Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/essaysonriseprogOOrussrich ESSAYS ON THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION IK THE WEST OF EUROPE FROM THE REIGN OF TIBERIUS TO THE END OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT BY JOHN EARL EUSSELL. • Scripture, say the Protestants, is the only rule of faith in matters pertaining to revealed religion, and they say well. There is no other Christianity than this ; no other centre of union than this. Whatsoever is not clearly delivered there, may be true, but caanot be important. HiKC MEA EST SKNTENTIA, NEQUE ME EX EA CUJtUS UNQUAM ADT DOCTI AUT iNDOci'i MOVKBiT ORATio.* — Dr. Jortin, LONDON : LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1873. All fights reierved. PEEFACE. The able autliors who wrote the work entitled ' The Pope and the Council,' by Janus, have said in their jHeface, * For many reasons no names of authors are ])laced on our title-page. We consider that a work so entirely made up of facts and supporting all its state- ments by reference to the original autliorities, must find can speak for itself, without needing any namefi attached to it.' It is for an opposite reason, it is be- cause the present work is not entirely made up of facts and that its statements are not supported by reference to the original authorities, that I have thought it necessary to place my name before tlie public and to explain in this preface what are the works upon which I have relied and who are the men whose opinions I have adopted. The chief works then upon which I have relied are, (1), ' The History of Latin Christianity, including that of the Popes to the Pontificate of Nicolas V.', by Dr. Milman, late Dean of St. Paul's ; (2), ' Eemarks on Ecclesiastical History,' by John Jortin, D.D. Tlie first of these authors says, ' As it is my own confident belief that the words of Christ, and His words alone (the vi PREFACE. primal, indefeasible truths of Christianity), shall not pass away ; so I cannot presume to say that men may not attain to a clearer, at the same time more full and comprehensive and balanced sense of those words, than has as yet been generally received in the Christian world.' Another work of far less bulk than that of Dean Milman's is called 'St. Paul and Protestantism,' written by Mr. Matthew Arnold. The object of the author is to give a view of St. Paul's teaching very different from that of the Calvinists, but, as it appears to me, far more in accordance with the real doctrine of St. Paul than that which persons who have failed to comprehend his real intentions have attributed to him. The error of Mr. Arnold appears to me, not that he has failed to comprehend St. Paul's meaning, but that he has omitted to notice the political circumstances, and the violence of the conflict in which the Puritans of England appeared as the aggressors, when they were in reality fighting tigainst a revival of Popery, and the spiritual tyranny of Archbishop Laud. Among Eoman Catholic writers. Dr. Newman has greatly distinguished himself. His latest w^ork, ' The Grammar of Assent,' deserves to be deeply studied. Of those who, on the other side, have taken a very large and friendly view of the Reformation, there is no work more deserving of attention than the ' History of the Eise and Influence of Eationalism in Europe,' •by Mr. Lecky. Mr. Lecky has given a favourable view of the opinions originally espoused by Origen,i PREFACK. Vll and afterwards adopted by Zuinglius. Origen had ex- pressed his hope that Pythagoras and Plato might be saved by the merciful decree of the Almighty from * eternity of punishment. Gibbon has recorded, as his manner is, the intolerance of Justinian, who would not leave uYidisturbed the soul of a great Christian writer who had died three hundred years before. ' It was now three hundred years since the body of Origen had been eaten by the worms ; his soul, of which he held the pre-existence, was in the hands of its Creator, but his writings were eagerly perused by the monks of Palestine. In these writings the piercing eye of Jus- tinian descried more than ten metaphysical errors ; and the primitive doctor, in the company of Pytha- goras and Plato, was devoted by the clergy to the eternity of hell-fire, which he had presumed to deny.' ^ Fortunately, we live in happier times, and the dam- natory decrees of Justinian have not been extended to the ecclesiastics of the Church of England by the pro- vident care and the enlarged learning of the Judicial Committee of Privy Council, to whom Parliament has wisely entrusted the authority to fix the sense of the Articles of Eeligion and the Book of Common Prayer, which have been sanctioned by the authority of Par- hament with the assent of Convocation. Among the works which have lately appeared, four volumes, called the * New Testament for English Eeaders,' by the late Dean of Canterbury, Dr. Alford, are well worth study. ' Gibbon's Roman Empire, vol. viii. p. 325, Z'lC). yiii PREFACE. It is surely desirable that men thoroughly conversant with the Greek and the English tongue should enable the Enghsh nation to understand and take to heart, the lessons which Paul dehvered to the various nations of the Eoman Empire at the beginning of the pro- pagation of Christianity upon earth. Thus we find in the authorized version of the 13th chapter of the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, that ' charity suffereth long, that charity vaunteth not itself, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things ; ' so likewise in the end, ' and now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three ; but the greatest of these is charity.' ^ But as the word charity has in these days a much narrower meaning than it had when the Bible was first translated, Dean Alford in this chapter, and Dean Stanley in his translation of St. Paul's Epistles to the Corinthians, use the word love, so that we read, * and now abideth faith, hope, love, these three ; but the greatest of these is love.' Liddell and Scott, in their Greek Lexicon, use the word ' brotherly love,' which is, perhaps, the best version. At all events, the word charity is here inadequate and insufficient. In these Essays I have purposely avoided the work of controversy, and leave it to others to defend the miracles of Christ and his Apostles. I rest in the faith of Jeremy Taylor, of Barrow, of Tillotson, of Hoadley, of Samuel Clarke, of Middleton, of War- burton, of Arnold, without attempting to reconcile points of difference among these great men. ^ S. Paurb Firfct Epistle to the Corinthians, c. xiii. v. 13. PREFACE. ix Gibbon has spoken of the arguments which satisfied, or subdued, the reason of such men as Grotius, Pascal, and Locke. These were not bigoted or ilhterate thinkers. Gro- tius has branded witli just hate the persecutors of the Netherlands, whose victims he computes at 100,000, double the number estimated by Paolo Sarpi. He says finely, that the sins of the body can be reached by punishments which affect the body ; but tlie soul, as it is free and immortal, cannot be made subject to the fire and steel which torment the body. Pascal, in his Provincial Letters, has thoroughly exposed the evasions and insincerity of the Jesuits. Locke, in his argument for Eeligious Liberty, fails only in refusing to allow to Eoman Cathohcs the free- dom he claims for the Protestants. Still Grotius and Pascal and Locke may well be claimed by those who believe in Christianity as men of intellects equal to those of the philosophers of the present age. Galileo Galilei has related in a letter to a friend, that the only argument used against him when he contended for the motion of the earth, was a quota- tion from the words of Scripture : — Whether the Bible contains all the truths concerning Astronomy, Physio- logy, and Anatomy, or whether its Divine authority be confined to faith and morals, is still a matter of dis- pute between the Church of Eome and Protestant Communions. The opinion, that Scripture is the only rule of faith in matters pertaining to revealed religion, might X PREFACE. be supported by extrcocts from the works of Erasmus, who employed his great learning in the translation of the Bible ; by the authority of Luther, who with more firmness and consistency maintained a similar opinion ; by Chilhng worth, who considers the Bible as the religion of Protestants. On the other hand, Paolo Sarpi, who wrote the best history of the Council of Trent, says, ' That if it were not for Aristotle, we (meaning the Church of Eome) should be wanting in many articles of faith.' It is, there- fore, a part of my business to distinguish the theories of Aristotle as expressed in what is falsely called the Athanasian Creed, from the declarations made in the Holy Scriptures, and while I fully admit the ingenuity and the subtlety of reasoning, which distinguished the Greek philosopher, I am entitled to refuse to him that Divine authority which is willingly attributed by all Protestants to Christ and his Apostles. Sydney Smith, who squandered the arrows of his wit on every side, takes occasion from a passage in Waterton's account of South America, describing a bird, who from its peculiar note is called the cathedral • - J^E^ to say that it puts him in mind of the bell of an *,^^nglish cathedral, ringing in a -new dean, promoted on account of good birth, shabby politics, and moderate understandinji. It occurred to me when I had the privilege of recommending to the Crown persons worthy of the dignity of dean, that this part of the Eoyal patronage might be bestowed in a better manner than that which I PREFACE. XI Sydney Smith has commemorated. Among those whom I recommended to Her Majesty were Dr. Tait, to whom I offered the Deanery of Carhsle, and whose imion of the hberal opinions of the present age with judi- cious moderation, has induced my successors to recom- mend him for the Bishopric of London in the first place, and finally to the highest post in the English Church, the Archbishopric of Canterbury. Another selection, namely, that of Dr. Milman, who by my advice was made Dean of St. Paul's, affords an instance of the fruits that may be derived from the devotion of learning and of leisiu-e to Ecclesiastical History. The History of the Latin Church, by Dean Milman, is a work replete with accurate information and judicious criti- cism ; but it is in six bulky octavo volumes, and while I have drawn largely from their contents, I expect that, in this busy age, the readers of poetry and of novels will hardly make themselves masters of so voluminous a work. I have, therefore, endeavoured to condense the details which have given to Dean Milman's History its great and unenvieSSAY PAGB XV. CALVIN 248 XVI. THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND AND CHURCH OF ENGLAND . 269 XVII. GENERAL RESULT OF THE REFORMATION . . . 287 XVIII. THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM 322 XIX. ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY . . .331 HISTORY OP THE CHEISTIAN EELIGION. I. PEELIMINAEY ESSAY. STATJS OP ROME UNDER AUGUSTUS. At the period when Christ came into the world, the human race, which was almost comprehended in the Eoman Empire, was afflicted, after a series of fierce and pitiless wars, by the loss of liberty and the degeneracy of morals. Augustus, by the victory of Actium, had put an end to the rivalry by which, since the first triumvirate, the world had been given up to slaughter, proscription, and division. The great poet Lucretius had put up his prayer for peace : — Funde potens placidam Romanis inclyte pacem. Virgil and Horace, the adroit flatterers of Augustus, had endeavoured to instil the belief that, along with the cessation of civil war, there would arise an age not only of civil tranquillity, but of domestic purity. It was the fiction of these two sweet singers, that Augustus was about to open an age of felicity upon earth, founded upon the strength of the Eoman arms and the restoration of the ancient Eoman manners. 2 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Virgil, with some modesty, confines this era of do- mestic happiness to the rural population : — Interea dulces pendent circum oscula nati : Casta pudicitiam servat domus. Horace, with a bolder flight of imagination, adorns in Venetian colours the happiness of the Eoman Empire under his generous patron : — Tutus bos etenim rura perambulat : Nutrit culta Ceres, almaque Faiistitas : Pacatum volitant per mare navitae : Culpari metuit fides. NuUis poUuitur casta domus stupris ; Mos et lex maculosum edomuit nefas : Laudantur simili prole puerperse : Culpam poena premit comes. Quis Parthum paveat ? Quis gelidum Scythen ? Quis Germania quos homda parturit Foetus, incolumi Cssare ? Quis ferae BeUum curet Iberise ? In this and twenty other passages, Horace endea- vours to infuse the belief that purity of domestic life, with security from foreign foes and civil discord, were to be the happy inheritance of the subjects of Augustus CsBsar. Yet he himself has given us a picture as disgusting as any that Juvenal or Tacitus 1 has drawn of the connubial fidelity of the Eoman ' wives : — Foscunda culpse ssecula nuptias Primum inquinavere, et genus, et domos: Hoc fonte derivata clades In patriam populumque fluxit. Motus doceri gaudet lonicos Matura virgo, et fingitixr artubus Jam nunc, et incestos amores De tenero meditatur ungui. STATE OF EOME UNDER ' AUGUSTUS. ^ Mox juniores quaerit adulteros Inter mariti vina : neque eligit Cui donet impermissa raptim Gaudia, luminibus remotis ; Sed jussa coram non sine conscio Surgit marito, seu vocat institor, Seu navis Hispanag magister, Dedecorum pretiosus emptor. Damnosa quid non imminuit dies? ^tas parentum pejor avis tulit Nos nequiores, mox daturos Progeniem vitiosiorem. ^ Ovid is not a whit behind his brother bards in the task of adulation and false auguries of peace and purity. First commemorating the victories of Octavius — Illius auspiciis obsessae moenia pacem Victa petent Mutinse : Pharsalia sentiet ilium ^mathiaeque iterum madefacti c«de Philippi . . . quodcunque babitabile tellus Sustinet hujus erit, Pontus quoque serviet illi — the poet proceeds to commemorate the blessings of peace : — Pace data terris, animum ad civilia vertet Jura suum, legesque feret justissimus auctor ; Exemploque suo mores regit ; inque futuri Temporis aetatem, venturorumque nepotum Prospiciens prolem sancta de conjuge natam, Ferre simiil nomenque suum curisque jubebit. I need hardly say how little Horace and Ovid illus- trated in their conduct the ' casta domus ' and the ' prolem sanct^ de conjuge natam ' which they cele- brated in their harmonious numbers. But that is of little consequence. The important fact foi: us is, that » Hor. Od^s^ Jib. iii. 6, b3 4 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. the reformation of manners, so confidently predicted, did not happen, and that, on the contrary, never was there so rapid a dissolution of morals, such a violation of the respect due to virtuous matrons and innocent daughters, as that which took place during the reign of Augustus and his immediate successors. Augustus himself was doomed to see and to condemn, in the person of his daughter Juha, an example of extreme vice. Julia, married in the bloom of her beauty to Marcellus, the son of Octavia, was, after the pre- mature death of the youth (so poetically celebrated by Virgil), bound by her father's authority, and against her own inclinations, to Agrippa in a second, and to Tiberius in a third marriage. Exulting in her charms, and vain of her wit, she gave way to the most un- bounded profligacy, and degraded the forum and the senate by making them the scenes of her licentious- ness. The current stories may have been exaggerated, but it is certain that Augustus adopted the belief that the guilt of his daughter was shared with several of the young nobles of Eome. Julius Antonius, son of the triumvir, one of Julia's lovers, was accused of treason- able conspiracy, and put to death.^ But is there any^ need of proving the utter failure of such projects asf Augustus may have had for the regulation of morals ? '[ Quid leges sine moribus Vanae proficiunt ? is the exclamation of Horace himself. Further, the very reign in which Christ first taught^ the reign of Tiberius C^sar, was marked by the] ^ Seneca, De Bene/, vi. 32. STATE OF ROME UM)ER AUGUSTUS. 5 profligate habits of the Emperor. The caustic satire of Juvenal, and the grave narrative of Tacitus, all bear witness to the degeneracy of Eoman manners. Tacitus contrasts the virgin purity and conjugal fidelity of the German women with the temptations of the theatres of Rome ; he observes sarcastically, ' Nee cor- rumpere et corrumpi sseculum vocatur.' The purity of the early ages of Rome and of the barbarous ages of Germany was due no doubt to a state of society which had much of the rudeness of ignorance. The Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans shows how the simplicity of the Roman Republic in its early days had been succeeded in the flourishing period of the Empire by the prevalence of vice the most gross, and crimes the most unnatural. The time was come to place the respect due to the sanctity of marriage on other grounds than those of rudeness of manners and absence of civilisation. Such was one task which, in the name and with the authority of the Almighty, our Saviour under- took. But there was another task, not less necessary, and not less calling for a revelation from Heaven — the worship of the true God. The gods and goddesses of the Homeric Olympus, whether they were names intended to represent the sun, the dawn, the dew, and other powers of nature, or whether they were meant to be real objects of worship, had, before the advent of Augustus, lost all credit with the people of Greece and Rome. Socrates was content to die, rather than profess a real belief in the gods of his country. 6 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Cicero laughed at the ceremonies of the augurs in which he pretended to share. Ovid has told in beau- tiful poetry the stories of Cadmus and of Phaeton, of one nymph changed into a laurel, of another into a fountain, of Danae, of Europa, of the birth of Bacchus, and the despair of Niobe. But no one could ever pretend to suppose that these stories of my- thology were other than fictions of admirable inven- tion. The poet Lucretius never pretended to pass off his Venus and Mars as more than ' airy nothings ' to which * the poet's pen ' gave ' a local habitation and a name.' He relates in solemn and sublime strains the doctrines of his own Epicurean philosophy : — Humana ante oculos foed^ quum vita jaceret, In terris oppressa gravi sub religione, Primum Graius homo mortales tollere contra Est oculos ausus primusque obsistere contra. So, when he has beautifully and pathetically related the sacrifice of Iphigenia, he adds : — Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum. Virgil, while he worships the Muses, does not restrict their dominion to woods and lakes : — Me vero primum dulces ante omnia Musae, Quarum sacra fero, ingenti perculsus amore, Accipiant ; coelique vias et sidera monstrent. In another passage he exults that hell does not really exist : — Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, Atque metus omnes et inexorabile fatum Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari I Thus rendering a timid homage to the earlier and perhaps the greater poet. I STATE OF ROME UNDER AUGUSTUS. 7 At length, in a succeeding reign, Juvenal spoke of the ancient superstition as almost universally exploded : — Esse aliquos Manes, et subterranea regna, Et contiim, et Stygio ranas in gurgite nigras, Atque una transire vadum tot millia cymbS,, Nee pueri credunt, nisi qui nondum sere lavantur. So in the magnificent speech which Lucan puts into the mouth of Cato, when he is asked to consult the oracle of Jupiter, he proclaims as follows : — lUe Deo plenus, tacitS, quem mente gerebat, Effudit dignas adytis e pectore voces. Quid quaeri Labiene jubes ? an liber in armis Occubuisse velim potius, quam regna videre ? An sit vita nihil, sed longam difFerat setas ? An noceat vis ulla bono ? Fortunaque perdat Opposita virtute minas ? laudandaque velle Sit satis, et nunquam successu crescat honestum ? Scimus, et hoc nobis non altius inseret Ammon. Hseremus cuncti Superis, temploque tacente Nil facimus non sponte Dei : nee vocibus ullis Numen eget : dixitque semel nascentibus auctor Quicquid scire licet : steriles nee legit arenas, Ut caneret paucis, mersitque hoc pulvere verum : Estne Dei sedes nisi terra, et pontus, et aer, Et coelum, et virtus ? Superos quid quserimus ultra ? Jupiter est quodcunque vides, quocunque moveris. Sortilegis egeant dubii, semperque futuris Casibus ancipites : me mon oracula certum, Sed mors certa facit : pavido fortique cadendum est. Hoc satis est dixisse Jovem. Sic ille profatur : ServatS,que fide templi discedit ab aris, Non exploratum populis Animona relinquens.* It was in a society of political tranquillity, corrupted morals, and prevaihng atheism, that Christ was re- vealed to the Eoman world. ^ Lucan, Pharsalia, lib. ix. 564 et seq. ESSAY II. RISE OF CHRISTIANITY. It has appeared by the preceding chapter that in Eome hberty had been entirely lost, morality openly violated, and religion ridiculed or despised. It was in these circumstances that a new religion was revealed in the name of ' Glory to God in the highest ; on earth peace, and goodwill towards men/ Jupiter and Juno, Minerva and Venus, Mars and Mercury, Apollo and Diana, were set aside as imaginary deities. The worship due from man to his Maker, and the goodwill which the creature man was bound to show to all others of the human race, were proclaimed as the sacred commandments of God. The time when John the Baptist foretold the coming of Jesus Christ is very definitely fixed by St. Luke. 'Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Itiu-cea and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene, Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came unto John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness.' ^ The same chapter of St. Luke relates : ' And Jesus himself ' St. Luke, chap. iii. RISE OF CIIRISTIAXITY. 9 began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph,' The circumstances re- lating to the miraculous conception of the Virgin Mary need not be referred to here, being fully recorded in the Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke. It was not long before it was made manifest that the new rehgion was to be preached everywhere, to all, and for ever. For John the Baptist, having acknow- ledged the divine mission of Jesus, and Jesus knowing that the Pharisees had heard that he, together with his disciples, baptized more persons than John, went through Samaria to Gahiee. Then coming to Sychar, a city of Samaria, he asked a woman of Samaria to give him to drink ; the woman said to him, ' How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria ? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.' Soon afterwards the woman said, ' Sir, I perceive thou art a prophet ; our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.' Jesus saith unto her, ' Woman, believe me, that the hour Cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what ; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth : for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a Spirit:, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.' The woman saith unto Him, 'I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ : when He is come, He 10 HISTORY OP THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. will tell US all things.' Jesus saith unto her, ' I that speak unto thee am He.' ^ Having thus announced his divine mission, He preached to all, as well as everywhere, faith in God and in Christ. This word faith, as enjoined and re- quired by Christ, has been often repeated, but httle understood. In order to understand the meaning of the word, let us take some instances. Jesus, after a discourse of wonderful truth and power, entered into Capernaum. A Eoman centurion at this time had a servant, whom he loved, very ill and like to die. The Jews represented to Jesus that this centurion had been very kind to their nation, and had built them a synagogue. Jesus proceeded towards the house in which the servant lay, when He was stopped by a message from the cen- turion, saying that he was not worthy that the Lord should enter into his house, and that, if He would but speak a word, his servant would be cured. Jesus spoke that word, and the servant began to mend from that hour. Then Jesus turned round to the people who were following Him, and said, ' I say unto you, I have not found such great faith, no, not in Israel.' ^ Now who was the centurion who showed such ad- mirable faith ? He was clearly not a Jew. The Jews of Capernaum said, ' He loves our nation,' but they never said that he belonged to their nation. He might love the Jews, and admire their worship of one God; but he was probably a pagan, frequenting the temples of Jupiter, and worshipping the image of the ' St. John, chap. iv. 2 St. Luke, chap, vil RISE OF CHRISTIANITY. 11 reigning Emperor. What he acknowledged in Jesus was a powder derived from God which enabled Him to cure disease and restore the dying to life and health. Of the same kind of faith were most of those who were cured of infirmities, and even raised from the dead, by Jesus. The mother of Peter's wife, whom Jesus cured of a fever, must have been a Jewess. The two bhnd men who followed Him, and who called out, ' Thou Son of David, have mercy on us,' were evidently Jews. When they were come into the house, Jesus said unto them, ' Believe ye that I am able to do this ? ' They said unto Him, ' Yea, Lord.' Then touched He their eyes, saying, ' According to your faith be it unto you.' And their eyes were opened. It is clear that these men, being Jews, believed that Christ was en- dowed by God with miraculous power. But it may be said that the power of performing miracles was exercised by Christ in order to convince men of his divine mission, and that afterwards, when his autho- rity was established. He would reveal to them that the Father was God, the Son was God, and the Holy Spirit was God, and yet there were not three Gods, but one God. That likewise he would teach that a man must, in order to have Christian faith, neither confound the persons nor divide the substance. In fact, however, the whole teaching of Christ forbids any such supposition. Let us observe, for instance, what, according to St. Mark, He said to the scribe who asked Him, ' Which is the first commandment of all ? And Jesus answered him : The first of all the com- 12 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. mandments is, Hear, Israel ; the Lord our God is one Lord : and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength : this is the first com- mandment. And the second is like, namely, this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. And the scribe said unto Him, Well, Master, Thou hast said the truth : for there is but one God ; and there is none other but He : and to love Him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neigh- bour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. And when Jesus saw that he ans^vered discreetly, He said unto him. Thou art not far from the kingdom of God.' ^ The same or another dialogue is related by St. Luke. ' And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted Him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal fife ? He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? And he answering said. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind ; and thy neighbour as thyself. And He said unto him, Thou hast answered right : this do, and thou shalt live.' ^ Comparing this narra- tive with the relation of St. Mark, the words ' Thou shalt live ' must mean ' Thou shalt inherit eternal life.' Can we suppose that this scribe or lawyer, who held two simple articles of faith, was not far from the king- » St. Mark, chap. xii. a St. Luke, chap. x. RISE OF CHEISTIANITY. 13 dora of God, and yet that the future disciples of Christ were to be deprived of entrance into that king- dom unless they embraced a number of difficult and almost unintelhgible propositions ? Is it not clear that the man to whom it was said, ' Thou art not far from the kingdom of God,' and to whom a promise was given, ' This do, and thou shalt live,' wanted only the performance of good works to inherit eternal life? Yet what was he but a Jew — a scribe? To a Jew and a scribe, therefore, was promised by Christ the kingdom of heaven. Other parts of the Gospel, al- though not so clearly directed to the question of salvation, tend to the same purpose, showing the immense charity, the inexliaustible benevolence, the expansive spirit of religion and humanity which per- vade the teachings of Jesus. Having thus shown to pagans and Jews the meaning of faith, Jesus confessed that He was Christ, the Son of God, sent by Him on a mission to mankind, and as such empowered and commissioned to teach a new religion. For although God had made Himself known by his creation of the world, and all the wisest men of Athens and of Eome had recognised the supreme and omnipotent God, the Maker of heaven and earth, there was more to be done. Let us consider, then, what was that work which deserved and required a special revelation. There are two passions implanted by God in his Imman creatures, which are necessary to the con- tinuance and preservation of the species. The one of these is the love between tlie sexes. Without this 14 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. passion, the species would expire. The other passion is resentment. Without this passion, a man would not defend his person, his wife, his children, the hut in which he dwells, and the spot of ground he culti- vates. But, essential as these two passions are, it is of the nature of man to misuse all the gifts of God, to pervert them to wrong purposes, to employ them for the destruction instead of the preservation of the human race. From the first of these passions arise jealousy, adultery, community of women, divorce, the disuse of marriage, and the prevalence of prostitution. From the second arise quarrels, feuds, hatreds, continued from generation to generation, war and desolation, conquest and slavery. It was apparently the aim of Jesus Christ, armed with the authority of God the Father, to restrain these passions in the human bosom, rebuking the unholy desires which lead to infringement of the com- mandments, to adultery and to murder. There can be no doubt that if these precepts were foUowed— if men were to check the indulgence of these passions, to live in purity and chastity tiU their marriage, and then to be faithful to the partners they have chosen,! to give an enlarged sense to the precept, * Those whom God hath joined together, let not man put asunder,' to avoid act or conversation which * Felices ter et amplius Quos irnipta tenet copula. Hor. Qdes, lib. i. 13. ^ RISE OF CHRISTIANITY. 15 might break or weaken or tend to the violation of the marriage tie — much crime would be spared to mankind, the casta domus would be sanctified, and the legitimacy of offspring assured, while the harmony of private life would tend to the peace and happiness of the whole community. In like manner, if men would imbibe the qualities of meekness, gentleness, and brotherly love, and perform such acts as peacemaking and forgive- ness, which are recommended so emphatically in the Sermon on the Mount — if they would refrain from trespassing against others, and forgive those who trespass against them, quarrels and ill-will would either not arise, or would die out for want of aUment. A man who has injured his neighbour, and finds that injury returned, nourishes his resentment, and finally yields his whole soul to the pursuit of hatred and revenge. If, on the contrary, the trespass he has committed is forgiven, he cannot but feel that he is in the wrong, and though he may never repair the injury there is something within him which makes him seek by peaceable conduct to put an end to strife. Such, then, was the scope and end of the teaching of Christ ; the burden of the repeated precepts in the Sermon on the Mount ; the moral of the parable of the un- forgiving servant, and the whole purport of the prayer to God to forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us. It will be observed that Christ never taught that all men are equally sinners, and that all are involved in condemnation until some conspicuous act, some remarkable conversion, some hea^t-rending moment 16 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAX EELIGIOX. of contrition and repentance, shall seal their entrance into the community of Christians. On the contrary Jesus proclaimed, ' I come not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.' Thus also when he con- trasted His own association with publicans and sinners, with the preaching of John in the desert, He added, *But wisdom is justified of all her children.' In describing the joy with which the shepherd welcomed his lost sheep, He says nothing to stigmatise the ninety-nine which had not gone astray. But still more emphatically, when the elder brother of the prodigal son feels some natural soreness at the sight of the fatted calf prepared for his penitent brother, the father does not tell him that he also has sinned, and that he also must fall at his father's feet, and confess his offences ; on the contrary, he says to the son who has been always clear of offence, and had not transgressed any of his commandments, ' Son, thou art always with me, and all that I have is thine.' ^ Nothing in Christ's teaching shows more clearly that, while sinners could by repentance obtain forgive- ness, the righteous needed no repentance, than the words, ' All that I have is thine.' Thus we- have recorded, not without comment, that the revelation of Jesus— which held out such glorious hopes to the righteous, and which promised to the Jew who loved God with all his soul, and who loved his neighbour as himself, immortal life- opened a way of safety even to the fallen from virtue, in the harbour of repentance. Thus to the woman * St. Luke, chap. xv. UISE OF CHRISTIANITY. 17 taken in adultery, of whose guilt there could be no doubt, Christ said, when her. judges had slunk away, ' Neither do I condemn thee ; go and sin no more.' Still more striking is the foregoing parable, of which the circumstances were feigned by Jesus Himself, as an example of the boundless forgiveness of God. The prodigal son was not a thoughtless youth, who in a moment of weakness had fallen into sin. Being one of two sons, he had said to his father, ' Father ! give me the portion of goods that falleth to me ; ' and when he had got his portion he went into a far country, and spent his substance in riotous living and among harlots. It was on this man, thus deliberately dissolute and wilfully depraved, that, when he returned and said to his father, ' Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son,' the crown of repentance was bestowed. The lord and father said to his servants, ' My son was dead, and is alive again.' He declared to his elder and faultless son, ' Thy brother was dead, and is ahve again.' When the gate was thus opened to the repentant sinner, it was made an essential condition that sin should be renounced, that the sinner should sin no more, and that the subsequent hfe of the forgiven should justify the act of forgiveness. The sinful woman, the prodigal son, were still hable to tempta- tion, and resistance to that temptation was necessary, in order to the validity of the pardon. In the same spirit those against whom a trespass was committed, were ordered to forgive tho^e who c 18 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. trespassed against them. The parable on this subject describes a debtor, to whom a debt of ten thousand talents is forgiven, and who refuses to forgive a debt of a hundred pence. In this proportion are arrayed the magnitude of human offences against God, and the trifling amount of man's offences against his neighbour. Thus the duty of forgiveness is inculcated, and in the punishment of the unforgiving is held out a warning to those who, seeking pardon from God, refuse to pardon the offences of their neighbours towards them- selves. Eepeatedly is inculcated the doctrine of forgiveness of injuries. It is stated in the emphatic and striking manner of the East ; in the Sermon on the Mount, giving a picture instead of a precept, and conveying the spirit, rather than prescribing the limit, of the Divine command — 'Ye have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth ; but I say unto you, that ye resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.' Here we see the example and the warning. The return we are told to make is not sacrifice, or the blood of oxen or of goats ; not praise, for God has no need of our sacrifices or our homage ; but that we should show the same merciful spirit, the same for- giving and loving temper, which God has manifested towards us. The same lesson is repeated in the Lord's Prayer, ' Forgive us our trespasses (or our debts), as we forgive them who trespass towards us (or are our I RISE OF CHRISTIANITY. 19 debtors).' Yet more emphatically in the Gospel of St. Matthew it is recorded, that, after teaching the Lord's Prayer, Christ added, ' For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you ; but if ye forgive men not their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses' Eternal life is thus placed before us as the re- compense of forgiveness. But the reward is in fact for this world, as well as for the next. Eesentment begets resentment ; he who has exacted the utmost farthing excites the enmity he displays ; thus ill-will, quarrels, disputes, wars are generated. A meek and merciful spirit, on the other hand, turns away wrath, and in this mode a blood feud may be staunched in the beginning, and peace and good-will upon earth prevail, as the song of the angels had foretold. It remains that we should try to gather from the Scriptures the nature and extent of the authority from which the religion of Christ claimed its sacred sanction. The Gospel of St. John furnishes us with the best evidence on this subject. John was the disciple whom Jesus loved ; he was a witness of his conversations with the Jews who hated Him, and with the followers who believed in Him ; to him Jesus confided the care of his mother ; to him was granted a long life, and leisure to write both the narrative of the life of Christ, and epistles to explain the doctrines of his Great Master. In the tenth chapter of the Gospel of St. John it is written : ' And it was at Jerusalem, the feast of the dedication, and it was winter, and Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch. Then came the Jews c 2 20 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. round about him, and said, How long dost Thou make us to doubt? If Thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you and ye beheved not; the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me. But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said imto you. My sheep hear my voice, I know them and they follow Me ; and I give unto them eternal life : and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one. Then the Jews took up stones again, to stone Him. Jesus answered them, Many good works have I showed you from my Father ; for which of those works do ye stone Me ? The Jews answered Hiin, saying, For a good work w^e «tone Thee not, but for blasphemy, and because that Thou being a man, makest Thyself God. Jesus an- swered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods ? K he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken ; say ye of Him, whom the Father hath sanc- tified, and sent into the world. Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God ? If I do not the works of my Father, beheve Me not. But if I do, though ye believe not Me, beheve the works ; that ye may know, and beheve, that the Father is in Me, and I in Him. ' ^ In the fourteenth chapter of St. John, when He knew that his hour was come, Judas said unto Him, not Iscariot, but the faithful Judas, ' Lord, how is it that Thou wilt manifest Thyself unto us, and not unto the * St. John, chap. x. I RISE OP CHRISTIANITY. 21 world.' After some words of comfort, Jesus said, * Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you ; not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away and come again unto you. If ye loved Me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father : for my Father is greater than I. And now I have told you, before it come to pass, that when it is come to pass, ye might believe. Hereafter, I will not talk much with you ; for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me. But that the world may know that I love the Father ; and as the Father gave Me command- ment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence.' ^ In the sixteenth chapter of the same gospel it is recorded that Jesus, when his disciples, talking among themselves, said, ' What is this that He saith unto us, A httle while and ye shall not see Me ; and again a little while and ye shall see Me ; and because I go to my Father ?' Jesus then openly declared his meaning: ' These things have I spoken to you in proverbs ; but the time cometh when I shall no more speak to you in proverbs, but I shall show you plainly of the Father. At that day ye shall ask in my name, and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you ; for the Father Hiipself loveth you, because ye have loved Me, and have beheved that I came out from God. I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world j again I leave the world, and go to the Father.' His disciples said unto Him, ' Lo, now Thou speakest ^ St. John, chap. xiv. ver. 31, 22 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. plainly, and speakest no proverb. Now are we sure that Thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask Thee ; by this we believe that Thou comest forth from God.' ^ The pecuhar merit, therefore, of St. John's Gospel is that he discards the imperfect teaching of Peter, and gives the very words of Christ, brought to his remembrance by the Holy Ghost. The first thing we should wish to learn, in con- sulting the Gospel of John, is the character assumed by Christ Himself, whether in addressing the Jews, or in pouring out his last thoughts to his intimate disciples. To this end was the declaration of Christ. We cannot but be struck with the consistency of this declaration, whether made to the Jews his enemies, or to his faithful and intimate disciples — the unity of God, declared by Moses, 'I am the- Lord thy God, thou shalt have none other Gods but Me ;' a doctrine embraced by Socrates, by Plato, by Cicero, and by the most enlightened of the Pagans ; this doctrine was combined with faith in Jesus as the Christ, uttering the commands of God, the Son of God, but always acknowledging ' the Father is greater than I.' The religion thus revealed taught worship of one God, love of man, purity of Hfe, forgiveness of sins upon re- pentance and amendment, rejection of ceremonial observances, the doctrine that the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath, that not the meat which goeth into the mouth defileth a man, but the word which cometh out of the mouth. A - This rehgion, thus simple and thus sublime, was ^ St. John, chap. xvi. RISE OF CHRISTIANITY. 23i sealed and attested by the death of Christ. Not that ~ He showed in his behaviour when about to die the philosophic equanimity of Socrates, the patriotic se- renity of Eegulus, or the proud defiance of Algernon Sidney. His nature was gentle, loving, bursting with affection for the human kind. When the fact of the death of Lazarus was told Him, ' Jesus wept.' Now his prayer showed the depth of a heart touched with human emotions, but resigned to the decrees of God. *And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down and prayed. Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me ; nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.'^ The beginning of this prayer showed that in Christ the human nature still had so much power that, if the redemption of the world could have been gained without his death upon the cross, He would have been rejoiced at such a consummation. The end of the prayer, 'Never- theless, not my will, but thine be done,' is beyond all admiration; and was recorded, no doubt, as an ex- ample of humility and submission to all the Christian brotherhood. For this purpose also He sent the Com- forter : ' But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He shall tes- tify of Me, and ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with Me from the beginning.'^ This was, in effect, a promise that the inspiration of the Holy Spirit should guide those who had been with Christ from the beginning, and should dictate to them ^ St. Luke, chap. xxii. ' lb. chap. xy.. 24 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. the lessons He had taught, and the words He had used. The crucifixion completed the sacrifice of Christ for the welfare of mankind. After that event, when the eleven Apostles were gathered together, and spake with those who had seen Jesus, He Himself ' stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them. Peace be unto you. But they were terrified and afirighted, and sup- posed that they had seen a spirit. And He said unto them, Why are ye troubled ? And why do thoughts arise in your hearts ? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I Myself ; handle Me and see ; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have. And when He had thus spoken, He showed them his hands and his feet.'^ The eleven after this preached Christ crucified, and repeated in Asia, and in Europe, the story of his resur- rection from the dead. The rehgion of Christ has three main foundations : — 1. God is a Spirit, the Maker of heaven and earth. 2. Christ was sent from God, and revealed to men the message of God. When John the Baptist sent to Christ two of his disciples to ask of Him, * Art thou He that should come, or do we look for another ? ' Christ answered and said unto them, ' Go and show John again those things that ye do hear and see ; the bhnd receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.'^ 3. Christ died for mankind. The miracles of Christ were per- ^ St. Luke, chap. xxiv. a st, Matthew, chap. xi. RISE OP CHRISTIANITl'. 25 formed by Him, and ended with his life. The gift of miracles was continued to his Apostles, as we are informed in the Acts of the Apostles. This power, however, ceased altogether after the third century. ' But the poor have the gospel preached to them ' to this day. 26 ESSAY III. ST. PETER. ST. JOHN. ST. PAUL. When Jesus was about to be dragged away to prison and to death, Peter was the one of his disciples who protested most strongly that he would not desert his Master. But the Lord said to him, ' Before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice.' It happened as the Lord had said. On the third time, when they that stood by said to Peter, ' Surely thou art one of them, for thou art a Galilean, and thy speech agreeth thereto,' he began to curse and to swear, saying, ' I know not this man of whom ye speak.' ^ But when the cock crowed a second time, and he thought thereon, he wept bitterly. It might be supposed that a man so infirm of pur- pose, and so unstable in his attachment to his Divine Master, would be the most unfit person to assume the headship of the Apostles. But ' Wisdom is justified of all her children.' Our Saviour perceived in Simon Peter a spirit of conciliation, and of humility in his estimate of his own abilities, as well as a capacity to adopt the better reason of others, when his own reason would prefer the worse, which made him worthy of the Lord's immortal words, ' Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my Church.' This, be it observed, was an ' St. Matthew, chap. xxvi. ST. PETER. ST. JOHN. ST. PAUL. 27 authority given to Peter alone. It was not said or im- plied that his successors should have hke powers, or even that he should have any successors. He was not even the first Bishop of Jerusalem ; James the brother of John had that title and authority. Yet he was during his hfe revered and followed as the Apostle chosen by Jesus to be the founder of his Church. St. John says in the second chapter of his First Epistle General, ' And if any man sin, we have an ad- vocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sins ; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. And hereby do we know that we know Him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know Him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a Mar, and the truth is not in him.' ^ Again : ' And this is his commandment, that we should beUeve on the name of his son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as He gave us commandment.'