The history of the Protestant reformation, in Germany and Switzerland : and in England, Ireland, Scotland, the Netherlands, France, and northern Europe : in a series of essays, reviewing D'Aubigné, Menzel, Hallam, Bishop Short, Prescott, Ranké, Fryxell, and others

' HBXarali

Sla§

V -v \.

.

THE HISTORY

OP THB

PROTESTANT REFORMATION,

GERMANY AND SWITZERLAND;

AND IN

ENGLAND, IKELAND, SCOTLAND, THE NETHERLANDS,
FRANCE, AND NORTHERN EUROPE.

IN A SERIES OP ESSAYS,

REVIEWING D'AUBIGNE, MENZEL, HALLAM, BISHOP SHORT, PRESCOTT, RAtfKE,

FRYXELL, AND OTHERS.

..

IN TWO VOLUMES.

BY M. J. SPALDING, D. D,,

BISHOP OP LOUISVILLE.

VOL. I.— REFORMATION IN GERMANY AND SWITZERLAND.

LOUISVILLE:
WEBB & LEVERING.

1860.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year I860, by
RT. REV. M. J. SPALDING,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the District

of Kentucky.

Stereotyped by Hills, O'Driscoll & Co.,
141 Main St., Cincinnati.

PREFACE TO VOLUME I.

FIFTEEN years ago I published a Review of D'Aubigne*'s History
of the Reformation in Germany and Switzerland. The edition
having been soon exhausted, I was often called on by friends to
issue a second one; but circumstances beyond my control have
prevented me from doing so until the present time. During this
interval several editions of D'Aubign^'s work have been published
in England and the United States, and two new volumes have been
added, continuing the history of the German and Swiss Reformation,
and commencing that of England. No notice, however, has been
taken by the author, so far as I have been able to discover, of the
facts and reasoning contained in the Review, though the latter was
republished in Ireland.

In preparing a second edition, I at first hesitated whether it
would be worth while to pay any further attention to a writer, who
is clearly so bitter a partisan, and so wholly unreliable as an
historian. His pretended history is, in fact, little better than a
romance. He omits more than half the facts, and either perverts
or draws on his imagination for the remainder. This may seem a
strong accusation ; but it is amply borne out by the authorities and
specifications contained in the Review. Starting out apparently
with the pre-determination to paint the German Reformers as
saints, and the Reformation as the work of God, he makes every
thing bend to his preconceived theory.

in

IV PREFACE.

Still, as his work continues to be read, and perhaps believed by
a considerable number of sincere persons, I have decided to re-issue
the Review in an amended and considerably enlarged form, in order
that those who really wish to discover the whole truth in regard .to
the Reformation may have an opportunity to read some of the facts
on the other side. But, at the same time, I have thought it better
to enlarge the plan of the work, and to embrace in it essays on the
rise and history of the Reformation in all the other principal coun
tries of Europe.

This is done in the second volume, in which is furnished a
summary of the principal facts connected with the rise of the
Reformation in England, Ireland, Scotland, the Netherlands,
France, and Northern Europe. These Essays are mostly reviews
of different Protestant works, and hence the style of the reviewer,
which had been adopted in the original publication, has been pre
served throughout both volumes.

The range of the present publication is thus very wide ; and I
feel that I have not been able in so brief a compass to do full
justice to a subject, upon which so many learned volumes have
been written on both sides. Still I am conscious of having honestly
endeavored to do whatever I could, to throw light upon a depart
ment of history so very important in itself and in its practical
bearings, and so little understood among our separated brethren.

My principal object has been, to condense within a brief space a
considerable amount of facts and authorities, which are scattered
over many works not easily accessible to the mass of readers.
Seeking to be useful rather than original, I have preferred to let
others speak whenever their testimony would be likely to prove
more weighty than my own words or reasoning. I have hence
generally preferred Protestant to Catholic testimony; and the
only merit I claim, besides that of an honest and earnest wish to
promote the cause of truth, is that of some industry in collecting

PREFACE. V

and endeavoring to knit together Protestant authorities in regard
to the character of the Reformation . The testimony of such wit
nesses is not likely to be undervalued or impeached by those who
are outside the Catholic Church.

Prefixed to the first volume will be found an Introductory Essay
on the religious and moral condition of Europe before the Reforma
tion ; and to the second, a similar one on England during the centuries
which preceded the reign of Henry VIII. These general views are
deemed important for a better understanding and a more correct
appreciation of the Reformation itself, the champions of which are
in the habit of justifying it on the ground of alleged abuses and
corruptions running through many centuries, and deemed incurable
by any other means than that of total separation from the Old
Church of our fathers. I have also added at the end of each
volume notes containing valuable documentary evidence.

Such as these Essays are, they are presented with honest intent
to the American public. If I shall succeed in bringing back even
one honest inquirer from the mazes of error into "the One Fold
of the One Shepherd," my labor will not have been wholly in vain.

LOUISVILLE, KY., Easter Monday, 1860.

GENERAL DIVISION.

INTRODUCTION.

MM

VIEW OF EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION. . 17

PART I.

CHARACTER OF THE REFORMERS 71

PART II.

CAUSES AND MANNER OF THE REFORMATION 102

PART III.

INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON RELIGION 221

PART IV.

INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON SOCIETY .315

CONTENTS TO VOLUME I.

INTRODUCTION.

VIEW OF EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION, PP 17 70

UTILITY of this retrospective view, p. 17 — The origin of European Gov
ernments — The Northmen, 18 — Rome the Civilizer, 19 — Protestant testi
mony. 20 — The Pope and the Emperor — Charlemagne, 21 — Guelphs and
Ghibellines — Temporal power of the Pope, 24 — Three great facts, 25 — Free
dom of the Church, 26 — Election of Bishops, 27 — Catholic munificence in
middle ages, 28 — The Truce of God, 30 — Question of Investitures — Horrible
abuses— Gregory VII. and Henry IV., 32— The Controversy settled, 35—
But its germs remain, 36— Modern historic justice, 38 — Growth of Mammon-
ism, 39 — Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, 40 — Boniface VIII. and Philip
the Fair, 41 — Faction and heresy — The new Manicheans, 44 — The Flagel
lants, 45 — The Great Schism, 46 — The Papacy comes out of it unscathed
— Catholic Reformation, 47 — Overcoming Scandals, 49 — The Hussites, 50 —
Preponderance of Good over Evil, 51 — The Monasteries — Dr. Maitland's tes
timony, 52 — Dr. Robertson convicted of gross misrepresentations — Homily
of St. Eligius, 53 — His warning against idolatry and superstition, 56 — A
model mediaeval Homily, 57 — St. Bernard and St. Vincent Ferrer, 59 — The
Pragmatic Sanction — Its mischievous tendency, 61 — Letter of Pope Pius
II., 62 — Preparation for the Reformation — Revival of Learning, 63 — Art
of Printing — Italy leads the way — Testimony of Macaulay, 64 — The Human
ists and Dominicans — The Pope and Liberty, 66 — Testimony of Laing —
Summing up, 67 — Four conclusions reached, 68 — What we propose to ex
amine and prove, 70

CONTENTS.

PAKT I.
CHARACTER OF THE REFORMERS.

CHAPTER I.

LUTHER AND THE OTHER GERMAN REFORMERS, PP • • • 71 101

D'Aubigne's opinion, p. 71 — A reformed key — Luther's parents, 72 — His
early training — A naughty boy, 73 — Convents — Being "led to God," and
"not led to God" — He enters the Augustinian convent, 74 — Austerities —
A "bread bag" — His faith and scruples, 75 — His humility and zeal — Luther
a reformer, 76 — Grows worse, 77 — Becomes reckless, 78 — His sincerity
tested, 79 — Saying and unsaying — Misgivings, 80 — Tortuous windings, 81
— How to spite the Pope, 83 — Curious incident, 84 — Melancthon and his
mother — Luther's talents and eloquence, 85 — His taste — His courage and
fawning, 86 — His violence and coarseness, 87 — Not excusable by the spirit
of his age — His blasphemies — Recrimination— Christian compliments, 89 —
"Conference with the devil" — Which got the better of the argument, 90 —
Luther's morality — Table-talk, 91 — His sermon on marriage, 92 — A Vixen —
How to do " mischief to the Pope " — A striking contrast — Plow to fulfill
vows — His marriage — Misgivings — Epigrams and satires, 98 — Curious in
cidents in his last sickness, 99 — Death-bed confession — His death, 100—
The reformed key used — Character of the other reformers, 101.

PART II.
CAUSES AND MANNER OF THE REFORMATION

CHAPTER II.

AMINED, PP 10l>— 109

The question stated — D' Aubigne's opinion p. 102 — Mother and daughter
— Argumentum ad hominem, 103 — Jumping at a conclusion, 104 — Second
causes — Why Germany was converted, 105 — Why Italy and Spain were
not, 106 — Luther and Mohammexi — Reasoning; by contraries, 107 — Why
France continued Catholic 108.

X CONTENTS.

CHAPTER III.

PKETEXTS FOR THE REFORMATION, PP 110 128

Usual plea — Abuses greatly exaggerated, p. 110 — Three questions put and
answered — Origin of abuses — Free-will unimpaired, 111 — Councils to extir
pate abuses, 112 — Church thwarted by princes and the world — Controversy
on Investitures — Extent of the evil, 113 — Sale of indulgences — St. Peter's
Church, 114 — John Tetzel — His errors greatly exaggerated, 116 — Public
penance, 117 — License to sin — Nature of indulgences — Tetzel rebuked and
his conduct disavowed by Kome, 118 — Miltitz and Cardinal Cajetan — Kind
ness thrown away — Luther in tears, 119 — Efforts of Rome — Leo X. and
Adrian VI. — Their forbearance censured by Catholic writers, 120 — Their
tardy severity justified by D'Aubignc, 121 — Luther's real purpose — The
proper remedy, 122 — The real issue, 124 — Nullification — "Curing and cut
ting a throat," 125— Luther's avowal, 126 — Admissions of the confession of
Augsburg and of Daille, 127 — Summing up, 128.

CHAPTER IV.

THE TRUE CAUSES OF THE REFORMATION, AND THE MEANS BY
WHICH IT WAS EFFECTED, PP 128 167

Saying of Frederick the Great, p. 128 — What we mean to prove — Testimony
of Hallam, 129 — Doctrines of Luther — Justification without works — Its
dreadful consequences avowed, 131— The "slave-will, 133 — Man, a beast with
two riders — Dissuasive from celibacy, 134 — An easy way to heaven, 135 —
D' Aubigne's discreet silence — Testimony of the Diet of Worms on Luther's
doctrines, 136 — An old lady emancipated — Protection of princes, 138— Schle-
gel's testimony — The reformers flatter princes and pander to their vices —
Remarkable avowals of Menzel, 139 — The Reformation and state policy, 140
— The princes become bishops — A reformed dispensation, 142 — Character of
reformed princes — Their cupidity— Fed by Luther — Protestant restitution,
143 — Open violence and sacrilegious spoliation, 144 — The modus operandi
of the Reformation, 154— Schlegel again, 156 — Abuse of the press, 158 —
Vituperation and calumny, 159 — Policy of Luther's marriage — Apostate
monks, 163— Recapitulation, 164 — A distinction, 165 — The Reformation "a
reappearance of Christianity," 166.

CONTENTS. XI

CHAPTER V.

THE REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND — ZURICH, PP- • • 167 — 181

The Reformation in Switzerland more radical than that in Germany —
Yet like it — Sows dissensions, 168 — Zuingle warlike and superstitious —
Claims precedency over Luther, 169 — Black or white, 170 — Precursory dis
turbances, 171 — Aldermen deciding on faith — How the fortress was en
trenched — Riot and conflagration, 172 — Enlightenment — Protestant martyrs,
173 — Suppression of the Mass, 174 — Solemnity of the reformed worship —
Downright paganism, 175 — The Reformation and matrimony, 176 — Zuingle's
marriage and misgivings — Romance among nuns, 177 — How to get a hus
band, 178 — Perversion of Scripture — St. Paul on celibacy, 179 — Recapitula
tion, 180.

CHAPTER VI.

THE REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND BERNE, PP- • • • 181 201

History by Louis De Haller — A standard authority, p. 181 — Berne the
centre of operations — De Haller's point of view, 182 — His character as an
historian — His authorities, 183 — Wavering of Berne, 184 — Tortuous policy
— How she embraced the reform — The bear and the pears, 185 — Treach
erous perjury of Berne — Zuinglian council — Its decrees, 186 — Religious
liberty crushed — Riot and sacrilege, 187 — Proceedings of Bernese com
missioners — Downright tyranny, 188 — The minister Farel — His fiery zeal —
An appalling picture, 189 — A parallel, 190 — Priests hunted down, 191 —
Character of the ministers — Avowal of Capito — The glorious privilege of
private judgment, 192 — How consistent ! 193 — Persecution of brother Prot
estants — Drowning the Anabaptists — Reformation in Geneva, 194 — Rapid
summary of horrors — The Bernese army of invasion — The sword and the
Bible, 195 — Forbearance of Catholics, 196 — Affecting incident at Soleure,
197 — The war of Cappell — Points of resemblance, 198 — An armed apostle
— A prophet quailing before danger, 199 — Battle of Cappell — Death of
Zuingle — Triumph of Catholic cantons — Treaty of peace, 200.

CHAPTER VII.

REACTION OF CATHOLICITY AND DECLINE OF PROTESTANTISM,
PP 201—220

Two parallel developments — The brave old ship, p. 202 — Modern Protest
antism quite powerless, 203 — A "thorough godly reformation" needed —

Xii CONTENTS.

Qualities for a reformer — The three days' battle, 204 — The puzzle — A thing
doomed, 205 — Which gained the victory ? — The French revolution, 206 —
Ranke and Hallam — The rush of waters stayed, 203 — Persecution — Protest
ant spice, 209— The Council of Trent—Revival of piety, 210— The Jesuits,
211 — Leading causes and practical results — Decline of Protestantism, 212 —
Apt comparison — What stemmed the current ? 213 — Thread of Ariadne —
Divine Providence — Reaction of Catholicity, 214 — Casaubon and Grotius, 215
— Why they were not converted — Ancient and modern Puseyism — Justus
Lipsius and Cassander, 216 — The inference — Splendid passage of Macaulay,
217 — Catholicity and enlightenment — The Church indestructible, 219—
General gravitation to Rome — The circle and its center, 220.

FAKT III.
INFLUENCE OF THE KEFORMATION ON RELIGION.

CHAPTER VIII.

PP 221—244

The nature of Religion — A golden chain, p, 221 — Question stated, 222 —
Private judgment — Church authority, 223 — As many religions as heads —
D'Aubigne's theory — Its poetic beauty, 224 — Fever of logmachy, 226 —
"Sons of liberty" — The Bible dissected, 227 — A hydra-headed monster, 228
— Erasmus — "Curing a lame horse" — Luther puzzled — His plaint, 229 —
His inconsistency, 230 — Missions and miracles, 231 — Zuingle's inconsist
ency. 232 — Strange fanatacism — Storck, Miinzer, Karlstadt, and John of
Leyden, 233 — A new deluge, 234 — Retorting the argument, 235 — Discussion
at the "Black Boar," 237 — Luther and the cobbler, 238 — Discussion at
Marburg, 239 — Luther's avowal, 240 — Breaking necks — Melancthon's
lament — The inference, 241 — Protestantism the mother of infidelity, 242 —
Picture of modern Protestantism in Germany by Schlegel, 244.

CHAPTER IX.

INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON MORALS, PP« • 245 274

Two methods of investigation — Connection of doctrine and morals, p. 245
— Salutary influence of Catholic doctrines — Of confession — Objections an-

CONTENTS. X11I

swered, 246 — Of celibacy, 249 — Its manifold advantages — Utility of the doc
trines of satisfaction and indulgences, 250 — Of fasting, 251 — Of prayers for
the dead — Of communion of saints, 252 — Sanctity of marriage — Divorces
253 — Influence of Protestant doctrines, 254 — Shocking disorders— Testi
mony of Erasmus, 255 — Bigamy and polygamy, 256 — Mohammedanism —
Practical results, 257 — Testimonies of Luther, Bucer, Calvin, and Melanc-
thon, 258 — The reformers testifying on their own work, 259 — Dollinger's
researches, 260 — Character of Erasmus, 269 — John Reuchlin — Present state
of morals hi Protestant countries, 270.

CHAPTER X.

pp 274—287

General influence of the Keformation on worship, p. 274 — Audin's picture
of it — Luther rebukes violence, 275 — But wavers — Giving life to a skeleton,
276 — Taking a leap — Mutilating the sacraments, 277 — New system of Ju
daism — Chasing away the mists — Protestant inconsistencies, 278 — A dreary
waste — No altars nor sacrifice — A land of mourning, 279 — Protestant plaints
— And tribute to Catholic worship, 280 — A touching anecdote — Continual
prayer, 281 — Vandalism rebuked — Grandeur of Catholic worship, 282 —
Churches always open — Protestant worship, 283 — The Sabbath day, 284 —
Getting up a revival — Protestant music and prayer — The pew system, 285
— The fashionable religion — The two forms of worship compared — St. Peter's
church, 286— The fine arts, 287

CHAPTER XI.

INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON THE BIBLE, ON BIBLE
READING, AND BIBLICAL STUDIES, PP 288 314

Protestant boastings, p. 288 — Theory of D' Aubigne — Luther finds a Bible,
289 — How absurd ! — The " chained Bible — Maitland's triumphant refutation,
290 — Seckenorf versus D' Aubigne, 292 — Menzel's testimony — The Catholic
Church and the Bible — The Latin language, 293 — Vernacular versions before
Luther's— In Germany, 295 — In Italy, 297 — In France — In Spain, 298 — In
England — In Flanders, 299 — In Sclavonia — In Sweden — In Iceland — Syriac
and Armenian versions — Summary and inference, 300 — Polyglots, 301 — Lu
ther's false assertion, 302 — Reading the Bible, 303 — Fourth rule of the index —

XiV CONTENTS.

— A religious vertigo remedied — More harm than good, 304 — Present disci
pline — A common slander — Protestant versions, 306— Mutual compliments,
307 — Version of King James, 308 — The Douay and Vulgate Bibles, 309 —
Private interpretation — German rationalism, 311 — Its blasphemies 312 —
nationalism in Geneva, 314.

PART IV.
INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON SOCIETY.

CHAPTER XII.

INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY,
PP 315—344

Stating the question, p. 315 — Two aspects — Professions, 316 — D'Aubigne's
theory, 317 — "Combating" ad libitum, 318 — Diversities and sects — Incon
sistency, 320 — Early Protestant intolerance, 321 — The mother and her re
creant daughter — Facts on persecution of each other by early Protestants,
322 — Of Karlstadt — Luther the cause of it, 323 — Persecution of Anabap
tists, 325 — Synod at Homburg, 326 — Luther's letter, 327— Zuingle, 328 —
The drowned Jew — Calvinistic intolerance — Persecution of Catholics,
330— Diet of Spires, 331— Name of Protestant— A stubborn truth, 332—
Strange casuistry — Convention at Smalkalde, 333 — Testimony of Menzel —
GUJUS REGIO, EJUS RELIGIO, 339 — Union of church and state, 340 — A bear's
embrace, 341 — Hal lam's testimony, 342 — Parallel between Catholic and
Protestant countries, 343.

CHAPTER XIII.

INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON CIVIL LIBERTY,

pp 344—370

Boasting, p. 344 — Theory of government — Political liberty — Four things
guarantied, 345 — Pursuit of happiness, 346 — The Popes and liberty, 347 —
Rights of property, 348 — Use made of confiscated church property, 349 —
The Attila of the Reformation — Par nobile fratrum, 350 — Spoliation of
Catholics — Contempt of testamentary dispositions, 351 — The jus manuale
abolished, 352 — And restored — Disregard of life, 353 — And crushing of pop-

CONTEMS. XV

ular liberty — The war of the peasants — Two charges made good, 354 — Griev
ances of the peasants — Drowned in blood — Remarkable testimony of Menzel
355 — Luther's agency therein — Halting between two extremes — Result, 356
— Absolute despotism, 361 — Swiss cantons, 362 — D'Aubigne puzzled, 363
— Liberty, a mountain nymph — The old mother of republics, 364 — Security
to character, 365— Recapitulation, 366.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE REFORMATION AT GENEVA, AND ITS INFLUENCE ON CIVIL
AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY, PP 370 392

Character of Calvinism — Protestant historians, p. 370 — The " Registers,"
371 — Audin — Calvin's character, 372 — His activity — His heartlessness, 373
— Luther and Calvin compared, 375 — Early liberties of Geneva, 376 — The
"Libertines," 378 — Blue laws, 379 — Spy system — Persecution — Death of
Gruet, 380— Burning of Servetus, 381 — Hallam's testimony, 386 — Morals
of Calvin, 388 — His zeal— His complicated diseases, 389— His last will — His
awful death and mysterious burial, 390 — A douceur, 391 — The inference, 392.

CHAPTER XV.

INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON LITERATURE, PP. 393 4:28

Light and darkness — Boast of D'Aubigne, p. 393 — Two sets of barbarians,
394 — Catholic and Protestant art, 395— The "painter of the Reformation"
— Two witnesses against D'Aubigne — Schlegel — Hallam, 396 — "Bellowing
in bad Latin," 399 — Testimony of Erasmus, 400 — Destruction of monas
teries, 401 — Literary drought — Luther's plaint, 402 — Awful desolation —
An "iron padlock," 403 — Early Protestant schools — D'Aubigne's omissions
— Burning zeal, 404 — Light and flame — Zeal for ignorance, 406 — Burning
of libraries — Rothman and Omar — Disputatious theology, 407 — Its practical
results, 408 — Morbid taste, 409 — The Stagirite— Mutual distrust, 41O—
Case of Galileo, 411 — Liberty of the press, 413 — Old and new style — Relig
ious wars, 414 — Anecdote of Reuchlin, 415 — Italy pre-eminent, 416 — Plaint
o£ Leibnitz — Revival of letters, 417 — A shallow sophism — A parallel, 418
— Great inventions, 420 — Literary ages — Protestant testimony, 421 — Dol-
linger's testimony of the reformers themselves, 422.

XVI CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XVI.

INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON CIVILIZATION, PP. 428 £49

Definition, p. 428 — Eeligion, the basis — Reclaiming from barbarism, 430 —
British East India possessions, 431 — Catholic and Protestant conquests, 435
• — Protestant missions — Sandwich Islands, 434 — The mother of civilization
— The ark amid the deluge, 435 — Rome converts the nations, 436 — Early
German civilization — Mohammedanism, 438 — The Crusades — The Popes,
539 — Luther and the Turks, 440 — Luther retracts, 441 — Religious wars in
Germany — Thirty Years' War, 443 — General peace, 446 — Disturbed by the
Reformation — Comparison between Protestant and Catholic countries, 447.

TRIBUNAL OF THE REFORMATION, P 452

NOTES AND DOCUMENTS.

A. AN HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE OPINIONS THAT

THE FIRST REFORMERS HAVE GIVEN OF ONE ANOTHER, AND
OF THE EFFECTS OF THEIR PREACHING, P 463

B. — LUTHER'S CONFERENCE WITH THE DEVIL, p. • • • 476
NOTE C. — PERMISSION GRANTED TO PHILIP, LANDGRAVE OF

HESSE, BY LUTHER AND OTHER REFORMERS, TO HAVE TWO
WIVES AT ONCE, P 482

THE REFORMATION

IN

GERMANY AND SWITZERLAND.

VIEW OF EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION.

UTILITY of this retrospective view — The origin of European Governments —
The Northmen — Rome the Civilizer — Protestant testimony — The Pope
and the Emperor — Charlemagne — Guelphs and Ghibellines — Temporal
power of the Pope — Three great facts — Freedom of the Church — Election
of Bishops — Catholic munificence in middle ages — The Truce of God —
Question of Investitures — Horrible abuses — Gregory VII. and Henry
IV.. — The Controversy settled — But its germs remain — Modern historic
justice — Growth of Mammonism — Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries —
Boniface VIII. and Philip the Fair — Faction and heresy — The new Mani-
cheans — The Flagellants — The Great Schism — The Papacy comes out of
it unscathed — Catholic Reformation — Overcoming Scandals — The Hussites
— Preponderance of Good over Evil — The Monasteries — Dr. Maitland's
testimony — Dr. Robertson convicted of gross misrepresentations — Homily
of St. Eligius — His warning against idolatry and superstition — A model
mediaeval Homily — St. Bernard and St. Vincent Ferrer — The Pragmatic
Sanction — Its mischievous tendency — Letter of Pope Pius II. — Preparation
for the Reformation — Revival of Learning — Art of Printing — Italy leads
the way — Testimony of Macaulay — The Humanists and Dominicans —
The Pope and Liberty — Testimony of Laing — Summing up — Four con
clusions reached — What we propose to examine and prove.

THE rapidity with which the revolution, called by its friends
the Reformation, succeeded throughout a considerable portion
of Europe during the first half of the sixteenth century, can
scarcely be properly appreciated, or even fully understood,
without referring to the moral and religious condition of
Europe during the preceding centuries. Hence we can not

VOL. I,— 2 ( 17 )

18 EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION.

probably furnish a more suitable introduction to our essays
on the history of the Protestant Reformation in Germany,
than by attempting to present to our readers a rapid retro
spective view of European society during the period usually
called the middle ages — extending from the fifth to the six
teenth century. Our survey must necessarily be very brief
and summary, and we shall confine ourselves to those events,
or groups of facts, which may appear to have had the greatest
influence on the coming religious revolution. While most of
our remarks will be general, many of the facts we shall have
to allege will be specially connected with mediaeval German
history, and with the repeated and occasionally protracted
struggles between the German emperors and the Popes.
"Without taking some such an historical retrospect, we will
hardly be prepared to understand how the minds of Chris
tians, especially in Germany, become so suddenly ripe for
revolt against the time-honored authority of the old Church,
and particularly against that of the sovereign pontiffs, to whom
they were so greatly indebted.

The people who laid the foundations of almost all the modern
European nations, and who shaped the great dynasties which
have since resulted, after many vicissitudes, in the present
settled — at least consolidated — governments of Europe, were
mainly the descendants of the Northern hordes, who overran
Europe in the fifth and following centuries. This is more
particularly the case in regard to Germany, where the North
men established, with but slight modifications, their own
peculiar laws and customs. In France, Italy, and Spain,
these peculiar Germanic customs were modified, to a greater
or less extent, by pre-existing laws and usages ; some of which
were retained when the original population had become amal
gamated with their conquerors.

The Northmen, who thus shaped the destiny of modern
Europe, were originally either downright heathens — like the
Huns — or else barbarians, with a slight tincture of Christi
anity in the form of the Arian heresy — like a portion of the

NORTHMEN ROME THE CIVIL1ZER. 19

Goths and Yandals. Little could certainly be expected from
such men for the benefit of civilization. Their destiny seemed
to be to destroy, not to build up. They annihilated the old
pagan civilization, which, under the shadow of the victorious
Roman eagles, had pervaded the greater portion of Europe ; —
could it be reasonably expected that they would be able to
build up, amidst its desolate ruins, with which they had
strewn and cumbered the European soil, a newer and better
condition of society ? They needed civilizing themselves ; —
how could they hope to be capable of civilizing others ?

In the deplorable state of wide-spread desolation and social
anarchy which overspread Europe for two or three centuries, in
consequence of the successive barbarian invasions and the fall
of the Roman empire in the West, nothing that was merely
human could possibly have saved European society from utter
and irretrievable ruin. All civilization seemed utterly hope
less, and simply impossible. ISTo merely human philosophy or
legislation could have brought order out of such chaos, light out
of such darkness. An element possessing more than earthly
power and energy was imperatively needed ; and fortunately
for humanity and civilization, this element was provided by
the Church of Christ. The Church, and the Church alone,
saved European society, and thereby rendered all subsequent
civilization not only possible, but certain. The Church
founded by the Man-God, built upon a rock, having her
foundation cemented by His blood, and firmly secured from
falling away by His infallible promises, was alone able to
meet the emergency, and to assure the prosperous future of
European society.

The fierce barbarians had conquered pagan Rome, and had
made the environs of its splendid capital a dreary marble
wilderness, strewn with broken columns and shattered cor
nices; but they could not conquer the Church, which had
been established by the Son of the living God. On the con
trary, the Church conquered them. The victorious Roman
eagles now lay trailing in the dust, but the Cross — the noble

20 EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION.

banner of the Church — was still erect and waving victoriously
amidst the universal ruin and desolation. Nay, more; the
Cross was carried in triumph from Christian Home to. the
furthest fastnesses of the North, conquering the conquerors
of pagan Rome, and thus becoming afterward their own
cherished banner of victory. From the fifth to the twelfth
century, an all-conquering and glorious, because bloodless and
humanizing invasion, rolled from the South to the North, in
compensation for the all-destroying invasion which had rolled
from the North to the South. Thus Christian Rome nobly
avenged the disasters which had overwhelmed the imperial
city of the Caesars : she repaid evil with good, and scattered
unutterable blessings among those who had brought ruin to
her hearth-stone, and her once pagan altars.

No fact of history is better attested, than that the Catholic
Church, and the Catholic Church alone, Christianized, human
ized, and civilized the various European nations, which now
occupy the first place in civilization, and from which we in
America are all descended. Intelligent and learned men of
all shades of religious opinion have freely admitted this fact,
without the acknowledgment of which, all modern history
would, in truth, be wholly unintelligible, and would present
a series of insolvable enigmas. This has been well understood
and freely acknowledged by such men as Guizot, in France,
Schlegel, Voigt Hurter, Gorres, Miiller, Dollinger, and a host
of others in Germany, Hallam, Roscoe, and Maitland, in
England, and a multitude of other learned historians, who
have laboriously investigated the subject of mediaeval history,
and have given to the world, during the last half century, the
result of their researches. These researches have proved as
important to the cause of historic truth, as they have been
honorable to the Church, from whose brow no one can now
tear the laurel wreath of victory over barbarism, which has
been placed upon it by the willing hands of her enemies
themselves. The deliberate verdict of modern history is, that
the Catholic Church has been the mother of civilization, and

THE POPE AND THE EMPEROR CHARLEMAGNE. 21

it cannot be set aside by either self-glorifying ignorance, or
partisan prejudice.

The history of the Reformation in Germany, particularly,
must be viewed in the light of this great fact. No portion of
Europe, probably, owed a greater debt of gratitude to Rome,
than Germany. It was Christian Rome which sent to her the
missionary apostles, who, armed with commissions from the
Popes, successively converted her people, and who subse
quently labored with diligent and successful charity and zeal
to soften their manners, to control their passions, to reform
their legislation, and to raise them ultimately to that high
degree of civilization to which they subsequently attained.
The Germans were indebted to Rome, and chiefly to the
Roman pontiffs, for all the principal elements of their civili
zation, and for all that constituted their greatness as a people.

How all this was lost sight of, or forgotten, at the period
of the Reformation, and how the benefits of Rome were re
paid with insults and injury, we shall see in the sequel. Our
present purpose requires us to dwell more particularly on the
manner in which the Church grew up and flourished, in vigor
and holiness, throughout Germany and other European coun
tries, and on the origin and history of the frequent conflicts
which arose at different periods of the middle ages, between
the Roman pontiffs and the different princes of Europe, par
ticularly the German emperors.

The relations between the Popes and the German emperors
were, from an early period, manifold and intimate. The latter
had been indebted to the former, not only for their title, but
for the much more extended powers with which this was
accompanied. In solemnly crowning Charlemagne emperor of
the Romans, in St. Peter's church, on Christmas day, A. D. 800,
Pope Leo III. had laid the foundations of the new Christian
empire in the West, which was to take the place of the old
pagan empire that had fallen. The very title of the newly-
created, or newly-confirmed dynasty implied — what the facts
of mediaeval history more fully establish — that the Roman

22 EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION.

pontiffs constituted an integral, if not an essential element of
the new civil organization. It belonged to them not only to
crown the new emperor, but to recognize and pass judgment
upon his claim to the throne, whenever there were several
rival aspirants for the honor. Their advice was sought, and
their judgment invoked, in almost every great political emer
gency, often by the emperors themselves, more frequently still
by the people, whom the tyranny of the latter aggrieved or
oppressed. Theirs was, in fact, the only voice which could
make itself heard amidst the clamor of factions and the tur
moil of society, so common throughout the middle ages — a
stormy period of transition, in which Europe was preparing
for the more consolidated and stable forms which her govern
ments have since assumed.

The original empire of Charlemagne embraced Germany,
France, and a great portion of Europe. It was colossal in its
proportions, and it was administered with rare vigor, genius,
and ability, by its great founder. But genius is not hereditary,
and his vast empire was divided, after his death, among his
children and successors, who possessed but a small share of
his eminent qualities, either of head or of heart. The French
kings henceforth vied with the German emperors in their aspi
rations to control the fortunes of continental Europe. But
the emperors claimed a commanding influence over Italy,
which they have retained, with some exceptions and vicissi
tudes, almost down to the present day.* This claim, and the
disastrous consequences to Italy, which often resulted from its
exaggerated or undue exercise, constituted the fruitful source

* The late war in Italy was undertaken, as is well known, with a view
to break down the preponderating influence of the German emperors in
Italy. History has its traditions and its logic, as well as philosophy ; and
Napoleon's war with Francis Joseph of Austria, is but an additional link in
a long chain of kindred events. Whether Italy or the Papacy will be ulti
mately benefited by the late peace of Villafranca, remains yet to bo seen.
The diminution of Austrian influence is, of itself, a blessing, unless overbal
anced by a worse evil — which from present appearances may bo greatly fl'.'.ix .

TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE. 23

of most of the contests between them and the Popes, who
were the oldest as well as the best of the Italian sovereigns,
and, as such, naturally felt a lively interest in all that con
cerned the welfare of Italy. The Italians, oppressed and
down-trodden by the German emperors, instinctively turned
their eyes to the Roman pontiffs, and implored their powerful
succor against the overwhelming forces brought against them
by the imperial invaders of their independence and rights.
They had no other resource left to them in their helplessness ;
and their earnest appeals were seldom made in vain.

The Popes were themselves comparatively weak and power-
•less, as temporal sovereigns, but they were strong in the armor
of God. When moral suasion failed, they hesitated not to
hurl the thunder-bolt of excommunication at the head of the
imperial tyrant who dared trample on the sacred rights of his
people. The Lombard League of the twelfth century, in
which the Italian cities of the North banded together to
oppose the encroachments of the imperial tyrant Frederic
Barbarossa, furnishes one out of many striking illustrations of
this remark. Pope Alexander III. was unanimously chosen
as the head of this famous League, which, under his auspices,
succeeded in expelling the tyrant, and establishing, for a time
at least, Italian independence. The free cities and the repub
lics of Northern and Central Italy grew up and flourished
under the influence of this triumph of patriotism over foreign
invasion, of Italian freedom over German despotism ; and the
liberated and grateful Italians named their newly-founded
city of Alexandria^ after the illustrious and successful cham
pion of their rights ; while the imperial tyrant was induced
to expiate his cruelties by taking the cross, and marching as
a crusader to the holy land.

But though foiled in this attempt to crush Italian independ
ence, the German emperors did not give up their claim to
be the rulers — at least the arbiters — of Italy. They estab
lished and maintained for centuries in this beautiful country
a powerful party, wholly attached to their interests. The

24 EUROPE BEOFRE THE REFORMATION.

Ghibellines were imperialists, while the opposing party of the
Guelphs were the advocates of Italian liberty. The struggles
of these two parties for the ascendency was the fruitful source
of troubles and of bloody civil feuds during all the latter
half of the middle ages. These fratricidal strifes kept alive the
flames of civil war, and deluged with blood the streets of the
Italian cities, from the middle of the thirteenth to the middle
of the fifteenth century. The overshadowing influence and
the rich patronage of the German emperors, who lavished
their wealth on the Ghibelline faction, kept alive this detest
able party, and rendered^ its powerful members most danger
ous elements of Italian society. It is almost needless to say,
that the Popes, while endeavoring to soothe the angry passions
of both parties, generally took sides with the Guelphs, and
that they did every thing in their power to heal the bloody
feuds which were so very disastrous to Italian interests.
But their efforts were not always successful, and they them
selves were compelled frequently to bend to the storm, and
to feel in their own persons its desolating influence. They
were sometimes driven from Rome by the triumphant im
perialists ; and one cause of their long sojourn at Avignon
was precisely this, that in consequence of the fearful condition
to which Central and Northern Italy had been reduced by
these truculent factions, Rome had become almost wholly
uninhabitable.

Whatever opinion may be entertained in reference to the
origin and merits of the various successive contests which
were carried on between the German emperors, and occasion
ally the French kings, on the one side, and the Roman pon
tiffs on the other, and particularly in regard to the origin and
grounds of the claim to temporal power set up by several of
the pontiffs during the period in question, we think that no im
partial man, who is well versed in the history of those times,
will be disposed to deny any one of the three following propo
sitions — each one of which could be substantiated by a volume
of evidence:

THREE GREAT FACTS. 25

1. That the Popes were drawn into the vortex of tem
poral affairs and political agitation by the train of circum
stances — already alluded to — which originated European
society, and which rendered it an imperative necessity that
they should interpose, if they would arrest anarchy and seek
to save society from utter ruin.

2. That when thus drawn into the vortex, their influence
was generally highly beneficial to society, by being thrown
on the side of virtue struggling against vice, and of popular
freedom battling against imperial or royal despotism.

And, 3. That to their interposition mainly do we owe it,
that the Church was enabled to preserve, to a great extent,
her own independence and freedom of action, and was thus
in a position to continue successfully her heavenly mission for
humanizing and civilizing European society; which without
this influence would most certainly have relapsed into barbar
ism — even if it had ever been able to emerge from barbarism.

No other power than that of the Catholic Church, wielded
by its chief executive — the Roman pontiffs — could ever
have checked lawless and overwhelming tyranny, could ever
have effectually shielded popular rights from oppression,
could ever have successfully defended female chastity from
imperial and royal licentiousness, by fully guarantying to all
the sacred rights, and by defending the duties^ of Christian
marriage ; could ever, in one word, have arrested the torrent
of mere brute force, which was sweeping over Europe and
threatening it with destruction.

Amidst the din of arms and the clamor of the passions, no
other voice could be heard than that which came from Rome ;
and even this voice was not always heeded by those, whose
headlong passions so blinded them to the promptings of faith
as to render them not unfrequently deaf to its eloquent ex
postulations or terrible menaces. If the middle ages were
pre-eminently ages of faith, they were none the less ages of
violence and of brute force. But wo to European civiliza
tion, if there had not existed at the time a great moral and
VOL. i. — 3

26 EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION.

religious power, which was alone respected by the masses of
the population ; and which, if not always heeded in its warn
ing, by those against whom its exercise was invoked, still
made itself generally heard and respected. If right finally
triumphed over might, and the passions had to yield at length
in the struggle against reason and religion, we owe the result
mainly to the beneficial influence of the Papacy. This is as
certain as any thing else in all history.

This leads us to another department of the struggles be
tween the Popes and the temporal princes of Europe, which
is more nearly connected with our present purpose, and upon
which we shall be pardoned for dwelling at somewhat greater
length. We refer to the efforts of the Popes to secure free
dom to the Church against the aggressions of the temporal
power, to the various phases of their contests with emperors
and kings for the attainment of this vital object, and to the
final results of this great struggle, as developed on the eve of
the Reformation itself.

The chief element of this important controversy between
the spiritual and temporal power was this : that the German
emperors and some other feudal sovereigns of Europe, often
sought to enslave the Church, by making her higher clergy
wholly dependent upon themselves ; and that the Popes, on
the contrary, sought to insure to the clergy freedom of elec
tion and freedom of action. In regard to the principle in
volved, the Popes were manifestly in the right throughout the
whole contest, while the claim set up by the temporal sove
reigns was clearly an usurpation, as unfounded in reason, as
it was mischievous in fact.

The Church had clearly the right to appoint her own
bishops and clergy, and to exercise over them such a super
vision and control, as would render them fully responsible for
their conduct to her own regularly constituted tribunals. She
could not exercise this undoubted right, nor hold her own
ministers to their proper responsibility, if the temporal sove
reigns had, at the same time, a right to thrust on her such

ELECTION OF BISHOPS. 27

spiritual officers as she disapproved of, and could not control.
How could she properly guard the flock committed to her
charge, if others, beyond her control, were permitted to
thrust into its inclosure, as shepherds, "devouring wolves in
sheep's clothing." The very idea of the Church, together with
the primary objects for which the Church was established by
Christ, necessarily carries with it the logical inference, that
she should be free and independent of the temporal power in
her own 'peculiar sphere of action, and especially in the ap
pointment and control of her own officers or ministers. With
out this freedom of action, she would be hampered at every
step, and she would be rendered totally incapable of discharg
ing her high mission for the conversion of the world, and the
salvation of mankind.

Accordingly, we find that, from the very beginning of the
Church, this liberty was not only claimed, but openly exer
cised, even in the midst of the most violent persecution from
pagan, and of occasional opposition from Christian emperors.
The canons enacted in various early and mediaeval councils,
and approved by the Popes, fully provided for the mode to be
adopted in the election of bishops and abbots, as well as the
rules to be followed in the appointment of pastors of souls,
and of other inferior ministers. The discipline varied some
what at different times, and in different countries ; but every
where and at all times the freedom of the Church in the elec
tion or appointment of her ministers was strongly claimed
and triumphantly vindicated, though not without occasional
violent opposition from the temporal power.

During the middle ages, the usual method of election for
bishops and abbots, was that in which the cathedral and mo
nastic chapters, composed of the higher clergy of the diocese,
or the most distinguished among the monks, freely convened
and freely selected the candidate whom they deemed best
qualified for the vacant place. The Metropolitans, or Arch
bishops, were authorized to exercise a general supervision over
the proceedings, while the power of confirming or rejecting the

28 EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION.

successful candidate rested with the sovereign pontiff, who, if
he approved the choice, issued the necessary commission or
bulls for the installment into office of the new incumbent.
This was clearly as it should be ; and had this undoubted
right of the Church been left untrammeled and unviolated,
many scandals would have been prevented, and much evil
avoided.

The better to understand the motives or pretexts sometimes
alleged by the temporal sovereigns of Europe, during the
middle ages, for their claim to appoint men of their own
choice to the important offices of bishops and abbots, we must
go back to the period which immediately followed the occu
pation of Europe by the Northmen — the fiftn and following
centuries. The various barbarous chieftains who parceled
out Europe among their followers, were in general rude, but
generous men. On their conversion to Christianity, their
hearts, and those of their successors, swelled with gratitude
toward the Church, which had called them from darkness to
the light of the faith ; and their gratitude was fruitful in good
works. They munificently endowed the bishoprics, and sub
sequently the monasteries; they allotted to them large and
rich domains ; they erected palaces and castles for the bishops,
and extensive cloisters for the monks of St. Benedict, and for
other religious orders which sprang up at a later period.

They did more. Their generosity toward their spiritual
benefactors seemed exhaustless, and its spirit was communi
cated by their example and exhortation to the entire mass of
the population. All classes vied with one another in munifi
cence toward the Church and toward her ministers. Splen
did churches, spacious hospitals, and palatial colleges and
universities sprang up all over Europe. Many of these noble
edifices still remain, and they are, even at this day, the admi
ration of the world, which with all its boasted progress could
scarcely produce any thing to equal, certainly nothing to sur
pass them in grandeur. In those lands over which the storm
of the Reformation has swept, many of those splendid struc-

CATHOLIC MUNIFICENCE IN MIDDLE AGES. 29

tures now lie in silent and solemn, but still imposing ruins,
while others have been sadly diverted from their original des
tination, and have become the palaces of worldly pride and
pomp, instead of asylums for the poor of Christ.

The Church of the middle ages more than repaid all this
munificent bounty of her children. In return, she bestowed
upon them her abundant spiritual treasures, and her rich and
glorious civilization. Her cathedrals, monasteries, and col
leges were oases in the mediaeval desert, inviting all to be
refreshed by their perennial verdure, and to slake their thirst
at the cooling fountains of religion and learning, which were
there constantly flowing. To the oppressed vassal, fleeing
from the anger of his all-powerful lord, she opened her peace
ful sanctuary, where he was safe until the wrath of his ruth
less persecutor could be mollified by time, or appeased by her
own mercy-breathing voice of expostulation. To the heart
sick, and to those weary of the world's turmoil, and panting
for something higher and more stable, she opened her holy
cloisters, devoted to study and prayer ; in the sanctuary soli
tude of which they might find rest and peace, might soar on
the wings of heavenly contemplation to the throne of God,
and might find time to pray, to read, and to labor for the en
lightenment and salvation of others less favored. To the foot
sore traveler, those monasteries were ever open inns for
refreshment, where he was sure to meet a cordial welcome,
and to receive, free of charge, and for the love of God, all
the sweet offices of Christian hospitality ; while the neighbor
ing poor might always confidently reckon on them, freely and
bountifully to supply all their pressing wants.

To the sick and the afflicted, of every class and condition,
the Catholic hospitals and asylums of the middle ages were
easily accessible, and therein they might be sure to find every
comfort which munificent charity could provide, to solace
them in their bodily afflictions or mental sorrows.

Finally — for we should never terminate were we to enume
rate all the benefits bestowed on society by the Church of the

30 EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION.

middle ages — what was so beautifully called, the TRUCE OF
GOD, which the Church proclaimed, accomplished more than
perhaps any other single influence toward humanizing the
European populations, by diminishing the frequency and miti
gating the horrors of those petty civil wars which were so
characteristic of the period in question. "When, for the love
of God, and out of reverence for the passion, death, and
resurrection of Jesus Christ, men, at the call of the Church,
generally agreed to suspend all warfare during four days in
each week — from Wednesday evening until the ensuing Mon
day morning, we might naturally expect to find their passions
cooling down, and charity with a spirit of conciliation and for
giveness, taking the place of vengeance and bloody civil feuds.
And such, in effect, was the practical working of the Truce
of God on European society.

Happy would it have been for Europe and the world, had
this merciful and conciliatory spirit of the Church been pro
perly met and duly appreciated by the princes of the earth.
The earth would have become a sort of elysium, and the
development of a sound Christian civilization would have
been hastened by whole centuries. But unhappily, this was
not always the case. So it is in all things human, where evil
is generally found mixed with good, the tares with the good
wheat. In return for their munificence toward the Church, the
temporal princes not unfrequently claimed what the Church
could not bestow, without surrendering her independence, and
virtually resigning her divine commission to rebuke vice in
high places, and freely to teach the world unto salvation.

The feudal system had been introduced into Europe by the
Northmen, and in her external relations with society the
Church was necessarily brought, more or less, under its influ
ence. The bishops and abbots, in virtue of the domains held
by them, became feudal lords, who, like others similarly situ
ated, were expected to do homage to their liege lords, or
suzerains, for their own territory ; and though not compelled,
or even expected, actually to engage in warfare themselves,

INVESTITURES — HORRIBLE ABUSES. 31

they were held bound, on the call of their liege lord, to mar-
shall their retainers under his standard, to espouse his quarrel
and fight his battles. This incidental connection of the
Church with the State, while it undoubtedly tended to moder
ate the fierceness of strife and to humanize the hearts of the
people, by bringing the influence of the Church to bear directly
on the turmoil of the camp and the bloody scenes of the battle
field, was, at the same time, fruitful with danger to the spirit
of the higher clergy. While thus descending into the arena
of busy or fierce human passions, though they might hope to
moderate strife and to prevent or diminish bloodshed, they
were exposed to the peril of worldly-mindedness and to the
consequent diminution or loss of the spiritual character so
essential to their vocation and usefulness. This was the chief
danger of the connection; its benefits to society we have
already summarily indicated.

In proportion as the higher clergy became wealthy and influ
ential, the great feudal lords, and especially the emperors of
Germany, sought by every means in their power to win them
over to their interests, and to make them subservient to their
worldly purposes. And as they could not hope fully to con
trol the action of those bishops and abbots, who were worthy
of their high positions by being thoroughly imbued with the
ecclesiastical spirit, they sought to thrust their own creatures
into the principal vacant sees and abbeys. The chief merit
of the candidate, in their eyes, was his courtly subserviency.
In carrying out this wicked scheme for enslaving the Church,
and virtually ruining it by foisting into its high places un
worthy ministers, they encountered frequent and sturdy oppo
sition from the bishops and abbots ; but whether these resisted
the usurpation or not, the Popes were sure to stand forth on
such occasions as the uncompromising champions of the free
dom and purity of election, and of the independence of the
Church. From this source sprang many, if not most of the
protracted struggles between the Popes and the German
emperors during the middle ages.

32 EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION.

A prominent phase of this contest is exhibited in the con
troversy concerning what were called Investitures. By super
ficial or prejudiced writers this controversy has been regarded
merely as a puerile dispute about petty rites and ceremonies,
while the claims of the Popes have been represented by the
same class of writers as an usurpation on the rights of the
emperors. By those, on the contrary, who have penetrated
beyond the surface of history, and have carefully studied the
facts as interpreted by the spirit of the times, it has been
justly looked upon as the vital question of the age — a ques
tion of liberty or slavery, of life or death for the Church.
Having founded and endowed the bishoprics and abbeys, the
emperors claimed the right, not only of inducting into office
and duly investing with its insignia the candidate who had
been regularly and canonically elected by the episcopal or
monastic Chapter, but, occasionally at least, of setting aside
the election itself or reducing it to a mere lifeless form and a
real mockery. This was clearly an usurpation on the time-
honored and undoubted right of the Church freely to chose
her own ministers. Its practical effect was, to thrust into the
high places of the Church unworthy men — mere creatures
and parasites of the court, and thereby to entail a permanent
scandal on Christendom.

So far, in fact, was this pretension carried, that some of the
German emperors claimed the right of investing the new
incumbent with ring and crozier, the ordinary emblems of
spiritual jurisdiction ; thereby giving to understand that the
emperor was the fountain, not only of temporal, but of
spiritual power ! The evil seems to have reached its culmi
nating point in the eleventh century, under the impious and
debauched Henry IY. of Germany, with whom Pope St.
Gregory VII. carried on his memorable struggle for the free
dom and rights of the Church. This wicked emperor, ap
propriately called by his contemporaries the Nero of the
middle ages, and who probably has no parallel in Christian
history except his namesake Henry VIII. of England, seems

GREGORY VII. AND HENRY IV. 33

to have been the first who brought the controversy on Inves
titures to a crisis. The abuses to which his usurpation gave
rise were truly horrible. Had not the stern resolve and iron
nerve of his papal competitor checked them in time, the
Church in Germany would, in all human probability, have
been rendered utterly desolate and been brought to the very
verge of ruin. Even as it was, the picture drawn of its
moral condition by contemporary writers is frightful to con
template. As the matter is so vital in its importance, we
will be pardoned for alleging a few passages from these
writers. Says Matthew of Tyre :

"A custom had long prevailed, especially in the empire (German), that
on the decease of the prelates of the Church, the ring and pastoral crozier
were sent to the lord emperor. Afterwards the emperor, selecting one of
his own familiars or chaplains, and investing him with the insignia, sent him
to the vacant church, without waiting for the election by the clergy."*

Ebbo, another contemporary, who lived in the very palace
of Henry IV. employs similar language:

"At this time the Church had not a free election; but whenever any one
of the bishops had entered upon the way of all flesh, immediately the cap
tains of that city transmitted to the palace his ring and pastoral staff; and
thus the king or emperor, after consulting his council, selected a suitable

pastor for the widowed flock."f

I
How far the persons thus selected were suitable, the event

* Inoleverat consuetude, przesertim in imperio, quod deftmgentibus Ecclesiae
praelatis annulus et virga pastoralis ad dominum imperatorem dirigebantur.
Unde postmodum unum quemdam de familiaribus et capellanis suis inves-
tiens ad ecclesiam vacantem dirigebat, ut ibi pastoris fungeretur officio,
non expectata cleri electione. (Sacri Belli Historia, lib. 1. c. 18. Apud
Palina, Prselectiones Hist. Eccles., II. 138, Edit. Rome, 1848.)

f Hoc tempore Ecclesia liberam electionem non habebat ; sed cum quilibet
antistes viam universae carnis ingressus fuisset, mox Capitanei civitatis
illius annulum et virgam pastoralem ad palatium trans mittebant, sicque
regia auctoritas, communicate cum aulicis consilio, orbataa plebi idoneum
constituebat pastorem. (In vita Othonis Bamberg. Episcopi, I. 1-8 and 9.
Apud Palma, Ibid.)

34 EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION.

unfortunately proved but too well. The men who were thus
thrust into the vacant sees were, almost without exception,
the mere subservient and unscrupulous creatures of the impe
rial tyrant, ready, on all occasions to flatter his vices, and to
do his bidding. Under the operation of this iniquitous sys
tem, simony became prevalent throughout Germany and
Northern Italy, wherever, in fact, the imperial influence ex
tended. Bishoprics and benefices of all kinds were unblush-
ingly bought and sold at the imperial court. The emperor
often kept the sees long vacant, that he might seize on their
revenues, which he squandered in shameless debauchery.
The delay also had the effect of eliciting higher bids from the
hungry aspirants, who hung about the court, and it thereby
contributed still further to replenish the imperial coffers.

This enormous evil could not be long endured by the
Church. St. Peter Damian and other holy prelates of Italy
and Germany, inveighed against it with their burning elo
quence; and Pope St. Gregory YIL, after frequent but vain
expostulations with the imperial monster, drew forth from the
armory of the Church the thunder-bolt of excommunication,
and fearlessly hurled it at his guilty head. He, the dauntless
"Hercules of the middle ages," was not the man to quail be
fore tyranny seated in high places, though the latter was
armed with sufficient physical power to crush him at once to
the earth. Let us again hear Matthew of Tyre, in reference
to the bold attitude of the pontiff:

"Considering that this conduct was opposed to all justice, and that by it
all ecclesiastical rights were trampled under foot, he admonished the same
emperor once and again, even to the third time, that he would desist from so
detestable a presumption ; and when, after having thus sought to warn him
with salutary counsel, he could not recall him to the path of duty, he bound
him in the bonds of an excommunication."*

* Contra omnem fieri honestatem considerans, et jura in eo facto concul-
cari ecclesiastica perpendens, semel et tertio eundem imperatorem commonuit
ut a tamdetestabilidesisteretpraesumptione, quern praeceptis salutaribus com-
monitum, cum revocare non posset, vinculo anathematis innodavit. — Ibid.

CONTROVERSY SETTLED ITS GERMS REMAIN. 35

The intrepid pontiff did not stop with the mere excommuni
cation of the emperor : he fulminated the sentence of depriva
tion against all bishops and abbots who would dare receive
their office "from the hands of a layman;" and he further
declared that " such an intruder should by no means be reck
oned among bishops and abbots, and that no audience should
be granted to him in the capacity of bishop or abbot." "More
over," he added, " we interdict to him the grace of St. Peter,
and the entrance into the Church, until such time as he will
freely resign the place, which, through ambition and disobe
dience — which is the crime of idolatry — he has usurped. . . .
Moreover, if any one of the emperors, dukes, marquisses, or
counts shall presume to grant Investiture of a bishopric or
any other ecclesiastical dignity, let him know that he is bound
under the same bonds of excommunication."*

This sentence was confirmed in the fifth and seventh of the
Roman councils held under Gregory VII. , and likewise in the
Council of Benevento, held in 10 87. In the great Council of
Clermont, convened by Pope Urban II. in 1096, to organize
the first crusade, it was again confirmed, and solemnly pro
mulgated to all Christendom.

It is true, that while greatly harassed and under duress,
Pope Paschal II. allowed to Henry V., the successor of Henry
IV., the privilege of investing the new incumbent with ring
and crozier, provided full liberty of election had been pre
viously secured, and all abuses eliminated; but this indul
gence was greatly abused by the emperor, who took occasion
from it to thrust his own creatures into the vacant sees;

* Insuper ei gratiam Sancti Petri et introitum ecclesise interdicimus,
quoad usque locum quern sub crimine tarn ambitionis quam inobedientias

quod est scelus idolatriae coepit, deseruerit Item si quis Imperatorum,

Ducum, Marchionum, Comitum Investituram episcopatus vel alicuj us Eccle-
sise dignitatis dare prcesumpserit, ejusdem sententise vinculo se adstrictum
sciat. (Hugo, Laviniacensis Abbas, in Chronico Verdun, apud Novam Bib-
lioth, Labboei, Tom. I. Cf.Palma, ibid.)

36 EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION.

and in consequence, Paschal revoked his decree in two coun
cils, held in the years 1112 and 1116. The whole controversy
was finally settled in 1122, in the Council of Worms, in which
Pope Calixtus II. and the Emperor Henry Y. entered into a
solemn compact or Concordat — probably the first Concordat
of ecclesiastical history — in which the emperor wholly gave
up the claim of investing with ring and crozier, and prom
ised to guaranty full liberty of election, and also to make
restitution of the church revenues, which had been usurped ;
and on the other side, the pontiff permitted the election to
take place in the presence of the emperor, but "without
simony or any violence;" with the further stipulation, " that
if any discord should arise among the parties, the emperor
should give his assent and aid to the sounder party, in accord
ance with the counsel and judgment of the metropolitan and
the provincial bishops ; and the person so chosen should be
invested with the regalia by the sceptre?*

The controversy was thus indeed settled, but its roots were
not wholly removed. These continued to send forth their
noxious shoots during the following centuries, down to the
period of the Reformation. The oft-reiterated claim of the
temporal sovereigns, to interfere, to a greater or less extent,
with the election to the bishoprics and higher benefices, and
their too-often successful attempts to thrust unworthy men
into the high places of the Church, was the monster evil of
the middle ages. It was the fruitful source of grievous scan
dals and abuses. — How could it be otherwise ? How could the

* Absque siraonia et aliqua violentia, ut si qua discordia inter paries eraer-
serit, metropolitani et provincialium consilio et judicio saniori parti assensum
et auxilium proebeas. Electus autem Regalia per sceptrum a te recipiat,
etc. Apud Palma, ibid. p. 139-40.

By the Regalia were understood the feudal rights of lordship acquired by
being properly inducted into possession of the domain by the liege lord.
The only suitable way of doing this was considered to be that in which
the sceptre was employed, and not the crozier and ring, the emblems of spirit
ual authority.

MODERN HISTORIC JUSTICE. 37

Church be free from scandals, when, in spite of all her exer
tions and protests, in spite of the repeated denunciations uttered
by her Popes and her councils, bad men were thus violently
or by covert intrigue, thrust upon her, to administer whole dio
ceses or provinces of her spiritual domain ? The only wonder is,
that the evil was not even greater and more wide-spread ; and
we owe it to the zeal and energy of the Popes that it was not
so. If the Church was saved from utter ruin, it was, human
ly-speaking, mainly by and through such men as St. Gregory
VIL, the Alexanders, and the Innocents, who, from the chair
of Peter feared not boldly to hurl their anathemas at the
heads of the ruthless tyrants, who sought for their own vile
purposes, to degrade and enslave her ministers. It was in this
noble cause of the independence of the Church against the
dangerous encroachments of the State, that the lives of many
among these men of God, who loved God and feared not the
face of kings, were spent and worn away. This was the true
secret of many of their protracted struggles with the German
emperors. As the candid Protestant biographer of St. Greg
ory VII. — Voight — freely admits, "the Holy See was the
only tribunal which could set any limits to imperial despotism,
as a second defender of humanity."* This is, in fact, the key
to many portions of mediaeval history, without which the
secrets of its real spirit cannot be unlocked, nor its leading
facts be properly understood or fully appreciated.

The controversy on Investitures was a contest between
moral principle and brute force, — between reason and passion,
— between morals and licentiousness, — between religion and
incipient infidelity. Though sometimes seemingly overcome by
the fierce storms raised against them, the Popes were really
the conquerors in the end, even in the midst of their apparent
defeat. Gregory VII. was driven from Rome by the forces
of Henry IV., and he died an exile at Salerno, in Southern
Italy; but the victory of principle and virtue had been

* Hist Greg. VII., II. 98 ; Abbe Jager's translation.

38 EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION.

already won, his noble soul was wholly unsubdued, and on
his tomb might have been inscribed the epitaph which subse
quently marked that of the heroic general of the Knights of
Rhodes : FORTUNE YICTKIX VIRTUS — YIRTUE THE CONQUEROR
OF FORTUNE. He bequeathed to his age and to his successors
in the Papacy a legacy of countless price, in the noble prin
ciple which had moulded his whole character and governed
all his actions : that " it is better to be right, than to gain the
whole world." Gregory embodied this principle in the follow
ing passage contained in one of his epistles, which deserves
to be written in letters of gold: "I would rather undergo
death for your salvation, than obtain the whole world to
your spiritual ruin. For I fear God, and therefore value but
little the pride and pleasures of the world."*

Now mark the justice of modern history. In any event
or emergency, the Popes are sure to be blamed. If they
oppose a German emperor, it is nothing but ambition which
prompts their action. If they strive earnestly against the
intrusion into episcopal sees of unworthy men, it is all through
sinister motives, and that they may extend the circle of their
own power. If the men thus intruded, in spite of their
sternest opposition, should give public scandal, still the
Church and the Popes are in the wrong. — Why did not
the Popes prevent it? Why did they allow scandals so
enormous in the high places of the Church? In all these
struggles, the Pope would seem to be never right, and the
emperor never wrong ; or if the case be so glaring that no
sophistry can resist or even dim the evidence, then the Pope
is condemned with faint praise, and the emperor is absolved
with faint censure. Such is, in general, the spirit, and such
the fairness of what, in modern times, is called history.
There are some honorable exceptions, indeed, but they rather
confirm than weaken the rule. A few Protestant historians
have the boldness to tell the truth without extenuation or

* Epistolae, VI. I. Apud ^oigt, ut sup.

GROWTH OP MAMMONISM. 39

partiality, while a far greater number tell it, if at all, timidly
and by halves, mixing up much chaff of misrepresentation
with a few grains of truth.

Roscoe may be said, perhaps, to belong rather to the former
than to the latter class. He admits, what every one at all
acquainted with history knows to be the fact, that " the Popes
may, in general, be considered as superior to the age in which
they lived."* An American Protestant writer bears the
following honorable testimony to the civilizing influence of
t'ie Church in the middle ages."f

" Though seemingly enslaved, the Church was in reality the life of Europe.
She was the refuge of the distressed, the friend of the slave, the helper of
the injured, the only hope of learning. To her, chivalry owed its noble
aspirations ; to her, art and agriculture looked for every improvement. The
ruler from her learned some rude justice ; the ruled learned faith and obedi
ence. Let us not cling to the superstition, which teaches that the Church
has always upheld the cause of tyrants. Through the middle ages she was
the only friend and advocate of the people, and of the rights of man. To
her influence was it owing that, through all that strange era, the slaves of
Europe were better protected by law than are now the free blacks of the
United States by the national statutes."

As time rolled on, and European society was gradually
moulded into form and became consolidated, the dangers
which threatened the Church, instead of diminishing, seemed
rather to increase. In proportion as men became richer and
more attached to the world, the brightness of the faith was
dimmed in their hearts, and the temporal gained the ascend
ant over the eternal. What chiefly distinguished the earlier
portion of the middle ages, down to the close of the Crusades
at the end of the thirteenth century, was the embodiment into
the minds, hearts, and actions of the people, of the great
truth, that the interests of eternity are paramount, and that
those of time are as nothing in comparison therewith. That
was the golden age of chivalry and the crusades, of noble

* Life of Leo X., I. 53., quoted by Fredet. Modern History,
f In the North American Keview for July, 1845.

40 EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION.

impulses and disinterested deeds. It was followed by the
age of mammonism, in which money and what money can
procure were so highly prized as often to be preferred to all
things else. And this spirit has gone on steadily increasing,
even unto the present enlightened age. Beginning with the
fourteenth century, we may trace its gradual development in
each successive age down to our own, in which material
interests threaten to absorb all others, and to swallow up
every thing heavenly.

A brilliant writer in the Dublin Review thinks that, in
certain respects, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were
pre-eminently the ages of darkness. He says :

"Of course, if darkness is synonymous with ignorance, the ninth and
tenth may fairly lay claim to the title ; but if we take into the account what
may be called the moral effects of darkness, namely confusion, perplexity,
and dismay, the two centuries which immediately preceded the Reformation
may well rival, if not outdo their predecessors. The night of the tenth
century was one which came in its right place, and gave promise of the
dawn. But the epoch of which we speak was an eclipse, a very Egyptian
darkness, worse than Chaos or Erebus, black as the thick preternatural night
under cover of which our Lord was crucified. All at once, when the
mediaeval glory of the Church was at its zenith, a century opens with the
audacious seizure of Boniface VIII. at Anagni, and closes with the great
Schism. , . . .

" Evidently the middle ages are gone or going. Cathedrals were still built,
and Gregorian chants were sung. We are now in the very zenith of Gothic
architecture and of Gothic music, but the real glory of mediaeval times is
gone. That which constituted their real characteristic, that which separates
them off from modern times was not the outward form, but the inward
spirit. Every breast in that rude feudal hierarchy, from the king and noble
down to the franklin and the serf, was animated with the persuasion that
the Kingdom of Christ was supreme over every thing earthly. This was
the public opinion of the time, the spirit of the age. But it was fast passing
away, and the Church had now to rule as best she might over disaffected
and disloyal subjects, who watched her every step with jealousy and dis
trust

"Can any thing further be needed to prove that the fourteenth century
was a time of fearful unsettloment ? The old landmarks were being re
moved. Poor humanity was losing its simple faith in the eternal lights

BONIFACE VIII. AND PHILIP THE FAIR. 41

which had hitherto guided it for many hundred years. It had embarked
on a wide, illimitable ocean, and was beating about with an infinite void
before it, and no star to guide its way."*

In all this there is, no doubt, considerable rhetorical flourish
and no little exaggeration, but there is, withal, much of his
toric truth. It is certain, that the spirit of the Catholic
middle ages underwent a great and most important change in
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; that this period of
transition was attended with much unsettledness of the popu
lar mind, and with many storms of popular passion ; and that
the result of all this ferment was to pave the way for the
event called the Reformation; — which, in fact, was not a
reformation but a revolution. This was truly "a strange
period and fruitful in storms ;" " an unfortunate period, when
a spirit of boldness and violence agitated all classes of society,
and produced in every direction sanguinary disorders."! We
may apply to it, in a qualified sense, what the Roman his
torian says of a certain disastrous period of Roman history :
" It was fertile in vicissitudes, atrocious in wars, discordant in
seditions, fierce even in peace." J

The Roman pontiffs had now to contend, not with the
German emperors alone, but also with the French kings.
Young, ardent, and ambitious, Philip the Fair of France, a
grandson of St. Louis, but totally unlike his sainted ancestor,
could not brook the just rebuke of his vices and tyranny
administered by the determined pontiff, Boniface VI1L; who,
true to the traditions of the Papacy, had sought in vain to
mediate between him and the kings of England and Aragon,
with whom he was at war; and who had also justly repri-

* Dublin Eeview for March, 1858, Article, — The German Mystics of the
Fourteenth Century, — a very remarkable production, brilliant and pictur
esque, but somewhat exaggerated.

f The Reformers before the Reformation, by Emile be Bonnechose, 1
vol. 8vo., Harpers, 1844, p. 37.

\ Opimum casibus, atrox proeliis, discors seditionibus, ipsa etiam pace
scevum. Tacitus, Lib. I, o. 2.
VOL. I.-

42 EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION.

manded him for debasing the currency of France, and for
overburdening his people and oppressing the Church with
exorbitant taxation. The fiery monarch sent his emissaries
to Anagni, where the Pope was then residing; and these,
true to the spirit, if not to the letter of their instructions,
heaped insults and outrages on the head of the venerable
Boniface, and one of them, it is said, went so far as to add
blows to insults. The aged pontiff, venerable no less for his
learning and ability than for his virtues, sank under the cruel
treatment thus inflicted on virtue by brute force, and he died
soon afterward.* His sainted successor, the blessed Benedict
XI., while preparing a bull of excommunication against the
royal assassin, perished himself, probably from the effects of
poison.f His second successor, Clement V., was a French
man, arid he took up his abode at Avignon, in France ; where
he and his successors remained for about seventy years —
until 1378.

Meantime, while the Popes resided at Avignon, Italy was
in a ferment. The factions of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines
were raging against each other with redoubled ferocity, and

* Baron Macaulay, a prejudiced and therefore unexceptionable witness,
writes as follows in regard to Boniface VIII. and Philip the Fair : "But some
thing must be attributed to the character and situation of individuals. The
man who bore the chief part in effecting this revolution was Philip the IV.
of France, surnamed the Beautiful — a despot by position, a despot by
temperament, stern, implacable, and unscrupulous, equally prepared for
violence and for chicanery, and surrounded by a devoted band of men of
the sword and of men of law. The fiercest and most high-minded of the
Roman pontiffs, while bestowing kingdoms, and citing great princes to his
judgment- seat, was seized in his palace by armed men, and so foully out
raged that he died mad with rage and terror. 'Thus,' sang the great
Florentine poet, 'was Christ in the person of his vicar, a second time seized
by ruffians, a second time mocked, a second time drenched with the vinegar
and the gall.' The seat of the Papal court was carried beyond the Alps,
and the bishops of Rome became dependents of France. Then came the
Great Schism of the West." — Miscellanies, American Edit, p. 404.

f So thinks the writer in the Dublin Review, sup. cit.

FACTION AND HERESY NEW MANICHEANS. 43

were making that beautiful land a fearful scene of chaos
and bloodshed. The Ghibelline chiefs — the Yillanis, the
Castruccis and others — seized upon and ruled with a rod of
iron Milan and the other chief cities of the North ; while the
central Italian cities were filled with anarchy and bloody
feuds by the rival factions struggling for and alternately ob
taining the mastery. The ferocious struggle was relieved by
the brilliant, but brief and evanescent attempt of " the Last
of the Tribunes" — Rienzi — to rear the banner of popular free
dom in the ancient city of the Csesars.

In the midst of all this confusion, a new actor appears upon
the agitated and bloody arena. The Popes at Avignon are
called upon to contend, not merely with the hydra of faction
in Italy, but with the hosts of the weak and unprincipled
Louis of Bavaria, whom the German diet had elected emperor.
Beading his character aright — as the event proved — Pope John
XXIL, availed himself of his time-honored right as the pro
tector of the "Holy Eoman Empire," and refused to confirm
the election. Thus the Papacy had scarcely emerged from
the fiery contest with the French monarch, before it was
hurried into another, if possible, even more bitter and pro
tracted struggle with its hereditary adversary, the German
emperor. Whether this contest was politic or not, or whether
it could have been avoided without sacrificing principle, and
especially without sacrificing the interests of Italy over which
the Popes felt it a sacred duty to watch, we are scarcely able
at this distance of time to determine. Certain it is, that the
newly elected emperor, true to the policy of his predecessors,
sought to subvert Italian independence, and that the leaders
of the Ghibelline faction, which had always been the most
deadly foe of Italian peace and liberty, openly took sides with
him in the contest.

The pontiff having refused to crown Louis, the latter set
up an anti-pope to perform this ceremony, which was still
deemed essential. He marched his army into Italy, where the
blood-stained Ghibelline leaders gave him a hearty welcome.

44 EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION.

Whithersoever he went, his court and camp became the
focus in which were concentrated all the elements of disaffec
tion, discord, and heresy, which were then floating over the
surface of European society.

" The intellect of Italy lent its aid to the. sword of Germany. Heretical
canonists and apostate monks met Louis on his way. Marsilius of Padua
broached theories such as those which afterward found favor in the eyes of
Queen Elizabeth and James I. Opinions, which hitherto had only scandal
ized and agitated the schools and universities, were now backed by the
swords of German troopers. Jansenist war-cries and appeals to future
councils, were anticipated in the camp, where Bavarian cavalry mingled
with the men-at-arms of Milan and Lucca. Excommunicated bishops
placed on the head of Louis the iron crown of Lombardy in the basilica of
St. Ambrose ; and in a few months, the whole mingled mass, made up of
rival ambitions for the moment reconciled, national jealousies of long stand
ing laid aside, and all sorts of discordant elements welded together by one
common hatred of the Church, rolled on toward Home."*

The prestige which surrounded a German emperor, who
thus, in spite of the Pope, seized on the crown of Italy,
flaunted his victorious banner in the face of the Papacy, and
marched triumphant to the eternal city, brought to a head the
mischievous factions and wild heresies which had hitherto,
for more than a century, remained scattered, but had lain in
a great measure hidden, over the different countries of Europe.
The boiling cauldron of civil commotion and revolution al
ways brings the dross and the scum to the surface of society.
The remnants of the old Manichean heretics, whose ranks had
been broken and scattered by the crusade against the Albi-
genses, nearly two centuries before, now came forth from their
lurking places, openly preached their abominable doctrines,
and unblushingly indulged in their licentious practices. They
assumed different names in different places, but they were all
marked with the general characteristics of that semi-pagan
and ruinous heresy, which Manes had attempted to graft on
the Christian system, as early as the third century. This de-

* Dublin Review, Ibid.

THE FLAGELLANTS THE GREAT SCHISM. 45

testable heresy had infested different parts of Europe ever
since the ninth century, traveling generally from East to West.
Beguards, Paterins, Cathari, Fratricelli, Brethren of the Free
Spirit, obscure and obscene Mystics of every hue and shade
— from the openly obscene Fratricelli, to the more demure and
decorous Waldenses — all were off-shoots from that impure
root of Manicheism, which had produced the licentious and
bloody Albigenses of the twelfth century.

These restless sectaries overran a great portion of Europe
in the fourteenth century. Along the banks of the Rhine,
and in the interior cities of Germany and France, as well as
in Northern Italy, marching in the train of the camp of Louis
of Bavaria, they preached their wicked doctrines, and prac
ticed their wild or obscene fanaticism. They everywhere
agitated the popular mind, and made it ripe for innovation.
There was danger that, amidst the fearful commotions of the
time, wild fanaticism would take the place of sober faith, dan
gerous mysticism, that of calm and enlightened piety. Says
the writer, whom we have already quoted more than once :

"After all this, we are not surprised to find among the Brethren of the
Free Spirit, as they called themselves, still darker and more shameful errors ;
and when the Black Death came down with all its horrors upon a popula
tion already half-crazed with fanaticism, and thrown off their balance by the
dissensions which raged between the Church and State, then the wild wail
of the Flagellants was heard over all the hubbub of sounds which mingled
with the rushing waters of the Rhine. From all the villages around, and
from scattered homes in sequestered valleys, thousands of men and women
came in long procession through the streets of Strasburg and Cologne ; friars
and priests forgot their dignity to join in the motley crowd under the com
mand of the layman who marshaled the array, while sober citizens, with
their wives and daughters, laid aside their costly robes, to bare their shoulders
to the scourge, and chimed in with the melancholy chant which called on all
to mingle their blood with that of Jesus, to obtain mercy of God."*

It is almost needless to say, that all these ebullitions of fanati
cism were almost as transitory as they were violent. Even that

* Dublin Review, Ibid.

46 EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION.

of the Flagellants, the most excusable of them all, as mingling
with extravagance a deep faith in the necessity of uniting
our personal sufferings with the atoning blood of Christ, for
the expiation of our sins, was openly condemned by the
Church, on account of its dangerous tendency. The Popes
and the bishops everywhere set the seal of their condemna
tion on the doctrines and practices of the more dangerous
fanatics ; while the persuasive eloquence of the gentle Tauler,
and the pathetic appeals of the blessed Henry de Suso, grad
ually calmed down the extravagant enthusiasm or fanaticism
of the German Mystics along the banks of the Rhine. The
fearful storm passed away almost as rapidly as it had gathered,
and the Catholic atmosphere was again comparatively calm,
if not unclouded. This danger had passed like a thousand
others before, and the Church still stood in unimpaired vigor.
Next came the Great Schism of the West, which lasted for
nearly forty years, at the end of the fourteenth and the beginning
of the fifteenth century. It was occasioned by the return of
the Popes from Avignon to Rome in 1378, and it was perpet
uated by the French cardinals, who were encouraged by the
French court. As we have elsewhere spoken somewhat at
length upon this deplorable epoch in Church History,* we
shall not here dwell upon it, further than to remark on its in
fluence on the minds of men in preparing them for the startling
revolution of the sixteenth century.f

* In the paper on the Great Schism, in the Miscellanea, p. 169, seq.

f Macaulay speaks as follows of the manner in which the imminent dan
ger threatened by the Great Schism was averted :

" The Church, torn by schism, and fiercely assailed at once in England
and the German empire, was in a situation scarcely less perilous than at the
crisis which preceded the Albigensian crusade. But this danger also passed
by. The civil power gave its strenuous support to the Church, and the
Church made some show of reforming itself. The Council of Constance
put an end to the schism. The whole Catholic world was again united
under a single chief, and rules were laid down which seemed to make it im
probable that the power of that chief would be grossly abused." — Miscall.
Sup. cit. p. 405.

THE PAPACY UNSCATHED. 47

There is but little doubt that the evils and abuses which then
afflicted the Church were even greater and more deplorable
than they became a century later, at the era of the Reforma
tion. The minds of men were then, if possible, even more un
settled, in consequence of the long-standing scandal of rival
claimants to the Papacy contending for the tiara in the face
of a shocked and startled Christendom. Yet in neither of the
rival obediences, did Catholic faith waver for a moment. The
Papacy passed through this fiery ordeal unscathed, and it
emerged from it, shorn somewhat, indeed, of its temporal con
sequence, but still as vigorous as ever in its divine strength.
Nay, more so ; for it was now thrown upon its own innate
and inherent spirituality, in which lay the real source of ita
power, and the true secret of its divine vitality.

The human element of the Papacy was useful in its day ; it
was even necessary for the saving of society from barbarism
and anarchy. But new social and political organizations had
arisen under its fostering auspices, and- its day for mingling
actively in political events was already passed, or was fast
passing away. Catholics have, in all ages, accurately distin
guished between the accidental appendages of the Papacy,
and its inherent divine character. Even in the Light of the
Great Schism, not a Catholic voice was raised against the Pa
pacy itself — against its divine institution and vital necessity
for the Church. The only controversy was a merely personal
one : which of the rival claimants was fairly entitled to the
place, or which was the true and lineal successor of St. Peter.
Thus, in later days, our present illustrious pontiff was, to the
full, as much respected and as reverently obeyed while an
exile at Gaeta, as when seated in the Vatican.

Though there were crying abuses during the continuance
of the Schism and at its close, and though the good and great
of the Church cried out " for a reformation in the head and
in the members," yet no one then appears even to have
thought of attempting this reformation by a revolution out-
aide the Church, instead of a reformation within. Sensible

48 EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION.

and considerate men knew full well, that the former was the
part of true wisdom, while the latter would be sheer madness,
aggravating a hundred-fold the evil it was intended to heal.
A sick man is not to be cured by abandoning him to his fate,
with taunts and denunciation at his wickedness for being sick,
but by remaining patiently with him, studying his symptoms,
and applying the necessary remedies. " A sore throat may be
healed by proper remedies, one that is cut, never," as an old
writer quaintly remarks. The Church of the fifteenth cen
tury, with the proceedings of the reforming Council of Con
stance and that of Basle, — even after the latter had degener
ated into a schismatical conventicle, denouncing the Pope,
and impiously setting up an anti-pope — might have taught
the reformers of the sixteenth century a lesson of moderation ;
for amidst all the excitement of the former, and with all the
excesses of the latter, not a man in either of those ecclesiasti
cal conventions ever entertained a serious thought of severing
the unity of the Church, by setting up a reformed communion
outside its pale. The schism caused by the conventicle at
Basle was based on no doctrinal difference, and it was soon
healed by the love of unity which was re-awakened in the
bosom of the anti-pope himself. The schism of the sixteenth
century was permanent, and it was based on doctrinal issues
all wrong in themselves — as their transparent contradictions
and perpetual variations abundantly proved — but what is
more to our present purpose, all the more glaringly wrong,
because outside of unity, and under the ban of the Church
built on a rock, and secured from falling by the infallible
promises of her divine Founder,

Far from being appalled at the existence of abuses and
scandals in the Church, or having their faith thereby weak
ened, enlightened Catholics expect them almost as a matter
of course ; considering human frailty, and the fact that God
has made man a free agent, and will not infringe his liberty
of action. The grace of God is indeed strong, but it may be,
and often is. resisted. God will compel no one either to ac-

A CATHOLIC REFORMATION OVKJU OMING SCANDALS. 49

cept His truth, or to be governed by His commandments. He
will compel none into heaven against their own free will, or
without their own co-operation. Christ foretold that scandals
should come, and we naturally look for them. What would
have been thought of the disciple of Christ who should have
abandoned His holy standard, and set up one in opposition,
because of the scandal resulting, under the very eyes of Christ
himself, from the treason of Judas? "Would he have been
viewed as a sound Protestant, or simply as an unreasoning
madman ?

To our minds, one of the most persuasive, if not strongest
evidences that the Catholic Church is in reality the Church
of Christ — " the pillar and ground of the truth" — is precisely
her continued triumph over accumulated scandals and abuses,
which would have crushed any merely human institution.
Had not the Church and the Papacy been divine in origin,
and divine in energy, the torrent of evils which overflowed
society in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries would have
overwhelmed the former, and the Great Schism would have
ruined the latter. That, under such circumstances, with the
princes of the world so often arrayed against the Church, and
the masses of the people stirred up everywhere by the storms
of fanaticism — with almost all the elements of society seem
ingly ripe for revolt, and prepared to rush in determined
unison to the attack, she should still have conquered, and not
only conquered, but become even stronger after, and seeming
ly in consequence of having passed through disasters which
are so frightful to contemplate, even after the lapse of nearly
five centuries ; — this fact is, to our judgment, one of the most
palpable and unanswerable arguments for establishing her
superhuman origin, and her ever-enduring, because divine
vitality. If the world, and the flesh, and the devil, all com
bined together, could have conquered her, they would surely
have done so centuries ago.

In fact, the wonderful vitality of the Church was never
perhaps more strikingly exhibited khan it was precisely at the
VOL. i. — 5

50 EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION.

close of the Great Schism, in the first quarter of the fifteenth
century. Then she put down the mischievous heresy of the
Hussites, after having in the previous century put down the
kindred or rather parent heresy of the Wicklifiites or Lollards
in England. Her triumph in the fourteenth century over the
numerous fanatical sects, to which we have already alluded,
though truly wonderful, happening as it did during the con
tinuance of the Schism or immediately before, was almost as
nothing compared with her triumph over the truculent Hussite
system, which, if successful, would have destroyed both
society and religion in Europe, and throughout the world.*
For this heresy was based on principles which were utterly
subversive of all law and of all government ; on principles
which were not a mere speculation or destined to remain a
dead letter. This is apparent from the civil wars which the
Hussites stirred up throughout Bohemia, which covered that
kingdom with ruins and stained its soil with the blood of its
citizens, and which threatened to penetrate through Germany
into Western Europe and to make the whole structure of
European society a complete wrreck. The fierce and trucu
lent spirit of this pestilent heresy is embodied in the fearful
bequest of the Hussite leader, Ziska, who, dying amidst
bloody civil wars which he and his master had caused, left
his skin to be used on a war drum, the very sound of which
might frighten his enemies ! f

* The most prominent and dangerous principle of the heresies of both
Wickliffe and Huss was that which declared, that no man who was in the
state of mortal sin had any right to hold office, to govern, or to require obedi
ence from others, whether in Church or State. This principle plainly opened
the door to anarchy, both civil and religious, and it was a direct encourage
ment and provocative to rebellion against constituted authority; for the
rebel, whether in Church or State, had but to imagine and denounce his
rulers as sinners before God — a very easy thing — and then his rebellion was
fully justified.

f We have elsewhere treated this subject at some length, in special essays
on Huss and the Council of Constance. (Miscellanea.) We think that the

HOLINESS OF THE CHURCH THE MONASTERIES. 51

It is not to be supposed that during all these terrible
struggles with the powers of the earth and the hosts of dark
ness, and all these lamentable scandals, the sanctity of the
Church was impaired. Very far from it. On the contrary,
perhaps at no period of her history, before or since, has the
holiness of the Church shone forth with greater lustre. Those
scandals were but the shadows which served to bring out
more clearly and prominently the lights in the picture of her
sanctity. Her heavenly splendor gleamed forth the more
brilliantly, precisely in consequence of the surrounding dark
ness. Wo to the world, had that light been extinguished!
Mankind would have been left in utter and hopeless darkness.
During the very worst period of her history, while bloody
commotions and turbulent heresy were threatening her from
without, and protracted schism was dividing her strength
from within, she manifested an energy and a holiness of pur
pose, which baffled her enemies, encouraged her friends, and
proved to all her heavenly origin and divine power.

Notwithstanding scandals and defections from her ranks,
the great body of the clergy and laity remained sound and
faithful, even during the worst times. The Popes were far
in advance of their age, and wrere, in general, men of pure
lives and upright conduct in their public administration. The
monasteries, as in previous ages, continued to be the retreat
of learned and pious men, who, after having become thor
oughly imbued with the spirit of God in holy solitude and
contemplation, went forth from their retreats to instruct the
people and to scatter among them that heavenly fire which

facts therein developed, fully refute the usual popular charges against the
Council of Constance and the Catholic Church, and prove how pernicious and
dangerous were the maxims promulgated by Huss, and sought by him and
his disciples to be established by force. If Huss and Wickliffe were suitable
forerunners of the German reformers, the latter certainly do not borrow any
special lustre from the former. As we shall see, both sets of reformers were
animated by the same unscrupulous and truculent spirit, anji both succeeded
in bringing about similar commotions in society.

52 EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION.

was burning in their own hearts. As the candid Protestant,
Dr. Maitland, well remarks :

" Monasteries were beyond all price in those days of misrule and turbu
lence, as places where (it may be imperfectly, but better than elsewhere) God
was worshiped; as a quiet and religious refuge for helpless infancy and
old age, a shelter of respectful sympathy for the orphan maiden and the
desolate widow ; as central points whence agriculture was to spread over
bleak hills and barren downs and marshy plains, and deal bread to millions
perishing with hunger and its pestilential train ; as repositories of the learn
ing ^vhich then was, and well-springs for the learning which was to be ; as
nurseries of art and science, giving the stimulus, the means, and the reward
to invention, and aggregating around them every head that could devise and
every hand that could execute ; as the nucleus of the city, which, in after
days of pride, should crown its palaces and bulwarks with the crowning
cross of its cathedral. This, I think, no man can deny. I believe it is true,
and I love to think of it. I hope that I see the good hand of God in it, and
the visible trace of His mercy that is above all His works. But if it is only
a dream, however grateful, I shall be glad to be awakened from it; not
indeed by the yelling of illiterate agitators, but by a quiet and sober proof
that I have misunderstood the matter. In the meantime, let me thankfully
believe that thousands of persons at whom Eobertson and Jortin, and other
such very miserable second-hand writers have sneered, were men of enlarged
minds, purified affections, and holy lives — that they were justly reverenced
by men — and above all, favorably accepted by God, and distinguished by the
highest honor which He vouchsafes to those whom He has called into
existence, that of being the channels of His love and mercy to their fellow-
creatures."*

In the learned work from which this is a quotation, Dr.
Maitland, original documents in hand, scatters to the winds
the injurious statements made by Dr. Robertson in his View
of Europe introductory to his widely circulated and much
read history of Charles Y. He convicts the Scotch historian
of grevious misstatement at almost every step. He shows

* The Dark Ages. A series of essays intended to illustrate the state of
religion and literature in the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries.
By the Rev. S. R. Maitland, D. D., F. R. S., and F. S. A., sometime librarian to
the late Archbishp of Canterbury, and keeper of the MSS. at Lambeth.
Third edition, London, 1853. Preface, iv, v.

DR. MAITLAND AND DR. ROBERTSON. 53

also how Mosheim and McClaine,whom Robertson calls "his
learned and judicious translator," were also guilty of frequent
and unpardonable perversion and garbling of their authori
ties, which they nevertheless professed to quote from the
original sources. The refutation is ample and it leaves noth
ing to be desired, so far as it goes. Our limits will not per
mit us to enter into many specifications ; yet we can not help
referring to his well-merited castigation of Roberston in refer
ence to the quotation made by the latter from the well-known
Homily on the duty of a Christian, by St. Eligius or St. Eloy,
Bishop of Noyon, in France, in the seventh century. This is
a pretty fair specimen of the manner in which "such miser
able second-hand writers" as Robertson and his numerous
copyists, are wont to deal with the facts of history, whenever
the Catholic Church is concerned.

To prove his reckless assertion, that before the Reformation
the whole duty of a Christian was regarded as being com
prised in certain merely external observances, which "were
either so unmeaning as to be altogether unworthy of the
Being to whose honor they were consecrated, or so observed as
to be a disgrace to reason and humanity," Dr. Robertson,
following Mosheim, alleges the Homily of St. Eligius. He
culls here and there from the homily such extracts as suit his
purpose, wholly omitting others in the context itself which
would have clearly proved the precise contrary of his propo
sition! Mosheim had given the original extract from the
homily, with marks indicating that passages had been omit
ted ; while in the version as given by Robertson all such
indications are carefully removed. "White, in the Brampton
Lectures ascribed to him, "goes a step further, and prints the
Latin text without any break or hint of omission ;" while a
previous writer — Jortin — had indicated in his translation but
one out of at least seven such breaks in the text. Now what
will be thought of Mosheim, Robertson, and all their imita
tors, when it appears from the original homily itself — a large
portion of which is translated by Dr. Maitland — that the

54 EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION,

holy Bishop spoke in it of almost all the duties of man
toward God and his neighbor, of the solemn promises made
by every Christian at his baptism, of the necessity of keep
ing the commandments of God and of the Church, in order
to be saved, of the obligation of guarding against pride, im
purity, and the other deadly sins; and in general, of all
those things which the most enlightened Christian preacher
of the present day would consider as embraced in the " whole
duty of a Christian ?" Such being the case, what judgment
is to be formed of the miserable partisans, like Mosheim and
his copyists, who, pretending to write history^ pick out
a sentence here and a phrase there, from a discourse, tears
them rudely from their connection, omits the most important
parts, and then winds up with a flourish, that they have con
victed the mediaeval preacher of confining the wliole duty
of a Christian to certain merely external observances, to which
he had only incidentally referred in his homily ? As Dr.
Maitland proves, the extract furnished does not embrace more
than about a one-hundredth part of the homily, and it does not
present two consecutive passages together.

To show that we do not exaggerate, we will present a some
what copious extract from the homily itself, which will serve
the double purpose of convicting Dr. Robertson, Mosheim,
Jortin, and many other Protestant writers, of the most griev
ous misrepresentation, and of showing in what the "whole
duty of a Christian" was deemed to consist in the middle
ages. The garbled extracts of Dr. Robertson are printed in
italics.

"It is not enough, most dearly beloved, for you to have received the name
of Christians, if you do not do Christian works. To be called a Christian
profits him who always retains in his mind, and fulfills in his actions, the
commands of Christ ; that is, who does not commit theft, does not bear false
witness, who neither tells lies nor swears falsely, who does not commit adul
tery, who does not hate any body, but loves all men as himself, who does
not render evil to his enemies, but rather prays for them, who does not stir
up strife, but restores peace between those who are at variance. For these
precepts Christ has deigned to give by his own mouth in the gospel, saying,

HOMILY OF ST. ELIGIUS. 55

' Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt
not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not swear falsely,
nor commit fraud ; Honor thy father and thy mother : and, Thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself.' (Matt. xix. 18, 19.) And also, 'All things what
soever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them : for this is
the law and the prophets.' (Matt. vii. 12.)

"And he has given yet greater, but very strong and fruitful (valde fortia
atque fructifera) commands, saying, 'Love your enemies, do good to them
that hate you,' and 'pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute
you.' (Matt. v. 44.) Behold, this is a strong commandment, and to men it
seems a hard one ; but it has a great reward ; hear what it is — ' That ye mav
be,' he saith, ' the children of your Father which is in heaven.' Oh, how great
a grace ! Of ourselves we are not even worthy servants ; and by loving our
enemies we become sons of God. Therefore, my brethren, both love your
friends in God, and your enemies for God ; for he that loveth his neighbor, as
saith the apostle, hath fulfilled the law.' (Rom. xiii. 8.) For he who will be
a true Christian, must needs keep these commandments ; because if he does
not keep them, he deceives himself. He, therefore, is a good Christian, who
puts faith in no charms or diabolical inventions, but places all his hope in
Christ alone ; who receives strangers with joy, even as if it were Christ
himself, because he will say — ' I was a stranger, and ye took me in, and in
asmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye
have done it unto me.' He, I say, is a good Christian, who washes the feet
of strangers, and loves them as most dear relations ; who, according to his
means, gives alms to the poor ; wluo comes frequently to church : wlio presents
the oblation which is offered to God upon the altar ; who doth not taste of his
fruits before he has offered somewhat to God ; who has not a false balance or
deceitful measures ; who hath not given his money to usury ; who both lives
chastely himself, and teaches his sons and his neighbors to live chastely and
in the fear of God ; and as often as the holy festivals occur, lives continently
even with his own wife for some days previously, that he may, with safe con
science, draw near to the altar of God : finally, who can repeat the Creed or the
Lord's Prayer, and teaches the same to his sons and servants. He who is
such an one, is, without doubt, a true Christian, and Christ also dwelleth in
him, who hath said, ' I and the Father will come and make our abode with
him.' (John xiv. 23.) And, in like manner, he saith by the prophet, ' I will
dwell in them, and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be
my people.' (2 Cor. vi. 16.)

" Behold, brethren, ye have heard what sort of persons are good Christians ;
and therefore labor as much as you can, with God's assistance, that the
Christian name may not be falsely applied to you ; but, in order that you
may be true Christians, always meditate in your heart, on the commands of

56 EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION.

Christ, and fulfill them in your practice ; redeem your souls from punishment
while you, have the means in your power; give alms according to your means,
maintain peace and charity, restore harmony among those who are at strife,
avoid lying, abhor perjury, bear no false witness, commit no theft, offer obla
tions and. gifts to churches, provide lights for sacred places according to your
means, retain in your memory the Creed and the Lord's Prayer, and teach
them to your sons. Moreover, teach and chastise those children for whom
you are sponsors, that they may always live with the fear of God. Know
that you are sponsors for them with God. Come frequently also to church ;
humbly seek the patronage of the saints ; keep the Lord's day in reverence of
the resurrection of Christ, without any servile work ; celebrate the festivals
of the saints with devout feeling ; love your neighbors as yourselves ; what
you would desire to be done to you by others, that do to others ; what you
would not have done to you, do to no one ; before all things have charity, for
'charity covereth a multitude of sins ;' be hospitable, humble, casting all
your care upon God, for he careth for you ; visit the sick, seek out the cap
tives, receive strangers, feed the hungry, clothe the naked ; set at nought
soothsayers and magicians ; let your weights and measures be fair, your bal
ance just, your bushel and your pint fair; nor must you claim back more
than you gave, nor exact from any one usury for money lent. Which, if you
observe, coming with security before the tribunal of the eternal Judge, in the
day of judgment, you may say, ' Give, Lord, for we have given ;' show mercy,
for we have shown mercy ; we have fulfilled what thou hast commanded,
do thou give what thou hast promised.' "*

* Given by Dr. Maitland, in the work above quoted, p. Ill, seqq., where
the greater portion of the homily is translated. It will be seen that he em
ploys the words of the Protestant version in the scriptural quotations. In
a,nother place, (p. 150,) he furnishes an additional extract from the homily,
in which the holy bishop warns his people against all superstition and idol
atry, in the following impressive language :

"Before all things, however, I declare and testify unto you, that you
should observe none of the impious customs of the pagans ; neither sorcer
ers, nor diviners, nor soothsayers, nor enchanters ; nor must you presume
for any cause, or any sickness, to consult or inquire of them, for he who
commits this sin immediately loses the sacrament of baptism. In like man
ner, pay no attention to auguries, and sneezings ; and, when you are on a
journey, do not mind the singing of certain little birds. But, whether you
are setting out on a journey, or beginning any other work, cross yourselves
in the name of Christ, and say the Creed and the Lord's Prayer with faith
and devotion, and then the enemy can do you no harm. Let no Christian

A MODEL MEDLEY AL HOMILY. 57

While on the subject of mediaeval homilies, we cannot re
frain from extracting one entire from Dr. Maitland.* It was
delivered by the Foreman of the Goldsmith, the latter of
whom had built a splendid monastery, and the former had
been ordained priest, after having first become a monk.
The people often visited his solitude to be edified by his vir
tues, and to profit by the words of simple, but touching elo
quence which fell from his lips. His homilies on such occa
sions were short, and to the purpose. The following is the
one to which we referred above :

"Brethren, hear what I say, with attention, and sedulously meditate on
it in your hearts. God the Father, and His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who
gave His precious blood for us, you must love with all your soul, and with
all your mind. Keep your hearts clean from wicked and impure thoughts ;
maintain brotherly love among yourselves ; and love not the things that are
in the world. Do not think about what you have, but what you are. Do
you desire to hear what you are ? The prophet tells you, saying, 'All flesh
is grass, all the goodliness thereof as the flower of the field.' (Isaiah xl. 6.)
Consider how short the present life is ; always fearing, have the judgment
of God before your eyes. While there is opportunity, redeem your sins by
alms and good works."

This, for its brevity and comprehensiveness, may be viewed
as a model sermon. We doubt whether, even at the present
more enlightened day, any one could say more good things
better, in so few words, and with so much simplicity and unc
tion. Probably the best possible vindication of our Catholic
ancestors is that which is contained in their own words, so far
as these have been preserved to us, and in such of their works
— as, for instance, their noble cathedrals, hospitals, and monas-

observe the day on which he leaves, or returns home, for God made all the
days. Let none regulate the beginning of any piece of work by the day, or
by the moon. Let none on the calends of January, join in the wicked and
ridiculous things, the dressing like old women, or like stags, or other fooler
ies, nor make feasts lasting all night, nor keep up the custom of gifts and
intemperate drinking."
* Ibid, p. 93-4.

58 EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION.

teries — as time and the Vandalism of the sixteenth century
have spared to us. Digby and Maitland — the former a Cath
olic and the latter a Protestant — have done much to give us
an adequate idea of their usual trains of thought, and of their
sometimes rude, but always earnest, simple, and eloquent man
ner of expressing them. As Dr. Maitland clearly proves, by
numerous examples, they not only were well acquainted with
the Holy Scriptures, but their very thoughts were wont to run
in the channel of scriptural imagery, and their words were
often little else but a tissue of scriptural quotations.*

Take them all in all, they will compare most favorably with
the men of the present day ; and in faith, piety, and love of
God and their neighbor, as well as in disinterestedness, they
will certainly bear oif the palm.

Let it, then, be borne steadily in mind, that the evils and
scandals to which we have referred above, and which we have
not sought to conceal or even to palliate, were exceptional ; and
that even after the original simplicity and fervor of the middle
ages had greatly diminished, and their disinterested and sim
ple spirit of faith, as the all-moving and animating principle
of action, had, in a great measure, passed away along with the
age of chivalry and the crusades, there still remained in the
great body of the Church — in the laity as well as in the clergy
— the solid foundations of truth and virtue, which found forci
ble expression in the general popular horror of heresy, and in
the general detestation of the obscenities of vice so unblush-
ingly exhibited in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
Though sorely tried by wild, but fortunately transient here
sies, and afflicted by grievous scandals during the two centu
ries immediately preceding the Reformation, the Church was
still sound, not only in her truth, which could never fail, but
in the general faith and fervent piety of the great body of her
clergy and members.

This was clearly proved by the wonderful effects produced

* Ibid. p. 187, seqq., and p. 466, seqq.

ST. VINCENT FERRER THE PRAGMATIC SANCTION. 59

all over Europe, during this very period, by the preaching of
that wonderful man of God — St. Vincent Ferrer — who came
forth, like another John the Baptist from the wilderness, to
preach penance, and to arouse into greater activity the faith
and piety of the people. "Whithersoever he went, vast multi-
titudes hung upon his lips ; and the results of his preaching
were most consoling to the afflicted Church. Such men as he,
and his illustrious predecessor in the same career, St. Bernard
of Clairvaux — were real reformers according to the true apos
tolic type; such reformers as the Church has been blessed
with in all ages, and as she has always delighted to honor.

Even the unscrupulous D'Aubigne, is compelled to do some
measure of justice to the Catholic Church of the middle ages.
He makes the following avowal ; which is invaluable, coming
from so prejudiced a source :*

" But first let us do honor to the Church of that middle period, which
intervened between the age of the Apostles and the Reformers. The Church
was still the Church, although fallen and more and more enslaved. In a
word, she was at all times the most powerful friend of man. Her hands,
though manacled, still dispensed blessings. Many eminent servants of Christ
diffused during these ages a beneficent light ; and in the humble convent —
the sequestered parish — there were found poor monks and poor priests to
alleviate bitter sufferings."

But if the Church was still enabled, through the divine pro
tection, to preserve pure the great body of her bishops and
clergy, it was not surely from any aid which her pontiffs de
rived for this purpose, from the princes of the world. This
good result was obtained, not in virtue of the co-operation of
the latter, but often in spite of their untiring opposition. It
seemed to have become an almost settled policy of the Ger
man emperors, and subsequently of the French kings, to throw
every possible obstacle in the way of the appointment of good,
disinterested, and zealous bishops. They thwarted the Popes
at almost every step in the continued and earnest endeavors
of the latter to secure good pastors to the vacant sees. They

* Vol. I., p. 40, Edit, of Carter, 1843.

60 EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION.

unscrupulously charged on the Popes the very crime of which
they were themselves openly guilty — an avaricious grasping
after the goods of the Church. When calumny failed, they
had recourse to secret fraud and open violence; and they
were always sure to find aiders and abettors among the higher
clergy, several of whom their wicked and dangerous policy
had already partially tainted.

This unfortunate spirit was strikingly exhibited in the adop
tion of what was called the Pragmatic Sanction, by the French
king, Charles VII., in the year 1438, and in the persistent
efforts made by the French Parliaments and German Diets
to carry out its mischievous provisions for more than a cen
tury , and all this in spite of the earnest protests and eloquent
appeals of the pontiffs. The provisions of this instrument vir
tually annihilated the primacy of the Pope in France and
wherever else they were adopted and acted on. While pro
fessing great reverence for the chair of Peter, and promising
obedience to the Pope as his successor, the French monarch,
Charles VII. , more than two centuries in advance of le
Grand Monarque, Louis XIV., — adopted a code of Gallican
liberties, probably far more mischievous in their tendency
than those contained in the subsequent Declaration of the
Gallican clergy in 1682. And like Louis, Charles was backed
in his war with the Pope, by a large body of the higher
clergy of France ; who should surely have already seen and
felt enough of the dangers of court influence, to beware how
they contributed to increase its patronage. But a species of
vertigo had seized on many minds in consequence of the late
schism ; and this feeling of distrust of the Pope found ex
pression in the schismatical proceedings of the conventicle at
Basle, which dared continue its sessions after the papal pro
hibition, in 1433, and even after it had been dissolved, in
1437, by the undoubted Pope Eugenius IV.* In spite of all

* Eugenius issued a bull dissolving the Council, and ordering the bishops
to convene again at Ferrara.

ITS MISCHIEVOUS TENDENCY LETTER OF PIUS II. 61

canonical law, a schismatical remnant of the bishops still con
tinued to hold their sessions, and even went to the extreme
length of attempting to depose the Pope, and thereby to origi
nate another fearful schism.

The Pragmatic Sanction was nominally abrogated by the
French king, Louis XI., in 1461 ; but this feeble or diplomatic
monarch showed little disposition to compel his Parliament to
repeal their previous enactments in its favor. Thus the evil
went on almost unchecked for more than fifty years longer ;
until the Sanction was finally annulled by the General Coun
cil of Lateran, in a session held in 1515. Its final abrogation
was fully agreed to by the French king, Francis I., in a con
ference held in the same year at Bologna, between him and
Pope Leo X.

How very mischievous this parliamentary enactment was,
and how many evils it must have entailed on the Church in
France, especially in the way of foisting unworthy, or worldly-
minded and courtly bishops into many of its sees, may be in
ferred from the fact, that it gave to the French monarch and
his Parliament almost unlimited control over all such appoint
ments, and forbade any interference therewith on the part of
the Pope without their own previous consent. The king and
his Parliament would be sure to appoint, not the best and the
most holy men, but such as would be most likely to subserve
their own worldly views, and to stand by them in their con
tests with the Pope. The spirit of the Pragmatic Sanction,
with its manifold evils, extended also to Germany, and, to a
greater or less extent, throughout all Christendom ; and we
have not a doubt that it contributed as much perhaps, as any
other single agency, to prepare the minds of men for the sub
sequent religious revolution of the sixteenth century.

To exhibit still more clearly the true spirit and real tendency
of the Pragmatic Sanction, we will here give an extract from
a letter written on the subject by the renowned pontiff, Pius
II., previously well known in the world of letters as
Sylvius : —

62 EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION.

"We ardently desire to see the nation of the Franks holy and without
blemish ; but this cannot be, unless this stain or wrinkle of the Sanction be
removed, the manner of the introduction of which you all know. It was
certainly not received on the authority of a general council, nor by a decree
of the Roman pontiffs, though no enactment on ecclesiastical matters can
stand as valid without the consent of the Roman See We do not at
tach so much importance to the hearing of causes, the bestowal of benefices,
and many other things which we are thought to value. This it is which fills
us with anguish, that we witness the perdition and ruin of souls, and that
the glory of a most noble king is thereby tarnished. For how can it be
tolerated, that laymen should become the judges of the clergy ? That the
sheep should hear and decide on the causes of their shepherds ? Is it for
this that we are 'a royal and priestly race' ? We will not, for the sake of
your honor, explain how greatly the sacerdatol authority has been impaired
in France. This is well known by the bishops, who, at the beck of the
secular power now draw, now sheathe the spiritual sword. But the Roman
bishop, whose parish is the world, whose ecclesiastical territory is not bound
ed even by the ocean, has, in the kingdom of France, only so much jurisdic
tion as the Parliament may be pleased graciously to assign to him ! He is
not permitted to punish the sacrilegious, the parricide, the heretic, though
an ecclesiastic, unless with the previous consent of the Parliament, whose
authority is so great in the opinion of some, as to shut the door against our
ecclesiastical censures. Thus the Roman pontiff, the judge of judges, is sub
ject to the judgment of Parliament. If we admit this, we make the Church
a monster, we introduce a hydra with many heads, and thereby totally ex
tinguish unity. This is a dangerous matter, venerable brethren, which
would bring confusion into the whole hierarchy."*

* Giesler. Text Book of Ecclesiastical History, Vol. Ill, p. 223-4, note.
This prejudiced Protestant or infidel historian furnishes the original of the
Letter to the French Bishops, as follows :

" Cupimus sanctam esse Francorum gentem et omni carere macula : at hoc
fieri non potest, nisi hasc Sanctionis macula seu ruga deponatur, quaa que-
modo introducta sit ipsi nostis. Certe non auctoritate generalis synodi nee
Romanorum decreto pontificum recepta est, quamvis de causis ecclesiasticis

tractatus absque placito Romanse Sedis stare non possit Non pon-

deramus causarum auditionem, non beneficiorum collationem, non alia multa
quse curare putamur. Illud nos angit, quod animarum perditionem ruinam-
que cernimus, et nobilissimi regis gloriam labefactari. Nam quo pacto tole-
randum est clericorum judices laicos esse factos ? Pastorum causas ores
cognoscere ? Siccine regale genus et sacerdotale sumus ? Non explicabimus,

OTHER AGENCIES THE POPE AND LIBERTY. 63

Though abrogated by Francis I., the spirit and the sting of
the Pragmatic Sanction still remained. As we shall see here
after, its spirit strongly influenced or rather infected the
policy, and contributed to the misfortunes of this brilliant,
but frivolous French monarch ; it subsequently led, step by
step, to the bloody civil wars brought upon France by the Hu
guenots; and finally its evil germs produced the poisonous
tree of infidelity, which diffused its fatal and upas-like influ
ence over France in the awful revolution of 1792-3. The
French monarchs sowed the seeds of Gallicanism — first under
Charles VII. in 1438, and then under Louis XIV. in 1682 —
and they reaped the final harvest of anarchy and revolution
in 1792 ! History has its logic as well as philosophy.

Besides the spirit of disunion and distrust of the Papacy,
which had been kept alive for centuries, chiefly by the princes
of the earth, other agencies also more immediately contributed
to prepare the way for the Reformation in the sixteenth cen
tury, and to facilitate its success. The revival of learning,
and the invention of the art of printing, afforded incidental
aids to the spread of the new gospel. The former came from
Italy; the latter from Germany. The active Italian mind
originated the intellectual movement, the more practical
German mind seized on it, and scattered its thoughts over
the earth on the wings of the press. Both the revival of

honoris causa, quantum diminuta est in Gallia sacerdotalis auctoritas. Epis-
copi norunt qui pro nutru. sascularis potestatis spiritualem gladium nunc
exercent, nunc recludunt. Praesul vero Eomanus, cujus parochia orbis est,
cujus provincia nee oceano clauditur, in regno Franci* tantum jurisdictionis
habet, quantum placet Parlamento. Non sacrilegum, non paricidam, non
hEereticum punire permittitur, quamvis ecclesiasticum, nisi Parlamenti con
sensus adsit, cujus tantam esse auctoritatem nonnulli existimant, ut censuris
etiam nostris prsecludere aditum possit. Sicjudex judicum Romanus pontifex
judicio Parlamenti subjectus est. Si hoc admittimus, monstruosam ecclesiam
facimus, et hydram multorum capitum introducimus, et unitatem prorsus
extinguimus. Periculosa res haec est, venerabiles fratres, quae hierarchiam
omnem confunderet."

64 EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION.

letters and the art of printing were of Catholic origin ; they
were both abused, and treacherously turned, as powerful
batteries, against the Church.

That Europe was indebted to Italy for the preservation of
the ancient learning in the middle ages, and for the revival
of letters in the fifteenth century ; and that Italy, under the
auspices of the Popes, was, during all those centuries, very
far in advance of all other European nations, is freely
admitted by such prejudiced English writers as Hallam and
Macaulay. The latter writes as follows on this important
historical fact; and we feel confident that the length of the
extract will be pardoned on account of the interest which
attaches to the subject:

"During the gloomy and disastrous centuries which followed the down
fall of the Roman Empire, Italy had preserved, in a far greater degree than
any other part of Western Europe, the traces of ancient civilization. The
night which descended upon her, was the night of an Arctic summer : — the
dawn began to reappear before the last reflection of the preceding sunset had
faded from the horizon. It was in the time of the French Merovingians, and
of the Saxon Heptarchy, that ignorance and ferocity seemed to have done
their worst. Yet even then the Neapolitan provinces, recognizing the
authority of the Eastern Empire, preserved something of Eastern knowledge
and refinement. Borne, protected by the sacred character of its pontiffs,
enjoyed at least comparative security and repose. Even in those regions
where the sanguinary Lombards had fixed their monarchy, there was incom
parably more of wealth, of information, of physical comfort, and of social
order, than could be found in Gaul, Brittain, or Germany."

Under the auspices of the pontiffs, liberty, manufactures,
and commercial prosperity were inaugurated; for Macaulay
adds:

" Thus liberty, partially, indeed, and transiently revisited Italy ; and with
liberty came commerce and empire, science and taste, all the comforts and
all the ornaments of life. The crusades, from which the inhabitants of
other countries gained nothing but relics and wounds, brought the rising
commonwealths of the Adriatic and Tyrrhene seas a large increase of
wealth, dominion, and knowledge. Their moral and their geographical
position enabled them to profit alike by the barbarism of the West and the
civilization of the East. Their ships covered every sea. Their factories

ITALY AND THE POPES MACAULAY. 65

rose on every shore. Their money changers set their tables in every
city. Manufactures flourished. Banks were established. The operations
of the commercial machine were facilitated by many useful and beautiful
inventions. We doubt whether any country of Europe, our own perhaps
excepted, have at the present time reached so high a point of wealth and
civilization as some parts of Italy had attained four hundred years ago." . . .
"Fortunately John Villani has given us an ample and precise account of
the state of Florence in the earlier part of the fourteenth century. The
revenue of the republic amounted to three hundred thousand florins, a sum
which, allowing for the depreciation of the precious metals, was at least
equivalent to six hundred thousand pounds sterling ; a larger sum than
England and Ireland, twro centuries ago, yielded annually to Elizabeth — a
larger sum than, according to any computation which we have seen, the
Grand-duke of Tuscany now derives from a territory of much greater
extent. The manufacture of wool alone employed two hundred factories and
thirty thousand workmen. The cloth annually produced sold, at an average,
for twelve hundred thousand florins ; a sum fairly equal, in exchangeable
value, to two millions and a half of our money. Four hundred thousand florins
were annually coined. Eighty banks conducted the commercial operations,
not of Florence only, but of all Europe. The transactions of these establish
ments were sometimes of a magnitude which may surprise even the con
temporaries of the Barings and the Rothchilds. Two houses advanced to
Edward III., of England, upwards of three hundred thousand marks, at a
time when the mark contained more silver than fifty shillings of the present
day, and when the value of silver was more than quadruple of what it now
is. The city and its environs contained a hundred and seventy thousand
inhabitants. In the various schools about ten thousand children wTere taught
to read ; twelve hundred studied arithmetic ; six hundred received a learned
education. The progress of elegant literature and of the fine arts was pro
portioned to that of the public prosperity No tongue ever furnished

more gorgeous and vivid tints to poetry ; nor was it long before a poet
appeared wrho knew how to employ them. Early in the fourteenth century
came forth the Divine Comedy, beyond comparison the greatest work of
imagination which had appeared since the poems of Homer. The following
generation produced, indeed, no second Dante ; but it was eminently dis
tinguished by general intellectual activity. The studv of the Latin writers
had never been wholly neglected in Italy."*

The literary sect of the Humanists arose in Italy about the
middle of the fifteenth century. These new men of letters

* Miscell. Am. Edit., p. 21 seqq. Review of the Works of Macchiavelli.
VOL. I. — 6

66 EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION.

sought to revive Greek literature, and the Platonian phi
losophy in opposition to that of Aristotle, which had long
obtained a firm foothold in the schools. They disparaged all
barbarisms in style, and they valued a finely turned sentence
conveying a sneer against the clergy more highly than a
sound and orthodox sentiment conveyed in the more homely
language of the school-men. The Dominicans were their
special aversion, for two principal reasons: first, their theo
logians were usually more or less barbarous in their Latin ;
and secondly, they had been appointed censors of books, and,
in virtue of their office, they were compelled often to condemn
the works of the Humanists, in spite of their elegant Latinity.
This last fact has special significance, when we reflect that
Tetzel, the preacher of the Indulgences in Germany, was a
Dominican; and that Erasmus, the leader of the German
Humanists, united with Luther in hurling at the devoted head
of the Dominicans his polished but envemoned shaft of ridi
cule and invective.

The early progress of the German Reformation was also
facilitated by the over-indulgence, if not negligence of the
Italian Humanists, who, with their great and munificent
patron, Leo X., were at first inclined to look upon the contro
versy between the Augustinian monk Luther, and the Domi
nican monk Tetzel, as a mere " monkish squabble." Soon,
indeed, they discovered their mistake ; but it was too late fully
to check the evil. It was not a merely local or transient
rebellion against Church authority which was at hand, but a
mighty revolution, which was to shake Christendom to its
very centre ; and to endure, with its long and pestilent train
of evils, with its Babel-like sound and confusion of tongues,
with its first incipent and then developed infidelity, probably
to the end of the world !

Another weapon which the German reformers wielded with
terrible effect against the Church, was their impassioned and
reiterated declaration, that the Primacy of the Pope was sub
versive of all German liberty. All the contests between the

TESTIMONY OF LAING — SUMMING UP. 67

German emperors and the Popes during the middle ages were
brought up again, exaggerated and distorted by passion,before
the public mind, and the Germans were told that they must
throw off the yoke of the Pope, if they would preserve their
ancient franchises. This appeal to national prejudices was as
successful as the basis on which it rested was wholly unfounded
in the facts of history. The truth is, that the Germans owed
almost every thing, their liberties included, to the interposition
of the Popes checking the usurpations and despotism of their
emperors. This is apparent from the fact, that they were
really less free after than they had been before the Refor
mation. This we hope to prove hereafter. In the mean
time, we invite attention to the following testimony on this
subject, furnished by the Scotch Presbyterian writer, Samuel
Laing, surely an unexceptionable witness. He is speaking
of the past and present condition of Germany ; in reference
precisely to the influence exercised by the Papacy on its
liberty :

'' The principle that the civil government, or State, or Church and State
united, of a country is entitled to regulate its religious belief, has more of
intellectual thraldom in it than the power of the popish Church ever exer
cised in the darkest ages ; for it had no civil power joined to its religious
power. It only worked through the civil power of each country. The
Church of Eome was an independent, distinct, and often an opposing power
in every country to the civil power ; A CIRCUMSTANCE IN THE SOCIAL ECONOMY

OF THE MIDDLE AGES, TO WHICH, PERHAPS, EUROPE IS INDEBTED FOR HER

CIVILIZATION AND FREEDOM — for not being in the state of barbarism and
slavery of the east, and of every country, ancient and modern, in which the
civil and religious power have been united in one government. Civil liberty
is closely connected with religious liberty — with the Church being independ
ent of the State In Germany the seven Catholic sovereigns have

12,074,700 Catholic subjects, and 2,541,000 Protestant subjects. The
twenty-nine Protestant sovereigns, including the four free cities, have
12,113,000 Protestant subjects, and 4,966,000 Catholic. Of these popu
lations in Germany, those which have their point of spiritual government
without their States, and independent of them — as the Catholics have at
Rome — enjoy certainly more spiritual independence, are less exposed to the
intermeddling of the hand of civil power with their religious concerns,

68 EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION.

than the Protestant populations, which, since the Reformation, have had
Church and State united in one government, and in which each autocratic
sovereign is de facto a home-pope. The Church affairs of Prussia in this
half century, those of Saxony, Bavaria, and the smaller principalities, such
as Anhalt Kothen, in all of which the State has assumed and exercised
power inconsistently with the principles, doctrines, observances, and privi
leges of the Protestant religion, clearly show that the Protestant church on
the continent, as a power, has become an administrative body of clerical
functionaries, acting under the orders of the civil power or State."*

From the foregoing summary view of the events affecting
religion in Europe, during the centuries which preceded the
Reformation, we draw the following conclusions, in the sound
ness of which we believe that every well-informed and impar
tial man will be disposed to concur with us :

1. That the amount and extent of the scandals and abuses
complained of during this period have been greatly exaggerated ;
and that the good more than counterbalanced the evil. Evil
always excites more attention and makes more noise in the
world than good; and what contemporary writers, even if
they were otherwise good men, say of abuses, and of the per
sons to whom they are to be ascribed, will generally be found
to be highly colored ; especially if the writers, as is often the
case, have their feelings enlisted as partisans on one side or
the other. Feeling must be calmed down, excitement must
pass away, and affairs must fully work themselves out, before
a correct and reliable judgment can be formed on any series
of events.

2. That these abuses and scandals generally originated in
the world and its princes, not in the Church and its chief
pastors ; most of them being due to the fact, that bad men
were thrust into the high places of the Church by worldly

* Notes of a Traveler on the Social and Political State of France, Prussia,
Switzerland, Italy, and other parts of Europe, during the present century.
By Samuel Laing, Esq., author of " A Journal of a Residence in Norway "
and " A Tour in Sweden." From the second London edition. Philadelphia,
Gary & Hart, 1846. 1 vol. 8vo. p. 194.

