S H A R E W A R E 

This is a modern revision of that classic work

Merle D'Aubigne's HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION published in

1835. This magnificent Work occupies many megabites of

disk space and therefore only a minuscule amount can be

presented here. The whole work consists of five volumes

with four books per volume. This file contains the

preface, contents, and Book 1 Chapters 1-9 of Volume 1.

Please feel free to copy and give as many copies of this

file to your friends as you like. Many months of typing,

proofreading and editing went into this work. Therefore,

if you would like to make a contribution to help produce

more of this type of SHAREWARE, any amount would be

appreciated.

The whole Set, Volumes 1-5 (on disk IN IBM format), are

available from me at the address below. If you are interested

please send a Self Addressed Stamped Envelope for information.

Angela Pitts

P.O. Box 459

Experiment, Georgia 30212

HISTORY

of

THE REFORMATION

of

THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

BY J. H. MERLE D'AUBIGNE, D.D.,

President of the Theological School of Geneva, and

Vice President of the Societe Evangelique.

FROM THE AUGUST 1835 EDITION

VOL. I.

REVISED JUNE 1989.

REVISION COPYRIGHT JUNE 1989 BY ANGELA C. PITTS.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

CONTENTS

----

BOOK 1

STATE OF EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION.

CHAPTER 1

Christianity--Two distinctive Principles--Rise of the Papacy--

Early Encroachments--Influence of Rome--Co-operation of the

Bishops and of the Sects--Visible Unity of the Church--Invisible

Unity of the Church--Primacy of St. Peter--Patriarchates--Co-

operation of Princes--Influence of the Barbarians--Rome invokes

the aid of the Franks--Secular Power--Pepin and Charlemagne--The

Decretals--Disorders of Rome--The Emperor, the Pope's Suzerain--

Hildebrand--His Character--Celibacy--Struggle with the Empire--

Emancipation of the Pope--Hildebrand's Successors--The Crusades--

The Empire--The Church.

 

 

 

CHAPTER 2

Grace--Dead Faith--Works--Unity and Duality--Pelagianism--

Salvation at the Hands of the Priests--Penance--Flagellations--

Indulgences--Works of Supererogation--Purgatory--The Tariff--

Jubilee--The Papacy and Christianity--State of Christendom.

CHAPTER 3

Religion--Relics--Easter Revels--Morals--Corruption--Disorders of

the Priests, Bishops, and Popes--A Papal Family--Alexander VI--

Caesar Borgia--Education--Ignorance--Ciceronians.

CHAPTER 4

Imperishable Nature of Christianity--Two Laws of God--Apparent

Strength of Rome--Secret Opposition--Decline--Threefold

Opposition--Kings and People--Transformation of the Church--The

Pope judged in Italy--Discoveries of Kings and their Subjects--

Frederick the Wise--Moderation and Expectation.

 

 

 

CHAPTER 5

Popular Feeling--The Empire--Providential Preparations--Impulse

of the Reformation--Peace--The Commonalty--National Character--

Papal Yoke--State of the Empire--Opposition at Rome--Middle

Classes--Switzerland--Courage--Liberty--Smaller Cantons--Italy--

Obstacles to the Reform--Spain--Obstacles--Portugal--France--

Preparations--Disappointment--The Low Countries--England--

Scotland--The North--Russia--Poland--Bohemia--Hungary.

CHAPTER 6

Roman Theology--Remains of Life--Justification by Faith--

Witnesses to the Truth--Claudius--The Mystics--The Waldenses--

Valdo--Wickliffe--Huss--Prediction--Protestantism before the

Reformation--Anselm--Arnoldi--Utenheim--Martin--New Witnesses in

the Church--Thomas Conecte--The Cardinal of Crayn--Institoris--

Savonarola--Justification by Faith--John Vitrarius--John Lallier-

-John of Wesalia--John of Goch--John Wessel--Protestantism before

the Reformation--The Bohemian Brethren--Prophecy of Proles--

Prophecy of the Eisenach Franciscan.

 

 

CHAPTER 7

Third Preparation--Letters--Revival--Recollections of Antiquity

in Italy--Influence of the Humanists--Christianity of Dante--

Valla--Infidelity in Italy--Platonic Philosophy--Commencement of

Learning in Germany--Young Students--Printing--Characteristics of

German Literature--The Learned and the Schoolmen--A New World--

Reuchlin--Reuchlin in Italy--His Labors--His Influence in

Germany--Mysticism--Contest with the Dominicans.

CHAPTER 8

Erasmus--Erasmus a Canon--At Paris--His Genius--His Reputation--

His Influence--Popular Attack--Praise of Folly--Gibes--Churchmen-

-Saints--Folly and the Popes--Attack on Science--Principles--

Greek New Testament--His Profession of Faith--His Labors and

Influence--His Failings--Two Parties--Reform without Violence--

Was such Possible?--Unreformed Church--His Timidity--His

Indecision--Erasmus loses his Influence with all Parties.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 9

The Nobility--Different Motives--Hutten--Literary League--Literae

Obscurorum Virorum--Their Effect--Luther's Opinion--Hutten at

Brussels--His Letters--Sickengen--War--His Death--Cronberg--Hans

Sachs--General Ferment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PREFACE

-----

The history of one of the greatest revolutions that has ever

been accomplished in human affairs--of a mighty impulse

communicated to the world three centuries ago, and whose

influence is still visible on every side--and not the history of

a mere party, is the object of my present undertaking. The

history of the Reformation is distinct from that of

Protestantism. In the former every thing bears the mark of a

regeneration of the human race--of a religious and social change

emanating from God himself. In the latter we too often witness a

glaring degeneracy from first principles, the struggles of

parties, a sectarian spirit, and the traces of petty

individualities. The history of Protestantism may have an

interest for Protestants only; the history of the Reformation

addresses itself to all Christians, or rather to all mankind.

An historian may choose his subject in the wide field

presented to his labors: he may describe the great events which

have changed the aspect of a people or of the world; or on the

other hand he may record that tranquil onward course of a nation,

of the Church, or of mankind, which usually succeeds every great

social change. Both these departments of history are of vast

importance; yet public interest has ever been more strongly

attracted to those epochs which under the name of revolutions,

have given fresh life to a nation, or created a new era for

society in general.

It is a transformation of the latter kind that, with very

humble powers, I have undertaken to describe, not without a hope

that the beauty of the subject may compensate for my own

deficiencies. The term "revolution," which I here apply to it,

has of late fallen into discredit with many individuals, who

almost confound it with revolt. But they are wrong: for a

revolution is merely a change in the affairs of men,--something

new unfolded (revolutus) from the bosom of humanity; and this

very word, previous to the end of the last century, was more

frequently used in a good than in a bad sense: a happy, a

wonderful revolution, were the terms employed. The Reformation

was quite the opposite of a revolt: it was the re-establishment

of the principles of primitive Christianity. It was a

regenerative movement with respect to all that was destined to

revive; a conservative movement as regards all that will exist

for ever. While Christianity and the Reformation established the

great principle of the equality of souls in the eyes of God, and

overthrew the usurpations of a haughty priesthood that assumed to

place itself between the Creator and his creature, they both laid

down this fundamental rule of social order, that all power is

derived from God, and called upon all men to "love the

brotherhood, fear God, and honor the king."

The Reformation is eminently distinguished from all the

revolutions of antiquity, and from most of those of modern times.

Political changes--the consolidation or the overthrow of the

power of the one or of the many--were the object of the latter.

The love of truth, of holiness, of immortality, was the simple

yet mighty spring which set in motion that which I have to

describe. It indicates a forward movement in human nature. In

truth, man advances--he improves, whenever he aims at higher

objects, and seeks for immaterial and imperishable blessings,

instead of pursuing material, temporal, and earthly advantages.

The Reformation is one of the brightest days of this glorious

progress. It is a guarantee that the new struggle, which is

receiving its accomplishment under our own eyes, will terminate

on the side of truth, in a purer, more spiritual, and still

nobler triumph.

Primitive Christianity and the Reformation are the two

greatest revolutions in history. They were not limited to one

nation only, as were the various political movements that history

records; but their influence extended over many, and their

effects are destined to be felt to the utmost limits of the

world.

Primitive Christianity and the Reformation are one and the

same revolution, brought about at different epochs and under

different circumstances. Although not alike in their secondary

features, they are identical in their primary and chief

characteristics. One is a repetition of the other. The former

put an end to the old world; the latter began the new: between

them lie the Middle Ages. One is the parent of the other; and

although the daughter may in some instances bear marks of

inferiority, she had characters that are peculiarly her own.

One of them is the rapidity of its action. The great

revolutions that have led to the fall of a monarchy, or wrought

an entire change in a political system, or which have launched

the human mind on a new career of development, have been slowly

and gradually prepared. The old-established power has long been

undermined: one by one its chief supports have given way. This

was the case at the introduction of Christianity. But the

Reformation, at the first glance, seems to present a different

aspect. The church of Rome under Leo X appears in the height of

its power and glory. A monk speaks--and in one half of Europe

this mighty glory and power crumble into dust. In this

revolution we are reminded of the words by which the Son of God

foretells his second advent: "As the lightning cometh out of the

east, and shineth even to the west, so shall the coming of the

Son of Man be."

Such rapidity of action is inexplicable to those who see in

this event nothing more than a reform; who look upon it simply as

an act of critical sagacity, which consisted in making a choice

among various doctrines--rejecting some, preserving others, and

arranging those which were retained so as to combine them into a

new system.

But how could a whole people, how could many nations have so

promptly executed this laborious task? How could this critical

examination have kindled the fire and enthusiasm so necessary for

great and above all for sudden revolutions? The Reformation, as

its history will show, was altogether different. It was a new

outpouring of that life which Christianity brought into the

world. It was the triumph of the greatest of its doctrines,--of

that which animates all who embrace it with the purest and most

intense enthusiasm,--the doctrine of Faith, the doctrine of

Grace. Had the Reformation been what many Romanists and

Protestants of our days imagine it,--had it been that negative

system of negative reason which, like a fretful child, rejects

whatever is displeasing to it, and disowns the grand truths and

leading ideas of universal Christianity, it would never have

crossed the threshold of the schools, or been known beyond the

narrow limits of the cloister or perhaps of the friar's cell.

But with Protestantism, as many understand the word, it had no

connection. Far from being an emaciated, an enervated body, it

rose up like a man full of strength and energy.

Two considerations will account for the suddenness and

extent of this revolution. One must be sought in God; the other

among men. The impulse was given by an invisible and mighty

hand: the change accomplished was the work of Omnipotence. An

impartial and attentive observer, who looks beyond the surface,

must necessarily be led to this conclusion. But as God works by

second causes, another task remains for the historian. Many

circumstances which have often passed unnoticed, gradually

prepared the world for the great transformation of the sixteenth

century, so that the human mind was ripe when the hour of its

emancipation arrived.

It is the historian's duty to combine these two great

elements in the picture he presents to his readers. This has

been my endeavour in the following pages. I shall be easily

understood so long as I am occupied in investigating the

secondary causes that concurred in producing the revolution I

have undertaken to describe. Many perhaps will understand me

less clearly, and will even be tempted to charge me with

superstition, when I ascribe the completion of the work to God.

It is a conviction, however, that I fondly cherish. These

volumes, as well as the motto I have prefixed to them, lay down

in the chief and foremost place this simple and pregnant

principle: God in History. But as it is a principle that has

been generally neglected and sometimes disputed, it may be right

for me to explain my views on this subject, and by this means

justify the method I have adopted.

History can no longer remain in our days that dead letter of

events, to the detail of which the majority of earlier writers

restricted themselves. It is now understood that in history, as

in man, there are two elements--matter and spirit. Unwilling to

resign themselves to the task of producing a simple recital of

facts, which would have been but a barren chronicle, our great

modern historians have sought for a vital principle to animate

the materials of past ages.

Some have borrowed this principle from the rules of art:

they have aimed at being ingenuous, exact, and picturesque in

description, and have endeavoured to give life to their narrative

by the characteristic details of the events themselves.

Others have sought in philosophy the principle that should

fertilize their labors. With the relation of events they have

interwoven extended views, instructive lessons, political and

philosophical truths; and have given animation to their narrative

by the idea they have drawn from it, and by the theory they have

been able to associate with it.

Both these methods, undoubtedly, are good, and should be

employed within certain limits. But there is another source to

which, above all, we must look for the intelligence, spirit, and

life of past ages; and this source is Religion. History should

live by that life which belongs to it, and that life is God. In

history, God should be acknowledged and proclaimed. The history

of the world should be set forth as the annals of the government

of the Sovereign King.

I have gone down into the lists whither the recitals of our

historians have invited me. There I have witnessed the actions

of men and of nations, developing themselves with energy, and

contending in violent collision. I have heard a strange din of

arms, but I have been nowhere shown the majestic countenance of

the presiding Judge.

And yet there is a living principle, emanating from God, in

every national movement. God is ever present on that vast

theater where successive generations of men meet and struggle.

It is true he is unseen; but if the heedless multitude pass by

without caring for him because he is "a God that dwelleth in the

thick darkness," thoughtful men, who yearn for the very principle

of their existence, seek for him the more ardently, and are not

satisfied until they lie prostrate at his feet. And their

inquiries meet with a rich reward. For from the height to which

they have been compelled to soar to meet their God, the history

of the world, instead of presenting to their eyes a confused

chaos, as it does to the ignorant crowd, appears as a majestic

temple, on which the invisible hand of God himself is at work,

and which rises to his glory above the rock of humanity.

Shall we not recognize the hand of God in those grand

manifestations, those great men, those mighty nations, which

arise, and start as it were from the dust of the earth, and

communicate a fresh impulse, a new form and destiny to the human

race? Shall we not acknowledge him in those heroes who spring

from society at appointed epochs--who display a strength and

activity beyond the ordinary limits of humanity--and around whom,

as around a superior and mysterious power, nations and

individuals unhesitatingly gather? Who has launched into the

expanse of time, those huge comets with their fiery trains, which

appear but at distant intervals, scattering among the

superstitious crowd abundance and joy, calamity and terror? Who,

if not God? Alexander sought his origin in the abodes of the

Divinity. And in the most irreligious age there has been no

eminent glory that has not endeavoured in some way or other to

connect itself with heaven.

And do not those revolutions which hurl kings from their

thrones, and precipitate whole nations to the dust,--do not those

wide-spread ruins which the traveller meets with among the sands

of the desert,--do not those majestic relics which the field of

humanity presents to our view; do they not all declare aloud--a

God in history? Gibbon, seated among the ruins of the Capitol,

and contemplating its august remains, owned the intervention of a

superior destiny. He saw it--he felt it: in vain would he avert

his eyes. That shadow of a mysterious power started from behind

every broken pillar; and he conceived the design of describing

its influence in the history of the disorganization, decline, and

corruption of that Roman dominion which had enslaved the world.

Shall not we discern amidst the great ruins of humanity that

almighty hand which a man of noble genius--one who had never bent

the knee to Christ--perceived amid the scattered fragments of the

monuments of Romulus, the sculptured marbles of Aurelius, the

busts of Cicero and Virgil, the statues of Caesar and Augustus,

Pompey's horses, and the trophies of Trajan,--and shall we not

confess it to be the hand of God?

What a startling fact, that men brought up amid the elevated

ideas of Christianity, regard as mere superstition that Divine

intervention in human affairs which the very heathens had

admitted!

The name given by ancient Greece to the Sovereign Ruler

shows it to have received primeval revelations of the great truth

of a God, who is the principle of history and the life of

nations. He was styled Zeus, or the life-giver to all that

lives,--to nations as well as to individuals. On his altars

kings and people swore their solemn oaths; and from his

mysterious inspirations Minos and other legislators pretended to

have received their laws. This is not all: this great truth is

figured forth by one of the most beautiful fables of heathen

antiquity. Even mythology might teach a lesson to the

philosophers of our days; and I may be allowed to establish the

fact, as perhaps there are readers who will feel less prejudice

against he instructions of paganism than of Christianity itself.

This Zeus, this supreme Ruler, this Eternal Spirit, this life-

giving Principle, is the father of Clio, the muse of history,

whose mother is Mnemosyne or Memory. Thus, according to the

notions of antiquity, history combines a heavenly with an earthly

nature. She is the daughter of God and man; but, alas! the

purblind philosophy of our proud age is far from having attained

the lofty views of that heathen wisdom. Her divine paternity has

been denied; and the illegitimate child now wanders up and down

the world, like a shameless adventurer, hardly knowing whence she

comes or whither she is going.

But this God of pagan antiquity is only a faint reflection,

a dim shadow of Jehovah--of the Eternal One. The true God whom

the Hebrews worship, willing to impress on the minds of all

nations that he reigns continually upon earth, gave with this

intent, if I may venture the expression, a bodily form to this

sovereignty in the midst of Israel. A visible theocracy was

appointed to exist once upon the earth, that it might unceasingly

remind us of that invisible theocracy which shall for ever govern

the world.

And see what luster this great truth (God in history)

receives under the Christian dispensation. What is Jesus Christ,

if he be not God in history? It was this discovery of Jesus

Christ which enable John Muller, the greatest of modern

historians, fully to comprehend his subject. "The Gospel," said

he, "is the fulfillment of every hope, the perfection of all

philosophy, the interpreter of every revolution, the key to all

the seeming contradictions in the physical and moral world: it

is life and immortality. Since I have known the Saviour, every

thing is clear to my eyes: with him, there is no difficulty I

cannot solve."

Thus wrote this eminent historian; and is not this great

truth, that God has appeared in human nature, in reality the

keystone of the arch,--the mysterious link which binds all

earthly things together, and connects them with heaven? History

records a birth of God, and yet God has no part in history!

Jesus Christ is the true God of man's history: it is shown by

the very meanness of his advent. When man would raise a shelter

against the weather--a shade from the heat of the sun--what

preparation of materials, what scaffolding and crowds of workmen,

what trenches and heaps of rubbish!--but when God would do the

same, he takes the smallest seed that a new-born child might

clasp in its feeble hand, deposits it in the bosom of the earth,

and from that grain, scarcely distinguishable in its

commencement, he produces the stately tree, under whose spreading

branches the families of men may find a refuge. To effect great

results by imperceptible means--such is the law of God.

In Jesus Christ is found the most glorious fulfillment of

this law. Christianity has now taken possession of the gates of

every people. It reigns or hovers over all the tribes of the

earth, from the rising to the setting sun; and even a skeptical

philosophy is compelled to acknowledge it as the social and

spiritual law of the world. And yet what was the commencement of

this religion, the noblest of all things under the vault of

heaven--nay, in the "infinite immense" of creation? A child born

in the smallest town of the most despised nation in the world--a

child whose mother had not what even the most indigent and

wretched woman of our towns possesses, a room to shelter her in

the hour of travail--a child born in a stable and cradled in a

manger! In this, O God, I acknowledge and adore thee!

The Reformation recognized this divine law, and was

conscious of fulfilling it. The idea that "God is in history"

was often put forth by the reformers. We find it particularly

expressed by Luther in one of those homely and quaint, yet not

undignified similitudes, which he was fond of using that he might

be understood by the people. "The world," said he one day at

table with his friends, "is a vast and magnificent game of cards,

made up of emperors, kings, princes, etc. The pope for many

centuries beat the emperors, kings and princes. They yielded and

fell before him. Then came our Lord God. He dealt the cards:

he took the lowest (Luther) for himself, and with it he beat the

pope, that vanquisher of the kings of the earth......This is the

ace of God. As Mary said: `He hath put down the mighty from

their seats, and exalted them of low degree.'"

The epoch whose history I am desirous of retracing is

important for the present generation. When a man becomes

sensible of his own weakness, he is generally inclined to look

for support in the institutions he sees flourishing around him,

or else in the bold devices of his imagination. The history of

the Reformation shows that nothing new can be made out of things

old; and that if, according to our Saviour's expression, we

require new bottles for new wine, we must also have new wine for

new bottles. It directs man to God as the universal agent in

history,--to that Divine word, ever old by the eternal nature of

the truths it contains, ever new by the regenerative influence

that it exerts; which purified society three centuries ago, which

restored faith in God to souls enfeebled by superstition, and

which, at every epoch in the history of man, is the fountain

whence floweth salvation.

It is singular to witness a great number of men, agitated by

a vague desire of believing in something fixed, addressing

themselves in our days to the erroneous Catholicism of Rome. In

one sense this movement is natural: religion is so little known

among them, that they think it can only be found where they see

it inscribed in large letters on a banner that time has rendered

venerable. I do not say that all Catholicism is incapable of

bestowing on man what he stands in need of. I think we should

carefully distinguish between Catholicism and Popery. The

latter, in my opinion, is an erroneous and destructive system;

but I am far from confounding it with Catholicism. How many

worthy men, how many true Christians, has not the catholic church

contained within its bosom! What important services were

rendered by Catholicism to the existing states of Europe, at the

moment of their formation--at a period when it was still deeply

impregnated with the Gospel, and when Popery was as yet only

hovering over it like a faint shadow! But we live no longer in

those days. Strenuous endeavors are now making to reunite

Catholicism with Popery; and if catholic and christian truths are

put forward, they are merely to serve as baits to draw us into

the nets of the hierarchy. We have nothing, then, to hope for on

that side. Has Popery renounced one of its observances, of its

doctrines, or of its assumptions? Will that religion which was

insupportable in former times be less so in ours? What

regeneration has ever been known to emanate from Rome? Is it

from a pontifical hierarchy, overflowing with earthly passions,

that can proceed the spirit of faith, hope, and charity, which

alone can save us? Is it an exhausted system, that has no

vitality for itself, which is everywhere in the struggles of

death, and which exists only by external aid, that can impart

life to others, or animate Christian society with the heavenly

inspiration that it requires?

Will this yearning of the heart and mind that begins to be

felt by many of our contemporaries, lead others to apply to the

new Protestantism which in many places has succeeded the powerful

teaching of the apostles and reformers? A great vagueness in

doctrine prevails in many of those reformed churches whose first

members sealed with their blood the clear and living faith that

inspired them. Men distinguished for their information, and

sensible to all the beauties which this world presents, are

carried away into strange aberrations. A general faith in the

divinity of the Gospel is the only standard they are willing to

uphold. But what is this Gospel? that is the vital question; and

yet on this, either they are silent, or else every one answers it

according to his own opinions. What avails it to know that God

has placed in the midst of all nations a vessel containing a

remedy for our souls, if we care not to know its contents, or if

we do not strive to appropriate them to ourselves? This system

cannot fill up the void of the present times. Whilst the faith

of the apostles and reformers appears everywhere active and

effectual for the conversion of the world, this vague system does

nothing--enlightens nothing--vivifies nothing.

But let us not be without hope. Does not Roman-catholicism

confess the great doctrines of Christianity,--God the Father,

Son, and Holy Ghost--Creator, Saviour, and Sanctifier, who is the

Truth? And does not this vague Protestantism hold in its hand

the Book of Life, which is sufficient for doctrine, correction,

and instruction in righteousness? And how many upright souls,

honored in the eyes of men, lovely in the sight of God, are there

not to be found among those subjected to these two systems? How

can we forbear loving them? How not ardently desire their

complete emancipation from human elements? Charity is infinite:

it embraces the most distant opinions, to draw them to the feet

of Christ.

Already there are indications that these two extreme

opinions are moving nearer to Christ, who is the center of truth.

Are there not some Roman-catholic churches in which the reading

of the Bible is recommended and practiced? And what steps has

not Protestant rationalism already made! It did not spring from

the Reformation: for the history of that great revolution will

prove it to have been an epoch of faith. But may we not hope it

is drawing nearer to it? Will not the might of truth go forth to

it from the Word of God, and will not this rationalism be

transformed by it? Already we often witness in it a religious

feeling, inadequate doubtless, but still it is a movement towards

sound doctrine, and which may lead us to hope for some definite

progress.

But the new Protestantism and the old Catholicism are of

themselves irrelevant and ineffectual. We require something else

to restore the saving power to the men of our days. We need

something which is not of man--something that comes from God.

"Give me," said Archimedes, "a point without the world, and I

will lift it from its poles." True Christianity is this point,

which raises the heart of man from its double pivot of

selfishness and sensuality, and which will one day turn the whole

world from its evil ways, and make it revolve on a new axis of

righteousness and peace.

Whenever religion has been under discussion, there have been

three points to which our attention has been directed. God, Man,

and the Priest. There can only be three kinds of religion upon

earth, according as God, Man, or the Priest, is its author and

its head. I denominate that the religion of the priest, which is

invented by the priest, for the glory of the priest, and in which

a sacerdotal caste is dominant. By the religion of man, I mean

those various systems and opinions which human reason has framed,

and which, being the offspring of human infirmity, are

consequently devoid of all healing power. The term divine

religion I apply to the truth such as God gave it,--the end and

aim of which are the glory of God and the salvation of man.

Hierarchism, or the religion of the priest--Christianity, or

the religion of God--Rationalism, or the religion of man, are the

three doctrines that divide Christendom in our days. There is no

salvation, either for man or for society, in the first or in the

last. Christianity alone can give life to the world; and,

unhappily, of the three prevailing systems, it is not that which

has the greatest number of followers.

Some, however, it has. Christianity is operating its work

of regeneration among many Catholics in Germany, and no doubt in

other countries also. It is accomplishing its task with greater

purity and vigor, in my opinion, among the evangelical Christians

of Switzerland, France, Great Britain, and the United States.

God be praised that these individual or social regenerations,

produced by the Gospel, are no longer such rarities as must be

sought in ancient annals.

It is the history of the Reformation in general that I

desire to write. I purpose tracing it among different nations,

to show that the same truths have everywhere produced the same

results, and also to point out the diversities arising from the

dissimilar characters of the people. It is especially in Germany

that we find the primitive type of this reform: there it

presents the most organic developments,--there chiefly it bears

the character of a revolution not limited to a particular nation,

but which concerns the whole world. The Reformation in Germany

is the fundamental history of the reform--it is the primary

planet; the other reformations are secondary planets, revolving

with it, deriving light from the same source, forming part of the

same system, but each having a separate existence, shedding each

a different radiance, and always possessing a peculiar beauty.

