by the English Reformation!

“For another thing, the Reformation delivered England from the most groveling, childish and superstitious practices in religion.  I allude especially to the worship of relics.  Destitute of the slightest Scriptural knowledge, our forefathers were taught by the priests to seek spiritual benefit from the so-called relics of dead saints, and to worship them!

A huge mass of rubbish!

“We have neither an adequate conception of the evils from which the Reformation freed us — nor the enormous good which it brought in.

“In the days when the Roman Catholic Church ruled England — he who desired to obtain forgiveness of his sins had to seek it through a jungle of ...

priests,
saints,
Mary-worship,
masses,
penances,
confessions,
absolutions,
and the like.

“This huge mass of rubbish was shoveled out of the way by the reformers.  They taught that justification was by faith alone, and that every heavy-laden sinner on earth had a right to go straight to the Lord Jesus Christ for remission of sins — without waiting for Pope or priest, confession or absolution, masses or extreme unction.  From that time, the backbone of English Popery was broken!

“The Reformation found men steeped in ignorance and left them in possession of knowledge.  It found them blind and left them seeing.  It found them without Bibles and left them in every parish.  It found them priest-ridden and left them enjoying the liberty which Christ bestows.  It found them strangers to saving faith, grace and holiness, and left them with the key to those things in their hands.  It found them slaves and set them free!”

The Reformation freed England from religious idolatry.

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