FOUR CONCLUSIONS REACHED. 69

minded and avaricious princes in spite of the Popes, whose
settled policy it was to protest with all their might against a
line of conduct so very ruinous to the best interests of re
ligion. And such being clearly the case, it is most unjust to
charge those scandals on the Church or on the pontiffs. If
the princes of the earth could have ruined the Church, they
would have done so by their iniquitous and oppressive enact
ments. That they did not succeed in inflicting on her more
than occasional and temporary wounds, we owe it to the divine
vitality of the Church, and to the noble and dauntless oppo
sition of the Popes.

3. That there was a lawful and efficacious remedy for all
such evils, which consisted in removing their obvious cause,
and giving to the Popes their due power and influence in the
nomination of bishops, and in the deliberations of general
ecclesiastical councils, the judgments of which had hitherto
been always viewed as final : that, in one word, reformation
within the Church, and not revolution outside of it, was the
only proper, lawful, and efficacious remedy for existing evils,
and the one which had always been invoked by the wise and
the good in all previous ages of Christianity.

4. Finally, that the fact of Christians having at length felt
prepared to resort to the desperate and totally wrong remedy
of revolution, was owing to a train of circumstances which
had caused faith to wane and grow cold, and which now ap
pealed more to the passions than to reason, more to human
considerations than to the principles of divine faith and the
interests of eternity.

That the drama was strictly in accordance with its pro
gramme, and that the Protestant Reformation throughout
Europe, both in its inception and in its consummation, was
rather the working out of the three great concupiscences
referred to by an inspired apostle, than of a sincere and earn
est love of truth, and of a real desire of reformation, will,
unless we are greatly mistaken, sufficiently appear from the
facts contained in the following pages. In regard to Germany

70 EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION.

and Switzerland, we propose, in the first volume, to examine
the following questions :

1. Whether the men who brought about the Keformation
in Germany were such as God could or would have employed
to do His work ?

2. "Whether the motives which prompted, and the means
which were employed to accomplish that revolution, were
such as God could sanction ?

3. Whether the Reformation really effected a reform in
religion and in morals ?

And 4, whether its influence was beneficial to society, by
developing the principles of free government, and promoting
literature and civilization ?

PART I.

CHARACTER OF THE REFORMERS.

CHAPTER I.

LUTHER AND THE OTHER GERMAN REFORMERS.

D'Aubigne's opinion — A reformed key — Luther's parents — His early train
ing — A naughty boy — Convents — Being "led to God," and "not led to
God" — He enters the Augustinian convent — Austerities — A "bread
bag" — His faith and scruples — His humility and zeal — Luther a reformer
— Grows worse — becomes reckless — His sincerity tested — Saying and
unsaying — Misgivings — Tortuous windings — How to spite the Pope —
Curious incident — Melancthon and his mother — Luther's talents and elo
quence — His taste — His courage and fawning — His violence and coarse
ness — Not excusable by the spirit of his age — His blasphemies — Recrim
ination — Christian compliments — "Conference with the devil" — Which
got the better of the argument — Luther's morality — Table-talk — His ser
mon on marriage — A Vixen — How to do "mischief to the Pope" — A
striking contrast — How to fulfill vows — His marriage — Misgivings — Epi
grams and satires — Curious incidents in his last sickness — Death-bed
confession — His death — The reformed key used — Character of the other
reformers.

D'AUBIGNE compares the reformers to the Apostles;* and
his favorite theory is, that the Reformation itself was but
" the reappearance of Christianity ."f Speaking of the life
and character of Luther, he says "the whole Reformation
was there."J " The different phases of this work succeeded
each other in the mind of him who was to be the instrument
for it, before it was publicly accomplished in the world. The
knowledge of the Reformation effected in the heart of Luther

* B. ii, p. 118, vol. i. Our quotations from D 'Aubigne are from the first
American edition, in three volumes 12mo, to which two others have been
since added, to which we may refer hereafter.

t Pref. iv. I Vol. i, p. 118.

(71)

72 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

himself is, in truth, the key to the Keformation of the
Church."*

We will abide by this test. We will examine for a brief
space the external form, and the internal structure — the many
tortuous turnings and intricate wards of this " key" of the
Protestant Reformation ; and we will be enabled to estimate
the character of the latter, — which, as we hope to show, was
a " lock on the understanding"— from the properties of the for
mer. Dropping the figure, we will compare the character of
Luther while he continued a Catholic, during the first thirty-
four years of his life, with what it subsequently became after
he had turned reformer, or for the last twenty-nine years of
his life — from 1517 to 1546. If we ascertain that his own
character underwent a change greatly for the worse during
the latter period, we will be compelled, by D'Aubigne's own
rule, to admit that the general tendency of the Reformation
was evil.

To facilitate the understanding of our remarks, and to
obviate repetition, we here state that Luther was born at Eis-
leben, in Saxony, on the 10th of November, 1483 ; that he
attended successively the schools of Mansfeld, Magdeburg,
and Eisenach, and completed his education in the university
of Erfurth ; that he was ordained priest in 1506, turned re
former in 1517, was married in 1525, and died on the 17th
of February, 1546, in the sixty-third year of his age.

While under the influence of the Catholic Church, he was
probably a moderately good man ; he was certainly a very
bad one after he left its communion. His parents were poor,
but they seem to have been pious, especially his mother.
From an early age, they labored to train him up in senti
ments of piety, as well as to imbue his mind with the ele
ments of learning. "As soon as he was old enough to receive
instruction," says D'Aubigne, "his parents endeavored to
communicate to him the knowledge of God, to train him in

* D 'Aubigne, vol. i, p. 118.

MARTIN LUTHER. ^

His fear, and to form him to the practice of the Christian
virtues. They applied the utmost care to his earliest domestic
education.* He was taught the heads of the catechism, the
ten commandments, the Apostles' creed, the Lord's prayer,
some hymns, some forms of prayer, a Latin grammar com
posed in the fourth century by Donatus ; in a word, all that
was studied in the Latin school of Mansfeld."f — In the good
old Catholic times, then, parents knew their duty to their
children, and people were not so stupidly ignorant after all !

Luther seems to have been a very naughty boy ; for while
at school in Mansfeld, " his master flogged him fifteen times
in one day ;" J and, in his after-life, he was wont to complain
of the cruel treatment he received from his parents. " My
parents treated me cruelly, so that I became very timid : one
day, for a mere trifle, my mother whipped me till the blood
came. They truly thought they were doing right ; but they
had no discernment of character, which is yet absolutely
necessary, that we may know when, on whom, and how, pun
ishment should be inflicted."§ — His parents probably acted
on the old maxim, " spare the rod and spoil the child ;" and
if he was subsequently so much spoiled, even with all the
previous training of the rod, what would he have been with
out its salutary restraint ?

Though "it appears that the child was not yet led to
God,"|| still he evinced a great fund of piety. " But even at
this early age, the young man of eighteen did not study
merely with a view of cultivating his understanding ; there
was within him a serious thoughtfulness, a heart looking up
wards, which God gives to those whom He designs to make
His most zealous servants. Luther felt that he depended
entirely on God, — a simple and powerful conviction, which is
at once a principle of deep humility, and an incentive to
great undertakings. He fervently invoked the Divine bless-

* D'Aubigne, voL i, p. 122. f Ibid. p. 123. J Ibid.

5 Luth. Opp. Wittemb. xxii, 1785. || D'Aubigne, vol. i, p. 123.

VOL. I. 7

74 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

ing upon his labors. Every morning he began the day with
prayer ; then he went to church ; afterwards he commenced
his studies, and he never lost a moment in the course of the
day. ' To pray well,3 he was wont to say, ' was the better
half of study.'"*— This looked a little like being "led to
God."

On the 17th of August, 1505, he entered into the Augus-
tinian convent at Erfurth, being then in the 22d year of his
age. He was induced to take this important step by a vow
he had made to consecrate himself entirely to God, in case
of his deliverance from a terrific storm, by which he was
overtaken near Erfurth, and in which, according to one
account,f his friend Alexis was stricken dead by lightning at
his side. "At length he is with God," says D'Aubigne.
" His soul is safe. He is now to obtain that holiness he so
ardently desired."J — The monasteries were then not so bad
as Protestants would fain represent them. " They often con
tained Christian virtues" — D'Aubigne himself tells us—
"which grew up beneath the shelter of a salutary retire
ment; and which if they had been brought forth to view,
would have been the admiration of the world. They who
possessed these virtues, living only with each other and with
God, drew no attention from without, and were often unknown
even to the small convent in which they were inclosed — their
life was known only to God."§

Luther, it would seem, entered the convent with the purest
motives, and labored in it to overcome himself by mortifica
tion and self-denial, and to acquire humility and all the
Christian virtues. "But it was not to gain the credit of
being a great genius that he entered the cloister ; it was to
find the aliments of piety to God."|| The monks " imposed
on him the meanest offices. They perhaps wished to humble

* Mathesius, 3, apud D 'Aubigne, vol. i, p. 130.

f Discredited, perhaps with reason, by D'Aubigne (ibid., p. 135, note.)

t Ibid., p. 136. § Ibid., p. 146-7. -jj Ibid., p. 141.

HIS EARLY LIFE. 75

the doctor of philosophy, and to teach him that his learning

did not raise him above his brethren The former master of

arts was obliged to perform the functions of door-keeper, to
open and shut the gates, to wind up the clock, to sweep the
church, to clean the rooms. Then, when the poor monk, who
was at once porter, sexton, and servant of the cloister, had
finished his work — ccum sacco per civitatem' — 'with your
bag through the town !' cried the brothers ; and, loaded with
his bread-bag, he was obliged to go through the streets of
Erfurth, begging from house to house, and perhaps at the
doors of those very persons who had been either his friends
or his inferiors. But he bore it all. Inclined from his natu
ral disposition to devote himself heartily to whatever he
undertook, it was with his whole soul that he had become a
monk. Besides, could he wish to spare the body ? To regard
the satisfying of the flesh ? Not thus could he acquire the
humility, the holiness he had come to seek within the walls
of a cloister."*

How strongly does not this spirit of self-denial contrast
with the gross self-indulgence of his subsequent life, when
he had thrown off all those wholesome but now anti
quated restraints! Well does his panegyrist remark, that
" there was then in Luther little of that which made him in
after-life the reformer of the church ."f As we shall see, this
remark is strikingly true. The change which was wrought in
his own life and conduct, by the principles he subsequently
broached and carried out in practice, was indeed striking and
radical, but certainly greatly for the worse.

He received ordination with fear and trembling at his own
unworthiness. So great was his awe of the holy sacrament,
that in a procession at Eisleben, on the feast of Corpus
Christi, he almost fainted through overpowering reverence
for Christ truly present.f He was scrupulous to a fault. He
frequently gave way to fits of despondency and melancholy,

* D'Aubigne, vol. i, p. 139. f Ibid., p. 138. f Ibid., p. 157.

76 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

which were with difficulty removed. As a panacea for his
troubled mind, an aged monk called his attention to that
article of the Apostles' creed in which we profess to believe
" in the forgiveness of sins."* The humble confidence in our
forgiveness through God's mercy, which this article is so well
calculated to inspire, was afterwards reduced by the reformer
to an absolute and infallible certainty, that his own sins were
forgiven. So apt are men to run into extremes, especially
those who are addicted to scruples! When these are re
moved — as was unhappily the case with Luther — they too
often are exchanged for the opposite extreme of wanton reck
lessness. This remark may furnish a key to the reformer's
whole subsequent life.

His deep humility, we are further informed, caused him to
shrink from the office of preaching. It was with great diffi
culty that Staupitz, his superior, could overcome this reluct
ance. "In vain Staupitz entreated him: 'No, no,' replied
he, ' it is no light thing to speak to men in God's stead.' "
" An affecting instance of humility in this great reformer of
the church,"! adds D'Aubigne. He unhappily gave no
evidence of any such spirit, after he had turned reformer, as
we shall see presently. Had he always preserved this humble
and truly Christian spirit, the peace of the Church would in
all probability never have been disturbed.

In 1516, but one year before the commencement of the
Reformation, Staupitz directed him to make the visitation of
the forty convents belonging to the Augustinian Order in
Germany.J He discharged this difficult office with singular
prudence and zeal. He labored to reform abuses, gave
salutary counsels, and animated the monks to the practice of
every virtue. A little later, he gave additional evidence of
Christian humility. Having received a new gown from the
elector Frederick of Saxony, he thus wrote to Spalatin, the
elector's secretary: "It would be too fine, if it were not a

* D'Aubigne, vol. i, p. 154. f Ibid., p. 161. | Ibid., p. 191, seqq.

AS A CATHOLIC. 77

prince's gift. I am not worthy that any man should think
of me, much less a prince, and so noble a prince. Those are
most useful to me who think worst of me. Present my
thanks to our prince for his favor, but know that I desire
neither the praises of thyself nor of others : all the praise of
man is vain, the praise that cometh from God being alone
true**

During this period of his Catholic life, it would appear
from the testimony of his eulogist, that he was no less zealous
and devoted than he was humble. When the plague broke
out in Wittenburg, in 1516, his friends advised him to fly
from a malady which swept off whole multitudes. Luther
answered : " You advise me to flee — but whither shall I flee ?
I hope the world will riot go to pieces, if brother Martin
should fall. If the plague spreads, I will send the brethren
away in all directions ; but for my part, I am placed here : obe
dience does not allow me to leave the spot, until He who called
me hither, shall call me away."f He did not behave thus
courageously, when the pest again visited Wittenburg, after
he had left the Church. When the blessed light of the new
gospel had broken upon his beclouded spirit, he was not so
well prepared to meet death in order to succor his suffering
brethren, but he openly proclaimed the narrow and selfish
doctrine, that the minister of God fulfilled his duty, if he
administered the sacrament to his flock four times in the
year ; and that it was an intolerable burden to be under the
obligation to do more, especially in time of plague ! J

Such was Luther before he began the Reformation in 1517.
How changed, alas ! was he after this period — heu ! quantum
mutatus ab illo! He is no longer the humble monk, the
scrupulous priest, the fervent Christian, that he was before!

* LutheriEpistolae,edit.DeWette,i,p.45,46: apudD'Aub. vol. i, p. 195.

f Epist. i, p. 42. 26 Oct. 1516. Apud D'Aub. vol. i, p. 194

I Apud Audin, Life of Luther, American translation, p. 27. He quotes

Michelet's Memoires de Luther. This is the edition of Audin from which

we shall usually quote.

78 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

Amidst the storm which he excited, he gradually suffered
shipwreck of almost every virtue, and became reckless and
depraved ; the mere creature of impulse, the child of pride,
the victim of violent and degrading passion. We trust to
make all this appear from certain and undoubted facts, which
no one can deny. And the result of our reasoning will be
the irresistible conclusion, that for him at least, the Reforma
tion was a down-hill business : and, according to D' Aubigne's
test, that this was its general tendency.

His own deterioration, and the work of the Reformation
were both gradual ; and they went hand in hand. He did
not at first seem to aim at any change in the doctrines and
institutions of the Catholic Church ; this thought was devel
oped only afterwards. In the 38th, 67th, and 7lst of his
famous ninety-five theses published against Tetzel on the 1st
of ISTov. 1517, he expressly maintained the authority of the
Pope, and the Catholic doctrine on indulgences. He professed
only to aim at the correction of abuses.

It is a mooted question, whether jealousy of the Dominican
order, which had been intrusted with the preaching of the in
dulgences, to the exclusion of his own rival order of the Au-
gustinians, influenced him in his first attack on Tetzel. Such
seems to have been the opinion of the enlightened Pontiff,
Leo X., who, when the controversy was first reported to him,
remarked, smiling, " that it was all a mere monkish squabble
originating in jealousy." * Such also was the opinion of many
other ancient writers. Certain it is that this jealousy, if it
did not originate, at least fed and maintained the discussion.
Luther's order, with its principal members — Staupitz, Link,
Lange, and others — were his warmest advocates ; while the
Dominicans — Cajetan, Hochstraet, Eck, and Prierias — were
his chief opponents. The Dominican order continued faithful

* Che coteste erano invidie fratesche. Brandelli, a contemporary Domini
can writer. Hist. Trag. pars 3.

HE TURNS REFORMER. 79

to the church ; the Augustinians of Germany abandoned it
almost without an exception.*

Had he paused at the proper time, had he continued to leave
untouched the venerable landmarks of Catholic faith, and
confined himself to the correction of local disorders, all Catho
lics would have applauded his zeal. Instead of being reck
oned with Arius, Pelagius, Wicliffe, and other heresiarchs, he
would then have found a niche in the temple of Catholic fame,
with an Ambrose, a Gregory VII., and a Bernard ! His great
talents, properly regulated, might have been immensely bene
ficial to the Church of God. But, standing on the brink of a
precipice, he became dizzy, and fell ; and, like Lucifer of old,
he drew after him one-third of the stars of God's kingdom on
earth. The old Catholic tree bore some evil fruits of abuses —
generally local and unauthorized, as we shall see in the proper
place — and, instead of pruning it discreetly and nurturing its
growth, he recklessly lopped off all its branches, and even at
tempted to tear it up by the roots, under the pretext, forsooth,
of making it bear fruit !

The question has often been asked, was Lnther sincere?
We have no doubt of his sincerity nor much of his piety,
until he turned reformer. Perhaps, too, he might have been,
to a certain extent, sincere during the first year of his reform
ative career. God only can judge the human heart ; and it
would be rash in us to attempt to fathom what only He can
search with unerring accuracy. Still we have some facts
whereon to base a judgment in the particular case of the Ger
man reformer.

There is little doubt that he had some misgivings at first.
He himself tells us that " he trembled to find himself alone
agdinst the whole Church." f He testifies on this subject as

* Several of the members, however, seem to have subsequently returned
to the communion of the Church, and among them Staupitz, the superior.

f " Solus primo eram." Opp. in Praef. Edit. Wittenb. Quoted by D'Au-
bigne.

OU REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

follows ; " How often has my conscience disturbed me ! How
often have I said to myself: dost thou imagine thyself wiser
than all the rest of mankind ? Darest thou imagine that all
mankind have been in error for so long a series of years." *
And again : " I am not so bold as to assert that I have been
guided in this affair by God ; upon this point I would not
wish to undergo the judgment of God."f

He regretted at first that his Theses had become so public,
and had made so great a stir among the people. " My de
sign," says he " was not to make them so public. I wished
to discuss the various points comprised in them with some of
our associates and neighbors. If they had condemned them,
I would have destroyed them ; if they had approved of them,
I would have published them." J " He was disturbed and
dejected at the thought" — of standing alone against the Church
• — " doubts, which he thought he had overcome, returned to
his mind with fresh force. He trembled to think that he had
the whole authority of the Church against him. To withdraw
himself from that authority — to resist that voice which nations
and ages had humbly obeyed — to set himself in opposition to
that Church which he had been accustomed from his infancy
to revere as the mother of the faithful : he, a despicable monk
— it was an effort beyond human power." §

Luther himself tells us how he struggled against this feel
ing ; how he lulled to rest that still small voice of conscience
within his bosom. " After having triumphed, by means of
the Scriptures, over all opposing arguments, I at last over
came, by the grace of Christ (!) with much anguish, labor, and
great difficulty, the only argument that still stopped me,
namely, ' that I must hear the Church ;' for, from my heart, I
honored the Church of the Pope as the true Church," etc.||

* Opp. Lutheri. Germ. Edit. Geneva, vol. ii, fol. 9.

f Ibid., vol. i, p. 364.

I Epist. Collect. De Wette, vol. i, p. 95.

§ D'Aubigne, vol. i, p. 257. || Luth. Opp. Lat. i, 49. Ibid., i, 258.

WAS HE SINCERE? 81

He foresaw the dreadful commotions of which he would be
the author, and trembled at the thought ! "I tremble — I
shudder at the thought, that I may be an occasion of discord
to such mighty princes."* — Still he recklessly persevered !

But these scruples were but "a remnant of popery:" soon
he succeeded in lulling his conscience into a fatal security.
An awful calm succeeded the storm. The pride of being at
the head of a strong party ; the praises of the students and
professors of the Wittenburg university; the flattery of
friends, and the smiles of the powerful elector of Saxony ;
soon quieted the rising qualms of conscience. The following
facts, selected almost at random from a mass of evidence of
the same kind, may contribute to throw additional light on
the question of his sincerity.

On the 30th of May, 1518, which was Trinity Sunday, he
wrote a letter to Pope Leo X., of which the following is the
concluding passage:

" Therefore, most holy father, I throw myself at the feet of your holiness,
and submit myself to you with all that I have and all that I am. Destroy
my cause or espouse it ; pronounce either for or against me ; take my life
or restore it, as you please : I will receive your voice as that of Christ him
self, who presides and speaks through you. If I have deserved death, I
refuse not to die : the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. May He
be praised for ever and ever. May He maintain you to all eternity!
Amen."f

The sequel tested the sincerity of this declaration. But
even while he was penning it, or very shortly afterwards,
he preached from the pulpit of Wittenburg against the power
of the Pope to fulminate excommunication, and he was en
gaged in circulating inflammatory tracts breathing the same
spirit.J

* "Inter tantos principes dissidii origo esse valde horreo et timeo." Ep. i, 93.

f Luth. Epist. vol. i, p. 121. Edit. De Wette.

| " Habui nuper sermonem ad populum de virtute excommunicationis, ubi
taxavi obiter tyrannidem et inscitiam sordidissimi illius vulgi officialium
commissariorum vicariorum," etc. — Epist. ad Wencesl. Link, Julii, 1518.

82 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

In 1519 he had a conference with Miltitz, the papal envoy,
to whose perfect satisfaction he arranged every thing, prom
ising to keep silence in future as to the questions in contro
versy. The good nuncio embraced him, wept with joy, and
invited him to a banquet, at which he loaded him with
caresses. "While this affecting scene was enacted, Luther, in
a private letter to a friend, called him " a deceiver, a liar, i
who parted from him with a Judas-like kiss and crocodile
tears ;"* and, in another letter, to Spalatin, he wrote : " Let
me whisper in your ear ; I do not know whether the Pope is
Antichrist, or only his apostle,"f etc. And yet, in less than a
month after this very time, on the 3d of March, 1519, he wrote
to the Pope in these words of reverence and submission :

" Most holy father, I declare it in the presence of God, and of all the
world, I never have sought, nor will I ever seek, to weaken by force or arti
fice the power of the Koman church or of your holiness. I confess that
there is nothing in heaven or earth that should be preferred above that
church, save only Jesus Christ the Lord of all."|

The same man who wrote this, impugned the Primacy of
the Pope the very same year in the famous discussion with
Doctor Eck at Leipsic ! Was he — could he be sincere in
all this ? But, further, when on the 3d of October, 1520, he
became acquainted with the bull of Leo X., by which his
doctrines were condemned, he wrote these remarkable words :
"I will treat it as a forgery, though I believe it to be
genuine."§

The following evidence will greatly aid us in judging of the
motives which guided Luther in pushing forward the work
of the Reformation. What those motives were he surely was
the best judge. .Let us then see what himself tells us on this
subject.

In his famous harangue against Karlstadt -and the image
breakers, delivered from the pulpit of the church of All

* Epist. Sylvio Egrano, 2 Feb., 1519.

f Epist. Spalatino, 12 Feb., 1519. See Audin, Life of Luther, p. 91, and
D'Aubigne, vol. ii, p. 15-16.

| Epist. i, p. 234. $ D'Aubigne, vol. ii, p. 128.

HIS MOTIVES. 83

Saints at Wittenberg, he plainly says that, if his recreant
disciples will not take his advice, "he will not hesitate to
retract every thing he had either taught or written, and leave
them ;" and he adds emphatically : " This I tell you once for
all."* In an abridged confession of faith, which he drew up
for his partisans, he says in a vaunting tone : " I abolished
the elevation of the host, to spite the Pope ; and I had retained
it so long to spite Karlstadt."f In the new form of service,
which he composed as a substitute for the Mass, he says in a
similar spirit : " If a council were to order the communion to
be taken in both kinds, he and his would only take it in one
or none ; and would, moreover, curse all those who should, in
conformity with this decree of the council, communicate in
both kinds ."J — Could the man be sincere who openly boasted
of being governed by such motives ?

We might continue to discuss the question of his sincerity >
by showing how he said one thing to Cardinal Cajetan, and
in the diet of Worms in 1521, and other things precisely con
tradictory to his friends, at the same time : how, before Caje
tan, he appealed first to the universities,§ then to the Pope,
better informed,|| and subsequently to a general council :^[ and
how, when all these tribunals had decided against him, he
would abide by none of their decisions, his reiterated solemn
promises to the contrary notwithstanding ! Did the Spirit of
God direct him in all these tortuous windings of artful policy ?
Do they manifest aught of the uprightness of a boasted apostle ?
Do they not rather bespeak the wily heresiarch — an Arius, a
Nestorius, or a Pelagius ?

We say nothing at present of his consistency : we speak
only of his sincerity and common honesty. No one has ever
yet been found to praise his consistency. He was, confess-

* " Non dubitabo ftinem reducere, et omnium quae aut scripsi aut docui
palinodiam canere : hoc vobis dictum esto." Sermo docens abusus non mani-
bus, etc. f Confessio Parva.

$ Forma Missae. § D 'Aubigne, vol. i, p. 357.

11 Ibid., vol. i, p. 376. if Ibid., vol. i, p. 389, and again, vol. ii, p. 134.

84 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

edlj, a mere creature of impulse and of passion, constant in
nothing but in his hatred of the Pope and of the Catholic
Church. His inconsistencies would fill a volume, and a mere
enumeration of them would swell this chapter to an unwar
rantable length.*

But there is one incident in the private life of Luther too
curious to be passed over in silence. We give it in the
words of M. Audin, with his references to contemporary
historians :

"After the labors of the day, he would walk with Catharine" — the nun
whom he had sacrilegiously wedded — " in the little garden of the convent,
near the ponds in which colored fish were disporting ; and he loved to explain
to her the wonders of the creation, and the goodness of Him who had made
it with His hands. One evening the stars sparkled with unwonted bright
ness, and the heavens appeared to be on fire. ' Behold what splendor those
luminous points emit,' said Catharine to Luther. Luther raised his eyes.
'What glorious light,' said he: 'IT SHINES NOT FOR us.' 'Why not?' re
plied Bora ; ' have we lost our title to the kingdom of heaven ?' Luther
sighed — 'Perhaps so,' said he, 'because we have abandoned our state.?
1 We ought to return to it, then,' said Catharine. ' IT is TOO LATE — THE
CAB is SUNK TOO DEEPLY,' added the doctor. The conversation dropped."f

We may here be pardoned for making a digression, to
relate a somewhat analogous incident of Melancthon, Luther's
bosom friend and cherished disciple. Luther was wont to
flatter him immoderately, and the grateful disciple repaid him
with interest in the same gilded coin. When the latter
had finished his Scholia — or short commentaries — on the
Epistles of St. Paul, Luther said to him, after having
read the work : " What matter is it whether it pleases you
or not, if it pleases me? I tell you that the commentaries
of Origen and Jerome, compared with yours, are nothing
but absurdities."! Melancthon, too, had his misgivings.

* Those who may be curious to investigate this subject still further will
find abundant facts in Audin's Life of Luther. We direct the attention
of such to the following pages : 81, 82, 85, 94, 95, 102, 110, 238, 239, 240,
291, 312, 354, 397, 398, 410, 430, 472, 511, etc., etc.

f Georg Joanneck — Norma Vitae. Kraus — Ovicul. part ii, fol. 39. Apud
Audin, p. 382. J Apud Audin, p. 445.

HIS BOLDNESS AND ELOQUENCE. 85

"He recalled to his mind the image of his old father,
George Schwartzerde,f the smith, whose lively faith made
him rise often at night to offer up his prayer to God.
He thought of the last prayer of his dying mother, who,
raising her hands towards him, said : ' My son, it is for the last
time you see your mother. I am about to die : your turn
will one day come, when you must render an account of your
actions to your Judge. You know that I was a Catholic, and
that you have induced me to abandon the religion of my
fathers. Tell me now, for God's sake, in what religion I
ought to die.' .Melancthon answered: 'Mother, the new
doctrine is the more convenient; the other is the more
secure.' "f But the gentle and wavering Melancthon was kept
in error by the fascination of his imperious master Luther,
who, serpent-like, had coiled himself around his very heart
strings, and held him captive.

Luther's intellectual attainments were of a high order. As
a popular orator, few surpassed him whether in ancient or in
modern times. Nothing could withstand the foamy torrent
of his eloquence, or resist the eifect of his withering invective :

" When he preached, the people listened with trembling expectation to
the words which fell from his lips. His eye, which seemed to revolve in a
fiery orbit — his large and seer-like forehead — his animated figure, especially
when much excited — his threatening gesture, his loud voice which thun
dered on the ear — the spirit of inspiration with which he seemed possessed
— all awakened either terror, or ecstatic admiration in his auditory. "{

An excellent judge, the great Frederick Yon Schlegel,
passes the following opinion on his mental powers.

" In the first place, it is evident of itself that a man who accomplished so
mighty a revolution in the human mind, and in his age, could have been
endowed with no common powers of intellect, and no ordinary strength of
character. Even his writings display an astonishing boldness and energy
of thought, united with a spirit of impetuous, passionate, and convulsive

* Schwarzerde means literally black earth.

•f ^Egidius Albertinus im 4. Theil des Deutschen Lust-Hauses, vol. v, p.
143. — Apud Audin, p. 447, note. \ Audin, p. 225.

86 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

enthusiasm. The latter qualities are indeed not very compatible with a
prudent, enlightened, and dispassionate judgment."*

His indefatigable industry and untiring energy brought out
all his mental resources. He was restless and uneasy in
mind and heart : his spirit could never be still, after it had
lost the peace it once possessed in the bosom of the Catholic
Church. His mind was not elevated or refined ; it could not
appreciate the beauties of art in Koine, which he visited
during the splendid pontificate of Leo X. He seems to have
gleaned nothing else from his journey to the eternal city but a
few "house-wife stories or mendacious anecdotes."f

Much has been said of his courage, and of his utter disre
gard of danger. That he was bold and daring, we do not pre
tend to deny. It however required but little courage to be bold
in his interview with Cardinal Cajetan, or at the diet of Worms
in 1521. With the safe-conduct of the emperor, and the cer
tain protection of the powerful elector of Saxony, he had little
to apprehend. Besides, any man might become courageous,
at least at times, who had a powerful party to sustain him in
every thing. Luther was certainly most courageous where
there was least danger. He is altogether a different charac
ter at the diet of Worms, and at Wittenberg. He could hurl
defiance at Popes, emperors, and princes, when these were
far off, and he was out of their reach : but if he had any thing
to fear from them, the scene changed altogether. He then
became as obsequious and crouching, as he had before been
bold and reckless.

How meanly sycophantic was he on all occasions to the
elector of Saxony ! We will give one instance of this. When
Henry YIIL, of England, complained to the elector of Luther's
outrageous insults to his royal majesty, the elector barely inti
mated the fact in a very mild and indirect way to the reformer,
without even insinuating the propriety of the latter making any

* Philosophy of History, vol. ii, p. 204.

f See Audin, p. 135, for facts under this head.

HIS SUBSERVIENCY TO PRINCES. 87

reparation. Luther at once seized his pen, and indited the fol
lowing singular amende honorable. " Most serene king ! most
illustrious prince ! I should be afraid to address your majesty,
when I remember how much I must have offended you in the
book which, under the influence of bad advice, rather than of
my own feelings, I published against you, through pride and

vanity I blush now, and scarcely dare to raise my

eyes to you — I, who, by means of these workers of iniquity,
have not feared to insult so great a prince — I, who am a
worm and corruption, and who only merit contempt and dis
dain If your majesty thinks proper that, in another

work, I should recall my words, and glorify your name, vouch
safe to transmit to me your orders. I am ready and full of
good will,"* etc. In fact, as we shall hereafter prove, Luther
was indebted, in a great measure, to his sycophancy to princes
for the success of his pretended Reformation-)-.

His passions were violent, and he seems to have made little
effort to govern them. His violence, in fact, often drove him
to the very verge of insanity. His cherished disciple, Melanc-
thon, deplored his furious outbursts of temper. " I tremble
when I think of the passions of Luther : they yield not in
violence to the passions of Hercules."J The weak and timid
disciple had reason to tremble ; for he testifies that Luther
occasionally inflicted on him personal chastisement.^

If he thus treated his most intimate friends, what are we to
suppose. his conduct was towards his opponents and enemies ?

* Opp. Lutheri, Tom. ix, p. 234. Cochlaeus, p. 156, Ulenberg, p. 502.
See Audin, p. 300.

f Mr. Hallam, speaking of this letter of apology addressed by Luther to
Henry VIII., says : "Among the many strange things which Luther said and
wrote, I know not one more extravagant than this letter, which almost justi
fies the supposition that there was a vein of insanity in his very remarkable
character." — Constitutional History of England, Harper's edition, 1857;
p. 45, note.

I Melancthon Epist. ad Theodorum.

$ "Ab ipso colaphos accepi." — Epist ad eundem.

88 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

In his conferences with Cajetan and Miltitz, and in his letter
to Leo X., as well as in his famous speech at Worms, he
acknowledged the violence of his writings : Still, instead of
correcting this fault, it seems to have grown with his growth.
Witness the manner in which he replies to Tetzel. " It seems
to me, at the sound of these invectives, that I hear a great ass-
braying at me. I rejoice at it, and should be sorry that such
people should call me a good Christian."*'

He exhausts all the epithets of the coarsest ribaldry against
his opponents, no matter how respectable these may have
been. We can not pollute our pages with a tithe of his foul
language. Behold the spirit that breathes in the following
passage, in which he speaks of his theological antagonist
Emser : " After a little time I will pray against him ; I will
beseech God to render to him according to his works : it is
better that he should perish, than that he should continue to
blaspheme Christ. I do not wish you to pray for this wretch ;
pray for us alone."f His adversaries are full of devils : if they
die, the devil has strangled them ; " one foams at the mouth ;
another has the horns and tail of Satan. This one is clad as
Antichrist ; that man changed into a block. Oftentimes the
same personage, in the same page, is travestied as a mule, a
camel, an owl, and a mole."J

What are we to think, for instance, of the spirit of the
following language, addressed to an assembly of his own
disciples !

" My brethren, be submissive, and communicate only under one kind. If
you do what I say to you, I will be to you a good master ; I will be to you
a father, brother, friend. I will obtain graces and privileges from his majesty
for you. If you disobey me, I declare that I will become your enemy, and
do all the mischief possible to this city." §

Volumes might be filled with extracts from Luther's writ
ings, replete with the coarsest vulgarity and the grossest

* Luth. Opp. Leipsic, xvii, 132.

f Epist. ad Nicholas Hausman, 26 April, 1520.

t Audin, p. 118. $ Table Talk, p. 376.

HIS COARSENESS. 89

obscenity : the specimens we have given are among the mild
est and least objectionable.*

It is usual to excuse this coarseness of Luther by the spirit
of the age in which he lived. This is scarcely a valid apology
for one, who set himself up as a reformer of religion and of
morals, and who claimed a divine commission to establish a
new system of doctrine. Besides, we look in vain for any
such examples of vulgarity among his chief opponents in the
Catholic Church : Eraser, Eck, Cajetan, Erasmus, and the
great Leo X., were far too refined to employ any such vulgar
weapons. The reformers seemed to claim a 'special privilege
in this way. Let us exhibit a few specimens of the manner
in which some of those rival champions of reform, who dif
fered from Luther in their doctrinal views, spoke of the Saxon
reformer. They returned railing for railing.f

" This man," says one of his contemporary reformers, " is
absolutely mad. He never ceases to combat truth against
all justice, even against the cry of his own conscience."!
" He is puffed up," says another, " with pride and arro
gance, and is seduced by Satan ."§ " Yes," re-echoes another,
" the devil is master of Luther to such a degree as to make
one believe that he wishes to gain entire possession of
him." ||

The same brother reformer adds : " that he was possessed
not by one, but by a whole troop of devils ;"^[ and that " he
wrote all his works by the impulse and the dictation of the

* For more instances consult the following pages of Audin, 136, 163,
235, 237, 239, 240, 248, 273, 285, 287, 288, 299, etc., etc.

f It was well for such men as these to turn reformers, and to cry out
against the holy Catholic Church ! There was certainly great need of refor
mation, not of the Church, but of the coarse hypocrites who, reeking with
vice and impurity, lifted up their voices to calumniate better men than them
selves — a device to avert suspicion from their own conduct !

J Hospinian. § CEcolampadius. || Zuingle.

1F Non obsessum ab uno spiritu, sed occupatum a caterva daemonum. —
Jontra Lutherum. Apud Audin, p. 188.
VOL. I. 8

90 REFORMATION IN GERMANY,

devil, with whom he had dealings, and who in the struggle
seemed to have thrown him by victorious arguments."*

This last charge was not without foundation. Luther him
self relates his "conference with the devil" in full, and
acknowledges, at the close of it, that he was unable to answer
the arguments of Satan ! f The devil, as was quite natural,
argued against the lawfulness of private Masses, which Luther
feebly defended : and so convincing were the reasons of his
satanical majesty, that Luther wrote to his intimate friend
Melancthon immediately after: "I will not again celebrate
private Masses forever." J And he faithfully kept his prom
ise ! It was a favorite saying of his that, " unless we have
the devil hanging about our necks, we are but pitiful specula
tive theologians !"§

Can we wonder, then, at this compliment paid him by his
brother Protestants of the church of Zurich : " But how
strangely does this fellow let himself be carried away by his
devils ! How disgusting is his language, and how full are
his words of the devil of hell !"||

If these sayings are hard, it is surely not our fault ; Luther
bore similar testimony of himself, and of his brother Protest
ants, who happened to differ from him ; and these did but
retort on him similar compliments ! We are but the humble
witnesses and historians of the conflict. The reformers are
certainly unexceptionable witnesses of the characters of one

* Contra Confessionem Lutheri, p. 61. For more testimonies of the
kind, see Note A. at the end of this volume.

f In his treatise De Missa privata. See also Note B. at the end of the
present volume, where we will give the Satanic interview in full. It is a
document as curious as it is important, in forming an estimate of Luther's
character.

| " Sed et ego amplius non faciam missam privatam in aeternum." — Ad
Melancth. Aug. 1, 1521.

§ "Nisi diabolum habemus collo affixum, nihil nisi speculativi theologi
sumus." — Colloquia Mensalia, fol. 23. Apud Audin, i, 366. TurnbulPs
translation, two vols. 8vo, London.

II Church of Zurich — Contra Confess. Lutheri.

HIS MORALITY. 91

another. Is it likely that God selected such instruments to
reform His church ?

Luther's standard of morality was about as high as that
of his good breeding. St. Paul tells us that a Christian's
" conversation is in heaven ;"* Luther's, on the contrary, was
not only earthly, but often immoral and revolting in the ex
treme. He discussed, in all their most disgusting details,
subjects which St. Paul would not have so much as " named
among Christians."! His famous " Table Talk" is full of such
specimens of the new gospel decency. Wine and women,
the Pope and the devil, are the principal subjects of which
the reformer liked to treat, when alone with his intimate
friends, in private and unreserved conversation. For fifteen
years — from 1525 to 1540 — he usually passed the evenings at
the Black Eagle tavern of Wittenburg, where he met and
conversed, over the ale-jug, with his bosom friends, Melanc-
thon, Amsdorf, Aurifaber, Justus Jonas, Lange, Link, and
Staupitz.

His disciples carefully collected and published these con
versations of their " beloved master," as so many precious
oracles from heaven, delivered by the mouth of the new
apostle. Erasmus Albert, one of them, tells us, in a work
against Karlstadt, that " these table discourses of the doctor
are better than any sermons ;" and Frederick Mecum, another
early Lutheran, calls them "affecting conversations, which
ought to be diffused among the people."J The first editions
of the work were published in German and in Latin, by
Mathesius, Peter Rebstock, and Aurifaber, all zealous disci
ples of the reformer.§ If there was any indiscretion in thus
revealing to the world the secret conversations of this " ale-
pope of the Black Eagle" with his boon companions, their

* Philippians, iii : 20. f Ephes. v : 3. \ Apud Audin, p. 386.

\ The first edition was that of Eisleben, Luther's birth-place, in 1566,
twenty years after his death. It was speedily followed by others, at Frank
fort on the Oder in 1567 and 1571 ; at Jena in 1591 ; at Leipsic in 1603
and 1700 ; at Dresden and again at Leipsic in 1723.

92 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

zeal is alone to blame for the exposure. The Table Talk, or
Tisoli Reden^ as it is called in German, revealing as it does
the heart of Luther in his most unguarded moments, is per
haps the best key to his real character.*

We will not soil our pages with extracts from the Table
Talk, revealing the moral turpitude of Luther. Those who
may doubt the truth of the picture we have drawn, or who
may feel a curiosity in such matters, are referred to the work
itself — a ponderous folio of 1350 pages, besides an index,
which alone wrould make a volume of considerable size.f
Luther's immorality was not, however, confined to private
conversations at the Black Eagle: he unblushingly and sacri
legiously exhibited it in the very sanctuary of God's holy
temple. His Sermon on Matrimony, delivered in the German
language, from the pulpit of the public church of All Saints
at Wittenburg, enters into the most revolting details upon a
most delicate subject. The perusal of that sermon, even in
the French language — under the veil of which the translator
of M. Audin has wisely thought proper to leave it partially
concealed — is enough to raise a blush on the cheek of mod
esty! He preached this sermon in 1521, immediately after
his return from the Castle of the "Wartburg, where he had
held his famous "conference with the devil ;" and it is worthy
of such a master, if indeed the demon himself, who is said to
have little taste for such matters, would not have blushed at
the obscenity of his wanton disciple !

* Never, perhaps, was there a better or more striking illustration of the
old Latin adage, in vino veritas — in wine there is truth — than in these un
guarded and confidential conversations between Luther and his intimate
friends. Though concealment was no characteristic element of Luther's
character, even in his more sober moments, yet the whole depths of his
heart were more fully unveiled over his cups, in which he appears to have
indulged more and more as he advanced in years. Verily, he had now fully
given up all those practices of penitential austerity concerning which he
had been so scrupulous while a Catholic !

f M. Audin publishes copious extracts from the work, p. 387, seqq.

HIS TABLE TALK. 93

We may as well remark here, that it was in this same
church, about the same time, that Luther delivered the wither
ing invective against Karlstadt and some other ultra reform
ers, who had torn down or defaced the statues and paintings
of the church, during his absence at the Wartburg. The fol
lowing extract from this oration contains a boast characteristic
of Luther : " I have done more mischief to the Pope, even
while I slept, or was drinking beer with Philip and Amsdorf,
than all the princes and emperors put together!"*

We shudder while we record the following horrid blas
phemies, taken from his Table Talk; and we should have
refrained from publishing them, had he not set himself up as
a reformer of God's Church, and in that garb seduced many

from the faith. " May the name of the Pope be d d :

may his reign be abolished ; may his will be restrained ! If
I thought that God did not hear my prayer, I would address
the devil."f Again: "I owe more to my dear Catharine and
to Philip, than to God himself."! Finally : " God has made
many mistakes. I would have given him good advice had I
assisted at the creation. I would have made the sun shine
incessantly ; the day would have been without end."§ Could
human wickedness or temerity have gone further than this ? ||

* Opp. Lutheri, Tom. vii. Chytr. Chron. Sax. p. 247.

f Table Talk, p. 213, Edit. Eisleben.

t Ibid., p. 124. I Id. Ed. Frank, part ii, fol. 20.

|| In his Standard Library, Bohn publishes (in one volume 12mo, pp. 374,
London, 1857,) what purports to be Luther's Table Talk. We are indebted
for a copy of this production to our friend James Slevin, Esq., of Phila
delphia. It is said to be a reproduction of a translation made about the
middle of the seventeenth century by one Captain Henry Bell, an English
man, who tells us a most marvellous story concerning "the miraculous
preserving of Dr. Martin Luther's book, entitled Colloquia Mensalia, or his
Divine Discourses at his Table, etc." According to the account of this gal
lant romancer, he by chance found in Germany a copy of the precious book
hidden away in a deep hole in the ground, this being the only copy that
was left, all the rest having been burned by order of the Pope and the
emperor ! He reverently carried the book to England ; and when he was
dilatory in the translation, a nocturnal apparition frightened him into com-

»4 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

It is not a litttle remarkable, that from the date of his con
ference with the devil, Luther's moral career was constantly
downward ; until at last he reached the lowest grade of in
famy, and became utterly steeped in vice. How strongly
does his reckless conduct, after this period, contrast with, his
vigils, long prayers, and fasts, while an humble monk in the
Catholic Church ! He himself draws the contrast in his own
forcible manner.

He tells us that while a Catholic, " he passed his life in
austerities, in watchings, in fasts and praying, in poverty,
chastity and obedience."* When he had abandoned Catho
licity, he says of himself, that he was no longer able to resist
the vilest propensities, f and that, " as it did not depend upon
him not to be a man, so neither did it depend upon him to be
without a woman."J His immorality was generally known,
and he himself often acknowledged it. " He was," says Slei-
dan, a Protestant historian of the time, "so well aware of
his immorality, as we are informed by his favorite disciple
(Melancthon,) that he wished they would remove him from
the office of preaching."^ In his Table Talk, he often avowed

mencing the task, causing him " to fall into an extreme sweat !" See his
narrative in full, prefixed to Bohn's edition.

He does not choose to tell us whether the apparition was "white or
black" — a question which had seriously puzzled more than one reformer.
Verily, some people are prepared to beMeve almost any absurdity, provided
it only tally with their prejudices, and almost any marvel, provided it do
not point in the direction of the truth. We have never seen a more stupid
or clumsy imposture than this whole attempt to palm off on the public the
dreams of a miserable, and it would seem, disreputable adventurer ; and we
are surprised that such a man as William Hazlitt should have lent it his
countenance. The book itself is a bad abridgment of Luther's Table Talk,
with the more objectionable portions carefully left out. Only think of pub
lishing the immense folio of 1350 pages in a small 12mo volume ! Yet
there is no indication of its abridgment.

* Tom. v, Opp. Commentar. in c. i ad Gralatas v, 14.

f " Carnis meae indomitse uror magnis ignibus, came, libidine." Apud
Audin, p. 355. \ Opp. Tom. v, fol. 119. Sermo de Matrimonio.

6 Sleidan, B. ii, An. 1520.

HIS MARRIAGE. 95

the base passions which raged within him ; but in language
much too gross for our pages. He sometimes complained,
that "the Wittenbergers who supply all the monks with
wives, will not give me one."*

Though he had made a solemn vow of chastity; and
though the Holy Scriptures command us to fulfill our vows ;f
yet he married Catharine Bora, a nun bound by similar sacred
engagements ! J He hesitated long before he took this step,
and had some conscientious twitchings even while taking it :
his conscience did not become wholly seared, until some time
afterwards ! While at the "Wartburg in 1521 — a little before
his satanical interview — he uttered the following exclamation
of horror, on being shown some theses of his recreant dis-

* See Meyer— Ehren Gredachtniss, fol. 26. f Psalm Ixxv : 12.

} The Protestant historian of Germany, Wolfgang Menzel, speaking of
Luther's marriage, says : " Luther, in defiance of the ancient prophecy, that
antichrist would spring from the union of a monk and nun, wedded (A. D.
1525,) the beautiful young nun Catharine Von Bora, who brought him sev
eral children." Vol. ii, p. 249, edit. Bohn, London, 1853. He was not the
first apostate priest who married at the period of the Reformation ; Karl-
stadt, Bernhard, and others had preceded him in the reformatory race mat
rimonial. Ibid., p. 232.

As we shall have occasion to quote Menzel frequently hereafter, we may
as well remark here, that though occasionally candid in his statement of
facts, he takes little pains to disguise his prejudice against the Catholic
Church ; which circumstance renders his testimony the more unexception
able whenever it is favorable to the Church. One can hardly have patience
while reading the flippant and stupid calumnies, which he heaps together
on p. 218, seqq., of this second volume, in reference to the character of the
Popes who preceded Leo X., the sale of indulgences, and the first move
ments of the Reformation in Germany. He assigns no authority whatever
for his calumnious and almost incredible statements. Among other things,
for instance, he says that the ignorance of the clergy " was countenanced by
the Popes, who expressly decreed that out of ten ecclesiastics only one was
to study !" P. 220. The Popes had always decreed precisely the contrary,
as every one knows who has read history. This very Pontiff, Leo X., had
enacted, that "thenceforth none should be raised to the priesthood but men
of ripe years, of exemplary conduct, and who had gone through a long course
of study." See Audin, vol. i, p. 79, London edition.

96 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

ciple, Karlstadt, in which this man allowed wives to priests
and monks — "Good heaven! will our Wittenburg friends
allow wives even to monks ! Ah ! at least they will not
make me take a wife."* And again he says : " The friars
have of their own accord chosen a life of celibacy ; they are
therefore not at liberty to withdraw from the obligations they
have laid themselves under ."f Three years later, in 1524, he
said: "God may change my purpose, if such be his pleasure;
but at present I have no thought of taking a wife."J

And yet, but a few short weeks elapsed before he espoused
Catharine Bora ! That he had some misgivings on the occa
sion, would appear from these words of his letter to an inti
mate friend, "Wenceslaus Link — " Away with your scruples :
let the Lord be glorified. I have my little Catharine. I
belong to Bora, and am dead to the world "§ — and to con
science. To Koeppe, another boon companion, he wrote:
" You know well what has happened to me. I am caught in
the snares of a woman. God must have been angry with me
and with the world." || Luther at first felt the degradation to
which he had stooped, in violating his sacred vows. In a
letter to his intimate friend Spalatin, immediately after his
marriage, he says : " That he had made himself so vile and
contemptible by these nuptials, that he hopes all the angels
will laugh, and all the demons weep !"^[ Still this feeling
soon gave way to a conviction, which he expressed in a con
fidential letter to another friend, "That God himself had
inspired him with the thought of marrying that nun, Catha
rine de Bora ! !"** Could inconsistency and infatuation go
further than this ?

* At mihi non obtrudent uxorem. Lib. Epist. ii, p. 40. D'Aubigne iii,
26. Audin, vol. i, p. 337. f Ibid., p. 34 ; D'Aubigne, ib.f p. 26, 27.

\ Epist. ii, p. 570, 30th Nov., 1524.

\ Epist. Tom. ii, p. 245. Wittenb. edit. Seckendorf, 1. i, s. 63, clxxxii.

|| Ibid. Tom. ii, p. 903. Edit. Altenb.

IT Epistola Spalatino. " Sic me vilem et contemptum his nuptiis feci, ut
angelos ridere, et dsemones flere sperem." ** Epist. Wenceslao Link.

HIS MARRIAGE. 97

The whole world was astounded, or at least greatly shocked
at this conduct of the Saxon reformer. The Catholics viewed
it as open sacrilege: many Protestants were saddened and
scandalized. Among these was Melancthon, who deplored
this conduct of his master in a letter to Camerarius ; but with
singular inconsistency adds : " Wo, however, to him who
would reject the doctrine, on account of the sins of the
teacher !" The accomplished, but wavering Erasmus, viewed
it but as another proof of his caustic remark, " That the tra
gedy of the Reformation ever terminated in the comedy of
marriage." In a letter written on the occasion, he says:
"This is a singular occurrence; Luther has thrown off the
philosopher's cloak, and has just married a young woman of
twenty-six — handsome, well-made, and of a good family, but
who has no dowry, and who for some time had ceased to be
a vestal. The nuptials were most auspicious ; for a few days
after the hymeneal songs were sung, the bride was delivered !
Luther revels, while a hundred thousand peasants descend to
the tomb !"* The scandalous circumstance here developed
may perhaps explain Luther's haste in the matter.

All Germany was aroused by the tidings of Luther's mar
riage. His opponents, as well as those who were indifferent,

* Epist. Danieli Manchis Ulmensi. Oct. 6, 1525. This letter of Erasmus
has given rise to an animated controversy between the friends and opponents
of Luther. Those who may wish to see both sides, are referred to Audin,
p. 362, seqq. There seems to be little doubt, that the caustic censure of
Erasmus had a basis in truth. See also Bayle's Dictionary, article Luther.
The alleged retraction by Erasmus is believed by many to have been a for
gery. If Froben, who collected and published the Epistles of Erasmus,
omitted the original passage in his letter to Daniel Ulm criminating Luther,
he would scarcely have scrupled to interpolate this passage containing the
alleged retraction. Besides, Luther's immorality was well known, and not
concealed even by himself. His conversation was habitually such as to indi
cate a corrupt heart. He had, moreover, a son Andrew, as he testifies in his
Table Talk, though his name is not given in the list of his children fur
nished elsewhere, which is very suspicious. Finally, he speaks of an ille
gitimate child of his wife Catharine. See Audin, Ibid.
VOL. I. — 9

98 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

laughed at his expense through all the notes of the gamut.
Sonnets, epigrams, satires, epithalamia, and caricatures,
poured in on his devoted head, like a hail storm, from every
quarter. Among these, the best perhaps were those of Doc-
tore Emser and Wimpina. The former extemporized a
nuptial song, or epithalamium, in Latin verse, and set it to
music: "Farewell! cowl, prior, guardian, abbot: adieu to alL
vows : adieu to matins and prayers, fear and shame : adieu to
conscience !"* The latter, in a wood-cut caricature, exhibited,
in withering and ludicrous contrast, the marriage of Luther
and the divine injunction : " Vow ye, and pay to the Lord
your God " — Yovete, et reddite Domino Deo tuo.f

Luther seems to have retired for a time from the pitiless
peltings of the storm — "dead to the world, with his little
Catharine" — but he again emerged from solitude, more reck
less and violent than ever. As Erasmus remarked, " mar
riage had not tamed him !" Indeed, it would seem that " his
little Catharine" gave him no little trouble and annoyance.
She sometimes played the part of the scold and the vixen.
He used to call her — after the honey-moon, of course — "my
master Ketha."J — Poor man !

Before he left the Catholic Church, he was temperate and
abstemious: during the last twenty-one years of his life —
from his marriage in 1525 to his death in 1546 — he was
much given to the luxuries of the table, and drank beer copi
ously, if not to excess. Maimbourg and others tell us, that

* Cuculla, vale, capa !
Vale, prior, custos, abba !
Cum obedientia,

Cum jubilo.
Ite vota, preces, horae,
Vale timor cum pudore :
Vale conscientia !

CocU&us in Act. Lu&ieri, foL 118.

f Psalm Ixxv: 12 ; Prot vers. Ixxvi: 12. The only answer Luther made
to Wimpina, was this : " Let the sow grunt ! " | " Dominus meus Ketha,"

HIS DEATH BEFORE AND AFTER. 99

he lost the use of reason at many of the sumptuous banquets,
in which he was wont to revel with his intimate friends ; and
Seckendorf, his warmest admirer, admits that "he used food
and drink joyfully, and indulged in jokes,"* even on the eve
of his death. In fact, so little was he in the habit of re
straining his passions, or of concealing his vices, that they
all stood out in bold relief, — strong even in death !

His death was in every respect worthy of the life he had
habitually led since he had turned reformer. His last words
contained a refusal to retract his errors, and a declaration
that he wished to die as he had lived ! We will give a few
incidents connected with his last moments. "I am ready
to die," he said, " whenever it shall please God my Saviour ;
but I would wish to live till Pentecost, that I might stigma
tize before the whole world this Roman beast, whom they
call the Pope, and with him his kingdom." His pains be
coming very acute, he said one day to his nurse : "I wish
there was a Turk here to kill me." Hear how he prays, while
suffering: "My sins — death, the devil — give me no rest!
What other consolation have I but thy grace, O God ! Ah !
let it not abandon the most miserable of men, the greatest of
sinners !" Witness again the spirit of the following charac
teristic prayer, in which the supplication for mercy is blended
with hatred of his enemies : " O my God ! how I would wish
that Erasmus and the Sacramentarians did for a moment
experience the pains that I suffer : then I would become a
prophet and foretell their conversion."!

After the sumptuous feast alluded to above, he gave vent
to his humor in the following strain, the subject of which is
the devil — his usual hobby : " My dear friends, we can not
die, till we have caught hold of Lucifer by the tail ! I saw
his back yesterday from the castle turrets ."J

* " Cibo et potu hilariter usus est ; et facetiis indulsit." Seckendorf, Com-
mentar. de Lutheranismo.

f For more facts of a similar kind, see Audin, p. 482, seqq.
J Rareburgius, in his MS. Seckendorf, lib. iii, $ 36, cxxxiv.

100 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

The discourse subsequently turned on the study of the
Scriptures, and Luther- made the following declaration, which
is valuable as a death-bed confession. "It is no trifle to
understand the Scriptures. Five years' hard labor will be
required to understand YirgiPs Georgics : twenty years' expe
rience to be master of Cicero's Epistles: and a hundred
years' intercourse with the prophets Elias, Eliseus, John the
Baptist, Christ, and the apostles, to know the Scriptures ! —
Alas ! poor human nature !"*' And yet the last twenty-nine
years of his life had been devoted to the promulgation of the
cardinal principle of his new religion, that every one was
competent to understand the Scriptures by his own private
judgment! "Well may we exclaim — "Alas! poor human
nature !"

Such was, or rather became, Martin Luther, after he had
left the holy Catholic Church ! Compare his character then
with what it was before that event ; and then apply D ' Au-
bigne's test given above, and the conclusion is irresistible:
that he was not a chosen instrument in the hands of God for
reforming the Church, which "He had purchased with His
blood." f Before he left the Church, he was, as we have seen,
humble, patient, pious, devoted, chaste, scrupulous; after
wards, he was, in every one of these particulars, directly the
reverse. Does God choose such instruments to do his work ?
Was Moses, was Aaron, were the apostles such characters ?
Luther, like the apostles, forsooth! They were humble,
chaste, patient, temperate, and modest: he was proud, im
moral, impatient, and wholly shameless. They had a mission
from God, and proved it by mirales : he had not the one, nor
did he claim the other; though challenged on the subject,
both by the Zuinglians and by the Anabaptists.J Therefore

* Florimond "Remond, b. iii, c. ii, foL 287. Laign, vita Lutheri, fol. 4.

f Acts xx : 28.

| See Audin, p. 239. Stiibner, an Anabaptist, asked him to produce his
miracles. He was silent, though a little before, he had made the very same
challenge to Karlstadt, and renewed it afterwards to the Zuinglians !

CHARACTER OF THE REFORMERS. 101

God did not send him — and all of D'Aubigne's canting theory
falls of itself to the ground. "What must the look of the
Reformation be, if Luther's personal character be the key,
which suits its internal structure ?

It would be easy to show, by unquestionable evidence, that
the other reformers were not a whit better than Luther. "We
have seen already, what testimony they mutually bore to the
character of one another ; and we shall probably have occa
sion to recur to the subject in the sequel of our essay :

" The historian, Hume, has truly characterized the reformers as ' fanatics
and bigots ;' but with no less justice might he have added, that they were
(with one exception perhaps}* the coarsest hypocrites :f men, who, while
professing the most high-flown sanctity in their writings, were in their con
duct, brutal, selfish, and unrestrainable ; who, though pretending, in matters
of faith, to adopt reason as their guide, were in all things else, the slaves of
the most vulgar superstition ; and who, with the boasted right of private
judgment forever on their lips, passed their lives in a course of mutual re
crimination and persecution ; and transmitted the same warfare as an heir
loom to their descendants. Yet, ' these be thy Gods,' 0 Protestantism ! —
these the coarse idols which heresy has set up in the niches of the saints
and fathers of old, and whose names, like those of all former such idols, are
worn like brands upon the foreheads of their worshipers."!

Whoever will read attentively the veridical history of the
Reformation, will admit the truth of this picture drawn by
the great Irish bard.

* Melancthon.

f Bucer admits the justice of this reproach. Epist. ad Calvin.
t " Travels of an Irish Gentleman," etc., p. 200, 201. Doyle, New York,
1835.

PART II.

CAUSES AND MANNER OF THE REFORMATION.

CHAPTER II.

CHARACTER OP THE REFORMATION— THEORY OF
D'AUBIGNE EXAMINED.

The question stated — D'Aubigne's opinion — Mother and daughter — Argu-
mentum ad hominem — Jumping at a conclusion — Second causes — Why
Germany was converted — Why Italy and Spain were not — Luther and
Mohammed — Seasoning by contraries — Why France continued Catholic.

WE have seen what was the character of the chief instru
ments who brought about the Reformation in Germany ; we
are now to examine what was the character of the work itself,
and how it was accomplished. Were the reasons which were
assigned, as the principal motives for this alleged reform in
religion, sufficient to justify it, according to the judgment of
impartial men ? Were the means employed for bringing it
about such as would lead us to believe, that it was really a
change for the better ; and were they such as God would or
could have approved and sanctioned? Finally, weighing
these motives and these means, and making all due allow
ance for the condition of the times, was there any thing very
remarkable in the rapid progress of the Reformation itself?
We will endeavor to answer these questions in the following
chapters.

D'Aubigne, and those who concur with him, profess to
believe, or at least endeavor to make others believe, that the
Reformation was not only sanctioned by God, but that it was
directly His work. He says :

" Christianity and the Reformation are, indeed, the same revolution, but
working at different periods, and in dissimilar circumstances. They differ
in secondary features — they are alike in their first lines, and leading charac-
(102)

ITS RAPID DIFFUSION. 103

teristics. The one is the reappearance of the other. The former closes the
old order of things — the latter begins the new. Between them is the
middle age. One is the parent of the other ; and if the daughter is in some
respects inferior, she has, in others, characters altogether peculiar to herself."*

In opposition to this flattering theory, we will endeavor to
prove that the Reformation differs from Christianity, not only
"in secondary features," but also " in its first lines and leading
characteristics ;" and that, if the former was the daughter of
the latter, she was a most recreant and degenerate daughter
truly, with scarcely one lineament in common with her parent.
Yerily, she had "characters altogether peculiar to herself,"
and she was not only " in some respects," but in almost every
thing, not only "inferior" to, but the direct opposite, of her
alleged parent !

According to our author, one of these " characters of the
Reformation peculiar to itself," was " the suddenness of its
action." He illustrates the rapidity with which the Reforma
tion was established, by the figure employed by our blessed
Saviour to denote the suddenness of His second coming : "As
the lightning cometh forth from the west and shineth to the
east, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be."
" Christianity," he says, " was one of those revolutions, which
was slowly and gradually prepared ;" the Reformation, on the
contrary, was instantaneous in its effect : — " A monk speaks,
and in half of Europe the power and glory [of the Church
of Rome] crumbles in the dust ! "f This rapidity he views as
a certain evidence, that the Reformation was assuredly the
work of God. For " how could an entire people — how could
so many nations, have so rapidly performed so difficult a
work ? How could such an act of critical judgment [on the
necessity and measure of the reform] kindle the enthusiasm
indispensable to great, and especially to sudden revolutions ?
But the Reformation was a work of a very different kind ;
and this, its history will prove. It was the pouring forth anew
of that life which Christianity had brought into the world." J

* D'Aubinge, Preface, p. iv. f Ibid. J Ibid.

104 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

We trust to make it appear in the sequel, that the rapidity
with which the Reformation was diffused, was the result of
the pouring forth of a different spirit altogether. Meantime
we would beg leave to ask D'Aubigne to answer this plain
argument, specially adapted to the case as he puts it : if the
suddenness of the Reformation be a proof that it was brought
about by the " pouring forth anew of that life which Christi
anity had brought into the world ;" would not the contrary
feature of Christianity — its gradual operation* — be a conclu
sive evidence, that this latter system was not the work of
God? And if tl^is argument be not valid, what truth is
there in D' Aubigne's entire theory ? "Would not his reason
ing, if reduced to the strict laws of logic, rather prove, on
the contrary, if it proved any thing, that the Reformation,
differing avowedly as it does in an essential feature from
Christianity, was not effected by the agency of the Holy
Spirit, but was the mere result of violent human passions,
which usually bring about sudden revolutions, both in the
religious and in the social system ?

It is curious to trace the further development of his favor
ite theory.

"Two considerations will account for the rapidity and extent of this
revolution. One of these must be sought in God, the other among men.
The impulse was given by an unseen hand of power, and the change which
took place was the work of God. This will be the conclusion arrived at by
every one who considers the subject with impartiality and attention, and
does not rest in a superficial view. But the historian has a further office to
perform — God acts by second causes. Many circumstances, which have
often escaped observation, gradually prepared men for the great transforma
tion of the sixteenth century, so that the human mind was ripe when the
hour of its emancipation arrived."!

ISTow, we have given no little attention to the subject, and
we claim at least as much impartiality as our historian of
" the great Reformation ;" and yet, with the facts of history
before us, we can arrive at no such conclusion, but have

* This we merely suppose with D'Aubigne, who assumes that such is
the fact f D'Aubigne, Preface, p. v.

WHY ITALY WAS NOT CONVERTED. 105

reached one precisely contrary. And the reasons which
have forced us to draw this latter inference are so many and
so cogent, that we are even under the conviction, that no one
who will " consider the subject with impartiality and atten
tion, and does not rest in a superficial view," can fail to agree
with us.

In examining the secondary causes, by which God " gradu
ally prepared men for the great transformation of the sixteenth
century," our historian assigns a prominent place to the cen
tral and commanding position of Germany.

" As Judea, the birth-place of our religion, lay in the centre of the ancient
world, so Germany was situate in the midst of Christian nations. She
looked upon the Netherlands, England, France, Switzerland, Italy, Hun
gary, Bohemia, Poland, Denmark, and the whole of the north. It was fit
that the principle of life should develop itself in the heart of Europe, that
its pulses might circulate through all the arteries of the body the generous
blood designed to vivify its members."*

He alleges the following most singular reasons why Ger
many was prepared for embracing the Reformation :

" The Germans had received from Eome that element of modern civiliza
tion, the faith. Instruction, legislation — all, save their courage and their
weapons, had come to them from the sacerdotal city. Strong ties had from
that time attached Germany to the Papacy."f — Therefore was she " ripe "
for a rupture with Rome ! This connexion with Rome " made the reaction
more powerful at the moment of awakening."!

Again : " The gospel had never been offered to Germany
in its primitive purity ; the first missionaries who visited the
country gave to it a religion already vitiated in more than one
particular. It was a law of the Church, a spiritual discipline,
that Boniface and his successors carried to the Frisons, the
Saxons, and other German nations. Faith in the ' good tid
ings,' that faith which rejoices the heart and makes it free
indeed, had remained unknown to them." § — Therefore, when
Luther and his brother reformers announced these "good

* D'Aubigne, Book i, p. 76. f Ibid., pp. 78, 79.

t Ibid., p. 79. $ Ibid., p. 78.

106 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

tidings" in all their purity for the first time — fraught too with
endless variations and contradictions — The Germans were
prepared for the " awakening," and received the gospel with
enthusiasm!! Truly, our fanciful and romantic historian
loves to reason by contraries, and to startle his readers by
palpable absurdities !

]STo less curious is his reason for explaining why the Italians
did not receive the new gospel :

"And if the truth was destined to come from the north, how could the
Italians, so enlightened, of so refined a taste and social habits, so delicate in
their own eyes, condescend to receive any thing at the hands of the barba
rous Germans ? Then- pride, in fact, raised between the Reformation and
themselves a barrier higher than the Alps. But the very nature of their
mental culture was a still greater obstacle than the presumption of their
hearts. Could men, who admired the elegance of a well cadenced sonnet
more than the majestic simplicity of the Scriptures, be a propitious soil for
the seed of God's word ? A false civilization is, of all conditions of a nation,
that which is most repugnant to the gospel."* +

Those who have read Roscoe's " Life and Pontificate of Leo
X.," will greatly question the accuracy of this picture of Italian
civilization. We shall prove in the sequel, that, both before
and during the time of the Reformation, Italy did much more
than Germany, to evidence her admiration " for the majestic
simplicity of the Scriptures." At present we will barely
remark, that the gist of D'Aubigne's theory consists in the
assertion, that Italy was too enlightened, too refined in taste
and social habits, too delicate in her own eyes, and conse
quently too proud and presumptuous to receive the new gos
pel ; while Germany, being on the contrary, less enlightened,
less refined, and more corrupt in doctrine and morals, was a
more genial soil — just the one, in fact, which was most " ripe"
for its reception, and most likely to foster its growth ! "We
most cheerfully award to him the entire benefit of this novel
and marvelous speculation on the most suitable means of dis
posing men's minds for the willing reception of gospel truth.

* D ' Aubigne\ Book i, p. 84.

WHY SPAIN WAS NOT CONVERTED. 107

To confirm this singular theory still further, he thus accounts
for the singular fact that Spain did not embrace Protestantism :

" Spain possessed, what Italy did not — a serious and noble people, whose
religious mind has resisted even the stern trial of the eighteenth century,
and of the revolution (French), and maintained itself to our own days. In
every age, this people has had among its clergy men of piety and learning,
and it was sufficiently remote from Rome to throw off without difficulty her
yoke. There are few nations wherein one might more reasonably have hoped
for a revival of that primitive Christianity, which Spain had probably received
from St. Paul himself. And yet Spain did not then stand up among the
nations. She was destined to be an example of that word of the divine
wisdom, 'the first shall be last.' "*

What a pity ! We have little doubt ourselves, that these
were precisely some of the principal reasons, why Spain did
not stand up among the nations who revolted against Catho
licity in the sixteenth century: and her having passed un
scathed through this fiery ordeal of reckless innovation, may
also serve to explain to us, how she was enabled " to resist
even the stern trial of the eighteenth century, and of the
revolution." Her people were too " serious and too noble,"
their mind was too " religious," and their clergy had too much
" piety and learning," to allow them to be carried away by
the novel vagaries of Protestantism.

Among the " various circumstances which conduced to the
deplorable result" — of her remaining Catholic, D'Aubigne
mentions her "remoteness from Germany," the "heart" of
Europe — "an eager desire after riches" in the new world —
the influence of her "powerful clergy" — and her military
glory, which had just risen to its zenith, after the conquest
of Grenada and the expulsion of the Moors. In reference to
this last cause, he asks emphatically : "How could a people
who had expelled Mohammed from their noble country, allow
Luther to make way in it ? "f — This question is at least charac
teristic ! Was there then, in the ideas of the serious and
noble Spaniards, so little difference between Luther and Mo-

* D'Aubigne, Book i, p. 85. f Ibid., p. 86.

108 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

hammed ? And is our philosophic historian half inclined him
self to think, that they were not so very far out in their logic !

"Few countries," he says, "seemed likely to be better
disposed than France for the reception of the evangelical
doctrines. Almost all the intellectual and spiritual life of
the middle ages was concentrated in her. It might have
been said, that the paths were everywhere trodden for a,
grand manifestation of the truth."* — Perhaps this very pre
servation of the intellectual and spiritual life of the middle
ages, was a principal reason why France continued Catholic.
A little farther on,f he continues : " The (French) people, of
quick feeling, intelligent, and susceptible of generous emotions,
were as open, or even more so than other nations, to the truth.
It seemed as if the Reformation must be, among them, the birth
which should crown the travail of several centuries. But
the chariot of France, which seemed for so many generations
to be advancing to the same goal, suddenly turned at the mo
ment of the Reformation, and took a contrary direction. Such
was the will of Him, who rules nations and their kings." — We
greatly admire his pious resignation to the will of God ! This
sentiment may perhaps console him for his disappointment ;
" that the augury of ages was deceived," in regard to France.J
He adds, in the same pious strain: "Perhaps, if she had
received the gospel, she might have become too powerful ! "

He winds up his affecting Jeremiad over France with these
and similar passages :

" France, after having been almost reformed, found herself,
in the result, Roman Catholic. The sword of her princes,
cast into the scale, caused it to incline in favor of Rome.
Alas ! another sword, that of the reformers themselves, in
sured the failure of the effort for reformation. The hands
that had been accustomed to warlike weapons, ceased to be
lifted up in prayer. It is by the blood of its confessors, not
by that of its adversaries, that the gospel triumphs. Blood

* D'Aubigne, Book i, p. 86. f Ibid., p. 87. | Ibid.

FAILURE OF REFORM IN FRANCE. 109

shed by its defenders, extinguishes and smothers it."* — That
is, the Reformation sought to establish itself in France by
violence and by force, and it signally failed !f Elsewhere, as
we shall see, it was more successful in the employment of such
carnal weapons. But Protestantism obtained sufficient foot
hold in France to do incredible mischief for a century and a
half; and it sowed upon her beautiful soil the fatal seeds
which, two centuries and a half later, produced the bitter
fruits of anarchy, infidelity, and bloodshed, during the dread
ful " reign of terror !"

Such is the theory of D ' Aubigne in regard to what we may
perhaps designate the philosophy of the Reformation ; and we
now proceed to its refutation ; — which is no difficult task, as
in fact it sufficiently refutes itself.

* D Aubigne, Book i. p. 87.

f In our second volume, we shall have occasion to prove, we trust by
abundant evidence, that this is strikingly true, and that D 'Aubigne is not
far wrong in his appreciation of the unsuccessful effort to thrust the Refor
mation on France.

110 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

CHAPTER III.

PRETEXTS FOR THE REFORMATION.

Usual plea — Abuses greatly exaggerated — Three questions put and an
swered — Origin of abuses — Free-will unimpaired — Councils to extirpate
abuses — Church thwarted by princes and the world — Controversy on In
vestitures — Extent of the evil — Sale of indulgences — St. Peter's Church —
'John Tetzel — His errors greatly exaggerated — Public penance — License
to sin — Nature of indulgences — Tetzel rebuked and his conduct disavowed
by Rome — Miltitz and Cardinal Cajetan — Kindness thrown away — Luther
in tears — Efforts of Rome — Leo X. and Adrian VI. — Their forbearance
censured by Catholic writers — Their tardy severity justified by D'Aubigne
— Luther's real purpose — The proper remedy — The real issue — Nullifica
tion — " Curing and cutting a throat " — Luther's avowal — Admissions of
the confession of Augsburg and of Daille — Summing up.

THE usual plea for the Reformation is, that it was necessary
for the correction of the flagrant abuses which had crept into
the Catholic Church. These are, of course, greatly exaggera
ted and are painted in the most glowing colors, by D'Aubigne,
and by other writers favorable to the Reformation. He dwells
with evident complacency on the vices of one or two Popes,
and of some of the Catholic bishops and clergy, both secular
and regular, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. He
represents the whole Church as thoroughly corrupt, and states
that, but for the efforts of the reformers, religion would have
perished entirely from the face of the earth. "We have al
ready seen how he compared the reformers, preaching up
their new-fangled doctrines among the benighted Roman
Catholics of the sixteenth century, to the apostles preaching
the gospel to the pagans of their day ! And how coolly he as
sured us that the " Reformation was but the re-appearance of
Christianity ! " We beg to record our solemn protest against
the gross injustice of this entire view of the subject.

But we are asked : — What ? do you deny the existence of
abuses in the Catholic Church? Do you deny, that those
(110)

ORIGIN OF ABUSES. Ill

abuses were great and wide spread ? Do you deny, that it
was proper, and even necessary to correct them? — We deny
none of these things : except that there is an implied exagger
ation in the second question. We admit the existence of the
evil complained of, especially about the beginning of the six
teenth century ; and we deplore it, as sincerely at least, as do
the opponents of the Catholic Church. A good cause can
never suffer from candidly avowing the truth, and the whole
truth. Let genuine history pronounce its verdict as to the
real facts of the case ; and we at once bow to the decision.
But what was the origin of the abuses complained of? what
was their extent? and what was the adequate and proper
remedy for them ? We will endeavor briefly to answer these
three questions, which, we apprehend, go to the root of the
matter under discussion.

1. It was not the intention of Christ, nor was it the design
of the Christian religion wholly to prevent the possibility of
abuses. He willed, indeed, that all men should embrace His
religion, and reduce its holy principles to practice ; in which
case, there would have been no disorders nor abuses on the
face of the earth, and the world would have been an earthly
paradise, free from all stain of sin. But this state of perfec
tion could not have been effectually brought about, without
offering violence to man's free will, which God, in His moral
government of the world, has ever wished to leave unimpaired.
Religion was freely offered to mankind, with all its saving
truths, its holy maxims, its purifying institutions, and its
powerful sanctions of rewards and punishments in an after
life. Sufficient grace was also bounteously proffered to all,
to enable them to learn and believe its doctrines, and to
observe its commandments. But no one was compelled to
do either. Even among the twelve chosen apostles, who were
trained under the immediate eye of Christ, there was one
" devil."

Christ himself foresaw and distinctly foretold that scandals
would come ; but He contented himself with pronouncing a

112 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

" woe on that man by whom the scandal cometh."* In His
spiritual kingdom, the Church, there was to be cockle, as well
as the good wheat, and He willed " that both should grow
until the harvest "f of the general judgment; in which only
the final separation of the good and evil will take place. Noth
ing is more foreign to the nature of Christ's Church, than the
proposition that it was intended only to comprise the elect and
the just. The struggle between good and evil — between truth
and error — between the powers of heaven and the " gates of
hell" — is to go on until the consummation of the world: but
Christ has pledged His solemn word, that " the gates of hell
shall not prevail against His Church ; " J and that He will be
with the body of His pastors and teachers " all days even to
the consummation of the world."§

Abuses are accordingly known to have existed in all ages
of the Church, even during her palmiest days. The writings
of the earliest fathers — of St. Cyprian, of Tertullian, of St.
Ambrose, and St. John Chrysostorn — paint them in the most
glowing colors. The Church never approved of them — she
could not do so even for a day; for Christ had solemnly
promised to guard her, His own beloved and glorious Spouse,
" without spot or wrinkle," from falling away from her fidel
ity by lapsing into or sanctioning error. She bore her con
stant testimony against them, and labored without intermission
for their removal. Her eighteen general councils, one for each
century, and her local ecclesiastical assemblies, almost with
out number — diocesan, provincial, and national, — what are
they all but evidences of this her constant solicitude, and re
cords of her noble and repeated struggles for the extirpation
of error and vice ? There is not an error that she has not
proscribed ; not a vice nor an abuse upon which she has not
set the seal of her condemnation. She was divinely commis
sioned for this purpose : and well and fully has she discharged
the sacred commission.

* Math, xviii : 7. t IW<L, xiii : 30.

t Math, xvi : 18. I Ibid., xxviii : 20.

INVESTITURES EXTENT OF THE EVIL. 113

Whenever she was not opposed nor thwarted in her heav
enly purpose by the wicked ones of the earth, error and vice
disappeared before her, like the mist before the rising sun.
But she had at all times to contend with numerous, and some
times, from the human point of view, with seemingly insur
mountable obstacles. This was particularly the case during
the middle ages. The princes of the earth, especially in Ger
many, sought, during that whole period, to enslave the Church,
and to make the bishops the mere subservient instruments of
their worldly purposes and earthly ambition. This they en
deavored to effect by making them their vassals, and by
claiming a right to confer on them even the INSIGNIA of their
spiritual office. The effect of this last claim was to render the
appointment of bishops and of the higher clergy, as well as
the exercise of their spiritual jurisdiction, but too often de
pendent on the corrupt policy or mischievous whims of the
secular power. The Roman Pontiffs maintained an arduous
contest, for centuries, with the emperors of Germany and
with other princes, against this glaring and wicked usurpa
tion, fraught as it was with countless evils to the Church,
which it attacked in the very fountains of her spiritual
power. The question of Investitures was one of vital
consequence, of liberty or slavery for the Church. After
a protracted struggle the Pontiffs succeeded ; but their suc
cess was neither so complete nor so permanent as the friends
of the Church could have wished. Emperors, kings, and
princes, especially those of the Germanic body, had still
far too much power in the nomination of bishops and of
the clergy.*

II. The consequences were most disastrous for the Church.
Unworthy bishops were often intruded by the German empe
rors and princes into the principal sees. The example and
the influence of these were frequently baneful to the charac-

* This, we think, we have already sufficiently established in the Intro
ductory chapter to the present volume.
VOL. I. — 10

114 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

ter of the inferior clergy. Owing to the operation of these
causes, the bishops and clergy of Germany, many of them,
had greatly degenerated, about the beginning of the sixteenth
century. Still there were many brilliant exceptions. The
evil was by no means so general or so wide-spread as it is
usually represented. We are yet free to avow that it is difficult
to explain how such large bodies of the clergy abandoned the
Church in many countries of Europe, in any other supposition
than that they had sadly degenerated from primitive fervor.
At the bidding of their prince, or at the prompting of their
own self-interest, they, in an evil hour, abandoned that Church
which they had promised to defend, and at whose altars they
had been solemnly consecrated !

The abuse and alleged sale of indulgences afforded the
principal pretext for the h'rst movements of the Reformation.
The Church had always maintained her power to grant indul
gences: she never sanctioned, in her official capacity, the
abuses which, at some times and in some places, grew out of
the exercise of this power. In the early centuries the canons
imposed long and painful public penances on certain grievous
transgressions. A canon of the general Council of Nice, in
325, had given to the bishops a discretionary power to remit
the whole or a part of those penances, when the penitent
manifested special fervor. Other councils made similar enact
ments. During the middle ages the rigor of the ancient peni
tential system was greatly softened down : and the penances
themselves were often commuted into alms or other pious
works.

About the beginning of the sixteenth century, Leo X. de
termined to push forward to completion a project conceived
by his predecessor Julius II., of erecting in Rome a Christian
temple, which should far surpass, in dimensions and magnifi
cence, any thing that the world had ever yet seen. The
origination of the plan of St. Peter's church was an idea
worthy the mind of these magnificent Pontiffs ; and its erec
tion, which they commenced, is one among the noblest monu-

INDULGENCES. 115

ments to their fame.* To promote an object so splendid, Leo
promulgated a bull, in which he promised ample indulgences
to all who would contribute to so laudable an undertaking.
And, if there were no other proof of the utility of indulgences,
the erection of that splendid temple, mainly due to them, is a
monument which would go far towards removing every cavil
on the subject. No one can enter that church without being
forcibly impressed with the majesty of God and the gran
deur of the Christian religion. To borrow the idea of a
modern poet, his soul, on passing its portals and casting
a glance at its immense and almost sublime proportions
and marvelous symmetry, becomes " as colossal as the build
ing itself!"

Albert, archbishop of Mayence and Magdeburg, was ap
pointed by the Pontiff to carry out the intentions of the bull

* Of Julius II. and Leo X. much has been written which is favorable, and
much also that is unfavorable to their character as Pontiffs, if not as men.
By some they have been represented as worldly-minded, and as being too
much guided by earthly policy. Few, if any writers of respectability, no
matter how prejudiced, have ventured a word against their moral character.
Both were distinguished patrons of learning ; both were men of enlarged
minds and liberal views. Even the prejudiced Menzel says of Leo, that "he
was free from personal vices." — (Vol. ii, p. 219.) The eulogy pronounced
on him by Koscoe, the liberal minded English Protestant historian of his
pontificate, is well known. Of Julius II. this same writer says : " His vigor
ous and active mind corresponded with the restless spirit of the times, his
ambition was not the passion of a groveling mind, nor were the advantages
he sought of a temporary or personal nature. To establish the authority of
the Holy See throughout Europe, to recover the dominions of the Church, to
expel all foreign powers from Italy, and to restore that country to the
dominion of its native princes, were the vast objects of his comprehensive
mind. And these objects he lived to a great degree to accomplish." — (Eos-
coe, Life, etc., of Leo X., p. 291 ; quoted in Dublin Eeview, for September, 1855.)
If as a temporal prince he went to war, contrary to the example set him by
his predecessors, it was for high and noble purposes ; to drive the foreign
intruder from Italy, and to establish, along with Italian independence, the
rights of his See and throne. It is refreshing to see Protestant writers like
Eoscoe and Voigt stepping forth to defend the Eoman Pontiffs.

116 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

in Germany. He nominated John Tetzel, a Dominican friar,
to be the chief preacher of the indulgences. We have no
mission to defend the extravagances imputed to this man. To
us it appears that much injustice has been done him, and that
his errors have been greatly exaggerated by his enemies. He
seems to have been in the main a good man, with perhaps not
an over stock of prudence or discretion. The magnificent
terms in which he set forth the utility and efficacy of the in
dulgences should have been explained, in common justice,
according to the well known doctrine and practice of the
Church on the subject.*

One thing is certain, that the abuses of which he is accused
were not authorized by the Church or the Pontiff. Even
D'Aubigne, surely an unexceptionable witness, tells us as
much. He admits that, " in the Pope's bull, something was
said of the repentance of the heart and the confession of the
lips :" but he adds that " Tetzel and his companions cautiously
abstained from all mention of these, otherwise their coffers
might have remained empty ;"f and that this omission was in
consequence of instructions from Archbishop Albert, "who
forbade them even to mention conversion or contrition ."{
And yet, on the same page, he acknowledges that confession,
which necessarily presupposes conversion and contrition of
heart, was a prerequisite to the granting of the indulgence !

* Menzel says, that he carried about a money box, on which was written
what has been elegantly done into English as follows :

"As the money in you pop, .
The souls from Purgatory hop."

Ibid. p. 221.

This retailing of vulgar gossip in doggerel verse, and without any sufficient
authority, is unworthy a grave historian. The contribution of alms for a
religious or charitable purpose was a usual condition for gaining Indulgences,
which might profit not only the one who fulfilled all the conditions, but also,
by way of suffrage or prayer, the souls suffering in purgatory. It is highly
probable that Tetzel did not go further than this, and that most of the clamor
against him was raised by his enemies.

f D'Aubigne, vol. i, p. 214. J Ibid., p. 215.

TETZEL. 117

" Confession being gone through (and it was Boon dispatched),
the faithful hastened to the vender."*

We have strong reason to object to this term vender: the
granting of the indulgence, even according to the avowedly
unauthorized practice of Tetzel,f did not justify the idea of a
sale or traffic, properly so called. The offering made on the
occasion was entirely free : those who were unable to con
tribute any thing, still obtained the coveted boon ; and those
who were able, contributed according to their ability or will,
no fixed amount being determined. All that even D 'Aubigne
asserts on this subject is, that " an angry look was cast on
those who dared to close their purses."J When Protestant
preachers take up collections at the close of their sermons, for
the support of themselves, and of their wives and children,
can it be said with propriety, that they sell their sermons for
the amounts thus contributed, even should it happen that
those sums more than equaled the value received, and that
they cast angry looks on those who do not bestow ? But the
questors of indulgences did not go thus far, even according to
the showing of our very prejudiced historian. He tell us,
" that the hand that delivered the indulgence could not
receive the money: that was forbidden under the severest
penalties."§

He even admits, that, notwithstanding the boasted efficacy
of the indulgences, public penance was still enjoined by
Tetzel and his associates, for offenses which had given public
scandal. " If, among those who pressed into the confession
als, there came one whose crimes had been public, and yet
untouched by the civil laws, such person was obliged, first of
all, to do public penance."|| — Did this look like patronizing
vice ? Was it not rather a salutary restraint on guilt, imposed

* D' Aubigne, vol. i, p. 215.

f If such was really his practice, which is doubtful.
\ D 'Aubigne, vol. i, p. 216. \ Ibid.

|| Ibid. True, he calls this a " wretched mummery," because Protestants
can not, or will not, understand or appreciate these works of penance!

118 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

as a condition for obtaining the indulgence ? The very nature
of the indulgence itself, and the conditions always required
to obtain it, and clearly set forth in this very bull of Leo X.,
far from favoring sin, or being an incentive to its commission,
necessarily operated as a powerful curb to passion and a
stimulant to repentance and piety: its blessed effects being
promised only to those who were truly penitent, and were
desirous at least of becoming fervent. An indulgence is
merely a sequel to the sacrament of penance : it removes only
the temporal penalty, which may remain due, after the sin
itself and the eternal punishment due to it have been already
remitted : and, according to its very nature, it can not take
effect, until all grievous sin has been already pardoned
through sincere repentance and the sacrament of penance.
It offers then, essentially, a most powerful inducement to re
pentance and amendment of life ; it gives no encouragement
to lukewarmness.

The acts of Tetzel were officially disavowed by the repre
sentative of the Roman court. In 1519, Charles Miltltz, the
papal envoy, openly rebuked him for his conduct in the affair
of the indulgences ; and even charged him with having been
the occasion of most of the troubles which during the pre
vious two years had afflicted Germany.* He, however, con
demned the friar unheard, relying chiefly upon the exagger
ated representations of his enemies. He would not even
allow the Dominican to defend himself against the grievous
charges brought against him by Luther, f Among these was
the accusation, that he had uttered horrid blasphemies against
the Blessed Virgin Mary. In a letter to Miltitz, Tetzel indig
nantly repelled this charge : but the spirit of the monk was
broken ; and he died soon after, most probably of chagrin.
Most writers of impartiality blame the conduct of the papal

These are not in accordance with their refined taste and exquisite sense of
the amenities scattered along the way of salvation !

* D'Aubingne, vol. ii, p. 16.

f See Audin, "Life of Luther," p. 89, 90.

LUTHER'S INSINCERITY. 119

envoy, who immoderately flattered Luther on the one hand,
and sacrificed Tetzel on the other.* His motive, however,
was a good one : to conciliate Luther by removing all reason
able causes of complaint, and thus to heal the schism with
which the refractory monk menaced the Church of God.

But Miltitz did not know his man. All conciliation was
entirely thrown away on him. The learned and amiable Car
dinal Cajetan, a year before, had made the attempt to win
him by kindness, in the interview they had at Augsburg.
Luther was affected even unto tears by this goodness ; and, at
the close of the conference, he addressed the cardinal nuncio
in the following strain : " I return to you, my father ! . . . .
I am moved. I have no more fear : my fear is changed into
love and filial respect ; you might have employed force, but
you have chosen persuasion and charity. Yes, I avow it now ;
I have been violent and hostile, and have spoken irreverently
of the Pope. I was provoked to these excesses ; but I should
have been more guarded on so serious a question, and, in an
swering a fool, I should have avoided imitating his folly. I
am affected and penitent, and ask for pardon. I will acknowl
edge my repentance to whoever wishes to hear it declared.
For the future, I promise you, father, to speak and act other
wise than I have done : God will assist me ; I will speak no
more of indulgences, provided you impose silence on all those
who have involved me in these difficulties.'^ He concludes
this letter with the following sentence : " I beseech you then,
with all humility, to report this whole affair to our holy father,
Pope Leo X., that the Church may decide on what is to be
believed, and what is to be rejected. "J And yet, but a few
weeks later, he published an inflammatory tract, in which he
complained bitterly of the severity of Cajetan, spoke harshly
of the Pope, and appealed to a general council.^ We have
already seen how, while he promised every thing to Miltitz,

* See Audin, " Life of Luther," p. 89, 90. f Apud Audin, ibid., p. 81.

I Ibid. J Lutheri Opera, Tom, i, fol. 217. Audin, p. 85, seqq.

120 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

he laughed, in letters to his private friends, at the " crocodile
tears" and "Judas-like kiss" of that weak and duped nuncio!

The reformation of abuses in the matter of indulgences
was but a pretext : the real motives of Luther and his parti
sans were very different, as the result proved. The Pope,
through his legates, had done every thing that could have
been reasonably asked for the removal of the evils complained1
of. If the court of Rome was guilty of any fault, it was that
of excessive leniency to Luther, and of too great a spirit of
conciliation towards his partisans.* This was especially true
of the good Adrian VI., who succeeded Leo X. in the pontifi
cate, early in the year 1522.f He immediately set about the
work of reform with great zeal, both at Rome and in Ger
many. He took from the questors the power of distributing
indulgences. In the diet of Nuremberg, in 1522, he offered,
through his legate, Cheregat, to reform every abuse.J

How were his advances met? They were repaid by

* Pallavicino censures Leo X. for his excessive forbearance with Luther,
and for having commissioned Doctor Eck to publish the bull against him in
Germany. (Storia del Cone, di Trento cap. xxv.) Muratori joins in the
censures: "Papa Leone, che ruminando alti pensieri di gloria mondana, e
piu che agli affari della religione agonizante in Germania pensando all' in-
grandimento della chiesa temporale." (Annali, vol. x, p. 245.) Audin ably
defends the Pontiff, p. 115.

t Adrian was a Fleming, and he had been preceptor of Charles V., who
had been elected emperor of Germany but a short time previously. The
fifth general Council of Lateran, held under his predecessor Leo, had
already done much towards eradicating abuses, of which its various canons
are a satisfactory evidence. The assembled fathers with the Pontiff had the
sagacity to discover and the boldness to strike at the very root of almost
all the then existing disorders; namely the usurpation by the temporal
power of the sacred rights of the Church to appoint her own bishops and
clergy. In condemning the principles of the Pragmatic Sanction, they laid
the axe at the root of the fatal tree, which had produced fruit so very
poisonous to the atmosphere of the Church. But this was not the kind of
reformation which the princes of the earth sought or aimed at !

| "Neuere Geschichte der Deutschen, .von Karl Ad. Menzel," a Protest
ant. T. i. Apud Audin, p. 280.

PRETEXT TO GAIN TIME, 121

triumphant insult and indignity. The diet, under Lutheran
influence, drew up an inflammatory paper containing the
famous Centum Gravamina — or "hundred grievances" —
fraught with unfounded and highly exaggerated charges
against Eome. And yet the good Pontiff did not return
railing for railing. He still promised to do every thing in his
power to remove all causes of reasonable complaint. This
saintly Pontiff, "who thought not of evil, and of whom the
world was not worthy," according to the testimony of a Pro
testant historian,* died of a broken heart after the return of
Cheregat. All the poor of Rome followed his hearse, and
bewailed him: they said, "our father is dead!" While it
passed, the people knelt down and burst into tears. Never
had funeral pomp called forth so deep a feeling.f

What, in fact, could Rome have done, which she did not
do, to redress every reasonable grievance, and to carry out
every necessary measure of reform ? Did the reformers ask
for forbearance ? Rome was perhaps too forbearing. Did
they wish for a spirit of conciliation ? Rome descended from
her lofty dignity, and met them half way ; and then they
rudely repulsed her advances ! Even D' Aubigne* praises the
forbearance of Leo X., and the "equity of the Romish
synod," which prepared the bull against Luther. J He adds :

" In fact, Rome was brought into the necessity of having recourse to
measures of stern severity. The gauntlet was thrown down, the combat
must be to the death. It was not the abuses of the Pontiffs authority, that
Luther had attacked. At his bidding, the Pope was required to descend
meekly from his throne, and become again a simple pastor or bishop on the
banks of the Tiber! "§

Had Luther sought only the truth, why did he so often
consent to preserve silence, if the same obligation were im
posed on his adversaries? Was this conduct worthy the
apostle of reform, and the boasted champion of the gospel

* Adolph Menzel, supra, Tom. i, p. 3. Apud Audin, p. 282.
f Audin, ibid. J D'Aubigne, vol. ii, p. 101.

5 Ibid., p. 97. This is a most significant avowal.
VOL. I. 11

122 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

in its purity ? If he sought only truth, why did he not abide
by the decisions of those numerous tribunals, to whose author
ity he himself had voluntarily appealed, as the most suit
able and final arbiters of the matters in dispute ? Why after
wards abuse them so intemperately, for having decided
against him ? The truth is, the love of truth and the reform
of abuses were but shallow pretexts ; the successive appeals
just alluded to, were but crafty expedients to gain time : —
the real object was separation from the Church, and the form
ing of a schismatical party, of which he would be the leader ;
while his own immediate sovereign, the elector of Saxony,
and the other German princes and nobles, would be enriched
from the abundant spoils of the old Church, which was to be
destroyed to make way for the new. As we shall show a
little further on, all the facts of history point to this, as the
only rational method of accounting for the movement and ex
plaining its success.

III. One of those tribunals to which Luther had appealed —
the general Council of Trent — subsequently adopted every
possible measure, that discreet zeal could have asked, for the
reformation of abuses. By far the larger portion of its
decrees are devoted to the work of reformation.* On the
subject of indulgences, the council employs this emphatic
language : " "Wishing to correct and amend the abuses which
have crept into them, and on occasion of which, this signal
name of indulgences is blasphemed by heretics, the holy
synod enjoins in general by the present decree, that all
wicked traffic for obtaining them, which has been the fruitful
cause of many abuses among the Christian people, should be
wholly abolished."f The same decree recommends great

* They are headed, de Reformatione, and make up, perhaps, more than
three fourths of the whole matter of the council.

f Sessio xxv. Decret. de Indulg. " Abusus vero, qui in his irrepserunt,
et quorum occasione insigne hoc Indulgentiarum nomen ab hsereticis blas-
phematur, emendatos et correctos cupiens, praesenti decreto generaliter sta-
tuit, pravos qurestus omnes pro his consequendis, unde plurima in Christiano
populo abusuum causa fluxit, omnino abolendos esse."

HOW TO REFORM THE CHURCH. 123

moderation in the granting of indulgences, and directs the
bishops throughout the world diligently to inquire into and to
refer all local abuses in this matter to provincial councils,
which were to be thenceforth held every three years, and
were to report their decisions to the Roman Pontiff. Could
any wriser or more effectual measure of reform have been
reasonably demanded ?

Mr. Hallam, a witness whose authority will not be SUB
pected, bears ample testimony to the learning and merit of
the Tridentine fathers. After having refuted at some length
" a strange notion that has been started of late years in Eng
land, that the Council of Trent made important innovations
in the previously established doctrines of the western Church :
an hypothesis," he says, " so paradoxical in respect to public
opinion, and, it must be added, so prodigiously at variance
with the known facts of ecclesiastical history, that we can
not but admire the facility with which it has been taken up ;"
he thus continues :

" No council ever contained so many persons of eminent learning and
ability as that of Trent ; nor is there ground for believing that any other
ever investigated the questions before it with so much patience, acuteness,
temper, and desire of truth. The early councils, unless they are greatly
belied (as is very probably the case,) would not bear comparison in these char
acteristics. Impartiality and freedom from prejudice no Protestant will
attribute to the fathers of Trent ; but where will he produce these qualities
in an ecclesiastical synod ? But it may be said, that they had but one lead
ing prejudice, that of determining theological faith according to the tradition
of the Catholic Church, as handed down to their own age. This one point
of .authority conceded, I am not aware that they can be proved to have
decided wrong, or, at least, against all reasonable evidence. Let those who
have imbibed a different opinion ask themselves, whether they have read
Sarpi through with any attention, especially as to those sessions of the Tri
dentine council which preceded its suspension in 1547."*

The history of the Council of Trent by Cardinal Pallavicino,
which Hallam acknowledges he never read, would greatly
confirm this conclusion. All previous councils, both general

* Introduction to the History of Literature, vol. i, p. 277, note.

124 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

and local, had adopted measures for reform, marked with
similar wisdom and zeal. Many of the decrees of the general
Council of Constance, in the beginning of the fifteenth cen
tury, as well as those of the Council of Basle,* towards the
middle of the same century, had been distinguished by the
same earnest solicitude for the correction of abuses. D'Au-
bigne is forced to admit this. " Had not gentler means been
tried for ages ? Had they not seen council after council con
voked with the intention of reforming the Church !"f True,
he adds, without however even the shadow of proof, that " all
had been in vain."J He also asserts against all evidence,
that Martin Y., who was chosen Pontiff at the Council of
Constance, A. D. 1418, with the express stipulation, that he
should carry out the measures of reform commenced by the
council, subsequently refused to redeem his pledge.§ But did
not this Pontiff convoke councils for the purpose successively
at Pavia, Sienna, and Basle ? And was it his fault that his
intentions were not fully carried out ? Was it not rather the
fault of those, who, while always clamoring for reformation,
were really averse to its being brought about in the only con
servative and effectual manner ? Unless all history is false,
this is certainly the case.

The controversy, in fact, did not turn so much on the neces
sity of reform, as on the means best calculated to bring it
about. There were two ways of reforming abuses in the
Church ; the one from within^ the other from without /
the one by gentle and legal means, the other by lawless
violence. The Catholics were in favor of the former, the
Protestants of the latter mode. The former wished to re
main in the Church, which Christ had commanded them to
hear, and to labor therein for the extirpation of abases ;
the latter separated from the Church, and covered it

* Before it degenerated into a schismatical conventicle, during the last
sessions, especially after the tenth.

f D'Aubigne, vol. i, p. 104. \ Ibid. \ Ibid. p. 56.

LUTHER'S AVOWAL. 125

with obloquy, agairist the solemn injunction of its divine
Founder.

Were not the Catholics right in urging this, as the only safe
and effectual method of reforming the Church ? Had they not
clearly the sanction of all previous ages, which, following the
precedent set them by the inspired Apostles themselves in the
council at Jerusalem, had ever sought to proscribe error and to
correct abuses, by legal enactments in general or particular
councils ? And did not the Protestants, on the contrary, fol
low the precedent set them by the separatists and heretics of
every age of the Church ? What real difference is there, in
the principle, between the Lutherans protesting against the
decisions of the Council of Trent, in the sixteenth century, and
the Arians, against those of the Council of Nice, in the fourth ?

Besides, were not reason and logic clearly on the side of
the Catholics ? Which is the proper way to cure a sick pa
tient ; to remain with him, and to administer to him medicine,
or to separate from him, and to denounce him for his malady ?
Which is the preferable way to repair an edifice ; to remain
within or near it, and to labor patiently to re-establish it in
its former strength and beauty, or to leave it and bedaub its
walls with mud and slime ? Finally, which would be the
better patriot : he who would remain faithful to the republic,
and patiently await the progress of legal enactments for the
redress of grievances, or he who would nullify the union
under pretext of those grievances ? Let the seal of public
reprobation set upon a recent attempt of the kind — in which
the principle of disorganization was precisely the same as
that which urged the reformers to nullify the unity of the
Church — answer this question. An old Protestant divine of
the Church of England, illustrates the evil of separation from
the Church, under pretext of reforming it, by the following
quaint comparison : " You may cure a throat when it is sore,
but not when it is cut"*

* South — Sermons ; vol. v, p. 946. Edit. London, 1737, quoted in the
Amicable Discussion, by Bishop Trevern.

126 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

Luther himself avowed the correctness of these principles,
about two years after he had commenced his pretended Ref
ormation.

"That the Roman Church," he says, "is more honored by God than all
others, is not to be doubted. St. Peter, St. Paul, forty-six popes, some hun
dreds of thousands of martyrs, have laid down their lives in its communion,
having overcome hell and the world ; so that the eyes of God rest on the
Roman Church with special favor. Though now-a-days every thing is in a
wretched state, it is no ground for separating from it. On the contrary, the
worse things are going, the more should we hold close to it ; for it is not by
separation from it that we can make it better. We must not separate from
God on account of any work of the devil, nor cease to have fellowship with
the children of God, who are still abiding in the pale of Rome, on account
of the multitude of the ungodly. There is no sin, no amount of evil, which
should be permitted to dissolve the bond of charity, or break the unity of
the body. For love can do all things, and nothing is difficult to those who
are united."*

Sentiments almost worthy of a Gregory VII., or of a Ber
nard! Had he persevered in them — had he not, with his
accustomed duplicity or fickleness, substituted, almost imme
diately afterwards, a principle of hatred for that principle of
love " which can do all things," the world might never have
been cursed with the countless evils of schism and heresy.

The sentiments of Luther just given were re-echoed even
in the confession of Augsburg, the official expositor of Lu
theran doctrines.f In the conclusion of its exposition of

* Lutheri Opera Lat. torn, xvii, p. 224 Apud D 'Aubigne, ii, 18, 19.

•f- In the conference at Augsburg, a large portion of the Lutherans, under
the leadership of Melancthon, sought for a return to unity through a recon
ciliation with the Holy See. Their efforts were, however, sternly opposed
and rendered wholly abortive by Luther, who would hear of no reunion
with Rome. When Melancthon urged the measure, by alleging the endless
contradictions into which the champions of the new doctrines would other
wise fall, and by even venturing timidly to point out the doctrinal varia
tions and inconsistencies of Luther himself, his imperious master answered
in the following characteristic strain :

" My adversaries quote my contradictions to make a parade of their learn
ing ; blockheads that they are ! How can they judge of the contradictions
of our doctrines, who do not understand the texts which clash with each

LUTHERAN TESTIMONY. 127

faith, it is freely admitted, that the Roman Catholic Church
had retained every article of doctrine essential to salvation,
and that the abuses which had crept in were unauthorized,
and afforded no sufficient cause for separation. " Such is the
abridgment of our faith, in which nothing will be found con
trary to Scripture, or to the Catholic Church, or even to the
Roman Church, as far as we can know it from its writers.
The dispute turns upon some few abuses, which have been
introduced into the churches without any certain authority /
and should there be found some difference, that should be
borne with, since it is not necessary that the rites of the
Church should be everywhere the same."* Even the Calviri-
ist minister of Charenton, Daille, much as he hated the Cath
olic Church, makes a similar avowal. After having enume
rated those articles of his belief, which he is pleased to call
fundamental, he says : " Rome does not call in question the
articles which we believe ; it even professes to believe them.
"Who can deny, even in our day, that Rome admits the neces
sary articles ?"f — "Why then separate from her ?

Hitherto we have treated of the origin and extent of the
evils which afforded the reformers a pretext for the Reforma
tion ; and we have also endeavored to point out the only ef
fectual and proper means for correcting abuses, and for pre
serving the Church in that purity which the promises of
Christ have guarantied to her, and to show what was the only

other ? How can our doctrine appear to them otherwise than embarrassed
with contradictions, when it demands and condemns works, rejects and
authorizes the necessity of rites, honors and censures the magistracy, affirms
and denies sin ? But why carry water to the sea ? Cum simul exigat et
damnet opera, simul tollat et restituat ritus, simul magistratum colat et ar-
p;uut, simul peccata asserat et neget? Sed quid aquas in mare?" Apud
Audin, in loco. Epist. Melancthoni, 20 Jul. 1520.

How, indeed, could any one be expected to reconcile these palpable con
tradictions of the arch-reformer !

* Art. xxi. Anno Dom. 1530. Confessio Augustana. See also Audin,
vol. ii, p. 337, London edition, Turnbull's translation.

f " Institut. Chr^tiennes," 1. iv, ch. ii, and " La Loi fondee, part. iii.

128 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

true method of solving the great problem of the sixteenth
century. We will now proceed to examine the means really
adopted by the reformers for that alleged purpose, as well to
exhibit the true motives which prompted and guided their
action ; and through these we will endeavor to account for
the rapidity with which the Reformation was diffused over a
large portion of Europe.

CHAPTER IV.

THE TRUE CAUSES OF THE REFORMATION, AND THE
MEANS BY WHICH IT WAS EFFECTED.

Saying of Frederick the Great — What we mean to prove — Testimony of
Hallam — Doctrines of Luther — Justification without works — Its dreadful
consequences avowed — The " slave- will " — Man, a beast with two riders —
Dissuasive from celibacy — An easy way to heaven — D'Aubigne's discreet
silence — Testimony of the Diet of Worms on Luther's doctrines — An old
lady emancipated — Protection of princes — Schlegel's testimony — The
reformers flatter princes and pander to their vices — Remarkable avowals
of Menzel — The Reformation and state policy — The princes become
bishops — A reformed dispensation — Character of reformed princes — Their
cupidity — Fed by Luther — Protestant restitution — Open violence and
sacrilegious spoliation — The modus operandi of the Reformation — Schlegel
again — Abuse of the press — Vituperation and calumny — Policy of Lu
ther's marriage — Apostate monks — Recapitulation — A distinction — The
Reformation "a reappearance of Christianity."

believe it was Frederick the Great of Prussia, who was
the author of the well-known saving: "That pride and ava
rice had caused the Reformation in Germany, lawless love in
England, and the love of novelty in France." Perhaps the
greatest severity of this remark, is its strict historic truth.
It, of course, was intended merely to designate the first and
most prominent among a variety of other causes. William
Cobbett has proved — and whatever may have been said by his
opponents of his character and reliability as a witness, no one

TESTIMONY OF HALLAM. 129

has yet disputed his facts or answered his arguments — that
in England, the first cause alluded to above, was powerfully
aided by cupidity, which fattened on the rich spoils of the
Church, and by the reckless pride of ascendency, which rev-
eled in, and was cemented by the blood of vast numbers of
innocent victims, whose only crime was their conscientious
adherence to the religion of their fathers.

We will present a mass of evidence to prove, that in Ger
many, the Reformation, which was commenced in the pride
of revolt, was fed and kept alive by avarice and licentious
ness, was propagated by calumny, by violence, and by pan
dering to the worst passions, and was consummated and ren
dered permanent by the fostering care of secular princes,
without whose protection it would have died away and come
to naught. This is strong language ; but it is more than jus
tified by the facts of history : not indeed as those facts have
been travestied, miscolored, and perverted by such partial
writers as D' Aubigne ; but, as they are clearly set forth by
contemporary historians, and as they appear in the original
documents. We shall allege only such facts as are undoubted
and clearly established from these sources.

But before we adduce this evidence, let us see what a very
learned and enlightened modern Protestant historian thinks on
this subject, to the investigation of which he has devoted
much time and labor. Mr. Hallam gives us the result of his
researches in the following passages, which we quote from
his latest work :

" Whatever may be the bias of our minds as to the truth of Luther's doc
trines, we should be careful, in considering the Reformation as a part of the
history of mankind, not to be misled by the superficial and ungrounded
representations which we sometimes find in modern writers (D' Aubigne for
'example). Such is this, that Luther, struck by the absurdity of the pre
vailing superstitions, was desirous of introducing a more rational system of
religion ; or, that he contended for freedom of inquiry, and the boundless
privileges of individual judgment ; or, what others have been pleased to
suggest, that his /eal for learning and ancient philosophy led him to attack
the ignorance of the monks and the crafty policy of the church, which with-

130 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

stood all liberal studies. These notions are merely fallacious refinements,
as every man of plain understanding (except, perhaps, D'Aubigne) who is
acquainted with the writings of the early reformers, or has considered their
history, must acknowledge."*

In another place, the same candid Protestant historian has
this remarkable passage :

" The adherents to the Church of Rome have never failed to cast two
reproaches on those who left them : one, that the reform was brought about
by intemperate and caluminous abuse, by outrages of an excited populace, or by
the tyranny of princes ; the other, that, after stimulating the most ignorant
to reject the authority of their Church, it instantly withdrew this liberty of
judgment, and devoted all who presumed to swerve from the line drawn by
law to virulent obloquy, and sometimes to bonds and death. These
reproaches, it may be a shame to us to own, can be uttered and can not be
refuted." f

After making this painful avowal, he enters upon a labored
argument to prove that the Reformation could have succeeded
by no other means !J The reformers, as we have seen, were
not content with clamoring for the reform of abuses : they
laid violent hands on the sacred deposit of the faith itself.
Like Oza of old, they put forth their hands to the ark of God,
mindless of Oza's awful fate!§ Under the plea that the
Catholic Church had fallen into numerous and fatal doctrinal
errors, and that the Reformation could not be thorough with
out the removal of these, they rejected many doctrines which
the whole world had hitherto revered as the revelation of
God ; and they substituted in their place new tenets, which
they professed to find more conformable to the word of God.
This is not the place to examine whether these new doctrines
are true ; all that our plan calls for at present, is to inquire
what those doctrines were, and what was their practical bear
ing on the work of the Reformation ? "Were they really cal-

* Introduction to the History of Literature. Sup. Cit. vol. i, p. 165.
sec. 60-61.

f Ibid., p. 200, sec. 34. As we shall have occasion to show a little
further on, this avowal rests on the facts of sober history, as related by
Protestants themselves. f Ibid. § 2 Kings ( 1 Samuel) vi : 6.

HORRID DOCTRINES OF LUTHER. 131

ciliated to exercise an influence beneficial to morals and to
society ? Were they adequate means to reform the Church ?
As it would be tedious to exhibit even a brief summary of
all the contradictory tenets held by the early reformers, or
even by the early Lutherans themselves, we must confine
ourselves to those broached and defended by Luther, the
boasted father and founder of the Reformation. And we
shall state nothing for which we will not exhibit chapter and
verse from his own writings.*

The leading tenet of Luther's doctrine was, a belief in jus
tification by faith alone without works. This is the key to his
entire system. Let us see the modest way in which he asserts
this doctrine, one that he always styled a fundamental article.

"Well, then, I, Dr. Martin Luther, an unworthy evangelist of our Lord
Jesus Christ, do confess this article, 'that faith alone without works justifies
in the sight of God ; ' and I declare that, in spite of the emperor of the
Romans, the emperor of the Turks, the emperor of the Tartars, the em
peror of the Persians, the Pope, all the cardinals, bishops, priests, monks,
nuns, kings, princes, nobles, all the world, and all the devils, it shall stand
unshaken forever ! That, if they will persist in opposing this truth, they
will draw upon their heads the flames of hell. This is the true and holy
gospel, and the declaration of me, Doctor Luther, according to the light
given to me by the Holy Ghost." f

This declaration was made in 1531 ; and, according to
D'Aubigne, who quotes Seckendorf, Luther's most ardent
admirer, he received this new light of the Holy Ghost while
visiting " Pilate's stair-case " J in Rome, a few years before he

* Some of the modern editions of Luther's works have been greatly
expurgated by his admirers. We shall quote from the oldest and most
authentic editions, those of Wittenberg, of Jena, of Frankfort, of Altenberg,
of Leipsic, and Geneva. That of Wittenberg was put forth by the imme
diate disciples of Luther. We generally quote through Audin or D'Aubigne,
unless the contrary be indicated, in loco.

f Glossa in Edict. Imperiale. Opera Lat. torn. xx. Apud D'Aubigne, i,
172.

| Properly called the "scala santa," or "holy stairway;" from having
been once consecrated by the Saviour's footsteps, while he was entering into
the pretorium, to be judged by Pilate.

132 KEFORMATION IN GEBMANY.

turned reformer. This we, however, apprehend was an after
thought. Certain it is that, to get rid of the conclusive argu
ment against this cardinal doctrine drawn from the Epistle of
St. James, he rejected this Epistle "as one of straw;" and
that, to confirm this his favorite principle still more, he boldly
corrupted the text of St. Paul — (Romans iii : 28) " For we
account a man to be justified by faith without the works of
the law" — by adding the word alone after faith: and that,
when challenged on the subject, he made this characteristic
reply: "So I will — so I order. Let my will stand for a
reason."* — So much had he this doctrine at heart !

He pushed this tenet to the utmost extremes, and boldly
avowed all the consequences which logically flowed there
from. With him, faith was every thing; works were no
thing. On the 1st of August, 1521, he wrote from the Wart-
burg a letter to Melancthon, from which the following is an
extract: "Sin, and sin boldly; but let your faith be greater
than your sin. It is enough for us, through the riches of the
glory of God, to have known the Lamb of God who takes
away the sin of the world. Sin will not destroy in us the
reign of the Lamb, although we were to commit fornication
or murder a thousand times in one day."f In his " Treatise
on Christian Liberty," which he sent along with a most brutal
letter to Leo X., J in 1520, " as a pledge of his filial piety and
love," he lays down the following as doctrines founded on the
gospel : " The incompatibility of faith with works, which he

* " Sic volo, sic jubeo, stat pro ratione voluntas." He added : "I wish I
had also said, ' without any of the works, of all laws ! ' "

f " Sufficit quod agnovimus per divitias gloriae Dei Agnum qui tollit pec-
catum mundi : ab hoc non avellet nos peccatum etiamsi millies uno die ibr-
nicemur aut occidamus." — Epist. Melanc. 1 Aug. 1521. Apud Audin, p. 178.

| See this savage letter in Audin, p. 110, 111. It was written before the
papal bull had been issued, shortly after his conference with Miltitz, in which
he had given and received the kiss of peace ! ! This truculent epistle was
dated April 6, 1520, whereas the bull of excommunication was dated on tlje
15th of June following. This is clearly proved by Roscoe and Audin. See
Dublin Review, art. Luther, for Sept., 1855.

HORRID DOCTRINES OF LUTHER. 133

regarded as so many sins ; the subjection of the creature to
the demon, even when he endeavors to escape from him; and
his identification with sin, even when he rises towards his
Creator, when his hand distributes alms, when his lips open to
pray, or invoke a blessing, and even when he weeps and re
pents, he sins : ' for,' says he, ' all that is in us is crime, sin,
damnation, and man can do nothing good.' "*" On the con
trary, sin is not imputed to those who have faith : " Because,"
says he, "although I have sinned, Christ who is within me
has not sinned : • this Christ, in whom I believe, acts, thinks,
and lives in me, and alone accomplishes the law."f

Another cardinal doctrine of Luther's, much akin to this,
was the denial of free will, and the assertion that all our ac
tions are the result of stern fatalism. He wrote a work ex
pressly on " the slave will," J and carried on a rude controversy
with Erasmus on this subject. His principles in this respect
are explicitly, openly, and unblushingly avowed. According
to him, free will is incompatible with the divine foreknowl
edge. "Let the Christian know, then, that God foresees no
thing in a contingent manner ; but that He foresees, proposes,
and acts from his eternal and unchangeable will. This is the
thunder-stroke which breaks and overturns free will."§ God
is thus plainly the author of sin, and Luther shrinks not from
the avowal! He maintains "that God excites us to sin, and
produces sin in us:"|| and that "God damns some who have
not merited this lot, and others before they were born. ^[

* Apud Audin, p. 111.

f Ibid. See Epistola Lutheriana ad Leonem summum Pontificem. Liber
de Libertate Christiana. Wittenb. 1520, 4to.

| "De Servo Arbitrio," in opposition to the usual term, "liberum arbit-
rium."

§ Be Servo Arbit. adv. Erasm. Roterod. Luth. Opp. Lat. Jense, torn, iii, p.
170, seqq.

jl Opera, Jenae, iii, 199. Wittenb. torn. foL 522, 523. "Dass Gott die
menschen zur siinde antreibe, und alle laster in ihnem wurcke."

IT Ibid. Jenas edit. iii> 207 — Witt, vi, 534, 535 — Altenb. iii, 249, 250.

134 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

Man's nature, according to him, is thoroughly and radically
corrupt : he is a mere automaton. " Man is like a beast of
burden : if God sits in the saddle, he wills and goes whither
soever God wills ; ... if Satan ride him, he wills and goes
whither Satan directs : nor is it in his power to determine his
rider — the two riders contend for obtaining and possessing
him."* — This is truly a characteristic illustration of a most
hideous doctrine !

In his famous speech at the diet of "Worms, in 1521, he
expressed his delight at the prospect that his doctrine would
produce discord and dissension : " You must know that I have
well weighed the dangers that I incur, the displeasure that I
cause, and the hatred which my doctrine will excite in this
world. I delight to see the word of God bring forth discord
and dissension. This is the lot of the Saviour, who says : ' I
am come not to bring peace but the sword ; I am come to
separate the son from the father.' "f — Was there ever a more
fiendish joy, or a more glaring perversion of God's holy word ?

He rejected continence with horror, and looked on the law
of celibacy as an " awful blindness — a relentless cruelty of the
Pope — a diabolical precept — an imposing of an obligation
which is impossible to human nature."J In 1522 he wrote a
letter to the knights of the Teutonic order, in which he urged
them, by arguments pandering to the basest passions of the
human heart, to rid themselves of this " diabolical" yoke. We
almost shrink from transcribing the following passage from
this appeal, which was alas ! too successful. " My friends, the

* " Sic humana voluntas in medio posita est ceu jumentum : si insederit
Deus, vult et vadit sicut vult Deus ; ... si insederit Satan, vult et vadit
sicut Satan : nee est in ejus arbitrio ad utrum sessorem currere, aut eum
queerere, sed ipsi sessores certant ad ipsum obtinendum et possidendum."
Opera, Jenge, iii, 176, 177.

f Apud Audin, p. 163. D'Aubigne, ii, 235.