^ So also, * Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another ; no man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.' This commandment 'that we should love one another' John is never weary of repeating. *If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar, for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen ? And this commandment have we from Him, That he who loveth God, loveth his brother also.' ^ ' St. John, 1 Ep. Gen. chap. ii. ^ lb. chap. iii. ^ lb. chap. iv. 28 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGIOX. We may here admit * the pleasing tradition that when he (St. John) grew so feeble from age as to be unable to utter any long discourse, his last (if we " may borrow the expression), his cycnean voice dwelt on a brief exhortation to mutual charity. His whole sermon consisted in these words : " Little children, love one another ; " and when his audience remon- strated at the wearisome iteration of the same words, he declared that in these words was contained the whole substance of Christianity.' ^ Yet as Peter was unequal to a work requiring great energy and indefatigable labour, and as John retired early to Ephesus, some other instrument was required to accomplish the mighty task of changing the religion of the Roman empire. That which Divine Wisdom proposed to be done, Divine Foresight prepared the means to do. Paul was a Jew of Tarsus, circumcised on the eighth day, a Pharisee of the strictest sect, impassioned in all he undertook, a man gifted with energy, with sincerity, wdth indefatigable powers of work, and with unconquerable eloquence. He had persecuted the Christians, and when certain Jews stoned Stephen he kept their clothes. The story of Paul's conver- sion may best be told in the words of Paul himself pronounced on a solemn occasion. Festus, the Roman governor, being at CaBsarea, Paul was brought before him on the accusation of the Jews. He appealed to Cjesar. Shortly afterwards King Agrippa and Queen Bernice went to Csesarea to salute Festus. Festus ' Milman's History of Christianity. ST. PETER. ST. JOHN. ST. PAUL. 29 thought it right that Paul should be heard, and speak- ing to King Agrippa said, ' There is a certain man left in bonds by Felix, about whom, when I was at Jeru- salem, the chief priests and elders of the Jews informed me, desiring to have judgment against him, to whom I answered, It is not the manner of the Komans to give up any man before that he which is accused have the accuser face to face, and have hcence to answer for himself concerning the crime laid against him. There- fore, when they were come hither, without any delay, on the morrow I sat on the judgment-seat, and com- manded the man to be brought forth, against whom, when the accusers stood up, they brought none accusa- tion of such things as I supposed, but had certain questions against him of their own religion, and of one Jesus, which was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive.' Agrippa said to Festus, ' I would also hear the man myself.' On the morrow Agrippa, in open court, said unto Paul, ' Thou art permitted to speak for thy- self.' Then Paul stretched forth the hand, and an- swered for himself: 'I think myself happy. King Agrippa, because I shall answer for myself this day before thee touching all the things whereof I am ac- cused of the Jews, especially because thou art expert in all customs and questions which are among the Jews ; wherefore I beseech thee to hear me patiently. My manner of fife from my youth, which was from the first among my own nation at Jerusalem, know all the' Jews ; which knew me from the beginning, if they would testify, that after the most strictest sect of our religion, I lived a Pharisee. And now I stand and am to HISTORY OP THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers, unto which promise our twelve tribes, in- stantly serving God night and day, hope to come. For which hope's sake, king, I am accused of the Jews. Why should it be thought a thing incredible of you that God should raise the dead ? I verily thought with my- self that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth, which thing I did also in Jeru- salem ; and many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests ; and when they were put to death, I gave my vote against them. And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme ; and, being exceed- ingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities. Wherefore, as I went to Damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests, at midday, king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me, and them which journeyed with me. And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice saying imto me, in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me? It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And I said. Who art Thou, Lord ? And he said, I am Jesus, whom thou perse- cutest ; but rise, stand upon thy feet, for I have ap- peared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness, both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things which will appear unto thee, delivering thee from the people and from the Gentiles, unto whom I send thee, to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to hght, and ST. PETER. ST. JOHN. ST. PAUL. 31 from the power of Satan unto God, that they may re- ceive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. Where- fore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision, but showed first unto them of Damas- cus, and Jerusalem, and throughout all the country of Judica, and to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works worthy of their re- pentance. For these causes the Jews caught me in the temple, and endeavoured to kill me. Having, there- fore, obtained help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come ; if at least Christ was liable to suffer- ing and first rising from the dead, was to show hght unto the people, and to the Gentiles.' ^ This striking narrative has in it many things re- markable. First, the justice of the Eoman law, which would not allow any man to be condemned unless his accusers were brought face to face before him, and unless he were allowed to make his own defence in person. Secondly, the art of Paul in praising the learning of King Agrippa, and in appeahng to the Pharisees, as if the only accusation against him were that, like the Pharisees, he believed that the dead should rise again. Thirdly, the wonderful clearness and precision of the narrative. The words, * it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks,' taken from a com- mon Greek and Eoman proverb, alluding to oxen kicking against a goad, or horses kicking against a * Acts, chap. xxvi. 82 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. spur, seems to imply that Paul had already felt some pricking of his conscience at sight of the martyrdom of the good and pious men whom he had persecuted. This pricking of his conscience has always struck me as the fit prelude to the heavenly vision which he saw at mid-day. A sermon which I once heard from Sydney Smith in the cathedral of St. Paul's enume- rated powerfully the circumstances of this miraculous conversion. We know that from this time Paul became the most effective preacher of the Christian faith in Central Asia. Here, as he recounts in his Epistle to the Galatians — ' But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. For before that certain came from James he did eat with the Gentiles ; but when they were come he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.^ Seeing how Peter turned and shrank from asserting his independent action, when James, the brother of Jesus Christ, sent certain to him, it is clear that a man of so weak a character, brought up in the scanty learning of a fisherman, afraid to own his Master and Saviour, when he was in danger of his life, would never have had the spirit to vindicate the faith of Jesus. Had he been left uncontradicted, Peter would, in all probabihty, have sunk into a Jewish sectary, some- times professing that Christ had risen from the dead, but never asserting his faith manfully or becoming the Apostle of the Gentiles. But when Paul, learned in \ Galatians, chap. ii. ST. PETER. ST. JOHN. ST. PAUL. 33 all the law of Moses, who had sat at the feet of Gamaliel, and who combined with accurate and ex- tensive learning a bold and intrepid spirit, was chosen to preach Christ crucified, then indeed a new rehgion was spread over the world, and the Cross was triumph- ant. It cannot be denied, however, that the arguments by which the Christian rehgion was perverted from a revealed law of love, given by God to man, into a subtle metaphysical theory respecting the nature of the Trinity and Christ's substance, were partly derived from the epistles of St. Paul. But although St. Paul has said things ' hard to be understood,' there is no one of the Apostles who has insisted more strongly on the necessity of righteousness, and of the fruits of the Spirit, ' love, joy, peace, long-sufiering, kindness, good- ness, faith, mildness, self-control.' A short account of his teaching will prove that this is a just view of the character of St. Paul. If any one wishes to study farther this question, I would refer him to the ex- cellent work of Mr. Matthew Arnold, entitled ' St. Paul and Protestantism.' It should be observed that in teaching various bodies of Christians assembled at Ephesus, in Galatia, at Corinth, at Phihppi, at Colossse, and at Eome, Paul found it necessary to repeat the same doctrines, and often in the same words. But to us these repetitions are most useful, as they not only make the meaning of Paul clearer, but point out to us the parts of Christian doctrine on which he thought it essential most frequently and most earnestly to insist. The doctrine taught by St. Paul, though often in- D 34 HISTOEY OF THE CHEISTIAN EELIGION. volved in unnecessary obscurity and lengthened by innumerable parentheses, may be deduced clearly from the epistles he has written. He maintains :— 1. That the Gentiles, refusing to know the supreme God, be- came subject to sin. Thus ui the first chapter of the Epistle to the Eomans he says, 'And even as they did not choose to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do the things which are not fit to be done, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, malicious- ness, full of envy, murder, strife, mahgnity, whisperers, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, proud, boasters, desirers of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, unmerciful, men who, knowing well the righteous judgment of God, that they which do such things are worthy of death, not only commit the same, but also consent to them that do them.' ^ Then describing the result of Christ's passion and resurrection, Paul says, ' Know ye not that to whom- soever ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his ser- vants ye are whom ye obey ; whether it be of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness ? But thanks be to God that ye were [once] servants of sin, but ye obeyed from the heart the form of doctrine, whereunto ye were dehvered ; and being made free from sin, ye were made servants to righteousness. I speak after the manner of men, because of the in- firmity of your flesh ; for as ye yielded your members servants to uncleanness, and to iniquity unto iniquity ; ' Alford's New Testament. ST. PETER. ST. JOHX. ST. PAUL. 35 SO now yield your members servants to righteousness unto sanctification. For when ye were servants of sin, ye were free in regard to righteousness. . . . But now being made free fr'om sin and made servants to God, ye have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end everlasting life.' ^ Indeed there is no one of the Apostles of Christ who dwells so frequently, so repeatedly, so strongly, on the duties of morality as St. Paul. Could he beheve that the greater part of his hearers were unable to perform those duties ? that they were banished before their birth from all hope of seeing God? that his lessons would be to them utterly vain and useless ? It would be absurd to in- dulge such a supposition. These passages contain the whole of the doctrines of Paul. He never speaks of the old Pagan times without coupling with them disbelief in God ; he never speaks of the Christian dispensation without its fruit, righteous- ness, love, joy, peace, everlasting hfe. The error of those who have wrested the words of Paul to their own condemnation is, that they have se- parated the two things, faith and righteousness, which Paul kept in all his teachings united and inseparable. They have erected an idol of faith without its fruits, and have disjoined righteousness and everlasting life. A greater or more fatal perversion of the Apostle's doctrine could not be. On the subject of foreknow- ledge and predestination St. Paul says, ' Moreover we know that to them that love God all things work to- gether for good, to them who are called according to * Alford'sNew Testament, Romans, chap. i. vol. ii. part 1, pp. 51, 52. s2 36 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. [his] purpose. Because whom He foreknew them He also pre-ordained to bear the hkeness of the image of his Son, that He might be the firstborn among many breth- ren ; and whom He pre-ordained, them He also called ; and whom He called, them He also justified ; and whom He justified, them He also glorified.'^ This text has been the cause of much difierence of opinion. ' Those He foreknew would believe ' is the sense accepted by Origen, Chrysostom, and Augustine. The sense of adopted, 'whereby God has ever dis- tinguished his sons from the wicked,' is the meaning according to Calvin, who teaches that the words imply not mere prescience, as some persons ignorantly sup- pose. What seems certain is, that mere prescience is the only sense consistent with the free will of man. Yet to reconcile logically free will and foreknowledge, is a task above human faculties. What St. Paul meant precisely it is difficult to discover, but we cannot imagine or infer that he meant to difier from the declaration of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in the Sermon on the Mount proclaimed, ' Not every one that saith unto me Lotd, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.''^ These words evidently suppose that men can, by the exercise of their own free will, do the will of God. Thus the whole doctrine of predestination, in the sense that some men are bom to be eternally punished, whatever * Alford's New Testament, Paul's Epistle to the Romans, chap, viii. The quotations from St. Paul are all from Alford's Revised Version in his New Testament. ' St. Matthew, chap. vii. ST. PETER. ST. JOHN. ST. PAUL. 37 they may do, is explicitly and by anticipation con- demned by Christ. From this summary, however brief and imperfect, it appears that the religion taught by Christ and by his Evangehsts, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, agreed with the religion taught by Paul, an apostle joined by revelation to the Apostles of Christ. It appears, moreover, that the religion thus taught to the Eoman world conveyed to mankind the great truth, that there is one God, the Maker of heaven and earth. It taught, moreover, that Christ was the only Son of God, sent by God upon the earth, and crucified at Jerusalem in the reign of Tiberius. By the lessons revealed to mankind, by natm-al and revealed religion, men were taught to love God with all their hearts, and their brethren as themselves. To the righteous was promised eternal life, and to the penitent who led a new life, admission to the happiness promised to the righteous. It has been said that, as St. Paul was the Apostle of Faith, St. John was the Apostle of Love. But this is not the true distinction. St. Paul said that all the commandments were condensed in this, ' Love one another ;' and when he said, ' These three, Faith, Hope, and Love,' he added not, the greatest of these is Faith, but ' the greatest of these is Love.'^ We may now proceed to some of the most remark^ able of St. Paul's Epistles. The Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians, as it is one of ' See Dean Stanley's St. Paul ; Epistles to the Corinthians, chap, xiii. ; and the Commentary, p. 239. t^ HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. the earliest, so also it is one of the most important of the epistles of that great Apostle of the Gentiles. Galatia, as it is described by historians, was a district in the northern part of Asia Minor, occupied by a mingled population. The descendants of the Gaulish invaders, from whom the region derived its name, re- tained to a late period vestiges of their original race in the Celtic dialect, and evidently great numbers of Jews had settled in those quarters. Paul twice visited the country ; and his epistle was written, probably, at no long period after his second visit. There are no more authentic works, in all the literature of Greece and Eome, than the greater part of the epistles of Paul.^ The Epistle to the Galatians begins with some account of the gospel which Paul preached, and the manner in which he had received it. ' I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither re- ceived it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that, beyond measure, I persecuted the Church of God and wasted it; and profited of the Jews' rehgion above many mine equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers. But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach Him among the heathen ; immediately I conformed not with flesh » Alford's New Testament; Paley; Milman's Christiantti/. Dean Stanley's Apostolical Sermons. ST. PETER. ST. JOHN. ST. PAUL. 39 and blood, neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were Apostles before me ; but I went into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus. Then, after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days. But other of the Apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother.' Again, in the second chapter, he relates as follows : * Then fourteen years after, I went up again to Jeru - salem with Barnabas, and took Titus with me also. . . . But neither Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised . . . they who seemed to be somewhat in conference added nothing to me ; but contrariwise, when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed to me, as the gospel of the circumcision was imto Peter (for Re that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostle- ship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me towards the Gentiles), and when James, Cephas^ and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship ; that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision.'^ Having thus estabhshed his title to be the Apostle of the Gentiles, he shows in a subsequent passage how he asserted that title, and how he sought to unite the con- verts of the circumcision and the converts of the Gen- tiles in one body of the Church. ' But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, be- cause he was to be blamed. For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles ; but, ^ Galatians, chap. ii. 40 HISTOEY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him ; in- somuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation. But when I saw that they walked not uprightly, according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, " If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews ? " ' Following up this bold remonstrance, he prevailed over the timid and hesitating disposition of Peter, and affirmed with irresistible force, ' I do not frustrate the grace of God, for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.'^ What then was the doctrine which Paul sought to commend to Jews and Gentiles, and thereby to fulfil the commands of Christ, and teach the nations to be Christian ? It is displayed in the remaining chapters of the Epistle to the Galatians. It was simply that the just should live by faith, and that faith should work by love. Thus he declares, 'For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircum- cision, but faith which worketh by love.' ^ Observe Paul does not say, ' neither circumcision nor uncircumcision, but faith.' No. He says, ' faith which worketh by love ; ' and he presently explains what love is. ' But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long- suflfering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, tem- perance ; against such there is no law. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the aflections ^ Galatians, chap. ii. 2 ib. chap. v. ST. PETER. ST. JOHN. ST. PAUL. 41 and lust.' ^ So, also, in that powerful exhortation to brotherly love, in the thirteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, he declares, separating the common practice of almsgiving from the divine virtue of brotherly love, that though he were to bestow all his goods to feed the poor, and give his body to be burned, and have not brotherly love, it profiteth him nothing. Finally, he sums up his exhortation in the words, ' And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three ; but the greatest of these is love ! ' '"^ It is astonishing that any one reading these words should represent to himself Paul as an Apostle who exalts faith exclusively, above all other Christian virtues. Again, in that admirable fourteenth chapter of the Epistle to the Eomans we are told, ' the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.' ' Let us, therefore, follow after things which make for peace, and things where- with one may edify another. For meat destroy not the work, of God.' The religion of which Paul was the Apostle was the whole religion of Christ ; a religion of purity and of love. ' I seek,' he said, ' to apprehend that for which also I am apprehended by Christ.' * As many as are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God.' What he especially taught was the righteousness of God, the non-fulfilment of it by man, the fulfilment of it by ^ Galatians, chap. v. ' Stanley translates the Greek word, 'love;' Liddell and Scott, * brotherly love. ' Charity does not now convey the meaning of the original. 42 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Christ ^ — Christ's hfe and death. The importance for us, according to Paul, is that, ' denying ungodHness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly,' and that we should be able to ' bear fruit to God,' 'in love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, mildness, self-control.' Of Christ's hfe and death, the scope was ' to redeem us from all iniquity, and make us purely zealous for good works.' What for Paul was life ? and what was death ? Not the ordinary physical life and death ; death for him is living after the flesh, obedience to sin ; life is mortifi- cation by the Spirit of the deeds of the flesh, obedience to righteousness. Thus he says to the Colossians, ' If ye then be risen with Christ, seek the things which are above.' Elsewhere he says, ' I see a law in my mem- bers fighting against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity,' The complaint of Horace : Video meliora proboque Deteriora sequor, is almost literally repeated by St. Paul. But the result for Horace was to sink into vice ; for Paul to rise into righteousness. St. Paul taught that God by his outward works, by the mechanism of the world, by all things which He had created, had declared his existence to men without a special revelation. When he saw an altar at Athens with the inscription ' To the unknown God,' he burst upon that vain and superstitious city with the words St. Paul and Protestantism, by Matthew Arnold. ST. PETER. ST. JOHN. ST. PAUL. 43 echoing from Mars' Hill, ' Whom ye ignorantly wor- ship, Him reveal I unto you.' In his teachings at Athens, in his Epistle to the Eomans, in his Epistles to the Corinthians, he taught the existence of one God, the mission of Christ, and the nature of his command- ments. Blaming the Romans for living in sin when Christ had not yet appeared on earth, he said, ' For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven, against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness ; because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because that when they knew God, they glori- fied him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise they be- came fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made hke to corruptible men, and to birds, and to four-footed beasts, and creeping things.'^ In this discoiKse Paul clearly signifies that the things which are made cause the invisible things of Him to be clearly seen ; that is to say, that the things that are made are the proofs of a maker ; that is, a watch sig- nifies a watchmaker ; a palace, a builder ; a ship, a shipwright ; so, by every analogy, by even the most simple inductive process, the invisible things of God are clearly seen. Thus have inferred the intelligent ; ' Romans, chap. i. 44 HISTOEY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. thus have argued the simple, from the things that are made to his eternal power and Godhead. Having thus shortly stated the inductive proof of the eternal power of God, proving the invisible from the visible, without a special revelation, St. Paul pro- ceeds to show the lamentable state of immorality, corruption, and wickedness, into which men, deceived by their vain imaginations and foolish hearts, had fallen. Having opened to the Eomans the designs of God and the atonement of Christ, he sums up the duties of Christians in these words : ' Owe no man, but to love one another ; for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this. Thou shalt not commit adultery ; Thou shalt not kill ; Thou shalt not steal ; Thou shalt not bear false witness ; Thou shalt not covet ; and if there be any other command- ment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself : Love worketh no ill to his neighbour ; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.' 1 Thus also to the Galatians, after recounting the evil things done by the wicked, he says : ' I forewarn you, as I also forewarned you before, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long- suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, temperance.' ^ The most powerful preacher of Christ and of his moral lessons was undoubtedly St. Paul. Followers of Paul's word, but not of his meaning, ' Romans, cLap. xiii. 2 Galatians, chap. v. ST. PETER. ST. JOHN. ST. PAUL. 45 have imagined that he taught the doctrine, of a God so angry with man that nothing but the death of his Son could appease his fury. But such is not the doc- trine of the Apostle. He taught, indeed, that the death of Christ was a propitiation for the sins of man. But this death was a proof not of the anger, but of the love of God. When the nations were sunk in ease and luxury, overcome by vice, and wrapt in sloth, what could arouse them so powerfully as to hear that the Son of God had appeared on earth, that He had been sent by God to live as a man, but without sin, and that, after a hfe of blameless purity. He had suffered a death of shame and agony in order to redeem mankind? If the condition of this redemption was love of God and love of man, what motive could be offered to the heathen so powerful, so persuasive, so effective, so certain to carry with it the minds and hearts of the millions of the Eoman empire ? When Paul preached this doctrine at Derbe, his eloquence induced the people to believe that the god Mercury had appeared among them. We are told by Gibbon of certain pre- vailing causes of the spread of the Christian religion. But what cause so compelling behef, w^hat doctrine so directly leading to martyrdom as the infusion into men's minds, the invasion into men's hearts of the thought that the Son of God had appeared upon earth, and had suffered death upon the cross for their sakes ? It was not then to satisfy the anger or stern justice of God that the Great Sacrifice was made, but that by this offer- ing of a divine life, once given for mankind, the world might be restored from its depth of evil, and Paradise 46 HISTORY OF TIIE CIIEISTIAK BELIGION. be regained for the race of Adam. It was therefore a part of the perversion of the teaching of Christ and his Apostles, to separate in ^t. Paul's doctrine faith from love, and to represent an Apostle who wrote against all ceremonial observances, all keeping of new moons, all precise definitions, as the author of a doctrine which placed in faith alone the perfection of Christian hfe. The very words, 'The just shall live by faith,' expressed very clearly that not all who had faith should live, but only those who were just and had faith. Otherwise Paul would have said ' All who have faith shall live.' Thus the Christian religion as taught by Christ him- self, by Peter, by John, by Paul, is one and the same, prescribing love to God and love to man. To accept half this religion is, in the words of Paul, to introduce ' hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like.' Such have been the effects of the corrup- tions of Christianity, whether introduced by the fanciful theories of the Fathers, or the inordinate ambition of the Church of Eome, or the learned errors of Duns Scotus, of Thomas Aquinas, of Luther, or of Calvin. It must be noted here, before we leave the first steps of the Apostles of Christ, that much of the success obtained in the teaching of all nations, which He commanded in his last words to his disciples, was due to the signal abiUties and rare faculties of Paul. He had the vehemence and the fire, and was largely endowed with the art of an orator, watching the temper of his audience, and captivating the favour of ST. PETER. ST. JOHN. ST. PAUL. 47 liis judges. As a moral teacher, he was earnest, strict, and persuasive, but also amply furnished with wisdom and discretion. At Corinth a difficult instance of immorality awaited him. A young man of his congregation had formed a scandalous connexion with liis father's wife. Paul pointed out the heinous guilt of such conduct, and at the same time acted with consummate prudence. When he was assured of repentance of the sin, and had obtained the promise of a good Hfe, he did not insist on the expulsion of the sinner from the Christian community. A member of the Order of Jesus could not have shown more tact and discretion in the treatment of a young congrega- tion than was displayed by the eloquent Apostle of the Gentiles. To the persuasive power which caused him to be taken for the god Mercury ; to the sincerity which imbued others with the conviction by which he was himself animated ; to the prudence which combined in fellowship and attachment the disciples of Corinth, and of Athens, of Galatia, of Philippi, and of Thessa- Ionia, the rapid progress of the Christian belief in the early days of its propagation, must be in great part attributed. 48 ESSAY IV. PMOGJRESS OF CHRISTIAN RELIGION. TILL THE REIGN OF CONSTANTINE. A GREAT historian has enumerated and dilated upon what he affirms to be the secondary causes of the prevalence of the Christian religion. But he has nowhere enumerated the primary cause of the belief in a new and startling religion. There can be no doubt that men adopted the belief that, 'In the be- ginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.'^ They believed also that ' the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.' They likewise believed that Christ was crucified, and that He had power to open the gates of immortal hfe, to all who should believe on Him, and should obey his commandments. Such a belief was sufficient of itself to spread the Christian faith over the world. The present essay will contain a rapid sketch of the growth of the Christian Church from the reign of Tiberius to that of Constantine. The religion of Eome had always been more political The Greek word logos means the word by which the inward thought was expressed, and also the inward thought itself. Neither tlie Latin nor the English language has a word which comprehends both senses. See Liddell and Scott's Lexicon. REIGN OP CONSTANTINE. 49 than religious, and in the time of the empire it be- came altogether an engine of the state. Persecution was employed, therefore, for the purpose, not of setting up Jupiter, or Mars, or Diana, but in order to deify the reigning emperor, and give him thereby additional influence and authority. When the mob of Ephesus called out, * Great is Diana of the Ephesians,' the civil magistrate did not support the worship of Diana, or arrest those who contemned her divine character, but rebuked the multitude for the disorder they had caused. The offence of the Christians in the eyes of the Eoman governors was not heresy or blasphemy, but sedition ; not an act of disrespect to the gods, but of contempt and irreverence to the emperor. It was in this spirit that Festus, caring little for the name of Christ, or the immortality of the soul, called out to Paul that much learning had made him mad. The carelessness of Gallio has been a favourite subject of reproach on the part of many pious Christians ; but it was owing to men of the stamp of Gallio on the throne of the Csesars, or on the seats of justice, that Christianity, when not obtruded on the attention of Csesar, or his organs, grew up in the shade, till it overtopped the Palatine Hill, and surmounted the Capitol. A good instance of the zeal for martyrdom on the part of the Christians, and of the reluctance with which the Roman authorities yielded to the popular thirst for persecution, is exhibited in the story of the death of Polycarp. Polycarp was the most distinguished Christian of the East ; he had heard the Apostle St. John ; he had preached the doctrines of St. Paul ; he had presided E 50 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. with dignity over the see of Smyrna. When the per- secution under AureHus commenced, it raged with extreme fury in Asia Minor. Polycarp concealed him- self in a village, but two slaves, under the influence of ia bribe, betrayed the place of his retirement. He exclaimed, 'The will of God be done.' He then ordered food to be prepared for the officers of justice, and requested time for prayer, in which he spent two hours. He was conducted on a day of great pubhc concourse towards Smyrna. On his way he was met by Herod the Irenarch, and his father Nicetas, who with much respect took him into their own carriage. The Christians imagined they heard a voice from heaven saying, ' Polycarp, be firm.' On his refusal to salute the Emperor by the title of Lord, and to sacrifice to the heathen gods, he was thrust out of the carriage, and conducted to the stadium. The people shouted aloud that Polycarp had been taken. The Proconsul entreated him, in regard to his age, to dis- guise his name. He reftised, and proclaimed aloud that he was Polycarp. ' Swear,' it was said, ' by the genius of Csesar ; retract and say. Away with the god- less.' The godless was the term by which the Pagans, with the usual injustice of bigotry and ignorance, desig- nated the Christians. The old man, with his eyes turned upwards, said, ' Away with the godless !' The Proconsul urged him further, ' Swear, and I release thee ; blaspheme Christ.' Polycarp rephed, ' Eighty and six years have I served Christ, and He has never done me wrong ; how can I blaspheme my King and my Saviour?' The Proconsul threatened to expose REIGN OF CONSTAXTINE. 51 him to the wild beasts. ' It is well for me,' said Poly- carp, ' to be speedily released from this life of misery.' The Proconsul threatened to burn him. ' I fear not the fire that burns for a moment; thou knowest not that which burns for ever and ever.' The Jews and Heathens hea^^ed up fuel for a pile ; Poly carp in a prayer to God exclaimed, ' I thank Thee that Thou hast graciously thought me worthy of this day and this hour, that I may receive a portion in the number of thy martyrs, and drink of Christ's cup for the resur- rection to eternal life, both of body and soul, in the incorruptibleness of the Holy Spirit, among whom may I be admitted this day.' The fire was kindled, but would not burn, and an executioner was at once sent to dispatch the aged martyr. Such were the Christians in their days of trial. We have in the memorable correspondence between Trajan and Pliny, a record of the treatment of the early Christians by a wise emperor and an enhghtened governor. It was about the 111th or 112th year of the Chris- tian era that Pliny informed the Emperor that certain Christians had been denounced to him. He had spared no pains to ascertain the nature and acts of this new sect ; he had not scrupled to put to the torture two maid servants who ministered at their worship, and attended their meals. But all his investigations only enabled him to report, that they had a custom of meet- ing before daylight, and singing a hymn to Christ, as to a god. They met again in the day and partook of food, but of a perfectly innocent kind. They had no b2 62 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION". unlawful bond of union, but were under obligation to each other, not to commit theft, robbery, adultery, or fraud. They held it a point of duty to restore to the depositors any goods committed to their custody. Upon this information Pliny, acting upon some law to us unknown, or perhaps in accordance with the general maxims of the empire, required them to worship the bust of the Emperor, and to curse Christ. Those who did so were permitted to depart ; those who refused were led away to execution. Trajan approved what Pliny had done, but desired him not to search for persons who had adopted the new sect, which he seems, like his delegate, to consider as a harmless, though superstitious community, and above all not to encourage spies, which he says is a thing of the worst example, and not suitable to the spirit of the age. Hadrian in a similar spirit, but with more toleration, decreed that Christians should not be condemned, except upon full evidence, and according to the forms used in other criminal trials. Philip II. of Spain and Louis XrV. of France were not so merciful. Here perhaps it may be well to remark, that the language of Paul's epistles, in which he orders obe- dience to the temporal power of the Caesars, and declares that the powers that be are ordained of God, should be understood to have reference not to the occasional acts of tyranny and cruelty of Nero or Domitian, which extended to no great distance from Rome, but to the regular course of jurisprudence, and the legal tribunals of the vast Eoman empire. We may read in the Old - REIGN OF CONSTANTIXE 53 Testament the abundant proofs of caprice, self-will, and inhumanity of the Eastern kings. In the book of Esther for instance, when the Jews were denounced, an edict went forth that all the Jews were to be killed. When the influence of Esther obtained the revocation of this bloody edict, it was ordered, not that the Jews should be let alone, but that they should be at liberty to kill their persecutors. In the same spirit was the order, under pain of death, to worship the image which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up. Far different and far better was the administration of justice under the laws and influence of Eome. A man accused was entitled to be heard, and to be brought before his accusers face to face. It was to this open trial and fair hearing of an accused person, that Paul desired respect to be paid ; it was in accordance with this regular course of justice that Hadrian decreed that Christians should receive protection and safety. It has often been repeated that the morality of the Gospel was not different from, or superior to, that taught by the best heathen philosophers, and that precepts to do unto others as we would wish others to do unto us, might be learnt from the doctrines of Zeno or Epicurus. But much depends on the trust placed in the teacher. Compare the authority of Seneca, rolling in wealth, living in the lap of luxury, and suspected not unjustly of being an accomplice in the murder of Agrippina, with the affection and reve- rence inspired by Christ, who, after a life of purity, without a house wherein to lay his head, was con- tent to suffer death, calling to God, ' Not my will 54 HISTOEY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. but thine be done; ' suffering ignominy for the sake of mankind, going to his God and to our God, with a humble submission to the ' dishonour of Golgotha,' in the faith that his commandments, honestly obeyed, would tend to the happiness of mankind, and open the gates of immortality. It was under this influence that the little congregation in Bithynia, sang hymns to Christ before daylight ; it was in obedience to his com- mandments that they abstained from theft, from em- bezzlement, from adultery. It was under the powerful exhortations of St. John, of St. Paul, of Polycarp, and their followers, that the Christian community spread and grew throughout the Eoman empire. Nor was this teaching uniformly or even generally persecuted. The writings of Justin Martyr and Tertullian, the apostolical letters of Clement of Eome to his col- league of Corinth ; the invectives against pagan idolatry, and the proofs afforded of the Divine mission of Christ, were circulated throughout the empire. The glorious result is thus briefly but impressively re- lated by Gibbon. Eeferring to the gradual decline and growing weakness of the Eoman empire he writes, ' While that great body was invaded by open violence, or undermined by slow decay, a pure and humble religion slowly insinuated itself into the minds of men, grew up in silence and obscurity, derived new vigour from opposition, and finally erected the triumphant banner of the Cross on the ruins of the Capitol.'^ The great author who wrote these words has himself assigned the virtues of the first Christians as ^ Gibbon, chap. xv. vol. ii. p. 265. REIGN OF CONSTANTINE. 55 one of the causes of tlie dffuision of Christianity over the world. While confessing and admiring these virtues, he does not forget his characteristic talent for irony and sarcasm. Sitting in the seat of the scorner he observes 'the abstinence from pleasure, and the aversion to active life, of the unfeeling candidate for heaven.' He enjoys the wit of Lucian who, in de- scribing the life of Peregrinus, relates the hypocritical frauds by which a pretended convert took advantage of the simplicity of the honest and credulous Christians. He is amused by the guards and restrictions placed by the early fathers on the institution of marriage, and he has his jest at the expense of Origen, who avoided temptation by mutilation. He remarks with justice that the merit of the sinners, who endeavoured to expiate their youth of license by a mature life of un- heard-of purity, was somewhat lessened by their fear of a malignant world, ever ready to mark the faiUngs of those who claim credit for superior sanctity. But, in spite of all his sneers, Gibbon is obliged to admit that, with many errors, some arising from a desire to attain a perfection not given to mortals, and some from a suUen desire to restrain, by minute rules, the social en- joyments of life, the early Christians gave the example of an improved morality to the Eoman world. While Ignatius, Polycarp, and others furnished mankind with sublime models of a heroism equal to the patriotic devotion of Coccles, Curtius, and Eegulus, there were multitudes who, without the ambition of martyrdom, pursued their way in the sequestered vale of life, stained with no guilt, and seeking no fame. In order to depre- 56 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. ciate the moral precepts of Christ, it has been said that no one obeys the command — 'If anyone take thy coat, give him thy cloak also.' This is a metaphorical and Eastern mode of saying, Eeturn good for evil. Yet Joseph went far beyond giving his cloak to those who had taken his coat. When his brethren saw him coming they said, ' Here cometh the dreamer, let us slay him.' When diverted from this needless crime, they sold him as a slave to merchants. Yet when he ruled in Egypt, he not only rescued his brethren from famine, but set- tled them in peace and prosperity in the heart of Goshen. Such was the Christian spirit of Joseph the Jew. After a time, however, the more gifted among the Christian community were ready to avow that, although they did not wish to intrude in the councils of princes, and while they had observed faithfully the lessons and example of their master, they were aware that, in the business of life, they were as well fitted to take their part as their less scrupulous pagan brethren. Wisdom is justified of all her children ; no less in the hero than in the hermit ; no less in Gustavus Adolphus and William of Orange than in St. Jerome and St. Ambrose. I will here insert the account of the objects of Natural and Eevealed Eeligion given by Dr. Samuel Clarke in his work on the Catechism. His Arian heresies may as well be omitted. His Christian faith is the doctrine of an enlightened man well-read in the Holy Scriptures. ' I beheve in God the Father Almighty Maker of heaven and earth. * To believe in God is to believe that there is a Being, eternal and infinite, perfect and self-sufficient, all power- REIGN OP CONSTANTINE. 57 ful and all wise, just and righteous, holy, merciful and good, a Being whose duration no time can exhaust, from whose presence no swiftness can flee, whose power no force can resist, from whose knowledge no secret can be concealed, from whose justice no art can escape, by whose goodness all things are sustained ; a Being who is everywhere present, whose power causes and directs everything, and his kingdom ruleth over all. This is the God of Nature ; and Nature itself (of which ignorant men often speak as of a real being or agent) is nothing else but the perpetual eflficaciousness of his will and laws. ' The grounds upon which we believe in such a Being are numberless. For indeed everything proves the being of God. The imperfection of all other things, and their absolute incapacity to be the cause or neces- sary reason of their own being ; the natural conscience and universal apprehensions of all mankind ; the strict- est searches and inquiries of the learned, and the most obvious and unavoidable observations of the unlearned. The greatness, the variety, the motions, the beauty, the order and harmony of the world ; the fitness of every- thing* to its proper end ; the growth of plants, the saga- city of animals; the structure of the body, and the faculties and the soul of man. Whatever we observe in nature, in the heavens, and upon the earth ; and whatever is supernatural, as miracles and prophecies — all these things conspire to prove to us that there is a God.' .... Farther *to beheve in God' signifies moreover, to believe there is but one God. For so the ancient Greek 58 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. creeds always expressed it : ' 1 believe in one God.' And this is also a fundamental truth of natural rehgion. For as it is sufficiently apparent, even to ordinary capa- cities, from the universal harmony of nature, that all things both in the heavens and in the earth are under one direction, under the uniform direction of one Supreme Will, so to men of science and ability it is moreover strictly demonstrable, from the nature of ne- cessary immensity and eternity, that there can be but one God, supreme over all. And what natural reason thus teaches, revelation abundantly confirms. ' The Lord, he is God, there is none else beside Him.' ' Thou shalt have no other gods but Me.' ' Hear, Israel the Lord our God is one Lord.' ' To us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things.' ' One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.' ^ Passing to the incarnation, our author, speaking of the propitiation for sins offered by Christ, rebukes those who say, that God could not absolutely have forgiven sinners without such a complete satisfaction, and cen- sures those, who undertaking to explain beyond what is written, have taken upon them to affirm that thfe suf- ferings of Christ were exactly equal to those which the damned were to undergo. Whereas Dr. Clarke says, ' But since God is supreme Lord of all, and may do that He will with his own and (without wrong to any) may remit of his own right what He pleases, and give no account of his doings, and may punish or forgive ' Deut. chap. iv. 35 ; Exod. chap. xx. 3 ; Deut. chap. vi. 4 ; 1 Cor. chap. viii. 6 ; Eph. chap. iv. 6. REIGN OF CONSTANTINE. 59 sinners upon what terms and conditions He himself judges fit ; it seems much more reasonable to remit this whole method of man's redemption not into any absolute necessity in the nature of the thing, as if God could not have found out any other means, which it becomes not us to presume to judge of ; it seems much more reasonable to resolve this whole method into the wisdom and good pleasure of God, who chose to vin- dicate the honour of his laws and government in this way rather than any other.' ^ Nor is it difficult to imagine why God chose to vin- dicate the honour of his laws and government in this way rather than any other. For what teaching of Socrates or Plato, of Cicero or Seneca, what causes enumerated by Gibbon, what authority enforced by Trajan or Marcus Aurelius, could have inspired all nations with a reverence for the commandments and laws of God in a manner equal to the love and obe- dience instilled by the death of the Son of God upon the cross ? In speaking of those who may hope to obtain resur- rection from the dead, Clarke says : ' If the Holy Catholic Church be undei'stood to signify all good men, under all the dijSerent dispensa- tions of rehgion, from the beginning to the end of the world, then the communion of saints consists in this, that they are all servants of the same God ; all guided and sanctified after divers manners, by the same Spirit ; all live in hope of the same divine promises, made known at sundry times, and in different ways and ^ Catechism^ by Dr. Clarke, p. 78. 60 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. degrees, and shall all finally be made partakers of the same glory, according to their different capacities and deserts, in the eternal kingdom of God.' Kestraining again the term Holy Catholic Church to the Christian Church, Dr. Clarke says : ' Consequently 'tis the duty of all Christians, living together at the same time, to endeavour to keep this unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, by uniting in a visible and eternal fellowship of love and charity, joining publicly in the same worship of God ; mutually assisting, comforting, instructing each other ; with all lowliness and meek- ness, with long-suffering forbearing one another in love. In a word, doing all the good offices that it becomes members of one and the same body to do for each other.' 1 Such was the belief entertained by a learned and pious member of the Church of England. But the world had to go through many ages of superstition, many ages of bloodshed, and has still to go through a period of discord, of malice, and ill-will, before it reaches the period of unity of the spirit in the bond of peace and in righteousness of life, for which the Church of Eng- land supplicates the Almighty in her prayer for ' all sorts and conditions of men.' ' Catechism, pp. 124, 125. 