Chapter XI

HISTORY OF THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE IN EUROPE, FROM 1550 TO 1600.

Progress of Protestantism—Reaction of the Catholic Church—The Jesuits—Causes of the Recovery of Catholicism—Bigotry of Lutherans—Controversy on Free will—Trinitarian Controversy—Writings on Toleration—Theology in England—Bellarmin—Controversy on Papal Authority—Theological Writers—Ecclesiastical Histories—Translations of Scripture.

Diet of Augsburg in 1555. 1. In the arduous struggle between prescriptive allegiance to the Church of Rome and rebellion against its authority, the balance continued for some time after the commencement of this period to be strongly swayed in favour of the reformers. A decree of the diet of Augsburg in 1555, confirming an agreement made by the emperor three years before, called the Pacification of Passau, gave the followers of the Lutheran confession for the first time an established condition, and their rights became part of the public law in Germany. No one, by this decree, could be molested for following either the old or the new form of religion; but those who dissented from that established by their ruler were only to have the liberty of quitting his territories, with time for the disposal of their effects. No toleration was extended to the Helvetic or Calvinistic, generally called the Reformed party; and by the Ecclesiastical Reservation, a part of the decree to which the Lutheran princes seem not to have assented, every Catholic prelate of the empire quitting his religion was declared to forfeit his dignity.

Progress of Protestantism. 2. This treaty, though incapable of warding off the calamities of a future generation, might justly pass, not only for a basis of religious concord, but for a signal triumph of the Protestant cause; such as, a few years before, it would have required all their stedfast faith in the arm of Providence to anticipate. Immediately after its enactment, the principles of the confession of Augsburg, which had been restrained by fear of the imperial laws against heresy, spread rapidly to the shores of the Danube, the Drave, and the Vistula. Those half-barbarous nations, who might be expected, by a more general analogy, to remain longest in their ancient prejudices, came more readily into the new religion than the civilised people of the south. In Germany itself the progress of the Reformation was still more rapid: most of the Franconian and Bavarian nobility, and the citizens of every considerable town, though subjects of Catholic princes, became Protestant; while in Austria it has been said that not more than one thirtieth part of the people continued firm in their original faith. This may probably be exaggerated; but a Venetian ambassador in 1558 (and the reports of the envoys of that republic are remarkable for their judiciousness and accuracy) estimated the Catholics of the German empire at only one-tenth of the population.[986] The universities produced no defenders of the ancient religion. For twenty years no student of the university of Vienna had become a priest. Even at Ingolstadt it was necessary to fill with laymen offices hitherto reserved for the clergy. The prospect was not much more encouraging in France. The Venetian ambassador in that country (Micheli, whom we know by his reports of England under Mary), declares that in 1561 the common people still frequented the churches, but all others, especially the nobility, had fallen off; and this defection was greatest among the younger part.

Its causes. 3. This second burst of a revolutionary spirit in religion was as rapid, and perhaps more appalling to its opponents, than that under Luther and Zuingle about 1520. It was certainly prepared by long working in the minds of a part of the people; but most of its operation was due to that generous sympathy which carries mankind along with any pretext of a common interest in the redress of wrong. A very few years were sufficient to make millions desert their altars, abjure their faith, loath, spurn, and insult their gods; words hardly too strong, when we remember how the saints and the Virgin had been honoured in their images, and how they and those were now despised. It is to be observed, that the Protestant doctrines had made no sensible progress in the south of Germany before the Pacification of Passau in 1552, nor much in France before the death of Henry II. in 1559. The spirit of reformation, suppressed under his severe administration, burst forth when his weak and youthful son ascended the throne, with an impetuosity that threatened for a time the subversion of that profligate despotism by which the house of Valois had replaced the feudal aristocracy. It is not for us here to discriminate the influences of ambition and oligarchical factiousness from those of high-minded and strenuous exertion in the cause of conscience.

Wavering of Catholic princes. 4. It is not surprising that some Catholic governments wavered for a time, and thought of yielding to a storm which might involve them in ruin. Even as early as 1556, the duke of Bavaria was compelled to make concessions which would have led to a full introduction of the Reformation. The emperor Ferdinand I. was tolerant in disposition, and anxious for some compromise that might extinguish the schism; his successor, Maximilian II., displayed the same temper so much more strongly, that he incurred the suspicion of a secret leaning towards the reformed tenets. Sigismund Augustus, king of Poland, was probably at one time wavering which course to adopt; and though he did not quit the church of Rome, his court and the Polish nobility became extensively Protestant; so that, according to some, there was a very considerable majority at his death who professed that creed. Among the Austrian and Hungarian nobility, as well as the burghers in the chief cities, it was held by so preponderating a body that they obtained a full toleration and equality of privileges. England, after two or three violent convulsions, became firmly Protestant; the religion of the court being soon followed with sincere good-will by the people. Scotland, more unanimously and impetuously, threw off the yoke of Rome. The Low Countries very early caught the flame, and sustained the full brunt of persecution at the hands of Charles and Philip.

Extinguished in Italy, 5. Meantime the infant Protestantism of Italy had given some signs of increasing strength, and began more and more to number men of reputation; but, unsupported by popular affection, or the policy of princes, it was soon wholly crushed by the arm of power. The reformed church of Locarno was compelled in 1554 to emigrate in the midst of winter, and took refuge at Zurich. That of Lucca was finally dispersed about the same time. A fresh storm of persecution arose at Modena in 1556; many lost their lives for religion in the Venetian States before 1560; others were put to death at Rome. The Protestant countries were filled with Italian exiles, many of them highly gifted men, who, by their own eminence, and by the distinction which has in some instances awaited their posterity, may be compared with those whom the revocation of the edict of Nantes long afterwards dispersed over Europe. |and Spain.| The tendency towards Protestantism in Spain was of the same kind, but less extensive, and certainly still less popular than in Italy. The Inquisition took it up, and applied its usual remedies with success. But this would lead us still further from literary history than we have already wandered.

Reaction of Catholicity; 6. This prodigious increase of the Protestant party in Europe after the middle of the century did not continue more than a few years. It was checked and fell back, not quite so rapidly or so completely as it came on, but so as to leave the antagonist church in perfect security. Though we must not tread closely on the ground of political history, nor discuss too minutely any revolutions of opinion which do not distinctly manifest themselves in literature, it seems not quite foreign from the general purpose of these volumes, or at least a pardonable digression, to dwell a little on the leading causes of this retrograde movement of Protestantism; a fact as deserving of explanation as the previous excitement of the Reformation itself, though, from its more negative nature, 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 Reformation.

especially in Germany. 7. The church of Rome, and the prince whom it most strongly influenced, Philip II., acted on an unremitting uncompromising policy of subduing, instead of making terms with its enemies. In Spain and Italy the Inquisition soon extirpated the remains of heresy. The fluctuating policy of the French court, destitute of any strong religious zeal, and therefore prone to expedients, though always desirous of one end, is well known. It was, in fact, impossible to conquer a party so prompt to resort to arms and so skilful in their use as the Huguenots. But in Bavaria Albert V., with whom, about 1564, the reaction began, in the Austrian dominions Rodolph II., in Poland Sigismund III., by shutting up churches, and by discountenancing in all respects their Protestant subjects, contrived to change a party once exceedingly powerful into an oppressed sect. The decrees of the council of Trent were received by the spiritual princes of the empire 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.[987] The profession of faith was signed by all orders of men; no one could be admitted to a degree in the universities, nor keep a school without it. Protestants were in some places excluded from the court; a penalty which tended much to bring about the reconversion of a poor and proud nobility.

Disciplines of the clergy. 8. 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 force of argument. A stricter discipline and subordination was introduced among the clergy; they were early trained in seminaries apart from the sentiments and habits, the vices and virtues of the world. The monastic orders resumed their rigid observances. The Capuchins, not introduced into France before 1570, spread over the realm within a few years, and were most active in getting up processions and all that we call foolery, but which is not the less stimulating to the multitude for its folly. It is observed by Davila, that these became more frequent after the accession of Henry III. in 1574.