We may apply the language of St. Paul to these reforms of the

sixteenth century: "There is one glory of the sun, and another

glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star

differeth from another star in glory." 1 Cor. xv. 41. The Swiss

Reformation occurred at the same time as the German, but was

independent of it. It presented, at a later period especially,

some of the great features observable in that of Germany. The

Reformation in Great Britain recommends itself in a very especial

manner to our attention, from the powerful influence which the

churches of that country are exerting at the present day over all

the world. But recollections of ancestry and of refuge--the

remembrance of struggles, suffering, and exile endured in the

cause of the Reformation in France, lend a particular attraction,

in my eyes, to the French reform. Considered by itself, and with

respect to the date of its origin, it presents beauties that are

peculiarly its own.

I believe the Reformation to be the work of God: his hand

is everywhere visible in it. Still I hope to be impartial in

retracing its history. I think I have spoken of the principal

Roman-catholic actors in this great drama--of Leo X, Albert of

Magdeburg, Charles V, and Doctor Eck, for instance, more

favorably than the majority of historians have done. On the

other hand, I have had no desire to conceal the faults and errors

of the reformers.

As early as the winter of 1831-32, I delivered a course of

public lectures on the epoch of the Reformation. I then

published my opening discourse. These lectures were a

preparatory labor for the history I now lay before the public.

This history is compiled from the original sources with

which a long residence in Germany, the Netherlands, and

Switzerland, has rendered me familiar; as well as from the study,

in their original languages, of the documents relating to the

religious history of Great Britain and other countries. As these

sources will be pointed out in the course of the work, it will be

unnecessary to enumerate them here.

I should have wished to authenticate the various portions of

my work by many original notes; but I feared that if they were

long and frequent, they would prove a disagreeable interruption

to my readers. I have therefore confined myself to such passages

as seemed calculated to give them a clearer view of the history I

have undertaken to write.

I address this history to those who love to see past events

exactly as they occurred, and not by the aid of that magic glass

of genius which colors and magnifies, but which sometimes also

diminishes and changes them. Neither the philosophy of the

eighteenth nor the romanticism of the nineteenth century will

guide my judgments or supply my colors. The history of the

Reformation is written in the spirit of the work itself.

Principles, it is said, have no modesty. It is their nature to

rule, and they steadily assert their privilege. Do they

encounter other principles in their paths that would dispute

their empire, they give battle immediately. A principle never

rests until it has gained the victory; and it cannot be

otherwise--with it to reign is to live. If it does not reign

supreme, it dies. Thus, at the same time that I declare my

inability and unwillingness to enter into rivalry with other

historians of the Reformation, I make an exception in favor of

the principles on which this history is founded, and I firmly

maintain their superiority.

Up to this hour we do not possess, as far as I am aware, any

complete history of the memorable epoch that is about to employ

my pen. Nothing indicated that this deficiency would be supplied

when I began this work. This is the only circumstance that could

have induced me to undertake it, and I here put it forward as my

justification. This deficiency still exists; and I pray to Him

from whom cometh every good and perfect gift, to grant that this

humble work may not be profitless to my readers.

BOOK 1 CHAPTER 1

STATE OF EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION.

Christianity--Two distinctive Principles--Rise of the Papacy--

Early Encroachments--Influence of Rome--Co-operation of the

Bishops and of the Sects--Visible Unity of the Church--Invisible

Unity of the Church--Primacy of St. Peter--Patriarchates--Co-

operation of Princes--Influence of the Barbarians--Rome invokes

the aid of the Franks--Secular Power--Pepin and Charlemagne--The

Decretals--Disorders of Rome--The Emperor, the Pope's Suzerain--

Hildebrand--His Character--Celibacy--Struggle with the Empire--

Emancipation of the Pope--Hildebrand's Successors--The Crusades--

The Empire--The Church.

The enfeebled world was tottering on its foundations when

Christianity appeared. The national religions which had

satisfied the parents, no longer proved sufficient for their

children. The new generations could not repose contented within

the ancient forms. The gods of every nation, when transported to

Rome, there lost their oracles, as the nations themselves had

there lost their liberty. Brought face to face in the Capitol,

they had destroyed each other, and their divinity had vanished.

A great void was occasioned in the religion of the world.

A kind of deism, destitute alike of spirit and of life,

floated for a time above the abyss in which the vigorous

superstitions of antiquity had been engulfed. But like all

negative creeds, it had no power to reconstruct. National

prepossessions disappeared with the fall of the national gods.

The various kingdoms melted one into the other. In Europe, Asia,

and Africa, there was but one vast empire, and the human race

began to feel its universality and unity.

Then the WORD was made flesh.

God appeared among men, and as man, to save that which was

lost. In Jesus of Nazareth dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead

bodily.

This is the greatest event in the annals of the world.

Former ages had prepared the way for it: The latter ages flow

from it. It is the center of their bond of unity.

Henceforward the popular superstitions had no meaning, and

the slight fragments preserved from the general wreck of

incredulity vanished before the majestic orb of eternal truth.

The son of man lived thirty-three years on earth, healing

the sick, converting sinners, not having where to lay his head,

and displaying in the midst of this humiliation such greatness

and holiness, such power and divinity, as the world had never

witnessed before. He suffered and died-- he rose again and

ascended into heaven. His disciples, beginning at Jerusalem,

traveled over the Roman empire and the world, everywhere

proclaiming their Master as the author of everlasting life. From

the midst of a people who despised all nations, came forth a

mercy that invited and embraced all men. A great number of

Asiatics, of Greeks, and of Romans, hitherto dragged by their

priests to the feet of dumb idols, believed the Word. It

suddenly enlightened the whole earth, like a beam of the sun. A

breath of life began to move over this wide field of death. A

new people, a holy nation, was formed upon the earth; and the

astonished world beheld in the disciples of the Galilean a purity

and self-denial, a charity and heroism, of which it had retained

no idea.

Two principles especially distinguished the new religion

from all the human systems that fled before it. One had

reference to the ministers of its worship, the other to its

doctrines.

The ministers of paganism were almost the gods of these

human religions. The priests of Egypt, Gaul, Dacia, Germany,

Britain, and India, led the people, so long at least as their

eyes were not opened. Jesus Christ, indeed, established a

ministry, but he did not found a separate priesthood: he

dethroned these living idols of the world, destroyed an

overbearing hierarchy, took away from man what he had taken from

God, and re-established the soul in immediate connection with the

divine fountain of truth, by proclaiming himself sole Master and

sole Mediator. "One is your master, even Christ; and all ye are

brethren."

As regards doctrine, human systems had taught that salvation

is of man: the religions of the earth had devised an earthly

salvation. They had told men that heaven would be given to them

as a reward: they had fixed its price; and what a price! The

religion of God taught that salvation comes from him alone; that

it is a gift from heaven; that it emanates from an amnesty--from

the grace of the Sovereign Ruler: "God hath given to us eternal

life."

Undoubtedly Christianity cannot be summed up in these two

points; but they seem to govern the subject, as far as history is

concerned. And as it is impossible for me to trace the

opposition between truth and error in all its features, I have

been compelled to select the most prominent.

Such were the two constituent principles of the religion

that then took possession of the Roman empire and of the world.

With these we are within the true limits of Christianity, and

beyond them Christianity disappears. On their preservation or

their loss depended its greatness or its fall. They are closely

connected: for we cannot exalt the priests of the Church or the

works of the faithful without lowering Christ in his twofold

quality of Mediator and Redeemer. One of these principles was to

predominate in the history of the religion; the other in its

doctrine. They both reigned at the beginning. Let us inquire

how they were lost; and let us commence by tracing the destiny of

the former.

The Church was in the beginning a community of brethren,

guided by a few of the brethren. All were taught of God, and

each had the privilege of drawing for himself from the divine

fountain of light. The Epistles which then settled the great

questions of doctrine did not bear the pompous title of a single

man--of a ruler. We learn from the Holy Scriptures, that they

began simply with these words: "The apostles and elders and

brethren send greetings unto the brethren."

But these very writings of the apostles already foretell

that from the midst of this brotherhood there shall arise a power

that will destroy this simple and primitive order.

Let us contemplate the formation and trace the development

of this power so alien to the Church.

Paul of Tarsus, one of the greatest apostles of the new

religion, had arrived at Rome, the capital of the empire and of

the world, preaching in bondage the salvation which cometh from

God. A Church was formed beside the throne of the Caesars.

Composed at first of a few converted Jews, Greeks, and Roman

citizens, it was rendered famous by the teaching and the death of

the Apostle of the Gentiles. For a time it shone out brightly,

as a beacon upon a hill. Its faith was everywhere celebrated;

but erelong it declined from its primitive condition. It was by

small beginnings that both imperial and Christian Rome advanced

to the usurped dominion of the world.

The first pastors or bishops of Rome early employed them-

selves in converting the neighboring cities and towns. The

necessity which the bishops and pastors of the Campagna felt of

applying in cases of difficulty to an enlightened guide, and the

gratitude they owed to the church of the metropolis, led them to

maintain a close union with it. As it has always happened in

analogous circumstances, this reasonable union soon degenerated

into dependence. The bishops of Rome considered as a right that

superiority which the surrounding Churches had freely yielded.

The encroachments of power form a great part of history; as the

resistance of those whose liberties are invaded forms the other

portion. The ecclesiastical power could not escape the

intoxication which impels all who are lifted up to seek to mount

still higher. It obeyed this general law of human nature.

Nevertheless the supremacy of the Roman bishops was at that

period limited to the superintendence of the Churches within the

civil jurisdiction of the prefect of Rome. But the rank which

this imperial city held in the world offered a prospect of still

greater destinies to the ambition of its first pastor. The

respect enjoyed by the various Christian bishops in the second

century was proportionate to the rank of the city in which they

resided. Now Rome was the largest, richest, and most powerful

city in the world. It was the seat of empire, the mother of

nations. "All the inhabitants of the earth belong to her," said

Julian; and Claudian declared her to be "the fountain of laws."

If Rome is the queen of cities, why should not her pastor be

the king of bishops? Why should not the Roman church be the

mother of Christendom? Why should not all nations be her

children, and her authority their sovereign law? It was easy for

the ambitious heart of man to reason thus. Ambitious Rome did

so.

Thus, when pagan Rome fell, she bequeathed to the humble

minister of the God of peace, sitting in the midst of her ruins,

the proud titles which her invincible sword had won from the

nations of the earth.

The bishops of the different parts of the empire, fascinated

by that charm which Rome had exercised for ages over all nations,

followed the example of the Campagne, and aided this work of

usurpation. They felt a pleasure in yielding to the bishop of

Rome some portion of that honor which was due to the queen of the

world. There was originally no dependence implied in the honor

thus paid. They treated the Roman pastor as if they were on a

level with him. But usurped power increased like an avalanche.

Admonitions, at first simply fraternal, soon became absolute

commands in the mouth of the pontiff. A foremost place among

equals appeared to him a throne.

The Western bishops favored this encroachment of the Roman

pastors, either from jealousy of the Eastern bishops, or because

they preferred submitting to the supremacy of a pope, rather than

to the dominion of a temporal power.

On the other hand, the theological sects that distracted the

East, strove, each for itself, to interest Rome in its favor they

looked for victory in the support of the principal church of the

West.

Rome carefully enregistered these applications and

intercessions, and smiled to see all nations voluntarily throwing

themselves into her arms. She neglected no opportunity of

increasing and extending her power. The praises and flattery,

the exaggerated compliments and consultations of other Churches,

became in her eyes and in her hands the titles and documents of

her authority. Such is man exalted to a throne: the incense of

courts intoxicates him, his brain grows dizzy. What he possesses

becomes a motive for attaining still more.

The doctrine of the Church and the necessity of its visible

unity, which had begun to gain ground in the third century,

favored the pretensions of Rome. The Church is, above all

things, the assembly of "them that are sanctified in Christ

Jesus" (1 Cor. i. 2)--"the assembly of the first-born which are

written in heaven"(Heb. xii. 23). Yet the Church of our Lord is

not simply inward and invisible; it is necessary that it should

be manifested, and it is with a view to this manifestation that

the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper were instituted.

The visible Church has features different from those which

distinguish it as an invisible Church. The invisible Church,

which is the body of Christ, is necessarily and eternally one.

The visible Church no doubt partakes of the unity of the former;

but, considered by itself, plurality is a characteristic already

ascribed to it in the New Testament. While speaking of one

Church of God, it no sooner refers to its manifestation to the

world, than it enumerates "the Churches of Galatia, of Macedonia,

of Judea, all Churches of the saints." These Churches may

undoubtedly, to a certain extent, look for visible unity; but if

this union be wanting, they lose none of the essential qualities

of the Church of Christ. The strong bond which originally united

the members of the Church, was that living faith of the heart

which connected them all with Christ as their common head.

Different causes soon concurred to originate and develop the idea

of a necessity for external union. Men accustomed to the

political forms and associations of an earthly country, carried

their views and habits into the spiritual and eternal kingdom of

Christ. Persecution, powerless to destroy or even to shake this

new community, made it only the more sensible of its own

strength, and pressed it into a more compact body. To the errors

that sprung up in the theosophic schools and in the various

sects, was opposed the one and universal truth received from the

apostles, and preserved in the Church. This was well, so long as

the invisible and spiritual Church was identical with the visible

and external Church. But a great separation took place erelong:

the form and the life became disunited. The semblance of an

identical and exterior organization was gradually substituted for

that interior and spiritual communion, which is the essence of

the religion of God. Men forsook the precious perfume of faith,

and bowed down before the empty vessel that had contained it.

They sought other bonds of union, for faith in the heart no

longer connected the members of the Church; and they were united

by means of bishops, archbishops, popes, mitres, canons, and

ceremonies. The living Church retiring gradually within the

lonely sanctuary of a few solitary hearts, an external Church was

substituted in its place, and all its forms were declared to be

of divine appointment. Salvation no longer flowing from the

Word, which was henceforward put out of sight, the priests

affirmed that it was conveyed by means of the forms they had

themselves invented, and that no one could attain it except by

these channels. No one, said they, can by his own faith attain

to everlasting life. Christ communicated to the apostles, and

these to the bishops, the unction of the Holy Spirit; and this

Spirit is to be procured only in that order of succession!

Originally, whoever possessed the spirit of Jesus Christ was a

member of the Church; now the terms were inverted, and it was

maintained that he only who was a member of the Church could

receive the Spirit.

As these ideas became established, the distinction between

the people and the clergy was more strongly marked. The

salvation of souls no longer depended entirely on faith in

Christ, but also, and in a more especial manner, on union with

the Church. The representatives and heads of the Church were

made partakers of the trust that should be placed in Christ

alone, and became the real mediators of their flocks. The idea

of a universal Christian priesthood was gradually lost sight of;

the servants of the Church of Christ were compared to the priests

of the old covenant; and those who separated from the bishop were

placed in the same rank with Korah, Dathan, and Abiram! From a

peculiar priesthood, such as was then formed in the Church, to a

sovereign priesthood, such as Rome claims, the transition was

easy.

In fact, no sooner was the erroneous notion of the necessity

for a visible unity of the Church established, than another

appeared--the necessity for an outward representation of that

union. Although we find no traces in the Gospel of Peter's

superiority over the other apostles; although the very idea of a

primacy is opposed to the fraternal relations which united the

brethren, and even to the spirit of the Gospel dispensation,

which on the contrary requires all the children of the Father to

"minister one to another," acknowledging only one teacher and one

master; although Christ had strongly rebuked his disciples,

whenever ambitious desires of pre-eminence were conceived in

their carnal hearts the primacy of St. Peter was invented and

supported by texts wrongly interpreted, and men next acknowledged

in this apostle and in his self-styled successors at Rome, the

visible representatives of visible unity--the heads of the

universal Church.

The constitution of the Patriarchate contributed in like

manner to the exaltation of the Papacy. As early as the three

first centuries the metropolitan Churches had enjoyed peculiar

honor. The council of Nice, in its sixth canon, mentions three

cities, whose Churches, according to it, exercised a long-

established authority over those of the surrounding provinces:

these were Alexandria, Rome, and Antioch. The political origin

of this distinction is indicated by the name which was at first

given to the bishops of these cities: they were called Exarchs,

from the title of the civil governors. Somewhat later they

received the more ecclesiastical appellation of Patriarchs. We

find this title first employed at the council of Constantinople,

but in a different sense from that which it afterwards received.

It was not until shortly before the council of Chalcedon that it

was given exclusively to the great metropolitans. The second

general council created a new patriarchate, that of

Constantinople itself, the new Rome, the second capital of the

empire. The church of Byzantium, so long obscure, enjoyed the

same privileges, and was placed by the council of Chalcedon in

the same rank as the Church of Rome. Rome at that time shared

the patriarchal supremacy with these three churches. But when

the Mahometan invasion had destroyed the sees of Alexandria and

of Antioch,--when the see of Constantinople fell away, and in

later times even separated from the West, Rome remained alone,

and the circumstances of the times gathered all the Western

Churches around her see, which from that time has been without a

rival.

New and more powerful friends than all the rest soon came to

her assistance. Ignorance and superstition took possession of

the Church, and delivered it, fettered and blindfold, into the

hands of Rome.

Yet this bondage was not effected without a struggle.

Frequently did the Churches proclaim their independence; and

their courageous voices were especially heard from Proconsular

Africa and from the East.

But Rome found new allies to stifle the cries of the

churches. Princes, whom those stormy times often shook upon

their thrones, offered their protection if Rome would in its turn

support them. They conceded to her the spiritual authority,

provided she would make a return in secular power. They were

lavish of the souls of men, in the hope that she would aid them

against their enemies. The power of the hierarchy which was

ascending, and the imperial power which was declining, leant thus

one upon the other, and by this alliance accelerated their

twofold destiny.

Rome could not lose by it. An edict of Theodosius II and of

Valentinian III proclaimed the Roman bishop "rector of the whole

Church." Justinian published a similar decree. These edicts did

not contain all that the popes pretended to see in them; but in

those times of ignorance it was easy for them to secure that

interpretation which was most favorable to themselves. The

dominion of the emperors in Italy becoming daily more precarious,

the bishops of Rome took advantage of this circumstance to free

themselves from their dependence.

But already had issued from the forests of the North the

most effectual promoters of the papal power. The barbarians who

had invaded and settled in the West, after being satiated with

blood and plunder, lowered their reeking swords before the

intellectual power that met them face to face. Recently

converted to Christianity, ignorant of the spiritual character of

the Church, and feeling the want of a certain external pomp in

religion, they prostrated themselves, half savage and half

heathen as they were, at the feet of the high-priest of Rome.

With their aid the West was in his power. At first the Vandals,

then the Ostrogoths, somewhat later the Burgundians and Alans,

next the Visigoths, and lastly the Lombards and Anglo-Saxons,

came and bent the knee to the Roman pontiff. It was the sturdy

shoulders of those children of the idolatrous north that

succeeded in placing on the supreme throne of Christendom a

pastor of the banks of the Tiber.

At the beginning of the seventh century these events were

accomplishing in the West, precisely at the period when the power

of Mahomet arose in the East, prepared to invade another quarter

of the world.

From this time the evil continued to increase. In the

eighth century we see the Roman bishops resisting on the one hand

the Greek emperors, their lawful sovereigns, and endeavouring to

expel them from Italy, while with the other they court the mayors

of the palace in France, begging from this new power, just

beginning to rise in the West, a share in the wreck of the

empire. Rome founded her usurped authority between the East,

which she repelled, and the West, which she summoned to her aid.

She raised her throne between two revolts. Startled by the

shouts of the Arabs, now become masters of Spain, and who boasted

that they would speedily arrive in Italy by the gates of the

Pyrenees and Alps, and proclaim the name of Mahomet on the Seven

Hills; alarmed at the insolence of Astolphus, who at the head of

his Lombards, roaring like a lion, and brandishing his sword

before the gates of the eternal city, threatened to put every

Roman to death: Rome, in the prospect of ruin, turned her

frightened eyes around her, and threw herself into the arms of

the Franks. The usurper Pepin demanded her pretended sanction of

his new authority; it was granted, and the Papacy obtained in

return his promise to be the defender of the "Republic of God."

Pepin wrested from the Lombards the cities they had taken from

the Greek emperor; yet, instead of restoring them to that prince,

he laid they keys on St. Peter's altar, and swore with uplifted

hands that he had not taken up arms for man, but to obtain from

God the remission of his sins, and to do homage for his conquests

to St. Peter. Thus did France establish the temporal power of

the popes.

Charlemagne appeared; the first time he ascends the stairs

to the basilic of St. Peter, devoutly kissing each step. A

second time he presents himself, lord of all the nations that

formed the empire of the West, and of Rome itself. Leo III

thought fit to bestow the imperial title on him who already

possessed the power; and on Christmas day, in the year 800, he

placed the diadem of the Roman emperors on the brow of the son of

Pepin. From this time the pope belongs to the empire of the

Franks: his connection with the East is ended. He broke off

from a decayed and falling tree to graft himself upon a wild and

vigorous sapling. A future elevation, to which he would have

never dared aspire, awaits him among these German tribes with

whom he now unites himself.

Charlemagne bequeathed to his feeble successors only the

wrecks of his power. In the ninth century disunion everywhere

weakened the civil authority. Rome saw that this was the moment

to exalt herself. When could the Church hope for a more

favorable opportunity of becoming independent of the state, than

when the crown which Charles had worn was broken, and its

fragments lay scattered over his former empire?

Then appeared the False Decretals of Isidore. In this

collection of the pretended decrees of the popes, the most

ancient bishops, who were contemporary with Tacitus and

Quintilian, were made to speak the barbarous Latin of the ninth

century. The customs and constitutions of the Franks were

seriously attributed to the Romans in the time of the emperors.

Popes quoted the Bible in the Latin translation of Jerome, who

had lived one, two or three centuries after them; and Victor,

bishop of Rome, in the year 192, wrote to Theophilus, who was

archbishop of Alexandria in 385. The impostor who had fabricated

this collection endeavored to prove that all bishops derived

their authority from the bishop of Rome, who held his own

immediately from Christ. He not only recorded all the successive

conquests of the pontiffs, but even carried them back to the

earliest times. The popes were not ashamed to avail themselves

of this contemptible imposture. As early as 865, Nicholas I drew

from its stores of weapons by which to combat princes and

bishops. This impudent invention was for ages the arsenal of

Rome.

Nevertheless, the vices and crimes of the pontiffs suspended

for a time the effect of the decretals. The Papacy celebrated

its admission to the table of kings by shameful orgies. She

became intoxicated: her senses were lost in the midst of drunken

revellings. It is about this period that tradition places upon

the papal throne a woman named Joan, who had taken refuge in Rome

with her lover, and whose sex was betrayed by the pangs of

childbirth during a solemn procession. But let us not needlessly

augment the shame of the pontifical court. Abandoned women at

this time governed Rome; and that throne which pretended to rise

above the majesty of kings was sunk deep in the dregs of vice.

Theodora and Marozia installed and deposed at their pleasure the

self-styled masters of the Church of Christ, and placed their

lovers, sons, and grandsons in St. Peter's chair. These

scandals, which are but too well authenticated, may perhaps have

given rise to the tradition of Pope Joan.

Rome became one wild theater of disorders, the possession of

which was disputed by the most powerful families of Italy. The

counts of Tuscany were generally victorious. In 1033, this house

dared to place on the pontifical throne, under the name of

Benedict IX, a youth brought up in debauchery. This boy of

twelve years old continued, when pope, the same horrible and

degrading vices. Another party chose Sylvester III in his stead;

and Benedict, whose conscience was loaded with adulteries, and

whose hands were stained with murder, at last sold the Papacy to

a Roman ecclesiastic.

The emperors of Germany, filled with indignation at such

enormities, purged Rome with the sword. The empire, asserting

its paramount rights, drew the triple crown from the mire into

which it had fallen, and saved the degraded papacy by giving it

respectable men as its chiefs. Henry III deposed three popes in

1046, and his finger, decorated with the ring of the Roman

patricians, pointed out the bishop to whom the keys of St. Peter

should be confided. Four popes, all Germans, and nominated by

the emperor, succeeded. When the Roman pontiff died, the

deputies of that church repaired to the imperial court, like the

envoys of other dioceses, to solicit a new bishop. With joy the

emperor beheld the popes reforming abuses, strengthening the

Church, holding councils, installing and deposing prelates, in

defiance of foreign monarchs: The Papacy by these pretensions

did but exalt the power of the emperor, its lord paramount. But

to allow of such practices was to expose his own authority to

great danger. The power which the popes thus gradually recovered

might be turned suddenly against the emperor himself. When the

reptile had gained strength, it might wound the bosom that had

cherished it: and this result followed.

And now begins a new era for the papacy. It rises from its

humiliation, and soon tramples the princes of the earth under

foot. To exalt the Papacy is to exalt the Church, to advance

religion, to ensure to the spirit the victory over the flesh, and

to God the conquest of the world. Such are its maxims: in these

ambition finds its advantage, and fanaticism its excuse.

The whole of this new policy is personified in one man:

Hildebrand.

This pope, who has been by turns indiscreetly exalted or

unjustly traduced, is the personification of the Roman

pontificate in all its strength and glory. He is one of those

normal characters in history, which include within themselves a

new order of things, similar to those presented in other spheres

by Charlemagne, Luther, and Napoleon.

This monk, the son of a carpenter of Savoy, was brought up

in a Roman convent, and had quitted Rome at the period when Henry

III had there deposed three popes, and taken refuge in France in

the austere convent of Cluny. In 1048, Bruno, bishop of Toul,

having been nominated pope by the emperor at Worms, who was

holding the German Diet in that city, assumed the pontifical

habits, and took the name of Leo IX; but Hildebrand, who had

hastened thither, refused to recognize him, since it was (said

he) from the secular power that he held the tiara. Leo, yielding

to the irresistible power of a strong mind and of a deep

conviction, immediately humbled himself, laid aside his

sacerdotal ornaments, and clad in the garb of a pilgrim, set out

barefoot for Rome along with Hildebrand (says an historian), in

order to be there legitimately elected by the clergy and the

Roman people. From this time Hildebrand was the soul of the

Papacy, until he became pope himself. He had governed the Church

under the name of several pontiffs, before he reigned in person

as Gregory VII. One grand idea had taken possession of this

great genius. He desired to establish a visible theocracy, of

which the pope, as vicar of Jesus Christ, should be the head.