J " Perinde facere qui continenter vivere instituunt, ac si quis excremenla
vel lotium contra naturae impetum retinere velit" Luther. Contra falsa
Edicta Caesaris, T, ii.

ENCOURAGING SIN. 135

precept of multiplying is older than that of continence
enjoined by the councils" (and he should have added, sanc
tioned by the most solemn vows, voluntarily made, the bind
ing obligation of which he himself had recognized but one
year before*) : " it dates from Adam. It would be better to
live in concubinage than in chastity. Chastity is an unpardon
able sin; whereas concubinage, with God's assistance, should
not make us despair of salvation."f

He rejected in fact every doctrine, and abolished every
practice of the Catholic Church, which was humbling to
human pride, painful to corrupt nature, or which imposed a
salutary restraint on the passions. Confession he rejected, as
the " executioner of consciences."! He eschewed monastic
vows, fasting and abstinence, and proscribed good works and
free will. In his new-fangled system of religion, the minis
ters of God were no longer bound to say Mass, or to read the
divine office; this would have been an intolerable burden,
incompatible with Christian liberty ! In fact, he was no great
advocate for prayer at all — especially for frequent prayer :
"For," he says, "it is enough to pray once or twice; since
God has said l ask and you shall receive ;' to continue always
in prayer, is to show that we have not faith in God."§ He
forgot to mention that Christ had also said: "Pray always
and faint not :" and St. Paul, " Pray without intermission."

"What, in fine, was left in his new system of Christianity to
fulfill those essential conditions of discipleship, which our
blessed Lord pointed out, when he said : "If any man will
come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross^
and follow me ? "|| Or to imitate the example of St. Paul—
whose great admirer Luther affected to be — when he said of

* Supra, p. 95.

f " In statu scortationis vel peccati, Dei praesidio implorato, de salute non
desperandum." — Ad Milites Ord. Teutonici, Opp. Jense, torn, ii, p. 211-216.
{ Conscientise carnificina.

\ Letter to Bartholomew Von Starenburg ; 1 Sept., 1523. — Audin, p. 208.
II Matth. xvi: 24.

136 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

himself: iCI chastise my body, and bring it into subjection,
lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should
become reprobate ? "*

D'Aubigne, though he professes to give a very detailed
history of the Reformation, found it convenient, however, to
forget, or at least to pretermit most of the facts related
above ; which, however, are essential to the history ! But
they did not suit his purpose, which was to persuade the
world, that Luther and his associates were new apostles of
God, and that the Reformation was but " the re-appearance
of Christianity ! " His whole view, in fact, of Luther's doc
trine, and of the entire Reformation, is a miserable perversion
of history — an ill-contrived romance. His picture is no doubt
viewed with delight by those for whose special benefit it was
drawn ; but it is false in almost every light and shade ! Else
why did he omit so many essential facts ?f

What was the necessary tendency of these new doctrines
of Luther ? Were they calculated to effect a reform in mor
als and religion ? Or was their influence on society essen
tially evil ? To aid us in answering these questions, we will
adduce the evidence of a contemporary official document of
the Germanic empire — an extract from the decree of the diet
of "Worms in 1521 — which decree D'Aubigne professes to
give us entire :J

" The Augustine monk, Martin Luther, regardless of our exhortations, has
madly attacked the holy Church, and attempted to destroy it, by writings
full of blasphemy. He has shamefully vilified the unalterable law of holy
marriage ; he has labored to excite the laity to imbrue their hands in the
blood of their priests ;§ and, defying all authority, has incessantly excited
the people to revolt, schism, war, murder, theft, incendiarism, and the utter
destruction of the Christian faith. ... In a word, and passing over many

* 1 Corinth, ix : 27.

f In this respect he is not alone, but as one of a class. In fact, he is
occasionally more candid than some other writers of his school.

| Vol. ii, p. 261 seqq.

§ The Diet here cites Luther's works ; and D 'Aubigne furnishes the
reference to the present works of the reformer. — Luther Opp. Lat. xvii, 598.

DIET OF WORMS. 137

other evil intentions, this being, who is no man, but Satan himself, under
the semblance of a man in a monk's hood, has collected in one offensive
mass all the worst heresies of former ages, adding his own to the number."

Making all proper allowance for the circumstance that this
document emanated from a body the majority of which was
opposed to Luther, it still presents a satisfactory proof of the
evil tendency of his doctrines. "Would the great Charles V.,
would the first princes of the empire, in an official document,
have stated facts at random, and without sufficient warrant ?
They were surely competent witnesses of events passing
under their very eyes ; they could scarcely be deceived, and
they would scarcely have hazarded false and groundless state
ments which could have been so readily refuted. Moreover,
it must not be lost sight of, that Luther had powerful friends
at Worms, who showed every disposition to see justice done
to him, and to prevent his being overcome by oppression.
Besides the powerful Frederick of Saxony, four hundred
nobles swore to stand by him, and two thousand people gath
ered around him for his defense, and escorted him to his
lodgings.* He was certainly in little danger at Worms, and
there was little wonder that his courage was aroused where
he had clearly so little to fear.

But, if the doctrines of Luther were certainly not adapted
to the reformation of the Church, they were at least easy
and flattering to human nature; and, under this point of
view, they were powerful means of rapidly diffusing the
pretended Reformation which was predicated on them. Lu
ther could hope, through their instrumentality, to gain over
to his party the wicked of every class in society. To the
corrupt among the priests and monks, he held out the induce
ments of getting rid of the painful duties of their state, of
bidding adieu to vigils, to matins and to prayers, and of
crowning their apostasy with the blooming garlands of hymen !
To the unmortified,— and these were a very large class — he

* Menzel, sup. cit. ii, 230-1.
VOL. j. — 12

138 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

promised exemption from confession, from fasts and from long
prayers. To the proud and presumptuous, — and their num
ber was legion — he offered the nattering principle of private
judgment in matters of religion ; assuring them, that every
one, no matter how stupid or ignorant, had an equal right,
with the learned and the talented, to expound the Scriptures
for himself.

How consoling this assurance to the old lady, who, sitting
in the chimney corner, had been hitherto content to con her
prayers in private, to abide by the decisions of the Church,
which Christ had solemnly commanded her to hear, under
penalty of being reckoned "with heathens and publicans,"
and to leave the thorny paths of theological controversy to
the more skillful and learned ! She awoke to a new life, her
eyes sparkling again with the joys of youth, and she no
doubt burst forth into a canticle of praise to the Lord, for her
emancipation from the degrading servitude of popery ! And,
what bright careers of glory were opened to the ambition of
young theological students in the universities, who, through
the new doctrines, could hope to shine in the pulpit, and to
settle themselves advantageously in the world, with their
newly acquired wives and families : and all this without any
very remarkable sacrifice, or any great previous labor in pre
paring themselves for the ministry ! Verily, as Melancthon
had said to his dying mother : " The way of the reformers
was more convenient" — and what mattered it, "if that of the
Catholics was more safe !" This was a consideration of minor
importance ; or of weight only at the hour of death ! And
what thought they of death ?

But the chief resource of Luther, for establishing and con
solidating his new religion, lay in the fostering protection of
princes. He understood this, and he accordingly determined
to gain them over to his party, by the most immoderate flat
tery, and by pandering to their worst passions. The great
and moderate Frederick Yon Schlegel assures us of this, and
his testimony, in itself valuable, is fully confirmed by the

PROTECTION OF PRINCES. 139

facts, and corroborated by that of all trustworthy historians,
whether Catholic or Protestant :

" Luther was by no means an advocate for democracy, like Zuinglius and
Calvin,* but he asserted the absolute power of princes, though he made his
advocacy subservient to his own religious views and projects. It was by
such conduct and the influence which he thereby acquired, as well as by the
sanction of the civil power, that the Reformation was promoted and consoli
dated. Without this, Protestantism would have sunk into the lawless
anarchy which marked the proceedings of the Hussites, and to which the
war of the peasants rapidly tended ; and it would have been inevitably sup
pressed, like all other popular commotions."f

The whole history of the Reformation proves the justice
of these remarks. Luther thoroughly understood his true
policy in regard to princes, and he never failed to carry it
out. Even as late as 1530, when Charles V* was about to
enter Augsburg to attend the diet assembled there, he cher
ished hopes of gaining over this great emperor to his party.
In his letters and other writings about this time, he painted
Charles V. "as a man of God, an envoy of heaven, a new
Augustus, the admiration and delight of the whole world'"!
But when the emperor published at that same diet his famous
conciliatory decree, by which he merely allowed to the Prot
estants the free " enjoyment of their temples and creeds," but
enjoined silence on them until the meeting of the general
council, the whole scene suddenly changed. Charles was no
longer " a new Augustus :" but " he and his counselors wrere
not even men, but 'gates of hell' — judges who could not
judge his cause, and to whom he would not give up a hair of
his head."§

To understand better how Luther was able so successfully
to avail himself of the political circumstances of the times,
and to play oif so skillfully the German emperor and the

* We shall see in the sequel what kind of "advocates for democracy"
they were.

f Philosophy of History ; vol. ii, p. 205, 6 : edit. Appleton & Co., New
York, 1841.

I See the authorities quoted by Audin, p. 440. § Ibid.

140 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

German princes against the Pope, we must glance at the con
dition of Germany in the beginning of the sixteenth century,
and especially at its political relations with Italy and with the
Roman Pontiffs. Without this view, it might be more or less
difficult to explain the rapid diffusion of the Reformation in
Germany ; with it, the explanation becomes exceedingly easy,
and our only wonder is, that the movement was not even
more rapid and more general.

The political condition of Germany at this time happened
to be entirely favorable to Luther and his partisans. As we
have already seen on the authority of Roscoe, Pope Julius II.
had, to a great extent, succeeded in driving the armies of the
French and German invaders from the Italian soil. Faithful
to the traditions of the Papacy, he had thrown the entire
influence of his elevated position in the scale of Italian inde
pendence. It was but a renewal, in another shape, of the
old struggle between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines :
the former of whom contended, under the auspices of the
Popes, for the freedom of Italy ; the latter, under that of the
German emperors, for foreign and especially for German
domination over Italy.

But, if Julius succeeded in securing the gratitude of the
Italians, his action naturally provoked the enmity of the
French, and more particularly of the Germans ; for he had
expelled the armies of both from Italy. Accordingly, we
find that Guicciardini, an hereditary Ghibelline and a digni
tary of the Germanic empire, was among the most bitter
enemies of the Pontiff, whose character he has sought to ren
der infamous through his writings. The king of France and
the emperor of Germany, foiled by the active vigilance of
Julius in their ambitious designs on Italy, became the sworn
enemies of the Pontiff, whose anathemas they had justly in
curred on account of their attempts to invade the rights of the
Holy See. In 1510, Louis XII. of France proposed, and the
emperor Maximilian of Germany accepted, the project of
convening a schismatical council, the object of which was to

POLITICAL EXPEDIENCY, AND STATE INTRIGUES. 141

depose the Pope, and to elect another who would be more
pliable to their unhallowed policy. Such a council was actu
ally convened by the emperor at Pisa in the following year ;
but it seems to have had no particular results, beyond giving
forth an unmistakable indication of a growing disaffection
towards the Holy See, and particularly towards the then reign
ing sovereign Pontiff.

Maximilian, true to the traditions of Germany since the
days of Barbarossa, still cherished his mad scheme of con
quering Italy. The Protestant historian of the house of
Austria — Coxe — speaking of the religious condition and feel
ings of Germany towards the close of the fifteenth century,
says:

" The spiritual power of the Popes had gradully declined, and their
authority had lost most of its influence. Germany had, in a public diet,
declared itself independent of the Pope, and even the minor princes of Eu
rope disregarded or despised the thunders of the Vatican. At the same
time, the dominions of the Roman See were nearly confined to the neigh
borhood of Rome, and of those ample possessions which had been granted
or confirmed by the emperors, the principal part had been appropriated by
powerful families."*

After Julius had retrieved the tottering fortunes of the
Roman principality, Maximilian of Germany and Louis of
France united their councils and forces for the conquest of
Italy; and in 1510, as Coxe tells us, the emperor "revived
the ancient disputes between the Church and the Empire, by
laying before the diet a list of grievances which the German
nation had suffered from the exactions and pretensions of the
Popes."f These pretended exactions referred chiefly to the
old disputes about Church patronage and the nomination to
benefices, which had grown out of the controversy on Investi
tures ; in which, as we have already sufficiently shown, the
Popes were clearly in the right and the German emperors as
clearly in the wrong. The rapacious princes of Germany

* History of the House of Austria, i, 297 ; quoted in Dublin Review, for
Sept., 1855. f Ibid.

142 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

wished to rule supreme both in Church and State ; and they
were particularly sensitive on the subject of money going out
of Germany to the Holy See, no matter how ancient had been
the custom which authorized it, or how reasonable the motives
in which it had originated.

Thus, at the time of Luther's appearance on the arena of
the Reformation, every thing was already ripe for the great
rebellion which he meditated. The emperor, his supreme
sovereign, was a declared enemy of the Papacy ; while his
immediate prince, the elector of Saxony, was, moreover,
strongly inclined, for other special reasons, to favor the new
gospel, and to promote its interests to the utmost extent of
his power. And we must bear in mind, that the elector was,
after the emperor, at that time the most powerful prince in
Germany. On the death of Maximilian, he had been selected
to hold the reins of government, as vicar of the empire, until
the election of the imperial successor, Charles V. ; and he
moreover continued in this position of power and influence
for nearly a year and a half afterwards — until the coronation
of Charles in October, 1520.* Thus, at the very time that
Luther was beginning his revolt, the empire was passing
through a most critical crisis, and every thing was highly
favorable to the designs of the reformer, whose powerful
secret or open friends and patrons were, at the same time,
enemies of the Pope and were clothed with supreme power
in the state.

As Coxe informs us, Maximilian, ufar from opposing the
first attacks of Luther against indulgences, was pleased with
his spirit and acuteness, declared that he deserved protection,
and treated his adversaries with contempt and ridicule."f He
warmly recommended the refractory monk to the elector of
Saxony, saying that " there might come a time when he would
be needed."J

* Maximilian had died miserably in January, 1519.
f History of the House of Austria, i, 387, ibid.
| Ranke, History of Popes, etc., i, 65, ibid.

ART OF HIS THESES. 143

There was little seeming need for this recommendation;
for Frederick was already his patron and protector, and he
had already openly taken sides in his favor, by prohibiting
Tetzel from preaching the indulgences within the boundaries
of Saxony. It was he who gave Luther the hint to begin the
bold crusade of denunciation against the papal preacher of
the indulgences; and the refractory monk understood full
well that he incurred little risk in preaching against Tetzel
under so ample a guaranty of protection.*

The theses which Luther posted up on the doors of the
church of All Saints at "Wittenberg, on the first day of
November, 1517, were drawn up with consummate art ; and
without boldly attacking the doctrine itself, they appealed
with much tact to the passions of the German people, and to
their old-time prejudices against the Holy See on the subject
of money. Among them, for example, were these : " "Why
does not the Pope, who is richer than Croesus, build St.
Peter's with Ms own money , rather than with that of poor
Christians?"-— "Christians should be taught that he who
gives to the poor, or assists the needy, does better than he
who purchases indulgences."f Such propositions as these
comprised precisely the topics which would be the best calcu
lated to excite popular interest and arouse popular feeling.
They were also the very points which were most likely to
prove acceptable to the elector, who had already refused to
receive Tetzel, who strongly opposed every scheme which
would in any manner cause money to go out of his territory,
especially if it were directed towards Rome, and who panted
himself after the rich spoils of the Church — which he, in fact,
shortly afterwards sacrilegiously grasped.

One who will be regarded by Protestants as an unexcep
tionable witness, Wolfgang Menzel, fully confirms the view
which we have here presented. He says :

* Ranke tells us that, "an alliance had been formed between the monk of
Wittenberg and the sovereign of Saxony." History of the Reformation,
A. D. 1517. f Apud Audin, in loco.

144 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

"The old emperor Maximilian had, exactly at that period (A. D. 1518,)
opened a diet at Augsburg, at which several of the princes and cities com
plained of the sale of indulgences and of other ecclesiastical disorders ; and
the emperor, deeming it politic to make use of Luther as a means of hum
bling the Pontiff, and of compelling him to retract some of his inordinate (!)
demands, refused to deliver him up, although he had been cited to appear at
Rome."*

The same prejudiced writer, in a single sentence, furnishes
us with a key to all of Luther's movements, as also to explain
the favor with which they were regarded by many of the
princes of the German empire. He says, that Luther u cher
ished an almost biblical reverence for the anointed of the
Lord, ~by whose aid he hoped to succeed in reforming the
Church."! This, translated into popular language, simply
means, that he was devoted to the doctrine of the divine right
of kings, and consequently opposed to all those modern ideas
of popular freedom, of which he has been usually heralded
forth as the champion. Never was there a greater popular
delusion than that which holds that Luther was the advocate
of popular liberty ; as we hope to show by incontestable evi
dence in the proper place. For the present, suffice it to say,
that he relied for success, not on i\\e people ^ but on the strong
arm of the princes ; and that the latter warmly seconded his
views, which were so evidently to their own advantage.

Menzel, in fact, tells us as much, when he writes :

" To the numerous nobility of the empire in Swabia, Franconia, and the
Rhenish provinces, the opening Reformation presented a favorable opportu
nity for improving their circumscribed political position, seizing the rich lands
belonging to the Church, and raising themselves to an equality with, if not
deposing the temporal princes." £

Again ; speaking of the failure of the attempt made by
Melancthon to bring about a reunion with the Catholic Church
at the diet of Augsburg, and of the reason of the failure, he

writes :

* History of Germany, Bohn's edition, ii, 226.
t Ibid., p. 233. | Ibid., p. 234.

TESTIMONY OF MENZEL. 145

" A last attempt, made by Melancthon, and supported by Luther,* to
bring about a general reformation in the Church by means of the Pope, with
the view of securing the Church from the temporal princes, failed, owing to
the extreme demoralization of the clergy,f and Luther was speedily reduced
to silence by the princes intent upon the secularization of the bishoprics "\ —
That is, upon seizing by violence the property which supported the bishop
rics and appropriating it to .secular, or what was the same thing, to their
own uses.

We must furnish one more extract from Menzel on this
subject, which is more remarkable than any thing we have
so far presented from his pages ; as it candidly avows the
carnal and wicked motives which prompted the princes of
the earth to side with Luther and to oppose the Church of
God, not only in Germany but elsewhere ; and as it dissi
pates forever the usually received and popular idea, that
Luther was a champion of freedom. He is speaking of the
period which immediately followed the suppression of the
popular insurrections in Germany, usually called the war of
the peasants — of which we shall treat more fully in a subse
quent chapter.

" The defeat of the nobility and peasantry had crushed the revolutionary
spirit in the people ; and the Reformation, stripped of its terrors, began to
be regarded as advantageous by the princes. Luther also appeared, not as
a dangerous innovator, but in the light of a zealous upholder of princely
power, the divine nght of which he even made an article of faith ; and thus,
through Luther's well meant policy, the Reformation, the cause of the peo
ple (!), naturally became that of the princes, and consequently instead of
being the aim, was converted into a means of their policy. In England,
Henry VIII. favored the Reformation for the sake of becoming pope in his
own dominions, and of giving unrestrained license to tyranny and caprice.

* He is here egregiously mistaken. Luther strongly opposed the recon
ciliation, as we have already shown. See his angry correspondence on the
subject with Molancthon and others in Audin. With his subserviency to
princes, Luther would not have dared thwart them in their darling project
of robbing the Church.

f Brought about precisely by the corrupt usurpation of church patronage
by the secular princes, as we have shown. See Introduction.

\ History of Germany, Bohn's edition, ii, p. 251.
VOL. T. 13

146 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

In Sweden, Gustavus Wasa embraced the Lutheran faith, as a wider mark
of distinction between the Swedes and Danes, whose king Christiern he had
driven out of Sweden. His example was followed (A. D. 1527) by the
grand-master Albert of Prussia, who hoped by this means to render that
country an hereditary possession in his family. His cousin, the detestable
Casimir Von Culmback, sought to wipe out the memory of his parricide by
his confession of the new faith."*

* Thus, according to the open avowal of even the bigoted v
Menzel, the great German Reformation dwindles down into a
mere affair of groveling avarice and of worldly ambition on
the part of the princes ; and Luther, the arch-reformer, the
bold adversary of the Pope, and the vaunted champion of
liberty, sinks down into the position of a mere crouching and
subservient tool of rapacious and unprincipled men, who
sought only their own interests, and who wished to lord it
over their subjects with supreme power both in church and
in state ! In casting off the yoke of Rome, the German peo
ple had another riveted on their necks, which was infinitely
more galling ; and they have had to bear it ever since !

We have already seen how meanly subservient Luther was
on all occasions to his immediate sovereign, the elector of
Saxony. This prince was the most powerful protector of the
Reformation, and, as we shall see, he reaped a golden harvest
for his protection. But he had another motive for defending
Luther and his partisans. Luther and Melancthon were the
principal professors in his newly founded and warmly cher
ished University of Wittenberg; and their varied learning
and shining talents had attracted to it vast numbers of youth
from all parts of Germany. At the period of the Reforma
tion, this university became the focus of the new doctrines,
and the rendezvous of all who favored them. The attractive
novelty, the stirring interest, the startling boldness of the
newly broached theories of religion, together with the rude but
overpowering eloquence of Luther, and the winning graces
and versatile genius of Melancthon, rendered this new seat

* History of Germany, Bohn's edition, ii, p. 248.

LANDGRAVE OF HESSE. 147

of learning famous throughout Germany. The powerful elec
tor could not but look with complacency on the men who shed
such lustre on an institution which he had erected, and the
prosperity of which was identified with his own glory. This
was one of the reasons which first inclined him to favor Lu
ther. It is not a little remarkable, too, that this same univer
sity of Wittenberg was erected chiefly from the proceeds of
those very indulgences, the inveighing against which was the
first movement of the Reformation !

A remarkable instance of Luther's mean subserviency to
princes, is the permission which he and his chief partisans
gave to Philip, landgrave of Hesse, to have two wives at
once ! This fact is as astounding as it is undoubted. Philip
had been married for sixteen years to Christiana, daughter
of George, duke of Saxony ; and he had already been blessed
with several children. According to Adolph Menzel, a Prot
estant historian, he was "violent and passionate, unfaithful
and superstitious."* But he was a good Lutheran, nay, one
of the most powerful friends of the Reformation ; and he read
his Bible incessantly. He became enamored of Margaret
Saal, a maid of honor to his sister Elizabeth. She proved
inexorable, and the landgrave lost his appetite, and was seized
with a fit of despondency. In this distress, he had recourse
to his Bible : he opened it at the fifth chapter of Genesis, and,
finding that Lamech had two wives at once, he resolved to
imitate his example !

He, however, thought it advisable to seek counsel on a
subject of so much importance — particularly to himself — from
the principal reformers. Through Martin Bucer, a learned
reformed theologian, and a devoted courtier and tool of himself,
he proposed his case of conscience to the new apostles at Wit
tenberg. He stated his sad case very roundly and very simply,
as became so godly and scrupulous a champion of the new
gospel : " That he could not abstain from fornication, and that

* Adolf Menzel, Neure Geschichte der Deutchen, torn. i.

148 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

he must expect eternal damnation unless he changed his life :
that, when he espoused Christiana, it was not through inclina
tion or love : that the officers of his court and her maids of
honor might be examined regarding her temper, Tier charms,
and her love of wine : that he had read in the Old Testament
how many holy personages, Abraham, Jacob, David, and
Solomon, had many wives, and yet pleased God : and that, ^
finally, he had resolved to renounce his licentious habits,
which he could not do, unless he could get Margaret for his
wife. He therefore asked Luther and Philip (Melancthon) to
grant him what he requested."

The case was plainly and fully stated ; and the answer was
no less direct. It was divided into twenty-four articles, and
was signed by the eight principal reformers of Wittenberg;
Luther, Melancthon, Bucer, Anthony Corvin, Adam, I. Len-
ingen, J. Vinfert, and D. Melanther. The twenty-first article
runs as follows :

"If your highness is resolved to marry a second wife, we judge that it
should be done privately, as we have said when speaking of the dispensation
you have asked for. There should be no one present, but the bride and a
few witnesses who are aware of the circumstance, and who would be bound
to secrecy, as if under the seal of confession. Thus all opposition and great
scandal will be avoided ; for it is not unusual for princes to have concubines,
and although the people take scandal at it, the more enlightened will suspect
the truth. We ought not to be very anxious about what the world will say,
provided the conscience be at rest. Thus we approve of it. Your highness
has then, in this writing, our approbation in all the exigencies that may
occur, as also the reflections we have made on them."

The marriage took place on the 3d of March, 1540, in the
presence of Melancthon, Bucer, and other theologians. The
marriage contract was drawn up by a Lutheran doctor, and
duly signed by a notary public. In this instrument Philip
declares, " that he does not take Margaret lightly, or through
contempt of the civil law; but solely for other considerations,
and because, without a second wife, he could not live godly,
or merit heaven !'** Was there ever a more startling instance

* See the Instrumentum Copulationis Philippi landgrave et Margaritas de

JOHN, OF SAXO.NY. 149

of utter depravity and of unprincipled sycophancy! Here,
then, is a Protestant indulgence, in the very worst sense
attached to the term by Protestant writers ! And yet these
men claimed to be sent by God to reform the Church ! !*

By such unhallowed means as these did the reformers
secure the protection of princes. What was the character
of such of the latter as espoused the Reformation? "Were
they men whose lives reflected honor on the new religion, and
gave a pledge of the purity of the motives which had led to
its adoption ? Let us see. We have already glanced at the
character of some of these men, in company with Wolfgang
Menzel. We will now speak of others. In the first place, there
was John, elector of Saxony, who, according to Menzel,f was
one of the most gluttonous princes of his age, fond of wine and
of good cheer, and whose stomach, overcharged with excessive
feeding, was supported by an iron circle. " He had enriched
his sideboard — the best furnished in all Germany — with ves
sels of all sorts taken from the refectories of the monasteries,
or the sacristies of the churches."J He accordingly embraced

Saal, given in full by Bossuet, Variations, vol. i. See also Ad. Menzel, a
Protestant, torn, ii, p. 179, 192 ; and Audin, p. 479.

* Those who wish to see all the documents connected with this disgrace
ful proceeding, are referred to Bossuet's Variations, book vi, and to Bayle's
Dictionary, art. Luther. They were kept hidden for a long time, until
Charles Lewis, the elector palatine, published them to the world. There is
no doubt whatever as to their genuineness. Hallam fully admits this, in his
Constitutional History of England. Bayle twits the reformers on their mean
subserviency to the landgrave ; who, he shrewdly suspects, had thrown out
" certain menaces " in case of their refusal to grant the asked for dispensation,
and had made them certain munificent promises in case of their compliance.
The latter he fully redeemed ; for after the death of Frederick, the elector
of Saxony, in 1525, he became the great Ajax of the Keformation party in
Germany. D'Aubigne admits this.

We consider the documents connected with this disgraceful affair of suffi
cient importance in a history of the Reformation, to authorize their being
republished in full, which we do accordingly in note C. at the end of the
present volume.

f Ad. Menzel, Neuere Geschichte, torn, i, fol. 338. \ Audin, p. 424.

150 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

with eagerness a religion which had abolished fasting, and
which permitted him to indulge his favorite appetite without
restraint. Then came the pious and scrupulous Philip, land
grave of Hesse, whose troubled conscience was soothed by the
panacea to which we have just alluded. This second great
pillar of the Reformation had inscribed on the clothes of the
domestics who served him at table, the initials V. D. M.
I. ^E., signifying Verbum Domini manet in seternum — " the *
word of the Lord remaineth forever!" Lastly came Wolf
gang, prince of Anhalt, whose stupid ignorance was prover
bial: and finally "Ernest and Francis Lunenberg, who did
not trouble their vassals to pillage the churches, but with
their own hands despoiled the tabernacles of their sacred
vessels."* Such were the princes to whose patronage the
Reformation was indebted for its first success and subsequent
permanency !

To secure their cooperation and protection, which were
essential to the triumph of his cause, Luther left no means
untried. He recklessly appealed to the worst passions which
sway the human bosom. He held out to them, as baits, the
rich booty of the Catholic churches and monasteries. He
said to them, in a publication entitled ArgyropMlax ;f "You
will find out, within a few months, how many hundred thou
sand gold pieces the monks and that class of men possess
within a small portion of your territory ."J He acknowl
edged, in one of his sermons, " that the church ostensories
made many converts to the new gospel."§ And M. Audin
is entirely correct in his caustic remark: "That the con
vent spoils resembled the martyrs' blood, mentioned by

* Audin, p. 425. f " Guardian of the Treasury."

| " Experiemini intra paucos menses, quot centum aureorum millia unius

exiguae ditionis vestrae monachi et id genus hominum possideant." — Cf.

Cochlaeus, p. 149.

\ " Viele sind noch gut evangelisch, weil es noch Catholische monstranzen

gibt." — Luther, Praed. xii, apud Jak. Marx., p. 174, and Ad. Menzel, torn, i,

pp. 371-9. Apud Audin.

THE SPOILS OF THE CHURCH. 151

Tertullian, and brought forth daily new disciples to the
Reformation."*

* It was cupidity, as we have already shown from W. Menzel,
that induced Albert of Brandenburg to apostatize from the
Catholic Church, " that he might plunder, with a safe con
science, the country of Prussia, which belonged to the Teu
tonic order" — of which order he was superior general — " and
which he erected into a hereditary principality."! Francis
Yon Sickengen was another of these spoilers, who, at the
head of twelve thousand men, " invaded the archbishopric of
Treves, tracking his path by the blood he shed, the churches
he pillaged, and the licentious excesses of his soldiery ."J He
was but one of those powerful church robbers who, according
to the testimony of an ancient historian, then converted Ger
many, once so powerful and noble, into a den of sacrilegious
thieves.§ The candid Melancthon " avowed that in the tri
umph of the Reformation the princes looked not to the purity
of doctrine, or the propagation of light, to the triumph of a
creed, or the improvement of morals, but only regarded the
profane and miserable interests of this world."||

The rich spoils of the Catholic Church and of the monas
teries not only induced many princes of the Germanic body
to embrace the Reformation, but also caused them to perse
vere in the cause they had thus espoused. In the famous diet
of Augsburg, in 1530, the conciliatory course of Melancthon,
who there represented the reformed party, bade fair to heal
the rupture, by reconciling the Protestants to the Catholic
Church. But the Catholic theologians insisted on two things :
that the married priests should abandon their wives, and that
the Protestant princes should restore the goods of the Church

* Audin, p. 345. f Rotteck, p. 93. Apud Audin. Ibid. \ Ibid.

\ " Potentissima Germania et nobilissima, sed ea tota nunc unum latro-
cinium est, et ille inter nobiles gloriosior qui rapacior." — Campanus ad
Freher- Script. German., torn, ii, p. 294, 295.

|| " Sie beciimmerten sich gar nicht um die lehre, es sie ihnen blosz um
die freiheit, und die herrschaft zu thun."— Apud Audin, p. 343.

152 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

upon which they had seized. The former condition would
probably have been complied with ; but, as Erasmus remarks,
" the Lutheran princes would not hear any thing about resti
tution."* The same insurmountable difficulty interposed
when, five years later, Rome made her last effort towards
bringing back the Protestant party to the bosom of the Catho
lic Church. The benevolent labors of Cardinal Yerger, legate
of Paul III., in 1535, might not have proved wholly abortive,
but for the indomitable insolence of Luther, f and the refusal
of the princes of his party to disgorge their ill-gotten plunder.
After all this, we can scarcely restrain a smile, on
hearing the lamentations of Luther over the rapacity of
the princes of his party, whom he himself had excited
to the unholy work of spoliation. "To the d — 1," he cried
out in a rage, " with senators, manor lords, princes, and
mighty nobles, who do not leave for the preachers, the priests,
the servants of the gospel, wherewith to support their wives and
children ! " J They were, it seems, more rapacious than even
Tie could have desired. " They gave, with admirable gener
osity, the sacred vessels of the secularized monastery to the
parish priest, provided, however, he had adopted Lutheran-
ism. The rest went to their mistresses, their courtiers, their
dogs, and their horses. Some, who were as greedy as the
landgrave of Hesse, kept even the habits and sacerdotal vest
ments, the tapestries, the chased silver vases, and the vessels
of the sanctuary ."§ They would not abide by Luther's seem
ingly reasonable rules for the partition of the confiscated
property :|| and hence the enkindled wrath of the reformer!

He, indeed, occasionally condemned this rapacity in a voice
of thunder: he sometimes even clothed himself in the garb

* "Res propemodum ad concordiam deducta est, nisi quod Lutherani
principes nihil audire voluerunt de restituendo." — Erasm. Ep., p. 998. This
confirms the statement given above on the authority of Wolfgang Menzel.

f For an account of the outrageous conduct of Luther to the legate, and
of the vvhole negotiation, see Audin, p. 474, seqq.

t Table Talk, cited by Jak. Marx, p. 175. \ Audin, p. 346. || Ibid.

OPEN VIOLENCE AND SPOLIATION. 153

of a messenger of peace, and bewailed the lawless violence
and other sad disorders which he had himself occasioned, and
even caused, by his frequent appeals to the lowest and most
groveling passions. But he could not arrest the course of the
turbid torrent of passion, which he himself had in the first
instance caused to flow. As well might he have labored to
turn back the waters of the Rhine ! Had he not, in one of
his inflammatory appeals to the princes of the empire, used
the following language ? — " There is Rome, Romagna, and the
duchy of Urbino: there is Bologna, and the states of the
Church ; take them : they belong to you : take, in God's
name, what is your own?"*' Had he not threatened them
with the wrath of heaven, in case they did not seize on the
property of the monasteries ?f Had he not, on almost every
page of his works, made " a brutal appeal against the priests,
a maddening shout against the convents ; in a word, had he
not preached up the sanctification of robbery, the canoniza
tion of rapine ? " J

Erasmus bears abundant evidence to the violence which
almost everywhere marked the progress of the Reformation
in Germany. We will give an extract from one of his writ
ings, premising the remark that he was an eye-witness of what
he relates, and not at least a violent enemy of the reformers :

" I like to hear Luther say, that he does not wish to take their revenues
from the priests and monks, who have not any other means of support. This
is the case probably at Strasburg. But is it so elsewhere ? Truly it is
laughable to say : ' we will give food to those who apostatize ; let others
starve if they please. Still more laughable to hear them protest that they
do not wish to harm any one. What ! is it no injury to drive away canons
from their churches, monks from their monasteries, and to plunder bishops
and abbots ? — But ' we do not kill ! ' — Why not ? Because your victims
take the prudent precaution of running away. — ' We let our enemies live
peaceably among us.' — Who are your enemies ? Are all Catholics ? Do our
bishops and priests regard themselves as secure in the midst of you ? If you

* Opp. edit. Jense, torn, viii, fol. 209-248. A. D. 1545. Apud Audin.
f " Gottloss seyen dienigen die diese giiter nicht an sich zogen, und sie
besser verwendeten, als die monche. \ Audin, p. 349.

154: REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

are so mild and tolerant, wherefore these emigrations, and these multiplied
complaints addressed to the throne ? . . . But then, why destroy the churches
which they built ? "*

It is curious to mark the mode of operating adopted by the
pious reformers, while doing their godly work of violence and
spoliation. We will furnish a few instances, out of many.

" At Bremen, during Lent, the citizens got up a masquerade,
in which the Popes, the cardinals, and nuns were represented.
On the place of public execution they raised a pile, on which all
these personifications of Catholicity were thrown, and burnt,
amidst shouts of joy. The remainder of the day was spent in
celebrating, by large libations, the downfall of popery .'"f

" At Zwickau, on Shrove Tuesday, hare-nets were laid on
the market-place ; and monks and nuns, hunted by the stu
dents, fell into them, and were caught. At a short distance
wras the statue of St. Francis, tarred and feathered ! " Tobias
Schmidt, the cotemporary historian of this outrage, here ex
claims : " Thus fell, at Zwickau, c popery,' and thus rose there
the pure light of the gospel ! "J He assures us, in the same
place, that " a band of citizens attacked the convent, whose
gates they broke, and, when they had pillaged the chests and
the treasures, threw the books about and broke the windows : "§
the town authorities, meantime, standing looking on, with
their arms crossed, in perfect composure, without even affect
ing indignation ! Similar scenes were enacted elsewhere.
" At Elemberg, the pastor's house was given up for several
hours to pillage ; and one of the students, who was a con
spicuous actor in this scene, which excited the laughter of the
mob, clothed himself in priests' vestments, and made his entry
on an ass into the church."||

* "In Pseudo-Evangelicos." Epist. 47, lib. xxxi. London, Flesher.

f Arnold, 1. c. th. 2, bd. 16, kap. 6, s. 60. Apud Audin, p. 347.

| " Also ist das Pabsthum abgeschafft und hingegen die evangelische reine
lehre fortgeplanzt worden." Tob. Schmidt, p. 386. Ibid.

5 Ibid., p. 374. Apud Adin, p. 348. || See "Das resultat meiner

wanderungen," etc. Von Julius Honinghaus, p. 339 ; and Audin, ibid.

A LUTHERAN VISITATION. 155

We must also briefly state the tactics of Luther's second
great patron, John, elector of Saxony, while gallantly attack
ing a monastery of poor monks, or a convent of defenceless
women. The noble elector, who had succeeded Frederick,
did not seek to stain his victory with blood; he sought rather
the spoils of war ! M. Audin compares him very appropri
ately to Verres, the rapacious Koman proconsul of Sicily,
whom Cicero lashed with his withering invective.

" The proconsul of Sicily was not more ingenious than Duke John of
Saxony in plundering a monastery. Some days before opening the cam
paign, he was accustomed to send and demand the register of the house,
and then he set out with a brisk detachment of soldiers. They surrounded
the monastery ; the abbot was summoned, and the prince, holding the reg
istry in his hand, caused every thing contained in it to be delivered."*

Wolfgang Menzel writes as follows of the "visitation"
made by John of Saxony:

" The elector John, Luther's most zealous partisan, immediately on his
accession to the government of Saxony, on the death of Frederick the
Wise, empowered Luther to undertake a church visitation throughout his
dominions, and to arrange ecclesiastical affairs according to the spirit of the
doctrine he taught. His example was followed by the rest of the Lutheran
princes ; and this measure necessarily led to a separation from, instead of a
thorough Keformation of the Church. The first step was the abolition of
monasteries, and the confiscation of their wealth by the state, by which a
portion was set apart for the extension of academies and schools. The
monks and nuns were absolved from their vows, compelled to marry and
follow a profession, etc."|

This illustrious example was duly followed up by the civil
authorities at Rosteck, Torgau, and other places. An old
chronicle of Torgau, printed in 1524, minutely describes the
revolting particulars of a nocturnal excursion made to the
Franciscan convent of the city, by Leonard Koeppe and some
other young students, who made an open boast of their cruelty

* Arnold, loc. cit. th. 2. Bd. 16, kap. 6, 568, cited by Honinghaus,
supra.

f History Germany, sup. cit. ii, 248.

156 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

and profligacy on the occasion.* At Magdeburg the magis
trates resolved to act more humanely. They put a stop
to the work of plunder, and allowed the monks to remain
quietly in their cells during the rest of their lives; "Pro
vided, however, they laid aside the religious habit, and em
braced the Reformation :"f and many of them, alas ! preferred
apostasy to starvation !

Such as would not apostatize were, in most places, driven
from their convents, " were reduced to beg their bread, and
were the victims of heartless calumny. They seemed aban
doned by all. Art was as ungrateful as mankind ; it forgot
that it owed its progress to their labors. The people laughed
when they saw them pass half naked, and had no word of
pity, no sigh of compassion, for so many unfortunate crea
tures. Whither could they go ? The roads were not safe ;
in those times there were knights who scoured the high-ways
and hunted after monks, whom they took pleasure" — in
making eunuchs — " for the greater glory of God P'J

With all these facts before our eyes, can we wonder at the
testimony borne by the diet of Worms, quoted above, as to
the character and tendency of the Lutheran doctrines ? Even
Protestants have acknowledged, that the Reformation was
indebted mainly to this violence for its successful establish
ment in "Germany and the countries of the north. We have
already seen the testimony of Melancthon. Jurieu, the fa
mous Calvinist minister, acknowledges " that Geneva, Switz
erland, the republics and the free cities, the electors, and the
German princes, England, Scotland, Sweden, and Denmark,
got rid of ' popery,' and established the Reformation, by the
aid of the civil power."§ A sweeping admission, truly, as
candid as it is clearly founded on the facts of history !

The great Frederick Yon Schlegel has well observed, that

* Arnold, ut supra. f Marcheineke, th. 2, s. 41. Audin, ibid.

f Ulrich Hutten boasts of this. Epist. ad Lutherum, part ii, p. 128. Of.

Audin, p. 200. $ C£ Jak. Marx. " Die Ursachen der SchneUen ver-

TESTIMONY OF SCHLEGEL. 157

" Protestantism was the work of man ; and that it appears in
no other light, even in the history which its own disciples
have drawn of its origin. The partisans of the Reformation
proclaimed, indeed, at the outset, that, if it were more than
a human work, it would endure, and that its duration would
serve as a proof of its divine origin. But surely no one will
consider this an adequate proof, when he reflects that the
great Mohammedan heresy, which, more than any other, de
stroys and obliterates the divine image stamped on the human
soul, has stood its ground for full twelve hundred years;
though this religion [imposture], if it proceed from no worse
source, is at best a human work."*

He says also : " That the Reformation was established in
'Denmark chiefly, though not exclusively, as in Sweden, by
the sovereign power : in Iceland its establishment was almost
the work of violence."? True, he indicates the opinion that
Protestantism was introduced into other German countries
"by the torrent of popular opinion :"J but we have already
seen what kind of a torrent this was ; what ruins it left in its
course ; how its turbid waters were swollen by the storm of
the rude eloquence of Luther and his partisans, and how its
maddening current was lashed into fury by the lawless pas
sions of the princes who espoused the cause of the Reforma
tion, and fattened on its spoils.

We must again quote "Wolfgang Menzel in regard to the
practical operation of the new church, as organized in Ger
many, and the influence of the princes therein :

" The whole system of the church was simplified. The sequestrated
bishoprics were provisionally administered, and the affairs of the Lutheran
church controlled by commissioners selected from among the reformers, and
by the councils of the princes, Luther incessantly promulgating the doctrine of
the right of temporal sovereigns to decide all ecclesiastical questions. His inten-

breitung der Reformation," p. 164 ; apud Audin, p. 343. The testimony of
Jurieu is found quoted, with several others of the same kind, in Alzog's
Church History.

* "Philosophy of History," ii, 218. I Ibid., p. 225. | Ibid.. 224.

158 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

tion was, the creation of a counterpoise to ecclesiastical authority, and he
was probably far from imagining that religion might eventually be deprived
of her dignity and liberty by temporal despotism. Episcopal authority passed
entirely into the hands of the princes."*

Our summary of the means employed to promote the suc
cess of the Reformation would be incomplete, without advert
ing to one other cause which contributed, perhaps as much
as any one of those already named, to produce this effect.
We allude to the flagrant abuse of the press, which, during
that period, poured forth a torrent of ridicule, invective,
abuse, misrepresentation, and calumny against the Catholics,
flooding all Germany with pestiferous publications. The vio
lence of the pulpit powerfully seconded that of the press.
Luther himself thundered incessantly from the pulpit of All*
Saints at Wittenberg, as well as from those of the other prin
cipal cities of Saxony. He lashed, with his burning invec
tives, Popes, bishops, priests, and monks : wherever his words
fell they were as a consuming fire. Indefatigable in his exer
tions, he published book after book, inflammatory pamphlet
after inflammatory pamphlet, against the pretended abomina
tions of Rome. His books were eagerly sought after, and
greedily devoured by the great and increasing numbers who
had a prurient curiosity in such novelties, which to many
were attractive, precisely in proportion to their novelty, and
the startling boldness with which they were proclaimed.
That " On the Captivity of Babylon," in which he painted
the Pope as Antichrist, went rapidly through ten editions.
The annual book-fairs at Leipsic and Frankfort never before
presented so animated a spectacle, or drove so brisk a busi
ness.

The works of the champions of Catholicity — of Eck, Em
ser, Prierias, and Hochstraet — found not so ready a sale.
They had not the overweening charm of novelty ; they dealt
not in such rude denunciations ; they were not so replete with

* History of Germany, ii, p. 249.

THE BOOKSELLERS. 159

ridicule or vulgar conceits ! Even the veteran Erasmus, who
had been not long before styled " the prince of letters," " the
star of Germany," " the high-priest of polite literature ;" even
the witty, and polished, and classical Erasmus could scarcely
find purchasers for his Hyperaspides and other works which
he published, after he had at length consented to enter
the lists with Luther. His glory suddenly faded, and the
book-publishers for the first time complained of having to
keep his works on hand unsold !

Many causes contributed to this result. In that period of
maddening excitement, nothing whatever seemed to suit the
popular palate which was not new and startling. The calm
and dignified defence of truth — alas ! now grown antiquated
and obsolete — could not cope with the exciting character and
versatile graces of error. It has been ever so. Perverse hu
man nature has at all times been inclined to relish most what
is most agreeable to its passions. It more readily believes
what is evil than what is good, especially when the former is
served up with the winning graces of rhetoric, and seasoned
with sarcasm, ridicule, and denunciation. Besides, the press
sent forth the works of the reformers neatly and correctly
printed ; whereas those of the Catholics were often so clumsily
executed as to excite ridicule and disgust. The principal
booksellers had joined the reform party, and many of the
apostate monks had exchanged their former occupation of
transcribing manuscripts, for that of type-compositors and
proof-readers in the principal printing establishments. The
press thus became almost wholly subservient to the Protest
ant party ; and the rebellious monks, treading in the footsteps
of Luther, became the most zealous champions of the new
opinions.

A Catholic book which passed through the hands of the
Protestant printers was generally mutilated, or at least print
ed with great negligence. Cochlseus and others complain of
this injustice. He says, that the works of Catholics were
often so badly printed, that they did more service to the Lu-

160 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

theran party than to their own cause ; and that the Frankfort
merchants openly laughed at their clumsy execution.*

Froben, the great bookseller of Basle, made a splendid for
tune by selling the works of Luther, which he reproduced in
every form, and published at the cheapest rates. In a letter
to the reformer, he chuckles with delight over his success :
" All your works are bought up ; I have not ten copies on
hand : never did books sell so well."f Erasmus, in a letter
to Henry VIII. of England, complains that " he could find
no printer who would dare publish any thing against Luther.
Were it against the Pope," he adds, " there, would be no dif
ficulty."!

The great Cardinal Bellarmine, who, towards the close of
the sixteenth century, undertook the herculean task of refut
ing the works of the reformers — a task which he executed in
a most masterly and triumphant manner — assures us, " that
there were few among the Protestant party who did not write
something, and that their books not only spread like a can
cer, but that they were diffused over the land, like swarms of
locusts."§ Books of every size, from the ponderous folio to the
humbler pamphlet, were scattered through Germany on the
wings of the press.

And what were the weapons which these productions wield
ed with so great and deadly effect ? Were they those of sober
truth and of sound argument ? Or' were they those of low
abuse, scurrilous misrepresentation, and open calumny ? If
there is any truth in history, the latter were put in requi-

* " Ea tamen neglectim, ita festinanter et vitiose imprimebant, ut majorem
gratiam eo obsequio referrcnt Lutheranis quam Catholicis. Si quis eorum
justiorem Catholicis operam impenderent, hi a caeteris in publicis mercati-
bus Frankofordias ac alibi vexabantur et ridebantur, velut papistse et sacer-
dotum servi." — Cochl. p. 58, 59. Apud Audin.

f Opp. Lutheri, torn, i, p. 388. 389. Ibid.

| Epist. Erasmi, p. 752. For further particulars, see Audin. p. 337, seqq.

$ " Rari sunt apud adversaries qui non aliquid scribunt, quorum libri non
jam ut cancer serpunt, sed velut agmina locustarum volitant." — Opp. torn, i,
de Controv. in Praefat.

LOW CARICATURE AND RIDICULE. 161

sition much oftener than the former. Catholic doctrines
travestied and misrepresented, Catholic practices ridiculed
and caricatured, Catholic bishops and priests vilified and
openly calumniated ; these were the means which the reformers
employed with so murderous an effect.*

And though all the sins of these first champions of the pre
tended reform should not in justice be visited on their chil
dren in the faith, yet truth compels the avowal that, in these
respects at least, the latter have not proved recreant disciples.
This is still the panoply of Protestant warfare. We wish from
our hearts it were otherwise ! The poet's remark is true both
of the first reformers and of their modern disciples, in the
most of their writings against the Catholic Church :

" A hideous figure of their face they drew,

Nor hues, nor looks, nor colors true :

And this grotesque design exposed to public view."f

"We shall here offer a few specifications, to prove that we
have not done injustice to the character of the writings pub
lished by the early reformers. One means of attacking the
character of the Catholics, was that of the Dialogue, invented
by Ulrich von Hutten, one of the most unscrupulous writers

* To calumny might be added forgery, which was not uncommon in the
palmy days of the Eeformation. In fact, "Whitaker, a Protestant parson,
says, in substance, that this was almost peculiar to the reformed party. We
will allude to one notorious instance in Germany. Otho Pack, vice-chan
cellor of Duke George of Saxony, forged a pretended Catholic plot, which he
professed to have learned by prying into the secrets of the duke. His forgery
caused the elector of Saxony and the landgrave of Hesse to take up arms,
which they however laid down when the falsehoods of this wretch were de
tected. Still the forgery, though thus exposed, was greedily seized up, and
published all over Germany ; and there are yet several writers who speak
of the conspiracy it had fabricated as the league of Passau ! Titus Gates
had a predecessor, it seems, in Germany, though he far surpassed him in
wickedness. We must refer our readers to the pages of Audin for an ac
count of this curious affair ; vol. ii, p. 125, Turnbull's translation, London
edition. f Dry den.

VOL. II. 14:

162 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

of the reform party. It consisted in introducing, with dra
matic effect, the various distinguished men of both sides, the
Catholic and the Protestant, and pretending to let them speak
out their own respective sentiments. These dialogues were
often acted on the stage, with great effect among the popu
lace. The Catholics were travestied, and made to appear in
the most ridiculous light ; while their adversaries were always
victorious. Two of these principal scenic representations
were designed to ridicule two of the chief champions of Catho
licity in Germany, Doctors Hochstraet and Eck. The lowest
humor — with certain specimens of which we will not dare
sully our pages — was employed against these distinguished
divines.* The result was, that they became objects of con
tempt throughout Germany. This was one way to answer
their arguments, which it might have been difficult to answer
in any other!

Every one, who has glanced at the history of those turbu
lent times, is familiar with the vulgar legends of the " Pope-
Ass and Monk-Calf," published by Melancthon and Luther,
and circulated with prodigious effect among the ignorant
populace. The " Pope- Ass " was extracted from the bottom
of the Tiber in 1494 ; and the " Monk-Calf," was discovered
at Friburg, in Misriia, in 1523.f Lucas Kranach, a painter
of the time, sculptured this vulgar conceit on wood ; and this
illustration accompanied the description of the two non-des-
cript monsters. What surprises us most is, that the tem
perate Melancthon should have lent himself to this low rib
aldry, which then passed current for wit.

Erasmus and other cotemporary writers openly accused the
reformers of gross calumny. The former alleged many palpa
ble facts to justify his charge.

* The curious are referred, for copious extracts from these " dialogues,"
to Audin, p. 196, seqq.

f " Interpretatio duorum horribilium monstrorum," etc., per Philippuin
Melancthonem et Martinum Lutherum — - inter Opp. Luth. torn, ii, p.
302.

THE APOSTATE MONKS. 163

" Those people are profuse of calumnies. They circulated a report of a
canon, who complained of not finding Zurich as moral after the preaching of
Zuinglius as before. ... In the same spirit of candor they have accused an
other priest of libertinism, whom I, and all other persons acquainted with
him, know to be pure in word and action. They have calumniated the
canon because he hates sectaries ; and the priest, because, after having mani
fested an inclination to their doctrines, he suddenly abandoned them."*

We might fill a volume with specimens of the scurrilous
abuse and wicked calumnies of Luther against the Popes,
bishops, monks, and the Catholic priesthood! We consult
brevity, and furnish but one or two instances from his Table
Talk, which abounds with such specimens of decency. " The
monks are lineal descendants of Satan. When you wish to
paint the devil, muffle him up in a monk's habit." f Else
where he says, "' that the devil strangled Emser,"J and other
Catholic clergymen.

Luther's marriage was not merely a sacrilegious violation of
his solemn vows ; it was also a master-stroke of policy.
Through its influence, he secured the adherence and the per
severing aid of a whole army of apostate monks, who eagerly
followed his example. Until he took this decisive step, mar
riage among the clergy and monks was viewed with ridicule,
if not with abhorrence by the people. After his marriage, it
became, on the contrary, a matter of boast. Priests, monks,
and nuns hastened to " the ale-pope of the Black Eagle," to
obtain this strange absolution from their vows plighted to
heaven : and he received them with open arms, and granted
them an Indulgence, which never Pope had granted before!
Sacrilegious impurity stalked abroad with shameless front
throughout Germany.

The married priests became the most untiring friends of the
reform, to which they were indebted for their emancipation

* " In Pseudo-Evangelicos," Epist. lib. xxxi, 47. London, Flesher.

f " Table Talk," p. 109, where he adds : " What a roar of laughter there
must be in hell when a monk goes down to it ! " Was he thinking of him
self ?— See Audin, p. 305, and also p. 393, seqq. \ Ibid.

164 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

from popery, and for their wives. We have seen them already
in the book shops and the printing presses. Many of them
obtained their livelihood, by circulating Lutheran pamphlets
through the country.* Others " took their stand near the
church-gates, and often, during the divine offices, exhibited
caricatures of the Pope and the bishops. "f They carried on
a relentless war against the Pope ; and it is remarked, that few,
if any of these married priests and monks, ever repented, or
were softened in their opposition against the Catholic Church !
Luther thus, by his marriage, raised up a whole army of zeal
ous and efficient partisans, whose co-operation powerfully
aided the progress of reform.}

Such then were some of the principal means adopted by
the reformers and their partisans, for carrying out the work
of the Reformation ! Were they such as God could have pos
sibly sanctioned ? Could a cause indebted to such means for
its success be from heaven ? On the other hand, considering
the corrupt state of society in Germany, at the beginning of
the sixteenth century, can we wonder at the great success
which attended a movement promoted by such unhallowed
means as these ? We w^ould be surpised, indeed, on the con
trary, if similar success had not attended it, under all the cir
cumstances of the case.

The previous usurpations of Church patronage by the secular
princes, contrary to the repeated and energetic protests of the
Popes, had done its deadly work, by thrusting unworthy min
isters into the sanctuary ; and then, with rare inconsistency, the
evils and abuses which necessarily ensued, were laid at the
doors of the Popes who had done every thing in their power
to prevent them ! We can not too often repeat it ; the ques
tion of investitures was the great vital question of the period
of Church history preceding the Reformation.

* " Infinitus jam erat numerus qui victum ex Lutheranis libris quasritan-
tes, in speciem bibliopolarum longe lateque per Germanise provincias vaga-
bantur." — Cochlseus, p. 58. Apud Audin.

f Ibid. | Of. Audin, p. 337, seqq.

SUMMING IT. 166

The distinctive doctrines of the Reformation, throwing off
the wholesome restraints of the old religion, flattering pride
and pandering to passion ; the protection of powerful princes,
secured by feeding their cupidity and catering to their basest
passions ; the furious excitement of the people, fed by mad
dening appeals from the pulpit and the press, and made to
revel in works of spoliation and violence; this excitement,
lashed into still greater fury by the constant employment of
ridicule, low raillery, misrepresentation, and base calumny of
every person and of every thing Catholic ; and the marriage
of so many apostate priests and monks, binding them irre
vocably to the new doctrines : — can we wonder that all these
causes combined, and acting too upon an age and country
avowedly depraved, should have produced the effect of rapidly
diffusing the so called Reformation ?

We do not, of course, mean to imply, that all who embraced
the Reformation were corrupt, or were led by evil motives:
we have no doubt that many were deceived by the specious
appearance of piety. This was especially the case with the
common people, who often followed the example and obeyed
the teaching of their princes and pastors, without taking
much trouble to ascertain the right. But we have intended
to speak more particularly of the leading actors in the great
drama; and to paint the chief parts these men played on
the stage.

Much less would we be understood, as indiscriminately and
wantonly censuring Protestants of the present day. A broad
line of distinction should be drawn between the first teachers
and even the first disciples of error, and those who have
inherited it from them through a long line of ancestry. The
latter might be often free from great censure, where the for
mer would be wholly inexcusable. The strong and close
meshes which the prejudices of early education have woven
around them ; the dense and clouded medium, through which
they have been accustomed to view the sun of Catholic truth ;
the strong influence of parental authority and of family ties ;

166 REFORMATION IN GLRMANY.

and many such causes, combine to keep them in error. Be
sides, history, which should be a witness of truth, has been
polluted in its very sources : and the injustice which its voice
has done to the cause of truth, has been accumulating for
centuries. But can Protestants of the present day, notwith
standing all these disadvantages, hold themselves inexcusable,
if they neglect to examine both sides of the question, and this
with all the diligence and attention that so grave a subject
demands ?

To enable them to do this the more easily, was one princi
pal motive that induced us to undertake the review of the
partial and unfounded statements of D'Aubigne, and of others
belonging to the class of writers of which he is a popular
representative. If it be thought, that our picture of the causes
and manner of the Reformation, and of the means to which
it chiefly owed its success, is too dark, we beg leave to refer
to the facts and authorities we have alleged. If there be any
truth in history, our painting has not been too highly colored.
Had we adduced all the evidence bearing on the subject, the
coloring might have been still deeper. We had to examine
and refute the flippant assertions, that the reformers were
chosen instruments of heaven for a divine work ; and that the
" reformation was but the reappearance of Christianity."

A " reappearance of Christianity," indeed ! It is, from the
facts accumulated above, such a " reappearance," as darkness
is of light ! Strip the Reformation of all that it borrowed
from Catholicism, let it appear in its own distinctive charac
ter, in all its naked deformity ; and it has scarcely one feature
remaining in common with early Christianity. Did the Apos
tles preach doctrines which pandered to the passions of man
kind? Did they flatter princes, by offering to them the
plunder of their neighbors, and by allowing them to have
two wives at once, to quiet their troubled conscience ? Did
they employ the weapons of ridicule, sarcasm, and calumny
against their adversaries ? Did they excite their followers to
deeds of lawless violence against the established order of

ITS ESTABLISHMENT IN SWITZERLAND. 167

things ? Did they break their solemn engagements to heaven ?
The reformers did all this, and more, as we have shown ; and
yet they are still to be held up to our admiration, as the new
and divinely chosen apostles of a Christianity restored to its
original purity !

CHAPTER V.

THE REFORMATION IN S WIT ZE RL AND— ZURICH.

" The spirit that I have seen

May be a devil j and the devil hath power

To assume a pleasing shape." — Shakspeare.

The Eeformation in Switzerland more radical than that in Germany — Yet
like it — Sows dissensions — Zuingle warlike and superstitious — Claims
precedency over Luther — Black or white ? — Precursory disturbances —
Aldermen deciding on faith — How the fortress was entrenched — Riot and
conflagration — Enlightenment — Protestant martyrs — Suppression of the
Mass — Solemnity of the reformed worship — Downright paganism — The
Reformation and matrimony — Zuingle's marriage and misgivings — Ro
mance among nuns — How to get a husband — Perversion of Scripture —
St. Paul on celibacy — Recapitulation.

BEFORE we proceed to examine the manifold influences of
the Reformation, it may be well briefly to glance at the his
tory of its establishment in Switzerland. D'Aubigne devotes
two whole books* to this portion of his history, which, as it
concerns his own fatherland, is evidently a favorite topic with
him. Our limits will not permit us to follow him through all
his tedious and romantic details : we must content ourselves
with reviewing some of his leading statements.

After what we have already said concerning the causes and
manner of the Reformation in Germany, it will scarcely be

* Book viii, vol. ii, p. 267 to 400 : and book xi, vol. iii, p. 255 to 341,

168 REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND.

necessary to dwell at any great length on that of Switzerland.
The one was but a reappearance of the other — to use one of
our author's favorite words. The same great features marked
both revolutions, with this only difference: that the Swiss
was more radical and more thorough, and therefore more to
D'Aubigne's taste. Like the German, however, its progress
was everywhere signalized by dissensions, civil commotions,
rapine, violence and bloodshed. And like the German, it
was also indebted for its permanent establishment to the in
terposition of the civil authorities. Without this, neither re
volution would have had either consistency or permanency.
D'Aubigne himself bears unwilling testimony to all these
facts, though, as usual, he suppresses many things of vital
importance. We will supply some of his omissions, and avail
ourselves of his concessions, as we proceed.

The Reformation found the thirteen Swiss cantons united,
and in peace among themselves and with all the world. It
sowed disunion among them, and plunged them into a fierce
and protracted civil war, which threatened rudely to pluck up
by the roots the venerable tree of liberty which, centuries be
fore, their Catholic forefathers had planted and watered with
their blood ! The shrines sacred to the memory of William
Tell, Melchtal, and Fiirst, the fathers of Swiss independence,
were attempted to be rudely desecrated: and the altars at
which their forefathers had worshiped in quietness for ages
were recklessly overturned. The consequences of this at
tempt to subvert the national faith by violence were most
disastrous. The harmony of the old Swiss republic was de
stroyed, and the angel of peace departed forever from the hills
and the valleys of that romantic country. That this picture is
not too highly colored, the following brief summary of facts
will prove.

The four can tons of Zurich, Berne, Schaffhausen, and Basle,
which first embraced the Reformation, began very soon there
after to give evidence of their turbulent spirit. They formed
a league against the cantons which still resolved to adhere to

A FIGHTING APOSTLE. 169

the Catholic faith. One article of their alliance forbade any
of the confederates to transport provisions to the Catholic
cantons. Arms were in consequence taken up on both sides,
and a bloody contest ensued. Ulrich Zuingle, the father of
the Reformation in Switzerland, marched with the troops of
the Protestant party, and fell, bravely fighting with them
" the battles of the Lord," on the llth of Oct., 1531 ! Did
he, in this particular respect, give any evidence of that apos
tolic spirit, which D'Aubigne ascribes to him ? Did ever an
apostle of the primitive and genuine stamp die on the field of
battle, while seeking the lives of his fellow mortals? He
was, moreover, as superstitious, as he was fierce. The histo
rians of his life tell us, that a little before the battle he was
stricken with sad foreboding by the appearance of a comet,
which he viewed as portending direful disasters to Zurich,
and as announcing his own coming death.

Our historian of the Reformation, though chary of the char
acter of Zuingle as an apostle, furnishes us with a little inci
dent which marks the warlike spirit of the Swiss reformer.
"In Zurich itself," he says, "a few worthless persons, instiga
ted to mischief by foreign agency, made an attack on Zuingle
in the middle of the night, throwing stones at his house,
breaking the windows, and calling aloud for the ' red-haired
Uli, the vulture of Glaris ' — so that Zuingle started from his
sleep, and caught up his sword. The action is characteristic
of the man."*

Zuingle was at Zurich, what Luther was at Wittenberg.
Each claimed the precedency in the career of the Reforma
tion. Mr. Hall am thus notices their respective claims :

"It has been disputed between the advocates of these leaders to which the
priority in the race of reform belongs. Zuingle himself declares, that in
1516, before he had heard of Luther, he began to preach the gospel at Zu
rich, and to warn the people against relying upon human authority. But

that is rather ambiguous, and hardly enough to substantiate his claim

Like Luther, he had the support of the temporal magistrates, the council of

* Vol. iii, p. 275.
VOL. I. 15

170 INFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND.

Zurich. Upon the whole, they proceeded so nearly with equal steps, and
were so connected with each other, that it seems difficult to award either
any honor of precedence."*

We shall have occasion hereafter to refer at some length to
the bitter controversy which raged between these two boasted
apostles, the germ of which may perhaps be discovered in
this early partisan struggle for precedence. They taught con
tradictory doctrines : one warmly defended, the other as
warmly denied the real presence of Christ in the holy Euchar
ist. Were they both guided by the spirit of God ? Can the
Holy Spirit inspire contradictory systems of belief? If God
was with Luther, He certainly was not with Zuingle; if he
was with Zuingle, He certainly could not be with Luther.
God is the God of order, and not of confusion ; and truth is
one and indivisible, not manifold and contradictory.

By the way, what a pity it is that D'Aubigne, while laud
ing the Swiss reformer to the skies could not settle the import
ant previous question which had so sadly puzzled Zuingle: —
whether the spirit which appeared to him in his sleep, and
suggested the text of Scripture by which he might disprove
the real presence, was really black or white? How very
gently he touches on this passage in the history of his favorite !
He merely gives vent to his surprise, by a note of admiration,
that this circumstance should have " given rise to the asser
tion that the doctrine promulgated by the reformer was de
livered to him by the devil !f Did not the reformer's own
account of the visionj — of the nature of which he was cer
tainly the most competent witness — give rise to the suspi
cion, which afterwards grew into an assertion ? And did not
his brother reformers openly make the embarrassing charge ?

* History of Literature, sup. cit. vol. i, p. 163-4. He cites Gerdes, Histor.
Evang. Reform, i, 103. f D'Aubigne, iii, 272-3.

I Ater fuerit an albus, nihil memini, somnium enim narro : " Whether it
was black or white, I remember nothing, as I relate a dream." — Why relate
the dream at all, unless he attached some importance to it, as conveying
some indication or augury of his mission ? Ibid.

RIOTS AND COMMOTIONS. 171

Zurich was the first city of Switzerland which was favored
with the new gospel. Our author treats in great detail* of
the circumstances which attended its first introduction; as
well as of the preliminary discussions, commotions, and riots,
which were its early harbingers. We will present a few speci
mens of this truculent spirit.

Leo Juda, one of the precursors of the new gospel, arrived
in Zurich " about the end of 1522, to take the duty of pastor
of St. Peter's church.'5 Soon after his arrival, being at church,
he rudely interrupted an Augustinian monk who was preach
ing. " ' Reverend father Prior,' exclaimed Leo, ' listen to me
for an instant ; and you, my dear fellow-citizens, keep your
seats — I will speak as becomes a Christian :' and he proceeded
to show the unscriptural character of the teaching he had just
been listening to. A great disturbance ensued in the church.
Instantly several persons angrily attacked the ' little priest'
from Einsidlen (Zuingle). Zuingle, repairing to the council,
presented himself before them, and requested permission to
give an account of his doctrine, in presence of the bishop's
deputies ; — and the council, desiring to terminate the dissen
sions, convoked a conference for the 29th of January. The
news spread rapidly throughout Switzerland."!

After having given a very lengthy account of the confer
ence, which, as might have been anticipated, terminated in
nothing, our author thus manifests his joy at the brighten
ing prospects of the gospel. " Every thing was moving for
ward at Zurich ; men's minds were becoming more enlight
ened — their hearts more steadfast. The Reformation was
gaining strength. Zurich was a fortress, in which the new
doctrine had entrenched itself, and from within whose inclosure
it was ready to pour itself abroad over the whole confeder
ation ."J

Our historian proceeds to tell us how the " Reformation
gained strength," and how " the new doctrine entrenched

* D'Aubigne, vol. iii, p. 238, seqq. f Ibid., p. 239. { Ibid., p. 254

172 REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND.

itself in the fortress ;" to say nothing of the " enlightenment,"
of which we will treat hereafter. The "enlightened" council
of Zurich decided in favor of the reformed doctrines, and
resorted to force in order to suppress the ancient worship.
Only think of a town council, composed of fat aldermen and
stupid burgomasters, pronouncing definitively on articles of
faith ! In reading of their high-handed proceedings, we are
forcibly reminded of the wonderful achievements, in a some
what different field, of the far-famed Dutch governors and
burgomasters of New Amsterdam, as fully set forth by Irving
in his inimitable History of 'New York. The one is about as
grotesque as the other. They of Zurich did not, however,
belong to the class of Walter, the Doubter : they were perhaps
too well satisfied with their superior wisdom and knowledge
to entertain a doubt!

Let us trace some of the further proceedings of this enlight
ened board of councilmen at Zurich.

" Nor did the council stop here. The relics, which had given occasion to
so many superstitions, were honorably interred. And then, on the further
requisition of the three (reformed) pastors, an edict was issued, decreeing that,
inasmuch as God alone ought to be honored, the images should be removed
from all the churches of the Canton, and their ornaments applied to the
relief of the poor. Accordingly twelve counselors — one for each tribe — the
three pastors, and the city architect, with some smiths, carpenters, and
masons, visited the several churches ; and, having first closed the doors, took
down the crosses, obliterated the paintings (the Vandals /), whitewashed the
walls, and carried away the images, to the great joy of the faithful (!) who
regarded this proceeding, Bullinger tells us, as a glorious act of homage to
the true God."

In some of the country parishes, the ornaments of the
churches were committed to the flames, " to the greater honor
and glory of God." Soon after this the organs were sup
pressed, on account of their connection with many " supersti
tious observances, and a new form of baptism was established
from which every thing unscriptural was carefully excluded."*—

* D ' Aubigne, vol. iii, p. 257-8.

RELIGIOUS FORAGING. 173

What enlightenment, and marvelous taste for music and the
fine arts !

" The triumph of the Reformation," our author continues,
" threw a joyful radiance over the last hours of the burgo
master Roush and his colleague. They had lived long enough ;
and they both died within a few days after the restoration of
a purer (!) mode of worship."* — And such a triumph ! ! Be
fore we proceed to show by what means this purer mode of
worship was established at Zurich, we will give, from our
historian, an instance of one out of many of the scenes of
riot and conflagration enacted by the faithful children of the
Reformation. The passage details the proceedings of a party,
which went out on a foraging excursion with the pious bailiff
Wirth.

" The rabble, meanwhile, finding themselves in the neighborhood of the
convent of Ittingen, occupied by a community of Carthusians, who were
generally believed (by the faithful) to have encouraged the bailiff Amberg
in his tyranny, entered the building and took possession of the refectory.
They immediately gave themselves up to excess, and a scene of riot ensued.
In vain did Wirth entreat them to quit the place ; he was in danger of per
sonal ill-treatment among them. His son Adrian had remained outside of
the monastery : John entered it, but shocked by what he beheld within,
came out immediately. The inebriated peasants proceeded to pillage the
cellars and granaries, to break the furniture to pieces, and to him the booJcs."^

This is D'Aubigne's statement of the affair : but the depu
ties of the Cantons found the "Wirths guilty, and pronounced
sentence of death on them. Our author views them as mar
tyrs, and tells us,J in great detail, how cruelly they were
" mocked/' how they were " faithful unto death," and how
intrepidly the " father and son " ascended the scaffold ! His
whole account is truly affecting. The Reformation is wel
come to such martyrs as these !

He exclaims : " Now at length blood had been spilt — inno
cent blood. Switzerland and the Reformation were baptized
with the blood of the martyrs. The great enemy of the gospel

D'Aubigne, vol. iii, p. 257-8. f Ibid., p. 264-5. | Ibid., p. 266, seqq.

174 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

had effected his purpose ; but in effecting it, he had struck
a mortal blow at his own power. The death of the "Wirths
was an appointed means of hastening the triumph of the
Keformation."* — "The reformers of Zurich," he adds, "had
abstained from abolishing the Mass when they suppressed the
use of images ; but the moment for doing so seems now to
have arrived."t

He then relates the manner in which the Mass was sup
pressed, and the "purer worship" introduced in its place.

" On the llth of August, 1525, the three pastors of Zurich, accompanied
by Megander, and Oswald, and Myconius, presented themselves before the
great council, and demanded the re-establishment of the Lord's Supper.
Their discourse was a weighty one, and was listened to with the deepest
attention — every one felt how important was the decision which the council
was called upon to pronounce. The Mass — that mysterious rite which for
three (fifteen) successive centuries had constituted the animating principle
in the worship of the Latin Church (and in all churches) — was now to be
abrogated ; the corporeal presence of Christ was to be declared an illusion,
and of that illusion the minds of the people were to be dispossessed ; some
courage was needed for such a resolution as this, and there were individuals
in the council who shuddered at so audacious a design."!

The grave board of councilmen did not, however, hesitate
long : they seem to have made quick work in this most im
portant matter.

" The great council was convinced by his (Zuingle's) reasoning, and hesi
tated no longer. (How could they resist his reasoning, based as it was on
the teaching of the spirit, Uack or ivhite ?) The evangelical doctrine had
sunk deep into every heart, and moreover, since the separation from Rome
had taken place, there was a kind of satisfaction felt in making that separa
tion as complete as possible, and digging a gulf, (the Reformation was a
gulf) as it were, between the Reformation and her. The council decreed
that the Mass should be abolished, and it was determined that on the fol
lowing day, which was Maunday Thursday, the Lord's Supper should be
celebrated in conformity with the apostolic model." §

" The altars disappeared," he continues ; " some plain tables,
covered with the sacramental bread and wine, occupied their

* D'Aubigne, iii, p. 270. f Ibid., p. 271.

t Ibid. $ Ibid., p. 272.

SOLEMNITY OF THE NEW WORSHIP. 175

places, and a crowd of eager communicants was gathered
around them. There was something exceedingly solemn in
that assemblage."* — No doubt it was much more solemn than
had been the Catholic worship ! Our author thus describes
the solemnity.

" The people then fell on their knees : the bread was carried round on
large wooden dishes or platters, and every one broke off a morsel for him
self; the wine was distributed in wooden drinking cups ; the resemblance
to the primitive supper was thought to be the closer. (!) The hearts of
those who celebrated this ordinance were affected with alternate emotions
of wonder and joy."f — Truly there was much to excite wonder, if not joy !

In the same strain is the following passage :
" Such was the progress of the Reformation at Zurich. The simple com
memoration of our Lord's death caused a fresh overflow in the church of

love to God, and love to the brethren Zuingle rejoiced at these affecting

manifestations of grace, and returned thanks to God, that the Lord's Supper
was again working those miracles of charity, which had long since ceased to
be displayed in connection with the Sacrifice of the Mass. ' Our city,' said he,
'continues at peace. There is no fraud, no dissension, no envy, no wrang
ling among us. Where shall we discover the cause of this agreement
except in the Lord's good pleasure, and the harmlessness and meekness of
the doctrine we profess?' " — He, however, spoils this beautiful picture by the
following cruel sentence, which immediately follows : " Charity and unity
were there — but not uniformity."];

Our historian here refers to certain strange doctrines
broached by Zuingle in this same year 1525, in his famous
" Commentary on true and false religions," addressed to Fran
cis I., king of France. He labors hard to defend the reform
er from the charge of Pelagianism, which his associates in
the Reformation did not fail to make. But was it honest in
him to conceal the notorious fact, that, in this same Commen
tary, Zuingle had placed Theseus, Hercules, Numa, Scipio,
Cato, and other heathen worthies, in heaven among the elect?
This was something worse than Pelagianism ; it was down
right paganism. Could "charity and unity" reign in the
midst of the fiercest wranglings, of the most bitter civil feuds

* D'Aubigne, iii, p. 273. f Ibid. J Ibid., p. 274.

170 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

and dissensions, and amidst the bloodshed of a protracted
civil war ? Yet these were the scenes amid which the Swiss
Reformation revealed.

"Such," then, "was the progress of the Reformation at
Zurich !" In other places — at Berne and at Basle — its pro
ceedings were marked by similar demonstrations. It was
everywhere the same. Everywhere, it invoked the civil
po\ver, and everywhere it was established, as at Zurich, by
the decisions of boards of town councilmen, and was enforced
by violence. D'Aubigne himself alleges facts which prove
all this ; and we deem it unnecessary to repeat them ; espe
cially as we purpose to devote another chapter to the Refor
mation in Switzerland, in which the facts establishing this
view will be more fully set forth.

(Ecolampadius was the chief actor on the Reformation stage
at Basle. He was a learned and moderate man, the early
friend of Erasmus, and, in some respects, the counterpart of
Melancthon. The gospel light seems to have first beamed
upon him from the eye of a beautiful young lady, whom, in
violation of his solemn vows plighted to heaven, he espoused ;
— " probably," as Erasmus wittily remarked, " to mortify him
self!" In the race of matrimony, at least, he could claim the
precedency over many of his brother reformers. Yet the
latter did not long remain behind. Matrimony was, in almost
all cases, the denouement of the drama which signalized the
zeal for reformation. Zuingle himself espoused a rich widow.
A widow also caught Calvin, a little later. Martin Bucer,
another reformer, who figured chiefly in Switzerland, far out
stripped any of his fellows in the hymeneal career. He be
came the husband of no less than three ladies in succession:
and one of them had been already married three times — all
too, by a singular run of good luck, in the reformation line !*

* For a full and humorous account of this whole matter, see " Travels of
an Irish gentleman," ch. xlvi ; where the great Irish poet enters into the
subject at length ; giving his authorities as he proceeds, and playing off his
caustic wit on the hymeneal propensities of the reformers.

THE COMEDY OF MARRIAGE. 177

It is really curious to observe, how D'Aubigne treats this
remarkable subject. Speaking of the Swiss reformers, he says :

"Several among them at this period (1522) returned to the ' apostolic '
usage *(!) Xyloclect was already a husband. Zuingle also married about
this time. Among the women of Zurich, none was more respected than
Anna Reinhardt, widow of Meyer von Knonau, mother of Gerold. From
Zuingle's coming among them, she had been constant in her attendance on
his ministry ; she lived near him, and he had remarked her piety, modesty,
and maternal tenderness. Young Gerold, who had become almost like a
son to him, contributed further to bring about an intimacy with his mother.
The trials that had already befallen this Christian woman — whose fate it
was to be one day more severely tried than any woman whose history is on
record — had formed her to a S3riousness which gave prominency to her
Christian virtues. She was then about thirty-five, and her whole fortune
consisted of four hundred florins. f It was on her that Zuingle (kind, sym
pathetic soul !) fixed his eyes for a companion for life."]:

Still he seems to have entertained serious misgivings at
thus breaking his solemn vows :

" He did not make his marriage public. This was beyond doubt a blame-
able weakness in one who was in other respects so resolute (reckless ?). The
light he and his friends possessed on the subject of celibacy was by no
means general. The weak might have been stumbled." §

This last is a new phrase, introduced, we suppose, to unfold
a new idea — that the people retained conscience longer than
the boasted reformers, who misled them from the old paths.

On this same subject, D'Aubigne treats us to some fine
touches of romance, concerning nuns who embraced the Refor
mation, and then immediately, as a seemingly necessary
sequel, got married ! We will give a few instances :

" At Koningsfeld upon the river Aar, near the castle of Hapsburg, stood a
monastery adorned with all the magnificence of the -middle ages, and in
which reposed the ashes of many of that illustrious house which had so
often given an emperor to Germany. To this place the noble families of

* How very absurd ! Was St. Paul married ? Were any of the Apostles
ever married, except St. Peter, of whose wife the Scripture says nothing after
he became an Apostle ? She was probably dead.

f A very large sum at that time. \ I) Aubigne, vol, ii, p. 383.

5 Ibid., D. 384.

178 REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND.

Switzerland and of Suabia used to send their daughters to take the vail

The liberty enjoyed in this convent had favored the introduction not

only of the Bible (they had it already, and were even obliged to read por
tions of it daily by their rule), but the writings of Luther and Zuingle ; and
soon a new spring of life and joy changed the aspect of its interior !"*

A new spring of life and of joy was certainly thus opened
to the nuns. They soon became tired of retirement and
of prayer : they sighed for the flesh-pots of Egypt to which
they had bidden adieu — for the "life and joy" of the world.
Margaret Watteville, one of them, wrote a letter to Zuingle,
full of piety and of affection ; and declared that she expressed
not "her own feelings only, but those of all the convent of
Koningsfeld who loved the gospel."f

D'Aubigne accordingly tells us, that a " convent into which
the light of the gospel had penetrated with such power, could
not long continue to adhere to monastic observances. Mar
garet Watteville and her sisters, persuaded that they should
better serve God in their families than in the cloister, solicited
permission to leave it."J The council of Berne heard their
prayer : the convent " gates were opened ; and a short time
afterwards, Catharine Bonnsteten (one of the nuns) married
William Yon Diesbach/'§ The nun Margaret Watteville was
equally fortunate : she " was about the same time united to
Lucius Tscharner of Coira."|| Such was almost invariably
the denouement of the reformation plot.

Our historian, in fact, views the sacrilegious marriages of
the priests and nuns — against their solemn vows freely plighted
to God at his holy altar — as the most conclusive proof of the
progress of the Reformation ! Mark this curious passage :

" But it was in vain to attempt to smother the Eeformation at Berne. It
made progress on all sides. The nuns of the convent D'lle had not forgot
ten Haller's visit. (This was a wretched apostate, who had held improper
discourse in the convent, which drew upon him a sentence of perpetual ban-

* D 'Aubigne, vol. iii, p. 280, 281.

f This letter is given in full, Ibid., vol. iii, p. 281, 282.

j Ibid. $ Ibid |i Ibid., p. 285.

ROMANTIC NUNS. 179

ishment from the lesser council of Berne ; which sentence was however
mitigated by the grand council, which was content with merely rebuking
him and his associate reformers, and ordering them to confine themselves in
future to their own business and let the convents alone.)* Clara May, (one
of the nuns) and many of her friends, pressed in their consciences (!) what
to do, wrote to the learned Henry Bullinger. In answer, he said : ' St. Paul
enjoins young women not to take on them vows, but to marry, instead of
living in idleness under a false show of piety. (1 Tim. v: 13, 14). Follow
Jesus in humility, charity, patience, purity, and kindness.' Clara, looking
to heaven for guidance, resolved to act on the advice, and renounce a manner
of life at variance with the word of God — of man's invention — and beset
with snares. Her grandfather Bartholomew, who had served for fifty years
in the field and council hall, heard with joy of the resolution she had
formed. Clara quitted the convent,"f — and married the provost, Nicholas
Watteville.|

What an evidence of piety, " looking to heaven for guid
ance," is it not — to get married ! And what a perversion of
Scripture was not that by Henry Bullinger, to induce those
to marry who had taken solemn vows of devoting themselves
wholly to God in a life of chastity ! As this is a pretty good
specimen of the manner in which the reformers " wrested the
Scriptures to their own perdition,"§ we will give entire the
quotation of St. Paul to Timothy, referred to by the " learned
Henry Bullinger/' including the two previous verses, which
he found it convenient not to quote — probably because they
would have convicted him of a most glaring perversion of
God's holy word.

1 Timothy, chap, v, verse 11. ''But the younger widows shun: for when
they have grown wanton in Christ, they will marry; (this advice the re
formers took special care not to follow).

Verse 12. "Having damnation, because they have made void their first faith,
(by violating their vows to God).

V. 13. "And withal, being idle, they learn to go about from house to
house (as the escaped nuns did at the time of the Reformation): not only
idle, but talkers also, and inquisitive, speaking things which they ought not.

V. 14. " I will, therefore, that the younger (who had not taken vows)

* Such at least is the statement of D'Aubigne — iii, p. 279.
f Ibid., p. 284. \ Ibid., p. 285. § 2 Peter, iii: 16.

180 REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND.

should marry, bear children, be mistresses of families, give no occasion to
the adversary to speak evil."

This passage of St. Paul speaks for itself, and needs no
commentary. While the reformers were quoting St. Paul,
with a view to induce the nuns to escape from their convents
and to get married, why did they not also refer to the follow
ing texts : <

"But I say to the unmarried and to the widows : it is good for them so to
continue, even as I"*

" Art thou bound to a wife ? Seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed
from a wife ? Seek not a wife."^

" But I would have you to be without solicitude. He that is without a
wife, is solicitous for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please
God. But he that is with a wife, is solicitous for the things of the world,
how he may please his wife : and he is divided."!

And why especially did they conceal the following texts,
which had special reference to the nun who, "having grown
wanton in Christ, would marry, having damnation, because
they had made void their first faith ?"

" And the unmarried woman and the virgin thinketh on the things of the
Lord, that she may be holy both in body and spirit. But she that is mar
ried, thinketh on the things of the world, how she may please her husband.
Therefore, both he who giveth his virgin in marriage doeth well ; and he
that giveth her not, doeth better." §

Alas ! the carnal minded reformers understood little of this
sublime perfection! They could not appreciate it. They
were satisfied with doing well ; nor did they even come up to
this standard, any further at least, than to get married!
Their case is sufficiently explained by St. Paul, in the same
epistle from which the above texts are extracted. " But the
sensual man perceiveth not the things that are of the spirit
of God : for it is foolishness to him, and he can not under
stand : because it is spiritually examined."||

"We will now proceed to show more fully, that the subse
quent developments of the Swiss Reformation corresponded

* 1 Corinth, vii: 8. f Ibid., verse 27. J Ibid., verses 32, 33.
5 Ibid., verses 34, 38. || 1 Corinth, ii: 14

HISTORY OF DE HALLER. 181

with its first beginnings at Zurich; and that, everywhere,
throughout the Swiss confederation, it pandered to the worst
passions, was established by intrigue, civil commotions and
violence ; and that it openly infringed all previous ideas of
popular rights and liberty. We shall hereafter devote a sep
arate chapter to the Calvinistic branch of the Reformation,
established at Geneva.

CHAPTER VI.

REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND-BERNE.

History by Louis De Haller — A standard authority — Berne the centre of
operations — De Haller's point of view — His character as an historian — •
His authorities — Wavering of Berne — Tortuous policy — How she em
braced the reform — The bear and the pears — Treacherous perjury of
Berne — Zuinglian council — Its decrees — Eeligious liberty crushed — Riot
and sacrilege — Proceedings of Bernese commissioners — Downright ty
ranny — The minister Farel — His fiery zeal — An appalling picture — A
parallel — Priests hunted down — Character of the ministers — Avowal of
Capito — The glorious privilege of private judgment — How consistent ! —
Persecution of brother Protestants — Drowning the Anabaptists — Eefor-
mation in Geneva — Kapid summary of horrors — The Bernese army of
invasion — The sword and the Bible — Forbearance of Catholics — Affecting
incident at Soleure — The war of Cappell — Points of resemblance — An
armed apostle — A prophet quailing before danger — Battle of Cappell —
Death of Zuingle — Triumph of Catholic cantons — Treaty of peace.

FOR most of the facts contained in this chapter, we are in
debted to De Haller, whose late work on the history of the
Swiss Reformation is a standard authority. So far as we
know, his facts have never been disputed, nor his arguments
answered.*

* His work is entitled : Histoire de la revolution religieuse, ou de la re-
forme Protestante dans la Suisse Occidentale. Par Charles Louis De Hal
ler, ancien membre du conseil souverain, et du conseil secret de Berne, chev-

182 REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND.

As we have already seen, Zurich was the first city in
Switzerland which embraced the Reformation; or, as De
Haller expresses it, she was "the mother and the root of all
religious and political Protestantism in Switzerland."* She
was nearly eight years in advance of Berne in the race of
reform ; and it was through her influence mainly that the
latter at length consented to accept the new gospel. But
once Berne had embraced it, she far outstripped her pre
ceptor in religious zeal or fanaticism; and she took the lead
in all the subsequent religioso-political affairs of the country.
Her central position, her rich and extensive territory, her
untiring industry, and her adroit and unscrupulous diplomacy,
gave her the ascendency over the other Protestant cantons, and
made her the leader in every great enterprise. It was through
her intrigues that Geneva was induced to receive the new
doctrines ; it was by her triumphant physical power that the
Reformation was thrust down the throats of the good Catho
lic people of Yaud. Bernese preachers, escorted by Bernese
bailiffs and spies, traversed all the north-western cantons,
scattering dissension wherever they went, and establishing
the new gospel, either by intrigue or by force, wherever they
could. Cautiously and cunningly, but with an industry that
never tired, and a resolution that never faltered, Berne pur
sued her Machiavelian policy ; until, by one means or an
other, about half of the Swiss confederation was torn from
Catholic unity, and bound, at the same time, by strong polit
ical ties to herself. Thus she became the great leader of the
Protestant, as Lucerne has ever been that of the Catholic
cantons of Switzerland.

It is from this elevated point of view, that De Haller looks

alier de 1'ordre royal de la legion d'honneur, et de celui de Charles III.
d'Espagne, etc. History of the religious revolution, or of the Protestant
Reformation, in Western Switzerland. By Charles Louis De Haller, former
member of the supreme and of the secret councils of Berne, Knight of the
royal order of the legion of honor, and of that of Charles III. of Spain, etc.
4th edition. Paris, 1839. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 436. * De Haller, p. 434.

DE HALLER'S POINT OF VIEW. 183

down upon the history of the Swiss Reformation. Himself a
Bernese, and, until he became a Catholic,* a Bernese coun
selor as high in power and influence as he was in wisdom
and talents, he was eminently qualified to write a history of
the religious revolution in Switzerland. Candid and moder
ate by nature, of an enlarged mind and comprehensive genius,
his scrupulous veracity has not been denied even by his
strongest opponents; while he certainly had every oppor
tunity to become thoroughly acquainted with the events he
relates. He assures us in his preface, that his history "can
not be taxed with exaggeration, for it has been faithfully de
rived from Historical Fragments of the city of Berne, com
posed by a Bernese ecclesiastic (Protestant) ; from the History
of the Swiss, by Mallett, a Genevan Protestant; from that
of Baron d'Alt, a Catholic, it is true, but excessively reserved
upon all that might displease the Bernese ; and above all, in
fine, from the History of the Reformation in Switzerland, by
Ruchat, a zealous Protestant minister and professor of belles-
lettres at the academy of Lausanne, to whom all the archives
were opened for the composition of his work/'f

This last named writer, whom he quotes continually, was a
most violent partisan of the Swiss Reformation; and yet
even he was compelled to relate a large portion of the truth,
mixed up, as usual, with much adroit and canting misrepre
sentation. Thus, he asserts, among other things, u that the
Catholic religion is idolatrous and superstitious, and that it
can not be sustained but by ignorance, by interest, by vio
lence, and by fraud."J De Haller meets the injurious charge,
not by asserting, but by proving ', from undeniable evidence,
that the Swiss Reformation was established precisely by these
identical means, and that it could not, in fact, have been
established otherwise. He says :

* For having become a Catholic, he was expelled from the council, prob
ably in order to prove Protestant love of liberty !

f De Haller, p. ix. \ Quoted by De Haller, Preface, p. x.

184 REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND.

" Protestants of good faith — and there are many such among our separ
ated brethren — will judge for themselves, from a simple exposition of facts,
whether it was not rather their own religion which was introduced by igno
rance, interest, violence, and fraud : by ignorance, for it was everywhere the
ignorant multitude that decided, without knowledge of the cause, upon
questions of faith and discipline, and this was carried so far that even chil
dren of fourteen years were called to these popular assemblies ; by interest,
for the robbery of churches, of temples, and of monasteries, was the first
act of the Keformation ; by violence, for it was with armed force that altars
were overturned, images broken, convents pillaged, and it became necessary
to employ fire and sword, confiscation and exile, in order to make the new
religion prevail over the ancient belief; by lying and "by fraud, for Luther
and Zuingle formally recommended both to their followers as means of suc
cess, and their counsel has been followed with fidelity and perseverance even
unto our own day. We will now pass on to the facts and the proof."*

"We defy any one to read attentively De Haller's work,
without admitting that he has triumphantly proved all this,
and even more, by facts and evidence derived mainly from
Protestant sources. Our limits will not, of course, allow us
to go into all the details of the evidence ; yet we hope to be
able to furnish enough to convince any impartial mind that
De Haller's position is entirely sound and tenable. But first
we must glance rapidly at the manner in which the Reforma
tion was first introduced into Berne ; which, as we have
already intimated, subsequently exercised so strong an influ
ence, both religious and political, on other parts of Switzer
land.

It was slowly and cautiously that Berne embraced the new
doctrines. Long did she resist the intrigues of the Zurichers,
and the wily arts of their new apostle, Ulrich Zuingle. This
man understood well the character of the Bernese ; their
wary distrust of any thing new, their deeply seated self-

* Pref. x, and xi. He gives us in a note, besides some curious facts about
Zuingle, the following passage from a letter of Luther to Melancthon, dated
August 30, 1530 : "When we will have nothing more to fear, and when we
shall be left in repose, we will then repair all our present lies, our f raids, and
our acts of violence.'"

PEARS TO THE BEAR/ 185

.interest, and their dogged obstinacy in maintaining whatever
they finally settled down upon. He well knew all this, and
he acted accordingly. Writing to Berchtold Haller, the first
herald of the new gospel at Berne, he advised moderation
and caution ; " for," says he, " the minds of the Bernese are
not yet ripe for the new gospel."* In a letter subsequently
addressed to Francis Kolb, he uses this quaint language,
alluding to the cantonal type of Berne — the bear :

" My dear Francis ! proceed slowly, and not too rudely, in the business ;
do not throw to the bear at first but one sour pear along with a great many
sweet ones, afterwards two, then three ; and if he begin to swallow them,
throw him always more and more, sour and sweet, pellmell. Finally, empty
the sack altogether ; soft, hard, sweet, sour, and crude ; he will devour
them all, and will not suffer any one to take them away from him, nor to
drive him away."f

Zuingle understood his men, and his arts succeeded even
beyond his most sanguine expectations. Berne vacillated for
several years between truth and error ; her policy was waver
ing and tortuous ; but at length she threw her whole influence
into the scale of the Keformation ; and once she had taken her
position, she maintained it with her characteristic obstinacy.

Though her counsels were often uncertain, yet, in the main,
she had continued faithful to the old religion up to the year
1527. On the 26th of January, 1524, we find her delegates
uniting with those of the twelve cantons at Lucerne in a
strong decree, unanimously passed, for the maintenance of
Catholicity.J Shortly afterwards, she listened with respect
to the voice of the three Catholic bishops of Constance, Bale,
and Lausanne, who strongly urged the cantons to remain
steadfast in their faith, and who promised " that if, in lapse
of time, some abuses had glided into the ecclesiastical state,
they would examine the matter with unremitting diligence,
and abolish the abuses with all their power."§

In 1525-6, the terrible revolt of the peasants took place in

* Quoted by De Haller, p. 18. f Ibid., p. 18, note,

t Ibid., p. 22. $ Ibid., p. 23.

VOL. I. 16

183 REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND.

Germany, and penetrated even into Switzerland. It had cer
tainly grown out of the revolutionary principles broached by
the reformers, and it was headed by Protestant preachers, as
Ruchat, himself a preacher, admits in the following passage :
" Having at their head the preachers of the reform, they pil
laged, ravaged, massacred, and burnt every thing that fell
into their hands."* Sartorius, another Protestant historian'
of Germany, admits the same.-f All social order was threat
ened with annihilation by these wild fanatics, whose number
was legion ; and Berne, appalled by the danger, made a tem
porary truce with her tergiversation, recoiled from the preci
pice, on the brink of which she had been standing, and fell
back on her old vantage ground of conservative Catholicity.
On the 21st of May, 1526, her grand council published an
edict for the preservation of the old religion, and its members
bound themselves, £?/ a solemn oath, to maintain it invi
olate^

Yet, in the following year, Berne revoked this decree,
violated this solemnly plighted oath, joined the Reformation,
and lent her whole influence to its propagation throughout
Switzerland ! Her wavering ceased all of a sudden, and her
policy, hitherto tortuous and always unprincipled, now be
came firmly settled. Not only she declared for the Reforma
tion, but she spared no labor, no intrigue, no money, — nothing,
to make it triumph everywhere. It was mainly through her
subsequent efforts that the Reformation was fastened on a
large portion of the Swiss republic. By what means this
was accomplished, we have already intimated; and now we
will furnish some of the principal specifications and evidence
bearing on the subject. The facts we are going to allege
clearly prove this great leading feature of the Swiss Reforma
tion: — that it was only by intrigue, chicanery, persecution,
and open violence, that it was finally established at the city

* Quoted by De Haller, p. 23. f Ibid.

| Ibid., ch. iv, p. 27 seqq.

ZUINGLIAN COUNCIL ITS DECREES. 187

of Berne and throughout the canton, as well as in all the other
cantons where Bernese influence could make itself felt.

In 1528, a conference, or rather a species of Zuinglian
council was held at Berne, for the purpose of deciding on the
articles of faith to be adopted in the proposed reformation.
Zuingle was the master spirit of the assembly, at which very
few Catholics assisted. Ten articles, or theses, were there
adopted by the ministers ; but, though drawn up with studied
ambiguity and vagueness, they were still signed only by a
minority of the Bernese clergy, the majority still clinging to
the old faith. Yet the Bernese grand council of state not
only adopted and confirmed these articles, but enjoined their
adoption on all the people of the canton. Pastors and curates
were forbidden to teach any thing opposed to them; the
Mass was abolished, altars were to be demolished, images
to be burnt, and the four bishops of Switzerland were
declared deprived of all jurisdiction! Moreover, priests
were permitted to marry, and religious persons of both
sexes to leave their convents ; the ministers were ordered to
preach four times each week under penalty of 'Suspension ;
and finally the council reserved to itself the right " to change
this new religion if any one would prove to them any thing
better by the Scriptures."*

Such was the tenor of the famous Bernese decree, by which
the new gospel was first established by law. Nor did it re
main a dead letter. Violence, sacrilege, and robbery rioted
throughout the canton. The churches of the Catholics were
forcibly seized on, the altars were overturned, the beautiful
decorations of paintings and statuary were defaced or broken
to pieces, people were forbidden any longer to worship at the
altars and shrines of their fathers ; and very soon the whole
canton presented the appearance of a country through which
an army of Vandals and Huns had but lately marched. It is
a certain and undoubtedj^c^, that the Reformation m&s forced

* Quoted by De Haller, pp. 52, 53.

188 REFORMATION IK SWITZERLAND.

upon the Bernese people, against the positive will of the ma
jority ! But the minority were active, untiring, revolutionary,
and they had the civil authorities to back them ; the majority
were often indifferent and negligent; their natural protectors,
the more zealous among the clergy, had been compelled to
fly ; and thus left alone, a flock without shepherds, the people
were at length wearied out and harassed into conformity.

To enforce the new religious law, commissioners were sent
from Berne into all the communes of the canton, with instruc
tions to address the people, and to use every effort to induce
them to embrace the new gospel. After their harangues, the
matter was to be immediately put to the popular vote, boys
of fourteen years being entitled to the privilege of suffrage !
If the majority went for the new gospel, even if this majority
consisted but of one voice, the minority were compelled to
abandon the old religion, and the Mass was declared publicly
abolished throughout the commune! If, on the contrary, the
majority, as was often the case, in spite of every entreaty
and threat, went for the old religion, the Protestant minority
still remained free to practice publicly their worship. More
over, in this latter case, the vote of the commune was again
taken by parishes, in order that those in which the majority
were Protestants might be protected by the civil authority.
Even if a commune voted unanimously in favor of Catholicity,
the possibility of practicing their religion was taken away from
the Catholics by the banishment of their priests, and the
stationing amongst them of Protestant preachers ; or if their
Bernese excellencies graciously allowed them to retain their
pastors, it was only for a time and until further orders !*

We ask whether all this was not downright tyranny of the
worst kind ; and whether our assertion made above was at all
exaggerated ? But this is not yet all, nor even half. There
were in Switzerland certain cities and districts under the joint
government and control of Berne, Friburg and other Catholic

* Quoted by De Haller, pp. 53, 54.

TYRANNY AND VIOLENCE. 189

cantons. To these Berne sent out her emissaries, both re
ligious and political. If they could be gained over to the
new religion, they would probably throw off the yoke of their
Catholic joint sovereigns, and fall solely under the govern
ment of Berne, to say nothing of the spiritual good which
would accrue to their souls from the new gospel. Hence no
money nor intrigue was to be spared to proselytize them.

The fiery minister, Farel, armed with Bernese passports,
and accompanied or sustained by Bernese deputies and bailiffs,
ran over these common cities and districts, with the impetu
ous fury of one possessed by an evil spirit. He stirred up
seditions whithersoever he went, either against the old religion
or against himself; and his progress was everywhere marked
by conflagrations and ruins. In the bishopric of Bale, in
several towns and communes belonging to the present can
ton of Vaud, in Soleure, and elsewhere, this furious fanatic
and political firebrand agitated society to its very depths,
and lashed popular passions into a fury which was entirely un
controllable. Wherever the populace could be won over to his
party, or even overawed into silence, he caused the Mass to be
abolished, churches to be stripped, pillaged, and sacrilegiously
desecrated, and altars to be overturned ! And the Bernese
authorities not only calmly looked on, but they even sanc
tioned all these ferocious deeds, and cast the shield of their
protection around the person of Farel.*

Insurrections and violence everywhere marked the progress
of the Reformation. Look, for instance, at the following
graphic picture of Switzerland during the epoch in question,
drawn by De Haller :

"During the years 1529, 1530, and 1531, Switzerland found herself in a
frightful condition, and altogether similar to that of which we are now wit
nesses, three centuries later. Nothing was seen everywhere but hatred,
broils, and acts of violence ; everywhere reigned discord and division ; dis
cord between the cantons, discord in the bosom of the governments, discord
between sovereigns and subjects, in fine, discord and division even in every

* See De Haller, p. 71 seqq., for detailed proof of all this.

190 REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND.

parish and in every family. The defection of Berne, at which the Zurichers
had labored for six years, had unchained the audacity of all the meddlers
and bad men in Switzerland. On all sides new revolutions broke out ; — at
B;ile? at St. Gall, at Bienne, at Thurgovia, at Frauenfeld, at Mellingen, at
Brerngarten, even at Gaster and in the Toggenburg, at Herissau, at Wettin-
gen, and finally at Schaff housen. Everywhere they were brought about by
a band of poltroons or at least of ignorant burgesses, both turbulent and
factious, against the will of the intimidated magistrates, and of the more
numerous and peaceable portion of the inhabitants who looked upon these
innovations with horror, but whose indignation was arrested and whose zeal
was paralyzed, as happens during our own days, by a pretended necessity
of avoiding the effusion of blood, and preventing the horrors of a civil war.
Thus one party declared an implacable war against their fellow-citizens and
every thing that is sacred, while the other was condemned to suffer without
resistance all manner of injuries, all manner of hostilities ; and this state of
triumphant iniquity and of miserable servitude was qualified by the fine
name of peace. Everywhere, except at Shaff housen, a city which was
always distinguished for its tranquillity and the peaceful character of its in
habitants, seditious armed mobs rushed of their own accord to the churches,
broke down the altars, burnt the images, destroyed the most magnificent
monuments of art, pillaged the sacred vases as well as other objects of value,
and put up for public sale at auction the sacred vestments : by such vandal
ism and by such sacrileges was the religious revolution of the sixteenth
century signalized."*

Just imagine that the United States were densely populated
and filled with cities, and that the Catholic religion were that
of the people ; but that a religious revolution had been effected
in one of our great cities, — say Philadelphia, — by violence,
sustained by the civil authorities ; that there all our churches
had been pillaged and desecrated, a part of them burned
down and the other part seized on for the Protestant worship ;
that the frenzy spread, until similar scenes were enacted in
half the cities and towns of our republic ; imagine, in a word,
the Philadelphia riots, aggravated a hundred fold, extending
through half the country, and keeping the people in a state
of anarchy and civil war for more than twenty years ; imagine
our hitherto peaceful republic broken up by discord, and

* D« Haller, pp. 62-64.

INTOLERANCE AND INCONSISTENCY. 191

bathed in the blood of its citizens, until at last the fierce riot
ers sit down in triumph amidst the ruins they had everywhere
strewn around them ; and you will then have some faint con
ception of the rise, progress, and triumph of the Protestant
Reformation in a large portion of Switzerland! Recent
events, both in this country and in Switzerland, have proved
that Protestantism has not yet lost all of its original fierce
ness, and that its turbulent spirit has not been yet entirely
subdued by the onward march of refinement and civilization.
As might have been anticipated, the Bernese met with fre
quent resistance in their efforts to destroy the old religion,
and to force the new one on the people. Popular insurrec
tions broke out at Aigle, and in the bailiwicks of Lentzburg,
Frutigen, Interlaken, and Haut-Siebenthal, as well as in other
places. How was this resistance met ? It was crushed by
main force, probably with a view to demonstrate to all the
world how sincerely the Bernese were attached to the great
fundamental principles of the Reformation, — that each one
should read the Bible and judge for himself! As De Haller
says:

" An edict of persecution was issued, which directed that images should
be everywhere broken and altars demolished, as well in the churches as in
private houses ; that priests who yet said Mass should be everywhere hunted
down, seized on whenever they could be caught, and put in prison : that
every one who spoke badly of the Bernese authorities should be treated in
like manner ; for, says Euchat, the Catholics of the canton and vicinity
declaimed horribly against them. In case of relapse, the priests were out
lawed and delivered up to public vengeance : in fine, the same edict decreed
punishment against all who should sustain these refractory priests (that is,
all who remained faithful to the ancient religion), or who afforded them an
asylum. A third edict of the 22d December, forbade any one to go into
the neigboring cantons to hear Mass, under penalty of deprivation for those
who held office, and of arbitrary punishment for private individuals."*

Was ever tyranny and persecution carried further than
this ? And yet this is but one chapter in the history of the
Swiss Reformation. The same ferocious intolerance was

* De Haller, p. 57-58.

192 REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND.

witnessed wherever the Reformation made its appearance, in
the once peaceful and happy land of William Tell. Did our
limits permit, we might prove this by facts, as undeniable as
they are appalling. Those Catholic priests who were not
willing to betray their religion, or to sell their conscience for
a mess of pottage, were everywhere thrown into prison or
banished the country. They were succeeded by preachers,
many of them fugitives from France and Germany, and most
of them men of little learning and less piety, remarkable only
for a certain boldness and rude popular eloquence or decla
mation. Men of this stamp, who had suddenly, and often
without vocation or ordination, intruded themselves into the
holy ministry, could not hope to win or secure the confidence
of the people. Accordingly, we find the following candid
avowal on the subject, in a confidential letter of the minister
Capito to Farel, written as late as 1537. He says :

" The authority of the ministers is entirely abolished ; all is lost, all goes
to ruin. The people say to us boldly : you wish to make yourselves the
tyrants of the Church, you wish to establish a new papacy. God makes me
know what it is to be a pastor, and the wrong we have done the Church ly the
precipitate and inconsiderate vehemence which has caused us to reject the Pope.
For the people, accustomed to unbounded freedom, and as it were nourished
by it, have spurned the rein altogether ; they cry out to us : we know
enough of the gospel, what need have we of your help to find Jesus Christ ?
Go and preach to those who wish to hear you."*

The intolerance of the Protestant party was surpassed only
by its utter inconsistency. The glorious privileges of private
judgment, of liberty of conscience and of the press, were for
ever on their lips ; and yet they recklessly trampled them all
under their feet ! Each one was to interpret the Bible for
himself, and yet he who dared interpret it differently from
their excellencies, the counsellors of Berne, was punished as
an enemy of the government ! The counter principle of a
union of church and state, was even openly avowed and con-

* Epistola ad Farel. inter epist. Calvini, p. 5 ; quoted by De Haller, p.
99, note.

CHURCH AND STATE. 193

stantly acted on. The council of ministers, held at Berne in
1532, subscribed a confession of faith drawn up by Capito, in
which the following remarkable passages are found :

" The ministers acknowledge that it is not possible for them to produce any
fruit in their church, unless the civil magistrate lend his assistance to advance
the good work. . . , Every Christian magistrate ought in the exercise of his
power, to be the lieutenant and minister of God, and to maintain among his
subjects the evangelical doctrine and life, so far at least as it is exercised out
wardly and is practised in external things.* .... The magistrates should
then take great care to preserve sound doctrine ; to prevent error and seduc
tion, to punish blasphemy and all outward sins affecting religion and con
duct, to protect the truth and good morals."f

This forcibly reminds us of the doctrines of the nursing
fathers, so much spoken of, even in our American Presbyte
rian Confession of Faith. As some additional evidence of the
love which the Swiss reformers bore to the liberty of the press
and to that of conscience, read the two following extracts from
our author :

"The Bernese, who had talked so much about the liberty of conscience
and that of the press while it was a question of establishing the reform, then
sent deputies to Bale to complain of the libels which were there printed
against the deputies of Berne, and they demanded that silence should be im
posed on the preachers unfavorable to the reform. Thus it is that the Pro
testants did not wish to allow liberty to any one, so soon as they became
the masters. The Bernese deputation was, however, dismissed from Bale
without having attained its object."!

" In virtue of the freedom of conscience, the triumphant innovators re
moved all the Catholic counselors, and forbade any one to preach against
what they called the reform. At Bule, in particular, the nobility were driven
away, and the Catholic clergy, the chapter, and even the professors of the
university, abandoned forever a city of which they were the ornament and
the glory, and which owed to them its lustre and its very existence."}

Those who are guilty of the unpardonable crime of adhering
tenaciously and fondly to the time-honored religion of their
fathers, were not the only ones who felt the smart of Protest
ant intolerance in Switzerland. Brother Protestants were

* De HaUer, p. 97. He quotes Kuchat. f Ibid. p. 100.

t Ibid., pp. 58-59. \ Ibid., p. 64.

VOL. I. 17

194 REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND.

also persecuted, if they had the misfortune to believe either
more or less than their more enlightened brethren, who hap
pened to be orthodox for tlie time ~being. The Anabaptists,
in particular, were hunted down with a ferocity which is al
most inconceivable. The favorite mode of punishing them,
especially at Berne, was by drowning! This manner of
death was deemed the most appropriate, because it was only
baptizing them in their own way !* The rivers and lakes,
which abound in Switzerland, often received the dead bodies
of these poor deluded men. Sometimes, however, this mode
of punishment was dispensed with in favor of others less re
volting to humanity. Says De Haller:

" Their Excellencies of Berne, not being able to convince the Anabaptists,
found it much more simple to banish them, or to throw them into the water
and drown them. These punishments having, however, rather increased
their number, the council of Berne, being embarrassed, resorted to measures
less severe, and acting under the advice of the ministers, published on the 2d
of March, 1533, an edict announcing that the Anabaptists should be left in
peace, if they would keep their belief to themselves, and maintain silence ;
but that if they continued to preach and to keep up a separate sect, they
should not be any longer condemned to death, but only to perpetual impris
onment on BREAD AND WATER ! This was certainly a singular favor. Catho
lics, who are accused of so much intolerance, had never molested the Zuin-
glians who had kept their faith to themselves, and even when these openly
preached their doctrines from the pulpit, they were not condemned either to
death or to perpetual imprisonment on bread and water. f

As we have already said, the progress of the Swiss Refor
mation was everywhere marked by intrigues, popular com
motions, mob violence, and sacrilege. So it was at Geneva,
into which the Reformation was introduced in the year 1535,
chiefly again through the intrigues of Berne. It was not
Calvin who established the Reformation at Geneva ; he only
reaped the harvest which had been sown by others. The
fiery Farel, shielded with the panoply of Bernese protection
and acting in concert with Bernese envoys, had already suc
ceeded in there subverting, to a great extent, the ancient

* See De Haller, pp. 39, 69, et alibi passim. f Ibid, pp. 153-154.

THE SWORD AND THE BIBLE. 195

faith. And by what means? We have not room for full
details, for which we must refer our readers to a very interest
ing chapter in De Haller's history.* Suffice it to say, that
the whole city was thrown into commotion ; that the Catholic
churches were violently seized upon, after having been first
sacrilegiously defaced and desecrated in the hallowed name
of religion ; that the Catholic clergy were hunted down and
forced to fly the city ; that nearly half of the population was
compelled to emigrate, in order to secure to themselves peace
and freedom of conscience; that even after they had emi
grated, their property was confiscated and they were disfran
chised, in punishment of their having dared to leave the city ;
that the harmless nuns of St. Clare, after having been long
harassed and insulted by the mob, were also compelled to
leave their home and seek shelter elsewhere ; that the Catho
lic church property was seized upon by the reformed party ;
that, after having filled the whole city, and especially the
churches, with the "abomination of desolation," Farel and
his pious associates were able to assemble congregations and
to preach, in only two out of the many Genevan churches of
which they had obtained possession ; that even in these they
often preached to empty benches, so great was the horror
which all these multiplied sacrileges inspired in the popular
mind; and that, finally, the Reformation was established in
Geneva by the great council, and afterwards by the swords
and bayonets of the Bernese army, which entered the city
in 1536 !

Such were the first fruits of the Reformation in Geneva.
In the canton of Yaud, which was invaded and subdued by
the Bernese army in the same year, the proceedings were, if
possible, still more violent, and the policy still more truculent.
Wheresoever the Bernese army marched, there the Reforma
tion was established by force of arms. The Bernese bore the
sword in one hand and the Bible in the other; and they

* De Haller, chap. xvi.

196 REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND.

established the new gospel in Yaud pretty much after the
Mohammedan fashion of proselytism !

De Haller proves all this by an array of evidence, which
can neither be gainsaid nor resisted.* He proves it from the
testimony of Ruchat, Mallet, Spon, and other Protestant
historians. He furnishes FACTS, with names, dates, and
specifications;/^^ as clear as the noonday sun ; facts which
we challenge any one to deny or contravene. And we ask,
whether it be at all likely that a Reformation effected by such
means, was, or could possibly have been, the work of God ?
Could God have chosen such instruments and such means to
effect His work? Could He smile on commotions, on riots,
on robbery, on impurity, on broken vows, on sacrilege?
Gracious heavens ! How much do those delude themselves,
who still cling to the belief that the Reformation was the
work of God ! Well may we address to them, and to all who
may chance to read these pages, the emphatic words of St.
Augustine prefixed to the title-page of De Hallers work:
" Let those hear who have not fallen, lest they fall ; let those
hear who have fallen, that they may rise !"f

If it be alleged, that the Catholics too sometimes resorted to
violence and appealed to the sword ; we answer that they did
so, almost without an exception, only in necessary self-defense.
Their forbearance, amidst all the terrible outrages which we
have briefly enumerated, was indeed wonderful. If they some
times repelled force by force ; if they flew to arms more than
once in their own defense, it was surely competent for them
to do so. Their lives were threatened, their property was
invaded, their altars were desecrated ; and surely, when con
siderations such as these urged them to buckle on their good
swords, they were not only excusable, but they would have
been arrant cowards had they failed to do so. And no one

* See De Haller, p. 271 seqq. and 321 seqq.

f Audiant qui non ceciderunt, ne cadant; audiant qui ceciderunt, ut
surgant.

TOUCHING ANECDOTE. 197

has ever yet dared to taunt with cowardice the brave moun
taineers of Lucerne, Schwitz, Uri, Unterwald, and Zug, who
inherit the faith, the country, and the unconquerable spirit
of William Tell. The recent occurrences in Switzerland
prove that this spirit has not flagged in the lapse of centuries,
that Catholicity is not incompatible with bravery ; and that
soldiers who pray, both before and after battle, are under the
special protection of the great God of battles ; though He, for
His own wise and inscrutable purposes, may permit them
sometimes to be overwhelmed by superior numbers.

But whoever will read De Haller's history must be con
vinced, that the Swiss Catholics were much more forbearing
and tolerant than the Swiss Protestants. The former, in
general, allowed the latter the free exercise of their religion
in places where these wrere in the minority; whereas there
are, indeed, but few instances on record, where the latter
accorded the same privilege to the former under similar cir
cumstances. Did our limits permit, we might go fully into
the comparison, and prove the accuracy of our remark by
undeniable evidence. But we must be content with a mar
ginal reference, *and with the following touching anecdote, the
scene of which is laid in the city of Soleure.

The Protestant party had sought to gain the ascendency in
this place, by entirely overthrowing the Catholic religion.
For this purpose they seized upon the moment when nearly
all the members of the council were absent, for entering into
a conspiracy to take possession of " the arsenal and of the
Franciscan church, to surprise the priests in their beds,and to
massacre all the Catholics in case of resistance."-)- The con
spiracy was, however, discovered to the avoyer^ or chief mag
istrate, left in charge of the city — Nicholas de Wengi ; and
he took every prudent precaution against the meditated
attack. On the 30th day of October, 1533, at one hour after
midnight, the conspirators rushed to the assault; but they

* De Haller, pp. 72, 150 note, 156, 272, etc. f Ibid., p. 157.

198 REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND.

were amazed to find nearly half the city turned out ready to
receive them, and to defend themselves to the last extremity.
After a sharp encounter, in which the arsenal was succes
sively taken and retaken, without, however, any effusion of
blood, the conspirators were finally driven off. But, though
beaten, these had not yet given up the contest. They retired
beyond the bridge, and having intrenched themselves, began
to insult the Catholics. Indignant, the latter rushed to the
arsenal, brought a cannon to bear upon the Protestant in-
trenchment, and fired one shot, but without effect. Just as
they were preparing to fire another, the venerable avoyer
Wengi rushed, out of breath, before the cannon's mouth, and
exclaimed: "Beloved and pious fellow-citizens, if you wish
to fire against the other side, I will be your first victim ; con
sider better the state of things."* His interposition was
effectual ; calm was restored ; and the insurgents left the city.

We conclude this chapters already long enough, by
•glancing rapidly at the war of Cappell in 1531, the first great
religious war that ever was waged in Switzerland.! And we
do this the more willingly, because it seems to us that there
is a striking parallelism between this first and the last relig
ious war to which we have already alluded. In both, the
Catholics acted strictly on the defensive ; in both. Lucerne was
at the head of the Catholic party ; in both, the genuine chil
dren of Tell proved themselves worthy of him, of their ances
tral glory, of their country. There is, however, this important
difference in the two wars, that whereas in the first the Catho
lics were triumphant, in the last, after having performed prodi
gies of valor, they were finally overwhelmed by main force.

In the beginning of the year 1531, the Protestant cantons,
and especially Zurich, flagrantly violated the treaty concluded
in 1529, by which the Catholic and Protestant cantons had

* De Haller, p. 159.

f There had been some troubles in 1529, which were, however, settled
without much effusion of blood.

THE WAR OF CAPPELL. 199

mutually promised not to molest or interfere with one an
other on account of religion. After having fomented troubles
in various districts partly under the control of the Catholic
cantons, Zurich at length openly invaded the territory of St.
Gall, and issued a decree forbidding the five neighboring
Catholic cantons to trade with her subjects in corn and salt.
The object of this embargo was, to cut off from the Catholic
mountaineers the supplies which they had been in the habit
of deriving by commerce from those living in the plains, and
thereby to starve them into acquiescence in the glorious work
of the Reformation ! Zuingle and the preachers openly clam
ored for the blood of the Catholics, in their public harangues
in Zurich. Here is an extract from one of the great Swiss
reformer's sermons, delivered on the 21st September, 1531:

" Rise up, attack ; the five cantons are in your power. I will march at
the head of your ranks, and the nearest to the enemy. Then you will feel
the power of God, for when I shall harangue them with the truth of the
word of God, and shall say : whom seek you, 0 ye impious ! then, seized
with terror and with panic, they will not be able to answer, but they will
fall back, and will take to flight, like the Jews on the mountain of Olives at
the word of Christ. You will see that the artillery which they will direct
against us, will turn against themselves, and will destroy them. Their
pikes, their halberds, and their other arms, shall not hurt you, but will hurt
them."*

This discourse was printed and circulated ; but alas for the
prophetic faculty of the reformer! The event falsified his
prediction in every particular. And, as Zuingle himself
marked the preparations the five cantons were making for
the coming struggle, even his own heart failed him ; and the
lately inspired prophet of God dwindled down into a miser
able poltroon, overcome by terror, and pretending to have
had strange presentiments, and observed strange signs in the
heavens ! Nevertheless, the Zurichers compelled him to march
at their head to the village of Cappell, near the confines of
the hostile cantons.