6X ESSAY V. COUNCIL OF NICE. It is of the nature of man to corrupt and to pervert every good gift of God. Thus, the pure rehgion of Christ became very soon corrupted with superstitions, was then perverted into a source of bitter hatred and ill-will ; was degraded by the usurpation of the Bishop of Bome ; and, lastly, transformed into a school of vice and immorality resembling the picture which St. Paul has left to us of Eoman society under the empire. I proceed to speak of each of these signs of dege- neracy. From the earhest days of Christianity began the habit of canonising the martyrs and pious men and women, who were objects of reverence to their con- temporaries. It has been strangely argued, that because these practices and habits began in the first ages after the death of Christ, they are, therefore, to be deemed parts of the true Church. Unhappily from the very beginning of the Christian community we must date the abuses which chng round everything that is human. The sanctification of the so-called saints and martyrs did not shock the moral sense of the early Christians. It was at first a natural effect of the reverence and afiection felt for those devout men and pious women who had devoted their lives to the observance of a pure 62 HISTOEY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. religion, and, in many instances, had testified by their deaths the sincerity and constancy of their faith. What more consolatory to the feelings of the survivors : what more conducive to the success of this ' new way ' than prayers for the happiness of the dead, and lasting monuments to the memory of the indefatigable apostles and of the fearless martyrs of the religion of Christ ? But that which is natural and apparently harmless in the flower, may be poisonous and fatal in the fruit. As the Christian sect grew from a retired and humble society to a large and rich community, the temptation to pass easily from the old worn-out polytheism to the new rehgion became more prevalent. The Letter from Eome of a celebrated author shows us how general, how fascinating, how exact was the adoption of pagan worship and pagan ceremonies by the Christian pro- selytes. The saints and martyrs of the Christians were enthroned in the place of the gods, demi-gods, and heroes of the Eoman world. St. Peter of Eome, St. John the Baptist of Genoa, St. James of Compostella in Spain, St. Januarius of Naples, attracted the worship of the new Christians, who felt httle regret for their old idols. An archbishop of Canterbury who had contended with his king for supremacy, had fallen by the hands of assassins. His martyrdom was readily consecrated by the Church. Bishop Burnet has con- trasted the value of the gifts ofiered in one year to God, to Jesus Christ, and to St. Thomas in the cathe- dral of Canterbury. In the same manner, the offerings to St. James, in the cathedral of Santiago in Spain, far surpassed any gifts placed on the altar of Christ. COUNCIL OF NICE. 63 But above and beyond all other objects of worship, the converts to Christianity embraced with ardour and zeal the worship of the Virgin Mary. The Greek and Koman Pagans had worshipped their goddesses — Juno at Mycenaj and Argos, Minerva at Athens, Venus at Cyprus and at Paphos, Diana at Ephesus. But the proud majesty of Juno, the stately wisdom of Minerva and the lascivious loves of Venus were not to be compared with the divine purity of Mary holding her child in her arms, and combining the chastity of the par- turient virgin with the sorrows of the desolate mother. In all parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa the images of the Holy Mary, blessed among women, were adored with passionate devotion, made famous by miracles attributed to the image or the portrait, and invoked as the Queen of Heaven, to whose influence over her Son all blessings were to be attributed, and to whose dis- pleasure every calamity might be traced. It was to no purpose that it was recorded in the Scriptures, that when a devout woman had said, ' Blessed is the womb that bare Thee, and the paps that gave Thee suck,' Jesus Christ had rephed, ' Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the word of God and do it.' The Father who created heaven and earth, the Son who redeemed mankind, were named for the sake of honour ; but their divinity was neglected and passed by, while the Virgin Mary was appealed to in every emergency, and was believed to rule all things that happened in the world. The teaching of Christ, the Sermon on the Mount, the conversation with the woman of Samaria, the para- 64 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. bles taught to his disciples and followers, had enforced the love of one God the Father Almighty, and had explained, by many examples and many precepts, the duty of man to his neighbour. But there had been throughout a remarkable reserve on the mysterious subjects of the nature of God and of Christ's relation to the Father ; of the qualities and functions of the Holy Spirit; of the objects and the nature of future reward and punishment. Hence the opportunity for man to indulge his pride of intellect, his superiority over his contemporary Christians, his skill in argument, and his triumph over weaker opponents. There is no great fame to be ac- quired by pardoning those who trespass against us, or by standing up to say humbly, ' Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.' But if a man can persuade his genera- tion that he has found doctrines in Scripture regarding the Eternal and the Invisible which no one else has been able to discover ; if he can by logical subtlety prove to their minds that the substance of the Spirit of Christ is the same as the substance of the Spirit of God the Father, all men will admire his ingenuity ; he will be applauded as a great apostle and a mighty leader ; he will gain honour, distinction, and power. On these subjects, therefore, the weakness of human nature fastened, and a field full of noxious weeds grew from the cultivation which the learned bestowed on the unpromising soil. If instead of making the love of God and our neighbour the test of faith, metaphysical doc- trines could be inculcated by sophistry, and defended by unintelligible argument, it was clear that men might COUNCIL OF NICE. 65 find in Christianity a fertile source of dispute instead of a certain rule of life. If the relations and the attri- butes of God, of Christ, and of the Holy Spirit were to be ascertained and defined, it was clear that human reasoning, and not Divine Wisdom, would be the arbiter and the standard of Christianity. For the command that all men were to be loved would be substituted the precept that men who were mistaken in their argu- ments and wrong in their conclusions according to the )revaiHng opinion were to be hated, proscribed, and punished. The first disputes of Christians which caused Ditter and lasting divisions were not indeed directly nixed with theological controversy. They arose from lie worldly ambition of Donatus to become bishop of Airthage, and the preference given to Cascilian by the najority of the electors. It is true that the appellation )f heretic, and the reproach of deserting the standard >f Christ, were freely hurled from one party to the »ther, and separated the African Church into two bitter actions, so long as Christianity prevailed in Africa. 5ut the contest was not properly a question as to he meaning of texts or the possession of theological ruth. It was from Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, Atha- asius his supporter, and Arius his opponent, that the reat controversy arose, which, springing from a meta- liysical difficulty, became the fertile source of war tid bloodshed, the abundant fountain of theological atred. It will readily be perceived how tempting was the rospect of leaving the beaten roads of the early p 66 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Christians to wander through the pathless forests of controversy and ascend the heights of a new heaven. The early Christian seeking to imitate the benevolent Samaritan who ministered to the wounded traveller, or to follow the example of the merciful lord who forgave his debtor, or like the loving father to receive with joy a penitent son, followed plain precepts, and practised unobtrusive virtues. But the doctor of theology, who displayed acuteness in pointing out inferences which Christ had never revealed to his disciples, came victor out of conflicts with his learned rivals. He defined what Jesus had left obscure, and explained relations to the Godhead which Christ had left to the conclusions of private judgment. Thus Athanasius, followed by crowds of admiring pupils, radiant with flashes of rhe- toric, and exulting over the opponents whom he had crushed, stood at last on the narrow summit of ortho- doxy, neither lost in the fog of the Sabelhan nor stopped by the stumbHng-block of the Arian, and waved his triumphant banner over Europe, Asia, and Africa. It is to be lamented, however, that in this diflicult struggle the spirit of Christianity was lost — that man was taught to hate his neighbour and to exalt himself. The existence of a Messiah with two natures — the one that of a man Hable to the infirmities, the sorrows, the faihngs of a human being ; the other that of a Divine Being who hved with God before Abraham was, whose thought and word were those of Divine wisdom and Divine benevolence — was not easy of comprehension. Speedily there arose two sects, one of which regarded COUNCIL OF NICE, 67 Christ merely as a prophet, a being like Isaiah or John the Baptist, divinely inspired, but with all the weakness of our mortal nature ; the other, which looked upon Him as a being altogether spiritual, who had neither been born of woman nor suffered death upon the cross, but had condescended for a time to wear the human form, and had returned to heaven before Judas be- trayed or Pilate condemned Him. The first were called Ebionites ; the second Gnostics. In process of time these two parties gave rise to views of the nature of Christ which, without being utterly opposed to each other, yet differed so much as to be the foundation of contrary doctrines, of adverse parties, of violent animosities. It appears from Fleury, the ecclesiastical historian, who gives the fairest account of this controversy, that Arius maintained that God the Father was really and not metaphorically a Father, and that Christ was really and not metaphorically a Son. From these premises he contended that God the Father, by whom Christ was begotten, must have existed before his Son, and that a being who was begotten must have had a beginning. Thence, he contended, there must have been a time when God the Father, being perfect God, contained in Himself all the plenitude of the Divinity. By his own free wiU, said Arius, He called into existence his Son, who is therefore a creature, and, as such, inferior to his Creator. But He was called into existence before the world was created, and was designed by his Father to be his instrument in creating the world. All the creatures (according to Arius) of the Father are his F 2 68 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. sons, as is distinctly stated in Isaiah i. 2 ; and this instance shows that the begotten need not be of the same substance as the begetter, which is also proved by Job xxxviii., where dew is supposed to be spoken of as begotten by God. Christ, who existed before the foundation of the world, received from his Father an immutable and Divine nature. Athanasius, on the other hand, contended that Christ existed from all eternity, that He had equal power with the Father, and was, like Him, to live to all eternity. He seems to have misapplied the term ' begotten,' in attributing to the Man Christ, the Son of Mary, while He hved upon earth, a term which belonged only to the Divine Being who at the com- mand of God created heaven and earth. But the ap- parent contradiction of applying to Christ as God a word only applicable to Christ as Man was obviously a temptation to Alexander and Athanasius. They wished above all things to make men beUeve what to common sense appeared incredible. The real difficulty arose from the presumption of man in pretending to judge, without any authority from Scripture, of the nature of Divine Beings. It was therefore with great wisdom that Constantine wrote both to Alexander and to Arius, exhorting them to drop the matter in dispute, and to hve in peace with one another. Jeremy Taylor says of this letter : ' The epistle of Constantine to Alexander and Arius tells the truth, and chides them both for commencing the ques- tion — Alexander for broaching it, and Arius for taking it UD. And although this be true, that it had been COUNCIL OF NICE. 09 better for the Church it had never begun, yet being begun, what is to be done with it ? Of this also, in that admirable epistle, we have the Emperor's judg- ment (I suppose not without the advice and privity of Hosius) .... for first he calls it a vain piece of a question, ill begun, and more unadvisedly published ; a question which no law or ecclesiastical canon defineth ; a fruitless contention ; the product of idle brains ; a matter so nice, so obscure, so intricate, that it was neither to be explicated by the clergy, nor understood by the people ; a dispute of words, a doctrine inex- plicable, but most dangerous when taught, lest it intro- duce discord or blasphemy, and therefore the objector was rash and the answer unadvised, for it concerned not the substance of faith or the worship of God, nor the chief commandment of Scripture, and therefore why should it be the matter of discord ? For though the matter be grave, yet, because neither necessary nor explicable, the contention is trifling and toyish. . . . So that, the matter being of no great importance, but vain, and a toy in respect of the excellent blessings of peace and charity, it were good that Alexander and Arius should leave contending, keep their opinions to themselves, ask each other's forgiveness, and give mutual toleration.' ^ But this advice to leave contending was advice which neither Arius nor Athanasius was prepared to take. What each desired was a contest, a victory, a triumph for himself — the humiliation or, if necessary, the death of his opponent. In fact, the Spirit of * Liberty of Prophesying, 1, 2. Taylor's WorTcs, vol. viii. /?. 61. 70 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Christ had departed from Christ's Church ; and as the subtle intellects of Alexandria were bent on a dispute, there was no subject on which it was easier to hang one than the nature of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. It was thought expedient to hold a council to solve the difficulty. A council was therefore summoned to meet at Nice, in Bithynia. This council was attended by 318 bishops. Constantine himself attended the council, seated on a low stool, and leaving outside his guards. The emperor being deeply intent on promot- ing peace and Christianity on each side, and his bishops still more intent on war and victory, the difficulty was to find a question upon which the parties could differ. Alexander maintained that Christ had been begotten from all eternity ; Arius, that He had been begotten millions of years before the creation of the world. The point was so abstruse, and the ground so slippery, that an apprehension prevailed that it would be impossible to make a quarrel. The tyrant majority stood aghast. Eusebius of Caesarea, with the approbation of the emperor, proposed the following creed : — ' I beheve in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things both visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, Light of Light, Life of Life, the only begotten Son, the Firstborn of every creature, begotten of the Father before all worlds, by whom also all things were made. Who for our salva- tion was incarnate, and lived amongst men, and suf- fered, and rose again on the third day, and ascended to the Father, and shall come in glory to judge the COUNCIL OP NICE. 71 quick and dead. And we believe in one Holy Ghost. Believing each of them to be and to have existed, the Father, only the Father, and the Son, only the Son, and the Holy Ghost, only the Holy Ghost : As also our Lord, sending forth his own disciples to preach, said, " Go and teach all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; " concerning which things we affirm that this is so, and that we so think, and that it has long so been held, and that we remain steadfast to death for this faith, anathematising every godless heresy. That we have thought these things from our heart and soul, from the time that we have known ourselves, and that we now think and say thus in truth, we testify in the name of Almighty God, and of our Lord Jesus Christ, being able to prove even by demonstration, and to persuade you that in past times also thus we believed and preached.' ^ To this creed neither Athanasians nor Arians could object. There was evident danger that there might be no quarrel, and that the wish of Constantino for peace and harmony might be fulfilled. At this pro- spect of agreement, of peace, and mutual charity, the bishops were confounded. At length an Arian bishop uttered a word which he said the Arians could not admit into their creed. That word, unknown to Scrip- ture, unknown to the early Christians, was ' Homoou- sion,' or consubstantial. The Arians, said the Arian bishop, declined to say that Christ the Son was of the same substance as God the Father. The Athanasian 1 Stanley's Eastern Chvrch, pp. 155, 156, edit. 1861, 8vo. 72 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION party, not much caring about the word, were too happy to find any way of fastening a quarrel upon their opponents. Ambrose, one of the orthodox, has truly said that an Arian had drawn from the scabbard the sword by which the head of the Arian heresy was cut off. The joy was great, all chance of peace was over, war was declared, the quarrel was found, and, as an historian has said, the contending parties fought in the dark about terms which no one understood. The words, ' only begotten^ that is to say, of the substance of the Father, God of God,' were inserted in the creed. The emperor assented, and the symbol of faith was com- plete. It is not to be supposed, however, that there Avere not some men of calm minds and charitable tempers who knew that the beginning of strife was like the letting out of water, and who deplored the miseries to which Christendom was about to be exposed. An incident, illustrating the simplicity of one person at least among the members of the council, is related by Socrates, its historian. He says that, at a moment when disputes were running so high that there seemed likely to be no end of controversy, a layman, whose person bore marks of having suffered mutilation for his Christian faith, suddenly stepped from among the com- batants, and exclaimed, ' Christ and the Apostles left us not a system of logic, but a naked truth, to be guarded by faith and good works.' ^ But neither then nor in any subsequent age has the world profited by this simple and truly Christian doc- ^ Stanley's Eastern Churchy p. 131. • COUNCIL OF NICE. 73 trine. The attempt of every church has been to prove itself right, and every other sect wrong, not to show a true belief by ' faith and good works.' The character of Athanasius has been portrayed with a vigorous hand and a masterly command by Gibbon. What has been said of Archbishop Laud may be apphed to Athanasius. He was ' a melancholy exemplification of the appalhng fact that some of the nobler quahties of the churchman may co-exist with the total want of the purest Christian virtues, and blend with some of the worst, most unchristian vices.' ^ Athanasius was bold, fearless, ready to contend in argu- ment and to lay down his hfe for that which he believed to be the truth. But he abounded in theo- logical hatred ; he excelled in vituperative invective ; he was always forward in private and in public to nurse dissension, to excite to bloodshed, and to make Christianity consist not of love, not of charity, but of metaphysical definitions, which might give him an opportunity of cursing and crushing his opponents. Yet the Nicene creed itself, as it is still called, has been much altered from the form adopted in the council. Instead of the words ' only begotten, that is, of the substance of the Father, God of God,' we have in our Prayer Book ' the only begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God,' thus adopting very nearly the doctrine of Arius, who had no objection to say that Christ was begotten before all worlds. Likewise the anathema, or curse, at the end of the creed signed at Nice is omitted, and in this » Annals of St. FauVs, by Milman, p. 331. 74 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTL^N RELIGION. respect the creed is become more Christian. The words ' of the same substance with the Father,' which are not scriptm-al, alone demonstrate the triumph of Athanasius over Christian charity. Upon the whole matter we should do well to Hsten to the opinion of Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers, who, in a letter to the Em- peror Constantius, thus expresses his sentiments : — ' It is a thing equally deplorable and dangerous that there are as many creeds as opinions among men, as many doctrines as inchnations, and as many sources of blasphemy as there are faults among us, because we make creeds arbitrarily, and explain them as arbi- trarily. The Homoousion is rejected and received, and explained away by successive synods. The partial or total resemblance of the Father and of the Son is a subject of dispute for these unhappy times. Every year, nay every morn, we make new creeds to describe invisible mysteries. We repent of what we have done, we defend those who repent, we anathematise those whom we defended. We con- demn either the doctrine of others in ourselves, or our own in that of others, and, reciprocally tearing one another to pieces, we have been the cause of each other's ruin.' ^ Dr. Jortin, speaking in his ' Eemarks on Eccle- siastical History ' of the slight provocation upon which Christians anathematised one another, says, in that caustic style which belonged to him, ' It is really a wonder that they did not at last insert in their htanies, ^ Hilarius ad Constantium, lib. ii. c. iv. v. p. 1229. COUNCIL OP NICE. 75 " We beseech Thee to curse and confound the Pelagians, Semi-Pelagians, Nestorians, Eutychians, Monothelites, Jacobites, Iconoclasts, and all heretics andscliismatics.'"^ ' The eternal generation of the Word is not found in Scripture, nor is He called the Son of God upon any account antecedent to the incarnation.' So says Dr. Bennet, and so say some other writers on both sides of the controversy. ^ Surely those writers had much to say for themselves. Dr. Jortin conveys his own sentiments in the follow- ing passage : — ' Scripture, say the Protestants, is the only rule of faith in matters pertaining to revealed religion, and they say well. Whatsoever is not clearly delivered there may be true, but cannot be important. Ha3c mea est sententia, neque me ex e^ ulhus unquam aut docti, aut indocti movebit oratio.'^ It has been said very truly by a Eoman Catholic writer of the doctrine of Trinity in Unity, that in at- tempting to combine them 'you gain nothing but a mystery, which you can describe as a notion, but cannot depict as an imagination. . . . And hence, perhaps, it is that the latter doctrine is never spoken of as a mystery in the New Testament, which is addressed far more to the imagination and affections than to the in- tellect.' * Kightly so addressed, because Christ and his Apostles wished to teach a religion ; Athanasius to * Jortin's Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. p. 376 (Trollope's edit). 2 Ibid. p. 367. » Ibid. pp. 364, 365. * The Grammar of Assent. 76 HISTORY OP THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. found and maintain a church. We shall see how far he succeeded in this purpose. One thing is certain. The unhappy decision of the Council of Nice was the signal for centuries of blood- shed. Thousands of human beings died to confirm or contradict a doctrine which none of them understood. 77 ESSAY VI. mSH OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. The day which saw the support of the Eoman Emperor given openly and avowedly to the Christian rehgion ought, many Christians will think, to have inaugurated peace and good-will upon earth. That the conse- quences were so far from fulfilhng this expectation may be attributed to several causes, which I will endeavour to enumerate. The personal character of Constantine abounded in pride and ostentation, but was entirely wanting in humanity, and was disgraced by enormous crimes. Constantine had many natural advantages, and he improved them by care and cultivation. He was tall, handsome, with a manly countenance and an agreeable voice ; he studied war so successfidly as to become a victorious general ; and he preached sermons so effectively as to induce a bishop to declare that he was inspired. On the other hand, he imitated the worst emperors among his predecessors in hstening to spies, in giving faith to then* monstrous inventions, and in putting to death without pity the objects of their calumnious charges. It was at the instigation of spies, or prompted by their reports, that he sacrificed the 78 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. life of his son Crispus, and that, a few years after- wards, he put to death his wife, the Empress Fausta. The grounds of accusation and the names of the ac- cusers have, in both instances, been hidden in mystery ; and so far was this secrecy carried that the historian of his Hfe, the Bishop Eusebius, does not even relate or allude to the fact of these cruel and unnatural executions. The Christian profession of Constantino was delayed till near the moment of his death, ap- parently from the beUef, common in the Church at that age, that the rite of baptism washed away all crimes and all sins, whether of commission or omission, for which the baptized person was answerable previous to the reception of that holy sacrament. It was another misfortune for the Eoman Empire, and indeed for Christians all over the world, that in- stead of embracing consistently the doctrines whether of Athanasius or of Arius, Constantino fluctuated from one to the other, and thus encouraged a bloody con- flict, which, having its rise not only in his own in- consistencies, but in the opinions and conduct of his sons and nephews, spread massacre, revolution, and war over the world for many generations. It was no wonder, therefore, that the subjects of Con- stantino, witnesses of the pomp of their emperor, gazing at his newly invented diadem . covered with precious stones, his silken garments, his oriental mag- nificence, and beholding at the same time the crimes perpetrated within the walls of his palace, should brand by a scathing epigram the blaze of jewels which recalled Diocletian, and the murders which EISE OF THE CHUECH OF ROME. 79 repeated the memory of Nero. Hence an inscription was found one day over the gates of the Palatine : Satumi aurea saecula quis requirat ? Sunt haec gemmea, sed Nerordana.* In the twentieth year of Constantine's reign, the Coimcil of Nice had been held ; the Arian doctrine had been condemned as heresy ; Arius himself had been proscribed by the pen of the emperor, and for- bidden to return to Alexandria. At a later period Constantine gave an audience to his favourite sister Constantia, whose husband and whose son he had put to death. At her prayer he agreed to restore Arius and the Arian party. In the thirtieth year of his reign a fresh council was held at Tyre ; at this council Eusebius of Caesarea, the Arian, presided ; the church of the Holy Sepulchre was dedicated, and it was ordered, at the bidding of Constantine, that Arius should be received in triumph at Constantinople. On the very day of the expected triumph, Arius died in a sudden and horrible manner. The various revolutions in the life of Athanasius, his triumph at Nice, his defeat at Tyre, his wonderful influence at Eome, his popular ovation at Alexandria, his vast energy and abihty, are recorded by Gibbon, and expatiated upon by the historians of the Church. Yet Arianism, nourished by the vacillation of Constantine, upheld by the plausibihty of its doctrine and by the protection of great princes, stood its ground in the world for several centuries. The first conqueror of ' Sidon. Apollinar. Gibbon, vol. iii., 8vo, chap, xviii. 80 HISTORY OF THE CHEISTIAN RELIGION. Eome, Alaric, the first conqueror of Africa, Genseric, were Arians. The Vandals embraced the opinions of Arius. Theodoric the Great, who became king of Italy, was an Arian. The Lombards were Arians for many generations. The kingdoms of Southern France and Northern Spain were Aiian till Clovis, the ortho- dox barbarian, crushed their hosts on the plains of Poitiers. It was not till the sixth century that Arian- ism was renounced by King Eecared in the Basilica of Toledo. A more permanent and important change caused by an act of Constantino — the transfer of the seat of empire from Eome to Constantinople — was the growth to greatness and supremacy of the Eoman Cathohc Church. But that event, so singular in its causes and so wonderful in its effects, was gradual in its approach. For we have now arrived at the period when the Church of Eome, which had alternately crept humbly under the negligence and indifference or been tormented by the persecution and cruelty of the pagan emperors, was to rise slowly from the ground, trying her wings cautiously, tiU she perched on the roofs of palaces, and crowed from the pinnacles of temples her loud note of triumph. A scheme more artfully devised, embracing the proudest courts, and stooping to the lowest peasants, defying sovereigns with her spiritual menaces, and nourishing multitudes with her indiscriminate charity could not well be. The secrets of families were laic open to her penetrating insight, armies were moved t( war at her imperious commands, emperors held the stir rupfor her infallible head, the proudest kings of Europ< RISE OF THE CHUKCH OF ROME. 81 were bidden to lay down their crowns by her peremp- tory-decrees. It must be our business to fix the moment of this great crisis ; to shew what the Pope had hitherto been, and to explain how, at the commencement of the fourth century, a Power which under the name of rehgion included morals, and which under the name of morals included all the social and political relations of states, internal and external, laid broadly and deeply the foundations of its spiritual and temporal dominion. 1. The first position of the bishops of Eome was not very dignified. The rumoured journey of St. Peter to Eome, and his establishment there as the first bishop, rests on no authentic document, and is pro- bably one of the many fictions which were invented in other times to adorn and elevate the greatness of the Eoman pontiffs. In the early history of the Church, it appears that when a council was held at Eome, the bishop of Eome presided ; when at any other episcopal city, the local bishop was the presi- dent. When Constantino united the Church with the State, he took upon himself the office of summon- ing and, if he chose it, of presiding, over all coun- cils of the clergy. After Constantine had removed the capital of the empire to Constantinople, the em- perors ceased altogether to reside at Eome, and when a Eoman emperor was to be found in Italy, it was at Milan or Eavenna, rather than at Eome, that he chose to hold his court. But the name of Eome had not perished ; the authority, which was not inherited by a viceroy or senate, was quietly assumed by the G 82 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. bishop, and men willingly resorted to a Christian prelate who did not attempt to assert by violence a supremacy which seemed due to learning, to age, and to the virtues of conciliation and mildness. 2. Another circumstance which contributed greatly to induce men to fix their trust on the bishop of Eome was the course pursued by successive prelates in re- lation to the Athanasian and Arian controversy. There are no words in the New Testament which declare that Christ is of the same substance as God the Father, in the sense of the Athanasians, or that there was a time before all worlds, when Christ had a beginning, as the Arians were pleased to maintain. The Athanasians fixed upon the word Omoousion, be- jj cause it was repugnant to the Arians, and the Arians declared that there was a time when Christ began to exist, in order to obey the arbitrary dictum of Arius. But the more vague and undefined the matter of con-: troversy, and the less either had a foundation in Scrip- ture, the more desirable it appeared to the Church that one of the two doctrines should be firmly embraced, and consistently upheld. By following Athanasius they found a flag and a bond of connection. With the support of the Pope they called themselves the Ortho- dox, and they had succeeded at the Council of Nice, by the help of the Arians themselves, in fixing the stigma of Heterodoxy on their opponents. I The indolent love of pleasure of Constans, and the intolerance of Constantius, gave these two rival em- perors alternate success. But the real palm of victory remained with the Church of Eome, which, by its RISE OF THE CnURCH OF ROME. 83 consistent adherence to what was called the orthodox cause, marshalled under its standard the most eminent of the bishops. 3. Another promising advantage for the Church of Eome was the translation of the whole Bible into Latin by St. Jerome. In performing this task, he not only evinced wonderful industry and unparalleled ap- plication, but he made language itself bow to his authority, and melted the hard iron of the Eoman tongue into a compound breathing the airy fancy of the Eastern genius, and fraught with the lofty imagination of Isaiah, the Hebrew prophet. The Vulgate, as it was called, became the book of the Catholic Chm-ch ; was stored in all her libraries ; diffused among all her clergy ; strengthened the bond of union among her converts of all nations, and gave to the Papal system harmony as well as force. 4. Amid the corruption and degradation of the ancient capital of the world, there was still existing a Eoman spirit which now was on fire for rehgion as it had once been for patriotism. Paula and her daughter were to Jerome what Volumnia had been for Coriolanus, and Cornelia for the Gracchi. Followed by these heroic women the great writers of the third and fourth centuries spoke the language of statesmen and rulers, while the most eloquent of the Greek fathers aspired only to the literary glory of accomplished historians and skilful orators. It still might be said of the Greek authors, Orabunt causas melius ; G 2 84 HISTOEY OF THE CHRISTIAX RELIGION. while the Eoman could still exclaim Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento : Hge tibi erunt artes ; pacisque imponere morem, Jerome could persuade and govern alike the noble women of Eome and the hermits of the Thebaid. Augustine, bishop of Hippo, could frame a whole body of divinity and steer his course safely as a great orthodox father on a sea where Calvin was wrecked as a hopeless heretic. The career of St. Ambrose is, perhaps, still more extraordinary. In considering the rise of the Church of Eome, we must regard four men as the main authors and con- trivers of that Eoman supremacy which m the name of the Pope and the Church succeeded to an empire as potent over minds and consciences as the rule of Sylla and of Pompey, of Cassar and of Nero had been over their bodies and their loyal obedience. The four men to whom I allude were Athanasius, Jerome, Augustine, and Ambrose. Athanasius, by the energy of his nature, and his practical logic, which partook more of the vigour and acuteness of the West than of the speculative subtlety of the East, was well fitted to obtain control over the vacant minds of the Eoman people. The attention of Constantine was absorbed in constructing, organis- ing, and ruling a new capital city. Men like Atha- nasius, Jerome, Augustine, and Ambrose disposed of Eome and Italy very much as they pleased. Athanasius taught himself the language and imbibed the literature RISE OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. 85 of Eome. He thus became fitted to assume the lead of the orthodox party ; to preach and to write in Latin with the vehemence and the power which distinguished his Greek productions. Gibbon has prided himself on his character and narrative of the hfe of Athanasius, as the most masterly part of his history of the Decline and Fall of the Eoman Empire. It seems to me that the thirty pages in which the career, triumphs and sufferings of Athanasius are described by Gibbon well deserve this eulogium. It would be useless to attempt to abridge or condense the admirable narration, and the powerfid portrait which these pages contain ; they may be read as Tacitus is read, with admiration and homage to the mighty author. The Arian fancy, which never was anything more than an arbitrary assumption without a basis in Scripture, gave way before the positive creed of the school of Athanasius, calculated to furnish Christians with new motives for adoring their Divine Master, and new reasons for at- tachment to the Church, which used his name and framed a system of government well fitted to overthrow the last remnants of pagan worship, and to destroy the temples which still adhered to the worship of Jupiter, of Juno, of Mars, of Venus, of ApoUo. The Eomans, as I have elsewhere said, carried into their new rehgion much of the same spirit of faith and loyalty which, according to Polybius, enabled the Eoman people to march with irresistible discipline to the conquest of the world. Thus, when Constantius proclaimed that two rival bishops, Liberius and Felix, should govern each his own congregation, the people assembled in the 86 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. lines f)f Rome, and as if they were celebrating the victor in an animating race, shouted with the voice of thousands, ' One God, one Christ, one Bishop.' ^ The qualities of Jerome, which gave him so much influence over the new establishment, was not so much to be attributed to vigour in dispute, and a skilful manage- ment of the weapons of controversy, as to his social influence and powers of conversation. Marcella a rich widow, Paula a noble matron, and her daughter Eu- stochium, yielded without a struggle to the voice which bade them devote themselves to a life which they deemed the most pleasing to Christ. He inspired their efforts and blessed their unremitting labour ; their abstinence frpm all pleasure, and their activity in propagating the new faith. By the advice and in the company of her spiritual guide, Paula aban- doned Rome and her infant son, retired to the holy village of Bethlehem, founded an hospital and four monasteries, and acquired, by her alms and penance, an eminent and conspicuous station in the Catholic Church. Augustine was the son of a wealthy family at Car- thage. His mother Monica was famed for her piety and humility. She bore without complaint the in- fidelities of her husband, and submitted without anger or reply to the outbursts of his violent temper. The youth of Augustine was deformed by the ex- treme license of his conduct, and the wild errors of his religious belief. For many years, indeed until he was nearly thirty years old, he was a Manichaean, ' Milman ; Jortin ; Gibbon. RISE OF THE CHUECH OP ROME. 87 and followed the teachings of the most renowned pro- fessors of that heresy. At length he seems to have been converted by the discovery, that while the Chris- tian professors could tell truly the position of the planets at a particular time, and the days when an eclipse would occur, the Manicha^an sages shewed a total ignorance on these subjects. Augustine, when he was about thirty years of age, embraced the faith of Christ ; he left off his licentious life, reformed his morals, dismissed his concubine, and became one of the greatest leaders of the Christian hierarchy. In the early days of his conversion he went to Milan, where he attended constantly and with earnest devotion the sermons of Ambrose. His atten- tion was caught by the frequency and earnestness with which Ambrose repeated the text, ' The letter killeth, the Spirit giveth life.' It was the peculiar talent of Augustine to organise the Christian Church in every part of Europe, in Asia, and in Africa. Devout men, placing themselves in correspondence with Jerome and with Augustine, made long journeys. They passed the Alps to and fro, and carried epistles of advice and doctrine to the remotest parts of the known world. In this respect he has been compared to St. Paul. I will copy an account of some of the characteristics of Augustine from a celebrated work: — *He displayed an ardent zeal like that of Paul; a sleepless vigi- lance like that of Paul for the spiritual needs of the church ; like Paul, also, a vigorous power of argu- mentation, a perception of the force of heretical ob- jections, and an energy of raj^id retort. Like the 88 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Apostle again, he had been the ardent devotee of a hostile system of religious opinion. The Manichseism of his early life had nourished the fire of enthusiasm in him ; as in the youthful bosom of St. Paul the pre- judices of a Pharisee had glowed into the flames of a persecutor. Neither of them could take a passive subordinate part in any course in which they might be engaged. The parallel only fails when we think of the frankness and simplicity of the Apostle, compared with the shrewdness and versatihty of the Saint.' We see the strength of Augustine in his organisation of the Church itself, a work of greater difficulty, than the dexterous use of the civil power. The Church of the West during the period when he flourished — the latter half, that is, of the fourth century and the commencement of the fifth, was daily becoming a more complex machine, more unwieldy to ordinary hands, demanding talents of the first order to grasp its various relations, and a commanding moral power to direct and control the whole system. Such occasions, it has been observed, are often found to call forth the spirits that alone are meet to cope with them. Jerome was a spirit of this mould ; still more so was Augustine. He had not the learning, or the eloquence, or the depth of character which Jerome possessed ; but he had the advantage of a more pliant temper, a more social taste, a more personal influence — an influence, not merely from his station, and talents, and moral power, but evidently from affection for the man. In Jerome there was a strong tinge of Oriental enthu- siasm. Augustine was throughout the Latin Church- RISE OF THE CHUECH OF ROME. 89 man. It is the care of the churches which he evinces through his whole career. We never lose sight of him as the chief pastor of the flock, as the head of a vast spiritual community, for which he appears to hold himself responsible. His very writings, in fact, are so many actions. Our opinion of them as compositions is lost in the impression which they give of the design of the writer to produce some practical effect. We do him injustice, when we contemplate him simply as the writer, or the literary debater. In this respect we are apt to pronounce him inconsistent, or even contra- dictory to himself, but this very inconsistency is a strong evidence of the really practical design of the writer. He was too acute a logician not to see the speculative consequences of his own statements ; too skilful a rhetorician not to suspect that his own posi- tions might be urged against him. But, at the same time, he had too deep an acquaintance with the prac- tical course of things not to be aware that the skill of the logician is not omnipotent over the affairs of life, and that he who would rightly avail himself of men and things, must sometimes be content to wear that guise of paradox, which the actual constitution of the world often exhibits in itself. A feehng of surprise, indeed, must arise in our minds, when we look back to the foui'th century, and contemplate that restless activity by which the leading members of the Latin Church were distinguished. An active communication subsisted at this epoch throughout the church at large. Athanasius or Jerome, from his retreat in the sohtudes of the Thebaid. could make his counsels felt in the heart 90 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. of the empire ; and Chrysostom, from liis exile on Mount Taurus, could keep up incessant intercourse with the Faithful at the most remote places. But in the Western Church more especially the correspondence of feelings and designs was vigorously sustained by the leaders of the Church, evidently as the great instrument of unity in doctrine and government. No point of heterodoxy was touched in one part of the empire, but it regularly spread in widening circle until it reached the opposite extreme. The bishops and rulers of the Church had the deacons and presbyters at their com- mand, to bear their various communications of intelh- gence, and their replies to the questions sent to them from the distant provinces of their communion. Sa- gacious, practical men, at different important stations, formed a chain of communication which was kept in constant tension, and vibrated throughout civihsed Europe and Christian Asia. The prudence and sagacity of Athanasius were shown by his transfer of his influence to the Western world, and thus planting in the ancient capital the centre of a great Church. Eemarkable events took place at Alexandria about the year a.d. 428, when Cyril was bishop. Ammonius, a fierce and savage monk, threw a large stone at Orestes, the prefect of the city, which hit him on the head, and to the alarm of the crowd, blood gushed forth. Ammonius was seized, tortured, and put to death. Cyril caused the body to be buried and the honours of a Christian martyr prostituted on this rufiian. Worse events followed. Hypatia was a maiden honoured for her learning, admired for her RISE OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. 91 beauty, and respected for the modesty of her manners and purity of her conduct. She gave lectures, largely attended, which were founded on the Platonic doctrines of Plotinus. The success of these lectures is said to have excited the envy of Cyril, whose sermons did not attract an equal concourse. Some of the ferocious par- tisans of this Christian bishop seized Hypatia, dragged her from her chariot, with revolting indecency tore off her clothes, and with atrocious cruelty rent her limb from limb. The Christians of Alexandria did tins, professing to be actuated by Christian zeal in the cause of a Christian prelate,^ and monks consecrated to God became the worst of murderers. The character of Ambrose was one of the most striking in these very critical times. He was proceed- ing to Milan, where he was prefect, when the see fell vacant. He summoned the people to a meeting for the purpose of proceeding to the election of their future bishop. Unexpectedly to him, when he consulted the electors, a cry arose, which seemed to pervade the whole assembly, of ' Ambrose for our bishop.' He accepted the new honour, and determined to do his duty without fear or partiality. An occasion arose which required the utmost exertion of firmness and courage. Botheric was the general of the troops assembled at Thessalonica ; he had among his slaves a boy whose beauty excited the desire of one of the charioteers of the circus. Botheric imprisoned the charioteer, and rejected the clamours of the multitude. On the day ' Milman's History of Latin Christianity, vol. i. p. 149. See also tlie brilliant romance of Hypatia. 92 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. of the public games, the mob lamented the absence of their favourite ; finding that their supplications were not listened to, they attacked the unhappy general, who fell a victim to their fury. He and several of his principal officers were inhumanly murdered, and their mangled bodies were dragged about the streets. The fiery temper of Theodosius could not bear the delay of a judicial enquiry, and he resolved upon the surrender of the population of a great city, the metro- polis of Illyria, to the fury of his barbarian soldiers. The people of Thessalonica were invited, in the name of their sovereign, to the games of the circus. As soon as the crowd were assembled, the soldiers, who had been secretly posted round the circus, received the sisrnal for a massacre. o For three hours the carnage continued without dis- crimination of age or sex, of innocence or guilt. The most moderate accounts state the number of the slain at seven thousand ; some writers affirm that the total amounted to more than fifteen thousand. The mind of Ambrose, on receiving the news, was filled with horror and anguish ; he retired into the country to indulge his grief, and in a letter to Theo- dosius represented strongly the enormity of the crime, which could only be effaced by years of penitence. He therefore advised Theodosius to confine himself to the use of prayer, and not to presume to approach the altar of Christ, or hope to receive the Holy Eucharist, with hands which were still polluted with blood. In con- formity with this warning, when Theodosius, after be- wailing in private his rashness and his fury, proceeded RISE OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. 