e church and by the abolition of a
privileged class. Luther stated that there was no difference between
priest and layman; some men were called to preach, others to make
shoes, but--and this is his own illustration--the one vocation is no
more spiritual than the other. No longer necessary as a mediator and
dispenser of sacramental grace, the Protestant clergyman sank
inevitably to the same level as his neighbors.

{749} [Sidenote: Intellectual aspect]

(3) In its relation to the Renaissance and to modern thought the
Reformation solved, in its way, two problems, or one problem, that of
authority, in two forms. Though anything but consciously rational in
their purpose, the innovating leaders did assert, at least for
themselves, the right of private judgment. Appealing from
indulgence-seller to pope, from pope to council, from council to the
Bible and (in Luther's own words) from the Bible to Christ, [Sidenote:
Individualism] the Reformers finally came to their own conscience as
the supreme court. Trying to deny to others the very rights they had
fought to secure for themselves, yet their example operated more
powerfully than their arguments, even when these were made of ropes and
of thumb-screws. The delicate balance of faith was overthrown and it
was put into a condition of unstable equilibrium; the avalanche,
started by ever so gentle a push, swept onward until it buried the men
who tried to stop it half way. Dogma slowly narrowing down from
precedent to precedent had its logical, though unintended, outcome in
complete religious autonomy, yes, in infidelity and skepticism.

[Sidenote: Vulgarization of the Renaissance]

Protestantism has been represented now as the ally, now as the enemy of
humanism. Consciously it was neither. Rather, it was the
vulgarization of the Renaissance; it transformed, adapted, and
popularized many of the ideas originated by its rival. It is easy to
see now that the future lay rather outside of both churches than in
either of them, if we look only for direct descent. Columbus burst the
bounds of the world, Copernicus those of the universe; Luther only
broke his vows. But the point is that the repudiation of religious
vows was the hardest to do at that time, a feat infinitely more
impressive to the masses than either of the former. It was just here
that the religious movement became a great solvent of conservatism; it
made the masses think, passionately if not {750} deeply, on t