* Quoted by De Haller, pp. 78, 79, note.

200 REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND.

Here the two armies encountered ; but fiery and fanatical
as were the Zuinglians, they could not withstand the impetu
ous charge of the brave Swiss mountaineers. These carried
every thing before them. The Zurichers took to flight in
great disorder, with the loss of " nineteen cannon, four stands
of colors, all their baggage, and of at least fifteen hundred
men, among whom were twenty-seven magistrates, and FIF
TEEN PREACHERS."* Zuingle, the apostle of Switzerland, fell,
sword in hand, fighting the battles of the Lord, as never
apostle had fought them before !

The Zurichers, however, recovered from their fright in a
few days, and on the 21st of October, y " having been rein
forced by their allies of Saint Gall, of Toggenburg, of Thur-
gavia, and even of the Orisons, of Berne, of Bale, and of
Soleure, they again attacked the Catholics with very superior
forces ; but they were a second time defeated at the mountain
of Zug, and took to flight in disorder, abandoning their artil
lery, their money, and their baggage." J

The Catholic army now marched in triumph almost to the
very walls of Zurich, after having a third time defeated the
Zurichers, and driven them from their position. § The Zuing
lians, thus humbled by defeat, were now disposed to accede
to the terms of peace proposed by the Catholic cantons. The
treaty bound the Zurichers " to leave the five cantons, with
•their allies and adherents, from the present to all future time,
in peaceable possession of their ancient, true, and undoubted
Christian faith, without molesting or importuning them writh
disputes or chicanery, and renouncing all evil intentions,
stratagems, and finesse ; and that, on their side, the five can
tons would leave the Zurichers and their adherents free in
their belief; that in the common districts, of which the can
tons were co-sovereigns, the parishes which had embraced the

* Quoted by De Haller, pp. 79, 80.

f The battle of Cappell was fought on the llth of October.

I Be Haller, p. 81. § Ibid., p. 83.

TWO PARALLEL DEVELOPMENTS. 201

new faith, might retain it if it suited them, that those which
had not yet renounced the ancient faith would also be free to
retain it, and that, in fine, those who should wish to return to
the true and ancient Christian faith would have the right
to do so."* The Zurichers further bound themselves to pay
or rather to restore to the five cantons, the money which the
latter had expended in the difficulties of 1529 ; and to replace,
at their own expense, the ornaments destroyed or forcibly
taken from the different churches during the preceding years.
Thus terminated the war of Cappell. It left the Catholics
in the ascendant, and contributed more than any thing else
to check the headlong progress of the Swiss Reformation.

CHAPTER VII.

REACTION OF CATHOLICITY AND DECLINE OF
PROTESTANTISM.

Two parallel developments — The brave old ship — Modern Protestantism
quite powerless — A "thorough godly reformation" needed — Qualities for
a reformer — The three days' battle — The puzzle — A thing doomed —
Which gained the victory ? — The French revolution — Ranke and Hallam
— The rush of waters stayed — Persecution — Protestant spice — The Coun
cil of Trent — Revival of piety — The Jesuits — Leading causes and practical
results — Decline of Protestantism — Apt comparison — What stemmed the
current ? — Thread of Ariadne — Divine Providence — Reaction of Catholi
city — Casaubon and Grotius — Why they were not converted — Ancient
and modern Puseyism — Justus Lipsius and Cassander — The inference —
Splendid passage of Macaulay — Catholicity and enlightenment — The
Church indestructible — General gravitation to Rome — The circle and its
center.

No fact in the entire history of the Reformation is perhaps
more remarkable, than that which is presented by the speedy
decline of Protestantism, on the one hand, and the no less

* De Haller, p. 85.

202 REFORM ATION IN GERMANY.

rapid reaction of Catholicity on the other. A rapid glance at
the history of these opposite developments of the two systems
of religion will throw much additional light on their respect
ive characters, and will serve to explain to us still more fully
what we have been endeavoring thus far to elucidate ; the
character, causes, and manner of the Reformation. It is in
accordance with a divine maxim, to judge the tree by its
fruits ; and we propose, in the present chapter, to make a
general application of this rule ; reserving, however, more
special details on the subject to those which will follow.

The Reformation swept over the world like a violent storm :
and it left as many ruins in its course. It threatened to over
turn every thing, and bear down all things in its impetuous
course. So rapid was its work of destruction, that its admirers
and partisans confidently predicted the speedy downfall of
the old religion, and the triumphant establishment of the new
ones on its ruins. Even many of those who remained stead
fast in the ancient faith, though firmly relying on the solemn
promises of Christ, yet trembled not a little for the safety of
the Church. Jesus seemed to be asleep, while the tempest
was so furiously raging on the sea of the world ; and His dis
ciples, who were in the good old ship of the Church tossed on
the waves, like their prototypes of the gospel, "came to him,
and awaked him, saying : ' Lord save us, we perish.' And
Jesus said to them : ' Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith ? '
Then rising up He commanded the winds and the sea, and
there came a great calm."*

Such was precisely the phenomenon presented by the his
tory of the Church in the sixteenth century. Soon the storm
of the Reformation had spent its fury, and settled down into
" a great calm ; " the calm of indifferentism and infidelity on the
lately troubled sea of Protestantism, and of peace and security
on the broad ocean of Catholicism. When men's minds had
had time to recover from the excitement produced by the first

* St. Matthew, viii : 24^-26.

REACTION AND DECLINE. 203

movements of the Reformation, they were enabled to estimate
more justly the motives and causes of this revolution. The
result was, that many enHghtened Protestants returned to the
bosom of the Catholic Church ; while others, gifted with less
grace, or indued with less moral courage, plunged madly into
the vortex of infidelity. Thus Catholicity, far from being ex
tinguished, was, by a powerful reaction, speedily reinstated
in its former position of impregnable strength ; while its ene
mies, so lately boasting of their victory, were weakened by
division and soon dwindled away.

Like the sturdy oak of the forest, which, instead of being
thrown down by the storm, vanquishes its fury, and even
sends its roots further into the earth in consequence of the agi
tation of its branches ; so also the tree of the Church, planted
by Christ and watered with His blood and that of his count
less martyrs, successfully resisted the violence of the storm of
Protestantism, and became, in consequence of it, more firmly
and solidly fixed in the soil of the world — more strongly
"rooted and founded in charity."*

Nothing is more certain in all history than this wonderful
two-fold development. Even D'Aubigne, surely an unexcep
tionable witness, admits its entire truth, however he may seek
to disguise it by the thin mantle of sophistry. Speaking of the
decline of modern Protestantism, he employs this emphatic lan
guage. "But modern Protestantism, like old Catholicism (!),
is, in itself, a thing from which nothing can be hoped — a
thing quite powerless. Something very different is necessary to
restore to men of our day the energy which saves."f — So that,
the experiment of Protestantism, notwithstanding all the noise
it has made in the world, and all its loud boasting about hav
ing destroyed superstition and enlightened mankind, has still
turned out a complete failure, even according to the explicit
avowal of its most unscrupulous advocate ! It has been en
lightening and saving the world now for full three hundred

* Ephesians, iii : 17. f D'Aubigne, vol. i. Preface, p. ix.

201 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

years ; and in the end it has lost itself, and "become "a thing
quite powerless, from which nothing can be hoped ! "

A new Reformation is now necessary to reform the old one,
and to impart to it " the energy which saves." D'Aubigne,
we presume, is to be the father of this new " thorough-godly"
Reformation. We wish him joy of his new apostleship, and
hope he may succeed better than his predecessors. He has,
we humbly think, all the qualities requisite for a reformer,
according to the approved type of the sixteenth century: a
smattering of learning, a sanctimonious air, in which he
greatly excels some of his predecessors, a skill in sophistry, —
which has, however, the admirable simplicity of not being
always even specious ; and, to crown all, an utter recklessness
of truth.

We will here give a passage from his pages, which has the
double merit of exhibiting the gist of his theory on our pres
ent subject, and of being a perfect curiosity of its kind. It is
an attempt to answer a writer of the Port Royal,* who had
compared the religious struggle of the last three centuries to
a battle of three days' duration ; and who had accumulated
evidence to prove that the infidel philosophers of France, who
brought about the French revolution, had but carried out the
principles broached by the reformers. Our author "willingly
adopts the comparison, but not the part that is allotted to
each of these days." He politely declines receiving the well
deserved compliment, which the Frenchman was paying him
with his most gracious bow. He says :

" No, each of those days had its marked and peculiar characteristic. On
the first, (the sixteenth century) the word of God triumphed, and Eome was
defeated ; and philosophy, in the person of Erasmus, shared in the defeat-.
On the second (the seventeenth century), we admit that Rome, her author
ity, her discipline, and her doctrine, are again seen on the point of obtaining
the victory, through the intrigues of a far-famed society (the Jesuits), and
the power of the scaffold, aided by certain leaders of eminent character, and
others of lofty genius. The third day (the eighteenth century), human phi-

* Port Royal, par Sainte Beuve, vol. i, p. 20.

THE 1 H II EE I ) A Yfc>' BATTLE. 205!

lo>ophy arises in all its pride, and finding the battle field occupied, not by
the gospel, but by Rome, it quickly storms every intrenchment, and gains
an easy conquest. The first day's battle was for God, the second for the
priest, and the third for reason — what shall the fourth be ? "*

Aye, that's the puzzle \ He piously hopes that it will be
for "the triumph of Him to whom triumph belongs ;"f that is,
for his own new system of reformation, which is to be but the
"reappearance" of the old. But this is manifestly hoping
against all hope ; for modern Protestantism, he confesses, is " a
powerless thing? It has settled down into indifference and
an almost mortal lethargy, in all those countries where it was
first established, and where the progress of enlightenment has
laid bare to the world its endless vagaries and ever growing
inconsistencies — its hopeless powerlessness. Its tendency is
necessarily downward ; it bears in its own bosom the seeds
of death ; it must share the fate of all other merely human
institutions, and must afford another verification of our blessed
Saviour's prophetic declaration: "Every plant which my
heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up."J No
human eloquence nor effort can prevent it from meeting this
doom, the seal of which is already, in fact, branded on its
forehead, D'Aubigne himself being our witness I

It is needless for us to dwell long in the examination of this
pretty theory about the " three days' battle." The triumph
which he ascribes to the Reformation on the first day was not
real ; it was scarcely even apparent. Notwithstanding the
premature shouts of victory raised by the reformed party, the
old Church still retained a vast ascendency in point of num
bers, of extension, and also, as we hope to prove in the sequel,
of intelligence. In compensation for her losses on the battle
field of Europe, she gained great accessions to her numbers
in the East Indies, in Asia, and in the new world, which her
navigators had discovered and her missionaries had converted.
When a portion of Europe spurned her voice, she " turned to

* D'Aubigne, vol. iii, p. 304. f Ibid. J St. Matthew, xv : 13.

206 REFOKMATION IN GERMANY.

the Gentiles," and waved the banner of her cross in triumph
over new worlds. She certainly then clearly gained the ad
vantage, even in the first day's battle.

In the second, she was avowedly in the ascendant. During
it, she, to a great extent, retrieved her losses, even in Europe
itself. Of course, all the talk about " the intrigues of a far-
famed society and the power of the scaffold," is mere palaver.
We shall soon prove it to be little better, on unquestionable
Protestant authority. As to the scaffold, we hope to show
hereafter,* by a mass of evidence which can not be answered,
that it was much more frequently erected by those who raised
the clamor for the emancipation of thought, than by those
who continued to abide quietly in the old Church.

In the third day's battle, Catholicity again triumphed. The
French revolution was, in fact, but the "reappearance" of
the "great Reformation," in another and more terrific shape.
The French infidels made at least as much noise about liberty
of thought, and they inveighed as fiercely against the corrup
tions of the Catholic Church, as had been done by the re
formers two and a half centuries before. The former did
little more, in fact, than catch up the Babel-like sounds of the
latter, and re-echo them, in a voice of thunder, throughout
Europe. But this mere human thunder was finally drowned
by the divine thunder of the Vatican ! Rome conquered the
refractory daughter, as she had conquered the refractory
mother. If she alone "occupied the battle field," it was
because the Protestants had retired from it ; had ingloriously
fled, and left Christianity to its fate, during the continuance
of this its fiercest struggle with infidelity ! Did Protestants
win even one laurel in that ensanguined battle field ? Can
they count even one martyr who fell a victim in that bloody
effort to put down Christianity ? The Catholic clergy were
massacred in hundreds ; they poured out their blood like

* In Chapter xii, "On the influence of the Reformation on Religious
Liberty."

RANKE AND HALLAM. 207

water, for the defense of religion. Did the French infidels
attack Protestants ? If they did not — and they certainly did
not — then how are we to explain this singular phenomenon,
but on the principle of a sympathetic feeling ? Men seldom
go to battle against their secret or open friends and allies !

To show the rapid decline of Protestantism, after the first
fifty years of its violent existence ; and to unfold the parallel
reaction of Catholicism, we had intended to present a rapid
analysis of what a famous living Protestant writer of Ger
many — Leopold Ranke — has abundantly proved on the subject,
in his late " History of the Papacy during the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries."* But Henry Hallam, another eminent
Protestant writer of great research and authority, has antici
pated us in our labor. In his Introduction to the History of
Literature, already quoted, he follows Ranke, and presents
every thing of consequence, bearing on our present subject,
which the eminent German historian had more fully exhibited,
as the result of much patient labor and research. Hallam
also adds to the recital many things of his own. His work
has thus greatly abridged our labor, and we shall do little
more than cull from its pages, and put into order, what may
best serve to elucidate the matter in hand. We presume that
no impartial man will question our authorities.

The decline of Protestantism, and the reaction of Catholi
cism wrere intimately connected: they went hand in hand.
The same causes that explain the one, will in a great measure
account for the other ; with perhaps this exception, that Prot
estantism, like all other merely human institutions, carried
within its own bosom an intrinsic principle of dissolution ;
whereas Catholicity, on the other hand, had writhin itself,
strongly developed, the principle of vitality and of perma
nency. These two opposite characteristics are, in fact, emi
nently distinctive of the two systems.

* " Histoire de la Papaute pendant les xvi et xvii siecles." Traduite de
1'Allemand par M. J. B. Haiber. 4 vols. 8vo. A Paris, 1838.

208. REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

According to Hallam, Protestantism began to decline, and"
Catholicity to gain ground, shortly after the middle of the
sixteenth century. The immediate disciples of the reformers,
after the death of the latter, soon lost the fierce and warlike
spirit originally manifested by those who had reared the ban
ner of revolt against Koine. The enthusiasm of the first on
slaught speedily died away, and the principle of hatred, which
had originated the Reformation, was gradually weakened. A
counter principle of love — the very essence of Christianity
and of God himself — gradually gained the ascendant even in
the bosom of many among those who, in a moment of fierce
excitement, had been temporarily estranged from the Catho
lic Church. The consequence was, that vast bodies of Prot
estants re-entered its pale.

Both Ranke and Hallam bear evidence to the truth of
these remarks. The latter says :

" This prodigious increase of the Protestant party in Europe after the
middle of the century (xvi) did not continue more than a few years. It
was checked and fell back, not quite so rapidly or completely as it came on,
but so as to leave the antagonist Church in perfect security." After a te
dious apology for entering on this subject in a history of literature, he pro
poses " to dwell a little on the leading causes of this retrograde movement
of Protestantism; a fact," he continues, "as deserving of explanation as the
previous excitement of the Pteformation itself, though from its more nega
tive character, it has not drawn so much of the attention of mankind.
Those who behold the outbreaking of great revolutions in civil society or in
religion, will not easily believe that the rush of waters can be stayed in its
course ; that a pause of indifference may come on, perhaps very suddenly,
or a reaction bring back nearly the same prejudices and passions (!) as those
which men had renounced. Yet this has occurred not very rarely in the
annals of mankind, and never on a larger scale than in the history of the
Keformation !"*

He then proceeds to assign some of the leading causes
which, according to his view, "stayed the rush of waters" of
the revolution, called by courtesy the Reformation. After
speaking of the stern policy of Philip II. of Spain, and as-

* Introduction to the History of Literature, etc., sup. cit. vol. i, p. 272. .,

REACTION COUNCIL OF TRENT. 209

signing undue prominence to the inquisition, "which soon
extirpated the remains of heresy in Italy and Spain" — into
which countries Protestantism never penetrated, at least to
any extent, and therefore could not be " extirpated" — he next
alludes to the civil wars in France between the Huguenots
and the Catholics, and then comes down to Germany. " But
in Bavaria, Albert V., with whom, about 1564, this reaction
began ; in the Austrian dominions, Rodolph II. ; in Poland,
Sigismund III. ; by shutting up churches, and by discoun
tenancing in all respects their Protestant subjects, contrived
to change a party once powerful, into an oppressed sect."*

We hate persecution, no matter what is made the pretext
for its exercise; but every candid man must allow that, in
resorting to these measures of severity, the German Catholic
princes did but repay their Protestant subjects in their own
coin. If they took from them their churches, it must be
borne in mind that those same churches were originally
erected by Catholics, to whom they rightfully belonged, and
that, in the first effervescence of the ReSjrmation, they had
been seized on violently by the Protestant party. They did
but take back by law, what had been wrested from the right
ful owners by lawless violence, and what would not have
been otherwise surrendered. If " they discountenanced their
Protestant subjects," it was only after a long and bitter ex
perience of the troubles they had caused, of the riots and
conflagrations they had brought about in the abused name
of religion and of liberty, and of the utter fruitlessness of
conciliatory measures.

Besides, had not the German Protestant princes proceeded
with still greater harshness against their Catholic subjects,
whose only crime was their calm and inoffensive adherence
to the religion of their fathers ? The account was certainly
moro than balanced, as we shall show more fully hereafter.f

* Introduction to the History of Literature, etc., sup. cit. vol. i, p. 273.
f In Chapter xii.
VOL. I. — IB

210 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

These facts constitute at least extenuating circumstances,
which a man of Mr. Hallam' s moderate principles and love
of historic justice should not have wholly concealed. But,
we presume, he deemed it expedient to add a little Protestant
spice to his narrative, in order to season for the palate of his
English Protestant readers the otherwise insipid viands of
admissions in favor of Catholicity.

One leading cause of the reaction of Catholicity, according
to him, was the promulgation and general adoption of the
decrees of the Council of Trent.

"The decrees of the Council of Trent were received by the spiritual
princes of the empire (German) in 1566; 'and from this moment,' says
the excellent historian who has thrown most light on this subject, 'began a
new life for the Catholic Church in Germany.' "*

We heartily concur in the truth of this remark. Divine
Providence, which draws good out of evil, wisely brought
about the Council of Trent, and watched over its protracted
and often interrupted labors, till they were brought to a
happy termination. This was, in fact, the only legal, as well
as the only adequate remedy to the evils of the Church in
the sixteenth century. The Tridentine canons and decrees
for reformation exercised a powerful influence throughout
Christendom. Through them, faith was everywhere settled
on an immovable basis, local abuses disappeared, and piety
revived. The Reformation was the indirect cause of all this
good ; and in this point of view, if in no other, it may claim
our gratitude.

The revival of piety, through the influence of the Triden
tine Council, is thus attested by Mr. Hallam :

" The reaction could not. however, have been effected by any efforts of
the princes, against so preponderating a majority as the Protestant churches
had obtained, if the principles that originally actuated them had retained
their animating influence, or had not been opposed by more efficacious
resistance. Every method was adopted to revive an attachment to the
ancient religion, insuperable by the love of novelty, or the power of argu-

* Ranke, ii, p. 46. Hallam, Chapter x.

THE JESUITS. 211

ment (!). A stricter discipline and subordination were introduced among
the clergy : they were early trained in seminaries, apart from the senti
ments and habits, the vices and virtues (!) of the world. The monastic
orders resumed their rigid observances." *

Speaking of the important influence of the Jesuits in
bringing about this Catholic renovation, he says :

" But, far above all the rest, the Jesuits were the instruments for regain
ing France and Germany to the Church they served. And we are more
closely concerned with them here, that they are in this age among the links
between religious opinion and literature. We have seen in the last chapter
with what spirit they took the lead in polite letters and classical style ; with
what dexterity they made the brightest spirits of the rising generation,
which the Church had once dreaded and checked (!) her most willing and
effective instruments. The whole course of liberal studies, however deeply
grounded in erudition, or embellished by eloquence, took one direction, one
perpetual aim — the propagation of the Catholic faith. . . . They knew how
to clear their reasoning from scholastic pedantry and tedious quotation for
the simple and sincere understandings which they addressed ; yet, in the
proper field of controversial theology, they wanted nothing of sophistical (!)
expertness or of erudition. The weak points of Protestantism they attacked
with embarrassing ingenuity ; and the reformed churches did not cease to
give them abundant advantages by inconsistenc}r, extravagance, and passion. f
At the death of Ignatius Loyola, in 1556, the order he had founded was
divided into thirteen provinces besides the Roman ; most of which were in
the Spanish peninsula, or its colonies. Ten colleges belonged to Castile,
eight to Arragon, and five to Andalusia, Spain was for some time the fruit
ful mother of the disciples, as she had been of the master. The Jesuits
who came to Germany were called ' Spanish priests.' They took possession
of the universities : ' they conquered us,' says Ranke, ' on our own ground,
in our own homes, and stripped us of a part of our own country.' This,
the acute historian proceeds to say, sprung certainly from the want of under
standing among the Protestant theologians, and of sufficient enlargement of
mind to tolerate unessential differences. The violent opposition among each
other, left a way open to these cunning strangers, who taught a doctrine not
open to dispute."!

He then proceeds to treat of the practical results brought

* Ranke, ii, p. 46. Hallam, Chapter x, § 8.

f Ibid., § 10, where he cites Hospinian, Ranke, and Tiraboschi, the first a
declared enemy of the Jesuits. J Ibid., p. 274, $ 11.

212 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

about by these causes. These were a rapid declension of
Protestantism, and a correspondent increase of Catholicism.

"Protestantism, so late as 1578, might be deemed preponderant in all the
Austrian dominions, except the T}Tol.* In the Polish diets, the dissidents,
as they were called, met their opponents with vigor and success. The eccle
siastical principalities were full of Protestants ; and even in the chapters
some of them might be found. But the contention was unequal, from the
different character of the parties ; religious zeal and devotion (!), which fifty
years before had overthrown the ancient rites in northern Germany, were
now more invigorating sentiments*in those who secured them from further
innovation. In religious struggles, where there is any thing like an equality
of forces, the question soon comes to be which party will make the greatest
sacrifice for its own faith. And while the Catholic self-devotion had grown
far stronger, there was much more of secular cupidity, lukewarmness, and
formality in the Lutheran church. In very few years, the effects of this
were distinctly visible. The Protestants of the Catholic principalities went
back into the bosom of Rome. In the bishopric of Wurtzburg alone, sixty-
two thousand converts are said to have been received in the year 15S6."f

" The reaction." he continues a little afterwards, "was not less conspicu
ous in other countries. It is asserted ' that the Huguenots had already lost
more than two-thirds of their number in 1580 ;'| comparatively, I presume,
with twenty years before. And the change in their relative position is

manifest from all the histories of this period At the close of this period

of fifty years (A. D. 1600), the mischief done to the old Church in its first
decennium (from 1550 to 1560) was very nearly repaired ; the proportions
of the two religions in Germany coincided with those which had existed at
the pacification of Passau. The Jesuits, however, had begun to encroach a
little on the proper domain of the Lutheran church ; besides private conver
sions, which, on account of tJte rigor of the laws, not certainly less intolerant
than in their own communion, could not be very prominent, they had
sometimes hopes of the Protestant princes, and had once, in 1578, obtained
the promise of John, king of Sweden, to embrace openly the Romish (!)
faith, as he had already done in secret to Possevin, an emissary dispatched
by the Pope on this important errand. But the symptoms of an opposition,
very formidable in a country which has never allowed its kings to trifle with
it (except at the time of the Reformation), made this wavering monarch re
trace his steps. His successor, Sigismund, went further, and fell a victim to
his zeal, by being expelled from his kingdom." § — Here was Protestant toler
ation !

* Ranke, ii, p. 78. f Ib., p. 121. | Ib., p. 147. $ Hallam, ib.f p. 275, $ 14.

THE GREAT CATHOLIC REACTION. 213

" This great reaction of the papal religion," he proceeds, " after the shock
it had sustained in the first part of the sixteenth century, ought forever to
restrain that temerity of prediction so frequent in our ears. As women
sometimes believe the fashion of last year in dress to be wholly ridiculous,
and incapable of being ever again adopted by any one solicitous for her
beauty,* so those who affect to pronounce on future events are equally con
fident against the possibility of a resurrection of opinions which the major
ity have for the time ceased to maintain. In the year 1560, every Protest
ant in Europe doubtless anticipated the overthrow of popery ; the Catholics
could have found little else to warrant hope than their trust in heaven. The
late rush of many nations towards democratical opinions has not been so
rapid and so general as the change of religion about that period. It is im
portant and interesting to inquire what stemmed this current. We readily
acknowledge the prudence, firmness, and unity of purpose that, for the most
part, distinguished the court of Eome, the obedience of its hierarchy, the
severity of intolerant laws, and the searching rigor of the inquisition ; the
resolute adherence of the great princes to the Catholic faith, the influence of
the Jesuits over education : but these either existed before, or would, at
least, not have been sufficient to withstand an overwhelming force of opinion.

" It must be acknowledged that there ivas a principle of vitality in that relig
ion independent of its external strength. By the side of its secular pomp, its
relaxation of morality (!), there had always been an intense flame of zeal
and devotion. Superstition it might be in the many, fanaticism in a few ;
but both of these imply the qualities which, while they subsist, render a
religion indestructible. That revival of an ardent zeal through which the
Franciscans had in the thirteenth century, with some good, and much more
evil effect (!), spread a popular enthusiasm over Europe, was once more dis
played in counteraction of those new doctrines, that themselves had drawn
their life from a similar development of moral emotion." f

Coming from the source it does, this is truly a valuable
avowal. After all the talk, then, about the "downfall of
popery," after all the loud boasting and high pretensions of
Protestantism, the experiment of three hundred years is be
ginning to convince all reasonable men of what they should
have known before: that the Catholic religion "has a prin
ciple of vitality in her,"' after all, and that she is " indestruc
tible." It could not be otherwise : Christ himself had pledged

* A very apposite comparison, truly, to illustrate the new religious fashions !
f Hallam, p. 275, 276, \ 15.

214 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

his solemn word that " the gates of hell shall not prevail against
his Church, built on a rock :"* and this simple promise solves
the whole mystery which so sadly puzzled such men as Ranke
and Hal lam. It is the thread of Ariadne, which would have
conducted them with security from the tortuous windings of the
labyrinth of history, in which they appear to have been lost.
It would have explained to them, among other things, why it
is that in all the great emergencies of the Church, God has
always raised up, as instruments to do his high behests, men
and institutions just such as the exigency of the times de
manded. Thus, for instance, the Franciscans and Domini
cans (why did Mr. Hallam omit the latter ?) in the thirteenth
century, and the Jesuits and St. Charles Borromeo, to pass
over many more illustrious names, in the sixteenth ; together
with St. Athanasius in the fourth century, St. Cyril, St. Leo, St.
Chrysostom, and St. Augustine in the fifth, St. Gregory the
Great in the end of the sixth, St. Gregory VII. in the eleventh,
St. Bernard in the twelfth, St. Thomas Aquinas in the thir
teenth, and many others in various other ages, are all examples
of this wonderful providence of God watching over the safety
of his Church, which is " the pillar and ground of the truth."f

The reaction in favor of the Catholic Church continued
with redoubled force in the seventeenth century.

" The progress of the latter Church " (the Catholic), says Mr. Hallam,
"for the first thirty years of the present '(seventeenth) century, was as
striking and uninterrupted as it had been in the final period of the six
teenth. Victory crowned its banners on every side The nobility, both

in France and Germany, who in the last age had been the first to embrace
a new faith, became afterwards the first to desert it. Many also of the
learned and able Protestants gave evidence of the jeopardy of that cause by
their conversion. It is not just, however, to infer that they were merely
influenced by this apprehension. Two other causes mainly operated : one,
to which we have already alluded, the authority given to the traditions of
the Church, recorded by the writers called fathers, and with which it was
found difficult to reconcile all the Protestant creed ; another, the intolerance
of the reformed churches, both Lutheran and Calvinistic, which gave as little
latitude (less) as that which they had quitted."]:

* St. Matth. xvi : 18. f 1 Tim. iii : 15. } Hallam, vol. ii, p. 30, $ 11.

CASAUBON AND GROTIUS. 215

"The defections," (from Protestantism) he continues, "from whatever
cause, are numerous in the seventeenth century. But two, more eminent
than any who actually renounced the Protestant religion, must be owned to
have given evident signs of wavering, Casaubon and Grotius. The proofs of
this are not founded merely on anecdotes which might be disputed, but on
their own language.* Casaubon was staggered by the study of the fathers,
hi which (whom ?) he discovered many things, especially as to the Euchar
ist, which he could not in any manner reconcile with the tenets of the
French Huguenots. Perron used to assail him with arguments he could
not parry. If we may believe this cardinal, he was on the point of declar
ing publicly his conversion, before he accepted the invitation of James I. to
England : and even while in England, he promoted the Catholic cause more
than the world was aware." — After a feeble endeavor to impair the validity
of this statement of Perron, he adds : " Yet if Casaubon, as he had much
inclination to do, being on ill terms with some in England, and disliking the
country, had returned to France, it seems probable that he would not long
have continued in what, according to the principles he had adopted, would
appear a schismatical communion."f

" Grotius," he says, " was, from the time of his turning his attention to
theology, almost as much influenced as Casaubon by primitive authority,
and began, even in 1614, to commend the Anglican church for the respect it
showed, very unlike the rest of the reformed, to that standard.J But the ill
usage he sustained at the hands of those who boasted their independence of
papal tyranny (!) ; the caresses of the Gallican clergy after he had fixed his
residence at Paris ;§ the growing dissensions and virulence of the Protest-

* In a very lengthy and learned note, he here accumulates evidence from
the writings and correspondence of Casaubon, in support of the statement
made in the text. He also speaks at length of the labors of the learned
Cardinal Perron. f Hallam, vol. ii, p. 30, § 11.

J Truly, as the wisest of men has said, there is nothing new under the
sun. Grotius, Casaubon, and many other learned Protestants, more than
two hundred years ago, seem to have taken the identical ground now or
lately occupied by the Puseyites in England. This will appear from a perusal
of the copious notes of Hallam on their writings. (Ibid.) Speaking of the effort
of Grotius to extract from the Council of Trent a meaning favorable to his own
semi-catholic views, he says : " his aim was to search for subtle interpretations,
by which he might profess to believe the words of the Church, though conscious
that his sense was not that of the imposers. It is needless to say that this is
not very ingenuous," etc. Perhaps the history of Grotius and Casaubon may
serve to throw additional light on the end and aim of the Puseyite controversy.

§ It is remarkable that Grotius, persecuted by brother Protestants in
Holland, found a peaceful shelter from the storm in Catholic France !

216 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

ants ; the choice that seemed alone to be left in their communion between
a fanatical anarchy, disintegrating every thing like a church on the one hand,
and a domination of bigoted and vulgar ecclesiastics on the other ; made him
gradually less and less averse to the comprehensive and majestic unity of
the Catholic hierarchy, and more and more willing to concede some point of
uncertain doctrine, or some form of ambiguous expression. This is abun
dantly perceived, and has been often pointed out, in his Annotations on the
Consultation of Cassander, written in 1641 ; in his Animadversions on Rivet,
who had censured the former treatise as inclining to popery ; in the Votum
pro Pace Ecclesiastica, and in the Rivetiani Apologetici Discussio ; all which
are collected in the fourth volume of the theological works of Grotius. These
treatises display a uniform and progressive tendency to defend the Church
of Rome in every thing that can be reckoned essential to her creed ; and in
fact he will be found to go further in this direction than Cassander."*

But, alas ! neither Casaubon nor Grotius ever penetrated
beyond the threshold of the temple of Catholicity. Though
they seem to have had light enough to know and to love the
truth, yet were they not worthy the gift of faith, which is
granted to those only who become "as little children" for
Christ's sake. We have already seen by what circumstances
the former was prevented from entering the Catholic pale.
Of the latter Hallam says :

" Upon a dispassionate examination of all these testimonies, we can hardly
deem it an uncertain question whether Grotius, if his life had been prolonged,
would have taken the easy leap which still remained ; and there is some
positive evidence of his design to do so. But, dying on a journey, and in a
Protestant country, this avowed declaration (in favor of Catholicity) was
never made."f

It is dangerous to tamper with the proffered grace of heaven,
or to put off conversion ! The learned Lipsius went further ;
he was faithful to grace, and " took the easy (not so easy)
leap" into the Catholic Church. Hallam tells us that he
spent the latter years of his life " in defending legendary mi
racles, and in waging war against the honored dead of the

* Hallam, vol. ii, p. 32-35, § 13. Cassander was a Catholic theologian, who
was commissioned by the emperor Ferdinand to write a work to conciliate
the Protestant party. Many think that, in executing this task, he had, through
the best motives no doubt, conceded too much. He died in 1566, aged 53
years. f Ibid., p. 35, § 16.

CATHOLIC CHURCH INDESTRUCTIBLE. 217

Reformation!"* This remark was, of course, intended. by
the historian as an evidence of his own Protestant orthodoxy,
and. as a douceur to English bigotry. This unworthy viru
lence, however, but enhances the more the value of his pre
vious admissions in favor of Catholicity, which could have
been wrung from him only by the sternest evidence of facts.
Justus Lipsius was a prodigy of classical learning and erudi
tion. He became a most exemplary Catholic, and died at
Louvain in 1606.

We have now completed our rapid analysis of the facts
connected with the decline of Protestantism on the one hand,
and the reaction of Catholicity on the other. We have shown,
on unquestionable Protestant authority, the existence and
extent of both these parallel developments. Every candid
man will easily draw the obvious inference from these re
markable results of the two opposite systems : which is, that
Protestantism was a human, and Catholicity a divine institu
tion. We can explain the facts in no other way. To attempt
to explain them on the principles of mere human philosophy
is a miserable fallacy. If Protestantism was true, it would
have conquered and endured; if Catholicity was false, it
must have fallen. What is human is changeable, and liable
to decline and decay; what is divine has the principle of
vitality strong within it, and abideth forever. "By their
fruits ye shall know them."

We will close our remarks on this subject by a well-
known avowal of another Protestant writer of great emi
nence, Thomas Babington Macaulay, whose testimony, though
already often quoted, is too apposite to the matter in hand to
be here omitted. The passage is taken from an article in the
Edinburg Review on Ranke's History of the Papacy, another
Circumstance which would seem fairly to entitle it to a place
in this chapter.

"There is not, and there never was, on this earth, a work so well
deserving of examination as the Roman Catholic Church. The history of

* Hallam, vol. ii, p. 35, $ 16.
VOL. I.— 19

218 A REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

that Church joins together the two great ages of human civilization. No
other institution is left standing which carries the mind back to the times
when the smoke of sacrifice rose from the Pantheon ; and when cameleopards
and tigers bounded in the Flavian amphitheatre. The proudest royal houses
are but of yesterday, when compared with the line of the Roman Pontiffs.
This line we trace back, in an unbroken series, from the Pope who crowned
Napoleon in the nineteenth century, to the Pope who crowned Pepin in the
eighth ; and far beyond the time of Pepin, the august dynasty extends until
its origin is lost in the twilight of fable ! (Was the apostolic age "the twi
light of fable ?") The republic of Venice came next in antiquity. But the
republic of Venice was modern when compared with the Papacy ; and the
republic of Venice is gone, and the Papacy remains. The Papacy remains,
not in decay, nor a mere antique, but full of life and youthful vigor. The
Catholic Church is still sending forth, to the furthest ends of the world,
missionaries as zealous as those who landed in Kent with Augustine, and
still confronting hostile kings with the same spirit with which she con
fronted Attila. The number of her children is greater than in any former age.
Her acquisitions in the new world have more than compensated her for
what she has lost in the old. Her spiritual ascendency extends over the
vast countries which lie between the plains of the Missouri and Cape Horn,
countries which, a century hence, may not improbably contain a population
as large as that which now inhabits Europe. The members of her com
munion are certainly not fewer than a hundred and fifty millions,* and it
will be difficult to show that all the other Christian sects united amount to
one hundred and twenty inillions.f

"Nor do we see any sign which indicates that the term of her long
dominion is approaching. She saw the commencement of all the govern
ments, and of ail the ecclesiastical establishments that now exist in the
world ; and we feel no assurance that she is not destined to see the end of
them all. She was great and respected before the Saxon set foot on Britain
— before the Frank had passed the Rhine — when Grecian eloquence still
flourished at Antioch — when idols were still worshiped in the Temple of

* The number of Catholics in the world has been variously stated.
An official statistical account, lately published in Rome, makes the number
160,842,424. Malte Brun estimates it at above 164,000,000; and others
have stated it at 180 or even 200,000,000. The Roman statement is perhaps
the most to be relied on. It does not at least exceed ; it may even fall below
the mark, in consequence of the probable incompleteness of the returns.

j- This embraces the Greek and Oriental churches, and is still doubtless
excessive. The total number of Protestants, including free-thinkers, etc., is
not probably over 50,000,000. fjrjic^ *

MACAULAY. 219

Mecca. And she may still exist in undiminished vigor, when some traveler
from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a
broken arch of London bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's ! "

Truly splendid testimony to the vitality of the Catholic
Church, coming, as it does, from the pen of a sworn enemy —
of a Scotchman and a Presbyterian ! Speaking of the trite
remark that, as the world becomes more enlightened, it will
renounce Catholicity and embrace Protestantism, he says :

" Yet we see that, during these two hundred and fifty years Protestantism
has made no conquests worth speaking of. Nay, we believe, that as far as
there has been a change, that change has been in favor of the Church of
Eome. We can not therefore feel confident that the progress of knowledge
will necessarily be fatal to a system, which has, to say the least, stood its
ground in spite of the immense progress which knowledge has made since
the days of Queen Elizabeth." He a little after adds : " four times since
the authority of the Church of Eome was established in western Christen
dom, has the human intellect risen up against her. Twice she remained
completely victorious. Twice she came forth from the conflict bearing the
marks of cruel wounds, but with the principle of life still strong within her.
When we reflect on the tremendous assaults which she has survived, we
find it difficult to conceive in what way she is to perish ! "

Yes — it must be avowed : the Catholic Church is indestruc
tible, and therefore divine ! You might as as well try to blot
out the sun from the heavens, as to extinguish the bright light
of the Catholic Church from the earth ! Clouds may, indeed,
hide for a time the sun's disc from the eye of the beholder;
but the sun is still there, the same as when he shone forth
before upon us with his most brilliant light : so also, the clouds
of persecution and prejudice may cover for a time the fair
face of the Catholic Church ; but the eye of faith penetrates
those dark clouds, and assures us, that though partially con
cealed, she is still there ! And when those clouds will clear
away, she will again shine out with a more brilliant and a
more cheering light than ever ! He who said : " Heaven and
earth may pass away, but my words shall not pass away,"*has
also pronounced that " The gates of hell shall not prevail
against her."

Perhaps the most remarkable circumstance in the tendency

220 REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

of modern society, is the general and manifest reaction in
favor of Catholicity throughout the world, and especially in
Protestant countries. There seems to be a universal gravita
tion of all spirits towards Rome !* Germany, the first theater
of the Reformation, seems to have led the way in this awaken
ing. Besides the works of Voigt, Hurter, and Ranke, which *
are well known, there are also : the Universal History and the
Journeys of the Popes, by the great Protestant historian, John
Miiller ; the History of the Princes of the House of Hohenstau-
fen, by the famous Raumur ; the History of the Church, and the
History of Italy, by M. Leo ; — not to mention a host of other
works by eminent German Protestant writers of the day, all of
which evidence, by their spirit and their disposition to do
at least partial justice to the Popes and to the old religion,
this wonderful resuscitation of Catholic feeling in Protestant
Germany. England, Scotland, and the United States even,
have participated, to a certain extent, in this movement.
We trust that De Maistre's prophetic remark to the effect,
that when sectarianism should have run through the whole
circle of error, it would return again to the great Catholic
center of truth, is on the eve of its fulfillment If

"What we will now proceed to prove in relation to the mani
fold influences of the Reformation, on religion and on society,
will, we trust, throw additional light upon the matter we have
treated in this chapter ; and it may serve also greatly to ex
plain why it was that, after a brief storm of excitement,
Catholicity so greatly reacted and Protestantism so suddenly
declined.

* See the Introduction to Ranke's History of the Papacy, etc., by M.
Alexandre de Saint Cheron, page xv, seqq.

f This was written about fifteen years ago ; and we are sorry to have to
say, that the sanguine anticipations with which we then solaced ourselves
have^iot been fully realized by the event. Still many have returned to the
Catholic Church during this time, both in England and in Germany, as well
as in the United States ; while, unhappily, others have imitated the dilatory
tampering with divine grace which we have remarked in Casaubon and Gro-
tius. Let such beware !

PART III.

INFLUENCE

OP THE

REFORMATION ON RELIGION.

CHAPTER VIII.

INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON DOCTRINAL

BELIEF.

"Who would ever have believed that the Reformation from the beginning would
have attacked morality, dogma, and faith ; or that the seditious genius of a monk
could have caused so much disturbance?" — Erasm. (Epist. Georgia Dud}.

"As long as words a different sense will bear,
And each may be his own interpreter,
Our airy faith will no foundation find,
The word's a weathercock for every wind." — DBYDEN.

The nature of Religion — A golden chain — Question stated — Private judg
ment — Church authority — As many religions as heads — D'Aubigne's
theory — Its poetic beauty — Fever of logomachy — "Sons of liberty" —
The Bible dissected — A hydra -headed monster — Erasmus — "Curing a
lame horse" — Luther puzzled — His plaint — His inconsistency — Missions
and miracles — Zuingle's inconsistency — Strange fanaticism — Storck,
Miinzer, Karlstadt, and John of Leyden — A new deluge — Retorting the
argument — Discussion at the " Black Boara" — Luther and the cobbler —
Discussion at Marburg — Luther's avowal — Breaking necks — Melancthon's
lament — The inference — Protestantism the mother of infidelity — Picture
of modern Protestantism in Germany by Schlegel.

RELIGION is a divinely established system, which came
down from heaven to conduct man thither. By the disobe
dience of Adam, man, originally created upright or at least
constituted in a state of righteousness, fell from grace, and
was, as it were, loosed from heaven, to which he had been
previously bound by the most sacred ties of fellowship.
Religion may be compared to a golden chain reaching down
from heaven to earth, which, according to the etymological

(221)

222 INFLUENCE. OF REFORMATION ON DOCTRINE.

import of the term, binds man again to heaven.* And to
pursue the illustration a little further, as the loss of even one
link would destroy the integrity of a chain, -and would render
it useless as a means of binding together distant objects ; so
also, the removal of one link from the chain of religion, would
destroy its integrity and mar its lofty purpose of binding
man to his God. These links are united together in three
divisions ; comprising severally the doctrines revealed by and
through Jesus Christ, the moral precepts which He gave, and
the sacraments and sacrifice which He instituted. All these
are as essentially and as intimately connected together, as are
the several parts of a chain. " He that offendeth in one, is
guilty of all :"f because by a single offense he rebels against
the authority from which the whole emanates.

Religion then consists of three parts: doctrines to be be
lieved, commandments to be observed, and sacramental and
sacrificial ordinances to be received and complied with. The
third department partakes of the nature of the other two:
being partly doctrinal and partly moral. In other words,
the Christian Religion embraces, as essential to its very
nature and divine purposes, doctrines, morals, and worship:
and we propose briefly to examine the influence of the pre
tended Reformation on each of these separately. "Was this
influence beneficial? Did it really reform Religion, as it
purported to do ? D'Aubigne tells us : that " the reform
saved Religion, and with it society."! We shall see here
after what it did for society; and we will now inquire
whether it "saved Religion?"

And first, what was its influence on the doctrines of Chris
tianity? Did it teach them in greater purity, and integrity,
or with greater certainty, than the Catholic Church had
done ? Did it shed on them a clearer or more steady light ?
Or did it, on the contrary, give out a very doubtful and

* Some persons derive the word Religion from the Latin re-ligo — to bind
again. f St. James, ii : 10. \ D'Aubigne, vol. i, p. 67.

PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 223

uncertain light; leaving the minds of men in perplexity as to
the tenets to be believed ; and permitting its disciples " to be
tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine,"* on the stormy
sea of conflicting human opinions? We shall see. It will
not, however, be necessary to our inquiry, to examine the
grounds which establish the truth of the various Catholic, or
the falsity of the Protestant doctrines in controversy : all that
will be requisite for our purpose, will be an investigation of
the facts bearing on the historical question itself, as to the
actual influence of the Reformation on this vital department
of Religion.

The great distinctive principle of the Reformation was its
rejection of Church authority, and its assertion of the right
of private judgment in matters of Religion. This is the key
of the new system: this the proudest boast of those who
affected to bring about the "emancipation of the human
mind." This is the cardinal principle of " Christian liberty,"
as asserted by Dr. Martin Luther, in a special work on the
subject: this is the means he boastingly adopted for being
rescued from the degrading "captivity of Babylon." f The
Catholic Religion had taught that, in all matters of contro
versy, Christians were bound by the solemn command of
Christ, "TO HEAR THE CHURCH." J Church authority was the
ultima ratio — last resort — of controversy, the great means of
attaining to certainty in what we are to believe or to reject;
the strong bond of union among Christians. ISTot that the
Church meant to decide on every controverted point: she
only decided where she found sufficient warrant in revelation
to guide her with certainty. In other matters — and they
were numerous — she wisely abstained from any definition r
and allowed her children a reasonable latitude of opinion,
provided, however, their opinions did not either directly or

* Ephesians, iv : 14.

f See the two works of Luther, "De Christiana Libertate," and "De
Captivitate Babylonica."
t St. Matthew, xviii : 17.

224 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON DOCTRINE.

indirectly infringe on the unchangeable principles of faith.
This was hallowed and consecrated ground, which was not to
be trodden by the rude foot of controversy. She said to the
stormy billows of proud human opinion : " Thus far shall you
come, and no further : and here shall you break your boiling
waves ! " *

When the reformers cast off this yoke of Church authority,
and said "they would not serve" any longer, they had no al
ternative left, but to decide, each one for himself, what was
the doctrine of Christ. Private judgment was thus necessa
rily substituted for the teaching of the Church : human opin
ion for faith. As men were differently constituted, they
naturally took different views of the religion of Christ. Each
one struck out a new system for himself; and soon, instead
of the one Religion which had been received with reverence
for ages, the world beheld the novel spectacle of almost as
many religions as there were heads among the Protestant
party !

D'Aubigne's theory on this subject is as curious as it is lib
eral — in the modern sense of this term. He thus discourses
on what he calls the diversities of the Reformation :

" We are about to contemplate the diversities, or, as they have been since
called, the variations of the Reformation. These diversities are among its
most essential characters. Unity in diversity, and diversity in unity, is a
law of nature, and also of the church. Truth may be compared to the light
of the sun. The light comes from heaven colorless, and ever the same : and
yet it takes different hues on earth, varying according to the objects on
which it falls. Thus different formularies may sometimes express the same
Christian truth, viewed under different aspects. How dull would be this
visible creation, if all its boundless variety of shape and color were to give
place to an unbroken uniformity ! "f

A beautiful theory truly, and aptly illustrated ! So, then,
" the different formularies " of Luther, openly asserting the

* Job xxxviii: 12. "Hue usque venies et non amplius; et hie con-
fringes tumentes fluctus tuos."

f D' Aubigne, vol. iii, p. 235, in the introduction to the eleventh book, in which
he treats of the controversies between the partisans of Zuingle and Luther.

. AS MANY KELIOIONS AS HEADS. 225

real presence of Christ in the holy Sacrament, and of Zuingle
flatly denying this presence, "both express the same Christian
truth viewed under different aspects!" These great cham
pions of Protestantism, as we have seen, mutually anathema
tized and denounced each other as children of Satan on this
very ground^ and yet, in good sooth, they maintained "the
same Christian truth under different aspects !" They plainly
contradicted each other on many other important points, and
the Wittenberg doctor would consent to hold no communion
with him of Zurich ;* and yet they maintained " the same
Christian truth !" Luther said to Zuingle, who proposed mu
tual communion at the close of the famous conference of
Marburg, in 1528, " No, no: cursed be the alliance which
endangers the truth of God and the salvation of souls. Away
with you : you are possessed by a different spirit from ours.
But take care : before three years the anger of God will fall
on you !"f And yet D'Aubigne would have us believe, that
they agreed as to the substance of " Christian truth!" Verily,
he must think others as credulous as he himself seems to be !
And then, the charming illustration from the light of the
sun ! It is almost a pity to spoil its poetic beauty ; though
even a poet wrould lay himself open to the most severe criti
cism, were his figures no more appropriate or true to nature.
D'Aubigne has taken more than even a poetic license. Does
the light of the sun, no matter how diversified, reflect contra
dictory images "of the objects on which it falls?" Is it so
very uncertain, as to leave us in doubt, as to the shape and
color of external objects ? Does it make us the dupes of con
stant optical illusions ? The light which the reformers pro
fessed to borrow from heaven did all this. And then, does it
fall much short of blasphemy, to maintain that God is indif
ferent as to whether we believe truth or error ; and that He
delights in such a diversity of opinions as runs into open con-

* In the conference of Marburg. See Audin, " Life of Luther," p. 415,416.
| Audin. ibid. See also Luther's Ep. ad Jacobum, praep. Bremens.

226 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON DOCTRINE.

tradictions ? And this too, when his well beloved Son came
on earth " to bear testimony to the truth," and laid down
His life to seal it with his blood ! And when the Saviour
pronounced the awful declaration : " He that belie veth not
shall be condemned;"* which declaration referred to the
necessity of belief "in all things whatsoever he had com-
manded!"f

The doctrine of private judgment, broached by the re
formers, led to endless inconsistencies and contradictions. It
was the prolific parent of sects almost innumerable. More
than fifty J of these arose before the death of Luther! It
was natural that it should be so : " These diversities were
among the most essential features of the Reformation." §
The tree was only bearing its natural fruits ; and the latter,
according to the divine standard, are the best criterion
whereby to judge of the former: "By their fruits ye shall
know them." — " The Reformation, which promised to put an
end to the reign of disputatious theology, had, on the con
trary, awakened in all minds a fondness for dispute, bordering
on fanaticism : it was the fever of logomachy.|| Half a cen
tury before, men indeed disputed ; but then the doctrine of
the Church was not called into question: now however it
was attacked on all sides. In each university, and even in
every private house, Germany saw a pulpit erected for who
ever pretended to have received the understanding of the
divine word." 1

This raging fever of disputation has continued to burn in
the bosom of Protestantism even to the present day : it has
not abated in the progress of ages. True, in Germany and
on the continent of Europe, it has, to a great extent, lately
cooled down into a state of mortal apathy — a more dangerous
symptom far than the malady which it has superseded: but

* St. Mark, xvi : 16. f The parallel passage in St. Matthew, xxviii : 20.
$ See Audin, p. 331. \ D'Aubigne, ut supra.

U A war of words. f Audin, ibid., p. 190, 191.

THE BIBLE WRESTED. 227

elsewhere, it has left the patient in the same restless and
tossing condition, as formerly.

Most of the reformers found in the Bible, that a priest
who had made a solemn vow of celibacy to God, might and
even ought to break it, by taking a wife. The first who
made this consoling discovery, were Bernard of Felkirk,
abbot of Kemberg, and the aged Karlstadt, archdeacon of
Wittenberg. The new light which had dawned upon them
was hailed with ecstasy by the lovers of "Christian liberty"
throughout Germany. Some went still further, and main
tained, Bible in hand, with Bucer, Capito, Karlstadt and
other evangelists, that marriage was not indissoluble; and
that a Christian could dismiss his wife, or even retain her,
and take one or more others at the same time, after the ex
ample of the ancient patriarchs. These styled themselves
"the sons of liberty" — they should have said libertinism.

We shall see, a little later, to what frightful consequences
these horrid doctrines led !

"All the hallucinations of a disordered intellect were for a time ascribed
to the Holy Ghost. Never had the divine wisdom communicated itself
more liberally to the human mind ! The Bible was laid open, as an ana
tomical subject, on an operator's table, and every doctor came with his
lance in hand — as afterwards did Dumoulin — to anatomize the word of God,
and to seek the spirit, which before Luther had escaped the eye of Catho
licism. It was an epoch of glosses and commentaries, which time has not
had the trouble of destroying, for they abounded with absurdity, and fell
beneath the weight of ridicule which crushed them at their birth. There
were new lights, who came to announce that they had discovered an irre
sistible argument against the Mass, purgatory, and prayers to the saints.
This was simply to deny the immortality of the soul!"* — This startling
impiety was really maintained in full school at Geneva, by certain "new
lights," who came from Wittenberg.f

Menzel, the Protestant historian of Germany, freely admits

* Audin, p. 192.

f " Quidquid de animarum habetur immortalitate, ab antichristo ad statu-
endam suam culinam excogitatum est." Prateolus — Elench. voce Athei,
p. 72. See also Bayle's Dictionary, art. Luther.

228 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON DOCTRINE.

that division was the essential heritage of the Reformation,
whose unity it fatally marred, thereby frittering away its
strength. He says:

"The Protestants, blind to the unity and strength resulting from the
policy of the Catholics, weakened themselves more and more by division.
The reformed Swiss were almost more inimical to the Lutherans than the
Catholics were, and the general mania for disputation and theological ob
stinacy produced divisions among the reformers themselves. When, in
1562, Bullinger set up the Helvetic Confession, to which the Pfalz also
assented in Zurich, Basle refused and maintained a particular Confession."*

From the earliest period of its history, " the hydra of the
Reformation had a hundred heads. The Anabaptists believed
with Miinzer, that without a second baptism, man could not
be saved. The Karlstadtians preached up polygamy. The
Zuinglians rejected the real presence. Osiander taught that
God had predestined only the elect. The Majorists taught
that works were not necessary for salvation ; while the fol
lowers of Flaccus accused the Majorists of popery. The
Synergists preached up man's liberty. The Ubiquitarians
believed, that the humanity of Christ was, like His divinity,
omnipresent. Some held original sin to be the nature, sub
stance, the essence of man ; while others regarded it as a mere
mode of his being. All these sects boasted of the Bible, as a
sufficient rule of faith ; they published confessions, composed
creeds, and insisted on faith, as a condition of communion.
Children of the same father, whom they had severally denied,
they cursed and proscribed each other : they gave the name
of heretic to, and shut the gates of heaven against, all their
brethren in revolt, who happened to differ with them."f
Other fanatics preached up the community of goods, with
Storck and the Anabaptists ; others with the prophets of
Alstell, " the demolition of images, of churches, of chapels,
and the adoration of the Lord on high places ; "J and others,

* History of Germany, II, 275.

f Audin, p. 208, 209. See the authorities he quotes, ibid., note.

t Idem., p. 331.

A HYDRA. 229

the inutility of the law and of prayer. — The feverish spirit of
innovation knew no rest ; every day brought forth a new sect.
And is it not so, even in our own age and country ?

Erasmus thus hits off, in his own polished and caustic
style, the extravagant inconsistencies of the Protestant rule
of faith :

" They ask : ' Do philosophy and learning aid us in understanding the
holy books?' I reply: 'Will ignorance assist you?' They say: 'Of
what authority are these councils, in which not perhaps a single member
received the Holy Ghost ? ' I ask in reply : ' Is not the gift of God, pro
bably, as rare in your conventicles ? ' The Apostles would not have been be
lieved, had they not proved the truth of their doctrines by miracles. Among
you every individual must be believed on his own word. When the Apos
tles lulled the serpents, healed the infirm, and raised the dead to life, people
were forced to believe in them, though they announced incomprehensible
mysteries. Among these doctors, who tell us so many wonderful things,
is there one who has been able to cure a lame horse ? . . . . Give me mira
cles. — ' They are unnecessary : there have been enough of them : ' — the bright
light of the Scriptures is not so very clear, since I see so many men wander
in the dark. Although we had the spirit of God, how can we be certain
that we have the knowledge of His word ? What must I believe, when I see,
in the midst of contradictory doctrines, all lay claim to dogmatical infallibi
lity, and rise up with oracular authority against the doctrines of those who
have preceded us ? Is it then likely that, during thirteen centuries, God
should not have raised up, among the many holy personages he has given
to His Church, a single one to whom he revealed His doctrine."*

Luther was often saddened by the defection of his own dis
ciples, as well as grievously puzzled, when these played off
on him the same arguments which he had used against the
Pope. His cherished disciple Mathesius relates the mental
anguish he endured, when, being at the castle of the Wart-
burg in 1521, he heard of the revolt and strange doings of
Karlstadt at Wittenberg. He yielded to dejection ; he seemed
to himself to have been abandoned by God and by men:
"His head grew weary, his forehead burned with the excite
ment of his mind, his eye grew dim — and he would open his

* " Do Libero Arbitrio." Diatribe, and Adolf Menzel, i, 140.

230 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON DOCTRINE.

window, and inhaling the ambrosial breeze, would endeavor
to forget the world and its wrongs ! "*

But all his efforts to quiet his own mind proved ineffectual :
he chafed like a tiger in his cage. At length he resolved,
against the advice of his friends, to leave the Wartburg, and
to precipitate himself into the midst of his recreant disciples
at Wittenberg. He harangued them for full two hours on
the wickedness of their defection from his standard ; and
concluded his burning invective with the following memora
ble sentence: "Yes, if the devil himself had entreated me"
—to remove the images from the church by violence — "I
would have turned a deaf ear to him ! "f

The reformer draws a graphic sketch of his own perplex
ity in a letter to the "Christians" of Antwerp, written in
1525. We will furnish a few extracts :

" The devil has got among you : he daily sends me visitors to knock at
my door. One will not hear of baptism ; another rejects the sacrament of
the Eucharist ; a third teaches that a new world will be created by God be
fore the day of judgment ; another, that Christ is not God : in short, one
this, another that. There are almost as many creeds as individuals. There
is no booby, who, when he dreams, does not believe himself visited by God,
and who does not claim the gift of prophecy. I am often visited by these
men who claim to be favored by visions, of which they all know more than
I do, and which they undertake to teach me. I would be glad they were
what they profess to be. No later than yesterday one came to me : ' Sir, I
am sent by God who created heaven and earth ; ' and then he began to
preach as a veritable idiot, that it was the order of God that I should read
the books of Moses for him. ' Ah ! where did you find this commandment
of God ?' 'In the gospel of St. John ! ' After he had spoken much, I said
to him : ' Friend, come back to-morrow, for I cannot read for you, at one
sitting, the books of Moses.' ' Good-by, master ; the heavenly Father, who
shed his blood for us, will show us the right way through his Son Jesus.
Amen !'.... While the Papacy lasted itiere were no such divisions or dissen
sions : the strong man peaceably ruled the minds of men ; but now one
stronger is come, who has vanquished and put him to flight, and the former
one storms and wishes not to depart. A spirit of confusion is thus among
you, which tempts you, and seeks to withdraw you from the true path."

* Mathesius. In Vita Lutheri, apud Audin, p. 209.
t See the harangue in Audin; p. 237, 238.

LUTHER'S PERPLEXITY. 231

He concludes this strange epistle with these characteristic
words : " Begone, ye cohort of devils, marked with the char
acter of error : God is a spirit of peace and not of dissension."*

But Luther could not succeed in exorcising the demons,
whom his own principle of private judgment had evoked
from the abyss. True, he occasionally made trial of the good
old Catholic specifics for this purpose ; but they proved utterly-
powerless in his hands. Thus, when pressed by the Anabap
tists, to prove infant baptism from the Scriptures — his only
rule of faith— he had recourse to the good old Catholic argu
ment of Church authority founded on tradition ! He appealed
to the testimony of St. Augustine and to the teaching of the
Church during his day. — "But, it is objected," he says, "what
if Augustine and those whom you call and believe to be the
Church, erred in this particular ? But this objection can be
easily impugned. If you do not admit the right, (jus) at least
will you not admit the fact (factum) of this having been the
belief of the Church 1 And to deny that this was the faith
of the true and lawful Church, I deem most impious."f

Another argument, which he employed to refute the Ana
baptists, was that drawn from the necessity of a lawful mis
sion to preach the gospel, and of miracles to confirm this
mission, whenever it was not derived through the ordinary
channels of the Church. In a sermon delivered at Witten
berg against their prophets, in 1522, he employed this remark
able language :

"Do you wish to found a new church ? — Let us see : who has sent you ?
From whom have you received your mission ? As you give testimony of
yourselves, we are not at once to believe you, but according to the advice of

* " Ein Briefe D. Martin Luther an die Christen zu Antorf." Witten
berg, 1525, 4to. " Doct. M. Luther Briefe," torn, iii, p. 60. Cf. Audin.

f Objicitur vero : quid si Augustinus, et quos ecclesiam vocas vel esse
credis, in hac parte errarint ? .... At eadem objectio facile impugnabitur.
Si non jus, tamen factum proprie credendi in ecclesia ? Hanc autem confes-
sionem negare esse ecclesiae illius verae et legitimae, arbitror impiissimum
esse." — Epist. Melancthoni, 13 January, 1522.

232 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON DOCTRINE.

St. John, we must try you. God has sent no one into this world who was
not called by man, or announced by signs — not even excepting his own Son.
The prophets derived their title from the law, and from the prophetic order,
as we do from men. I do not care for you, if you have only a mere revela
tion to propose : God would not permit Samuel to speak, except by the
authority of Heli. When the law is to be changed, miracles are necessary.
Where are your miracles ? What the Jews said to the Lord, we now say
to you : 'Master, we wish for a sign.' "*

Luther often used this argument :f and yet, it might have
been retorted with unanswerable force against himself. And
it was retorted by Stiibner and Cellarius, two of the Anabaptist
prophets, whom he had attacked. The answer of the Saxon
reformer is not recorded :J perhaps he had none to give.
According to Erasmus, the reformers never succeeded even
" in curing a larne horse ! " Luther himself, somewhat later,
acknowledged, that he had never performed any miracles,
except that " he had slapped Satan in the face, and struck
the Papacy in its core."§ — Astonishing miracles truly !

Luther was not alone, in thus inconsistently appealing to
arguments which condemned both himself and his own cause.
Many of the other principal reformers were driven to the
same straits. In order to refute George Blaurock, an Ana
baptist enthusiast, Zuingle used the following argument :

" If we allow every enthusiast or sophist to diffuse among the people all
the foolish fancies of his heated imagination, to assemble together disciples
and make a sect, we shall see the Church of Christ split up into an infinity
of factions, and lose that unity which she has maintained at so great sacri
fices. It is necessary then to consult the Church, and not to listen to passion
or prejudice. The interpretation of Scripture is not the right of individuals,
but of the Church : she has the keys, and the power of unlocking the treas-
sures of the divine word."||

* Apud Audin, p. 238.

f As in lib. iii, c. iv. "Contra Anabaptistas ;" and elsewhere.

f In his letter to Spalatin, in which he relates his interview with Stiibner
and Cellarius, Luther is silent on this retort. Epist. Spalatino, 12 Ap. 1522.
Yet the Anabaptist historians relate it. Cf. Audin, p. 239.

§ See Audin, p. 238, note, for authority for this feat.

!! Zuinglius. " De Baptismo," p. 72.— Cf. Audin, p. 240.

EXTRAVAGANT FANATICISM. 233

As might have been expected, Blaurock was not satisfied
with this appeal to authority. Bullinger* tells us, that he
answered in a loud voice: "Did not you Sacramentarians
break with the Pope, without consulting the Church which
you abandoned — and that, too, a Church which was not of
yesterday ? Is it not lawful for us to abandon your church,
which is but a few days old ? Can not we do what you have
done?" — Zuingle was nonplussed; and if even he made an
attempt to reply, his answer is not recorded.

We will give a few instances of the strange fanaticism to
which this same principle of private judgment naturally led.
"We might fill a volume with such examples : but our limits
will permit of only a few.f Listen, for instance, to this start
ling announcement of Storck in one of his sermons :

" Behold, what I announce to you. God has sent his angel to me during
the night, to tell me that I shall sit on the same throne as the archangel

"Gabriel. Let the impious tremble and the just hope It is to me,

Storck, that heaven has promised the empire of the world. Would you
desire to be visited by God ? Prepare your hearts to receive the Holy
Spirit. Let there be no pulpit whence to announce the word of God : no
priests, no preachers, no exterior worship : let your dress be plain ; your
food bread and salt ; and God will descend upon you."J

Miinzer, another Anabaptist, thus pleaded for the general
division of property :

" Ye rich ones of the earth who keep us in bondage, who have plundered
us, give us back our liberty and possessions. It is not only as men that we
now demand what has been taken from us : we ask it as Christians. In
the primitive Church, the apostles divided with their brethren in Jesus Christ
the money that was laid at their feet. Give us back the goods you unjustly
retain. Unhappy flock of Jesus Christ, how long will you groan in oppres
sion under the yoke of the priest and the magistrate ?" — " And then the
prophet suddenly fell into an epileptic fit : his hair stood erect ; perspiration
rolled down his face, and foam issued from his mouth. The people cried
out: 'silence, God visits his prophet !'"§

* " In Apologia Anabaptist." P. 254.— Cf. Audin, p. 240.
f Those who wish to see more are referred to Catrou, Histoire du Fana-
tisme, torn, i ; to Meshovius, Ottovius, and other writers.

| See Audin, p. 230. $ Ibid., p. 231.

VOL. i. — 20

234 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON DOCTRINE.

At the termination of his ecstasy, which continued for
some minutes, the prophet cried out at the top of his stento
rian voice : " Eternal God, pour into my soul the treasures
of thy justice, otherwise I shall renounce thee and thy proph
ets."* A Lutheran having appealed to the Bible, — " The
Bible ? Babel 1" cried out Munzer.f

What will be thought of this strange conceit of Karlstadt ?

" One day, Karlstadt was seen running through the streets of Wittenberg
with the Bible in his hand, and stopping the passers-by to inquire of them
the meaning of difficult passages of the sacred books : ' What are you
about?' said the Austin friars to him. 'Is it not written' — answered the
archdeacon — ' that the voice of truth shall be heard from the lips of infants ?
I only accomplish the orders of heaven.' " \

"Who has not heard of the revolting obscenities of John of
Leyden, and of the prophets of Minister ? All of these im
pure extravagances, perpetrated, too, under the bright new
light of the Reformation, and under its alleged sanction!
Who, in fine, that has even glanced at the history of this
period, has not marked the endless extravagances, the absurd
conceits, the astonishing fanaticism which marked almost
every day of its annals !

Truly, then " the fountains of the great deep were broken
up, and the flood-gates of heaven were opened ;"§ and a new
deluge flooded the earth, more destructive than that which
had buoyed up Noah's ark ! For this destroyed only the
bodies of men; that carried away and ruined men's souls.
"The flood-gates of heaven" — did we say? No, the origin
of those waters must be sought elsewhere. Luther himself
aids us in detecting their source. We have seen above his
opinion on the subject, in his letter to the Christians of Ant
werp. And in his subsequent controversies with the Sacra-
mentarians, after having spoken of their dissensions among
themselves, he said : " This is a great proof that these Sacra-
mento-magists come not from God, but from the devil."||

* Meshovius, p. 4. Catrou, sup. cit. f Ibid. \ Ibid.

\ Genesis, vi : 11. || "An die Christen ?u Beutlingen," $ January, 1526.

FANATICISM OF ANABAPTISTS. 235

And we have also seen how triumphantly Zuingle retorted the
compliment on Luther and his branch of the Reformation.

Can not we turn this, and all the other arguments employed
by the several reformers to refute each other, against all of
them ? Can not we point to the numberless dissensions of
Protestants among themselves — dissensions perpetuated a
hundred fold even unto the present day — to prove against
them all, that their pretended Reformation, which always
produced such fruits as these, is not and can not be from
God, "who is not the God of dissension, but of peace?"
Can not we ask them, whence they had their mission to re
form the Church ? And if they answer, " from heaven ;" ask
them again to prove it to us by miracles ? How will they,
how can they answer these arguments, which they themselves
so often wielded against one another ?

It will be curious to see how the modern Protestant histo
rian of Germany speaks of the Anabaptists and their extrav
agant excesses. We accordingly here present to our readers
the following extracts from Menzel, who, it will be seen, sub
stantially confirms the statements made above, and adds
some new facts :

" The illiterate and the enthusiastic, however, far outstripped Luther in
their ideas ; instead of reforming they wished to annihilate the church, and
to grasp political as well as religious liberty, and it was justly feared lest
these excesses might furnish Rome with a pretext for rejecting every species
of reform. 'Luther/ wrote their leader, Thomas Munzer, 'merely draws
the word of God from books, and twists the dead letters.' Nicholas Storck,
Miinzer's first teacher, a clothier, who surrounded himself with twelve
apostles and seventy-two disciples, boasted of receiving revelations from an
angel. Their rejection of infant baptism and sole recognition of that of
adults as efficacious, gained for them the appellation of Anabaptists. Karl-
stadt joined this sect, and followed the example already given by Bartholo
mew Bernhardi, a priest, one of Luther's disciples, who had married."

" The Anabaptists, repulsed by Luther, encouraged by these precedents,
drew near to Zuingle, and their leader, Thomas Munzer, who had been ex
pelled from Wittenberg, went to "Waldshut on the Rhine, where, counten
anced by the priest, Hubmaier, the greatest disorder took place. Zuingle de
clared against them, and caused several of them to be drowned [A. D. 1524],

23G INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON DOCTRINE,

but was, nevertheless, still regarded by Luther as a man who, under the
cloak of spiritual liberty, sought to bring about political changes."*

Of the insurrection in which Miinzer perished, he says :
"At the same time, in the summer of 1525, an insurrection, bearing a
more religious character, broke out in Thuringia, where Thomas Miinzer
appeared as a prophet, and preached the doctrines of equality and fraternity.
The insurgents were defeated by Ernest, Count von Mansfield, whose brother
Albert had conceded all their demands ; and afterwards at Fulda, by Philip
of Hesse, who, reinforced by Ernest, the Duke George, and the elector John
of Saxony, marched on Frankenhausen, the headquarters of the rebels, who,
infatuated with the belief that heaven would fight for them, allowed them
selves to be slaughtered whilst invoking aid from God. Five thousand were
slain. Frankenhausen was taken and pillaged, and three hundred prisoners
were beheaded. Miinzer was discovered in a hay-stack, in which he had
secreted himself, put to the rack, and executed with twenty-six of his com
panions." f

He writes as follows of the excesses committed at Ley-
den, which became the headquarters of the Anabaptists :

" The most extravagant folly and license ere long prevailed in the city.
John Bockelson, a tailor from Leyden, gave himself out as a prophet, and
proclaimed himself king of the universe ; a clothier, named Knipperdolling,
and one Krechting, were elected burgomasters. A community of goods
and wives was proclaimed and carried into execution. Civil dissensions en
sued, but were speedily quelled by the Anabaptists. John of Leyden took
seventeen wives, one of whom, Divara, gained great influence by her spirit
and beauty. The city was, meanwhile, closely besieged by the expelled
bishop, Francis von Waldeck, who was aided by several of the Catholic and
Lutheran princes ; numbers of the nobility flocked thither for pastime, and
carried on the siege against the Anabaptists, who made a long and valiant
defense. The attempts of their brethren in Holland and Friesland to relieve
them proved ineffectual. A dreadful famine ensued in consequence of the
closeness of the siege ; the citizens lost courage and betrayed the city by
night to the enemy. Most of the fanatics were cut to pieces. John, Knip
perdolling, and Krechting were captured, enclosed in iron cages, and carried
for six months throughout Germany, after which they were brought back to
Munster to suffer an agonizing death. Divara and the rest of the principal
fanatics were beheaded. "J

To illustrate this matter still further, and to show what
* History of Germany, ii, 232-3. f Ibid., p. 243. { Ibid. p. 256.

LUTHER AND KARLSTADT. 237

spirit originated and perpetuated the dissensions by which
early Protestantism was torn into fragments, we will here ex
hibit a few specimens of the manner in which controversies
among the reformers were then conducted. In 1524, Luther
went to Jena, where he preached against the new prophets
of the Anabaptists, whose arguments had been answered by
their brother Protestants with the convincing weapons of fire
and sword ! Tens of thousands of the vast multitudes, whom
these fanatics had misled, had been butchered ; still their
spirit was not wholly subdued. Karlstadt, then pastor at
Jena, feeling himself aggrieved by the violence of Luther's
sermon, challenged him to an oral discussion. The challenge
was accepted, and the tavern of the Black Boar, where Luther
lodged, was the place appointed for the meeting. After some
preliminary discussion, in which the two new apostles in
dulged in insulting personalities, Karlstadt maintaining that
Luther had meant Mm in his sermon, and Luther calling on
him for proof, telling him " if he saw the likeness in the pic
ture, it must have suited him," etc., the discussion proceeded
after this wise :

Karlstadt. — Well then, I will dispute in public, and I will manifest the
truth of God, or my own confusion.

Lnther. — Your own folly rather, Doctor.

Karlstadt. — My confusion, which I shall bear for God's glory.

Luther. — And which will fall back on your own shoulders. I care little
for your menaces. Who fears you ?

Karlstadt. — Whom do I fear ? My doctrine is pure ; it comes from God.

Luther. — If it comes from God, why have you not imparted to others the
spirit that made you break the images at Wittenberg ?

Karlstadt. — I was not the only one concerned in that enterprise. It was
done after a mature decision of the senate, and by the co-operation of some
of your disciples, who fled in the moment of peril.

Luther. — False, I protest.

Karlstadt. — True, I protest.

Karlstadt complained a little afterwards, that Luther had
condemned him at Wittenberg without previous admonition.
This Luther flatly contradicted, stating that " he had brought

238

INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON DOCTRINE.

Philip and Pomeranius into his study," for that purpose:
hereupon Karlstadt became enraged, and exclaimed : " If you
speak the truth, may the d — il tear me in pieces !" The dis
cussion ended in nothing — as most discussions of the kind
do. Luther challenged Karlstadt to write against him ; . the
latter accepted the challenge : Luther then gave him a gold
florin as stake-money, and the compact was duly ratified,
after the old German fashion, by two overflowing bumpers
of ale.* Never had the Black Boar of Jena been so crowded,
or witnessed a spectacle of such stirring interest ! And such
a spectacle !

From Jena Luther proceeded to Orlamunde, where he car
ried on a spirited controversy, in the presence of the town
council, with a cobbler theologian, named Crispin, who had
recently learned — thanks to the Reformation — how to apply
his craft to interpreting, if not mending the Bible. The dis
cussion was long and animated ; Crispin supplying his lack
of argument by a stentorian voice, and by furious gesticula
tions. The subject was the lawfulness of images; Luther
defending, and Crispin objecting; and both appealing to the
Bible. What was most mortifying to the reformer, the town
council sided with the cobbler, and decided against the Wit
tenberg doctor ! .

"'So then,' said Luther to the council, 'you condemn me?'

"'Most assuredly;' cried out Crispin — 'you and all who teach what is

opposed to God's word.'

"'A childish insult,' said Luther as he mounted the car. One of the

chamberlains here caught hold of his garments, and said : ' Before you go

away, master, a word with you on baptism, and the sacrament of the

Eucharist.'

" ' Have you not my books ?' said the monk to him. ' Read them.'

" ' I have read them, and my conscience is not satisfied with them ;' said

the chamberlain.

" ' If any thing displeases you in them write against me ;' said Luther :

and he started off.'"!

* See the whole discussion in Audin, p. 322, seqq. f Ibid., 329.

THE REAL PRESENCE. 239

Luther himself relates to us this adventure, and also gives
to us the words of awful malediction with which the people
greeted him, when he was leaving Orlamunde.*

But the most interesting discussion of all, was that held at
Marburg in 1528, on the subject of the holy Sacrament, be
tween Luther, Melancthon, Justus Jonas, and Cruciger, on
the one part; and Zuingle, (Ecolampadius, Martin Bucer,
and Gaspard Hedio, on the other. Luther contended for the
real presence of the body and blood of Christ along with
that of the bread and wine; and Zuinglius maintained a
figurative presence, or rather, no presence at all. This point
was the greatest subject of contention among the early re
formers. "In 1527, Luther counted already no less than
eight different interpretations of the text : ; THIS is MY BODY ! '
Thirty years afterwards, there were no less than eighty-
five!"! Rasperger, wrho wrote at a somewhat later period,
reckoned no less than two hundred ! J A pretty good com
mentary this, on the principle of private judgment. It must
surely be a good rule of faith, since it has thus led to those
diversities, which D'Aubigne admires so much, and deems
essential developments of the Reformation. §

One of Zuingle's chief arguments against the real presence,
was based on the fact that this doctrine was held by the
Catholic Church. Luther answered: Wretched argument!
Deny then the Scripture also; for we have received it too
from the Pope We must acknowledge that there are

* Opp. torn, i, edit. Jense, fol. 467 ; edit. Witt, i, 214. Cf. Audin, p. 329.
As he was leaving, the populace roared out after him : " May the devil and
all his imps have you ! May you break your neck and limbs before you
leave the city!"

f See Audin, p. 408, note, for an account of the principal interpretations ;
most of them singular enough, even for those days of Bible mania.

| Apud Liebermann, Theologia Dogmat. De Eucharistia.

§ Bellarmine bears evidence that two hundred interpretations of the
words: — this is my body — had been enumerated in a work published in
1577 ! — Controversiae vol. iii, cap. viii, de Eucharist, p. 195. Edit. Venotiis,
6 vols. folio.

240 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON DOCTRINE.

great mysteries of faith in the Papacy; yea, all the truths
we have inherited : for it is in popery that we found the true
Scriptures, true baptism, the true sacrament of the altar, the
true keys which remit sin, true preaching, the true catechism,
which contains the Lord's prayer, the ten commandments —
that is true Christianity.*

Precious avowal, coming, as it does, from the father of the
Reformation — the most inveterate enemy of Rome ! How it
contrasts with many of his other declarations ? Why abandon
the Catholic Church, if it taught all this, and held "true
Christianity?" "Out of thy own mouth, I judge thee, thou
wicked servant!" On another occasion, Luther had said:
" Had Karlstadt or any other proved to me, five years ago,
that there was nothing but bread and wine in the sacrament,
he would have rendered me great service. It would have
been a great blow to the Papacy : but it is all in vain ; the
text is too plain."f It was perhaps too late : he had already
taken his stand, and committed himself on the question.

The conference on this subject at Marburg, was long and
violent : instead of healing, it only widened the breach among
the reformers. We can furnish but one extract from the
debate.

To prove the figurative presence, Zuingle had appealed to
Ezechiel's wheel, and to the famous text from Exodus, chap,
xii : " For it is the phase, that is, the passover of the Lord,"

* Opp. Lutheri, Jenae, fol. 408, 409. Audin, 410.

" Profecto frivolum est hoc argumentum, supra quod nihil boni sedificaturi
sumus. Hoc enim pacto negare eos oporteret totam quoque Scripturam
Sacram et prasdicandi officium ; hoc enim totum a Papa habemus. Stultitia

est hoc totum Nos autem fatemur sub Papatu plurimum esse boni

Christiani, imo omne lonum Christianum, atque etiam illinc ad nos devenisse.
Quippe fatemur in Papatu veram esse Scripturam Sacram, verum baptis-
mum, verum sacramentum altaris, veras claves ad remissionem peccatorum,
verum prsedicandi officium ; . . . . Dico insuper in Papatu veram Christiani-
tatem esse,imo vero nudeum Christianitatis esse."

f Lutheri Opp. edit. Hall. torn, xv, p. 2448. Ad. Menzel, i, 269, 270.

LUTHER AND ZUINGLE. 241

which text had been suggested to him by the nocturnal visitor
of whom " he could not say whether he was black or white !"*
Luther answered :

" ' The pasch and the wheel are allegorical. I do not mean to dispute
with you about a word. If is means signifies, I appeal to the words of Christ,
who says : " This is my body." The devil can not get out of them (Z>a Jcann
der Teufel nicht fur). To doubt is to fall from the faith. Why do you not
also see a trope in " he ascended into heaven ? " A God made man, the Word
made flesh, a God who suffers — these are all incomprehensible things, which
you must however believe under penalty of eternal damnation.'

" Zuingle. — ' You do not prove the matter. I will not permit you to incur
the begging of the question. You must change your note (Ihr luerdet mir
anderes singeri). Do you think that Christ wished to accommodate himself
to the ignorant ? '

" Luther. — ' Do you then deny it ? " This is a hard saying," muttered the
Jews, who spoke of the- thing as impossible. This passage can not serve you.

" Zuingle. — ' Bah ! it breaks your neck (Nein, nein, bricht eucli den Hals ab).'

" Luther. — ' Softly, be not so haughty : you are not in Switzerland, but in
Hesse ; and necks are not so easily broken here {Die Halse brechen nictitalsoy "f

The wavering, but often candid Melancthon wept bitterly
over the dissensions of early Protestantism. He had not the
power to heal the crying evil, nor the courage to abandon the
system in which it originated. From many passages of his
writings bearing on the subject, we select the following
lament, in a confidential letter to a friend: "The Elbe with
all its waves could not furnish tears enough to weep over the
miseries of the distracted Reformation." J

A learned German historian of the day, Dr Dollinger, has
published an extensive work, replete with erudition, on the
character of the German reformers, and the nature and tend
ency of the religious revolution which they brought about,
as described by themselves.^ We had intended to draw

* Florimond Remond, and Schlussenburg, in proem. Theolog. Calvin.
Zuingle's own words have been already quoted.

f For an account of the entire discussion, taken from Rodolph Collin, an
eye and ear-witness, see Audin, p. 413, seqq.
I Epist. lib. ii, Ep. 202.

$ The work was published at Ratisbon, in 1846-8, in three volumes, 8vo
VOL. i.— 21

s.

244 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON DOCTRINE.

both in Germany and in Switzerland ; the two fatherlands of
Protestantism. It is unnecessary to multiply proof on a mat
ter so unquestionable. Even D'Aubigne virtually admits,that
the majority of Protestants have there passed over to the
standard of rationalism, or the religion of men* — that is, to,
rank deism. And even where Protestantism still subsists,
what is it, but a lifeless tree, the withered branches of which
are stirred only by the breath of its own internal dissensions ?
We will conclude this Chapter with the picture of Protes
tantism in modern Germany, drawn by the master-hand of
Frederick Yon Schlegel, whose mighty mind, disgusted with
the endless mazes of Protestantism, sought refuge within the
pale of Catholic unity. He is speaking of the boasted bibli
cal learning of Germany, in which he says " the true key of
interpretation, which sacred tradition alone can furnish, was
irretrievably lost, as the sequel has but too well proved!"
He then adds :

" This is nowhere so fully understood, and so deeply felt as in Protestant
Germany of the present day, Germany, where lies the root of Protestantism,
its mighty center, its all-ruling spirit, and its life-blood, Germany, where, to
supply the want of the true spirit of religion, a remedy is sought sometimes
in the external forms of liturgy,f sometimes in the pompous apparatus of
biblical philology and research, destitute of the true key of interpretation ;
sometimes in the empty philosophy of rationalism, and sometimes in the
mazes of a mere interior pietism.":}:

* D'Aubigne, preface to vol. i, p. 9.

f He here refers to the ordinances promulgated some years ago by the
king of Prussia, for the reform of the Liturgy (Protestant).
| Philosophy of History, vol. ii, p. 207.

TWO METHODS OF INVESTIGATION. 245

CHAPTER IX.

INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON MORALS.

" This world is fallen on an easier way ;
This age knows better than to fast and pray." — DKYDEN.

Two methods of investigation — Connection of doctrine and morals — Salu
tary influence of Catholic doctrines — Of confession — Objections answered —
Of celibacy — Its manifold advantages — Utility of the doctrines of satisfac
tion and indulgences — Of fasting — Of prayers for the dead — Of communion
of saints — Sanctity of marriage — Divorces — Influence of Protestant doc
trines — Shocking disorders — Testimony of Erasmus—Bigamy and poly
gamy — Mohammedanism — Practical results — Testimonies of Luther,
Bucer, Calvin, and Melancthon — The reformers testifying on their own
work — Dollinger's researches — Character of Erasmus — John Reuchlin —
Present state of morals in Protestant countries.

WE have seen what was the influence of the Reformation
on the doctrines of Christianity. We will now briefly ex
amine its influence on morals. Was this beneficial or was it
injurious ? There are two ways to decide this question : the
one by reasoning a priori on the nature and tendency of the
respective doctrines of Catholicism and of Protestantism ; the
other, which will greatly confirm the conclusions of the for
mer by facts showing what was the relative practical influence
of both systems. We will employ both these methods of
investigation.

I. Doctrines have a powerful influence on morals. The
former enlighten the understanding, the latter guide and
direct the movements of the heart and will. These are of
themselves mere blind impulses, until light is reflected on
them from the understanding. A sound faith, then, illumin
ating the intellect, is an essential pre-requisite to sound morals
guiding the heart, in the individual as well as in society.
True, we are able, by the exercise of our free will, to shut our
eyes to the light, and to continue acting perversely ; but this
does not disprove the powerful influence, which the under
standing, enlightened by faith, has over our moral conduct.

246 INFLUENCE OP REFORMATION ON MORALS.

"What was the necessary moral influence of those doctrines
of the Catholic Church, which the Reformation rejected ; and
what that of those new ones which it substituted in the place
of the old ? We speak only, of course, of the distinctive doc
trines of the two communions, not of the common ground
which they occupy. The Reformation retained many of the1
great principles of Christianity, which, according to the testi
mony of Luther himself, referred to above, it had borrowed
from the Catholic Church. Among the doctrines, or impor
tant points of discipline which the reformers repudiated, the
principal were : confession ; the celibacy of the clergy ; the
doctrine of satisfaction, implied in fasting, purgatory, prayers
for the dead, and indulgences ; the honor and invocation of
saints ; and the indissoluble sanctity of marriage ; to say
nothing of the real presence, which the greater portion of
Protestants also rejected. We will say a few words on the
moral influence of each of these doctrines. We may remark
of them all, in general, that they had a restraining as well as
an elevating effect ; that many of them were painful to human
nature, and opposed a strong barrier to the passions.

Even Yoltaire admitted the salutary moral influence of
confession. He says : " The enemies of the Catholic Church,
who opposed an institution so salutary, seem to have taken
away from men the greatest possible check to secret
offenses."* Another infidel, and a mortal enemy of Rome — •

* Annales de I' Empire, quoted by Robelot, in his work entitled : Influ
ence de la Reformation de Luther, sur la croyance religieuse, la politique, et
le progres des lumieres. Par M. Robelot, ancien chanoine de I'Eglise
cathedrale de Dijon. A Lyon. 1822. 1 vol. 8vo, pp. 440. (Influence of
the Reformation of Luther on religious belief, on politics, and on the progress
of enlightenment. By M. Robelot.)

This work was written in reply to the Essay on the Reformation which
had been published by M. Villers, and had been rewarded with a prize by
the infidel French Institute. Of this essay an unexceptionable witness, Hal-
lam, writes as follows : " The essay on the Influence of the Reformation by
Villers. which obtained a prize from the French Institute, and has been ex
tolled by a very friendly but better informed writer in the Biographic Univer-

UTILITY OF CONFESSION. 247

Marmontel — says: "How salutary a preservative for the
morals of youth, is the practice and obligation of going to
confession every month \ The shame attending this humble
avowal of the most hidden sins, prevents perhaps the com
mission of more of them, than all other motives the most
holy taken together."* Nothing but stern truth could have
drawn such avowals from such men.

How many crimes, in fact, has not the practice of confes
sion prevented or corrected ! How much implacable hatred
has it not appeased! How much restitution of ill-gotten
goods, and how much reparation of injured character, has it not
brought about ! How often has it not preserved giddy youth
from confirmed habits of secret and degrading vice ! How
much consolation has it not poured into bosoms torn by
anguish, or weighed down by sorrow! What amount of
good and salutary advice has it not imparted ! How often
has it not prevented the sinner from being driven to the very
verge of despair ! In a word, how much has it not contrib
uted to the preservation of morals in every portion of society,
which felt its influence !

Tell us not, that confession may be abused by corrupt men,
that it has been often made an instrument of unholy ambi
tion in the hands of the priesthood, and that it facilitates the
commission of crime, by its oifer of pardon. These objec-

selle, appears to me the work of a man who had not taken the pains to read
any one contemporary work, or even any compilation which contains many
extracts. No wonder that it does not represent, in the slightest degree, the
real spirit of the times, or the tenets of the reformers. Thus, ex. gr., l Luther,'
he says, ' exposed the abuse of the traffic of indulgences, and the danger of
believing that heaven and the remission of all crimes could be bought with
money ; while a sincere repentance and an amended life were the only means
of appeasing divine justice.' (Page 65, English translation.) This at least
is not very like Luther's antinomian contempt for repentance and amend
ment of life ; it might como near to the notions of Erasmus." — Introduction to
the Literature of Europe in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries.
In 2 vols. 8vo. Harper & Brothers ; New York, 1841. Vol. i, p. 166, note.
* "Memoires," torn, i, liv. i. Apud Ilobelot, ibid.

246 INFLUENCE OP REFORMATION ON MORALS.

"What was the necessary moral influence of those doctrines
of the Catholic Church, which the Reformation rejected ; and
what that of those new ones which it substituted in the place
of the old ? We speak only, of course, of the distinctive doc
trines of the two communions, not of the common ground
which they occupy. The Reformation retained many of the'
great principles of Christianity, which, according to the testi
mony of Luther himself, referred to above, it had borrowed
from the Catholic Church. Among the doctrines, or impor
tant points of discipline which the reformers repudiated, the
principal were : confession ; the celibacy of the clergy ; the
doctrine of satisfaction, implied in fasting, purgatory, prayers
for the dead, and indulgences ; the honor and invocation of
saints ; and the indissoluble sanctity of marriage ; to say
nothing of the real presence, which the greater portion of
Protestants also rejected. We will say a few words on the
moral influence of each of these doctrines. We may remark
of them all, in general, that they had a restraining as well as
an elevating effect ; that many of them were painful to human
nature, and opposed a strong barrier to the passions.

Even Voltaire admitted the salutary moral influence of
confession. He says : " The enemies of the Catholic Church,
who opposed an institution so salutary, seem to have taken
away from men the greatest possible check to secret
offenses."* Another infidel, and a mortal enemy of Rome — •

* Annales de 1' Empire, quoted by Robelot, in his work entitled : Influ
ence de la Reformation de Luther, sur la croyance religieuse, la politique, et
le progres des lumieres. Par M. Robelot, ancien chanoine de 1'Eglise
cathedrale de Dijon. A Lyon. 1822. 1 vol. 8vo, pp. 440. (Influence of
the Reformation of Luther on religious belief, on politics, and on the progress
of enlightenment. By M. Robelot.)

This work was written in reply to the Essay on the Reformation which
had been published by M. Villers, and had been rewarded with a prize by
the infidel French Institute. Of this essay an unexceptionable witness, Hal-
lam, writes as follows : " The essay on the Influence of the Reformation by
Villers. which obtained a prize from the French Institute, and has been ex
tolled by a very friendly but better informed writer in the Biographic Univer-

UTILITY OF CONFESSION. 247

Marmontel — says: "How salutary a preservative for the
morals of youth, is the practice and obligation of going to
confession every month ? The shame attending this humble
avowal of the most hidden sins, prevents perhaps the com
mission of more of them, than all other motives the most
holy taken together."* Nothing but stern truth could have
drawn such avowals from such men.

How many crimes, in fact, has not the practice of confes
sion prevented or corrected ! How much implacable hatred
has it not appeased! How much restitution of ill-gotten
goods, and how much reparation of injured character, has it not
brought about ! How often has it not preserved giddy youth
from confirmed habits of secret and degrading vice ! How
much consolation has it not poured into bosoms torn by
anguish, or weighed down by sorrow! What amount of
good and salutary advice has it not imparted ! How often
has it not prevented the sinner from being driven to the very
verge of despair ! In a word, how much has it not contrib
uted to the preservation of morals in every portion of society,
which felt its influence !

Tell us not, that confession may be abused by corrupt men,
that it has been often made an instrument of unholy ambi
tion in the hands of the priesthood, and that it facilitates the
commission of crime, by its offer of pardon. These objec-

selle, appears to me the work of a man who had not taken the pains to read
any one contemporary work, or even any compilation which contains many
extracts. No wonder that it does not represent, in the slightest degree, the
real spirit of the times, or the tenets of the reformers. Thus, ex. gr., ' Luther,'
he says, ' exposed the abuse of the traffic of indulgences, and the danger of
believing that heaven and the remission of all crimes could be bought with
money ; while a sincere repentance and an amended life were the only means
of appeasing divine justice.' (Page 65, English translation.) This at least
is not very like Luther's antinomian contempt for repentance and amend
ment of life ; it might come near to the notions of Erasmus." — Introduction to
the Literature of Europe in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries.
In 2 vols. 8vo. Harper & Brothers ; New York, 1841. Vol. i, p. 166, note.
* " Memoires," torn, i, liv. i. Apud Ilobelot, ibid.

248 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON MORALS.

tions are all based on unfounded suspicion, or on gross mis
apprehension of the nature of confession. At least, the evils
complained of are very greatly exaggerated, and are not to
be put in comparison with the incalculable amount of good
which this institution is calculated to effect, and which it has
really accomplished. What good thing is there, which has.
not been abused ? Has not the Bible itself, abused by wicked
men, been a source of incalculable mischief? And has not
the Church guarded against abuses in the confessional, by the
sternest enactments? One of these takes from the wicked
priest all power of absolving an accomplice in crime ; and
another requires the penitent to denounce the unfaithful min
ister to the proper authorities.*

And then, how sacred and inviolable has not the seal of
confession ever been ? History does not record a single in
stance of its violation, among hundreds of thousands of
priests, in the long lapse of ages !f How can the priest avail
himself of the knowledge obtained through confession, in
order to exercise political or any other undue influence, when
he is bound by the most sacred obligation, sanctioned by the
most severe penalties, to make no use whatever of the knowl
edge thus acquired, outside of the confessional itself? Why
reason from mere idle suppositions and mere vague possibili
ties, against the strongest evidences, and the most stubborn
facts?

As to the other objection — that confession encourages the
commission of sin — it is as puerile, as it is hackneyed. Ab
surdity is stamped on its very face. What? is it easier then
to commit a sin which you know you have to confess to a fel
low man, than it would be to commit the same sin, without
feeling any such obligation ? We would not be guilty of an

* See the two bulls of Benedict XIV. on this subject. They begin Sac-
rammtum and Apostolici. Another enactment to the same effect was made
by Pope Gregory XV., in the year 1622. See Liguori — " Homo Apostolicus."
Tract, xvi, numo. 95, seqq. and numo. 165, seqq. De complice 9t sollicit.

f See the testimony of Marmontel to this effect. Memoires, tx>m. iv.

AND OF CELIBACY. 249

offence, forsooth, which we believed, at the time, we could
expiate by a mere act of internal repentance, joined with
confession to God ; and yet we would be encouraged to com
mit this same offence, if we felt that, in addition to all this,
we would be obliged to confess it to a priest! The objection
is predicated on a strange ignorance of human nature. The
Catholic Church requires, for the remission of sin, all that
Protestants demand ; and, over and above all this, it requires,
as essential conditions to pardon, many very painful things —
confession, restitution, works of penitential satisfaction —
which Protestants do not require: Which system really en
courages the commission of sin?

The people never could be induced to confess their sins to
a married clergy. From the testimony of Burkard, Bishop of
Worms, it appears that the Catholic population of that city
refused to go to confession to those priests, who, stimulated
by the principles of the Reformation then just commencing,
had broken their vows of celibacy by taking wives. Confes
sion and celibacy fell together. A married clergy never can
command the respect, which has ever been paid to those who
are unmarried. This is generally admitted by Protestants
themselves, and it is even made a matter of censure against
the Catholic clergy, who are accused of having too much in
fluence over their flocks ! The true secret of this influence
lies in the greater abstraction from the world, in the greater
freedom from worldly solicitude, and in the more spiritual
character of an unmarried clergy. Does not St. Paul allege
these very motives, in the strong appeal which he makes in
favor of celibacy, in his first epistle to the Corinthians?*
Does he not advise the embracing of this state, both by word
and by his own example ? Can the Catholic Church be
blamed for having adopted his principles, and acted on his
advice, in the matter of the celibacy of her clergy?

Who can recount the immense advantages of priestly celi-

* Chapter vii. Bead the whole chapter.

250 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON MORALS.

bacy to society ? Who can tell of all tlie splendid churches it
has erected ; of the hospitals for the sick and the afflicted, it
has reared ; of the colleges it has built ; of the ignorant it has
instructed; of the noble examples of heroic charity it has
given to the world ; and of the pagan nations it has converted
to Christianity ? Catholic Europe is full of noble monuments
to religion, to literature and to charity, which an unmarried
priesthood has built up ; and which a married clergy, " solic
itous for the things of the world, how they might please their
wives," and support their children, would certainly never
have erected ?

To advert briefly to the last consideration named above ;
can a married clergy, other things being equal, cope with one
that is unmarried, in missionary labors among heathen na
tions ? With the incumbrance of their wives and children,
can the former be as free in their movements, or be as zealous
and disinterested ; can they mingle as freely with the people,
labor as much, or succeed as well, in any respect as the lat
ter ? What say the annals of Protestant missionary enter
prise on this very subject? Can they point to one single
nation or people converted to Christianity by their married
preachers, notwithstanding the immense outlay of money for
this purpose, and all the parade that is made about carrying
the gospel to the heathen ? True, there are other weighty
causes, which have also greatly contributed to this signal fail
ure of Protestant missions ; but the absence of celibacy in
their missionaries is no doubt one of the chief causes.

The doctrine of satisfaction was another strong Catholic
barrier against vice, which the Reformation removed. The
reformers could not appreciate the utility of fasting, of vigils,
and of other works of penance, undertaken for the expiation
of sin. They had abolished the great sacrifice of the new
law ; and they wished also to abolish all those painful obser
vances, which could nourish and keep alive in the soul of the
Christian that spirit of sacrifice, which might incline him "to
deny himself, to take up his cross and to follow Christ." Both

DOING PENANCE. 251

kinds of sacrifice were intimately connected ; and they both
fell together. The reformers no longer taught their disciples,
after the example of St. Paul, "to chastise their bodies and
bring them into subjection," or " to fill up those things that
are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in their flesh."*'

And yet, besides aiding in expiating sin, and rendering
Christians more conformable to the image of the Saviour and
of St. Paul, this doctrine was fraught with other almost in
calculable advantages to society. To expiate their sins,
Catholics of the olden time not only " chastised their bodies,"
but they also bestowed abundant alms, and reared splendid
institutions of learning and of charity. Many of the colleges
and hospitals of Europe owe their erection to the operation of
this principle. It is quite common to find in the testamentary
dispositions of the pious founders of these noble institutions,
this consideration expressed in such clauses as this : " For
the expiation of my sins, I found this hospital or college."

We have seen that St. Peter's church and the university of
Wittenberg were both indebted for their erection mainly to
indulgences, which were predicated on the necessity of satis
faction for sin. These are two instances, out of hundreds
which might be stated, to show the beneficial influence of
this doctrine on society.f Alas ! Charity hath grown cold, in
those places particularly where this principle hath ceased to
exist ! Private interest, a fever for speculation, selfish and
sordid avarice, have dried up those deep fountains of Catho
lic charity, which in the good old Catholic times so abundantly
irrigated and fertilized the garden Catholic !

How manifold also are the advantages of holy fasting !
How it elevates the mind,J fosters temperance, teaches us to

* Colossians, i : 24 ; and 1 Corinthians, ix.

f See "The Ages of Faith" by Kenelm Digby, which is full of such ex
amples.

| Vitia comprimit, mentem elevat, virtutem largitur et prsemia — Prsef.
adMissa.

252 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON MORALS.

restrain the passions, and to subdue the rebellious flesh!
" Like another spring," according to the beautiful comparison
of St. John Clirysostom,* "it renews the spirit, and brings
calm and joy to the soul." It also promotes health, and con
duces to longevity. Who has not remarked the great age to
which the anchorites of the desert attained ? Malte Brun in
forms us, that of one hundred and fifty-two anchorites, who
lived in different climates, and in different centuries, the aver
age age was seventy-six years.f By accustoming us to endure
privation, fasting teaches us to bear patiently the necessary
ills of life, and disposes us for great enterprises. In fact it is
remarkable, that Moses and Elias approached the Deity to
receive his special communications, only after the preliminary
disposition of long fasting: and that Christ himself "fasted
forty days and forty nights," ere he entered on his divine
mission of mercy.

How soothing, too, to the soul, is that sweet communion
with the departed, which is kept up by the Catholic practice
of praying for the dead? Even the stern Doctor Johnson
felt the beauty and the force of this sympathy : he not only
defended the practice, but he seems to have occasionally adopted
it himself. He was not satisfied with merely dropping a tear,
warm from his heart, over the grave of his departed mother ;
but he, at the same time, wafted a fervent prayer to heaven
for her repose.J

And how elevating and useful, on the other hand, is that
constant communion with heaven, which is kept up by the
invocation of saints ! It powerfully stimulates us, not only
to admire their super-eminent glory and to implore their aid ;
but also to imitate their virtues. The Offices of the Church
keep up a constant round of aniversary celebrations of the
virtues and triumphs of these heroes of Christianity; whose
virtues are thus always kept fresh in the minds of the faith-

* St. John Chrysostom — " De excellentia Jejun." Opp. T. ii.

f " Precis de la Geographic," ii, 44. \ See Boswell's Life of Johnson.

DIVORCES. 253

ful, who are by this means powerfully excited to follow their
example. Who does not perceive the highly beneficial influ
ence of this practice on the tone and morals of society ?

On the subject of marriage, the Catholic Church has never
swerved in the least from the stern line of duty. She has
ever defended its sanctity, and maintained its indissolubility.
Many of her struggles with princes during the middle ages,
were undertaken by her for the vindication of these sacred
principles lying at the basis of the matrimonial contract, the
well-spring of society. England was lost to the Church, be
cause the unwavering firmness of the Pope would not permit
Henry VIII. to repudiate a virtuous wTife, and to wed another
more to his royal taste. She has won imperishable honors in
this battle field of conjugal unity and purity against lawless
vice in high places, on which she has nobly and victoriously
contended with the army of the passions.

On this point, as we have seen, the reformers were very far
from being so stern or unyielding. They not only allowed
two wives to the landgrave of Hesse, but they permitted di
vorce for trivial causes ; and some of them even openly sanc
tioned polygamy, after the example of the patriarchs. What
were the sad effects of their teaching on this subject, we shall
see more fully in the sequel. It will suffice here to remark
on one obvious result of this laxity of doctrine, in regard to
the sacredness and permanency of the marriage contract.
Before the Reformation, divorces were almost unheard of;
great princes sometimes applied for them, but met with deter
mined resistance and a stern rebuke, on the part of the Church.
Even at present, in Catholic countries, they are almost un
known. Is it so in those communities where the influence of
the Reformation has been long or extensively felt ? Alas ! in
these, men seem almost wholly to have lost sight of the divine
injunction : " What God has united, let not man put asun
der."* Divorces have multiplied to a frightful extent. In

* St. Matthew, xix : 6.

254 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON MORALS.

the United States, our legislatures and courts receive annually
thousands of petitions for divorce : and what is more deplora
ble, they usually grant the prayer of the petitioners !* Is not
this a lamentable evil, most injurious to society ? Whence
does it originate, if not in the weakening of Catholic princi
ples in regard to the in dissolubility of the marriage contract,
by the counter principles broached at the period of the Ref
ormation ?

A volume might be written on the salutary influence on
society of those distinctive doctrines of the Church which
Protestants have rejected, f But our limits permitted only
the above rapid and imperfect sketch : and we must now pass
on to the additional inquiry ; what was the moral influence
of those new doctrines which the Reformation introduced?
"We have already seen what many of these doctrines were,
and we have already been enabled to estimate, in a great
measure, their probable effect on the morals of society. But
we will here give some further details on a subject so inter
esting and important.

Luther's famous, or rather infamous sermon on marriage,
preached in the public church of Wittenberg in 1522, in the
plain vernacular language, gave great scandal, and was a
source of incalculable moral evil throughout Germany. It
openly pandered to the basest passions of human nature. It
was busily circulated and greedily devoured by all classes,
especially among those who were favorable to the Reforma
tion. Never was there a grosser specimen of unblushing lu
bricity : and its having been so much relished by the parti
sans of Luther, is a certain index of a very low standard of
morality at that period. But this was not the only specimen
of decency given by the " father of the Reformation." Many

* The chancery court of Louisville granted sixty divorces in a single
year ! And in many other places the case is still worse ; as, for instance,
in Indiana.

f Those who may wish to see more on this subject, are referred to Scotti
— Teoremi di Politica Christiana — an excellent Italian work, in 2 vols. 8vo.

TESTIMONY OF ERASMUS. 255

of his letters to his private friends are much too obscene to be
exhibited, even in the original Latin. Yet they had a power
ful effect on the morals of the age. Luther openly invited
the Catholic priests, monks, and nans, who had vowed celib
acy, to break their vows, which he styled the " bonds of anti
christ." His soul overflowed with joy at the newrs of each
new sacrilegious marriage. He would congratulate the in-
fringer of his vows, " on his having overcome an impure and
damnable celibacy," by entering into marriage, which he
painted as " a paradise even in the midst of poverty."* He
wrote a work against celibacy and monastic vows, teeming
with the strongest appeals to the lowest and basest passions.
He openly urged princes to expel by force the religious from
their monasteries. f

Erasmus, an eye witness, paints the horrible disorders to
which Luther's epistles, sermons and works against celibacy,
naturally led. He represents certain cities of Germany as
swarming with apostate monks, who drank beer to excess,
danced and sang in the public streets, and gave in to all manner
of scandalous excesses. He says of them : u That if they could
get enough to eat and a wife, they cared not a straw for any
thing else."J "When they found not wives among the fe
male religious, they sought them in the haunts of vice. "What
cared they for the priestly benediction ? They married each
other, and celebrated their nuptials by orgies, in which the
new married couple generally lost their reason .''§

" Formerly " continues Erasmus, " men quitted their wives
for the sake of the gospel ; nowadays, the gospel flourishes
most, when a few succeed in marrying wives with rich dow-

* "Paradisum arbitror conjugium, vel summfi inopi:\ laborans." Epist.
Nicholao Gerbellis, Nov. 1, 1521.

f See his words quoted by Audin, p. 335, seqq.

I " Amant viaticum et uxorem : coetera pili non faciunt." Erasmi Epist.
p. 637.

J Audin p. 336, who quotes from Erasmus — loco citato.

256 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON MORALS.

ries."* He caustically remarks, "that (Ecolampadius had
lately married a beautiful young girl, he suspects, to mortify
his flesh."t He also informs us, that these ex-monks, after
having become the most zealous partisans of the Reformation,
subsisted by open robbery of the churches and their neigh
bors, indulged to excess in drinking and in games of hazard,
and presented a spectacle of the most revolting licentiousness. J

Luther had taught that " as in the first days of Chris tanity,
the Church was forced to exalt virginity among the pagans,
who honored adultery; so, now, when the Lord had made
the light of the gospel (!) shine forth, it was necessary to exalt
marriage, at the expense of popish celibacy ."§ The apostate
monks eagerly seized on this and similar teachings of the
reformer; and the above are some of the disorders which
naturally ensued. But even they are not the worst. Bigamy
was quite common among them, at least for a time. They
defended it, too, on scriptural grounds. Luther was appealed
to on the subject. In his reply, he wavers and hesitates,
wishes each individual to be left to the guidance of his own
conscience, and concludes his letter in these remarkable
words :

" For my part I candidly confess, that I could not prohibit any one, who
might wish it, to take many wives at once, nor is this repugnant to the Holy
Scriptures. But there are things lawful, which are not expedient. Bigamy
is of the number." ||

Karlstadt went still further : he wished to make polygamy
obligatory, or at least entirely permissible to all. He said to
Luther : "As neither you, nor I, have found a text in the
sacred books against bigamy, let us be bigamists and triga-
mists — let us take as many wives as we can maintain. ' In
crease and multiply.' — Do you understand ? Accomplish the

* " Nunc floret evangelium, si pauci ducant uxores bene dotatas." — Erasmi
Epist. p. 768. f Ibid., p. 632.

| Ibid., p. 766. § Luther Opp. torn i, p. 526, seqq.

11 Epist. ad K. Bruck 13, Janu. 1524. " Ego sane fateor me non posse
prohibere si quis velit plures ducere uxores, nee repugnat Sacris literis ?"

LUTHER'S LAMENT. 257

order of heaven."* This argument must have had great
weight with Luther, as he had maintained that celibacy was
impossible, and had himself alleged that very text from
Genesis, to prove that marriage was a divine command obli
gatory on all! By the way, as Luther married only at the
age of forty-two, what are we to think of the purity of his
previous life, when he openly maintained such principles as
these? They were well calculated, at any rate, to bring down
the lofty standard of Christian morality to that of Moham
medanism : and, if they did not bring about this result, we
certainly owe no thanks to the Reformation. How strongly
these loose principles of morality contrast with the stern teach
ings of the Catholic Church on marriage !

II. It was natural to expect, that the influence of such
principles as these, as well as of those other distinctive doc
trines of the Reformation which we have already referred
to,f should have been most injurious to public morals. And
accordingly we find, from the testimony of the reformers
themselves, and of their earliest partisans, that such precisely
was the case. Luther himself assures us of this deterioration
in public morals:

"The world grows worse and worse, and becomes more wicked every
day. Men are now more given to revenge, more avaricious, more devoid of
mercy, less modest, and more incorrigible ; in fine, more wicked than in the
Papacy."J — In another place he says, speaking to his most intimate friends :
"One thing no less astonishing than scandalous, is to see that, since the
pure doctrine of the gospel has been brought to light (!), the world daily
goes from bad to worse." §

This is not at all astonishing, when we consider the nature
and necessary tendency of that " pure doctrine."

He draws the following dreadful picture of the morals of
his time, after " the pure doctrine had been brought to light :"

"The noblemen and the peasants have come to such a pitch, that they

* Apud Audin, p. 339. f Supra, Chapter iii.

J Luther in Postilla sup. 1 Dom. Adventus.
{ Idem, Table Talk, fol. 55.
VOL. i. — 22

258 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON MORALS.

boast and proclaim without scruple, that they have only to let themselves be
preached at ; but that they would prefer being entirely disenthralled from
the word of God : and that they would not give a farthing for all our sermons
put together. And how are we to lay this to them as a crime, when they
make no account of the world to come ? They live as they believe : they
are and continue to be swine : they live like swine and they die like real
swine."*

Aurifaber, the disciple and bosom friend of Luther, and the
publisher of his Table Talk, tells us : " Luther was wont to
say, that after the revelation of his gospel, virtue had become
extinct, justice oppressed, temperance bound with cords, vir
tue torn in pieces by the dogs, faith had become wavering,
and devotion had been lost."f So notoriously immoral, in
fact, were the early Lutherans, that it was then a common
saying in Germany, to express a day spent in drinking and
debauch: "Hodie Lutheranice vivemus" — "To-day we will
live like Lutherans."J

In another place, Luther laments the moral evils of the
Reformation, in the following characteristic strain :

" I would not be astonished if God should open at length the gates and
windows of hell, and snow or hail down (up V) devils, or rain down on our
heads lire and brimstone, or bury us in a fiery ab}7ss, as he did Sodom and
Gomorrha. Had Sodom and Gomorrha received the gifts which have been
granted to us — had they seen our visions and heard our instructions — they
would yet be standing. They were a thousand times less culpable than
Germany, for they had not heard the word of God from their preachers.
And we wTho have received and heard it — we do nothing but rise up against
God Since the downfall of popery, and the cessation of its excommu
nications and spiritual penalties, the people have learned to despise the word
of God. They care no longer for the churches ; they have ceased to fear and
to honor God."§

Martin Bucer, another of the reformers, bears the following
explicit testimony on the same subject :

* Table Talk, super i, Epist. Corinth., chap. xv.
f Aurifaber, fol. 623 ; and Florimond Remond, p. 225.
f Bened. Morgenstern — Traite de PEglise, p. 221.

§ Luther Wercke Edit. Altenburg, tome iii, p. 519. Reinhard's "Refor
mations Predigten," torn, iii, p. 445.

TESTIMONY OF THE REFORMERS. 259

" The greater part of the people seem to have embraced the gospel (!), only
in order to shake off the yoke of discipline, and the obligation of fasting,
penances, etc., which lay upon them in the time of popery, and to live at their
pleasure, enjoying their lust and lawless appetite without control. They
therefore lend a willing ear to the doctrine that we are justified by faith
alone, and not by good works, having no relish for them."*

The reformers ought surely to have known better probably
than any one else what was the real tendency of the new gospel,
and they certainly had no motive to exaggerate its evil results.

John Calvin draws a picture, not much more flattering of
the state of morals to his branch of the glorious Reformation.
He states that even the preachers of the new doctrines were
notoriously immoral :

"There remains still a wound more deplorable. The pastors, yes the
pastors themselves who mount the pulpit .... are at the present time the
most shameful examples of waywardness and other vices. Hence their
sermons obtain neither more credit nor authority than the fictitious tales

uttered on the stage by the strolling player I am astonished that the

women and children do not cover them with mud and filth."f

Another leading reformer — Philip Melancthon — informs
us, that those who had joined the standard of the Reforma
tion at his day, " had come to such a pitch of barbarity, that
many of them were persuaded that if they fasted one day,
they would find themselves dead the night following."J And
still another early Protestant, Jacob Andreas, says : " It is
certain that God wishes and requires of his servants a grave
and Christian discipline; but it passes with us as a new
Papacy, and a new monkery ."§ — And no wonder, after all
the teaching on the subject of Luther and the other leading
reformers !

"We here subjoin an analysis of the testimony furnished by
the reformers themselves, according to the learned and ac
curate Dollinger, on the practical moral results of their
teachings, as witnessed by " themselves in their own times.

"De regno Christi." f Livre — sur les scandales — p. 128.

In vi, cap. Mathei. § Comment, in St. Lucam. Chap. xxi.

260 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON MORALS.

If some of these testimonies are similar to those already
given, the confirmation is still more forcible. As will be
seen, the analysis is sufficiently thorough and searching,
and its length will be pardoned to the great interest of the
subject*

THE MORAL RESULTS OF THE REFORMATION.

" Upon this head, few will be disposed to call in question the authority
of our first evidence, the father of the Reformation himself. With all his
partiality for the child of his own labors, Luther is forced to admit, that it
were no wonder if his beloved Germany ' were sunk in the earth, or utterly
overthrown by the Turks and Tartars, by reason of the hellish and damn
able forgetfulness and contempt of God's grace which the people manifest ;
nay, that the wonder is, that the earth does not refuse to bear them, and
the sun to shine upon them any longer.' He doubts ' whether it should any
longer be called a world, and not rather an abyss of all evils, wherewith
those sodomites afflict his soul and his eyes both day and night.' ' Every
thing is reversed,' he laments, 'the world grows every day the worse for
this teaching ; and the misery of it is, that men are nowadays more covetous,
more hard-hearted, more corrupt, more licentious, and more wicked, than of old
under the Papacy.' ' Our evangelicals,' he avows, ' are now sevenfold more
wicked than they were before. In proportion as we hear the gospel, we
steal, lie, cheat, gorge, swill, and commit every crime. If one devil has
been driven out of us, seven worse ones have taken their place, to judge
from the conduct of princes, lords, nobles, burgesses, and peasants, their utterly
shameless acts, and their disregard of God and of his menaces.' 'Under
the Papacy, men were charitable and gave freely ; but now, under the gospel,
all almsgiving is at an end, every one fleeces his neighbor, and each seeks to
have all for himself. And the longer the gospel is preached, the deeper do men
sink in avarice, pride, and ostentation.' So utterly, too, does he despair of
the improvement of this generation of his disciples, that he 'often wishes
that these filthy swine-bellies were back again under the tyranny of the Pope,
for it is impossible that a race so savage, such a "people of Gomorrha,"
could be ruled by the peaceful consolations of the gospel.'

" It could hardly be expected, indeed, that Luther would himself attribute
the universal depravity, the presence of which he thus frankly acknowledges,
to the influence of his own gospel. But he can not, and does not conceal,

* We take this excellent summary from the Dublin Review for Septem
ber, 1848, which gives also the proper references to Bellinger's German
work.

REFORMATION DESCRIBED BY THE REFORMERS. 261

that such was the popular impression regarding it ; and although, of course,
he denounces the imputation as sinful and blasphemous, he admits that men
'loudly and complainingly attributed it all to the gospel, or, as they call it, the
new learning,', and tauntingly demanded what was the good of all their fine
preaching and instruction, if no one followed it, or was the better for it, nay
rather, if they grew worse than they were before ; 'it would be better,' they
said, 'if things had remained as they were.' Indeed, not to multiply evi
dence of a fact so notorious, he himself acknowledges that 'the peasants,
through the influence of the gospel, have become utterly beyond restraint,
and think they may do what they please. They no longer fear either hell
or purgatory, but content themselves with saying, "I believe, therefore I
shall be saved:" and they become proud, stiff-necked Mammonists, and
accursed misers, sucking the very substance of the country and the people.'

" These are but a few out of a host of similar avowals, which Dr. Dollin-
ger has collected from every portion of Luther's works. Lest it should be
supposed they are confined to the earlier years of the Keformation, and
regard only the state of the Lutheran body in the first phases of its forma
tion, we shall venture, even at the risk of being tedious, to select a few pas
sages, written during the last years of his life, not a whit less expressive
than those already produced. During the years 1540-6, Lutheranism may
be truly said to have reached its culminating point, as far as regards the
career of its founder. In a letter of his written to Hermann Bonn, (April
5, 1543,) he expresses his exultation at the completeness of his success —
' From Riga to Metz — from the foot of the Alps to the north point of the
peninsula of Jutland ' — his realm had been gradually extended. The num
ber of crowned heads and of sovereign princes now in his following, was
very great, and later years had notably increased the catalogue. Duke
Otho, Henry, elector palatine of the Rhine, the duchess of Calenberg, Arch
bishop Hermann of Cologne, and the bishop of Munster and Osnabruck,
were among his most recent adherents. Wolfenbiittel had just been added
to the ranks by the ministry of Bugenhagen. The nobility and many of
the lower classes in Austria, had begun to feel the contagion. The great
body of the German nobility were, at least indirectly, favorers of the movement.
Many of the noble chapters had passed over en masse, and others were but
tottering in their allegiance. The imperial cities were for the most part
Protestant ; and it seemed but a question of time to complete and perpetu
ate the conquest thus rapidly and systematically achieved !