93 to perform his devotions in the great church of Milan, he was stopped in the porch by the archbishop, who declared to his sovereign that private contrition was not sufficient to atone for the massacre, or appease the justice, of his offended God. Theodosius humbly- represented that David, the man after God's own heart, had been guilty, not only of murder, but of adultery. The Archbishop fearlessly replied, ' You have imitated David in his crime, imitate then his repentance.' In conformity with the order of Ambrose, the Emperor of the Eomans, stripped of the ensigns of royalty, appeared in a mournful and suppliant pos- ture in the midst of the multitude assembled in the church at Milan, and humbly solicited, with sighs and tears, the pardon of his sins. After a delay of about eight months, Theodosius was restored to the communion of the Faithful. Posterity has applauded the firmness of the archbishop, and the example of Theodosius proves the value of those principles w^hich, in this instance at least, forced a monarch, exalted above the apprehension of human punishment, to obey the laws and respect the ministers of an invisible Judge. While the authority of a spiritual sovereign was a conspicuous proof of the influence of Athanasius, of Jerome, of Augustine, and of Ambrose, rising to supremacy and dominion, the temporal power of the Eoman emperor was w^eakened by rivalry and conflict, or sunk into weakness and imbecility. In the time of Gratian, the Eoman legions were commanded or permitted to lay aside their armour. The Goths and the Vandals, Alaric and Attila, divided 94 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. among them the kingdoms over which the sway of Eome had been so long acknowledged. The eternity of the Koman empire, which had been so confidently predicted by Virgil and succeeding poets, faded to a shadow. At the end of the fifth century, Clovis, king of the Franks, fought a great battle, called the battle of Tolbiac. He married Clothilda, the niece of the King of Burgundy, who was a Christian, and earnestly entreated her husband to embrace the same faith. In the stress of the battle, Clovis invoked the God of Clothilda. The same king estabhshed Christianity in his dominions, and saw the end of the long contest between the Orthodox and the Arian, which had given rise to so much alternate persecu- tion and such rivers of blood. The Christian rehgion everywhere triumphed. Paganism disappeared by voluntary or forced conversion, and the Christian worship was established in all the Western countries of Europe. 95 ESSAY VII. HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME TILL THE RISE OF THE MONASTIC ORDERS. The history of the Church of Eome bears, in some respects, a curious resemblance to the history of Eome under the rule of the republic and the empire ; both the civil and the ecclesiastical government have been distinguished by the eminence of men of great virtue ; the purity of Paulus ^milius and Marcus AureHus may vie with the charity and benevolence of Gregory the Great. So, likewise, with the female characters of republican and imperial Eome on the one hand, and of spiritual and ecclesiastical Eome on the other, Vo- lumnia and Cornelia may be matched by Paula and her daughter. The sublime phrase of Arria, ' It does not hurt Foetus,' will find its parallel in the fortitude of Agatha and other female martyrs of the Christian Church. So, likewise, in the extreme of vice, Clodia and Messalina have their match in Theodora and her daughter. In other respects, hkewise, heathen and Christian Eome have their similarity, Eepublican Eome was at the lowest degree of depression after the battle of Cannee, when the Eoman ensign bade his troops fix his standard in the ground in the hear- ing of the senate, and a confident patriot did not 96 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. hesitate to purchase the ground on which Hannibal was encamped. Sacred Eome, both in ancient and in modern times, has had its reverses and its revivals ; Charles V. and his legions made a prisoner of the pope; Napoleon I. ordered one of his generals to enter the Vatican, and send pope Pius VIE. a prisoner to France. Yet all the experience of humiliation has hitherto been succeeded by the hallelujah and triumphant shouts of the faithful clergy of the holy pontiff, echoed by millions of spiritual subjects throughout the civilised world. I am about to touch briefly on some of these revo- lutions, to join in the admiration which is inspired by temperance and sobriety, by disinterested care for the welfare of the Eoman people, and to fix the stigma of reprobation on those popes who made their palaces the scenes of libidinous excess and infamous usurpation. To begin with a bright example. Gregory the Great was of a senatorial family, his father bore the name of Gordian ; his mother that of Sylvia. He inherited con- siderable estates in Sicily, the produce of which he used to supply from his own resources the poor of the Roman people, who in previous centuries had ob- tained from the bounty or policy of the emperor a supply from the annual fleet from Egypt. The whole time of Gregory was passed in prayer, reading, writing, and dictation. Fabulous legends commemorated the boundless extent of his charity. The successive visits of a shipwrecked sailor exhausted all he had, except a silver vessel set apart for the use of his mother ; this he likewise gave, and the mendicant sailor at length GREGORY THE GREAT. 97 revealed himself to be an angel. Gregory became an abbot, and his severity was not less conspicuous than his benevolence. His brother Justus, who became a monk, had concealed, against the law of the monastery, three pieces of gold ; v/hen he was dying he confessed his crime. Gregory prohibited all approach to the bed of his brother, and when he was dead commanded his body to be cast out upon the dunghill. It was not till the end of sixty days that Gregory proclaimed that his prayers had been successful in releasing his brother from the flames of hell. I need not repeat the story of the fair-haired boys who were exposed for sale in the slave-market of Kome, and of whom Gregory said, when told that they were Angli, ' Non Angli sed Angeli.' In a time of the deepest calamity, when the Tiber had overflowed its banks and a dreadful pestilence was added to the miseries caused by the inundation, Gre- gory was called upon by the public voice, which he could not permanently resist, to ascend the papal throne. In performing the duties and elevating the reputation of the Holy See, Gregory surpassed all who had gone before him. The ritual of the Church as- sumed more perfect form and magnificence ; the chant, which took its name from the pontiff, was more full and more rich than that of Ambrose at Milan, and the Pope condescended himself to instruct whole schools of singers. The revenues of the Papal See were greatly in- creased and enlarged. When collected they were dis- tributed for the rehef of the poor, and for abundant *H 98 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. charities and endowments. The administration of the Pope was unimpeachably just and humane. While intent on relieving the peasantry and all the sub- jects of the Eoman See from oppressive exactions and illegal demands, Gregory kept up a correspondence with the most distant regions. He converted the Lom- bards from the Arian heresy, and sent Augustine to convert the English to Christianity. Gregory died in the fulness of his fame, leaving the reputation of a rigid adherent to the ecclesiastical rules of which he was in great part the founder, of a wise administrator of the power and the influence to which the Roman See had already attained, of a ruler who denied him- self every sinful indulgence, of a sovereign more power- ful than the Emperor of the East, of an author whose writings would have enabled him in a private station to guide the opinions of the world. We have now to lament the change which disgraced the end of the ninth and the beginning of the tenth century. The immorality of the Holy See during the middle ages is well painted by the Cardinal Baronius : — ' What was the appearance of the Holy Eoman Church when powerful and base prostitutes governed Eome? by whose will sees were changed, bishops were assigned, and, what is shocking and horrible to relate, their lovers were introduced pontiffs into the seat of Peter, and who are by no means to be counted in the number of the popes of Eome, unless as marking tlie succession. For who can call those legitimate J^man pontiffs who were thus introduced by harlots THE MIDDLE AGES. 99 without the sanction of law ? For there is no mention of the clergy in the election, or even as consenting to the confirmation of them. All the canons suppressed in silence, the decrees of the popes strangled, the ancient traditions and the old customs for the election of popes proscribed, the sacred rites and former usages nearly extinct. This lust of ambition, trusting to the secular power, insane with the passion of reigning, drew everything to itself.' The late Dean of St. Paul's appears to doubt the representation of Baronius, and to think that the rigour of a puritanical sect has mixed itself with the fidelity of the historian. Yet the names of Theodora and Marozia remain, and no one seems to doubt that the one was the mistress and the other the mother of a pope. Indeed the titles of John X. and John XI. remain in the roll of the holy pontiffs, and they were as much entitled to the worship of the cardinals and the claim of infaUibility as Gregory the Great and Pius VI. The whole stream of history has been rendered foul and turbid by a crime, which is perhaps of more im- portance to the world than the vices or illegitimacy of two or three of the popes, however flagrant and how- ever notorious. In the year 867, Nicholas I., a very able and dis- tinguished pope, died. During the time he filled the papal throne appeared the record of the gift of the sovereignty of Italy by Constantine the Great to Pope Sylvester. This gift is now acknowledged to have been a forgery. By the time of Ariosto it had become n 2 100 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. the object of open satire, even in Italy. Astolpho finds it among the chimasras of earth in the moon : Or puzza forte. Questo era il don (se pero dir lice) Che Constantino al buon Silvestro fece. Orl. Fur. xxxiv. 80, At the same time appeared the False Decretals, pre- tending to be a collection 'made by Isidore of Seville, containing a vast number of decrees relating to the forms of public worship, to the administration of the Eoman See, to the powers and prerogatives of the popes from the time of Clement I., through many successive centuries. These decrees, regulations, and directions are drawn up in a tone of the most profound piety and the most sincere desire for the advancement of the Christian religion. Yet no one now doubts that Isidore of Seville had nothing to say to their editor- ship, that they are not only very impudent, but very clumsy forgeries, to which Pope Nicholas I. must have been a consenting party, if not an actual con- triver. It is now alleged that as many of the provi- sions and regulations thus forged have been acknow- ledged as genuine by a long succession of Popes, ^nd were allowed to pass by Hincmar, the opponent of Nicholas, it little matters whether they were authentic documents or awkward forgeries. The forgery of what are called the False Decretals has been ex- posed, together with the famous donation of Constan- tine, in ' the Pope and the Council,' by Janus, sup- posed to have been written by two learned Germans, THE FALSE DECRETALS. 101 and in many other learned works, some of them writ- ten by adherents of the mfaUibihty of the pope. Whether the acknowledgment of a whole train of for- geries in the ninth and tenth centuries be of great or little consequence to the judgment of the pope's infal- libility by the Council of the Vatican, does not appear to me to be a matter of much moment. The Protes- tants rely upon the words of the New Testament, and as the Pope's infallibility can derive no support from Holy Writ, it is not for Protestants to trouble them- selves with the dispute. Yet there is one aspect in which the various for- geries, interpolations, and misrepresentations of the popes, the cardinals, and the Curia of Eome are of great importance. We may neglect the encroachments and the usurpations of Hildebrand, of Gregory IX., of Innocent IV., and others, invested with the author- ity or the influence of the Eoman See. But we can- not forbear to ' mark and inwardly digest '. the system which these encroachments tended to erect, the cor- ruptions by which they were disgraced, and the catastrophe in which they terminated. By various steps, sometimes audacious and hasty, sometimes artful and slow, the whole patronage of naming the archbishops and bishops of Europe, of appointing them in the first place, and disposing of their influence in the second place, was vested in Eome. A candidate, who wished to be a bishop, borrowed an enormous sum from the usurers and jobbers of Eome, and afterwards discharged his debt by selling all the clerical patronage within his gift. If the sale of his 102 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. spiritual patronage should be stopped by reform, the bishop or the usurer would be ruined. Hence it was found impossible in the days of Leo X. and of Adrian, to reform the gross abuses of the Papal See. Those abuses were so obstinately upheld and so scan- dalously enlarged, that no resource remained but the Eeformation. Soon after the beginning of the twelfth century, the pope ceased for half a century to be the centre round whom the public opinion of the most educated classes revolved, and who influenced the more enlight- ened nations of Europe. Yet, before the rise of St. Bernard and the monastic orders, there occurred that great contest between Hildebrand and the secular princes of Europe, which covered all Europe with blood, and might have es- tablished, for a time at least, a theocracy fatal to the government of kings and of parliaments, and destruc- tive of social happiness, the ties of marriage, and the peace of every state. It is necessary upon this occasion to mark who were the chiefs that led the opposing forces and what were the principles for which they contended. The contending chiefs were not equally matched ; Hildebrand, who rose from a family of the middle classes at Eome, was a man of extraordinary energy and immense ambition. In some few cases he met with his match : for instance, the papal influence had been used in favour of the Norman Conquest of England. The banner of St. Peter floated in the van of Wilham's army at the battle of Hastings ; but when Hildebrand, who had become pope, and GREGORY VII. 103 had assumed the title of Gregory VII., demanded the fealty of the King of England, the Conqueror returned this short and haughty answer, * I have not, nor will I swear fealty, which was never sworn by any of my predecessors to yours.' But to kings of a less determined character, the pope's language was im- perious and insulting : to Philip I., king of France, he wrote in these terms, ' No king has reached such a height of detestable guilt in opposing the churches of his kingdom as Philip of France.' The subjects upon which Hildebrand was determined to have his own will were two : the first was the suppression of simony, the second the prohibition of the marriage of the clergy. On the first of these subjects the pope was not hkely to obtain his own will ; every transaction, involving the appointment of a bishop, a canon, or a priest, was stained by bribery, in which the giver and the receiver were equally guilty and equally secret. Eome was becoming more and more a spiritual market, where those who had taken an oath against simony were deeply implicated throughout their whole fives in simoniacal practices. These practices continued for at least four centuries, and were the proximate cause of the Reformation. The other question, that of the marriage of the clergy, still more excited the anger of Gregory, and gave rise in every country to the most violent quarrels, and disturbed the peace of every community. Those who followed Hildebrand in his invectives against the marriage of priests were obliged to confess that in almost every priest's house concubinage prevailed ; 104 HISTOEY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. but this name was often calumniously affixed to con- nections which had received the sanction of rehgion. In Normandy, in France, in England, in Spain, and in Germany, the sons and daughters of priests were acknowledged, and hved in the home of their fathers ; but the adherents of Hildebrand affixed every sort of opprobrious name to these connections : incest and unnatural crime were usually imputed to the married priests ; and it is impossible to ascertain how much truth there might be>jji these passionate imputations. It is certain, however, that the celibacy of the clergy was productive of a far worse state of morals than their concubinage. The peace of families was in- vaded, the secrets of married life became the property of the priests, and a way was thu^ opened to the ex- tension of the priestly power over every relation of life. Of this Hildebrand must have been well aware, but while he denied himself every gratification that exceeded the most rigid rules of abstinence from any sensual indulgence, his ambition seems to have counselled him to create an order of men wholly subject to sacerdotal rule, who might govern the laity with an iron rod, and obey the slightest wish of the one tyrant, who commanded their separation from all human and social affections. In this object, Hildebrand was to a great degree successful ; the celibacy of the clergy became, after the eleventh century, the prevailing usage ; and the concubinage of the priest, if known to exist, was not allowed by the priests, who obtained in confession the secrets hidden from the husband and the father. GEEGOEY VII. 105 Yet although, in the long struggle which took place on this subject, Gregory was triumphant, and the Eoman clergy were content to sacrifice married happi- ness and all the kindly relations which subsist between the parent and the child, the victory of ambition was not obtained without many a painful contest, and the general prevalence of hypocrisy and of falsehood. The great contest which took place was between Gregory, a man of unconquerable will and the most self-denying habits, of mature age, bold and resolute in the wars which he undertook, artful and designing in the negotiations which he directed, and his rival, Henry IV., emperor of Germany, a young man, ill- educated, whose camp was followed by troops of concubines, and whose chief advisers were men whose characters inspired little respect. • In the year 1006, Gregory prepared to make war against Henry. Henry, on his side, summoned the prelates of Germany to Worms, and wrote thus bitterly of liis own position and that of the pope : ' Henry, not by usurpation, but by God's ordinance, king, to Hildebrand, no longer pope, but the false monk ; ' and again, ' I Henry, by the grace of God king, with all the bishops of my realm, say unto thee, " Down, down ! " ' This war ended calamitously for Henry. In the year 1077, Gregory appeared at Canosa in the character of an imperious and haughty conqueror, Henry as a de- feated and humble penitent. On January 25, on a dreary winter morning, Henry was permitted to enter within the two outer of the three walls which guarded the castle of Canosa ; he was clad in the thin, white 106 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. linen dress of the penitent. A first, second, and a third day he stood fasting, awaiting the merciless decree of the pope. Even on the third day he would not have been admitted to the pope's presence had he not implored the mediating influence of the Countess Matilda. This scene has been narrated by one of the most accurate of monkish annalists, Lambert of Hertzfeldt. From his account tt appears that when Henry implored humbly the assistance of the Abbot of Clugny, the godfather of the Emperor, the Abbot turned to the Countess and said, 'Thou alone canst accomplish this.' To female entreaties Gregory at length yielded, and permitted Henry, still in the garb of penitence, with bare feet, to stand before his priestly throne. The Emperor, a man of a singularly tall and noble person, after falling on his knees before the Countess, was admitted to stand before the Pope, a grey-haired man of unimposing stature, bowed with years and fasting. The Pope insisted, before he w^ould grant absolution, that if Henry should recover his kingdom, he should rule according to the counsel of the Pope, and correct whatever was contrary to the ecclesiastical laws. Henry having sworn to fulfil these conditions, absolution was granted him. But Gregory had not yet done with his victim. Having ordered the Eucharist to be prepared, he called the King towards the altar, lifted in his hands the consecrated host, and said, 'I have been accused by thee, and by thy partisans, of having usurped the Apostolical See by simoniacal practices, of having been guilty, both before and after my election to the episco- GREGORY VII. 107 pate, of crimes which would disqualify me for my sacred office. I might justify myself by proof, and by the witness of those who have known me from my youth, whose suffrages have raised me to the Apostolic See. But to remove every shadow of suspicion, I appeal from human testimony to divine. Behold the Lord's body; be this the test of my innocence. May God acquit me by his judgment this day of the crimes with which I am charged ; if guilty, strike me dead at once.' He took and ate the consecrated bread. A burst of ad- miration thrilled the congregation. Henry was appalled. Gregory exclaimed, ' Do thou, my son, as I have done.' The King hesitated. He retired to a short distance to consult his followers. He then said, that, before he accepted this challenge, he must appeal to the princes who adhered to his cause. The Pope, who had already granted absolution, granted his request for time, received the King at a banquet, and treated him with courtesy. There seems to have been much reluctance on the part of the haughty and severe Gregory to push the quarrel to extremities. He might, no doubt, have deposed Henry, who would hardly have recovered from such a blow. Why did he pause? Was the compassion of Matilda roused by the humiliation of a handsome sovereign kneehng at her feet.^ Was the Pope, doubtful of the poHcy of provoking the nobles of Germany and the chiefs of Lombardy into a bloody and dangerous resistance ? Were the ashes still burn- ing and prepared for a new conflagration ? Be the causes what they might, from this time 108 HISTORY OP THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Henry was allowed to recover his strength, and the object of Hildebrand, that of reducing the sceptres of Europe to subjection under the triple tiara of Eome and the mitres of the sacerdotal order, was never attained. Far other was the event of the struggle. A bloody war was carried on for many years between Gregory as the assertor of the sacerdotal, and Henry as the champion of the secular power. A rival to Henry was set up in the person of Eudolph of Suabia, but in a great battle on the Elster, Eudolph was mortally wounded. In his dying words he seemed to express his doubts of the justice of the cause in which he had fought. Gazing upon his hand, which had been cut ojQT by a sabre, he said, ' With this hand I ratified my oath of fealty to my sovereign Henry ; I have now lost life and kingdom. Bethink ye, ye who have led me on, in obedience to whose counsels I have ascended the throne, whether ye have guided me right.' 1 After this event Henry, though defeated in battle, advanced into Italy. The Italians were generally for Henry. - For three years Henry besieged Eome, withdrawing his army during the heats of summer. At lengtli Guiscard the Norman relieved Gregory, and captured Eome in the guise of a barbarous enemy. The Eomans rose in insurrection. Guiscard gave the order to fire the houses. The inhabitants were hewed down by hundreds, nuns were defiled, matrons forced, the rings cut from their fingers. The vengeance of the * Milman, vol. iii, p. 190. GREGORY VII. 109 Holy See was yet not satisfied. Thousands of Eomans were sold as slaves. The ancient part of the city was destroyed. The old city was deserted, and new streets built over the Campus Martius. Such was the triumph of the cause of God, as it was represented by Gregory the pope, by Guiscard the Norman, and his followers the Saracens. Gregory retired from the castle of St. Angelo to Salerno, where he soon after died by a hngering dis- ease. Persuaded to the last of the justice of his cause and the piety of his conduct, he exclaimed, ' I have loved justice and hated iniquity ; and therefore I die in exile.' Such was his haughty mind to the last. 110 ESSAY vm TRANSUBSTANTIATION. MONASTIC ORDERS. Amoxg the consequences which flowed from the growing superstition of the Christian schools, was the doctrine of Transubstantiation, which, beginning with an excess of devotion and awe at the commemoration of the Lord's Supper, had at length, at the instigation of Paschasius Eadbert, a monk of Corvey, become a perpetual miracle. According to this monk, the ele- ments ceased entirely to be what they still seemed to be to the outward senses. The bread and wine, it was affirmed, were annihilated, being changed into the body and blood of the Eedeemer. The bread and wine used in the sacrament, it is true, were to the researches of chemical science not different from any other bread and wine placed on a table for food or refreshment, but in the minds of Christians, the real body and blood of Christ. This doctrine gave rise to bitter contro- versy, sometimes assuming the shape of the free exer- cise of thought and enquiry upon subjects of large discourse to the free exercise of the human under- standing, at other times opening the way to wild flights of imagination. Speculators sank often, when dwelUng upon this dogma, into a materialism founded solely upon a very gross theory. Among those who took TRAXSUBSTANTIATION. Ill part in these controversies were — Berenger of Tours, John Scotus or Erigena, and Lanfranc of Pavia. The following lines of Dryden contain that poet's argument in favour of transubstantiation : — Good life be now my task ; my doubts are done : What more could fright my faith than Three in One ? Can I believe eternal God could lie Disguised in mortal mould and infancy ? That the great Maker of the world could die ? And after that trust my imperfect sense, "WTiich calls in question His Omnipotence ? Can I my reason to my faith compel, And shall my sight and touch and taste rebel ? Superior faculties are set aside : Shall their subservient organs be my guide ? The weakness of this argument, eloquently as it is expressed, arises from the fact, that the conversion of the bread and wine of the sacrament into the body and blood of Christ, is not affirmed in the New Testament. The Church of England has therefore justly declared, ' Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of bread and wine) in the supper of the Lord cannot be proved by Holy Writ ; but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a sacra- ment, and hath given occasion to many superstitions.' Such is the behef of Protestants ; yet, although incre- dible to all but Eoman Cathohcs, it would not be proper to speak, in the coarse manner of Swift in the ' Tale of a Tub,' of a doctrine which is deeply rooted in the minds of so great a portion of the Christian world. This is properly the place to insert some account of the Monastic Orders. Bingham has divided the monastic age into three periods. In the first, there 112 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. were men and women who abstained from marriage, refused amusements, and practised severe fasts, but in the midst of society. In the second, hermits fled from . the Decian persecutions, and led a hfe of solitary priva- tion. The third commenced with monastic institutions, and led to life in the deserts of Africa, and to the great monasteries and convents of Europe in the West. St. Pachomius, who is said to have been the founder of these institutions, is reported to have enlisted 9,000 monks. In the days of St. Jerome they had increased to 50,000 ; an Egyptian city, named Oxyrinchus, is said to have contained 20,000 nuns and 10,000 monks. Egypt had become the possession of monks ; there the monastic system attained its extreme develop- ment, and practised its most severe austerity. St. Jerome was at once its leader and its panegyrist. St. Jerome was a man of much learning, of great virtue, and considerable abilities ; yet his admira- tion for the life of the Egyptian hermits is re- volting and almost incredible. He declares, with a fervour of approbation, that he had seen a monk who for thirty years had lived on a small daily portion of barley bread and muddy water ; another, who lived in a hole, and never ate more in a day than five figs ; a third, who cut his hair only on Easter Sunday, never washed his clothes, wore his tunic till it fell to pieces, and stared till his eyes grew dim.^ His skin was like a pumice stone. St. Macarius carried about him eighty pounds of iron ; he exposed his body naked to the Lecky's History of European Morals from Constantine to Charlemagne, vol. ii. p. 424 et seq. TRANSUBSTANTIATION. MON^VSTIC ORDERS. 113 stings of venomous flies, St. Eusebius carried one hun- dred and fifty pounds of iron, and lived for three years in a dried-up well. St. Sabinus would only eat corn that had become rotten by remaining for a month in water. St. Marcian and others confined themselves to one meal a day, so small that they constantly suffered the pains of hunger. St. Besarion for forty years never lay down when he slept. The cleanhness of the body was regarded by these fanatics as a pollution of the soul. St. Athanasius relates how St. Antony, the patriarch of monachism, who lived to extreme old age, had never washed his feet.^ But enough of these monstrous practices. Tertul- lian, writing in the second century, to confute some charges made by pagans, declared that, unlike the hermits of India, Christians did not fly from the world, but mixed with pagans in the forum, in the public baths, and in the ordinary business of Hfe. With these social customs, the Christians of the West had persuaded the world to change its rehgion, and when monastic institutions travelled into Europe, bringing habits of intercourse and familiarity with business, they governed the world. In the twelfth century there were two roads to eminence and to fame. A young man of high birth and lively talents might shine in arms at tournaments, or rise to distinction in the polemical contests of theological display. St. Bernard was born of noble parentage in Burgundy. His father, Tecelin, was a man of high honour and * Lecky, vol. ii. p. 117. I 114 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAX RELIGION. courage ; his mother Alith was famed for her piety and charity. Bernard might have aspired to high mili- tary distinction or to the most eminent post in the Ghm-ch. He enquired instead for the poorest, the most severe, the most inaccessible of monasteries. He found it at Citeaux, and the force of his example drew into monastic hfe his brothers, his sister, and even his father. From Citeaux he marched with a colony of monks to a valley in Champagne, where he led a life of harsh labour, hardly eating enough to keep him alive, and so mortifying his senses that they lost all perception of things within his sight, hearing, and taste. He suffered the direst extremity of famine, till the neighbouring peasants with reverential piety brought to him and his companions supplies of food. He called his monastery by the melodious name of Clairvaux. His miracles became famous, his name spread through France, Italy, Germany, England, and Spain. The papal tiara was in dispute between Innocent II. and Anacletus II. Innocent appealed to France, and the king of France, by the advice of Bernard, decided in his favour. Henry I. of England hesitated. * Thou fearest the sin of acknowledging Innocent,' said Bernard ; ' answer thou for thy other sins ; be that one upon my head.' Henry submitted ; Germany and Spain followed the example of France and England. Innocent entered Italy; the Emperor Lothair and Bernard accompanied him to Eome, where Innocent rew^arded the Emperor and his Empress by crowning them with solemn pomp in the Lateran church. Bernard, while constantly sighing for the shades of TRANSUBST.iNTIATIOX. MOXASTIC ORDERS. 115 Clairvaux and seclusion, could not resist the orders of the Pope and neglect the interests of the Church. He employed the Emperor Lothair against the King of Sicily. Anacletus died in the fortress of St. Angelo, and on April 4, 1139, a council of a thousand bishops and numerous abbots was held in the palace of the Lateran. Innocent and Bernard were alike unforgiving. After inveighing against his rival, the Pope gave forth his decree : — ' We degrade all whom he has promoted ; we expel from holy orders and depose all whom he has consecrated.' ^ Not content with thus raising his cHent the Pope, Bernard animated the King of France and the Emperor of Germany to undertake a new crusade. Popular enthusiasm was roused ; the crusade was undertaken by the two most powerful sovereigns in Europe. But the issue was unfortunate ; crusades were out of date, and the sovereigns returned baffled and inglorious, with the loss of thirty thousand lives in battle and by disease. The triumphs of Bernard the recluse in the world and over the world were not yet complete. After the death of Innocent II. and three short-lived suc- cessors, Eugenius III. was elected pope, because he was a Cistercian, the friend of Bernard, and the foe of Abelard. 'People say,' wrote Bernard to Eugenius, ' that you are not pope, but that I am.' (' Aiunt non vos esse papam sed me.') Of the Pope he wrote in the spirit of the Puritans, ' Is this a man to gird on the * Milman. I 2 116 HISTORY OP THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. sword, and to execute vengeance on the people, to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with links of iron ? ' Eugenius, however, became a more powerful pope than had been expected. He recovered Home, and forced the republic of Arnold of Brescia to capitulate. Bernard died in the year 1153. I wish only to notice the most prominent revolutions in the history of the Church. One of these is the influence of Abelard. The life of Abelard furnishes a curious proof of the prevalence of logical forms in substitution of the loving spirit of Christianity, and is in another respect an interesting episode in the great epic of the Christian Church. When Abelard was not more than twenty years old, he tra- velled through France, arguing, discussing, and com- bating with his unbending logic the most famous doctors of divinity. He met William of Champeaux, and other men of brilliant reputation, with an acute- ness which showed him a thorough master of the thrust and parry of theology. His quick perception and bold advance against the strongest positions of the Christian dogma made him an adept in spiritual fence. When he was more than forty he fell under the sway of another passion. He coolly meditated the seduction of a young girl, the daughter of a canon of the name of Fulbert. The canon, tempted by the learning and cheapness of the tutor, admitted Abelard into his house, and even told him that if his daughter were disobedient he might use cor- poral chastisement to correct her. Heloise was en- thusiastic, full of admiration of Abelard's talents ; I TRANSUBSTAXTIATIOX. MONASTIC ORDERS. 117 the canon credulous and unsuspicious. It was soon rumoured that the preceptor had seduced his pupil ; and the matter became so notorious that the lovers were obliged to fly, and Heloise soon after gave birth to a male child. The canon awakened from his dream, was furious, and as a just reparation insisted upon Abelard's marrying his daughter. This condition Abelard readily accepted, though, as a priest, his worldly prospects would be much injured, if not totally overclouded by his marriage. But a woman is not to be outdone in generosity, and Heloise, though she reluctantly consented to marry, loudly protested that she was not the wife, but the mistress of Abelard. Not Caesar's empress would I deign to prove, But make me mistress to the man I love.' The enraged canon, with his relations and friends, determined by one act of signal vengeance to in- capacitate the priest. By the laws of the Church the mutilation of Abelard would ensure his exclusion from its honom-s. This vengeance was inflicted. But the tender, loving, noble nature of Heloise was not thus to be overcome; she urged Abelard to pursue his distinguished career as a theologian, and retired herself into a convent. She inhabited, for a time, the Paraclete, a building erected by Abelard himself. She then became an abbess, and saw Abelard in secret interviews. Abelard had endeavoured, with piercing and un- sparing logic, to point out the various differences * Pope's Eloisa to Abelard. 118 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. which had disturbed the unity of the Church, and to mark the variations of the most revered fathers in defining the mysterious doctrines of Christian theo- logy. He had tested by reason and by analysis the doctrine of the Trinity and the sacraments of the Church. Bernard, inflamed with holy zeal, panted for the condemnation of so bold a reasoner. In a letter to the Pope he complained, * These works of Abelard are flying about all over the world ; they no longer shun the hght, they find their way into castles and cities ; they jump from land to land, from one people to another. A new gospel is pro- mulgated, a new faith is preached. Disputations are held on virtue and sin not according to Christian morality; on the sacraments of the Church not ac- cording to the rule of faith ; on the mystery of the Trinity not with simplicity and soberness.' Abelard, in an evil hour for himself, challenged Bernard to allow him to make good his charges. A council had been summoned at Sens to approve the translation of the body of the patron saint ; the second day of this council was fixed for the theological duel between Bernard and Abelard. But when the hour arrived, Abelard, foreseeing the result, refused to argue the question, and appealed to Rome. But the growing anger of Bernard was not to be thus appeased. After taunting his adversary with his silence, he proceeded, after the withdrawal of Abelard, to send for his books, and desired one of the persons present to read out the objectionable parts. The bishops grew weary, Und sent for wine to relieve their fatigue. The wine TRANSUBSTANTIATIOX. MONASTIC ORDERS. Il9 made them still more sleepy, and they sat, some leaning on their elbows, some with cushions under their heads, some with heads dropping on their knees. Still they had voice enough to cry, whenever the reader paused, ' damnamus,' till at length, overcome by sleep, they could only faintly breathe ' namus.' Abelard's chance before the Pope was still more hopeless. The report of the Council of Sens de- clared, * Abelard makes void the whole Chiistian fliith by attempting to comprehend the nature of God through human reason.' Before the charge was fully known at Eome, Abelard, absent and unheard, was condemned by the supreme pontiff. Abelard had set out for Eome, but was delayed by severe illness, and took refuge in the hospitable abbey of Clugny. There Peter the Venerable received him, and thus testifies of his pious behaviour, ' I never saw his equal for humility of manners and habits ; St. Ger- manus was not more modest, St. Martin poorer. He allowed no moment to escape unoccupied by prayer, reading, writing, or dictation. The heavenly visitor surprised him in the midst of these holy works.' ^ After two years of ill-health he died, and the words just quoted were written by Peter the Venerable to Heloise, who still took an affectionate interest in his welfare. His remains were conveyed to the Para- clete, where for twenty-one years Heloise mourned, with all a woman's fondness, her teacher, her lover, and her husband.^ For him she had sacrificed her virgin honour and her worldly fame. » Milman, vol. iii. p. 377. 2 jbi^. 120 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Arnold of Brescia was the foremost of the disciples of Abelard ; indeed the only one who has left a great reputation behind him. Declining the study of ab- struse theology, he was in doctrine strictly orthodox ; but his ardent temperament, and his indignation at the grasping ambition and boundless avarice of the priesthood, led him to denounce the wealth of the clergy, and to proclaim austerity of life, and absti- nence from all carnal gratifications, as the only mode of following the precepts of Christ. With his religious severity he combined a love of republican democracy ; his political zeal enabled him to establish in Brescia, and even in Kome for a short time, a social republic, where power was elective, and the Church was de- prived of her palaces, her lands, her luxury, and her wealth. After a troubled career of alternate victory and de- feat, he was at length slain by order of the Pope. But his name still survives in the memory of Italian re- formers, and of late years a large subscription has been commenced to erect a statue to his honour in his native place. Another remarkable illustration of the manner in which the Western monasteries gave a practical bias to monastic life, and sought to influence, animate, and govern the world, is afforded by the life of St. Dominic. While lecturers and orators of all kinds declaimed against the scandalous lives of the clergy, Dominic instituted an order of men whose whole business was to J^reach and to teach on behalf of the orthodox Church. His success was prodigious. Dean Milman says of him : TRANSUBSTANTIATION. MOXASTIC ORDERS^ 121 * By him Christeudom was at once overspread with a host of zealous, active, devoted men, whose function was popular instruction. They were gathered from every country, and spake therefore every language and dia- lect. In a few years, from the sierras of Spain to the steppes of Eussia, from the Tiber to the Thames, the Trent and the Baltic Sea, the old faith, in its fullest medieval, imaginative, inflexible vigour, was preached in every town and hamlet. The Dominicans did not confine themselves to popular teaching ; the more dan- gerous, if as yet not abvsolutely disloyal seats of the new learning, of enquiry and of intellectual movement, the universities of Bologna, Paris, and Oxford, are invaded and compelled to admit these stern apostles of unswerving orthodoxy.' ^ St. Dominic was born in the year 1170, in the vil- lage of Calaroga, between Aranda and Osma, in old Castile. He bore the noble name of Guzman. His disciples asserted that he was born without original sin, having been sanctified in his mother's womb. Mingling classical fable with sacred history, they af- firmed that bees settled on his lips. He early showed devout enthusiasm and profound sagacity. During a famine he sold his clothes to feed the poor. He joined, as a canon, a chapter of extreme austerity ; but it was observed that he preferred the conversation of young girls to the garrulity of old women. He remained in the chapter of Osma from his twenty- fifth to his thirty-fourth year. In the year 1203, the Bishop of Osma, a prelate of * Milman's Latin Christianity, vol. iv. p. 248. 122 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. great ability and acknowledged piety, was sent on a mission to Denmark, to negotiate the marriage of Alfonso Vni. with a princess of that kingdom. He took Dominic wnth him, and they crossed the Pyrenees together. The intent of the mission was frustrated by the death of the princess, but the journey into •Languedoc brought the prelate and his companion to the region where the Albigensian heresy flourished, and papal authorities were observed to be employed in its suppression. On their return the bishop and his companion went to Montpellier, where they en- countered the three papal legates, Peter of Castelnau, the Abbe Arnold, and Brother Eaoul. Seeing the pomp of the legates, their large retinue and vast ex- pense, Dominic gave them a severe reproof : ' It is not by the display of power and pomp,' he said, * cavalcades of retainers, and richly houseled palfreys, by gorgeous apparel, that the heretics win proselytes ; it is by zealous preaching, by apostolic humility, by austerity, by seeming, it is true, but yet by seeming holiness. Zeal must be met by zeal, humility by humility, false sanctity by real sanctity, preaching falsehood by preaching truth.' By this bold remon- strance the legates were, for a time, shamed ; they dismissed their splendid equipages, and pursued their way with bare feet. But whatever effect their preach- ing might have had was marred by the murder of Peter of Castelnau, when crossing a river, by a re- tainer of Count Raymond. From that time the slaughter of the Albigenses was the only object pursued. The Bishop of Osma retired TRANSUBSTANTIATION. MONASTIC ORDERS. 123 to his diocese. Dominic remained, and while Simon de Montfort defeated and dispersed the heretics at the great battle of Muret, the saint was in a neigh- bouring church praying for the success of the ortho- dox army. What St. Dominic's panegyrists have eaid of his assisting at the tribunals where heretics were con- demned to the flames may be mistaken, and what the pope of a subsequent age has celebrated, that he was the founder of that admirable institution, the Inquisition, may be exaggeration ; but it is certain that, in taking leave of the Albigensian provinces, he appealed to force as the remedy for erroneous opinions. After high mass at the convent of Prouille, he thus spoke : ' For many years I have spoken to you with I tenderness, with prayers, and tears ; but according to the proverb of my country, where the benediction has no effect the rod may have much. Behold now we rouse up against you princes and prelates, nations and kingdoms ! Many shall perish by the sword. The land shall be ravaged, walls thrown down, and ' you, alas ! reduced to slavery. So shall chastise- iment do that which blessing and mildness could not do.' ^ Dominic now took up his residence at Eome. He was made by the Pope, Honorius III., master of the sacred palace. His success as a preacher was unrivalled. No wonder that when he founded an i' order of preachers and teachers, those young men I who hoped to emulate his eloquence and to exercise a lasting influence over their age, flocked to his sacred * Latin Christianity, vol. iv. p. 256. 124 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. standard. But his power did not stop there. He associated with his order lay persons of both sexes and of all ages ; they attended the churches where a Dominican was expected to preach, and propagated his doctrines in every rank and order of society. St. Dominic himself confided to an intimate colleague the secret that he had never asked anything in prayer to God which God had not granted. This secret, discreetly divulged, vastly augmented the influence of the Dominican brotherhood. Dominic died at Bologna on August 6, 1221. Francis, the son of a merchant or shopkeeper of Assisi, a romantic town situated between Eome and Florence, was born in 1182. When young he squan- dered his father's property in procuring rich dresses and giving costly banquets. Being attacked by a dangerous illness, he became on his recovery fanati- cal in his religious devotion. But his piety was not less costly to his prudent father than his prodigality. Being trusted with a horse and a bale of goods to be sold, he gave the price of the goods and the money obtained by the sale of his horse to a priest, for the purpose of rebuilding the church of St. Damian. He dressed himself as a beggar, and solicited alms in the streets. Having proposed to Pope Innocent III. to found a new order, the Pope, repelled by the dirty and sordid appearance of this devout beggar, rejected him with contempt. But on better information he received the mendicant in pubhc, and authorised the foundation of the Order of St. Francis. The result of the foundation of the Dominican and Franciscan TRANSUBSTANTIATION. MONASTIC ORDERS. 125 orders did not fully appear till the thirteenth century. Then flourished the five famous schoolmen, Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas, Dominicans ; Bona- ventura, Duns Scotus, and WilHara of Ockham, Fran- ciscans. Of these, the most known, at least by name, is Thomas Aquinas. But they all laboured in the field of controversy, and all aimed at the great and apparently difficult task of converting the pure and simple religion of Christ, breathing love and charity, into a hard, logical, and voluminous science, requiring scholastic learning, but dispensing with, or at least passing by, or laying light stress upon, moral virtues. But if the task was difficult, the way had been care- fully prepared by men of acute intellect, immense power, and prodigious influence over their age. Atha- nasius, Jerome, and Augustine had taught theories of the nature of God and Christ, which the sons and successors of Constantine enforced by the sword. 126 ESSAY IX THE SCHOOLMEN. Dean Milman has compared the works of tlie School- men to the pyramids of Egypt, constructed witli immense labour, prodigious in the extent and variety of their passages and divisions, and totally useless to all succeeding generations. But the learned Bishop Hampden has well remarked, — ' The existence alone of that system in the very heart of the Christian Church for so many centuries — for more than a thou- sand years, if we comprise the period of its for- mation antecedent to its perfect maturity — for more than five centuries if we look only to its perfect de- velopment — is a most striking fact.' Dr. Hampden goes on to state, that although we meet with some incidental remarks on the theoretic character of the system in works of philosophy or theology, yet ' with these remarks it is usually dismissed as a method long gone by, which had its day and is now extinct.