Nevin: Reformation Thought

“The Reformation may be regarded, in one view, as an entirely new life in the history of Christianity. More deeply considered however, it will be found to stand in the closest living connection with this same history, as it had been regularly developed in the bosom of the Catholic Church for centuries before. It formed no absolute rupture with the old life of the body bearing this title; on the contrary, it was only its true and legitimate continuation, through the vast convulsive crisis which threatened at the same time its total dissolution. In no other light can it be vindicated as the work of God” (J. W. Nevin, History and Genius of the Heidelberg Catechism (Chambersburg, 1847), 2).