" Such was the exterior history of the movement ; such was the external
condition of the Lutheran communion during the later years of its founder's
life. But how hollow the triumph, and how unsubstantial the conquest
which had been thus obtained !

"On Nov. 10th, 1541, Luther writes to one of his friends, that 'he Hd

262 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON MORALS.

almost abandoned all hope for Germany, so universally had avarice, usury,
tyranny, disunion, and the whole host of untruth, wickedness, and treach
ery, as well as disregard of the word of God, and the most unheard of in
gratitude, taken possession of the nobility, the courts, the towns, and the
villages ' In the March of the following year, he writes in much the same
strain, adding, that ' his only hope is in the near approach of the last day ; — ,
the world has become so barbarous, so tired of the word of God, and enter
tains so thorough a disgust for it.' On the 23d of July, he declares, that
* those who would be followers of the gospel, draw down God's wrath by
their avarice, their rapine, their plunder of the churches ; while the people
listen to instructions, prayers, and entreaties, but continue, nevertheless, to
heap sin upon sin.' On another occasion, (October 25th, 1542,) he declares
that ' he is tired of living in this hideous Sodom ;' that ' all the good which
he had hoped to effect has vanished away ; that there remains naught but a
deluge of sin and unholiness, and nothing is left for him but to pray for his
discharge.' And in reality, not only did he wish for death as a boon to
himself, 'that he might be released from this Satanical generation,' but he
was even able calmly to see his little daughter Margaret, to whom he was
devotedly attached, die before his eyes. ' Alas !' he cried to the prince of
Anhalt, ' we live in Babylon and Sodom. Every thing is growing worse
each day.' And even in the very last hours of his life, so bitterly did he
feel the immorality and irreligiousness of the city which he had made the
chosen seat and center of his doctrines, that he had actually made up his
mind to leave it forever. So sensible was he made of the connection between
his doctrines and the moral condition of Wittenberg, that the thought of
residence there became insupportable. ' Let us but fly from this Sodom !'
he wrote to his wife a few months before his death; 'I will wander
through the world, and beg my bread from door to door, rather than
embitter and disturb my poor old last days by this spectacle of the disorder
of Wittenberg, and the fruitlessness of my bitter dear toil in its service.' It
is a significant commentary on the fruitlessness of the mission to which he
had devoted his life, that it needed all the influence of the elector to induce
him to abandon his determination !

f< Such is a faint outline of Luther's own report of the moral fruits of his
Reformation. It is but too well borne out in its worst details by his friends
and fellow-laborers. The reader will perceive that we are drawing but
lightly upon Dr. Bellinger's abundant and overflowing pages ; and for what
remains, we must be even more sparing in our extracts. We shall only ob
serve that those which we mean to present are taken almost at random ;
that it would have been easy to find hundreds of others equally striking ; and
that the effect of all is grievously impaired by the broken and fragmentary
form, in which, of course, they must appear in such a notice as the present

REFORMATION . DESCRIBED BY THE REFORMERS. 263

" Few of the reformers dealt less in extremes than ' the mild Melancthon.'
What, therefore, are we to think of the state of things which drew even
from him the declaration, that ' in these latter times the world has taken to
itself a boundless license ; that very many are so unbridled as to throw off
every bond of discipline, though at the same time they pretend that they have
faith, that they invoke God with true fervor of heart, and that they are
lively and elect members of the church ; living, meanwhile, in truly cyclo-
pean indifference and barbarism, and in slavish subjection to the devil, who
drives them to adulteries, murders, and other atrocious crimes ?' This class,
too, he tells us, are firmly wedded to their own opinions, and entirely intol
erant of remonstrance. ' Men receive with avidity the inflammatory ha
rangues which exaggerate liberty and give loose rein to the passions ; as, for
an example, the cynical, rather than Christian principle, which denies the
necessity of good works. Posterity will stand amazed that a generation
should have ever existed, in which these ravings have been received with
applause.' 'Never in the days of our fathers,' he avows, 'had there existed
such gluttony as exists now, and is daily on the increase.' ' The morals of
the people, all that they do, and all that they neglect to do, are becoming
every day worse. Gluttony, debauchery, licentiousness, wantonness, are
gaining the upper hand more and more among the people, and in one word,
every one does just as he pleases.'

" ' Most of the preachers,' writes Bucer, ' imagine, that if they inveigh
stoutly against the anti-christians [papists], and chatter away on a few un
important fruitless questions, and then assail their brethren also, they have
discharged their duty admirably. Following this example, the people, as
soon as they know how to attack our adversaries, and to prate a little about
things far from edifying, believe that they are perfect Christians. Mean
while, there is nowhere to be seen modesty, charity, zeal, or ardor for God's
glory ; and in consequence of our conduct, God's holy name is everywhere
subjected to horrible blasphemies.' 'Nobody,' writes Althamer, in the
preface of his Catechism, ' cares to instruct his child, his servant, his maid,
or any of his dependants, in the word of God or his fear ; and thus our
young generation is the very worst that ever has existed. The elders are worth
less, and the young follow their example.' ' The children,' says Culmaun,
' are habituated to debauchery by their parents, and thus comes an endless
train of diseases, seductions, tumults, murders, robberies, and thefts, which
unhappily, owing to the state of society, are committed with security. And
the worst of all is,, that they are not ashamed to palliate their conduct by
the examples of Noah, Lot, David, and others.'

" In one word, it would be as difficult to add to the catalogue of popular
crimes enumerated by these men — ' contempt, falsification, and persecution
of God's word; abuse, of his holy sacraments; idolatry, heresy, simony,

264 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON MORALS.

sorcery, heathenish and epicurean life, indifference about God, absolute infi
delity, disregard of public worship, ignorance of the first elements of religion,
and the whole hideous deluge of shame and sin shamelessly committed
against God's commandments, not the mere result of human weakness and
frailty, but persevered in remorselessly and unrepentingly, and regarded by
the majority of men as no longer sinful and disgraceful, but as downright
virtues, and legitimate subjects of boast and self-gratulation ' — as it would
to add to the evidence of the universal prevalence of such crimes which
they supply, and for the truth of which they themselves challenge a denial.
'Take any class you please,' says Dietrich, 'high or low, you will find all
equally degenerate and corrupt. What is more, there is no longer any
social honesty to be found among the people. The majority persecute the
gospel, and cling to the old idolatry. The rest, who have received God's
word and gospel, are also lawless, insensible to instruction, hardened in their
old sinful life, as is evident from the whoredom, adultery, usury, avarice,
lying, cheating, and manifold wickedness which prevail.'

" There is one branch of this subject which we do not approach without
great repugnance, but which, nevertheless, it would be most unhistorical, as
well as unphilosophical, to overlook, because there is none in which the
working of the positive teaching of the reformers is so palpably and unmis
takably recognized. We refer to the avowed and undeniable deterioration
of public morality, — the indifference to the maintenance of chastity, to the
observance of the marriage vow, and indeed to the commonest decencies of
life, by which the spread of Lutheranism was uniformly and instantaneously
followed. We can not bring ourselves to pollute our page with the hateful
and atrocious doctrines of Luther (vol. i, pp. 428-9), of Sarcerius (p. 431),
Dresser (p. 432), Bugenhagen (p. 434)uand many others (p. 431), founded
upon what they allege to be the physical impossibility of observing conti
nence, which results from the original constitution of the sexes as ordained
by God ; but we are necessitated to allude to them, in order to establish
beyond question the connection of these doctrines (which, it must be re
membered, were enforced by Luther chiefly in his German tracts and
sermons addressed to the entire people) with the moral consequences which
we shall proceed to detail, as briefly and as slightly as circumstances will
permit, in the words of the authorities collected in the pages before us.
Nothing can be more revolting than the picture of universal and unrestrained
depravity which they reveal.

"'The youths of the present day,' says Brentius in 1532, 'are hardly
released from their cradles when they must take women to themselves, and
girls, long before they are marriageable, begin betimes to think of men :
priests, monks, and nuns marry in despite of every human law.' Four
years earlier, the reformer of Ulm, Conrad Ian, complained that ' impurity
and adultery were universal in the world that each one corrupted his neigh-

REFORMATION DESCRIBED BY THE REFORMERS. 265

bor, that it was no longer reputed as a sin or a shame, but was even made
subject of public boast.' In 1537, Osiander complains, that 'so commonly,
and, unhappily, in all places with so much impunity, were fornication and
adultery practiced, that, revolting and unchristian as it is, wives and daugh
ters were hardly secure among their own blood relations, where their virtue,
honor, and purity should be most rigidly respected ;' and his colleague Link
avows, that 'nowadays the vice of unchastity is made a subject of laughter
and of amusement.' Mathesius discovered a token of the approach of the
end of the world in the prevalence of this vice. ' How universal was the
practice of debauchery, adultery, fornication, incest, conjugal infidelity, we
learn partly from the criminal processes, the consistories, and the superin
tendents, partly from private intercourse. Assuredly either the last day is
at hand, or there is some awful pestilence at our door.' — ' We Germans,
nowadays,' says Sarcerius, in 1554, 'can boast but little of the virtue of
chastity, and that little is disappearing so fast that we can hardly speak of it
any more. The number who still love it are so small, that it would be
matter not of surprise, but of absolute horror; and debauchery prevails
without fear and without shame. The young learn it from -the old; one
vice leads to another, and now the young generation is so steeped in every
species of vice, that they are more experienced in it than were the oldest
people in former times.'* Braunmiiller, minister of Wurtemburg in 1560,
complains that ' bastardy is very common. Every one is so hardened, and
so habituated to this diabolical vice, that it is not considered grievous, for it
is as daily bread everywhere around. Almost every wife is unfaithful ; and
hence no one need wonder that the band of adulterers in these our days is
more powerful and influential than it was in the days of our ancestors, or
even of the heathens.' Again, five yenrs later, Andrew Hoppenrod raised
the same complaint in Mansfeld. ' We see and hear (alas ! God help us ! )
that impurity and fornication have made frightful inroads among Christians,
and have sunk their roots so deeply, that it is hardly any longer reputed a
sin, but is rather gloried in as a noble and desirable thing, without sorrow
or remorse of conscience.' In 1573, Christopher Fischer, superintendent

* " We shall leave the following passage (which, strange to say, is from
an old popular hymn) in its original German :

* Die funft Kunst ist gemeine,
1st Ehebruch, Unkeuschheit
Das kann jetzt gross und kleine
Hat man jetzund Beschied.
Man schamt sich auch nichts mehre,
Man halt's gar fur eine Ehre ;
Niemand thut es fast wehren ;

Wclcher's jetzt treibet viel, 4

Will seyn im bessten Spiel.'

" After all, one can hardly wonder at this, when one recollects the chorus
of what is still popularly preserved as Luther's favorite chant :

' Wer liebt nich Weiber, Wein, Gesang

Er bleibt ein Narr sein Leben lang ! '
' Who loves not women, wine, and song,

He lives a fool his lifetime long!' "
VOL. T.— 23

266 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON MORALS.

in Brunswick, complains in like manner, that ' such is the prevalence of
whoredom and debauchery, that they are no longer looked on as sinful ; any
one who has the opportunity thinks he does well in availing himself of it,
for the world does not punish it ; and, as for adulterj^, so completely has it
obtained the upperhand, that no punishment can avail any longer to sup
press it!' " — Vol. ii, pp. 435-7.

" We can not venture to extend our extracts on this subject further. It
need only be added, that the frightful state of morality depicted in these
pages is attributed without disguise, even by the Lutherans themselves, to
the doctrines of Luther already alluded to. The reader will find at pages
438-40 (of Dollinger) a long and most remarkable extract from Czecano-
vius, in which the connection is fully and freely admitted. Districts in
which these crimes were utterly unknown, were scarcely initiated in the
principles of the Reformation till they became corrupted to the heart's core.
A most remarkable example of this is Ditmarsen, a district in Holstein, in
which the Catholic religion was abolished in 1532. So remarkable had this
province been for the purity and simplicity of its population, that it was
known under the name of Maryland [Marienland] ; cases of unchastity were
so rare and unexampled, that the forfeiture of her virtue on the part of a
female was visited with perpetual disgrace, and was generally atoned for by
voluntary exile, and even in some cases by the suicide of the despairing de
faulter. Before Lutheranism had been established ten years, its own apos
tle, Nicholas Boje (in 1541), was forced to complain that 'public crimes —
especially whoredom, adultery, and merciless, heathenish, Jewish, nay,
Turkish usury — prevail so universally, that he was obliged to call God to
witness, that neither preaching, teaching, instruction, menaces, nor the terror
of God's wrath, and of his righteous judgments, was of any avail.' The
practice of divorce, too, was, in every reformed country, an immediate con
sequence of the Reformation ; and if there were no other evidence of the
connection between the introduction of the new religion and this frightful
deterioration of morals, it would be found in the numberless laws against
adultery, fornication, bigamy, etc., which date from this period, and the fre
quent and flagrant convictions and sentences under these laws in every Prot
estant province of Germany. For abundant and convincing evidence of all
this, we must refer the reader to the fifteenth section of the first volume,
which is a mine of curious and most extraordinary learning, but yet free
from that coarseness and indelicacy in which learned writers too often feel
themselves privileged to indulge in dealing with such subjects.

"Indeed, to add further testimonies would ba but to weary and disgust
the reader. We can say with truth, that to cull even these few from this
mass of painful and revolting record, has been any thing b'lt an agreeable
task ; and that the reader who will be content to pursue the general inquiry
further for himself, to read through the evidence of Amsdorf, Spalatin, Bu-

REFORMATION DESCRIBED BY THE REFORMERS. 267

genhagen, Gerbel, Major, Flacius Ulyricus, Brentius, Schnepf, Wesshuss,
Camerarius, and the numberless others whom the author's industry has
accumulated, must make up his mind to encounter many shocking and dis
heartening details, for which the popular representations of the social and
religious condition of the great era of the Reformation will have but ill pre
pared him.

" It must not be supposed that the testimonies which we have hitherto
alleged, or the great mass of those collected lay the author, describe the social
condition but of a portion of Germany, under the Reformation. There is
not a single locality which has not its witness. Saxony, Hesse, Nassau,
Brandenburg, Strasburg, Nurnberg, Stralsund, Thorn, Mecklenburg, West
phalia, Pomerania, Friesland, Denmark, Sweden ; and all, or almost all, are
represented by natives, or, at least, residents, familiar with the true state of
society, and, if not directly interested in concealing, certainly not liable to
the suspicion of any disposition to exaggerate, its shortcomings or its crimes.

" Indeed, the connection between the progress of Lutheranism and this
corruption of public morals, could not possibly be put more strikingly than
in the words of John Belz, a minister of Allerstadt in Thuringia (1566) :
'If you would find a multitude of brutal, coarse, godless people, among
whom every species of sin is every day in full career, go into a city where
the holy gospel is taught, and where the best preachers are to be met, and
there you will be sure to find them in abundance. To be pious and up
right (for which God praises Job) is nowadays held, if not 4o be a sin, at
least a downright folly ; and from many pulpits it is proclaimed, that good
works are not only unncessary, but hurtful to the soul.' "

Such then were the moral effects of the Reformation, ac
cording to the testimony of the reformers themselves. These
new apostles professed indeed to reform the Church in doc
trine and morals : they inveighed against the immorality of
the Catholic priesthood, whom they abused and vilified beyond
measure : they set themselves up as patterns for the world :
but they forgot withal to reform themselves and their own
disciples. They even went " daily from bad to worse." They
were wholly unmindful of the admonition of the Saviour:
" Let him that is without sin among you first cast a stone."*

We subjoin to this copious evidence the following portrait
ure of the state of morals in Germany shortly after the begin
ning of the Reformation, drawn by one who will not be

St. John, viii : 7.

268 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON MORALS.

suspected, — Wolfgang Menzcl. The horrible details which
he furnishes on this subject, indicate a condition of courtly
and general depravity which would seem almost incredible ;
but — alas ! the evidence is overwhelming.

" The Protestants also allowed the opportunity offered to them by the
emperor to pass unheeded, and, although they received a great accession in
number, sank, from want of unity, in real power and influence. The rest
of the German princes, Charles and Ernest of Baden, and Julius of Bruns
wick — Wolfenbiittel, the son of Henry the Wild — embraced Lutheranism.
Austria, Bavaria, Lorraine, and Juliers remained Catholic. The reformers
were devoid of union and energy, and oppressed by a sense of having abused
and desecrated, instead of having rigidly prosecuted, the Reformation.

" Was their present condition the fitting result of a religious emancipation,
or worthy of the sacred blood that had been shed in the cause ? Instead
of one Pope, the Protestants were oppressed by a number, each of the princes
ascribing that authority to himself; and instead of Jesuits, they had court
chaplains and superintendent-generals, who, their equals in venom, despised
no means, however base, by which their aim might be attained. A new
species of barbarism had found admittance into the Protestant courts and
universities. The Lutheran chaplains shared their influence over the princes
with mistresses, boon-companions, astrologers, alchymists, and Jews. The
Protestant princes, rendered, by the treaty of Augsburg, unlimited dictators
in matters of faith within their territories, had lost all sense of shame.
Philip of Hesse married two wives. Brandenburg and pious Saxony yielded
to temptation. Surrounded by coarse grooms, equerries, court-fools of obscene
wit, misshapen dwarfs, the princes emulated each other in drunkenness, an
amusement that entirely replaced the noble and gallant tournament of earlier
times. Almost every German court was addicted to this bestial vice. Among
others, the ancient house of Piast, in Silesia, was utterly ruined by it. Even
Louis of Wurtemberg, whose virtues rendered him the darling of his people,
was continually in a state of drunkenness. This vice and that of swearing
even became a subject of discussion in the diet of the empire, [A. D. 1577,]
when it was decreed, ' That all electoral princes, nobles, and estates should
avoid intemperate drinking as an example to their subjects.' The chase
was also followed to excess. The game was strictly preserved, and, during
the hunt, the serfs were compelled to aid in demolishing their own corn
fields. The Jews and alchymists, whom it became the fashion to have at
court, were by no means a slight evil, all of them requiring gold. Astrology
would have been a harmless amusement had not its professors taken advan
tage of the ignorance and superstition of the times. False representations
of the secret powers of nature and of the devil led to the belief in witch-

TESTIMONY OF MENZEL. 269

craft, and to the bloody persecution of its supposed agents. Luther's belief
in the agency qf the devil had naturally filled the minds of his followers
with superstitious fears." ....

" The Ascanian family of Lauenburg was sunk in vice. The same license
continued from one generation to another ; the country was deeply in debt,
and how, under the circumstances, the cuju.s regio was maintained, may
easily be conceived. The Protestant clergy of this duchy were proverlnal for
ignorance, license, and immorality.

" The imperial court at Vienna offered, by its dignity and morality, a bright
contrast, to the majority of the Protestant courts, whose bad example was,
nevertheless, followed by many of the Catholic princes, who, without taking
part in the Reformation, had thereby acquired greater independence."*

Erasmus has well described this change for the worse in
the morals of those who embraced the Reformation :

" Those whom I had known to be pure, full of candor and simplicity,
these same persons have I seen afterwards, when they had gone over to
the sect (of the gospelers,) begin to speak of girls, flock to games of hazard,
throw aside prayer, give themselves up entirely to their interests ; become
the most impatient, vindictive and frivolous ; changed in fact from men to
vipers. I know well what I say."f And again : "I see many Lutherans,
but few evangelicals. Look a little at these people, and say whether luxury,
avarice, and lewdness, do not prevail still more amongst them, than among
those whom they detest. Show me one who by means of this gospel is be
come better. I will show you very many who are become worse. Perhaps
it has been my bad fortune : but I have seen none who have not become
worse by their gospel." \

The testimony of Erasmus is above suspicion. Though he
continued in the Catholic Church, yet he was the early friend
of Luther, Melancthon and several others among the principal
reformers ; and he had himself contributed not a little — per
haps, however, only indirectly and unintentionally — to the
success of the pretended Reformation. He was a mild, peace
able man, who liked his ease more than any thing else in the
world, and who sought to please both sides, but succeeded in
pleasing neither. He had joined in the outcry against the
Catholic priesthood and monks, and had thereby no doubt

* History of Germany, ii, 280-1.

f Epist. Tractibus Germanise inferioris.

J. Idem. Epist. Anno 1526.

270 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON MORALS.

greatly aided in Lightening the excitement against the
Catholic Church. The proverb was current in Germany : that
"Erasmus had laid the egg, and Luther had hatched it."*
This saying perhaps expressed too much ; but yet, like most
popular adages, it had some foundation in truth. The famous
humanist Reuchlin seems to have been another of those waver
ing and uncertain characters, who can be moulded to almost
any form according to circumstances.

For three whole centuries, the Reformation has had full
sway and perfect freedom of action throughout half of Ger
many and all of Northern Europe. "What have been the
practical results of its influence ? "What is the present moral
condition of those Protestant countries where that influence
has been least checked, and most extended and permanent?
"We will close this chapter, by presenting a few startling facts
on this subject, from the works of two recent Protestant travel
ers, Bremner and Laing. Their authority in the matter will
scarcely be questioned by Protestants. Themselves bitterly
prejudiced against the Catholic Church, and enamored with
the Reformation, they merely state what they saw and ascer
tained during a long residence in the countries which they
respectively describe.

Of the people of Protestant Norway, Mr. Bremner says :
" The Norwegians can not, with justice, be described as more
than ' indifferently moral,' for we always found amongst them
a greater desire to take advantage of a stranger than in any
other part of Europe."! In regard to chastity, he tells us
that the statistical returns show that out of every five chil
dren which are born, one is illegitimate — the same proportion
precisely, in this widely scattered and rural population, as in
" the densely crowded and corrupted atmosphere of Paris/'

* " Erasmus hat das Ey gelegt, und Luther es ausgebriitet." An old
Lutheran painting represented the reformers bearing the ark, and Erasmus
dancing before it with all his might !

f " Excursions in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden," etc. By Robert
Bremner. — 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1840.

BREMNER AND LAING. 271

Mr. Laing confirms the statement, and tells us of one country
parish in particular where, " without a town, or manufactur
ing establishment, or resort of shipping, or quartering of
troops, or other obvious cause," the proportion of illegitimate
to legitimate' children, in the five years from 1826 to 1830,
was one in three.*

Both these Protestant travelers tell us, moreover, that in
Norway the Sunday is the usual day for dances, for theatrical
and other public amusements ; and Mr. Laing accounts for
this singular fact by the universally received interpretation,
in the pure Lutheran Church, of the Scriptural words, "and
the evening and the morning made the first day." Those
"pure Lutherans," going further than even the Jews of the
straightest sect, keep the Sabbath from midday on Saturday
to the noon of Sunday ! The Lutheran clergy, they likewise
inform us, pay little attention to the instruction of the people.
In proof of this gross negligence, they allege the fact, that in
all Norway there are only three hundred and thirty-six par
ishes with resident clergymen, who seldom visit their scattered
people. They also justly complain, that convicts are there
treated more unmercifully than any where else.

The picture they draw of the present moral condition of
Sweden and Denmark is even still less flattering. Mr.
Bremner tells us, that in the female house of correction at
Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, he found thirty-eight prison
ers condemned for life, " nearly all of whom had been con
victed of the too frequent crime of child murder !" Mr. Laing
enters at great length into the subject of Swedish morality.
He states, and he proves from regularly avouched statistical
returns, that Sweden is the most corrupt and demoralized

* The works of Mr. Laing from which we borrow this and the following
facts, are : " Journal of a Residence in Norway during the years 1834, 1835,
1836, made with a view to inquire into the moral and political economy of
the country, and the state of the inhabitants," London, 1836 ; " A Tour in
Sweden in 1838," London, 1839 ; and " Notes of a Traveler," London, 1842.
These works are all ably noticed in the Dublin Review for May, 1843.

272 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON MORALS.

country in Europe, and that Stockholm is the most debased
city in the world. Here is his testimony, which has been
often quoted :

" It is a singular and embarrassing fact, that the Swedish nation, isolated
from the mass of European people, and almost entirely agricultural or pas
toral, having, in about three millions of individuals, only fourteen thousand
nine hundred and twenty-five employed in manufactories, and these not
congregated in one or two places, but scattered among two thousand and
thirty-seven factories, having no great standing army or navy, no external
commerce, no afflux of strangers, no considerable city but one, and having
schools and universities in a fair proportion, and a powerful and complete
church establishment, undisturbed in its labors by sect or schism, is, not
withstanding, in a more demoralized state than any nation in Europe, more
demoralized even than any equal portion of the dense manufacturing popu
lation of Great Britain. This is a very curious fact in moral statistics."

He proceeds to establish this singular fact by unquestion
able, because official statistical evidence. From this it appears
that, in 1837, twenty-six thousand two hundred and seventy-
five persons were prosecuted in Sweden for criminal offenses,
of whom twenty-one thousand two hundred and sixty-two
were convicted, being one to every one hundred and fourteen
of the entire population accused, and one to every one hun
dred and forty convicted of crimes of a heinous character.
In 1836, the number so convicted was one out of one hundred
and thirty-four of the whole population. Among the crimes
in the rural population, there were twenty-eight cases of mur
der, ten of child murder, four of poisoning, thirteen of besti
ality, and nine of violent robbery: and the proportion was
four-fold greater for the town and city population. England
is bad enough ; one would even have thought that England
could scarcely be surpassed in crime of every description ; yet
in England the proportion of the convicted to the entire popu
lation is only as one to one thousand and five. The amount
of crime in Sweden is thus seven-fold greater than it is in
England ! Is it because there the Reformation was more un
checked in its operations, and had therefore a freer field ?

According to Mr. Lalng, the proportion of illegitimate to

PRUSSIA. 273

legitimate children, for all Sweden, is as one to fourteen ; and
for the capital, Stockholm, it is as one to two and three-
tenths ! In the same city one, out of every forty-nine of the
inhabitants, is annually convicted of some criminal offense !

When these statements of Mr. Laing appeared, the Swedish
government attempted to refute them, by a pamphlet pub
lished in London. This drew from him a Reply, in which he
triumphantly established all the statements he had previously
made, and exhibited, in the avouched statistics of the year
1838, others still more appalling :

" The divorces of this year were one hundred and forty-seven ; the sui
cides one hundred and seventy-two. Of the two thousand seven hundred
and fourteen children born in Stockholm that year, one thousand five hun
dred and seventy -seven were legitimate, one thousand one hundred and thirty-
seven illegitimate, making only a balance of four hundred and forty chaste
mothers out of two thousand seven hundred and fourteen, and the propor
tion of illegitimate to legitimate children, not as one to two and three -tenths,
as he had previously stated, but as one to one and a half ! !"

Prussia is another country of Europe in which the Refor
mation has had almost unchecked sw^ay for three centuries.
Mr. Laing discourses of its moral condition as follows — the
" index virtue" of which he speaks is female chastity :

" Will any traveler, will any Prussian say that this index virtue of the
moral condition of a people is not lower in Prussia than in almost any part
of Europe ? It is no uncommon event in the family of a respectable trades
man of Berlin to find upon his breakfast table a little baby, of which, who
ever may be the father, he has no doubt at all about the maternal grand
father. Such accidents are so common in the class in which they are least
common with us — the middle class, removed from ignorance or indigence —
that they are regarded bat as accidents, as youthful indiscretions, not as dis
graces affecting, as with us, the respectability and happiness of all the kith
and kin for a generation."

In a note, he gives the following statistical facts on this

subject :

" In 1837, the number of the females in the Prussian population between
the beginning of their sixteenth and the end of thsir forty-fifth year — that
is, within child-bearing age — was two millions nine hundred and eighty-
three thousand one hundred and forty-six ; the number of illegitimate chil-

274 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON WORSHIP,

dren born in the same year was thirty-nine thousand five hundred and one ;
so that one in every seventy-five of the whole of the females of an age to
bear children had been the mother of an illegitimate child." He adds:
" Prince Puckler Muskau (a Prussian) states in one of his late publications
(Sudostlicher Bildersaal, 3 Thel. 1841) that the character of the Prussians
for honesty stands lower than that of any other of the German populations."*

CHAPTER X.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON PUBLIC

WORSHIP.

General influence of the Reformation on worship — Audin's picture of it —
Luther rebukes violence — But wavers — Giving life to a skeleton — Taking
a leap — Mutilating the sacraments — New system of Judaism — Chasing
away the mists — Protestant inconsistencies — A dreary waste — No altars
nor sacrifice — A land of mourning — Protestant plaints — And tribute to
Catholic worship — A touching anecdote — Continual prayer — Vandalism
rebuked — Grandeur of Catholic worship — Churches always open — Prot
estant worship — The Sabbath day — Getting up a revival — Protestant music
and prayer — The pew system — The fashionable religion — The two forms
of worship compared — St. Peter's church — The fine arts.

IN nothing perhaps was the influence of the Reformation
more pernicious, than in the changes which it caused to be
introduced into public worship. It stripped the ancient Cath
olic service of its beauty and simple grandeur : it dried up the
deep fountains of its melody — hushed its organs, muffled its
Angelus bells, and put out its lights. It rudely tore away the
ornaments of its priesthood, stripped its altars, and chased
away the clouds of its ascending incense. It did even more.
It destroyed the beautiful paintings and sculptures, with
which art, paying tribute to religion, had decorated the walls

* That the rural population of England is not much, if at all better, in a
moral point of view, than that of Sweden and Prussia, clearly appears from
the late work of Joseph Kay, which was noticed in a late number of Brown-
son's Review.

SAD VANDALISM. 275

of the churches ; — and when it did not ruthlessly destroy, it
entirely removed those sacred emblems of piety. Tearing
them in shreds or breaking them in pieces, it gave them, in
almost numberless instances, to the flames, and then scattered
their ashes to the winds. And, as if these feats of Vandalism
were not enough to prove its burning zeal for religion, it
aimed a mortal blow at the very substance of worship: it
abolished the daily sacrifice, removed the altars, and annihil
ated the priesthood. And then, exhausted with its labors,
Protestantism lay down, and fell asleep amidst the ruins it
had caused !*

Audin gives the following graphic description of the effects
of early Reformation zeal on public worship:

" Throughout the whole of Saxony, no more canticles were heard ; no
more incense, no more lights on the altars, no more organs combining their
melody with the infant's hymn, or sacerdotal anthem. The church walls
were bare ; the light had no longer to steal through the painted windows,
for they had all been broken, under the pretext that they favored idolatry.
The Protestant temple resembled every thing but the house of God. The
magnificence and poetry of Catholic worship, the loss of which modern
Protestants deplore, everywhere disappeared."!

Luther at first disapproved of the intemperate zeal of Karl-
stadt and of other hot-headed disciples, who, during his ab
sence from Wittenberg, had abolished the Mass, and removed
by violence the paintings and statues from the church of All
Saints. Yet his disapproval did not, it would seem, proceed
so much from a horror of the act itself, as of the violence
which had attended it ; and more particularly from the circum
stance, that this innovation had taken place without his hav
ing been previously consulted ! In his harangue against
those new Iconoclasts, he said :

" You ought to know that you are to listen to no one but to me. With
the help of God, Doctor Martin Luther has advanced first in the new way ;

* "Le Protestantisme fatigue s'est endormi sur des mines ! — Exhausted
Protestantism fell asleep amidst ruins." — Abbe De Lamennais.
f Life of Luther, p. 331.

276 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON WORSHIP.

the others followed after him ; they ought to exhibit the docility of disci
ples, as their duty is to obey. It is to me that God has revealed His word ;

it is out of my mouth that it has proceeded free from all stain Was I

at such a distance that I could not be consulted ? Am I no longer the
source of pure doctrine ? .... It is neither commanded nor prohibited to
keep images. I wish that superstition had not introduced them amongst
us ; but however they ought not to be removed by tumult."*

But Lutlier, however lie might deplore, could not curb the
destructive spirit of his disciples. He could not prevent them
from wielding the weapons which himself had placed in their
hands. He could not control the storm which he himself had
put in motion. The work of destruction went on, till scarce
a vestige of the venerable and time-honored Catholic worship
remained behind. He himself was uncertain and wavering,
as to the portion of Catholic worship he should retain. The
people of Wittenberg murmured, when the chapter of the
church of All Saints in that city abolished the Mass during
his absence from the city. "Luther restored it: not however
as a sacrifice, but as a mere popular symbol. He took from
it the offertory and the canon, and all the forms of sacrifice ;
while he retained the elevation of the bread and wine by the
priest, the sacredotal salutation to the assistants, the mixture
of water and wine, and the use of the Latin language.''^

To enliven somewhat this mutilated skeleton of the old ser
vice, he retained many of the Catholic proses and hymns,
uniting with them some compositions of the old German poets.

" He himself composed some to replace our hymns aud proses, which are
precious monuments of the poetry of the early ages of Catholicism. Those
sweet and simple melodies which were by turns joyous and austere, gay and
melancholy, according to the occasion, were now replaced, in the Protestant
Churches by a monotonous drawl. The reformed church thus lost the
poems, inspirations, and symbols of the Catholic muse."|

The liturgy was not the only subject on which the reformer

* Apud Audin, ibid. pp. 237, 238. f Audin, ibid. p. 333.

| Ibid. For some beautiful and charming reflections on this subject, see
an article " on Prayer and Prayer-books," in a late number of the Dublin
Eeview.

GOING TOO FAST. 277

hesitated. His whole career, in fact, is marked with hesitancy
and doubt, as to what he should reject, and what he should
retain, of the old Catholic institutions. He often found* him
self in trying and difficult positions. His impatient disciples
sought to drag him down the declivity of reform much faster
than the sturdy monk wished to travel. Sometimes he list
ened to their clamors ; sometimes he sternly rebuked them
for their over ardent zeal. Hence his perpetual inconsisten
cies. On the subject of auricular confession, he contradicted
himself more than once : at times he recognized its divine
origin, and proclaimed its great utility to society : again he
would call it the invention of Satan, and " the executioner of
consciences."* He betrayed similar doubts and inconsisten
cies as to the number of the sacraments instituted by Christ.
He stood on the brink of a precipice, and yielded at times to
dizziness, ere he took the fatal leap from the summit-level of
Catholicity, into the yawning abyss, the boiling and hissing
noise of whose troubled waters already grated harshly on his
ears !

But his disciples were not so scrupulous. They boldly
rejected five out of the seven sacraments, and even stripped
the two they retained — Baptism and the Lord's Supper — of
every life-giving principle. They did not any longer view
them as the channels of grace, through which the waters of
life eternal flow into the soul of the Christian. This principle
they rejected with horror as a Popish superstition. They de
nied that the sacraments had, from the design and institution
of Christ, any intrinsic efficacy whatever : they were the mere
external symbols of a grace, which they were not the instru
ments of imparting. They were mere signs and figures, life
less in themselves, and useful and available, only through and
in proportion to the faith and other acts, of the recipient. In
fact they were brought down, in every respect, to a level with

* Conscientiarum Carnificina — See his Treatise, De ratione confitendi.
Tom. vi, edit. Altenb. Tom. i, opp. edit. Jena.

278 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON WORSHIP.

the ancient Jewish types and figures; and like them, they
were mere "weak and needy elements."* Thus the Reforma
tion brought back Christianity into the shadowy region of
carnal Judaism, under the pretext of restoring the Church to
its primitive purity !

They were even inferior to these, in point of appropriate
ness and significancy, as mere figures. Was not the Jewish
eating of the paschal lamb "of one year old and without
stain," a much more lively and appropriate type of the death
of Christ — " the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of
the world" — than the symbols of mere bread and wine?
"What aptitude is there, in fact, in bread to be a figure of
flesh, or even in wine, which is often almost colorless, to be a
figure of blood ? Had Christ intended a mere figure, would
he not have selected more appropriate emblems? Did he
mean to bring back the Christian religion, which he watered
with his own blood, to the mere standard of Judaism — did
he mean to lower it even beneath this standard ? Did he
institute a religion, the distinguishing ordinances of which
should contain nothing more substantial than the Jewish
tropes and figures? Was it to be still enveloped in that
dense mist, which had overhung the ark of the covenant, and
the institutions of the Jewish religion ? Or did he not rise
on the world, as " the Sun of Justice," to chase away those
mists, which had darkened the twilight of the Jewish types,
and to usher in the clear, cloudless day of living and breath
ing realities ?

Luther retained, indeed, a belief in the real presence,
blended, however, with the palpable absurdity of consub-
stantiation ; by which he maintained the simultaneous pres
ence of the substances of the bread and wine with the body
of Christ. But even many among the disciples of the re
former have long since rejected this monstrous system. After
six different modifications of their creed on the subject, to

* Oralatians, iv : 9.

NO SACRIFICE NO ALTAR. 279

suit the tastes or to meet the objections of the Sacramenta-
rians, they seem at length to have substantially coalesced with
their former opponents ; and the doctrine of the real presence
has thus grown almost, if not entirely, obsolete among Prot
estants.* Thus, throughout almost the whole land of Prot
estantism, this beautiful doctrine, which gives a sublime
character to the Catholic worship, and is a key to all its mag
nificent ceremonial, has been utterly banished. The Protest
ant church and worship are no longer ennobled and vivified
by this life-giving presence of the Word made flesh. Christ
is banished from his own holy temple : he is no longer in the
midst " of the children of men," where He before delighted to
dwell. And the domain of Protestantism presents, in its
bleak and dreary waste, a sad proof of His absence ! It is a
land "of closed churches and hushed bells, of unlighted
altars and unstoled priests !"f

No — its condition is still more deplorable. It has not even
" unlighted altars ;" it has no altars at all ! Its altars fell
under the same Yandalic stroke which annihilated its sacri
fice : " Sacrifice and oblation is cut off from the house of the
Lord ; the priests, the Lord's ministers, have mourned ; the
country is destroyed ; the land hath mourned."J — This land
of mourning, from which even " the priests, the Lord's minis
ters," have been banished, has been reposing for "many
days" "without sacrifice, and without altar, and without
ephod, and without theraphim."§

Where is there to be found, in the land of Protestantism,
that clean oblation foretold by God's holy prophet : " For from
the rising of the sun, even to the going down, my name is great
among the gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and

* For a full and well written statement of these variations of Lutheran-
ism on the subject of the Eucharist, and for an account of the singular
manner of the coalition indicated in the text, see Moore's " Travels of an
Irish Gentleman," etc., p. 202 and p. 103.

f W. Faber, " Sights and Thoughts in Foreign Churches."

t Joel, i: 9, 10. $ Osea, iii: 4.

280 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON WORSHIP.

there is offered to my name a a dean oblation; for my name
is great among the gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts?"* —
Where that altar, which St. Paul assures us the early Chris
tians had : " We have AN ALTAR whereof they have no power
to eat who serve the tabernacle ? "f Until Protestantism
appeared, with its blighting influence on worship, who ever"
heard of a religion, Christian or even pagan, the very essence
of which did not consist in an external sacrifice? In this
respect the Reformation has protested against the unanimous
voice of mankind. And we have already seen from what
particular personage Luther first learned the reasons for this
protest, and how eagerly he seized and acted on them.J

With the sacrifice, the priesthood, and the altar, fell also
the splendid worship with which they were connected. Prot
estants, even those of Germany, lately began to appreciate
and to deplore this desecration of God's holy sanctuary, and
this desolation of His once fruitful vineyard ; and their voice
of wailing was re-echoed by the Puseyites in England. We
will give a few instances of this splendid tribute paid, by late
Protestant writers in Germany, to the substance and forms of
the splendid old Catholic worship.

Isidore, Count Yon Loeben, exclaims :

"Admirable ceremonial, replete with harmony ! It is the diamond which
glitters on the crown of faith ! Whoever has a poetic spirit must feel a
tendency to Catholicism !"§ — Elsewhere he says: "The Catholic Church,
with its ever open door, with its undying lamps, its joyful or mournful
strains, its hosannas or its lamentations, its hymns, its Masses, its festivals
and reminiscences, resembles a mother, who ever holds forth her arms to
receive the prodigal child. It is a fountain of sweet water, around which
are assembled multitudes, to imbibe vigor, health, and life."||

Another German Protestant breaks forth into this exclam
ation :

" How beautiful is its music ! How it addresses both mind and sense !
Those melodious notes and voices, those canticles which breathe so pure a

* Malachy, i : 2 f Heb., xiii : 10. \ Supra, Chapter i.

5 In his Lotosblatter, 1817. II Ibid., p. 1.

BEAUTY OF CATHOLIC WORSHIP. 281

spirituality, those clouds of incense, those chimes which a disdainful philoso
phy condescends to despise : all these please God. Architects and sculptors !
you have acted wisely, and ennobled your art, by raising churches to the
Divinity."*

Another, E. Spindler, thus praises a beautiful custom pe
culiar to Catholicity :

" It is not only an ancient, but a beautiful custom, to encircle the graves
of the dead on the first and second of November. The peasants of the vil
lages hasten to the cemeteries : they kneel by a wooden cross, or other such
funeral ornaments. They think on the past, on the shortness of human
life. Then the departed are crowned with flowers, to signify the life that
will never end. The lamp burns to remind us of the light which shall
never be obscured !"f

Another relates the following touching anecdote:
" I saw also a Franciscan kneeling before a fresco painting of Christ on
the walls of the cloister, which was admirable for its truth and beauty of
expression. On hearing me approach, he rose up. ' Father, that is really
beautiful.' — ' Yes ; but the original is still more so,' said the monk, smiling.
— ' Then why make use of a material image in prayer ?' — ' I see,' said he,
1 that you are a Protestant ; but do you not see that the artist modulates
and ennobles the fantasies of my own imagination ? Have you not always
experienced that this faculty calls up a thousand different forms ? Permit
me to prefer, when there is question of images, the work of a great master
to the creation of my own fancy.' — I was silent," concludes the writer.^

In one of his works,§ Clausen, another Protestant, pays the
following willing tribute to the encouragement of continual
prayer by the Catholic Church :

" When a poor pilgrim, wearied with fatigue, but light of heart, kneels on
the altar steps to thank Him who has watched over him during a long and
perilous journey ; when a distracted mother comes into the temple to pray
for the recovery of her son, whom the physicians have given over ; when in
the evening, just as the last rays of the sun steal through the stained glass
on the figure of a young female engaged in prayer, when the flickering
lights of the tapers die away on the pale lips of the clergy, as they chaunt
the praises of the Eternal ; — tell me, does not Catholicism teach us that life

* Leibnitz, Syst. Theol., p. 205. f Zeitspiegel, 1791.

| Ch. Fr. D. Schubart— Leben und Gesinnungen— Stuttgart. 1791.
} P. 790. Apud Audin, p. 331.
VOL. i. — 24

282 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON WORSHIP.

should be one long prayer, that art and science ought to combine to glorify
God, and that the Church, where so many canticles are simultaneously
hymned forth, where devotion puts on all conceivable forms, has a right to
our love and respect ?"

Finally, another thus openly censures the intemperate Van
dalism of the reformers in destroying the most beautiful por
tions of Catholic worship :

" How blind were our reformers ! While destroying the greater part of
the allegories of the Catholic Church, they believed that they were making
war on superstition ! It was the abuse they ought to have proscribed."*
The famous jSTovalis in fact says, that " Luther was not acquainted with the
spirit of Christianity." f — Thus have the children borne testimony against
their fathers in the faith ! \

It is related of Frederick II., king of Prussia, that after
having assisted at a solemn high Mass celebrated in the
church of Breslau by Cardinal Zinzendorf, he remarked:
" The Calvinists treat God as an inferior, the Lutherans, as
an equal ; but the Catholics treat him as God." And though
this is perhaps too strong an expression of opinion as to the
difference existing between the Catholic and the Protestant
forms of worship; yet this difference is very great and very
striking, even to the most superficial or prejudiced observer.
"Who has not been impressed with the grandeur, the solemni
ty, and the noble dignity of the Catholic ceremonial ? Who
has not felt a sentiment of reverence and of awe come over
him, when, at the most solemn part of this service, the peal
of the organ ceases, the voice of music is hushed, and, while
clouds of incense are ascending, the priests, the ministers,
and the people all fall prostrate in silent prayer before the
altar, on which the Lamb is present "as it were slain ?" Who
has not felt a thrill of rapturous emotion, when, after this
solemn moment has passed, the music again breaks forth,

* Fessler— Theresia 2, p. 101.
f " Luther verkannte den geist des Christenthums."
J For more testimonies of Protestants on this subject, see Jul. Honing-
haus " Das Resultat meiner wanderungen " — Aschaffenburg, 183$.

DAILY SACRIFICE AND PRAYER. 283

mingling joyous with solemn notes, and pouring forth a stream
of delicious melody on the soul ! Who has not been struck
with the pathetic simplicity, the unction, and noble grandeur
of the Gregorian chant, especially in the Preface and the
Pater Noster ! And who has not marked the reverent awe
with which Catholics are wont to assist at the service, as well
as the general respect they pay to the church of God !

In Catholic countries, the church is ever open, inviting the
faithful to enter at all hours, and to pour forth their joys or
their sorrows before the altar. And in Rome particularly,
enter any one of its three hundred and fifty churches at what
hour you may, you will always find some persons kneeling,
engaged in secret prayer. The Catholic worship is not con
fined to Sundays : it is the business of every day, and there
is accordingly a special service for every day in the year.
The constant round of festivals presents to the minds of the
people, with dramatic effect, the most interesting portions of
sacred history, as well as the most stiking incidents in the
lives of the Blessed Virgin and of the saints : and the neces
sary result is, to keep these things constantly fresh in the
memory. Finally, the Catholic is bound by the law of his
Church to assist at divine service, and to hear Mass every
Sunday and festival of the year, and thus he comes con
stantly under all the strong beneficial influences of his reli
gion. And if, notwithstanding all these advantages, he is
still sometimes recreant to the voice of conscience and of duty,
it is surely from no lack of provision for his spiritual culture
on the part of the Church. She shows herself, in every res
pect, the tender and solicitous mother. Do the multiplied
forms of worship introduced by the Reformation possess these
advantages ; or do they combine these happy influences ? To
begin with the one last named : is it not a saddening reflec
tion, that in Protestant countries, no obligation is felt to at
tend divine service, even on Sundays ? Take London for an
example of this. According to Colquhoun's statistical views
of that Protestant metropolis, out of nearly fifteen hundred

284 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON WORSHIP.

thousand inhabitants, about one-third, or five hundred thous
and never attend church ; and another third attend it only
occasionally ! Of the remaining third, who attend regularly,
probably more than half are Roman Catholics.

True, in our own country the case is somewhat different :
but it is only because here Protestantism has not yet pro
duced, at least to the same extent, the evil fruits of religious
indifference and of infidelity, which it has never failed to
yield in countries where it has been long established. But
even here it is daily producing them more and more ; and
under its influence, each succeeding generation must necessa
rily deteriorate. Look at Boston and New York, where infi
delity has already boldly raised its standard. It is only by
almost limiting religious service to the Sunday — miscalled the
Sabbath — and by continued efforts through the press and the
pulpit to keep up an exaggerated and nearly Jewish feeling
of reverence for this day among the people, that any thing
like regular attendance on Sunday service is obtained.

In fact, according to the gloomy ideas now generally at
tached by American Protestants of the stricter sects to the
"Sabbath" day, the people after having labored constantly
through the six days of the week, have no other place of so
cial gathering but at the meeting-house ; and they have no
alternative but to repair thither, or to sit down moodily or
inertly at home. And we have no doubt, that it is to this
cause, and to the cutting off of all sources of popular amuse
ment, as much at least as to zeal for religious worship, that
we are to attribute the frequenting of the Protestant places of
public service in the United States.

But is the usual Protestant service in itself either inviting
or impressive? Has it any thing in it to stir up the deep
fountains of feeling ; to call forth the music and poetry of the
soul; to convey salutary instruction, or to awaken lively in
terest? "We would not speak lightly or irreverently on a
subject so grave : but with due deference to the feelings of
our dissentient brethren, we must express the conviction, that

THE PROTESTANT SERVICE. 285

their service is sadly deficient in solemnity, as well as in
feeling ; and that it possesses not one trait of either grandeur
or sublimity. It has certainly not one element of poetry or
of pathos. Generally cold and lifeless, it becomes warm only
by a violent effort, and then it runs into the opposite extreme
of intemperate excitement.

Can its music, with its loud, multiplied, and discordant
sounds, compare for a moment with the grave and solemn
melody of the Catholic worship ? Can its long extemporaneous
prayers, often pronounced by a minister dressed in his every
day attire, and occasionally, it may be, interrupted by the
sharp amens and discordant groans of his hearers, compare,
for solemnity and effect, with that which is poured forth by
the priest at the altar, robed in the venerable uniform of
eighteen hundred years' standing, and which is accompanied
by those of the people uttered in the hushed stillness of
secret devotion ? For our parts, we greatly prefer calm com
posure and sanctuary quietude in the church, to noisy prayer
and almost boisterous excitement. The Lord does not usually
communicate himself to His adorers in the whirlwind, or in
the earthquake, or in the raging fire ; but in the breathing
of the gentle breeze.*

Again, in Catholic countries there is no pew system. The
rich and the poor, the prince and the beggar, the refined
princess and the lowly peasant girl, kneel side by side on the
same pavement, and at the foot of the same altar. There is
no distinction there in the house of God. Is it so in Protestant
countries? Has not the pew system, with all its invidious
distinctions of rank, with its luxurious and splendidly cush
ioned seats, more suited for lolling than for prayers, obtained
universally wherever Protestantism has been established?
And has not the natural and necessary effect been, to intro
duce worldly notions even into the house of God; and to

* See III. Book of Kings, chap, xix, v. 11, 12. In Prot. version, I. Book
Kings.

286 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON WORSHIP.

make church-going a matter of fashion and respectability ? Do
not many people even inquire, before they embrace a religion,
which is the most respectable and fashionable church?

True, in countries where Protestants are most numerous,
and where it would be difficult to support the Church other
wise, Catholics likewise have often borrowed the invidious'
system from their neighbors: but candor will allow, that
among them it is not pushed to the same extreme as among
Protestants. It is, moreover, strongly counteracted in its evil
tendencies by the spirit of their Church.

The Catholic ceremonial was designed and planned on a
grand and magnificent scale. Hence it is exhibited to the
best advantage in the largest churches, and has the most
impressive and sublime effect in such temples as St. Mary
Major's and St. Peter's at Rome. The Protestant service,
on the contrary, is as contracted in its nature, as it is meagre
in its details, and cold and unimpressive in its general effect.
It is wholly out of place in a very extensive church. In St.
Paul's church, in London, it is confined to one segment of the
centre aisle: the other portions of the church seem utterly
useless. So it is in the splendid old cathedrals of England,
Ireland, and Scotland, built by our Catholic forefathers on
the grand scale of the Catholic worship, but now occupied
as Protestant meeting-houses. In the Protestant service,
almost every thing is for the ear, and almost nothing for the
eye : in the Catholic, all the senses are addressed, and all are
enchained.

In nothing does the immense distinction between the Cath
olic and the Protestant forms of worship appear more strik
ingly, than in the marked difference in the structure, beauty,
and ornaments of the churches in which they are respectively
performed. "Where, for instance, in the whole land of Prot
estantism, will you find one church to compare in beauty and
sublimity with St. Peter's at Rome ? It is an architectural
monument as old as Protestantism, and, as a merely material
structure, much more stable and permanent than Protestant-

ST. PETER'S CHURCH. 287

ism ! It has seen hundreds of sects arise, create excitement
for a day, and then die away ; while itself has continued in
unfading beauty — the sublime emblem of unchanging and
undying Catholicity ! Not one of its stones has started from
its place : not one of its pillars has been shaken ; not one of
its arches has been broken ! It stands bravely erect, in all
the vigor and freshness of youth, a suitable type of the ever-
blooming and virgin spouse of Christ, " without spot, without
wrinkle, without blemish."* Enter its portals, and your soul
expands with the noble building ; and you involuntarily ex
claim: "Truly, this is the house of God and the gate of
heaven !" The fine arts have here been lavish of their trib
ute to religion and to God : and they speak silently, but elo
quently, of Christ, of His Mother, of His apostles, and of His
saints. — Why have these lovely arts been banished from the
Protestant churches ?

" 0 when will the ages of faith e'er return,

To gladden the nations again ?
0 when shall the flame of sweet charity burn,
To warm the cold bosoms of men ?

" When the angel of vengeance hath sheathed his sword,

And his vials have drenched the land :
When the pride of the sophist hath bent to the Lord,
And trembled beneath His strong hand."

* Ephesians, chap. v.

288 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON THE BIBLE.

CHAPTER XI.

INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON THE BIBLE,
.ON BIBLE READING, AND BIBLICAL STUDIES.

" By various texts we both uphold our claim,
Nay, often ground our titles on the same ;
After long labors lost and time's expense,
Both grant the words, and quarrel for the sense.
Thus all disputes forever must depend,
For no dumb rule can controversies end." — DBYDEN.

" Mark you this, Bassanio :

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose

In religion what damning error

But some sober brow can bless it,

And approve it with a text." — SHAKSPEARE.

Protestant boastings—Theory of D'Aubigne — Luther finds a Bible—How
absurd! — The "chained Bible" — Maitland's triumphant refutation — Seck-
endorf versus D'Aubigne — Menzel's testimony — The Catholic Church
and the Bible — The Latin language — Vernacular versions before Luther's
— In Germany — In Italy — In France — In Spain — In England — In Flan
ders — In Sclavonia — In Sweden — In Iceland — Syriac and Armenian ver
sions — Summary and inference — Polyglots — Luther's false assertion —
Reading the Bible — Fourth rule of the index — A religious vertigo rem
edied — More harm than good — Present discipline — A common slander —
Protestant versions — Mutual compliments — Version of King James —
The Douay and Vulgate Bibles — Private interpretation — German ration
alism — Its blasphemies — Kationalism in Geneva.

OUK inquiry into the influence of the Reformation on re
ligion would be incomplete, without some examination into
the extent of this influence on the Bible, and on the general
diffusion and character of Biblical learning. It is one of the
proudest boasts of the Reformation, that it rescued the Bible
from the obscurity to which the Roman Catholic Church had
consigned it ; that it first translated the Bible into the ver
nacular tongues ; and thereby opened its hitherto concealed
treasures of heavenly wisdom to the body of the people.
These pretensions have been so often and so confidently re-

LUTHER FINDS A BIBLE! 289

peated, that they have passed current for the truth, even with
many sincere and otherwise well-informed persons ; whose
conviction on this subject is so strong, that it seems difficult
to remove it even by most overwhelming evidence to the
contrary.

According to our historian of the Reformation, Luther
owed his first conversion to Christianity to an accidental dis
covery of the Bible in the library of the university at Erfurth.
Here is his curious statement on the subject ; — it will be borne
in mind that Luther was then twenty years of age, and had
been a student at the university of Erfurth for about two
years :

" One day he was opening the books in the library one after another, in
order to read the names of the authors. One which he opened in its turn
drew his attention : lie had not seen any thing like it till that hour ; he reads
the title, it is a Bible, a rare book, unknown at that time ! His interest is
strongly excited ; he is filled with astonishment at finding more in this vol
ume than those fragments of the gospels and epistles, which the Church has
selected to be read to the people in their places of worship every Sunday in
the year. Till then he had thought that they were the whole word of God.
And here are so many pages, so many chapters, so many books, of which
he had no idea ! His heart beats as he holds in his hand all the Scripture
divinely inspired. With eagerness and indescribable feelings he turns over
those leaves of the word of God. The first page that arrests his attention,
relates the history of Hannah and the young Samuel."*

He then relates how the young Luther piously resolved to
imitate the devotedness of the young Samuel ; and he con
tinues :

" The Bible that had filled him with such transport was in Latin. He
soon returned to the library to find his treasure again. He read and re
read, and then in his surprise and joy went back to read again. The first
gleams of a new truth then arose in his mind. Thus has God caused him
to find his holy word ! He has now discovered the book of which he is one
day to give to his countrymen that admirable translation, in which the Ger
mans for three centuries have read the oracles of God. For the first time,
perhaps, this precious volume has been removed from the place that it occu
pied in the library of Erfurth. This book, deposited on the unknown

* D'Aubigne, vol. i, p. 131,
VOL. I.— 25

290 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON THE BIBLE.

shelves of a dark room, is soon to become the book of life for a whole na
tion. The Reformation lay hid in that Bible."*

This was not, however, the only Bible he had the good
fortune to find : for after he had entered the convent of the
Augustinians at Erfurth, "he found another Bible fastened
by a chain."f

D'Aubigne professes to borrow all this fine history from
Mathesius, a disciple and an ardent and credulous admirer
of Luther, and from Adam, another 'partial biographer of the
reformer. The story is too absurd, and too clumsily con
trived even for a well-digested romance. What ? Are we to
believe that Luther, at the age of twenty, did not know that
there was a Bible, until he chanced to discover one in the
library at Erfurth ? And that until then he piously believed,
that the whole Scriptures were comprised in that choice selec
tion of gospels and epistles which were read on Sundays in
the Church service ? He, too, a young man of great talent
and promise, who had successively attended the schools of
Mansfeld, Eisenach, and Magdeburg, and had already been
two years at the university of Erfurth ! The thing is utterly
incredible, and is stamped with palpable absurdity on its
very face. Luther must have been singularly stupid indeed,
had he remained thus ignorant. And then the idea intended
to be conveyed by the chained Bible! Would the good
monks have enchained it, unless it was in such demand with
the people as to endanger its safety ? In that early period of
the art of printing, books were much more scarce and more
highly prized than at present; and perhaps then, as now,
borrowed books were seldom returned to the owner.

Dr. Maitland, a learned English Protestant writer, triumph
antly refutes, and merrily laughs at the absurd and glaringly
mendacious assertion of D'Aubigne, that the Bible was " an
unknown book" before the days of Luther. We give an ex
tract from his refutation, which will be found both interesting
and instructive, as well as amusing :

* D'Aubigne, vol. i, p. 132. f Ibid., p. 141.

MAITLAND'S REFUTATION. 291

" Is it not odd that Luther had not by some chance or other heard of the
Psalms ? — But there is no use in criticising such nonsense. Such it must
appear to every moderately informed reader ; but he will not appreciate its
absurdity until he is informed that, on the same page, this precious historian
has informed his readers, that, in the course of the two preceding years,
Luther had 'applied himself to learn the philosophy of the middle ages, in
the writings of Occam, Scot (Scotus), Bonaventure, and Thomas Aquinas ;' —
of course none of those poor creatures knew any thing about the Bible !

" The fact, however, to which I have so repeatedly alluded is simply
this — the writings of the Dark Ages are, if I may use the expression, made
of the Scriptures. I do not merely mean that the writers constantly quoted
the Scriptures, and appealed to them as authority on all occasions, as other
writers have done since their day — though they did this, and it is a strong
proof of their familiarity with them — but I mean that they thought and
spoke and wrote the thoughts and words and phrases of the Bible, and that
they did this constantly and habitually as the natural mode of expressing
themselves. They did it, too, not exclusively in theological or ecclesiastical
matters, but in histories, biographies, familiar letters, legal instruments, and
documents of every description."*

The English church historian, Milner, has strangely enough
fallen into the same absurd error as D'Aubigne. In the
fourth volume of his work, p. 324, he thus relates the won
derful discovery of a Bible by Luther: "In the second year
after Luther had entered into the monastery, he accidentally
met with a Latin Bible in the library. It proved to him a
treasure. Then he first discovered that there were MORE
Scripture passages extant than those which were read to
the people: for the Scriptures were at that time very little
known in the world." Whereupon Dr. Maitland comments
as follows :

" Really one hardly knows how to meet such statements ; but will the
reader be so good as to remember that we are not now talking of the Dark
Ages, but of a period when the press had been lialf a century in operation ;
and will he give a moment's reflection to the following statement, which I

* The Dark Ages ; a Series of Essays intended to illustrate the state of
Religion and Literature in the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries.
By Kev. S. R. Maitland, D. D., F. R. S. and F. S. A , sometime Librarian to
the late Archbishop of Canterbury and Keeper of the MSS. at Lambeth.
Third edition. London, 1853. 8vo. P. 468, seq.

292 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON THE BIBLE.

believe to be correct, and which can not, I think, be so far inaccurate as to
affect the argument. To say nothing of parts of the Bible, or of books
whose place is uncertain, we know of at least twenty different editions of the
whole Latin Bible printed in Germany only before Luther was born. These
had issued from Augsburg, Strasburg, Cologne, Ulm, Mentz (two), Basle
(four), Nurenberg (ten) ; and were dispersed through Germany, I repeat,
before Luther was born ; and - 1 may remark that before that event there
was a printing press at work in this very town of Erfurth, where more than
twenty years after he is said to have made his 'discovery.' Some may ask
what the Pope was about all this time ? Truly, one would think he must
have been off his guard ; but as to these German performances, he might
have found employment nearer home, if he had looked for it. Before Luther
was born, the Bible was printed in Koine, and the printers had had the
assurance to memorialize his Holiness, praying that he would help them off
with some copies. It had been printed, too, at Naples, Florence, and
Placenza; and Venice alone had furnished eleven editions. No doubt we
should be within the truth, if we were to say that, besides the multitude of
manuscript copies, not yet fallen into disuse, the press had issued fifty dif
ferent editions of the whole Latin Bible ; to say nothing of Psalters, New Tes
taments, or other parts. And yet, more than twenty years after, we find a
young man who had received 'a very liberal education,' who 'had made
great proficiency in his studies at Magdeburg, Eisenach, and Erfurth,' and
who, nevertheless, did not know what a Bible was, simply because 'the
Bible was unknown in those days !' "*

D'Aubigne in the course of his history repeatedly quotes
Seckendorf, the biographer and great admirer of Luther.
Did he never chance to read in the first book of this writer's
"Commentaries on Lutheranism," a passage in which he
states, that three distinct editions of the Bible, translated
into German, were published at Wittenberg, in 1470, 1483,
and 1490 : one of them thirteen years before the birth of
Luther, another in the very year of his birth, and a third
seven years thereafter?! And all these in the immediate
vicinity of Luther's birth place ; not to mention another edi
tion, which the same author assures -us,J was published not
far distant, — at Augsburg, in 1518, just one year after Luther

* The Dark Ages, etc. Maitland. P. 469, note.

f Commentarii in Luther. Lib. 1, sec. 51. \ cxxv, p. 204. Quoted by
Audin, p. 216. \ Ibid.

CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE BIBLE. 293

had turned reformer, and twelve years before he published
the last portion of his own German version of the Bible!
How could D'Aubigne avoid seeing this passage in his own
favorite historian : and if he saw it, what are we to think of
his honesty in wholly concealing the fact, and even in stating
what is plainly contradicted by it — that " the Bible was then
an unknown book," and that Luther never saw it till his
twentieth year? Menzel, far more honest than D'Aubigne,
tells us expressly that " before the time of Luther the Bible
had already been translated and printed in both High and
Low Dutch."*

The Bible then an unknown book ! "Who preserved this
book during the previous fifteen hundred years? From
whom did the reformers receive it ? Who kept it safe through
all dangers ; in the midst of conflagrations, wars, and the
destructive torrents of barbarian incursion ? Who copied it
over and again, before the art of printing? The Roman
Catholic Church did all this : and yet flippant or dishonest
writers still accuse her of having concealed this book of life
from the people ! But for her patient labor, vigilant watch
fulness, and maternal solicitude, the Bible might have perished
with thousands of other books : and still she was an enemy of
this good book, and wished to keep it hidden under a bushel !
She had choice selections from it read to her people on every
Sunday and festival of the year, even according to the enforced
avowal of our unscrupulous and romantic historian of the Ref
ormation ; still she wished to conceal this treasure from the
people ! A curious way of concealing it, truly !

But, perhaps, she preserved it in the Latin tongue only, and
was opposed to its general circulation in the living languages
of Europe. She did no such thing, as we shall presently see ;
though even had she done this, she would not have concealed
the Bible from the people. The Latin language continued to
be that which was most generally understood, and even

* History of Germany, vol. ii, p. 223.

294 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON THE BIBLE.

spoken in Europe, until the reign of Charlemagne, in the
beginning of the ninth century : and even for several centu
ries afterwards, while the modern languages were struggling
into form, it was more or less generally known, and was not,
properly speaking, a dead language. At the beginning of the
sixteenth century, and for a long time afterwards, it was the
only language of literature, of theology, of medicine, and of
legislation. Most of the modern languages of Europe were
formed from it, and were so similar to it both in words and
in general structure, that the common people of Italy, Spain,
Portugal, and even France, could understand the mother
tongue without great difficulty. In Hungary, it had been the
common language of the people since the days of king
Stephen, in the latter part of the tenth century. It was,
moreover, taught and studied in every school and college of
Christendom, and it was the medium through which most
other branches were taught. It was, then, at the time of the
Reformation, a language which was very commonly under
stood in Europe. Therefore, even if the Catholic Church had
given the Bible to the people only in the Latin Yulgate, she
would not have concealed it : nor would it have remained
" an unknown book." It is a notorious fact, that one of the
first books published after the invention of the art of printing,
was the Latin Bible.*

The learned Protestant bibliographer, Dibdin, thus speaks
of the earlier printed editions of the Latin Bible :

" From the year 1462, to the end of the fifteenth century, the editions of
the Latin Bible may be considered literally innumerable; and generally
speaking only repetitions of the same text"f

* Hallam proves, or believes that he proves, that it was the first book
printed, probably in the year 1455. — " History of Literature," sup. cit.
vol. i, p. 96.

f The Library Companion, or the young man's Guide and the old man's
Comfort in the choice of a Library. By Kev. T. F. Dibdin, M. A., F. E. S.,
Member of the Academy of Rouen and Utrecht. Second edition, London,
1825. Octavo, pages 899. P. 15.

GERMAN VERSIONS. 295

Among the more ancient and valuable editions of the Latin
version, he enumerates the following :

"As thus ; at Mentz, in 1455 ; at Bamberg, 1461 ; at Rome, 1471 ; Venice,
1476 ; Naples, 1476 ; in Bohemia, 1488 ; in Poland, 1563 ; in Iceland, 1551 ;
in Russia, 1581 ; in France, 1475 ; in Holland, 1477 ; in England, 1535 ; in
Spain, 1477."*

Eut it is a well ascertained fact, that long before the Refor
mation of Luther, the people of almost every country in
Europe had the Bible already translated into their own ver
nacular tongues. In most nations, there was not only one,
but there were even many different versions.

We begin with Germany, the theater of the Reformation.
We have already seen the testimony of Seckendorf and of
Menzel on this subject. The Germans had no less than jive
different translations of the Scriptures into their own lan
guage; of which three were previous to that of Luther in
1530 ;f and two were contemporary with, or immediately sub
sequent to it. The oldest was that made by Ulphilas, Bishop
of the Mseso-Goths (now Wallachians), as early as the middle
of the fourth century.J This version seems to have been
used for several centuries by many of the older Gothic and
German Christians. The second version was that ascribed
to Charlemagne (beginning of ninth century) — probably be
cause it was made by some learned man under his direction.
It was in the old German, or Teutonic dialect. Besides, there
was a very old rhythmical paraphrase of the four gospels,
much used in Germany from the time of the first emperor
Louis. §

The third German version was a translation from the Latin

* The Library Companion, etc., Dibdin, sup. cit. P. 16, note. This work
is found in the valuable collection of Very Rev. E. T. Collins, of Cincinnati,
to whom we are indebted for several authorities alleged in these pages.

f Luther's translation was completed in this year; it was commenced
about eight years previously. — See for all the facts and dates, Audin, 215-6,
note. | See Home's Introduction, vol. ii, p. 240-5.

\ This was as early as the middle of the ninth century.

296 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON THE BIBLE.

Vulgate by some person unknown, an edition of which was
printed as early as the year 1466 : two copies of this edition
are still preserved in the senatorial library at Leipsic. Be
fore the appearance of the German Bible of Luther, the ver
sion last named had been republished in Germany at least
sixteen times : once at Strasburg, five times at Nurenberg, and
ten times at Augsburg. These various editions often claimed
to be new versions, in consequence of the improvements they
professed to have introduced into the original version of 1466.
This was particularly the case with the edition published at
Augsburg in 1477, and also with that of Nurenberg in 1483,
which latter was embellished with numerous wood-cuts.

Thus, before the publication of Luther's translation, there
had already appeared in Germany no less than three distinct
versions of the whole Bible, the last of which had passed
through at least seventeen different editions. Add to these
the three editions of Wittenberg, mentioned by Seckendorf
above, and not included in this estimate, and we ascertain
that the Bible had already been reprinted in the German lan
guage no less than twenty times^ before Luther's appeared.*

In 1534, John Dietemberg published his new German
translation from the Latin Vulgate at Mayerice, under the
auspices of the archbishop and elector, Albert. It passed
through upwards of twenty editions in the course of a hun
dred years, four of which appeared at Mayence, and seven-

* These facts as well as those that will follow on the same subject, are
fully established by the learned De Long, in his Bibliotheca Sacra (torn. 1,
p. 354 seqq. edit. Paris, 1723). They are also proved by a Calvinist writer,
David Clement, librarian to the king of Prussia, in his Bibliotheque Curieuse,
etc., (9 vols. 4to. Gottingen 1750). See also Geddes' " Prospectus for a new
Translation," 4to. p. 103 seqq., and Audin's " Life of Luther," p. 216 seqq.,
for many of these facts. See also a learned article on the subject in the 2d
No. of the Dublin Review, where most of the facts we have alleged, or will
allege, are clearly proved. The writer of this learned paper has, however,
omitted SeckendorPs statement: and he likewise supposes that Luther's
version appeared only in 1534; whereas from Seckcndorfs detailed account
of it, it would seem to have been completed in 1530.

ITALIAN VERSIONS. 297

teen at Cologne. The style of it was somewhat unpolished,
but it was generally esteemed as a faithful translation. In
1537, another Catholic version appeared under the supervis
ion of Doctors Emser and Eck, the two learned champions of
Catholicity against Luther. This version likewise passed
through many editions.

While on the subject of German Bibles, we may here re
mark, though it does not come exactly within our present
plan, that Gaspar Ulenberg published a new version in 1630 ;
and that during the last forty years, several other new ver
sions have appeared in Catholic Germany, of which those of
Schwartzel and Brentano are the most popular.

The facts already stated clearly prove how utterly un
founded, and how recklessly false is the statement of D'Au-
bigne, that before the Reformation " the Bible was an unknown
book !" They demonstrate triumphantly, that the Catholics
of Germany were even more zealous in the circulation of the
Holy Scriptures, than were the self-styled reformers, notwith
standing all the loud boastings of the latter and of their
friends on the subject.

But we will pursue this line of argument still further, and
prove, on the unquestionable authorities referred to above,
that other Catholic countries were not behind Germany in
the sincere will to translate the Scriptures into the vernacular
tongues, and to circulate them among the people. In fact,
there is not a country in Europe in which the Bible had not
been repeatedly translated and published long before the
Reformation.

In Italy, there were two versions anterior to that of Luther:
that by the Dominican, Jacobus a Voragine, archbishop of
Genoa, which version, according to the testimony of Sixtus
Senensis,* was completed as early as 1290 ; and that by
Nicholas Malermi, a Camaldolese monk, which was first
printed simultaneously at Rome and Venice, in the year

* Biblotheca sacra, torn, i, p. 397.

298 INFLUENCE OP REFORMATION ON THE BIBLE.

1471, and which had passed through as many as thirteen dif
ferent editions before the year 1525. This translation was
afterwards reprinted eight times before the year 1567, with
the express permission of the Santo Uffizio, or Holy Office at
Rome. Almost simultaneously with that of Luther, there
likewise appeared two other Italian translations of the Bible:
that by Antonio Bruccioli* in 1532, which in twenty years
passed through ten editions ; and that by Santes Marmochino,
which was successively printed at Venice in 1538, 1546,
and 1547.

The oldest French version of the Bible was that by Des
Moulins whose Bible Historyal — almost a complete transla
tion of the Bible — appeared, according to Usher, about the
year 1478. A new edition of it, corrected by Rely, bishop
of Angers, was published in 1487, and was successively re
printed sixteen different times before the year 1546 : four of
these editions appearing at Lyons, and twelve at Paris. In
1512, Le Fevre published a new French translation, which
passed through many editions. A revision of this version
was made by the divines of Louvain, in 1550, and was sub
sequently reprinted in France and Flanders, thirty-nine
times before the year 1700. f More recently, a great variety
of new Catholic versions have appeared in France ; of which
those by I)e Sacy, Corbin, Amelotte, Maralles, Godeau, and
Hure, are the most celebrated.

According to Mariana, the great Spanish historian, the
Scriptures were translated into . Castilian by order of Al-
phonso, the Wise. The whole Bible was translated into the
Yalencian dialect of the Spanish, in the year 1405, by Boni
face Ferrer, brother of St. Vincent Ferrer. This version was
printed in 1478, and reprinted in 1515, with the formal con-

* It is but fair to say, that this version was deemed inaccurate, and was
subsequently suppressed by the competent authorities, with the consent of
the author. Marmochino corrected its faults.

f It is thus a mistake to suppose, as Kanke and others seem to do, that
Le Fevrc was the author of the first French translation of the Bible.

FRENCH AND OTHER VERSIONS. 299

sent of the Spanish Inquisition. In 1512, the Epistles and
Gospels were translated into Spanish by Ambrosio de Mon-
tesma. This work was republished at Antwerp in 1544, at
Barcelona in 1601 and 1608, and at Madrid in 1603 and 1615.

In England, besides the translation made by the venerable
Bede in the eighth century, and that of the Psalms ascribed
to Alfred the Great,* in the ninth, there was also another
translation of the whole Bible into the English of that early
period, which was completed about the year 1290 — long be
fore the version of Wickliffe in the fifteenth century.

In the year 706, Adhelm, first bishop of Salisbury, accord
ing to the testimony of the Protestant biblicist Horn, trans
lated the Psalter into Saxon. At his persuasion, Egbert,
bishop of Lindisfarne, also translated the four gospels. In
the fourteenth century, a new English version of the whole
Bible was made by John de Trevisa. In the year 905, Elfric,
archbishop of Canterbury, translated into English the Penta
teuch, Joshua, Job, the Judges, Ruth, part of the books of
Kings, Esther, and the Maccabees.f

The Bible was translated into Flemish, as Usher J admits,
by Jacobus Merland, before the year 1210. This version was
printed at Cologne in 1475, and it passed through seven new
editions before the appearance of Luther's Bible in 1530.
The Antwerp edition was republished eight times in the short
space of seventeen years. Within thirty years there were
also published, at Antwerp alone, no less than ten editions of
the New Testament translated by Cornelius Kendrick in
1524. In the course of the seventeenth century, there also
appeared in Flanders several new Catholic versions by De
"Wit, Laemput, Schum, and others. All these were repeatedly
re-published.

* The venerable Bede died in 735, immediately after having finished his
translation of St. John's Gospel, which seems to have completed his version
of the Scriptures.

f Of. Archbishop Kenrick's Theologia Dogmatica, vol. i, p. 426.

t A learned Protestant historian, especially in regard to dates.

300 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON THE BIBLE.

A Sclavonian version of the Bible was published at Cra
cow, in the beginning of the sixteenth century. As early as
the fourteenth century the Bible had been translated into
Swedish, by the direction of St. Bridget. According to the
testimony of Jonas Arnagrimus, a disciple of the distin
guished Tycho Brahe, a translation of the Bible was made in
Toeland, as early as 1279. A Bohemian Bible appeared at
Prague in 1.488, and passed through three other different edi
tions; at Cutna in 1498, and at Venice in 1506 and 1511.

Finally, to complete this hasty summary of bibliographical
facts, we may here state, as an evidence of the solicitude of
Rome for the dissemination of the Bible, that many editions
of Syriac and Arabic Bibles have been printed at Rome and
Venice for the use of the oriental churches in communion
with the Holy See. A translation of the Bible into Ethiopic
was published at Rome, as early as 1548. The famous con
vent of Armenian monks, called Meohiteristi, at Venice, so
often visited by travelers, has more recently published exquis
itely beautiful versions of the Bible translated into Armenian.

From this mass of facts — and we have not given all which
might be alleged on the subject — it clearly appears that the
Catholic Church had exhibited a most commendable zeal for
the dissemination of the Scriptures among the people, long
before the Reformation had been so much as heard of. This
evidence of stubborn facts demonstrates how very silly are
the assertions of those Protestant writers who, with D' Aubigne,
would fain persuade the world that we are indebted to the
Reformation for the knowledge and general circulation of the
Scriptures. And yet prejudice or drivelling ignorance will
probably still continue to re-echo this unfounded assertion.
So tenaciously do men cling to the tales of the nursery, and
persist in obstinately believing, against all evidence, what
ever is flattering to pride or prejudice !

Thus, before the appearance of Luther's version, in 1530,
there had existed in the different countries of Europe at least
twenty-two different Catholic versions, which, during the sev-

POLYGLOTS. 301

enty years intervening between 1460 and 1530, had passed
through at least SEVENTY editions : — or one for each year !
And, simultaneously with Luther's German Bible, there ap
peared a great number of Catholic versions, all of which, as
well as those previously in existence, were frequently re
printed. And yet, in the face of all these facts, we are still
to be told that the Catholic Church concealed the Bible from
the people !

"While on this subject, we may as well also remark that,
of the four famous Polyglot Bibles, the three most ancient
were published by Catholics. That by Cardinal Ximenes
was published at Alcala in Spain, in six volumes, folio, in
the year 1515 — two years before the commencement of the
Reformation. That of Antwerp was published in 1572, and
that of Paris in 1645 ; while the latest of all, and the only
Protestant one, was published by Walton, in London, only in
the year 1658 !

We say nothing of another Polyglot edition of the Psalms,
by Giustiniani, an Italian, who seems to have been the first
to conceive this splendid idea of illustrating the Scriptures
by exhibiting, in parallel columns, the original Hebrew and
Greek, with the most ancient and esteemed versions. His
labor was, however, never destined to see the light; his
manuscripts were lost in a shipwreck near Leghorn; and it
was reserved to the magnificent Ximenes to be the first to
carry out this great conception. He devoted many of the
last years of his brilliant life to this great work. Valuable
manuscripts in Greek and Hebrew were procured in remote
places, and at immense expense: Ximenes himself collated
these precious documents with the assistance of a body of
learned men; and he finally put the finishing hand to his
herculean labor. To him are we indebted for the first great
impulse thus given to biblical criticism and literature.

It is also worthy of remark, that a learned Italian, Bernardo
di Rossi, towards the close of the last century, by his single,
unaided efforts, collected together more valuable ancient

302 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON THE BIBLE.

Greek, and especially Hebrew, manuscripts of the Bible,
than Walton had been able to do, with his immense resources
and the co-operation of the British and of other governments.*

It is also proper to state that, besides the version of the
Bible into the vernacular tongues of Europe, referred to
above, there were, about the time of the Reformation, various'
Latin versions made by Catholics immediately from the
original Hebrew and Greek texts. These were entirely dis
tinct from the Latin Yulgate of St. Jerome. The most famous
were: — that by Santes Pagninus, published at Florence and
Lyons in 1528, which was a translation from the Hebrew;
aiad that of the Old Testament by Cardinal Cajetan, which
was a literal translation from the Septuagint.f It is also
well known that Leo X., in order to promote biblical learn
ing, encouraged the study of Greek and Hebrew at the very
dawn of the Reformation, and before the reformers had done
any thing of the kind.J

Thus every department of biblical study was fully and
extensively cultivated by the Catholic Church, both before
and after the commencement of the Reformation. Catholic
divines labored at least as much, and as successfully, in these
studies, as did the reformers, and at a much more early
period. Europe was filled with Bibles in almost every
language, and especially in the Latin Yulgate and in the
vernacular tongues.

With all these undoubted facts before us, we will now
be better able to form a correct judgment on the truth of
the statement made by Martin Luther himself in his Table
Talk.

" Thirty years ago the Bible was an unknown book : the Prophets were
not understood ; it was thought that they could not be translated. I was

* See Geddes' "Prospectus for a new Translation," etc., 4to. Also the
works of Bernardo di Rossi, who died a few years ago.

f Geddes, ibid.

| This was but one of the many acts of the brilliant Pontiff, who ushered
in the second Augustan age of literature. — See Roscoe.

FOUKTH RULE OF INDEX. 303

twenty years old before I saw the Scriptures : I thought that there was no
other Gospel, no other Epistles than those contained in the Postilla."*

The arch-reformer must either have been wondrously igno
rant of what was everywhere passing around him in the
world, or he must have wilfully misstated the facts of the
case. His character for knowledge, or for veracity, must
suffer terribly; there is no alternative. We suspect, how
ever, that, like his admirer D'Aubigne, he was not very
particular about the truth, when a misstatement would better
serve his purpose.

But we are still told that Catholics did not read the Bible,
that they were even prohibited to do so, before the Reforma
tion. — Who then, we wrould ask, purchased and read those
SEVENTY EDITIONS of the Bible in the vernacular tongues,
which, as we have seen, were published before Luther had
circulated one copy of his German Bible ? Were they read
only by the priests? — But these all knew Latin, and had their
Latin Bibles. Think you that booksellers would have pub
lished so many editions of a book, which was not readily
sold and extensively read? Would a new edition have been
necessary each successive year, during the seventy which
preceded the appearance of Luther's Bible, unless each edition,
as it appeared, had been eagerly sought and rapidly bought
up? Would any of our modern book publishers reprint
seventy successive yearly editions of a work, which wTas not
generally read ?

But there was a prohibition by the Church to read the
Bible. — When, where, and by whom was that prohibition
made? The annals of history are wholly silent as to any re
striction of the kind having been made, before the flagrant
abuses of the Bible by the reformers and their disciples
seemed to require some such regulation. The Church had,
indeed, carefully guarded against the circulation of erroneous
or inaccurate editions ; and the suppression of the Italian

* Tisch-Reden, or Table Talk, p. 352, edit. Eisleben. Apud Audio, p.
390, 391.

304 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON THE BIBLE.

version by Bruccioli is an evidence of this wise solicitude.
But we nowhere find evidence of any restrictive law as to
the reading of the Bible in the vernacular versions, until after
the council of Trent had closed its sessions in 1563.

A committee of learned divines, named by the council,
then drew up a list, or Index, of prohibited books, prefaced
by ten general regulations on the reading of them. The
fourth rule of the Index permits the reading " of the Bible
translated into the vulgar tongues by Catholic authors, to
those only to whom the bishop or the inquisitor, with the ad
vice of the parish priests or confessors, shall judge that such
reading will prove more profitable unto an increase of faith
and piety, than injurious :" and it assigns, as a reason for this
restriction, " that experience had made it manifest, that the
permission to read the Bible indiscriminately in the vulgar
tongues had, from the rashness of men, done more harm than
good."*

Some such regulation of discipline was deemed salutary
and even necessary, at a time when, the landmarks of the
ancient faith having been recklessly removed, the Bible was
wantonly perverted to support a hundred contradictory sys
tems. In that period of religious vertigo, men, " having an
appearance indeed of piety, but denying the power thereof,"
were ts always learning, and never attaining to the knowledge
of the truth :"f " according to their own devices, they heaped
up to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they
turned away their hearing from the truth, and were turned
to fables :"J they "were like children, tossed to and fro, and
carried about by every wind of doctrine, in the wickedness
of men, in craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive :"§
and not understanding that in the Scriptures " are some things
hard to be understood," they " wrested them to their own per-

* " Cum experimento manifestum sit, si sacra bifylia vulgari lingua passim
sine discrimine permittantur, plus inde, ob hominum temeritatem, detri
ment! quam utilitatis oriri." Kegula IV.

i 2 Tim., iii : 5-7. t Ibid., iv : 3, 4-. $ Ephes., iv : 14.

MODERN DISCIPLINE. 305

dition."* In this emergency, when the very substance of the
faith was endangered, did it not behoove the Church, " which
is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the
truth,"f to raise her warning voice, and to proclaim from the
chair of Peter, with St. Peter himself, that all should "under
stand this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is made by
private interpretation ;"J and to re-echo through the relig
ious world, thus shaken to its very base, the solemn command
of Christ " to hear the Church," under the penalty of being
reckoned "with heathens and publicans ?"§

This is precisely what the Church did ; and she thought
that she was compelled to adopt this course by the glaring
evils wrought through the working of the newly broached
principle of private interpretation. The "rashness of men"
perverting the Scriptures of God to their own perdition, was
the cause of her enactment, restricting the reading of the
Scriptures in the vulgar tongues. The principle of private
interpretation, applied to the Scriptures, had evidently " done
more harm than good ;" for, whereas the Bible manifestly
contains and teaches but one religion, this principle had al
ready extracted from it a hundred contradictory religions.
So that the Reformation is alone to be blamed for this restrict
ive policy on the part of the Catholic Church ; and Protest
ants should be the last persons in the world to reproach to
her as a fault, what the "rashness" alone of their fathers in
the faith occasioned, and even rendered necessary.

But the enactment in question, besides not emanating
directly from the council itself — having been made after the
council had closed its sessions — contained a merely disciplin
ary regulation of a temporary character, which was not every
where received in practice, || and which has long since ceased

* 2 Peter, iii : 6. f 1 Timothy, iii : 15.

| 2 Peter, i : 20. \ St. Matthew, xviii : 17.

|| " Sed ea disciplina non ubique obtinuit." — Archbishop Kenrick, Theol.
Dogmatica, vol. i, p. 429. In this learned and excellent work will be found
many valuable facts, of which we have already . availed ourselves, and on
which we shall occasionally draw in the sequel.
VOL. I. — 2t>

306 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON THE BIBLE.

to be of binding force in any part of the Catholic Church.
The present discipline requires only, " that the version be
approved, and illustrated by commentaries from the fathers
and other Catholic writers."* Pope Pius VI., in a letter f to
Anthony Martini, the translator of the Italian version, now
generally used in Italy, praises him for his undertaking, and
adds:

"For these (the Scriptures) are the most abundant sources, which
ought to le left open to every one, to draw from them purity of morals and
of doctrine."!

It is, then, plainly a slander to assert that the Catholic
Church forbids the reading of the Scriptures. In the United
States, Catholics have published at least as many editions of
the Bible as any Protestant sect. These have appeared in
every form, from Haydock's splendid folio Bible, in two vol
umes — an edition unequaled by any Protestant Bible in the
country — down to the octavo and duodecimo editions. § Sev
eral of these have been stereotyped : and they may be had in
every Catholic book store in the country, and may be found
in most Catholic families. In France, the great Bossuet dis
tributed himself no less than fifty thousand copies of the
New Testament translated into French by Amelotte.||

In speaking of the influence of the Reformation on biblical
learning, we must say a few words on the different Protestant
versions. These are as numerous, and almost as various, as
the sects from which they have respectively emanated. The
oldest is that of Luther, in which, as soon as it successively
appeared, the learned Emser detected no less than a thousand
glaring faults ! Luther became angry, and raged at this ex-

* Archbishop Kenrick, Theol. Dogmatica, vol. i, p. 429.

f Written April 1, 1778. { Inserted in frontispiece of the Douay Bible.

5 We here refer to the old edition of Haydock. The new one recently
published by Dunigan of ISFew York, in one large volume, is the most com
plete and beautiful Bible we have ever seen in English. It is, in every re-
ypect, superior to the illustrated edition of the Harpers.

|j Robelot, Influence, etc., p. 389.

EARLY PROTESTANT VERSIONS. 307

posure of his work by his learned antagonist, on whom he
exhausted his usual vocabulary of abusive epithets. He said,
among other pretty things, that " these Popish asses were not
able to appreciate his labors."* Yet even Seckendorf gives us
to understand that, in his cooler moments, the reformer availed
himself of Emser's corrections, and made many changes in
his version. f

Stlll, however, Martin Bucer, a brother reformer, says that
" his falls in translating and explaining the Scriptures were
manifest and not a few." J Zuingle, another leading reformer,
after having examined his translation, openly pronounced it
a corruption of the word of God.§ It has now grown almost
obsolete, even in Germany itself. It is viewed as faulty and
insufficient in many respects. In 1836, many Lutheran con
sistories called for its entire revision.]]

It would not be difficult to show that the translations made
by the other leading reformers were not more unexception
able. Luther returned with interest the compliment which
Zuingle had paid to his Bible.

" (Ecolampadius and the theologians of Basle made another version ; but,
according to the famous Beza, it was impious in many parts : the divines of
Basle said the same of Beza's version. In fact, adds Dumoulin, another
learned minister, ' he changes in it the text of Scripture ;' and speaking

* Seckendorf, Comm., 1. i, sect. 52, § cxxvii, p. 210. f Ibid., § cxxii.

| " Lutheri lapsus in vertendis et explanandis Scripturis manifestos esse
et non paucos." — Bucer, Dial, contra Melancthon.

$ See Amicable Discussion, by Bishop Trevern, i, 129, note.

|| See Audin, p. 215,^ for many authorities on this subject. Of Luther's
version, Mr. Hallam says : " The translation of the Old and New Testament
by Luther is more renowned for the purity of its German idiom, than for its
adherence to the original text. Simon has charged him with ignorance of
Hebrew ; and when we consider how late he came to the knowledge of that
or the Greek language, and the multiplicity of his employments, it may be
believed that his knowledge of them was far from extensive." — Hist. Liter-
at, i, 201. And in a note (ibid.) he says : " It has been as ill spoken of
among Calvinists as by the Catholics themselves. St. Aldegonde says it is
further from the Hebrew than any he knows." — See Gerdes Hist. Ke£
Evang., iii, 60.

308 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON THE BIBLE,

of Calvin's translation, he says that ' Calvin does violence to the letter of the
gospel, which he has changed, making also additions of his own.' The
ministers of Geneva believed themselves obliged to make an exact version ;
but James I., king of England, in his conference at Hampton Court, declared
that, of all the versions, it was the most wicked and unfaithful."*

It is very difficult for men who have their own peculiar
religious notions to subserve, to translate fairly the sacred
text. An example of this is found in the manifestly sectarian
rendering of the words baptism and baptize^ by immersion
and immerse, in the New Testament translated by George
Campbell, James McKnight, and Philip Doddridge, and now
more or less extensively used by the Reformers or Campbell-
ites. We say nothing here of the gross perversion of the last
verse of St. Matthew's Gospel, in this version. f

The version of King James, on its first appearance in En
gland, was openly decried by the Protestant ministers, as
abounding in gross perversions of the original text.J The
necessity of this new translation was predicated on the noto-

* Bishop Trevern. Amic. Discussion, i, 127, note.

f Even this version does not, however, seem to satisfy the prurient taste
for change nourished by these new religionists, who in conjunction with the
Baptists are now busily engaged in what is called the revision movement.
An animated and interesting controversy has thence arisen between them and
the other Protestant sects in regard to the fidelity of the received version of King
James, the numerous faults of which are unsparingly censured by the advo
cates of the new version. Thus, after boasting of the Bible as their only
rule of faith for three centuries, the Protestants of the United States are not
yet satisfied on the great question, whether they really have a faithful ver
sion of the written word ! This would be comical enough, were it not so
very sad. Alas ! they are, " like little children, tossed to and fro by every
wind of doctrine." Oh ! that they would return to the bosom of the loving
mother against whom their fathers so unhappily rebelled ! She would re
ceive them, and all dissension would cease in her harmonious household.

| After speaking rather disparagingly of the English style of King James'
version, Mr. Hallam very cautiously abstains from venturing an opinion on
its fidelity:

" On the more important question, whether this translation is entirely, or
with very trifling exceptions, conformable to the original text, it seems unfit

THE DOUAY AND VULGATE. 309

rious corruptions of the sacred text by all the Protestant ver
sions in England during the previous seventy years. The
chief of these were : Tyndale's, Mathews', Cranmer's, and the
bishops' Bible.* Here, then, is an open avowal, that during
all this time, when Protestantism was in its palmiest days in
England, it had not yet offered to the people the pure word
of God!

And, as we have just seen, King James' version did not
much mend the matter. It was however repeatedly corrected :
but even in its amended form, as now used by most English
and American Protestants, it still abounds with grievous
faults. Mr. Ward, in his Errata, has pointed out a great
number of these : — though candor compels us to avow, that
this writer is not always judicious in his criticism, and that he
frequently insists too much on mere trifles. Archbishop Ken-
rick, in his Theology, proves by a reference to the original
text, as edited even by Protestants, that the modern English
version still retains at least five or six grievous perversions of
the text, in matters too, affecting doctrine.f

The English Douay version, which is in general use among
English and American Catholics, is a translation from the
Latin Vulgate, which was rendered from the original Hebrew
and revised from the original Greek by St. Jerome, towards

to enter. It is one which is seldom discussed with all the temper and free
dom from oblique views which the subject demands, and upon which, for
this reason, it is not safe for those who have not had leisure or means to ex
amine for themselves, to take upon trust the testimony of the learned." —
Hist. Literat, sup. cit., vol. ii, p. 59. This silence is ominous in so learned
an English Protestant.

* For an account of these see Hallam. — Hist. Lit., vol. i, p. 201.

f Theologia Dogmatica, vol. i, p. 427, seqq. Among these perversions, the
most glaring are these ; Matth., xix : llth, "All men can not receive this say
ing," for "receive not" — Greek, xuP°v<u'. 1 Corinth., vii: 9. "If theyeaft not
contain," for do not contain — Gr., tyicptxr6vavr€U ; 1 Cor., ix : 5. " Have we
not power to lead about a sister, a wife" for a woman, a sister — Gr., adetyifv
ywalna ; 1 Cor., xi : 27. " Eat this bread and drink," etc., for or drink — •
Gr., #, etc , etc.

310 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION r.N T::K J IDLE.

the close of the fourth century. Dating from a time preced
ing by centuries the religious prejudices which have influ
enced Christians for the last three hundred years, the Vulgate
is deservedly esteemed for its accuracy and impartiality, even
by learned and intelligent Protestant writers. St. Jerome,
moreover, had access to many valuable manuscripts which
have since perished. Since his time the Hebrew has under
gone a revolution, by the introduction of the Massoretic
points to supply the place of vowels, which were wanting in
the original Hebrew language.

The distinguished Protestant biblical critic, George Camp
bell, states these advantages of St. Jerome's position, and
fully admits their force.* He also says of this ancient ver
sion : " The Yulgate may be pronounced on the whole a good
and faithful version ."f Another famous modern Protestant
writer on biblical studies, says of it : " It is allowed to be in
general a faithful translation, and sometimes exhibits the
sense of Scripture with greater accuracy than the more mod
ern versions The Latin Vulgate preserves many true

readings, where the modern Hebrew copies are corrupted. "J
A writer, whose biblical "Institutes" are often used as a text
book in this country, says: "It is in general skillful and
faithful, and often gives the sense of Scripture better than
modern versions."§

Thus Protestants did not after all, even according to their
own showing, make much of a reformation in the Bible,
when they departed from that " faithful " translation, — the old
Latin Vulgate, and gave us in its place their many crude or
grossly faulty versions of the Bible. But did they succeed
better in expounding, than they had succeeded in translating the
Eible ? They have been at least prolific enough in this depart-

* Dissert., torn, x, p. 354, Amer. edit., apud Archbishop Kenrick. — Theol.
Dog., i, p. 424. f Ibid., p. 358, apud eundem.

| Home's Introduction, vol. ii, part i, ch. v, $ 1, p. 281, 202. Apud Arch
bishop Kenrick, ibid., p. 423.

$ Gerard, Institutes of Biblical Criticism. § iv, p. 269-70. Apud eund., ibid.

EXTRAVAGANCE IN INTERPRETATION. 311

ment, having given us almost as many interpretations as they
have heads. We could scarcely have asked for more variety !

Nor is the work of improvement on the previously ascer
tained meanings of the Bible yet completed : almost every
day we hear of learned and intelligent preachers among Prot
estants striking new systems out of this good book !* One,f
by a new method calculates to a nicety the very year and
day when all prophecy is to be fulfilled, and the world is to
come to a final end : another, J pretending that all Protestant
sects have hitherto been in the dark as to the real meaning
of the Bible, proposes that all creeds and commentaries be
cast to the winds, and that every one hereafter explain it sim
ply as it reads : — that is, as he thinks it reads ! This last
system, though it is clearly based on the original Protestant
principle of private interpretation, to the exclusion of all church
authority, is, for this very reason, one eminently calculated to
multiply sects, and to render confusion even worse confounded.

Let us see, in conclusion, what has been the practical ope
ration of this principle of private interpretation, and what
the general influence of the Reformation on biblical studies
in Germany, the father-land, and first theater ol Protestantism.
Has it been salutary or injurious ? It requires but little ac
quaintance with the present condition of German Protestant
ism, to be able to pronounce on its true character and real
tendency. Rationalism is there in the ascendant. This sys
tem, which is little better than downright Deism, has frittered
away the very substance of Christianity. The inspiration of
the Bible itself, the integrity of its canon, the truth of its
numerous and clearly attested miracles, the divinity and even
the resurrection of Christ, and the existence of grace, and of
everything supernatural in religion ; have all fallen before
the Juggernaut-car like of modern German Protestant exege
sis — or system of interpretation ! The Rationalists of Ger-

* These new systems are certainly out of the Bible,
f Miller. \ Alexander Campbell.

312 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON THE BIBLE.

many have left nothing of Christianity, scarcely even its life
less skeleton ! They boldly and unblushingly proclaim their
infidel principles, through the press, from the professor's
chair, and from the pulpit. And the most learned and dis
tinguished among the present German Protestant clergy have
openly embraced this infidel system. Whoever doubts the
entire accuracy of this picture of modern German Protest
antism, needs only open the works of Semmler, Damon,
Paulus, Strauss, Eichorn, Michaelis, Teuerbach, Bretschnei-
der, "Woltman, and others. ;V

The following extract from the sermons of the Eev. Dr.
Rose, a learned divine of the church of England, and "Chris
tian advocate of the university of Cambridge," presents a
graphic sketch of these German Rationalists :

" They are bound by no law, but their own fancies ; some are more and
some are less extravagant; but I do them no injustice after this declaration
in saying, that the general inclination and tendency of their opinions (more
or less forcibly acted on) is this : — that in the New Testament, we shall find
only the opinions of Christ and the apostles adapted to the age in which
they lived, and not eternal truths; that Christ himself had neither the
design nor the power of teaching any system which was to endure ; that,
when He taught any enduring truth, as He occasionally did, it was without
being aware of its nature ; that the apostles understood still less of real
religion ; that the whole doctrine both of Christ and the apostles, as it was
directed to the Jews alone, so it was gathered from no other source than the
Jewish philosophy ; that Christ himself erred (!), and His apostles spread His
errors, and that consequently no one of His doctrines is to be received on
their authority ; but that, without regard to the authority of the books of
Scripture, and their asserted divine origin, each doctrine is to be examined
according to the principles of right reason, before it is allowed to be divine."

"We should be endless were we to attempt to give all the
extravagances into which these German Protestant divines
have indulged : yet we must give a few of the most glaring.
Doctor Paulus, in his Scripture Commentaries, enters into a
labored argument to prove that Christ was not really dead,
but that he had merely suffered a fainting fit, from which he
was recovered by the admission of fresh air into his sepulchre !
He moves heaven and earth to prove, that no instance is on

GERMAN RATIONALISM. 313

record of a man dying on a cross in three hours ! ! He indulges
in similar absurdities about the resurrection of Lazarus !

"When Christ is said to have walked on the sea, it is no
miracle at all, says Doctor Paulus : for the Greek word may
mean only that he walked ~by the sea, or simply that he
swam: and St. Peter's having been on the point of drown
ing, resulted merely from the not extraordinary circumstance
that he was not so expert a swimmer as Christ ! Most of the
cures spoken of in the Gospel, the Eationalists explain by the
superior skill in medicine, which, they Jiave ascertained, our
Saviour learned during His infancy, while an exile in Egypt ;
or they account for them by Dr. Mesmer's wonderful system
of animal magnetism!

According to them, St. John did not really write the Gospel
ascribed to him ; and as for the other three Gospels, they are
merely a clumsy compilation from a previous common record,
the existence of which they have detected, and which they
assert was written in the Aramaic language ! This astonish
ing discovery, first made by the learned Michaelis, was im
proved on by Berthold and others, who maintained that not
only the Gospels, but the Epistles of St. Paul, and the other
Epistles also, are mere faulty translations from the original
Aramaic ! Thus, " instead of the good old-fashioned notion,
that the New Testament is a collection of works composed
by the persons whose names they bear, and who wrote under
the immediate inspiration of the Holy Ghost, we must now
believe, that the original narrator of the Gospel History was
an unknown person ; and that the Gospels and Epistles are
merely translations made by some persons whose names are
lost, and who betray themselves by several blunders in the
work which they undertook."* — At least all these explana
tions are natural enough : and those who maintain them, accord
ingly style themselves naturaliMs^ as well as Rationalists. f

* British Critic, July, 1828. See also Dr. Pusey's " Historical Inquiry ;"
and also Moore's " Travels of an Irish Gentleman," etc., p. 186, seqq., where
this whole subject is ably and fully elucidated.

f In viewing these extraordinary and almost incredible developments of

VOL. i.— 27

314 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON THE BIBLE.

Such then are the effects, present and palpable, of the
Reformation on the biblical literature of Germany! The
Reformation began by vaunting its zeal for the Bible : it has
ended, in the very place of its birth, by rejecting the Bible,
and by blaspheming Christ and His holy religion.

Its results have not been more favorable to Christianity in
Geneva, another great center of the Reformation, and another
radiating point of the new gospel. Hear what the Protest
ant writer Grenus says on this subject:

" The ministers of Geneva have already passed the unchangeable barrier.
They have held out the hand of fellowship to deists and to the enemies of
the faith. They even blush to make mention, in their catechisms, of origi
nal sin, without which the incarnation of the Eternal Word is no longer ne
cessary. ' When asked,' says Rousseau, ' if Jesus Christ is God, they do
not dare to answer. When asked, what mysteries they admit, they still do

not dare to answer A philosopher casts on them a rapid glance, and

penetrates them at once — he sees they are Arians, Socinians.' "f

He wrote from personal observation, made during a residence
in Geneva. Recent travelers have confirmed his statement.

The following epigram would seem to express pretty accurately
the confession of faith adopted by modern German Protestants.

"We now reject each mystic creed,

To common sense a scandal ;
We're more enlightened — yes indeed,

The devil holds the candle !"

If Luther may be credited, Satan "held the candle" at
the very birth of the Reformation ; and we see no reason why
he should not hold it at the funeral of German Protestantism !
If he presided at the baptism of the mother, why should he
not assist at the funeral of the daughter ?

the principle of private judgment, we are forcibly reminded of what St. Paul
writes of the ancient philosophers, that they " became vain in their thoughts,"
and "thinking themselves wise, became fools." The sad aberrations of these
learned German bibliomaniacs furnish palpable evidence of the absolute neces
sity of a divinely appointed guide in religious matters.
f "Lettres de la Montagne."

PART IV.

INFLUENCE

OP THE

KEFORMATION ON SOCIETY.

CHAPTER XII.

INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON RELIGIOUS

LIBERTY.

Stating the question — Two aspects — Professions — D'Aubigne's theory—-
"Combating" ad libitum — Diversities and sects — Inconsistency — Early
Protestant intolerance — The mother and her recreant daughter — Facts on
persecution of each other by early Protestants — Of Karlstadt — Luther
the cause of it — Persecution of Anabaptists — Synod at Homburg — Lu
ther's letter — Zuingle — The drowned Jew — Calvinistic intolerance — Per
secution of Catholics — Diet of Spires — Name of Protestant — A stubborn
truth — Strange casuistry — Convention at Smalkalde — Testimony of Men-
zel — CUJTJS EEGIO, EJUS KELIGIO — Union of church and state — A bear's
embrace — Hallam's testimony — Parallel between Catholic and Protestant
countries.

WE have seen what was the influence of the boasted ' Ref
ormation on religion : we are now to examine how it affected
the less important interests of this world.

Among these, liberty is the one which is, perhaps, the
dearest to the human heart. The very name excites a thrill,
and stirs the deepest feelings of the soul. Did the Reforma
tion really promote liberty ? Did it break the fetters of politi
cal bondage, and especially did it favor freedom of conscience ?
Were those who came within the range of its influence ren
dered more free, either religiously or politically, than they
had been before? This is the important question which we
now proceed to discuss. The question naturally presents
two aspects ; and we begin with that which is religious, both
because this involves higher interests, and because it forms
the natural point of transition from the merely religious and

( 315 )

316 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

spiritual, to the merely secular and temporal influence of the
Reformation.

Religious liberty guaranties to every man the right to wor
ship God according to the dictates of his conscience, without
thereby incurring any civil penalties or disabilites whatever.
Did the Reformation secure this boon, even to its own vota
ries ? We shall see. A summary collection of the facts of his
tory bearing on this important subject will settle the question.

The Reformation indeed boasted much in this particular
respect. It professed to free mankind from the degrading yoke
of the Papacy, and thereby to restore to them their Chris
tian liberty. Men were told that those who professed the old
religion were groaning under a worse than Babylonian captiv
ity, and that they who would rally under the banner of re
form would be brought back from exile into the beautiful
land of Israel, there to worship in freedom and in peace near
the Sion of God! The Pope was Antichrist; the Church
was ruthlessly trampled under foot by his followers and espe
cially by his ministers ; the liberties of the world were entirely
crushed. All men were invited to arise in their strength, to
break their chains, and to be free ! The restraining influence
of Church authority was to be spurned, as wholly incompati
ble with freedom, arid each one was to be guided solely by
his own private judgment in matters of religion.

The Germans were told of the grievances they had had to
endure in ages past from the court of Rome. Angry pas
sions, once excited by long forgotten controversies between
the Germanic empire and the Roman Pontiffs, were called up
again from the abyss in which they had slumbered for cen
turies ; and the Germans were implored, in the enticing
name of liberty, to break off all connection with Rome for
ever. In case they would do this, the Reformation promised
that they should realize the brightest visions of freedom, and
the blessing of true and independent manhood.*

* Some one has remarked that the Germans remember a grievance of five

CHURCH AUTHORITY AND PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 317

Such was the specious theory of the Reformation ; such is even
at present the boasting speculation of Protestant writers gener
ally. M. Guizot, in his Lectures on Civilization in Modern Eu
rope, asserts, that through the Reformation was brought about
" the emancipation of the human mind." According to D'Au-
bigne, the Catholic Church had utterly destroyed all human
liberty:

" But as a besieging army day by day contracts its lines, compelling the
garrison to confine their movements within the narrow inclosure of the
fortress, and at last obliging it to surrender at discretion, just so the hier
archy, from age to age, and almost from year to year, has gone on restricting
the liberty allowed for a time to the human mind, until at last, by succes
sive encroachments, there remained no liberty at all. That which was to
be believed, loved, or done, was regulated and decreed in the courts of the
Roman chancery. The faithful were relieved from the trouble of examin
ing, reflecting, and combating ; all they had to do was to repeat the formu
laries that had been taught them."*

This is, to use the softest expression, an absurd exaggera
tion and a grotesque romance, which has not even the merit
of resemblance — or what the French call vraisemJblance — to
the reality of the facts. "What ! were men then, for fifteen
hundred years, mere automata ? Did the obedience to the
decisions of the Church stifle all rational liberty ? Had not
Christ enjoined this very obedience on all, under the penalty
of being ranked with heathens and publicans ?f Did Christ
and the apostles leave it free for men to decide, by their
private judgment, whether they would receive or reject the
doctrines they taught ? And in enjoining obedience on all,
with the menace of eternal damnation to him that would not

hundred years' standing almost as acutely as they do one of yesterday,
whenever the memory of the former is revived. If true, this national trait
of character may serve to throw some additional light on the excitement
which was aroused in Germany by the violent harangues of Luther and his
colleagues. The German temperament, though phlegmatic, is sufficiently
enthusiastic when once fully aroused to a sense of wrong, whether present
or long passed ; for the German poetic imagination seems to annihilate tune
and space. * D'Aubigne, vol. iii, p. 237. f St Matthew, xviii.

318 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

believe,* did they intend to crush all liberty? Might not our
historian, with the very same, if not even with stronger reason,
also taunt their practice with being inimical to freedom, on
the ground that it " relieved the faithful from the trouble of
examining, reflecting, and combating?"

In what, in fact, consists the difference between the authori
tative teaching of the first body of Christ's ministers — the
apostles, and that of the body of pastors who, by divine com
mission, succeeded them in the office of preaching, teaching,
and baptizing, and who, in the discharge of these sacred
duties, were promised the divine assistance "all days, even
to the consummation of the world ?"f And if the latter was
opposed to rational liberty, why was not the former ? Be
sides, we learn, for the first time, that the Roman chancery
decided on articles of faith : we had always thought that this
was the exclusive province of general councils, and, when
these were not in session, of the Roman Pontiffs with the con
sent or acquiescence of the body of bishops dispersed over
the world. We had also, in our simplicity, believed that
even these did not always decide on controverted points, but
only in cases in which the teaching of revelation was clear
and explicit ; and that, in other matters, they wisely allowed
a reasonable latitude of opinion. But D'Aubigne has taught
us better ! He would have us believe that Roman Catholics
are bound hand and" foot, body and soul, and that they are
not allowed even to reflect !

They were certainly not allowed to "combat:" — this was
the special privilege of the reformed party. The old Church
wisely ordained that all the "combating" should take place,
if at all, outside her pale : she would permit no wrangling
nor sects within her own bosom. It is indeed curious to ob
serve, how D'Aubigne boasts of this glorious new gospel
privilege of wrangling among discordant sects, as the very
quintessence of Christian liberty ! , This precious liberty could

* St. Mark, xvi. f St. Matthew, xxviii.

FREEDOM TO COMBAT. 319

not be enjoyed so long as a recognition of the conservative
principle of Church authority held the religious world in re
ligious unity ; the reformers therefore determined to burst
this bond of union, and to assert their pugnacious freedom " to
combat" at will! He says:

" The Reformation, in restoring liberty to the Church, must therefore res
tore to it its original diversity (!), and people it with families united by the
great features of resemblance derived from their common head, but varying
in secondary features, and reminding us of the varieties inherent in human
nature. Perhaps it might have been desirable that this diversity should
have been allowed to subsist in the universal church without leading to
sectarian divisions ; and yet we must remember that sects are only the ex
pression of this diversity."*

Humiliating avowal ! Sects are therefore as essential char
acteristics of Protestantism, as are the "diversities" of which
they are but the expression! And Christian liberty neces
sarily carries sects along with it! St. Paul, a competent
authority, reckons sects and dissensions with murders and
drunkenness; and he says of them all, that "they who do
such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God."f Thus,
according to our historian, an essential element of the Refor
mation is, at the same time, an essential bar to entrance into
the kingdom of heaven ! The Reformation is welcome to all
the merit of having originated such a system of liberty as
this! As well might its panegyrist have claimed for it, as
essential to the liberty which it brought into the world, a
license for murders and drunkenness !

A little further on, he thus glories in the shame of Pro
testantism :

" True it is, that human passion found an entrance into these discussions
(among Protestant sects), but while deploring such minglings of evil, Pro
testantism, far from seeking to disguise the diversity, publishes and proclaims
it. Its path to unity is indeed long and difficult, but the unity it proposes
is recd."\

Real in what ? Is there one common ground of unity which

* D'Aubigue, iii, p. 238. f Gallatinns, v : 20, 21. \ D'Aubigne, iii, p. 238.

320 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

Protestantism has not recklessly trodden down and rendered
desolate? Truly its path to unity "has been long and diffi
cult!" During three hundred years, its tortuous course has
been seen winding in more than a hundred different directions,
and it has not yet led the weary wanderer to unity !

It has done precisely the contrary. It is a strange "path to
unity," truly, which has always led to disunion. " Diversities
and sects" have multiplied, and grown with the growth of
Protestantism: they are avowedly its "essential features."
There is scarcely one saving truth of revelation which Pro
testantism, in its ever downward career, has not frittered
away. And yet we are to be told, that "the unity which it
proposed was real." If such was the case, it certainly never
carried into effect what it had proposed.

The only principle of unity possible among Protestants, is
an agreement to disagree. But we are prepared to prove,
that they were not disposed to meet even on this doubtful
and slippery ground of union. One wrould have thought,
that when the Reformation emancipated its disciples from
the duty of obedience to Rome, and proclaimed the principle
of private judgment as the broad basis, the magna charta, of
the new system of Christian liberty, that it would at least
have guarantied to them freedom of thought and of judgment
in matters of religion. Surely after having indignantly re
jected the principle of Church authority, as incompatible
with liberty, Protestantism would not attempt to enthrone
again this self-same principle, much less to impose it as an
obligation on its own followers.

Yet this course, absurd and inconsistent as it manifestly
was, was the very one adopted, without one exception, by
the numerous sects to which the Reformation gave birth!
If there be any truth in history, the reformers were them
selves the most intolerant of men, not only towards the
Catholic Church, but towards each other. They could not
brook dissent from the crude notions on religion which they
had broached. Men might protest against the decisions of

INTOLERANCE OF LUTHER. 321

the Catholic Church ; but woe to them, if, following out their
own private judgment, they dared protest against the self-
constituted authority of the new-fangled Protestant sects.
We have already given many proofs of this: but we here
beg leave to submit the following additional facts. And we
will allege little but Protestant authority, and the testimony
of the reformers themselves.*

Mr. Eoscoe, whose pen has so glowingly depicted the bright
literary age of Leo X., justly censures "the severity with
which Luther treated those, who unfortunately happened to
believe too much on the one hand, or too little on the other,
and could not walk steadily on the hair-breadth line which he
had presented." He also makes the following appropriate
remark on this same glaring inconsistency :

" Whilst Luther was engaged in his opposition to the Church of Rome, he
asserted the right of private judgment with the confidence and courage of a
martyr. But no sooner had he freed his followers from the chains of papal
domination, than he forged others in many respects equally intolerable ; and
it was the employment of his latter years, to counteract the beneficial effects
produced by his former labors."f

The tyrannical and intolerant character of Luther, the
father of the Reformation, is in fact admitted by all candid
Protestants. We have already seen the testimony which his
most favored disciple, Melancthon, bears to his brutal conduct
even towards himself, whenever he timidly ventured to diifer
from him in opinion. The vile state of bondage in which the
fierce reformer held his meek disciple is thus graphically
painted in a confidential letter of Melancthon to his friend
Camerarius : " I am in a state of servitude, as if I were in
the cave of the Cyclops : and often do I think of making my
escape."J Even Dr. Sturges, a most inveterate enemy of

* We shall have occasion to furnish much additional evidence on this
subject in our second volume, where we will treat of the Reformation in
other parts of Europe.

f Life and Pontificate of Leo X., in 4 vols. 8vo.

| Epist ad Camerarium.

322 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

Rome, grants that "Luther was in his manners and writings,
coarse, presuming, and impetuous."*

The other reformers were little better than Luther in regard
to charity and toleration. The Protestant bishop Warburton
gives the following character of all of them: "The other re
formers, such as Luther, Calvin, and their followers, under
stood so little in what true Christianity consisted, that they
carried with them into the reformed churches, that very spirit
of persecution (!) which had driven them from the Church of
Rome."f As we shall soon see, the recreant daughters of
Rome far outstripped their mother in intolerance. We have
already proved, that it was not persecution, but other causes
altogether, which drove them from Rome, and consummated
their schism. Rome had indeed been inflexible on the subject
of doctrines, upon which she could allow no compromise ; but
she proceeded towards the reformers with so much mildness
and moderation, as to have secured the admiration of even
D'Aubigne, whose testimony on the subject we have already
given. So far was she from persecuting them, that many
Catholic writers have blamed, as excessive and injudicious,
the mildness of her Pontiffs, and epecially that of Leo X. and
Adrian VI.

From an early period of its history, the Reformation was
disgraced with the crime of persecution for conscience' sake.
The oldest branch of it, the Lutheran, not only fiercely de
nounced, and even sometimes excluded from salvation, the
reformed or Calvinistic branch; but it also endeavored to
check by violence the fierce discord which raged within its
own bosom. A learned Lutheran professor, Dr. Fecht, gives
it as the opinion of his sect, " that all but Lutherans, and
certainly all the reformed Calvinists were excluded from
salvation."J The Lutheran Strigel was imprisoned for three
years by his brother religionists, for maintaining that man

* Reflections on Popery. f Notes on Pope's Essay on Criticism.

| See Dr. Pusey's " Historical Inquiry," sup. cit.

HOW HE TREATED KARLSTADT. 323

was not a merely passive instrument in the work of his con
version. Hardenburg was banished from Saxony for having
been guilty of some leaning towards the Calvinistic doctrines
on the Eucharist. Shortly after Luther's death, the Lutherans
were divided into two great sects, the ultra Lutherans and
the Melancthonians, who mutually denounced each other, and
even refused to unite in the rites of communion and burial. So
far was the intolerance growing out of this controversy carried,
that Peucer, Melancthon's son-in-law, was imprisoned for ten
years, for having espoused the party of his father-in-law : and
CracaUj another Lutheran, was plied with the torture for a
similar offense ! Besides these two great Lutheran sects, there
were also the Flaccianists and the Strigelians, the Osiandri-
ans and the Stancarians, and many others, who all persecuted
one another with relentless fury. Lutheranism was thus, from
its very birth, a prey to the fiercest dissensions. Verily, they
claimed and fully exercised the precious liberty of " combat
ing," so essential, according to D'Aubigne, to the Protestant
idea of religious liberty.*

The first who dared question the infallibility of Luther was
the first to feel the heavy weight of his intolerant vengeance.
Andrew Bodenstein, more generally known by the name of
Karlstadt, could not agree with him as to the lawfulness of
images, the real presence, infant baptism, and some other
topics. He had reached totally different conclusions, by fol
lowing his own private judgment in expounding the Scrip
tures. During Luther's absence from Wittenberg, he had
sought to make proselytes to his new opinions in the very
citadel of the Reformation. Luther caused him to be driven
from Wittenberg, and hunted him down with implacable re
sentment, driving him from city to city of Germany ; till at
last the unfortunate victim of his intolerance expired a miser
able outcast at Basle in Switzerland.

* For more on this subject, see the authorities quoted by Moore. — Travels
of an Irish Gentleman, p. 172, seqq., and 192, seqq. ; to whom we are in
debted for many of the above quotations.

324 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

When Karlstadt first left Wittenberg, he fled to Orlamunde,
a city of Saxony, in which he succeeded by intrigue in obtain
ing the place of pastor. Luther followed him thither ; and
finding, as we have already seen, that he could not succeed
in having him ejected from the city by popular clamor, he
prevailed on his powerful patron, the elector of Saxony, to
banish him from Saxony. Karlstadt received the sentence of
his condemnation with a heavy heart.

" He looked on Luther as the author of his disgrace, and filled Germany
with his complaints and lamentations. He wrote a farewell letter to his friends
at Orlamunde. The bells were tolled, and the letter read in the presence
of the sorrowing church. It was signed : ' Andrew Bodenstein, expelled by
Luther, unconvicted, and without even a hearing.' "*

It is in vain for D'Aubigne, whose words we have just
cited, to pretend that this persecution of Karlstadt was not
brought about by Luther.y The testimony of Karlstadt, and
of all Germany, to the sympathy of which he appealed, as
well as the voice of all history, is against this hypothesis. So
certain was it, that he owed his sufferings to the influence of
Luther with the elector of Saxony, that, when wearied of his
wanderings from city to city, he sought repose for his gray
hairs in his native Saxony, he had only to invoke the sym
pathy of Luther. The sternness of the Saxon monk relented :
he permitted Karlstadt to return to the neighborhood of Wit
tenberg; but only on condition that he should retract his
errors, and cease to preach .J Karlstadt joyfully accepted the
humiliating conditions : he resided for some time " in a kind
of domestic exile at Remberg and Bergwitz — two small villa
ges, whence he could just see the steeples of Wittenberg."§
But he soon forgot his promise : he abandoned the agricul
tural pursuits in which he had been engaged, and, Bible in
hand, sought again to disseminate his doctrines. Luther's

* D'Aubigne, vol iii, p. 179. He cites Luther's Epist. ii, 558, edit, de
Wette. t Ibid.