Influence of Jesuits. 9. But, far above all the rest, the Jesuits were the instruments of regaining France and Germany to the church they served. And we are the 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 talents 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 availed themselves for this purpose of every resource which either human nature or prevalent opinion supplied. Did they find Latin versification highly prized? their pupils wrote sacred poems. Did they observe the natural taste of mankind for dramatic representations, and the repute which that species of literature had obtained? their walls resounded with sacred tragedies. Did they perceive an unjust prejudice against stipendiary instruction? they gave it gratuitously. Their endowments left them in the decent poverty which their vows required, without the offensive mendicancy of the friars.

Their progress. 10. In 1551 Ferdinand established a college of Jesuits at Vienna; in 1556 they obtained one, through the favour of the duke of Bavaria, at Ingolstadt, and in 1559 at Munich. They spread rapidly into other Catholic states of the empire, and some time later into Poland. In France their success was far more equivocal; the Sorbonne declared against them as early as 1554, and they had always to encounter the opposition of the parliament of Paris. But they established themselves at Lyons in 1569, and afterwards at Bordeaux, Toulouse, and other cities. Their three duties were preaching, confession, and education; the most powerful levers that religion could employ. Indefatigable and unscrupulous, as well as polite and learned, accustomed to consider veracity and candour, when they weakened an argument, in the light of treason against the cause (language which might seem harsh, were it not almost equally applicable to so many other partisans), they knew how to clear their reasonings from scholastic pedantry and tedious quotation for the simple and sincere understandings whom 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 advantage by inconsistency, extravagance, and passion.[988]

Their colleges. 11. 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 Aragon, five to Andalusia. Spain was for some time the fruitful 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 country. This, the acute historian proceeds to say, sprung certainly from the want of understanding among the Protestant theologians, and of sufficient enlargement of mind to tolerate unessential differences. The violent opposition among each other left the way open to these cunning strangers, who taught a doctrine not open to dispute.

Jesuit seminary at Rome. 12. But though Spain for a time supplied the most active spirits in the order, its central point was always at Rome. It was there that the general to whom they had sworn resided; and from thence issued to the remotest lands the voice, which, whatever secret councils might guide it, appeared that of a single, irresponsible, irresistible will. The Jesuits had three colleges at Rome; one for their own novices, another for German, and a third for English students. Possevin has given us an account of the course of study in Jesuit seminaries, taking that of Rome as a model. It contained nearly 2000 scholars, of various descriptions. No one, he says, is admitted without a foundation of grammatical knowledge. The abilities, the dispositions, the intentions for future life, are scrupulously investigated in each candidate; nor do we open our doors to any who do not come up in these respects to what so eminent a school of all virtue requires. They attend divine service daily; they confess every month. The professors are numerous; some teaching the exposition of Scripture, some scholastic theology, some the science of controversy with heretics, some casuistry; many instruct in logic and philosophy, in mathematics, or rhetoric, polite literature, and poetry; the Hebrew and Greek, as well as Latin, tongues are taught. Three years are given to the course of philosophy, four to that of theology. But if any are found not so fit for deep studies, yet likely to be useful in the Lord’s vineyard, they merely go through two years of practical, that is, casuistical theology. These seminaries are for youths advanced beyond the inferior classes or schools; but in the latter also religious and grammatical learning go hand in hand.[989]

Patronage of Gregory XIII. 13. The popes were not neglectful of such faithful servants. Under Gregory XIII., whose pontificate began in 1772, the Jesuit college at Rome had twenty lecture-rooms and 360 chambers for students; a German college was restored, after a temporary suspension; and an English one founded by his care; perhaps there was not a Jesuit seminary in the world which was not indebted to his liberality. Gregory also established a Greek college (not of Jesuits), for the education of youths, who there learned to propagate the Catholic faith in their country.[990] No earlier pope had been more alert and strenuous in vindicating his claims to universal allegiance; nor, as we may judge from the well-known pictures of Vasari in the vestibule of the Sistine chapel, representing the massacre of St. Bartholomew, more ready to sanction any crime that might be serviceable to the church.

Conversions in Germany and France. 14. The resistance made to this aggressive warfare was for some time considerable. Protestantism, so late as 1578, might be deemed preponderant in all the Austrian dominions except the Tyrol.[991] In the Polish diets the dissidents, as they were called, met their opponents with vigour and success. The ecclesiastical 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 rescued them from further innovation. In religious struggles, where there is anything like an equality of forces, the question soon comes to be which party will make the greater 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 a 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 62,000 converts are said to have been received in the year 1586.[992] The emperor Rodolph and his brother archdukes, by a long series of persecutions and banishment, finally, though not within this century, almost outrooted Protestantism from the hereditary provinces of Austria. It is true that these violent measures were the proximate cause of so many conversions; but if the reformed had been ardent and united, they were much too strong to have been thus subdued. In Bohemia, accordingly, and Hungary, where there was a more steady spirit, they kept their ground. The reaction was not less conspicuous in other countries. It is asserted that the Huguenots had already lost more than two-thirds of their number in 1580;[993] comparatively, I presume, with twenty years before; and the change in their relative position is manifest from all the histories of this period. In the Netherlands, though the seven United Provinces were slowly winning their civil and religious liberties at the sword’s point, yet West Flanders, once in great measure Protestant, became Catholic before the end of the century; while the Walloon Provinces were kept from swerving by some bishops of great eloquence and excellent lives, as well as by the influence of the Jesuits planted at St. Omar and Douay. At the close of this period of fifty years the mischief done to the old church in its first decennium 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 conversions, which, on account of the rigour 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, made this wavering monarch retrace his steps. His successor, Sigismund, went farther, and fell a victim to his zeal, by being expelled from the kingdom.

Causes of this reaction. 15. This great reaction of the papal religion after the shock it had sustained in the first part of the sixteenth century, ought for ever 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 about her beauty, so those who affect to pronounce on future events are equally confident against the possibility of a resurrection of opinions which the majority have for the time ceased to maintain. In the year 1560, every Protestant 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 important 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 Rome, the obedience of its hierarchy, the severity of intolerant laws, and the searching rigour of the Inquisition, the resolute adherence of 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 was a principle of vitality in that religion, 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, though 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 displayed in counteraction of those new doctrines, that themselves had drawn their life from a similar development of moral emotion.

A rigid party in the church. 16. Even in the court of Leo X., soon after the bursting forth of the Reformation in Saxony, a small body was formed by men of rigid piety, and strenuous for a different species of reform. Sadolet, Caraffa (afterwards Paul IV.), Cajetan, and Contareni, both the latter eminent in the annals of the church, were at the head of this party.[994] Without dwelling on what belongs strictly to ecclesiastical history, it is sufficient to say that they acquired much weight; and while adhering generally to the doctrine of the church (though Contareni, held the Lutheran tenets on justification), aimed steadily at a restoration of moral discipline, and the abolition of every notorious abuse. Several of the regular orders were reformed, while others were instituted, more active in sacerdotal duties than the rest. The Jesuits must be considered as the most perfect type of the rigid party. Whatever may be objected, perhaps not quite so early, to their system of casuistry, whatever want of scrupulousness may have been shown in their conduct, they were men who never swerved from the path of labour, and, it might be, suffering in the cause which they deemed that of God. All self-sacrifice in such circumstances, especially of the highly gifted and accomplished, though the bigot steels his heart and closes his eyes against it, excites the admiration of the unsophisticated part of mankind.

Its efforts at Trent. 17. The council of Trent, especially in its later sessions, displayed the antagonist parties in the Roman church, one struggling for lucrative abuses, one anxious to overthrow them. They may be called the Italian and Spanish parties; the first headed by the Pope’s legates, dreading above all things both the reforming spirit of Constance and Basle, and the independence either of princes or of national churches; the other actuated by much of the spirit of those councils, and tending to confirm that independence. The French and German prelates usually sided with the Spanish; and they were together strong enough to establish as a rule, that in every session, a decree for reformation should accompany the declaration of doctrine. The Council, interrupted in 1547 by the measure that Paul III. found it necessary for his own defence against these reformers to adopt, the translation of its sittings to Bologna, with which the Imperial prelates refused to comply, was opened again by Julius III. in 1552; and having been once more suspended in the same year, resumed its labour for the last time under Pius IV. in 1562. It terminated in 1564, when the court of Rome, which, with the Italian prelates, had struggled hard to obstruct the redress of every grievance, compelled the more upright members of the council to let it close, after having effected such a reformation of discipline as they could obtain. That court was certainly successful in the contest, so far as it might be called one, of prerogative against liberty; and partially successful in the preservation of its lesser interests and means of influence. Yet it seems impossible to deny that the effects of the council of Trent were on the whole highly favourable to the church, for whose benefit it was summoned. The Reformation would never have roused the whole north of Europe, had the people seen nothing in it but the technical problems of theology. It was against ambition and cupidity, sluggish ignorance and haughty pomp, that they took up arms. Hence the abolition of many long established abuses by the honest zeal of the Spanish and Cisalpine fathers in that council took away much of the ground on which the prevalent disaffection rested.