The recollection of the universal dominion of heathen Rome

haunted his imagination and animated his zeal. He wished to

restore to papal Rome all that imperial Rome had lost. "What

Marius and Caesar," said his flatterers, "could not effect by

torrents of blood, thou hast accomplished by a word."

Gregory VII was not directed by the spirit of the Lord.

That spirit of truth, humility, and long-suffering was unknown to

him. He sacrificed the truth whenever he judged it necessary to

his policy. This he did particularly in the case of Berenger,

archdeacon of Angers. But a spirit far superior to that of the

generality of pontiffs--a deep conviction of the justice of his

cause--undoubtedly animated him. He was bold, ambitious,

persevering in his designs, and at the same time skillful and

politic in the use of the means that would ensure success.

His first task was to organize the militia of the church.

It was necessary to gain strength before attacking the empire. A

council held at Rome removed the pastors from their families, and

compelled them to become the devoted adherents of the hierarchy.

The law of celibacy, planned and carried out by popes, who were

themselves monks, changed the clergy into a sort of monastic

order. Gregory VII claimed the same power over all the bishops

and priests of Christendom, that an abbot of Cluny exercises in

the order over which he presides. The legates of Hildebrand, who

compared themselves to the proconsuls of ancient Rome, travelled

through the provinces, depriving the pastors of their legitimate

wives; and, if necessary, the pope himself raised the populace

against the married clergy.

But chief of all, Gregory designed emancipating Rome from

its subjection to the empire. Never would he have dared conceive

so bold a scheme, if the troubles that afflicted the minority of

Henry IV, and the revolt of the German princes against that young

emperor, had not favored its execution. The pope was at this

time one of the magnates of the empire. Making common cause with

the other great vassals, he strengthened himself by the

aristocratic interest, and then forbade all ecclesiastics, under

pain of excommunication, to receive investiture from the emperor.

He broke the ancient ties that connected the Churches and their

pastors with the royal authority, but it was to bind them all to

the pontifical throne. To this throne he undertook to chain

priests, kings, and people, and to make the pope a universal

monarch. It was Rome alone that every priest should fear: it

was in Rome alone that he should hope. The kingdoms and

principalities of the earth are her domain. All kings were to

tremble at the thunderbolts hurled by the Jupiter of modern Rome.

Woe to him who resists! Subjects are released from their oaths

of allegiance; the whole country is placed under an interdict;

public worship ceases; the churches are closed; the bells are

mute; the sacraments are no longer administered; and the

malediction extends even to the dead, to whom the earth, at the

command of a haughty pontiff, denies the repose of the tomb.

The pope, subordinate from the very beginning of his

existence successively to the Roman, Frank, and German emperors,

was now free, and he trod for the first time as their equal, if

not their master. Yet Gregory VII was humbled in his turn: Rome

was taken, and Hildebrand compelled to flee. He died at Salerno,

exclaiming, "I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity,

therefore do I die in exile." Who shall dare charge with

hypocrisy these words uttered on the very brink of the grave?

The successors of Gregory, like soldiers arriving after a

victory, threw themselves as conquerors on the enslaved Churches.

Spain rescued from Islamism, Prussia reclaimed from idolatry,

fell into the arms of the crowned priest. The Crusades, which

were undertaken at his instigation, extended and confirmed his

authority. The pious pilgrims, who in imagination had seen

saints and angels leading their armed bands,--who, entering

humble and barefoot within the walls of Jerusalem, burnt the Jews

in their synagogue, and watered with the blood of thousands of

Saracens the places where they came to trace the sacred footsteps

of the Prince of Peace,--carried into the East the name of the

pope, who had been forgotten there since he had exchanged the

supremacy of the Greeks for that of the Franks.

In another quarter the power of the Church effected what the

arms of the republic and of the empire had been unable to

accomplish. The Germans laid at the feet of a bishop those

tributes which their ancestors had refused to the most powerful

generals. Their princes, on succeeding to the imperial dignity,

imagined they received a crown from the popes, but it was a yoke

that was placed upon their necks. The kingdoms of Christendom,

already subject to the spiritual authority of Rome, now became

her serfs and tributaries.

Thus everything was changed in the Church.

It was at first a community of brethren, and now an absolute

monarchy was established in its bosom. All Christians were

priests of the living God, with humble pastors as their guides.

But a haughty head is upraised in the midst of these pastors; a

mysterious voice utters words full of pride; an iron hand compels

all men, great and small, rich and poor, bond and free, to wear

the badge of its power. The holy and primitive equality of souls

before God is lost sight of. At the voice of one man Christendom

is divided into two unequal parties: on the one side is a

separate caste of priests, daring to usurp the name of the

Church, and claiming to be invested with peculiar privileges in

the eyes of the Lord; and, on the other, servile flocks reduced

to a blind and passive submission--a people gagged and fettered,

and given over to a haughty caste. Every tribe, language, and

nation of Christendom, submits to the dominion of this spiritual

king, who has received power to conquer.

 

 

 

 

BOOK 1 CHAPTER 2

 

Grace--Dead Faith--Works--Unity and Duality--Pelagianism--

Salvation at the Hands of the Priests--Penance--Flagellations--

Indulgences--Works of Supererogation--Purgatory--The Tariff--

Jubilee--The Papacy and Christianity--State of Christendom.

But side by side with the principle that should pervade the

history of Christianity, was found another that should preside

over its doctrine. This was the great idea of Christianity-- the

idea of grace, of pardon, of amnesty, of the gift of eternal

life. This idea supposed in man an alienation from God, and an

inability of returning by any power of his own communion with

that infinitely holy being. The opposition between the true and

the false doctrine undoubtedly cannot be entirely summed up in

the question of salvation by faith or works. Nevertheless it is

its most striking characteristic. But further, salvation

considered as coming from man, is the creative principle of every

error and abuse. The excesses produced by this fundamental error

led to the Reformation, and by the profession of the contrary

principle it was carried out. This feature should therefore be

very prominent in an introduction to the history of that reform.

Salvation by grace was the second characteristic which

essentially distinguished the religion of God from all human

systems. What had now become of it? Had the Church preserved,

as a precious deposit, this great and primordial thought? Let us

trace its history.

The inhabitants of Jerusalem, of Asia, of Greece, and of

Rome, in the time of the first emperors, heard these glad

tidings: "By grace are ye saved through faith: and that not of

yourselves; it is the gift of God." At this proclamation of

peace, at this joyful news, at this word of power, many guilty

souls believed, and were drawn to Him who is the source of peace;

and numerous Christian Churches were formed in the midst of the

degenerate nations of that age.

But a great mistake was soon made as to the nature of this

saving faith. Faith, according to St. Paul, is the means by

which the whole being of the believer--his understanding, heart,

and will--enter into possession of the salvation purchased for

him by the incarnation and death of the Son of God. Jesus Christ

is apprehended by faith and from that hour becomes all things to

man and in man. He communicates a divine life to our human

nature; and man thus renewed, and freed from the chains of sin

and self, feels new affections and performs new works. Faith,

says the theologian in order to express his ideas, is the

subjective appropriation of the objective work of Christ. If

faith be not an appropriation of salvation, it is nothing; all

the Christian economy is thrown into confusion, the fountains of

the new life are sealed, and Christianity is overturned from its

foundations.

And this is what did happen. This practical view of faith

was gradually forgotten. Soon it became, what it still is to

many persons, a simple act of the understanding, a mere

submission to a superior authority.

From this first error there necessarily proceeded a second.

Faith being thus stripped of its practical character, it was

impossible to say that it alone had power to save: as works no

longer were its fruits, they were of necessity placed side by

side with it, and the doctrine that man is justified by faith and

by works prevailed in the Church. In place of that Christian

unity which comprises in a single principle justification and

works, grace and the law, doctrine and duty, succeeded that

melancholy duality which regards religion and morality as two

entirely distinct things--that fatal error, which, by separating

things that cannot live unless united, and by putting the soul on

one side and the body on the other, is the cause of spiritual

death. The words of the apostle, re-echoing across the interval

of ages, are--"Having begun in the spirit, are ye now made

perfect by the flesh?"

Another great error contributed still further to unsettle

the doctrine of grace: this was Pelagianism. Pelagius asserted

that human nature is not fallen--that there is no hereditary

corruption, and that man, having received the power to do good,

has only to will in order to perform. If good works consist only

in external acts, Pelagius is right. But if we look to the

motives whence these outward acts proceed, we find everywhere in

man's nature selfishness, forgetfulness of God, pollution, and

impotency. The Pelagian doctrine, expelled by Augustine from the

Church when it had presented itself boldly, insinuated itself as

demi-Pelagianism, and under the mask of the Augustine forms of

expression. This error spread with astonishing rapidity

throughout Christendom. The danger of the doctrine was

particularly manifested in this,--that by placing goodness

without, and not within, the heart, it set a great value on

external actions, legal observances, and penitential words. The

more these practices were observed, the more righteous man

became: by them heaven was gained; and soon the extravagant idea

prevailed that there are men who have advanced in holiness beyond

what was required of them.

Whilst Pelagianism corrupted the Christian doctrine, it

strengthened the hierarchy. The hand that lowered grace, exalted

the Church: for grace is God, the Church is man.

The more we feel the truth that all men are guilty before

God, the more also shall we cling to Christ as the only source of

Grace. How could we then place the Church in the same rank with

Christ, since it is but an assembly of all those who are found in

the same wretched state by nature? But so soon as we attribute

to man a peculiar holiness, a personal merit, everything is

changed. The clergy and the monks are looked upon as the most

natural channels through which to receive the grace of God. This

was what happened often after the times of Pelagius. Salvation,

taken from the hands of God, fell into those of the priests, who

set themselves in the place of our Lord. Souls thirsting for

pardon were no more to look to heaven, but to the Church, and

above all to its pretended head. To those blinded souls the

Roman pontiff was God. Hence the greatness of the popes--hence

unutterable abuses. The evil spread still further. When

Pelagianism laid down the doctrine that man could attain a state

of perfect sanctification, it affirmed also that the merits of

saints and martyrs might be applied to the Church. A peculiar

power was attributed to their intercession. Prayers were made to

them; their aid was invoked in all the sorrows of life; and a

read idolatry thus supplanted the adoration of the living and

true God.

At the same time, Pelagianism multiplied rites and

ceremonies. Man, imagining that he could and that he ought by

good works to render himself deserving of grace, saw no fitter

means of meriting it than acts of external worship. The

ceremonial law became infinitely complicated, and was soon put on

a level, to say the least, with the moral law. Thus were the

consciences of Christians burdened anew with a yoke that had been

declared insupportable in the times of the apostles.

But it was especially by the system of penance, which flowed

immediately from Pelagianism, that Christianity was perverted.

At first, penance had consisted in certain public expressions of

repentance, required by the Church from those who had been

excluded on account of scandals, and who desired to be received

again into its bosom.

By degrees penance was extended to every sin, even to the

most secret, and was considered as a sort of punishment to which

it was necessary to submit, in order to obtain the forgiveness of

God through the priest's absolution.

Ecclesiastical penance was thus confounded with Christian

repentance, without which there can be neither justification nor

sanctification.

Instead of looking to Christ for pardon through faith alone,

it was sought for principally in the Church through penitential

works.

Great importance was soon attached to external marks of

repentance--to tears, fasting, and mortification of the flesh;

and the inward regeneration of the heart, which alone constitutes

a real conversion, was forgotten.

As confession and penance are easier than the extirpation of

sin and the abandonment of vice, many ceased contending against

the lusts of the flesh, and preferred gratifying them at the

expense of a few mortifications.

The penitential works, thus substituted for the salvation of

God, were multiplied in the Church from Tertullian down to the

thirteenth century. Men were required to fast, to go barefoot,

to wear no linen, &c.; to quit their homes and their native land

for distant countries; or to renounce the world and embrace a

monastic life.

In the eleventh century voluntary flagellations were

superadded to these practices: somewhat later they became quite

a mania in Italy, which was then in a very disturbed state.

Nobles and peasants, old and young, even children of five years

of age, whose only covering was a cloth tied round the middle,

went in pairs, by hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands,

through the towns and villages, visiting the churches in the

depth of winter. Armed with scourges, they flogged each other

without pity, and the streets resounded with cries and groans

that drew tears from all who heard them.

Still, long before the disease had reached such a height,

the priest-ridden world had sighed for deliverance. The priests

themselves had found out, that if they did not apply a remedy

their usurped power would slip from their hands. They

accordingly invented that system of barter celebrated under the

title of Indulgences. They said to their penitents: "You cannot

accomplish the tasks imposed on you. Well! we, the priests of

God and your pastors, will take this heavy burden upon ourselves.

For a seven weeks' fast," said Regino, abbot of Prum, "you shall

pay twenty pence, if you are rich; ten, if less wealthy; and

three pence if you are poor; and so on for other matters."

Courageous men raised their voices against this traffic, but in

vain!

The pope soon discovered what advantages could be derived

from those indulgences. Alexander Hales, the irrefragable

doctor, invented in the thirteenth century a doctrine well

calculated to secure these vast revenues to the Papacy. A bull

of Clement VII declared it an article of faith. Jesus Christ, it

was said, had done much more than was necessary to reconcile God

to man. One single drop of his blood would have been sufficient.

But he shed it copiously, in order to form a treasure for his

Church that eternity can never exhaust. The supererogatory

merits of the saints, the reward of the good works they had done

beyond their obligation, have still further augmented this

treasure. Its keeping and management were confided to Christ's

vicar upon earth. He applies to each sinner, for the sins

committed after baptism, these merits of Jesus Christ and of the

saints, according to the measure and the quantity his sins

require. Who would venture to attack a custom of such holy

origin!

This inconceivable traffic was soon extended and

complicated. The philosophers of Alexandria had spoken of a fire

in which men were to be purified. Many ancient doctors had

adopted this notion; and Rome declared this philosophical opinion

a tenet of the Church. The pope by a bull annexed Purgatory to

his domain. In that place, he declared, men would have to

expiate the sins that could not be expiated here on earth; but

that indulgences would liberate their souls from that

intermediate state in which their sins would detain them. Thomas

Aquinas set forth this doctrine in his famous Summa Theologiae.

No means were spared to fill the mind with terror. The priests

depicted in horrible colors the torments inflicted by this

purifying fire on all who became its prey. In many Roman-

catholic countries we may still see paintings exhibited in the

churches and public places, wherein poor souls, from the midst of

glowing flames, invoke with anguish some alleviation of their

pain. Who could refuse the ransom which, falling into the

treasury of Rome, would redeem the soul from such torments?

Somewhat later, in order to reduce this traffic to a system,

they invented (probably under John XXII) the celebrated and

scandalous Tariff of Indulgences, which has gone through more

than forty editions. The least delicate ears would be offended

by an enumeration of all the horrors it contains. Incest, if not

detected, was to cost five groats; and six, if it was known.

There was a stated price for murder, infanticide, adultery,

perjury, burglary, &c. "O disgrace of Rome!" exclaims Claude

d'Espence, a Roman divine: and we may add, O disgrace of human

nature! for we can utter no reproach against Rome that does not

recoil on man himself. Rome is human nature exalted in some of

its worst propensities. We say this that we may speak the truth;

we say it also, that we may be just.

Boniface VIII, the most daring and ambitious pontiff after

Gregory VII, was enabled to effect still more than his

predecessors.

In the year 1300, he published a bull, in which he declared

to the Church that every hundred years all who made a pilgrimage

to Rome should receive a plenary indulgence. From all parts,

from Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, France, Spain, Germany,

and Hungary, people flocked in crowds. Old men of sixty and

seventy undertook the journey, and in one month two hundred

thousand pilgrims visited Rome. All these strangers brought rich

offerings; and the pope and the Romans saw their coffers

replenished.

Roman avaries soon fixed each Jubilee at fifty, then at

thirty-three, and lastly at twenty-five years' interval. Then,

for the greater convenience of purchasers, and the greater profit

of the sellers, both the jubilee and its indulgences were

transported from Rome to every market-place in Christendom. It

was no longer necessary to leave one's home. What others had

gone in search of beyond the Alps, each man could now buy at his

own door.

The evil could not become greater.

Then the Reformer appeared.

We have seen what had become of the principle that was

destined to govern the history of Christianity; we have seen also

what became of that which should have pervaded its doctrines:

both were lost.

To set up a mediatorial caste between God and man--to obtain

by works, by penance, and by money the salvation which is the

free gift of God--such is Popery.

To open to all, through Jesus Christ, without any human

mediator, without that power which calls itself the Church, free

access to the great boon of eternal life which God offers to man

--such is Christianity and the Reformation.

Popery is a lofty barrier erected by the labor of ages

between God and man. If any one desires to scale it, he must pay

or he must suffer; and even then he will not surmount it.

The Reformation is the power that has overthrown this

barrier, that has restored Christ to man, and has thus opened a

level path by which he may reach his Creator.

Popery interposes the Church between God and man.

Primitive Christianity and the Reformation bring God and man

face to face.

Popery separates them--the Gospel unites them.

After having thus traced the history of the decline and fall

of the two great principles that were to distinguish the religion

of "God from all human systems, let us see what were some of the

consequences of this immense transformation.

But first let us pay due honor to the Church of the Middle

Ages, which succeeded that of the apostles and of the fathers,

and which preceded that of the reformers. The Church was still

the Church, although fallen, and daily more and more enslaved:

that is to say, she was always the greatest friend of man. Her

hands, though bound, could still be raised to bless. Eminent

servants of Jesus Christ, who were true Protestants as regards

the essential doctrines of Christianity, diffused a cheering

light during the dark ages; and in the humblest convent, in the

remotest parish, might be found poor monks and poor priests to

alleviate great sufferings. The Catholic church was not the

Papacy. The latter was the oppressor, the former the oppressed.

The Reformation, which declared war against the one, came to

deliver the other. And it must be confessed that the Papacy

itself became at times in the hands of God, who brings good out

of evil, a necessary counterpoise to the power and ambition of

princes.

BOOK 1 CHAPTER 3

 

 

Religion--Relics--Easter Revels--Morals--Corruption--Disorders of

the Priests, Bishops, and Popes--A Papal Family--Alexander VI--

Caesar Borgia--Education--Ignorance--Ciceronians.

Let us now see what was the state of the Church previous to

the Reformation.

The nations of Christendom no longer looked to a holy and

living God for the free gift of eternal life. To obtain it, they

were obliged to have recourse to all the means that a

superstitious, fearful, and alarmed imagination could devise.

Heaven was filled with saints and mediators, whose duty it was to

solicit this mercy. Earth was filled with pious works,

sacrifices, observances, and ceremonies, by which it was to be

obtained. Here is a picture of the religion of this period

transmitted to us by one who was long a monk, and afterwards a

fellow-laborer of Luther's--by Myconius:--

"The sufferings and merits of Christ were looked upon as an

idle tale, or as the fictions of Homer. There was no thought of

faith by which we become partakers of the Saviour's righteousness

and of the heritage of eternal life. Christ was looked upon as a

severe judge, prepared to condemn all who should not have

recourse to the intercession of the saints, or to the papal

indulgences. Other intercessors appeared in his place:--first the

Virgin Mary, like the Diana of paganism, and then the saints,

whose numbers were continually augmented by the popes. These

mediators granted their intercession only to such applicants as

had deserved well of the orders founded by them. For this it was

necessary to do, not what God had commanded in his Word, but to

perform a number of works invented by monks and priests, and

which brought money to the treasury. These works were Ave-

Marias, the prayers of Saint Ursula and of Saint Bridget: they

must chant and cry night and day. There were as many resorts for

pilgrims as there were mountains, forests, and valleys. But

these penances might be compounded for with money. The people,

therefore, brought to the convents and to the priests money and

every thing that had any value--fowls, ducks, geese, eggs, wax,

straw, butter, and cheese. Then the hymns resounded, the bells

rang, incense filled the sanctuary, sacrifices were offered up,

the larders overflowed, the glasses went round, and masses

terminated and concealed these pious orgies. The bishops no

longer preached, but they consecrated priests, bells, monks,

churches, chapels, images, books, and cemeteries; and all this

brought in a large revenue. Bones, arms, and feet were preserved

in gold and silver boxes; they were given out during mass for the

faithful to kiss, and this too was a source of great profit.

"All these people maintained that the pope, 'sitting as God

in the temple of God,' could not err, and they would not suffer

any contradiction."

In the church of All Saints at Wittemberg was shown a

fragment of Noah's ark, some soot from the furnace of the Three

Children, a Piece of wood from the cradle of Jesus Christ, some

hair from the beard of St. Christopher, and nineteen thousand

other relics of greater or less value. At Schaffhausen was

exhibited the breath of St. Joseph that Nicodemus had received in

his glove. In Wurtemberg you might meet a seller of indulgences,

vending his merchandise, his head adorned with a large feather

plucked from the wing of St. Michael. But it was not necessary

to travel far in search of these precious treasures. Men who

farmed the relics traversed the whole country, hawking them about

the rural districts (as has since been the case with the Holy

Scriptures), and carrying them to the houses of the faithful, to

spare them the trouble and expense of a pilgrimage. They were

exhibited with pomp in the churches. These wandering hawkers

paid a stipulated sum to the owners of the relics,--a percentage

on their profits. The kingdom of heaven had disappeared, and in

its place a market of abominations had been opened upon earth.

Thus a spirit of profanity had invaded religion; and the

holiest recollections of the Church, the seasons which more

particularly summoned the faithful to holy meditation and love,

were disgraced by buffoonery and heathenish profanation. The

"Revels of Easter" held a distinguished place in the records of

the Church. As the festival of the resurrection of Christ ought

to be celebrated with joy, the preachers studied in their sermons

everything that might raise a laugh among their hearers. One

imitated the note of the cuckoo; another hissed like a goose.

One dragged to the altar a layman robed in a monk's frock; a

second related the most indecent stories; and a third recounted

the tricks of St. Peter, and among others, how in a tavern he had

cheated his host by not paying his reckoning. The lower clergy

took advantage of this opportunity to ridicule their superiors.

The churches were converted into a mere stage for mountebanks,

and the priests into buffoons.

If such was the state of religion, what must have been the

state of morals?

Undoubtedly the corruption was not at that time universal.

Justice requires that this should not be forgotten. The

Reformation elicited numerous examples of piety, righteousness,

and strength of mind. The spontaneous action of God's power was

the cause; but how can we deny that he had beforehand deposited

the seeds of this new life in the bosom of the Church? If in our

days we should bring together all the immoralities, all the

turpitudes committed in a single country, the mass of corruption

would doubtless shock us still. Nevertheless, the evil at this

period wore a character and universality that it has not borne

subsequently. And, above all, the mystery of iniquity desolated

the holy places, as it has not been permitted to do since the

days of the Reformation.

Morality had declined with the decline of faith. The

tidings of the gift of eternal life is the power of God to

regenerate man. Take away the salvation which God has given, and

you take away sanctification and good works. And this result

followed.

The doctrine and the sale of indulgences were powerful

incentives to evil among an ignorant people. True, according to

the Church, indulgences could benefit those only who promised to

amend their lives, and who kept their word. But what could be

expected from a tenet invented solely with a view to the profit

that might be derived from it? The venders of indulgences were

naturally tempted, for the better sale of their merchandise, to

present their wares to the people in the most attractive and

seducing aspect. The learned themselves did not fully understand

the doctrine. All that the multitude saw in them was, that they

permitted men to sin; and the merchants were not over eager to

disipate an error so favorable to their sale.

What disorders and crimes were committed in these dark ages,

when impunity was to be purchased by money! What had man to

fear, when a small contribution towards building a church secured

him from the fear of punishment in the world to come? What hope

could there be of revival when all communication between God and

man was cut off, and man, an alien from God, who is the spirit

and the life, moved only in a round of paltry ceremonies and

sensual observances, in an atmosphere of death!

The priests were the first who yielded to this corrupting

influence. By desiring to exalt themselves they became abased.

They had aimed at robbing God of a ray of his glory, and placing

it in their own bosoms; but their attempt had proved vain, and

they had only hidden there a leaven of corruption stolen from the

power of evil. The history of the age swarms with scandals. In

many places, the people were delighted at seeing a priest keep a

mistress, that the married women might be safe from his

seductions. What humiliating scenes did the house of a pastor in

those days present! The wretched man supported the woman and the

children she had borne him with the tithes and offerings. His

conscience was troubled: he blushed in the presence of the

people, before his domestics, and before God. The mother,

fearing to come to want if the priest should die, made provision

against it beforehand, and robbed her own house. Her honor was

lost. Her children were ever a living accusation against her.

Despised by all, they plunged into quarrels and debauchery. Such

was the family of the priest!......These were frightful scenes,

by which the people knew how to profit.

The rural districts were the scene of numerous disorders.

The abodes of the clergy were often dens of corruption.

Corneille Adrian at Bruges, the abbot Trinkler at Cappel,

imitated the manners of the East, and had their harems. Priests,

consorting with dissolute characters, frequented the taverns,

played at dice, and crowned their orgies with quarrels and

blasphemy.

The council of Schaffhausen forbade the priests to dance in

public, except at marriages, and to carry more than one kind of

arms: they decreed also that all who were found in houses of ill

fame should be unfrocked. In the archbishopric of Mentz, they

scaled the walls by night, and created all kinds of disorder and

confusion in the inns and taverns, and broke the doors and locks.

In many places the priest paid the bishop a regular tax for the

woman with whom he lived, and for each child he had by her. A

German bishop said publicly one day, at a great entertainment,

that in one year eleven thousand priests had presented themselves

before him for that purpose. It is Erasmus who relates this.