I Gustavus Pfizer — " Martin Luther's Leiben," Ulenberg, and Ad. Men-
zel— "Neuere Geschichte Deutchen," 1, 269. $ Audin, p. 419.

A^7D THE ANABAPTISTS. 325

spirit of intolerance was again aronsed ; and again was Karl-
stadt banished, never more to return to Wittenberg.

There were two other Lutheran theologians who shared his
fate : Krautwald and Schwenkfeld, who were likewise forced
to quit Saxony for having rebelled against the authority of
the Saxon monk. In a letter to these companions in misfor
tune, Karlstadt draws a lively picture of the distress to which
he had been reduced by the intolerance of Luther: "I shall
soon be forced," says he, "to sell all, in order to support my
self — my clothes, my delf, all my furniture. ~No one takes
pity on me ; and I fear that both I and my child shall perish
with hunger."* He also addressed a long letter of complaint
against Luther, to Briick, the chancellor of Saxony :f but it
was all unavailing. Luther was omnipotent at court, and
Karlstadt perished in exile ! — "Why does D'Aubigne conceal
all these important facts ? We are not at all astonished at it :
his history is of the same unfair and partial character
throughout.

The cruel persecutions of the Anabaptists is another dark
page in the history of the Reformation. To be sure, these
sectarists taught many things subversive of all social order :
such as polygamy and disobedience to all constituted author
ity. But their chief crimes, in the eyes of Luther and the
reformers, were their rejection of Luther's authority, their
pretensions to supernatural lights, and their protest against
infant baptism, and baptism by any other mode than immer
sion. A little before the meeting of the diet at Augsburg in
1534, Rothmann, one of their principal prophets, had openly
announced his principles in the streets of that city. The
people were captivated by his bold eloquence, and seduced
by the novelty of his doctrines. In vain did the preachers
of reform attempt to argue with this enthusiast, who claimed
immediate inspiration from heaven. The people cried out, in
triumph; "Answer Roth maim: Catholics, Lutherans, Zuin-

* Apud Audin, p. 420. t Ibid.

326 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

glians — you are all in the way of perdition. The only path to
heaven is that pointed out by our master : whoever walks not
in it, will be involved in eternal darkness."*

But the Lutherans did not think proper to answer his argu
ments. Both he and the Zuinglians had prepared a confes
sion of faith to be presented to the Diet. Luther and Me-
lancthon succeeded by their influence in preventing them
from being even heard at the Diet. The former wrote to the
latter from Coburg in a tone of triumph: "That all was de
cided ; that the doctrine of Zuingle and of Rothmann was
diabolical ; and that these sowers of discord, these ravenous
wolves, who devastated the fold of Christ, should be ban
ished.'^ At this same Diet, the Lutherans sought for them
selves, not only liberty of conscience, but churches to worship
in, and all the privileges of citizenship ; and still they would
not allow their adversaries even to be heard ! And yet, as
Audin well remarks, " Rothmann at Augsburg, was precisely
what Luther had been at Worms."J

The Lutherans carried out their intolerant principles in
regard to the Anabaptists. On the 7th of August, 1536, a
synod was convened at Homburg, to which deputies were
sent by all the cities who had separated from Rome. The
chief object of the meeting was to devise means for exter
minating the Anabaptists. Not one voice was raised in their
favor. Even Melancthon, whom Audin styles " the Fenelon
of the Reformation," voted for inflicting the punishment of
death on every Anabaptist who would remain obstinate in
his errors, or who would dare return from the place of banish
ment to which the magistrates might transport him. Fenelon
would not have been thus intolerant.

" The ministers of Ulm demanded that heresy should be extinguished by
fire and sword. Those of Augsburg said : ' If we have not yet sent any
Anabaptist to the gibbet, we have at least branded their cheeks with red
Iron.' Those of Tubingen cried out ' mercy, for the poor Anabaptists, who

* See Catrou — Histoire de 1'Anabaptisme, and Audin, p. 459.

f Apud Audin, ibid. See the authorities he quotes, ibid, f Ibid., p. 460.

SYNOD OF HOMBURG. 327

are seduced by their leaders ; but death to the ministers of this sect.' The
chancellor showed himself much more tolerant : he wished that the Ana
baptists should be imprisoned, where by dint of hard usage, they might be
converted."*

From this synod emanated a decree, from which we will
present the following extract, as a specimen of Lutheran in-
tolerence, officially proclaimed :

"Whoever rejects infant baptism — whoever transgresses the orders of the
magistrates — whoever preaches against taxes — whoever teaches the com
munity of goods — whoever usurps the priesthood — whoever holds unlawful

assemblies — whoever sins against faith — shall be punished with death

As for the simple people who have not preached, or administered baptism,
but who were seduced to permit themselves to frequent the assemblies of
the heretics, if they do not wish to renounce Anabaptism, they shall be
scourged, punished with perpetual exile, and even with death, if they return
three times to the place whence they have been expelled."f

Philip, the pious landgrave of Hesse, professed to have
some scruples of conscience on the severity of this decree r
he consulted Luther on the subject.J The monk answered
him in a letter dated from Wittenberg, the Monday after
Pentecost of the same year. He therein openly defended
persecution on Scriptural grounds :

" Whoever denies the doctrines of our faith — aye, even one article which
rests on the Scripture, or the authority of the universal teaching of the
church (!), must be punished severely. He must be treated not only as a
heretic, but also as a blasphemer of the holy name of God. It is not neces
sary to lose time in disputes with such people : they are to be condemned
as impious blasphemers."

Towards the close of this letter, speaking of a false teacher,

* Catrou, ut supra liv. i, p. 224, seqq., and Audin, p. 464.

| Ibid. See also Gastius, p. 365, seqq. Menzel, ut supra, and Meshovius,
1. v, cap. xv, xviii, seqq., etc.

| W. Menzel confirms this. Speaking of the same Diet of Augsburg in
which the Lutheran confession of faith which bears its name was presented,
he says, that the landgrave of Hesse suddenly left the meeting, " filled with
anger at the weakness of his friends in subscribing to the decree, by which
the disciples of Zuingle were put under the ban of the empire." — Hist. Ger
many, vol. ii, p. 251.

328 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

he says : " Drive him away, as an apostle of hell : and if he
does not flee, deliver him up as a seditious man to the execu
tioner."* — The landgrave's scruples were quieted, and Lu
ther's advice was acted on !

Such, then, were the tender mercies of the Reformation!
Such the notions of the reformers on religious liberty ! How
different were they from those specious principles of univer
sal liberty by which they had allured multitudes to their
standard 1

The other reformers were not a whit better than Luther in
regard to toleration. D'Aubigne himself says, that at Zurich
fourteen men and seven women ;twere imprisoned on an
allowance of bread and water in the heretics' tower."f True,
he says, that this was done " in spite of Zuingle's entreaties ;"J
but he gives no authority whatever for this statement. We
know that Zuingle was almost omnipotent at Zurich, which
was to Switzerland, what Wittenberg was to Germany. Had
he really wished it, he might surely have prevented this cru
elty. He had indeed complained of Luther's intolerance,
when he was the victim of its violence. In a German work
published at Zurich in 1526, he had used this language in
regard to the course pursued by Luther and his party:

" See then, how these men, who owe all to the word, would wish now to
close the mouths of their opponents, who are at the same time their fellow
Christians. They cry out that we are heretics, and that we should not be
listened to. They proscribe our books, and denounce us to the magistrates." \

But when Ms star culminated, he was as fierce a bigot,
and as intolerant a tyrant, as those brother reformers whom
he thus strongly denounced. Did he not die on the field of
battle, fighting for his peculiar ideas of reform ? And did not
the Protestants of Switzerland throw the poor Anabaptists
into the Rhine, inclosed in sacks, and jeer them at the same

* Luth. Comment, in Psal. 71. Opp. Jenae torn, v, p. 147. Apud Audin,
p. 465. f D'Aubigne, vol. iii, p. 307.

1 Ibid. \ Apud Audin, p. 411.

CONVERTING A JEW! 329

time with the inhuman taunt, "That they were merely bap
tizing them by their own favorite method of immersion."*

This reminds us of a curious passage in the history of
early Lutheranism, which we will here give on the authority
of Florimond Eemond, almost a contemporary historian.!
Franz Yon Sickengen, the chief actor in the scene we are
about to present, was a disciple of Luther, who had dedicated
to him his treatise on confession, written at the "Wartburg,
in 1521.

" One day Franz was going from Frankfort to Mayence on the Maine. A
Jew entered the boat, with whom Franz began to dispute. As he was not
able to convince him by argument, he took him by the middle of the body,
and threw him into the river ; for Franz was a man of extraordinary strength.
Holding his victim suspended over the water by the hair, the following
dialogue took place : 'Acknowledge Jesus Christ, or I will drown you.' — 'I
acknowledge him to be my Saviour: 0 dear master, do not harm me!' —
'Say that you wish to be baptized.' — 'Yes, in the name of the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.' Then Franz took some water, which
he poured .on the head of the Jew, while at the same time he pronounced
the sacramental words : ' I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.' The poor Israelite now made a great
effort to rise : he clung to the boat, believing that the time of his deliverance
had arrived. The knight, however, struck him on the head with his gauntlet,
saying, ' Go to heaven, there is one soul more for paradise. Were I to draw
the wretch out of the water, he would den}'- Christ, and go to the devil.'
Luther on this occasion praised the Z3al of Franz !"

The Calvinists were at least as intolerant as the Lutherans.
"When the former gained the ascendency in a portion of Ger
many in which the latter had before been predominant, they
roused up the people against the sons of the devil, the mild
and charitable name which they gave the Lutherans.

* As we have already seen, the Protestant historian of Germany, Wolf
gang Menzel, bears evidence to this fact, when he says, speaking of the
Anabaptists : '' Zuingle declared against them, and caused several of them
to be drowned (A. D. 1524) ; but was nevertheless regarded by Luther as a
man who, under the cloak of spiritual liberty (!), sought to bring about
political changes." — Vol. ii, p. 233.

f " Huttenus delarvatus," p. 405. Apud Audin, p. 200.
VOL. I.— 38

330 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

"They drove them from their posts, of which they took possession.
'What a melancholy thing! More than a thousand Lutheran ministers
were proscribed, ivith their wives and children, and reduced to beg the
bread of charity,' says Olearius.* Calvinism could not tolerate Lutheran-
ism. It had appealed to Prince Casimir, and expressed its petition in
two Latin verses, in which the prince was left to choose, in extinguish*
ing the rival creed, between the sword, the wheel, the water, the rope, or
fire !—

" 0 Casimire potens, servos expelle Lutheri :
Ense, rota, ponto, funibus, igne neca."f

So inflexible were the early reformers and their disciples
on the subject of persecution, that even the emperor of Ger
many and the authority of the whole Germanic body could
not restrain their bitter intolerance against all who ventured
to differ from their own peculiar ideas of reform. Protestants
were resolved to persecute each other, though a Catholic
power — the highest in the empire — interposed and com
manded peace. The diet of Nurenberg, in 1532, had pro
claimed a religious amnesty throughout Germany. The
assembled princes wished to pour oil on the boiling waves
of controversy, in order to still them : but the waves would
not be quieted. The heads of the reformed party met at
Cadan in the following year, and resolved to exclude from
the peace, published by this diet, the Sacramentarians, the
Anabaptists, and other heterodox (not Lutheran) sects, whom
they declared they would not tolerate nor suffer to remain
in the country. \

If Protestants thus ruthlessly persecuted one another, we
might naturally suppose that they were not more indulgent
towards the Catholics. We have already proved that the
Reformation was mainly indebted for its success to system
atic persecution of the Catholic Church. "Wherever it made

* D. J. Olearius — "In den mehr als 200 Irrthiimer der Calvinisten."

f Salzer — "In seinem Lutherischem Gegen-Bericht " — Art. iv, p. 385.

Schlosser— "In der wahrheit," etc., chap, vi, p. 73. Hist., Aug. Confess.

fol. 206, 207, 274, 275. Apud Audin, p. 330.

| See Robelot — Influence de la Reformation de Luther, p. 71. Sup. cit

DIET OF SPIRES THE NAME PROTESTANT. 331

its appearance its progress was marked by deeds of vio
lence. Like a tornado, it swept every thing before it ;
and you might as easily trace its course by the ruins it
left behind. Churches broken open and desecrated 5 altars
stripped of their ornaments or pulled down ; paintings and
statues destroyed; the monasteries entered by mobs and
pillaged of their effects ; Catholic priests, monks, and nuns
openly insulted and maltreated ; the property of the churches
and monasteries seized on by violence, after having been
often pillaged and plundered : these were some of the ruins
which the Reformation caused ; these the sad trophies which
it erected to celebrate its triumphs over the Catholic re
ligion !

In most places the Catholic worship was abolished, either
by open violence, or by the high-handed tyranny of the secu
lar princes who had embraced the reform. In vain did Lu
ther in his cooler moments protest against these deeds of
violence ; he himself, as we have seen, had evoked the storm,
and he could not calm it; probably he did not even seri
ously wish this, for generally his language to his followers
had breathed nothing but violence. This we have already
shown.

It is a remarkable fact, as certain as it is striking, that the
reformers derived their very name of Protestants from this
same unquenchable spirit of intolerance ! The diet of Spires
in 1529 had made an effort to put a stop to the deeds of vio
lence by which the Reformation had desolated Germany. It
had published a law, which, among other things of less im
portance, enjoined that the decree of the diet of Worms in
1521 should be observed in those places where it had been
already received ; that where it had not been received, and
the ancient religion had been changed in despite of it, things
should continue in statu quo till the meeting of a general
council, which was to decide on the matters in controversy ;
that the celebration of the holy sacrifice of the Mass should
be everywhere free ; and that the princes of the empire should

332 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

mutually observe peace, and should not molest each other on
the score of religion.*

In other words, the diet decreed that Catholics and Protest
ants should enjoy freedom of worship, and that neither should
molest the other. Had the reformers been really the .advo
cates of religious liberty, they could have asked no more.
But they desired something else : their notions of Christian
liberty were much more enlarged ! They desired freedom to
pull down the Catholic altars, and to abolish the Catholic
worship wherever they had the power to do so. Hence, they
met immediately after the diet, and protested against this
most equitable decree as " contrary to the truth of the gos
pel !"f — And hence their name of Protestants : a name which
stamped on their foreheads a brand of intolerance, of which
they were not ashamed ! J

A volume might be filled with undoubted facts proving the
intolerant spirit of the early Protestants of the various na
tions of Europe against the Catholics. Wherever they ob
tained the power to do so, they invariably persecuted the
Catholics by civil disabilities and corporal punishments ; and
where they had not the power they excited disturbance and
persecuted them by slander. We know of no exception to
this remark. Unpalatable as it may appear, it is triumphantly
established by the facts of history ; and we are not. free to
change the records of the past to pander to an over delicate

* See Sleidan — ad annum 1529, lib. vi. Also Xatalis Alexander, Hist.
Ecclesiastica, torn. ix. fol. 79, edit Venitiis, 1778 ; and Lingard, History of
England — Henry VIII. ; and Audin, p. 289. f Ibid.

\ In his Constitutional History of England, Hallam makes this same
statement ; p. 64, note. — American edit., 1 vol. 8vo. He says :

" They declared, in the famous protestation of Spire, which gave them the
name of Protestants, that their preachers having confuted the Mass by pas
sages from Scripture, they could not permit their subjects to go thither; since
it would afford a bad example to suffer two sorts of service directly opposite
to each other in their churches." He quotes Schmidt, Hist, des Allemands,
71,394; vi, 24.

LUTHER DEFENDS SACRILEGE. 333

and vitiated taste. Out of a mass of evidence bearing on the
subject, we will select some of the more prominent facts.

We have already alluded to the overture for peace made
by the Catholics in the diet of Nurenberg, held in 1532.
How was it received by the Lutherans? They rejected it
with indignation, not only in the assembly at Cadan, but also
through their organ, Urbanus Regius. Hear his language:

"We must either have peace with the papists — that is, we must suf
fer the destruction of our faith, our rights, our life, and die as sinners — or
we must have peace with Christ, that is to say, be hated by our enemies,
and live by faith. Which shall we choose ? The rage of the devil, the
hostility of the world, a struggle with Antichrist, or the protection of heav
en, and life through Christ ?"*

Luther openly defended the violence by which the Catholic
worship had been suppressed, and the monasteries seized upon
and secularized. He was consulted on the subject, and this
was his reply :

" It is said that no violence should be used for conscience' sake ; and yet
have not our princes driven away the monks from their asylum ? Yes : we
must not oblige any one to believe our doctrine ; we have never done vio
lence to the consciences of others (!) ; but it would be a crime not to prevent
our doctrine from being profaned. To remove scandal is not to force the
conscience. I can not force a rogue to be honest, but I can prevent him
from stealing. A prince can not constrain a highway robber to confess the
Lord, but yet he has a gallows for malefactors."

Strange casuistry! Curious theory of religious liberty!
He continues:

" Thus, when our princes were not certain that the monastic life and pri
vate Masses were an offense to God, they would have sinned had they closed
the convents ; but after they have been enlightened, and have seen that the
cloister and the Mass are an insult to the Deity, they would have been cul
pable had they not employed the power they had received to proscribe
them."f

In the famous convention at Smalkald, in 1536, the Prot
estant party decided on a recourse to arms to defend them-

* Seckendorf— " Comment, de Luth." lib. iii, p. 22.
f Luth. Opp. edit Wittenb., ix, 455.

334 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

selves; that is, to be enabled to cany out their favorite plan
of establishing the Reformation by violence on the ruins of
Catholic institutions. They proclaimed that " it was an error
to believe that they ought to tolerate among them those who
opposed the reform."* In an imperial citation addressed to
the citizens of Donauwert in 1605, they are reproached with
having driven from their city, as atrocious malefactors,! those
of their fellow citizens who had espoused Catholic wives, or
embraced the Catholic religion.J Again, at a session of the
famous congress of Westphalia, in March, 164:7, Trautmans-
dorf openly accused the Protestant party of having driven
Catholic laymen from their dominions, after having confis
cated their property.§

This spirit of persecution has been perpetuated, with some
modifications, even down to the present day. Erasmus had
remarked of Luther that his savage nature had not been soft
ened down by the blandishments of matrimony ; and we may
remark that the fierce intolerance of the early Reformation
has not been much mitigated by the growing refinement of
the age !

Even as late as the battle of Jena, in 1806, Catholics could
not own property in Saxony, nor hold public offices, nor enjoy
any of the rights of citizenship. || This was also the case in
Prussia ; and in our own days, have we not seen a venerable
octogenarian, the archbishop of Cologne, violently dragged
from his palace by a band of soldiers, in the dead hour of
night, and confined for years in a state prison, by order of
the king of Prussia, and all this for no other offense than that
his conscience did not allow him to subscribe to the will of
his royal master ?

In the imperial city of Frankfort on the Maine, Catholics
were not eligible to any municipal offices. As late as the
20th of October, 1814, no others than Lutherans of the con-

* See Robelot, ut sup., p. 71. f Atrocissime delinquentes.

\ Ibid. \ Ibid., p. 72. || Ibid., p. 70.

PROTESTANT PERSECUTION. 335

fession of Augsburg were eligible to any civil office in the
free city of Hamburg.* In Sweden it is strictly forbidden
for any Protestant to embrace the Catholic religion, though
Catholics are encouraged to become Protestants. No Catho
lic can there hold any office of trust or emolument. The same
intolerant laws are in force in Denmark and Norway. In
these kingdoms, religious persecution, in one form or other,
has continued even to the present day. In many of the other
Protestant kingdoms of Germany, the penal laws against
Catholics were softened down after the Congress of Vienna,
in 1815, had settled the general peace of Europe. Yet the re
finement of modern civilization has not been able wholly to
exorcise the demon of intolerance. It still exists, to a greater
or less extent in every Protestant country of Europe.f

But the other day, when the Koman Pontiff nominated a
bishop to attend to the spiritual wants of a large body of
Catholics living in the kingdom of Denmark, the government
organ at Copenhagen republished an old law of the kingdom,
which made it a capital offense for a Catholic clergyman or
bishop to cross the border! And when the celebrated De
Haller embraced the Catholic religion, in 1821, the grand
council of Berne, in Switzerland, had his name stricken from
the list of its members, and revived the old law of the canton
by which no Catholic is eligible to office.f

In one word, not to multiply facts, Protestants have been
guilty of persecution in every country of Europe where they
have had the power, not only against the Catholic Church,
but against one another : and their intolerance, though greatly

* See apud Kobelot, ut supra.

f But the other day, the indignation of all Europe was aroused by the
banishment from Sweden of several helpless ladies, whose only crime was
having followed their private judgment and conscience in embracing the
Catholic religion. Baptists and other Protestant dissenters from Lutherans
have also shared a similar fate. And this in the middle of the nineteenth
century !

| See apud Robelot, ut supra.

336 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

mitigated, is still even at the present enlightened day far from
being extinct.

Catholics also, we must admit, have sometimes persecuted.
Yet every impartial person must allow that the circumstances
under which they persecuted were not so aggravated, nor so
wholly without excuse, as those under which they were them
selves persecuted by Protestants. The former stood on the
defensive, while the latter were in almost every instance the
first aggressors. The Catholics did but repel violence by
violence, when their property, their altars, and all they held
sacred, were rudely invaded by the new religionists, under
pretext of reform. Their acts of severity were often deemed
necessary measures of precaution against the deeds of lawless
violence, which everywhere marked the progress of reform.
They did but seek the privilege of retaining quietly the
religion of their fathers, which the reformers would fain have
wrested from them by violence. They were the older, and
they were in possession.* Could it be expected that they
would yield without a struggle all that they held most dear
and most sacred? These were extenuating circumstances,
which, though they might not wholly justify their intolerance,
yet greatly mitigated its malice ; while the reformers could
certainly allege no such pretext in self- vindication.

Perhaps the most remarkable feature in the Protestant
governments of Europe is the union in them of church and
state. This unhallowed union began at the period of the
Reformation itself; and it subsists, with but slight modifi
cation, even down to our own days. In Prussia, Sweden,
Denmark, Holland, and England, the king is at the same
time the head of the state and of the church established by
law. It is his province to regulate, in ultimate resort, every
thing connected with the preaching of the word, the adminis-

* In the Synod of Dort in 1618, the Gomarists used this very argument
to justify their persecution of their brother Protestants, the Arminians ! —
(Sess. xvii.) Their possession had been, however, of very recent date.

UNION OF CHURCH AND STATE. 337

tration of the sacraments, and the appointment of bishops
and pastors. Even in those cantons of Switzerland in which
the Reformation obtained a footing, the legislative councils
still claim a right to interfere in spiritual matters; and the
Catholics of Argovia and other cantons have, not long ago, felt
the smart of this intolerant interference.

Every body knows the high-handed measures by which the
late king of Prussia sought to unite into one " national church
of Prussia" the two conflicting parties of religionists in his
kingdom, the Lutherans and Calvinists. This political ma
neuver, to effect by force a compromise between two warring
sects, displeased them both, as might have been expected;
and many of the ejected ministers of both parties, but espe
cially of the Lutheran, sought shelter from the storm in foreign
countries, and some of them on our own shores. The entire
success of this attempt, made by the court of Berlin on the
religious liberties of Prussia, proves conclusively, that there
at least the Protestant church is but the creature of the
state — meanly subservient to all its commands.

Every one also knows, that the persecution of the Catholics
of Belgium by the Protestant government of Holland led to
the successful declaration of independence by the former
government, more than a quarter of a century ago : and that
after the declaration had been made good, the Belgians elected
the Protestant Prince Leopold as their sovereign. Can the
annals of Protestantism afford an example of liberality like
this? At least, we have never heard of a Protestant com
munity voluntarily choosing a Catholic sovereign.

If the Reformation was favorable to religious liberty, why,
we ask, did it bring about a union of church and state in
every country where it was established ? Why did it every
where persecute? It is curious to trace the origin of this
mean subserviency of the various Protestant sects to the
princes, under whose auspices they were respectively estab
lished.

The reformers preached up freedom from the alleged
VOL. i.— 29

338 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

tyranny of Home : the people were seduced by this flattering
appeal to their natural aversion to restraint ; and the Refor-
mation was thus effected in the manner which we have en
deavored to unfold. Once freed from the authority of Rome,
the reformers threw themselves and their partisans, for pro
tection, into the arms of the secular princes who had espoused"
their cause ; and these gave them a bear's embrace ! They
had escaped from an imaginary, they now fell into a real
bondage. They had gone out of the dark land of Egypt,
and had returned from the captivity of Babylon : but in the
land of promise into which they led their exulting hosts of
disenthralled disciples, they found other Pharaohs and other
Nabuchadonosors, who lorded it over them with a rod of
iron ! — " And the last state of these men was made worse
than the first."*

Luther soon perceived, that the only means of stemming,
the torrent of innovation, which he had let loose on the world,
was to give unlimited power to princes in spiritual matters.
Melancthon earnestly labored to retain the order of bishops ;
but his unrelenting master could not brook this odious rem
nant of the Papacy. The result was, as Melancthon had
foreseen, that for them he substituted other bishops — princes
armed with the power of the sword. These were very far
from being so scrupulous as had been their Catholic prede
cessors in the episcopal office ! After having seized and em
bezzled the property of the Catholic Church, they reigned
supreme in church and state. They interfered in the minutest
affairs of church government. It was by the importunities
of the pious and scrupulous landgrave of Hesse, that Luther
was induced, against his inclination, to suppress the elevation
of the Host in the Mass.f Thus, as Audin well remarks,
" the Reformation which was ushered into Germany by its
apostles, as a means of forcing the people from the sacerdotal
yoke, created a pagan monstrosity — hierophant and magis-

* St. Matthew, xii : 45, f Jak. Marx., sup. cit., p. 177.

CUJUS REGIO, EJUS KELIGIO. 339

trate — who with one arm regulated the state, and with the
other, the church."*

The Protestant historian of Germany fully admits this.
After the lines had been pretty well drawn between the
Catholics and Protestants, the diet of Augsburg laid down
and established the famous maxim, that in matters of religion
each prince was supreme in his own dominions. This prin
ciple was embodied in the Latin motto : GUJUS REGIO, EJUS
RELIGIO — literally, whose region^ his religion ! If this iron
maxim, plainly destructive of the right of private judgment,
weighed somewhat heavily on the Protestant subjects of
Catholic princes, it operated much more oppressively against
the Catholic subjects of Protestant princes. These were, by
its action, compelled to abandon their time-honored religion
at the mere bidding of their prince, whose religious caprices
thus became the supreme law in religion as in government !
In Catholic governments, on the contrary, it operated merely
as a conservative policy, and it simply checked innovation on
the established order of things. The maxim itself clearly
proves that religious liberty, as we now understand the term,
was very far from the thoughts and ideas of the German
reformers and of their disciples.

With these observations we subioin the remarkable passage

J JL O

from Menzehf

" Every obstacle was now removed, and a peace, known as the religious
peace of Augsburg, was concluded by the diet held in that city, A. D. 1555.
This peace was naturally a mere political agreement provisionally entered
into by the princes for the benefit, not of religion, but of themselves. Pop
ular opinion was dumb, knights, burgesses, and peasants bending in lowly
submission to the mandate of their sovereigns. By this treaty, branded in
history as the most lawless ever concerted in Germany, the principle ' CUJUS
REGIO, EJUS RELIGIO,' — the faith of the prince must be that of the people, —
was laid down. By it not only all the reformed subjects of a Catholic
prince were exposed to the utmost cruelty and tyranny, but the religion of
each separate country was rendered dependent on the caprice of the reigning
prince ; of this the Pfalz offered a sad example, the religion of the people

* Audin, p. 347. f History of Germany, vol. ii, p. 270.

340 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

being thus four times arbitrarily changed. The struggles of nature and of
reason were powerless against the executioner, the stake, and the sword.
This principle was, nevertheless, merely a result of Luther's well-known
policy, and consequently struck his contemporaries far less forcibly than
after-generations. Freedom of belief, confined to the immediate subjects of
the empire, for instance, to the reigning princes, the free nobility, and the
city councilors, was monopolized by at most twenty thousand privileged
persons, including the whole of the impoverished nobility, and the oligarchies
of the most insignificant imperial free towns, and it consequently follows,
taking the whole of the inhabitants of the empire at twenty millions, that,
out of a thousand Germans, one only enjoyed the privilege of choosing his
own religion."

This usurpation of Protestant princes was afterwards again
legalized, and it became a settled matter of state policy, at
the congress of Westphalia in 1648, after the close of the
Thirty Years' War. This congress recognized in the Protest
ant princes of Germany the jus reformandi, or the right to
reform the churches existing within their dominions, accord
ing to their own judgment and good pleasure.* Thus, after
a protracted struggle of more than a hundred years, during
which oceans of blood had been poured out in the sacred
name of liberty, Protestantism finally sunk down exhausted —
a degraded slave — in the murderous embrace of earthly
princes ! It was bound hand and foot, and could not move,
but by the permission of its remorseless master !

The reformers were themselves the sole cause of this un
happy result. They had flattered princes, and had courted
this very union, to which may be fairly traced the servile
degradation of the sects they respectively founded. They
had invoked the power of the sword, not only against Cath
olics, but also against their brother religionists, who dared
oppose their own schemes of reformation. They had pro
claimed, that the right of suppressing heresy "belonged only
to princes who alone could mow down the cockle with the
sword."f At the general assembly of the Protestant party

* Jak. Marx— Audin, p. 347.

f Ott. ad annum, 1536. Gastius, sup. cit, p. 365. Audin, p. 463.

CHURCH AND STATE IN SAXONY. 341

at Homburg in 1536, the deputies of Lunenburg had said:
"The magistrate has the power of life and death over the
heretics."*

Luther himself, in his defense of the enactments of this
assembly, addressed to the landgrave of Hesse, f had laid
down this sweeping principle :

" If then there takes place between Catholics and sectaries, one of those
discussions in which each combatant advances with a text, it is the duty of
the magistrate to take cognizance of the dispute, and to impose silence on
those whose doctrine does not accord with the holy books." — Could he con
sistently blame princes for afterwards tyrannically using the power which
he himself had vested in them ?

The history of the union of church and state in Saxony,
will throw some light on its subsequent establishment in
other Protestant countries. It was to meet the wishes and
to carry out the suggestions of Luther, that John, elector of
Saxony — naturally a weak and effeminate prince — first inter
fered in the aifairs of the church. After he had entered,
however, on his new spiritual functions, his ardent zeal car
ried him further than the monk had bargained for.

" He determined to free himself from the domination of the clergy (Pro
testant) ; and for that purpose found that the most efficacious means was to
apply at once the reforming theories of Luther to the organization of parishes.
A commission of ecclesiastics and laymen was accordingly named by the
elector, who were charged to visit and administer the different districts. It
was a real revolution. The church lost even its name ; it was turned into a
pagan temple."!

Let us also see what is the opinion of the Protestant
Hallam on the influence of the Keformation on religious
liberty. He surely is not prejudiced against the reformers,
as we have already had occasion to see; and his opinion
must therefore be of great weight with Protestants. We
have already given some extracts from his latest work, bear-

* Ott. ad annum, 1536, p. 86. f Referred to above, p. 328.

I Audin, p. 353. We have above quoted a passage from Menzel, which
fully confirms this, and even goes further.

342 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

ing indirectly on the present subject. "We add the following
passages :

" It is often said that the essential principle of Protestantism, and that for
which the struggle was made, was something different from all we have
mentioned; a perpetual freedom from all authority in religious belief, or
what goes by the name of the right of private judgment. But, to look *
more nearly at what occurred, this permanent independence was not much
asserted, and still less acted upon. The Reformation was a change of
masters; a voluntary one, no doubt, in those who had any choice; and, in
this sense, an exercise, for the time, of their personal judgment. But no
one having gone over to the confession of Augsburg or that of Zurich, was
deemed at liberty to modify these creeds at his pleasure. He might, of
course, become an Anabaptist or an Arian ; but he was not the less a heretic
in doing so, than if he had continued in the Church of Rome. By what
light a Protestant was to steer, might be a problem, which at that time, as ever
since, it would perplex a theologian to decide : but in practice, the law of the
land which established one exclusive mode of faith, was the only safe, as,
in ordinary circumstances, it was, upon the whole, the most eligible (!)
guide."*

In another place, speaking of the causes which brought
about the decline of Protestantism and the reaction of Catho
licity, he says :

"We ought to reckon also among the principal causes of this change,
those perpetual disputes, those irreconcilable animosities, that bigotry, above
all, and persecuting spirit, which were exhibited in the Lutheran and Cal-
vinistic churches. Each began with a common principle — the necessity of
an orthodox faith. But this orthodoxy evidently meant nothing more than
their own belief as opposed to that of their adversaries ; a belief acknowl
edged to be fallible, yet maintained as certain ; rejecting authority in one
breath, and appealing to it in the next, and claiming to rest on sure proofs
of reason and Scripture, which their opponents were ready, with just as
much confidence, to invalidate."!

In conclusion, we may observe, that in regard to toleration,
the Catholic countries of Europe at the present time compare
advantageously with those which have been enlightened by
the Reformation for the last three hundred years. There is
not one Catholic government of Europe which now persecutes

* "History of Literature," etc., voL i, p. 200. f Ibid., vol. i, p. 278.

CATHOLIC TOLERATION. 343

for conscience' sake : and on the other hand, there is scarcely
one Protestant government which does not persecute, in one
form or other, even at this day ! We have already seen what
has been, and to a great extent is still, the policy of the latter
in regard to religious liberty. Our assertion in regard to the
former, can be easily substantiated.

Belgium is Catholic, and Belgium allows equal political
rights to Protestants with Catholics, and is at the same
time, perhaps, the freest monarchy in Europe. The in
quisition has been long since abolished in Spain and
Portugal, and these no longer persecute dissenters. France
is Catholic, and France not only does not persecute, but
she protects the Protestant religion, and pays its ministers
even more than she allows to the Catholic clergy — which
is but equitable, as the former have their wives and families
to support !

Bavaria is Catholic ; and Bavaria allows equal civil rights
to Protestants as to Catholics. Austria is Catholic ; and Aus
tria adopts the same equitable policy. Bohemia is Catholic ;
and Bohemia imitates the example of the other Catholic
states : and the same may be said of Hungary, which, like
Bohemia, is a dependency of the Austrian empire. Italy is
Catholic ; and Protestants have places of worship and public
cemeteries at the very gates of the eternal city itself. So
far is this toleration carried, that but a few years since, a
parson of the church of England, delivered a course of lec
tures against "popery" at Rome itself; and Dr. Wiseman
answered them.

Poland — poor bleeding and crushed Poland, was Catholic
to its very hearts's core ; and Poland was seldom, if ever sul
lied with persecution. Ireland was ever Catholic ; and Ire
land never persecuted, though she had it in her power to do
so at three different times. Finally, it was the Catholic Lord
Baltimore, and the Catholic colonists of Maryland, who, in
1648, first proclaimed on this broad continent, as a settled
law, the great principle of universal toleration, while the

344 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON CIVIL LIBERTY.

Puritans were persecuting brother Protestants in New En
gland, and the Episcopalians were doing the same thing in
Virginia !*

CHAPTER XIII.

INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON CIVIL
LIBERTY.

" The most striking effect of the first preaching of the Reformation was that it ap
pealed to the ignorant; and though political liberty .... cannot be reckoned the aim
of those who introduced it, yet there predominated that revolutionary spirit which
loves to witness destruction for its own sake, and that intoxicated self-confidence
which renders folly mischievous." — HALLAM."!

Boasting — Theory of government — Political liberty — Four things guarantied
— Pursuit of happiness — The Popes and liberty — Rights of property — Use
made of confiscated church property — The Attila of the Reformation —
Par nobile fratrum — Spoliation of Catholics — Contempt of testamentary
dispositions — The jus manuale abolished — And restored — Disregard of life
— And crushing of popular liberty — The war of the peasants — Two
charges made good — Grievances of the peasants — Drowned in blood —
Remarkable testimony of Menzel — Luther's agency therein — Halting
between two extremes — Result — Absolute despotism — Swiss cantons —
D'Aubigne puzzled — Liberty, a mountain nymph — The old mother of
republics — Security to character — Recapitulation.

THE friends of the Reformation have been in the habit of
boasting, that to it we are indebted for all the free institutions
we now eHJoy. Before it, there was nothing in the world but
slavery on the one hand, and reckless despotism on the other :

* See Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. 1, Maryland. About
the same time, or perhaps a few years previously, Roger Williams, driven
into the wilderness by the Puritans of Massachusetts, established the colony
of Rhode Island, the charter of which granted free toleration, from which,
however, the Catholics were in all probability excluded, at least until a con
siderably later period.

f " History of Literature," vol. i, p. 192.

POLITICAL LIBERTY. 345

after it, came liberty and free government. In school-boy
orations and Fourth-of- July speeches ; in sermons from the
pulpit iiind in effusions from the press ; this assertion has been
reiterated over and again with so much confidence, that many
persons of sincerity and intelligence have viewed it as founded
in fact. To such we would beg leave to present the following
brief summary of evidence bearing on the subject. Let them
read both sides ; and then will they be able to form an
enlightened judgment.

D'Aubigne asserts roundly : " The Keformation saved reli
gion, and with it society."* We have already seen what it
did for religion : we will now examine what it did for society.
Did it really save society ; or was society saved in spite of it ?
To narrow down the ground of the inquiry ; did it really
contribute by its influence to check political despotism, and to
protect the rights of the people ? Or, in other words, did it
develop the democratic principle, and originate free institu
tions ? Were we to decide according to the measure of its
boasting, it certainly did this and much more. It had liberty
forever on its lips : it loudly proclaimed that one great object
of its mission was to free mankind from a degrading servitude,
both religious and political. But was its practice in accord
ance with its loudly boasting theory ? We shall see.

Political liberty guaranties security to life, to property, to
character, and to the pursuit of happiness : and it does this
with the least possible restraint on personal freedom. The
greater the security to these objects, and the less the restraint
on individual liberty, the more free and perfect is the system
of government. A well regulated democracy — where the
people can bear it — best corresponds with this theory, and is
therefore, with the condition just named, the best of all pos
sible forms of government. And the nearer others approxi
mate to this standard, the more do they verge to perfection.
Such are the principles of our political creed : and by them

* D'Aubigne, vol. i, p. 67.

346 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON CIVIL LIBERTY.

as a test, we are willing to decide on the influence of the
Reformation on free government. Did this religious revolu
tion provide greater security to life, property, honor, and the
pursuit of happiness, with less restraint to individual liberty
than had previously existed ? If it did, then was its influence
favorable to liberty ; if it did not, then, however its advocates
may boast, its influence was decidedly hostile to true civil
liberty. We will stand by these principles, which we are
sure our adversaries will not be disposed to reject, at least in
this country.

1. We will begin with the object of government last
named — security to men in the pursuit of happiness. No
government is free, which does not guaranty this. The high
est, the most noble, and the only sure way of pursuing happi
ness, is by the path of religion. Without this, there is, and
can be, no real or permanent happiness, either in this world
or in the next. This, we think, will be admitted by all who
are imbued with the very first principles of Christianity.
Now, there is manifestly no freedom in this exalted pursuit,
without the guaranty of religious liberty. Hence, a system,
which has sapped the very foundations of religious liberty,
could not guaranty one of the greatest objects of all free gov
ernments — security in the pursuit of happiness. Now, we
have already proved, that the Reformation did not secure, but
rather destroyed religious freedom : therefore, the inference is
irresistible, that it did not tend to promote free government.

We will pursue this line of argument a little further. The
Reformation cast off the religious yoke of the Pontiffs and of
the Catholic Church ; and, in its place, it wore, solidly riveted
on its neck, that of the princes who had espoused its cause.
Was the exchange favorable to liberty ? Did the union of
church and state, which necessarily ensued, secure to Protest
ants in Germany a greater amount of freedom than they had
heretofore enjoyed ? The Pope was far off, and he generally
interposed his authority only in spiritual matters, or in great
emergencies of the state : the princes, who succeeded to his

PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. 347

authority, were present, and they interfered in every thing,
both in church and state. They were in fact supreme in
both. When they chose to play the tyrant, who was to
oppose their will ?

The reformed party were powerless : they had given up
themselves, bound hand and foot, into the power of their
princes. The voice of the Roman Pontiffs, which had hitherto
thundered from the Vatican, and stricken terror into the heart
of tyranny, was now also powerless : the reformers themselves
had drowned that voice in the maddening clamor of their op
position to the Pope. What resource had they left to meet
and repel royal tyranny ? They had themselves, of their own
accord, rendered powerless the only arm which could protect
them, or redress their grievances.

The time has gone by, for men of sense and intelligence to
clamor against the tyranny of the Roman Pontiffs. Protest
ants themselves are beginning to view these much abused
men in a more favorable light than they did heretofore. They
no longer paint them as the unmitigated tyrants who lorded
it over the world for their own selfish purposes and unhal
lowed ambition ; but as the saviours of Europe, and the pro
tectors of its political rights trodden in the dust by tyrants.
Such Protestants writers as Guizot, Voigt, Ranke, Pusey, and
Bancroft, have done at least a measure of justice to the Popes.

The last named says, speaking of Pope Alexander III., who
lived, A. D. 1167: He,

" True to the spirit of his office, which during the supremacy of brute force
in the middle age, made of the chief minister of religion the tribune of the
people and the guardian of the oppressed, had written, 'that nature having
made no slaves, all men have an equal right to liberty.' "*

We might quote many similar acknowledgments made by
Protestant writers : but the fact we have asserted will scarcely
be questioned, and we may refer in general to the works of the
writers mentioned above for evidence in its support. Nothing

* History of the United States, vol. i, p. 163.

348 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON CIVIL LIBERTY.

is, in fact, more certain than that the Popes of the middle
ages labored assiduously to maintain the rights of the people
against the tyranny of their princes. Whenever they struck
a blow, it was generally aimed at tyranny, and well calculated
to raise up the lower orders in the scale of society. The op
pressed of every nation found a willing and a powerful advo1
cate in Rome. "When the Roman Pontiffs threw around the
people the broad shield of their own protection, it was more
effectual towards their defense against the tyranny which had
ground them in the dust, than had been the eagles which had
perched on the Roman standard of old. For Germany par
ticularly, the deposing power, claimed by the Popes of the
middle ages, was a broad aegis thrown around the liberties of
its people. When was that power ever exercised, but in be
half of the poor, the crushed, and the bleeding ? And when
was it evoked except against tyranny and an oppression no
longer tolerable, or remediable by any other means? We
know of few, if of any cases of its exercise, except under such
circumstances as these.

What would have become of the liberties of Europe in
that period of anarchy and tyranny, but for the exercise of
papal power ? No other authority was available : because no
other voice would have been heard or respected, amidst the
general din of war and the confusion of the times. And by
destroying that authority, the reformers broke down the most
effectual barrier against tyranny, and destroyed the greatest
security to popular rights.

2. But perhaps the Reformation provided greater security
for the rights of property, than had been made in the good
old Catholic times ? — We have seen how the Protestant princes
seized upon and alienated the vast property of the Catholic
Church. They diverted it from its legitimate channels, and
generally embezzled it for their own private uses. Neither
the public treasury nor the people profited much by this sac
rilegious invasion of church property : it was generally spent
in profligacy.

SECURITY TO PROPERTY. 349

True, the Protestant princes, who became the heads of the
reformed churches, promised, in some places, to employ at
least a portion of the immense property thus seized on by
violence, for the establishment of public schools and hospitals.
But this promise was never carried into eifect, at least to any
great extent. Thus, in Sweden, a great portion of the church
property was given to the nobles, as a reward for their co-ope
ration with the monarch — Gustavus Wasa — in carrying out
his favorite project of reform: another large portion was an
nexed to the crown ; and the miserable remnant was doled
out, with a niggardly hand, for the support of the episcopal
body — which was there retained — of the inferior clergy, and
of the charitable and literary institutions.* In Denmark, the
monarch and the nobility shared the spoils. f

In Germany, the avarice of the nobility swallowed up
almost every thing, which had escaped the grasp of the per
jured monks, or the pillage of the infuriated mobs. We
have already seen, how Luther himself lashed them, with his
withering eloquence, for their sacrilegious avarice, which had
left almost nothing of the ample patrimony of the Church,
for the support of the reformed preachers and their wives !
We shall see, in the sequel, how he rebuked their parsimony,
in not erecting and supporting public schools.

The ejected Catholic monks and clergy were reduced to
beggary, and had no alternative left, but to starve, or to ob
tain a livelihood at the price of apostasy. Alas ! too many
of them adopted the latter alternative ! John Hurd, a coun
selor of the elector of Saxony, whose authority is cited by
Luther in his appeal against the avarice of the princes, asserts
that the Protestant nobility had squandered in licentiousness,
not only the goods of the monasteries on which they had
seized, but also their own private patrimony — so sadly de
moralized had they become.J

* See Kobelot, sup. cit., p. 177.

f Ibid. We shall treat of this subject at some length in our second vol
ume. \ Ibid., p. 178.

350 INFLUENCE OF REFORM ATION ON CIVIL LIBERTY.

Many of these marauding princes were not content with
the pillage of the church property within their own territory,
but sallied forth with an armed band to devastate that of
their neighbors. We have already adverted to the memorable
exploits of many German princes in this way, and have seen
how gallantly their armed bands put to flight whole troops
of cowled monks and helpless women, in order to seize on
their property ! We have seen the excursion of the apostate
Albert of Brandenburg, at the head of ten thousand armed
men, into the territory of the Prince Bishop of Trev.es : and
how their sacrilegious devastations there were like those of an
army of Huns.

This man, viewed by B'Aubigne as a saint, but more prop
erly called by his contemporaries, " the Attila of the Refor
mation,"* established a temporal principality, and laid the
foundation of the present kingdom of Prussia, by his success
ful invasion and gigantic pillage of property belonging to
much better men than himself. He not only appropriated to
his own private use the vast property belonging to the Teu
tonic Order, of which he was the general ; but he also, by the
same lawless means, annexed to his territory all eastern Prus
sia. He was as treacherous and unprincipled, as he was
avaricious and lawless. To promote the purposes of his am
bition, he passed from the camp of Henry II., to that of the
Catholic Charles Y. ; and though the treaty of Passau had
guarantied to the Lutherans of the Confession of Augsburg
the free exercise of their religion, he, at the head of his troops,
ravaged the territories of the Protestant princes — thus reck
lessly sacrificing friends as well as enemies ! The Reforma
tion is welcome to all the credit its cause may derive from
such saints as he and the landgrave of Hesse. Yet these
two men were among its chief supports, and brightest orna
ments ; and their glory is intimately blended with that of the
Reformation.

* See Robelot, sup. cit., p. 206.

WHOLESALE ROBBERY. 351

Bayle says to the reformed party, with caustic truth : " You
forget every thing, when it is question of your interests."*
The League of Smalkald, noticed above, had for one of its
principal objects, to protest against the decisions of the im
perial courts, which had not granted entire liberty to the
Protestant princes to pillage at will the property of the
Catholics ! It is a remarkable fact, that most of the criminal
prosecutions commenced in these courts were directed against
the lawless violence of the Protestant nobility, and especially
of the noted landgrave of Hesse.f Catholics could not be
secure in their property, and even the protection of the em
peror was unavailing for this purpose in those times of lawless
depredation and gospel zeal !

And be it remembered, that Catholics still formed the
great body of the Germanic empire. Thus the Reformation
succeeded in depriving, to a great extent, of their most sacred
rights, the vast majority of the people. Was this course
favorable to liberty, which is a mere name, without security
to property ? The truth seems to be, that the reformed party
were so much attached to liberty, that they wished to monopo
lize it altogether, and have it all for themselves. No one else
was deemed worthy to enjoy the precious boon !

But, perhaps, the most mischievous influence of the Refor
mation on the rights of property, was its reckless disregard
of testamentary dispositions. The property which the Pro
testant princes thus seized on and alienated, had been — most
of it — accumulated from pious bequests, made for special
church and charitable purposes, by men on their death-beds.
What right had the reformed party to interfere with these
testamentary dispositions? What right had they to divert
the property thus created, from the channels in which the
abiding Catholic feeling of respect for the dead had caused it
to flow for centuries? What right had they, above all, to

* (Euvres, torn. ii. p. 621. La Haye, 1727.
f See Ilobelot, ut supra, p. 205, note,

352 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON CIVIL LIBERTY.

squander, and to appropriate to their own unhallowed pur
poses, wealth which had been hitherto applied, bj the express
will of those who had bequeathed it, to religious and charitable
objects ?

And what security was there any longer left for the rights
of property, when even the sanctity of last wills and testa
ments was thus recklessly disregarded and trampled upon ?
Had those charitable men of the good old Catholic times
been able to rise up from their tombs, how they would have
rebuked this sacrilegious alienation of the property they had
left! True, some stop was put to this unhallowed wholesale
sequestration of church property by the treaty of 1555; in
which such property was declared sacred, and last wills
were pronounced inviolable; and Robertson, the historian
of Charles V., tells us, that, at this treaty, the Protestant
princes themselves, after having at first opposed the article
which checked their lawless violence, withdrew at length
their objections, and acquiesced in its equity.* But the
mischief had already been done, and they had already fat
tened on the spoils of the Church! Their forbearance was
therefore not very wonderful, under the circumstances.

But for the tumults caused by the Reformation, the rights
of property would, in all probability, have been permanently
settled throughout Germany, at the close of the fifteenth cen
tury. The frequent depredations committed by the feudal
chieftains of the middle ages on the property of each other
and of their vassals, had been already effectually checked by
the Emperor Maximilian, in an imperial law passed in 1495.
This law of the empire abolished altogether what was called
the jus manuale — or the right claimed by many lawless
feudal sovereigns to take by force whatever they could lay
their hands on ; and it established an imperial court of adju
dication, in which all points of contested jurisdiction were to
be definitely settled, and all grievances from violations of the

* History of Charles V., 1. xi. Cited by Robelot, p. 181.

PERSONAL FREEDOM. 353

law to be redressed. Germany enjoyed a profound peace for
many years after the enactment of this wise law: men
breathed more freely; might and right were no longer
synonymous terms ; the rights of property were re-estab
lished.*

But this peace was, alas ! of but short duration. It was a
calm, which preceded an awful storm. The violent preaching
of Luther against emperors, princes, and bishops, aroused
again into full activity the dormant passions of the lower
orders. Hence the dreadful war of the peasants, with all its
appalling horrors, its effusion of blood, and the desolation
with which it afflicted Germany. Seven years only had
elapsed since the commencement of the Keformation ; and
the confusion of the middle ages returned. The rights of
property, of life, and of liberty were again ruthlessly trampled
under foot with impunity. "Wholesale sacrilege, unheard of
in the Catholic middle ages, now became the order of the day.
Robbery began with the house of God ! The years 1524 and
1525 were awful years for Germany. The princes of the
empire availed themselves of the general disorder, to commit
all manner of excesses. No man's property, or liberty, or
life was any longer safe. The tree planted by Luther at Wit
tenberg was bearing its bitter first fruits !

3. The history of this war of the peasants sheds so much
additional light upon the influence of the Reformation on the
rights of the lower orders and the liberty of the people, that
we will be pardoned for dwelling on it at some length. Our
limits will however allow only a brief summary of the more
prominent facts, and a rapid sketch of the leading features
of that eventful struggle. It will be seen from this brief ex
amination that the Reformation provided no security what
ever, either for personal liberty, or for life itself.

We deliberately charge on the Reformation two things :
1st, that it stimulated the peasants to revolt ; 2dly, that it

* For a luminous view of this, see Robelot, ut sup., p. 200, 201.
VOL. I. — 30

354 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON CIVIL LIBERTY.

used its powerful influence to crush that revolt by force, and
to drown the voice of the poor peasants, crying out for redress
of grievances, in their blood ! The result of the rebellion, thus
stifled in their blood, was a weakening of the democratic
principle, and a strengthening of the arm of power. At the
close of the dreadful struggle, liberty lay crushed and bleed
ing, and despotism, armed with all its iron terrors, was trium
phant. We hope to make good these assertions by undeniable
facts and unexceptionable evidence.

A Protestant historian of Germany, Adolphus Menzel,
candidly admits that Luther's doctrines were calculated to
sow the seeds of sedition among the lower orders.* The
violent appeal he had made to the people against the emperor
and the princes of the empire, at the close of the diet of Nu-
renberg, in 1522 — two years before the revolt of the peasants
— was, in fact, nothing else but an open call to rebellion.!
His words fell, like burning coals, on the inflammatory mate
rials which then abounded in Germany. The standard of
revolt was everywhere raised : and on it was inscribed the
talismanic word — LIBERTY. Far from wishing to extinguish it,
Luther fanned the flame with his breath. When the insur
rectionary movements were reaching his own Saxony, he
addressed a pamphlet to the German nobility, in which he
sided with the peasants, and openly charged the princes with
being the cause of the revolt.

He cried out:

" On you rests the responsibility of these tumults and seditions ; on you,
princes and lords, on you especially, blind bishops and senseless priests and
monks ! You, who persist in making yourselves fools, and opposing the
gospel, although you know that it will triumph, and that you shall not pre
vail How do you govern ? You only know how to oppress, to destroy,
and to plunder, for the purpose of maintaining your pomp and pride. The
people and the poor have got enough of you. The sword is raised over
your heads, and yet you believe yourselves so firmly seated, that you can

* "Neuere Geschichte der Deutchen "— Tom. 1, p. 169.
f See extracts from this writing in Audin, p. 285, seqq.

GRIEVANCES OF THE PEASANTS. 355

not be overthrown My good sirs, it is not merely the peasants who

rise up against you ; it is God himself who comes to chastise your tyranny.
A drunken man must have a bed of straw ; a peasant will require some
thing softer. Go not to war with them; you do not know how the affair
will terminate."*

This was an appeal worthy of an apostle of liberty — it was
seized up with avidity by Miinzer and the other leaders of
the revolt : all Germany was in arms. — How soon did Luther
change his note, and preach up the extermination of these
same peasants by fire and sword ! Before we show this, how
ever, we must first see what were the principal grievances
of which the peasants complained, and what were their de
mands.

There is no doubt, that there was much fanaticism, and
much extravagance in the whole insurrectionary movement
of the peasants : but there is as little doubt, that most of their
claims were founded in strict justice. Chrystopher Scliapp-
ler, a Swiss priest, drew up their manifesto, in which they
demanded, among other things of less moment : " That they
should pay tithes only in corn — that they should no longer
be treated as slaves, since the blood of Jesus had redeemed
them — that they should be allowed to fish and to fowl, since
God had given them, in the person of Adam, dominion over
the fishes of the sea and the fowls of the air — that they might
cut in the forest wood for fuel and for building — that the
labor should be diminished — that they should be permitted
to possess landed property — that the taxes should not exceed
the value of the property — that the tribute to the nobles, after
the death of a father of a family, might be abolished, so that
his widow and orphans might not be reduced to beggary —
and finally, that if these grievances were not well founded,
they might be disproved from the word of God."*

* See Audin, p. 309, 310.

f Catrou — Histoire du Fanatisme, torn. 1. Menzel, torn. 1, apud Audin,
p. 311-2. See also Robertson's Charles V., in one vol. 8vo., American edit.
p. 205-6. We will give the more detailed account of Menzel a little further
on. There are two Menzels, Wolfgang and Adolf — we refer to the former.

356 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON CIVIL LIBERTY.

How was this declaration of grievances met by the re
formed party ? If they were really the friends of liberty,
they would at once have recognized the justice of most of
these demands, and would have urged the princes to grant
them. At least consistency, if not justice, required that Lu
ther should have adopted this course. And yet he — the same'
Luther, whom we have just heard rebuking the tyranny of
the princes, and justifying, nay, urging forward the peasants
in their revolt — the very same man now changed his tactics,
and loudly clamored for the blood of the peasants ! He met
their challenge, in which they had triumphantly appealed to
the Scriptures for their justification, and wrote a labored
treatise to prove, from the word of God, that they were in
the wrong !

In this reply to their statement of grievances, he said :

" I know that Satan, under pretext of the gospel, conceals among you
many men of a cruel heart, who incessantly calumniate me ; (was this the
reason why he abandoned their cause ?*). But I despise them : I do not dread
their rage. You tell me that you will triumph ; that you are invincible.
But can not God, who destroyed Sodom, overcome you ? You have taken
up the sword ; you shall perish by the sword. In resisting your magis
trates, you resist Jesus Christ."

He then goes on to answer, from the Scriptures, their de
mands, one by one. Bible in hand, he defends tithes and
even the enslaving of the poor peasants, who had demanded
to be free :

11 You wish to emancipate yourselves from slavery : but slavery is as old
as the world. Abraham had slaves, and St. Paul establishes rules for those
whom the laws of nations reduced to that state." — As if conscious of his
own treachery and utter inconsistency, he winds up his reply with these words :
" On reading my letter, you will shout and exclaim, that Luther has become
the courtier of princes : but before you reject, at least examine my advice.
Above all, listen not to the voice of those new prophets who delude you.
I know them."*

What a change ! As Luther had anticipated, the peasants
accused him, with justice, of perfidy to them, and of mean

* Apud Audin, p. 312, 313.

REVOLT AND SLAUGHTER OF THE PEASANTS. 357

sycophancy to princes. To prove the perfidy, Miinzer read
to the assembled multitudes an extract from Luther's violent
appeal against " the ecclesiastical order falsely so called,"* in
which he had said:

" Wait, my lord bishops, yea, rather imps of the devil ; Doctor Martin
Luther will read for you a bull, which will make your ears tingle. This is
the Lutheran bull — whoever will aid with his arms, his fortune, or his life,
to devastate the bishops and the episcopal hierarchy, is a good son of God, a
true Christian, and observes the commandments of the Lord."

In his answer to Prierias, which it appears Miinzer had
not seen, Luther had employed this terrible language :

"If we hang robbers on the gallows, decapitate murderers, and burn
heretics, why should we not wash our hands in the blood of those sons of
perdition, those cardinals, those popes, those serpents of Rome, and of
Sodom, who defile the church of God ?"f

Luther's interposition in favor of order came too late : and
it lost all its force by the manifest treachery and inconsistency
with his previous declarations. The struggle went on; the
hostile armies met on the memorable field of Frankhausen:
the confederated princes were triumphant, and the peasants
were butchered like sheep. Their prophet Miinzer fell mor
tally wounded : he embraced again the Catholic faith, and to
his last breath accused Luther of having been the cause of
all his misfortunes ! J

" Such was the end of the war of the peasants. In the short time in
which they were permitted to afflict society, it is estimated that more than a
hundred thousand men fell on the field of battle, seven cities were dis
mantled, fifty monasteries razed to the ground, and three churches burned —
not to mention the immense treasures of painting and sculpture, of stained
glass and of beautifully written manuscripts — which were annihilated. Had
they triumphed, Germany would have relapsed into barbarism : literature,
arts, poetry, morality, faith, and authority, would have been buried under

* " Contra falso nominatum ordinem ecclesiasticum." Luth. Opp., ed.
Wittenb., ii, fol. 120, seqq.

f Osiander (a Protestant) Cent. 161, etc., p. 109. Audin, p. 213.

I For a graphic description of this whole struggle, see Audin, p. 315,
seqq.

358 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON CIVIL LIBERTY.

the same rum. The rebellion which Luther had caused, was the daughter
of disobedience : her father, however, knew how to chastise her. If there
was innocent blood shed, let it be on his head. ' For,' says the reformer,
' it is I who have shed it, by order of God ; and whoever has perished in
this combat, has lost both soul and body, and is eternally damned.' "*

The voice of all history proclaims, that Luther was the,
cause of the insurrection of the peasants, and of their subse
quent slaughter. Even Protestant contemporary historians
have accused him of all this. Osiander says : " Poor peasants,
whom Luther flattered and caressed, while they were content
with attacking the oishops and the clergy! But when the
revolt assumed another aspect, and the insurgents mocked at
his bull, and threatened him and his princes — then appeared
another bull, in which he preached up the slaughter of the
peasants as if they were so many sheep. And when they
were killed, how, think you, did he celebrate their funeral?—
By marrying a nun I" This reminds us of Erasmus' beautiful
remark given above, that wThile Luther was reveling in his
nuptials, " a hundred thousand peasants were descending to
the tomb!"

Hospinian, another Protestant writer, says, addressing
Luther: "It is you who excited the peasants to revolt."f
Memno Simon, another Protestant, asserts the same thing. J
Cochlseus, a Catholic historian of the time, estimates the
number of the slaughtered peasants at one hundred and fifty
thousand ; and says : " On the day of judgment, Miinzer and
his peasants will cry out before God and his angels, ''ven
geance on Luther ! ' "§

* Tisch Reden, edit. Eisleb., p. 276. Luth. Opp., edit. Jense. Tom. iii,
foL 130. Audin, p. 318.

t " Historia Sacramentar." pars 2, fol. 200. J Lib. de cruce.

§ Cochlseus — Defensio Ducis Georgii, p. 63, edit. Ingolstadt, an. 1545, in4to.

Wolfgang Menzel estimates the number of the slaughtered peasants at
one hundred thousand ! He says : " Thus terminated this terrible struggle,
during which more than one hundred thousand of the peasantry fell, and
which reduced the survivors to a more degraded state of slavery." — History
of Germany, vol. ii, p. 244. Bonn's edition.

MENZEL'S ACCOUNT. 359

And have we not heard Luther himself boldly avowing his
agency in the whole transaction, and even boasting of it, with
a kind of fiendish exultation ? Had he not recommended the
princes to have no pity on the peasants, and threatened them
with the indignation of God, if they poured oil on their bleed
ing wounds ?* Had he not said : " Give the peasants oats ;
and if they grow strong-headed, give them the stick and the
cannon ball?"f

The unexceptionable Protestant historian of Germany,
whom we have just quoted, furnishes the following fuller
account of the revolt of the peasants, of the detailed griev
ances for which they sought redress, and of Luther's agency
in having them cruelly butchered, for no other crime than
their having dared ask for a very moderate share of popular
liberty :

" The peasantry discovered extreme moderation in their demands, which
were included in twelve articles, and elected a court of arbitration consisting
of the Archduke Ferdinand, the elector of Saxony, Luther, Melancthon, and
some preachers, before which their grievances were to be laid.

" The twelve articles were as follows : — 1. The right of the peasantry to
appoint their own preachers, who were to be allowed to preach the word of
God from the Bible. 2. That the dues paid by the peasantry were to be
abolished, with the exception of the tithes ordained by God for the mainte
nance of the clergy, the surplus of which was to be applied to general pur
poses and to the maintenance of the poor. 3. The abolition of vassalage as
iniquitous. 4. The right of hunting, fishing, and fowling. 5. That of cut
ting wood in the forests. 6. The modification of socage and average service.
7. That the peasant should be guarantied from the caprice of his lord by a
fixed agreement. 8. The modification of the rent upon feudal lands, by
which a part of the profit would be secured to the occupant. 9. The admin
istration of justice according to the ancient laws, not according to the new
statutes and to caprice. 10. The restoration of communal property, illegally
seized. 11. The abolition of dues on the death of the serf, by which the
widows and orphans were deprived of their right. 12. The acceptance of
the aforesaid articles, or their refutation as contrary to the Scriptures.

" The princes naturally ridiculed the simplicity of the peasantry in deem-

* Epist. Nich. Amsdorf, 30 Maii, 1525.

f Epist. to Ruhel, edit, de Wette, torn, ii, p. 669.

360 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON CIVIL LIBERTY.

ing a court of arbitration, in which Luther was to be seated at the side of the
archduke, possible, and Luther himself refused to interfere in their affairs.
Although free from the injustice of denying the oppressed condition of the
peasantry, for which he had severely attacked the princes and nobility, he
dreaded the insolence of the peasantry under the guidance of the Anabap
tists and enthusiasts, whom he viewed with deep repugnance, and, conse
quently, used his utmost endeavors to quell the sedition ; but the peasantry
believing themselves betrayed by him, gave way to greater excesses, and
Thomas Munzer openly accused him of 'deserting the cause of liberty, and
of rendering the Reformation a fresh advantage for the princes, a fresh means
of tyranny.'

" The whole of the peasantry in southern Germany, incited by fanatical
preachers, meanwhile revolted, and were joined by several cities. Karlstad t,
expelled from Saxony, now appeared at Rotenburg on the Tauber ; and the
Upper German peasantry, inflamed by his exhortations to prosecute the
Reformation independently of Luther, whom he accused of countenancing
the princes, rose in the March and April of 1525, in order to maintain the
twelve articles by force, to compel the princes and nobles to subscribe to them,
to destroy the monasteries, and to spread the gospel. Mergentheim, the seat
of the unpopular German Hospitallers, was plundered

" This atrocious deed drew a pamphlet from Luther ' against the furious
peasantry,' in which he called upon all the citizens of the empire ' to strangle,
to stab them, secretly and openly, as they can, as one would kill a mad dog.'*
The peasantry had, however, ceased to respect him."

Such, then, were the tender mercies of the Reformation !
Such its regard for the lower orders ! Such its political code !
The poor peasants were first stimulated to take up arms to
secure their freedom, and then butchered by tens of thou
sands ! In their tomb was buried whatever of liberty re
mained in Germany. The princes became omnipotent: the
revolt once crushed, no one dared any longer to raise his
voice in defense of freedom !

The Reformation had halted for a brief space between two
dreadful extremes : that of absolute and uncontrolled despot
ism on the one hand, and that of dreadful anarchy on the
other. It at first favored the latter, but soon it threw the

* " Casper von Schwenkfeld said : ' Luther has led the people out of Egypt
(the Papacy) through the Red Sea (the peasant war), but has deserted them
in the wilderness.' Luther never forgave him." Menzel, ibid.

ABSOLUTE MONARCHY. 361

whole weight of its powerful influence into the scales of the
former. The result has been, what might have been expected,
absolute despotism and union of church and state in every
country of Germany, where the Reformation obtained a solid
footing ! Had the reformers been really the friends of human
ity and of liberty ; had they urged the princes to redress the
just grievances of the peasants ; the issue of that struggle would
have been very different. The lower orders would have been
raised in the scale of society, and free institutions, which have
not blessed Germany since the days of Luther, would have
been established on a solid and permanent basis.

One of the most famous Protestant historians of the day,
Guizot, once prime minister of France, tells us, in his Lectures
on Civilization in Modern Europe: "that the emancipation
of the human mind (by the Reformation !), and absolute mon
archy triumphed simultaneously throughout Europe."* All
who have but glanced at the political history of Europe, in
the sixteenth century, must at once see the truth of this start
ling remark. In the Protestant kingdoms of continental
Europe, this rule suffers no exception : in all of them, absolute
monarchy, in its most consolidated and despotic form, dates
precisely from the period of the Reformation.!

Witness Prussia, Denmark, Sweden, and, we may add, En
gland : for it is certain, that for one hundred and fifty years
following the Reformation in England, the liberties of the
people were crushed ; the privileges secured by the Catholic
Magna Charta were wantonly trampled under foot ; and the
royal prerogative almost swallowed up every other element
of government. It was only at the period of the revolution,
in 1688, that the principles of the great Catholic Charter were

* Page 300 of Lectures, etc., American edit., 1 vol. 12mo.

f In the year 1848 some ameliorations were obtained or promised, but
they were generally of a transient character. Even in Sweden, of whose
popular institutions we sometimes hear or read, the Lutheran religion^ is
firmly established by law, and a union of church and state in its very worst
form exists, even down to the present day.
VOL. I.— 31

$62 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON CIVIL LIBERTY.

again feebly asserted, and partially restored to their proper
influence in the government.*

In Catholic countries, the necessity of strong measures of
precaution against the seditions and tumults occasioned by
the Reformation in every place where it had made its appear-^
ance, necessarily tended to strengthen the arm of the execu
tive : and in the general ferment of the times, the people
willingly resigned most of the civil privileges they had en
joyed during the middle ages, in order, by increasing the
power of their rulers, the more effectually to stem the torrent
of innovation, and to avert the threatened evils of anarchy.
Thus the political tendency of the Reformation, both directly
and indirectly, favored the introduction of absolute systems
of government throughout Europe.

And thus do we clearly owe to the " glorious Reformation,"
the despotic governments, the vast standing armies, and we
may add, the immense public debts and the burdensome tax
ation, of most of the European governments. Guizot's asser
tion is then well founded, both in the principles of political
philosophy, andf in the facts of history. We may however
remark, that it was a strange " emancipation of the human
mind" truly, which thus avowedly led to the "triumph of
absolute monarchy throughout Europe!"

It would seem that Switzerland at least was an exception
to Guizot's sweeping assertion ; as absolute monarchy never
was established in its cantons, even after the Reformation.
But the reader of Swiss history will not fail to observe, that
wherever Protestantism was established in that country, there
the democratic principle was weakened, there the legislative
councils unduly interfered in spiritual matters, and there des
potism thus often triumphed in the much abused name of
liberty. Those cantons of Switzerland precisely are the freest,

* See an able essay on this subject in Nos. xv, xviii, xix, of the Dublin
Keview, "On Arbitrary Power, Popery, Protestantism;" republished in a
neat 12mo volume by M. Fithian, Philadelphia, 1842. pp. 251.

SWISS LIBERTY. 363

which have remained faithful to the Catholic religion. In
them, you read of no persecution of Protestants for conscience'
sake, of no attempts to unite church and state, and of little
departure in any respect from the original Catholic charter
of Swiss liberties. It is a remarkable fact, that the three
cantons which first asserted Swiss liberty — those of Schweitz,
Uri, and Unterwald — have all continued faithful to the Cath
olic Church, as well as to the good old principles of democ
racy bequeathed to them by the Catholic founders of their
republic.

D'Aubigne admits, and he is sadly puzzled to account for,
this stern adherence of the oldest and freest Swiss cantons to
the Catholic faith. He explains it in his own characteristic
way, by appealing to the inscrutable ways of the Providence
of God ! He says :

" But if the Helvetic towns, open and accessible to ameliorations, were
likely to be drawn early within the current of the Reformation, the case was
very different with the mountain districts. It might have been thought
that these communities, more simple and energetic than their confederates
in the towns, would have embraced with ardor a doctrine, of which the char
acteristics were simplicity and force ; but He who said — ' at that time two
men shall be in the field, the one shall be taken and the other left ' — saw fit to
leave these mountaineers, while he took the men of the plain. Perhaps an
attentive observer might have discerned some symptoms of the difference,
which was about to manifest itself between the people of the town and the
hills. Intelligence had not penetrated to those hights. Those cantons
which had founded Swiss liberty, proud of the part they had played in the
grand struggle for independence, were not disposed to be tamely instructed
by their younger brethren of the plain. Why, they might ask, should they
change the faith in which they had expelled the Austrians, and which had
consecrated by altars all the scenes of their triumphs ? Their priests were
the only enlightened guides to whom they could apply ; their worship and
their festivals were occupation and diversion for their tranquil lives, and
enlivened the silence of their peaceful retreats. They continued closed
against religious innovations."*

Sure enough: why should they change the religion which
had sealed their liberties with its divine sanction, and the

* D'Aubigne, vol. i, p. 82, 83.

S64 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON CIVIL LIBERTY.

principles and the worship of which were so closely inter-
k woven with their most cherished patriotic reminiscences ?
"Intelligence had not penetrated to those hights," indeed 1
Those mountaineers were not sufficiently enlightened to per
ceive, — what no one has yet perceived — that the seditions and
tumults which everywhere marked the progress of the Refor
mation were favorable to liberty. They may well bless the
day, in which they took the resolution to adhere to the faith
of their patriotic forefathers : and, from their mountain hights,
amidst " their peaceful retreats," they may look down with
proud complacency on their "brethren of the plain" torn by
civil factions and religious dissensions — persecuting and pro
scribing one another — all in consequence of their having had
the "intelligence" to embrace the "glorious Reformation 1"

John Quincy Adams, the " old man eloquent," has offered
a far more plausible solution of the difficulty which so sadly
puzzled the mind of D'Aubigne. In a speech, which he made
some years ago at Buffalo, he said that " liberty was a moun
tain nymph." who loved alwrays to breathe the purest air,
and to dwell in the most lofty situations, nearest to heaven !
The old Swiss cantons had an instinctive feeling of the truth
of this beautiful and poetic thought. They loved liberty, and
therefore they remained Catholic.*

Did our space permit, we might here show what were the
political opinions of the various Catholic States of Europe,
adopted under the influence of the Catholic Church, for cen
turies before the Reformation was even heard of. We might
prove, that the Catholic Church was the mother of republics ;
and that during what are sometimes called the Dark Ages,
every important principle of free government — popular repre
sentation, trial by jury, exemption from taxation without the
consent of the governed, habeas corpus, and the great funda
mental principle, that all power emanates from the people —

* In the next chapter, we will show the political thralldom of Geneva
under Calvin.

SECURITY TO CHARACTER. 365

were generally recognized and firmly established. We might
moreover show, how almost every one of these sacred prin
ciples was successfully trampled on and abolished by that
very Reformation, which is forever boasting its ^advocacy of
free principles! But we have elsewhere devoted a special
essay to this interesting and highly suggestive subject.* By
comparing the political state of Europe in the good old Cath
olic times, with what it subsequently became, after the Refor
mation had done its work, the reader will be best enabled to
ascertain and appreciate the influence of this latter revolution
on civil liberty.

4. Enough has, however, been already established to enable
the impartial reader to form an enlightened judgment on the
real political influence of the Reformation. We have seen,
that with liberty forever on its lips, it really trampled under
foot almost every element of popular government: that it
weakened, and in many cases for a long time entirely des
troyed all security to life, to property, and to the pursuit of
happiness : and that withal, it everywhere imposed the intol
erable yoke of absolute despotism, with union of church and
state, on the necks of its disciples. — And all this, after men
had been seduced to its banner, by the enticing name of
liberty which they read inscribed thereon! But we have
scarcely as yet alluded to the influence of the Reformation on
one other essential element of free government — security to
character. Did the Reformation provide more ample security
to this — the dearest perhaps of all human rights — than had
been insured during the Catholic times ?

The Reformation, as we have already shown, created dis
sensions and sowed distrust among those who had been hith
erto united as brethren. It split up the religious world, till
then composing but "one sheepfold under one Shepherd,"
into a hundred warring sects. These carried on bitter con-

* See the essay, On the Influence of Catholicity on Civil Liberty, repub-
lished in our Miscellanea.

366 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON CIVIL LIBERTY.

troversies with one another, while all united in fiercely de
nouncing those who continued faithful to the religion of their
forefathers. Acrimonious denunciation, and personal recrim
ination, with the most scurrilous abuse, became the order of
the day under the new state of things. The arms of ridicule,
of caricature, of misrepresentation, and of open calumny were
constantly used, in the hallowed name of the religion of
peace and love ! No man's character was any longer secure,
especially if he had the independence to adhere to the ancient
faith, and to call in question the infallibility of the new dog-
matizers. — Does not every one recognize at once the truth of
this picture ? And is it not true, to a great extent, even at
the present day ? What security then, we ask, did the Ref
ormation provide for character?

Thus, the boasted .Reformation trampled in the dust every
important object of free government: security to life, to char
acter, to property, to the pursuit of happiness, to personal
liberty. And still we are to be told, that to it we are indebted
for all the liberty we possess !

In further confirmation of what has been already advanced
in this and the preceding chapters, we will here furnish the
testimony of the two recent Protestant travelers referred to
above — Bremner and Laing — in regard to the present condi
tion of civil and religious liberty in Northern Europe, which
has been for three centuries wholly under Protestant influence.

Bremner assures us that the king of Denmark is " the most
uncontrolled sovereign in Europe. "We have looked for," he
adds, "but can find no single check to the power of the king
of Denmark. Laws, property, taxes, all are at the mercy of
his tyranny or caprice." The Danes boast much of the liber
ation of the peasants in 1660 : but Mr. Bremner says, " that
this was not a liberation of any class in the kingdom, but the
more complete subjugation of all classes to the crown; and
that the peasants remained and still remain in many parts of
Denmark little better than serfs."*

* In the work cited above, chap, viii.— See Dublin Review for May, 1843,

DENMARK AND SWEDEN. 367

Laing confirms this statement. The following is his re
markable language :

" It is one of the most remarkable circumstances in modern history, that
about the middle of the seventeenth century, when all other countries were
advancing towards constitutional arrangements of some kind or other, for
the security of civil and religious liberty, Denmark by a formal act of her
states or diet, abrogated even that shadow of a constitution, and invested
her sovereigns with full despotic power to make and execute law, without
any check or control on their absolute authority. Lord Molesworth, who
wrote an account of Denmark in 1692, thirty-two years after this singular
transaction, makes the curious observation — ' that in the Roman Catholic re
ligion there is a resisting principle to absolute civil power, from the division of
authority with the head of the Church at Rome ; but in the north, the
Lutheran church is entirely subservient to the civil power, and the whole of
the northern people of Protestant countries, have lost their liberties ever since they
changed their religion for a better.' . . . . ' The blind obedience which is de
structive of natural liberty, is, he conceives, more firmly established in the
northern kingdoms by the entire and sole dependence of the clergy upon
the prince, without the interference of any spiritual superior, as that of the
Pope among Romanists, than in the countries which remained Catholic.' "*

This observation of Lord Molesworth, startling as it may
appear, is clearly grounded in history; and Laing further
confirms its truth in his interesting work on Sweden. He
says :

" The Swede has no freedom of mind, no power of dissent in religious
opinion from the established church ; because although toleration nominally
exists, a man not baptized, confirmed, and instructed by the clergyman of
the establishment, could not communicate in the established church, and
could not marry, or hold office, or exercise any act of majority as a citizen —
would, in fact, be an outlaw ! "

He then goes on to prove that there is in Sweden a most
rigid form of inquisition, which annually, even at this day,
severely punishes from forty to fifty persons for alleged
offences against religion

" The crime of ' mockery of the public service of God, or contemptuous

For more on this subject, we refer the reader to the chapter of our second
volume on the Reformation in Denmark etc.
* Work cited above, chap. viiL

368 INFLUENCE OF REFORMATION ON CIVIL LIBERTY.

behavior during the same,' is the first in the rubric of the second class of
crimes : that is, it comes after murder, blasphemy, sodomy, but before per
jury, forgery, or theft. It is, evidently, a very undefined crime, but is vis
ited with punishment in chains for various terms of years, as a crime against
the church establishment. Between 1830 and 1836, not fewer than two
hundred and forty-two persons have been condemned to chains for this crimet
in Sweden. Who will say, that the inquisition was abolished by Luther's
Reformation? It has only been incorporated with the state in Lutheran
countries, and exercised by the church through the ecclesiastical department
of government in the civil courts, instead of in the church courts. The
thing itself remains in vigor ; Lord Molesworth was right when he said,
that the whole of the northern people of Lutheran countries had lost their
liberties ever since they changed their religion for a better." (worse ?)

In Sweden, and, in fact, in all Northern Europe, the lower
orders are but little better than slaves. The servant may be
cudgeled by his master, and no matter how barbarously he
be treated, provided he be neither killed nor maimed, he has
no legal recourse ! Laing himself tells us as much.

" The servant has no right of action on the master for personal maltreat
ment, and during his time of service has no more rights than a slave."
" These people," he adds, " are trained to obedience, and in that class, to
consider nothing their own but what is left to them by the clergy and the
government, to whom, in the first place, their labors, time, and property
must belong. A country in this state, wants the very foundation on which
civil liberty must stand — a sense of independence and property among the
people."

He sums up his remarks on the political and religious con
dition of Sweden as follows :

" Such a state of laws and institutions in a country, reduces the people
as moral beings to the state of a soldiery, who, if they fulfill their regimen
tal duties and military regulations, consider themselves absolved from all
other restraints on conduct. This is the condition of the Swedish people.
The mass of the nation is in a state of pupilage, living like soldiers in a
regiment, under classes or oligarchies of privileged bodies — the public func
tionaries, clergy, nobility, owners of estate exempt from taxation, and incor
porated traders exempt from competition. Under this pressure in Sweden
upon industry, property, liberty, free opinion and free will, education is but
a source of amusement, or of speculation in science, without influence on
private morals, or public affairs ; and religion, a superstitious observance of
church days, forms, and ordinances, with a blind veneration for the clergy," etc.

AND PRUSSIA. 369

The politico-religious condition of Prussia is not a whit
more flattering. The serf system continued to prevail in this
kingdom even up to the beginning of the present century ;
and Laing assures us, that "the condition of these born-serfs"
' — the great body of the people — " was very similar to that
of the negro slaves on the West India estate during the ap
prenticeship term, before their final emancipation."

He proves that the so much vaunted system of common
school education in Prussia, is little more than a powerful
state engine to enslave the people.

" This educational system is, in fact, from the cradle to the grave, nothing
but a deception, a delusion put upon the noblest principle of human nature —
the desire for intellectual development — a deception practiced for the paltry
political end of rearing the individual to be part and parcel of an artificial
system of despotic government, of training him to be either its instrument
or its slave, according to his social station."

He further demonstrates the utter political degradation of
Prussia, by enlarging upon the apathy with which the royal
fusion of the two Protestant sects into one by the late king
of Prussia, was viewed by the mass of the population. He
proves at length that the Prussian is, in every respect, the
veriest political and religious slave — bound hand and foot by
government.

Such then has been, from unexceptionable Protestant testi
mony, the practical influence of the Reformation on civil and
religious liberty in those countries where that influence has
been least checked, and longest exercised !

370 REFORMATION IN GENEVA.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE REFORMATION AT GENEVA, AND ITS INFLUENCE
ON CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

Character of Calvinism — Protestant historians — The "Registers" — Audin —
Calvin's character — His activity — His heartlessness — Luther and Calvin
compared — Early liberties of Geneva — The "Libertines" — Blue laws —
Spy system — Persecution — Death of Gruet — Burning of Servetus — Hal-
lam's testimony — Morals of Calvin — His zeal — His complicated diseases —
His last will — His awful death and mysterious burial — A douceur — The
inference.

THE second great branch of the German Reformation was
that established at Geneva by John Calvin. Of all the re
formers, he was perhaps the most acute, learned, and talented.
And he has succeeded, better perhaps than any of them all,
in impressing his own stern and morose character on the sect
he founded. Geneva was the center of his operations, as
Wittenberg was of those of Luther, and Zurich, of those of
Zuingle. Starting from Geneva, Calvinism soon spread
through Switzerland, and it afterwards extended to France,
Holland, Scotland, and England. Even on the soil of Ger
many itself, it was soon able to dispute the supremacy with
the sect previously established by Luther. "We have deferred
till now our account of the origin and progress of Calvinism,
because we intend to view it chiefly in its bearing on the
subjects treated of in the two last chapters — civil and re
ligious liberty. Besides, in point of time, it is posterior to
the branches of the Reformation established respectively by
Luther and Zuingle.

Much additional light has been lately shed on the history
of early Calvinism. Protestant as well as Catholic historians
have labored with great success in this interesting field.
Among the former, we mention as among the most distin
guished, Galiife, Gaberel, and Fazy. These three learned

RECENT PROTESTANT RESEARCHES. 371

Protestants have all greatly contributed to elucidate the his
tory of Geneva in the sixteenth century. The last named
published in 1838 at Geneva, his Essay on the History of the
Genevan Republic,* in which he enlarges on the influence
of Calvinism on the destinies of the republic. The work of
Gaberel, entitled Calvin at Geneva, f enters still more directly
into the subject, and furnishes many additional details.

But, for ability, and research into the history of early Cal
vinism, they are both perhaps surpassed by Galiffe. His
three volumes of Genealogical Notices of Genevan Families, J
unfold much of the secret history of Geneva under the the
ocracy of Calvin. He has ferreted out and published to the
world the famous Registers of the Genevan ecclesiastical
consistory and cantonal council during the sixteenth century.
These had been long lost to the world. The friends of Calvin
seem to have carefully concealed them, out of respect to the
character of their father in the faith.

When, some years ago, Vemet requested the Genevan sec
retary of state, Chapeaurouge, to communicate to him the
order of proceedings touching Servetus, the council of state,
to whom the matter was referred, refused to grant the request.
However, Calandrini, the syndic of Geneva, answered, that
" the conduct of Calvin and of the council in that affair were
such, that they wished to bury it in deep oblivion."§ But
thanks to the indefatigable researches of Galiffe, and to the
growing indifference of the ministers of Geneva for the mem
ory of Calvin, those long hidden records of the political and
religious history of Geneva during Calvin's lifetime, have
been at length revealed to the world. A Protestant has thus
removed the dark veil which had hung over the cradle of
Calvinism for centuries.

* "Essai d'un precis de 1'Histoire de la Rep. Genevaise," 2 vols., 8vo.
f " Calvin a Geneve," 8vo. 1836.

J "Notices Genealog'iques sur les Families Genevaises," 3 vols. 1831, 1836.
§ The letter of the syndic is published in full by Galiffe in his " Notices,"
sup. cit

372 REFORMATION IN GENEVA.

In his life of Calvin,* Audin has availed himself of the
labors of all his predecessors in this interesting branch of re
ligious history. He had previously qualified himself for his
task by much patient labor and research. He assures us that
there was not a library of any note in France or Germany
which he did not visit, f In his travels, he discovered many
letters of Calvin hitherto unpublished. Among these is his
famous letter to Farel, which he found in the hand-writing
of Calvin himself, in the royal library at Paris.J The publi
cation of this letter — which is of undoubted genuineness § —
has rendered manifest what before was strongly suspected —
the agency of Calvin in compassing the death of Servetus.

In what we will have to say on the history of the Refor
mation at Geneva, we shall follow all these authors. More
particularly will we avail ourselves of the facts disclosed by
the learned and pains-taking Audin. Our plan does not of
course require, nor will the limits of a single chapter permit,
any very lengthy details on the history of early Calvinism.
The character of this branch of the Reformation, is, in fact,
nearly the same as that of those of Wittenberg and Zurich,
of which we have already treated at some length. Similar
means were also adopted to bring it about. Its effects on so
ciety, as we shall endeavor to show, were also nearly the
same.

John Calvin was born at Noyon, in France, on the 10th of
July, 1509, and he died at Geneva, on the 19th of May, 1564,
in the fifty-fifth year of his age. The first feature which
strikes us in his character, is his untiring industry and restless
activity. Whether we view him as a student frequenting the
schools of Paris, as a minister at Geneva, concerting with the

* " Histoire de la Vie, des Ouvrages et des Doctrines de Calvin " — Par
Audin, auteur de "1'Histoire de Luther," — 2 vols., 8vo. Paris, 1843. This
work has been translated into English by the present distinguished bishop
of Richmond. Our quotations are from the original.

f Introduction, p. 19. f Published in full, vol. ii, p. 313, seqq.

$ See Hallam — Hist of Literature, vol. i, p. 280. — Note.

CALVIN'S CHARACTER. 373

ministers Farel and Froment his plans for carrying out the
Reformation, as an exile at Strasburg, intermeddling with the
affairs of German diets and German reformers, or, after his
return to Geneva from the exile into which his own restless
ness had driven him ; — throughout his whole life, in fact, he
is the same busy, intriguing, restless character. He was
never asleep at his post; he was always on the alert; he
toiled day and night in carrying out his plans.

He was as cool and calculating as he was active. He
seldom failed,by one means or another, to put down an enemy
— and every opponent was liis enemy — because he could
seldom be taken at a disadvantage. His vigilance detected
their plans, and his prompt activity generally thwarted them.
Though very irritable, and inexorable in his anger, yet his
passion did not cloud his understanding, nor hinder the carry
ing out of his deliberate purpose. In temperament he was
cold and repulsive, even sour and morose. He mingled little
with others, and was as reserved in his conversation as he
was fond of retirement and study.

If he had any heart, he never gave evidence of the fact by
the manifestation of feeling. At the death of his first and
only child, he appears to have shed not one tear. In a letter
to the minister Viret, he coldly informed him of the fact, and
invited him to pay him a visit at Strasburg, telling him, as
an inducement to come, "that they could enjoy themselves,
and talk together for half a day."* He never manifested the
least sympathy for those in distress, though in many cases he
was himself the cause of their sufferings. Thus, when Ser-
vetus, on hearing that he was condemned to the stake, gave
way to his feelings in a burst of agony and tears, Calvin
mocked at his distress by writing to one of his friends " that
he bellowed after the manner of a Spaniard — mercv, mercy ."f

* See Audin, Vie de Calvin, vol. i, p. 351, note, for Calvin's words,
f " Ut tanttim Hispanico more reboaret : Misericordia, misericordia ! "
Ibid., vol. ii, p. 304.

374 REFORMATION IN GENEVA.

Thus also, when Castalio, one of the most excellent men
and accomplished scholars of his age, was on the very verge
of starvation at Berne, whither he had repaired to escape
Calvin's persecution at Geneva, the reformer had the cold-
heartedness to remind him that he had fed at his table ii\
Strasburg ; and, to do away with the effect of Castalio's argu
ments, which he found it difficult to answer, he even accused
him of theft! To the first charge Castalio answered, "1
lodged with you, it is true, about a week .... but I paid you
for what I had eaten. How cordially you and Beza hate
me."* The charge of theft he indignantly repelled as fol
lows : " And who told that ? Your spies have deceived you.
Reduced to the most frightful misery .... I took a hook, and
went to gather the wood which floated upon the Rhine, which
belonged to no one, and which I fished up, and burnt after
wards at my house to warm myself. Do you call this theft ?"f'
Castalio, thus hunted down by his inexorable enemy, literally
died of hunger while struggling to maintain by his learning
a wife and eight children. But he had had the misfortune
to differ with Calvin on predestination while at Geneva, and
the boldness to reprove him and his colleagues with an intol
erant spirit. — "Paul," he had told them, "chastised himself,
you torment others."!

Calvin's personal appearance was an index to his character.
He was of middle hight, of a lean and supple figure, with a
contracted chest, with the veins of his neck full and promi
nent, his mouth well made and large, his lips bluish, his
forehead expanded, bony, and furrowed with wrinkles, his
eye restless, and, when he was excited, darting fire. His
ceaseless labors caused him to become prematurely gray, and
gave him a pale and cadaverous aspect. He was a man
from whose appearance you would expect little that was not
the result of hard labor.

* Castalio — Defensio, pp. 26, 40. — Apud Audin, ibid., vol. ii, p. 239.
f Defens., p. 12, ibid. p. 240. t Ibid., p. 234.

LUTHER AND CALVIN COMPARED. 375

What a contrast between him and Luther! Luther,- a
creature of impulse, a portly ex-friar, fond of good cheer,
and never more at home than when conversing with boon
companions at his favorite resort, the Black Eagle tavern:
Calvin, meager, silent, and morose, shut up within himself,
chilling all with his reserve — all head and no heart. In the
pulpit the difference was equally marked. Luther spoke ex
temporaneously, and, without method or choice of words,
bore down all before him by a torrent of passionate invective
or boisterous declamation. Calvin was cold and unirnpas-
sioned, his diction was pure and polished, his thoughts clear
and precise, and his whole manner calculated , to make a
more deep and lasting impression on his hearers. Calvin's
was the eloquence of the head, Luther's that of the
heart.

But they agreed in one thing, if in little else : they both
crushed the liberties of the people in the countries which
were the respective theaters of their labors. Their profession
of breaking the bonds of religious slavery, and of securing
political freedom to the people, was all mere talk. It is too
late in the day to hold them up as the champions of popular
rights. The effect of the Reformation, both at Wittenberg
and at Geneva, was obviously to weaken the democratic
principle ; in both places the rights of the lower orders wrere
ruthlessly trampled under foot. In Germany, Luther conjured
up a storm which he could not control. WTe have already
shown how he first stirred up the people to revolt, and then
clamored for their blood, and how completely he succeeded
in destroying their liberties. Calvin also crushed the liber
ties of the people, but in a more insidious manner: he robbed
them of their liberty in the name of liberty. A foreigner,
he insinuated himself into Geneva, and, serpent-like, coiled
himself around the very heart of the republic which had
given him hospitable shelter, and had adopted him ; nor did
he relax his hold so long as he lived. He thus stung the
very bosom which had warmed him. That this language

376 REFORMATION IN GENEVA.

is not too strong, the following plain statement of facts will
sufficiently show.

The cantons of Switzerland formed one of the many re
publics of the middle ages. They owed all their liberties,
and even their very existence as a distinct government, to
Catholics in Catholic times. William Tell, Melchtal, and"
Furst were the fathers of Swiss liberty. In 1307 was fought
by these heroes the famous battle of Morgarten, which drove
the Austrians from Switzerland, and secured Swriss independ
ence. The bishops of Geneva had been its earliest and
greatest benefactors. They had more than once protected
the rights of the city against the aggressions of the dukes
of Savoy themselves. One of them — 'Adhemar Fabri — as
early as 1387, had written out the laws and privileges of the
city ; and the book was venerated as containing the magna
charta of Genevan liberties. Those laws provided that the.
citizens had the sole right of inflicting capital punishment ;
that none should be tortured without the consent of the
people; that, from the rising to the setting of the sun, the
citizens were the sole guardians of the city; that no agent
of the duke or bishop could exercise any power during that
time, and that the citizens alone had the right to elect their
burgomasters.*

Calvin soon trampled upon every one of these cherished
popular privileges. At the instigation of the ministers Farel
and Froment, Geneva had already cast off the mild yoke of
her episcopal court. Instead of it, she was doomed to wear,
firmly riveted on her neck, the iron yoke of Calvin's consis
tory. This spiritual court of Calvin's devising gradually
monopolized all power in Geneva. The hitherto free council
of the burgomasters became a mere tool in its hands. With
its manifold appliances of preachers, elders, and spies, it pen-

* Hottinger, Hist des Eglises de la Suisse ; Audin, vol. ii, p. 15. Those
laws are written in the quaint old Latin of that period, and they present a
strange mixture of the old Savoyard Patois with the classical Latin. The
style is very similar to that of the English Magna Charta.

GENEVA IN CATHOLIC TIMES. 377

etrated everywhere, and struck terror into every bosom. The
pulpit was then a powerful instrument in the hands of the
police. Every one trembled at the denunciation of the minis
ters, for it was almost sure to be followed by ulterior conse
quences in the social and civil order.

Whoever will read Audin's book, and the Protestant his
torians referred to above, must be convinced of the truth of
these remarks. Our limits will not allow copious details ; we
must confine ourselves to some of the more prominent facts in
support of the strong statement just made.

In the beginning of the sixteenth century, Geneva was one
of the great commercial centers of Europe. Occupying a
central position between Italy, Germany, and France, it was
a common mart for the goods of all these countries. The
enterprising flocked thither from almost every part of Europe.
It became also a city of refuge for all the uneasy and restless
spirits, who, in consequence of religious or political intrigues,
had been forced to leave their own country. The population
of Geneva was, on this account, of a most motley character.
Calvin was among the many French refugees who took shelter
there. Before his arrival, the Reformation had been already
begun through the agency of Farel and Froment. Its course
had been marked, as elsewhere, by pillage of the churches,
by seizure of church property, by destruction of works of art,
by robbery and sacrilege, and by massacres. La Sceur Jeanne
de Jussie, a nun of St. Clare, an eye-witness of these horrors,
and a sufferer by them, has left a most graphic description of
them, and Audin has given us an abstact of her interesting
work.*

Such was the state of things when Calvin came to Geneva.
Among its citizens, the mechanics and common laborers
formed a numerous class. These constituted too a distinct
political party, who viewed with an evil eye the ascendency
acquired by Calvin and the other foreign refugees. Calvin

* Audin, vol. i p. 195 to 215.
VOL. i. — -32

378 REFORMATION IN GENEVA.

could not brook them, and he styled them sneeringly the
party of the Libertines. The history of his protracted and
bitter contest with them forms the matter of many long and
highly interesting chapters in Audin's book.* The high-priest
of Geneva could not bear them, because, in their eveningr
parties, they took the unwarrantable liberty of laughing at
him — at his cadaverous figure, his withered hands, and his
nasal twang in the pulpit ; and because they had even gone
so far as to call him " le renard Francois, or the French fox."f

Besides, they had the unpardonable effrontery to drink
healths, to dance, and otherwise amuse themselves when the
labors of the day were over. Calvin's sour and morose tem
perament could ill brook this social cheerfulness, and espe
cially the witty or malicious sallies at his own expense.
Besides, he was troubled with the asthma, and was subject to
vertigo and headache. — And what right had those vulgar
clowns to shock his nerves, or to disturb his sleep ? "What
right had they to their old and long-cherished national amuse
ments, if it was in the least displeasing to the humor of this
splenetic stranger ? What right had they to sing, or to laugh
at his peculiarities ? If it was not downright blasphemy, as
the ministers more than once intimated from the pulpit, it
was at least very impolite in them not to wear longer faces,
at least while he was in the city.

Calvin determined to put down the Libertines ; and, the
better to effect his purpose, he procured the enactment of a
body of laws, of which we will here give a few specimens.
They show us what was the spirit, and what was the legisla
tion of Calvinism from its very birth.

"They punished with imprisonment the lady who arranged her hair with
too much coquetry (the ministers were to judge), and even her chambermaid
who assisted at her toilet ; the merchant who played at cards, the peasant
who spoke too harshly to his beast, and the citizen who had not extinguished
his lamp at the hour appointed by law."J — "Men were forbidden to dance

* Audin, chapters i, vi, viii, and xv of vol. ii. f Ibid., vol. ii, p. 13, seq.

\ Ibid. vol. ii, p. 12.

BLUE LAWS AND ESPIONAGE. 379

with women, or to wear figured hose, or flowered breeches."* — " Three tan
ners were put in prison for three days, on bread and water, for having eaten
at breakfast three dozen pieces of pastry, which was great dissoluteness."! —
" They forbade any one to have a cross, or any other badge of popery." — "A
merchant who sold wafers marked with a cross was fined sixty sols, and his
wafers were cast into the fire as scandalous." f

" Woe to him who did not uncover his head at the approach of Calvin ; he
was fined. Woe to him that gave him a flat contradiction ; he was brought
before the consistory, and menaced with excommunication. § Woe to the
girl who presented herself to be married with a bunch of flowers in her
bonnet, if her chastity was even suspected by the consistory. Woe to him
who danced on the day of his marriage ; he was imprisoned for three days.
Woe to the young married lady if she wore shoes according to the present
fashion of Berne : she was publicly reprimanded." ||

This minute and vexatious Calvinistic legislation regulated
even the number of plates which should appear on the table
of the rich, and the quality of butter to be sold, etc.^I

"All were ordered to eat meat on Fridays and Saturdays, under penalty
of imprisonment : and the night-watch was ordered to proclaim that no one
should make slashed doublets or hose, or wear them hereafter under penalty
of sixty sols."** — " Chapius was put in prison for having persisted in calling
his child Claud, although the minister wished to call him Abraham. He
had said that, rather than do this, he would keep his child fifteen years
without baptism.ft He was kept in prison four days." — " One day a relation
presented himself at the altar with a young girl of Nantes to be married.
The minister, Abel Poupin, asked him : Will you be faithful to your wife ?
The bridegroom instead of answering yes, only inclined his head. Hence
great tumult among the assistants. He was sent to prison, obliged to ask
pardon of the young lady's uncle, and condemned to bread and water."J|

We might multiply facts of the kind, to exhibit still fur
ther the peculiarities of this singular code. The pious Cal
vinistic legislators who enacted the "blue laws of Connec
ticut could at least boast precedent if not common sense, for

* Audin, vol. ii, p. 138, from Register of Geneva, 1522, July 14.

f Ibid. Register, 13th, February, 1558. J Ibid., p. 173,

5 Ibid. Register, 31st Dec. 1543.

H Reglemeht de Police, 29th July, 1549, ibid. 5[ Ibid.

** Register, 16th April, 1543 ; Audin, voL ii, p. 185.

ft Register, 1546 ; ibid. \\ Ibid., p. 186.

380 REFORMATION IN GENEVA.

their curious enactments. The above, however, are but small
scraps of Genevese legislation under Calvin's theocracy. To
understand fully the spirit of his laws, in all their length and
breadth, you must read the criminal prosecutions of Berthel-
lier, Gruet, Gentilis, Bolsec, Ami Perrin, Francis Favre, and
Servetus, copious portions of wThich are spread before us by
Audin, from the original documents. We may have occasion
to refer to some of these a little later.

To ferret out and punish the infractors of these singular
laws, Calvin established a regular system of espionage.

" He kept in his pay secret informers, in order to learn the secrets of fami
lies."* — " Besides these, there was another band of spies, the ciders, recog
nized by law, who could penetrate once a week into the most mysterious
sanctuary of domestic life, in order to report to the consistory what they
might see and hear."f — " In one single year, the consistory instituted more
than two hundred prosecutions for blasphemy, calumny, obscene language,
lechery, insulfs to Calvin, offenses against the ministers, and attempts against
the French exiles."J

The liberties of the city were now totally crushed, and
every one trembled for his life ! The spies whom Calvin em
ployed were chiefly from among the most degraded of the
French refugees ; and this odious practice was carried to such
lengths that the citizens trembled at the approach of one of
these sinister individuals. A curious instance of the proceed
ings of these miscreants is found in the Registers of Geneva.

" Master Eaymond, a spy, was passing by the bridge, when he heard a
voice saying 'Go to the devil !' — 'Who is that?' asked Raymond of Domi
nic Clement, who was present. Dominic answered: "Tis a girl who is
wishing the " Renard," or " Fox," at the devil.' Raymond thought the man
meant to insult him : ' You are a fox yourself,' says he to Dominic, who an
swered, ' I am as good a man as you are, and have not at least been banished
from my country.' Dominic was denounced to the consistory, which sharply
reproved him. On his wishing to justify himself, Calvin silenced him, say
ing, ' Hush, you have blasphemed against God in saying I have not been
banished." '§

* Audin, vol. ii, p. 149. f Ibid., p. 150.

J Ibid. \ Ibid., p. 167.

CALVIN INEXORABLE AND BLOOD-THIRSTY. 381

Our historian furnishes us with a number of such facts.
Every enemy of Calvin was closely watched, and could
scarcely escape being denounced. Woe to him who smiled
while Calvin was preaching, even though he treated his hear
ers as "letchers, blasphemers, and dogs." "Three persons
who had smiled at a sermon of Calvin, on seeing a man fall
from his chair asleep, were denounced, condemned to three
days of imprisonment on bread and water, and to beg par
don."* These spies laid snares for the simple. " They asked
a Norman who was going to Montpellier, whether he intended
to change his religion." The Norman replied, " I dont think
the Church is so narrowly bounded, as to hang from the girdle
of M. Calvin." He was denounced and banished !f

Talk of the Spanish Inq uisition after this ! And yet these are
not the darkest shades of the picture. Far from it. They are but
mere trifles, when compared with the horrible facts developed
in the criminal prosecutions alluded to above. "Whosoever
opposed Calvin, whether in religion or in politics, was hunted
down and his blood was sought at his instigation. He never
forgave a personal injury. In regard to his enemies, he was
as watchful as a tiger preparing to pounce on its prey — and
as treacherous ! This is strong language ; but it is more than
justified by the official records of Geneva. We will present a
few of the more striking facts in confirmation of our statement.

How sanguinary, for instance, is the spirit breathed in this
extract of Calvin's letter to the Marquis de Pouet !

" Do not hesitate to rid the country of those fanatical fellows (faquins),
who in their conversation seek to excite the people against us, who blacken
our conduct, and would fain make our belief pass as a revery : such monsters
ought to be strangled, AS I DID, IN THE EXECUTION OF MICHAEL SERVETUS, THE
SPANIARD."^

His vindictive conduct towards Pierre Ameaux, a member
of the Genevan council of twenty-five, is a fit commentary
on this sentiment. At a supper, this man, inflamed with

* Audin, vol. ii, p. 171. f Ibid-, P- 179. f Ibid., p. 1721

REFORMATION IN GENEVA.

wine, had said some hard things of Calvin. At his table,
another man, Henry de la Mar. had also said, amidst the
general applause of the guests : " That Calvin was a spiteful
and vindictive man, who never pardoned any one against
whom he had a grudge." — The next morning, Ameaux was
cited before the council, where he excused himself on the
ground that he was excited with wine. The council fined
him thirty thalers — a large sum at that time. " On hearing
of this sentence, Calvin arose, donned his doctor's dress, and
escorted by the ministers and elders, penetrated into the hall
of the council, demanded justice in the name of that God
whom Pierre Ameaux had outraged, in the name of the
morals he had sullied, and of the laws he had violated; and
declared that he would quit Geneva, if the man were not
compelled to make the amende honorable — a public apology,
bareheaded, at the city hotel," and in two other public places !
The council yielded ; and " the next day, Ameaux, half naked,
with a torch in his hand, accused himself in a loud voice of
having knowingly and wickedly offended God, and begged
pardon of his fellow-citizens."* — What is to be thought of a
man, who could thus crush a penitent and stricken enemy !
Had he aught of the spirit of that God-Man who " would not
break the bruised reed?"

Henry la Mar, the other culprit, did not escape. He was
dogged by Texier, one of Calvin's spies, who extracted from
his lips, under an oath of secresy, some words disrespectful
to his master. Texier came running to Calvin with the news,
saying that he did not think himself bound by his oath, when
the public good required the disclosure. " Calvin accused
La Mar, caused him to lose his situation, and had him con
demned to prison for three days. The judges assigned as
their reason, ; that he had blamed M. Calvin ! ' "f

* See the whole account, from original documents, in Audin, vol. ii, p. 181,
geq., where also a number of similar facts are recounted,
f Audin, vol. ii, p. 184.

CALVIN'S PERSECUTION — DEATH OF GRUET. 383

Of a similar character was the prosecution, commenced at
the instance of Calvin, against Francis Favre, a veteran
Boldier of the republic, and a counselor of the city. He
had been at a wedding where they had danced all the even
ing, and where he was accused by one of Calvin's spies of
having used seditious language. Among the ten specifications
alleged against him, were several things he had said against
Calvin ; and the last and most grievous was, that he had, on
being conducted to prison, cried out: "LIBERTY! LIBERTY!!
I would give a thousand dollars to have a general council ! "
(of the burgomasters.) He was sentenced to beg pardon
publicly. The veteran refused ; he was sent to prison for
three weeks, and was then liberated only at the instance of a
deputation from Berne.*

Calvin also sought the life of Ami Perrin, the captain-
general of Geneva. Perrin's wife had been guilty of dancing
on the territory of Berne. Calvin sought to entrap Perrin
by means of Megret, one of his hired spies. This miscreant
denounced Perrin before the council ; and he was in conse
quence thrown into prison. Calvin thirsted for his blood.
But the people loved Perrin. The council of the two hundred
assembled to try him for his life. A reaction took place;
Perrin was about to be liberated, and Megret was openly
denounced. At this juncture, Calvin entered the council
hall. The people received him with cries of " death to Cal
vin ! " Calvin waved his hand, addressed them, and calmed
their fury; but he barely succeeded by his eloquence in
saving his own life!f

In reading these details, we are almost reminded of Marat
and Robespierre haranguing the Jacobin clubs during the
reign of terror. In fact, Calvin's reign in Geneva was truly
a reign of terror ; and if during it, as much blood did not

* Audin, vol. ii, p. 189, seq.

f Ibid., p. 196, seq. By his overweening influence, Calvin however suc
ceeded in having Perrin afterwards tried, when, though his life was spared,
he was deprived of the place of captain-general ; ibid., p. 197. seq.

384 REFORMATION IN GENEVA.

flow as during the French Revolution, it was not surely his
fault. He combined the cruelty of Danton and Robespierre,
with the eloquence of Marat and Mirabeau, though he was
much cooler, and therefore more successful than any one of
them all.

"Who will not be stricken with horror on reading of the
cold-blooded cruelty with which he hunted down and com
passed the death of poor Gruet, the poet !* This unfortunate
man was accused of having affixed a placard on Calvin's pul
pit at St. Peters church, in which the reformer was severely
handled. He was apprehended and his papers were seized.
Among these, consisting of nothing but loose sheets, were
found some scraps of poetry and other fugitive pieces, which
were tortured into heresy and treason. He was plied with
the torture by Calvin's creature, Colladon, every day for a
whole month. They wished him to implicate Favre or Per-
rin; but though he cried out in agony of torture: "Finish
me, I beseech you — I am dying;" he remained firm, and
would not accuse them. The council pronounced sentence of
death on him. Among the charges against him, the prin
cipal were : " That he had endeavored to ruin the authority
of the consistory — that he had menaced the ministers, and
spoken ill of Calvin — and that he had conspired with the
king of France against the safety of Calvin and of the state."f
Gruet died on the scaffold, but Calvin was not yet satisfied.
He wished that his writings should be condemned, and he
himself drew up a long form of condemnation of them, which
was approved by the council.! Calvin alone is responsible
for the blood of Gruet ; it still cries aloud to heaven against
him!

We might exhibit similar hard-heartedness and tyranny in
his persecution of Bolsec,§ of Gentilis, of Berthillier,|| and

* He was not poet enough to excite much envy. f Audin, p. 200, seqq.
| This document, found at Berne in the handwriting of Calvin, is given
in full by Audin, ibid., p. 244, seqq.

5 Ibid., vol. ii, p. 245, seqq. |j Ibid., p. 347, seqq.

BURNING SERVETUS. 385

of others. But we are heart-sick of these horrors, and must
hasten on. Yet we can not wholly pass over the well-known
case of Servetus, to which Audin devotes two whole chap
ters,* and upon which he sheds much additional light. We
will state only a few undoubted and prominent facts in this
sad affair.

1st. Servetus was burnt on the 27th of October, 1553 ; but
as early as 1546 — seven years previously — Calvin had thirsted
for his blood, as appears from these words, taken from his
famous letter to Farel, written in that year: "If he (Serve
tus) come here (to Geneva), and my authority be considered,
I will not permit him to escape with his life."f

2d. Pursuing this blood-thirsty purpose, he had denounced
Servetus to the police of Lyons, where he then was. And
when he (Servetus) had fled to Vienne, he very narrowly
escaped — probably with the connivance of the Catholic clergy
of Yienne — from the prison to which he had been consigned,
at the instigation of officers sent in quest of him in conse
quence of his denunciation, by Calvin's agents, at Lyons.J

3d. When Servetus, fleeing from his enemies, passed
through Geneva, Calvin denounced him and had him ar
rested, against all the laws both of God and of man.§ For
Servetus was a stranger, only passing through Geneva ; || and
he was not responsible to the Genevan tribunals for a crime
which he had not committed within the Genevan territory ;
and this, even supposing heresy to be a crime punishable by
the civil laws.

4th. Though Servetus was a poor stranger, and though he
begged for counsel to defend him, that right, not denied even to
the meanest culprit, was refused him at the instance of Calvin. Tf

* Audin, chapters xii and xiii of vol. ii, p. 258 to 324.
f See the letter in full, ibid., vol. ii, p. 314, seqq. f Ibid., vol. ii, 285, seqq.
$ Ibid., p. 287, seqq.

|| Bancroft assigns this same reason : " Servetus did but desire leave to
continue his journey." Hist. United States, vol. i, p. 455.
IT Audin, vol. ii, p. 297.
VOL. T.— 33

386 REFORMATION IN GENEVA.

5th. After Servetus had lain in prison five weeks, a victim
of disease and devoured by vermin, he wrote to the council,
stating his situation, and begging for a change of linen. The
council wished to grant his request, but Calvin opposed it,
and he succeeded! Three other letters written during the
following week from prison, in which Servetus begged for'
counsel, and asked that the charges against him should be

specified and made known to him, were answered by

silence.*

6th. When, on the morning of his execution, Servetus sent
for Calvin, and begged his pardon, if he had offended him,
Calvin answered him with cold-hearted cruelty .f We have
seen above how he insulted his tears.

7th. The heartless cruelty of the minister Farel, who ac
companied Servetus to execution, is enough to make one's
blood run cold at the bare reading of it.J

8th. The year after the execution of Servetus — in 1554 —
Calvin published his famous work on punishing heretics,§ in
which he justified the whole proceeding by the authority of
Scripture !

Was this man sent to reform the Church of God ? He was
worse than " the Caliph of Geneva," as Audin calls him — he
was a very Nero ! Gibbon has well said of this transaction :
" I am more deeply scandalized at the single execution of
Servetus than at the hecatombs (not true) which have blazed
at auto da fes of Spain and Portugal."

Hallam gives the following account of the burning of Ser
vetus :

" Servetus, having, in 1553, published at Vienne, in Dauphine, a new
treatise, called Christianismi Restitutio, and escaping from thence, as he
vainly hoped, to the Protestant city of Geneva, became a victim to the big
otry of the magistrates, instigated by Calvin, who had acquired an immense
ascendency over that republic."\\ — And in a note he brings abundant proof of

* Audin, vol. ii, p. 299, seq. f See the whole conversation, ibid., p. 305.
| Ibid., p. 304, seq. § De Haereticis Puniendis.

|| History of Literature, vol. i, p. 280.

THE PLAQUE IN GENEVA. 387

all this, alleging, among other things, the famous letter of Calvin to Farel,
"published," he says, "by Witenbogart (a Protestant) in an ecclesiastical
history, written in Dutch." — In the same note he says : " Servetus, in fact,
was burned not so much for his heresies, as for personal offense Tie had several

years before given to Calvin Servetus had, in some printed letters,

charged Calvin with many errors, which seems to have exasperated the great (!)
reformer's temper, so as to make him resolve on what he afterwards exe
cuted." — " The death of Servetus," he continues, " has perhaps as many
circumstances of aggravation as any execution for heresy that ever took
place. One of these, and among the most striking, is that he was not the
subject of Geneva, nor domiciled in the city, nor had the Christianismi Res-
titutio been published there, but at Vienne. According to our laws, and
those, I believe, of most civilized nations, he was not amenable to the tribu
nals of the republic."* — He concludes the entire account with this sweeping
accusation against all the early reformers in regard to intolerance : " Thus,
in the second period of the Reformation, those ominous symptoms which
had appeared in its earliest stage, disunion, virulence, bigotry, intolerance,
far from yielding to any benignant influence, grew more inveterate and in-
curable."f

We think that the above facts make good our assertion,
that Calvin crushed the liberties of Geneva, political as well
as religious. The following may serve to show us how sin
cere was his zeal for the salvation of souls.

The plague broke out at Geneva in 1543. The ministers
from the pulpit recommended prayer once a week to avert the
scourge, and they appointed the Sunday week next following
as the day for administering the sacrament of the Lord's Sup
per with the same intent.J The plague continued, and the
ministers hid themselves, though hundreds were calling on
them for spiritual succor in their dying moments ! The hos
pital was crowded with the dying. The council of state
called on the ministers to send one of their number to assist
the dying at the hospital, from which duty, however, they
wished " to exempt Calvin, because the church had need of
him !" The ministers met with Calvin, and agreed to decide
by lot who was to go. One only, Geneston, offered to go, if

* History of Literature, vol. i, p. 280. f Ibid., p. 281.

J Register, etc., Audin, vol. ii, p. 16.

388 REFORMATION IN GENEVA.

the lot fell on him ! The others " confessed that God had not
yet given them grace to have the strength and courage to go
to the hospital!" And "it was resolved to pray to God to
give them more courage for the future."* The result was
that no one went to the hospital, except Chatillon, a young
French poet, and another Frenchman, who fell a victim to'
the disease. Were these men true shepherds, or were they
only mercenaries ? The answer may be found in the tenth
chapter of St. John's Gospel.

Calvin's morals have been discussed on both sides. Beza
and his other friends have held him up as a model of per
fection; others, with Bolsec, have represented him as a
monster of impurity and iniquity. The story of his having
been guilty of a crime of nameless turpitude at Noyon,
though denied by his friends, yet rests upon very respectable
authority. Bolsec, a contemporary writer, relates it as eer-,
tain. Before his work appeared, it had been mentioned by
Surius in 1558 ; by Turbes, who lived in the reign of Francis
I.; by Simon Fontana in 1557; by Stapleton in 1558; by
La Vacquerie in 1560-1; by De Mouchi in 1562; by Du
Preau in 1567; and by Whitaker before 1570.f The learned
and careful Protestant Galiffe, who had examined most
thoroughly the archives of Geneva, uses this very plain
language :

" The history of many of the reformer's colleagues is very scandalous,
the details of which can not enter into a work designed for both S3xes."f
The same writer tells us " that most of the facts related by the physician of
Lyons (Bolsec) are perfectly true."§

In the introduction to the third volume of his Notices, he
bears the following testimony to the state of morals at Geneva
in Calvin's time:

" To those who imagine that the reformer had done nothing that is not
good, I will exhibit our Registers covered with entries of illegitimate chil-

* Audin, Register of Council. f See ibid., vol. ii, p. 256. Note.

\ Graliffe, Notices, torn, iii, p. 381. Note — quoted ibid.
\ Ibid., p. 457, note. Audin, vol. ii, p. 257.

CALVIN'S DEATH AND MYSTERIOUS BURIAL. 389

dren — (these were exposed at all the corners of the city and country,) with
prosecutions hideous for their obscenity, with wills in which fathers and
mothers accuse their own children not only of errors, but of crimes, with
transactions before notaries public between young girls and their paramours,
who gave them, in the presence of their relatives, means of supporting their
illegitimate offspring, with multitudes of forced marriages, where the delin
quents were conducted from prison to the church, with mothers who aban
doned their infants at the hospital, while they were living in abundance with
a second husband, with whole bundles of processes between brothers, with
multitudes (literally heaps, tas) of secret denunciations : and all this in the
generation nourished by the mystic manna of Calvin ! "*

Truly, if the Kegisters prove all this, we may conclude
that Calvin stamped his own image upon his generation, and
especially his heartlessness. Such facts as these, resting as
they do upon the undoubted authority of the official records
of Geneva, speak volumes in regard to the moral influence
of that gloomy system of religionism which Calvin intro
duced into that city, as a substitute for the Catholic religion.
They prove that the boasted austerity of the early Calvinists
was little better than a sham, if it was not even a cloak
to cover enormous wickedness. They exhibit their own
favorite doctrine of total depravity in its fullest practical
development !

The accounts published of the circumstances attending the
last sickness and death of Calvin are various and contra
dictory. His disciple Beza, who wrote his life, represents
his death as worthy of an apostle and of a saint. Yet even
he, as we shall see, furnishes us with some particulars which
would make us distrust the truth of this flattering picture.
The diseases which led to his dissolution were many and
complicated. In a letter to the physicians of Montpelier,
written a short time before his death, Calvin gives a full
account of the maladies with which he was tormented.
Among these, he mentions " the dropsy, the stone, the gravel,
colics, hemorrhoids, internal hemorrhages, quartan fever,
cramps, spasmodic contractions of the muscles from the foot

* Galiffe, Notices, torn, iii, p. 15. Apud Audin, vol. ii, p. 174.

390 REFORMATION IN GENEVA.

to the knee, and, during the whole summer, a frightful
neuralgia or nervous affection."*

His malady increasing, he dictated his last will and testa
ment on the 26th of April, 1564% The greater part of this
curious instrument is devoted to a defense of his conduct and
motives throughout life ! f He " protests that he has endeav
ored, according to the measure of grace given to him, to
teach with purity the word of God, as well in his sermons
as in his writings, and to expound faithfully the Holy Scrip
tures. And that, in all the disputes which he had had with
the enemies of truth, he had employed neither chicanery nor
sophistry, but had proceeded roundly (rondement) to main
tain the quarrel of God." In disposing of his effects, towards
the close of his will, he thus speaks of his nephew: "As to
my nephew David . . because he has been light and volatile,
I leave him only twenty-five crowns (ecus) as a chastisement."