* But the age of the Schoolmen is an age in which the struggle of Christian scholars to impart to religion the light of advancing knowledge ; to borrow from ancient philosophy its highest lessons, and to spread the light so borrowed over the whole religious world, occupied the greatest minds and embraced the labours, the leisure, THE SCHOOLMEX. 127 the deliberation of an intelligent and active age. The sublime abstractions of Plato at first dazzled the scholars of the time ; the dialectical skill and logical precision of Aristotle afterwards entranced and conquered the minds of Albert the Great, of Thomas Aquinas, and of all the leaders of intellectual progress for centuries. Athanasius, Augustine, Jerome, and Ambrose had sought in the Christian Scriptures the knowledge of God and the true sense of the lessons which Christ Himself had given to mankind. The Schoolmen ex- panded their studies by profound research into Greek philosophy, into the classical works on ethics of Latin authors, and the ingenious and extensive productions of Arabian scholars. Unhappily in this research they converted the simple and sublime theology of Christ and his moral teachings into a metaphysical doctrine fenced with subtle definitions, hedged with dialectical armour, but totally unfit to replace a religion in which God spoke to mankind and taught them with au- thority what to believe and what to do. It woidd be entirely incorrect, however, to say that the Scholastic method is a method long gone by, with which we have nothing to do. On the contrary, upon the arguments of the Schoolmen were founded the tenets of the Eoman Catholic Church as contained in the decrees of the Council of Trent, and the articles of the Eeformed Church of England as agreed to by Convocation and approved by Queen Elizabeth and by Parliament. The materials from which the Schoolmen framed 128 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. their system of theology were various, and to many minds might have appeared irreconcilable. There was first the theology of Plato, according to which God was the supreme Creator, and the universe his only begotten son. Then came the theology of Aristotle, which mate- rialised the universe, and, having converted the ideas of Plato into real material substances, argued upon them with all the force and subtlety of that ad- mirable logic of which he was the prime founder and teacher. After these, and to be combined with these, were the words of Christ and the doctrines of St. Paul. Christ had said, ' I am in God.' But He had also said that He was inferior to the Father. Albertus Magnus, the great Schoolman, said ' that what was in God was God,' and proved dialectically that God the Son was equal to God the Father. It is true that the Schoolmen thus laid down a dogma in direct contradiction to the words of Christ. But it will be found that the Schoolmen always pre- ferred the logic of Aristotle to the word of Christ. Indeed, their object was not so much to follow Christ as to build a new edifice of theology with the materials which they borrowed from the Greek philosophers. The consequence was the Athanasian creed, of which the author is unknown. It has been adopted by the Church of Eome and the Church of England, and has been made the condition of salvation by the ingenious THE SCHOOLMEN. 129 Schoolmen who preferred logic and metaphysics to the sublime simplicity of the Gospel. The religion of Christ, as expounded by Himself and taught by his Apostles, was extremely simple. Men were taught to love one another ; to forgive injuries ; to abstain from murder, adultery, theft, and the ap- propriation of goods deposited with one of their com- munity. The Apostles were to teach this rehgion in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost ; of the nature of the invisible Beings who created and ruled the world but little was said. Christ had taught the woman of Samaria that God is a Spirit, and that those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. So likewise, in speaking to the scribe, He did not ilefine the nature or the substance of the Spirit of God ; He contented Himself with the words conveyed to man- kind by Moses — ' I am the Lord thy God : thou shalt lave none other gods but Me.' Borrowing these words rom the law of Moses, Christ taught from the same aw the duty of man to love God with all his heart md soul, and to love his neighbour as himself. Christ, md his latest Apostle St. Paul, illustrated and enforced hese Divine commands. In other places and in earlier times a different eligion had prevailed. Plato had taught that God lad created the world, and he even used the phrase. The only begotten son of God ; ' but, in the idea of ^lato, ' the only begotten son of God ' was the universe. Aristotle reduced his vague notions to order and 3gical precision. About the twelfth and thirteenth K 130 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. centuries there arose a set of very learned men who conceived the idea of uniting the rehgion of Christ with that of the Greek philosophers ; but as the ideas of Plato were exceedingly intangible and indefinite, they founded this part of their religion rather on the teaching of Aristotle than on the dialogues of Plato. Paolo Sarpi, well versed in the theology of Eome, has said, ' If it were not for Aristotle, we should want many articles of faith : ' In che aveva una gran parte Aristotele coll' aver distinto esattamente tutti i generi di cause, a che, se egli non si fosse adoperato, noi mancaremo di molti articoli di fede.' ^ Christ taught men to love God with all their heart and soul, with- out defining his attributes, or describing in detail his operations. The religion of the Schoolmen, taking a totally different course, began with the existence and the functions of the Supreme Being, and was profuse in discussions upon the hierarchy of Heaven, the relation of the Holy Ghost to the Father and the Son, and the rank and position of the legions of angels which sur- rounded the throne and obeyed the commands of God. It is no wonder, therefore, that these learned men should have left to posterity a religion totally trans- formed from the ancient forms of Christianity. An ac- complished Jesuit has said that there are no doctrines worth mentioning to be gathered from the writings of the first four centuries of the Christian era. In fact, a new body of divinity sprang up which has largely in- fluenced the opinions of modern times ; and opinions, * Paolo Sarpi, Istoria del Concilio di Trento, year 1547. THE SCHOOLMEN. 181 falsely supposed to have been those of Athanasius, have been recommended as of more authority than the words used by Christ Himself, or the weighty declarations which have been sanctified by the pen of St. Paul. I have said that the nature of Christ, as declared by Himself, was seldom defined. But towards the end of his life he declared, both to the Jews his enemies and to his followers and friends, the character He bore and the power He assumed. He said to the Jews, ' Is it not written in your law, I said. Ye are gods ? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken ; say ye of Him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world. Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God ? If I do not the works of my Father, believe Me not. But if I do, though ye believe not Me, believe the works : that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in Me, and I in Him.' ^ To his disciples He revealed Himself more fully. When He was about to die, and knew his doom. He said, ' If ye loved Me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father : for my Father is greater than /.' * Thus, having always addressed God Almighty as ' Our Father' and 'My Father,' and having said, when He was about to die, 'I go to my Father and your Father,' He revealed to the Jews that God was in Him, and He was in God. He also revealed more specially to his disciples, ' My Father is greater than I.' Such were the express and positive words of Christ. But the Schoolmen, being skilful dialecticians, * St. John, chap. x. ^ Ibid. chap. xiv. K 2 132 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. concluded that because Christ declared He was in the Father, and the Father in Him, He was a sepa- rate Person, equal to God the Father. They asserted in the Athanasian Creed, as it is called : ' For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. *But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is all one : the glory equal, the majesty coeternal. . . . ' So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are not three Gods, but one God. ... * And in this Trinity none is afore or after other : none is greater or less than another. But the whole three Persons are coeternal together, and coequal.' The words of Christ, ' My Father is greater than I,' and the words of the anonymous author of the so- called Athanasian Creed, that the three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are ' coeternal together and coequal,'^ are evidently inconsistent with each other. Either the words of Christ must be accepted, and those of the Aristotelian or so-called Athanasian Creed re- jected ; or the creed of Aristotle must be accepted, and the words of Christ rejected. It would not be correct to attribute what is called the Athanasian Creed to the authorship prevalence of \he great Schoolmen of the thirteenth century. Still, failing any authority which would enable me to fix the date of the introduction of that creed, or to name any ' The Confession of our Christian Faith, commonly called the Creed of St. Athanasius, Book of Common Prajer. THE SCHOOLMEN. 13$ person who did not shrink from avowing its authorship, I will insert here what I have to say upon that head. In speaking of the harmony in thought, as well as of the deep impression left by the character of St. Athanasius in Western Christendom, Dean Stanley remarks tliat the most remarkable testimony is the ancient hymn, ' Quicunque vult,' which, throughout the middle ages and by our own Keformers, was beheved to be the Creed of St. Athanasius. The learned world is now fully aware that it is of French or Spanish origin. It not only contains words and phrases which to Athanasius were unknown, but it distinctly and from the first asserted the doctrine of the double procession of the Spirit, which never occurs in the writings of Athanasius, and which, in all probability, he would have repudiated with his Oriental brethren of later times. But its partial resemblance to his style, and the assumption of his name, have given it an immense support. Gibbon remarks in his famous history : ' The three following truths, however surprising they may seem, are now universally acknowledged. 1. Athanasius is not the author of the creed which is so frequently read in our churches. 2. It does not appear to have existed within a century after his death. 3. It was originally composed in the Latin tongue, and conse- quently in the Western provinces.' ^ In later times, Archbishop Tillotson was unwilling to retain what is called the Athanasian Creed as part of our Articles of Keligion. He writes to Bishop * Gibbon, vol. vi. 8vo, note, p. 291. 134 HISTOEY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION Burnet in reference to Burnet's 'Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles :' ' The account of Athanasius's Creed is in no way satisfactory ; I wish we were well rid of it.' ^ So do I. What is called commonly the Creed of St. Athana- sius is the work of an unknown author. It is certain that the terms 'person' and 'substance,' ' consubstantial,' hypostasis, and other terms do not belong to the age of Athanasius. The term omoousion, which is defined 'consubstantial, being of the same substance,' appears in the proceedings of the Council of Nice, but the creed called Athanasian appeared first in the Latin language.^ It was attributed at one time to Vigilius, Bishop of Tapsus, commonly called VigiHus Tapsensis. But subsequent enquiry has proved that the faith declared in the Athanasian Creed, was by no means the faith of Vigilius. It has been said that the fact of the creed being anonymous gives value to its authority. But that the words of an anonymous author ought to be preferred to the revealed words of Christ Himself I must firmly deny. It is for all Christians to choose which authority they prefer. They cannot accept a contradiction in terms for their sincere faith. They must accept the words of Christ and abandon the anonymous author, or adhere to the anonymous author and abandon the words of Christ. ^ Life of Tillotson. ' ofioovaing, oy (ovaia), consubstantial, Plotin. Eccl. ; to ofionvtriov, Bameness of essence or substance, opp. to to 6fxoiov(Ttov, Eccl. : so, ofxoovaioTjjc, TjToc, i) ; and bfioovtTiaffrtJQ, ov, o, one who maintains the doctrine of ro ofioovawr. — Liddell and Scott's Greek Lexicon, p. 993. THE SCHOOLMEN. 135 But there is more to be said on this great subject. It was not the assertion of a single doctrine by Christ which was contradicted by this anonymous creed ; but the whole theory of the author of the creed, and after- wards of the Schoolmen, amounted to the substitu- tion of a religion founded upon Plato and Aiistotle for the Church founded by Christ. Christ had de- clared more than once that he who embraced ' in spirit and in truth ' two commandments was not far from the kingdom of God. One of these com- mandments was, ' Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with aU thy heart and with all thy soul ; ' the other was, ' Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.' One thing is quite apparent in these commandments : they were not injunctions to beUeve any definition of the nature of God. The existence of a Supreme Being, who had made heaven and earth, was taken for granted by Christ as the belief delivered by one to those to whom He spoke ; his commandments were directed to the heart, and not to the understanding. The existence of God being assumed, according to the faith promulgated by Moses, man was told to love God with all his heart, and his neighbour as himself. * God spake these words, and said, I am the Lord thy God : thou shalt have none other gods but Me.' Thus the unity of God had been proclaimed by Moses and accepted by Christ. To the words of God, proclaimed by Moses, Christ had added, ' God is a Spirit, and they who worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in Truth.' He had also declared that He came to fulfil the Law. 136 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. All the teaching of Christ and his Apostles was in conformity with these commandments. Christ taught that it was not enough to say ' Lord, Lord,' but what was essential was to obey the commands of God. The disciples of Christ were told, ' If a man does not love his neighbour whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen ? ' The worship of the Virgin Mary was reproved in the woi'ds which told men rather to hear the commands of God and do them than to call for blessings on the mother who bore and nurtured Christ. St, Paul, in a similar spirit, had pointed out that a man who loved his neighbour would work him no ill. The parables of Christ were all conceived in a similar spirit. The Samaritan who helped his neighbour, at- tended to his wounds, and left money for his support, was, in the eyes of the pharisaical Jews, a, heretic. Christ, who did not share in the rehgious opinions of the Samaritan, held him up as an example of love to his neighbour. The priest and the Levite, who passed by on the other side, may have held doctrines of the most orthodox character, entirely free from the taint of the Samaritan errors, but they were evidently con- demned as wanting in that love which is placed by his Apostle before faith and hope. The early Christians adopted these commandments for their guidance. Tlie Christians who lived in the time of Trajan, and were condemned by Pliny, held themselves bound to return any treasure deposited with them to the person who had deposited it. Thus the religion taught by Christ united two parts THE SCHOOLMEN. 137 — the one consisting of love to God and to all man- kind, as the principle from which their actions should jflow ; the other, of actions derived from this fertile and all-pervading principle. The time had come, however, when the whole basis of religion was to be changed. A number of able men, deeply learned in Greek philosophy, abandoned almost entirely the precepts of Christ, and out of the faith of Christ, of Plato, and of Aristotle compounded a new religion which was to give mankind a more perfect understanding of the nature of the Supreme Being than they had hitherto possessed. Nothing was want- ing in the way of artificial, logical distinctions — or. in definitions so subtle that the minds of the most experienced philosophers failed to catch the precise meaning of the terms used. The arts of Greek logic were used in the construction of epithets so evanescent and ambiguous that men of average understanding were completely baSled in the attempt to affix to them the true but hidden meaning. According to this new faith, a man must subscribe to a number of propositions he could not understand, but need not be very solicitous whether the commandments, ' Thou shalt do no murder,' * Thou shalt not steal,' and other moral laws were neg- lected or observed. Such was the certain, though doubtless the unintentional, effect of the theology of the new doctors. Accordingly, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, when Martin Luther offered to appear to discuss the meaning of the New Testament, it was felt at Eome that the theologians upon whom the cardinals relied for explaining and defending the 138 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. j religion of the Eoman Church were so imperfectly acquainted with the Gospel that they could not be expected to meet Luther on equal terms. ^ In effect, the Eoman Church from this time no longer rested on the Bible, but was founded on the rehgion partly of Christ, but partly, perhaps mainly, of Aristotle and i other pagan philosophers. One of the fairest ex- ' pounders of the Scholastic philosophy, the late Bishop Hampden, has said of it : ' Thus did the theologians of the Schools, with duti- ful officiousness, gather up the fragments of revealed truth; but, in the meantime, they lost the oppor- . tunity of feeding on the bread of God which came ! down from heaven. Their piety became a superstition, transubstantiating the truth of God into the verbal | elements by which it was signified.' ^ This has also been the case with some eminent professors and theo- logians of the present day. But let us accompany Dr. Hampden a httle further : * From the observations already made, it woidd appear that the ethical nature of the Christian Scrip- tures had been insufficiently attended to by the divines of the Schools. Eager to erect their theology into a philosophy of the Divine Being, they were compara- tively indifferent to the humbler truths which lay in the walk of men's every-day life. But they did not at the same time omit the consideration of human duties, as I shall have an opportunity of showing on a future occasion. What I would point out now is the dis- paragement of Revelation as a code of moral discipline, * Paolo Sarpi, Istoria del Concilto di Trento, 2 Hampden'.s Bampton Lectures, THE SCIIOOLMEX. 139 and the exaltation of theology, in the sense of a theo- retic science, as the appropriate subject of the inspired volumes. This would follow, indeed, from the influence of that dialectical spirit with which they pursued the whole enquiry into Divine truth. Conclusions^ and not precepts or rules of conduct, were the object of attention as they read ; and instead, therefore, of trac- ing the coincidence of revealed obligations with the internal laws of our moral nature, they were intent on applying the rules obtained, whether from Scripture or from the works of philosophers, to particular cases, and forming a code of casuistry rather than a theory of moral sentiments and duties. Happily for the ethical system of the Schools, the chief human authority fol- lowed was that of Aristotle.' ^ Be that as it may, it appears from the testimony and on the authority both of Paolo Sarpi and Bishop Hampden that the theology of the Schoolmen of the thirteenth and fourteenth cen- turies is founded not so much on the religion of Christ, as on the philosophy of Aristotle. The boldness of Dr. Hampden in letting out so much truth raised a great outcry against him. All who joined in his opinion were called Socinians. This nickname had great effect with those who refused to read Hampden, and had never read Socinus. But no matter. * Men are on fire in favour of falsehood ; they are cold as ice for truth.' ^ Of all the learned Schoolmen, Thomas Aquinas has ^ Hampden's Bampton Lectures, 3rd edit. Lecture II. p. 94. ^ ' L'homme est de feu pour le mensonge, II est de glace aux verites.' La Fontaine. 148 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. of St. Bernard, the episcopal authority. Raymond, Count of Toulouse, became the object of papal inter- dict and rancorous enmity. He was loose in his life ; he had had five wives, three Hving at the same time, and two of them of his kindred, within the proliibited degrees. Peter of Castelnau and other lef^ates made pompous processions through the pro- vinces. In crossing a river Peter de Castelnau was killed ; it is supposed by some follower of the Count of Toulouse, but the pope, misled by false information, or carried away by his own violent passions, declared the Count of Toulouse himself guilty of the murder, and heaped upon him the fiercest denunciation. It would be tedious and disgusting to follow the history of the persecutions ordered by the pope and the King of France against the Albigenses. Immense armies were collected, dreadful massacres were perpe- trated, and the ferocity of the most savage tribes was exceeded by the insane fury of those who professed to enforce the spirit of the Gospel. These reflections lead me to portray the origin, progress, and history of persecution. The treatment of heretics is thus prescribed by St. Paul in his epistle to Titus, the first bishop of the Cretans. ' A man that is an heretic after the first and second- 1 admonition reject; knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself.'^ This peaceable rule seems to have been obeyed so long as the Christians were not favoured by the state, * Ep. to Titus, chap. iii. I PERSECUTION. 149 The Council of Elvira in Spain, held in 303, at which Osius of Cordova and many other prelates assisted, decreed that if a heretic desired to be reconciled to the Church, he should be admitted on condition of undergoing a canonical penance of ten years. Other councils adopted the same course. But when the emperors became Christians, and the Church was united to the state, a very different rule was adopted. The first decree of persecution on behalf of the Christian Church was issued by the Emperor Theo- dosius, and the first victims were the Manichajans. Theodosius pubhshed in 382 an edict against the Mani- chasans, declaring that their lives should be forfeited and their goods confiscated. This decree sanctioned the employment of spies and secret accusers, and thus contained the germ of the Inquisition.^ The Albigensian war was connected with the estab- lishment of the Inquisition. * Never,' says Dean Milman, ' in the history of man, were the great eternal principles of justice, the faith of treaties, common humanity, so trampled under foot as in the Albigensian war. Never was war waged in which ambition, the consciousness of strength, rapacity, implacable hatred, and pitiless cruelty, played a greater part.'^ Such a war was the great example followed by the Church of Eome in the war against the Lollards, in the burning of John Huss and Jerome of Prague, in the persecutions of heretics at Eome by the pope, in England by Queen ' Llorente, vol. i. Jortin's Remarks, vol. ii. p. 39*. ' Milman's Latin Christianity, vol. iv. p. 408* 142 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION demons with as many elaborate distinctions and varie- ties as the rest of the system. Nothing can be more looically marked out than the distinctions between these spiritual beings ; nothing more elaborate than the attempts to avoid the errors of Arius and Sabellius. Yet it is evident throughout that the system was founded rather upon the doctrines of Aristotle than upon those of Christ and Paul. In short, nothing can more clearly prove the truth of Bacon's remark, that there is great danger in the attempt to mingle theological systems with philosophical opinions — the danger of teaching a heterodox religion on the one side, with an unsound philosophy on the other. Aquinas was to be taken as the type of those schools which in the fifteenth century built up a new fabric of theology, which was henceforth to be substi- tuted for the Christianity of the older fathers of the Church. A learned Jesuit very truly said, according to his own reading and his own opinions, that for the first three centuries of the Christian era no writer worth con- sulting is to be found. In fact, the teachers of the four- teenth century founded a new system, which was, in effect, an attempt to make a complete theory of the spiritual world, founded rather upon the writings of Plato and Aristotle than upon the simple and subhme teachings of Christ and Paul. In order to enable them to perform their task, they searched every avenue of learning. One abundant source of knowledge was open to them in the translation, by Arabic writers of celebrity, of the classical works of Greece. The lectures upon Aristotle were placed on the footing of orthodox THE SCHOOLMEN. 143 theology. The errors first disseminated were only to be corrected by searching the voluminous works of the most learned Schoolmen. The doctrines thus taught did not resemble, as Dean Milman imagined, the vast buildings .erected to Cheops and other Egyptian nionarchs, known by the name of the Pyramids of Egypt, and neglected as much as known, as useless products of ingenuity and labour. The doctrines of the Schoolmen were adopted by sovereigns and states as the true faith, and hundreds of thousands of bloody victims were offered in the pursuit of that unity of the faith which, in the opinion of the persecutors of Toulouse and the Inquisition of Spain, could- not be purchased at too dear a price. I now turn to that progress of persecution which commenced with the Emperor Theodosius, and of which we have scarcely as yet seen the termination. Let me, however, say a few words by way of preface. The doctrine that salvation can only be found in tlie Church is the fruitful source of persecution. In examining the speculative logic of Christianity, we have to examine, according to Dr. Hampden, the principal obstacle to the union and peace of the Church 6f Christ. The reason is not far to seek ; the Scrip- tures intimate to us certain facts concerning the Divine Being, and this kind of knowledge teaches us how to feel towards God. It is in truth the language which we understand, the language formed by our own ex- perience and practice. When, therefore, we are told to love God with all our hearts and minds, we understand very clearly that 144 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. we ought to worship Him, and to endeavour to obey his commandments. So likewise, when we are told to love our neighbour as ourselves, we may well under- stand that love worketh no harm to the object of love, and that, as St. Paul explains it, love comprehends a great number of duties comprised in the word love. But when we proceed to define the nature of God, his relation to Christ and to the Holy Ghost, it is evident that the evil which logical theology has imported into religion will be sufficiently apparent. Signs have been converted into things, the combination and analysis of words, which logical theology has produced, have given opportunity to the passions of men to arm themselves in defence of the phantoms thus created. Thus, St. Augustine, the father of Latin orthodoxy, while he directs his students to learn the use of the weapons of disputation, especially warns them against the passion for wrangling, and a childish sort of ostentation of deceiving an adversary. ' Vanity mixed itself largely in these disputes. Every teacher of theology invented some subtle distinction, or some form of illustrating an old truth, which had not been thought of by his contemporaries. Thus, instead of being occupied in loving, the whole world was given up to disputation ; and instead of being intent on the practice of those virtues of which Christ constantly preached the necessity, the pro- moters of the Athanasian Creed prided themselves on a number of logical puzzles, which seemed to throw into a maze the most refined reasoning of the scholastic, (ioctors of their day. THE SCHOOLMEX. 145 Thus many men, who would have kept the tenor of their way piously, charitably, quietly, found them- selves involved in an obligation to decide that their simple neighbours would perish everlastingly, and be- came partizans in one or more of these wars of perse- cution which saturated alternately with blood those towns of Languedoc, of Belgium, of Castile, of Anda- lusia, where they prevailed. To this history we shall presently address ourselves. 146 ESSAY X. PERSECUTION. The increased power of the pope, the foundation of the orders of St. Francis and St. Dominic, and the lessons of scholastic philosophy, formed an immense system which showed at once the strength and the weakness of the Eoman Church. The pretensions of the popes could not fail to produce a strong reaction. Accordingly, in the twelfth century, there arose in the different countries of Europe individuals of sin- gular talents and learning, who were admired as prophets by their admirers, and arraigned as heretics by their opponents. Peter de Brueys who preached in the south of France for above twenty years, was arraigned by Peter the Venerable as. denying (1) infant baptism ; (2) respect for churches ; (3) the worship of the cross ; (4) transubstantiation and the Eeal Presence ; (5) prayers, alms, and oblations for the dead. He was condemned, and burnt at St. Gilles, in Languedoc. To the five errors which had dimmed the fame of Peter de Brueys, his successor, Henry the Deacon, added many more. But soon these errors were not confined to individuals, or promoted solely by the eloquence or fame of individuals. Great bodies of heretics, distinguished as Manichaeans or Waldeuses, PERSECUTION. 147 rose and confronted the Church in various districts of France and other countries of Europe. In the south of France, the Count of Toulouse and his vassals brought from the Crusades the gallantry of the Moors of Spain, and promoted a gay licence of manners, ad- verse not only to the austerities of monkish Christi- anity, but of pure Christian morals. The Troubadour, who was the poet laureate of his court, contributed by his poetry to spread a worship of the poetical- . mistress, and a neglect or contempt of the lawful wife. \ The cities rose in opulence and splendour, the chant I in the castle chapel was silent or unheard. The pope ' and the King of France thought the time of repression was come. Innocent III. had hardly ascended the pontifical throne when he wrote an imperious letter to the Archbishop of Auch, followed by a papal manifesto, which broadly proclaimed the outlawry of all heretics, the right as well as the determination to banish them, to confiscate their property, and even to put them to death. The heretics on their side distinguished themselves not only by their disregard of the papal precepts, but by tenets of their own, aspiring to a perfect reformation of manners. In the year 1204 five of the most noble ladies of Provence promised to give themselves up to God and his gospel, to eat neither meat, eggs, nor cheese, to allow them- selves only vegetables and fish, and to be faithful to the heretical sect, even unto death. The pope looked to the community founded by St. Bernard for the suppression of this dangerous heresy. He transferred to Peter of Castelnau and Eaoul, both of the order L 2 148 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. of St. Bernard, the episcopal authority. Raymond, Count of Toulouse, became the object of papal inter- dict and rancorous enmity. He was loose in his life ; he had had five wives, three Hving at the same time, and two of them of liis kindred, within tlie proliibited degrees. Peter of Castelnau and other leo^ates made pompous processions through the pro- vinces. In crossing a river Peter de Castelnau was killed ; it is supposed by some follower of the Count of Toulouse, but the pope, misled by false information, or carried away by his own violent passions, declared the Count of Toulouse himself guilty of the murder, and heaped upon hira the fiercest denunciation. It would be tedious and disgusting to follow the history of the persecutions ordered by the pope and the King of France against the Albigenses. Immense armies were collected, dreadful massacres were perpe- trated, and the ferocity of the most savage tribes was exceeded by the insane fury of those who professed to enforce the spirit of the Gospel. These reflections lead me to portray the origin, progress, and history of persecution. The treatment of heretics is thus prescribed by St. Paul in his epistle to Titus, the first bishop of the Cretans. * A man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition reject; knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself'^ This peaceable rule seems to have been obeyed so long as the Christians were not favoured by the state. * Ep. to Titus, chap. iii. PERSECUTION. 149 The Council of Elvira in Spain, held in 303, at which Osius of Cordova and many other prelates assisted, decreed that if a heretic desired to be reconciled to the Church, he should be admitted on condition of undergoing a canonical penance of ten years. Other councils adopted the same course. But when the emperors became Christians, and the Ohurch was united to the state, a very different rule was adopted. The first decree of persecution on behalf of tlie Christian Church was issued by the Emperor Theo- iosius, and the first victims were the Manichaeans. rheodosius pubhshed in 382 an edict against the Mani- ^heeans, declaring that their Lives should be forfeited uid their goods confiscated. This decree sanctioned he employment of spies and secret accusers, and thus contained the germ of the Inquisition.^ The Albigensian war was connected with the estab- isliment of the Inquisition. 'Never,' says Dean >lilman, ' in the history of man, were the great eternal )rinciples of justice, the faith of treaties, common iiimanity, so trampled imder foot as in the Albigensian vnT. Never was war waged in which ambition, the onsciousness of strength, rapacity, implacable hatred, nd pitiless cruelty, played a greater part.'^ Such a war /as the great example followed by the Church of Eome 1 the war against the Lollards, in the burning of John luss and Jerome of Prague, in the persecutions of eretics at Eome by the pope, in England by Queen ^ Llorente, vol. i. Jortin's Remarks, vol. ii. p. 39*. ' Milman's Latin Christianity^ vol. iv. p. 408* 150 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Mary, in the Low Countries by the Duke of Alva, and finally, in that most horrible of all tribunals, the Spanish Inquisition. The army which moved from Lyons into Lan- guedoc was computed to muster, besides knights and nobles, 200,000 soldiers. The young Vicomte de Berniers threw himself into his own town of Berniers, and valiantly defended it. The city was stormed ; a general massacre ensued. Neither sex nor age were spared. From twenty to fifty thousand persons were slain. The cruel command was uttered, 'Slay them all, God will know his own.' The Monk of Vaux Cer- nay, the historian of these atrocities, says, ' Our people put to the sword all whom they could find, slaying them with fire and sword. For which blessed be the Lord, who delivers to us some of the wicked, although not all.' ^ Such was the religion of Christ, as explained by the monks. When Eaymond VII. surrendered his title of Count of Toulouse, after the return of Louis IX. (St. Louis) to France, the Inquisition was instituted, with nearly all its features of horror and infamy. No advocate might appear before the tribunal, no witness was confronted with the accused, the proceedings were carried on in profound secrecy. In 1229, at the Council of Toulouse, the tribunal of the Inquisition, under the papacy of Gregory IX., first received a regular form, and proceeded under the direction of the Dominicans to exercise its formidable powers. At the same council it was ordered that boys of fourteen, and girls of twelve years old, should take ' Coll. des M^moires, p. 303. PERSEa^TlON. 151 an oath of fidelity to the Eoman Catholic Church, attesting also their opposition to heresy. By another decree of the council, the reading of the Holy Scrip- tures was strictly prohibited to the laity. This was one of the measures perseveringly sanctioned by the Church of Eome with the intent to conceal from their lay fol- lowers a knowledge of the gospel. This was in fact a main cause of dispute between the pope and Wickliflf", the pope and Jerome of Prague, the pope and John Huss, the pope and Martin Luther. The grand project of all for defeating and extirpating heresy was brought to maturity in Spain. But as it sometimes happens to private persons that the phy- sician is able to cure a disease, but that when the disease is thoroughly conquered the patient dies, so it happened in Spain, that no sooner was heresy extir- pated than the state declined and perished. In fact the Spanish Inquisition, by making every exertion of the mind dangerous, all theological learning penal, and all social intercourse beset with unseen pitfalls, extin- guished the mind of the nation, destroyed hberty in its parliament, valour in its armies, wisdom in its states- men, and made one of the proudest and bravest nations in the world a bye-word for imbecility, ignorance, and apathy.^ But let us mark the chief events in this story. Till near the end of the fifteenth century heresy was encountered in Spain by argument, by learned writings, by friendly discussion. But about the year 1480 Queen Isabella conceived the hope of obtaining from * See Macaulay's account of Charles II. of Spain in the fifth volume of his history. 152 HISTORY OP THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. the pope a bull for the establishment of the Inquisition in Castile. Queen Isabella had the same devotion to the Church of Eome, and the same belief that heresy led to the destruction of body and soul, which ani- mated Mary Tudor of England. But the character which acquired for the Enghsh Queen the name of Bloody Mary, exalted the fame of Isabella, and she and her husband Ferdinand were celebrated as Los Reyes Cattolicos. Isabella, thus inspired, entreated the pope to give a permanent form to the Inquisition, and to make its judgments final without appeal to Eome. Hence the papal bull of August 1483, which gave to the Spanish Inquisition the form of a permanent tri- bunal, and named the orthodox Torquemada Inquisitor- General. The fruits of this measure were not long in being gathered. Mariana, himself a Jesuit, affirms in his * History' that in the first year of its existence the Inquisition of Seville burnt 2,000 persons. Andrea Berceldon computes that between 1482 and 1489, 700 persons perished by fire, and 5,000 underwent peniten- tiary punishments. A more public authority, namely, the Court of the Inquisition of Seville itself, placed in the front of its palace in the year 1524 an inscription, where it is recorded to the glory of the institution and the edification of the faithful, that *from the time of the expulsion of the Jews and Moors up to that date, more than 20,000 heretics had abjured their criminal errors, and that more than a thousand persons, obstinate in their heresy, had been deUvered to the flames.' PERSECUTION. 153 It is added, * after being condemned in conformity to the laws.* The writ de hoeretico comburendo was in Spain no idle formality. It is possible that the former of these numbers may have been magnified, and the latter reduced in order to display at once the efficacy and the mercy of the tribunal. In the inscription the favour and approba- tion of popes Innocent VIII., Alexander VI., Pius III,, Julius II., Leo X., Adrian VI., and Clement VII. are recorded to sanctify and hallow this holy persecution. Outside the walls of Seville there was assigned, and there remained in my own day, a square surrounded by a low wall, where heretics were burnt, and which, in conformity with its purpose, was called the Quema- iero. At Valladolid, at Jaen, at Saragossa, and other chief towns of Spain, the cruel punishment of fire was inflicted upon many of the best Spaniards ; the most learned authors, the men who dared to think and to enquire, the most virtuous fathers of families, the most unspotted from the world among the wives and daughters of Spain. But dreadful as was the sacrifice of life offered up to the Moloch of superstition, still more injurious to the nation was the systematic injustice perpetrated by the Inquisition. For instance : — 1. Anonymous accusations were at all times re- ceived. Besides the danger of thus giving a sanction to malignant conspiracies hatched by hatred and re- venge, the usual consequences of such a proceeding were awful. A witness was summoned, and in his terror and perplexity was asked whether he knew of 154 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. any persons whose language or habits of life, or whose daily worship, or omission to attend worship, made him suspect them of heresy. The witness in his alarm might mention persons other than those whose conduct had been denounced to the tribunal. Thence fresh accusa- tions, new enquiries, unexpected condemnations. Then again, the court would interrogate new witnesses, and make a detailed enquiry into the daily life, the accus- tomed studies, the familiar conversation of persons who were quite ignorant that they had become objects of suspicion. 2. The members of the tribunal were often priests who had sought by becoming inquisitors to avoid the disciphne of their bishops and lawful superiors, but who were themselves quite destitute of theological learning. Thence, the researches of pious men, who had gathered, from a study of the Fathers, doctrines often profound and not seldom orthodox, were de- nounced by malicious accusers and condemned by ignorant judges. 3. The inquisitors, besides being illiterate or imper- fect scholars, were often men of sinful habits and licentious appetites. Thence the property of rich men, the homes of chaste women, the integrity of faithful domestics, were assailed by the passions and the lusts of those who were specially appointed to guard religion and morals. 4. If the enquiries made did not furnish the hunters after heresy with sufficient materials for a sentence of death or imprisonment, torture was applied to fill up the charges requisite for condemnation. It is well known PERSECUTION. 155 that torture of a witness proves not that the accused is guilty, but that the witness is human. Galileo, under torture, was willing to admit that the earth did not move ; the most pious and virtuous men and women of Spain were burnt to death because the nerves of the persons called upon to convict them could not bear the pain of torture. Yet let us not suppose that all these evils — the death of many thousand victims ; the extinction of the moral and intellectual life of hundreds of thousands more ; the decay of public virtue ; the loss of military glory ; the abasement of the intellect ; the corruption of morals, were entirely without excuse on the part of those who were thus the authors of the decUne and fall of the Spanish monarchy. It is stated that many, nay, most of the inquisitors, were men of conscientious convictions and of blameless lives. No doubt these men had read the words of the creed of St. Athanasius, commonly so called : ' Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith, which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.' Then after many subtle proposi- tions of scholastic metaphysics it is proclaimed : — * This is the Catholic faith : which except a man beUeve faithfully, he cannot be saved.' If, therefore, this creed, which is accepted by the Church of Eome, was the sincere belief of the kings and queens, archbishops and bishops of Spain, can we wonder that they upheld the Inquisition and its works ? For they may have argued, ' Is it better that a whole 156 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. nation should be eternally saved, or that military glory, literary fame, worldly prosperity, should be bought at the expense of living and unborn millions of innocent souls ? Is it not better to forego temporal advantages, proficiency in trade, science, letters, and arts, than to allow our people to fall into damnable heresies, and permit a multitude of erring and diverging sects ? But if it is better to preserve the purity of the faith, how can it be done except by a tribunal which can search out every error, detect every secret aberration, pursue with vigour every departure from sound doctrine, and punish with inflexible severity every obstinate persist- ency in errors, which lead those who hold them to perish everlastingly ? ' I think we must conclude, tliat if in defiance of the teachings of Christ we believe the Athanasian Creed, we may in our weakness tolerate error ; but that in strict logic we must conclude that the course of the Spanish Inquisition and of the Spanish Monarchy was the most consistent and the best calculated to insure what the Church and State believed will be the eternal happiness of the Spanish people. So thought the Spanish people themselves. I have heard a Spanish priest tell a number of peasants that without the Inquisition the faith could not be pre- served ; the obedient spirit of his hearers testified to their concurrence in this intolerant judgment. But what was the source of this judgment .^ Let us never forget that this unity of faith, this inflexible loyalty to the Eonian Church, was obtained by a fatal departure from the obedience due to the commandments of Christ PERSECUTION. l57 The ambition of Julius 11. , the incestuous passions of Eodrigo Borgia, the love of pleasure of Leo X., the flagrant sins of a hundred popes, might safely be in- dulged, provided only that the equality of God the Son to God the Father was firmly maint,ained ; the proces- sion of God the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son was asserted boldly ; and the conversion of bread and wine into the flesh and blood of Christ was ac- cepted with unhesitating faith. So likewise the murder of Philip n., and the licentious adulteries of Louis XIV., were readily absolved by courtly confessors, provided heretics were burnt in Spain, and Huguenots cut to pieces in France. Such were the consequences of the transformation of the religion of the heart and mind taught by Christ into a scheme of scholastic log;ic. While such was the fruit of the attempts to carry into effect the lessons taught by the schoolmen, and to establish unity of faith, instead of unity of Spirit, all over Europe, we must endeavour to mark the symp- toms of revolt which appeared in Germany, in the Low Countries, in Holland, and in England. There is much to admire in the courage and determination with which Luther and Calvin, John Knox the leader of the Pres- byterians of Scotland, and Zuinglius, the apostle of the Swiss, sought to revive obedience to the gospel, as the great rule of faith left by Christ to the world. But there is much to lament in the errors which they com- mitted by the partial adoption of the lessons which ought to have been accepted in their integrity. Christ had promised to his disciples that the Holy Ghost 158 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. would aid with his Spirit the pen of those who should record his sayings and report his doctrines. But it is one thing to have the letter of the sayings and doctrines of Christ, it is another thing to divide the letter which killeth from the Spirit which giveth life. St. Augustine relates that this precept was the text continually referred to by St. Ambrose, and enforced with all the eloquence and power of that illustrious prelate. The question remained for the times of which we are now treating, whether Christ had left a living apostle who should bequeath to his successors for all time a power to declare his will without error and without diversity. The adherents of the Church of Rome declared, and endeavoured to carry into effect by force, the belief that such a power existed, and was to be worshipped and adored in the person of an in- falUble pope. The Reformers of the sixteenth century were equally confident in their assertion, that the inter- pretation of Christ's doctrines was left to the private judgment of instructed men, who, by continual study of the Holy Scriptures, would discover the path of salvation, and, by constant examination of their own lives, would be able to discover whether their conduct was in conformity with the rules which they professcl to obey. It is this faith which was affirmed or denied by the blood of martyrs, and appealed to in fields of battle by the armies of Europe. But much as modern times have softened the spirit of contending churches and varying sects, I cannot refrain from declaring over and over again tliat the spirit which induced men to punish by law what they PERSECUTION. 