No compromise in doctrine. 18. We should be inclined to infer from the language of some contemporaries, that the council might have proceeded farther with more advantage than danger to their church, by complying with the earnest and repeated solicitations of the Emperor, the Duke of Bavaria, and even the court of France, that the sacramental cup should be restored to the laity, and that the clergy should not be restrained from marriage. Upon this, however, it is not here for us to dilate. The policy of both concessions, but especially of the latter, was always questionable, and has not been demonstrated by the event. In its determinations of doctrine, the council was generally cautious to avoid extremes, and left, in many momentous questions of the controversy, such as the invocation of saints, no small latitude for private opinion. It has been thought by some that they lost sight of this prudence in defining transubstantiation so rigidly as they did in 1551, and thus opposed an obstacle to the conversion of those who would have acquiesced in a more equivocal form of words. But, in truth, no alternative was left upon this point. Transubstantiation had been asserted by a prior council, the Fourth Lateran in 1215, so positively, that to recede would have surrendered the main principle of the Catholic church. And it is also to be remembered, when we judge of what might have been done, as we fancy, with more prudence, that, if there was a good deal of policy in the decisions of the council of Trent, there was no want also of conscientious sincerity; and that whatever we may think of this doctrine, it was one which seemed of fundamental importance to the serious and obedient sons of the church.[995]

No general 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, would not bear comparison in these characteristics. 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 only one leading 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 Tridentine council which preceded its suspension in 1547.

Consultation of Cassander. 19. There is some difficulty in proving for the council of Trent that universality to which its adherents attach an infallible authority. And this was not held to be a matter of course by the great European powers. Even in France the Tridentine decrees, in matters of faith, have not been formally received, though the Gallican church has never called any of them in question; those relating to matters of discipline are distinctly held not obligatory. The Emperor Ferdinand seems to have hesitated about acknowledging the decisions of a council, which had at least failed in the object for which it was professedly summoned—the conciliation of all parties to the church. For we find that even after its close, he referred the chief points in controversy to George Cassander, a German theologian of very moderate sentiments and temper. Cassander wrote, at the emperor’s request, his famous Consultation, wherein he passes in review every article in the Confession of Augsburg, so as to give, if possible, an interpretation consonant to that of the Catholic church. Certain it is that, between Melanchthon’s desire of concord in drawing up the Confession, and that of Cassander in judging of it, no great number of points seem to be left for dispute. In another treatise of Cassander, De Officio Pii Viri in hoc Dissidio Religionis (1561), he holds the same course that Erasmus had done before, blaming those who, on account of the stains in the church, would wholly subvert it, as well as those who erect the pope into a sort of deity, by setting up his authority as an infallible rule of faith. The rule of controversy laid down by Cassander is, Scripture explained by the tradition of the ancient church, which is best to be learned from the writings of those who lived from the age of Constantine to that of Gregory I., because, during that period, the principal articles of faith were most discussed. Dupin observes that the zeal of Cassander for the reunion and peace of the church made him yield too much to the Protestants, and advance some propositions that were too bold. But they were by no means satisfied with his concessions. This treatise was virulently attacked by Calvin, to whom Cassander replied. No one should hesitate to prefer the spirit of Cassander to that of Calvin; but it must be owned that the practical consequence of his advice would have been to check the profession of the reformed religion, leaving amendment to those who had little disposition to amend anything. Nor is it by any means unlikely that this conciliatory scheme, by extenuating disagreements, had a considerable influence in that cessation of the advance of Protestantism, or rather that reaction to which we have lately adverted, and of which more proofs were long afterwards given.

Bigotry of Protestant churches. 20. We ought to reckon also among the principal causes of this change those perpetual disputes, those irreconcileable animosities, that bigotry, above all, and persecuting spirit, which were exhibited in the Lutheran and Calvinistic churches. Each began with a common principle—the necessity of an orthodox faith. But this orthodoxy meant evidently nothing more than their own belief, as opposed to that of their adversaries; a belief acknowledged 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.

Tenets of Melanchthon. 21. The principle of several controversies which agitated the two great divisions of the Protestant name was still that of the real presence. The Calvinists, as far as their meaning could be divined through a dense mist of nonsense which they purposely collected,[996] were little, if at all, less removed from the Romish and Lutheran parties than the disciples of Zuingle himself, who spoke out more perspicuously. Nor did the orthodox Lutherans fail to perceive this essential discrepancy. Melanchthon, incontestably the most eminent man of their church after the death of Luther, had obtained a great influence over the younger students of theology. But his opinions, half concealed as they were, and perhaps unsettled, had long been tending to a very different line from those of Luther. The deference exacted by the latter, and never withheld, kept them from any open dissension. But some, whose admiration for the founder of their church was not checked by any scruples at his doctrine, soon began to inveigh against the sacrifice of his favourite tenets which Melanchthon seemed ready to make through timidity, as they believed, or false judgment. To the Romanists he was willing to concede the primacy of the Pope and the jurisdiction of bishops; to the Helvetians he was suspected of leaning on the great controversy of the real presence; while, on the still more important questions of faith and works, he not only rejected the Antinomian exaggerations of the high Lutherans, but introduced a doctrine, said to be nearly similar to that called Semi-Pelagian; according to which the grace communicated to adult persons so as to draw them to God required a correspondent action of their own free-will in order to become effectual. Those who held this tenet were called Synergists.[997] It appears to be the same, or nearly so, as that adopted by the Arminians in the next century, but was not perhaps maintained by any of the schoolmen; nor does it seem consonant to the decisions of the council of Trent, nor probably to the intention of those who compiled the Articles of the English Church. It is easy, however, to be mistaken as to these theological subtleties, which those who write of them with most confidence do not really discriminate by any consistent or intelligible language.

A party hostile to him. 22. There seems good reason to suspect that the bitterness manifested by the rigid Lutherans against the new school was aggravated by some political events of this period; the university of Wittenberg, in which Melanchthon long resided, being subject to the elector Maurice, whose desertion of the Protestant confederacy and unjust acquisition of the electorate at the expense of the best friends of the Reformation, though partly expiated by his subsequent conduct, could never be forgiven by the adherents and subjects of the Ernestine line. Those first protectors of the reformed faith, now become the victims of his ambition, were reduced to the duchies of Weimar and Gotha, within the former of which the university of Jena, founded in 1559, was soon filled with the sternest zealots of Luther’s school. Flacius Illyricus, most advantageously known as the chief compiler of the Centuriæ Magdeburgenses, was at the head of this university, and distinguished by his animosity against Melanchthon, whose gentle spirit was released by death from the contentions he abhorred in 1560. Bossuet exaggerates the indecision of Melanchthon on many disputable questions, which, as far as it existed, is rather perhaps a matter of praise; but his want of firmness makes it not always easy to determine his real sentiments, especially in his letters, and somewhat impaired the dignity and sincerity of his mind.

