Not only was a great reformation the result of preaching
the glorious truth of justification by faith, but those
who came out under this teaching began to protest against
the superstitions, the false doctrines, and the evil
practices of the papacy. This set them in direct
opposition against the church of Rome, and thus those who
came out under the reformers were called Protestants.
There is no question but that God
was in the Reformation and that he raised up such men as
Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli, Menno Simons, and Calvin to
lead the people of God out from under the galling yokes
imposed upon them by the church of Rome into a blessed
Christian liberty and enjoyment of the privileges of the
gospel. Though the reformers did not have the clear light
as it shone in the days of primitive Christianity, yet the
truth that they did preach, coming as it did out of the
utter darkness that had covered the earth for more than
one thousand years, was like brilliant rays of light from
heaven. Thousands upon thousands rejoiced in that light
and embraced it. Thus the church of God emerged from the
great wilderness of obscurity in which she had been held
fast so long, and songs of deliverance filled the hearts
of the redeemed.
This naturally stirred the camp of
the Roman church into a state of hatred against the
reformers and their followers. Persecution at once began.
Soon after tile death of Luther there came a great war in
Germany between the Protestants and the Catholics. It is
known in history as the Thirty Years' War. In tile
beginning of this great conflict it seemed that the work
of the reformers would be crushed, but through the
assistance of Gustavus Adolphus, from Sweden, who, with
his armies, came to the rescue of the Protestants in
Germany, they eventually gained the victory and secured
their religions liberty.
It has become customary to
denominate all the religious systems that have arisen
since the Reformation, Protestants; therefore
Protestantism is properly all the so called Christian
churches that discard at least some of the doctrines of
their mother, the Roman church.
