The Scottish kings very soon demonstrated the un due influence which the clergy had acquired over them, by the vast additions which they made to their immunities and riches. The profuse piety of David the First, transferred almost the whole crown lands to the church. The clergy were daily loaded with new possessions, until they became so powerful that they paid the full half of the national taxes. Their influ ence procured the erection of magnificent temples, and their opulence furnished them with showy appa ratus for worship, which fascinated the senses, and imposed on the imaginations of the people. These nurseries of superstition and indolence universally de generated, and became the notorious haunts of de bauchery. Exempted from secular jurisdiction, and corrupted by wealth and idleness, the immoralities of the clergy were become a scandal to religion, and an outrage on decency. Though nominally separated from the world by the law of celibacy, the clergy of all ranks were shamefully profligate; the bishops openly kept their harlots, provided their sons with benefices, and married their daughters to the sons of the nobility and gentry.
The ignorance of the clergy respecting religion was as gross as their morals were dissolute. Until the re formed doctrines had made some progress, neither Greek nor Hebrew was taught in any seminary in Scot land. Even bishops were not ashamed to confess that they never read any part of the sacred Scriptures, ex cept what they found in their missals. So ignorant were the clergy even on the continent, that they pub licly accused Luther of composing a wicked book call ed the " New Testament," and inventing two new languages, the Greek and the Hebrew.
The harangues delivered for sermons by the monks were ludicrous and contemptible. They consisted of legendary tales concerning the founder of some reli gious order, his sanctity, the miracles that he per formed, his watchings and combats with the devil, the virtues of charms, holy water, and the horrors of pur gatory.
For many centuries before the Reformation, the ne cessity of an ecclesiastical reform was generally ad mitted by the Catholics themselves. In the thirteenth century, the preaching friars were instituted with the view of restoring that duty so generally neglected by the superior clergy, and of opposing the popular preaching of the Lollards, as the Jesuits were wards founded to oppose learning to the Protestants.
Waldus in the twelfth, Wickliff in the fourteenth, and Huss in the fifteenth century, inveighed with great boldness against the errors of popery. Their success in confuting these was complete; but being prosecuted, their followers were not numerous. The long and scandalous schism which divided the Rom ish church during the latter part of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries, greatly dimi nished the popular veneration for the papal dignity.
In Scotland, at the end of James the Fifth's reign, the same contempt for the clerical authority and in difference to religion were universal. Few attended mass on Sundays, much less on other occasions; and of those who attended, some scoffed and behaved ir reverently, while others busied themselves in mer chandise even at the church porch.
While such a state of things could not well be con templated without an eager desire for reformation, it should not be forgotten that the hand of an overruling providence was conspicuous in the combination and concurrence of circumstances, in raising up, and qua lifying zealous and resolute cltmpions to bear witness to the truth, and suffer for its sake.
The most efficient cause was the translation of the Scriptures in the vernacular languages. By means of the art of printing, invented a short time before the Reformation, copies of the Scriptures were multiplied; and notwithstanding the clergy interdicted the peru sal of the sacred volume, it was procured and read with great avidity. To the instruction derived from the Scriptures, and not to any injury offered to his order, must be ascribed the vigorous and unwearied exertions of Luther in exposing and combating the abominations of Rome. All Saxony, all Germany, all Europe, was in a short time filled with the voice of this bold reformer. He soon acquired the decided support of many of Oct man princes, who protect ed him from the vindictive policy of Rome and from the violence of imperial persecution. Before the name of Luther was known in Switzerland, Zuinglius had begun to explain the Scriptures to the people, and to censure the errors of the Romish church, and he actually called in question the supremacy of the pontiff before Luther ventured to attack any corrup tion except the sale of indulgences.
To prevent the dissemination of scriptural know ledge, the Catholic clergy employed every artifice and expedient: but their vigilance was unavailing; by means of the English merchants who traded to the continent, the Scots procured Tindal's translation of the Scriptures, with many protestant books. The ut most circumspection in perusing them was indispen sable; one copy of the Bible or of the New Testament supplied several families. The midnight hour was chosen for perusing the sacred oracles. When the trembling auditors were assembled, the Bible was brought from its concealment, and while one read, the rest listened with much attention. In this man ner was knowledge diffused, at a period when there appears not to have been any public teacher of the truth in Scotland.