If we go higher in the hierarchial order, we find the

corruption not less great. The dignitaries of the Church

preferred the tumult of camps to the hymns of the altar. To be

able, lance in hand, to reduce his neighbors to obedience was one

of the chief qualifications of a bishop. Baldwin, archbishop of

Treves, was continually at war with his neighbors and his

vassals: he demolished their castles, built strongholds, and

thought of nothing but the extension of his territory. A certain

bishop of Eichstadt, when administering justice, wore a coat of

mail under his robes, and held a large sword in his hand. He

used to say he was not afraid of five Bavarians, provided they

did but attack him in fair fight. Everywhere the bishops were

continually at war with their towns. The citizens demanded

liberty, the bishops required implicit obedience. If the latter

gained the victory, they punished the revolters by sacrificing

numerous victims to their vengeance; but the flame of

insurrection burst out again, at the very moment when it was

thought to be extinguished.

And what a spectacle was presented by the pontifical throne

in the times immediately preceding the Reformation! Rome, it

must be acknowledged, had seldom witnessed so much infamy.

Rodrigo Borgia, after having lived with a Roman lady, had

continued the same illicit connection with one of her daughters,

named Rosa Vanozza, by whom he had five children. He was a

cardinal and archbishop, living at Rome with Vanozza and other

women, visiting the churches and the hospitals, when the death of

Innocent VIII created a vacancy in the pontifical chair. He

succeeded in obtaining it by bribing each cardinal at a

stipulated price. Four mules laden with silver publicly entered

the palace of Sforza, one of the most influential of the

cardinals. Borgia became pope under the name of Alexander VI,

and rejoiced in thus attaining the summit of earthly felicity.

On the day of his coronation, his son Caesar, a youth of

Ferocious and dissolute manners, was created archbishop of

Valencia and bishop of Pampeluna. He next celebrated in the

Vatican the marriage of his daughter Lucretia, by festivities at

which his mistress, Julia Bella, was present, and which were

enlivened by licentious plays and songs. "All the clergy," says

an historian, "kept mistresses, and all the convents of the

capital were houses of ill fame." Caesar Borgia espoused the

cause of the Guelfs; and when by their assistance he had

destroyed the Ghibellines, he turned upon the Guelfs and crushed

them in their turn. But he desired to share alone in all these

spoils. In 1497, Alexander gave the duchy of Benevento to his

eldest son. The duke suddenly disappeared. A faggot-dealer, on

the banks of the Tiber, one George Schiavoni, had seen a dead

body thrown into the stream during the night; but he said nothing

of it, as being a common occurrence. The body of the duke was

found. His brother Caesar had been the instigator of his death.

this was not enough. His brother-in-law stood in his way: one

day Caesar caused him to be stabbed on the very stairs of the

pontifical palace. He was carried bleeding to his own

apartments. His wife and sister did not leave him; and fearful

that Caesar would employ poison, they prepared his meals with

their own hands. Alexander set a guard on the doors; but Caesar

ridiculed these precautions, and remarked, as the pope was about

to pay a visit to his son-in-law, "What is not done at dinner

will be done at supper." Accordingly, one day he gained

admittance to the chamber of the convalescent, turned out the

wife and sister, and calling in his executioner Michilotto, the

only man in whom he placed any confidence, ordered his brother-

in-law to be strangled before his eyes. Alexander had a

favorite, Perotto, whose influence also offended the young duke.

He rushed upon him: Perotto took refuge under the pontifical

mantle, and clasped the pope in his arms. Caesar stabbed him,

and the blood of his victim spirted in the face of the pontiff.

"The pope," adds a contemporary and eye-witness of these scenes,

"loves the duke his son, and lives in great fear of him."

Caesar was the handsomest and strongest man of his age. Six

wild bulls fell easily beneath his blows in single combat. Every

morning some new victim was found, who had been assassinated

during the night in the Roman streets. Poison carried off those

whom the dagger could not reach. No one dared move or breathe in

Rome, for fear that his turn should come next. Caesar Borgia was

the hero of crime. That spot of earth in which iniquity had

attained such a height was the throne of the pontiffs. When man

gives himself up to the powers of evil, the higher he claims to

be exalted before God, the lower he sinks into the abyss of hell.

The dissolute entertainments given by the pope, his son Caesar,

and his daughter Lucretia, in the pontifical palace, cannot be

described or even thought of without shuddering. The impure

groves of antiquity saw nothing like them. Historians have

accused Alexander and Luctretia of incest; but this charge does

not appear sufficiently established. The pope had prepared

poison in a box of sweetmeats that was to be served up after a

sumptuous repast: the cardinal for whom it was intended being

forewarned, gained over the attendant, and the poisoned box was

set before Alexander. He ate of it and died. "The whole city

ran together, and could not satiate their eyes with gazing on

this dead viper."

Such was the man who filled the papal chair at the beginning

of the century in which the Reformation burst forth.

Thus had the clergy brought not only themselves but religion

into disrepute. Well might a powerful voice exclaim: "The

ecclesiastical order is opposed to God and to his glory. The

people know it well; and this is but too plainly shown by the

many songs, proverbs, and jokes against the priests, that are

current among the commonalty, and all those caricatures of monks

and priests on every wall, and even on the playing-cards. Every

one feels a loathing on seeing or hearing a priest in the

distance." It is Luther who speaks thus.

The evil had spread through all ranks: "a strong delusion"

had been sent among men; the corruption of manners corresponded

with the corruption of faith. A mystery of iniquity oppressed

the enslaved Church of Christ.

Another consequence necessarily flowed from the neglect into

which the fundamental doctrine of the gospel had fallen.

Ignorance of the understanding accompanied the corruption of the

heart. The priests having taken into their hands the

distribution of the salvation that belongs only to God, had

secured a sufficient title to the respect of the people. What

need had they to study sacred learning? It was no longer a

question of explaining the Scriptures, but of granting letters of

indulgence; and for this ministry it was not necessary to have

acquired much learning.

In country places, they chose for preachers, says

Wimpheling, "miserable wretches whom they had previously raised

from beggary, and who had been cooks, musicians, huntsmen,

stable-boys, and even worse."

The superior clergy themselves were often sunk in great

ignorance. A bishop of Dunfeld congratulated himself on having

never learnt either Greek or Hebrew. The monks asserted that all

heresies arose from those two languages, and particularly from

the Greek. "The New Testament," said one of them, "is a book

full of serpents and thorns. Greek," continued he, "is a new and

recently invented language, and we must be upon our guard against

it. As for Hebrew, my dear brethren, it is certain that all who

learn it, immediately become Jews." Heresbach, a friend of

Erasmus, and a respectable author, reports these expressions.

Thomas Linacer, a learned and celebrated ecclesiastic, had never

read the New Testament. In his latter days (in 1524), he called

for a copy, but quickly threw it away from him with an oath,

because on opening it his eyes had glanced upon these words:

"But I say unto you, Swear not at all." Now he was a great

swearer. "Either this is not the Gospel," said he, "or else we

are not Christians." Even the faculty of theology at Paris

scrupled not to declare to the parliament: "Religion is ruined,

if you permit the study of Greek and Hebrew."

If any learning was found here and there among the clergy,

it was not in sacred literature. The Ciceronians of Italy

affected a great contempt for the Bible on account of its style.

Pretended priests of the Church of Christ translated the writings

of holy men, inspired by the Spirit of God, in the style of

Virgil and of Horace, to accommodate their language to the ears

of good society. Cardinal Bembo, instead of the Holy Ghost, used

to write the breath of the heavenly zephyr; for the expression to

forgive sins--to bend the mancs and the sovereign gods; and for

Christ, the Son of God--Minerva sprung from the head of Jupiter.

Finding one day the worthy Sadolet engaged in translating the

Epistle to the Romans, he said to him: "Leave these childish

matters: such fooleries do not become a sensible man."

These were some of the consequences of the system that then

oppressed Christendom. This picture undoubtedly demonstrates the

corruption of the Church, and the necessity for a reformation.

Such was our design in writing this sketch. The vital doctrines

of Christianity had almost entirely disappeared, and with them

the life and light that constitute the essence of the religion of

God. The material strength of the Church was gone. It lay an

exhausted, enfeebled, and almost lifeless body, extended over

that part of the world which the Roman empire had occupied.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BOOK 1 CHAPTER 4

 

 

Imperishable Nature of Christianity--Two Laws of God--Apparent

Strength of Rome--Secret Opposition--Decline--Threefold

Opposition--Kings and People-- Transformation of the Church--

The Pope judged in Italy--Discoveries of Kings and their

Subjects--Frederick the Wise--Moderation and Expectation.

The evils which thus afflicted Christendom; superstition,

unbelief, ignorance, vain speculation, and corruption of morals--

the natural fruits of the hearts of man--were not new upon the

earth. Often they had appeared in the history of nations. They

had invaded, especially in the East, the different religious

systems that had seen their day of glory. Those enervated

systems had sunk under these evils, had fallen under their

attack, and not one of them had ever risen again.

Was Christianity now to undergo the same fate? Would it be

lost like these old national religions? Would the blow that had

caused their death be sufficient to deprive it of life? Could

nothing save it? Will these hostile powers that overwhelm it,

and which have already overthrown so many various systems of

worship, be able to seat themselves with out resistance on the

ruins of the Church of Jesus Christ?

No! There is in Christianity what none of these national

systems possessed. It does not, like them, present certain

general ideas mingled with tradition and fable, destined to fall

sooner or later under the assault of reason: it contains a pure

and undefiled truth, founded on facts capable of bearing the

examination of every upright and enlightened mind. Christianity

does not propose merely to excite in man certain vague religious

feelings, whose charm once lost can never be recovered: its

object is to satisfy, and it does really satisfy, all the

religious wants of human nature, whatever may be the degree of

development which it has attained. It is not the work of man,

whose labors pass away and are forgotten; it is the work of God,

who upholds what he has created; and it has the promise of its

Divine Head as the pledge of its duration.

It is impossible for human nature ever to rise superior to

Christianity. And if for a time man thought he could do without

it, it soon appeared to him with fresh youth and a new life, as

the only remedy for souls. The degenerate nations then returned

with new ardour toward those ancient, simple, and powerful

truths, which in the hour of their infatuation they had despised.

In fact, Christianity manifested in the sixteenth century

the same regenerative power that it had exercised at first.

After fifteen centuries the same truths produced the same

effects. In the day of the Reformation, as in the time of Peter

and Paul, the Gospel overthrew mighty obstacles with irresistible

force. Its sovereign power displayed its efficacy from north to

south among nations the most dissimilar in manners, character,

and intellectual development. Then as in the times of Stephen

and James, it kindled the fire of enthusiasm and devotedness in

the lifeless nations, and elevated them to the height of

martyrdom.

How was this revival of the church accomplished? We observe

here two laws by which God governs the Church in all times.

First he prepares slowly and from afar that which he designs

to accomplish. He has ages in which to work.

Then, when the time is come, he effects the greatest

results by the smallest means. It is thus he acts in nature and

in history. When he wishes to produce a majestic tree, he

deposits a small seed in the bosom of the earth; when he wishes

to renovate his Church, he employs the lowliest instruments to

accomplish what emperors and learned and distinguished men in the

Church could not effect. We shall soon go in search of, and we

shall discover, that small seed which a Divine hand placed in the

earth in the days of the Reformation. But we must here

distinguish and recognize the different means by which God

prepared the way for this great revolution.

At the period when the reformation was about to burst forth,

Rome appeared in peace and security. One might have said that

nothing could ever disturb her in her triumph: great victories

had been achieved by her. The general councils--those upper and

lower chambers of Catholicism--had been subdued. The Waldenses

and the Hussites had been crushed. No university, except perhaps

that of Paris, which sometimes raised its voice at the signal of

its kings, doubted the infallibility of the oracles of Rome.

Every one seemed to have taken his own share of its power. The

higher orders of the clergy preferred giving to a distant chief

the tithe of their revenues, and tranquilly to consume the

remainder, to risking all for an independence that would cost

them dear and would bring them little profit. The inferior

clergy, attracted by the prospect of brilliant stations, which

their ambition painted and discovered in the distance, willingly

purchased by a little slavery the faltering hopes they cherished.

Besides, they were everywhere so oppressed by the chiefs of the

hierarchy, that they could scarcely stir under their powerful

hands, and much less raise themselves and make head against them.

The people bent the knee before the Roman altar; and even kings

themselves, who began in secret to despise the bishop of Rome,

would not have dared lay hands upon his power for fear of the

imputation of sacrilege.

 

But if external position appeared to have subsided, or even

to have entirely ceased, when the Reformation broke out, its

internal strength had increased. If we take a nearer view of the

edifice, we discover more than one symptom that foreboded its

destruction. The cessation of the general councils had scattered

their principles throughout the Church, and carried disunion into

the camp of their opponents. The defenders of the hierarchy were

divided into two parties: those who maintained the system of

absolute papal dominion, according to the maxims of Hildebrand;

and those who desired a constitutional papal government, offering

securities and liberty to the several Churches.

And more than this, in both parties faith in the

infallibility of the Roman bishop had been rudely shaken. If no

voice was raised to attack it, it was because every one felt

anxious rather to preserve the little faith he still possessed.

They dreaded the slightest shock, lest it should overthrow the

whole edifice. Christendom held its breath; but it was to

prevent a calamity in which it feared to perish. From the moment

that man trembles to abandon a long-worshipped persuasion, he

possesses it no more. And he will not much longer keep up the

appearance that he wishes to maintain.

The Reformation had been gradually prepared by God's

providence in three different spheres--the political, the

ecclesiastical, and the literary. Princes and their subjects,

Christians and divines, the learned and the wise, contributed to

bring about this revolution of the sixteenth century. Let us

pass in review this triple classification, finishing with that of

literature, which was perhaps the most powerful in the times

immediately preceding the reform.

And, firstly, Rome had lost much of her ancient credit in

the eyes of nations and of kings. Of this the Church itself was

the primary cause. The errors and superstitions which she had

introduced into Christianity were not, properly speaking, what

had inflicted the mortal wound. The Christian world must have

been raised above the clergy in intellectual and religious

development, to have been able to judge of it in this point of

view. But there was an order of things within the comprehension

of the laity, and by this the Church was judged. It had become

altogether earthly. That sacerdotal dominion which lorded over

the nations, and which could not exist except by the delusion of

its subjects, and by the halo that encircled it, had forgotten

its nature, left heaven and its spheres of light and glory to

mingle in the vulgar interests of citizens and princes. The

priests, born to be the representatives of the Spirit, had

bartered it away for the flesh. They had abandoned the treasures

of science and the spiritual power of the Word, for the brute

force and false glory of the age.

This happened naturally enough. It was in truth the

spiritual order which the Church had at first undertaken to

defend. But to protect it against the resistance and attacks of

the people, she had recourse to earthly means, to vulgar arms,

which a false policy had induced her to take up. When once the

Church had begun to handle such weapons, her spirituality was at

an end. Her arm could not become temporal and her heart not

become temporal also. Erelong was seen apparently the reverse of

what had been at first. After resolving to employ earth to

defend heaven, she made use of heaven to defend the earth.

Theocratic forms became in her hands the means of accomplishing

worldly enterprises. The offerings which the people laid at the

feet of the sovereign pontiff of Christendom were employed in

maintaining the splendor of his court and in paying his armies.

His spiritual power served as steps by which to place the kings

and nations of the earth under his feet. The charm ceased, and

the power of the Church was lost, so soon as the men of those

days could say, She is become as one of us.

The great were the first to scrutinize the titles of this

imaginary power. This very examination might perhaps have been

sufficient for the overthrow of Rome. But fortunately for her

the education of the princes was everywhere in the hands of her

adepts, who inspired their august pupils with sentiments of

veneration towards the Roman pontiff. The rulers of the people

grew up in the sanctuary of the Church. Princes of ordinary

capacity never entirely got beyond it: many longed only to

return to it at the hour of death. They preferred dying in a

friar's cowl to dying beneath a crown.

Italy--that European apple of discord--contributed perhaps

more than anything else to open the eyes of kings. They had to

contract alliances with the pope, which had reference to the

temporal prince of the States of the Church, and not to the

bishop of bishops. Kings were astonished at seeing the popes

ready to sacrifice the rights belonging to the pontiff, in order

that they might preserve some advantage to the prince. They

perceived that these pretended organs of the truth had recourse

to all the paltry wiles of policy,--to deceit, dissimulation, and

perjury. Then fell off the bandage which education had bound

over the eyes of princes. Then the artful Ferdinand of Aragon

played stratagem against stratagem. Then the impetuous Louis XII

had a medal struck, with the inscription, Perdam Babylonis Nomen.

And the good Maximilian of Austria, grieved at hearing of the

treachery of Leo X, said openly: "This pope also, in my opinion,

is a scoundrel. Now may I say, that never in my life has any

pope kept his faith or his word with me......I hope, God willing,

this will be the last of them."

Kings and people then began to feel impatient under the

heavy burden the popes had laid upon them. They demanded that

Rome should relieve them from tithes, tributes, and annates,

which exhausted their resources. Already had France opposed Rome

with the Pragmatic Sanction, and the chiefs of the empire claimed

the like immunity. the emperor was present in person at the

council of Pisa in 1411, and even for a time entertained the idea

of securing the Papacy to himself. But of all these leaders,

none was so useful to the Reformation as he in whose states it

was destined to commence.

Frederick of Saxony, surnamed the Wise, was at that time the

most powerful of all the Electors. Coming to the government of

the hereditary states of his family in 1487, he had received the

electoral dignity from the emperor; and in 1493, having gone on a

pilgrimage to Jerusalem, he was there made a knight of the Holy

Sepulchre. the influence he exercised, his wealth and

liberality, raised him above his equals. God chose him to serve

as a tree under whose shelter the seeds of truth might put forth

their first shoots, without being uprooted by the tempests around

them.

No one was better adapted for this noble ministry.

Frederick possessed the esteem of all, and enjoyed the full

confidence of the emperor. He even supplied his place when

Maximilian was absent from Germany. His wisdom did not consist

in the skillful exercise of a crafty policy, but in an

enlightened, far-seeing prudence; the first principle of which

was never from interested motives to infringe the laws of honor

and of religion.

At the same time, he felt the power of God's word in his

heart. One day, when the vicar-general Staupitz was with him,

the conversation turned on those who were in the habit of

delivering empty declamations from the pulpit. "All discourses,"

said the elector, "that are filled only with subleties and human

traditions, are wonderfully cold and unimpressive; since no

sublety can be advanced, that another sublety cannot overthrow.

The Holy Scriptures alone are clothed with such power and

majesty, that, destroying all our learned reasoning-machines,

they press us close, and compel us to say, Never man spake like

this man." Staupitz having expressed himself entirely of that

opinion, the elector shook him cordially by the hand and said:

"Promise me that you will always think the same."

Frederick was precisely the prince required at the beginning

of the Reformation. Too much weakness on the part of the friends

of this work would have allowed of its being crushed. Too much

precipitation would have made the storm burst forth sooner, which

from its very commencement began to gather in secret against it.

Frederick was moderate but firm. He possessed that virtue which

God requires at all times in those who love his ways: he waited

for God. He put in practice the wise counsel of Gamaliel: "If

this work be of men, it will come to nought; but if it be of God,

ye cannot overthrow it." "Things are come to such a pass," said

this prince to Spengler of Nuremberg, one of the most enlightened

men of his day, "that man can do no more; God alone must act.

For this reason we place in his powerful hands these mighty works

that are too difficult for us." Providence claims our admiration

in the choice it made of such a ruler to protect its rising work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BOOK 1 CHAPTER 5

 

 

Popular Feeling--The Empire--Providential Preparations--Impulse

of the Reformation--Peace--The Commonalty--National Character--

Papal Yoke--State of the Empire--Opposition at Rome--Middle

Classes--Switzerland--Courage--Liberty--Smaller Cantons--Italy--

Obstacles to the Reform--Spain--Obstacles--Portugal--France--

Preparations--Disappointment--The Low Countries--England--

Scotland--The North--Russia--Poland--Bohemia--Hungary.

We have seen God's preparations among the princes for the

work he was about to accomplish: let us now consider what they

were among their subject. It would have been of less importance

for the chiefs to have been ready, if the nations themselves had

not been so. The discoveries made by the kings had acted

gradually upon the people. The wisest of them began to grow

accustomed to the idea that the bishop of Rome was a mere man,

and sometimes even a very bad man. The people in general began

to suspect that he was not much holier than their own bishops,

whose reputation was very equivocal. The licentiousness of the

popes excited the indignation of Christendom, and a hatred of the

Roman name was deeply seated in the hearts of nations.

Numerous causes at the same time facilitated the

emancipation of the various countries of the West. Let us cast a

glance over their condition at this period.

The Empire was a confederation of different states, having

an emperor at their head, and each possessing sovereignty within

its own territories. The Imperial Diet, composed of all the

princes or sovereign states, exercised the legislative power for

all the Germanic body. It was the emperor's duty to ratify the

laws, decrees, and recesses of this assembly, and he had the

charge of applying them and putting them into execution. The

seven most powerful princes, under the title of Electors, had the

privilege of conferring the imperial crown.

The north of Germany, inhabited principally by the ancient

Saxon race, had acquired the greatest portion of liberty. The

emperor, whose hereditary possessions were continually harassed

by the Turks, was compelled to keep on good terms with these

princes and their courageous subjects, who were at that time

necessary to him. Several free cities in the north, west, and

south of the empire, had by their commerce, manufactures, and

industry, attained a high degree of prosperity, and consequently

of independence. The powerful house of Austria, which wore the

imperial crown, held most of the states of southern Germany in

its power, and narrowly watched every movement. It was preparing

to extend its dominion over the whole of the empire, and even

beyond it, when the Reformation raised a powerful barrier against

its encroachments, and saved the independence of Europe.

As Judea, when Christianity first appeared, was in the

center of the old world, so Germany was the center of

Christendom. It touched, at the same time, in the Low Countries,

England, France, Switzerland, Italy, Hungary, Bohemia, Poland,

Denmark, and all the North. It was in the very heart of Europe

that this principle of life was destined to be developed, and its

pulsations were to circulate through the arteries of this great

body the generous blood that was appointed to vivify all its

members.

The particular form of constitution which the empire had

received, conformable with the dispensations of Providence,

favored the propagation of new ideas. If Germany had been a

monarchy strictly so called, like France or England, the

arbitrary will of the sovereign might have sufficed to check for

a while the progress of the Gospel. But it was a confederation.

The truth, opposed in one state, might be received with favor in

another.

The internal peace that Maximilian had secured to the empire

was no less favorable to the Reformation. For a long time the

numerous members of the Germanic body seemed to have taken a

pleasure in tearing each other to pieces. Nothing had been seen

but confusion, discord, and wars incessantly renewed. Neighbors

were against neighbors, town against town, nobles against nobles.

Maximilian had laid a firm foundation of public order in the

Imperial Chamber, an institution appointed to decide all

differences between the various states. The German nations,

after so many disorders and anxieties, saw the beginning of a new

era of security and repose. Nevertheless Germany, when Luther

appeared, still presented to the eye of the observer that motion

which agitates the sea after a storm of long continuance. The

calm was yet uncertain. The first breeze might make the tempest

burst forth anew. Of this we shall see more than one example.

The Reformation, by communicating a new impulse to the German

race, for ever destroyed the old causes of agitation. It put an

end to the barbarous system that had hitherto prevailed, and gave

a new one to Europe.

Meanwhile the religion of Jesus Christ had exerted on

Germany its peculiar influence. The third estate (the

commonalty) had rapidly advanced. In the different parts of the

empire, particularly in the free cities, numerous institutions

arose, calculated to develop this imposing mass of the people.

There the arts flourished: the burghers devoted themselves in

security to the tranquil labors and sweet relations of social

life. They became more and more accessible to information. Thus

they daily acquired greater respect and influence. It was not

magistrates, who are often compelled to adapt their conduct to

the political exigencies of the times; or nobles passionately

fond of military glory above all things; or an ambitious and

greedy priesthood, trading with religion as its peculiar

property, that were to found the Reformation in Germany. It was

to be the work of the middle classes--of the people--of the whole

nation.

The peculiar character of the Germans seemed especially

favorable to a religious reformation. They had not been

enervated by a false civilization. The precious seeds that the

fear of God deposits among a people had not been scattered to the

winds. Ancient manners still survived. In Germany was found

that uprightness, fidelity, and industry--that perseverance and

religious disposition, which still flourishes there, and which

promises greater success to the Gospel than the fickle, scornful,

and sensual character of other European nations.

The Germans had received from Rome that great element of

modern civilization--the faith. Instruction, knowledge,

legislation--all except their courage and their arms--had come to

them from the sacerdotal city. Strong ties had from that time

connected Germany with the Papacy. The former was a spiritual

conquest of the latter, and we know to what use Rome has always

applied her conquests. Other nations, who had possessed the

faith and civilization before the Roman pontiff existed, had

maintained a greater independence with respect to it. But this

subjection of the Germans was destined only to make the reaction

more powerful at the moment of awakening. When the eyes of

Germany should be opened, she would tear away the trammels in

which she had so long been held captive. The slavery she had

endured would give her a greater longing for deliverance and

liberty, and the hardy champions of truth would go forth from

that prison of restraint and discipline in which for ages her

people had been confined.

There was at that time in Germany something very nearly

resembling what in the political language of our days is termed

"a see-saw system." When the head of the empire was of an

energetic character, his power increased; when on the contrary he

possessed little ability, the influence and authority of the

princes and electors were augmented. Never had the latter felt

more independent of their chief than under Maximilian at the

period of the Reformation. And their leader having taken part

against it, it is easy to understand how that very circumstance

was favorable to the propagation of the Gospel.

In addition to this, Germany was weary of what Rome

contemptuously denominated "the patience of the Germans." The

latter had in truth shown much patience since the time of Louis

of Bavaria. From that period the emperors had laid down their

arms, and the tiara had been placed without resistance above the

crown of the Caesars. But the strife had only changed its scene

of action. It had descended to lower ground. These same

struggles, of which popes and emperors had set the world an

example, were soon renewed on a smaller scale in every city of

Germany, between the bishops and the magistrates. The burghers

had taken up the sword which the chiefs of the empire had let

fall. As early as 1329, the citizens of Frankfort-on-the-Oder

had resisted with intrepidity all their ecclesiastical superiors.