Form of Concord, 1576. 23. After the death of Melanchthon, a controversy, began by one Bentius, relating to the ubiquity, as it was called, of Christ’s body, proceeded with much heat. It is sufficient to mention that it led to what is denominated the Formula Concordiæ, a declaration of faith on several matters of controversy, drawn up at Torgau in 1576, and subscribed by the Saxon and most other Lutheran churches of Germany, though not by those of Brunswick, or of the northern kingdoms. It was justly considered as a complete victory of the rigid over the moderate party. The strict enforcement of subscription to this creed gave rise to a good deal of persecution against those who were called Crypto-Calvinists, or suspected of a secret bias towards the proscribed doctrine. Peucer, son-in-law of Melanchthon and editor of his works, was kept for eleven years in prison. And a very narrow spirit of orthodoxy prevailed for a century and a half afterwards in Lutheran theology. But in consequence of this spirit, that theology has been almost entirely neglected and contemned in the rest of Europe, and scarce any of its books are remembered by name.[998]

Controversy raised by Baius. 24. Though it may be reckoned doubtful whether the council of Trent did not repel some wavering Protestants by its unqualified re-enactment of the doctrine of transubstantiation, it prevented, at least, those controversies on the real presence which agitated the Protestant communions. But in another more extensive and important province of theology, the decisions of the council, though cautiously drawn up, were far from precluding such differences of opinion as ultimately gave rise to a schism in the church of Rome, and have had no small share in the decline of its power. It is said that some of the Dominican order, who could not but find in their most revered authority, Thomas Aquinas, a strong assertion of Augustin’s scheme of divinity, were hardly content with some of the decrees at Trent, as leaving a door open to Semi-Pelagianism.[999] The controversy, however, was first raised by Baius, professor of divinity at Louvain, now chiefly remarkable as the precursor of Jansenius. Many propositions attributed to Baius were censured by the Sorbonne in 1560, and by a bull of Pius V. in 1567. He submitted to the latter; but his tenets, which are hardly distinguishable from those of Calvin, struck root, especially in the Low Countries, and seem to have passed from the disciples of Baius to the famous bishop of Ypres in the next century. The bull of Pius apparently goes much farther from the Calvinistic hypothesis than the council of Trent had done. The Jansenist party, in later times, maintained that it was not binding upon the church.[1000]

Treatise of Molina on Free will. 25. These disputes, after a few years, were revived and inflamed by the treatise of Molina, a Spanish Jesuit, in 1588, on free-will. In this he was charged with swerving as much from the right line on one side as Baius had been supposed to do on the other. His tenets, indeed, as usually represented, do not appear to differ from those maintained afterwards by the Arminians in Holland and England. But it has not been deemed orthodox in the Church of Rome to deviate ostensibly from the doctrine of Augustin in this controversy; and Thomas Aquinas, though not quite of equal authority in the church at large, was held almost infallible by the Dominicans, a powerful order, well stored with learning and logic, and already jealous of the rising influence of the Jesuits. Some of the latter did not adhere to the Semi-Pelagian theories of Molina; but the spirit of the order was roused, and they all exerted themselves successfully to screen his book from the condemnation which Clement VIII. was much inclined to pronounce upon it. They had before this time been accused of Pelagianism by the Thomists, and especially by the partisans of Baius, who procured from the universities of Louvain and Douay a censure of the tenets that some Jesuits had promulgated.[1001]

Protestant tenets. 26. The Protestant theologians did not fail to entangle themselves in this intricate wilderness. Melanchthon drew a large portion of the Lutherans into what was afterwards called Arminianism; but the reformed churches, including the Helvetian, which, after the middle of the century, gave up many at least of those points of difference which had distinguished them from that of Geneva, held the doctrine of Augustin on absolute predestination, on total depravity, and arbitrary irresistible grace.

Trinitarian controversy. 27. A third source of intestine disunion lay deep in recesses beyond the soundings of human reason. The doctrine of the Trinity, which theologians agree to call inscrutable, but which they do not fail to define and analyse with the most confident dogmatism, had already, as we have seen in a former passage, been investigated by some bold spirits with little regard to the established faith. They had soon however a terrible proof of the danger that still was to wait on such momentous aberrations from the proscribed line. Servetus having, in 1553, published at Vienne in Dauphiné, 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 bigotry of the magistrates, instigated by Calvin, who had acquired an immense ascendancy over that republic.[1002] He did not leave, as far as we know, any peculiar disciples. Many, however, among the German Anabaptists held tenets not unlike those of the ancient Arians. Several persons, chiefly foreigners, were burned for such heresies in England, under Edward VI., Elizabeth, and James. These Anabaptists were not very learned or conspicuous advocates of their opinions; but some of the Italian confessors of Protestantism were of more importance. Several of these were reputed to be Arians. None however became so celebrated as Lælius Socinus, a young man of considerable ability, who is reckoned the proper founder of that sect which takes its name from his family. Prudently shunning the fate of Servetus, he neither published anything, nor permitted his tenets to be openly known. He was however in Poland not long after the commencement of this period; and there seems reason to believe that he left writings, which, coming into the hands of some persons in that country who had already adopted the Arian hypothesis, induced them to diverge still farther from the orthodox line. The Anti-Trinitarians became numerous among the Polish Protestants; and in 1565, having separated from the rest, they began to appear as a distinct society. Faustus, nephew of Lælius Socinus, joined them about 1578; and acquiring a great ascendancy by his talents, gave a name to the sect, though their creed was already conformable to his own. An university, or rather academy, for it never obtained a legal foundation, established at Racow, a small town belonging to a Polish nobleman of their persuasion, about 1570, sent forth men of considerable eminence and great zeal in the propagation of their tenets. These, indeed, chiefly belong to the ensuing century; but, before the termination of the present, they had begun to circulate books in Holland.[1003]

This celebrated book is a collection of several treatises, with the general title, Christianismi Restitutio. But that of the first and most remarkable part has been differently given. According to a letter from the Abbé Rive, librarian to the Duke de la Valiere, to Dutens, which the latter has published in the second edition of his Origines des Decouvertes attribuées aux Modernes, vol. ii. p. 359, all former writers on the subject have been incorrect. The difference, however, is but in one word. In Sandius, Niceron, Allwoerden, and, I suppose, others, the title runs: De Trinitate Divina, quod in ea non sit indivisibilium trium rerum illusio, sed vera substantiæ Dei manifestatio in verbo, et communicatio in spiritu, libri vii. The Abbè Rive gives the word invisibilium, and this I find also in the additions of Simler to the Bibliotheca Universalis of Gesner, to which M. Rive did not advert. In Allwoerden, however, a distinct heading is given to the 6th and 7th dialogues, wherein the same title is repeated, with the word invisibilium instead of indivisibilium. It is remarked in a note, by Rive or Dutens, that it was a gross error to put indivisiblium, as it makes Servetus say the contrary of what his system requires. I am not entirely of this opinion; and if I understand the system of Servetus at all, the word indivisibilium is very intelligible. De Bure, who seems to write from personal inspection of the same copy, which he supposed to be unique, gives the title with indivisibilium. The Christianismi Restitutio was reprinted at Nuremburg, about 1790, in the same form as the original edition, but I am not aware which word is used in the title-page; nor would the evidence of a modern reprint, possibly not taken immediately from a printed copy, be conclusive.

The life of Servetus by Allwoerden, Helmstadt, 1727, is partly founded on materials collected by Mosheim, who put them into the author’s hands. Barbier is much mistaken in placing it among pseudonymous works, as if Allwoerden had been a fictitious denomination of Mosheim. Dictionnaire des Anonymes (1824) iii. 555. The book contains, even in the title-page, all possible vouchers for its authenticity. Mosheim himself says in a letter to Allwoerden, non dubitavi negotium hoc tibi committere, atque Historiam Serveti concinnandam et apte construendem tradere. But it appears that Allwoerden added much from other sources, so that it cannot reasonably be called the work of any one else. The Biographie Universelle ascribes to Mosheim a Latin history of Servetus, Helmstadt, 1737; but, as I believe, by confusion with the former. They also mention a German work by Mosheim on the same subject in 1748. See Biogr. Univ., arts. Mosheim and Servetus.

The analysis of the Christianismi Restitutio given by Allwoerden is very meagre, but he promises a fuller account which never appeared. It is a far more extensive scheme of theology than was promulgated in his first treatises; the most interesting of Servetus’s opinions being, of course, those which brought him to the stake. Servetus distinctly held the divinity of Christ. Dialogus secundus modum generationes Christi docet, quod ipse non sit creatus nec finitæ potentiæ, sed vere adorandus, verusque Deus. Allwoerden, p. 214. He probably ascribed this divinity to the presence of the Logos, as a manifestation of God by that name, but denied its distinct personality in the sense of an intelligent being different from the Father. Many others may have said something of the same kind, but in more cautious language, and respecting more the conventional phraseology of theologians. Ille crucem, hic diadema. Servetus in fact was burned, not so much for his heresies, as for some personal offence he had several years before given to Calvin. The latter wrote to Bolsec in 1546, Servetus cupit huc venire, sed a me accersitus. Ego autem nunquam committam, ut fidem meam eatenus obstrictam habeat. Jam enim constitutum habeo, si veniat, nunquam pati ut salvus exeat. Allwoerden, p. 43. A similar letter to Farel differs in some phrases, and especially by the word vivus for salvus. The latter was published by Witenbogart, in an ecclesiastical history written in Dutch. 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 executed.

