The right of private judgement, in other words, the
supremacy of reason as sole judge and arbiter of all matters, spiritual
as well as secular, was the essential element of the movement of which
the Reformation was the outcome; how, then, could they, the children of
this movement, hope to change its course?
When considering the forces and circumstances that made the Reformation
possible, when so many equally earnest previous attempts in the same
direction had failed, we should not lose sight of the favourable
political situation. Under cover of its religious authority, by means of
its unrivalled organisation, as well as by its temporal control of large
areas of the richest and most fertile land in Europe, the Church of Rome
annually drained into Italy a large part of the surplus wealth of every
country that recognised its spiritual authority. Such countries were
impoverished to support not only the resident but an absentee
priesthood, and to enable the Princes of the Church to maintain a more
than princely state at Rome. This was a standing grievance even in the
eyes of many sincerely devout Churchmen, and one which was prone to make
statesmen and politicians look with a favourable eye on any movement
which promised to lessen or to abolish it. Germany in this respect had
special reasons for discontent; as has been well said, "It was the milch
cow of the Papacy, which at once despised and drained it dry.
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