Having been excommunicated for their fidelity to the Margrave

Louis, they had remained for twenty-eight years without masses,

baptism, marriage ceremonies, or funeral rites. The return of

the priests and monks was greeted with laughter, like a comedy or

farce. A deplorable error, no doubt, but the priests themselves

were the cause of it. At the period of the Reformation these

oppositions between the magistrates and the ecclesiastics had

increased. Every hour the privileges and temporal assumptions of

the clergy brought these two bodies into collision.

But it was not only among the burgomasters, councillors, and

secretaries of the cities that Rome and her clergy found

opponents. About the same time the indignation was at work among

the populace. It broke out in 1493, and later in 1502, in the

Rhenish provinces: the peasants, exasperated at the heavy yoke

imposed upon them by their ecclesiastical sovereigns, formed

among themselves what has been called the "League of the Shoes."

They began to assemble by night in Alsacc, repairing by

unfrequented paths to isolated hills, where they swore to pay in

future no taxes but such as they had freely consented to, to

abolish all tolls and jalage, to limit the power of the priests,

and to plunder the Jews. Then placing a peasant's shoe on the

end of a pole by way of standard, they marched against the town

of Schlettstadt, proposing to call to their assistance the free

confederation of the Swiss: but they were soon dispersed. This

was only one of the symptoms of the general fermentation that

agitated the castles, towns, and rural districts of the empire.

Thus everywhere, from high to low, was heard a hollow

murmur, forerunner of the thunderbolt that was soon to fall.

Germany appeared ripe for the appointed task of the sixteenth

century. Providence in its slow progress had prepared

everything; and even the passions which God condemns, were

directed by his almighty hand to the accomplishment of his

designs.

Let us take a glance at the other nations of Europe.

Thirteen small republics, placed with their allies in the

center of Europe, among mountains which seemed to form its

citadel, composed a simple and brave nation. Who would have

looked in those sequestered valleys for the men whom God would

choose to be the liberators of the Church conjointly with the

children of the Germans? Who would have thought that small

unknown cities--scarcely raised above barbarism, hidden behind

inaccessible mountains, on the shores of lakes that had found no

name in history--would surpass, as regards Christianity, even

Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, and Rome? Nevertheless

such was the will of Him who "causeth it to rain upon one piece

of land, and the piece of land whereupon it raineth not

withereth."

Other circumstances besides seemed destined to oppose

numerous obstacles to the progress of the Reformation in the

bosom of the Helvetic population. If the obstructions of power

were to be dreaded in a monarchy, the precipitancy of the people

was to be feared in a democracy.

But in Switzerland, also, the way had been prepared for the

truth. It was a wild but generous stock, that had been sheltered

in her deep valleys, to be grafted one day with a fruit of great

value. Providence had scattered among these new people

principles of courage, independence, and liberty, that were to be

developed in all their majesty, so soon as the day of battle

against Rome should arrive. The pope had conferred upon the

Swiss the title of Protectors of the Liberty of the Church. But

they seem to have understood this honorable appellation in a

sense somewhat different from the pontiff. If their soldiers

guarded the pope beneath the shadow of the ancient Capitol, their

citizens carefully protected in the bosom of the Alps their own

religious liberties against the assaults of the pope and of the

clergy. The ecclesiastics were forbidden to have recourse to any

foreign jurisdiction. The "Letter of the Priests" (pfaffenbrief,

1370) was a strong protest of Swiss independence against the

abuses and power of the clergy. Zurich was distinguished among

all the states by its courageous resistance to the claims of

Rome. Geneva, at the other extremity of Switzerland, was

contending with its bishop. These two cities distinguished

themselves above all the others in the great struggle that we

have undertaken to describe.

But if the Helvetian towns, accessible to every

amelioration, were to be drawn into the reform movement, it was

not to be the case with the inhabitants of the mountains.

Knowledge had not yet reached them. These cantons, the founders

of Swiss liberty, proud of the part they had taken in the

struggle for independence, were not easily disposed to imitate

their younger brothers of the plain. Why should they change that

faith under which they had expelled the Austrian, and which had

consecrated by altars all the scenes of their triumphs? Their

priests were the only enlightened guides to whom they could have

recourse: their worship and their festivals relieved the

monotony of their tranquil hours, and agreeably disturbed the

silence of their peaceful homes. They remained steadfast against

all religious innovations.

Passing the Alps, we find ourselves in that Italy which was

in the eyes of the majority the holy land of Christendom. Whence

could Europe have looked for the good of the Church if not from

Italy--if not from Rome? Might not that power which raised

successively so many different characters to the pontifical

chair, some day place in it a pontiff who would become an

instrument of blessing to the heritage of the Lord? If even

there was no hope in the pontiffs, were there not bishops and

councils that might reform the Church? Nothing good can come out

of Nazareth: but from Jerusalem,--from Rome! ... Such might have

been the ideas of men; but "God's thoughts are not as their

thoughts." He said, "He that is filthy let him be filthy still;"

and abandoned Italy to her unrighteousness. That land of ancient

renown was by turns the victim of intestine war and of foreign

invasion. The stratagems of policy, the violence of factions,

the strife of arms, seemed alone destined to prevail there, and

to banish for a long season the peace of the Gospel.

Italy, broken to pieces, dismembered, and without unity,

appeared but little suited to receive one general impulse. Each

frontier was a new barrier where the truth would be stopped.

And if the truth was destined to come from the North, how

could the Italians, with so refined a taste, and with social

habits so delicate in their own eyes, condescend to receive any

thing from the barbarous Germans? Were the men who bestowed more

admiration on the regular cadence of a sonnet than on the majesty

and simplicity of the Scriptures, a proper soil for the seed of

the word of God? A false civilization is, of all the various

conditions of a nation, that which is most repugnant to the

Gospel.

Finally, whatever might be the state of affairs, Rome was

always Rome to Italy. The temporal power of the popes not only

led the different Italian states to court their alliance and

their favor at any cost, but the universal dominion of Rome

offered more than one inducement to the avarice and vanity of the

ultra-montane states. As soon as it became a question of

emancipating the rest of the world from Rome, Italy would become

Italy again; domestic quarrels would not prevail to the advantage

of a foreign system; and attacks aimed against the chief of the

peninsular family would be sufficient to awaken common interests

and affections from their long slumber.

The Reformation had thus little prospect of success on that

side of the Alps. Nevertheless, there were found beyond these

mountains souls prepared to receive the light of the Gospel, and

Italy was not at that hour entirely disinherited.

Spain possessed what Italy did not--a serious, noble-minded,

and religiously disposed population. In every age this people

has reckoned pious and learned men among the members of its

clergy, and it was sufficiently remote from Rome to be able to

throw off its yoke without difficulty. There are few nations in

which we might have more reasonably hoped for a revival of that

primitive Christianity which Spain had received perhaps from the

hands of St. Paul himself. And yet Spain did not rise up among

the nations. She was to fulfil this prophecy of Divine wisdom:

The first shall be last. Various circumstances led to this

mournful result.

Spain, considering its isolated position and distance from

Germany, would be affected only in a slight degree by the shocks

of that great earthquake which so violently agitated the empire.

It was occupied, besides, with very different treasures from

those which the word of God was then offering to the nations.

The new world eclipsed the eternal world. A virgin soil, which

seemed to consist of gold and silver, inflamed the imagination of

all. An eager thirst for wealth left no room in the Spanish

heart for nobler thoughts. A powerful clergy, having scaffolds

and treasures at its disposal, ruled in the peninsula. Spain

willingly rendered a servile obedience to her priests, which by

releasing her from every spiritual anxiety, left her free to give

way to her passions,--to go in pursuit of riches, discoveries,

and new continents. Victorious over the Moors, she had, at the

cost of her noblest blood, torn the crescent from the walls of

Granada and many other cities, and planted the cross of Christ in

its place. This great zeal for Christianity, which appeared

destined to afford the liveliest expectations, turned against the

truth. How could Catholic Spain, which had crushed infidelity,

fail to oppose heresy? How could those who had driven Mahomet

from their beautiful country allow Luther to penetrate into it?

Their kings did even more: they equipped fleets against the

Reformation, and went to Holland and to England in search of it,

that they might subdue it. But these attacks elevated the

nations assailed; and erelong Spain was crushed by their united

power. Thus, in consequence of the Reformation, did this

Catholic country lose that temporal prosperity which had made it

at first reject the spiritual liberty of the Gospel.

Nevertheless, the dwellers beyond the Pyrenees were a brave and

generous race. Many of its noble children, with the same ardour,

but with more knowledge than those whose blood had stained the

Moorish swords, came and laid down their lives as a sacrifice on

the burning piles of the Inquisition.

The case was nearly the same in Portugal as in Spain.

Emanuel the Fortunate gave it a "golden age," which unfitted it

for the self-denial required by the Gospel. The Portuguese

thronged the newly discovered roads to the East Indies and

Brazil, and turned their backs on Europe and the Reformation.

Few countries seemed better disposed for the reception of

the evangelical doctrines than France. In that country almost

all the intellectual and spiritual life of the Middle Ages had

been concentrated. One might have been led to say, that paths

had been opened in every direction for a great manifestation of

the truth. Men of the most opposite characters, and whose

influence had been most extensive over the French nation, were

found to have some affinity with the Reformation. St. Bernard

had given an example of that faith of the heart, of that inward

piety, which is the noblest feature of the Reformation. Abelard

had carried into the study of theology that rational principle,

which, incapable of building up what is true, is powerful to

destroy what is false. Numerous pretended heretics had rekindled

the flames of the word of God in the provinces. The university

of Paris had stood up against the Church, and had not feared to

oppose it. At the commencement of the fifteenth century of

Clemangis and the Gersons had spoken out with boldness. The

Pragmatic Sanction had been a great act of independence, and

seemed destined to be the palladium of the Gallican liberties.

The French nobles, so numerous and so jealous of their pre-

eminence, and who at this period had seen their privileges

gradually taken away to augment the kingly power, must have been

favorably disposed to a religious revolution that might have

restored some portion of the independence they had lost. The

people, quick, intelligent, and susceptible of generous emotions,

were as accessible to the truth as any other, if not more so.

The Reformation in this country seemed likely to crown the long

travail of many centuries. But the chariot of France, which

appeared for so many generations to be hastening onwards in the

same direction, suddenly turned aside at the epoch of the

Reformation, and took quite a contrary course. Such is the will

of Him who is the guide of nations and of their rulers. The

prince who was then seated in the chariot and held the reins, and

who, as a patron of literature, seemed of all the chiefs of

Roman-catholicism likely to be the foremost in promoting the

Reformation, threw his subjects into another path. The symptoms

of many centuries proved fallacious, and the impulse given to

France was unavailing against the ambition and fanaticism of her

kings. The house of Valois deprived her of that which should

have belonged to her. Perhaps had she received the Gospel, she

would have become too powerful. It was God's will to select

weaker nations--nations just rising into existence, to be the

depositories of his truth. France, after having been almost

entirely reformed, found herself Roman-catholic in the end. The

sword of her princes thrown into the balance made it incline

towards Rome. Alas! another sword--that of the Reformers

themselves--completed the destruction of the Reformation. Hands

that had been used to wield the sword, ceased to be raised to

heaven in prayer. It is by the blood of its confessors, and not

of its adversaries, that the Gospel triumphs.

At the era of the Reformation the Netherlands was one of the

most flourishing countries of Europe. Its people were

industrious, enlightened in consequence of the numerous relations

they maintained with the different parts of the world, full of

courage, and enthusiastic in the cause of their independence,

privileges, and liberties. Situated at the very gates of

Germany, it would be one of the first to hear the report of the

Reformation. Two very distinct parties composed its population.

The more southern portion, that overflowed with wealth, gave way.

How could all these manufactures carried to the highest degree of

perfection--this immense commerce by land and sea--Bruges, that

great mart of the northern trade--Antwerp, the queen of merchant

cities--how could all these resign themselves to a long and

bloody struggle about questions of faith? On the contrary, the

northern provinces, defended by their sand-hills, the sea, and

their canals, and still more by the simplicity of their manners,

and their determination to lose everything rather than the

Gospel, not only preserved their freedom, their privileges, and

their faith, but even achieved their independence and a glorious

nationality.

England gave but little promise of what she afterwards

became. Driven out of the continent, where she had long and

obstinately attempted the conquest of France, she began to turn

her eyes towards the sea, as to a kingdom destined to be the real

object of her conquests, and whose inheritance was reserved for

her. Twice converted to Christianity--once under the ancient

Britons, and again under the Anglo-Saxons--she paid with great

devotion the annual tribute of St. Peter's pence. Yet high

destinies were in reserve for her. Mistress of the ocean, and

touching at once upon all quarters of the globe, she was to

become one day, with the nation to which she should give birth,

the hand of God to scatter the seeds of life in the most distant

islands and over the widest continents. Already there were a few

circumstances foreboding her mighty destiny: great learning had

shone in the British islands, and some glimmerings of it still

remained. A crown of foreigners--artists, merchants, and

artisans--coming from the Low Countries, Germany, and other

places, filled their cities and their havens. The new religious

ideas would thus easily be carried thither. Finally, England had

then for king an eccentric prince, who, endowed with some

information and great courage, changed his projects and his ideas

every hour, and turned from one side to the other according to

the direction in which his violent passions drove him. It was

possible that one of the Eighth Henry's caprices might some day

be favorable to the Reformation.

Scotland was at this time distracted by factions. A king of

five years old, a queen-regent, ambitious nobles, and an

influential clergy, harassed this courageous people in every

direction. They were destined, however, erelong to shine in the

first rank among those who should receive the Reformation.

The three kingdoms of the North--Denmark, Sweden, and

Norway--were united under a common sceptre. These rude and

warlike people seemed to have little connection with the doctrine

of love and peace. Yet by their very energy they were perhaps

better disposed than the nations of the South to receive the

power of the Gospel. But these sons of warriors and of pirates

brought, methinks, too warlike a character into that protestant

cause, which their swords in later times so heroically defended.

Russia, driven into the extremity of Europe, had but few

relations with the other states. Besides, she belonged to the

Greek communion; and the Reformation effected in the Western

exerted little or no influence on the Eastern church.

Poland seemed well prepared for a reform. The neighborhood

of the Bohemian and Moravian Christians had disposed it to

receive the evangelical impulse, which by its vicinity to Germany

was likely to be promptly communicated. As early as 1500 the

nobility of Great Poland had demanded that the cup should be

given to the laity, by appealing to the customs of the primitive

Church. The liberty enjoyed in its cities, the independence of

its nobles, made it a secure asylum for all Christians who had

been persecuted in their own country. The truth they carried

with them was joyfully received by a great number of the

inhabitants. Yet it is one of the countries which, in our days,

possesses the fewest confessors.

The flame of the Reformation, which had long burnt brightly

in Bohemia, had been nearly extinguished in blood. Nevertheless,

some precious remnants, escaped from the slaughter, were still

alive to see the day which Huss had foretold.

Hungary had been torn in pieces by intestine wars under the

government of princes without ability or experience, and who had

eventually bound the fate of their subjects to Austria, by

enrolling this powerful family among the heirs to their crown.

Such was the state of Europe at the beginning of the

sixteenth century, which was destined to produce so great a

transformation in christian society.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BOOK 1 CHAPTER 6

 

 

Roman Theology--Remains of Life--Justification by Faith--

Witnesses to the Truth--Claudius--The Mystics--The Waldenses--

Valdo--Wickliffe--Huss--Prediction--Protestantism before the

Reformation--Anselm--Arnoldi--Utenheim--Martin--New Witnesses in

the Church--Thomas Conecte--The Cardinal of Crayn--Institoris--

Savonarola--Justification by Faith--John Vitrarius--John Lallier-

-John of Wesalia--John of Goch--John Wessel--Protestantism before

the Reformation--The Bohemian Brethren--Prophecy of Proles--

Prophecy of the Eisenach Franciscan.

Having described the condition of the nations and princes of

Europe, we now proceed to the preparations for the great Reform

which existed in theology and in the Church.

The singular system of theology that was established in the

Church, was destined to contribute powerfully to open the eyes of

the new generation. Formed for an age of darkness, as if that

age would last for ever, that system was to be left behind, and

to be rent in every direction, so soon as the age grew in

understanding. This was the result. The popes had added now

this and now that to the Christian doctrines. They had neither

changed nor removed anything except it would not square with

their hierarchical system; what was not contrary to their plans

might remain until further orders. It contained certain true

doctrines, such as Redemption, and the power of the Holy Ghost,

of which a skillful divine, if there was one to be found at that

time, might have availed himself to combat and overthrow all the

others. The pure gold mingled with the base alloy in the

treasures of the Vatican, might have easily led to the discovery

of the fraud. It is true, that if any courageous adversary

turned his attention towards it, the winnowing-fan of Rome

immediately swept away this pure grain. But these very

condemnations only served to augment the confusion.

This confusion was immense, and the pretended unity was but

one wide disorder. At Rome there were the doctrines of the court

and the doctrines of the church. The faith of the metropolis

differed from that of the provinces. In the latter, too, this

diversity was infinite. There was the faith of the princes, of

the people, and of the religious orders. There was a distinction

between the opinions of this convent and of that district, of

this doctor and of that monk.

In order that the truth might exist peaceably in the ages

when Rome would have crushed her with its iron scepter, she had

followed the example of the insect that weaves a chrysalis of its

threads in which to shelter itself during the inclement season.

And, strange to say, the instruments employed by divine truth to

this end were the so-much decried schoolmen. These industrious

artisans of thought had unravelled every theological idea, and of

all their threads had woven a web, under which it would have been

difficult for more skillful persons than their contemporaries to

recognize the truth in its pristine purity. We may regret that

the insect, so full of life, and glowing with the brightest

colors, should enclose itself, to all appearance dead, in its

dark cell; but in this covering is its safety. The case was the

same with truth. If the interested and suspicious policy of

Rome, in the day of its power, had seen her unveiled, it would

have crushed her, or at least endeavoured so to do. Disguised as

she was by the theologians of the time, under endless subtleties

and distinctions, the popes did not recognize her, or saw that in

this condition she could not injure them. They took the work and

the workmen under their protection. But the season might come in

which this hidden truth would raise her head, and throw off the

toils that had covered her. Having gained new strength in her

apparent tomb, she would be seen in the day of her resurrection

gaining the victory over Rome and its errors. This spring-time

arrived. At the very period when these absurd coverings of the

schoolmen were falling one after another under the skillful

attacks and the sneers of the new generation, the truth issued

from them, blooming in youth and beauty.

It was not alone from the writings of the schoolmen that

powerful testimony was given to the truth. Christianity had

everywhere mingled something of its own life with the life of the

people. The Church of Christ was a dilapidated building; but in

digging around it, a portion of the living rock on which it had

been originally built was discovered among its foundations.

Numerous institutions dating from the pure ages of the Church

still existed, and could not fail to awaken in many souls

evangelical sentiments opposed to the prevailing superstition.

Inspired men, the old doctors of the Church, whose writings were

deposited in various libraries, raised here and there a solitary

voice. We may hope that it was listened to in silence by many an

attentive ear. Let us not doubt that the Christians--and how

pleasing is the thought!--had many brethren and sisters in those

monasteries, where we too easily discover little else than

hypocrisy and licentiousness.

The Church had fallen, because the great doctrine of

justification by faith in the Saviour had been taken away from

her. It was necessary, therefore, before she could rise again,

that this doctrine should be restored to her. As soon as the

fundamental truth should be re-established in Christendom, all

the errors and observances that had taken its place--all that

multitude of saints, of works, penances, masses, indulgences, &c,

would disappear. As soon as the one only Mediator and his only

sacrifice were acknowledged, all other mediators and sacrifices

would vanish. "This article of justification," says a man whom

we may consider enlightened on the matter, "is what creates the

Church, nourishes it, edifies it, preserves and defends it: no

one can teach worthily in the Church, or oppose an adversary with

success, if he does not adhere to this truth. This," adds the

writer whom we quote, in allusion to the earliest prophecy, "is

the heel that shall bruise the head of the serpent."

God, who was preparing his work, raised up during the course

of ages a long line of witnesses to the truth. But of this truth

to which these generous men bore witness, they had not a

sufficiently clear knowledge, or at least were not able to set it

forth with adequate distinctness. Unable to accomplish this

task, they were all that they should have been to prepare the way

for it. Let us add, however, that if they were not ready for the

work, the work was not ready for them. The measure was not yet

full: the ages had not yet accomplished their prescribed course;

the need of the true remedy was not as yet generally felt.

Scarcely had Rome usurped her power, before a strong

opposition was formed against her, which was continued during the

Middle Ages.

Archbishop Claudius of Turin, in the ninth century; Pierre

de Bruys, his disciple Henry, and Arnold of Brescia, in the

twelfth century, in France and in Italy, labored to re-establish

the worship of God in spirit and in truth; but for the most part

they looked for this worship too much in the absence of images

and of outward observances.

The Mystics, who have existed in almost every age, seeking

in silence for holiness of heart, righteousness of life, and

tranquil communion with God, beheld with sorrow and affright the

abominations of the Church. They carefully abstained from the

quarrels of the schools and from the useless discussions under

which real piety had been buried. They endeavoured to withdraw

men from the vain formality of external worship, from the noise

and pomp of ceremonies, to lead them to that inward repose of a

soul which looks to God for all its happiness. They could not do

this without coming into collision on every side with the

received opinions, and without laying bare the wounds of the

Church. But at the same time they had not a clear notion of the

doctrine of justification by faith.

The Waldenses, far superior to the Mystics in purity of

doctrine, compose a long line of witnesses to the truth. Men

more unfettered than the rest of the Church seem from the most

distant times to have inhabited the summits of the Piedmontese

Alps; their number was augmented and their doctrine purified by

the disciples of Valdo. From their mountain-heights the

Waldenses protested during a long series of ages against the

superstitions of Rome. "They contend for the lively hope which

they have in God through Christ--for the regeneration and

interior revival by faith, hope, and charity--for the merits of

Jesus Christ, and the all-sufficiency of his grace and

righteousness."

Yet this primal truth of the justification of sinners,--this

main doctrine, that should have risen from the midst of all the

rest like Mont Blane from the bosom of the Alps, was not

sufficiently prominent in their system. Its summit was not yet

raised high enough.

Pierre Vaud or Valdo, a rich merchant of Lyons (1170), sold

all his goods and gave them to the poor. He and his friends

appear to have aimed at re-establishing the perfection of

primitive Christianity in the common affairs of life. He

therefore began also with the branches and not with the roots.

Nevertheless his preaching was powerful because he appealed to

Scripture, and it shook the Roman hierarchy to its very

foundations.

Wickliffe arose in England in 1360, and appealed from the

pope to the word of God: but the real internal wound in the body

of the Church was in his eyes only one of the numerous symptoms

of the disease.

John Huss preached in Bohemia a century before Luther

preached in Saxony. He seems to have penetrated deeper than his

predecessors into the essence of christian truth. He prayed to

Christ for grace to glory only in his cross and in the

inestimable humiliation of his sufferings. But his attacks were

directed less against the errors of the Romish church than the

scandalous lives of the clergy. Yet he was, if we may be allowed

the expression, the John-Baptist of the Reformation. The flames

of his pile kindled a fire in the Church that cast a brilliant

light into the surrounding darkness, and whose glimmerings were

not to be so readily extinguished.

John Huss did more: prophetic words issued from the depths

of his dungeon. He foresaw that a real reformation of the Church

was at hand. When driven out of Prague and compelled to wander

through the fields of Bohemia, where an immense crowd followed

his steps and hung upon his words, he had cried out: "The wicked

have begun by preparing a treacherous snare for the goose. But

if even the goose, which is only a domestic bird, a peaceful

animal, and whose flight is not very high in the air, has

nevertheless broken through their toils, other birds, soaring

more boldly towards the sky, will break through them with still

greater force. Instead of a feeble goose, the truth will send

forth eagles and keen-eyed vultures." This prediction was

fulfilled by the reformers.

When the venerable priest had been summoned by Sigismund's

order before the council of Constance, and had been thrown into

prison, the chapel of Bethlehem, in which he had proclaimed the

Gospel and the future triumphs of Christ, occupied his mind, much

more than his own defence. One night the holy martyr saw in

imagination, from the depths of his dungeon, the pictures of

Christ that he had painted on the walls of his oratory, effaced

by the pope and his bishops. This vision distressed him: but on

the next day he saw many painters occupied in restoring these

figures in greater number and in brighter colors. As soon as

their task was ended, the painters, who were surrounded by an

immense crowd, exclaimed: "Now let the popes and bishops come!

they shall never efface them more!" And many people rejoiced in

Bethlehem, and I with them, adds John Huss.--"Busy yourself with

your defence rather than with your dreams," said his faithful

friend, the knight of Chlum, to whom he had communicated this

vision. "I am no dreamer," replied Huss, "but I maintain this

for certain, that the image of Christ will never be effaced.

They have wished to destroy it, but it shall be painted afresh in

all hearts by much better preachers than myself. The nation that

loves Christ will rejoice at this. And I, awaking from among the

dead, and rising, so to speak, from my grave, shall leap with

great joy."

A century passed away; and the torch of the Gospel, lighted

up anew by the reformers, illuminated indeed many nations, that

rejoiced in its brightness.

But it was not only among those whom the church of Rome

looks upon as her adversaries that the word of life was heard

during these ages. Catholicism itself--let us say it for our

consolation--courts numerous witnesses to the truth within its

pale. The primitive building had been consumed; but a generous

fire smoldered beneath its ashes, and from time to time sent

forth many brilliant sparks.

It is an error to believe that Christianity did not exist

before the Reformation, save under the Roman-catholic form, and

that it was not till then that a section of the Church assumed

the form of Protestantism.

Among the doctors who flourish prior to the sixteenth

century, a great number no doubt had a leaning towards the system

which the Council of Trent put forth in 1562; but many also

inclined towards the doctrines professed at Augsburg by the

Protestants in 1530; and the majority perhaps oscillated between

these two poles.

Anselm of Canterbury laid down as the very essence of

Christianity the doctrines of the incarnation and atonement; and

in a work in which he teaches us how to die, he says to the

departing soul: "Look only to the merits of Jesus Christ." St.

Bernard proclaimed with a powerful voice the mysteries of

Redemption. "If my sin cometh from another," says he, "why

should not my righteousness be granted me in the same manner?

