In the next, and the declining period of church history, if the above-named disadvantage was in some small degree remedied by the multiplication of copies, the benefit was much more than overbalanced by the promulgation and general prevalence of a false and very pernicious system of exposition; a system which sheathed the "sword of the Spirit," and scarcely left it its power or penetrating the conscience. The immediate consequence of this abuse of the rule of faith and practice was the rapid growth of a thousand corruptions. Thus, while in lip and in ceremonial the Scriptures held their seat of authority, they were dislodged from the throne of power. A night of a thousand years succeeded, during which the witnesses of God lay in their tomb, literally and virtually hidden, and silenced, and degraded.
The Reformation was, in all senses, a resurrection of the Bible: it was its recovery and restoration as an ancient document; and the recognition of its authority as the word of God; and the discovery of its meaning as a rule of faith, and worship, and life; and its new diffusion through the Christian body. The restoration of the Scriptures to their place of power and honor brought with it a revival of true piety, scarcely, if at all, inferior in extent and fervency to that which attended the preaching of the apostles. There were, however, deductions from the full influence and permanent benefit that might have resulted from this recovery of the sacred canon. Of these deductions, the first was the limited and imperfect diffusion of copies; for though the publication of the Bible by means of the press was actually great, it fell very far short of being complete. The next deduction arose from the infant state of the science of biblical criticism; the next, from the still unbroken influence of scholastic systems and modes of expression, which spread a dense coloring medium over the lucidness of the apostolic style; the next, and the most considerable and pernicious of these drawbacks, arose from the acrimony of controversy, and from that spirit of contumacious scrupulosity which is the parent of schism. These imperfections were great enough to bar the progress of Christianity, and to sully its glory at the time, and to procure the speedy decline of piety in all the Protestant countries.