159 deem heresy, and even the mental conviction which | induced them to refrain from participation in holy J rites, or social intercourse, with those they call here- ] tics, be they Unitarians or Baptists, or those they call | Atheists, be they Pantheists or Socinians, followers of ! Spinoza or declared unbelievers, is a spirit contrary i to the lessons of Christ and the true spirit of the Christian religion. The influence of the rehgious orders was felt in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries most particularly, and was pointed out and confessed very openly in the sixteenth at the Council of Trent, both with regard to dogma and with regard to the practical government of the Church. Thus, when it was laid down that all mankind were involved in the original sin of Adam, and were only redeemed by the atoning sacrifice of Christ, the Franciscans would only agree to the propo- sitions w^herein this doctrine was contained, on con- dition that an exception was made in favour of the Virgin Mary, who, they contended, was born without sin. To which the Dominicans repUed, that if an ex- ception were made for the Virgin Mary, there must likewise be an exception for her parents, and for the whole race of David, and possibly for all the seed of Abraham. So that by force of exceptions the whole dogma would vanish into obscurity. An ambiguous phrase saved the dogma, and the difficulty was evaded. Then again when the non-residence of the bishops and clergy was complained of as a great practical abuse, the Cardinal del Monte, comparing the Church to a ship and the bishops to the steersmen, said, that 160 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. if there was no one to hold the rudder how could the ship pursue her course ? This observation was at first approved, but when Giacomo Cortesi, bishop of Veson, spoke, he said he agreed in all that was said of the evil of a want of guidance, but that the evil was not in the non-residence of prelates, but in their want of authority. In the first ages of the Church the bishops guided all their clergy, but in later times the regular orders had acquired so much authority that they could preach any doctrines they pleased, and the residence or absence of the bishops M^as a matter of indifference. Thus the disorders of Germany had arisen from the preaching of Brother John Tetzel and Brother Martin Luther, and those of Lombardy from the preaching of Brother Janson of Milan. This remark, whether made by Cortesi or any other bishop, struck the assembled fathers as founded on truth. If now we proceed to distribute praise and blame, gratitude and reproach, among the communities of Christians, we may say, ' The Roman Church, venerable from its antiquity, has been built up with stone and stubble ; is adorned with the most variegated marbles, with precious stones, and with painted images of wood, which are held more holy than the founda- tions laid by Christ and the commandments of God. The Church of Eome has pretended to govern the world, and has substituted foul tyranny for justice and peace. She has sought to elevate herself above Pagans and Protestants by laying down moral laws of divine origin and pure doctrine, and has vitiated all those laws by dispensations and absolutions in com- PERSECUTION. IGl pliance with the most atrocious crimes, and the most abandoned vices. Yet with all her failings, and with all her forgeries, and all lier impostures, the Eoman Catholic Church has preserved the precept, ' Faith, Hope, Love, these three, but the best of these is Love.' There is among Roman Catholics in their relations to each other a pure essence of affection, which does not appear in the moral writings of Greece or of Eome ; a kindness apart from the pride of the Stoics, or the- effeminacy of Epicureans ; apart from human self- sufficiencj^, and from the conceit of academical learning. The Roman Catholics who have never practised, or have relinquished the vices of an erring youth, are humble, loving, compassionate, abounding in good works, kind to all classes of their fellow-creatures, ever ready to say, ' Lord, be merciful to me a sinner ; ' ready to give of their substance to the needy ; ready to forgive others their trespasses, and to kneel in humble devotion to their Maker. On the other side, the Huguenots of France, the Re- formers of Switzerland, the Lutherans of Germany, the Presbyterians of Scotland, while they assume no merit for their good works, are often distinguished by a stern and consistent morality. Intolerant to all who will not tread their narrow path, they follow a standard of pm'ity, held aloft before them, which they keep steadily 11 sight. Like Regulus, their martyrs have gone to ;orture and death with the complacency with which :hey would return to their flocks and herds, to their Deaceful cottage, or their undisturbed repose. Shaking 162 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. off a slavish obedience to pope and prelate, to king and dictator, they preserved for mankind the germ of free thought, and the right of maintaining liberty for their family, their village, their town, their nation. Thus amid the dominant Churches, and the re- belhous sectaries of modern times, there is, as in all human affairs, a web of the brightest virtues, twined with the most odious vices. The pure river and the turbid stream flow on together, and he who follows their course must meet much that provokes his disgust, with much that excites his admiration. Happily the days of bloody persecution are past. Neither in Spain nor in Italy, neither in France nor iu Germany, are men or women subjected to any penal infliction for holding opinions which are deemed here- tical. In England the writ de hceretico comburendo has been long abohshed. In fact, the zeal which im- pelled men to denounce heresy to a tribunal erected for the purpose of punishing erroneous opinions, and the ferocity of manners which led them to assist at the spectacle of burning the heretic, have both dis- appeared. It is no longer thought in Spain that all who hold opinions beyond the pale of the orthodox Church will be condemned to everlasting flames. Still less is it thought that it is the business of a tem- poral government to punish opinions on rehgious matters which, in the opinion of the Church, savoiir of heresy. It would be well if we in England could settle our minds upon this subject. If a man steal to the value of forty shillings in a dweUing-house, it is cruel to PERSECUTION". 163 condemn him to death ; but there is no doubt he has committed an offence to which some punishment is rightly affixed. If, however, he has given an opinion with respect to one person of the Trinity, whom he refuses to acknowledge, or if he entertains views with regard to the substance of Christ different from those expressed in the Nicene Creed, if he entertains notions with regard to the origin of man, or the nature of life, which are not agreeable to the Church of England — these are matters of speculation which are not properly in the purview of the criminal law. Let Mr. Darwin and Professor Huxley explain their opinions as freely as the Archbishop of Canterbury or Mr. Spurgeon. We may feel sure the truth will ultimately be the gainer from freedom of discussion. In this respect, and in many others, the age is improving; the promotion of one of the most en- lightened authors of the ' Essays and Eeviews ' to the bishopric of Exeter, is a proof that we have got beyond the time when Lord Melbourne was afraid to recom- mend the preferment of Dr. Arnold to the Crown, lest he should incur the hostility of the clergy of the High Church. The present Lord Derby gave an excellent example to the nation when he declined to preside at the following anniversary of the British Associa- tion, and pointed out Professor Huxley as the more appropriate president for the year. Those who have read the admirable address delivered on that occa- sion, have derived the benefit of Lord Derby's dis- cernment and Professor Huxley's knowledge from this act. The State is not so far-sighted. I had M 2 164 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. hoped to pay a permanent homage to science by con- ferring on Sir John Herschel, with the sanction of the Crown, the office of the Master of the Mint, which had been held by Sir Isaac Newton. When the office was again vacant, Lord Palmerston followed my example by the appointment of an eminent chemist. But when that distinguished man died, the precedent of appoint- ing a man of science was disregarded. The appoint- ment of Professor Huxley or Dr. Lyon Playfair would probably have saved the lives of many children who have fallen victims to the small-pox. But it was \ argued on the part of the British Government that LjP^while an expenditure of seventy millions was a scanda- t 'lous waste of public money, an expenditure of seventy millions minus two thousand pounds would constitute a wise and virtuous administration. So it has been decreed. It has frequently been said and repeated that Chris- tianity is the law of the land, and it is added tlmt while works of calm reasoning may be freely per- mitted to circulate, the law must not allow the religion of the nation to be treated with ridicule or contempt. But I confess it appears to me that the writer who should treat the nation with scurrility or vulgar abuse would incur the sentence pronounced by Samuel Rogers, when Mr. Croker attempted to destroy the fame of Macaiday's ' History of England.' Mr. Rogers said, ' He meant to commit murder, but he has only com- mitted suicide.' Let opinion decide ; opinion — queen of the world. ' L'Opinione, Regina del Mondo,' should be the ultimate court of appeal in these cases. PERSECUTION. 1G5 Opinion for a time may make an erroneous judgment, but in one way or other the judgment of sensible men has a magic influence over mankind, and, in time, ralUes the majority, and enables them to reverse a foolish or prejudiced opinion. The remark of Dr. Temple, that a barbarous or ignorant opinion is cor- rected by advancing wisdom, is, to be sure, liable to exceptions. The coast of Africa bordering on the Mediterranean shows no improvement over the time when St. Augustine was an inhabitant of Carthage, or when he was Bishop of Hippo. But with re- gard to the civihsed portions of the globe, to England under her constitutional monarchy, to France and Germany, to Portugal under Dom John of Braganza, to Sweden and Denmark, to India under the British Government, to the United States of America, it may be said, as Galileo said of the earth when his torture had been relaxed, ' Nevertheless it moves.' 166 ESSAY XI. LEO X. ADRIAN VI. CLEMENT VIL The anarchy and violence which swayed everything in the middle ages had, in the process of time, yielded to the influence of letters ; the improvement of manners had, in process of time, driven away these open and abominable scandals. Learned men had occupied the seat of St. Peter; the commerce of the Itahan cities ; the order which distinguished Venice; the talents which, in the persons of Dante, and Petrarch, had illustrated Florence ; the revival of letters, and finally, the inven- tion of printing, had prepared the mind of Europe for great changes. It seemed impossible that the dark superstitions which had gained strength and power during the mid- dle ages, should not be visited, and in some degree dis- persed by the coming light. It was, therefore, of the utmost importance that the see of Eome should be occupied by a prelate who might be at once pious and enhghtened ; who might reform the notorious abuses of the Eoman Catholic Church, and reconcile the ad- vancement of letters, the progress of society, and the refinement of manners, with the pure spirit of that rehgion over whose ministers it was his duty to pre- side ; and whose ceremonies and sacraments it was in LEO X. ADRIAN YI. CLEMENT VII. 167 his power to elevate, and to direct to the worship of an Almighty God, and the practice of an unblemished morality. Who was Leo X., thus called upon to perform a most difficult task at a momentous crisis ? The republic of Florence was one of the most power- ful of those States which had brought to p ass, by its wealth, its commerce, and its love of the fine arts, the civilisation of Italy, when the greater part of Europe was in the chains of the feudal system, divided by private wars, sunk in ignorance, and suffering from poverty and barbarism. Florence, with Venice, Genoa, Pisa, and some other cities, exhibited in those times the most costly articles of manufacture ; and in its churches displayed works of sculpture and painting, giving assu- rance of difficulties overcome, and promise of those wonders of art which in the days of Michael Angelo and Eaphael astonished and enchanted Europe. The political constitution of Florence was far from perfection. It fluctuated, as Machiavel has observed, not between liberty and servitude, but between servi- tude and licence. Some of the richest merchants, placing themselves at the head of different political parties, gained by turns a supremacy which was not limited by law, or restrained by moderation. Among these, Cosmo de' Medici, while he was con- spicuous by his wealth and extensive connections in various parts of Europe, was also remarkable for his political sagacity. Observing that the nobility availed themselves of their power to exempt their property from a due share of the public burthens, he made him« 168 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGIOX. self very popular by proposing what was called tlie Catasto ; namely, a valuation of all landed property, and a tax of half per cent, on the capital which each landed estate was estimated to be worth. Supposing estates to have yielded 5 per cent., an income of 2,000 florins would have represented a capital of 40,000 florins, and would have paid 10 per cent, on the annual income. Supposing the capital to have re- turned only 2 per cent., 100,000 florins would have paid a tax of 500 florins, or 25 per cent, on the income. The Medici after this rose to unequalled power in the republic. It was usual in the peaceful revolutions of Florence, efiected by a public assembly called a Balia, to expel the chiefs of the defeated party, who were what was called conjinati — that is to say, banished to a fixed place in a foreign State, which they were bound not to leave. The cell or small chamber iu which Cosmo was detained previously to his banish- ment, on one of the occasions when his party were routed, is still shown in the Palazzo Vecchio of Florence. Lorenzo succeeded quietly to the power of his father, and increased his power after the failure of the con- spiracy of the Pazzi, for taking part in which the Arch- bishop Salviati was hanged out of the window. The authority of Lorenzo was long undisturbed. He governed with the assistance and by the influence of three hundred citizens of his own party, who met from time to time to deliberate on public affairs. It was at this period a question with the most patriotic statesmen LEO X. ADRIAN VI. CLEMENT VII. 169 of Florence whether the temperate authority of Lo- renzo was not preferable to the turbulent liberty which had before prevailed. The manifest defect was that the merit of Lorenzo's rule depended on his own personal moderation, his good sense, and his readiness to listen to the counsels of the best men of his party. While Lorenzo lived he was the Pericles of the Tuscan Athens. Laurentius Valla, Pico Mirandola, and other men of letters surrounded him, and shared in the discussions which revived the philosophy of Plato, and emulated the lyrics of Bion and of Moschus. More than one Aspasia welcomed Lorenzo as a favoured lover ; and when he stood forth in the streets of Flo- rence, reciting Ben venga Maggio il il Gonfalonier selvaggio, the age of political and social happiness seemed to have arrived. Nor was Lorenzo less careful of the peace of Italy, and its immunity from the invasion of foreigners. I have said that, before the Eeformation was at- tempted, the Eome of Christianity had become as foul with crime and depraved morals as the pagan Eome, which St. Paul has described in terms of eternal repro- bation. Thus, if Cahgula and Nero had blasted the fame of the Eoman empire by incest and murder, Alexander VI., and his son Csesar Borgia, had given to sacerdotal Rome the same infamy of incest and murder.^ It is said that of the Pope's offspring, two of whom he acknow- * Guicciardini. 170 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. ledged as his sons, the elder, the Duke of Gandia, was thrown a corpse into the Tiber one night by order of his brother. But we may quit this disgusting history. Before we arrive at the time of the Reformation, however, it is necessary to take some notice of Juhus n. His mind was devoted to two objects — the one to drive the barbarians, as he called them, out of Italy ; the other to make Rome a great metropolis of art, and the church of St. Peter a temple of unequalled magnificence. His military forces were quite unequal to the first of these objects ; in respect to the second, he laid the foundation for debts which, instead of retarding, hastened the progress of the Reformation. The son of Lorenzo, afterwards Cardinal de' Medici, and finally Leo X., was brought up with great care, and was well instructed in classical learning. Politian was charged with his education. His father, when he was still young, wrote him a kind and paternal letter, full of good advice. But although he was destined for the Church, it is remark- able that there is not, in Lorenzo's letter to his son, any reference to the Christian religion. He became a cardinal at the age of fourtee and was thenceforth much employed in the politica negotiations and intrigues in which the reign of Julius abounded. When he became Pope, in the year 1513, he presently showed his diplomatic skill and hi.> conciliatory temper by making peace with France, and reconciling to the Holy See the cardinals who had been at open war with his predecessor. His favour to litera- ture and the arts was splendid and discriminating ; his •al LEO X. ADRIAN VI. CLEMENT VII. 171 feasts were magnificent, his liberality large and popular. He spent his time in hunting and hawking ; in listen- ing to the most exquisite music, and partaking of the most refined conversation. These occupations became him as a secular prince, but serious clergymen and abstemious monks complained that there was some- thing wanting. Paolo Sarpi, after praising his learn- ing and his munificence, adds with some humour : *He would have been a perfect Pope, if with these gifts he had united some knowledge of the affairs of reUgion, and somewhat more of a pious disposition — in neither of which matters did he take much interest.' Probably he was better instructed in the dialogues of Plato than in the doctrines of Christ, and had more knowledge of Virgil and Ovid than of the gospel. His conversation was literary ; his Court composed of jovial and merry men of letters. One of them who was idle wrote this distich : — Qual che dica la gente, il mio gran diletto f) di non far mai niente e stare a letto. Otherwise II mio gran diletto, qual che dica la gente, fi di stare a letto, e non fer mai niente. One of his poetical guests, finding his wine and water too weak, wrote, and sent up to his host at table, these lines : In poculis nostris Nympha est conjuncta Lyeeo, Sic Dea juncta Deo, sed Dea major eo. This story was related to me by Mezzofanti, the great linguist, afterwards cardinal. 172 HI9II0BT or TBE CBESSOAS SEUGKfir. It was a pi^, howewet, tibat a^ he was most libera in speodang mooej, he ^onld hare looiLcd at bis per tificd power ooty as a means of aoqoini^ it. Beii much in need of sap^tpog his treasnij, in order oeotinne his pvofiise ho^itahtj, he looked to Loren Pocci,CliTdina1 of SantiqiBattro, to fanndi him with t means. His pnsdecsenar, I^fhan XL, had, in the ye 1100 and Mkmmg jeaia, gnnlBd plcnarj indulger: and a icmiaaon (rf* all tarn to those who went to t Holj Land jGor die fwupoae of defiienng the sepulcli (tf Chnst frocn the tnfidris. Afierwaids the same in dnlgenoeand icannon woe gnnted todwse who ccr tfibiiled snan of mtmef watkiaA to maiwiaii* a soldi in die Half Land. Safaaeqaent popes escteided ai abased die power of { gpanli a g fctgit e n e aa of ssm; t! oontvcnience of thisaaode of ninaig money was 1: . prised, and d]« parpofics fcrwhidi die aMmej^ had beei destined woe liDVgottefi. The pofcs made a cnisa'' again^ the Tmhs or tke ^mg of firancey or the net: aim large sum to ImdM a dmifi^ the pretence 1 gnuoiting th€ refnffffiim of »b to duae who were wiilii to paj fer their v ii'ifili i m froaa the pains of pargaton andtheiradwnim wiAin Ik gpinof ^ftsadise. Bu it %em» never to Imie oiumed to Leo X. or LoreD: Ftexi that time^ weierhangrd; tibat a spint €i ecr ' WK ahrond; diat ds jgmni m n. of du^ dai^ age^s ? filing waj belne dn inao n thm g fi^ ; that hsmt mesi mi^ht exaznioie the preteoiee? fiw die new iiniii] genccsy auEtd that even hixmrbfie baft pioos men migb aewth in die goqdb fer die waoant b^ which th iiififfible pofe B^i^ aedJL to cnner Ui CBfidily LEO X. ADRIAN VI. CLEMEXT VII. 173 reserve for another Essay the resistance made by I her to the open sale of indulgences, and an account he support he found in Germany; I propose to St e in this place the various modes by which the ? nan Court endeavoured to abate the Northern heresy. .eo was disposed at first, as his manner was, to he iless and indiflerent ; to let the Augustinian and ninican monks fight among themselves, and to be citous only as to the amount of money he should ect from this branch of the papal revenue. But in he was told that great scandal was raised by the n sale of the forgiveness of God for ducats, and that tl authority of the Holy See might be rudely shaken b popular indignation, he began to view the matter u re seriously, and took counsel with the most prudent lis advisers. Finding after a time that Luther was n to be persuaded or intimidated, and that he had a wered Cardinal Gaetano, the Pope's legate, with . )tations from Scripture — Leo determined to put d vn the rising heresy with the infallible decree of tl Holy Eoman Church. He therefore issued a bull November 9, 1518, in which he affirmed that, as tl successor of St. Peter, and the Vicar of Christ, he 1i I the power to forgive the sins both of the living I I the dead. Ct so happened that Cibo, a gentleman of Milan, had nt large sums to obtain a cardinal's hat for Leo, V en he was a boy of fourteen years old, and that the ^ le Cibo had married the Pope's sister, Maddalena ; V that Leo thought to recompense Cibo for his outlay b granting to his sister the revenue to be derived from 174 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Saxony by the sale of indulgences. But as these in- dulgences were sold by the subordinate agents of the Dominican friars in public-houses, and given in pay- ment for the hire of horses, and in other discredit- able ways, this gift to his sister only injured more deeply the Pope's reputation, and increased the scandal of selling for money Christ's forgiveness of sins. Leo, however, having entered on the path of putting down opposition by the authority of the Holy See, did not feel inclined to stop or falter in his path. But all who observed his conduct blamed him in this crisis of the Church for giving up his time to hunting and hawking, to musical concerts and luxurious feasts, un- becoming the sanctity of his high office, and apparently to the neglect of those serious duties which it became the Holy Pontiff to fulfil, with a solemn regard to his position as the Vicar of Christ upon earth. ^ Leo, in- deed, made it part of his duty to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays, and to show much outward devotion. But he evidently seemed to look rather to the pomps and pleasures of the popedom than to its responsi- bifities, and the critical position in which it was then placed. Leo at this time thought the contumacy of Luther a matter of little importance. Martin Luther on his side went with a safe-conduct to the Diet of Augsburg, where he stoutly maintained his doctrine, supporting it by quotations from the Holy Scripture. But the scho- lastic theologians being little versed in Scripture, Car- dinal Gaetano had recourse to violent and abusive * Guicciardini ; Paolo Sarpi. LEO X. ADRIAX VI. CLEMENT VII. 175 language — ^upon which Luther, recollecting what had happened to Huss at Constance, retired from Augsburg and returned to Wittenberg. Leo at this time, and in the same spirit, sent a bull of indulgences to Switzerland, where he was to encounter the opposition of Zuinglius, one of the wisest and ablest of the Eeformers. The next step was to issue a condemnation of the doctrines, the person, and the works of Luther. For this purpose a numerous conference was summoned of the theologians and canonists, or, in other words, the priests and lawyers of Eome. The canonists agreed to censure the unsound doctrines of Luther, but they argued that his person and his works ought not be condemned without a hearing. They quoted in support of their argument the act of God Himself, who, when Adam had sinned, came down to the garden of Para- dise and called out, ' Adam, where art thou ? ' in order to hear his defence.^ Li the same way the Almighty, after the murder of Abel, called to Cain, ' Cain, Cain, where is thy brother ? ' But the arguments founded on justice and supported by the book of Genesis, had little weight with a pope who did not chose to be diverted from his hunting parties and his musical entertainments for the mere purpose of doing what was right, and preventing or delaying a rupture in the Church. But this summary proceeding in a matter of so much importance, not founded on the decision of any council, and without the promise of any reform of abuses, shocked all the more moderate adlierents of the ' Paolo Sarpi. 176 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Church, who greatly blamed the precipitation of the Supreme Pontiff. On June 15, 1520, was issued the bull which con- demned the errors of Luther. This bull was in its style very obscure, condemning forty-two errors, but not specifying whether all these errors were equally fatal. The penalty, however, was very clear. Luther and his ad- herents were to recant their errors within a certain time, and if they failed to do so were condemned to be burnt. After this papal condemnation, which was much criticised by men of sense and judgment, the most remarkable event was the meeting of the Diet of Germany at Worms. Luther was summoned to this Diet, was heard, and was permitted to depart to his own house. On May 8, 1521, an edict was issued re- lating that, as it was the duty of the emperor and the princes of Germany to protect religion and to extinguish heresy, they had considered the bull which had been communicated to them by the Pope's legate, condemn- ing Luther and his writings. The Diet, after reading the bull and hearing Luther, concurred in the justice of this condemnation, and declared that he had incurred the penalties to which, by the laws, heretics are subject. At the end of the year Leo died. On January 9, 1522, Adrian was elected pope. Adrian was born in Holland, in the same country as Erasmus ; but though not far from adopting the moderate opinions, he was very far indeed from following the unambitious example of Erasmus. The antecedents of Adrian as the preceptor of Charles V. and as a cardinal attached to the court of the emperor were embarrassing and critical. LEO X. ADRIAN VI. CLEMEXT VII. 177 Isabella had succeeded to the crown of Castile, not without some doubts as to her title, and had strength- ened herself by her marriage with Ferdinand, King ! )f Aragon, one of the most politic and perfidious of princes. Upon the death of Isabella the crown of Castile reverted by right to Juana, her second laughter, whose brother and elder sister had both lied. But this princess had married Philip, the eldest lie appeared at mass, but refused to go to confession. VVlien she went to Spain she appeared to be still of the ■<\mQ mind, but her scruples had become stronger; iiid she declined to attend mass. It was for this malady -liat Mosen Ferrer prescribed torture. Ferdinand died in January, 1516, having kept his laughter in prison nearly ten years, and permitted lorrible cruelties to be perpetrated against her. Her ;on Charles succeeded to the crown, and Cardinal ^^isneros (Ximenez) was entrusted with the regency luring the absence of Charles in Flanders. Mosen Ferrer was deprived of his post of gaoler, ' because he vas suspected of endangering the health and life of ler highness.' Cardinal Adrian, born at Utrecht in 1449, of poor :>arents, had been named, on account of his learning ind acquirements, tutor to Charles, and upon his N 2 180 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. reports the young king, then under seventeen years old, was sure to frame his opinion, and settle his plan of behaviour to his mother. Adrian at first seemed disposed to ascertain tlie truth, and inform his master of the result. But some years elapsed before he was in a position to do so. At first Charles rejected with some haughtiness the inter- ference of Cardinal Cisneros and the Bishop of Majorca. Afterwards, when in Spain, he appointed the Marquis of Denia and his Marchioness to superintend his mother's household. They seem to have executed their charge in no kindly spirit. The house at Tor- desillas in which Juana was confined, had in it a large room looking over the Duero, and having a distant view of vineyards and cornfields. But Juana was not allowed by the Marchioness of Denia and her daughters to go into this room, and, except when on a visit to her daughter Catalina, was kept in her own dark apartment, where she could not communicate with any persons without the house. The Marquis was instructed by Charles to write him double reports : one to be shown to the Privy Council, and known to the world ; the other private, for the eyes of Charlc- alone. The insurrection of the commons in Castile made a break in these arrangements. Padilla entered Tordesillas with his army. The women, twelve in number, who liad been attendants or watchers upon Queen Juana, were examined as to her state of mind. The report con- taining these examinations has been unfoitunately lost. The result was that the crown was offered to her by LEO X. ADRIAN VI. CLEMENT VII. 181 the commons, but she was too scrupulous or too much t'liohtuned to enter into opposition to her son. When the royal army and the Marquis of Denia returned to Tordesillas the imprisonment of Juana was made more severe than before. Cardinal Adrian was desired to report faithfully to Charles the state of his mother. He sent the examinations of the women in. attendance, saying that among them was a gossiping husband of one of the women^ a licentiate at Madrid. They all agreed that Juana was not and never had been insane. The outer world agreed in this opinion. But Adrian, being quite as prudent as he was truthful, u^ked Charles whether he would like to wait for the death of his mother before he was permitted to govern S[)ain. Of course the question itself negatived the r>u[)position of Juana's insanity. Adrian, having as- certained that Charles was by no means disposed to iive up his position and his power to his mother, never again expressed a belief in Queen Juana's sanity. He never saw her, atid contented himself with lelioing the reports of her madness made by the ^[arquis Denia. The poor captive's imprisonment be- «aine more rigorous ; a secret letter of her daughter ( ataliua to Charles, complaining of her mother's suffer- ings, was left unnoticed, and during the thirty-five years of her second imprisonment, she was ill-used, and deprived of all society. At length her reason gave way ; sometimes she revised to eat or to leave her bed. The Marquis Denia for four years made a secret of her father's death, in order, as he alleged, to use liis name to procure her compliance with his wishes. 182 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. At length this poor princess died, a victim to the injustice, the perfidy, and the cruelty of her father, her husband, and her son. Eeturning now to the history of the Eeformation, it is to be recorded that in 1520 Cardinal Adrian was elected pope. His arrival in a Court where his person was unknown created much curiosity and not a little consternation. But it soon appeared that Adrian, though he perceived and approved of what was right, was always wilhng to follow what was wrong. As a learned and discreet theologian this pope had ar- rived at the conclusion that the indulgences granted by the Church would only remit the punishment of sin so far as the sinner shoidd comply with the terms of the indulgence and perform some good work pre- scribed by the act of forgiveness. So that a man might be relieved, by a partial performance of the conditions imposed, from the punishment due to some of his sins, and still be subject to the penalty due to others for which he had not atoned. This was a very subtle distinction, and Frate Tom- maso di Gaeta, cardinal of San Sisto, a consummate theologian, dissuaded Adrian from his project of making it public. He said the doctrine was plausible, but doubtful, and had not yet been fully adopted by the Church. Even if adopted, he thought it ought to be kept secret ; that its publication would tend to diminish the value of indulgences granted by the Church, and thus lower the authority of the Holy See. The cardinal added, that having reflected much on this matter, ^nd having discussed it at Augsburg LEO X. ADRIAN VI. CLEMENT VII. 183 A'lien he was the Pope's legate there, with Luther, he lad arrived at the opinion that the only way to re- nedy the existing difficulties and disorders, was to estore the ancient discipline of the Church. Accord- ug to the old canons, certain penances — the recital jf so many prayers, the giving of sums of money in ilms, the abstinence from such or such favourite sins — ,vere enjoined as the terms of forgiveness imposed by he Church. If this ancient discipline were restored, norals would be reformed, Holy Church respected, and lie heresies favoured by Luther would be restrained V the authority of a purified and venerated universal iLirch. The Pope was well pleased with this advice, and jonsulted many of his cardinals as to the mode by which the ancient discipline could be restored. The nrdinals were much embarrassed in the endeavour to liiid a mode of restoring the ancient discipline of the Church. But while they were pondering over their difficulties, Lorenzo Pucci, the cardinal of Santiquattro, who had been much trusted by Leo X., interposed. In speaking of Pope Leo, Thuanus (De Thou) says, ' While he was inclined of his own will to every spe- cies of licence, he was impelled by Lorenzo Pucci, a cardinal, a man of turbulent nature, to whom he lis- tened too much, to require immense sums of money ("rom every quarter of the Christian world, by means of decrees promising at a fixed price the pardon of every kind of crime, and as the price of eternal happiness.' It Avas not likely that the inventor of the scheme for selling a general forgiveness of sins and eternal happiness 184 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAX RELIGION. at a fixed money price would shrink from his work. He was encouraged by tlie general assent of the car- dinals, and urged upon the Pope his opinion that the plan proposed would never succeed. He said that the ancient canon laws liad gone out of use ; for as the fer- vour and sincerity of the ancient times were wanting, so the effects were wanting ; and in order to have the same effects it would be necessary to restore the ancient zeal and charity. ' Methinks,' he said, ' I hear one say- ing, as St. Peter said, " Now, therefore, why tempt ye God to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear ? " ' ^ After thus misapplying the words used by St. Paul in reference to the ceremonial law of the Jews, and per- verting them to the whole doctrine of penitence for sin, Pucci went on to argue that so far from discourag- ing the Lutherans by such concessions, it was the very mode of giving them fresh strength and energy. The mass of the people, who always argue from the event, when they should see the Pope giving way to Luther in some points, would say that, as Luther had proved to be right in some articles, he might be right in greater points also. The princes of Germany who favoured Luther would likewise take fresh heart, and acquire new importance from the concessions made to their favourite. In fine, the only way to extinguish heresy was by crusades, and by urging sovereign princes to extirpate it. In this way Innocent III. had suppressed the heresy of the Albigenses ; in this way the Waldenses, and the followers of Arnold of Brescia, ' Acts, chap. XV, 10. i LEO X. ADRIAN VI. CLEMENT VII. 185 lie Piccardi, and Paduasi, and other heretics, had )een punished, and their heresies extinguished. The Pope, speaking to his most intimate friends, Wilham Eckenwort and Theodore Her, bewailed his ondition, and lamented that, with every desire to re- I'oiiii abuses, he could not do it. He directed the iLf-ents of indulgences to distribute them sparingly. But this was a vain precaution. Luther was informed in confession by those who had bought the plenary indulgence, that they had not only obtained pardon for tlicir past sins, but that those who had committed adultery were permitted to live on in the habit of adultery ; and those who practised embezzlement had obtained a licence to continue to embezzle the pro- ] )erty of others. This licence for future sins was not only a violation i)t Christian precepts, but was a flagrant contradiction pj>osition of the pai-ents of her lover, fled to the city ' Rotterdam, where, on October 28, 1467, she gave ih to a sou, bom to immortal fame. Gerard was ne weeks after this time alarmed by a rumour that be object of his love, and his hoped-for bride, was dead. a fit of despair he severed himself from the world, .lid took the irrevocable vows of a priest. On his rum to Gouda he found his destined wife in perfect alth; he was feithfiil to his love; and Marguerita, ^u her side, preserved fix)m thenceforth an unsullied 202 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. fame. At nine years old her son was sent to school at De venter, accompanied by his mother, who obtained for him lessons in design and drawing. It has been said that the mother of Erasmus had previously borne a child to Gerard, who beoame a stupid and profligate monk ; he died early, and may be forgotten. The son of Gerard, whose name was Latinized into Desiderius, and Desiderius again repeated in the Greek Erasmus, made good progress at Deventer, and gave early promise of future eminence. Sinheim, the sub-rector, was the first to understand this promise, and on one occasion said to him, ' Go on as thou hast begun, and before long rise to the highest pinnacle of letters.' Eudolph Agricola, the first who brought Italian learning across the Alps, and was an eminent Greek scholar, having, on a visit to Deventer, put a few questions to Erasmus, and having looked at his eyes and the shape of his head, dismissed him with the words, ' You will be a great man.' Erasmus himself has recorded that at Deventer he went through the whole course of scholastic training — logic, physics, metaphysics, and morals ; and that he had also learned Horace and Terence by heart. Every art was used to induce him to join the institution permanently and become a monk, but in vain. The boy was obhged to leave Deventer by the death of both his parents. He was cast upon the world an orphan, Avitli faithless guardians, who robbed him of his small in- heritance. There remained, however, certain bonds or securities, which furnished a temptation to the brother- hood of Bois le Due to endeavoiu- to drive him iiit^ ERASMUS. 203 le cloister. They endeavoured to frighten him by icessant tales of wild beasts, goblins, and devils ; to ear him out by the infliction of corporal punishment, id to attract him by an advantageous opening in the lonastery of Sion, near Defta. But Erasmus replied lat he was still young, he knew not himself, nor the loister, nor the world ; he wished to pursue his studies; 1 riper years he might determine on conviction and Kperience on his course of life. A false friend achieved Kit which had been attempted in vain by threats and verity. Verden was a youth a few years older than irnself, astute and selfish, but high-spirited and am- itious : he had gone to Italy, and, on his return, had iitered into the monastery of Stein, which he described o his friend as a paradise for a man of letters. Tlius ^suaded he entered the cloister. But very soon his lyes were opened ; the quiet, the indulgence, the un- oken leisure were gone. Yet, although he was in the bidst of coarse and profligate men, he gave much of da time to study. Among modern authors his admi- lation was excited by Laurentius Valla. Laurentius JTalla was one of the scholars of Florence who, in liis nanly and arrogant style, and by the boldness and )iiginality of his thoughts, had most thoroughly ex- oosed the fiction of the fabulous gift of Constantine to he good pope Sylvester. In tins place Erasmus passed ive years ; the brotherhood looked on him with ealousy, and he regarded them with aversion. Both parties were willing to escape from their contract, and hen the Bishop of Cambrai meditated a joiurney to Rome in hopes of obtaining a cardinal's hat, and, in 204 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. want of a secretary skilful in writing the Latin lan- guage, offered the post to Erasmus, it was eagerly accepted. His friend Herman alone lamented the sohtude in which he should be left : Me sine solus abis, tu Rheni frigora et Alpes, Me sine solus adis, Italiam, Italiam Ijetus penetrabis amoenam. Erasmus was at length induced to enter into holy orders. He continued his studies, and as a scholar made some valuable friendships. At length, after five years not wasted — but still to him not profitable years — he hoped to obtain the one grand object of his ambition — residence and instruction at one of the great universi- ties of Europe. Paris, the famous seat of theological learning, seemed to open her gates to him. The bishop not only gave permission, but promise of support. The eager student obtained what may be called a pensionate or bursary in the Montagu College. But new trials and difficulties awaited him. The bishop was too poor, too prodigal, or too parsimonious to keep his word. His allowance to Erasmus was reluctantly and irregularly paid, if paid at all. The poor scholar had not where- withal to pay fees for lectures, or for the purchase of books ; but he had lodging, and such lodging ! — food, but how much, and of what quahty ! Hear his college reminiscences : — 'Thirty years since I lived in a college at Paris, named from vinegar (Montaceto). " I do not wonder," says the interlocutor, " that it was so sour, with so much theological disputation in it ; the very walls, they say, reek with theology." Erasmus : " You say true ; I ERASMUS. 205 ideed brought nothing away from it but a constitution :ill of unhealthy humours, and plenty of vermin." Over I hat college presided one John Standin, a man not of a >ad disposition, but utterly without judgment. If, laving himself passed his youth in extreme poverty, he lad shown some regard for the poor, it had been well, f he had so far supplied the wants of the youths as to liable them to pursue their studies in credit, without )ampering them with indulgence, it had been praise- vorthy ; but what with hard beds, scanty food, rigid ngils and labours, in the first year of my experience, I taw many youths of great gifts, of the highest hopes ind promise, of whom, some actually died, some were loomed for life to blindness, to madness, to leprosy. )f these I was acquainted with some, and no one was ixempt from the danger. Was not that the extreme }f cruelty ? . . . Nor was this the discipline only of :he poorer scholars ; he received not a few sons of )pulent parents, whose generous spirit he broke down. To restrain wanton youth by reason and by modera- ioD, is the office of a father ; but in the depth of a lard winter to give hungry youths a bit of dry bread, A) send them to the well for water, and that foetid and unwholesome or frost-bound ! I have myself known many who thus contracted maladies which they did not shake off as long as they lived. The sleeping-rooms ware on the ground-floor, with mouldy plaster walls, and close to filthy and pestilential latrinaB.' In Paris, the name of Erasmus as a distinguished scholar soon became famous. He took private pupils, and many of the wealthiest youths of England profited 206 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. by his tuition. Lord Mountjoy added friendship to the relations of a pupil ; he removed Erasmus from the unhealthy precincts of the college to purer air, and some time after settled on his master a pension, whicli he held for life. In an excursion from Paris, he be- came acquainted with the Marchioness of Vere, whose son he instructed, and from whom also he received a pension. From time to time he visited his native Hol- land, which he called in contempt, ' Beer and butter land.' He despised the banquets of epicurean plenty on the one hand, and the mean jealousy of learning on the other. In 1498 he paid his visit to England, on the invitation of Mountjoy ; his accounts of this country, both as regards the climate and the state of learning, were singularly favourable. ' You ask,' he writes to Piscator, an Enghshman at Eome, ' how I am pleased with England. If you will believe me, my dear Eobert, nothing ever delighted me so much. I have found the chmate most agreeable and most healthful, and so much civihty {humanitas, a far wider term), so much learning — and that not trite and trivial, but profound and accurate — so much familiarity with the ancient writers, Latin and Greek, that, except for the sake of seeing it, I hardly care to visit Italy. When I hear Colet, I seem to hear Plato. Who would not admire Grocyn's vast range of knowledge ? What can be more subtle, more deep, more fine, than the judgment of Linacne ? Did Nature ever frame a disposition more gentle, more sweet, more happy, than that of Thomar- More ? ' On his host, Mountjoy, Erasmus is gratefully ERASMUS. 207 loquent : ' Whither would I not follow a youth so ourteoiis, so gentle, so amiable — I say not to England, would follow him to the infernal regions ! ' We have arrived now at the great question, what V as the conduct of Erasmus in regard to the Eeforma- lon ? There can be no doubt that while Erasmus was n enemy of the scholastic system, and that while he )lamed not only with a free spirit but with the most )iting wit, and general popularity, the abuses of the Jhurch, he was utterly averse to any revolution by brce, and was content to leave the work of the Ee- ormation to people formed by reason, by the progress )f knowledge, and by the general humanity which night be expected to follow the revival of letters. The n^eat poet Goethe, the eminent historian Macaulay, aid some other men of note, have wished that Erasmus lad been successful ; that the German eruption of Luther and the French triumph of Calvin had not listurbed the peaceful progress of reform, and that the sixteenth century had come to its close amid the un- lisputed predominance of the Church of Bome. Yet it seems to me that these complacent authors have rather consulted their own preferences as men of letters, to their sagacity as interpreters of past events. The Church of Eome had, up to the appearance of Luther and his bold defiance in Germany, been as intolerant and as sanguinary as ever. John Huss had \isitcd Constance in possession of an inviolate safe- conduct ; Jerome of Prague relied upon the faith of princes who guaranteed his safety — both were burnt. Leo X. and his successor Adrian had consulted the 208 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. most trustworthy of their cardinals on the pohcy to be pursued towards Luther; examples were quoted to them in abundance of the extinction of heresy by fire and sword. The disappearance of Arianism ; the defeat of the Albigenses ; the very punishments of Huss and Jerome of Prague, the forerunners of the restoration and triumph of the Church in Bohemia, were pointed out as models of the true policy to follow, and the sure proofs that the heresies of Germany, of England, of Spain, and of Italy, would be happily extinguished, if the popes would but follow the happy lessons of persecution which had been derived from their predecessors. I therefore arrive at the conclusion, that if Luther and Calvin, Zuinghus and Knox, had quietly submitted to the paternal admonitions of their spiritual chiefs, they would have been consigned to the flames with the numerous victims of the Spanish Inquisition — witli Cranmer, Hooper, Latimer, and Eidley — to the great joy of Phihp of Spain, of Mary Queen of Scots, of the Duke of Guise, and the Roman Cathohc Church in Europe. But we must do no injustice to Erasmus, I will extract from the works of Milman, late Dean of St. Paul's, and of Mr. Froude, a hving writer, a summary of the great works performed, and the great lessons taught by Erasmus. He was truly the precursor of the Eeformation, and held aloft the Hght which caused the obscene birds of prey to fly back to the dark recesses in which their ignorance and sloth had hitherto lain buried. To begin with Dr. Milman : — * Erasmus was no less the declared opponent, and EEASMUS. 