Assuredly it is better for me that it should be given me, than

that it should be innate." Many schoolmen, and in later times

the Chancellor Gerson, vigorously attacked the errors and abuses

of the Church.

But let us reflect above all on the thousands of souls,

obscure and unknown to the world, who have nevertheless been

partakers of the real life of Christ.

A monk named Arnoldi everyday offered up this fervent prayer

in his quiet cell: "O Lord Jesus Christ! I believe that thou

alone art my redemption and my righteousness."

Christopher of Utenheim, a pious bishop of Basle, had his

name inscribed on a picture painted on glass, which is still in

that city, and surrounded it with this motto, which he desired to

have continually before his eyes: "My hope is in the cross of

Christ; I seek grace and not works."

A poor Carthusian friar, named Martin, wrote a touching

confession, in which he says: "O most merciful God! I know that

I cannot be saved and satisfy thy righteousness otherwise than by

the merits, by the most innocent passion, and by the death of thy

dearly beloved Son......Holy Jesus! all my salvation is in thy

hands. Thou canst not turn away from me the hands of thy love,

for they have created me, formed me, and redeemed me. Thou hast

written my name with an iron pen, in great mercy and in an

indelible manner, on thy side, on thy hands, and on thy feet,"

&c.&c. Then the good Carthusian placed his confession in a

wooden box, and enclosed it in a hole he made in the wall of his

cell.

The piety of brother Martin would never have been known, if

the box had not been discovered on the 21st December 1776, as

some workmen were pulling down an old building that had formed

part of the Carthusian convent at Basle. How many convents may

not have concealed such treasures!

But these holy men possessed this touching faith for

themselves alone, and knew not how to communicate it to others.

Living in retirement, they could say more or less what brother

Martin confided to his box: "And if I cannot confess these

things with my mouth, I confess them at least with my pen and

with my heart." The word of truth was in the sanctuary of a few

pious souls; but, to use the language of the Gospel, it had not

"free course" in the world.

However, if they did not always confess aloud the doctrine

of salvation, they were not afraid at least to protest openly

even in the bosom of the Church of Rome, against the abuses that

disgraced it.

Scarcely had the Councils of Constance and Basle, in which

Huss and his disciples had been condemned, terminated their

sittings, when this noble line of witnesses against Rome, which

we have pointed out, recommenced with greater brilliancy. Men of

generous dispositions, shocked at the abominations of the papacy,

arose like the Old-Testament prophets, whose fate they also

shared, and uttered like them their denunciations in a voice of

thunder. Their blood stained the scaffolds, and their ashes were

scattered to the winds.

Thomas Conecte, a Carmelite friar, appeared in Flanders. He

declared that "the grossest abominations were practiced at Rome,

that the Church required a reform, and that so long as we served

God, we should not fear the pope's excommunications." All the

country listened with enthusiasm; Rome condemned him to the stake

in 1432, and his contemporaries declared that he had been

translated to heaven.

Cardinal Andrew, archbishop of Crayn, being sent to Rome as

the emperor's ambassador, was struck with dismay at discovering

that the papal sanctity, in which he had devoutly believed, was a

mere fiction; and in his simplicity he addressed Sixtus IV in the

language of evangelical remonstrance. Mockery and persecution

were his only answer. Upon this he endeavoured in 1482 to

assemble a new council at Basle. "The whole Church," said he,

"is shaken by divisions, heresies, sins, vices, unrighteousness,

errors, and countless evils, so as to be nigh swallowed up by the

devouring abyss of damnation. For this reason we proclaim a

general council for the reformation of the Catholic faith and the

purification of morals." The archbishop was thrown into prison

at Basle, where he died. The inquisitor, Henry Institoris, who

was the first to oppose him, uttered these remarkable words:

"All the world cries out and demands a council; but there is no

human power that can reform the Church by a council. The Most

High will find other means, which are at present unknown to us,

although they may be at our very doors, to bring back the Church

to its pristine condition." This remarkable prophecy, delivered

by an inquisitor, at the very period of Luther's birth, is the

best apology for the Reformation.

Jerome Savonarola shortly after entering the Dominican order

at Bologna in 1475, devoted himself to continual prayers,

fasting, and mortification, and cried, "Thou, O God, art good,

and in thy goodness teach me thy righteousness." He preached

with energy in Florence, to which city he had removed in 1489.

His voice carried conviction; his countenance was lit up with

enthusiasm; and his action possessed enchanting grace. "We must

regenerate the Church," said he; and he professed the great

principle that alone could effect this regeneration. "God," he

exclaimed, "remits the sins of men, and justifies them by his

mercy. There are as many compassions in heaven as there are

justified men upon earth; for none are saved by their own works.

No man can boast of himself; and if, in the presence of God, we

could ask all these justified sinners--Have you been saved by

your own strength?--all would reply as with one voice, Not unto

us, O Lord! not unto us; but to thy name be the glory!--

Therefore, O God, do I seek thy mercy, and I bring not unto thee

my own righteousness; but when by thy grace thou justifiest me,

then thy righteousness belongs unto me; for grace is the

righteousness of God.--So long, O man, so long as thou believest

not, thou art, because of thy sin, destitute of grace.--O God,

save me by thy righteousness, that is to say, in thy Son, who

alone among men was found without sin!" Thus did the grand and

holy doctrine of justification by faith gladden Savonarola's

heart. In vain did the presidents of the Churches oppose him; he

knew that the oracles of God were far above the visible Church,

and that he must proclaim these oracles with the aid of the

Church, without it, or even in spite of it. "Fly," cried he,

"fly far from Babylon!" and it was Rome that he thus designated,

and Rome erelong replied in her usual manner. In 1497, the

infamous Alexander VI issued a brief against him; and in 1498,

torture and the stake terminated this reformer's life.

John Vitrarius, a Franciscan monk of Tournay, whose monastic

spirit does not appear to have been of a very lofty range,

vigorously attacked the corruptions of the Church. "It is better

to cut a child's throat (he said) than to place him in a

religious order that is not reformed.--If thy curate, or any

other priest, detains a woman in his house, you should go and

drag the woman by force, or otherwise, out of the house.--There

are some who repeat certain prayers to the Virgin Mary, that they

may see her at the hour of death. But thou shalt see the devil,

and not the virgin." A recantation was required, and the monk

gave way in 1498.

John Lallier, doctor of the Sorbonne, stood forth in 1484

against the tyrannical dominion of the hierarchy. "All the

clergy," said he, "have received equal power from Christ.--The

Roman Church is not the head of other Churches.--You should keep

the commandments of God and of the apostles: and as for the

commandments of bishops and all the other lords of the

Church......they are but straw! They have ruined the Church by

their crafty devices.--The priests of the Eastern Church sin not

by marrying, and I believe that in the Western Church we should

not sin were we also to marry.--Since the time of Sylvester, the

Romish Church is no longer the Church of Christ, but a state-

church--a money-getting church.--We are not bound to believe in

the legends of the saints, any more than in the Chronicles of

France."

John of Wesalia, doctor of divinity at Erfurth, a man

distinguished for this energy and talents, attacked the errors on

which the hierarchy was founded, and proclaimed the Holy

Scriptures as the only source of faith. "It is not religion (by

which he meant a monastic life) that saves us," said he to the

monks; "it is the grace of God.--God from all eternity has

established a book in which he has written the names of all his

elect. Whoever is not inscribed therein, will never be so; and

whoever is therein inscribed, will never see his name blotted

out.--It is by the grace of God alone that the elect are saved.

He whom God is willing to save by the gift of his grace, will be

saved, though all the priests in the world should wish to condemn

and excommunicate him. And he whom God will condemn, though all

should wish to save him, will nevertheless be condemned.--By what

audacity do the successors of the apostles enjoin, not what

Christ has prescribed in his holy books, but what they themselves

have devised, carried away, as they are, by thirst for gold and

by the desire of ruling?--I despise the Pope, the Church and, the

Councils, and I give Christ the glory." Wesalia, having arrived

gradually at these convictions, professed them boldly from the

pulpit, and entered into communication with the delegates from

the Hussites. Feeble, and bending under the weight of years, a

prey to sickness and leaning upon his staff, this courageous old

man appeared with tottering steps before the Inquisition, and

perished in its dungeons in 1482.

John of Goch, prior of Malines, about the same period,

extolled christian liberty as the essence of every virtue. He

charged the prevailing doctrines with Pelagianism, and

denominated Thomas Aquinas "the prince of error." "The canonical

scriptures alone," said he, "are entitled to a sure confidence,

and have an undeniable authority. The writings of the ancient

Fathers have no authority, but so far as they are conformable

with canonical truth. The common proverb says truly: Satan

would be ashamed to think of what a monk dares undertake."

But the most remarkable of these forerunners of the

Reformation was undoubtedly John Wessel, surnamed "the Light of

the World," a man full of courage and of love for the truth, who

was doctor in divinity successively at Cologne, Louvain, Paris,

Heidelberg, and Groningen, and of whom Luther says: "Had I read

his works sooner, my enemies might have thought I had derived

everything from Wessel, so much are we of one mind."--"St. Paul

and St. James," says Wessel, "preach different but not contrary

doctrines. Both maintain that 'the just shall live by faith;'

but by a faith working by charity. He who, at the sound of the

Gospel, believes, desires, hopes, trusts in the glad tidings, and

loves Him who justifies and blesses him, forthwith yields himself

up entirely to Him whom he loves, and attributes no merit to

himself, since he knows that of himself he has nothing.--The

sheep must discern the things on which he feeds, and avoid a

corrupted nutriment, even when presented by the shepherd himself.

The people should follow the shepherd into the pastures; but when

he ceases to lead them into the pastures, he is no longer a

shepherd, and then, since he does not fulfil his duty, the flock

is not bound to follow him. Nothing is more effectual to the

destruction of the Church than a corrupted clergy. All

Christians, even the humblest and most simple, are bound to

resist those who are destroying the Church. We must obey the

precepts of doctors and of prelates only according to the measure

laid down by St. Paul (1 Thess. v. 21); that is to say, so far

as, 'sitting in Moses' seat,' they teach according to Moses. We

are God's servants, and not the pope's, as it is said: Thou

shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

The Holy Spirit has reserved to himself the work of renewing,

vivifying, preserving, and increasing the unity of the Church,

and has not abandoned it to the Roman pontiff, who frequently

cares nothing about it.--Even her sex does not prevent a woman,

if she is faithful and prudent, and if she has charity shed

abroad in her heart, from being able to feel, judge, approve, and

decide by a judgment that God will ratify."

Thus, in proportion as the Reformation drew nigh, were the

voices multiplied that proclaimed the truth. We might be led to

say that the Church intended showing by these means that the

Reformation existed before Luther. Protestantism arose in the

Church on the very day in which the germs of Popery showed

themselves; as in the political world conservative principles

have existed from the very moment when the despotism of nobles or

the disorders of factions have raised their heads. Protestantism

was sometimes even stronger than the Papacy in the centuries

immediately preceding the Reformation. What could Rome oppose to

all the witnesses we have just heard, at the time when their

voices re-echoed through the earth?--A few monks without either

learning or piety.

To this we may add, that the Reformation had taken root, not

only among the doctors of the Church, but also among the people.

The opinions of Wickliffe, issuing from Oxford, had spread over

all Christendom, and had found adherents in Bavaria, Swabia,

Franconia, and Prussia. In Bohemia, from the very bosom of

discord and of war, had come forth at last a peaceful and

christian community, reminding the world of the primitive Church,

and giving powerful testimony to the grand principle of Gospel

opposition, that "Christ, and not Peter and his successors, is

the rock on which the Church is founded." Belonging equally to

the German and Sclavonic races, these simple Christians had sent

forth missionaries into the midst of the various nations who

spoke their language, noiselessly to gain over followers to their

opinions. Nicholas Kuss, who was twice visited by them at

Rostock, began in 1511 to preach openly against the pope.

It is important to notice this state of affairs. When the

Wisdom from on high shall utter his lessons in a still louder

voice, there will be minds and hearts everywhere to listen to

them. When the Husbandman, who has been continually traversing

his Church, shall go forth to a new and to a greater sowing, the

soil will be prepared to receive the grain. When the trumpet of

the Angel of the covenant, that has never ceased to be heard in

the world, shall send forth a louder peal, numbers will gird

themselves to the battle.

The Church already had a presentiment that the hour of

combat was approaching. If more than one philosopher announced

in some measure, during the last century, the revolution in which

it closed, shall we be astonished that many doctors at the end of

the fifteenth century had foreseen the approaching change that

would regenerate the Church?

Andrew Proles, provincial of the Augustines, who for nearly

half a century presided over that congregation, and who, with

unshaken firmness, maintained in his order the doctrines of St.

Augustine, being assembled with his brethren in the convent of

Himmelspforte, near Wernigerode, used often to stop them while

reading the word of God, and say: "My brethren! ye hear the

testimony of the Holy Scriptures! They declare that by grace we

are what we are, and that by it alone we hold all that we

possess. Whence then proceed so much darkness and such horrible

superstitions?......Oh, my brethren! Christianity needs a bold

and a great reform, and methinks I see it already approaching."

Then would the monks cry out, "Why do you not begin this reform

yourself, and oppose such a cloud of errors?"--"You see, my

brethren," replied the aged provincial, "that I am bent with the

weight of years, and weak in body, and that I have not the

learning, ability, and eloquence, that so great an undertaking

requires. But God will raise up a hero, who by his age,

strength, talents, learning, genius, and eloquence, shall hold

the foremost place. He will begin the Reformation; he will

oppose error, and God will give him boldness to resist the mighty

ones of the earth." An old monk of Himmelspforte, who had often

heard these words, communicated them to Flacius. It was in the

very order of which Proles was provincial that the Christian hero

he foretold was to appear.

A monk named John Hilten was an inmate of the Franciscan

convent at Eisenach in Thuringia. The prophecies of Daniel and

the Revelation of St. John were his especial study. He even

wrote a commentary on these works, and censured the most flagrant

abuses of the monastic life. The exasperated monks threw him

into prison. His advanced age and the filthiness of his dungeon

brought on a dangerous illness: he asked for the superior, and

the latter had scarcely arrived before he burst into a violent

passion, and without listening to the prisoner's complaints,

bitterly abused his doctrine, that was opposed, adds the

chronicle, to the monks' kitchen. The Franciscan, forgetting his

malady and groaning heavily, replied: "I bear your insults

calmly for the love of Christ; for I have said nothing that can

endanger the monastic state: I have only censured its most

crying abuses. But," continued he (according to what Melancthon

records in his Apology for the Augsburg Confession of Faith),

"another man will arise in the year of our Lord 1516: he will

destroy you, and you shall not be able to resist him." John

Hilten, who had prophesied that the end of the world would come

in 1651, was less mistaken in pointing out the year when the

future Reformer would appear. Not long after, he was born in a

small village at a little distance from the monk's dungeon: in

this very town of Eisenach he commenced his studies, and only one

year later than the imprisoned friar had stated, he publicly

entered upon the Reformation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BOOK 1 CHAPTER 7

 

Third Preparation--Letters--Revival--Recollections of Antiquity

in Italy--Influence of the Humanists--Christianity of Dante

Valla--Infidelity in Italy--Platonic Philosophy--Commencement of

learning in Germany--Young Students--Printing--Characteristics of

German Literature--The Learned and the Schoolmen--A New World

Reuchlin--Reuchlin in Italy--His Labors--His Influence in

Germany--Mysticism--Contest with the Dominicans.

Thus princes and people, living members of the Church and

theologians, were laboring each in their sphere to prepare the

work which the sixteenth century was to accomplish. But the

Reformation was destined to find another auxiliary in learning.

The human mind was gaining strength. This circumstance alone

would have wrought its emancipation. Let but a small seed fall

near a time-eaten wall, and as the tree grows up, the wall will

be overthrown.

The Roman pontiff had constituted himself the guardian of

the people, and his superior intelligence rendered this an easy

task. For a long time he had kept them in a state of pupilage,

but now they were breaking bounds on every side. This venerable

guardianship, which derived its origin from the principles of

eternal life and civilization that Rome had communicated to the

barbarous nations, could no longer be exercised without

opposition. A formidable antagonist had taken up his position

against it in order to control it. The natural tendency of the

human mind to expand, to examine, to learn, had given birth to

this new power. Men's eyes were opened: they demanded a reason

for each step taken by this long-venerated guide, under whose

direction they had walked in silence, so long as their eyes were

closed. The nations of modern Europe had passed the age of

infancy; their manhood was beginning. Their artless and

credulous simplicity had given way to an inquiring spirit--to a

reason impatient to fathom things to the very bottom. They asked

what had been God's object in making a revelation to the world,

and whether men had a right to set themselves up as mediators

between God and their brethren.

One thing only could have saved the church: this was to

elevate itself still higher than the people. To be on a level

with them was not sufficient. But men soon found, on the

contrary, that she was much below them. She began to take a

downward course, at the very time that they were ascending. When

men began to soar towards the regions of intelligence, the

priesthood was found engrossed in earthly pursuits and human

interests. It is a phenomenon that has often been renewed in

history. The eaglet's wings had grown; and there was no man

whose hand could reach it and stay its flight.

It was in Italy that the human mind first began to soar

above the earth.

The doctrines of the schoolmen and romantic poetry had never

reigned undisturbed in that peninsula. Some faint recollections

of antiquity had always remained in Italy,--recollections that

were revived in great strength towards the end of the Middle

Ages, and which erelong communicated a fresh impulse to the human

mind.

Already in the fourteenth century had Dante and Petrarch

revived the credit of the ancient Roman poets; at the same time

the former placed the mightiest popes in his "Inferno," and the

second called with boldness for the primitive constitution of the

Church. At the beginning of the fifteenth century John of

Ravenna taught the Latin literature with great renown at Padua

and Florence; and Chrysoloras interpreted the masterpieces of

Greece at Florence and at Pavia.

While learning was thus issuing from the prisons in which it

had been held captive in Europe , the East imparted fresh light

to the West. The standard of Mahomet, planted on the walls of

Constantinople in 1453, had driven its learned men into exile.

They had carried the learning of Greece with them into Italy.

The torch of the ancients rekindled the minds that had been for

ages quenched in darkness. George of Trebizond, Argyropolos,

Bessarion, Lascaris, Chalcondylas, and many others, inspired the

West with their own love for Greece and its noble works of

genius. The patriotism of the Italians was awakened; and there

arose in Italy a great number of learned men, among whom shone

Gasparino, Aurispa, Aretino, Poggio, and Valla, who endeavoured

in like manner to restore the writers of ancient Rome to the

honor they merited. There was at that period a great burst of

light, and Rome was doomed to suffer by it.

This passion for antiquity which took possession of the

humanists, shook in the most elevated minds their attachment to

the Church, for "no man can serve two masters." At the same time

the studies to which they devoted themselves, placed at the

disposition of these learned men a method entirely new and

unknown to the schoolmen, of examining and judging the teaching

of the Church. Finding in the Bible, much more than in the works

of theologians, the beauties that charmed them in the classic

authors, the humanists were fully inclined to place the Bible

above the doctors. They reformed the taste, and thus prepared

the way for the Reformation of the faith.

These scholars, it is true, loudly protested that their

studies did not strike at the faith of the Church; yet they

attacked the schoolmen long before the Reformers did and turned

into ridicule those barbarians, those "Teutons," who had existed

but not lived. Some even proclaimed the doctrines of the Gospel,

and laid hands on what Rome held most dear. Dante, although

adhering to many Romish doctrines, had already proclaimed the

power of faith, as did the reformers. "It is true faith that

renders us citizens of heaven," said he. "Faith according to the

Gospel is the principle of life; it is the spark that, spreading

daily more and more, becomes a living flame, and shines on us,

like a star in heaven. Without faith there is no good work, nor

upright life, that can avail us. However great be the sin, the

arms of Divine grace are wider still, and embrace all who turn to

God. The soul is not lost through the anathemas of the pontiff;

and eternal love can still reach it, so long as hope retains her

verdant blossom. From God, from God alone, cometh our

righteousness by faith." And speaking of the Church, Dante

exclaims: "O my bark, how deeply art thou laden! O Constantine,

what mischief has been engendered, I will not say by thy

conversion, but by that offering which the wealthy father then

received from thee!"

Somewhat later, Laurentius Valla applied the study of

antiquity to the opinions of the Church: he denied the

authenticity of the correspondence between Christ and King Abgar;

he rejected the tradition of the drawing up of the Apostles'

Creed; and sapped the foundation on which reposed the pretended

donation of Constantine.

Still this great light which the study of antiquity threw

out in the fifteenth century was calculated only to destroy: it

could not build up. Neither Homer nor Virgil could save the

Church. The revival of learning, sciences, and arts, was not the

principle of the Reformation. The paganism of the poets, as it

reappeared in Italy, rather confirmed the paganism of the heart.

The skepticism of the followers of Aristotle, and the contempt

for everything that did not appertain to philology, took

possession of many literary men, and engendered an incredulity

which, even while affecting submission to the Church, attacked

the most important truths of religion. Peter Pomponatius, the

most distinguished representative of this impious tendency,

publicly taught at Bologna and Padua that the immortality of the

soul and the doctrine of providence were mere philosophical

problems. John Francis Pico, nephew of Pico of Mirandola, speaks

of one pope who did not believe in God; and of another who,

having acknowledged to a friend his disbelief in the immortality

of the soul, appeared to him one night after death, and said:

"Alas! the eternal fire that is now consuming me makes me feel

but too sensibly the immortality of soul which I had thought

would die with the body!" This may remind us of those remarkable

words spoken, it is asserted, by Leo X to his secretary Bembo:

"Every age knows how useful this fable of Christ has been to us

and ours"......Contemptible superstitions were attacked, but

incredulity with its disdainful and mocking sneer was set up in

their place. To laugh at everything, even at what was most holy,

was the fashion and the badge of a freethinker. Religion was

considered only as a means of governing the world. "I fear,"

said Erasmus in 1516, "that with the study of ancient literature,

the olden paganism will reappear."

It is true that then, as after the ridicule of the Augustan

age, and as even in our days after the sneers of the last

century, a new Platonism arose and attacked this rash skepticism,

and sought, like the philosophy of the present times, to inspire

a certain degree of respect for Christianity, and to rekindle a

religious feeling in the heart. The Medici at Florence

encouraged these efforts of the Platonists. But no merely

philosophical religion can ever regenerate the Church or the

world. It may lose its strength in a kind of mystical

enthusiasm; but as it is supercilious, and despises the preaching

of the cross of Christ, pretending to see in the Gospel doctrines

little else but figures and symbols, incomprehensible to the

majority of mankind, it will ever be powerless to reform and

save.

What then would have been the result, had real Christianity

not reappeared in the world, and if faith had not once more

filled all hearts with its own strength and holiness? The

Reformation preserved both religion and society. If the Church

of Rome had had God's glory and the welfare of the people at

heart, she would have welcomed the Reformation with joy. But

what was this to a Leo the Tenth?

And yet a torch could not be lighted in Italy without its

rays shining beyond the Alps. The affairs of the Church kept up

a continual intercourse between this peninsula and the other

parts of Christendom. The barbarians felt erelong the

superiority and superciliousness of the Italians, and began to be

ashamed of their defects of language and of style. A few young

noblemen, such as Dalberg, Langen, and Spiegelberg, burning with

the desire of knowledge, visited Italy, and brought back to

Germany and imparted to their friends the learning, the grammar,

and the classic authors they so much desired. Soon there

appeared a man of distinguished talents, Rodolph Agricola, whose

learning and genius won for him as great veneration as if he had

lived in the age of Augustus or of Pericles. The ardor of his

mind and the fatigues of the school wore him out in a few years;

but in the intercourse of private life he had trained up noble

disciples, who carried their master's zeal over all Germany.

Often when assembled around him had they deplored the darkness of

the Church, and asked why St. Paul so frequently repeats that men

are justified by faith and not by works......At the feet of these

new teachers was soon gathered a youthful but rude band of

scholars, living upon alms, studying without books; and who,

divided into societies of priests of Bacchus, arque-busiers, and

others, passed in disorderly troops from town to town, and from

school to school. No matter; these strange companies were the

beginning of a literary public. Gradually the masterpieces of

antiquity issued from the German presses and supplanted the

schoolmen; and the art of printing, discovered at Mentz in 1440,

multiplied the voices that boldly remonstrated against the

corruptions of the Church, and those not less powerful, which

invited the human mind into new paths of inquiry.

The study of ancient literature produced very different

effects in Germany from those which followed it in Italy and in

France: it was there combined with faith. The Germans

immediately looked for the advantage that might accrue to

religion from these new literary pursuits. What had produced in

Italian minds little more than a minute and barren refinement of

the understanding, pervaded the whole being of the Germans,

warmed their hearts, and prepared them for a brighter light. The

first restorers of learning in Italy and in France were

remarkable for their levity, and frequently also for their

immorality. Their successors in Germany, animated by a serious

feeling, zealously went in search of truth. Italy, offering up

her incense to literature and profane learning, beheld the rise

of a skeptical opposition. Germany, occupied with deep

theological questions, and thrown back upon herself, saw the rise

of an opposition based on faith. In the one country the

foundations of the Church were undermined; in the other they were

re-established on their true basis. A remarkable society was

formed in the empire, composed of liberal, generous-minded, and

learned men, who counted princes among their number, and who

endeavoured to make learning profitable to religion. Some

brought to their studies the humble faith of children; others, an

enlightened and penetrating intellect, inclined perhaps to

overstep the bounds of legitimate freedom and criticism: yet

both contributed to clear the entrance of the temple from the

superstitions that had encumbered it.

The monkish theologians perceived their danger, and began to

clamor against these very studies which they had tolerated in

Italy and France, because they had there gone hand in hand with

frivolity and profligacy. A conspiracy was formed amongst them

against literature and science, for behind them faith was seen

advancing. A monk, cautioning a person against the heresies of

Erasmus, was asked in what they consisted. He acknowledged that

he had not read the work of which he was speaking, and could only

say that "it was written in too pure Latinity."

