>>21564505This is a common papist misunderstanding. The Church DID NOT pray to Mary or any Saints for a very long time, they did not believe Mary was perfect, they did not believe Mary was assumed into heaven. They prayed to God.
Many of the Early Church Fathers believed that Christ alone saved them, including Augustine. That His sacrifice was sufficient for our salvation. Others did put some emphasis on the sacraments, but only baptism and communion, about which were debates concerning their symbolism from early on.
I will again re-iterate; neither Wycliffe, nor Hus, nor Luther wanted schism. They wanted to reform the Church. The Church does not reform, and we know this because it happened from the very beginning; immediately after people turned to Christ, error crept in, and we have the likes of Paul and Peter writing letters to them to correct their behaviour.
After the Apostles, this practice continued, with councils and synods being conducted to address errors and conflicts.
The work of Peter and Paul in addressing error, like the work of the councils and synods, is the same as what Wycliffe, Hus and Luther attempted. Hus was of course lured into a council with his safety guaranteed, then assassinated by papists, while Luther was hunted. Five crusades were launched by the papists to try to wipe the Hussites out. The Waldensians were exterminated to the last. The Huguenots were killed whenever they surrendered their weapons, not all of them did, and so some survived, eventually fleeing to places like the UK to escape the violence and evil of the Catholics.
This is why there was schism. When people tried to discuss what ought to be done with the Papists, rather than listening like the Christians in the previous centuries had; these ones just went around murdering.
Return to Christ! That is what the Protestants did.