The death of Servetus 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 Restitutio been published there, but at Vienne. According to our laws, and those, I believe, of most civilised nations, he was not amenable to the tribunals of the republic.

The tenets of Servetus are not easily ascertained in all respects, nor very interesting to the reader. Some of them were considered infidel and even pantheistical; but there can be little ground for such imputations, when we consider the tenor of his writings, and the fate which he might have escaped by a retractation. It should be said in justice to Calvin, that he declares himself to have endeavoured to obtain a commutation of the sentence for a milder kind of death. Genus mortis conati sumus mutare, sed frustra. Allwoerden, p. 106. But he has never recovered, in the eyes of posterity, the blow this gave to his moral reputation, which the Arminians, as well as Socinians, were always anxious to depreciate. De Serveto, says Grotius, ideo certi aliquid pronuntiare ausus non sum, quia causam ejus non bene didici; neque Calvino ejus hosti capitali credere audeo, cum sciam quam inique et virulente idem ille Calvinus tractaverit viros multo se meliores, Cassandrum, Balduinum, Castellionem. Grot. Op. Theolog. iv. 639. Of Servetus and his opinions he says in another place very fairly, Est in illo negotio difficillimo facilis error, p. 655.

28. As this is a literary, rather than an ecclesiastical history, we shall neither advert to the less learned sectaries, nor speak of controversies which had chiefly a local importance, such as those of the English Puritans with the established church. Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity will claim attention in a subsequent chapter.

Religious intolerance. 29. Thus, in the second period of the Reformation, those ominous symptoms which had appeared in its earlier stage, disunion, virulence, bigotry, intolerance, far from yielding to any benignant influence, grew more inveterate and incurable. Yet some there were, even in this century, who laid the foundations of a more charitable and rational indulgence to diversities of judgment, which the principle of the Reformation itself had in some measure sanctioned. It may be said that this tolerant spirit rose out of the ashes of Servetus. The right of civil magistrates to punish heresy with death had been already impugned by some Protestant theologians, as well as by Erasmus. Luther had declared against it; and though Zuingle, who had maintained the same principle as Luther, has been charged with having afterwards approved the drowning of some Anabaptists in the lake of Zurich, it does not appear that his language requires such an interpretation. The early Anabaptists, indeed, having been seditious and unmanageable to the greatest degree, it is not easy to show that they were put to death simply on account of their religion. But the execution of Servetus, with circumstances of so much cruelty, and with no possible pretext but the error of his opinions, brought home to the minds of serious men the importance of considering, whether a mere persuasion of the truth of our own doctrines can justify the infliction of capital punishment on those who dissent from them; and how far we can consistently reprobate the persecutions of the church of Rome, while acting so closely after her example. But it was dangerous to withstand openly the rancour of the ecclesiastics domineering in the Protestant churches, or the usual bigotry of the multitude. Melanchthon himself, tolerant by nature, and knowing enough of the spirit of persecution which disturbed his peace, was yet unfortunately led by timidity to express, in a letter to Beza, his approbation of the death of Servetus, though he admits that some saw it in a different light. Calvin, early in 1554, published a dissertation to vindicate the magistrates of Geneva in their dealings with this heretic. |Castalio.| But Sebastian Castalio, under the name of Martin Bellius, ventured to reply in a little tract, entitled De Hereticis quomodo cum iis agendum sit variorum sententiæ. This is a collation of different passages from the fathers and modern authors in favour of toleration, to which he prefixed a letter of his own to the Duke of Wirtemburg, more valuable than the rest of the work, and, though written in the cautious style required by the times, containing the pith of those arguments which have ultimately triumphed in almost every part of Europe. The impossibility of forcing belief, the obscurity and insignificance of many disputed questions, the sympathy which the fortitude of heretics produced, and other leading topics are well touched in this very short tract, for the preface does not exceed twenty-eight pages in 16mo.[1004]

Answered by Beza. 30. Beza answered Castalio, whom he perfectly knew under the mask of Bellius, in a much longer treatise, De Hæreticis a Civili Magistratu Puniendis. It is unnecessary to say, that his tone is that of a man who is sure of having the civil power on his side. As to capital punishments for heresy, he acknowledges that he has to contend, not only with such sceptics as Castalio, but with some pious and learned men.[1005] He justifies their infliction, however, by the magnitude of the crime, and by the Mosaic law, as well as by precedents in Jewish and Christian history. Calvin, he positively asserts, used his influence that the death of Servetus might not be by fire, for the truth of which he appeals to the Senate; but though most lenient in general, they had deemed no less expiation sufficient for such impiety.[1006]

Aconcio. 31. A treatise written in a similar spirit to that of Castalio, by Aconcio, one of the numerous exiles from Italy, De Stratagematibus Satanæ, Basle, 1565, deserves some notice in the history of opinions, because it is, perhaps, the first wherein the limitation of fundamental articles of Christianity to a small number is laid down at considerable length. He instances, among doctrines which he does not reckon fundamental, those of the real presence and of the Trinity; and, in general, such as are not either expressed in Scripture, or deducible from it by unequivocal reasoning.[1007] Aconcio inveighs against capital punishments for heresy; but his argument, like that of Castalio, is good against every minor penalty. If the clergy, he says, once get the upper hand, and carry this point, that, as soon as one opens his mouth, the executioner shall be called in to cut all knots with his knife, what will become of the study of Scripture? They will think it very little worth while to trouble their heads with it; and, if I may presume to say so, will set up every fancy of their own for truth. O unhappy times! O wretched posterity! if we abandon the arms, by which alone we can subdue our adversary. Aconcio was not improbably an Arian; this may be surmised, not only because he was an Italian Protestant, and because he seems to intimate it in some passages of his treatise, but on the authority of Strype, who mentions him as reputed to be such, while belonging to a small congregation of refugees in London.[1008] This book attracted a good deal of notice; it was translated both into French and English; and, in one language or another, went through several editions. In the next century it became of much authority with the Arminians of Holland.

Minus Celsus Koornhert. 32. Mino Celso, of Siena, and another of the same class of refugees, in a long and elaborate argument against persecution, De Hereticis Capitali Supplicio non Afficiendis, quotes several authorities from writers of the sixteenth century in his favour.[1009] We should add to these advocates of toleration the name of Theodore Koornhert, who courageously stood up in Holland against one of the most encroaching and bigoted hierarchies of that age. Koornhert, averse in other points to the authority of Calvin and Beza, seems to have been a precursor of Arminius; but he is chiefly known by a treatise against capital punishment for heresy, published in Latin after his death. It is extremely scarce, and I have met with no author, except Bayle and Brandt, who speaks of it from direct knowledge.[1010] Thus, at the end of the sixteenth century, the simple proposition, that men for holding or declaring heterodox opinions in religion ought not to be burned alive, or otherwise put to death, was itself little else than a sort of heterodoxy; and, though many privately must have been persuaded of its truth, the Protestant churches were as far from acknowledging it as that of Rome. No one had yet pretended to assert the general right of religious worship, which, in fact, was rarely or never conceded to the Romanists in a Protestant country, though the Huguenots shed oceans of blood to secure the same privilege for themselves.