The disciples of learning and the scholastic divines soon

came to open war. The latter beheld with alarm the movement that

was taking place in the realms of intellect, and thought that

immobility and darkness would be the surest guardians of the

Church. It was to save Rome that they opposed the revival of

letters; but in this they contributed to its fall. Rome herself

had a great share in producing this result. Momentarily led

astray under the pontificate of Leo X, she deserted her old

friends, and clasped her young adversaries in her arms. Popery

and learning formed an alliance that seemed likely to dissolve

the union between the monastic orders and the hierarchy. The

popes did not at the first glance perceive that what they had

taken for a plaything was in reality a sword that might cause

their death. In like manner, during the last century, princes

were seen welcoming to their courts political and philosophical

principles which, had they yielded to all their influences, would

have overturned their thrones. Such an alliance was not of long

duration. Learning went forward, without a care as to what might

endanger the power of its patron. The monks and schoolmen were

well aware that to desert the pope would be to abandon

themselves: and the pope, notwithstanding the brief patronage he

accorded to the fine arts, was not less active, when he saw the

danger, in taking measures the most contrary to the spirit of the

times.

The universities defended themselves, as best they could,

against the intrusion of this new light. Rhagius was expelled

from Cologne, Celtes from Leipsic, and Hermann von dem Busch from

Rostock. Still the new doctors, and the ancient classics with

them, gradually established themselves, and frequently with the

aid of the ruling princes, in these superior academies. In

despite of the schoolmen, societies of grammarians and of poets

were soon formed in them. Everything was to be converted into

Greek and Latin, even to their very names. How could the

admirers of Sophocles and of Virgil be known by such barbarous

appellations as Krachenberger of Schwarzerd? At the same time a

spirit of independence spread through the universities. The

students were no longer seen in seminarist fashion, with their

books under their arms, walking demurely, respectfully, and with

downcast eyes, behind their masters. The petulance of Martial

and of Ovid had passed into these new disciples of the Muses.

They hailed with transport the ridicule heaped on the dialectic

theologians; and the heads of the literary movement were

sometimes accused of favoring, and even of exciting, the

disorderly proceedings of the scholars.

Thus a new world, sprung out of antiquity, had arisen in the

midst of the world of the Middle Ages. The two parties could not

avoid coming to blows: struggle was at hand. It was the mildest

champion of literature, an old man drawing near the close of his

peaceful career, who was to begin the conflict.

In order that the truth might prove triumphant, it was

necessary first that the weapons by which she was to conquer

should be brought forth from the arsenals where they had lain

buried for ages. These weapons were the Holy Scriptures of the

Old and New Testament. It was necessary to revive in Christendom

the love and the study of sacred Greek and Hebrew learning. The

man whom the providence of God selected for this task was named

John Reuchlin.

The sweet voice of a child had been remarked in the choir of

the church at Pforzheim, and had attracted the notice of the

Margrave of Baden. It was that of John Reuchlin, a boy of

agreeable manners and lively disposition, the son of a worthy

burgess of that town. The margrave soon showed him especial

favor, and made choice of him in 1473 to accompany his son

Frederick to the university of Paris.

The son of the usher of Pforzheim, in transports of joy,

arrived with the prince at this school, then the most celebrated

of the West. Here he found the Spartan Hermonymos and John

Wessel, the light of the world; and had now an opportunity of

studying Greek and Hebrew under able masters of which languages

there was at that time no professor in Germany, and of which he

was one day to be the restorer in the home of the Reformation.

The young and indigent German transcribed for richer students the

rhapsodies of Homer and the orations of Isocrates, gaining thus

the means of prosecuting his own studies and of purchasing books.

But he heard other things from the mouth of Wessel, that

made a deep impression on his mind. "The popes may err. All

human satisfactions are blasphemy against Christ, who has

reconciled and completely justified the human race. To God alone

belongs the power of giving plenary absolution. It is not

necessary to confess our sins to the priest. There is no

purgatory unless it be God himself, who is a devouring fire, and

who cleanseth from all impurity."

Reuchlin had barely attained the age of twenty years, when

he taught philosophy and Greek and Latin at Basle; and--what then

passed for a miracle--a German was heard speaking Greek.

The partisans of Rome began to feel uneasy, when they saw

these generous spirits searching into the ancient treasures.

"The Romans make wry faces," said Reuchlin, "and cry out,

pretending that all these literary pursuits are contrary to the

Romish piety, because the Greeks are schismatics. Oh! what toil

and suffering must be undergone to restore wisdom and learning to

Germany!"

Not long after, Eberhard of Wurtemberg invited Reuchlin to

Tubingen to adorn that rising university. In 1483, he took him

with him into Italy. Chalcondylas, Aurispa, and John Pico of

Mirandola, were his friends and companions at Florence. At Rome,

when Eberhard had a solemn audience of the pope, surrounded by

his cardinals, Reuchlin delivered an address in such pure and

elegant Latinity, that the assembly, who expected nothing of the

kind from a barbarous German, was filled with astonishment, and

the pontiff exclaimed: "This man certainly deserves to rank with

the best orators of France and Italy."

Ten years later Reuchlin was compelled to take refuge at

Heidelberg, at the court of the Elector Philip, to escape the

vengeance of Eberhard's successor. Philip, in conjuction with

John of Dalberg, bishop of Worms, his friend and chancellor,

endeavoured to diffuse the light that was beginning to dawn in

every part of Germany. Dalberg had founded a library, which was

open to all the learned. On this new stage Reuchlin made great

efforts to destroy the barbarism of his countrymen.

Having been sent by the elector in 1498 on an important

mission to Rome, he employed all the time and money he could

spare, either in improving himself in the Hebrew language under

the learned Israelite, Abdias Sphorna, or in purchasing all the

Greek and Hebrew manuscripts he could find, with a view of

employing them as so many torches to increase in his own country

the light which was already beginning to appear.

Argyropolos, an illustrious Greek, was then at Rome

explaining to a numerous auditory the ancient marvels of his

national literature. The learned ambassador proceeded with his

attendants to the hall where this doctor was lecturing, and on

his entrance saluted the master, and deplored the misfortunes of

Greece, then expiring under the blows of the Ottomans. The

astonished scholar asked his visiter, "Where do you come from,

and do you understand Greek?" Reuchlin answered, "I am a German,

and I am not entirely ignorant of your language." At the request

of Argyropolos, he read and explained a passage from Thucydides,

which the professor happened to have before him. Upon this

Argyropolos, struck with astonishment and grief, exclaimed,

"Alas! alas! the fugitive and exiled Greece has gone to hide

herself beyond the Alps!"

It was thus that the sons of barbarous Germany and of

ancient and learned Greece met in the palaces of Rome; thus the

East and the West embraced in this resort of the world, and the

one poured into the lap of the other those intellectual treasures

which it had snatched from the barbarism of the Ottomans. God,

whenever his plans require it, brings together in an instant, by

some great catastrophe, the things which seemed destined to

remain for ever separated.

Reuchlin, on his return to Germany, was able to take up his

residence again at Wurtemberg. It was at this time he

accomplished those labors that were so useful to Luther and to

the Reformation. This man, who, as Count Palatine, occupied a

distinguished place in the empire, and who, as philosopher,

contributed to lower Aristotle and exalt Plato, drew up a Latin

dictionary which superseded those of the Schoolmen; wrote a Greek

grammar which greatly facilitated the study of that language;

translated and explained the Penitential Psalms; corrected the

Vulgate; and--which is his chief merit and glory--was the first

to publish in Germany a Hebrew grammar and dictionary. Reuchlin

by this labor reopened the long-sealed books of the old covenant,

and thus raised, as he says himself, "a monument more durable

than brass."

But Reuchlin endeavoured to promote the cause to truth as

much by his life as by his writings. By his lofty stature, his

commanding person, and his engaging address, he immediately

gained the confidence of all with whom he had to deal. His

thirst for knowledge was only equalled by his zeal in

communicating what he had learnt. He spared neither money nor

labor to introduce into Germany the editions of the classic

writers as they issued from the Italian presses; and thus the

usher's son did more to enlighten his fellow-countrymen than rich

corporations or mighty princes. His influence over youth was

very extensive; and who can estimate all that the Reformation

owes to him in that respect? We will mention only one instance.

His cousin, a young man, the son of a skilful and celebrated

armorer named Schwarzerd, came to reside with his sister

Elisabeth, in order to study under his direction. Reuchlin,

delighted at beholding the genius and industry of his youthful

scholar, adopted him as his son. Good advice, presents of books,

example,--nothing was spared to make his relative useful to the

Church and to his country. He was charmed at seeing the work

prosper under his eyes; and finding the German name of Schwarzerd

too harsh, he translated it into Greek, according to the fashion

of the times, and named the young student Melancthon. This was

the illustrious friend of Luther.

But grammatical studies could not satisfy Reuchlin.

Imitating his Jewish teachers, he began to study the mystic

meaning of the Word. "God is a spirit," said he, "the Word is a

breath, man breathes, God is the Word. The names which He has

given to himself are an echo of eternity." He thought with the

Cabalists that man can ascend from symbol to symbol, and from

form to form to the last and purest of all forms,--to that which

regulates the kingdom of the spirit.

While Reuchlin was bewildering himself in these peaceful and

abstract researches, the hostility of the schoolmen, suddenly and

very much against his will, forced him into a violent contest

that was one of the preludes to the Reformation.

There dwelt at Cologne one Pfefferkorn, a baptized rabbi,

and intimately connected with the inquisitor Hochstraten. This

man and the Dominicans solicited and obtained from the Emperor

Maximilian--perhaps with very good intentions--an order by virtue

of which the Jews were to bring all their Hebrew books (the Bible

only excepted) to the town-hall of the place in which they

resided. Here these writings were to be burnt. The motive put

forward was, that they were full of blasphemies against Jesus

Christ. It must be acknowledged they were at least full of

absurdities, and that the Jews themselves would have been no

great losers by the proposed measure.

The emperor invited Reuchlin to give his opinion upon these

works. The learned doctor particularly singled out the books

written against Christianity, leaving them to their destined

fate; but he endeavoured to save the rest. "The best way to

convert the Israelites," added he, "would be to establish two

professors of the Hebrew language in each university, who should

teach the theologians to read the Bible in Hebrew, and thus to

refute the Jewish doctors." In consequence of this advice the

Jews had their books restored to them.

The proselyte and the inquisitor, like hungry ravens who see

their prey escaping them, raised a furious clamor. They picked

out different passages from Reuchlin's work, perverted their

meaning, declared the author a heretic, accused him of a secret

inclination to Judaism, and threatened him with the dungeons of

the Inquisition. Reuchlin at first gave way to alarm; but as

these men became daily more insolent, and prescribed disgraceful

conditions, he published in 1513 a "Defence against his Cologne

Slanderers," in which he described the whole party in the

liveliest colors.

 

The Dominicans swore to be avenged, and hoped by a stroke of

authority, to uphold their tottering power. Hochstraten had a

tribunal formed at Mentz against Reuchlin, and the writings of

this learned man were committed to the flames. Then the

innovators, the masters and disciples of the new school, feeling

themselves all attacked in the person of Reuchlin, rose up like

one man. The times were changed: Germany and literature were

not Spain and the Inquisition. This great literary movement had

called a public opinion into existence. Even the superior clergy

were almost entirely gained over to it. Reuchlin appealed to Leo

X. This pope, who was no friend to the ignorant and fanatical

monks, referred the whole matter to the Bishop of Spires, who

declared Reuchlin innocent, and condemned the monks to pay the

expenses of the investigation. The Dominicans, those stanch

supporters of the Papacy, had recourse in their exasperation to

the infallible decrees of Rome; and Leo X, not knowing how to act

between these two hostile powers, issued a mandate de

supersedendo.

This union of learning with faith is one of the features of

the Reformation, and distinguished it both from the establishment

of Christianity and from the religious revivals of the present

day. The Christians contemporary with the Apostles had against

them all the refinement of their age; and, with very few

exceptions, it is the same with those of our times. The majority

of learned men were with the reformers. Even public opinion was

favorable to them. The work thus gained in extent; but perhaps

it lost in depth.

Luther, acknowledging all that Reuchlin had done, wrote to

him shortly after his victory over the Dominicans: "The Lord has

been at work in you, that the light of Holy Scripture might begin

to shine in that Germany where for so many ages, alas! it was

not only stifled but entirely extinct."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BOOK 1 CHAPTER 8

 

 

Erasmus--Erasmus a Canon--At Paris--His Genius--His Reputation--

His Influence--Popular Attack--Praise of Folly--Gibes--Churchmen-

-Saints--Folly and the Popes--Attack on Science--Principles--

Greek New Testament--His Profession of Faith--His Labors and

Influence--His Failings--Two Parties--Reform without Violence--

Was such possible?--Unreformed Church--His Timidity--His

Indecision--Erasmus loses his Influence with all Parties.

One man--the great writer of the opposition at the beginning

of the sixteenth century--had already appeared, who considered it

as the grand affair of his life to attack the doctrines of the

schools and of the convents.

Reuchlin was not twelve years old when this great genius of

the age was born. A man of no small vivacity and wit, named

Gerard, a native of Gouda in the Low Countries, loved a

physician's daughter. The principles of Christianity did not

govern his life, or at least his passions silenced them. His

parents and his nine brothers urged him to embrace a monastic

life. He fled from his home, leaving the object of his

affections on the point of becoming a mother, and repaired to

Rome. The frail Margaret gave birth to a son. Gerard was not

informed of it; and some time after he received from his parents

the intelligence that she whom he had loved was no more.

Overwhelmed with grief, he entered the priesthood, and devoted

himself entirely to the service of God. He returned to Holland:

Margaret was still living! She would not marry another, and

Gerard remained faithful to his sacerdotal vows. Their affection

was concentred on their son. His mother had taken the tenderest

care of him: the father, after his return, sent him to school,

although he was only four years old. He was not yet thirteen,

when his teacher, Sinthemius of Deventer, one day embraced him

with rapture, exclaiming, "This child will attain the highest

pinnacle of learning! It was Erasmus of Rotterdam.

About this time his mother died, and not long after his

broken-hearted father followed her to the grave.

The youthful Erasmus was now alone. He entertained the

greatest dislike for a monastic life, which his guardians urged

him to embrace, but to which, from his very birth, we might say,

he had been opposed. At last, he was persuaded to enter a

convent of canons regular, and scarcely had he done so when he

felt himself oppressed by the weight of his vows. He recovered a

little liberty, and we soon find him at the court of the

Archbishop of Cambray, and somewhat later at the university of

Paris. He there pursued his studies in extreme poverty, but with

the most indefatigable industry. As soon as he could procure any

money, he employed it in purchasing--first, Greek works, and then

clothes. Frequently did the indigent Hollander solicit in vain

the generosity of his protectors; and hence, in afterlife, it was

his greatest delight to furnish the means of support to youthful

but poor students. Engaged without intermission in the pursuit

of truth and of knowledge, he reluctantly assisted in the

scholastic disputes, and shrank from the study of theology, lest

he should discover any errors in it, and be in consequence

denounced as a heretic.

It was at this period that Erasmus became conscious of his

powers. In the study of the ancients he acquired a correctness

and elegance of style, that placed him far above the most eminent

scholars of Paris. He began to teach; and thus gained powerful

friends. He published some writings, and was rewarded by

admiration and applause. He knew the public taste, and shaking

off the last ties of the schools and of the cloister, he devoted

himself entirely to literature, displaying in all his writings

those shrewd observations, that clear, lively, and enlightened

wit which at once amuse and instruct.

The habit of application, which he contracted at this

period, clung to him all his life: even in his journeys, which

were usually on horseback, he was not idle. He used to compose

on the road, while riding across the country, and as soon as he

reached the inn, committed his thoughts to writing. It was thus

he composed his celebrated Praise of Folly, in a journey from

Italy to England.

Erasmus early acquired a great reputation among the learned:

but the exasperated monks vowed deadly vengeance against him.

Courted by princes, he was inexhaustible in finding excuses to

escape from their invitations. He preferred gaining his living

with the printer Frobenius by correcting books, to living

surrounded with luxury and favors in the splendid courts of

Charles V, Henry VIII, or Francis I, or to encircling his head

with the cardinal's hat that was offered him.

Henry the Eighth having ascended the throne in 1509, Lord

Mountjoy invited Erasmus, who had already been in England, to

come and cultivate literature under the scepter of their

Octavius. In 1510 he lectured at Cambridge, maintaining with

Archbishop Warham, John Colet, and Sir Thomas More, those

friendly relations which continued until their death. In 1516 he

visited Basle, where he took up his abode in 1521.

What was his influence on the Reformation?

It has been overrated by one party, and depreciated by

another. Erasmus never was, and never could have been a

reformer; but he prepared the way for others. Not only did he

diffuse over his age a love of learning, and a spirit of inquiry

and examination that led others much farther than he went

himself;--but still more under the protection of great prelates

and powerful princes, he was able to unveil and combat the vices

of the Church by the most cutting satires.

Erasmus, in fact, attacked the monks and the prevailing

abuses in two ways. He first adopted a popular method. This

fair little man, whose half-closed blue eyes keenly observed all

that was passing,--on whose lips was ever a slight sarcastic

smile,--whose manner was timid and embarrassed,--and whom, it

seemed, that a puff of wind would blow down,--scattered in every

direction his elegant and biting sarcasms against the theology

and devotion of his age. His natural character and the events of

his life had rendered this disposition habitual. Even in those

writings where we should have least expected it, his sarcastic

humor suddenly breaks out, and he immolated, as with needle-

points, those schoolmen and those ignorant monks against whom he

had declared war. There are many points of resemblance between

Voltaire and Erasmus. Preceding authors had already popularized

the idea of that element of folly which has crept into all the

opinions and actions of human life. Erasmus seized upon it, and

introduced Folly in her own person, Moria, daughter of Plutus,

born in the Fortunate Isles, fed on drunkenness and impertinence,

and queen of a powerful empire. She gives a description of it.

She depicts successively all the states in the world that belong

to her, but she dwells particularly on the churchmen, who will

not acknowledge her benefits, though she loads them with her

favors. She overwhelms with her gibes and sarcasms that

labyrinth of dialectics in which the theologians had bewildered

themselves, and those extravagant syllogisms, by which they

pretended to support the Church. She unveils the disorders,

ignorance, filthy habits, and absurdities of the monks.

"They all belong to me," says she, "those folks whose

greatest pleasure is in relating miracles, or listening to

marvelous lies, and who makes use of them in an especial manner

to beguile the dulness of others, and to fill their own purses (I

speak particularly of priests and preachers)! In the same

category are those who enjoy the foolish but sweet persuasion

that if they chance to see a piece of wood or a picture

representing Polyphemus or Christopher, they will not die that

day......"

"Alas! what follies," continues Moria; "I am almost ashamed

of them myself! Do we not see every country claiming its

peculiar saint? Each trouble has its saint, and every saint his

candle. This cures the toothache; that assists women in

childbed; a third restores what a thief has stolen; a fourth

preserves you in shipwreck; and a fifth protects your flocks.

There are some who have many virtues at once, and especially the

Virgin-mother of God, in whom the people place more confidence

than in her Son......If in the midst of all these mummeries some

wise man should rise and give utterance to these harsh truths:

'You shall not perish miserably if you live like Christians;--you

shall redeem your sins, if to your alms you add repentance,

tears, watchings, prayer, fasting, and a complete change in your

way of life;--this saint will protect you, if you imitate his

conduct;'--If, I say, some wise man should charitably utter these

things in their ears, oh! of what happiness would he not rob

their souls, and into what trouble, what distress would he not

plunge them!......The mind of man is so constituted that

imposture has more hold upon it than truth. If there is one

saint more apocryphal than another--a St. George, St.

Christopher, or St. Barbara--you will see him worshipped with

greater fervency that St. Peter, St. Paul, or even than Christ

himself."

But Moria does not stop here: she attacks the bishops "who

run more after gold than after souls, and who think they have

done enough for Jesus Christ, when they take their seats

complacently and with theatrical pomp, like Holy Fathers to whom

adoration belongs, and utter blessings or anathemas." The

daughter of the Fortunate Isles even ventures to attack the Court

of Rome and the pope himself, who, passing his time in

amusements, leaves the duties of his ministry to St. Peter and

St. Paul. "Can there be any greater enemies to the Church than

these unholy pontiffs, who by their silence allow Jesus Christ to

be forgotten; who bind him by their mercenary regulations; who

falsify his doctrine by forced interpretations; and crucify him a

second time by their scandalous lives?"

Holbein added the most grotesque illustrations to the Praise

of Folly, in which the pope figured with his triple crown.

Perhaps no work has ever been so thoroughly adapted to the wants

of the age. It is impossible to describe the impression this

little book produced throughout Christendom. Twenty-seven

editions appeared in the lifetime of Erasmus: it was translated

into every European language, and contributed more than any other

to confirm the anti-sacerdotal tendency of the age.

But to the popular attack of sarcasm Erasmus united science

and learning. The study of Greek and Latin literature had opened

a new prospect to the modern genius that was beginning to awaken

from its slumber in Europe. Erasmus eagerly embraced the idea of

the Italians that the sciences ought to be studied in the schools

of the ancients, and that, laying aside the inadequate and absurd

works that had hitherto been in use, men should study geography

in Strabo, medicine in Hippocrates, philosophy in Plato,

mythology in Ovid, and natural history in Pliny. But he went a

step further, and it was the step of a giant, and must

necessarily have led to the discovery of a new world of greater

importance to the interests of humanity than that which Columbus

had recently added to the old. Erasmus, following out his

principle, required that men should no longer study theology in

Scotus and Aquinas, but go and learn it in the writings of the

Fathers of the Church, and above all in the New Testament. He

showed that they must not even rest contented with the Vulgate,

which swarmed with errors; and he rendered an incalculable

service to truth by publishing his critical edition of the Greek

text of the New Testament--a text as little known in the West as

if it had never existed. This work appeared at Basle in 1516,

one year before the Reformation. Erasmus thus did for the New

Testament what Reuchlin had done for the Old. Henceforward

divines were able to read the Word of God in the original

languages, and at a later period to recognize the purity of the

Reformed doctrines.

"It is my desire," said Erasmus, on publishing his New

Testament, "to lead back that cold disputer of words, styled

theology, to its real fountain. Would to God that this work may

bear as much fruit to Christianity as it has cost me toil and

application!" This wish was realized. In vain did the monks cry

out, "He presumes to correct the Holy Ghost!" The New Testament

of Erasmus gave out a bright flash of light. His paraphrases on

the Epistles, and on the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. John; his

editions of Cyprian and Jerome; his translations of Origen,

Athanasius, and Chrysostom; his Principles of True Theology, his

Preacher, and his Commentaries on various Psalms, contributed

powerfully to diffuse a taste for the Word of God and for pure

theology. The result of his labors even went beyond his

intentions. Reuchlin and Erasmus gave the Bible to the learned;

Luther, to the people.

Erasmus did still more: by his restoration of the New

Testament, he restored what that revelation taught. "The most

exalted aim in the revival of philosophical studies," said he,

"will be to obtain a knowledge of the pure and simple

Christianity of the Bible." A noble sentiment! and would to God

that the organs of our modern philosophy understood their mission

as well as he did! "I am firmly resolved," said he again, "to

die in the study of the Scriptures; in them are all my joy and

all my peace." "The sum of all christian philosophy," said he on

another occasion, "amounts to this:--to place all our hopes in

God alone, who by his free grace, without any merit of our own,

gives us everything through Christ Jesus; to know that we are

redeemed by the death of his Son; to be dead to worldly lusts;

and to walk in conformity with his doctrine and example, not only

injuring no man, but doing good to all; to support our trials

patiently in the hope of a future reward; and finally, to claim

no merit to ourselves on account of our virtues, but to give

thanks to God for all our strength and for all our works. This

is what should be instilled into man, until it becomes a second

nature."

Then raising his voice against that mass of church-

regulations about dress, fasting, feast-days, vows, marriage, and

confession, which oppressed the people and enriched the priests,

Erasmus exclaims: "In the churches they scarcely ever think of

explaining the Gospel. The greater part of their sermons must be

drawn up to please the commissaries of indulgences. The most

holy doctrine of Christ must be suppressed or perverted to their

profit. There is no longer any hope of cure, unless Christ

himself should turn the hearts of rulers and of pontiffs, and

excite them to seek for real piety."

The writings of Erasmus followed one another in rapid

succession. He labored unceasingly, and his works were read just

as they came from his pen. This animation, this native energy,

this intellect so rich and so delicate, so witty and so bold,

that was poured without any reserve in such copious streams upon

his contemporaries, led away and enchanted the immense public who

devoured the works of the philosopher of Rotterdam. He soon

became the most influential man in Christendom, and crowns and

pensions were showered upon him from every side.

If we cast our eyes on the great revolution that somewhat

later renewed the Church, we cannot help acknowledging that

Erasmus served as a bridge to many minds. Numbers who would have

been alarmed by the evangelical truths presented in all their

strength and purity, allowed themselves to be drawn along by him,

and ultimately became the most zealous partisans of the

Reformation.

But the very circumstances that fitted him for the work of

preparation, disqualified him for its accomplishment.

"Erasmus is very capable of exposing error," said Luther,

"but he knows not how to teach the truth." The Gospel of Christ

was not the fire at which he kindled and sustained his energy,--

the center whence his activity radiated. He was in an eminent

degree a man of learning, and only in consequence of that was he

a Christian. He was too much the slave of vanity to acquire a

decided influence over his age. He anxiously calculated the

result that each step he took might have upon his reputation.

There was nothing he liked better than to talk about himself and

his fame. "The pope," wrote he with a childish vanity to an

intimate friend, at the period when he declared himself the

opponent of Luther, "the pope has sent me a diploma full of

kindness and honorable testimonials. His secretary declares that

this in an unprecedented honor, and that the pope dictated every

word himself."

Erasmus and Luther, viewed in connection with the

"Reformation, are the representatives of two great ideas,--of two

great parties in their age, and indeed in every age. The one

composed of men of timid prudence; the other, of men of

resolution and courage. These two parties were in existence at

that epoch, and they are personified in their illustrious chiefs.