209 took great part in tlie discomfiture, of scholasticism, and of the superstitions of the middle ages. At length Erasmus, that great injured name, (The glory of the priesthood and the shame,) Stemmed the wild torrent of a barbarous age, And drove those holy Vandals off the stage.' Pope's ' wild torrent ' is not a very happy illustration of the scholasticism which had so long oppressed the teaching of Europe ; ' a stagnant morass ' or an ' im- ])onetrable jungle' had been a more apt similitude. Few, however, did more to emancipate the human mind from the Thomism and the Scotism, the pseudo- Aristotleism, which ruled and wrangled in all the schools of Europe. Erasmus fell in, in this respect, with the impatience and the ardent aspirations of all who yearned for better days. In Italy the yoke was already broken : the monks, especially on this side of the Apennines, fought hard in their schools and in the universities, in which they had still the supremacy. But the new universities, the schools founded especially in England out of the monasteries suppressed by Wolsey, or out of ecclesiastical wealth, as by Bishop Fox, or by Colet, who hated scholasticism as bitterly as Erasmus, were open to the full light of the new teaching. Erasmus served the good cause in two ways : by exposing barrenness and uselessness, in his serious as well as in his satirical writings ; and by supplying the want of more simple, intelligible, and profitable manuals of education. Against the superstitions of the age, the earlier writings of Erasmus are a constant grave or comic protest, p 210 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. though he was not himself always superior to such weaknesses. In his younger days he had attributed his recovery from a dangerous illness to the inter- cession of St. Genoveva, to whom he addressed an ode. The saint, it is true, was aided by William Cope, the most skilful physician in Paris. When at Cambridge he made a pilgrimage — it may have been from curiosity rather than faith — to our Lady at Walsingham. But his later and more mature opinions he either cared not, or was unable, to disguise. The monks, the authors and supporters of these frauds, are not the objects of his wit alone, but of his solemn, dehberate invective. Severe argument, however, and bitter, serious satire had been heard before, and fallen on comparatively unheeding ears ; it was the hghter and more playful wit of Erasmus which threw even the most jealous off their guard, and enabled him to say things with impunity which in graver form had awakened fierce indignation. Even the sternest bigots, if they scented the danger, did not venture to pro- scribe the works which all Christendom, as yet un- frightened, received with unchecked and unsuspecting mirth. Let the solemn protest as they will, there are truths of which ridicule is the Lydian stone. The laughter of fools may be folly, but the laughter of wise men is often the highest wisdom. Perhaps no sa- tire was ever received vsdth more universal applause, in its day, than the ' Praise of Folly. ' Let us remember that it was finished in the house of More, and dedicated to one who was hereafter to lay down his life for the Eoman faith. To us, habituated to rich EnsHsh ERASMUS. 211 humour and fine French wit, it may be difficult to do justice to the ' Morias Encomium ; ' but we must bear in mind that much of the classical allusion, which to us is trite and pedantic, was then fresh and original. The inartificialness and, indeed, the inconsistency of tlie structure of the satire might almost pass for con- summate art. Folly, who at first seems indulging in playful and inofiensive pleasantry, while she attributes to her followers all the enjoyments of Hfe unknown to the moroser wise, might even, without exciting suspicion, laugh at the more excessive and manifest superstitions — the worship of St. Christopher and St. George, St. Erasmus and St. Hippolytus ; at in- dulgences ; at those who calculated nicely the number of years, months, hours of purgatory; those who would wipe off a whole life of sin by a small coin, or who attributed magic powers to the recitation of a few verses of the Psalms. But that which so far is light, if somewhat biting wit, becomes on a sudden a fierce and bitter irony, sometimes anticipating the savage misanthropy of Swift, but reserving its most merci- less and incisive lashes for kings, for the clergy, for the cardinals and the popes. Folly, from a pleasant, comic merry-andrew, raising a laugh at the absurdities of the age, is become a serious, solemn, Juvenalian satirist, lashing its vices with the thrice-knotted scourge, drawing blood at every stroke, and, as it were, mocking his prostrate victims. Of this work twenty-seven editions were published during the life- time of the author, and it was translated into many of the languages of Europe. The ' Colloquies ' were p 2 212 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. neither less bold nor less popular ; they were in every library, almost in every school. We have accounts of an edition of above 20,000 copies said to have been struck off by one .adventurous printer ; and yet in these ' Colloquies ' there was scarcely a superstition which was not mocked at — we say not with covert, but with open scorn ; and this with a freedom which in more serious men, men of lower position in the world of letters, would have raised an instant alarm of deadly heresy, and might have led the hapless author to the stake. In the ' Shipwreck,' while most of the passengers are raising wild cries, some to one saint, some to another, there is a single calm person, evidently shown as the one true Christian, who addresses his prayers to God Himself, as the only deliverer. In the ' Ichthyophagia,' the eating offish, there is a scrupulous penitent, whom nothing, not even the advice of his physician, will induce to break his vow, and eat meat or eggs, but who has not the least difficulty in staving off the pay- ment of a debt by perjury. In the ' Inquisition con- cerning Faith ' there is a .distinct assertion, that belief in the Apostles' Creed (which many at Rome do nof believe) is all-sufficient ; that against such a man even the Papal anathema is an idle thunder, even should he eat more than fish on a Friday. 'The Funeral' contrasts the deathbed and the obsequies of two men. One is a soldier, who has acquired great wealth by lawless means. He summons all the five orders of mendicants, as well as the parish priest, to his dying bed. There is a regular battle for him : the parish priest retires with a small share of the spoil, as also do ERASMUS. 213 three of the mendicant order. Two remain behind. The man dies, and is magnificently buried in the Church in the cowl of a Franciscan ; having forced his wife iind cliildren to take religious vows, and bequeathing the whole of his vast wealth to the order. The other man dies simply, calmly, in humble reliance on his Eedeemer: makes liberal gifts to the poor, but be- queaths them nothing; leaves not a farthing to any one of the orders ; receives extreme unction and the Eucharist without confession, having nothing on his conscience, and is biu-ied without the least osten- tation. Wliich model Erasmus would hold up as that of the true Christian, cannot be doubted. In ' The Pilgrimage,' not only is pilgrimage itself held up to ridicule, but even the worship of the Virgin. In the letter which, by a fiction not without frequent precedent, he ascribes to the blessed ' Deipara,' there is a sentence, in which the opinion of Luther, deny- ing all worship of the saints, is slily approved of, as relieving her from a great many importunities and troublesome supplications. The ' Franciscan Obsequies,' perhaps the finest and most subtle in its satire, while it openly dwells only on those who, to be sure of Paradise, dying, put on the weeds of a Fran- ciscan, and think to pass disguised, was in its covert sarcasm an exposure of the whole history. of the order, and, with somewhat contemptuous homage for the holy founder, scoffs even at the Stigmata, and lashes the avarice and wealth of this most beggarly of the begging fraternities. He thus galled to the quick this powerful brotherhood, who had provoked 214 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. him by their obstinate ignorance, and became still more and more his inveterate and implacable foes. A scholar could fill pages . from his various writings with denunciations against these enemies of sound learning and true religion. Erasmus was the parent of biblical criticism. His edition of the New Testament first opened to the West the Gospels and the Epistles of St. Paul in the original Greek. Preparation had been made for the famous Complutensian edition, but it had not yet appeared to the world. For its age, in critical sagacity, in acciu^acy, in fidelity, in the labour of comparing scattered and yet unexplored manuscripts, the New Testament of Eras- mus was a wonderful work. The best and latest of our bibhcal scholars — Tischendorf, Lachmann, Tregelles — do justice to the bold and industrious pioneer, who first opened the invaluable mines of biblical wealth. It was no common corn-age or honesty which would presume to call in question the immaculate integrity, the infalhble authority, of the Vulgate, which had ruled with uncontested sway the Western mind for centuries ; to appeal to a inore ancient and more venerable, as well as more trustworthy canon of the faith. To dare in those days to throw doubt on the authenticity of such a text as that of the 'Three Heavenly Witnesses,' imphed fearless oandoiu*, as rare as admirable. Such a pubhcation was looked upon, of course, with awe, suspicion, jealousy. Some with learning, some, like Lee, with pretensions to learning, fell upon it with rabid violence ; but Erasmus had been so wdse, or so fortunate, as to be able to place ERASMUS. 215 the name of the Pope, and that Pope Leo X., on the jBront of his work ; he under that protecting eegis fought manfully, and with no want of controver- sial bitterness against his bigoted antagonists. The names of these adversaries have sunk into obscu- rity, though Lee became Archbishop of York, and was, according to his epitaph — ^we fear his sole testi- mony — a good and generous man.^ But to the latest times theological learning acknowledges the inesti- mable debt of gratitude wliich it owes to Erasmus. But it was not only as editor, it was as interpreter also, of the New Testament, that Erasmus was a benefactor to the world. In his notes, and in his invaluable paraphrases, he opened the sense, as well as the letter, of the long- secluded — if not long-sealed — volume of the New Tes- tament. He was the parent also of the sound, and simple, and historical exposition of the sacred writings. He struck boldly down through the layers of mystic, allegoric, scholastic, traditional lore, which had been accumulating for ages over the holy volume, and laid open the vein of pure gold — the plain, obvious, Hteral meaning of the apostohc writings. Suffice it for us to say, that Erasmus is, in a certain ^ Compare More's letters to Lee on his attack on Erasmus. More had known Lee's family, and Lee himself in his youth ; but he scrupled not to castigate the presumption of Lee in measuring him- self against the great scholar. In his last letter, after alluding to Pope Leo's approbation of the New Testament, he adds, * quod ex arce religionis summus ille Christiani orbis princeps suo testimonio cohonestut, id tu monachulus et indoctus et obscurus ex antro cellulae tuse pestilenta linguS. conspurcas.' — Jortin, Life of Era&mus, App. II. 216 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. sense, or rather was in his day, to the Church of Eng- land, the recognised and authenticated expositor of the New Testament. The translation of the para- phrases, it is well known, was ordered to be placed in all our churches with the vernacular Scriptures. Nor was there anything of the jealousy or exclusiveness of the proud scholar in Erasmus. His biblical studies and labours were directed to the diffusion and to the universal acceptation of the Scriptures as the rule of faith. Neither Luther, nor the English Reformers, expressed themselves more strongly or emphatically on this subject than Erasmus ; ' The sun itself should not be more common than Christ's doctrine.' * I altogether and utterly dissent from those who are unwilUng that the Holy Scriptures, translated into the vulgar tongue, should be read by private person^^ (idiotis), as though the teaching of Christ were so abstruse as to be intelligible only to a few theologians ; or as though the safety of the Scriptures rests on man's ignorance of it. It may be well to conceal the myste- ries of kings ; but Christ willed that His mysteries should be published as widely as possible. I wish that simple women (mulierculce) should read the Gos- pel, should read the epistles of St. Paul. Would that the Scripture were translated into all languages, that it might be read and known, not only by Scots and Jxhh- men, but even by Turks and Saracens (• Paraclesis in Nov. Testamentum I'Y Erasmus was justly averse to the logical refinements and subtle definitions introduced by the schoolmen of * Milman's Life of Erasmus, p. 122. ERASMUS. 217 a past age. To one of his correspondents, an arch- bishop, he writes : — ' Let us have done with theolo- gical refinements. There is an excuse for the Fathers, because the heretics forced them to define particular ])oints ; but every definition is a misfortune, and for us to persevere in the same way is sheer folly. Is no man to be admitted to grace who does not know how the Father difiers from the Son, and both from the Spirit? or how the nativity of the Son difiers from the procession of the Spirit? Unless I forgive njy brother his sins against me, God will not forgive me my sins. Unless I have a pure heart — unless I put away envy, hate, pride, avarice, lust, I shall not see God. But a man is not damned because he cannot tell whether the Spirit has one principle or two. Has he the fruits of the Spirit ? That is the question. Is he patient, kind, good, gentle, modest, temperate, chaste ? Enquire if you will, but do not define. True religion is peace, and we cannot have peace unless we leave the conscience unshackled on obscure points on which certainty is impossible. We hear now of ques- tions being referred to the next (Ecumenical Council — better a great deal refer them to Doomsday. Time was, when a man's faith was looked for in his hfe — not in the articles he professed. Necessity first brought articles upon us, and ever since we have refined and refined till Christianity has become a thing of words and creeds. Articles increase — sincerity va- nishes — contention grows hot, and charity grows cold. Then comes in the civil power, with stake and gallows, and men are forced to profess what they do 218 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. not believe — to pretend to love what, in fact, they hate ; and to say that they understand vfhat, in fact, has no meaning for them.' Again, to the Archbishop of Mayence, Erasmus •v^rites — ' Eeduce the dogmas necessary to be beheved to the smallest possible number ; you can do it vdthout danger to the reahties of Christianity. On other points, either discourage enquiry, or leave everyone free to beheve what he pleases — then we shall have no more quarrels, and religion will again take hold of hfe. When you have done this, you can correct the abuses of which the world, with good reason, complains. The unjust judge heard the widow's prayer. You should not shut your ears to the cries of those for whom Christ died. He did not die for the great only, but for the poor and for the lowly. There need be no tumult. Do you only set human affections aside, and let kings and princes lend themselves heartily to the pubhc good. But observe that to the monks and friars be allowed no voice ; with these gentlemen the world has borne too long. They care only for their own vanity, their own stomachs, their own power ; and they beheve that if the people are enlightened their kingdom cannot stand.' Once more, Erasmus writes to the Pope himself : ' Let each man amend first his own wicked life. When he has done that, and will amend his neighbour, let him put on Christian charity, which is severe enough when severity is needed. If your Hohness gives power to men who neither believe in Christ nor care for you, but think only of their own appetites, I fear there will ERASMUS. 219 be danger. We can trust your Holiness, but there are bad men who will use yom* virtue as a cloak for their own malice.' ' The stupid monks,' he writes, ' say mass as a cobbler makes a shoe ; they come to the altars reeking from their filthy pleasures. Confession with the monks is a cloak to steal the people's money, to rob girls of their virtue, and commit other crimes too horrible to name ! Yet these people are the tyrants of Eiurope. The Pope himself is afraid of them.' Erasmus was dehghted with the manners of English women, which at that time, though free from im- morahty, had a warmth of welcome which in later days was thought inconsistent with propriety and dignity of behaviour. ' Enghsh ladies,' he says, ' are divinely pretty, and too good-natured. They have an excellent custom among them, that, wherever you go, the girls kiss you. They kiss you when you come, they kiss you when you go, they kiss you at intervening opportunities ; and tlieir Hps are soft, warm, and dehcious.'^ But Erasmus, who hked so much the excellent custom of the young ladies, to kiss him when he came, to kiss him when he went, and to kiss him at inter- \'ening times, was not fated to pass his days in such pleasant pastimes. The time arrived when he was ^ Dean Milman's Life of Erasmus, p. 94. Dean Milman says simply, * It seems that in the days of Henry VII. our great-great- great-grandm,others, at meeting and at parting, indulged their friends, and even strangers, with an innocent salute. On this usage Erasmus enlarges to his poetic friend, in very pretty Latin,' &c. &c. 220 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. called upon to assert the opinions he had through life professed. Let it be remembered that he had signified his wish to have in the Church no other creed than the short declaration called the Apostles' Creed ; that he had ridiculed with biting wit the superstitious worship of saints, and the gifts to propitiate senseless images ; that he had refuted and exposed the logical refine- ments of the schoolmen, and had endeavoured to sim- pHfy the faith of the Church. Besides all this, he had openly expressed an opinion that simple women, and even Saracens and Tiu-k.s should be encom-aged to read the Bible. He had him- self translated the Scriptiures from Greek into German. Possibly his jests were still more ofiensive to priests and monks than his arguments for reform. When the image of a saint was insulted and burnt, Erasmus, with a quiet sneer, said, ' It is a marvel there was no miracle. The saint worked so many in the good old times.' ^ So when he was told by the adherents of Rome that from the marriage of Luther with a nun Antichrist must be born ; ' Nay,' said Erasmus, ' if monk and nun produce Antichrist, there must have been legions of Antichrists these many years.' ^ But although these gibes deeply ofiended the Church militant, they did not satisfy Luther. The time was come when a man must either declare for the Eefor- mation or w^ithhold his aid. The question was no whether particular articles of faith should be embraced, whether free will or predestination should be accepted, whether faith alone was sufficient for salvation, whether * Sho7't Studies on Great Subjects, Erasmus, Luther, ERASMUS. 221 public worship slioiild be connected with the images A' saints or freed from unmeaning and superstitious H remonies. No. The question was wider and more il)sokite. The freedom to read the Scriptures, the rejection of Transubstantiatiou, the worship of Christ or of the Pope as His image on earth — such were the fjuestions which divided those who protested at Augs- burg from those who adored at Rome. Luther felt the importance of obtaining the suffrage of Erasmus on this question. He wrote in the most tionciliatory terms to Erasmus, but he wrote as a man confident and resolute in his purpose, and he wrote as a brave man to a timid man. When such great issues were pending, it is melan- clioly to find that the man who ploughed the field was [ibout to separate from the man who was sowing the ■seed, and might hope to reap the har^^est. The cor- respondence which preceded the rupture between Luther and Erasmus is read by the friends of religious liberty with the same pain which is felt by the friends of political freedom when they peruse the debate which heralded the separation of Burke and Fox ; and while men attached to political freedom feel compelled to adhere to Fox, so men attached to rehgious liberty must find themselves bound to give their verdict in favour of Luther. The letter of Luther, making allowance for his fiery nature, and extreme confidence in his own judgment, was calm and conciliatory. He acknowledges gratefully the services which Erasmus had rendered to the reform of religion, and limits his demands upon the older and 2122 HISTOEY OF THE CHEISTIAN RELIGION. more experienced advocate of truth to sucli require- ments as may, he thinks, be complied with without a sacrifice of personal consistency. Thus he says, and says truly : ' The whole world cannot deny the magnificent and noble gifts of God in you; for which we should all give thanks that through you letters flourish and reign, and we are enabled to read the Holy Scriptures in their purity. I never wished that, neglecting or forsaking your own measure of grace, you should enter into our camp. You might have aided us much by your wit, and by your eloquence; but since you have not the disposition or the courage for this, we would have you serve God in your own way. Only we feared lest our adversaries should entice you to write against us, and that neces- sity should compel us to oppose you to the face. We have held back some among us who were disposed and prepared to attack you,' &c. . . . ' Our friends, yourself being judge, do not easily bear your biting words, because human infirmity thinks of and dreads the authority and reputation of Erasmus ; and it is a very different thing to be attacked by Eras- mus, and by all the papists in the world.' The letter ends almost affectionately — ' Pardon my childishness, and farewell in the Lord.' ^ The question was fairly put to Erasmus, and Eras- mus had time to consider his reply. Had the question referred to freedom of the will, or to the doctrine that salvation was to be obtained by faith alone, without love or good works, the friends of Hberty might hesi- ^ Milman's liife of Erasmus, pp. 138, 139 ; Jortin's Erasmus. ERASMUS. 223 tate, or even lean to the side of Erasmus, with his learn- ing, and deep knowledge of theology. But the ques- tion really was, ' Are the Scriptures to be read, and the abuses of the Eoman Chiurch to be warred against ? or is the Pope to continue the sale of indulgences, the ' open venahty of bishoprics, the worship of images, the idolatry of bread and wine in the Sacrament ? ' The voice of truth must, without a doubt, be in favour of : Luther. I Erasmus Hved several years after his declaration of ^war against Luther, and his reconcihation with the papal system. He survived the execution of More about a year. Erasmus died at Basle, July 12, 1536. 224 ESSAY XIV. LUTHER. COUNCIL OF TRENT. We have now arrived at the name of one of the great champions of the Eeformation. Martin Luther was born in 1483. His father and mother belonged to a fnmily of miners. They had hved in the village of Mora, near the forest of Thuringia ; they had gone from there to Eisleben in Saxony, where they gained their bread as miners. Luther has himself mentioned that he was born and baptized at Eisleben ; he was not six months old when his parents left Eisleben to esta- bhsh themselves at Mansfeld. The mines of Mansfeld were at that time much celebrated ; his mother often carried wood upon her back in order to obtain the mo- derate wages of the family. Luther complains that he was brought up with severity ; and it appears that his mother was obhged to interfere to temper the harsh- ness of his father, who had taken too literally the maxim of the wise Solomon, that he who loves the child will not spare the rod. At school, Martin was treated with frequent punishments ; but having a bold and reso- lute spirit, the fire of genius was not quenched by this harsh discipline. As he grew near the age of man- hood, he displayed much ability. At the age of seven- teen, after he had already distinguished himself by his LUTHER. COUNCIL OF TRENT. 225 learning, his enthusiastic nature and religious zeal led him to form a determination, unknown to his father, that, in order to accomplish his salvation, he must em- brace the profession of a monk. He accordingly rose in the middle of the night, and obtained 'admission into a monastery of the order of St. Augustine. Intent upon conquering the passions of youth and the weak- ness of the flesh, he subjected himself to the most cruel privations, and hoped by self-inflicted punishments to overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil. But it was all in vain. Yet Luther continued to study, and was much struck with a work of St. Augustine, enti- tled ' Of the Letter and of the Spirit.' He knew almost by heart the works of Pierre d'Ailly, and was very much impressed with the remark of that writer, ' that, if the Church had not decided to the contrary, it would be far better to admit that in the Holy Supper bread and wine were received, and not mere accidents.' About the year 1502, the Elector Frederic of Saxony founded, in Wittenberg, a new university. Luther had been three years in his cell at Erliirt, when he was named professor at the University of Wittenberg. It was then that he was obliged to devote himself to the study of the scholastic philosophy of Aristotle. These studies, though disliked by Luther, were after- wards of great use in furnishing him with arms to combat the errors of the schoolmen. In 1510 or 1511 he was despatched by the order to which he belonged to Eome, and instructed to arrange a dispute which had arisen between the Vicar-General and seven monas- teries of the order. When he arrived at the rich con- Q 226 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGIOiN-. vent of Benedictines, situated on the Po, he was sur- prised, not only with the beauty of the architecture, but with the abundance of meat which covered the tables on a Friday — a fast-day of the Church. He spoke out, but with mildness. ' The Church and the Pope,' he said, ' forbid these things ; ' but the porter of the convent warned him that he exposed himself to danger by his remonstrance. He escaped to Bologna, where he fell dangerously ill. After recovering from this illness, he proceeded to Eome ; but there he was destined to be still more shocked by the riotous man- ners and open mockery of their religion, which were characteristic of the prelates and priests of Eome. One day in particular, having been invited with several bishops to a dinner of ecclesiastics, they told liim, with- out disguise, that when they were before the altar say- ing mass, instead of the sacramental form they used these words of derision : ' Panis es, et panis manebis ; vinum es, et vinum 7iianebis' — (Thou art bread, and thou wilt remain bread ; thou art wine, and thou wilt remain wine).^ The disregard of the Church's injunc- tion to fast shown in the Benedictine monastery of Lombardy, and the open ridicule of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper at Eome, must have given Luthej" strange notions of the insincerity practised by the clergy, both secular and regular, of the Church pre- sided over by the Pope. The progress of the great reformer made him at length declare that by faith alone can the salvation of man be assured. This declaration makes it necessary to pause, and consider whether Luther had rightly understood the whole 1 Hist, de la Reformation^ vol. i. p. 187. LUTHER. COUNCIL OF TREXT. 227 of the teaching and commandments delivered by Christ in the name of God, when at the end of his mission he declared to his disciples, ' I go to my Father and to your Father.' The rehgion taught by Christ Himself to man, and repeated by His apostles in various shapes, compre- hended three great lessons. The first was, to love God with all the heart and soul ; the second, to love his neighbour as himself; the third — and not the least im- portant — that if, from the strength of human passion or the weakness of human powers of resistance, he should fall into sin, his position might be recovered by sincere repentance, and a real determination to sin no more, and to lead for the rest of the period of his dwelling on earth a pure and virtuous life. It will be observed by anyone who attentively reads the New Testament, that these lessons are scarcely ever allowed for a day to drop out of sight. In the prayer to ' Our Father which art in Heaven,' we are commanded to pray that ' our trespasses ' may be forgiven, ' as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.' There are few instances of severity re- corded in the parables of our Saviour; one of the most striking is the instance of the servant who, having been forgiven by his lord a debt of ten thou- ^^and talents, refuses to forgive his fellow-servant a debt of three hundred pence. Such severity, whether in parable or in reality, is almost unexampled on the part of our Saviour. The woman guilty of adultery is told, ' Neither do I condemn thee ; go, and sin no more.' The father of the prodigal son exclaims with q2 228 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. joy, upon his repentance, ' My son was dead, and is alive again.' The acts which were singled out by our Saviour, when He says that in all future time He shall be in the midst of the doers of good works, are all acts of kindness, of charity, and of love. St. Paul, when he says that ' Love worketh no ill to his neighbour,' takes care to enumerate acts of wrong which are inconsistent with love. St. Paul, in his epistle to the Corinthians, writes, according to the translation of Stanley, Dean of Westminster, and the translation of Alford, Dean of Canterbury, ' And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three ; but the greatest of these is love.' In the lexicon of Liddell and Scott the word is translated, ' brotherly love ; ' but whether we take the single word, or the two words, brotherly love, it is impossible to think that St. Paul considered faith as the greatest quality of a Christian, when, after enumerating faith, he says so expressively that love, or brotherly love, is the greatest of the three. Indeed it is impossible to think that Christ and His apostles could have laid so much stress upon acts of love and forgiveness, as works in conformity with the commandments of God, and yet have left it as a matter of indifference, when the great sacrifice of Christ had been completed, whether those acts of love and repen- tance should or should not be performed. I conclude, therefore, that Luther, in exalting faith, to the exclusion of love and repentance, has divided religion, which he ought to have kept entire ; and has omitted, in order to give undue prominence to faith, many of the most impressive lessons which Christ, in LUTHER. COUNCIL OP TRENT. 229 His sermon on the Mount, in His various parables, in His lessons to His disciples, and in His last words delivered to'the most faithful among those who had attended Him in life and were ready to imitate Him in death, had delivered as the commandments of God. The abuses of the Eoman Church, the untrue doctrine of Transub- stantiation, and the adoration of a Uving man — often an ambitious and profligate priest — as a being to be approached with worship and deemed infallible as a God, have worked deep and extensive mischiefs in the various countries of Europe which have submitted to the spiritual and temporal government of the Pope. But the errors of Luther and of Calvin, however re- buked by other enquirers, have done much to aHenate Christians from the great doctrine of love. It is to be hoped that, casting aside passion and prejudice, men will arrive at a period when the whole of the Bible will be searched for the doctrines by which they can be guided in this life, and upon which they can base their hopes for the future. Having made these remarks upon the general course of Luther, to which I shall afterwards recur, I now follow the narrative of the great work of the Eeformation. In the year 1517, John Deizel or Tezel, the son of a goldsmith of LeipsiCj who ' had studied in his native town, and had in 1489 entered the order of St. Dominic, invaded Germany, armed with ' Indulgences,' and as- sumed the character of an inquisitor of heretical pravity. He had been appointed by Pope Leo X. specially to collect money by the sale of indulgences, in order to 230 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. supply the expenses of the Pope, the costs of his sumptuous feasts, his harmonious concerts, his hunting parties, his patronage of letters, and all the excesses of a luxiu'ious Court. Leo X., as we have already said, was an accomplished scholar, a hospitable landlord, and, with the exception of the Bible and the Christian reli- gion, a Pope well versed in every kind of learning. Tezel took care, while he supplied the daily wants of a pompous and profuse Court, to obtain sufficient money for his own expenses and those of his retinue. He himself bore a red cross, and in a loud voice pro- claimed the benefits of the indulgences he was author- ised to distribute. He declared that he had saved more souls than the apostle St. Peter by his lessons. He proclaimed that, in the place of confession and ab- solution, and a penance of seven years to be endured, those who came to him would have to pay only a small piece of money, and would be relieved from the burdens of the greatest sins — from the guilt of adultery and murder, of rape and parricide. Nay, they would be reheved from all punishment in the next world on account of crimes which they had not yet committed, but which they intended hereafter to commit. In the same manner, the vicious would obtain the power of continuing a life of fraud, or of persevering in habits of adultery, and the indulgence of vices of all kinds. Tezel then passed on to another subject. The indul- gences, he said, freed not only the living but the dead. ' Priest, noble, tradesman, wife, young girls, young men, your relations cry to you from the pains of purgatory, A small sum of money would save us fi^om a dreadful LUTHER. COUXCIL OF TEENT. 231 martyrdom, and you refuse to give it ! ' Numbers at- 'nded this auction of eternal happiness in the place of purgatory and hell. The greediness of the multitude, and the eagerness to be deceived, di'ove whole flocks of people into the hands of the impostor, and induced them to pay their money for this imaginary benefit. Some, however, were not so easily deceived. A Saxon gen- tleman asked Tezel whether he could be sure of granting liim pardon for an act of revenge wliich he proposed to perpetrate against one who had injiu'ed liim. Tezel assm^ed him that his absolution was in- fallible, and received the money for his pardon ; but going with his servants into a wood) the Saxon gen- tleman waiting for the passing of Tezel, when he came lip, beat liim soundly, and robbed him of the treasure . lie had collected. This was not a solitary example of increduMty and the infliction of punishment for the frauds, swindling, and cheating of wliich Tezel was the ( liief promoter. But the retaliation of the benighted and plundered world did not stop here. Luther knew very well that absolution for sins which had not yet been com- mitted, and the substitution of impunity for future crimes in place of deep and sincere repentance, to atone for the weakness of the flesh in past days, was as contrary ,to all the precepts of the Church of Rome as to the religion of Christ. The Pope had indulged his pomps and vanities somewhat too long ; while the Church of Eome had advanced in the confidence that the bitrning of John Huss and Jerome of Prague could be repeated without stint, and that the whole earth might be bathed in blood to maintain the pride of a Juhus, or the feasts 232 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. of a Leo. A spirit had awakened in Germany, in England, and in Switzerland, which was destined to set at defiance the stake in Bohemia, the fagots in Smith - field, and to arm the Elector of Saxony in Germany, Latimer in England, and Calvin in France, with the means of overthrowing the most powerful instruments of papal tyranny. Luther himself was at this time ftdl of respect for the Church and the Pope. He says, ' I was at this time a monk, one of the most stupid of papists ; so much intoxicated with the doctrines of Eome that I would wilHngly have assisted, if I had been able, to punish anyone who had had the audacity to reftise the least in the world obedience to the Pope.'^ But this blind obedience was soon to be corrected. Luther was one day seated in the confessional at Wittenberg : the penitents confessed themselves guilty of every kind of sin; some of adultery, others of dissolution of morals, unjust possession of property, and other crimes. When Luther told them they must repent and forsake the sins which it had been their habit to practise, to his astonishment they told him they had obtained an indulgence to persist in them. Luther said that in that case he could give them no abso- lution. These persons returned to Tezel, and told him that the monk Luther had refused them absolution. Tezel preached against him with great violence, had a great fire ht in the market-place, and declared that those who would not conform to his teach- ing should be biurnt as heretics in that fire. The words of Luther produced httle eflfect. ^ Hist, de la Reformation. LUTHER. COUNCIL OF TRENT. 233 Luther believing that the indulgence proclaimed by Tezel would not be sanctioned by the Pope, on the eve )f the Feast of All Saints posted on the door of the )rincipal church ninety-five propositions. The gist of hose propositions was that the Pope cannot remit the ondemnation of any sin. but can only declare and I infirm the remission that God Himself has made, xcept in certain special cases reserved to the Pope ; f the Pope does otherwise, the condemnation is not iltcred. In these and other propositions the Pope is reated with the utmost respect. The Pope himself regarded these propositions hghtly, I lid seemed incHned to take the part of Luther against lie Dominicans; but throughout Germany, and, a [ortnight later, in Italy, this open declaration of oppo- -it ion excited the greatest ferment. Erasmus highly approved the conduct of Luther, and the princes of the House of Saxony applauded and protected the bold monk. Wise men felt that a revolution in the reh- '/lous opinions of Europe was impending. In fact, the preparations now about to be made were the beginning of a contest which was to separate Europe into two great camps — those who were ready to support the Chm'ch of Eome with all its existing al)uses, and those who were ready to protest against such abuses, and to place themselves under different leaders. It was obvious that this separation could not take place without a long contest, without revolutions in various States, without conflicts of argument, to be followed by conflicts of the sword, and cruel punish- ments, inflicted by bigotry on the one side and suf- 234 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. i, fered by conscientious faith on the other. In the year j 1516 this strife was about to begin; in 1619, more; than a century afterwards, began that great contest of I the different States of Europe, led by Gustavus Adol- phus on behalf of the Protestants ; by the Emperor of Austria, by Wallenstein, and other great warriors, on behalf of the Eoman Church. This war, properly called the ' Thirty Years' War,' was terminated by the Peace of Westphaha in 1649, but its spirit lasted in various shapes for a century longer. The expulsion of James II. from the throne of England was a part of the dispute in favour of the universal Eoman Church on the one hand, and of hberty of conscience and the free exercise of private judgment on the other. This separate contest was decided by the battle of CuUoden in 1746, and the general though silent ac- knowledgment of the right of George III. to the throne of England in 1760. Such were the mighty issues which, unknown to the principal parties to be engaged in the struggle, were at this time depending. Yet it cannot be said that the preparations were inadequate or unfit for so vast an en- terprise. The Pope, on his side, summoned Luther to attend him in Italy, but these preliminary proceedings were complicated by various political interests which animated the contending parties, and the Emperor Maximilian was intent, above all things, on the ag- grandisement of his family and the elevation of his grandson, already King of Spain and Naples, to the imperial throne. With this object in view he feared to ahenate the Elector of Saxony, who was a known LUTHEK. COUNCIL OF TRENT. 235 i pporter of Luther. The Pope, for a similar reason, ' shing to stop the advancement of so powerful a iuce as the King of Spain, akeady master of the i3therlands, to the imperial throne, was willing to . -me to some compromise with the German heretic, in der to preserve the independence of Germany. But ents were too quick for the procrastinations of ennan formalities and ItaUan artifice. Authority, \om\ confidence, reputation, fame threw themselves 1 the side of Luther, whose firmness and courage itly increased the number of his supporters. Leo ., fearing that if allowed further indulgence his victim oidd escape him, instituted at Eome an ecclesiasti- il court, charged with the trial of Luther, at which uther was summoned to appear before his greatest iiemy, who was at once the accuser and the judge. •n August 7, Luther received his summons at Wit- jnberg. The commotion it excited, not only at Vittenberg, but in all the neighbouring States of rermany, was ardent and sympathetic. ' Shall he /ho has told the truth,' it was said, ' go without any ccurity for his life to this- great city, already drunk vith the blood of the saints and of the martyrs of Fesus Christ ? ' On August 8, Luther wrote to Spa- atin requesting him to solicit the Elector of Saxony o employ his influence to have the cause tried n Germany and not in Italy. What had. passed at he Council of Constance was known to all Germany, and it appeared certain that if Luther went to Italy he would very speedily l)e condemned and burnt, in order that the Pope might obtain means to defray 236 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. the expenses of his feasts and his concerts, his hun ing parties in the morning and his hterary court i the afternoon. Fortunately for Luther, he was not without assist ance; the University of Wittenberg wrote to th Pope himself, alleging in excuse for Luther his weak ness of body, and his health impaired by study. Th Elector of Saxony sympatliised with his people, aiu was unwilhng to allow the light of learning in Gei many to be extinguished to promote the maintenanc of ItaHan diversions. Happily, time brought to tlii aid of Luther a young man, whose ardour for stud^ made him equal to any encounter of argument ii Greek or Latin, and whose natural prudence and dis cretion fitted him admirably to temper the excitabilitA of Luther, and the undoubted pugnacity of his disposi tion. George Schwarzerd was a skilful armourer o Bretten, a small town of the Palatinate; his wife wat the daughter of a worthy magistrate named Jolm.; Keuter. On February 14, 1497, this couple had a son born to them, who was christened by the nami of Phihp. The father of the wife, the magistraU Eeuter, brought up Phihp and his brother George with his own son, and gave them for a tutor Johr, Hungarus, who was not only an excellent scholar, but a man devoted to the study of the Holy Scriptures. The name of Schwarzerd was changed into that oi Melanchthon, the harmonious Greek translation of his German name. Brought up in Bretten, the young man distinguished himself by liis rapid acquisition of the Greek and Latin languages, to the admiration ot LUTHER. COUNCIL OF TRENT. 237 e travellers who passed that way and examined him to his progress. Suspicion was excited when he went Tubingen, by observing that between the services ' the Church he read a volume, which was supposed . be the work of some profane author. But on ex- nination, the book was found to be a copy of the ;oly Scriptures, lately printed at Bale, by John Fro- 3nius. Knowledge and learning were accumulated 1 all sides. Erasmus wrote, ' I have the most distin- uished opinion aud magnificent hopes of Melanchthon. et Christ allow that this young man may survive us a )ng time ; he will entirely eclipse Erasmus.' In 1514 e was made a Doctor of Philosophy, and by the grace f his lancniacre and the charms of his conversation a o ontributed greatly to the increase of learning. When e was twenty-one, Frederic, Elector of Saxony, con- ! eived the idjca of appointing a professor of ancient mguages at his favourite university of Wittenberg, •le addressed himself to the famous ReuchUn, who lamed Melanchthon as best fitted for this task. The elector, delighted to promote his favourite institution )y adding to it a popular name, at once appointed i^elanchthon to be professor. From this time Me- anchthon became the bosom friend and counsellor :)f Luther, who, in the rude battle he was about to sustain, required not only his own ardour, but the best advice that prudence could afford ; that every determination should be weighed, and every step be the result of the most enhghtened judgment. The Pope had now agreed, with a view to his own influence in Germany, and especially in hopes to influence the elec- 238 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. I tion of an emperor, that the legate should be sent Augsburg provided with a pardon for Luther, but only on condition that his submission was entire and complete. The person sent to Augsburg was called Thomas de Vio, siu-named Cajetan, of the town of Gaeta. He was an able and a learned man, but he relied entirely on the doctrines of Thomas Aquinas. Luther, on the other hand, based his faith on the express words of the Holy Scriptures. Hence the certain failure of this attempt at a compromise. Thus when Luther obtained an audience, the legate rehed altogether on a constitution of Pope Clement in favour of indulgences. Luther, upon hearing this constitution quoted as a supreme authority, said, ' I cannot receive such constitutions as proofs of such great things, for they twist the Holy Scripture, and never quote it properly.' De Vio. ' The Pope has authority and power over everything.' Luther. ' Except the Scriptures.' De Vio. ' Except the Scriptures ! The Pope, do you not know it, is above councils. He has re- cently condemned and punished the Council of Bale.' Luther, holding firmly to the ground he had taken, said, soon afterwards, ' As to indulgences, if it can be proved to me that I am mistaken, I am ready to be instructed ; but as to the article of faith, if I were to yield anything it would be to deny Jesus Christ. I therefore cannot yield on this point, and with the grace of God, I will never yield.' The next day there was a fm^ther conference, but Luther held firm to his declaration, and quoted Panor- LUTHER. COUNCIL OF TRENT. 239 litanus,^ who maintains that in what regards the [oly Faith, not only a General Council, but every leniber of the Church is above the Pope, if he can note better authorities and lu-ge better reasons than lie Pope.^ Luther held this doctrine. Luther gave in declaration in writing, and the legate on the other and said to him, ' Eetract, retract ; if you do not, send you to Kome before judges who are empowered liear and decide on your cause.' When this conference was over, Luther, seeing that otliing could be effected, determined to fly. He got pon a borrowed hackney before day, without a bridle D his horse, without boots, without spurs, without rms. His horse was led by a servant of the chief aagistrate of Augsburg. They rode through the .ark by a small door in the walls. He pressed hi» lorse into a gallop, and arrived on October 26 at iraefenthal, where he received the hospitality of viheTi de Mansfeld. 1 do not propose to follow the history of the Reformation ; I therefore pass at once to the great poch of the Confession of Augsburg in the year .530. There was a great assembly at Augsburg Q that year, and the Confession of Faith prepared by tielanchthon was read to a numerous assembly in the iresence of the Emperor of Germany. Bruck and Bayer appeared before this assembly, the )ne with a copy in Latin, and the other with a copy in ' ' Panonnitanus ' (Luther designait par ce nom Ives, auteur ill fameux recueil de droit eccl^siastique intitule Panormia^ et veque de Chai'tres a la fin du onzi^me siecle). 2 Hist, de la Reformation. 240 HISTOr.Y OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. German of the Confession of Faith. The Emperort^ asked that they should read the Confession in Latin. The Elector of Saxony rose and said, * We are Ger- mans, and upon German territory ; I hope, therefore, your Majesty will allow us to speak German.' Bayer, one of the secretaries, then began to read the Con- - fession, slowly, gravely, distinctly, in a sonorous* voice, and in a manner to make a great impression on his auditory. In the prologue he said that those who had signed the Confession wished to establish one sole true faith ; but in case religious dissen- sions could not be terminated amicably, he offered to his Majesty to explain their cause in the presence of one universal, free, and Christian council. After giving in their adhesion to the doctrines of the Holy Trinity, and the incarnation of the Son, true Man and true God, he proceeded : ' We teach, moreover, that we cannot be justified before God by our own strength, our merits, and our works, but that we are so justified on account of Christ, by grace, by means of faith, when we believe that our sins are remitted by virtue of Christ, who by His death has rendered satisfaction for our faults. This faith is the justice that God imputes to the sinner. We teach at the same time that this faith ought to produce all the good works which God has commanded us to do, for the love of God, and not in order to obtain by them the grace of God.' -Jjl: Such was the celebrated Confession of Augsbiu'g. It may be as well, before we go further, in examining and giving an opinion upon that important document that we should contrast the declaration made at Augs burg on the question of salvation by faith and not b] LUTHER. COUNCIL OF TREXT. 