Decline of Protestantism. 33. In the concluding part of the century, the Protestant cause, though not politically unprosperous, but rather manifesting some additional strength through the great energies put forth by England and Holland, was less and less victorious in the conflict of opinion. It might, perhaps, seem to a spectator, that it gained more in France by the dissolution of the League, and the establishment of a perfect toleration, sustained by extraordinary securities in the edict of Nantes, than it lost by the conformity of Henry IV. to the Catholic religion. But, if this is considered more deeply, the advantage will appear far greater on the other side; for this precedent, in the case of a man so conspicuous, would easily serve all who might fancy they had any public interest to excuse them, from which the transition would not be long to the care of their own. After this time, accordingly, we find more numerous conversions of the Huguenots, especially the nobler classes, than before. They were furnished with a pretext by an unlucky circumstance. In a public conference, held at Fontainebleau, in 1600, before Henry IV., from which great expectation had been raised, Du Plessis Mornay, a man of the noblest character, but, though very learned as a gentleman, more fitted to maintain his religion in the field than in the schools, was signally worsted, having been supplied with forged or impertinent quotations from the fathers, which his antagonist, Perron, easily exposed. Casaubon, who was present, speaks with shame, but without reserve, of his defeat; and it was an additional mortification, that the king pretended ever afterwards to have been more thoroughly persuaded by this conference, that he had embraced the truth, as well as gained a crown, by abandoning the Protestant side.[1011]

Desertion of Lipsius. 34. The men of letters had another example, about the same time, in one of the most distinguished of their fraternity, Justus Lipsius. He left Leyden on some pretence in 1591 for the Spanish Low Countries, and soon afterwards embraced the Romish faith. Lest his conversion should be suspected, Lipsius disgraced a name, great at least in literature, by writing in favour of the local superstitions of those bigoted provinces. It is true, however, that some, though the lesser, portion of his critical works were published after his change of religion.

Jewell’s Apology. 35. The controversial divinity poured forth during this period is now little remembered. In England it may be thought necessary to mention Jewell’s celebrated apology. This short book is written with spirit; the style is terse, the arguments pointed, the authorities much to the purpose; so that its effects are not surprising. This treatise is written in Latin; his Defence of the Apology, a much more diffuse work, in English. Upon the merits of the controversy of Jewell with the Jesuit Harding, which this defence embraces, I am not competent to give any opinion; in length and learning it far surpasses our earlier polemical literature.

English theologians. 36. Notwithstanding the high reputation which Jewell obtained by his surprising memory and indefatigable reading, it cannot be said that many English theologians of the reign of Elizabeth were eminent for that learning which was required for ecclesiastical controversy. Their writings are neither numerous nor profound. Some exceptions ought to be made. Hooker was sufficiently versed in the fathers, and he possessed also a far more extensive knowledge of the philosophical writers of antiquity than any others could pretend. The science of morals, according to Mosheim, or rather of casuistry, which Calvin had left in a rude and imperfect state, is confessed to have been first reduced into some kind of form, and explained with some accuracy and precision by Perkins, whose works, however, were not published before the next century.[1012] Hugh Broughton was deep in Jewish erudition. Whitaker and Nowell ought also to be mentioned. It would not be difficult to extract a few more names from biographical collections, but names so obscure that we could not easily bring their merit as scholars to any sufficient test. Sandys’s sermons may be called perhaps good, but certainly not very distinguished. The most eminently learned man of the queen’s reign seems to have been Dr. John Rainolds; and a foreign author of the last century, Colomies, places him among the first six in copiousness of erudition whom the Protestant churches had produced.[1013] Yet his works are, I presume, read by nobody, nor am I aware that they are ever quoted; and Rainolds himself is chiefly known by the anecdote, that having been educated in the church of Rome, as his brother was in the Protestant communion, they mutually converted each other in the course of disputation. Rainolds was on the Puritan side, and took a part in the Hampton Court conference.

Bellarmin. 37. As the century drew near its close, the church of Rome brought forward her most renowned and formidable champion, Bellarmin, a Jesuit, and afterwards a cardinal. No one had entered the field on that side with more acuteness, no one had displayed more skill in marshalling the various arguments of controversial theology, so as to support each other and serve the grand purpose of church authority. He does not often, says Dupin, employ reasoning, but relies on the textual authority of Scripture, of the councils, the fathers, and the consent of the theologians; seldom quitting his subject, or omitting any passage useful to his argument; giving the objections fairly, and answering them in few words. His style is not so elegant as that of writers who have made it their object, but clear, neat, and brief, without dryness or barbarism. He knew well the tenets of Protestants, and states them faithfully, avoiding the invective so common with controversial writers. It is nevertheless alleged by his opponents, and will not seem incredible to those who know what polemical theology has always been, that he attempts to deceive the reader, and argues only in the interests of his cause.

38. Bellarmin, if we may believe Du Perron, was not unlearned in Greek;[1014] but it is positively asserted on the other side that he could hardly read it, and he quotes the writers in that language only from translations. Nor has his critical judgment been much esteemed. But his abilities are best testified by Protestant theologians, not only in their terms of eulogy, but indirectly in the peculiar zeal with which they chose him as their worthiest adversary. More than half a dozen books in the next fifty years bear the title of Anti-Bellarminus: it seemed as if the victory must remain with those who should bear away the spolia opima of this hostile general. The Catholic writers, on the other hand, borrow everything, it has been said, from Bellarmin, as the poets do from Homer.[1015]

Topics of controversy changed. 39. In the hands of Bellarmin, and other strenuous advocates of the church, no point of controversy was neglected. But in a general view we may justly say that the heat of battle was not in the same part of the field as before. Luther and his immediate disciples held nothing so vital as the tenet of justification by faith alone; while the arguments of Eckius and Cajetan were chiefly designed to maintain the modification of doctrine on that subject, which had been handed down to them by the fathers and schoolmen. The differences of the two parties, as to the mode of corporeal presence in the eucharist, though quite sufficient to keep them asunder, could hardly bear much controversy, inasmuch as the primitive writers, to whom it was usual to appeal, have not, as is universally agreed, drawn these metaphysical distinctions with much preciseness. But when the Helvetic churches, and those bearing the general name of Reformed, became, after the middle of the century, as prominent, to say the least, in theological literature as the Lutheran, this controversy acquired much greater importance; the persecutions in England and the Netherlands were principally directed against this single heresy of denying the real presence, and the disputes of the press turned so generally upon no other topic.

It turns on Papal power. 40. In the last part of the century, through the influence of some political circumstances, we find a new theme of polemical discussion, more peculiarly characteristic of the age. Before the appearance of the early reformers, a republican or aristocratic spirit in ecclesiastical polity strengthened by the decrees of the councils of Constance and Basle, by the co-operation, in some instances, of the national church with the state in redressing, or demanding the redress of abuses, and certainly also both by the vices of the court of Rome, and its diversion to local politics, had fully counter-balanced, or even in a great measure silenced, the bold pretensions of the school of Hildebrand. In such a lax notion of papal authority, prevalent in Cisalpine Europe, the Protestant Reformation had found one source of its success. But for this cause the theory itself lost ground in the Catholic church. At the council of Trent the aristocratic or episcopal party, though it seemed to display itself in great strength, comprising the representatives of the Spanish and Gallican churches, was for the most part foiled in questions that touched the limitations of papal supremacy. From this time the latter power became lord of the ascendant. No Catholic, says Schmidt, dared after the Reformation to say one hundredth part of what Gerson, Peter d’Ailly, and many others had openly preached. The same instinct of which we may observe the workings in the present day, then also taught the subjects of the church that it was no time to betray jealousy of their own government when the public enemy was at their gates.

This upheld by the Jesuits. 41. In this resuscitation of the court of Rome, that is, of the papal authority, in contradistinction to the general doctrine and discipline of the Catholic church, much, or rather most, was due to the Jesuits. Obedience, not to that abstraction of theologians, the Catholic church, a shadow eluding the touch and vanishing into emptiness before the enquiring eye, but to its living acting centre, the one man, was their vow, their duty, their function. They maintained, therefore, if not quite for the first time, yet with little countenance from the great authorities of the schools, his personal infallibility in matters of faith. They asserted his superiority to general councils, his prerogative of dispensing with all the canons of the church, on grounds of spiritual expediency, whereof he alone could judge. As they grew bolder, some went on to pronounce even the divine laws subject to this control; but it cannot be said that a principle which seemed so paradoxical, though perhaps only a consequence from their assumptions, was generally received.

