Note 413 — Chapter XV

Gibbon professes himself especially scandalized at the persecution of Servetus by men who themselves had stood in so deep need of toleration. The scandal is scarcely reasonable, for neither Calvin nor any other Reformer of the sixteenth century desired a “liberty of conscience” in its modern sense. The Council of Geneva, the General Assembly at Edinburgh, the Smalcaldic League, the English Parliament, and the Spanish Inquisition held the same opinions on the wickedness of heresy; they differed only in the definition of the crime. The English and Scotch Protestants have been taunted with persecution. When nations can grow to maturity in a single generation, when the child can rise from his first grammar lesson a matured philosopher, individual men may clear themselves by a single effort from mistakes which are embedded in the heart of their age. Let us listen to the Landgrave of Hesse. He will teach us that Henry VIII. was no exceptional persecutor.

The Landgrave has heard that the errors of the Anabaptists are increasing in England. He depicts in warning colours the insurrection at Münster: “If they grow to any multitude,” he says, “their acts will surely declare their seditious minds and opinions. Surely this is true, the devil, which is an homicide, carrieth men that are entangled in false opinions to unlawful slaughters and the breach of society.... There are no rulers in Germany,” he continues, “whether they be Popish or professors of the doctrines of the Gospel, that do suffer these men, if they come into their hands. All men punish them grievously. We use a just moderation, which God requireth of all good rulers. Whereas any of the sect is apprehended, we call together divers learned men and good preachers, and command them, the errors being confuted by the Word of God, to teach them rightlier, to heal them that be sick, to deliver them that were bound; and by this way many that are astray are come home again. These are not punished with any corporal pains, but are driven openly to forsake their errours. If any do stubbornly defend the ungodly and wicked errours of that sect, yielding nothing to such as can and do teach them truly, these are kept a good space in prison, and sometimes sore punished there; yet in such sort are they handled, that death is long deferred for hope of amendment; and, as long as any hope is, favour is shewed to life. If there be no hope left, then the obstinate are put to death.” Warning Henry of the snares of the devil, who labours continually to discredit the truth by grafting upon it heresy, he concludes:—

“Wherefore, if that sect hath done any hurt there in your Grace’s realm, we doubt not but your princely wisdom will so temper the matter, that both dangers be avoided, errours be kept down, and yet a difference had between those that are good men, and mislike the abuses of the Bishop of Rome’s baggages, and those that be Anabaptists. In many parts of Germany where the Gospel is not preached, cruelty is exercised upon both sorts without discretion. The magistrates which obey the Bishop of Rome (whereas severity is to be used against the Anabaptists) slay good men utterly alien from their opinions. But your Majesty will put a difference great enough between these two sorts, and serve Christ’s glory on the one side, and save the innocent blood on the other.”—Landgrave of Hesse to Henry VIII., September 25, 1538: State Papers, Vol. VIII.