The men of prudence thought that the study of theological science

would gradually bring about a reformation of the Church, and

that, too, without violence. The men of action thought that the

diffusion of more correct ideas among the learned would not put

an end to the superstitions of the people, and that the

correction of this or of that abuse, so long as the whole life of

the Church was not renewed, would be of little effect.

"A disadvantageous peace," Erasmus used to say, "is better

than the most righteous war." He thought--and how many Erasmuses

have lived since, and are living even in our own days! he

thought that a reformation which might shake the Church would

endanger its overthrow; he witnessed with alarm men's passions

aroused into activity; evil everywhere mixed up with the little

good that might be effected; existing institutions destroyed

without the possibility of others being set up in their place;

and the vessel of the Church, leaking on every side, at last

swallowed up by the tempest. "Those who bring the sea into new

beds," said he, "often attempt a work that deceives their

expectations; for the terrible element, once let in, does not go

where they would with it, but rushes whithersoever it pleases,

and causes great devastation." "Be that as it may," added he,

"let troubles be everywhere avoided! It is better to put up with

ungodly princes than to increase the evil by any change."

But the courageous portion of his contemporaries were

prepared with an answer. History had sufficiently proved that a

free exposition of the truth and a decided struggle against

falsehood could alone ensure the victory. If they had

temporized, the artifices of policy and the wiles of the papal

court would have extinguished the truth in its first glimmerings.

Had not conciliatory measures been employed for ages? Had not

council after council been convoked to reform the Church? All

had been unavailing. Why now pretend to repeat an experiment

that had so often failed?

Undoubtedly a thorough reform could not be accomplished

without violence. But when has anything good or great ever

appeared among men without causing some agitation? Would not

this fear of seeing evil mingled with good, even had it been

reasonable, have checked the noblest and the holiest

undertakings? We must not fear the evil that may arise out of a

great agitation, but we must take courage to resist and to

overcome it.

Is there not besides an essential difference between the

commotion originating in human passions, and that which emanates

from the Spirit of God? One shakes society, the other

strengthens it. What an error to imagine with Erasmus that in

the then existing state of Christendom,--with that mixture of

contrary elements, of truth and falsehood, life and death--a

violent collision could be prevented! As well strive to close

the crater of Vesuvius when the angry elements are already

warring in its bosom! The Middle Ages had seen more than one

violent commotion, when the sky was less threatening with storms

than at the time of the Reformation. Men had not then to think

of checking and of repressing, but of directing and guiding.

Who can tell what frightful ruin might not have occurred if

the Reformation had not burst forth? Society, the prey of a

thousand elements of destruction, destitute of any regenerating

or conservative qualities, would have been terribly convulsed.

Certainly this would have really been a reform in Erasmus's

fashion, and such as many moderate but timid men of our days

still dream of, which would have overturned christian society.

The people, wanting that knowledge and that piety which the

Reformation brought down even to the lowest ranks, abandoned to

their violent passions, and to a restless spirit of revolt, would

have been let loose, like a furious and exasperated wild beast,

whose rage no chains can any longer control.

The Reformation was no other than an interposition of the

Spirit of God among men,--a regulating principle that God sent

upon earth. It is true that it might stir up the fermenting

elements hidden in the heart of man; but God overruled them. The

evangelical doctrines, the truth of God, penetrating the masses

of the people, destroyed what was destined to perish, but

everywhere strengthened what ought to be maintained. The effect

of the Reformation on society was to reconstruct; prejudice alone

could say that it was an instrument of destruction. It has been

said with reason, with reference to the work of reform, that "the

ploughshare might as well think that it injures the earth it

breaks up, while it is only fertilizing it."

The leading principle of Erasmus was: "Give light, and the

darkness will disappear of itself." This principle is good, and

Luther acted upon it. But when the enemies of the light

endeavour to extinguish it, or to wrest the torch from the hand

of him who bears it, must we (for the sake of peace) allow him to

do so? must we not resist the wicked?

Erasmus was deficient in courage. Now, that quality is as

indispensable to effect a reformation as to take a town. There

was much timidity in his character. From his early youth he

trembled at the name of death. He took the most extraordinary

care of his health. He spared no sacrifice to remove from a

place in which a contagious malady was reigning. The desire of

enjoying the comforts of life exceeded even his vanity, and this

was his motive for rejecting more than one brilliant offer.

He had, therefore, no claims to the character of a reformer.

"If the corrupted morals of the court of Rome call for a prompt

and vigorous remedy, that is no business of mine," said he, "nor

of those who are like me." He had not that strength of faith

which animated Luther. While the latter was ever prepared to lay

down his life for the truth, Erasmus candidly observed, "Let

others aspire the martyrdom: as for me, I do not think myself

worthy of such an honor. I fear that if any disturbance were to

arise, I should imitate Peter in his fall."

By his conversation and by his writings Erasmus had prepared

the way for the Reformation more than any other man; and yet he

trembled when he saw the approach of that very tempest which he

himself had raised. He would have given anything to restore the

calm of former times, even with all its dense vapors. But it was

too late: the dike was broken. It was no longer in man's power

to arrest the flood that was at once to cleanse and fertilize the

world. Erasmus was powerful as God's instrument; when he ceased

to be that, he was nothing.

Ultimately Erasmus knew not what party to adopt. None

pleased him, and he feared all. "It is dangerous to speak," said

he, "and it is dangerous to be silent." In every great religious

movement there will be found these wavering characters,--

respectable on many accounts, but injurious to the truth, and

who, from their unwillingness to displease any, offend all.

What would have become of the Truth, had not God raised up

more courageous champions than Erasmus? Listen to the advice he

gives Viglius Zuichem, who was afterwards president of the

supreme court at Brussels, as to the manner in which he should

behave towards the sectarians--for thus he had already begun to

denominate the Reformers: "My friendship for you leads me to

desire that you will keep aloof from the contagion of the sects,

and that you will give them no opportunity of saying, Zuichem is

become one of us. If you approve of their teaching, you should

at least dissemble, and, above all, avoid discussions with them.

A lawyer should finesse with these people, as the dying man did

with the devil, who asked him, What do you believe? The poor

man, fearful of being caught in some heresy, if he should make a

confession of his faith, replied, What the Church believes. The

devil demanded, And what does the Church believe?--What I

believe.--Once more he was questioned, What do you believe?--and

the expiring man answered once more, What the Church believes!"

Thus Duke George of Saxony, Luther's mortal enemy, having

received an equivocal answer to a question he had put to Erasmus,

said to him: "My dear Erasmus, wash me the fur without wetting

it!" Secundus Curio, in one of his works, describes two heavens-

-the papal and the christian. He found Erasmus in neither, but

discovered him revolving between both in never-ending orbits.

Such was Erasmus. He needed that inward emancipation which

alone gives perfect liberty. How different would he have been

had he abandoned self, and sacrificed all for truth! But after

having endeavoured to effect certain reforms with the approbation

of the heads of the Church; after having deserted the Reformation

for Rome, when he saw that these two things could not go hand in

hand;--he lost ground with all parties. On the one side, his

recantations could not repress the anger of the fanatical

partisans of the papacy: they felt all the evil he had done

them, and would not pardon him. Furious monks loaded him with

abuse from the pulpits: they called him a second Lucian--a fox

that had laid waste the Lord's vineyard. A doctor of Constance

had hung the portrait of Erasmus in his study, that he might be

able at any moment to spit in his face.--But, on the other hand,

Erasmus, deserting the standard of the Gospel, lost the affection

and esteem of the noblest men of the age in which he lived, and

was forced to renounce, there can be little doubt, those heavenly

consolations which God sheds in the heart of those who act as

good soldiers of Christ. This at least seems to be indicated by

those bitter tears, those painful vigils, that broken sleep, that

tasteless food, that loathing of the study of the Muses (formerly

his only consolation), those saddened features, that pale face,

those sorrowful and downcast eyes, that hatred of existence which

he calls "a cruel life," and those longings after death, which he

describes to his friends. Unhappy Erasmus!

The enemies of Erasmus went, in my opinion, a little beyond

the truth, when they exclaimed on Luther's appearance: "Erasmus

laid the egg, and Luther hatched it."

BOOK 1 CHAPTER 9

 

 

The Nobility--Different Motives--Hutten--Literary League--Literae

Obscurorum Virorum--Their Effect--Luther's Opinion--Hutten at

Brussels--His Letters--Sickingen--War--His Death--Cronberg--Hans

Sachs--General Ferment.

The same symptoms of regeneration that we have seen among

princes, bishops, and learned men, were also found among men of

the world,--among nobles, knights, and warriors. The German

nobility played an important part in the Reformation. Several of

the most illustrious sons of Germany formed a close alliance with

the men of letters, and inflamed by an ardent, frequently by an

excessive zeal, they strove to deliver their country from the

Roman yoke.

Various causes contributed to raise up friends to the

Reformation among the ranks of the nobles. Some having

frequented the universities, had there received into their bosoms

the fire with which the learned were animated. Others, brought

up in generous sentiments, had hearts predisposed to receive the

glorious lessons of the Gospel. Many discovered in the

Reformation a certain chivalrous character that fascinated them

and carried them along with it. And others, we must freely

acknowledge, were offended with the clergy, who, in the reign of

Maximilian, had powerfully contributed to deprive them of their

ancient independence, and bring them under subjection to their

princes. They were full of enthusiasm, and looked upon the

Reformation as the prelude to a great political renovation; they

saw in imagination the empire emerging with new splendor from

this crisis, and hailed a better state, brilliant with the purest

glory, that was on the eve of being established in the world, not

less by the swords of the knights than by the Word of God.

Ulrich of Hutten, who has been called the German

Demosthenes, on account of his philippics against the Papacy,

forms, as it were, the link that unites the knights with the men

of letters. He distinguished himself by his writings not less

than by his sword. Descended from an ancient Franconian family,

he was sent at the age of eleven years to the convent of Foulda,

in which he was to become a monk. But Ulrich, who felt no

inclination for this profession, ran away from the convent at

sixteen, and repaired to the university of Cologne, where he

devoted himself to the study of languages and poetry. Somewhat

later he led a wandering life, and was present, as a common

soldier at the siege of Padua in 1513, beheld Rome and all her

scandalous abuses, and there sharpened those arrows which he

afterwards discharged against her.

On his return to Germany, Hutten composed a treatise against

Rome, entitled "The Roman Trinity." In this work he unveils the

disorders of the papal court, and points out the necessity of

putting an end to her tyranny by force. "There are three

things," says a traveller named Vadiscus, who figures in the

treatise,--"there are three things that are usually brought away

from Rome: a bad conscience, a disordered stomach, and an empty

purse. There are three things in which Rome does not believe:

the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the dead, and

hell. There are three things in which Rome traffics: the grace

of Christ, ecclesiastical dignities, and women." The publication

of this work compelled Hutten to leave the court of the

Archbishop of Mentz, where he had composed it.

Reuchlin's affair with the Dominicans was the signal that

brought together all the men of letters, magistrates, and nobles,

who were opposed to the monks. The defeat of the inquisitors,

who, it was said, had escaped a definite and absolute

condemnation only by means of bribery and intrigue, had

emboldened their adversaries. Councillors of the empire;

patricians of the most considerable cities,--Pickheimer of

Nuremberg, Peutinger of Augsburg, and Stuss of Cologne;

distinguished preachers, such as Capito and Oecolampadius;

doctors of medicine and historians; all the literary men,

orators, and poets, at whose head shone Ulrich of Hutten,

composed that army of Reuchlinists, of which a list was even

published. The most remarkable production of this learned league

was the famous popular satire entitled--The Letters of Obscure

Men. The principal authors of this work were Hutten, and Crotus

Robianus, one of his college friends; but it is hard to say which

of them first conceived the idea, even if it did not originate

with the learned printer Angst, and if Hutten took any share in

the first part of the work. Several humanists, assembled in the

fortress of Ebernburg, appear to have contributed to the second.

It is a bold sketch, a caricature often too rudely colored, but

full of truth and strength, of striking resemblance, and in

characters of fire. Its effect was prodigious. The monks, the

adversaries of Reuchlin, the supposed writers of these letters,

discuss the affairs of the day and theological matters after

their own fashion and in barbarous latinity. They address the

silliest and most useless questions to their correspondent Ortuin

Gratius, professor at Cologne, and a friend of Pfefferkorn. With

the most artless simplicity they betray their gross ignorance,

incredulity, and superstition; their low and vulgar spirit; the

coarse gluttony by which they make a god of their bellies; and at

the same time their pride, and fanatical, persecuting zeal. They

relate many of their droll adventures, of their excesses and

profligacy, with various scandalous incidents in the lives of

Hochstraten, Pfefferkorn, and other chiefs of their party. The

tone of these letters--at one time hypocritical, at another quite

childish--gives them a very comic effect: and yet the whole is

so natural, that the English Dominicans and Franciscans received

the work with the greatest approbation, and thought it really

composed on the principles and in the defence of their orders.

A certain prior of Brabant, in his credulous simplicity, even

purchased a great number of copies, and sent them as presents to

the most distinguished of the Dominicans. The monks, more and

more exasperated, applied to the pope for a severe bull against

all who should dare to read these letters; but Leo X would not

grant their request. They were forced to bear with the general

ridicule, and to smother their anger. No work ever inflicted a

more terrible blow on these supporters of the Papacy. But it was

not by satire and by jests that the Gospel was to triumph. Had

men continued walking in this path; had the Reformation had

recourse to the jeering spirit of the world, instead of attacking

error with the arms of God, its cause would have been lost.

Luther boldly condemned these satires. One of his friends having

sent him The Tenour of Pasquin's Supplication, he replied, "The

nonsense you have forwarded me seems to have been composed by an

ill-regulated mind. I have communicated it to a circle of

friends, and all have come to the same conclusion." And speaking

of the same work, he writes to another correspondent: "This

Supplication appears to me to have been written by the author of

the Letters of Obscure Men. I approve of his design, but not of

his work, since he cannot refrain from insults and abuse." This

judgment is severe, but it shows Luther's disposition, and how

superior he was to his contemporaries. We must add, however,

that he did not always follow such wise maxims.

Ulrich having been compelled to resign the protection of the

Archbishop of Mentz, sought that of Charles V, who was then at

variance with the pope. He accordingly repaired to Brussels,

where the emperor was holding his court. But far from obtaining

anything, he learnt that the pope had called upon Charles to send

him bound hand and foot to Rome. The inquisitor Hochstraten,

Reuchlin's persecutor was one of those whom Leo X had charged to

bring him to trial. Ulrich quitted Brabant in indignation at

such a request having been made to the emperor. He had scarcely

left Brussels, when he met Hochstraten on the highroad. The

terrified inquisitor fell on his knees,a nd commended his soul to

God and the saints. "No!" said the knight, "I will not soil my

weapon with thy blood!" He gave him a few strokes with the flat

of his sword, and allowed him to proceed in peace.

Hutten took refuge in the castle of Ebernburg, where

Francis of Sickingen offered an asylum to all who were persecuted

by the ultra-montanists. It was here that his burning zeal for

the emancipation of his country dictated those remarkable letters

which he addressed to Charles V, to the Elector Frederick, of

Saxony, to Albert, archbishop of Mentz, and to the princes and

nobles,--letters that place him in the foremost ranks of

authorship. Here, too, he composed all those works intended to

be read and understood by the people, and which inspired all the

German states with horror of Rome, and with the love of liberty

Ardently devoted to the cause of the Reformation, his design was

to lead the nobles to take up arms in favor of the Gospel, and to

fall with the sword upon that Rome which Luther aimed at

destroying solely by the Word of God and by the invincible power

of the truth.

Yet amidst all this warlike enthusiasm, we are charmed at

finding in Hutten mild and delicate sentiments. On the death of

his parents, he made over to his brothers all the family

property, although he was the eldest son, and even begged them

not to write to him or send him any money, lest, notwithstanding

their innocence, they should be exposed to suffer by the malice

of his enemies, and fall with him into the pit.

If Truth cannot acknowledge Hutten as one of her children,

for her walk is ever with holiness of life and charity of heart,

she will at least accord him honorable mention as one of the most

formidable antagonists of error.

The same may be said of Francis of Sickingen, his

illustrious friend and protector. This noble knight, whom many

of his contemporaries judged worthy of the imperial crown, shines

in the first rank among those warriors who were the adversaries

of Rome. Although delighting in the uproar of battle, he was

filled with an ardent love of learning and with veneration for

its professors. When at the head of an army that menaced

Wurtemberg, he gave orders that, in case Stuttgard should be

taken by assault, the house and property of that great scholar,

John Reuchlin, should be spared. Sickingen afterwards invited

him to his camp, and embracing him, offered to support him in his

quarrel with the monks of Cologne. For a long time chivalry had

prided itself on despising literature. The epoch whose history

we are retracing presents to us a new spectacle. Under the

weighty cuirasses of the Huttens and Sickingens we perceive that

intellectual movement which was beginning to make itself felt in

every quarter. The first fruits that the Reformation gave to the

world were warriors that were the friends of the peaceful arts.

Hutten, who on his return from Brussels had taken refuge in

the castle of Sickingen, invited the worthy knight to study the

evangelical doctrines, and explained to him the foundations on

which they rest. "And is there any man," asked he in

astonishment, "who dares attempt to overthrow such an

edifice?...Who could do it?..."

Many individuals, who were afterwards celebrated as

reformers, found an asylum in his castle; among others, Martin

Bucer, Aquila, Schwebel, and Oecolampadius, so that Hutten with

justice used to call Ebernburg "the resting-place of the

righteous." It was the duty of Oecolampadius to preach daily in

the castle. The warriors who were there assembled, at last grew

weary of hearing so much said about the meek virtues of

Christianity: the sermons appeared to them too long, however

brief Oecolampadius endeavoured to be. They repaired, it is

true, almost every day to the church, but it was for little else

than to hear the benediction and to repeat a short prayer, so

that Oecolampadius used to exclaim: "Alas! the Word of God is

sown here upon stony ground!"

Erelong Sickingen, wishing to serve the cause of truth after

his own fashion, declared war against the Archbishop of Treves,

"in order," as he said, "to open a door for the Gospel." In vain

did Luther, who had already appeared, strive to dissuade him from

it: he attacked Treves with 5000 horse and 1000 foot. The

courageous archbishop, with the aid of the Elector Palatine and

the Landgrave of Hesse, compelled him to retire. In the

following spring the allied princes attacked him in his castle of

Landstein. After a bloody assault, Sickingen was obliged to

surrender: he had been mortally wounded. The three princes

entered the fortress, and after searching through it, discovered

the stout-hearted knight in a vault, lying on his bed of death.

He stretched out his hand to the Elector Palatine, without

seeming to notice the princes who accompanied him; but these

overwhelmed him with questions and reproaches: "Leave me in

repose," said he, "for I must now prepare to answer a more

powerful lord than you!......"When Luther heard of his death, he

exclaimed: "The Lord is righteous and greatly to be praised! It

is not by the sword that he will have his Gospel propagated."

Such was the melancholy end of a warrior, who, as elector or

emperor, might perhaps have raised Germany to a high degree of

glory; but who, confined within a narrow circle, wasted the great

powers with which he had been endowed. But it was not in the

tumultuous bosoms of these warriors that the divine truth, coming

down from heaven, was to take up her abode. It was not by their

arms that she was to prevail; and God, by bringing to nought

Sickingen's mad projects, confirmed anew the testimony of St.

Paul: The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty

through God.

Another knight, Harmut of Cronberg, a friend of Hutten and

Sickingen, appears to have had more wisdom and a deeper knowledge

of the truth. He wrote with great modesty to Leo X, exhorting

him to restore his temporal power to its rightful owner, namely,

the emperor. Addressing his subjects as a father, he endeavoured

to explain to them the doctrines of the Gospel, and exhorted them

to faith, obedience, and trust in Jesus Christ, "who is the Lord

of all," added he. He resigned into the Emperor's hand a pension

of 200 ducats, "because he would no longer serve one who lent his

ear to the enemies of the truth." We find an expression of his

recorded that seems to place him far above Hutten and Sickingen:

"Our heavenly teacher, the Holy Ghost, can, whenever he pleases,

teach in one hour more of the faith that is in Christ Jesus, than

could be learnt at the university of Paris in ten years."

Those who look for the friends of the Reformation only on

the steps of thrones, or in cathedrals and in colleges, and who

maintain that it had no friends among the people, are greatly

mistaken. God, who was preparing the hearts of the wise and the

powerful, was also preparing in the homes of the people many

simple and humble-minded men, who were one day to become the

ministers of his Word. The history of the period shows the

ferment then agitating the lower orders. The tendency of popular

literature before the Reformation was in direct opposition to the

prevailing spirit of the Church. In the Eulenspiegel, a

celebrated popular poem of the times, there is a perpetual

current of ridicule against brutal and gluttonous priests, who

were fond of pretty housekeepers, fine horses, and a well-filled

larder. In the Reynard Reineke, the priests' houses with their

families of little children are a prominent feature; another

popular writer thunders with all his might against those

ministers of Christ who ride spirited horses, but who will not

fight against the infidels; and John Rosenblut, in one of his

carnival plays, introduces the Grand Turk in person to deliver a

seasonable address to the states of Christendom.

It was in reality in the bosoms of the people that the

revolution so soon to break forth was violently fermenting. Not

only do we see youths issuing from their ranks and seizing upon

the highest stations in the Church; but there are those who

remained all their lives engaged in the humblest occupations, and

yet powerfully contributing to the great revival of Christendom.

We proceed to recall a few features in the life of one of these

individuals.

Hans Sachs, son of a tailor of Nuremberg, was born on the

5th November 1494. He was named Hans (John) after his father,

and had made some little progress in learning, when a severe

malady compelled him to renounce his studies and take up the

business of a shoemaker. Young Hans profited by the liberty

which this humble trade allowed to his mind, to penetrate into

that higher world in which his soul delighted. The songs that

had ceased to be heard in the castles of the nobles, sought and

found an asylum among the inhabitants of the merry towns of

Germany. A singing school was held in the church of Nuremberg.

These exercises, in which Hans used to join, opened his heart to

religious impressions, and helped to awaken in him a taste for

poetry and music. But the young man's genius could not long

remain confined within the walls of his workshop. He wished to

see with his own eyes that world of which he had read so much in

books,--of which his comrades related so many stories,--and which

his imagination peopled with wonders. In 1511, with a small

bundle of necessaries, he sets out and directs his steps towards

the south. Erelong the youthful traveller, who had met with

jovial companions, students roaming from town to town, and with

many dangerous temptations, feels a terrible struggle beginning

with him. The lusts of life and his holy resolutions are

contending for the mastery. Trembling for the result, he takes

flight and hides himself in the small town of Wels in Austria

(1513), where he lived in retirement, devoting himself to the

cultivation of the fine arts. The Emperor Maximilian chanced to

pass through this town with a brilliant retinue, and the young

poet allowed himself to be carried away by the splendor of the

court. The prince placed him in his hunting-train, and in the

noisy halls of the palace of Inspruck, Hans again forgot all his

resolutions. But his conscience once more cried aloud.

Immediately the young huntsman lays aside his brilliant livery,

quits the court, and repairs to Schwatz, and afterwards to

Munich. It was in the latter town that, at the age of twenty

years (1514), he composed his first hymn "in honor of God" to a

remarkable air. He was covered with applause. During his

travels he had had many opportunities of observing the numerous

and melancholy proofs of the abuses under which religion was

buried.

On his return to Nuremberg, Hans settled, married, and

became a father. When the Reformation broke out, he lent an

attentive ear. He clung to the Holy Scriptures, which were

already dear to him as a poet, but in which he no longer sought

merely for images and songs, but for the light of truth. To this

truth erelong he consecrated his lyre, and from an humble

workshop, near the gates of the imperial city of Nuremberg,

issued tones that re-echoed throughout Germany, preparing men's

minds for a new era, and everywhere endearing to the people the

mighty revolution that was going forward. The spiritual songs of

Hans Sachs and his Bible in verse were a powerful help to this

great work. It would, perhaps, be hard to decide who did the

most for it--the Prince-elector of Saxony, administrator of the

empire, or the Nuremberg shoemaker!

Thus, then, was there in every class something that

announced the Reformation. Warnings appeared on every side, and

events were hastening on which threatened to destroy the work of

ages of darkness, and to "make all things new." The hierarchical

form, which the efforts of many centuries had stamped upon the

world, was shaken, and its fall was nigh. The light that had

been just discovered spread a multitude of new ideas through

every country with inconceivable rapidity. In every grade of

society a new life was in motion. "What an age!" Exclaimed

Hutten; "studies flourish--minds are awakening it is a joy merely

to be alive!" Minds that had lain dormant for so many

generations, seemed desirous of redeeming by their activity the

time they had lost. To leave them unemployed, and without food,

or to present them only with such as had long supported their

languishing existence, would have betrayed ignorance of man's

nature. Already did the human mind clearly perceive what was and

what should be, and surveyed with a daring glance the immense

gulf which separated these two worlds. Great princes filled the

thrones; the time-worn colossus of Rome was tottering under its

own weight; the ancient spirit of chivalry was dead, and its

place supplied by a new spirit which breathed at once from the

sanctuaries of learning and from the homes of the lowly. The

printed Word had taken wings that carried it, as the wind wafts

the light seed, even to the most distant places. The discovery

of the two Indies extended the boundaries of the world.

Everything announced a great revolution.

But whence is to proceed the blow that shall throw down the

ancient building, and raise a new one from its ruins? No one

knew. Who possessed greater wisdom than Frederick, greater

learning than Reuchlin, greater talents than Erasmus, more wit

and energy than Hutten, more valor than Sickingen, or was more

virtuous than Cronberg? And yet it was not from Frederick, or

Reuchlin, or Erasmus, or Hutten, or Sickingen, or Cronberg!

.....Learned men, princes, warriors, nay the Church itself--all

had undermined some of the foundations; but there they had

stopped. In no direction could be seen the powerful hand that

was to be the instrument of God.

And yet all men had a presentiment that it would soon

appear. Some pretended to have discovered in the stars unerring

indications of its approach. Some, as they looked upon the

miserable state of religion, foretold the near coming of

Antichrist. Others, on the contrary, predicted a reformation to

be close at hand. The world waited in expectation. Luther

appeared.

 


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