Claim to depose princes. 42. But the most striking consequence of this novel position of the papacy was the renewal of its claims to temporal power, or, in stricter language, to pronounce the forfeiture of it by lawful sovereigns for offences against religion. This pretension of the Holy See, though certainly not abandoned, had in a considerable degree lain dormant in that period of comparative weakness which followed the great schism. Paul III. deprived Henry VIII. of his dominions, as far as a bull could have that effect; but the deposing power was not generally asserted with much spirit against the first princes who embraced the Reformation. In this second part of the century, however, the see of Rome was filled by men of stern zeal and intrepid ambition, aided by the Jesuits and other regulars with an energy unknown before, and favoured also by the political interests of the greatest monarch in Christendom. Two circumstances of the utmost importance gave them occasion to scour the rust away from their ancient weapons—the final prostration of the Romish faith in England by Elizabeth, and the devolution of the French crown on a Protestant heir. |Bull against Elizabeth.| Incensed by the former event, Pius V., the representative of the most rigid party in the church, issued in 1570 his famous bull, releasing English Catholics from their allegiance to the queen, and depriving her of all right and title to the throne. Elizabeth and her parliament retaliated, by augmented severities of law against these unfortunate subjects, who had little reason to thank the Jesuits for announcing maxims of rebellion it was not easy to carry into effect. Allen and Persons, secure at St. Omer and Douay, proclaimed the sacred duty of resisting a prince who should break his faith with God and the people, especially when the supreme governor of the church, whose function it is to watch over its welfare, and separate the leprous from the clean, has adjudged the cause.

And Henry IV. 43. In the war of the League men became more familiar with this tenet. Those who fought under that banner did not all acknowledge, or at least would not in other circumstances have admitted, the pope’s deposing power; but no faction will reject a false principle that adds strength to its side. Philip II., though ready enough to treat the See of Rome as sharply and rudely as the Italians do their saints when refractory, found it his interest to encourage a doctrine so dangerous to monarchy when it was directed against Elizabeth and Henry. |Deposing power owned in Spain.| For this reason we may read with less surprise in Balthazar Ayala, a layman, a lawyer, and judge-advocate in the armies of Spain, the most unambiguous and unlimited assertion of the deposing theory:—Kings abusing their power may be variously compelled, he says, by the sovereign pontiff to act justly; for he is the earthly vicegerent of God, from whom he has received both swords, temporal as well as spiritual, for the peace and preservation of the Christian commonwealth. Nor can he only control, if it is for the good of this commonwealth, but even depose kings, as God, whose delegate he is, deprived Saul of his kingdom, and as pope Zachary released the Franks from their allegiance to Childeric.[1016]

Asserted by Bellarmin. 44. Bellarmin, the brilliant advocate of whom we have already spoken, amidst the other disputes of the protestant quarrel, did not hesitate to sustain the papal authority in its amplest extension. His treatise De Summo Pontifice, Capite Totius Militantis Ecclesiæ, forms a portion, and by no means the least important, of those entitled The Controversies of Bellarmin, and first appeared separately in 1586. The pope, he asserts, has no direct temporal authority in the dominions of Christian princes; he cannot interfere with their merely civil affairs, unless they are his feudal vassals, but indirectly, that is, for the sake of some spiritual advantage, all things are submitted to his disposal. He cannot depose these princes, even for a just cause, as their immediate superior, unless they are feudally his vassals; but he can take away and give to others their kingdoms, if the salvation of souls require it.[1017] We shall observe hereafter how artfully this papal scheme was combined with the more captivating tenets of popular sovereignty; each designed for the special case, that of Henry IV., whose legitimate rights, established by the constitution of France, it was expected by this joint effort to overthrow.

Methods of theological doctrine. 45. Two methods of delivering theological doctrine had prevailed in the Catholic church for many ages. The one, called positive, was dogmatic rather than argumentative, deducing its tenets from immediate authorities of scripture or of the fathers, which it interpreted and explained for its own purpose. It was a received principle, conveniently for this system of interpretation, that most parts of scripture had a plurality of meaning; and that the allegorical, or analogical senses were as much to be sought as the primary and literal. The scholastic theology, on the other hand, which acquired its name, because it was frequently heard in the schools of divinity and employed the weapons of dialectics, was a scheme of inferences drawn, with all the subtlety of reasoning, from the same fundamental principles of authority, the scriptures, the fathers, the councils of the church. It must be evident upon reflection, that where many thousand propositions, or sentences easily convertible into them, had acquired the rank of indisputable truths, it was not difficult, with a little ingenuity in the invention of middle terms, to raise a specious structure of connected syllogisms; and hence the theology of the schools was a series of inferences from the acknowledged standards of orthodoxy, as their physics were from Aristotle, and their metaphysics from a mixture of the two.

Loci Communes. 46. The scholastic method, affecting a complete and scientific form, led to the compilation of theological systems, generally called Loci Communes. These were very common in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, both in the church of Rome, and, after some time, in the two protestant communions. But Luther, though at first he bestowed immense praise upon the Loci Communes of Melanchthon, grew unfavourable to all systematic theology. His own writings belong to that class we call positive. They deal with the interpretation of scripture, and the expansion of its literal meaning. Luther rejected, except in a very sparing application, the search after allegorical senses. Melanchthon also, and in general the divines of the Augsburg confession, adhered chiefly to the principle of single interpretation.[1018]

In the Protestant, The Institutes of Calvin, which belong to the preceding part of the century, though not entitled Loci Communes, may be reckoned a full system of deductive theology. Wolfgang Musculus published a treatise with the usual title. It should be observed that, in the Lutheran church, the ancient method of scholastic theology revived after the middle of this century, especially in the divines of Melanchthon’s party, one of whose characteristics was a greater deference to ecclesiastical usage and opinion, than the more rigid Lutherans would endure to pay. The Loci Theologici of Chemnitz and those of Strigelius were, in their age, of great reputation; the former, by one of the compilers of the Formula Concordiæ, might be read without risk of finding those heterodoxies of Melanchthon, which the latter was supposed to exhibit.[1019]

and Catholic Church. 47. In the church of Rome the scholastic theology retained an undisputed respect; it was for the heretical protestants to dread a method of keen logic, by which their sophistry was cut through. The most remarkable book of this kind, which falls within the sixteenth century, is the Loci Theologici of Melchior Canus, published at Salamanca in 1563, three years after the death of the author, a Dominican, and professor in that university. It is of course the theology of the reign and country of Philip II.; but Canus was a man acquainted with history, philosophy, and ancient literature. Eichhorn, after giving several pages to an abstract of this volume, pronounces it worthy to be still read. It may be seen by his analysis how Canus, after the manner of the schoolmen, incorporated philosophical with theological science. Dupin, whose abstract is rather different in substance, calls this an excellent work, and written with all the elegance we could desire.[1020]

Catharin. 48. Catharin, one of the theologians most prominent in the council of Trent, though he seems not to have incurred the charge of heresy, went farther from the doctrine of Augustin and Aquinas than was deemed strictly orthodox in the Catholic church. He framed a theory to reconcile predestination with the universality of grace, which has since been known in this country by the name of Baxterianism, and is, I believe, adopted by many divines at this day. Dupin, however, calls it a new invention, unknown to the ancient fathers, and never received in the schools. It has been followed, he adds, by nobody.

Critical and expository writings. 49. In the critical and expository department of theological literature, much was written during this period, forming no small proportion of the great collection called Critici Sacri. In the Romish church, we may distinguish the Jesuit Maldonat, whose commentaries on the evangelists have been highly praised by theologians of the Protestant side; and among these, we may name Calvin and Beza, who occupy the highest place,[1021] while below them are ranked Bullinger, Zanchius, Musculus, Chemnitz, and several more. But I believe that, even in the reviving appetite for obsolete theology, few of these writers have yet attracted much attention. A polemical spirit, it is observed by Eichhorn, penetrated all theological science, not only in dogmatical writings, but in those of mere interpretation; in catechisms, in sermons, in ecclesiastical history, we find the author armed for combat, and always standing in imagination before an enemy.

