uded the Apocrypha could not be barred, at any rate by people who
rejected the authority of the Church, from extending its operations to
Daniel, the Canticles, and Ecclesiastes; nor, having got so far, was it
easy to allege any good ground for staying the further progress of
criticism. In fact, the logical development of Protestantism could not
fail to lay the authority of the Scriptures at the feet of Reason; and
in the hands of latitudinarian and rationalistic theologians, the
despotism of the Bible was rapidly converted into an extremely limited
monarchy. Treated with as much respect as ever, the sphere of its
practical authority was minimised; and its decrees were valid only so
far as they were countersigned by common sense, the responsible
minister.

The champions of Protestantism are much given to glorify the Reformation
of the sixteenth century as the emancipation of Reason; but it may be
doubted if their contention has any solid ground; while there is a good
deal of evidence to show, that aspirations after intellectual freedom
had nothing whatever to do with the movement. Dante, who struck the
Papacy as hard blows as Wicliff; Wicliff himself and Luther himself,
when they began their work; were far enough from any intention of
meddling with even the most irrational of the dogmas of mediaeval
Supernaturalism. From Wicliff to Socinus, or even to Muenzer, Rothmann,
and John of Leyden, I fail to find a trace of any desire to set reason
free. The most that can be discovered is a proposal to change masters.
From being the slave of the Papacy the intellect was to become the serf
of the Bible; or, to speak more accurately, of somebody's interpretation
of the Bible, which, rapidly shifting its attitude from the humility of
a private judgment to the arrogant Caesaro-papistry of a state-enforced
creed had no more hesitation about forcibly extinguishing opponent
private judgments and judges, than had the old-fashioned
Pontiff-papistry.

It was the iniquities, and not the irrationalities, of the Papal system
that lay at the bottom of the revolt of the laity; which was,
essentially, an attempt to shake off the intolerable burden of certain
practical deductions from a Supernaturalism in which everybody, in
principle, acquiesced. What was the gain to intellectual freedom of
abolishing transubstantiation, image worship, indulgences,
ecclesiastical infallibility; if consubstantiation, real-unreal presence
mystifications, the bib