On the morning of the 27th of May, at eight o'clock, he
breathed his last, after having passed a night of horrible
agony. The circumstances of his death and burial were hid
den and mysterious. His body was immediately covered,
and his funeral was hastened : it took place at two o'clock in
the afternoon of the same day. Beza,J his favorite disciple,
thus writes on the subject :

" There were many strangers come from a distance, who wished greatly

to see him, although he was dead, and made instance to that effect

But, to obviate all calumnies, he was put into the coffin at eight o'clock in
the morning, and at two o'clock in the evening was carried in the ordinary
manner, as he himself had directed, to the common cemetery, called ' Plein
Palais,' without any pomp or parade, where he lies at the present day,
awaiting the resurrection."

The "calumnies" to which Beza refers were ^robably the
public rumors spread through the city regarding the manner
of the reformer's death.

* See his letter in Audin, vol. ii, p. 452, seq.
f It is given in full by Audin, ibid., p. 456, seq.
| Vie de Calvin, apud Audin.

CHARACTER OF CALVIN. 391

"It was said that every one had been prohibited from entering into his
chamber, because the body of the deceased bore traces of a desperate strug
gle with death, and of a premature decomposition, in which the eye would
have seen either visible signs of the divine vengeance, or marks of a shame
ful disease ; and that in consequence a black veil was hastily thrown over
the face of the corpse, and that he was interred before the rumor of his
death had spread through the city. So fearful were his friends of indiscreet
looks !"*

The mystery seems, however, to have been penetrated by
Haren, a young student who had visited Geneva to take les
sons from Calvin. He penetrated into the chamber of the
dying man, and he has furnished the following evidence of
what he saw on the occasion. And we beg our readers to
bear in mind that he was no enemy, but a partisan of Calvin,
and that his testimony was wholly voluntary.

" Calvin, ending his life in despair, died of a most shameful and disgust
ing disease, which God has threatened to rebellious and accursed repro
bates, having been first tortured in the most excruciating manner, and con
sumed, to which fact I can testify most certainly, for I, being present, saw
with these eyes his most sad and tragical death — exitum et exitium."f

In thus presenting to our readers a condensed and necessa
rily imperfect summary of facts, many of them extracted
from the public and official acts of the Genevan council and
consistory in the sixteenth century, we would not be under
stood as wishing to reflect upon -the character or conduct of
the present professors of Calvinistic doctrines, many of whom
are men estimable for their civic virtues. It is not our fault
that the truth of history will not warrant a better character
of Calvin. He was the most subtle, the most untiring, and
perhaps the most able enemy of the Catholic Church. He
played a public and conspicuous part in the great religioso-
political drama of the sixteenth century ; he was the founder
of a sect more distinguished than any other, perhaps, for its

* Audin, vol. ii, p. 464, seq.

f Johannes Harennius, apud Petrum Cutxenum. We have endeavored
to give above a literal translation of his testimony, of which the original is
in Latin. Ibid.

392 REFORMATION IN GENEVA.

inveterate opposition to Catholicity. Under these circum
stances, his life, acts, and whole character, are surely public
property ; and truth and justice required that they should be
given to the public. This is precisely what Audin, and the
Protestant historians of Geneva, Galiffe, and Gaberel, have^
done ; and, treading in their footsteps, we have only given a
brief abstract of the result of their labors.

Among the many proofs that the Catholic Church is the
true Church of Christ, not the least striking is the fact,
vouched for by authentic history, that all those who have left
her bosom, and established religious sects, were men of either
very doubtful, or of notoriously wicked and immoral charac
ters. It is contrary to the order of God's providence to have
selected men of this stamp, to become the reformers of His
Church. This would derogate from his sanctity, and would
reflect upon a religion which could be established, or reformed,'
by such instruments. This principle being once admitted, the
inference from it is obvious. Whenever a change in religion
— call it reformation, or what you will — has been effected uy
men not remarkable for their sanctity, the fact of itself pre
sents strong presumptive evidence that the change is not
from God. If the men who effected it were notoriously
flagitious, as most of the self-styled reformers of the sixteenth
century certainly were, then the presumption grows into a
moral certainty. Judged by this test, Calvinism was surely
not the work of God.

BOASTING THEORY OF THE REFORMATION. 393

CHAPTER XV.

INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON LITERATURE.

" The march of intellect ! what know we now
Of moral, or of thought and sentiment,
Which was not known three hundred years ago ?
It is an empty boast, a vain conceit
Of folly, ignorance, and base intent."

Light and darkness — Boast of D'Aubigne — Two sets of barbarians — Catho
lic and Protestant art — The "painter of the Reformation" — Two wit
nesses against D 'Aubigne — Schlegel — Hallam — " Bellowing in bad Latin "
— Testimony of Erasmus — Destruction of monasteries — Literary drought
— Luther's plaint — Awful desolation — An "iron padlock" — Early Prot
estant schools — D'Aubigne's omissions — Burning seal — Light and flame —
Zeal for ignorance — Burning of libraries — Rothman and Omar — Disputa
tious theology — Its practical results — Morbid taste — The Stagirite —
Mutual distrust — Case of Galileo — Liberty of the press — Old and new
style — Religious wars — Anecdote of Reuchlin — Italy pre-eminent — Plaint
of Leibnitz — Revival of letters — A shallow sophism — A parallel — Great
inventions — Literary ages — Protestant testimony — Dollinger's testimony
of the reformers themselves.

IT is one of the proudest boasts of the Reformation that it
gave a powerful impulse to literature and the arts. Before it,
the world was sunk in utter darkness, both religious and
literary ; after it, all was light and refinement. Before it,
society remained stationary ; after it, every thing was in a state
of progression and improvement. But for the Reformation,
we would still have been immersed in worse than Egyptian
darkness ; we would have had neither science nor literature !

Such is the proudly boasting theory which has been
broached and maintained by many superficial admirers of the
Reformation. D'Aubigne gravely asserts ;' that the Reforma
tion not only communicated a mighty impulse to literature,
but served to elevate the arts, although Protestantism has
often been reproached as their enemy/'* He laments that
" many Protestants have willingly taken up and borne this

* Aubigne, vol. iii, p. 190.

394 INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON LEARNING.

reproach."* After devoting three pages to a tissue of gratu
itous assertions and of special pleading to prove the " reproach
unmerited," he winds up in this triumphant strain : " Thus
every thing progressed — arts, literature, purity of worship,
and the minds of prince and people."! If the Reformation
caused "the arts and literature" to progress no faster nor
better than it did " the purity of worship, and the minds of
prince and people," we greatly fear, from the many stubborn
facts already adduced to elucidate the character of this lat
ter progression, that the former was not rapid, nor even
real.

The Reformation favorable to the fine arts ! As well might
you assert that a conflagration is beneficial to a city which it
consumes, or that the incursions of the northern barbarians,
in the fifth and sixth centuries, were favorable to architec
ture, painting, sculpture, and the other fine arts. Wherever
the Reformation appeared, it pillaged, defaced and often burnt
churches and monasteries ; it broke up and destroyed statues
and paintings ; and it often burnt whole libraries. Its ruth
less vandalism spared none of the glories of the old Catholic
art. Whatever was connected with the Catholic worship, or
could serve as a memorial of old Catholic piety, was wantonly
destroyed.

The armies of Goths and Vandals, who overran Italy and
sacked Rome fourteen centuries ago, did not manifest a more
ruthless and destructive spirit than did the Lutheran army
of the Constable Bourbon, in their wanton pillage of Rome
in 1527, after the battle of Pavia.

" Rome had been taken and pillaged by the Constable Bourbon : his army,
which was composed in good part of Lutherans, had filled the holy city with
abominations. The soldiers of this prince had changed the basilica of St.
Peter into a stable, and given papal bulls as litter to their horses. . . . They
burned even the grass, and sold the ears of their prisoners for their weight
in gold. The eternal city would have been destroyed, had not God cast on

* D'Aubigne, vol. iii, p. 190. J Ibid., p. 192.

INFLUENCE ON ART. 395

it an eye of pity. He made use of the pestilence, which this horde of bar
barians had spread on its journey, to banish them from Italy."*

Wolfgang Menzel furnishes the following summary account
of the sack of the city :f

" The Lancers ashamed of their conduct, demanded to be led against the
Pope, and astonished Rome suddenly beheld the enemy before her gates.
Charles de Bourbon was killed by a shot from the city. The soldiery, en
raged at this catastrophe, carried it by storm, A. D. 1527. The pillage
lasted fourteen days. The commands of the officers were disregarded, and
Frundsberg fell ill from vexation. The Lutheran troopers converted the
papal chapels into stables, dressed themselves in the cardinals' robes, and
proclaimed Luther Pope. Clement was besieged in the Torre di San Angelo
and taken prisoner. The numbers of unburied bodies, however, produced a
pestilence, which carried off the greater part of the invaders."

Even the splendid creations of the genius of a Raphael,
and of an Angelo, were not sacred in the eyes of this new
northern horde. True, all this destruction took place in time
of war; but its horrors had been increased tenfold by the
religious fanaticism to which the Reformation had given rise.
"We shall have occasion to prove, in the sequel, that similar
enormities were perpetrated in time of peace, and under the
sole pretext of religious zeal.

Thus the Reformation destroyed many of the noblest works
of art : what did it build up in their place ? Did it produce
architects like Fontana, Julio Romano, Bramante, Michael
Angelo, and Bernini ? Did it rear edifices to compare with
those splendid Gothic piles scattered over Europe by the
genius of Catholic architecture in the Middle Ages ? Or in
any thing that could vie with St. Peter's church at Rome?
Did it substitute higher or nobler melody for the sublime
Catholic music which it had proscribed ? Did it give birth
to painters and sculptors who could rival Leonardo da Vinci,
Titian, the two Caracci, Domenichino, Paul Veronese, Ra
phael, or Angelo ?

* Audin, Life of Luther, p. 289, who quotes Guicciardini — Sacco di Roma,
Cochlaeus, De Marillac, and Maimbourg, 1, i.
f History of Germany vol. ii, p. 247.

396 INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON LEARNING.

D'Aubigne indeed, boasts of the pictorial skill of Lucas
Kranach, Holbein, and Albert Durer.* We do not question
the genius of the two last named : but it must be remembered
that they learned their art and caught its inspiration in Cath
olic times. Their pencils were only occasionally employed
on Protestant subjects. They were great artists before the^
Reformation began, and they continued to be pre-eminent in
their profession in spite, rather than in consequence, of its in
fluence. As for Lucas Kranach, whom our author triumph
antly styles " the painter of the Reformation " he excelled
chiefly in caricatures, in painting Pope-asses and monk-calves,
Popes surrounded by troops of demons, and priests and monks
in all possible ridiculous garbs and attitudes. We are willing
to concede to him the title which his eulogist has awarded,
and which we consider not inappropriate. The Reformation
is heartily welcome to all the credit it may have derived from
his eminence in art.

To show what was the influence of the Reformation on
literature in general, we will adduce the testimony of two
distinguished writers of the present century, against whose
authority the flippant assertions of D'Aubigne will not weigh
a feather with any enlightened or impartial man. Frederick
Yon Schlegel and Henry Hallam have both investigated this
subject thoroughly, and have given to the world the result of
their inquiry. The former may be ranked among the giants
of modern literature; he has given a powerful impulse to
learning and to Christian philosophy in Germany, and through
out the world. A German himself, and proud of his national
literature, he has examined the subject of which we are treat
ing in all its bearings. Though his great mind had escaped
from the vagaries and endless variations of Protestantism in
which he was raised, and sought repose in the bosom of
Catholic unity, yet it was as free from undue prejudice as it
was indefatigable in its inquiry after truth. We have already

* D'Aubigne, vol. iii, p. 192.

SCHLEGEL AND HALLAM. 397

seen how greatly he admired the genius of Luther, in whose
mind, however, he detected a tincture of insanity. In his
writings, he speaks of the Reformation, always with calmness
and dignified impartiality, sometimes even with praise of the
good of which it may have been incidentally the occasion.

Hallam was a Protestant, who, though generally impartial
and accurate in his statements, was still sometimes betrayed
into error by his ill concealed hostility to the Catholic Church.
He has lately published a History of Literature during the
sixteenth century, and the two centuries preceding and fol
lowing. The plan of this work necessarily called for a
thorough investigation of the very subject of our present
chapter ; and he has accordingly given his opinion of the
literary influence of the Reformation with clearness and force.
We make these remarks, to show that both the witnesses
whom we are about to bring up against D'Aubigne's theory,
are weighty and unexceptionable.

Schlegel very properly designates the epoch of the Refor
mation as the barbaro-polemic.

"A third epoch now arose, which, from the general spirit of the age, and
the tone of the writings which exerted a commanding influence over the
times, cannot be otherwise designated than as the era of barbaro-polemic
eloquence. This rude polemic spirit — which had its origin in the Reforma
tion, and in that concussion of faith, and, consequently, of all thought and
of all science, which Protestantism occasioned — continued, down to the
end of the seventeenth century, to prevail in the controversial writings and
philosophic speculations both of Germany and England. This spirit was
not incompatible with a sort of deep mystical sensibility, and a contain orig
inal boldness of thought and expression, such, for instance, as Luther's writ
ings display ; yet we cannot at all regard in a favorable light the general
spirit of that intellectual epoch, or consider it as one by any means adapted
to the intellectual exigencies of that age."*

He concludes his lecture on this epoch in the following
words of just indignation :

" When we hear the Middle Age called barbarous, we should remember
that that epithet applies with far greater force to the truly barbarous era of

* " Philosophy of History," vol. ii, p. 210, 211, edit, tit supra.

398 INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON LEARNING.

the Reformation, and of the religious wars which that event produced, and
which continued down to the period when a sort of moral and political pacif
ication was re-established, apparently at least, in society and the human
mind."*

Hallam gives his opinion in still more explicit language.
He says :

" Nor, again, is there any foundation for imagining that Luther was con
cerned for the interests of literature. None had he himself, save theological ;
nor are there, as I apprehend, many allusions to profane studies, or any
proof of his regard to them, in all his works. On the contrary, it is probable
that both the principles of this great founder of the Reformation, and the
natural tendency of so intense an application to theological controversy,
checked for a time the progress of philological and philosophical literature
on this side the Alps."f

A little further on, he thus treats of the general literary
influence of the Reformation:

"The first effects of the great religious schism in Germany were not
favorable to classical literature. An all-absorbing subject left neither relish
nor leisure for human studies. Those who had made the greatest advances
in learning were themselves generally involved in theological controversy,
and, in some countries, had to encounter either personal suffering on account
of their opinions, or at least the jealousy of a church (Protestant ?) that
hated the advance of knowledge. The knowledge of Greek and Hebrew
was always liable to the suspicion of heterodoxy. In Italy, where classical
literature was the chief object, this dread of learning could not subsist.
But few learned much of Greek in these parts of Europe without some
reference to theology, especially to the grammatical interpretation of the
Scriptures. In those parts which embraced the Reformation, a still more
threatening danger arose from the intemperate fanaticism of its adherents.
Men who interpreted the Scripture by the Spirit could not think human
learning of much value in religion ; and they were as little likely to perceive
any other advantage it could possess. There seemed, indeed, a considerable
peril that, through the authority of Karlstadt, or even of Luther, the lessons
of Crocus and Mossellanus would be totally forgotten. And this would
very probably have been the case if one man, Melancthon, had not perceived

* " Philosophy of History," vol. ii, p. 216.

f " Introduction to the Literature of Europe, in the fifteenth, sixteenth,
and seventeenth centuries," in 2 vols., 8vo, vol. i, p. 165, edit. Harper &
Brothers, New York, 1841.

TESTIMONY OF ERASMUS. 399

the necessity of preserving human learning as a bulwark to theology itself
against the wild waves of enthusiasm."*

In another place, he asserts that " the most striking effect
of the first preaching of the Eeformation was that it appealed
to the ignorant."f He gives the following opinion in regard
to the character of Luther's writings :

" But from the Latin works of Luther few readers, I believe, will rise
without disappointment. Their intemperance, their coarseness, their inele
gance, their scurrility, their wild paradoxes, that menace the foundations of
religious morality, are not compensated, so far at least as my slight acquaint
ance with them extends, by much strength or acuteness, and still less by
any impressive eloquence. Some of his treatises, and we may instance his
reply to Henry VIII., or the book against 'the falsely named order of
bishops,' can be described as little else than bellowing in bad Latin. Neither
of these books displays, so far as I can judge, any striking ability.'"

"It is not to be imagined," he continues, "that a man of his vivid parts
fails to perceive an advantage in that close grappling, sentence by sentence,
with an adversary, which fills most of his controversial writings : and in
scornful irony he had no superior. His epistle to Erasmus, prefixed to his
treatise De Servo Arbitrio, is bitterly insolent in terms as civil as lie could
use. But the clear and comprehensive line of argument which enlightens
the reader's understanding and resolves his difficulties, is always wanting.
An unbounded dogmatism, resting on the infallibility, practically speaking,
of his own judgment, pervades his writings; no indulgence is shown, no
pause allowed to the hesitating ; whatever stands in the way of his decisions —
the fathers of the Church, the schoolmen and philosophers, the canons and
councils — is swept away in a current of impetuous declamation : and, as
every thing contained in Scripture, according to Luther, is easy to be under
stood, and can only be understood in his sense, every deviation from his
doctrine incurs the anathema of perdition. Jerome, he says, far from being
rightly canonized, must, but for some special grace, have been damned for
his interpretation of St. Paul's Epistle to the Komans. That the Zuinglians,
as well as the whole Church of Eome, and the Anabaptists, were shut out
by their tenets from salvation, is more than insinuated in numerous passages
of Luther's writings. Yet he had passed himself through several changes
of opinion. In 1518, he rejected auricular confession ;• in 1520, it was both
useful and necessary ; not long afterwards, it was again laid aside. I have

* "Introduction to the Literature of Europe," etc., vol. i, p. 181, \ 19.
f Ibid., p. 192, § 12.

400 INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON LEARNING.

found it impossible to understand or to reconcile his tenets concerning faith
and works, etc."*

"We might rest the whole case on the authority of the two
learned witnesses just named: but we will proceed to show
that their opinion is correct, because clearly founded on the
facts of history, and on the testimony of writers contemporary,
with the Reformation itself. Erasmus was the most distin
guished literary character of Germany in the sixteenth cen
tury. He was an eye-witness of the earlier scenes in the
great drama of the Reformation. He will scarcely be sus
pected, when it is known that he was the intimate friend and
correspondent of Melancthon and of other leading reformers,
towards whose party he was charged with leaning. He was
certainly a competent judge of the literary influence of the
change in religion, and he was not disposed to undervalue
that influence, even after his rupture with Luther.

The Reformation had been enlightening the world for
about ten years, when Erasmus wrote : " Wherever Luther-
anism reigns, there literature utterly perishes."f In the same
year, 1528, he employed the following language in one of his
letters : " I dislike these gospelers on many accounts, but
chiefly because, through their agency, literature everywhere
languishes, disappears, lies drooping, and perishes : and yet,
without learning, what is a man's life ? They love good cheer
and a wife ; for other things they care not a straw." J In a
letter to Melancthon, he states that " at Strasburg the Prot
estant party had publicly taught, in 1524, that it was not
right to cultivate any science, and that no language should be
studied except the Hebrew."§

* Introduction to the Literature of Europe," etc., vol. i, pp. 197, 198, $ 26.

f " Ubicumque regnat Lutheranismus, ibi literarum est interitus." Epist.
mvi, anno 1528. Apud Hallam ut sup., vol. i, p. 165.

| " Evangelicos istos, cum multis aliis, turn hoc nomine praecipue odi, quod
per eos ubique languent, fugiunt, jacent, intereunt bonse literae, sine quibus
quid est hominum vita ? Amant viaticum et uxorem ; castera pili non fa-
ciunt." — Epis. dccccxlvi, eod. anno. Apud Hallam, vol. i, p. 165.

§ Epist. 714 ad Melancthonem.

DESTRUCTION OF MONASTERIES. 401

These grave charges of Erasmus were never answered, be
cause they were, it would seem, too clearly founded in truth
to admit of a reply. Had not Luther himself, the founder of
the Reformation, in his appeal to the German nobility, as
early as 1520, openly taught that the works of Plato, Cicero,
Aristotle, and of all the ancients, should be burnt, and that
the time which was not devoted to the study of the Scriptures
should be employed in manual labor?*' And we shall soon
see that many of Luther's disciples took him at his word, and
that the early history of the Keformation more than justifies
the accusations of Erasmus.

One of the first effects of the Reformation in Germany was
the secularization and destruction of the monasteries, and the
expulsion of the bishops from their sees. This measure of
violence was of itself most disastrous to literature. In Cath
olic times there were flourishing schools established in all the
principal monasteries, as well as near all the cathedral and
many of the parochial churches. Literature had been ever
cultivated under the shadow of the Catholic churches. Popes
and councils, almost without number, had, during the Middle
Ages, enforced the obligation of establishing such schools
throughout Christendom.! In those Catholic institutions,
reared in Catholic times, and by the express injunction of the
Catholic Church, all the distinguished men of Germany in
the sixteenth century had been educated : Reuchlin, Erasmus,
Luther, Melancthon, (Ecolampadius, Bucer, Eck, Emser,
Zuingle, and others. The Reformation was thus indebted
to these very Catholic schools for all its leading champions.

When the monasteries were destroyed, and the cathedral
churches desecrated and dismantled, all those flourishing liter
ary institutions were abolished : and the funds for their
support, accumulated by the liberality of previous ages, were
devoured by the avarice of the reform party. Hundreds of

* Epist. ad nobiles Germanicae, anno 1520. See Robelot, p. 358.
f For more facts on this subject, we take the liberty to refer our readers
to the essay on schools an^ universities in the Dark Ages, iu our Miscellanea.
VOL. I. — 34

402 INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON LEARNING.

flourishing colleges and academies of learning were thus
destroyed at one stroke. No wonder "literature drooped
and perished wherever Lutheranism reigned!" The foun
tains of Catholic learning, ever open and flowing by the side
of the Catholic Church and monastery, having been thus
suddenly dried up, all Germany was made desolate with a
literary drought and sterility. Did the Reformation, during
the first fifty years of its history, give birth to even one great
literary character, if we except those who had been reared
under Catholic auspices ? If it did, we have yet to learn his
name and his claims on the gratitude of mankind.*

Luther himself was appalled at the extent of the desolation
which his own recklessness had caused. In his own charac
teristic style, he poured forth a plaintive jeremiad, mingled
with bitter invective and reproach against the leaders of the
Protestant party. He lashed without mercy the avarice of
the princes, who, after having devoured the substance of the
Church and the funds of the Catholic schools, closed their
purses, and refused to contribute to the erection of establish
ments to replace those they had thus wantonly annihilated.

" Others," he says, " close their hands, and refuse to provide for their pas
tor and preacher, and even to support them. If Germany will act thus, I
am ashamed to be one of her children, and to speak her language : and if I
were permitted to impose silence on my conscience (!), I would call in the
Pope, and assist him and his minions to forge new chains for us, to subject
us to new tortures, and to injure us more than before."

"Formerly," he continues, ''when we were the slaves of Satan, when we
profaned the blood of Christ, all purees were open. Money could be pro
cured for endowing churches, for raising seminaries, for maintaining super
stitions. Then nothing was spared to put children in the cloister, to send
them to school ; but now, when we must raise pious academies, and endow
the church of Jesus Christ — endow, did I say, no, but assist in preserving
her, for it is the Lord who has founded this church, and who watches over

* The first that we know of, are Scaliger, Casaubon, and Grotius, who
flourished a hundred years after the beginning of the Reformation, the two
last of whom were almost Catholics, as we have already shown. Of Tycho
Brahe and Kepler, we will speak a little further on.

LITERARY DESOLATION. 403

her — now that we know the divine word, and that we have learned to honor
the word of our Martyr-God, the purses are closed with iron padlocks ! No
one wishes to give any thing ! The children are neglected, and no one
teaches them to serve God, to venerate the blood of Jesus, while they are
joyfully immolated to Mammon. The blood of Jesus is trampled under
foot ! And these are Christians ! No schools ! no cloisters ! ' The grass is
withered, and the flower is fallen.' Nowadays, when these carnal men are
secure from the apprehensions of seeing their sons abandon them, and their
daughters enter the convent, deprived of their patrimonies, there is no one
who cultivates the understanding of children ! — ' What would they learn,'
say they, ' when they are to be neither priests nor monks ?' "*

He made a strong appeal to the Protestant princes of Germany, to induce
them to found schools and academies. He told them that it was " their duty
to oblige the cities and villages to raise schools, found masterships, and sup
port pastors, as they are bound to make bridges and roads, and to raise pub
lic edifices. I would wish, if possible," he adds, " to leave these men without
preacher and pastor, and let them live like swine. There is no longer any
fear or love of God among them. After throwing off the yoke of the Pope,
every one wishes to live as he pleases. But it is the duty of all, especially
of the prince, to bring up youth in the fear and love of the Lord, and to
provide them with teachers and pastors. If the old people care not for these
things, let them go to the d — 1. But it would be a shame for the govern
ment to let the youth wallow in the mire of ignorance and vice."f

This attempt to compel the people to support, by heavy
taxation, institutions which had been hitherto reared and
maintained by Catholic charity, seems to have proved little
acceptable either to princes or people. Luther's voice, which
had been omnipotent when it preached up destruction and
spoliation, now fell powerless, when it was at length tardily
raised to enforce the necessity of liberal contribution for the
rearing of institutions to replace those which had been wan
tonly destroyed. When his eloquence filled men's pockets,
it was effectual for persuasion ; when it was employed to
empty them, it was a different matter altogether : the purses
of his hearers were closed with " the iron padlock" which he
himself had constructed !

* See Ad. Menzel, (a Protestant,) ut supra, torn, i, p. 231. Apud Audin.
f Luther, Werke, edit. Altenberg, torn, iii, 519. Reinhardt — Sammtliche
Reformations predigten, toin. iii, p. 445. — Ibid.

404 INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON LEARNING.

Few and feeble were the efforts made by early Protestant
ism to rear schools and colleges. Erasmus bears evidence to
their utter failure even when they were made. He says :

" These gospelers also hate me, because I said that their gospel cooled
down the love of literature. In reply they point to Niirenberg, where the
professors of polite literature are liberally rewarded. Be it so : but if you
ask the inhabitants, they will tell you that these professors have few scholars,
and that the masters are as indisposed to teach, as the students to learn ;
so that tlie scholars, no Hess tlian tlie professors, will have to be paid for their
attendance. I know not what will result from all these city and village
schools ; hitherto I have not met with any one who profited by them."*

It is curious to observe how D'Aubigne passes over alto
gether, or how very delicately he alludes to these stubborn
facts in reference to the literary tendency of the Reformation.
They did not suit his taste, and did not therefore come within
the scope of his partisan history! He speaks with great
praise of the effort made by Luther to have schools established
throughout Germany by law ; but he carefully refrains from
telling his readers of the literary desolation which Luther so
strongly deplored, though himself had brought it about ! He
omits entirely, or strives to palliate the destructive spirit of
early Protestantism, which, with more than vandalic fury,
swept away from the face of the earth schools and academies,
and burnt monasteries and libraries, both public and private.
A volume might be filled with instances of this violence : we
will select a few by way of supplying somewhat the mani
fold omissions of our very romantic historian.

When on his way to the diet of Worms, in 1521, Luther
passed through the town of Erfurth, in the Augustinian con
vent of which place he had passed many years of his early
life. The people received him with open arms. He made a
most inflammatory harangue in the parish church, where he
was wont to preach of old ; and so great was the effect of his
eloquence, that " a few weeks after his departure, the populace

* "In Pseudo-Evangelicos." — Epist. xlvii, lib. xxxi, edit. London, Flesh-
er.— Ibid.

BURNING BOOKS AND PAINTINGS. 405

made a furious attack on the residence of the canons, and de
stroyed every thing they met with — books, images, paintings,
furniture, beds, the feathers of which fell, like a thick snow,
on the streets, and obscured for a moment the brightness of
the day."*

This was but one out of a hundred examples of similar
outrage, enacted not only under the eyes of Luther, but often
with his connivance and consent. The work of destruction
went on, until there was scarcely left in all Protestant Ger
many one of the many splendid monuments reared by the old
Catholic literature and art.

" Those illuminated manuscripts — those ancient crucifixes, carved in wood
and ivory — those episcopal rings, the gifts of Popes and emperors — those rich
vestments, painted glass, gold and silver ciboria — in a word, all the relics of
the middle ages, which are exhibited in the rich museums of Germany, were
in great part the property of the convents. To get possession of them, the
monks were secularized. After three centuries, nothing better calculated to
give us an idea of German art at that period has been thought of, than to
exhibit the remains of those whom the reformers robbed when living, and
calumniated when dead ! "f

And yet these are but a scanty remnant of those vast liter
ary and artistic treasures which the Reformation utterly
destroyed !

In Switzerland, as elsewhere, violence was the order of the
day. The Reformation triumphed amidst the ruins with
which it everywhere strewed the earth !

"Zuingle ascended the pulpit, and declaimed against images, which, he
said, were condemned by the law of Moses and the gospel, as this latter did
not revoke the command of the Hebrew legislator. Not only were paintings
and statues mutilated and destroyed wherever the Reformation gained parti
sans, but the flames were fed by the manuscripts in which generations of
monks had, in the solitude of their cloisters, endeavored to represent, in colors
that time could not efface, the principal scenes of human redemption. Even
in private houses the hammer's stroke fell on those painted windows which
modern art endeavors unsuccessfully to revive." f

* Lutheri Opp., torn, i, fol. 704, edit. Altenb. Apud Audin, p. 158.

f ^.udin, p. 365.

\ Idem, ibid., p. 204. See also Erasmus, lib. yjy, epist. iv.

406 INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON LEARNING.

D'Aubigne furnishes us with a curious instance of this
destructive fanaticism at Zurich. The hero of the story is
Thomas Plater, whom he eulogizes to the skies, though he
feebly disapproves of his conduct in the incident in which he
was the actor.

" The light of the gospel quickly found its way to his heart (!). One morn
ing, when it was very cold, and fuel was wanted to heat the school-room
stove, which it was his office to tend, he said to himself: ' Why need I be at
a loss for wood when there are so many idols in the church ? ' The church
was then empty, though Zuingle was expected to preach (!), and the bells
were already ringing to summon the congregation. Plater entered with a
noiseless step, grappled an image of St. John, which stood over one of the
altars, carried it off, and thrust it into the stove, saying, as he did so, ' Down
with thee, for in thou must go.' Certainly neither Myconius nor Zuingle
would have applauded such an act."*

What ! when " the light of the gospel had found its way to
his heart ! " Who could blame him for following this light,
and even for kindling it into a flame? Our author also
informs us of the fanatical hatred of learning entertained
by Karlstadt and the prophets, who headed the revolt of the
peasants.

" But soon after this, Karlstadt went to still greater lengths ; he began to
pour contempt upon human learning ; and the students heard their aged
tutor advising them, from his rostrum, to return to their homes, and resume
the spade, or follow the plow, and cultivate the earth, because man was to
eat bread in the sweat of his brow ! George Mohr, master of the boys'
school at Wittenberg, carried away by a similar madness, called from his
window to the burghers outside to come and remove their children. Where
indeed was the use of their continuing their studies, since Storck and Stiibner
had never been at the university, and yet were prophets ? A mechanic was
just as well, nay, perhaps better qualified than all the divines in the world,
to preach the gospel ! "f

Who can calculate the mischief these doctrines did to
literature? Who can estimate the literary treasures which
were annihilated in the bloody war of the peasants, led on
by men who openly avowed their hostility to all human

* D'Aubigne, vol. iii, p. 253. f Ibid., p. 61.

HATRED OF LEARNING. 407

learning? In the ravages of Germany, perpetrated by the
hostile armies, before the revolt was finally stifled in their
own blood, scenes of destruction were enacted, which would
have put to the blush the Gothic armies of old !

Another class of religionists, the Anabaptists, to whose
fanaticism the principles of the Reformation had manifestly
led, were no less inimical to learning. Having seized on the
city of Munster, from which they had expelled the prince
bishop, they issued an order to devastate the churches, which
was accordingly done. They then went further. In the mad
intoxication of triumph, "a manifesto, published by Roth-
mann, decided that as there was only one book necessary to
salvation — the Bible — all others should be burned, as useless
or dangerous. Two hours afterwards, the library of Rudolph
Langius, consisting almost entirely of Greek and Latin manu
scripts, perished in the flames."* The Caliph Omar, for a
similar reason, had ordered the great library of Alexandria
to be burned, A.D. 632. — A fine example truly, and faith
fully followed !

But it was not merely by acts of violence that the Refor
mation injured the cause of literature ; it brought into action
many other influences highly prejudicial to the progress of
learning. We shall briefly advert to some of the principal
of these, and will begin with that already referred to by
Hallam.

The Reformation fevered the minds of men with religious
controversy. It drew off the votaries of literature from the
academic groves and the Pierian springs, into the arid and
thorny paths of disputatious theology. Though many of the
theological disputants, who appeared on the arena at the
period of the Reformation, obtained temporary credit for
themselves and their cause by their writings, yet it is certain
that the literary world, at least, would have been more bene
fited, had they devoted their mental energies to the prosecution

* See Histoire des Anabaptistes, par Catrou, Liv. ii ; and Audin, p. 460.

408 INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON LEARNING.

of scientific studies. There is no doubt, that from this cause,
the ranks of the literati, both among Catholics and Protestants,
were much thinned; and that in consequence the ardor for
literary pursuits was greatly abated. Had the world con
tinued in religious unity, and had no acrimonious controversies
arisen, such men as Luther, Bucer, Melancthon, Eck, Emser,
and Bellarmine, might have been able to contribute their full
share to the progress of letters.

To show how this cause practically operate'd to the detri
ment of literature, we will furnish a few facts, selected almost
at random from many of the same kind. "We have seen how
the fanaticism of the Anabaptists destroyed manuscripts and
burnt an extensive library in the city of Minister. It is curi
ous to trace the beginning of this fanaticism, and to mark its
influence on literature in that city. Before the appearance
of Luther, Munster enjoyed peace and tranquillity, and culti
vated learning with great success. Shortly after the com
mencement of the Reformation, the scene changed altogether.
Says Audin :

"It suddenly became a city of trouble and disorder — was restless and
uneasy under its obscurity, and aspired to be the rival of Wittenberg. It
was a rich and commercial city, and had cultivated literature with success.
Its university had merited the attention of the literary world. It loved
antiquity, especially Greece, whose poets it published and elucidated. This
was the passion until the disciples of Luther entered its gates, when this
demi-classic city — half Greek and half Latin, by its morals and instincts —
involved itself in theological disputes, and abandoned the study of Cicero
and Homer, to become interpreter of the sacred volume. It is needless to
say, that it found in these inspired writings many things that our fathers
never dreamed of. Then all the classic divinities abandoned Munster, as
the swallows fly away in winter, only that they did not intend to return.
In their place, an acrimonious and punctilious theology destroyed the peace
of scholars, masters, and people. The revolutionary progress of sectarians
is always the same."*

Whoever will read attentively the history of the Reforma
tion, will be struck with the truth of this last remark. In

* Audin, " Life of Luther," p. 458.

HOSTILE INFLUENCE. 409

almost every city in Germany where the reformers made
their appearance, they produced, to a greater or less extent,
the same disastrous revolution in literary taste, which they
effected in Minister. Even Charles Villers, one of the most
unscrupulous advocates of the Reformation, admits that " the
attention of the literary world was turned away, for more
than a century (after the Reformation) unto miserable dis
putes about dogmas, and confessions of faith."* Controversy
was not only carried on between the champions of Catholicity
and of Protestantism, but it raged violently in the bosom of
the reform party itself. Men, who might have been of im
mense service to the republic of letters, thus wasted their
energies in sectarian contentions. For more than six years a
violent dispute was carried on between the Lutherans and
Calvinists on the subject of the Eucharist, and at the close
of it, they were more widely separated than ever. Leibnitz
tells us, that a single controversy between two Protestant
divines of Leipsic, on the peremptory period of repentance,
gave rise to more than fifty treatises in Latin and German.f

The eagerness for religious controversy among the earlier
Protestants of Germany, forcibly reminds us of the picture
which St. Gregory of Kyssa draws of a similar rage of dispu
tation on the subject of the Trinity, among the sectarians of
Constantinople under the Emperor Theodosius the Great.
"If you wish to change a piece of money," says he, "you are
first entertained with a long discourse on the difference of the
Son who is born, and of the Son who is not born. If you
ask the price of bread, you are answered, ' that the Father is
greater, and that the Son is less ;' and if you ask, when will
the bath be warm ? you are seriously assured, ' that the Son
was created.' "J

It is a singular fact, that notwithstanding the invectives of
Luther against the philosophy of Aristotle, it was still retained

* Essai sur 1'Influence, etc., ut sup., p. 276.

f Commercii Epist. Leibnitziana, Selecta Specimina — Hanoverae. 1805,
Epist, xcv. \ Apud Kobelot, p. 390, sup. cit.

VOL. T. — 35

410 INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON LEARNING.

in most of the Protestant universities of Germany, and even
made the standard of disputation. Melancthon published
commentaries on the writings of the Stagirite, and the
authority of the latter was greatly respected by the German
Protestant universities, as late as the close of the eighteenth
century. Ramus was refused a professorship at Geneva, be
cause he would not adopt the philosophy of Aristotle, which
was still taught in this cradle of Calvinism.* While Prot
estant Germany was thus sternly upholding the system of
philosophy which Luther had decried and endeavored to ban
ish from Christendom, the new school of the Platonic phi
losophy was established in Italy, under the auspices of the
Medici. All the invectives of the reformers against the subtle
disputations of the schoolmen, who had adopted the Aristote
lian philosophy, thus recoiled on the heads of their own party.
The mutual distrust and suspicion, which the Reformation
sowed in the minds of men, constituted another serious ob
stacle to the progress of letters. Competition and emulation
often elicit talent and promote improvement ; but when this
feeling degenerates into a suspicious jealousy and mutual
hatred, it greatly retards advancement in learning. Whatso
ever new systems of literature or of philosophy were broached
by one religious party, were often rejected, through a mere
spirit of opposition, by the other. When mankind were united
in religious faith, they worked in unison for the promotion of
learning : when they were split up into religious parties, they
often mutually thwarted and hindered one another. The
endless variations and vagaries of Protestantism, on the one
hand, led to a skepticism, which sneered at every system
which savored of antiquity, no matter how well grounded ;
and the cautious dread of innovation by the Catholic Church,
on the other, caused her sometimes to view with suspicion,
at least for a time, new systems of philosophy which were
sustained by respectable, if not conclusive arguments.

* Beza, Epist. xxxvi, p. 202. Apud Robelot, p. 362.

LITERARY JEALOUSY. 411

An example of the former feeling — of skepticism — is given
by the French philosopher Maupertuis, who tells us that it
required a half century to satisfy the learned as to the truth
of the principle of attraction, which was at first viewed as
reviving a feature of the odious occult sciences, so extensively
cultivated in previous centuries.* A remarkable instance of
the dread of innovation on the part of the Catholic Church,
is presented by the well known case of Galileo. The wanton
abuse of the Scriptures, for the support of a thousand con
flicting opinions, by the disciples of the Reformation, had
rendered every species of innovation, which was attempted
to be proved by their authority, an object of apprehension
on the part of Rome. It may be confidently asserted, that,
but for the distrust sowed by the Reformation, and for the
attempt made by Galileo to prove his system, not merely as a
specious theory but as incontestably true, by the i. nthority of
the written word, he would never have been molested.

Some time before the days of Galileo, Cardinal Nicholas
de Cusa had openly defended the system of Philolaus and
Pythagoras, on the motion of the earth ; and no one then
thought of opposing the theory on religious grounds. Nearly
a century before Galileo, Nicholas Copernicus, a Catholic
priest, had openly advocated the same theory : and he was
not only not opposed, but Pope Paul Ill.f approved of the
dedication to himself of his great work on the revolutions of
the heavenly bodies.J How are we then to explain that a
system, which was thus openly maintained for nearly a cen
tury by cardinals and prelates at Rome itself, where Coper
nicus had been professor of astronomy — and all this, without

* Apud Robelot, p. 355.

f A copy of the original work of Copernicus is preserved in the British
Museum. It was printed at Nurenberg by John Petreius, at the expense
of Nicholas Schomberg, the cardinal of Capua, In the beginning of the
volume is printed a laudatory letter of the cardinal to Copernicus, dated
Borne, 1st of November, 1536.

| "De Orbium Coelestium Revolutionibus." Folio — 1543, p. 196.

412 INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON LEARNING.

any opposition from the Roman court — was afterwards viewed
with some suspicion, when too warmly advocated on scrip
tural grounds by Galileo ?

The reason is manifest : the wanton abuse of the Scriptures
by the partisans of the Reformation had made Rome, suspi
cious of every thing which savored of novelty. Ambitious
rivals, whom the literary fame of Galileo had eclipsed, had
also represented his system in an odious and false light
to the Roman court: they had painted it as opposed to the
Scriptures, to the testimony of which Galileo himself on the
other hand as confidently appealed. The whole issue was
thus made on scriptural grounds. Rome took the alarm, and,
without condemning the system of Galileo as false, enjoined
silence on the disputants. Galileo remained in Rome from
February to July, 1633, a space of more than five months,
during which time he resided at the spacious palace of his
special friend, the Tuscan ambassador, who was his surety
during the trial. For only four days at most, even according
to the testimony of Mr. Drinkwateir, his Protestant historian,
was he in nominal confinement ; being " honorably lodged in
the apartments of the fiscal of the Inquisition."*

The reckless abuse of the Scriptures by the Reformation,
and the distrust thereby occasioned, are thus alone responsible
for this temporary check to scientific improvement in the
person of Galileo. But, on the other hand, as an offset to the
case of the Italian philosopher, did not the Protestant astrono
mer, Tycho Brahe, invent, on scriptural grounds, a system, at
variance with the Copernican, and now universally rejected,
though then popular among Protestants ? And was not his
great disciple Kepler, as well as himself, persecuted by Prot
estants, for his valuable discoveries in astronomy ?|

* Drinkwater — Life of Galileo, p. 58, and p. 64. See on this subject an
able article in the Dublin Keview, lately republished in Cincinnati in pamph
let form. It exhausts the subject.

f Kepler and Tycho Brahe, the former a Gel-man, the latter a Dane, were
intimate friends and associates. They were both employed as imperial

GALILEO AND KEPLER. 413

The authority of an unexceptionable witness, Henry Hal-
lam, strongly confirms the view just taken of the case of Gali
leo. He says : " For eighty years, it has been said, this theory
of the earth's motiop had been maintained, without censure ;
and it could only be the greater boldness of Galileo in its
assertion which drew down upon him the notice of the
Church."* In a note,f he disproves the assertion of Drink-
water — " that Galileo did not endeavor to prove his system
compatible with Scripture ;" and adds : " it seems, in fact, to
have been this over desire to prove his theory orthodox, which
incensed the Church against it. See an extraordinary article
on this subject in the eighth number of the Dublin Review."J
Guicciardini, an ardent disciple of Galileo, in a letter dated
March 4th, 1616, says, " that he had demanded of the Pope
and the Holy Office to declare the system of Copernicus
founded on the Bible." At Borne, Galileo was treated most
kindly by the Pope and the cardinals, as he himself testifies
in a letter to his disciple Receneri, written in 1633.§

The restrictions on the liberty of the press were also often
injurious to the progress of learning. Protestant govern
ments in Europe have been, and are even at this day, deserv
ing of at least as much censure on this subject as those of
Catholic countries. The supposed necessity for a censorship
of the press, frequently originated in the wanton abuse of it

astronomers by the Emperor Rudolph II., after having been but little appre
ciated, if not severely treated by their Protestant brethren in their own
countries. Of Kepler W. Menzel writes as follows : " His discovery was
condemned by the Tubingen university (Protestant). as contrary to the Bible.
He was about to destroy his work, when an asylum was granted to him at
G-raetz, which he afterwards quitted for the imperial court. He was, not
withstanding his Lutheran principles, tolerated by the Jesuits, who knew how
to value scientific knowledge. He was persecuted solely in his native country,
where he with difficulty saved his mother from being burnt as a witch." —
History of Germany, vol. ii, p. 308, note ; Bohn's edition.

* History of Literature, etc., vol. ii, p. 248. f Ibid., p. 249.

J See also the article Sciences Humaines in Bergier's Dictionary, which
sheds much light on this whole transaction.

$ Published in the " Mercure de France," July 17, 1784.

414 INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON LEARNING.

by those who had adopted the principles of the Keformation.
But for the mutual distrust which this revolution caused to
arise in the minds of men, the press would have been free, or
at least much less restricted than it really was. We, in fact,
read of little or no restriction on the liberty of the press, until
some time after the Reformation ; though the art of printing'
had been in successful operation for more than half a century.
Thus the Reformation is fairly chargeable, at least in a great
measure, with having originated, or at least occasioned that
very censorship of the press, which is so often the burden of
the invectives of its partisans against the Catholic Church.

But perhaps the most singular instance of the obstacles
thrown in the way of literary improvement by the Reforma
tion, is that furnished by the obstinate resistance of the Prot
estant governments of Europe, to the change in the Calendar,
introduced by Pope Gregory XIII., in the year 1582. The
correction of the Calendar was founded on the clearest and
most incontestable principles of astronomy ; and yet, solely
because the improvement emanated from Rome, England re
fused to adopt it for one hundred and seventy years — until
1752 ; Sweden adopted the new style, a year later, in 1753,
and the German states, the very cradle of the Reformation,
only in 1776 ! As a distinguished writer has caustically re
marked, the Protestant potentates preferred " warring with
the stars to agreeing with the Pope !"

The long and bloody religious wars, which the Reformation
caused in Germany, were another very serious hinderance to
the progress of learning. These wars continued at intervals
for nearly one hundred and fifty years, until the treaty of
"Westphalia in 1648 ; and they filled all Germany with wide
spread desolation. The war of extermination against the
peasants, the bloody war against the Anabaptists, the wars
of Charles V., and the Protestant princes of Germany ; and
finally, the terrible thirty years' war — from 1618 to 1648 —
between the Catholic party headed by the house of Austria,
and the Protestant party led on chiefly by the kings of Swe-

ITALY LEADS THE WAY ENGLAND BEHIND. 415

den ; made all Germany a scene of turmoil, confusion, and
bloodshed. How many of the monuments of ancient litera
ture and art were swept away during all this bloody strife !
How many cities were desolated, libraries burnt, and men of
eminence slain ! In the midst of a bloody civil war, with
danger constantly at their very door, men had neither leisure
nor inclination to apply to literary pursuits. Apollo courts
peace : he seldom wears laurels stained with blood.

"We may safely affirm, that, for the reasons hitherto alleged,
and more particularly the last, the Reformation retarded the
literary progress of Germany for more than a century. Any
candid man will be convinced of this, who will compare the
literary history of Germany in the beginning of the sixteenth,
with what it became in the seventeenth and the beginning of
the eighteenth century. At the dawn of the Reformation,
German literature was in a most promising condition. Greek,
Latin, and Hebrew learning had revived, and they were be
ginning to be cultivated with success. Reuchlin, Budaeus,
and Erasmus had filled Germany with literary glory.

An anecdote of Reuchlin, related by D'Aubigne, may serve
to give us some idea of the extent to which Greek literature
was then carried in Germany. In 1498 — twenty years before
the Reformation — he wTas sent to Rome as ambassador from
the electoral court of Saxony.

" An illustrious Greek, Argyropylos, was explaining in that metropolis, to
a numerous auditory, the wonderful progress his nation had formerly made
in literature. The learned ambassador went with his suite to the room
where the master was teaching, and on his entrance saluted him, and la
mented the misery of Greece, then languishing under Turkish despotism.
The astonished Greek asked the German : ' Whence came you, and do you
understand Greek?' Reuchlin replied : 'I am a German, and am not quite
ignorant of your language.' At the request of Argyropylos, he read and ex
plained a passage of Thucydides, which the professor happened to have be
fore him ; upon which Argyropylos cried out in grief and astonishment :
' Alas ! alas ! Greece cast out and fugitive, is gone to hide herself beyond
the Alps!'"*

* D'Aubigne, vol. i, p. 96.

416 INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON LEARNING.

Had Argyropylos visited Germany a century later, he
would have found that " fugitive Greece which had hid her
self beyond the Alps," had been ruthlessly driven from her
cherished shelter in Germany, by the myrmidons of the
Reformation !

At the commencement of the Reformation, many German '
princes were liberal patrons of learning. Among these, the
most conspicuous, were the Emperor Maximilian ; Frederick,
elector of Saxony, who founded the university of Wittenberg
in 1502; Joachim, elector of Brandenberg, who established
the university of Frankfort on the Oder, in 1506 ; Albert,
archbishop of Mentz ; and George, duke of Saxony.* But
the troubles occasioned by the doctrines of the reformers
caused the German princes to turn their attention more to
camps and battle fields, than to the seats of learning and the
patronage of learned men.

Italy had led the way in literary improvement. Hallam
says : " The difference in point of learning between Italy and
England was at least that of a century : that is, the former
was more advanced in knowledge of ancient literature in
1400 than the latter was in 1500."y In another place, speak
ing of the relative encouragement of literature by Italy and
Germany, he has this remarkable passage : " Italy was then
(in the beginning of the sixteenth century), and perhaps has
been ever sinoe^ the soil where literature, if it has not always
most flourished, has stood highest in general estimation.";]; —
This avowal is the more precious as coming from a decided
Protestant, and an Englishman.

Speaking of the history of literature from the year 1520 to
1550, he pays the following just tribute to the literary ascend
ency of Italy:

" Italy, the genial soil where the literature of antiquity had been first cul
tivated, still retained her superiority in the fine perceptions of its beauties,
and in the power of retracing them by spirited imitation. It was the land

* See Hallam — History of Literature, etc., sup. cit., vol. i, p. 159.
f Ibid., p. 145, $8. t Ibid., p. 159, \ 48.

PROGRESS INTERRUPTED. 417

of taste and sensibility ; never surely more so, than in the age of Raphael
as well as Ariosto."*

Literary societies for the promotion of learning were formed
much later in Germany than in Italy and France. It was
only in 1617, that the " Fruitful Society," the first that ever
existed in Germany, was established at Weimar, f The ex
ample of Italy would have been in all probability much sooner
followed, had not the Reformation engaged the public atten
tion in other pursuits. The spirit of Reuchlin and of Erasmus
had disappeared : their refined taste was superseded by that
which Schlegel so happily designates the barbaro-polemic ;
and the result was the retarding of literary improvement in
the deplorable manner which we have stated.

From the dawn of the Reformation to the reign of Fred
erick the Great — a period of more than two hundred years —
Germany was behind the other principal countries of Europe
in learning: it required full two hundred years for her .to
recover from the rude shock her literature had received from
the hands of the reformers! In 1715, the great Leibnitz
feelingly deplored this literary desolation of his country.J
He says in another place, that the relish for philosophical
pursuits was so rare in Germany, " that he could not find any
person in his country, who had a taste for philosophy and
mathematics, and with whom he could converse."§ Even' as
late as 1808, Jacobi, another Protestant writer, draws a fright
ful picture of the moral and literary condition of the German
Protestant universities during his time.||

Still, it is very common to find it boldly asserted from the
pulpit and through the press, that the revival of letters in
Europe was brought about by the Reformation ! Nothing
could be more unfounded in fact, and, indeed, more utterly

* History of Literature, vol. i, p. 173, $ 1. f Idem., vol. ii, p. 172.

\ See his letter to M. Bigiion, 22d June, 1715 — Commercii Epist Leib
nitz. Selecta Specimina. — Typist, xciv. — Apud Robelot.
§ Letter to M. de Beauval — ibid. Ep. xxv.
|| See his testimony in Robelot, p. 421, 422.

418 INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON LEARNING.

absurd, than this assertion. To Italy, under the fostering pro
tection of her Medici, her Gonzagas, her Estes, and, above all,
of her Popes, and more especially of Nicholas V. and Leo X.,
do we in a great measure owe the revival of learning in
Europe. All persons of any information admit this fact.
Roscoe, an English Protestant, has written an extensive work
to do honor to the pontificate of Leo X., which he proves to
have been the golden age of learning.* Hallam also pays a
splendid tribute to this second Augustan age of literature.f
A light then shot up in Italy — in Rome its brightness was
most dazzling — which illumined the whole world. Nor was
this the first time that Rome had led the way in improvement
and civilization.

The literary impulse having been thus powerfully given,
all Europe was rapidly advancing in learning. The progress
was steady and healthy. On a sudden, the storm of the
Reformation broke in upon the tranquillity of Europe, which
was peacefully and calmly engaged in literary pursuits. The
result was almost the same as that of a violent and long-con
tinued storm on a beautiful garden, fragrant with flowers and
rich in fruits. The fruits of previous toil were rudely shaken
down ere they had become mature ; the flowers were blighted ;
and the garden was changed into a desert ! — If literature was
still preserved, it was in spite of the Reformation.

The usual argument of those who maintain that the Refor
mation was the cause of the literary resurrection of Europe,
is founded on a comparison of the condition of Europe before,
with what it became, after the Reformation. Literature was
in a more flourishing condition after than before the sixteenth
century: therefore, the Reformation caused the change for
the better. Never was there a more shallow sophism. It
belongs to the category: post hoc, ergo propter Tioc.\ To

* Roscoe — Life and Pontificate of Leo X., sup. cit.

f History of Literature, vol. i, p. 148, seqq. See also Audin, Life of Lu
ther, p. 124, seqq.

\ '"''After this ; therefore on account of this."

INVENTIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS. 419

estimate aright the influence of the Reformation on learning,
we should compare the literary state of Europe before it,
with what it would have been afterwards, if the Reformation
had not intervened: or, more properly, we should compare
the progress which Europe really made after the Reforma
tion, especially in Protestant countries, with what it would
have made, but for the agitations caused by this revolution.
Abiding by this fair test, we fearlessly assert, on the authority
of the facts and evidence above adduced, that the literary
influence of the Reformation was most disastrous.*

We do not pretend to deny that Protestantism has produced
many illustrious literary characters. Catholicism has produced
at least as great men, and many more of them. Galileo and
La Place may compare advantageously with Huygens and
Newton : while Copernicus far outshines Tycho Brahe. The
latter, though a Protestant, was encouraged chiefly by Catho
lic potentates of Germany. Among philosophers, if Bacon
and Descartes were weighed in the balance, the latter would
probably preponderate. It would lead us too far, to continue
this comparison through all its details. But we may ask,
whether the annals of Protestant literature can produce
brighter names than Cardinal Ximenes, Cervantes, Lope de
Vega, Herrera, and Calderon, in Spain; Bossuet, Fenelon,
Racine, Moliere, and Legendre, in France ; Raphael, Michael

* These remarks are made in the hypothesis, that the fact is as stated by
the admirers of the Keformation ; namely, that the literary condition of
Europe was really and immediately improved in those countries where it
gained a foothold. We may well deny this fact, particularly in regard to
Germany, with which our present business principally lies. Comparing the
literary state of Germany during the fifty years preceding Luther's revolt,
with what it became during the fifty years following, there is no doubt that
there was a remarkable falling off, both in literary taste and in literary
progress. Instead of advancing, Germany clearly receded in the literary
race, not merely for a half, but for more than a whole century after the
Reformation. The facts alleged above clearly prove this ; else they have no
meaning whatsoever. So that the theory which we are discussing is erroneous
in point of fact, as well as of logic.

420 INFLUENCE OF "THE REFORMATION ON LEARNING.

Angelo, Vida, Tasso, Muratqri, Tiraboschi, Boscovitch, and
a countless host of others in Italy ; Frederick von Schlegel,
Moeller, Dbllinger, and Gbrres in Germany; and Pope,
Dryden, Lingard, and Moore in England and Ireland?
These are but a few, selected almost at random, from the
long list of Catholic literati.

In regard to the older inventions which have proved of
great and permanent utility to mankind, a far greater number
was made by Catholics than by Protestants. The mariner's
compass, gunpowder, the art of printing, clocks and watches,
as well as steamboat navigation,* were all discovered or
invented by Catholics. To them also belongs the glory of
having discovered America, and of having first doubled the
Cape of Good Hope and penetrated to the Indies. The micro
scope, the telescope, the thermometer, the barometer, were all
invented by Catholics. The chief great discoveries in astron
omy — that of Jupiter's satellites, of spots in the sun, and of
most of the new planets or asteroids — were made "By Catholics.
Modern poetry was first cultivated successfully in Italy by
Dante and Petrarch ; and Blair himself admits, that in his
torical writing the Italians probably excel all other people.

The paper on which we write, the general use of window
glass and the art of staining it, the weaving of cloth, the art
of enameling on ivory and metals, the discovery of stone
coal, the sciences of galvanism and mineralogy; and many
other inventions and improvements were first introduced by
Catholics: most of them, too, in the "dark" ages. And it
may be maintained on the faith of genuine history, that
during the three hundred years preceding the Reformation,
probably more great and important inventions were made,
than during the three hundred centuries succeeding that revo-

* Blasco de Garay, a Spaniard, made the first successful experiment in
steam navigation, in the harbor of Barcelona, in the year 1543. Eighty-five
years later, Brancas followed up the discovery in Italy. — See " A Year in
Spain," by an American Protestant, vol. i, p. 47, seq. Note. — Edit. New
York, 1830.

PROTESTANT TESTIMONY. 421

lution. Still we are to be told, that we owe all our literature
and improvement to the Keformation !

We may here also remark, that the two greatest epochs of
modern literature — that of Leo X. and of Louis XIY. — both
occurred in Catholic countries and under Catholic auspices.
The age of Frederick the Great, in Germany, was nearly
allied in character with that which immediately followed it
under the influence of the infidels of France : while the liter
ary glories of Queen Anne's reign in England, were equaled,
if they were not surpassed, by those of the much earlier age
of Ferdinand and Isabella, in Spain.

It is a very common charge against the Catholic Church
that she keeps her people in ignorance ; and to prove this ac
cusation, an appeal is made to the condition of Catholic coun
tries, in which, it is said, the common people are not educated.
Let us see what a living author, and an unexceptionable wit
ness, because a Protestant and a Scotchman, says upon this
very subject. He relates, too, what he himself saw and had
full opportunities of examining. We allude to Laing, whose
" Notes of- a Traveler" are well known in the literary world.
He writes :

" In Catholic Germany, in France, and even in Italy, the education of the
common people in reading, writing, arithmetic, music, manners, and morals,
is at least as generally diffused and as faithfully promoted by the clerical
body as in Scotland. It is by their own advance, and not by keeping back
the advance of the people, that the popish priesthood of the present day
seek to keep ahead of the intellectual progress of the community in Catho
lic lands : and they might perhaps retort on our Presbyterian clergy,
and ask if they too are in their countries at the head of the intellectual
movement of the age ? Education is in reality not only not repressed, but
is encouraged by the Popish Church, and is a mighty instrument in its
hands, and ably used. In every street in Kome, for instance, there are, at
short distances, public primary schools for the education of the children of
the lower and middle classes in the neighborhood. Rome, with a popula
tion of one hundred and fifty-eight thousand six hundred and seventy-
eight souls, has three hundred and seventy-two primary schools,* with

* This number is perhaps somewhat below the mark. According to the

422 INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON LEARNING.

four hundred and eighty-two teachers, and fourteen thousand children
attending them. Has Edinburgh so many schools for the instruction of those
classes ? I doubt it. Berlin, with a population about double that of Rome,
has only two hundred and sixty-four schools. Rome has also her univer
sity, with an average attendance of six hundred and sixty students : and the
papal states, with a population of two and a half millions, contain seven
universities. Prussia, with a population of fourteen millions, has but seven."

The value of this splendid testimony is greatly enhanced,
when we reflect that Scotland and Prussia are the boasted
lands of common schools. Protestants, it would seem, can
boast more on whafc they have done for literature ; but Cath
olics can do more without making so great a parade.

We will conclude this chapter with the able analysis of Dr.
Dollinger's researches into the literary influence of the Ref
ormation, as presented by the Dublin Review, in the paper
which we have already quoted. From its perusal the reader
may gather what the reformers themselves and their own im
mediate disciples thought on this subject; and they surely
must be considered unexceptionable witnesses, especially when
they testify against themselves.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON THE CONDI
TION OF LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.

"To those who judge by the commonly received notions, this inquiry, we
doubt not, will appear perfectly idle, perhaps absurd. To move a doubt
upon the subject is to return to the first principles — to call evidence itself
in question. The very name of the Reformation is popularly regarded as
synonymous with enlightenment and progress, and from it is commonly
dated the origin of what is called the great intellectual movement of the
modern world. How far the character is merited, let it be determined from
the statements of the reformers themselves.

" (1.) THE SCIENCES AND PROFANE LITERATURE. — Perhaps it would be
wrong to insist too much upon the testimony of Erasmus ; but it is impos
sible to read his indignant denunciations of Luther, as condemning the

Cracas, or Roman Almanac for 1834, Rome then had three hundred and
eighty-one free schools ; and we presume the number has not since decreased,
as we know the population has been steadily increasing. Many of these
schools are supported by private charity, while those of Protestant countries
are maintained only by burdensome taxation.

DOLLINGER'S AUTHORITIES. 423

whole philosophy of Aristotle as diabolical, declaring ' all science, whether
practical or speculative, to be damnable, and all the speculative sciences to
be sinful and erroneous ;' his denunciation of Farel of Geneva as ' represent
ing all human learning as an invention of the devil ;' his furious tirade
against the whole reforming body, as ' both publicly and privately teaching,
that all human learning is but a net of the devil ' — his reiterated assertions,
that ' wherever Lutheranism flourishes, study begins to grow cold,' that
'where Lutheranism reigns, learning comes to ruin' — his contrasts of
the Catholic and the Protestant seats of learning — without feeling
that the pretensions of modern historians, as to the services rendered to
learning by the Reformation, are not entirely beyond question. And, on a
nearer examination, we find that these denunciations of Erasmus are liter
ally borne out by the facts. Melancthon himself, notwithstanding his own
literary tastes, is found to admit their justice. Glarean, a Swiss reformer,
maintains a long argument against a party of his fellow Lutherans, who held
that 'there was no need to study Greek and Latin, German and Hebrew
being quite sufficient.' Gastius records the prevalence of a still more ex
travagant opinion among the evangelical ministers, (complusculos evangelii
ministros,) ' that it was even unlawful for those destined to the preaching of
the gospel to study any part of philosophy except the sacred Scripture alone.'
In the Bostock university, the celebrated Arnold Buren was suspected of
infidelity, because he placed Cicero's philosophical works in the hands of his
pupils, as a text-book ; and in Wittenberg itself, the Rome of Lutheranism,
it was publicly maintained by George Mohr, and Gabriel Didymus, that
'scientific studies were useless and destructive (verderblich), and that all
schools and academies should be abolished.' And it is actually recorded,
that in pursuance of this advice, the school-house of Wittenberg was con
verted into a bakery ! ' It is with reluctance,' writes the celebrated Brassi-
kanus, one of Melancthon's disciples at Tubingen, ' I am forced by truth to
say, that a distaste for letters exists among men of genius, and to such a
degree, even in the greatest cities of Germany, that it has become a mark
of nationalism to hate learning, and an evidence of prudence and statesman
ship to condemn all study.' What must have been the evidence of the evil
to have extorted such an admission ! Under these influences science fell
completely into disrepute. Nicholas Gerbel could not find ' any period in
history where the sciences were at a lower ebb than the present.' 'In the
last century, the least cultivated man,' writes Eusebius Menius, 'would
have been ashamed not to be expert in mathematics and physics ; but nowadays
one can not but see that (to our shame in the sight of posterity) these sciences
are completely despised, and that, out of a great number of students, but few
would ever know what once mere boys would have been perfectly familiar
with.' And so universal and deep-rooted had this hatred of science become,

424 INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON LEARNING.

that 'from the revilings of science, which echo in almost every church in
Germany, and the coarse invectives against which issue from the press,'
Moller, in his commentary on Malachy, ' can anticipate nothing but the com
plete downfall of the sciences, the re-introduction of the most immeasurable
barbarism into the Church, and unlimited license for daring spirits to deal
with the Christian doctrine as they may think fit.'

" (2.) THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. — The same distaste extended even to sacrect
studies. It will not be matter of surprise that Luther's hatred of the scho
lastics should have driven them at once and forever from the schools of the
new learning. But it will sound oddly in the ears of a Protestant of the
present day, that the Scriptures themselves should have fallen into disrepute,
even among students of divinity, and even in Luther's own university of
Wittenberg. Yet we learn from an unimpeachable witness, a professor at
Wittenberg itself, that 'so great is the contempt of God's word, that even
students of divinity fly from a close study and investigation of the Bible, as if
they were sated and cloyed therewith ; and if they have but read a chapter
or two, they imagine that they have swallowed the whole of the divine
wisdom at a draught;' and Melchior Petri, minister at Radburg, in 1569,
'is driven to confess that things have come to such a pass among Lutherans,
that as Luther himself had set at naught the authorities of the entire of the
fathers, so his disciples place their Father Luther far beyond, not merely the
fathers, but even the Scripture itself, and rely exclusively upon him.'

" The author enters minutely into the claim of priority in the foundation
of schools of biblical criticism, and the introduction of the critical study of
Scripture set up in favor of the reformers. Nor does it bear the test of in
vestigation a whit better than the claims which we have been discussing.
Though we find so much stress laid by them upon the study of the Hebrew
text, yet it turns out that not a single edition of the Hebrew Bible was
printed in Germany during this entire period. How few copies of the
editions printed at (the still popish) Venice between 1518 and 1544, and of
the Paris ones of Robert Stephens, found their way into Germany, may be
inferred from the exceeding rarity of these editions ; and although the Basle
edition of Sebastian Munster (1536) may have had somewhat more circula
tion, yet the first edition of the Hebrew text which appeared in Protestant
Germany, dates near the close of the century after the commencement of
Luther's career. In like manner, there does not appear to have been any
edition of the Greek New Testament in Germany for forty years after the
same period. Contrast with this disgraceful indifference, the sixteen editions
of the Hebrew text printed in Venice alone before the year 1559, and the
ten editions of the Greek text which appeared at Paris before 1551, and say
to which side the priority in justice belongs ! Well may Dr. Dollinger,
with such a contrast before him, appeal to Melancthon's lamentation so

DECAY OF PROTESTANT UNIVERSITIES. 425

frequently and so feelingly uttered over the 'total neglect of the original
sources of divine learning.'

" ' Alas ! ' exclaims Strigel, ' were pious Christians to shed as many tears
as there is water in the Saal, they could not sufficiently deplore the downfall
of Christian doctrine and discipline. Men not only turn with disgust and
loathing from the word of God, but what is still more deplorable, they blush
at the very name of "theologian," and abandon the study of theology to a
few poor wretched men, apparently without talent or means to cultivate it,
and betake themselves to more honorable and more agreeable pursuits.'

"(3.) We need hardly dwell on the decay of Papistical Studies. The
well-known principles of Luther on the subject of the authority of the
fathers — his frequent declarations that the 'poor dear fathers' lived better
than they wrote' — his lamentations over the 'darkness on the subject of
faith which pervades their writings ;' their ' blindness ;' the ' obscurity in
which they have involved questions which are plain in the Scripture ' — the
contempt, and indeed worse, which he displays for them, taken individually ;
will prepare us for great extravagance in the same matter on the part of his
followers. But we can not refrain from mentioning, as a curious example
of the spirit of the time, that it was made a serious charge against a master
at Augsburg, that he introduced Lactantius among his scholars as an intro
duction to the study of the fathers, and that 'among the especial arts which
Satan employs to undermine the authority of the man of God, Dr. Luther,
the chief is described to be his withdrawing them from Luther's writings to
those of the fathers, and of others who are far inferior to him.'

"(4.) From the same principles of Luther will be understood without
difficulty the decline of Historical Studies also. Germany, in the early part
of the sixteenth century, had produced a larger number of historians than
perhaps any other in Europe, Wimpeling, Tritheim, Albert Kranz, Rhe-
nanus, Peutinger, Cuspinian, and several others are enumerated by Dollinger.
In the last seventy years of the same century, we find scarcely a single
name on the Protestant side, with the exception of Sleidan, a clever but
unscrupulous writer ; and the only historical writers of any note are those
of the Catholic party — Gerhard van Roo, Dalrav, bishop of Olmiitz, and
Fabricius, rector of Diisseldorf.

" (5.) But it is from the character of the universities and other seats of
learning, even more than from general statements like these, that we can
most securely gather the intellectual condition of Germany. Upon this part
of the subject the author appears to have bestowed exceeding care ; and if
it be remembered how obscure and how scattered must have been the
sources of such an inquiry, some idea may be formed of the difficulty of
the performance. He passes in review the universities of Erfurth, Basle,
Tubingen, Wittenberg, Leipsic, Rostock, Frankfort, and Heidelberg. Con
trasting their condition before and after the Reformation, and detailing in
VOL. i. — 36

426 INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON LEARNING.

the words of the reformers themselves, many of them members of the com
munities they describe, their actual condition under the working of the new
system, he traces to its immediate influence the corruption which most
unquestionably did follow its introduction, so clearly and satisfactorily, that
it would be impossible to entertain a doubt of the fact, even if it were not
expressly admitted by the parties most interested in its concealment; The,
universities of Germany, without any exception, were described, in the year
1568, as 'remarkable for nothing but the pride, laziness, and unbridled
licentiousness of the professors,' and Camerarius (i, p. 484) often thought that
'it would be better to have no schools at all than such asylums of dishonesty
and vice.' Wittenberg held a bad pre-eminence among them. Flacius
Illyricus (p. 227) 'would rather send children to a brothel, than to the High
School of Wittenberg.' No discipline or godliness was known there, and
'especially among Dr. Philip's (Melancthori) disciples? whom people visiting
the university, and expecting to find angels, discovered to be, in reality,
living devils. Indeed, the students of this university were 'universally
infamous (landriichig) for debauchery, gambling, impiety, blasphemy, cursing,
drinking, and indecent language and behavior ;' and though the university
authorities were well aware of the scandals, they were afraid to publish
their shame by expelling the guilty, who constituted the majority. At
Frankfort on the Oder (1562), the students were 'so wild and undisciplined,
that neither professors nor townsmen were secure of their lives.' At
Tubingen, the 'habits of blasphemy, drunkenness, and debauchery,' which
came under his own personal notice, called for the prompt and decided in
terference of Duke Christopher of Wiirtemberg in 1565. A few years later
(1577), the students were represented in the magistrates' report to the
senate as 'a godless race, like those of Sodom and Gomorrha:' and in 1583,
a solemn visitation, for the sole purpose of staying or eradicating the noto
rious and habitual immorality, was ordered by the public authorities of the
city. The accounts of the universities of Marburg (p. 480), Konigsberg (p. 482),
Leipsic (p. 573), Basle (p. 557), are precisely the same ; and in his report on the
university of Kostock, Arnold Buren frankly avows, that, 'comparing the
new generation with the old ones, every right-minded man complained, and
the conduct of the members themselves evinced even more clearly, that a
general deterioration of morals had taken place ; that crimes of every de
scription were day by day on the increase; that instead of the virtuous
gravity and youthful modesty of former days, wanton levity and unbridled
licentiousness had been introduced ; and that things had come now to such
a pass, that from the entire frame of society, and from the morals of every
class, simplicity, integrity, and purity had completely disappeared.'

"In a short time this disrepute began to produce its effect upon the
attendance of the pupils. The declaration of Illyricus is an echo of the

GENERAL SUMMARY. 427

general feeling. Parents feared to send their children to such dens of im
morality : the numbers gradually diminished : the university of Basle, once
so flourishing, became a desert within a few years : and at Erfurth, which
at the outbreak of the Reformation had been in its highest reputation, the
pupils, who in 1520 amounted to three hundred and eleven, fell to one
hundred and twenty in 1522, then to seventy-two, and afterwards to thirty-
four, till, in 1527, the entrances amounted to but fourteen ! "

The writer concludes his review of Bellinger's learned
work, with the following general summary of the view of
the Keformation taken by the reformers themselves, in regard
to the influence of this great revolution on the interests of
this world and on those of the next. The portraiture is, in
deed, a very sad one; but none the less reliable, because
drawn by the early friends and admirers of the Reformation,
whose testimony is alleged for each statement.

" From the variety of these extracts, and the exceeding diversity of the
sources from which they are taken, it will readily be believed that our diffi
culty has rather been to limit than to extend them. We had originally
intended to pursue the inquiry on a similar plan through various other
topics, as, — the scandalous lives of its ministers, and the contempt and
hatred with which, as a class, they were regarded by their flocks — the
weariness of spirit, the remorse, the longing after death, even the miserable
end, in many cases, by their own hands, which it entailed upon those who
were actively engaged in it— the repining after the good old times, the long
ing for the revival of popery, and the habitual reference, on the part of the
people, of all the evils which had overwhelmed the world to the new gospel
which had been introduced. But we have already more than wearied out
the reader's patience by these painful and revolting extracts, nor shall we
venture to pursue the Reformation into the ' lower deeps ' of sin and wretch
edness to which it led. Even in the few, and perhaps ill-assorted extracts
which we have hastily heaped together, there is enough and more than
enough to fix its character as a movement claiming to be divinely directed.
We are ready to allow its claims to be tested by any reasoning man, no
matter how deeply prejudiced in its favor, upon these admissions of its own
most zealous founders. Let him but contrast in the light of this evidence,
imperfect and fragmentary as our narrow limits have made it, its great
promise with its small performance, its magnificent anticipations with its
miserable results — let him follow it in its career through the various coun
tries where it found an entrance, and mark the fruits which it produced in
each — where it promised peace and happiness, let him see it produce disor-

428 INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON CIVILIZATION.

der, insubordination, murder, rebellion, divisions of class against class, san
guinary war ; where it promised piety, lukewarmness, impiety, blasphemy,
irreligion ; where it promised purer morality, debauchery, fornication, drunk
enness, revolting indecency in young and old ; where it promised all the
social and domestic virtues, adulteries, divorces, bigamy, fraud, avarice, hard-
heartedness to the poor ; where it promised the revival of true faith, confu
sion, skepticism, contempt of all religion, and utter unbelief; where it
promised enlightenment, ignorance, barbarism, contempt of learning, and
fanatical hatred of science ; — let him but remember how all this is attested
by those to whose dearest and most cherished hopes the admission was as
gall and wormwood, and we defy him to resist the direct and palpable con
clusion, that the finger of God was not in that unhappy movement — that
the prestige of its success was hollow and unsubstantial, that its boasted
advantages were a juggle and a delusion, that its lofty pretensions were but
a silly mockery, and its very title a living and flagitious lie."

CHAPTER XVI.

INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON CIVILIZATION.

Definition — Religion, the basis — Reclaiming from barbarism — British East
India possessions — Catholic and Protestant conquests — Protestant mis
sions — Sandwich Islands — The mother of civilization — The ark amid the
deluge — Rome converts the nations — Early German civilization — Moham
medanism — The Crusades — The Popes — Luther and the Turks — Luther
retracts — Religious wars in Germany — Thirty Years' War — General
peace — Disturbed by the Reformation — Comparison between Protestant
and Catholic countries.

To civilize, according to lexicographers, is "to reclaim
from a state of savageness and brutality." According to its
more common acceptation, however, the word civilization
implies more than a mere reclaiming from barbarism. It em
braces, as its more prominent constituent elements, enlight
enment of the public mind, good government conducted on
liberal principles, a certain refinement in public taste and
manners, and a gentleness and polish in social intercourse.

COMPARATIVE CIVILIZATION. 429

The more fully and the more harmoniously these ' elements
are developed together, the higher the state of civilization.

There can be no doubt that religion lies at the basis of all
true civilization. A mere glance at the past history and
present condition of the world must satisfy any impartial
man of this great truth. Those countries only have been
blessed with a high degree of civilization which have been
visited by the Christian religion. Those which have not had
this visitation, or which have rejected it, are in a state of bar
barism, or at least of semi-barbarism. If Europe is more
highly civilized than any other quarter of the globe, it is pre
cisely because she has been brought more fully under the
softening and humanizing influence of Christianity. If Africa
is the lowest in the scale, it is because her people have been
to a very great extent excluded from, or have shut their eyes
to the blessed light of the gospel.

Asia occupies an intermediate ground between barbarism
on the one hand, and a state of high civilization on the other.
That portion of her population which has never received the
Christian religion, still continues in a state of unmitigated
barbarism. That portion which once received, but has since
in a great measure lost sight of, or rejected the doctrines of
Christianity, may in general be pronounced to be in a state
but half-civilized. No more striking proof of the soundness
of these remarks can perhaps be given, than the incontestable
fact that all western Asia, embracing Asia Minor, Syria, Pal
estine, Bythinia, Mesopotamia, and Armenia, which was,
during the early ages of Christianity, in a high state of civil
ization, has since sunk into a state of semi-barbarism, after
Christianity had been either extinguished or paralyzed in its
influence by Mohammedanism. Constantinople, Antioch, and
Ephesus, once the centers of civilization, and the radiating
points of learning, are now the seats of barbarism — all their
laurels withered, and all their glory fled, perhaps for ever !
Egypt and northern Africa were also, during the first ages of
the Church, far advanced in civilized life. But what is their

430 INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON CIVILIZATION.

condition now, and what has it been for many centuries, since
the overthrow of Christian institutions by those of Islamism ?
The dark night of barbarism still broods heavily over them,
though a cheering twilight of the coming dawn is beginning
to brighten in Algeria. And, in Europe, those countries pre
cisely have advanced the least in civilization which — as
Russia and other more northern nations — have been less fully
and powerfully acted on by the principles of the Christian
religion, as unfolded from its center.

From the facts already established in the previous chapters,
we may easily gather what was the influence of the Reforma
tion on these two leading elements of civilization — free gov
ernment and literary enlightenment. We think that every
impartial man who will take the trouble to weigh well the
Protestant evidence already accumulated on those subjects,
will come to the conclusion that, so far at least as these are
concerned, the influence of the Reformation was most injuri
ous. We would not, however, be understood as denying that
Protestantism subsequently exercised, at least occasionally
and to some extent, a beneficial influence on the progress of
society. We freely admit that Protestants have done some
thing for the social advancement of the human race : but we
maintain that Catholics have done much more, and that with
out the Reformation, the world would have advanced much
more rapidly in civilization than it has done with its co
operation.

To begin with the first idea implied by the term — a reclaim
ing from barbarism — what nation or people, we would ask,
has Protestantism ever reclaimed from a barbarous to a civil
ized condition ? What nation, or even considerable portion
of a nation, has it ever converted from heathenism to Chris
tianity ? It has indeed caused many to abandon the old sys
tem of religion, and to embrace its own crude and new-fangled
notions : but we have yet to learn that it has brought one
entire heathen people into the Christian fold. Many barba
rous nations and tribes have been crushed or exterminated by

CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT CONQUESTS. 431

the onward march of its own peculiar system of exclusive
civilization ; but not one, so far as our information extends,
has been converted to Christianity, or even ameliorated in
social condition, through its agency.

And yet Protestantism has had ample power in its hands
for this purpose, as well as ample verge for its operations.
"With her almost unbounded power by sea and by land, En
gland, to say nothing of other Protestant governments, might,
it would seem, have converted whole nations to Christianity,
and thereby reclaimed them from barbarism. With her vast
power and influence in the East Indies, she might have made
at least an effort to bring the teeming nations, with their tens
of millions of inhabitants, which there acknowledged her
sway, into the beautiful fold of Christian civilization. But
what has she actually accomplished? Has she ameliorated
the civil condition of the seventy millions whom she holds in
political thralldom in the east ? Has she even made a seri
ous effort, in her political capacity, to bring about this result ?
Have the obscene and wicked rites of paganism vanished be
fore her powerful influence ?

She has indeed crushed or exterminated whole tribes by
her arms, or ground them in the dust by her tyranny, and
impoverished them by her exactions ! She has done much to
render Christian civilization odious in their eyes : she has
done little or nothing to render it amiable or attractive. She
has lately goaded them to rebellion by her cruel exactions
and selfish policy ; and then crushed out the insurrection by
the strong arm guided by superior discipline. A lust of
power and of money has been the all-absorbing principle of
her policy : and its effects are visible in the abiding degrada
tion of the millions who unwillingly bow beneath her yoke.
It is deemed unnecessary to multiply proofs to establish what
must be apparent to every one who has even glanced at the
history of the conquests and policy of England in her East
India possessions. Her own writers and the official acts of
parliament have boldly proclaimed these iniquities to the

432 INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON CIVILIZATION.

world : and no one will be so skeptical as to question their
truth, or to deny their enormity.*

Happily, such has not been the case with Catholic con
quests among barbarous nations. The first thing always
thought of by Catholic sovereigns who established their
power in heathen lands, was to introduce Christianity among
the tribes whom they had subdued, and to bring about,
through its agency, their gradual civilization. The Catholic
missionary always accompanied the leader of Catholic mari
time discovery and conquest, to soften down the horrors of
war, to pour oil into the wounds of the vanquished people,
and to direct their attention to sublime visions of civilization,
of Religion — of heaven. The Catholic cross was always
reared by the side of the banner of Catholic conquest. And
the result has been, that wherever Catholic conquest has ex
tended, there religion has been also established, and, through
it, civilization has been gradually introduced.

Whoever will read attentively the annals of Spanish and
Portuguese voyages of discovery and conquest in America
and the Indies, will be convinced of the truth of this remark.
Our countryman, Washington Irving, has done ample justice
to this subject ; and we confidently appeal to the evidence
his magic pen has spread before the world, for a triumphant
proof of our assertion.! Our attention is often directed, with
a sneer of triumph, to the inferior political condition of Span
ish America : but those who employ this common-place argu
ment, and who boast of their own superior civilization and

* Some modern writers, indeed, claim that England has accomplished
much towards elevating the social condition of the people in the East Indies.
But when you call on them for facts and specifications, they are able to pre
sent little but vague and unsatisfactory generalities. It is admitted on all
hands, that very few of the natives have been converted to Christianity.
Such being the case, it is difficult to see wherein their alleged social improve
ment is to be found.

f In his " Life of Columbus," 2 vols. 8vo. New York, 1831. See the
evidence he alleges on our present subject, accumulated in a Review of Web
ster's Bunker Hill Speech, published in the Miscellanea.

CONVERSION OP HEATHENS. 433

refinement, do not reflect, or would not have us reflect, that,
whereas the Spaniards and Portuguese settled down and in
termarried with the aborigines, and used every effort to civil
ize them — in which they have partially succeeded ; we in
North America, with all our boasted superiority, have cir
cumvented, goaded into war, driven from place to place, and
finally almost exterminated the poor Indians, the original
proprietors of our soil.* Protestantism is heartily welcome
to all the laurels of civilization it has won in this great Ameri
can field !

It is rather a remarkable coincidence that, in the very first
year of the Reformation — 1517 — the first expedition of the
Spaniards for the conquest of Mexico — that under Cordova —
was undertaken. Two years later, in 1519, Hernando Cortes
entered upon the great enterprise which actually achieved the
conquest of Mexico. On his standard was inscribed the
motto: "Amici, crucem sequamur, et in hoc signo vinee-
mus" — "Friends, let us follow the cross, and under this
banner shall we conquer." According to the account of the
Spanish missionaries, who accompanied this expedition of
Cortes, six millions of Mexicans were received into the
Catholic Church by baptism during the years intervening
between 1524 and 1540 ; the very period in which the Refor
mation was progressing most rapidly in Europe. It is highly
probable that, by this remarkable stroke of Divine Provi
dence, the Catholic Church thus gained probably almost as
many new disciples in Spanish and Portuguese America alone,
as she lost of old ones in Europe through the Reformation !f

We must admit that Protestants have made great efforts to

* See Bancroft's testimonies, and other evidences on the subject, collected
ibid.

f See article Dispatches of Hernando Cortes, in the North American Re
view for October, 1843. In his History of the Conquest of Mexco, Prescott
quotes Father Toribio, who says that nine millions of converts were made
within twenty years after the first advent of the Catholic missionaries. See
vol. iii, p. 267.

VOL. I. — -37

434 INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON CIVILIZATION.

convert heathen nations. Millions of money have been liber
ally bestowed for this benevolent purpose. Large bodies of
missionaries, with their wives and families, have been annu
ally sent out by Bible and other Protestant societies, to evan
gelize and civilize heathen lands. Not only the expenses of
this numerous corps have been liberally paid, but they have
had handsome salaries, and often princely establishments.
But what have they done, with all the money that has been
expended, and all the parade that has been made on the

subject.

• Quid.

Hie faciet tanto dignum promissor hiatu ?*

Have they converted even one nation to Christianity ? If
they have, history is silent as to its locality. f Much was once
said about the conversion of the Sandwich Islands by Ameri
can Protestant missionaries : but this has all turned out, like
other similar schemes of conversion, a miserable failure. The
first effect of Protestant civilization in those islands was a re
duction of the native population by more than one half: the
next was the enriching of the missionaries themselves — a very
usual occurrence, by the way, and one which exhibits the
chief advantage of those missionary enterprises : and the
third was a most disgraceful persecution of brother Christian
missionaries, so much so that a Catholic potentate felt himself
called on to interfere. J A distinguished modern writer has
well remarked, that the Protestant sects have been ever doomed
to sterility since their divorce from the only true spouse of
Christ — the Catholic Church. §

On the other hand, what has the Catholic Church done for

* Horace — Ars Poetica. " What will this boaster accomplish, after so
much blowing ?"

f See most abundant evidence, chiefly from Protestants themselves, in
Dr. Wiseman's " Lectures on the Catholic Religion," 2 vols. 12mo, vol. i,
lect. vi.

\ Ibid. We have discussed this subject at some length in our Lectures
on the Evidences of Catholicity.

$ Count de Maistre — Du Pape, vol. ii.

THE ARK IN THE DELUGE. 435

civilization ? What nations has she converted to Christianity ?
"We may answer the question by asking another. What na
tion or people is there, of all those on the face of the earth
who have entered the Christian fold, which she has not been
mainly instrumental in converting and civilizing ? Is there
even one? What says faithful history on the subject?

During the first four centuries of Christianity, the principal
nations of Europe, as well as many of those of Asia and Africa,
had been converted by missionaries sent either directly by
Rome, or at least in communion and acting in concert with
the Roman See. The cross of Christ had been borne in tri
umph to the most remote extremities of the Roman empire,
which then embraced almost all of Europe and a great por
tion of Asia and Africa. It had been planted even in the
midst of people who were beyond the boundaries of the vast
territory ruled by Rome. As early as the close of the second
century, St. Irenseus, bishop of Lyons, could say in triumph
that many barbarous nations in Germany and elsewhere, over
whose heads the Roman eagle had never been reared, had
already received the gospel, although they were unlettered
and unacquainted with the use of paper and ink. Tertullian,
a writer who flourished in the beginning of the third century,
could also say, in a defense of Christianity, addressed to the
Roman emperor and senate, that Christians had already
filled the villages, the towns, the cities, the castles, and the
armies of the Roman empire, and that they had left only
the temples of paganism to their idolatrous persecutors !

In the fifth and sixth centuries, a deluge of barbarism over
whelmed the Roman empire of the west, which was already
fast verging to its final downfall. The ancient Roman civil
ization was buried under its turbid waters. The ark of the
Church alone rode out in safety the angry flood : and when its
waters had subsided, the tenants of this ark, as had been done
by those of its prototype of old, repeopled the earth. In it
were preserved, together with Christianity, the seeds of a new
civilization, more refined and elevated by far, than that which

436 INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON CIVILIZATION.

had been swept from the face of the earth by the new deluge.
These were scattered broadcast over the soil of the world : the
Church watered them with the tears of her maternal solici
tude, and, when they had sprung up, she nurtured the plants
and brought them to maturity. Thus to her alone is due the
credit of having rescued the world from barbarism, and of
having again carefully collected and skillfully put together
the scattered elements of the new civilization. All modern
improvement dates back to this era, as certainly and as neces
sarily as do the existence and extension of the human race
to the epoch of the deluge. "We owe at least as much to the
Church as we do to Noah's ark.

The hordes of the north, who had trodden in the dust the
haughty Roman empire, entered themselves, one by one, into
the ample fold of the Church. The fierce conquerors will
ingly bowed their necks to receive the yoke of the conquered !
Christianity thus triumphed, like her divine Founder, by being
seemingly conquered for a time. It is not a little remarkable,
too, that all the nations of the north were subsequently con
verted by missionaries sent by Rome.

Ireland was the first to enter into the Christian fold : and
she became subsequently a principal instrument in the hands
of Providence for converting the other northern nations. She
had never been conquered by the Roman legions, nor had
she been instrumental in effecting the downfall of the Roman
empire, Yet was she the first nation of the north that
assumed the sweet yoke of Christ. In the beginning of the
fifth century, A. D. 430, Pope Celestine I. sent St. Patrick
into Ireland, and St. Palladius into Scotland.* Towards the
close of the same century, in 496, St. Remigius baptized at
Rheims, King Clovis and three thousand officers of his army,
thus commencing successfully the conversion of the Francs,
and consolidating the foundations of Christianity in France.

* It is well known that among ancient writers Scots and Hibernians were
often convertible terms.

NORTHMEN CONVERTED. 437

Near the close of the sixth century, A. D. 591, Pope St
Gregory the Great sent St. Augustine and his forty com
panions into England. These converted the kingdom of Kent,
and soon all England followed the example. In the seventh
century, St. Kilian, sent by Pope Conon, preached the gospel
in Franconia ; St. Swidbert and others evangelized Friesland,
Brabant, and Holland ; and St. Rupert became the apostle
of Bavaria. In the eighth century, St. Boniface, sent by Pope
Gregory II. in 719, converted the Hessians and Thuringians,
and suffered martyrdom at length in Friesland, in 755, with
fifty-two of his companions. Saints Corbinian, Willibrord,
and Vigilius were his co-operators in the apostleship.

In the ninth century, St. Adalbert converted Prussia : and
St. Ludger became the apostle of Saxony and Westphalia, and
died bishop of Munster. In the same age, St. Anscarius,
archbishop of Hamburg and Bremen, preached the gospel to
the Danes, and planted Christianity in Sweden, about the
year 830. About the same period, the two brothers, Saints
Methodius and Cyril, with the sanction of Pope John VIII.,
converted the Sclavonians, the Russians, and the Moravians,
and also Michael, king of the Bulgarians. In the tenth cen
tury, the faith was extended into Muscovy, Denmark, Goth
land, Sweden, and Poland. The Normans, with their Duke
Rolla, were converted in 912 ; and the Hungarians, with their
king, St. Stephen, embraced Christianity about the year 1002.*

Thus all the nations of Europe were successively converted
to Christianity by the direct agency of the Roman Catholic
Church, and by missionaries sent by Rome. Their civiliza
tion was a necessary sequel to their conversion. They were
indebted for both to Rome. This was especially true in rela
tion to the German nations. "We have seen above the avowal
of D'Aubigne himself on this subject. As Audin well re
marks :

" It was religion that had softened the savage manners of its inhabitants,
cleared its forests, peopled its solitudes, and aided in throwing off the yoke

* See Church historians, passim.

438 INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON CIVILIZATION.

of the Romans. Whatever poetry, music, or intellectual culture it possessed
when Luther appeared, it owed to its ancient bishops. The feudal tree had
first flourished on its soil. It had its electors, dukes, barons, who were
often bishops or archbishops. Of all the European states, it was the one in
which the influence of the Papacy had been most vividly felt."*

He might have added that whatever of liberty it possessed/
it had also derived from Home. She had by her influence
gradually abolished the serf system, had opened sanctuaries
for the oppressed, had proscribed the trial by ordeal, and had
substituted for it a more rational system of judicature. She
had purified and elevated the old German jurisprudence by
the wise provisions of her canon law ; and, by declaring the
oppressed and crushed subject free from the obligation of his
oath of allegiance to the oppressor, she had broken his bonds,
and taught him his political rights. In a word, Home was,
for Germany more especially, the great center of civilization,
and the point from which enlightenment had radiated through
out her entire territory.

The deluge of barbarian invasion having subsided, and the
barbarians themselves having been converted to Christianity,
a new and most appalling danger threatened European civil
ization, nay, the independence and the very existence of
Europe. The Mohammedan imposture, commencing at Mecca
in the year 622, had rapidly overspread a great part of Asia
and Africa, and had penetrated into Europe, through Spain,
as early as the year 711. In the east it menaced Constanti
nople, the capital of the Greek empire ; in the south and west
it threatened still more nearly European independence. Mas
ters of northern Africa, of Spain, and of the Mediterranean,
the followers of Mohammed were ready to penetrate into Eu
rope on all sides, with the scimitar in one hand, and the Koran
in the other. The consequences of their successful incursion
would have been, what they had been everywhere else, the
ruin of literature and liberty, the destruction of Christianity
and civilization, and wide-spread ruin and desolation. Wher-

* Life of Luther, sup. cit., p. 343, 344.

THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS. 439

ever they had penetrated, they had blighted every flower,
and plucked every fruit of the existing civilization. The once
flourishing provinces of Asia and Africa, which had been forced
to wear their degrading yoke, had already relapsed into a state
of barbarism, from which, alas ! they are not yet recovered.

In this emergency, what saved European civilization and
independence ? What agency kept off the impending storm ?
The Church and the Roman Pontiffs. The latter, by their
influence, succeeded in arousing Europe from her lethargy,
and in awakening her to a lively sense of the threatened
danger. They persuaded Christians to bury their private
feuds, to combine together for the first time in the common
defense, and to rally in their united strength for the defense
of the cross against the invading hosts marshaled under the
crescent. Long and fiercely raged the struggle ; Christianity,
civilization, enlightenment and liberty, and the CROSS, on the
one hand, and Mohammedanism, barbarism, ignorance, despo
tism, and the CKESCENT, on the other.

The first check given to Mohammedan conquest was in the
famous victory gained over the followers of the crescent by
Charles Martel, at the head of the French chivalry, near Tours,
in 732. The closing events of the protracted struggle were
equally glorious for the Christian cause. The battle of Le-
panto, in 1571, crippled the energies of the Turks, by destroy
ing their whole fleet ; and the relief of Vienna from the
beleaguering Turkish army, in 1683, by the brave Sobieski, at
the head of his thirty thousand Poles, drove the Mohamme
dans from Western Europe, and cut off all hopes of any fur
ther European conquests by their armies.

The Popes were the very life and soul of all these Chris
tian enterprises for repelling Turkish invasion. It was they
who first conceived that master-stroke of policy which, through
the crusades, carried the war into the enemies' country, and
for centuries gave them enough to do at home, and thus pre
vented them from thinking of foreign conquests. It was they
who united Europe, for the first time, in one great national

440 INFLUENCE OF THE REFOKMATION ON CIVILIZATION.

cause. It was Pope St. Pius V. who deserved the chief credit
for the signal naval victory at Lepanto. It was they who
ennobled chivalry, and consecrated valor, for the defense of
Christian Europe. It was they who nerved for battle the
arms of the brave knights of Khodes and Malta, and inspired
the heroism of the Hunniades, of the Scanderbegs, of the
Cids, of the Bouillons, of the Tancreds, and of many others,
who won imperishable laurels in that world-wide struggle.
But for their exertions, and the blessings of God, who had
promised that " the gates of hell should not prevail against
His Church built on a rock," Europe would in every human
probability have become, what Asia and Africa had long
been, a mere degraded province of a colossal Mohammedan
empire, which would have bestrode the earth, and crushed
beneath its weight every principle of civilization.

Did the Reformation win any laurels in this contest ? Did
it strike one blow for the independence of Europe against the
Turks ; who, when it first appeared, were at the very zenith
of their power, and were assuming the most threatening atti
tude against Europe ? We will here present a few curious facts,
which will show the spirit of early Protestantism on this subject.

Among the articles which Luther obstinately refused to
retract at the diet of Worms, in 1521, was this strange and
impious paradox : " That to war against the Turks is to oppose
God ! "* In his fierce invective against the conciliatory de
cree which emanated from the diet of ETurenberg in 1524, he
thus castigates the princes who had composed that diet :

" Christians, I beg of you, raise your hands, and pray for these blind
princes, with whom heaven punishes us in its wrath. Give not alms against
the Turk, who is a thousand times wiser and more pious than our princes.
What success can such fools, who rebel against Christ and despise his word,
hope in the war against the Turks ?"f

* " Proeliari adversus Turcas est repugnare Deo." Assertio articulorum
per Leonem damnatorum. Opp. Lutheri, torn, ii, p. 3. Audin, p. 174.

f Luther Werke, ch. xv, p. 2, 712. Adolph Menzel, torn, i, p. 155, seq.
Apud Audin, p. 286. See also Cochlaeus in Acta Lutheri, folio 116.

LUTHER AND THE TUilKfc. 441

This warning was directed against the decree of the diet, which, alarmed
by the menacing attitude of the Sublime Porte, " had demanded and voted
subsidies for the war against the Turks. The Catholics contributed, the
Protestants refused : but the contributions of the Catholics were not suffi
cient to arrest the progress of Suleiman. At the head of two hundred
thousand men, he advanced into Hungary, and on the 26th of September,
1529, he was about to plant his ladders against the walls of Vienna. This
cowardly abandonment of their brethren is an ineffaceable stain on the
Protestant party. At the approach of the enemy, who threatened the cross
of Christ, all disunion should have ceased. The country was in danger ; the
Christian name was on the point of being blotted out from Germany ; and
Islamism would have triumphed, had there not been brave hearts behind
the walls which the treachery of their brethren had laid bare. Honor then
to those valiant chiefs, Philip Count Palatine, Nicholas von Salm, William
von Regendorf, and that population of aged men, of women, and of children,
who, although suffering from famine, sickness, and pestilence — for all seemed
united to overwhelm them — did not despair, but drove back to Constanti
nople the army of Suleiman. After G-od, they owed their success to their
valor ; for the emperor, the empire, and the princes had abandoned them.
Luther had cried aloud ' peace to the Turks ;' and his voice was more pow
erful than the cry of their weeping country, and of the cross of Christ.
The reader must judge between the reformed and the Catholics, and say, in
what veins Christian blood flowed."*

Subsequently indeed, when the most imminent danger had
passed, and Luther had little to apprehend from the emperor
or the Catholic party, he retracted his wild paradoxes, and
ceased to be the apologist of the Turks. But who thanked
him for his tardy, if not compulsory advocacy of European
independence against Turkish invasion ? All that it demon
strated was his own utter inconsistency in the whole affair,
in which he did but act out his general character, — as a mere
creature of impulse and of passion, guided by self-interest.

That there existed not only a feeling of secret sympathy
between Luther and the Turkish sultan, but that the latter
was also aware of Luther's favorable inclinations, would
appear from the following remarkable passage found in
MenzePs History of Germany. The incident referred to

Audin, p. 289, 290.

442 INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON CIVILIZATION.

occurred after Luther had retracted and become reconciled
with the emperor. The knowledge of this single fact sud
denly arrested the progress of Suleiman's invading army !

" Suleiman had again presented himself on the frontier, at the head of an
immense army, with the avowed intention of placing himself on the throne*
of the Western empire. All Germany flew to arms. The news of the
termination of intestine dissension in Germany no sooner reached the
sultan's ears, than he asked, with astonishment, ' Whether the emperor had
really made peace with Martin Luther?' And, although the Germans only
mustered eighty thousand men in the field, scarcely a third of the invading
army, he suddenly retreated."*

Erasmus thus twits the Protestant party on their conduct
in this whole affair:

"But you seem to forget that you refused to give Charles V., and
Ferdinand, the subsidies necessary for the war against the Turks, according
to the doctrine of Luther, who now however condescends to retract ! Have
not the gospelers advanced the startling proposition, 'that it is better to
fight for the unbaptized than for the baptized Turk,' that is, for the emperor ?
Is it not truly ridiculous ? "f

It was something more than ridiculous — which was the
strongest epithet the Eatavian philosopher could employ — it
was utterly treacherous and lamentable; and if European
civilization was still saved, and European independence still
preserved, we certainly owe no thanks therefor to the Refor
mation. If we are still free ; if we are not ground down by
Turkish tyranny ; if we bow to the cross instead of the cres
cent; we certainly owe no gratitude for these results to the
Protestant party. Their sympathies were manifestly more
Mohammedan than Christian ; they would have rejoiced at
the ascendency of Islamism, provided only the Pope and his
adherents could have been crushed and annihilated ! They
shared in none of the laurels won for European independence
and civilization, at Lepanto, under the walls of Vienna, in
Hungary, in Poland, in Albania, or at Rhodes and Malta.
Their chivalry could not be awakened, nor their sympathies

* Menzel's History of Germany, vol. ii, p. 253, sup. cit.

f "In Pseudo-Evangelicos." Epist.47, Lib. xxxi. — Edit, of London, Flesher.

THE GARDEN MADE DESOLATE. 443

stirred up by any such brilliant achievements as these. And
yet D'Aubigne gravely assures us, that "the Reformation
saved religion, and through it society."* Deliver us from
such a salvation as this.f

We have already said something on the character of the
bloody civil wars with which the Reformation desolated Ger
many. We compared the multitude of devastating armies,
which it let loose on Europe, to those which had desolated
her fair provinces in the fifth and sixth centuries. This
parallel is not exaggerated : it is founded on the sad records
of history. In reading of the dreadful tragedies enacted in
the war of the peasants and of the Anabaptists, and more
particularly in the Thirty Years' War, we are forcibly re
minded of the devastations which the early Northmen left in
their course. Especially does the parallel hold good, in re
spect to the ravaging of Italy and Rome by the Lutheran
troops under the Constable Bourbon, referred to above.
Miinzer, Storck, and Stiibner strongly remind us of Attila,
Totila, and Genseric. All were, if not " the scourges of God,"
at least, in another sense, the scourges of man and of society.
They were all fierce wild animals, let loose for a time, to
devastate the blooming garden of European civilization.

The following address of Miinzer to his associates in rebel
lion we give, as one out of the many similar specimens of the
infuriate Yandalism of the sixteenth century:

" Are you then asleep, my brethren ! Come to the fight, the fight of
heroes. All Franconia has risen up : the Master will now show himself :
the wicked shall fall. At Fulda, in Easter week, four pestiferous churches
were destroyed. The peasants of Klegan have taken up arms. Although
you were but three confessors of Jesus, you would not have to fear a hun
dred thousand enemies. Draw, draw, draw — now is the time : the impious
shall be chased like dogs. No mercy for those atheists : they will beset

* D'Aubigne, vol. i, p. 67, sup. cit.

f In his History of the Reformation, Ranke endeavors to vindicate Luther,
by alleging his opinions after he had become reconciled with the emperor.
We have given his declarations made previously, when the danger to Ger
many was the greatest.

444 INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON CIVILIZATION.

you ; they will blubber like children — but spare them not. It is the com
mand of God by Moses. — Draw, draw, draw — the fire burns ; let not the
blood grow cold on your sword-blades. Pink, pank, on the anvil of Nimrod :
let the towers fall under your stroke. Draw, draw, draw — now is the day :
God leads you on ; follow Him."*

Schiller, a German Protestant, lias most graphically painted
the horrors of the Thirty Years' War, and the desolation
which it occasioned in Germany. The master hand of Shlegel
thus traces its effects on German civilization :

" Never was there a religious war so widely extended and so complicated
in its operations, so protracted in its duration, and entailing misery on so
many generations. That period of thirty years' havoc, in which the early
civilization, and the noblest energies of Germany were destroyed, forms in his
tory the great wall of separation between the ancient Germany, which in
the middle age was the most powerful, flourishing, and wealthy country in
Europe ; and the new Germany of recent and happier times, which is now
gradually recovering from her long exhaustion and general desolation ; arid
is rising again into light and life from the sepulchral darkness — the night of
death, to which her ancient disputes had consigned her."f

It thus required full two centuries for Germany to recover
from the terrible blow to her civilization dealt her by the
ruthless Reformation. Even Villers, the champion laureate
of the Reformation, is compelled to admit, that " the Thirty
Years' "War left Germany in a sort of stupor — in a barbarism
almost total."!

"We here subjoin from the Dublin Review the analysis of
Dr. Dbllinger's testimony, gathered from the early reformers
themselves and their immediate disciples, in regard to the
social effects of the Reformation in Germany. We need
scarcely repeat, that this testimony is wholly unexception
able ; because the witnesses saw what they relate, and were
favorable to the change of religion.

* Luther Werke— Edit, Altenburg vol. iii, p. 134. Menzel, p. 200-2.—
Apud Audin.

f Philosophy of History, vol. ii, p. 232, American Edit.

I Essai sur 1'esprit et 1'influence de la reform, de Luther, p. 274. — Apud
Bobelot, 392.

SOCIAL INFLUENCE. 445

THE SOCIAL RESULTS OF THE REFORMATION.
"If every written evidence of the injury inflicted on society by the
preaching of the reformers had been lost or destroyed, the War of the
Peasants, and the Anabaptist atrocities, would remain as indisputable monu
ments of its unhappy and fatal influence. It would be tedious to appeal to
contemporary writers for proofs of the direct connection of this sanguinary
outbreak with the first principles professed and preached by Luther. Al
though he himself disclaimed and denounced the misguided men who but
carried out his principles too faithfully in practice, their proceeding was not
only (as he himself admits in a passage already cited) vindicated by them
selves, but is recognized by numberless writers of the times, as the natural,
if not the legitimate, consequence of Luther's teaching. But in truth, the
whole framework of society is represented by the writers and preachers of
that day as in a state of complete and hopeless dissolution ; class set against
class, subjects against rulers, peasants against nobles, poor against rich, flock
against pastor. ' If you look around upon the society of the present day,'
asks Burenius, ' what age or what rank will you find that is not changed,
and grievously unlike to the generation that is gone by ? What rank or
condition has not fallen away, and wandered far from the habits and insti
tutes of our forefathers ?' ' The father,' says Leopold Dick, ' is no longer
safe from the son, the son from the father ; the daughter from the mother,
nor the mother from the daughter — the citizen is not safe from his fellow-
citizen, the rich man from the poor ; every thing is turned upside down,
without discrimination and without order; so universally and so uncon-
trolledly does deceit [ *» JIX/ZOM ] nowadays pervade the world, bringing
frenzy, strife, and contention in her train.' ' Such is the depravity of living,'
says Joachim Camerarius, 'such the corruption of morals, such is the
wretchedness and confusion, both public and private, of all ages, sexes,
ranks, and conditions, that I fear all piety and virtue are at an end.' And
in another place he declares that ' nothing is so daring as to be beyond the
reach of their cupidit}'- or their violence. Neither reason, nor moderation,
nor law, nor morality, nor duty, will serve as a restraint ; not even the fear
^f their fellow-men, nor the shame of posterity.' Even in Luther's time,
the complaints of the 'insubordination, the arrogance, and the pride of the
young, and in general of all classes,' had become most universal. They had
grown so 'wild and licentious as to be utterly uncontrollable — indifferent to
the authority of parents, masters, and magistrates.' 'Every one,' says
Melancthon, ' strives with his neighbor to obtain unbounded liberty and
unrestricted gratification of all his desires ; every one tries to gain money
by every unjust act, pillages his neighbor for his own profit, takes from
others to increase his own stores, and seeks advantages for himself in every way.'

446 INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON CIVILIZATION.

"We might pursue this through numberless other writers, but we have
said enough to show the extent of the evil ; and we shall only add, that the
great source from which it all flows, is discoverable even through the inter
ested declamations of the great reformer himself. * The people,' he writes,
' stick to the idea of the gospel.' " Eh /" say they, " Christ proclaims liberty
for ws in the gospel, does he not ? Well then, we will work no more, but eat
and make merry!" And thus every boor who but knows how to reckon
five, seizes upon the corn-land, the meadows, and the woods, of the monas
teries, and carries every thing according to his own will, under the pretext
of the gospel.' Here was the true root of the evil. It was all very well for
Luther to express his 'mortification' [verdreusst] at these results. But
results they were, and natural results, of his teaching. He had sown the
wind, and we need not wonder that he reaped the whirlwind ; nor need we
any longer be surprised at Brentius' good humored, though most cutting
jest, that ' there was no need to warn Protestants against relying on good
works, for they had not any good works to rely on.' "

From the facts hitherto alleged, the reader will be enabled
to judge what was the relative influence on civilization of
Catholicism and of the Reformation. He will also be able
to gather the more immediate influence of the latter revolu
tion on civilization in Germany, its cradle and first theater
of action. To estimate this influence, however, more nearly
and more correctly, we must see what was the condition of
Germany in regard to civilization before, and what it became
immediately after, the change of religion.

Before it, a general peace reigned : the elements of civil
ized life were all in a state of healthy growth and of rapid
development : every thing bade fair for the inauguration of a
very high state of refinement and civilization. For the devel
opment of these, peace is as necessary, as it is for the culti
vation of letters. D'Aubigne himself speaks of the great
advantages to civilization of the general peace secured to
Germany in 1496, by the wise policy of the Emperor Maxi
milian. He writes :

" For a long time the numerous members of the Germanic body had
labored to disturb one another. Nothing had been seen but confusion, quar
rels, wars incessantly breaking out between neighbors, cities, and chiefs.
Maximilian had laid a solid basis of public order, by instituting the Imperial

CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT COUNTRIES. 447

Chamber appointed to settle all differences between the states. The Ger
mans, after so many confusions and anxieties, saw a new era of safety and
repose. The condition of affairs powerfully contributed to harmonize the
public mind. It was now possible in the cities and peaceful valleys of Ger
many to seek and adopt ameliorations, which discord might have banished."*

He continues, with not a little simplicity : " We may add,
that it is in the bosom of peace, that the gospel loves most to
gain its blessed victories."! He means this of course for the
gospel of Luther — but did not this same gospel break in, with
its accents of discord, and its fierce spirit of feud and blood
shed, upon the general peace, secured to Germany by a Cath
olic potentate, in Catholic times ? Did it not by its truculent
war-cry, mar the lovely beauty of the peaceful scene he had
just described ? Did it not ruthlessly rend with dissension
that "public mind" which before so beautifully "harmon
ized?" Did it not evoke from the abyss that fell spirit of
"discord," which "banished from the cities and peaceful
valleys of Germany" all relish for "seeking and adopting
ameliorations" in the social condition? Did it not, for more
than a century, tear and desolate society with civil feuds and
bloody wars ? And is it not supremely ridiculous, as Erasmus
says, to hear men of sense thus uttering absurdities which
they themselves supply evidence for refuting? From the
principles laid down by D 'Aubigne himself, it is almost intui
tively evident, that the Reformation of Luther was highly
injurious in its influence on the progress of civilization.

What have been the great results of Protestant and of Catho
lic influence on modern civilization? What is the present
relative social condition of Catholic and of Protestant coun
tries in Europe ? In some respects, we are free to avow, the
latter are far in advance of the former. They have adopted
with more eagerness, and carried out with more success, what
may be called the utilitarian system, which in fact owes its
origin to the Reformation. They excel in commerce and
speculation, in which they have greatly outwitted their more

* D' Aubigne, vol. i, p. 76, 77. f Ibid.

448 INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON CIVILIZATION.

simple, perhaps, because more honest neighbors. They far
excel in stock-jobbing, and are adepts in all the mysteries of
exchange. They surpass in banking, and they have issued
many more notes " promising to pay," than their neighbors :
though the latter, especially in Spain, seldom fail to pay
without any " promises " to that effect; nor have they ever
been known to redeem their pledges by bankrupty or repudi
ation — an easy modern — shall we add Protestant ? — method
to pay off old debts !

Protestant countries have also published more books on
political economy and the " wealth of nations :" they have
also excelled in manufactures and in machinery. But the
modern utilitarian plan of conducting the latter, in England
more particularly, has contributed not a little to impoverish
and debase the lower orders of the people : — which, however^
according to the doctrine of that most fashionable theory, is
not at all opposed to the " wealth of nations ;" for this is
entirely compatible with the general poverty of the masses !

But in enlightenment of mind, and in gentleness of man
ners, and in the general features and in the suavity of social
intercourse, do Protestant countries in Europe — for we wish
not here to speak of our own country, which is not strictly
Protestant — really surpass Catholic nations ? We think not.
We believe the balance, if fairly poised, would rather incline
in favor of the latter. We have shown, that in point of gen
eral learning and enlightenment, Catholic countries compare
most advantageously with those that are Protestant. This
we think we have established on unexceptionable Protestant
authority. In point of refinement and polish of manners,
Catholic France is avowedly in advance of all other nations.
The Spanish gentleman is perhaps the noblest and best type
of elevated human nature. The warm-hearted, courteous,
and refined politeness of Italy and Ireland, compares most
favorably with the coldness and the blunt selfishness of En
gland, and we are tempted to add, of Protestant Germany
and Northern Europe.

PRESENT STATE OF CIVILIZATION. 449

In a word, the south of Europe, which has continued under
Catholic influence, will suffer nothing by being brought into
comparison, in regard to all the features of refined inter
course, with the cold, calculating north, which has, to a great
extent, embraced the doctrines of the Reformation. Though
not illumined with the new " northern light," which has fit
fully shone on the minds of the Protestants for three cen
turies, they are still, to say the least, as enlightened, as
polished, as refined, and as highly civilized, as their more
fortunate neighbors. The steady light of Catholicism, which
shed its blessed rays on their forefathers, has been luminous
enough to guide their footsteps in the pathway of true
civilization.

VOL. i. — 38

450 CONCLUSION.

CONCLUSION.

WE have now completed our task; how well, the public
will best judge. We have examined the principal false state
ments of D'Aubigne ; and, in doing so, we have also glancdd
occasionally at his frequent inconsistencies and absurdities.
To have followed him in detail throughout his tedious history,
to have convicted him of unfair or false statements on almost
every page, to have unmasked his hypocrisy and laid bare
his contradictions, would have imposed on us an almost end
less labor. Yet this would have been really less difficult,
perhaps, than the task we have performed. For it is much
easier to grapple with an adversary, page by page, and sen
tence by sentence, than to cull out from his pages, and to
refute, such general misstatements as are of most importance,
and as cover the main ground of the controversy. The former
method is a kind of light skirmishing ; the latter is a more
serious and weighty species of warfare.

A German Protestant historian of far more weight than
D'Aubigne, furnishes us with the following appreciation of
Luther and of his work, the Reformation :

" He (Luther) died in sorrow, but in the conscientious belief of having
faithfully served his God, and, although the great and holy work, begun by
him, had been degraded and dishonored partly by his personal faults, although
the Eeformation of the church had been rendered subservient to the views of
a policy essentially unchristian, the good cause was destined to outlive these
transient abuses. The seeds, scattered by this great reformer, produced, it
is true, thorns during his lifetime, and during succeeding centuries, but burst
into blossom, as the storms through which the Eeformation passed gradually
lulled."*

We leave this not very consistent, nor very candid state
ment of opinion to speak for itself. It will puzzle many to
understand, how a work, which was thus marred both by the
personal faults of Luther, and the essentially unchristian
policy of his more powerful adherents, could have been

Menzel, History of Germany, vol. ii, p. 263.

CONCLUSION. 451

*'holy;" or how the seeds which, during Luther's lifetime,
and for succeeding centuries, avowedly produced only thorns,
can be expected to burst into blossom! If we are to judge
the tree by its fruits, according to the rule laid down by
Christ, we are bound, from these enforced admissions of the
German historian, to come to the conclusion, that Luther's
.Reformation was not, and could not be, the work of God,
but that it originated in a different source altogether.

Though in the course of the preceding essay, we have been
compelled to allege strong facts and to use plain language,
yet we hope we have carefully abstained from employing any
epithets unnecessarily harsh or offensive. God is our witness,
that we have not meant wantonly to wound the feelings of
any one. Deeply as we feel, and sincerely as we deplore,
the evils of which the Reformation has been the cause — the
unsettling of faith, the numberless sects, the bitter and acri
monious disputes, and the consequent rending of society into
warring elements — yet do we feel convinced, that all these
crying evils, which originated in a spirit of hatred and revolt,
can be healed only by the contrary principle of love and
charity. The bitter experience of three centuries has proved,
that a re-union among Christians can not be brought about,
but by a return to the bosom of the Catholic Church of
those who, in an evil hour for themselves and for the world,
strayed from its pale. It is only in the OLD PATHS, hallowed
by the footsteps of martyrs, of saints, and of virgins, that
perfect peace and security can be found. To all the lovers
of unity, we would then say in the words of God's plaintive
prophet :

" Thus saith the Lord : stand ye on the ways, and see, and ask for THE
OLD PATHS, which is the good way, and walk ye in it ; and you shall find
refreshment to your souls."*

Refreshment and peace can be found no where else. All
other expedients for re-establishing religious union on a solid

* Jeremiah, vi : 16.

452 CONCLUSION.

basis have been tried in vain. It is only in communion with
the Chair of Peter — the rock on which Christ built His Church
— that Christians can be secured in unity and peace.

In conclusion, we republish the closing chapter of Audin's
Life of Luther, in which he sums up with considerable learrl-
ing and ability, the general Protestant evidence bearing on
the character of the Reformation in Germany. We extract
it from the translation of Turnbull, and we give it to the
American public, not only because we deem it appropriate as
a general resume on the subject, but because it is omitted in
the American translation. It is entitled :

THE TRIBUNAL OF THE REFORMATION.

" We had intended to conclude our work by an examination into the influ
ence which the Lutheran Reformation has had on the morals, learning",
arts, and polity of Germany and Europe. But such an inquiry would de
mand a volume rather than a chapter; besides, the subject has already been
profoundly treated by Dr. Marx and Robelot. We ourselves, in proportion
as the facts of history appear to us, have endeavored to penetrate its causes,
and judge of its effects. Nevertheless, it has seemed to us that a rapid
analysis of the principal features of the Reformation, as traced by Protestant
pens, which even the prejudiced reader can not reject, should find a place
here ; and this evidence of dissentients must serve as a final judgment in
favor of the Catholic historian. Once more, therefore, the Reformation shall
judge itself.

" The Reformation was a revolution, and they who rebelled against the
authority of the Church were revolutionists.* However slightly you look
into the constitution of the Church, you will be convinced that the Reforma
tion possessed the character of an insurrection. f

" What is the meaning of this fine word, Reformation ? Amelioration,
doubtless. Well, then, with history before us, it is easy to show that it was
only a prostration of the human mind. Glutted with the wealth of which
it robbed the Catholics, and the blood which it shed, it gives us, instead of
the harmony and Christian love of which it deprived our ancestors, nothing
but dissensions, resentments, and discords. f No, the Reformation was not

* Bemerk. eines Protest, in Preussen iiber die Tzschirner' schen Anfein-
dungen, etc., 1824, p. 52. f Steffens, quoted by Honinghaus, p. 354, torn, i.
| Cobbett, History, etc., p. 4.