Ecclesiastical historians. 50. A regular and copious history of the church, from the primitive ages to the Reformation itself, was first given by the Lutherans under the title, Centuriæ Magdeburgenses, from the name of the city where it was compiled. The principal among several authors concerned, usually called Centuriators, was Flacius Illyricus, a most inveterate enemy of Melanchthon. This work has been more than once reprinted, and is still, in point of truth and original research, the most considerable ecclesiastical history on the Protestant side. Mosheim, or his translator, calls this an immortal work;[1022] and Eichhorn speaks of it in strong terms of admiration for the boldness of the enterprise, the laboriousness of the execution, the spirit with which it cleared away a mass of fable, and placed ecclesiastical history on an authentic basis. The faults, both those springing from the imperfect knowledge, and from the prejudices of the compilers, are equally conspicuous.[1023] Nearly forty years afterwards, between the years 1588 and 1609, the celebrated Annals of Cardinal Baronius, in twelve volumes, appeared. These were brought down by him only to the end of the twelfth century; their continuation by Rainaldus, published from 1646 to 1663, goes down to 1566. It was the object of protestant learning in the seventeenth century, to repel the authority and impugn the allegations of Baronius. Those of his own communion, in a more advanced stage of criticism, have confessed his mistakes; many of them arising from a want of acquaintance with the Greek language, indispensable, as we should now justly think, for one who undertook a general history of the church, but not sufficiently universal in Italy, at the end of the sixteenth century, to deprive those who did not possess it of a high character for erudition. Eichhorn speaks far less favourably of Baronius than of the Centuriators.[1024] But of these two voluminous histories, written with equal prejudice on opposite sides, an impartial and judicious scholar has thus given his opinion.

Le Clerc’s character of them. 51. An ecclesiastical historian, Le Clerc satirically observes, ought to adhere inviolably to this maxim, that whatever can be favourable to heretics is false, and whatever can be said against them is true; while, on the other hand, all that does honour to the orthodox is unquestionable, and everything that can do them discredit is surely a lie. He must suppress too with care, or at least extenuate, as far as possible, the errors and vices of those whom the orthodox are accustomed to respect, whether they know anything about them or no; and must exaggerate, on the contrary, the mistakes and faults of the heterodox to the utmost of his power. He must remember that any orthodox writer is a competent witness against a heretic, and is to be trusted implicitly on his word; while a heretic is never to be believed against the orthodox, and has honour enough done him, in allowing him to speak against his own side, or in favour of our own. It is thus that the Centuriators of Magdeburg, and thus that Cardinal Baronius have written; each of their works having by this means acquired an immortal glory with its own party. But it must be owned that they are not the earliest, and that they have only imitated most of their predecessors in this plan of writing. For many ages, men had only sought in ecclesiastical antiquity, not what was really to be found there, but what they conceived ought to be there for the good of their own party.[1025]

Deistical writers. 52. But in the midst of so many dissentients from each other, some resting on the tranquil bosom of the church, some fighting the long battle of argument, some catching at gleams of supernatural light, the very truths of natural and revealed religion were called in question by a different party. The proofs of this before the middle of the sixteenth century are chiefly to be derived from Italy. Pomponatius has already been mentioned, and some other Aristotelian philosophers might be added. But these, whose scepticism extended to natural theology, belong to the class of metaphysical writers, whose place is in the next chapter. If we limit ourselves to those who directed their attacks against Christianity, it must be presumed that, in an age when the tribunals of justice visited, even with the punishment of death, the denial of any fundamental doctrine, few books of an openly irreligious tendency could appear.[1026] A short pamphlet by one Vallée, cost him his life in 1574. Some others were clandestinely circulated in France before the end of the century; and the list of men suspected of infidelity, if we could trust all private anecdotes of the time, would be by no means short. Bodin, Montaigne, Charron, have been reckoned among the rejecters of Christianity. The first I conceive to have acknowledged no revelation but the Jewish; the second is free, in my opinion, from all reasonable suspicion of infidelity; the principal work of the third was not published till 1601. His former treatise, Des Trois Vérités, is an elaborate vindication of the Christian and Catholic religion.[1027]

Wierus, De Præstigiis. 53. I hardly know how to insert, in any other chapter than the present, the books that relate to sorcery and demoniacal possessions, though they can only in a very lax sense be ranked with theological literature. The greater part are contemptible in any other light than as evidences of the state of human opinion. Those designed to rescue the innocent from sanguinary prejudices, and chase the real demon of superstition from the mind of man, deserve to be commemorated. Two such works belong to this period. Wierus, a physician of the Netherlands, in a treatise, De Præstigiis, Basle, 1564, combats the horrible prejudice by which those accused of witchcraft were thrown into the flames. He shows a good deal of credulity as to diabolical illusions, but takes these unfortunate persons for the devil’s victims rather than his accomplices. Upon the whole, Wierus destroys more superstition than he seriously intended to leave behind.

Scot on Witchcraft. 54. A far superior writer is our countryman, Reginald Scot, whose object is the same, but whose views are incomparably more extensive and enlightened. He denies altogether to the devil any power of controlling the course of nature. It may be easily supposed that this solid and learned person, for such he was beyond almost all the English of that age, did not escape in his own time, or long afterwards, the censure of those who adhered to superstition. Scot’s Discovery of Witchcraft was published in 1584.[1028] Bodin, on the other hand, endeavoured to sustain the vulgar notions of Witchcraft in his Demonomanie des Sorciers. It is not easy to conceive a more wretched production; besides his superstitious absurdities, he is guilty of exciting the magistrate against Wierus, by representing him as a real confederate of Satan.

Authenticity of Vulgate. 55. We may conclude this chapter, by mentioning the principal versions and editions of Scripture. No edition of the Greek Testament, worthy to be specified, appeared after that of Robert Stephens, whose text was invariably followed. The council of Trent declared the Vulgate translation of Scripture to be authentic, condemning all that should deny its authority. It has been a commonplace with Protestants to inveigh against this decree, even while they have virtually maintained the principle upon which it is founded—one by no means peculiar to the church of Rome—being no other than that it is dangerous to unsettle the mind of the ignorant, or partially learned in religion; a proposition not easily disputable by any man of sense, but, when acted upon, as incompatible as any two contraries can be, with the free and general investigation of truth.

Latin versions and editions by Catholics. 56. Notwithstanding this decision in favour of the Vulgate, there was room left for partial uncertainty. The council of Trent, declaring the translation itself to be authentic, pronounced nothing in favour of any manuscript or edition; and as it would be easier to put down learning altogether than absolutely to restrain the searching spirit of criticism, it was soon held that the council’s decree went but to the general fidelity of the version, without warranting every passage. Many Catholic writers, accordingly, have put a very liberal interpretation on this decree, suggesting such emendations of particular texts as the original seemed to demand. They have even given new translations; one by Arias Montanus is chiefly founded on that of Pagninus, and an edition of the Vulgate, by Isidore Clarius, is said to resemble a new translation, by his numerous corrections of the text from the Hebrew.[1029] Sixtus V. determined to put a stop to a license which rendered the Tridentine provisions almost nugatory. He fulfilled the intentions of the council by causing to be published in 1590 the Sistine Bible; an authoritative edition to be used in all churches. This was, however, superseded by another, set forth only two years afterwards by Clement VIII., which is said to differ more than any other from that which his predecessor had published as authentic; a circumstance not forgotten by Protestant polemics. The Sistine edition is now very scarce. The same pope had published a standard edition of the Septuagint in 1587.[1030]

By Protestants. 57. The Latin translations made by Protestants in this period were that by Sebastian Castalio, which, in search of more elegance of style, deviates from the simplicity, as well as sense, of the original, and fails therefore of obtaining that praise at the hands of men of taste for which more essential requisites have been sacrificed;[1031] and that by Tremellius and Junius, published at Frankfort in 1575, and subsequent years. It was retouched some time afterwards by Junius, after the death of his coadjutor. This translation was better esteemed in Protestant countries, especially at first, than by the Catholic critics. Simon speaks of it with little respect. It professedly adheres closely to the Hebrew idiom. Beza gave a Latin version of the New Testament. It is doubtful whether any of these translations have much improved upon the Vulgate.

Versions into modern languages. 58. The new translations of the Scriptures into modern languages were naturally not so numerous as at an earlier period. Two in English are well known; the Geneva Bible of 1560, published in that city by Coverdale, Whittingham, and other refugees, and the Bishop’s Bible of 1568. Both of these, or at least the latter, were professedly founded upon the prior versions, but certainly not without a close comparison with the original text. The English Catholics published a translation of the New Testament from the Vulgate at Rheims in 1582. The Polish translation, commonly ascribed to the Socinians, was printed under the patronage of Prince Radzivil in 1563, before that sect could be said to exist, though Lismanin and Blandrata, both of heterodox tenets, were concerned in it.[1032] This edition is of the greatest rarity. The Spanish bible of Ferrara, 1553, and the Sclavonian of 1581, are also very scarce. The curious in bibliography are conversant with other versions and editions of the sixteenth century, chiefly of rare occurrence.[1033]