AUDIN SUMMING UP. 453

an era of happiness and peace ; it was only established by confusion and
anarchy.* Do you feel your heart beat at the mention of justice and truth. ?
Acknowledge, then, what it is impossible to deny, — that Luther must not
be compared with the apostles. The apostles came teaching in the name of
Jesus Christ their Master, and the Catholics are entitled to ask us from whom
Luther had his mission ? We can not prove that he had a mission direct
or indirect.f Luther perverted Christianity ; he withdrew himself crim
inally from the communion in which regeneration was alone possible.:):

" It has been said that all Christendom demanded a reformation ; — who
disputes it ? But, long before the time of Luther, the Papacy had listened
to the complaints of the faithful. The Council of Lateran had been con
vened to put an end to the scandals which afflicted the Church. $ The
Papacy labored to restore the discipline of the early ages, in proportion as
Europe, freed from the yoke of brute force, became politically organized, and
advanced with slow but sure step to civilization. Was it not at that time,
that the source of all religious truth was made accessible to scientific study,
since, by means of the watchful protection of the Papacy, the Holy Scrip
tures were translated into every language ? The New Testament of Eras
mus, dedicated to Leo X., had preceded the quarrel about indulgences. ||

" A reformer should take care that, in his zeal to get rid of manifest
abuses, he does not at the same time shake the faith and its wholesome
institutions to the foundation.^ When the reformers violently separated
themselves from the Church of Rome, they thought it necessary to reject
every doctrine taught by her.** Luther, that spirit of evil, who scattered
gold with dirt, declared war against the institutions, without which the
Church could not exist : he destroyed unity. ff Who does not remember that
exclamation of Melancthon : 'We have committed many errors, and have
made good of evil without any necessity for it.'Jf

" In justification of the brutal rupture of Germany with Rome, the scandals
of the clergy are alleged. But if at the period 'of the Reformation there
were priests and monks in Germany whose conduct was the cause of regret
to Christians, their number was not larger than it had been previously.
When Luther appeared, there was in Germany a great number of Catholic

* Lord Fitz William's Briefe des Atticus. In's Deutsche iibersetzt von
Ph. Miiller, 1834, p. 33. f Bemerkungen eines Protestanten.

J Novalis, Honinghaus, 1. c., p. 356.

§ Menzel, Neuere Geschichte, pp. 3, 5, et seq.

|| Schrockh, 1. c, torn, iv, pref. ^ Vogt, Historisches Testament, torn. 5.

** Schrockh, 1. c, torn, ix, p. 1805.

ff Kirchhoff Anch einige Gedenken iiber die Wiederherstellung der Prot
estant. Kirche, 1817. tt Melanch. lib. iv, cap. xix.

454 CONCLUSION.

prelates whose piety the reformers themselves have not hesitated to
admire.*

" What pains they take to deceive us ! In books of every size they teach
us, even at the present day, that the beast, the man of sin, the w of Baby
lon, are the names which God has given in His Scriptures to the Pope aad
the Papacy ! Can it be imagined that Christ, who died for our sins, and
saved us by His blood, would have suffered that for ten or twelve centuries
His Church should be guided by such an abominable wretch ? — that He would
have allowed millions of His creatures to walk in the shadow of death ? — and
that so many generations should have had no other pastor but Antichrist ?f

" Luther mistook the genius of Christianity in introducing a new principle
into the world ; the immediate authority of the Bible as the sole criterion
of the truth.]: If tradition is to be rejected, it follows that the Bible can not
be authoritatively explained but by acquired knowledge ; in a word, human
interpretation based upon its comprehension of the Greek and Hebrew lan
guages. So, by this theory, the palladium of orthodoxy is to be found in a
knowledge of foreign tongues ; and living authority is replaced by a dead
letter ; a slavery a thousand times more oppressive than the yoke of tradi
tion. § Has any dogmatist succeeded in drawing up a confession of faith by
means of the Bible, which could not be attacked by means of reason ?j| This
formula, that the Bible must be the ' unicum principium theologiae,' is the
source of contradictory doctrines in Protestant theology ; hence this question
arises : ' What Protestant theology is there in which there are not errors
more or less ?'ir It was the Bible that inspired all the neologists of the six
teenth century ; the Bible that they made use of to persecute and condemn
themselves as heretics.** When Luther maintained that the Bible contains
the enunciation of all the truths of which a knowledge is necessary to salva
tion, and that no doctrine which is not distinctly laid down in the Bible can
be regarded as an article of faith, he did not imagine that the time was at
hand when every body, from this very volume, would form a confession for
himself, and reject all others which contradicted his individual creed. This
necessity for inquiry so occupies the minds of men at the present day, that
the principal articles of the original creed are rejected by those who call
themselves the disciples of Jesus. ff

* Bretschneider, der Simonismus, p. 168. f Cobbett

I Novalis, Fr. von Hardenberg's Schriften, 1826.

$ Schelling, Vorlesungen iiber das akademische Studium, p. 200.

j| Fischer, Zur Einleitung in die Dogmatik, p. 219.
1[ Von Langsdorf, Bliizzen der protest. Theol., 1829, p. 623.
** Jenar's Allg. Literaturzeitung, 1821, No. 48.
ft Wix, Betrachtungen iiber die Zweckmassigkeit, 1819.

AUD1N SUMMING UP. 455

" But what are we to understand by the Bible ? The question was a dif
ficult one to solve even at the beginning of the Reformation, when Luther,
in his preface to the translation of the Bible, laid down a difference between
the canonical books, by preferring the Gospel of St. John to the three other
evangelists ; by depreciating the Epistle of St. James as an epistle of straw,
that contained nothing of the gospel in it, and which an apostle could not
have written, since it attributes to works a merit which they did not pos
sess.* It was in the Bible that Luther discovered these two great truths of
salvation, which he revealed to the world at the beginning of his apostle-
ship — the slavery of man's will, and the impeccability of the believer.

" It is said in Exodus, chapter ix, that God hardened the heart of Pharaoh.
It was questioned whether these words were to be construed literally ? This
Erasmus rightly denied, and it roused the doctor's wrath. Luther, in his
reply, furiously attacks the fools who, calling reason to their aid, dare call for
an account from God why He condemns or predestines to damnation inno
cent beings before they have even seen the light. Truly, Luther, in the
eyes of all God's creatures, must appear a prodigy of daring, when he ven
tures to maintain that no one can reach heaven unless he adopts the slavery
of the human will. And it is not merely by the spirit of disputation, but
by settled conviction that he defends this most odious of all ideas. He lived
and died teaching that horrible doctrine, which the most illustrious of his
disciples, — among others Melancthon and Matthew Albert of Reutlingen, —
condemned.! 'How rich is the Christian!' repeated Luther; 'even though
he wished it, he can not forfeit heaven by any stain ; believe, then, and be
assured of your salvation : God in eternity can not escape you. Believe,
and you shall be saved ; repentance, confession, satisfaction, good works, all
these are useless for salvation : it is sufficient to have faith.' J

"Is not this a fearful error, — a desolating doctrine? If you demonstrate
to Luther its danger or absurdity, he replies that you blaspheme the Spirit
of Light. ^ Neither attempt to prove to him that he is mistaken; he will
tell you that you offend God. No, no, my brother, you will never convince
me that the Holy Spirit is confined to Wittenberg any more than to your
person. [|

" Not content with maledictions, Luther then turns himself to prophecy ;

* Menzel, 1. c., p. 165.

f Plank, torn, ii, pp. 113-131. The work of Albert Reutlingen is en
titled, Vom rechten Branch der ewigen Vorschung Gotten wider die hoch-
iahrenden Geister, fleischliche Klugheit und Fiirwitz : Aug., 1525.

I Luther, De Captivitate Babyl. $ V. Mathisson, Prosaische Schriflen.

|| (Ecolamp. Antwort auf Luther's Vorrede zum Syngramma : E. Halle,
torn, xx, p. 727.

456 CONCLUSION.

he announces that his doctrine, which proceeds from heaven, will gain, one
by one, all the kingdoms of the world. He says of Zuingle's explanation
of the Eucharist : ' I am not afraid of this fanatical interpretation lasting
long.' On the other hand, Zuingle predicted that the Swiss creed would be
handed down from generation to generation, crossing the Elbe and the Ehine.
Prophet against prophet, if success be the test of truth, Luther will inevita
bly have to yield in this point.*

" The Eeformation, which at first was entirely a religious phenomenon,
soon assumed a political character : it could not fail to do so. When people
began to exclaim, like Luther, on the house-tops, 'the Emperor Charles V.
ought not to be supported longer, let him and the Pope be knocked on the
head ;' (Opera, Jenae, torn, vii, p. 278;) that 'he is an excited madman, a
bloodhound, who must be killed with pikes and clubs ;'f how could civil
society continue subject to authority ? It was natural that the monk's viru
lent writings against the bishops' spiritual power should be reduced by the
subjects of the ecclesiastical superiors into a political theory. When he
proclaimed that the yoke of priests and monks must be shaken off, we
might expect that this wild appeal would be directed against the tithes
which the people paid to the prelates and the abbots.! ^ne Saxon's doc
trine being based solely on the Holy Scriptures, the peasant considered him
self authorized in virtue of their text to break violently with his lord :
hence, that long war between the cottage and the castle. This it was that
made Erasmus write sorrowfully to Luther : ' You see that we are now
reaping the fruits of what you sowed. You will not acknowledge the
rebels ; but they acknowledge you, and they know only too well, that many
of your disciples, who clothed themsejves in the mantle of the gospel, have
been the instigators of this bloody rebellion. In your pamphlet against the
peasants, you in vain endeavor to justify yourself. It is you who have
raised the storm by your publications against the monks and the prelates;
and you say that you fight for gospel liberty, and against the tyranny of tho
great ! From the moment that you began your tragedy, I foresaw the end
of it.'§

" That civil war, in which Germany had to mourn the loss of more than
a hundred thousand of her children, was the consequence of Luther's
preaching. It is fortunate that, through the efforts of a Catholic prince,
Duke George of Saxony, it was speedily brought to an end. Had it lasted
but a few years longer, of all the ancient monuments with which Germany
was filled, not a single vestige would have remained. Karlstadt might then

* Plank, 1. c., torn, ii, p. 764, note.

f Kern, Der Protestantismus und Kathol, p. 32.

f Menzel, 1. c, torn, i, pp. 167-69. $ Ibid., pp. 174-78.

AUDIN SUMMING UP. 457

have sat upon their ruins, and sung, with his Bible in his hand, the down
fall of the images. The iconoclast's theories, all drawn from the word of
G-od, held their ground in spite of Luther, and dealt a fatal blow to the arts.

" When a gorgeous worship requires magnificent temples, imposing cere
monies, and striking solemnities ; when religion presents to the eye sensible
images as objects of public veneration ; when earth and heaven are peopled
with supernatural beings, to whom imagination can lend a sensible form ;
then it is that the arts, encouraged and ennobled, reach the zenith of their
splendor and perfection. The architect, raised to honors and fortune, con
ceives the plans of those basilicas and cathedrals, whose aspect strikes us
with religious awe, and whose richly-adorned walls are ornamented with
the finest efforts of art. Those temples and altars are decorated with mar
bles and precious metals, which sculpture has fashioned into the similitude
of angels, saints, and the images of illustrious men. The choirs, the jubes,
the chapels, and sacristies are hung with pictures on all sides. Here Jesus
expires on the cross ; there he is transfigured on Mount Thabor. Art, the
friend of imagination, which delights only in heaven, finds there the most
sublime creations, — a St. John, a Cecilia, above all a MARY — that patroness
of tender hearts, that virgin model to all mothers, that mediatrix of graces,
placed between man and his God, that august and amiable being, of whom
no other religion presents either the resemblance or the model. During the
solemnities, the most costly stuffs, precious stones, and embroidery, cover
the altars, vessels, priests, and even the very walls of the sanctuary. Music
completes the charm by the most exquisite strains, by the harmony of the
choir. These powerful incentives are repeated in a hundred different places ;
the metropolises, parishes, the numerous religious houses, the simple orato
ries, sparkle with emulation to captivate all the powers of the religious and
devout mind. Thus a taste for the arts becomes general, by means of so
potent a lever, and artists increase in number and rivalry. Under this influ
ence the celebrated schools of Italy and Flanders flourished ; and the finest
works which now remain to us testify the splendid encouragement which
the Catholic religion lavished upon them.

" After this natural progress of events, it can not be doubted that the Kef-
ormation has been unfavorable to the fine arts, and has very much restrained
the exercise of them. It has severed the bonds which united them to religion,
which sanctified them, and secured for them a place in the veneration of the
people The Protestant worship tends to disenchant the material imagin
ation ; it makes fine churches, and statues, and paintings unnecessary; it ren
ders them unpopular, and takes from them one of their most active springs.*

* Charles Villers, Essai sur 1' Esprit et 1' Influence de la Reformation,
pp. 267-69.

VOL. i.— 39

458 CONCLUSION.

" The peasants' war was soon succeeded by the spoliation of the monas
teries ; ' an invasion of the most sacred of all rights, more important, in cer
tain respects, than liberty itself, — property.'* From that time not a day
passed without Luther preaching up the robbery of the religious houses.
To excite the greed of the princes whom he wished to secure to his views,
he loved to direct their attention to the treasures which the abbeys, cloisters,
sacristies, and sanctuaries contained. • Take them,' he said ; ' all these are
your own, — all belong to you.' Luther was convinced, that to the value of
the golden remonstrances which shone on the Catholic altars he was indebted
for more than one conversion. In a moment of humor he said, ' The gentry
and princes are the best Lutherans ; they willingly accept both monasteries
and chapters, and appropriate their treasures.'!

" The landgrave of Hesse, to obtain authority for giving his arm to two
lawful wives, took care to make the wealth of the monasteries glitter in the
eyes of the church of Wittenberg, so that as the price of their permission he
was willing to give it to the Saxon ministers.]: The plunder of church prop
erty preached by Luther, will be the eternal condemnation of the Protest
ants. Though Naboth's vineyard may serve as a bait or reward for apostasy,
it can not justify crime.

"A laureate of the Institute has discovered grounds for palliating this
blow to property. He congratulates the princes who embraced the Refor-
mation for having, by means of the ecclesiastical property, filled their coffers,
paid their debts, applied the confiscated wealth to useful establishments,
clubs, universities, hospitals, orphanages, retreats, and rewards for the old
servants of the state. §

" But Luther himself took care, on more than one occasion, to denounce
the avarice of the princes who, when once masters of the monastic property,
employed its revenues for the support of mistresses and packs of hounds.
We remember the eloquent complaints which he uttered in his old age
against these carnal men, who left the Protestant clergy in destitution, and did
not even pay the schoolmasters their salaries. He mourned then, but it was
too late. Sometimes the chastisement of heaven fell, even in this life, on
the spoiler ; and Luther has mentioned instances of several of those iron
hands, who, after having enriched themselves by the plunder of a monastery,
church, or abbey, fell into abject poverty. || Besides, we will admit that Lu
ther never thought of consoling the plundered monks, by asserting, like
Charles Villers, that ' one of the finest effects of these terrible commotions

* J. J. Rousseau, Discours sur 1' Economic Politique.
f Von beider Gestalt des Sacraments : Witt., 1528.
J See the chapter of Audin's Life of Luther, entitled Bigamy of the land
grave of Hesse. § Charles Villers, Essai, p. 104. || Symposiac., c. iv.

AUDIN SUMMING UP. 459

which unsettle all properties, the fruits of social institutions, is to substitute
for them greatness of mind, virtues, and talents, the fruits of nature ex
clusively.'*

" If the triumph of the peasants in the fields of Thuringia might have
been an irreparable misfortune to Germany and to Christianity, we can not
deny that Luther's appeal to the secular arm, to suppress the rebellion, may
have thoroughly altered the character of the first Eeformation. Till then it
had been established by preaching ; but from the moment of that bloody
episode, it required the civil authority to move it. The sword, therefore,
took the place of the word ; and to perpetuate itself, the Reformation was
bound to exaggerate the theory of passive obedience.f One of the distin
guished historians of Heidelberg, Carl Hagen, has recently favored us with
some portions of the political code in which Protestantism commands sub
jects to be obedient to the civil power, even when it commands them to
commit sin.|

" Thus the democratic element, first developed by the Reformation, was
effaced, to become absorbed in the despotic. It was no longer the people,
but the prince who chose or rejected the Protestant minister. When the
landgrave of Hesse consulted Melancthon, in 1525, as to the line he should
pursue in the appointment of a pastor, the doctor told him that he had the
right to interfere in the election of ministers, and that if he surmounted the
struggles into which the word of God had involved him, he ought not to
commit that sacred word but to such preacher as seemed best to him (ver-
niinftigen) ; in other terms, observes the historian, to him whom the civil
power thinks competent (den welchen die Obrigkeit dafiir halt). And Martin
Bucer contrived to extend Melancthon's theory, by constituting the civil
power supreme judge of religious orthodoxy, by conferring on it the right
of ultimate decision in questions of heresy, and of punishing, if necessary,
by fire and sword, innovators, who are a thousand times more culpable, he
says, than the robber or murderer, who only steal the material bread and
slay the body, while the heretic steals the bread of life and kills the
soul. J

" Intolerance then entered into the councils of the Reformation. It was
no longer with the peasants that Luther declared war. Whoever did not
believe in his doctrines was denounced as a rebel ; in the Saxon's eyes, the

* Charles Tillers, Essai, p. 103.

f Carl Hagen, Neues Verhaltniss zu den offent. Gewalten, torn. 2,
p. 151.

| " So miisse der Unterthan gehorchen. auch wenn die Obrigkeit etwas
wider das Gebot Gottes befehle," 1, c, p. 155.

5 Carl Hagen, 1. c, pp. 152, 154, et seq.

460 CONCLUSION.

peasant was only an enemy to be despised ; the real Satan was Karlstadt,
Zuingle, and Kraut wald.*

" His disciples were no longer satisfied with plundering the monasteries,
they desired to live in ease ; they must have servants, a fine house, a well-
supplied table, and plenty of money.f We are initiated into the private life
of the reformers by a zealous Protestant, a patrician of Nurenberg.

" The struggle then was no longer with piety and knowledge, but with
power and influence. Every city and town had its own Lutheran pope.J:
At Nurenberg, Osiander was a regular pacha. Those who among the Prot
estants endeavored to reprove his scandalous ostentation, were abused and
maligned. § When he ascended the pulpit, his fingers were adorned with
diamonds which dazzled the eyes of his hearers. ||

" The religious disputes which disturbed men's minds in Germany re
tarded, rather than advanced, the march of intellect. Blind people who
fought furiously with each other could not find the road to truth. These
quarrels were only another disease of the human mind.Tf Although printing
served to disseminate the principles of the reformers, the sudden progress
of Lutheranism, and the zeal with which it was embraced, prove that reason
and reflection had no part in their development.**

" Villers has drawn a brilliant sketch of the influence which the Reforma
tion exercised over biblical criticism. It may be said that criticism of the
Scripture text was unknown previous to the* time of Luther ; and if by this
is meant that captious, whimsical, and shuffling criticism which De Wette
has so justly condemned, — certainly so. But that which relates to lan
guages, antiquities, the knowledge of times, places, authors, — in a word,
hermeneutics, was known and practiced* in our schools before the Refor-

* " Und nun erst habe man mit dem eigentlichen Satan zu klimpfen.
Luther an Joh. Hess, 22 April, 1526.— Do Wette, torn, iii, p. 104.

f Sunt apud nos concionatores bini, qui sub initium centum aureorum
stipendio ac victu tanto pro se et famulis suis professi, cseterum quum vidis-
sent, se jam populo persuasisse, centum quinquaginta exegerunt, ac paulo
post ultra habitationem propriam et victum splendidum ducentos petiere
aureos, aut se abituros sunt minati.

| ..." Fast Jede Stadt mid jeder ort hatte seinen lutherischen Papst."

§ Dienigen, welche sich iiber dieses Feilschen mit dem Worte Grottes
aufhielten wurden von ihnen gescholten." — Ibid., p. 187.

|| . . . " Er trug immer Ringe an den Fingern, selbst wenn erpredigte." —
Epist. Erasmi : Lond. Carl Hagen, 1. c, p. 188.

If Voltaire, Essai sur les moeurs des nations, quoted by Maleville, Dis-
cours sur 1' influence de la Reformation, p. 141.

** Hume, History of the House of Tudor under Henry VII., ch. iii.

AUDIN SUMMING UP. 461

mation, as is proved by the works of Cajetan and Sadoletus, and a multitude
of learned men whom Leo X. had encouraged and rewarded. We have
seen besides, in the history of the Reformation, what that vain science has
produced. It was by means of his critical researches that, from the time of
Luther, Karlstadt found such a meaning of ' Semen immolare Moloch/ as
made his disciple shrug his shoulders ; that Miinzer preached community
of goods and wives ; that Melancthon taught that the dogma of the Trinity
deprives our mind of all liberty ;* that at a later period Ammon asserted
that the resurrection of the dead could not be deduced from the New Testa
ment ;f Yeter, that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses ; that the
history of the Jews to the time of the Judges is only a popular tradition ;
Bretschneider, that the Psalms can not be looked upon as inspired ;| Augusti,
that the true doctrine of Jesus Christ has not been preserved intact in the
New Testament ;§ and Geisse, that not one of the four gospels was written
by the evangelist whose name it bears. ||

" Since the days of Semler, Germany presents a singular spectacle ; every
ten years, or nearly so, its theological literature undergoes a complete revo
lution. What was admired during the one decennial period is rejected in
the next, and the image which they adored is burnt to make way for new
divinities ; the dogmas which were held in honor fall into discredit ; the
classical treatise of morality is banished among the old books out of date ;
criticism overturns criticism ; the commentary of yesterday ridicules that
of the previous day, and what was clearly proved in 1840 is not less clearly
disproved in 1850. The theological systems of Germany are as numerous
as the political constitutions of France, — one revolution only awaits
another." IT

* Loci Theol., 1521. f Biblische Theologie, torn, iii, p. 367, (1841).
| Bretschneider, Handb. der Dogmatik, torn, i, p. 93.
§ Theolog. Monatschr. N"o. 9.

|| Geisse Paradoxa uber hochevichtige Gegenstande des christenthums,
1829. IT Le Semeur, June, 1850.

NOTES AND DOCUMENTS,

NOTE A, PAGE 90.

WE here republish the condensed portraiture of the principal reformers
drawn by themselves, as furnished by Bishop Trevern in his admirable work
entitled, "An Amicable Discussion of the Church of England, and the Ref
ormation in general ; " Appendix, p. 52, seqq. Edition of Lucas, Baltimore.

AN HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE OPINIONS THAT THE FIRST
REFORMERS HAVE GIVEN OF ONE ANOTHER, AND OF THE
EFFECTS OF THEIR PREACHING.

LUTHER.

He himself bears testimony that " while a Catholic, he passed his life in
austerities, in watchings, in fasts and praying, in poverty, chastity, and obe
dience."* When once reformed, that is to sa}r, another man, he says that :
"As it does not depend upon him not to be a man, so neither does it depend
upon him to be without a woman ; and that he can no longer forego the
indulgence of the vilest natural propensities.''!

1. " I burn with a thousand flames in my unsubdued flesh ; I feel myself
carried on with a rage towards women that approaches to madness. I, who
ought to be fervent in spirit, am only fervent in impurity."!

2. '* To the best of my judgment, there is neither emperor, king, nor devil,
to whom I would yield ; no, I would not yield even to the whole world." j

3. " He was so well aware of his immorality, as we are informed by his
favorite disciple, that he wished they would remove him from the office of
preaching." |)

4 " His timid companion acknowledges that he had received blows from
him, ab ipso colfiphos accept." ^

5. " I tremble (wrote he to the same friend), when I think of the passions
of Luther ; they yield not in violence to the passions of Hercules."**

6. " This man (said one of his contemporary reformers), is absolutely mad.
He never ceases to combat truth against all justice, even against the cry of
his own conscience." ff

7. " He is puffed up with pride and arrogance, and seduced by Satan." JJ

8. " Yes, the devil has made himself master of Luther, to such a degree,
as to make one believe he wishes to gain entire possession of him." § §

* Tom. v, In cap. I. ad Galat. v. 14. t Ibid., Serm. de Matrim., fol. 119.

% Luth. Table Talk. § Idem. Kesp. ad Maled. Reg. Ang. || Sleidan, Book ii, 1520.
If Mclancthon, Letters to Theodore. ** Ibid. ft Hospinian.

jj (Ecolampadius. §§ Zuinglius.

464 NOTE A.

" I wonder no more, 0 Luther (wrote Henry VIII. to him), that thou art
not, in good earnest, ashamed, and that thou darest to lift up thy eyes either
before God or man, seeing that thou hast been so light and so inconstant as
to allow thyself to be transported by the instigation of the devil to thy
foolish concupiscences. Thou, a brother of the order of St. Augustine, hast
been the first to abuse a consecrated nun ; which sin would have been, in
times past, so rigorously punished, that she would have been buried alive?
and thou wouldst have been scourged to death. But so far art thou from
correcting thy fault, that moreover, shameful to say, thou hast taken her
publicly to wife, having contracted with her an incestuous marriage and

abused the poor and miserable to the great scandal of the world, the

reproach and opprobrium of thy country, the contempt of holy matrimony,
and the great dishonor and injury of the vows made to God. Finally, what
is still more detestable, instead of being cast down and overwhelmed with
grief and confusion, as thou oughtest to be, at thy incestuous marriage, 0
miserable wretch, thou makest a boast of it, and instead of asking forgive
ness for thy unfortunate crime, thou dost incite all debauched religious, by
thy letters and thy writings, to do the same."*

" God, to punish that pride of Luther, which is discoverable in all his
works (says one of the first Sacramentarians), withdrew his spirit from him,
abandoning him to the spirit of error and of lying, which will always pos
sess those who have followed his opinions, until the}' leave them."f

" Luther treats us as an execrable and condemned sect, but let him take'
care lest he condemn himself as an arch-heretic, from the sole fact, that he
will not and can not associate himself with those who confess Christ. But
how strangely does this fellow let himself be carried away by his devils !
How disgusting is his language and how full are his words of the devil of
hell ! He says that the devil dwells now and for ever in the bodies of the
Zuinglians ; that blasphemies exhale from their insatanized, supersatanized,
and persatanized breasts ; that their tongues are nothing but lying tongues,
moved at the will of Satan, infused, perfused, and transfused with his infernal
poison ! Did ever any one hear such language come out of an enraged demon ?£

" He wrote all his works by the impulse and the dictation of the devil,
with whom he had dealing, and who in the struggle seemed to have thrown
him by victorious arguments."^

" It is not an uncommon thing (said Zuinglius), to find Luther contra
dicting himself from one page to another. ... ;|| and to see him in the midst
of his followers, you would believe him to be possessed by a phalanx of

devils." IT

Erasmus, the most learned man of his age, he who has been called the
pride of Holland, the love and delight of Great Britain, and of almost every
other nation,** wrote to Luther himself: " All good people lament and groan
over the fatal schism with which thou shakest the world by thy arrogant,
unbridled, and seditious spirit/rff

" Luther (says Erasmus again,) begins to be no longer pleasing to his dis
ciples, so much so that they treat him as a heretic, and affirm, that being
void of the spirit of the gospel, he is delivered over to the deliriums of a
worldly spirit."!!

* In Horim. p. 299. t Conrad Reis. Upon the Lord's Supper, B. 2.

% The church of Zurich, against the Confession of Luther, p. 61. § Ibid.

11 T. II. Respons, ad Confess. Lutheri, fol. 44. H Ibid., fol. 381 .

** Preface to the London Edition, year 1642. ft Epistle to Luther, 1626.

- U Epistle to Cardinal Sadolet, 1628.

REFORMERS PORTRAYING THEMSELVES. 465

«

" In very truth, Luther is extremely corrupt (said Calvin) ;* would to
God he had taken pains to put more restraint upon that intemperance which
rages in every part of him ! Would to God he had been attentive to dis
cover his vices."f

Calvin says again, that, " Luther had done nothing to any purpose ....
that people ought not to let themselves be duped by following his steps and

being half-papist ; that it is much better to build a church entirely afresh " j;

Sometimes, it is true, Calvin praised Luther so far as to call him " the re
storer of Christianity."^ He protested, however, against their honoring him
with the name of Elias. His disciples afterwards made the same protesta
tions. " Those (said they), who put Luther in the rank of the prophets,
and constitute his writings the rule of the church, have deserved exceedingly
ill of the Church of Christ, and expose themselves and their churches to the
ridicule and cutting reproaches of their adversaries. "||

" Thy school (replied Calvin to Westphal the Lutheran), is nothing but a
stinking pig- stye ....; dost thou hear me, thou dog? dost thou hear me,
thou madman ? dost thou hear me, thou huge beast ?"

Karlostadius, while retired at Orlamunde, had so far ingratiated himself
with the inhabitants, that they must needs stone Luther, who had run over
to rate him for his false opinions respecting the Eucharist. Luther tells us
this in his letter to the inhabitants of Strasburg : " These Christians attacked
me with a shower of stones. This was their blessing : May a thousand
devils take thee ! Mayest thou break thy neck before thou returnest home
again." if

KAKLOSTADIUS.

You shall have his portrait as drawn by the temperate Melancthon. " He
was (says he), a brutal fellow, without wit or learning, or any light of com
mon sense ; who, far from having any mark of the spirit of God, never either
knew or practiced any of the duties of civilized life. The evident marks
of impiety appeared in him. All his doctrine was either judaical or sedi
tious. He condemned all laws made by Pagans. He would have men to
judge according to the law of Moses, because he knew not the nature of
Christian liberty. He embraced the fanatical doctrine of the Anabaptist
immediately that Nicholas Storck began to spread it abroad .... One por
tion of Germany can bear testimony that I say nothing in this but what js
true."

He was the first priest of the reform who married, and in the new fangled
Mass that was made up for his marriage, his fanatical partisans went so far
as to pronounce this man blessed, who bore evident marks of impiety. The
collect of the Mass** was thus worded : " Deus qui post logam et impiam.
sacerclotum tuorum ccecitatem Beatum Andrseam Karlostadium e-i gratia
don ire dignatus es, ut primus, nulii habita ratione papistici juris, uxorem
ducere ansus merit ; da. quaesumus, ut omnes sacerdotes, recepta sana mente,
ejus vestigia sequentes, ejectis concubinis aut eisdem ductis, ad legitimi con
sortium thori convertantur : per Doin. nost. etc."

The Lutherans inform us, that ;'it can not be denied that Karlostadius
was strangled by the devil, considering the number of witnesses who relate
it, the number of others who have committed it to writing, and even the

* Cited by Onrad Schlnssemberg. f Theol. Cal. 1. ii, fol. 126.

t See Florimond. § Ibid., p. 887. || In Admon, de lib. Concord., vi.

H Tom. ii, fol. 447, Sen. Germ. ** Quoted in Florimond.

466 NOTE A.

letters of the pastors at Basle.* He left behind him a son, Hans Karlostad-
ius, who, renouncing the errors of his father, entered the communion of the
Catholic Church."

ZUINGLIUS.

"I do not refuse (wrote Melancthon),f to enter upon a conference (at Mar-
burgh) with (Ecolampadius ; for, to speak to Zuinglius is time lost. — It is1
not, however, a light undertaking, because their opinion is agreeable to
many, who are desirous of touching the mysteries of God with their hand,
and yet permit themselves to be conducted by their curiosity." Luther
replying to the landgrave, said : " Of what use is this conference, if both
parties bring to it an opinion already formed and come with the determina
tion of yielding in nothing. I know for certain that they are in error.
These are the stratagems of the devil ; and this is the way that every thing
goes worse and worse."

" I can not (says Zuinglius of himself) conceal the fire that burns me and
drives me on to incontinence, since it is true that its effects have already
drawn upon me but too many infamous reproaches among the churches."!

The printer at Zurich, said Lavatherus, made a present to Luther of the
translation of Zuinglius : but he sent it back with abusive language. " I
will not read (said he) the works of these people, because they are out of
the church, and are not only damned themselves, but draw many miserable
creatures after them. As long as I live I shall make war upon them by my
prayers and my writings." §

Karlostadius's opinion upon the Eucharist seemed to Luther to be foolish ;
that of Zuinglius fallacious and wicked, giving nothing but wind and smoke
to Christians, instead of the true body of Jesus Christ, who spoke of neither
sign nor figure. ||

" The Zuinglians write that we look upon them as brethren ; this is a fic
tion so foolish and impertinent (proclaimed the Lutherans in full synod)
that we can not be sufficiently astonished at their impudence. We do not
even grant to them a place in the church, far from recognizing as brethren,
a set of people, whom we see agitated by the spirit of lying, and uttering
blasphemies against the Son of Man."*f[

Brentius, whom Bishop Jewel called the grave and learned old man, de
clares that "the dogmas of the Zuinglians are diabolical, full of impiety, of
corruptions, and calumnies ; that the error of Zuinglius upon the Eucharist
drew along with it many others still more sacrilegious ;"** he predicted
that the Zuinglians would soon show the heresy of the Nestorians springing
up again in the church of God ; " soon (says he), will the different articles
of our religion disappear one after another, and to them will succeed the
superstitions of the Pagans, the Talmudists, and the Mahometans."ff

Luther openly declared that " Zuinglius was an offspring of hell, an asso
ciate of Arius, a man, who did not deserve to be prayed for ... ."

" Zuinglius, (said Luther) is dead and damned, having desired like a thief
and a rebel, to compel others to follow his error."||

* Hist, de Ccen. August, fol. 41. t Quoted in Florimond.

\ In Parenoes ad Helvet, t. i, d. 113.

§ Schlussemb. lib. ii, Theol. Calvin, quoted in Florim., p. 96.

|| In Florim. p. 109. T Epitome Colloq. Maul. Brunse 1564, p. 82.

** Brentius in Recognitione Prophetarum et Apost. in fine.

ft In Bullingeri Coronide, an. 1544. \\ Tom. ii> fol. 36, cited in Florim.

REFORMERS PORTRAYING THEMSELVES. 467

" Many Protestants (testifies the Apologist of Zuinglius), have not scru
pled to pronounce that he died in his sins, and thus to send him to hell."*

"Blessed is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the Sacra-
mentarians, nor stood in the way of the Zuinglians, nor sat in the chair of
the Zurichians. You understand what I mean."f

CALVIN.

Calvin, being obliged to leave France to disengage himself from law
affairs, went to Germany and there sought out the greater part of those who
were busy in disturbing the consciences and agitating the minds of men.
At Basle he was presented by Bucer to Erasmus, who resorted to the pri
vate conferences without being induced to embrace the opinions of these
innovators. Erasmus, after having conversed with him upon some of the
points of religion, exceedingly astonished at what he had discovered in his
dispositions, turned towards Bucer and showing young Calvin to him, said :
" I see a great plague rising in the Church against the Church ; video mag-
nam pestem oriri in Ecclesia contra Ecclesiam."

" Calvin, I am aware, is violent and wayward : so much the better ; he is
the very man to advance our cause, "f Thus spoke a German who had
taught him at Bourges, and who, together with Greek and Hebrew, had
crammed him with the new doctrines of Germany.

"Calvin, (said Bucer,) is a true mad dog. The man is wicked, and he
judges of people according as he loves or hates them."

Baudoin, expressing his disapprobation of the opinions of Bucer and
Melancthon, said that he admired their modesty, but that he could not en
dure Calvin, because he had found him too thirsty for vengeance and blood ;
propter nimiam vindictae et sanguinis sitim .... Baudoin, induced by Cas-
sandre, had renounced the doctrine of Calvin. He was the most learned
and renowned lawyer of his time ; he was born in the year 1520, and died
in 1573. See his Funeral Oration on Papyrius Masson. Paris, 1638. See
Bibl. Mazarine.

The intolerant and sanguinary spirit of this too celebrated man appears
in one of his letters to his friend, the Marquis du Poet ; " Do not find fault
with our ridding the country of these fanatics, who exhort the people by
their discourses to bear up against us, who blacken our conduct, and wish
to make our faith be considered as an idle fanc}r. Such monsters ought to
be suffocated, as happened at the execution of Michael Servetus, the Span
iard." The original of this letter has been preserved in the archives of the
Marquis du Montelimart. We are assured that M. de Voltaire received in
1772 an authentic copy of it, according to his request, and that, after he had
read it, he wrote on the margin some lines against Calvin.

" What man was ever more imperious and positive and more divinely
infallible than Calvin, against whom the smallest opposition that men dared
to make was always a work of Satan, and a crime deserving of fire."§

Calvin's erroneous opinions upon the Trinity excited against him the zeal
of one, who in other respects held his Sacramentarian opinion ; " What de
mon has urged thee, 0 Calvin ! to declaim with the Arians against the Son
of God ? It is that Antichrist of the north that thou hast the impru-

* Gualter in Apolog. Tom. i, oper. Zuingl. fol. 18.

t Luth. Epist. ad Jacob prcsbyt. J Wolmar.

§ J. J. Rousseau, Lettres de la Montaigne.

468 NOTE A.

dence to adore, that grammarian Melancthon."* " Beware, Christian read
ers, above all, ye ministers of the word, beware of the books of Calvin.
They contain an impious doctrine, the blasphemies of Arianism, as if the
spirit of Michael Ssrvetus had escaped from the executioner, and according
to the system of Plato had transmigrated whole and entire into Calvin."f
The same author gave as the title to his writings : "Upon the Trinity, and
upon Jesus Christ our Redeemer, against Henry Sullinger, Peter Martyr,
John Calvin, and the other ministers of Zurich and Geneva, disturbers of the
Church of God."

By teaching that God was the author of sin, Calvin raised against him all
parties of the reform. The Lutherans of Germany united to refute so hor
rible a blasphemy ; " This opinion (said they), ought everywhere to be held
in horror and execration ; it is a stoical madness, fatal to morals, monstrous
and blasphemous."!

" This Calvinistic error is horribly injurious to God, and of all errors the
most mischievous to mankind. According to this Calvinistic theologian, God
would be the most unjust tyrant. — It would no longer be the devil, but God
himself would be the Father of lies."§

The same author, who was superintendent and general inspector of the
Lutheran churches in Germany, in the three volumes he published against
the Calvinistic theology, || never makes mention of the Calvinists without
giving them them the epithets of unbelievers, impious, blasphemous, impos
tors, heretics, incredulous, people struck with the spirit of blindness, bare
faced and shameless men, turbulent ministers, busy agents of Satan, etc."

Heshusius, after exposing the doctrine of the Calvinists, indignantly de
clares, that " they not only transform God into a devil, the very idea of
which is horrible : but that they annihilate the merits of Jesus Christ to
such a degree that they deserve to be banished for ever to the bottom of
hell." if

The Calvinists themselves objected against this doctrine of their leader.
Bullinger proves its erroneousness from Scripture, the Fathers, and the whole
Church. "We do therefore (said he) prove clearly from Scripture this
dogma taught everywhere since the Apostles' time, that God is not the
author of evil, the cause of sin, but our corrupt inclinations or concupiscence,
and the devil, who moves, excites, and inflames it."** And Chatillon, whom
Calvin had for a long time taken into his house and fed at his table, was one
of the first to take up the pen against his benefactor and master, although
he did it with all the deference due to this double title. " He is a false God
(said he) that is so slow to mercy, so quick to wrath, who has created the
greater part of men to destroy them, and has not only predestinated them
to damnation, but even to the cause of their damnation. This God, then,
must have determined from all eternity, and he now actually wishes and
causes that we be necessitated to sin ; so that thefts, adulteries, and niurders
are never committed but at his impulse ; for he suggests to men perverse
and shameful affections ; he hardens them, not merely by simple permission,
but actually and efficaciously ; so that the wicked man accomplishes the
work of God and not his own, and it is no longer Satan, but Calvin's God,
who is really the father of lies."ff

* Stancharus de Mediot. in Calv. instit. No. 4. f Id. ibid., No. 3.

% Corpus Doctrinae Christianae. § Conrad. Schlusserab. Calvin. Theolog.fol. 46
| Francfort, 1592. f Lib. de Praesent. Corp. Christ. 1560, in fine.

** Decad. iii, Serm. x. ft Castellio in lib. de Praedestin. ad Calvin.

REFORMERS PORTRAYING THEMSELVES. 469

Calvin in his turn forgets not to reproach Chatillon with his ingratitude,
and adds : " Never did any man carry pride, perfidy, and inhumanity to a
higher pitch. He who does not know thee to be an impostor, a buffoon, an
impudent cynic, and one ever ready to rail at piety, is not fit to judge of
any thing." Towards the end of his reply, he dismisses him with the fol
lowing Genevan benediction: "May the God Satan quit thee: amen.
Geneva, 1558."

About 1558, appeared in London, a work written, or at least approved,
by the English bishops, against the Calvinistic sect of Puritans. Calvin and
Beza are there described * as intolerant and proud men, who by open rebel
lion against their prince, had founded their gospel, and pretended to rule the
churches with a more odious tyranny, than that with which they had so
often reproached the Sovereign Pontiffs. They protest in the presence of the
Almighty God, that, " amongst all the texts of Scripture quoted by Calvin
or his disciples, in favor of the church of Geneva against the church of
England, there is not a single one, that is not turned to a sense unknown to
the Church and to all the fathers, since the time of the apostles ; so that
were Augustine, Ambrose, Jerom, Chrysostom, etc., to return again to life
and to see in what manner the Scripture had been cited by these Genevese
doctors, they would be astonished that the world should ever have met with
a man, so audacious and extravagant as to dare, without the least color of
truth, to ill treat in such a way, the word of God, himself, his readers, and
the whole world." And after declaring that from this Genevese source an
impoisoned, seditious, and Catalinarian doctrine had been spread over Eng
land, they add : " Happy, a thousand times happy our island, if neither
English nor Scot had ever put foot in Geneva, if they had never become
acquainted with a single individual of these Genevese doctors ! "

The partisans of Calvin have attempted, and for his credit I wish they
had succeeded in their attempt, to rescue his memory from the crime and
disgrace of having the mark of infamy branded on his shoulder. " What
must pass as an indisputable proof of the crimes imputed to Calvin, is that,
after the accusation had been prepared against him, the church of Geneva,
not only did not show the contrary, but did not even contradict the informa
tion, which Berthelier, commissioned by the persons of the same town, gave
at Noyon. This information was signed by the most respectable inhabi
tants of Noyon, and was drawn up with all the accustomed forms of the
law. And in the same information we see that this heresiarch, having been
convicted of an abominable sin, which was always punished by fire, the
punishment that he had deserved was, at the intercession of his bishop,
mitigated into that of the fleur-de-lis .... Add to this, that Bolesque, having
given the same information, Berthelier, who was still living in the time of
Bolesque, did not contradict it, as, undoubtedly, he would have done, had
he been able to do so, without going against the conviction of his conscience,
and opposing the public belief. Thus the silence both of the whole town
interested in the affair and also of his secretary, is, on this occasion, an
infallible proof of the disorders imputed to Calvin."f They were at that
time so uncontested, that a Catholic writer, speaking of the scandalous life
of Calvin, advances as a fact well known in England, that, "the leader of
the Calvinists had been branded with the fleur-de-lis, and had fled from his
native town ; and that his antagonist Wittaker, acknowledging the fact,

* A Survey of the pretended holy discipline, page 44, by Bishop Bancroft,
t Card. Richelieu, Traite, p. convert, liv. ii, pp. 319, 320.

470 NOTE A.

merely replied by the following shameful comparison : Calvin has been stig
matized, so has St. Paul, so have others also."* I find also that the grave
and learned Doctor Stapleton,f who had every opportunity of gaining infor
mation on this subject, having spent his life in the neighborhood of Noyon,
speaks of this adventure of Calvin's in the terms of one who was certain of
the fact. " Inspiciuntur etiam adhuc hodie civitatis Noviodunensis in Picar-
dia scrinia et rerum gestarum monumenta : in illis adhuc hodie legitur Joan-
nem hunc Calvinum sodomice convictum, ex Episcopi et magistrates indul-
gentia, solo stigmate in tergo notatum, urbe excessisse; nee ejus familige
honestissimi viri, adhuc superstites, impetrare hactenus potuerunt, ut hujus
facti memoria, quae toti families notam aliquam inurit, e civicis illis monu-
mentis ac scriniis eraderetur."} Moreover, the Lutherans of Germany
equally speak of it as of a fact : " De Calvini variis flagitiis et sodomiticis
libidinibus, ob quas stigma Joannis Calvini dorso impressum fuit a magis-
tratu, sub quo vixit."§ " And as for the aifected silence of Beza, it is replied,
that the disciple having acquired notoriety by the same crimes and the
same heresy as his master, he merits not the confidence of any one on this
point."

It is very possible and most easy to dissemble like Beza and others after
him ; but, surely, it is hardly possible to fabricate at pleasure the account,
that an eye-witness and that contemporaries have given us of the death of
this man, an account which must excite compassion and terror in all who
hear it. An eye-witness, who was then his disciple, gives the following
information : || "Calvinus in desperatione finiens vitam obiit turpissimo et
foedissimo morbo, quern Deus rebellibus et maledictis comminatus est, prius
excruciatus et consumptus. Quod ego verissime attestari audeo, qui funes-
tum et tragicum illius exitum his meis oculis proesens aspexi."T[ The
Lutherans of Germany testify, "Deum etiam in hoc soeculo judicium suum
in Calvinum patefecisse, quern in virga furoris visitavit, atque horribiliter
punivit, ante mortis infelicis horam. Deus enim manu sua potenti adeo
hunc liEereticum percussit, ut, desperatfi salute, doamonibus invocatis, jurans,
execrans, et blasphemans misserrime, animam malignam, exhalarit ; vermibus
circa pudenda in aposthemate seu ulcere fcetentissimo crescentibus, ita ut
nullus assistentium foetorem amplius ferre posset."**

On this subject I find an account too curious to be omitted here. " The
dean told me that an old canon, a familiar friend of Calvin's, had formerly
related to him the manner in which John Calvin died, and that he had
learned it from a man called Petit Jean, who was Calvin's valet and who
attended on him to his last expiring breath. This man after his master's
death left Geneva, and went to reside again at ISToyon. He related to this
canon that Calvin on his death-bed made much lamentation, and that often
times he heard him cry out aloud and bitterly bewail his condition, and that
one day he called him and said : ' Go to my study, and bring from such a
part, The Office of our Lady according to the use at Noyon.' He went and
brought it ; and Calvin continued a long time praying to God from this office :
he mentioned that the people of Geneva were unwilling to let many persons
visit him in his illness, and said that he labored under many complaints,

* Campian in the 3d reason, year 1581.

t Born in 1536. He was nearly thirty years of age when Calvin died, in 1564.

j Promptuar Catholic, pars. 32, p. 133.

§ Conrad. Schlussemb. Calvin Thcolog., lib. ii, fol. 72.

|| Joan Haren. Apud Pel. Cutzamium. ^[ See Dict.de Feller, art. Calvin.

** Conrad. Schlussemb., in Theolog. Calvin, lib. ii, fol. 72. Francof. an. 1592.

REFORMERS PORTRAYING THEMSELVES. 471

such as imposthumes, the rash, the piles, the stone, the gravel, the gout,
consumption, shortness of breath, and spitting of blood ; and that he was
struck by God, as those of whom the Prophet speaks, Tetigit eos in poste-
riora, opprobrium sempiternum dedit eis."*

This recital agrees with that of Bolsec, who also cites the testimony of
those who attended upon Calvin in his last illness. For after having spoken
of the complaints mentioned by Beza, and of the lousy disease, about which
Beza says nothing, he adds : " Those who attended upon him to his last
breath have testified it. Let Beza, or whoever pleases deny it : it is, how
ever, clearly proved, that he cursed the hour in which he had ever studied
and written : while from his ulcers and his whole body proceeded an abom
inable stench, which rendered him a nuisance to himself and to his domes
tics, who add moreover, that this was the reason why he would have no
one go and see him." (Life of Calvin, Lyons, 1577, transl. from the Latin.)

THEODOKE BEZA.

Let us now pass on to Calvin's celebrated biographer. The Lutherans
shall teach us in what esteem and value we are to hold him : " Who will
not be astonished (says Heshusius) at the incredible impudence of this mon
ster, whose filthy and scandalous life is known throughout France, by his
more than cynical epigrams. And yet you would say, to hear him speak,
that he is some holy personage, another Job. or an anchoret of the desert,
nay greater than St. Paul or St. John ; so much does he everywhere pro
claim his exile, his labors, his purity, and the admirable sanctity of his life."f

If we wish to refer the matter to one holding an elevated situation among
the Lutherans : "Beza (says he to us) draws to the life, in his writings, the
image of those ignorant and gross persons, who for want of reason and
argument, have recourse to abuse, or of those heretics, whose last resource

is insult and abuse and thus, like an incarnate demon, this obscene

wretch, this perfect compound of artifice and impiety vomits forth his satiri
cal blasphemies."| The same Lutheran testifies that "after having spent
twenty- three years of his life in reading more than two hundred and twenty
Calvinistic productions, he had not met with one, in which abuse and blas
phemy were so accumulated as in the writings of this wild beast. And if
any one doubt of it, adds he, let him run over his famous Dialogues against
Dr. Heshusius. No one would ever imagine they were written by a man,
but by Beelzebub himself in person ; I should be horror-struck to repeat the
obscene blasphemies, which this impure atheist puts forth on the gravest
subjects with a disgusting mixture of impiety and buffoonery ; undoubtedly,
he had dipped his pen in some infernal ink."

* Remarques sur la Vie de J. Calvin, taken from the records of the chapter at
Noyon, the personal examination that took place in 1614; by James Dosmay, doctor
of "Sorbonno, vie. gen. of Rouen. This little work, dedicated to Lord Kay, earl of
Ancaster, 1621, is to be found in the Bibliotheque du Roi.

It is the part of candor to signify that I have not seen a word about the famous
fleur-de-lis in the work of Desmay, although he carefully made his inquiries in these
places. I should be glad if that silence carried sufficient weight with it to destroy
the very positive and public assertions of authors who wrote more than forty or fifty
years before him. It appears that Desmay only examined the records of the chapter
and not those of the town. Moreover, it was then eighty years after the sentence had
been passed upon Calvin, and we are assured that his friends had succeeded in re
moving it from the records of the town. t Traduct. de Florim. p. 1048.

\ Schlussemberg, in Theolog. Calvin, lib. ii, passim.

472 NOTE A.

"Beza, who was a Frenchman, (says Florimond,)* and the great buttress
of Calvin's opinions, attacked Luther's version as impious, novel, and un
heard of." " Truly, (retorted the Lutherans,) it well becomes a French
merry-andrew, who understands not a word of our language, to teach the
Germans to speak German.

MELANCTHOIf.

Let us confine ourselves to the judgment passed upon him by those of his
communion. The Lutherans declared in full synod : " That he had so often
changed his opinions upon the supremacy of the Pope, upon justification by
faith alone, upon the Lord's Supper and free-will, that all this his wavering
inconstancy had staggered the weak in these fundamental questions, and
prevented a great number from embracing the confession of Augsburg : that
by changing and rechanging his writings he had given too much reason to
the Episcopalians to set off' his variations, and to the faithful to know no
longer what doctrine to consider as true."f They add: "that this famous
work upon the theological common places would much more appropriately
be called a Treatise upon Theological witticisms."

Schlussemberg goes so far as to declare : " that being struck from above
by a spirit of blindness and dizziness, Melancthon afterwards did nothing
but fall from one error into another, till at last he himself knew not what to
believe."| He says moreover, that : "Melancthon had evidently impugned
the divine truth, to his own shame and the perpetual disgrace of his name."§

(ECOLAMPADIUS.

The Lutherans wrote in the Apology for their Lord's Supper, that CEco-
lampadius, a fautor of the Sacramentarian opinion, speaking one day to the
landgrave, said : " I would rather have my hand cut off than that it should
ever write any thing against Luther's opinion respecting the Lord's Sup
per." ||

When this was told to Luther, by one who had heard it, the hatred of
the patriarch of the reform seemed immediately softened down. On learn
ing the death of (Ecolampadius, he exclaimed: "Ah! miserable and unfor
tunate CEcolampadius, thou was the prophet of thy own misery, when thou
didst appeal to God to exercise his vengeance on thee, if thou taughtest a
false doctrine. May God forgive thee ; if thou art in such a state that he
can forgive thee."

While the inhabitants of Basle were placing the following epitaph on his

tomb in the cathedral : "John CEcolampadius, Theologian first preacher

of evangelical doctrine in this town and true bishop of the temple ;" Luther
was positive and sure, and afterwards wrote on his side, that " the devil,
whom CEcolampadius emploj^ed, strangled him during the night in his bed.
This is the excellent master (continues he) who taught him that there are
contradictions in Scripture. See to what Satan brings learned men."Tf

* Florimond, p. 96. t Colloq. Altenb., fol. 502, 503, year 1568.

\ Theol. Calvin, lib. ii,p. 91. § Ibid. p. 92. 1 See Florim., p. 175.

TI De Miss. priv.

REFORMERS PORTRAYING THEMSELVES. 473

OCHIK

This religious man, superior of the Capuchins, leaving Italy and his order,
where he had acquired a great reputation for the austerity of his life and his
distinguished talent in preaching, repaired to Peter Martyr in Switzerland,
where, after striking acquaintance with the Sacramentarians, he went a step
further and preached up Arianism. "He is become (wrote Beza to Didu-
cius) a wicked lecher, a fautor of the Arians, a mocker of Christ and his
Church."*

'Tis true that Ochin had, on his part, been equally severe upon the relig
ionists of Geneva and Zurich ; for in his dialogue against the sect of terres
trial Gods, he thus expressed himself in their regard " These people

are desirous that we should hold as an article of faith whatever comes from
their brain. He who does not choose to follow them is a heretic. What
they dream -of in the night (an allusion to Zuinglius) is committed to writing,
is printed and held as an oracle. Do not think that they will ever change.
So far are they from being disposed to obey the church, that on the contrary
the church must obey them. Is not this being popes ? Is it not being
gods upon earth ? Is it not tyrannizing over the consciences of men ?"

Such were the principal authors of the religious and political excitements
that desolated the Church and the world in the sixteenth century. They
were perfectly acquainted with each other ; they had seen one another, had
conferred together in different conferences ; they labored with emulation, if
not with unanimity, at the work, which they called reform. It is impossible
at the present day to form respecting their doctrine, their characters and
persons, more correct notions than those which they themselves entertained
respecting them, and which they have transmitted to us. It would there
fore be unreasonable in us not to refer to the reciprocal testimonies they
have borne to one another. Neither is it less true, that if we go by their
own judgments, we can not but consider them as odious beings and unworthy
ministers, whether they have mutually done justice to one another or have
calumniated one another. In a word, the only point upon which they agree
is to blacken and condemn one another, and it is but too certain that this
point, in which they were all agreed, is also the only one upon which they
were all right.

You then who have just heard them revealing to the world their own
turpitude, will you continue any longer to take them as your guides, your
masters, your fathers in faith ? Hitherto you have only been taught to look
upon them as extraordinary beings, endowed with sanctity, virtue, and all
the gifts of heaven ; and with this persuasion, you felt proud to call your
selves their disciples and children. You now see your mistake ; you see
what they were ; they have told it you themselves. Believe them upon
this point, and it is enough to make you abandon them on all others, and
to abjure, since you can do it, a descent that must from henceforth be so dis
graceful and ignominious in your eyes.

What could religion expect from such men? What profit could the
world receive from their preaching ? What actually were the effects pro
duced ? Here also they shall be our instructors. " The world grows worse
and becomes more wicked every day. Men are now more given to revenge,

* Florimond, p. 296.
VOL. I. iO

474 NOTE A.

more avaricious, more devoid of mercy, less modest and more incorrigible ;
in fine more wicked than in the Papacy."*

" One thing, no less astonishing than scandalous, is to see that, since the
pure doctrine of the gospel has been brought again to light, the world daily
goes from bad to worse."f

The noblemen and the peasants are come to such a pitch, that they boasb
and proclaim, without scruple, that they have only to let themselves be
preached at, that they would prefer being entirely disenthralled from the
word of God ; and that they would not give a farthing for all our sermons
together. And how are we to lay this to them as a crime, when they make
no account of the world to come ? They live as they believe : they are and
continue to be swine : they live like swine and they die like real swine."f

Calvin, after declaiming against atheism, which was prevailing above all
in the palaces of princes, and in the courts of justice, and the first ranks of
his communion. " There remains still (adds he) a wound more deplorable.

The pastors, yes, the pastors themselves who mount the pulpit are at

the present time the most shameful examples of waywardness and other
vices. Hence their sermons obtain neither more credit nor authority than
the fictitious tales uttered on the stage by the strolling player. And these
persons are yet bold enough to complain that we despise them and point at
them for scorn. As for me, I am more inclined to be astonished at the pa
tience of the people : I am astonished that the women and children do not'
cover them with mud and filth." §

" Those whom I had known to be pure, full of candor and simplicity,
(says one whom no one suspects,) these have I seen afterwards, when gone
over to the sect (of the Evangelicals) begin to speak of girls, flock to games
of hazard, throw aside prayer, give themselves up entirely to their interests,
become the most impatient, vindictive, and frivolous ; changed in fact from
men to vipers. I know well what I say."||

" I see many Lutherans, but few Evangelicals. Look a little at these
people, and consider whether luxury, avarice, and lewdness do not prevail
still more amongst them than amongst those whom they detest. Show me
any one, who by means of his gospel is become better. I will show you
very many that have become worse. Perhaps it has been my bad fortune ;
but I have seen none but who are become worse by their gospel." If

"Luther was wont to say that after the revelation of his gospel, virtue
had become extinct, justice oppressed, temperance bound with cords, virtue
torn in pieces by the dogs, faith had become wavering, and devotion lost."**

It was at that time a saying in Germany, expressive of their going to
spend a jovial day in debauch : " Hbdie Lutkeranice vivemus : We will spend
to-day like Lutherans."f f

"And if the Sovereigns do not evangelize and interpose their authority to
appease all these disputes, no doubt the Churches of Christ will soon be

infested with heresies, which will ultimately bring on their ruin By

these multiplied paradoxes the foundations of our religion are shaken, here
sies crowd into the Churches of Christ, and the way is thrown open to
atheism."}]:

* Luther in Postilla sup. i, dom. advent. t Id. in Serin. Conviv. German, fol. 55.

t Id. on the 1st Ep. to the Corinthians, xv. § Liv. sur les scandales, p. 128.

II Erasm. Epist. to the brethren of Lower Germany. If Id. Ep. a an. 1526.

** Aurifaber, fol. 628, v. Florim. p. 225.

ft Bened. Morgenstern, Traite de 1'Eglise, p. 221.

j j Sturm, Ratio ineundae concord, p. 2, an. 1579.

REFORMERS PORTRAYING THEMSELVES. 475

" Did any age ever witness persons of each sex and of every age give up

themselves, as ours do, to intemperance and the fire of their passions ?

(said one of the first witnesses of the reform). Men now receive as a divine
oracle that saying of Luther's that it is no more possible for a person to
restrain his desires than his saliva, nor more easy for man and woman to
dispense with one another than for them to go without eating and drinking.
Impossible, do you hear it sung on all sides, and in all tones, impossible not
to sacrifice to Venus, when the time of life arrives."*

" Do we not see at the present day (cries out another witness) youth even
giving into debauch, and if they are withdrawn from it, loudly demanding
to be married. The young women also, whether already fallen, or only as
yet lascivious, are perpetually throwing in your face that impudent sentence
of Luther's, that continence is impossible, seeing that Venus is not less
necessary than eating ; according to the new fashion, children marry and
from them no doubt are to spring the valiant champions who are to drive
the Turk beyond the Caucasus."!

" We are come to such a pitch of barbarity that many are persuaded that
if they fasted one single day, they would find themselves dead the night
following."!

" It is certain that God wishes and requires of his servants a grave and
Christian discipline ; but it passes with us as a new papacy and a new
monkery. § We have lately learned (say the religionists of our times), that
we are saved by faith alone in Jesus Christ, without any other help than
his merits and the grace of God." "And, that the world may know they
are not papists and that they have no confidence in good works, they per
form none. Instead of fasting, they eat and drink day and night, they
change prayers into swearing ; and this is what they call the re-established
gospel, or the reformation of the gospel, said Smidelin."

" We are not to be astonished that in Poland, Transylvania, Hungary and
other countries, many pass over to Arianism and some to Mahomet ; the
doctrine of Calvin leads to these impieties." ||

" Certainly, to speak the truth, there is much more conscientiousness and
uprightness among the greatest part of papists than among many Protest
ants. And if we examine past ages, we shall find more sanctity, devotion,
zeal, although blind, more charity and fidelity to one another, than is seen
at present among us." If

" Let them (the Protestants) I say, look with the eye of charity upon
them (the Catholics) as well as severity, and they shall finde some excellent
orders of government, some singular helpes for increase of godlinesse and
devotion, for the conquering of sinne, for 4he profiting of virtue ; contrarie-
wise, in themselves, looking with a lesse indulgent eye than they doe, they
shall finde, there is no such absolute perfection in their doctrine and refor
mation."**

This is enough, without adding to these testimonies, those of Capito,
Bucer, and Melancthon, who may find place in the following letter, and

* Sylv. Czecanovius de corrupt, morib. f Wigandus, de bonis et mails German.

J Melancth. on the sixth chapter of St. Matthew.

§ Jacob Andraeus. on St. Luke, ch. xxi, 1583.

| Id. Preface contre 1'Apol. de Danoeus.

If Stubb's motive to good works, p. 43, an. 1596.

** A Relation of the state of Religion and with what Hopes and Policies it hath
been framed and is maintained in the several states of the Western parts of the world.
Sec. 48. By Sir Edwin Sanders, Printed London, 1605.

476 NOTE B.

without transcribing here upon England what is told us by Strype, Camden,
Dugdale, and even by Henry VIII. in a declaration to his parliament.*

Such then were the first fruits of the Reformation ! and such we learn
them to have been from its authors themselves, from its promoters and its
first witnesses.f Their confessions, their lamentations, wrung from them
by the extent and notoriety of the scandal, will eternally proclaim to tha
world, that with. the reform were propagated vices and disorders; that in
the countries where it was adopted, and in proportion as it gained ground,
devotions was seen to be weakened, piety extinguished, morals deteriorated,
faith gradully lost in the multitude, and even among the ministers them
selves ; so much so that to this day, in the cradle and center of Calvinism,
at Geneva, where they abound, you will scarcely find four or five, (I know
it for certain,) who will consent to preach the divinity of our Saviour and
teach it in their catechetical instructions. And yet there have been persons
bold enough to hold out the progress of such a reform as a proof of the
divine protection : as if we could acknowledge as its apostles such men as
they have reciprocally described themselves to be : as if it could take parts
in disorders, smile upon the propagation of vice, and favor the decaying of
faith and Christianity.

NOTE B, PAGE 90.

TurnbulPs complete translation of Audin's Life of Luther, this
entire conference is given in the Appendix in the original Latin. We here
republish the substantially correct translation of the American edition.

" I ONCE suddenly awoke about midnight : Satan began to dispute with
me. ' Listen to me, learned doctor,' says he. ' During fifteen years you
have daily celebrated private Masses. What if all those Masses have been

* See Letters of Atticua, pp. 64, 65 ; 3:1 edition, London, 1811.

t I beg the reader to make also the following remarks : It is a fact that, before the
Reformation, infidels were scarcely known in the world : it is a fact that they are
come forth in swarms from its bosom. It was from the writings of Herbert, Hobbes,
Bloum, Shaftesbury, Bolingbroke, and Boyle, that Voltaire and his party drew the
objections and errors, which they have brought so generally in fashion in the world.
According to Diderot and d'Aleinbert, the first step that the untractable Catholic
takes is to adopt the Protestant principle of private judgment. He establishes him
self judge of his religion, leaves it and joins the reform. Dissatisfied with the
incoherent doctrines he then discovers, he passes on to the Socinians, whose inconse
quences soon drive him into Deism ; still pursued by unexpected difficulties, he
throws himself into universal doubt, where still experiencing' uneasiness, he at last
resolves to take the last step, and proceeds to terminate the long chain of his errors
in Atheism. Let us not forget that the first link of this fatal chain is attached to the
fundamental maxim of private judgment. It is therefore historically correct, that the
same principle that created Protestantism three centuries ago, has never ceased since
that time to spin it out into a thousand different sects, and lias concluded by covering
Europe with that multitude of free thinkers, who place it on the verge of ruin.

When sects beget infidelity and by infidelity revolutions, it is plain that the politi
cal safety of the states will only be 'secured by a return to religious unity.

LUTHER'S CONFERENCE WITH THE DEVIL. 477

a horrible idolatry ? What, if the body and blood of Jesus Christ be not
present there, and that yourself adored, and made others adore, bread and
wine ?' I answered him, I have been made priest ; I have received ordina
tion at the bishop's hands ; and I have acted according to the command of
my superiors, and through the obedience I owe them. Why could not I
consecrate, since I have seriously pronounced the words of Jesus Christ, and
have celebrated Mass with great devotion, as you know ? ' All that is true,'
answered Satan, ' but even the Turks and Pagans perform all their sacred
functions through obedience, and religiously observe all their ceremonies.
The priests of Jeroboam, also, zealously opposed the true priests, who were
at Jerusalem. What, if your ordination and consecration ;*rere as invalid,
as that of the Turkish and Samaritan priests is false, and their worships
impious ?'

" ' You know, in the first place,' says he, l that you had then neither
knowledge of Jesus Christ, nor the true faith. In what regards faith, you
were no better than a Turk, for the Turks and all the devils believe the
history of Jesus Christ; that he was born, was crucified, and died, etc.
But the Turk and we, reprobate spirits, have no confidence in his mercy,
and we do not regard him as our Saviour and mediator ; but we fear him
as a severe judge. Such was your faith ; you had none other, when you
received the unction of the bishop ; and all those who gave or received it,
had similar sentiments of Jesus Christ. This is the reason that you with
draw from Jesus Christ as a severe judge, and have recourse to the Virgin
Mary and the Saints, and look on them as mediators between you and Jesus
Christ. No papist can deny that this is the reason why Jesus Christ has
been deprived of his glory. You have, then, been ordained ; you have been
tonsured; you have offered the Mass as Pagans and not as Christians.
How, then, could }7ou consecrate at Mass, or really celebrate it, since you
had not the power of consecrating, which, according to your own doctrine,
is an essential defect ?

" ' In the next place, you have been consecrated priest, and you have cele
brated Mass contrary to its institution, and to the design of Jesus Christ
in instituting it. He wished the sacrament to be distributed among the
faithful, who should communicate, and to be given to the Church to be eaten
and drunk. In truth, the priest is established minister of the Church, to
preach the word of God, and to dispense the sacraments, according to the
words of Christ at the Last Supper, and those of St. Paul in his first epistle
to the Corinthians, while speaking of the Lord's Supper. Hence, the an
cients called it " communion," because, according to the doctrine of Jesus
Christ, the priest ought not alone receive the sacrament, but his Christian
brethren should receive it with him. And you, for fifteen years, have always
applied to yourself the sacrament, when 3^011 celebrated Mass, and have not
communicated it to others. Nay, it was prohibited to give them the whole
sacrament. What a priesthood is that ? What a consecration ? What a
Mass ? What sort of a priest are you, who have not been ordained for the
Church, but for yourself? It is certain that Jesus Christ has not known,
and does not acknowledge, such a sacrament and such an ordination.

" ' In the third place, the thought and design of Jesus Christ, as his words
demonstrate, is, that, in receiving the sacrament, we should announce and
commemorate his death. " Do this," says he, " in commemoration of me ;"
and, as St. Paul says, " until he comes." But you, who say private Masses,
have not even once preached and confessed Jesus Christ in all your Masses.
You have only taken the sacrament, and muttered, between your teeth, the

478 NOTE B.

words of the institution for yourself alone. Was that the institution of
Jesus Christ ? Is it by such actions that you prove that you are a priest
of Jesus Christ ? Is that to act like a Christian priest ; and have you been
ordained for that ?

" ' In the fourth place, it is clear that the thought, the design, and the
institution of Jesus Christ were, that the rest of the faithful should communi-*
cate as well as the priest ; whereas, you have been ordained, not to dispense
to them this sacrament, but to sacrifice. And, contrary to the institution of
Jesus Christ, you have made use of the Mass, as of a* sacrifice, for that is
the obvious signification of the words of the bishop who ordained you.
According to th*1 ceremony of ordination, when he puts the chalice into" the
hands of him who has received the sacred unction, he says to him, "receive
the power of celebrating and sacrificing for the living and for the dead."
What is this perverse unction and ordination ? Jesus Christ has instituted
the Supper to be the food and nourishment for all the Church ; to be pre
sented by the priest to all those who communicate with him ; and you
make of it a propitiatory sacrifice before God ! 0 abomination which sur
passes all other abominations !

" ' In the fifth place, the design of Jesus Christ is, as has been said, that
the sacrament should be distributed to the Church, that is, to the com
municants, to exercise and strengthen their faith, in the various assaults
they suffer, as, also, to renew the memory of the benefits of Jesus Christ ; '
whereas, you regard it as a thing belonging to you, and which you can cele
brate without others, and which you can give to them gratuitously or for
lucre. Tell me, can you deny that ? Have you not been made priest in
that manner, that is, without faith ? For you have received ordination con
trary to the design and institution of Jesus Christ — not that you might
give the sacrament to others, but that you might sacrifice it for the living
and the dead. You have not been ordained to be the minister of the Church.
Moreover, you have never distributed the sacrament to others ; you have
not preached Jesus Christ at Mass ; and consequently you have done no
thing that Jesus Christ instituted. Have you then received ordination against
Jesus Christ and his institution, to do every thing against him ? And if
you have been consecrated and ordained by the bishops, contrary to Jesus
Christ, your ordination is unquestionably impious, false, and antichristian.
I maintain, then, that you have not consecrated at Mass, and that you have
offered, and made others adore, simple bread and wine.

" 'You see, then, that there is wanting in your Mass, first, a person who
can consecrate, that is a Christian ; there is wanting also a person for whom
you should consecrate, and to whom the sacrament is to be given ; that is to
say, the Church, the body of the faithful.

" ' You stand there by yourself, and you imagine that Jesus Christ insti
tuted for you alone, the sacrament, and that you need but speak, to conse
crate in the Mass the body and blood of Jesus Christ, although you are not
a member of Jesus Christ, but his enemy. There is wanting, in the third
place, the end, the design, the fruit, and object for which Jesus Christ insti
tuted this sacrament. For Jesus Christ instituted it, to be eaten and to be
drunk, to fortify the faith of his members, to preach and announce in the
Mass, the benefits of Jesus Christ. Now the rest of the Church do not
even know that you say Mass ; they learn nothing from you, and receive
nothing from you ; but you alone silently eat by yourself and drink by
yourself; and being an ignorant and faithless monk, you do not communi
cate with any one ; and according to the custom which prevails among you,

LUTHER'S CONFERENCE WITH THE DEVIL. 479

you sell for money what you perform, as if it were worth any thing. If,
then, you are not capable of consecrating, and ought not attempt it : if there
be no person at Mass to receive the sacrament ; if you alter and destroy the
institution of Jesus Christ ; — in fine, if you have been ordained merely for
the purpose of doing every thing contrary to the institution of Jesus Christ,
— what use is there in your ordination, and what do you do, while saying
Mass and consecrating, but blaspheme and tempt God ? You are not a
real priest, nor do you really consecrate the body of Jesus Christ.

" ' I will draw a comparison for you. If any one baptizes, when there is
no person to be baptized, as if some bishop, according to the ridiculous cus
tom of the papists, baptize a bell, which neither ought, nor can be baptized,
tell me, is that a real baptism ? You must answer in the negative. For
who can baptize that which does not exist, or can not receive baptism ?
What baptism would it be, were I to pronounce in the air these words : "I
baptize thee, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost ;" and that I poured out water at the same time ? What would, in
that case, receive the remission of sin, or the Holy Ghost ? Would it be
the air or the bell ; it is obvious that there is no baptism there, although the
words of baptism are pronounced, and the waters poured out ; because there
is no person to receive baptism. The same thing occurs in your Mass, when
you pronounce the words, and think that you receive the sacrament, whereas,
you only receive bread and wine. For the Church, who is the person
authorized to receive, is not there ; and you, who are an impious and
incredulous man, are no more capable of receiving the sacrament, than the
bell is capable of receiving baptism. Hence you possess nothing of the
sacrament. You will, perhaps, tell me : — although I do not present the
sacrament to the others that are in the Church, I nevertheless take it and
receive it myself: and there are many among the rest of the faithful, who,
although infidels, receive the sacrament, or baptism, and yet receive a true
sacrament and a true baptism. Why, then, should there not be a true sac
rament in the Mass ? But it is not the same thing ; because in baptism,
even when administered in urgent cases, there are at least two persons, he
who baptizes, and he who is baptized ; and frequently many members of
the Church. Moreover, the function of him who baptizes is such, that it
imparts something to the other members of the Church ; and he deprives
them of nothing to apply it to himself alone, as you do in the Mass. And
all the other things done in baptism are according to the institution of Jesus
Christ, but the Mass is against the institution of Jesus Christ.

" ' In the second place, why don't you teach that you can baptize your
self? Why disapprove of such a baptism ? Why reject confirmation, if
any one would confirm himself, as confirmation is among you? Why
would the ordination be invalid, if any one were to ordain himself priest ?
Why would there be no extreme unction, if any one, in danger of death,
would anoint himself, as the Catholics do ? Why would there be no mar
riage, if any one would marry himself, or offer violence, and say that this action
would be marriage — for these are your seven sacraments ? If then, no one
can administer any of your sacraments himself, why do you wish to reserve
this sacrament for yourself alone ? It is true, that Jesus Christ received
himself in this sacrament, and every minister, when he distributes it to
others, receives it also himself. But he does not consecrate for himself
alone. He takes it conjointly with others, and with the Church ; and all
this is done conformably to the command of Jesus Christ. When I speak
of consecration, I ask if any one can consecrate the sacrament for himself

480

NOTE B.

only ; — because I know well that after the consecration, every priest can
receive, as well as others ; for the communion and the table of the Lord is
common to many. When I asked if any one could call and ordain himself,
I knew well that after having been called and ordained he might follow his
vocation.'

"In this perilous contest with the devil, I attempted to repel the enemy
with the arms to which I was accustomed under the Papacy. I objected to
him the faith and intention of the Church, by representing to him, that it
was in the faith and intention of the Church, that I had celebrated these
Masses. It may be, said I, that I did not believe as I sought to have be
lieved, and that I was deceived ; but the Church, however, believed in the
manner required, and was not deceived. But Satan, urging one with more
force and vehemence than before, said : ' Show me where it is written, thai
an impious and incredulous man can ascend the altar of Jesus Christ — con
secrate and make the sacrament through the faith of the Church : — where
has God ordained so ; where is it commanded ? How can you prove that
the Church communicates to you her intention, to say your private Mass,
unless you have the word of God for you. and if it be not merely men
who have taught you without this word? All this doctrine is false.
What audacity you have ! You act in the dark ; you abuse the name of
the Church ; and afterwards you wish to defend all your abominations under
the pretext of the intention of the Church. You can only bring forward '
the intention of the Church. The Church sees nothing and intends nothing
beyond the word of Jesus Christ, and still less against his design and insti
tution, of which I have spoken ; for St. Paul says, in his first epistle to the
Corinthians, chap, ii, speaking of the Church and of the assembly of the
faithful : " We have the mind of Christ."

;< ' But how will you learn that a thing is conformable to the intention and
design of Jesus Christ and the Church, unless by the word of Jesus Christ,
by the doctrine and public profession of the Church ? How do you know
that the intention and thought of the Church is, that homicide, adultery,
and unbelief are among the sins, for which you are liable to be damned ?
And how do you know other things of the same kind, unless by the word
of God ?

" ' If, then, you are to learn from the word and commands of God, what
the Church thinks of good or bad actions, ought you not much more learn
from the word of God, what she thinks of its doctrine ? Why, then, you
blasphemer, do you disregard the clear words and the order of Jesus Christ
in your private Mass ? And why do you make use of his name, and of the
intention of the Church, to cloak your falsehood and impiety ? You deck
out your own invention with this miserable coloring ; as if the intention
of the Church could be contrary to the words of Jesus Christ ! What pro
digious boldness, to profane the name of the Church by so unblushing a
falsehood !

" ' Since, then, the bishop has made you capable of celebrating Mass, by
the unction he gave you. with the sole object, that by saying private Masses,
you might do all that was opposed to the clear words and institution of
Jesus Christ, — to the feelings, the faith, and public profession, of the Church,
this unction is profane, and has nothing in it holy or sacred. It is even still
more vain, more useless and absurd than the baptism of bells.' And Satan,
urging still more closely this argument, said : 'you are not then ordained;
you have only offered bread and wine, like the Pagans, by a traffic, infamous
in itself and injurious to God, you have sold your ministry to Christians,

LUTHER'S CONFERENCE WITH THE DEVIL. 481

and served, not God, but your own cupidity. What an unheard of abomi
nation !' This is almost th.3 summary of the dispute.

" I behold now the holy fathers, who laugh at me and exclaim : Is this
the celebrated doctor, who is nonplussed and can not answer Satan ? Do
you not know, doctor, that the devil is a lying spirit ? Thank you', fathers.
I would not have known until now, learned theologians, that the devil was
a liar, unless you had said so. In truth, if you were obliged to suffer the
assaults of Satan, and to dispute with him, you would never speak as you
do, of the practice and traditions of the Church. The devil is a severe an
tagonist ; and he presses one so closely, that it is impossible to resist him
without a particular grace of the Lord. In a moment, in the twinkling of
an eye, he fills the soul with darkness and with fear ; and unless he has to
do with a man who is master of the Scripture, he easily overcomes him. It
is true, he is a liar ; but he does not speak untruths when he accuses us :
for then he comes to the combat with the double testimony of the law of
God, and our own conscience. I do not deny that I have sinned. I do not
deny that my sin is great. I do not deny that I am liable to death and
damnation !"*

Audin adds :

" Such is the narrative of this scene, in which Luther appears to much
less advantage than at Worms. The devil shows himself in it to be a still
worse logician that the Dominican at Leipsic — where, however, Satan, if we
may credit Luther, spoke by his mouth. Here the master does not equal
the disciple. Unless the reformer suppressed those overwhelming arguments
by which the devil prostrated him, there is no tyro in theology who would
not have refuted the satanic thesis. Luther had doubtless at hand some of
those catechisms, which are yet to be found in every German family. He
could havo confounded his adversary, had he opened the page in which the
Church teaches, — that the priest, in celebrating the sacrifice of the Mass,
applies the merits of it to all who hear it devoutly. And, then, Satan was
as ignorant of history as he was of the catechism. We know not what
answer he would have given to Luther, had the reformer inquired, where
he had read that the Turks believed in the death of Jesus Christ ; whereas
Mahomet, in the Koran, positively says, that God took up Jesus Christ, and
that another was crucified in his place. Luther also was too soft with his
adversary."

* De Missa angular!, t. vi, Jense, p. 81, 82.— T. vii, Op. Luth. Wett. fol. 228. See
Conference du diahle avec Luther contra le saint sacrement rle la Messc (par Paul
Bruzeau) Paris, 1740.— Cochl. in act. fol. 67, Math. cone. f. 32. Claude, Defense de
la Reformation, 2me partie ch. v. Prejuges legitimes par Nicole. Bruxelles, ch. ii.
Refutation de la reponse d'un ministre Lutherien sur la conference du diable avec
Luther. Bruxelles, 1682. Basnage Hist, des eglises reformees, t. iii, ch. v. Bayle,
Art. Luther.

VOL. I.— 41

482

NOTE C.

NOTE C, PAGE 149.

PERMISSION GRANTED TO PHILIP, LANDGRAVE OF HESSE,
BY LUTHER AND OTHER REFORMERS, TO HAVE TWO
WIVES AT ONCE.

To show that there is not a shadow of doubt existing in regard to the
truth of this disgraceful proceeding, we here append the documents them
selves ; two of them entire in Latin and English, and the other as abridged
by Bossuet, who, however, furnishes the Latin text of it in full. (History
of the Variations of the Protestant Churches, vol. i, book vi, p. 179, seqq.,
and p. 205, seqq.) These documents were first published in 1679, by order
of the Elector Charles Lewis, Count Palatine; and the book containing
them was written probably with a view to justify Luther against Bellar-
mine; with what success the reader of these papers may best judge.
After having been carefully concealed for more than a century, this whole
scandalous transaction was laid bare by Protestants themselves, professing
to be the friends of Luther and of his Reformation.

I.— DOCUMENT ABRIDGED BY BOSSUET.

1. — Bucer sent to Luther and other heads of the Party to
obtain leave for marrying a second wife — this Prince's in
struction to his Envoy.

The landgrave of Hesse begins by setting forth how that, " since his last
illness, he had reflected much on his state, and chiefly upon this, that a few
weeks after his marriage he had begun to wallow in adultery : that his pas
tors had frequently exhorted him to approach the holy table, but he did
believe he should there meet with his judgment, because he will not aban
don such a course of life."* He imputes to his wife the cause of all his
disorders, and gives the reasons for his never loving her ; but, having a diffi
culty in explaining himself on these matters, he refers them to Bucer, whom
he had made privy to the whole affair. Next he speaks of his complexion,
and the effects of high living at the assemblies of the empire, at which he
was obliged to be present. To carry thither a wife of such a quality as his
own, would be too great an encumbrance. When his preachers remonstrated
to him that he ought to punish adulteries and such like crimes, "How,"
said he, " can I punish crimes of which I myself am guilty ? When I ex
pose myself in war for the gospel cause, I think I should go to the devil
should I be killed there by the sword or musket-ball. f I am sensible that,
with the wife I have, NEITHER CAN I, NEITHER WILL I, change my life,
whereof I take God to witness ; so that I find no means of amendment
but by the remedies God afforded the people of old, that is to say polyg
amy."!

Inst., N. 1, 2, Ib. u. 3. t Ibid., N. 5. J Ibid., N. 6.

BIGAMY OF LANDORAVE OF HESSE. 483

2. — Sequel to the instruction — the landgrave promises
the revenues of monasteries to Luther if he will favor his
design.

He there states the reasons which persuade him that it is not forbidden
under the gospel; and what deserves most notice, is his saying, "that, to
his knowledge, Luther and Melancthon advised the king of England not to
break off his marriage with the queen, his wife ; but, besides her, also to
wed another."* This, again, is a secret we were ignorant of: but a prince,
so well informed, says he knows it ; and adds, that they ought to allow him
this remedy so much the readier, because he demands it only " for the sal
vation of his soul." "I am resolved," proceeds he, "to remain no longer in
the snares of the devil ; NEITHER CAN I, NEITHER WILL I, withdraw myself
but by this way ; wherefore I beg of Luther, of Melancthon, of Bucer him
self, to give me a certificate, that I may embrace it. But, if they apprehend
that such a certificate may turn to scandal at this time, and prejudice the
gospel cause, should it be printed, I desire at least they will give me a decla
ration in writing, that God would not be offended should I marry in private ;
and that they will seek for means to make this marriage public in due time,
to the end that the woman I shall wed may not pass for a dishonest person,
otherwise, in process of time, the church would be scandalized."! Then he
assures them that "they need not fear lest this second marriage should
make him injure his first wife, or even separate himself from her ; since, on
the contrary, he is determined on this occasion to carry his cross, and leave
his dominions to their common children. Let them, therefore, grant me,"
continues this prince, "in the name of God, what I request of them, to the
end that I may both live and die more cheerfully for the gospel cause, and
more willingly undertake the defense of it ; and, on my part, I will do
whatsoever they shall in reason ask of me, whether they demand the reve
nues of monasteries, or other things of a similar nature."!

3. — Continuation of it — the landgrave proposes to have
recourse to the emperor, and even to the Pope, in case of
refusal.

We see how artfully he insinuates the reasons which he. who knew them
so thoroughly, was sensible would have most influence on them ; and, as he
foresaw that scandal was the thing the}' would most dread, he adds, " That
already the ecclesiastics hated the Protestants to such a degree, that they
would not hate them more or less for this new article allowing polygamy :
but if, contrary to his expectation, Melancthon and Luther should prove
inexorable, many designs ran in his head — amongst others, that of applying
to the emperor for this dispensation, whatever money it might cost him."$
This was a ticklish point — "For," continues he, "there is no likelihood of
the emperor's granting this permission without a dispensation from the
Pope, for which I care but little," says he ;|| " but for that of the emperor I
ought not to despise it, though I should make but little account of that too,
did I not otherwise believe that God had rather allowed than forbidden
what I wish for ; and if the attempt I make on this side (that is upon

* Inst., N. 6, et seq. Ibid., N. 10. Ibid., N. 11, 12. t Ibid., N. 12.

I Ibid., N. 13. § Ibid., N. 14. |- Ibid., N. 15, et seq.

484

NOTE C.

Luther) succeed not, a human fear urges me to demand the emperor's con
sent, certain as I am to obtain all I please, upon giving a round sum of
money to some one of his ministers. But although I would not for any
thing in the world withdraw myself from the gospel, or be engaged in any
affair that might be contrary to its interest, I am, nevertheless, afraid lest
the imperialists should draw me into something not conducive to the inter
ests of this cause and party. I, therefore, call on them," concludes he, "to*
afford me the redress I expect, lest I should go seek it in some other place
leea agreeable ; desirous a thousand times rather to owe my repose to their
permission that to all other human permissions, I desire to 'have in writing
the opinion of Luther, Melancthon, and Bucer, in order that I may amend
myself, and with a good conscience approach the sacrament.

"Given at Melsinguen, the Sunday after St. Catharine's day, 1539.

" PHILIP, Landgrave of Hesse."

II.— DOCUMENT IN LATIN AND ENGLISH.

THE CONSULTATION OF LUTHER AND THE OTHER PROTESTANT
DOCTORS CONCERNING POLYGAMY.

To the most serene Prince and Lord Philip Landgrave of Hesse, Count of Catzenlem-
bogen, of Diets, of Ziegenhain, and Nidda, our gracious Lord, we wish above all
things the Grace of God through Jesus Christ.

Most Serene Prince and Lord,

I. Postquam vestra Celsitudo per
Dominum Bucerum diuturnas con-
scientise suse molestias, nonnullas
simulque considerations indicari cu-
ravit, addito scripto seu instructione
quam illi vestra Celsitudo tradidit ;
licet ita properanter expedire respon-
sum difficile sit, noluimus tamen
Dominum Bucerum, reditum utique
maturantem, sine scripto dimittere.

II. Imprimis sumus ex animo re-
creati, et Deo gratias agimus, quod
vestram Celsitudinem difficili morbo
liberaverit, petimusque, ut Deus Cel
situdinem vestram in corpore et ani
mo confortare et conservare dignetur.

III. Nam prout Celsitudo vestra
videt, paupercula et misera Ecclesia
est exigua et derelicta, indigens pro-
bis Dominis Regentibus, sicut non
dubitamus Deum aliquos conservatu-

I. We have been informed by
Bucer, and in the instruction which
your Highness gave him, have read,
the trouble of mind, and the uneasi
ness of conscience your Highness is
under at this present ; and although
it seemed to us very difficult so
speedily to answer the doubts pro
posed ; nevertheless, we would not
permit the said Bucer, who was ur
gent for his return to your Highness,
to go away without an answer in
writing.

II. tt has been a subject of the
greatest joy to us, and we have
praised God, for that he has recov
ered your Highness from a danger
ous fit of sickness, and we pray that
he will long continue this blessing of
perfect health both in body and mind.

III. Your Highness is not igno
rant how great need our poor, miser
able, little, and abandoned church
stands in of virtuous princes and ru
lers to protect her; and we doubt

BIGAMY OF LANDGKAVE OF HESSE.

485

rum, quantumvis tentationes diversae
occurrant.

IV. Circa qussstionem quam nobis
Bucerus proposuit, hsec nobis occur-
runt consideratione digna : Celsitudo
vestra per se ipsam satis perspicit
quantum diiferant universalem legem
condere, vel in certo casu gravibus de
causis ex concessione divina, dispen-
satione uti ; nam contra Deurn locum
non habet dispensatio.

V. ISTunc suadere non possumus,
ut introducatur public e, et velut lege
sanciatur permissio plures quam unam
uxores ducendi. Si aliquid hac de
re prselo committeretur, facile intel-
ligit vestra Celsitudo, id prsecepti in-
star intellectum et acceptatum iri,
unde multa scandala et difficultates
orirentur. Consideret, quaasumus,
Celsitudo vestra quam sinistre accip-
eretur, si quis convinceretur hanc le
gem in Germaniam introduxisse,
quaa aeternarum litium et inquietudi-
num (quod timendum) futurum esset
seminarium.

VI. Quod opponi potest, quod co-
ram Deo aequum est id omnino per-
mittendum, hoc certa ratione et
conditione est accipiendum. Si res
est mandata et necessaria, verum est
quod objicitur; si nee mandata, nee
necessaria sit alias circumstantias op-
ortet expendere, ut ad propositam
questionem propius accedamus : Deus
matrimonium instituit ut tantum
duarum et non plurium personarum
esset societas, si natura non esset cor-
rupta; hoc intendit ilia sententia :
JSrunt diio in came una, idque prima-
tus fuit observatum.

VII. Sed Lamech pluralitatem
vixorum in matrimonium invexit,

not but God will always supply her
with some such, although from' time
to time he threatens to deprive her
of them, and proves her by sundry
temptations.

IV. These things seem to us of
greatest importance in the question
which Bucer has proposed to us :
your Highness sufficiently of your
self comprehends the difference there
is betwixt settling an universal law,
and using (for urgent reasons and
with God's permission) a dispensation
in a particular case ; for it is other
wise evident that no dispensation can
take place against the first of all laws,
the divine law.

V. We can not at present advise
to introduce publicly, and establish
as a law in the New Testament, that
of the Old, which permitted to have
more wives than one. Your High
ness is sensible, should any such thing
be printed, that it would be taken for
a precept, whence infinite troubles
and scandals would arise. We beg
your Highness to consider the dan
gers a man would be exposed unto,
who should be convicted of having
brought into Germany such a law,
which would divide families, and in
volve them in endless strifes and dis
turbances.

VI. As to the objection that may
be made, that what is just in God's
sight ought absolutely to be per
mitted, it must be answered in this
manner. If that which is just before
God, be besides commanded and
necessary, the objection is true : if it
be neither necessary nor commanded,
other circumstances, before it be per
mitted, must be attended to ; and to
come to the question in hand : God
hath instituted marriage to be a so
ciety of two persons and no more,
supposing nature were not corrupted ;
and this is the sense of that text of
Genesis, " There shall be two in one
flesh," and this was observed at the
beginning.

VII. Lamech was the first that
married many wives, and the Scrip-:

486

NOTE C.

quod de illo Scriptura memorat tan-
quam introductum contra primam
regulam.

VIII. Apud infideles tamen fuit
consuetudine receptum ; postea Abra
ham quoque et posteri ejus plures
duxerunt uxores. Certum est hoc
postmodum lege Mosis permissum
fuisse, teste Scripture, Deuter. 2, 1. 1,
ut homo haberet duas uxores : nam
Deus fragili naturae aliquid indulsit.
Cum vero principle et creationi con-
sentaneum sit unic i uxore con ten-
turn vivere, hujusmodi lex est lauda-
bilis, et ab Ecclesi'i acceptanda, non
lex huic contraria statuenda; nam
Christus repetit lianc sententiam :
Erunt duo in came ima, Matth. xix,
et in mernoriam revocat quale matri-
monium ante humanam fragilitatem
esse debuisset.

IX. Cert.is tamen casibus locus est
dispensations Si quis apud exteras
nationes captivus ad curam corporis
et -sanitatem, inibi alteram uxorem
superinduceret ; vel si quis haberet
leprosam ; his casibus alteram ducere
cum consilio sui Pastoris, non inten-
tione novam legem inducendi, sed
suse necessitati consulendi, hunc nes-
cimus, qua ratione damnare licerit.

X. Cum igitur aliud sit inducere
legem, aliud uti dispensatione, obse-
cramus vestram Celsitudinem sequen-
tia velit considerare.

Primo ante omnia cavendum, ne
hsec res inducatur in orbem ad modum
legis, quam sequendi libera omnium
sit potestas. Deinde considerare
dignetur vestra Celsitudo scandalum
minium, quod Evangelii hostes ex-
clamaturi sint. nos similes esse Ana-

ture witnesses that this custom was
introduced contrary to the first Insti
tution.

VIII. It nevertheless passed into
custom among infidel nations ; and
we even find afterwards, that. Abra
ham and his posterity had many11
wives. It is also certain from Deu
teronomy, that the law of Moses
permitted it afterwards, and that God
made an allowance for frail nature.
Since it is then suitable to the crea
tion of men, and to the first estab
lishment of their society, that each
one be content with one wife, it
thence follows that the law enjoining
it is praiseworthy ; that it ought to
be received in the church ; and no
law contrary thereto be introduced
into it, because Jesus Christ has re
peated in the nineteenth chapter of
St. Matthew that text of Genesis,
" There shall be two in one flesh :"
and brings to man's remembrance
what marriage ought to have been
before it degenerated from its purity.

IX. In certain cases, however,
there is room for dispensation. For
example, if a married man, detained
captive in a distant country, should
there take a second wife, in order to
preserve or recover his health, or that
his own became leprous, we see not
how we could condemn, in these
cases, such a man as, by the advice
of his pastor, should take another
wife, provided it were not with a de
sign of introducing a new law, but
with an eye only to his own particu
lar necessities.

X. Since then the introducing a
new law, and the using a dispensa
tion with respect to the same law,
are two very different things, we en
treat your Highness to take what
follows into consideration.

In the first place, above all things,
care must be taken, that plurality of
wives be not introduced into the
world by way of law, for every man
to follow as he thinks fit. In the
second place, may it please your
Highness to reflect on the dismal

BIGAMY OF LANDGRAVE OF HESSE.

487

baptistis, qui simul plures duxerunt
uxores. Item Evangelicos earn sec-
tari libertatem plures simul ducendi,
quse in Turcia in usu est.

XI. Item, principum facta latius
spargi quam privatorum consideret.

XII. Item, consideret privatas per-
sonas, hujusmodi principum facta
audientes, facile eadem sibi permissa
persuadere, prout apparet talia facile
irrepere.

XIII. Item, considerandum Celsi-
tudinem vestram abundare nobilitate
eiferi spiritus, in qua multi, uti in
aliis quoque terris sint, qui propter
amplos proventus, quibus ratione
cathedralium beneficiorum perfruun-
tur, valde evangelic adversantur.
JSTon ignoramus ipsi magnorum nobi-
lium valde insulsa dicta ; et qualem
se nobilitas et subdita ditio erga Cel-
situdinem vestram sit prsebitura, si
publica introductio fiat, baud difficile
est arbitrari.

XIV. Item Celsitudo vestra, quas
Dei singularis est gratia, apud reges
et potentes etiam exteros magno est
in honore et respectu; apud quos
merito est, quod timeat ne hsec res
pariat nominis diminutionem. Cum
igitur hie multa scandala confluant,
rogamus Celsitudinem vestram, ut
hanc rem mature judicio expendere
velit.

XV. Illud quoque est verum quod
Celsitudinem vestram omni modo
rogamus et hortamur, ut fornication-
em et adulterium fugiat. Habuimus
quoque, ut, quod res est, loquamur,
longo tempore non parvum maerorem,
quod intellexerimus vestram Celsitu
dinem ejusmodi impuritate oneratam,
quam divina ultio, morbi, aliaque pe-
ricula sequi possent.

XVI. Etiam rogamus Celsitudin
em vestram ne talia extra matrimo-

scandal which would not fail to hap
pen, if occasion be given to the ene
mies of the gospel to exclaim, that
we are like the Anabaptists, who
have several wives at once, and the
Turks, who take as many wives as
they are able to maintain.

XL In the third place, that the
actions of princes are more widely
spread than those of private men.

XII. Fourthly, that inferiors are
no sooner informed what their supe
riors do, but they imagine they may
do the same, and by that means
licentiousness becomes universal.

XIII. Fifthly, that your High-
ness's estates are filled with an un-
tractable nobility, for the most part
very averse to the gospel, on account
of the hopes they are in, as in other
countries, of obtaining the benefices
of cathedral churches, the revenues
whereof are very great. We know
the impertinent discourses vented by
the most illustrious of your nobility,
and it is easily seen how they and
the rest of your subjects would be
disposed, in case your Highness
should authorize such a novelty.

XIV. Sixthly, that your Highness,
by the singular grace of God, hath a
great reputation in the empire and
foreign countries; and it is to be
feared lest the execution of this pro
ject of a double marriage should
greatly diminish this esteem and re
spect. The concurrence of so many
scandals obliges us to beseech your
Highness to examine the thing with
all the maturity of judgment God
has endowed you with.

XV. With no less earnestness do
we entreat your Highness, by all
means, to avoid fornication and adul
tery ; and, to own the truth sincerely,
we have a long time been sensibly
grieved to see your Highness aban
doned to such impurities, which
might be followed by the effects of
the divine vengeance, distempers, and
many other dangerous consequences.

XVI. We also beg of your High
ness not to entertain a notion, that

488

NOTE C.

nium, levia peccata velit aestimare,
sicut mundus haec ventis tradere et
parvi pendere soiet : Verum Deus
impudicitiam saepe severissime puni-
vit : nam pcena diluvii tribuitur re-
gentum adulteriis. Item adulterium
Davidis est severurn vindictive divinae
exemplum, et Paulus saepius ait;
Deus non irridetur. Adulteri non
introibunt in regnum Dei : nam fidei
obedientia comes esse debet, lit non
contra conscientiam agamus, 1 Ti-
moth. iii. Si cor nostrum non repre-
henderit nos, possumus laeti Deum
invocare ; et Kom. viii. Si carnalia
desideria spiritu mortificaverimus,
vivemus ; si autem secundum car-
nem ambulemus : hoc est, si contra
conscientiam, agamus, moriemur.

XVII. Hasc referrimus, ut consid-
eret Deum ob talia vitia non ridere,
prout aliqui audaces faciunt, et ethni-
cas cogitationes ammo fovent. Liben-
ter quoque intelleximus vestram Cel-
situdinem ob ejusmodi vitia angi et
conqueri. Incumbunt Celsitudini
vestraa negotia totum mundum con-
cernentia. Accedit Celsitudinis ves-
trae complexio subtilis, et minime
robusta, ac pauci somni, unde merito
corpori parcendum esset, quemadmo-
dum multi alii facere coguntur.

XVIII. Legitur de laudatissimo
Principe Scanderbego, qui multa prae-
clara facinora patravit contra duos
Turcaruin Imperatores, Amurathem
et Mahumetem, et Graeciam dum

the use of women out of marriage is
but a light and trifling fault, as the
world is used to imagine ; since God
hath often chastised impurity with
the most severe punishment : and
that of the deluge is attributed to the
adulteries of the great ones ; and the'
adultery of David has afforded a ter
rible instance of the divine venge
ance ; and St. Paul repeats frequently,
that God is not mocked with impu
nity, and that adulterers shall not
enter into the kingdom of God. For
it is said, in the second chapter of
the first Epistle to Timothy, that
obedience must be the companion of
faith, in order to avoid acting against
conscience ; and in the third chapter
of the first of St. John, if our heart
condemn us not, we may call upon
the name of Gcd with joy : and in
the eighth chapter of the Epistle to
the Eomans, if by the spirit we mor
tify the desires of the flesh, we shall
live : but, on the contrary, we shall
die, if we walk according to the flesh,
that is, if we act against our own
consciences.

XVII. We have related these pas
sages, to the end that your Highness
may consider seriously that God looks
not on the vice of impurity as a
laughing matter, as is supposed by
those audacious libertines, who enter
tain heathenish notions on this sub
ject. We are pleased to find that
your Highness is troubled with re
morse of conscience for these disor
ders. The management of the most
important affairs in the world is now
incumbent on your Highness, who is
of a very delicate and tender com
plexion ; sleeps but little ; and these
reasons, which have obliged so many
prudent persons to manage their con
stitutions, are more than sufficient to
prevail with your Highness to imitate
them.

XVIII. We read of the incompar
able Scanderbeg, who so frequently
defeated the two most powerful em
perors of the Turks, Amurat II. and
Mahomet II., and whilst alive, pre-

BIGAMY OF LANDGRAVE OF HESSE.

489

viveret, feliciter tuitus est, ac conser-
vavit. Hie suos milltes saepius ad
castimoniam hortari auditus est, et
dice re, null am rem fortibus viris
seque animos demere ac Venerem.
Item quod si vestra Celsitudo insuper
alteram uxorem haberet, et nollet
pravis afiectibus t consuetudinibus
repugnare. adhuc non esset vestrae
Ceisitudini consultum ac prospectum.
Oportet unumquernque in externis
istis suoruin membrorum esse domi-
num, uti Paulus scribit: Curate ut
membra vestra sint arma justitia.
Quare vestra Celsitudo in considera-
tione aliarum causarum, nempe scan-
dali, curarum, laborum ac solicitudi-
num, et corporis iniirmitatis velit
hanc rem eequii lance perpendere, et
simul in memoriam revocare, quod
Deus ei ex moderns conjuge pul-
chram sobolem utriusque sexus dede-
rit, ita ut contentus hac esse possit.
Quot alii in suo matrimonio debent
patientiam exercere ad vitandum
scandalum? Nobis non sedet am
mo Celsitudinem vestram ad tarn
difficilem novitatem impellere, aut
inducere ; nam ditio vestrse Celsitu-
dinis, aliique nos impeterent, quod
nobis eo minus ferendurn esset, quod
ex prascepto divino nobis incumbat
matrimonium, omniaque humana ad
divinam institutionem dirigere, atque
in efi quoad possibile conservare, om-
neque scandalum removere.

XIX. Is jam est mos saeculi, ut
culpa omnis in Prasdicatores confera-
tur, si quid difficultatis incidat; et
humanum cor in summae et inferioris
conditionis hominibus instabile, undo
diversa pertimescenda.

XX. Si autem vestra Celsitudo ab
impudicfi vifci non abstineat, quod
dicit sibi irnpossibile, optaremus Cel
situdinem vestram in meliori statu

served Greece from their tyranny,
that he often exhorted his soldiers to
chastity, and said to them, that there
was nothing so hurtful to men of
their profession, as venereal pleasures.
And if your Highness, after marrying
a second wife, were not to forsake
those licentious disorders, the remedy
proposed would be to no purpose.
Every one ought to be master of his
own body in external actions, and
see, according to the expression of
St. Paul, that his members be the
arms of justice. May it please your
Highness, therefore, impartially to
examine the considerations of scan
dal, of labors, of care, of trouble, and
of distempers, which haye been rep
resented. And at the same time
remember that God has given you a
numerous issue of such beautiful
children of both sexes by the princess
your wife, that you have reason to be
satisfied therewith. How many oth
ers, in marriage, are obliged to the
exercise and practice of patience,
from the motive only of avoiding
scandal ? We are far from urging
on your Highness to introduce so
difficult a novelty into your family.
By so doing, we should draw upon
ourselves not only the reproaches and
persecution of those of Hesse, but of
all other people. The which would
be so much the less supportable to
us, as God commands us in the min
istry which we exercise, as much as
we are able, to regulate marriage, and
all the other duties of human life,
according to the divine Institution,
and maintain them in that state, and
remove all kind of scandal.

XIX. It is now customary among
worldlings, to lay the blame of every
thing upon the preachers of the gos
pel. The heart of man is equally
fickle in the more elevated and lower
stations of life ; and much have we
to fear on that score.

XX. As to what your Highness
says, that it is not possible for you to
abstain from this impure life, we wish
you were in a better state before God,

490

NOTE C.

esse coram Deo, et secura conscientici
vivere ad propriae animse salutem, et
ditionum ac subditorum emolumen-
tum.

XXL Quod si denique vestra Cel-
situdo omnino concluserit, adhuc
unam conjugem ducere, judicamusid
secreto faciendum, ut superius de
dispensatione dictum, nempe ut tan
tum vestrse Celsitudini, illi personse,
ac paucis personis fidelibus constet
Celsitudinis vestrse animus, et con-
scientia sub sigillo confessionis. Hinc
non sequunturalicujus momenti con-
tradictiones aut scandala. Nihil enim
est inusitati Principes concubinas
alere ; et quamvis non omnibus e
plebe constaret rei ratio, tamen pru-
dentiores intelligerent, et magis pla-
ceret haec moderata vivendi ratio,
quam adulterium et alii belluini et
impudici actus ; nee curandi aliorum
sermones, si recte cum conscientifi
agatur. Sic et in tantum hoc appro-
bamus : nam quod circa matrimoni-
um in lege Mosis fuit permissum,
Evangelium non revocat, aut vetat,
quod externum regimen non immu-
tat, sed adfert Eeternam justitiam et
seternam vitam, et orditur veram
obedientiam erga Deum, et conatur
corruptam naturam reparare.

XXII. Habet itaque Celsitudo
yestra non tantum omnium nostrum
testimonium in casu necessitates, sed
etiam antecedentes nostras considera-
tiones quas rogamus, ut vestra Cel
situdo tanquam laudatus, sapiens, et
Christianus Princeps velit ponderare.
Oramus quoque Deum, ut velit Cel-
situdinem vestram ducere ac regere
ad suam laudem et vestras Celsitu
dinis animae salutem.

XXIII. Quod attinet ad consilium
hanc rem apud Caesarem tractandi ;
existimamus ilium, adulterium inter
minora peccata numerare ; nam mag-

that you lived with a secure con
science, and labored for the salvation
of your own soul, and the welfare of
your subjects.

XXL But after all, if your High
ness is fully resolved to marry a sec
ond wife, we judge it ought to be'
done secretly, as we have said with
respect to the dispensation demanded
on the same account, that is, that
none but the person you shall wed,
and a few trusty persons, know of
the matter, and they, too, obliged to
secrecy under the seal of confession.
Hence no contradiction nor scandal
of moment is to be apprehended ;
for it is no extraordinary thing for
princes to keep concubines ; and
though the vulgar should be scandal
ized thereat, the more intelligent
would doubt of the truth, and pru
dent persons would approve of this,
moderate kind of life, preferably to
adultery, and other brutal actions.
There is no need of being much con
cerned for what men will say, pro
vided all goes right with conscience.
So far do we approve it, and in those
circumstances only by us specified ;
for the gospel hath neither recalled
nor forbid what was permitted in the
law of Moses with respect to mar
riage. Jesus Christ has not changed
the external economy, but added jus
tice only, and life everlasting, for re
ward. He teaches the true way of
obeying God, and endeavors to repair
the corruption of nature.

XXII. Your Highness hath there
fore, in this writing, not only the ap
probation of us all, in case of neces
sity, concerning what you desire, but
also the reflections we have made
thereupon ; we beseech you to weigh
them, as becoming a virtuous, wise,
and Christian prince. We also beg
of God to direct all for his glor}' and
your Highness's salvation.

XXIII. As to your Highness's
thought of communicating this affair
to the emperor before it be concluded,
it seems to us that this prince counts

BIGAMY OF LANDGRAVE OF HESSE.

491

nopere verendtim, ilium Papistica,
Cardinalitia, Italic-1!, Hispanica, Sara-
cenic£ imbutum fide, non curaturum
vestras Celsitudinis postulatum, et in
proprium emolumentum vanis verbis
sustentaturum, sicut intelligimus per-
fidum ac fallacem virum esse, moris-
que Germanici oblitum.

XXIY. Yidet Celsitudo vestra
ipsa, quod nullis necessitatibus Chris-
tianis sincere consulit. Turcam sinit
imperturbatum, excitat tantum rebel-
liones in Germanrfi, ut Burgundicam
potentiam efierat. Quare optandum
ut nulli Christiani Principes illius
infidis machinationibus se misceant
Deus conservet vestram Celsitudi-
nem. Nos ad serviendum vestrae
Celsitudini sumus promptissimi. Da
tum Yittenbergaa, die Mercurii post
festum Sancti Nicolai, 1539.

Vestrae Celsitudinis parati ac subjecti
servi,

MARTINUS LUTHEE.

PHILIPPUS MELANCTHOX.

MARTINUS BUCERUS.

ANTONIUS CORVINUS.

ADAM.

JOANNES LENINGUS.

JUSTUS WlNTFERTE.

DIONYSIUS MELANTHER.

adultery among the lesser sorts of
sins ; and it is very much to be feared
lest his faith being of the same stamp
with that of the Pope, the Cardinals,
the Italians, the Spaniards, and the
Saracens, he make light of your
Highness's proposal, and turn it to
his own advantage by amusing your
Highness with vain words. We
know he is deceitful and perfidious,
and has nothing of the German in
him.

XXIY. Your Highness sees, that
he uses no sincere endeavor to redress
the grievances of Christendom ; that
he leaves the Turk unmolested, and
labors for nothing but to divide the
empire, that he may raise up the
house of Austria on its ruins. It is
therefore very much to be wished
that no Christian prince would give
into his pernicious schemes. May
God preserve your Highness. We
are most ready to serve your High
ness. Given at Wittenberg the
Wednesday after the feast of Saint
Nicholas, 1539.

Your Highness's most humble and
most obedient subjects and ser
vants,

MARTIN LUTHER.

PHILIP MELANCTHOX.

MARTIN BUCER.

ANTONY CORVIN.

ADAM.

JOHN LENINGUE.

JUSTUS WlNTFERTE.

DENIS MELANTHER.

CERTIFICATE OF THE NOTAKY PUBLIC.

Ego Georgius Nuspicher, accept-i,
a Caesare potentate, Notaritis publi-
cus et Scriba, testor hoc meo chiro-
grapho publice quod hanc copiam ex
vero et inviolate originali proprifi
manu a Philippo Melancthone exar-
ato, ad instantiam et petitionem mei
clementissimi Domini et Principis
Hassiae ipso scripserim, et quinquc
foliis numero exceptfi inscriptione
complexus sim, etiam onmia proprie
et diligenter auscultarim et contu-

I George Nuspicher, Notary Im
perial, bear testimony by this present
act, written and signed with my own
hand, that I have transcribed this
present copy from the true original
which is in Melancthon's own hand
writing, and hath been faithfully pre
served to this present time, at the
request of the most serene Prince of
Hesse ; and have examined with the
greatest exactness every line and
every word, and collated them with

492

NOTE C.

lerim, et in omnibus cum originali et the same original ; and have found
subscriptione nominum concordet. them conformable thereunto, not only
De qua re tester propria manu. in the things themselves, but also in

the signs manual, and have delivered
the present copy in five leaves of
good paper, whereof I bear witness.

GEORGIUS NUSPICHER,
Notarius.

GEORGE NUSPICHER,
Notary.

III.— DOCUMENT IN LATIN AND ENGLISH.

Instramentum Copulationis Philippi
Landgravii, et Margaretae de Saal.

In nomine Domini Amen.

Notum sit omnibus et singulis, qui
hoc publicum instrumentum vident,
audiunt, legunt, quod Anno post
Christum natum 1540, die Mercurii
mensis Martii, post meridiem circa
secundam circiter, Indictionis Anno
13, potentissimi et invictissimi Ro-
manorum Imperatoris Carpli-quinti,
clementissimi nostri Domini Anno
regiminis 21, coram me infrascripto
Notario et teste, Rotemburgi in arce
comparuerint serenissimus Princeps
et Dominus Philippus Landgravius
Comes in Catznelenbogen, Dietz, Zie-
genhain. et Nidd'i, cum aliquibus suae
Celsitudinis consiliariis ex una. parte ;
et honesta, ac virtuosa Virgo Marga-
reta de Saal, cum aliquibus ex sua
consanguinitate ex altera parte ; ilia
intentione et voluntate coram me
publico Notario ac teste publice con-
fessi sunt, ut matrimonio copulentur ;
et postea ante memoratus meus cle-
mentissimus Dominus et Princeps
Landgravius Philippus per Reveren-
dum Dominum Dionysium Meland-
rum suae Celsitudinis Concionatorem,
curavit proponi ferine hunc sensum.
Cum omnia aperta sint oculis Dei, et
homines pauca lateant, et sua Celsi-
tudo velit cum nominatft virgine Mar-
garet-i matrimonio copulari, etsi prior
suas Celsitudinis conj ux adhuc sit in
vivis, ut hoc non tribuatur levitati et
curiositati, ut evitetur scandalum, et

The Marriage Contract of Philip,
Landgrave of Hesse, with Mar
garet de Saal.

In the name of God, Amen.

Be it known to all those, as well
in general as in particular, who shall
see, hear, or read this public instru
ment, that in the year 1540, on
Wednesday, the fourth day of the'
month of March, at two o'clock or,
thereabouts, in the afternoon, the
thirteenth year of the Indiction, and
the twenty-first of the reign of the
most puissant and most victorious
Emperor Charles V., our most gra
cious lord ; the most serene Prince
and Lord Philip Landgrave of Hesse,
Count of Catznelenbogen, of Dietz,
of Ziegenhain, and Nidda, with some
of his Highness's Counselors, on one
side, and the good and virtuous Lady
Margaret de Saal with some of her
relations, on the other side, have ap
peared before me, Notary, and wit
ness underwritten, in the city of Ro-
tenburg, in the castle of the same
city, with the design and will pub
licly declared before me, Notary
public and witness, to unite them
selves by marriage ; and accordingly
my most gracious Lord and Prince
Philip the Landgrave hath ordered
this to be proposed by the Reverend
Denis Melander, preacher to his
Highness, much to the sense as fol
lows : — " Whereas the eye of God
searches all things, and but little
escapes the knowledge of men, his
Highness declares that his will is to

BIGAMY OF LANDGRAVE OF HESSE.

493

nominatse yirginis et illius honestae
consanguinitatis honor et fama non
patiatur ; edicit sua Celsitudo hie co-
ram Deo, et in suam conscientiam et
animam hoc non fieri ex levitate, aut
curiositate, nee ex aliqua vilipensione
juris et supe riorum, sed urgeri ali-
quibus gravibus et inevitabilibus ne-
cessitatibus conscientiae et corporis,
adeo ut impossibile sit sine alia su-
perinducta legitima conjuge corpus
suura et animam salvare. Quam
multiplicem causam etiam sua Celsi
tudo multis praedoctis, piis, prudenti-
bus, et Christianis Praedicatoribus
antehac indicavit, qui etiam con-
sideratis inevitabilibus causis id
ipsum suaserunt ad suae Celsitu-
dinis animse et conscientiae con-
sulendum. Quae causa et neces-
sitas etiam Serenissimam Princi-
pem Christianam Ducissam Saxoniae,
suae Celsitudinis primam legitimam
conjugem, utpote alta principali pru-
dentia et pi£ mente praeditam novit,
ut suae Celsitudinis tanquam dilectis-
simi mariti animae et corpori serviret,
et honor Dei promoveretur ad gra-
tiose consentiendum. Quern admo-
dum suae Celsitudinis haec super
relata syngrapha testatur ; et ne cui
scandalum detur eo quod duas con-
juges habere moderno tempore sit
insolitum ; etsi in hoc casu Chris-
tianum et licitum sit, non vult sua
Celsitudo publice coram pluribus
consuetas ceremonias usurpare, et
pal am nuptias celebrare cum memo-
rata virgine Margareta de Saal ; sed
hie in private et silentio in praesentia
subscriptorum testium volunt invi-
cem jungi matrimonio. Finito hoc
sermone nominati Philippus et Mar
gareta sunt matrimonio juncti, et
unaquaeque persona alteram sibi des-
ponsam agnovit et acceptavit, adjunc-
ta mutua fidelitatis promissione in
nomine Domini. Et antememoratus
princeps ac Dominus ante hunc ac-
tum me infrascriptuni Notarium re-
quisivit, ut desuper unum aut plura
instrumenta conficerern, et mini eticim
tanquam person oe publicae, verbo ac

wed the said Lady Margaret de Saal,
although the princess his wife be still
living, and that this action may not
be imputed to inconstancy or curi
osity ; to avoid scandal and maintain
the honor of the said Lady, and the
reputation of her kindred, his High
ness makes oath here before God, and
upon his soul and conscience, that he
takes her to wife through no levity,
nor curiosity, nor from any contempt
of law, or superiors ; but that he is
obliged to it by such important, such
inevitable necessities of body and
conscience, that it is impossible for
him to save either body or soul, with
out adding another wife to his first.
All which his Highness hath laid
before many learned, devout, prudent,
and Christian preachers, and consulted
them upon it. And these great men,
after examining the motives repre
sented to them, have advised his
Highness to put his soul and con
science at ease by this double mar
riage. And the same cause and the
same necessity have obliged the most
serene Princess, Christina Duchess
of Saxony, his Highness's first lawful
wife, out of her great prudence and
sincere devotion, for which she is so
much to be commended, freely to
consent and admit of a partner, to
the end that the soul and body of
her most dear spouse may run no
further risk, and the glory of God
may be increased, as the deed writ
ten with this Princess's own hand
sufficiently testifies. And lest occa
sion of scandal be taken from its not
being the custom to have two wives,
although this be Christian and law
ful in the present case, his Highness
will not solemnize these nuptials in
the ordinary way, that is, publicly
before many people, and with the
wonted ceremonies, with the said
Margaret de Saal ; but both the one
and the other will join themselves
in wedlock, privately and without
noise, in presence only of the wit
nesses underwritten." — After Me-
lander had finished his discourse, the

494

NOTE C.

fide Principis addixit ac promisit, se
omnia hsec inviolabilittr semper ac
firmiter servaturum, in prsesentia
reverendorum praedoctorum Domin-
orum M. Philippi Melancthonis, M.
Martini Buceri, Dionysii Melandri,
etiam in praesentia strenuorum ac
praestantium Eberhardi de Than
Electoralis Consiliarii, Hermanni de
Malsberg, Hermanni de Hundelshau-
sen, Domini Joannis Fegg Cancel-
lariae, Lodolphi Schenck, ac honestae
ac virtuosae Dominae Annae nataa de
Miltitz viduae defuncti Joannis de
Saal memoratae sponsas matris, tan-
quam ad hunc actuin requisitorum
testium.

Et ego Balthasar Band de Fulda,
potestate Caesaris Notarius publicus,
qui huic sermoni, instruction}, et
matrimoniali sponsion], et copulationi
cum supra memoratis testibus inter
im, et haec omnia et singula audivi, et
vidi, et tanquam Notarius publicus
requisitus fui, hoc instrumentum
publicum mea manu scripsi, et sub-
scripsi, et consueto sigillo munivi, in
fidem et testimonium.

BALTHASAR BAND.

said Philip and the said Margaret
accepted of each other for husband
and wife, and promised mutual fidel
ity in the name of God. The said
Prince hath required of me, Notary
underwritten, to draw him one or
more collated copies of this contract,
and hath also promised, on the woVd
and faith of a prince, to me a public
person, to observe it inviolably, always
and without alteration, in presence
of the reverend and most learned
masters Philip Melancthon, Martin
Bucer, Denis Melander ; and likewise
in the presence of the illustrious and
valiant Eberhard de Than, counselor
of his electoral Highness of Saxony,
Herman de Malsberg, Herman de
Hundelshausen, the Lord John Fegg
of the Chancery, Rudolph Schenck j
and also in the presence of the most
honorable and most virtuous Lady
Anne of the family of Miltitz, widow
of the late John de Saal, and mother
of the spouse, all in quality of requis
ite witnesses for the validity of the
present act.

And I Balthasar Band, of Puld,
Notary public imperial, who was
present at the discourse, instruction,
marriage, espousals, and union afore
said, with the said witnesses, and
have heard and seen all that passed,
have written and subscribed tho
present contract, being requested so
to do ; and set to it the usual seal,
for a testimony of the truth thereo£

BALTHASAR BAND.

END OF VOLUME I.

BR 305 .87 1860

v.l SMC

Spalding, M. J. (Martin

John), 1810-1872.
The history of the

Protestant reformation,
AKC-9558 (awab)