241 ^orks, to record the decision of the Council of Trent ipon the same subject. In 1546, that is to say, six- teen years after the Confession of Augsburg, the Roman CathoHc bishops and theologians assembled at Trent, took into consideration what they called the Dropositions of the Lutheran doctrine, in order to 3ensure and condemn those which they considered it accessary and decent to condemn. These propositions, iccording to one historian, Fra Paolo Sarpi, were ;wenty-three, and according to another historian. Car- dinal Pallavicini, were twenty-five. But these propo- jitions, whatever their number, were not taken literally from the Confession of Augsburg, nor from any au- :hentic declarations of Luther. They were founded, as it was supposed, partly on the writings of Luther, md partly on those of Zuinghus, the Swiss Reformer. The two first propositions thus stated are : I. Faith alone, excluding all other works, suffices for salvation, and alone justifies. II. The faith which justifies is the confidence with which it is believed that sins are remitted by Christ, and the justified are bound to beheve with certainty that their sins are remitted. When these propositions were submitted to debate by forty bishops and forty-five theologians, it appeared that there were several able men who would not concur in the condemnation until the reasons on both sides had been fully weighed. Among these were Fra Ambrosio Catarino, Andrea de Vega, Antonio Marinari. Some time was spent in enumerating the various kinds of faith, of which one of the fathers reckoned nine, and B 242 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. another as many as fifteen. Fra Domenico Soto, opposing i the others, said there were but two significations ol faith, the one meaning the truth and sincerity of him who asserts and promises, the other the assent of the person who hears : that the first belonged to God, and ' the second to man. That the mere confidence of him who beheves is an abuse of the word faith, and differs little from hope; but it was an undoubted heresy ol Luther to employ justifying faith to mean nothing more than a certainty in the mind of the Christian that his sins were remitted by Christ. He added, and was followed by the majority, that such a confidence could not justify, that it was nothing more than a temerity and a sin ; for man could not, without presumption, hold it as certain that he possessed the grace of God, that being a point upon which he must always be in doubt. Catarino, on the other hand, maintained with a considerable following, that although confidence could not justify, yet that the just man might and ought to believe that he lived in the grace of God. A third opinion was put forth by Andrea Vega. He held that such an opinion was not temerity, and still less certain faith, but that a conjectural persuasion might be enter- tained without sin. Thereupon arose a long and warm dispute with regard to the second article. The opinion was general among the fathers that there were two kinds of faith, the one being a dead faith that might be held by sinners, and signified mere assent; the other which was accompanied by charity or love, and which formed an efficient and lively faith. When tJiis faith was spoken of, Marinari said that he could not LUTHER. COUNCIL OF TREXT. 243 ipprove the term, faith informed by charity, as that erm was not used by St. Paul ; the only proper term vas, faith operates by charity. If we look to the result of these discussions it is clear hat the difference between the two sets of theologians, )etween Melanchthon and Marinari, and their respective bllowers, depended rather on the want of charity exist- ' ng on both sides than on any real theological distinc- ions. The Protestants of Augsburg had fully admitted hat there might be a faith held by bad men, and even )y devils, which amounted to a mere assent to propo- itions which they could not refute. On the other land, the Protestants of Augsburg maintained that, hough faith alone were sufficient for salvation, good /orks were absolutely necessary to form the character 'f a just man. The error of Luther was thus rather that of admit- Ing terms which might be perverted to unsound and .angerous conclusions, than of laying down doctrines 'bsolutely false. In order to look a little more closely, as well as irgely, into this question, we must return to the ;eneral sense of the other propositions maintained by ' he Protestants of Augsburg. When Bayer had terminated the summary of the ioctrine professed in the Protestant churches, and vhen he had declared that this doctrine was in no way )pposed to the scriptures, to the universal Church, nor !ven to the Eoman Church, such as it was known rom their writers, he concluded, that to reject the B 2 244 HISTORY OP THE CHRISTIAN" RELIGIOX. Protestants as heretics is to offend against unity an4- charity. | He then went on to the part of the confession des- tined to denounce and to expose the errors and the abuses which had arisen ; he denounced the division into two kinds in the sacrament of the Holy Communion ; he attacked the compulsory cehbacy of the priests ; he declared that in the Evangehcal Churches the Holy Supper was only given to those who had first confessed their sins. He denounced the celebration of certain feasts, the fixing certain days of fasts, and the number of orders and ceremonies which assumed the name of a spiritual and Christian hfe, as so many abuses. The greatest profession of which Bayer was tlie organ, was the distinction that he drew between the jurisdiction of bishops and that of temporal prince- He declared that the office of bishops was to preach the scriptiu*es, to pardon sins, to exclude from the Chris- tian Chm"ch all who rebelled against the law ; but the only weapons he was to employ were preaching and teaching by words, without any employment of human power. It was the office of kings and princes, on the other hand, to govern their states and to punish those who violated the laws. It has been understood in later times, that the Protestant princes renounced all power to punish spiritual offences, or in any way to permit persecution. But the doctrine of toleration, if then proclaimed, seems to have been lost in the wars, discord, and confusions which followed the period of which we are treating. The confession ended by a declaration, that the bishops were not to be obeyed if they taught f LUTHER. COUNCIL OF TRENT. 245 nything contrary to the canonical scriptures inspired )j God Himself. The confession of Augsburg was a great and me- iiorable act. Schiller, the historian of the ' Thirty .'ears' War,' has said, with great appearance of reason, hat it was too early to lay down the regular articles of new creed, or to found a new Church. He adds hat twenty-six years afterwards, in 1556, the doctrines )f Zuinglius and Calvin had very much altered the )revaihug articles of belief, and that Protestants were u the dilemma, either of adhering to a hard and fast irticle which had already ceased to influence their ninds or to be condemned as the adherents of a vari- il)le and fluctuating religion. But, in fact, the Pro- testants of that day had hardly a choice, for the Pope vas prepared to condemn them as heretics, and the imperor Charles V. to punish them as rebels ; they vere, therefore, forced to stand on their defence and ippear in arms to vindicate their rights of judgment. "t would indeed have been better, had they contented hemselves with denouncing the errors and abuses of -he Church of Eome, and reserved for more matui'e deliberation the specific confession of their own faith. The remaining events relating to the Diet at Augs- ourg and the Council of Trent, belong rather to pohtical than to ecclesiastical history. The Pope was intent upon employing the army of the empire to extirpate all diversities of faith. The Emperor was still more deter- mined not to employ his army for any such purpose. He therefore denounced the Protestant princes as rebels, and assured them that if they w^ould obey their legiti- 246 HISTORY OP THE CHEISTIAN RELIGIOX. mate emperor, he would not inquire too strictly into their rehgious scruples. Unluckily for the Pope, Charles V. was the more crafty statesman of the two. He had, by force and fraud together, destroyed the liberties of Spain, which were growing up under the forms of a popular representation ; he had extinguished all hberty in the republican constitution of Florence ; he had so craftily promoted despotic power in Austria and in Brandenburg as to leave scarcely any vestiges of political freedom in Germany. By means of the able generals who commanded his forces, he had done much for despotism in the Low Countries; and, when the Prince of Parma captured Antwerp, scarcely a vestige of Hberty was left in Flanders. Holland survived, and by means of the House of Orange asserted the in- dependence of a free repubhc. But, generally, we may affirm that Charles V. estabhshed despotism in by far the greater part of Europe from the end of the sixteenth to the end of the eighteenth century, when the eruption of the French Revolution scattered flames and ashes on every side. Yet, even Charles V. was obliged to own a master in duplicity and treachery. Mamice of Saxony, pretending to be the devoted servant of the emperor, undermined his power ; and, at the peace of Passau, obtained for the Protestant princes of Germany freedom of conscience, which was confirmed nearly a century aftenvards by the Treaty of Westphalia. Another effect of the manoeuvres of Maurice, was the breaking up of the Council of Trent. No sooner was it known at Trent that Maurice had taken up arms, LUTHER. COUN'CIL OF TRENT. 247 lan a general consternation seized the Fathers of the ouncil. The German prelates were anxious to be at ome, each to defend his own immediate interests gainst liis new enemy, and the legate of the Pope iadly seized hold of the opportmiity to postpone a tearing of the Protestant divines, who, in their appH- ations for an audience, were supported by the imperial mbassadors. On April 28, 1552, the Council was pro- ogued for two years, and, in ftict, the prorogation lasted or ten years. The attempt to reconcile the Protes- aiit Reformers to the Roman Church had entirely ailed. The King of England and the Parliament of 5COtland, the Protestant Princes of Prussia, and the -Naders of the RepubUc of Holland, were finally 3stranged from the Roman Church. Had Louis XIV. md James H. succeeded in planting the Roman CathoUc iiith in England ; had the Prince of Orange failed in lis expedition at Torbay ; or had the Duke of Marl- borough lost the battle of Blenheim ; the Protestant ^liiurch of England would have been destroyed, and such men as Baxter and Calamy and Bunyan would have been crushed by imprisonment or still more severe penal- ties. New victims, who might have attempted to follow the example of Hampden, Pym, and Sidney, would have perished on the scaffold, and the cause of civil and religious hberty, instead of being fixed on an en- during basis, would probably have yielded to a second Cromwell, or would have been the prey of a continental Napoleon. 248 ESSAY XY. CALVIN. John Cacvik or Chauvin, who is generally known by the Latinised name of Calvin, was born at Noyon, in Picardy on July 10, 1509. His father, Gerard, was a notary in the ecclesiastical couit and secretary to the bishop. John was one of three brothers, Charles, John, and Anthony. He received the first rudiments of instruction in his native town ; and at the age of fourteen went to Paris, where he became a pupil of the celebrated Corderius. John was intended, hke his brothers, for the Church, and at the age of twenty had already received the tonsure, and the cure of Pont I'Eveque, where he had sometimes preached. But his father, whether alarmed at the dis- tm'bed state of the Church, or apprehending some want of caution from the fiery nature of his son, at tliis time tuined his studies to tlie law, which he studied at Orleans and Boiurges. It has been conjectured rather than proved that at this time he wished to reform, and not to destroy, the Church. But his nature was not to be controlled by the mere change of his profession. In 1532, when he was twenty-three years of age, he composed for his friend, Nicholas Cop, recently chosen Eector of the CALVIN. 249 Iniversity of Paris, an oration in which he defended be doctrines of the German Eeformers. When this ration was pubUcly read, a great tumult arose ; Calvin •ras forced to escape by a window, and to leave Paris, t is related that as he was flying away, he met a lerical friend, who advised him to return and submit. It is too late,' said Calvin, and, shaking his friend's land, pursued his journey. After many wanderings Calvin found himself at Basle, where Erasmus, the hght of the age, and the precursor of the Eeformation, exercised a great sway iver the men of letters of that place of refuge. Here, 11 1536, appeared the * Institutio Religionis Christianas,' lie great work in which Calvin sought to build up the Reformed Church where Luther had left httle more than ruins. Unfortunately, as I consider the matter, he passed in the same year through Geneva, where Farel, an ardent Reformer, but distasteful to Erasmus from his fanatical violence, found him. Farel urged him to stay and join in the work he was doing, and when Calvin dechned to leave his learned retirement, and enter upon the heat^of controversy, Farel ex- claimed, ' May God curse your hfe, and your learned leisure, if you do not now come to His help in this necessity.' Calvin consented. At first the rule of Calvin was hght and not un- reasonable. He drew up a Confession of Faith, in twenty-one articles, the chief purpose of which was to define and justify the separation of the Reformed Church of Geneva from the Papal Church of Rome. But having been banished in 1538, he retired to 250 HISTOEY OF THE CHRISTL-VN RELIGION. Frankfort, where he hved for some years. In May, 1541, he was recalled by a decree, and in September of that year he made a triumphal entry into Geneva. His absolute power was from this time exercised iu the name of a theocratic repubhc, joining the spiritual tyranny of Torquenada to the political despotism of Phihp II. In one character or the other he bent to his will the religious observances, the dress, the mode of arranging the hair, the number of dishes at feasts, the regulations for weddings, the jests and idle talk, the behef and the behaviour of all the citizens of Geneva. The wife of the captain of the town, who was found guilty of dancing at a wedding, was sent to the common prison with prostitutes and thieves. The gaols were occupied to such an extent that in March, 1545, the gaoler reported that the prisons were full, and could hold no more. In the four years from 1542 to 1546, fifty-eight persons in that small community were sentenced to death, and seventy-six to exile. The imaginary offence of witchcraft was subject to capital punishment, and in three months thirty-four miserable beings were executed for that unreal crime. Calvin's health was bad, his temper was irritable ; he punished heterodoxy, he punished irreligion, he pun- ished adultery with death, and dancing with imprison- ment. But of all his acts of cruelty the execution of Servetus was the most inhuman. Servetus was a Spaniard, born in the same year as Calvin. He studied medicine, and is said to have anticipated in some degree the discovery of Harvey. He began early CALYIN. 251 to doubt the infallibility of the Eoman Church, and entered into a confidential correspondence with Calvin on many points of theology. In answer to his doubts, Calvin referred him to an oracle which could not err, his own work on the ' Institutes of the Christian Eeli- gion.' Servetus sent to Calvin his copy of the work, with many notes written in the margin. Calvin re- nounced all correspondence with one whose opinions * differed so widely from his own. On the same day, referring to a visit which Servetus had proposed to make to him, he wrote to his friend Farel, ' If he comes I shall never permit him to depart alive, pro- vided my authority be of any avail.' At this time Calvin's power at Geneva was absolute and supreme. Nor did he ever forget his threat. His vengeance was long delayed, but at length his gratification was complete. In 1553 Servetus published anonymously a book called ' Eestitutio Christianismi,' a work very heterodox. He had written many private notes to Calvin, as he himself said, for information and ' brotherly correction.' These notes Calvin gave up to the Papal Inquisition, and hounded on the persecution of Servetus, then living under the name of Villeneuve, at Vienne, near Lyons. Forced to fly, he ahghted, on July 19, 1553, at a little inn on the banks of the Lake of Geneva. He meant to go away the next day, but stayed imprudently three weeks. Calvin had in his own hands the temporal as weU as the spiritual government of Geneva ; he set a syndic on the track of Servetus, had him arrested, and, in order to deprive him of all chance of escape,' conducted himself a prosecution ^52 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. for heresy. Servetus was condemned to be burnt at the stake. On the morning of the execution Calvin visited Servetus, but the heretic would not recant his errors and was burnt the same day on a green eminence behind the town of Geneva, called Choupel. The triumph of Calvin was complete. He had de- nounced his opponent to the Inquisition, he had given up confidential papers, he had prosecuted the heretic to conviction, he had burnt him ! The Papal Inqiiisitiou could have done no more. Nothing seemed to be wanting. Yet though Bulhnger, Peter Martyr, and Melanchthon justified the deed, Calvin felt that some over-scrupulous persons might censure this act of rigour. He therefore wrote and pubhshed his ' Fidelis Expositio Errorum M. Serveti et brevis earumdem Ee- futatio ; ubi docetur jure gladii cremandos esse hasre- ticos.' So signally did the Eeformers, as well as the Roman Catholics, abjure the doctrine of religious liberty. If a Spaniard renounced the errors of the Church of Rome he was burnt at Seville, or at Valladolid. If a friar refused to acknowledge the spiritual supremacy of Henry VIII., he was burnt in England. If a learned Italian doubted the temporal supremacy of the Pope, he was burnt at Rome. Such was the unhappy con- dition of Europe. In 1545, at the very time when Calvin was preaching persecutions of Roman Catholics at Geneva, some unhappy villages in Provence and Languedoc had instituted from the old worship of the Waldenses and the new doctrines of Zuinglius some rude imitations of Protestant worship. A French CALVIN. 25.^ letacliment of troops, aided by Papal guards from ivignon, and instructed by the king's advocate-general 3f Provence, advanced upon those villages, ravished the women, and put to death the old people and the 'infants. In Cabriera in the Venaissin, and Merindol in Provence, more than 4,000 persons were put to death. Francis I. on his death-bed repented of this barbarity; the advocate -general was condemned and put to death for his participation in persecution. The spirit of persecution which Calvin, beyond all other of the leading reformers, taught in Geneva, wa* taught hkewise in Scotland and in Holland, and pene- trated deeply among the Huguenots of France. Henry IV., though he became a Catholic, was imbued with one of the best elements of the Reformation — that which affirmed the right of every man to govern his relations to God by the dictates of his own conscience, and the wrong of every government which endeavours to dis- turb that right. Hence the tolerant spirit of the edict of Nantes. Eichelieu, himself a bishop, and afterwards a cardinal, acted in the same spirit. He promoted the Protestants of station and abihty to high offices in the army and in the State ; he banished and deprived of their sees those Cathohc bishops who were the tiu-bulent agitators for persecution. But the priestly persecuting spirit which was curbed and discountenanced by the secular rulers of France, took refuge in the clerical leaders of the Reformation. No longer moderated by tlie lay chiefs, whom they denounced as deserters and unfaitliful shepherds, they forbade the attendance of their flocks at any Cathohc marriages or Catholic 254 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. burials ; they would not allow of marriages between Catholics and Protestants ; they suppressed, as far aa their power extended, Catholic places of worship ; they prohibited theatres, and dances, and regulated the dress of their flocks, according to the most approved Calvi- nistic standard. One of their community, who doubted the infallibility of their synods, was ejected and given over to Satan. To hate their brethren appeared to them the true version of the commandment of Christ. It has pleased the Almighty Maker of heaven and earth to place man upon a planet, fruitful of all that is necessary for his sustenance, and to give him faculties for obtaining the means of nutrition and of enjoyment. Thus, with a due exercise of his bodily strength and mental powers, he can procure corn and flour for his daily bread ; he can nourish himself with vegetables which are at once wholesome and succulent ; he can pluck the most deUcious fruits from creeping vegetables, from bushes laden with dehcious berries, from trees whose produce can be improved by judicious cultivation. He can convert the wild grass into fertile pasture, where cattle and sheep can be fattened by his care, and afibrd him strengthening and palatable food. Some animals, such as the horse and the dog, the camel and the ass, seem specially intended for his use — to carry his person or his baggage, to assist him in subduing wild animals, to help him in his pursuits, and to obey his commands. Thus, placed on a globe destined for his benefit, man naturally desires prolongation of his existence. ' Health and long life ! ' says the Irish peasant ; ' May you live a thousand years I ' is the exclamation of the CALVIN. 255 Spaniard who wishes well to his fellow-creature. It is ascribed as the merit of Solomon, that he did not ask for long life, as that would have been a petition too obviously selfish. Men who have gone through a career too prosperous or too unhappy ; women, who have lost the sun and solace of their lives ; have wished for death as a relief to their sorrows, or as an end to painful disease. But for the great mass, it is otherwise. For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind ? For, besides the ordinary enjoyment of hfe, God has given to man the capacity to derive from his senses, from sight, from hearing, from smell, from taste, from touch, the most delightful emotions — the view of the sublime mountain and the vast ocean ; the raptiure inspired by music ; the scent of a thousand flowers, which ' Nature boon ' Pour'd forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain.* So also on the vine-covered hills, and gay regions of France ; in the sierras of Spain, in Persian groves, in the valleys of Italy, the violin, the guitar, and the lute inspire the national dance, and diffuse the gaiety of the village. When Christ appeared upon earth, while He taught man with divine wisdom to check his passions, to be constiint to the partner of his bosom, and to restrain his animal appetites. He gave his sanction to innocent amusement, made ceremonial subject to human happi- ness, and human observance subordinate to the great * Milton's Paradise Lout, Book iv. 256 HISTORY OP THE CHRISTLIN RELIGION. ends of human society. He taught that the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath ; that it is not the kind of food which goeth into the mouth, but the kind of language which cometh out of the mouth that defileth a man. His first miracle was per- formed at a wedding feast ; and when, in the parable, the father of the prodigal received his lost son, the fatted calf was killed, and when the elder son returned towards his home, he heard the sound of music and dancing, and was told by his father, * It was meet that we should make merry and be glad, for this thy brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.' It was in a world thus made for inno- cence and enjoyment, repentance and forgiveness, for glee and for concord, that the pretended followers of Christ introduced the contrivance of an elaborate creed, and declared,not that those who led a wicked hfe and did not repent ; not those who being forgiven by their Lord, refused to forgive their fellow-servant ; not those who refused a cup of water to the thirsty, and a crust of bread to the hungry ; but those who did not embrace all the articles and particles of their unintelligible creed : those who did not allow infallibility to Pope and Council, or to Luther, or to Calvin, should perish everlastingly. It cannot be too often repeated that there is no foundation in truth or scripture for this monstrous perversion. Origen, one of the most able of the fathers, maintained that pagans might be saved. Bax^^^er, one of the best among the learned Christians of modern times, when he accepted the greater part of the Thirty- nine CALVIN. 257 Articles of the Church of England, declared that he would not assent to the damnatory parts of the Atha- iiasian Creed, and that he would not take upon him to Irm that good and pious heathens, who had never accepted the teaching of Christ, might not be eternally saved. Samuel Clarke, one of the most enlightened members of the Church of England, affirmed that Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, might all be saved by the mercy of God. It is easy to fix the charge of heresy on these men, but the real heresy was on the part of those who made dogmas of their own invention the test of Christianity. This pernicious theory once accepted, it was obvious to say that it was an act of mercy to a nation to enforce unity of faith ; for the punishment by fire of a few obstinate unbelievers might ensure the eternal salvation of millions upon millions of unborn generations. The only way, therefore, to get rid of persecution is to destroy its root. There may be good foundation for I the doctrine that those who are not forgiving, who are not merciful, who hate their brethren, and blaspheme their Maker, will be punished in a future life. There i> no foundation for the doctrine that any form of belief is required to obtain eternal salvation, or to avoid the }).iialties of eternal perdition. The first error of Calvin was the prohibition of the enjoyments and innocent pleasures which Provi- dence has bestowed upon mankind. With this gloomy doctrine was connected an austere and mournful cele- bration of the Lord's Day, on which Christ rose from the dead. I remember in the year 1811 or 1812, being s 258 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. at Kinneil with Dugald Stewart, that kind and benevo- lent philosopher told me that the parish contained a number of men, who having been buried in the coal mines all the week, used to walk on the Sunday with their wives and children along the banks of the Firth of Forth. But the Calvinist minister of the Kirk, shocked at this indulgence, preached against a practice which was at once in accordance with family affection and with enjoyment of the natural beauties granted by the Almighty to that fair land. Thus the spirit of man mars the works of his Creator. The next great error of Calvin was the doctrine of Predestination. His creed on this subject is well ex- pressed by Dr. Chalmers, speaking of ' the world of mind.' ' If this class of events,' he says, ' if the movements of intelligent and animated nature, can be referred to no moving forces directed by and dependent upon Him, of whom we have been taught to believe, that He hath ordained the mechanism of the world, and presides over all the evolutions of it — if amid the diversity of the operations by which we are surrounded, those of the will and of the mind form an exception to the doctrine that it is God who worketh all in all — then by far the most dignified and interesting of all his creations is wrested from the dominion of Him who gave -it birth — and in the most emphatic sense of the term might it be said that there is a universe without a Lord — an empire without an imperial sovereign to overrule its destinies.' ^ Dr. Chalmers adds very justly that both the power * Chalmers, Institutes of Theology, vol. ii. pp. 351, 355. CALVix. 259 and the prescience of God are involved in this question. But M. Guizot most truly observes, ' God, they say, is an absolute monarch, and in no part of his realm, from no one of his subjects, will he allow of any intervention, any action, or any will opposed to his own law, and because of this inexorable and universal law they deny the free will of man. Strange denial ! which has been condemned beforehand by God him- self ! God is infinitely more powerful and more incom- prehensible than Calvin and Chalmers have imagined him to be. Among the infinitude of his creatures there is one being whom he has created and placed high above all others on this earth, and whom he has distinguished by his own mark placed upon him. God has thought fit to create man, and to make him in his own image, that is to say, a free being, capable of deliberate acts of intelligence and will.' ^ It appears to me, I confess, as it does to Guizot, that the theory of Calvin, far from exalting the Deity, tends to degrade Him. It seems to me a lower exertion of power to make a locomotive engine fit to travel along a railway than to create an eagle able to soar to the clouds, and view with undazzled eyes the sun's effulgence ; less a proof of supreme intelligence to make an automaton capable of playing at chess than to create a man quahfied to choose between good and evil, and only directed in the magnificent liberty of his will by the visible and all-pervading laws of 4 gracious and benevolent God. ' Guizot, St, Lcuis and Calvin, p. 199. s 2 260 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Another error of Calvin, shared with many learned men, was the assertion of the plenary inspiration of the Holy Scriptures ; the doctrine that not only the thoughts, but the words in which they are clothed are divinely inspired, every word on every subject, the language as well as the doctrine. Upon this subject Guizot remarks, ' This assertion seems to me to indicate a deplorable confusion, giving rise to profound misconceptions as to the meaning and I aim of the sacred volume, and causing its authority to be very seriously compromised. God never in- tended to teach men grammar by a supernatui'al pro- cess, and he no more intended to teach tliem geology, astronomy, geography, and chronology than grammar Not on these do the rays of divine light fall, but ou the relation of man to his Creator, and on the laws of his faith and life. God dictated to Moses the laws which regulate the duties of man towards God, and towards his fellow man ; He left it to Newton to discover the laws which govern the universe. The inspiration of the sacred volume relates not only to religion and morality, but to religion and morality alone, and apart from any mere human science.' ^ The doctrine of Election as explained by Calvin, or in other words, ' Calvin's theory' of Free-will and Pre- destination,' appears to me founded on a most deplor- able error. We recognise the freedom of the will at the very moment of its exercise. We have the same knowledge of our freedom as of our existence. We feel and know that we are free. To suppose, as Dr. * St. Louis and Calvin, p. 183. CALVIX. 261 Chalmers has done, ' that all must be determinate, and all, both in the mental and material world, be under the absolute control of Him who made all, and who upholds all,' is to suppose that God has created a ' vast number of beings, some of whom are selected for eternal happiness and some for eternal condemnation ; but to imagine that God has created a number of 'beings who are to be condemned for the sin of one, who Bxisted four thousand years before, without the possi- oility of escape, either by a righteous life or by repent- ince, however heartfelt and sincere, is to suppose a jrod neither just nor merciful. It is to suppose a God totally different from the Being described by Christ, Nhen He said to the scribe, that if he loved God with dl his heart and soul and his neighbour as himself, this do and thou shalt live.' There is an entry in Wesley's journal, in 1767, where he asks, 'if it is not ligh time to return to the plain word — *'He that eareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted vith him."' In fact, the kind and benevolent heart )f Wesley gave its vital worth to his character, lis love of his neighbour and of mankind made dm revolt from those hard and harsh doctrines, vhich have been accepted, apparently at least, by the Jalvinists of the Church of Scotland, and by the Jalvinists of England and the other countries of ilurope. Mr. Froude relates in his ' Short Studies on Treat Subjects,' that going into a place of worship in he west of England, he found a body of persons col- 3cted, who were persuaded that the Christian religion oiposed upon them no duties, and asked from them no 262 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAX RELIGION. sacrifices ; they were persuaded that Christ had done everything for them, that his sacrifice of Himself had appeased the wrathful God whom they worshipped, and that they had no more to do than to enjoy the benefit of his atonement. ^ This seems to be a notion borrowed rather from the religion of Pagans, and the practice of offering hecatombs of oxen and of sheep, than from the rehgion of St, Peter and St. Paul. Yet, as Mr. Froude truly says, the Sunday once passed, the men and women whom he saw assembled would, during the remainder of the week, perform the usual duties of Christians, be grateful for benefits, punctual in returning money that they had borrowed, faithful in fulfilling the promises that they had made, so that a religion, which only influences one day out of seven, can hardly be said to be a practical religion. Indeed, the doctrine of Calvin, which enabled him to put to death Servetus and all who offended against his intolerant laws, has not come down in its spirit to the present generation. Dr. Chalmers, if he had had the power of Calvin at Edinburgh, would have been shocked to use it as Calvin used his power at Geneva. The Calvinists of Scotland and the Puritans of Eng- land employed their influence in the seventeenth century rather for the purpose of resisting tyranny than for that of enforcing persecution. We cannot conclude this account of the principal leaders of the Reformation without taking some notice of Zuinglius, who was the leader of the Reformers of Switzerland. In the mountainous district called Unter-l wald, there was, at the end of the fifteenth century, living CALVIN. 263 in a district called Wildhaus, the ammann, or governor, or president of the community, called Zuinglius. His wife had already given him two sons, when, on the first day of the year 1484, seven weeks after the birth of Luther, a third son was born, who was called Ulric. Five other sons and a daughter completed this Alpine family. Ulric, who is known to us by the name of Zuin- ghus, displayed from his early youth the greatest apti- tude for learning, and an intense zeal for the study of the Holy Scriptures. He himself dated the commence- ment of the Reformation in Switzerland from the year 1516. At this time Zuinglius was thirty-two years old ; he led, with a most intrepid courage, not only his flock at Zurich, but the anned troops of the Eeformers. He was killed at the battle of Cappel in 1530 ; with his last words he confessed his faith in Christ. There ai'e only two points in the career of ZuingUus to which I desire to draw attention. The celebrated historian Merle DAubigne blames him for having fought with carnal weapons, and contrasts his career with that of Luther, appearing to think that the Swiss Eeformers, by fighting in arms, lost the approbation of God, and that their defeat in battle showed clearly that it was by persuasion only that the Almighty had decreed that the cause of the Reformation should be triumphant. Yet this assertion must appear not warranted by history. The Eeformers of the Church of Luther never hesitated, being thoroughly in earnest, from 264 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION maintaining the cause of right and justice, as well in the field of battle as in the field of contro- versy. The Lutherans, who made their confession at Augsburg, assembled not long afterwards an army of seventy thousand infantry and fifteen thousand cavalry to maintain their right of reading and interpreting the Bible against the organised forces of the Emperor Charles V. Maurice of Saxony, who obtained for the Eeformers the privileges they had long sought, was an accomplished soldier, and died in battle. In the succeeding century, Gustavus Adolphus did not disdain the use of the arm of flesh, and by his great and im- mortal victories gave to Germany a fresh title as the great source and the main strength of the Eeformation. The failure of Zuinglius, therefore, in his courageous attempt to maintain at Zurich the banner of the Re- formation, was no proof of the displeasure of God against the assertion, by force, of Protestant freedom ; but was owing entirely to the inferiority of his forces as compared with those of the legions on the side of the Pope. The mountain cantons refused to abandon their old faith ; Berne declined to join him ; the house of Austria sent fresh troops to overcome and to suppress the Protestant insurgents. But in Switzerland, as in other countries, it has proved true that — Freedom's battle once begun, Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son, Though baffled oft, is always Avon. Not that Switzerland or Germany counts among its inhabitants none but champions of the Eeformation but if we compare the armies assembled to maintain CALvix. 265 the Protestant States of Europe in 1872, with the hosts which overcame and put to death Zuinglius in 1530, we shall entertain strong hopes that freedom of enquiry, right of private judgment, the diffusion of the Scriptures over the world, and the variations of Pro- testant sects against which Bossuet employed so much eloquence and so much knowledge, are destined to triumph, with the approbation and favour of God, over all their enemies, and give to the cause of truth a final and enduring victory. Another question of great import to the human race is connected with the name of Zuinglius. The doctrine that Pythagoras and Plato might be saved, might be admitted to eternal bliss, had been put forward in early Christian times by Origen, and after much bitter controversy, has been condemned by the legislator Justinian.^ At the time of the Refc.rmation, the doctrine that salvation was only to be hoped for in the Chiurch, was held by the Ee- formed Churches, by the Lutherans and the Calvinists, as by the Roman Church. Calvin says, ' Beyond the bosom of the Chiurch no remission of sins is to be hoped for, nor any salvation.' The Saxon Confes- sion, presented to the Synod of Trent a.d. 1551, the Helvetic Confession, the Belgic, the Scottish- — all avow that salvation is only to be had in the Church. The Presbyterian divines, assembled at Westminster A.D. 1647, in their 'Humble Advice concerning a Con- fession of Faith ' (c. 25), declare that ' the visible * See article^ ' Origen,' in Bayle's Dictionary ; Gibbon's Decline and Fallf &c. 266 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN' RELIGION. Church, which is also Catholique and Universal under the Gospel (not confined to one nation, as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion . . . out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.' The Independents admitted the same. Nor was the position of the An- glican Church at all different. The Athanasian Creed was given an honoured place among the formularies, and the doctrine which that creed distinctly asserts was implied in several of the services of the Church, and was strongly maintained by a long succession of her divines.' ^ Against this doctrine, which condemns the most virtuous of the Greeks and Eomans to eternal punish- ment, which declares that even in a Christian country, infants who have not received the rite of baptism will be found ' crawling along the pavement of hell ; ' and that boys and girls of fourteen years old, whose Baptist parents had delayed the period of their baptism, are hardly entitled to Christian burial — against this doc- trine, so revolting to the untutored reason, so horrible to the loving heart, Zuinglius rose, and with intrepid spirit taught a better, a more charitable, a more Christian belief. In a ' Confession of Faith,' which he wrote just before his death, he described with his mind's eye, that ' assembly of all the saintly, the heroic, the faithful, atid the virtuous,' when Abel and Enoch, Noah and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, will mingle with Socrates, Aristides, and Antigonus, with ' History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Bationalism in Europe. By Lecky. Vol. i. p. 419. CALVIN. 2 67 Numa and Camillus, Hercules and Theseus, the Scipios and the Catos ; and when every upright and holy man who has ever lived will be present with his God} We know the comment of Eoman Catholic Bishops and Protestant Reformers on this magnificent passage ; Bossuet quotes it, as if language so repugnant to faith and morals were sufficient to obtain from a jury of all mankind the condemnation of Zuinglius ; Luther on reading it, said he despaired of the salvation of Zuinglius. A great ancient historian, commemorating the life and death of a virtuous man, thus indulges the hope that a fiiture life may be reserved for the souls of the good, I give this passage in its entirety, without copying the paraphrase of Byron, or the expression of similar sentiments by the best men of our own English Chiu'ch. After describing the grief of the widow and the daughter of Agricola, Tacitus adds : — ' Si quis piorura manibus locus, si, ut sapientibus placet, non cum corpore exstinguuntur magnse animae ; placide quiescas, nosque domum tuam, ab infirmo desi- derio et mulieribus lamentis ad contemplationem vir- tutum tuarum voces, quas neque lugeri neque plangi fas est : admiratione te potius et immortalibus laudibus, et si natura suppeditet, oemulatu decoremus. Is verus honos, ea conjunctissimi cujusque pietas. Id filiae quoque uxorique prgeceperim, sic patris, sic mariti me- moriam venerari, ut omnia facta dicta que ejus secum re- ' Lecky, vol* i. p. 420. 268 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. volvant, formamque ac figuram animi magis quam cor- poris complectantiir : non quia intercedendum putem maginibus, quse marmore, aut sere finguntur : sed iit vultus hominum, ita simulacra vultus imbecilla ac mor- talia sunt ; forma mentis asterna, quam tenere et cx- primere non per alienam materiam et artem, sed tuis ipse moribus possis. Quidquid ex Agricola amavimus, quidquid mirati sumus, manet, mansiu-umque est in animis hominum, in seternitate temporum, fama rerum. Nam multos veterum, velut inglorios et ignobiles ob- livio obruet : Agricola, posteritati narratus et tradi- tus, superstes erit.' ^ ' Tacit. Agric xlvi. Ed. Haase. 269 ESSAY XVI. THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. Queen Eliz.vbeth died at her palace at Eichmond, in Siu'rey, ia the month of March, 1603. While adverting to the character of James the Sixth of Scotland and the First of England, it may be well to describe the state of the kingdom over which he had for many years reigned, and where he had exer- cised a weak and precarious authority. James the Fifth, his grandfother, having been thwarted by his nobles in a great plan for the inva- sion of England, and seen his influence daily vanish, broken by disappointments, fell into a slow fever, which put an end to his life in December 1542. He left his crown to Mary, his daughter just born, and the regency to Mary of Guise, his widow. The power of governing Scotland did not, however, belong to the crown. It was divided between the great nobles, whose possessions were large, and whose fol- lowers were true and devoted, and the Eoman Catholic clergy, whose riches were great, and whose influence was likewise considerable. A new element, therefore, was introduced into the con- test, which in no very long time prevailed over both the nobility and the existing clergy. Lord Maxwell, who had influence with the Earl of Arran — the most powerful 270 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. of the nobles — persuaded him to permit the transla- tion of the Bible into Scotch or English. This great innovation was sanctioned by the Scottish Parliament in 1545. About the same time occurred another event, not strange to the barbarism of the times, and likewise con- nected with the reformation of religion. Cardinal Beatoun, the most powerful and the most able of the Scotch priesthood, was murdered by a party of nobles in his own house at St. Andrew's. John Knox, a young man at that time, took the part of the murderers, was taken with them, and sent to work as a convict. On his release, he was absent from Scotland for nearly two years. On his return he found the Protestant Ee- formation in full triumph ; yet he again left Scotland. In 1559 he returned, and on the 11th of May he preached at Perth. This sermon was followed up by the destruction of the monasteries, and the total over- throw of the Established Church. In 1560 the Parliament passed a law, making it penal to say Mass, and another, repealing all the law^s relating to rehgion and the clergy. Thus rapid was the progress of the Eeformation in Scotland. The reformation of reh- gion, however, was not the only work which was effected by the new clergy. Men who had never been ordained were placed in the pulpit, and preached democracy in the State as well as in the Chiu-ch. One minister com- pared kings to devils, and auother declared that the king was Satan himself. A third advised the people to abolish kings altogether. When these ministers were brought before the courts of justice they said that theif THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 271 authority was spiritual, and they were not subject to any temporal j urisdiction ! Never had the Pope so openly trodden upon all thrones, and degraded secular monarchs, as these Cal- vinistic preachers. A curious scene occurred when James, alarmed by the rumour that his mother would be put to death by EHzabeth, commanded the clergy to pray for her. The Archbishop of St. Andrew's being ordered to officiate before the king, James was much surprised on entering the church to see a certain Mi\ John Cooper in the pulpit. Nevertheless he called out, ' Mr. John, that place is destined for another ; yet since you are there, if you will obey the charge that is given, and re- member my mother in your prayers, you shall go on.' He replied that he would do as the Spirit of God should direct him. But he obeyed the Captain of the Guard, who told him he should be pulled out. Bishops were utterly abolished. In the First Book of Discipline superintendents were invested with a certain authority, but in the Second Book of Discipline entire equality was enacted, and every minister was made subject only to the Presbytery, and ultimately to the General Assembly. The revenues of the Church fell chiefly to the nobles. They possessed themselves of the cathedrals, the chiu"ches, and the lands, and retained their hold. By Act of Parliament one-third of the Church revenues was divided between the State and the Church ; out of the sixth thus assigned to the Church were to be pro- vided the stipends of the ministers, their houses or 272 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. dwellings, and the teachers and schools for the poor — for there was no subject on which Knox was more intent than education. The rest of the property of the wealthy Roman ■ Church fell to the nobles, not indeed without mani and strong protests from the ministers of the Calvin-j istic Church, but without any effectual opposition to the] new distribution. While, however, the new Church ftdled in obtaining the succession to the property, the cathedrals, the] abbeys, the lands, and the tithes of the Roman Church,] they did not become reconciled to the poverty to which] they were subjected ; but as they grew more and more] dependent on the popular will, they became more and] more democratic in their political opinions, more and] more stiffened in their spiritual pride, more and mon averse to the yoke of king and nobles, more and more intolerant of any opposition to their narrow and] gloomy theology. While such was the Church which James left behin( him in crossing the frontier of Scotland, he found a5 Church totally different in its origin, far more richly endowed with revenues, far more subservient to the authority of the crown, in taking possession of the throne of England. The Reformation of the Church of England had from the first been prompted and guided by the Crown. Henry the Eighth, bent upon a divorce from Catherine of Arragon, was not willing to waste his youth in prosecut- ing a slow suit in the legal labyrinths of Rome, and was determined to make Ann Boleyn not his mistress, but J THE CHURCH OP ENGLAND. 273 his wife. He found, with the aid of Cranmer, means of effecting his divorce without the sanction of Borne, and instantly married the object of his love. The Pope, angry at the denial of his supreme authority, and too much animated by resentment to hearken to prudence, at once broke with Henry, and formally deposed him. A quarrel with the King of England in these times was no light matter ; and instead of seeing the King kiss his toe and hold his stirrup when he mounted his horse, the Pope had to meet an open rebellion, and the de- fection from his Church of one of the principal States of Europe. Henry was arbitrary and cruel. He made his king- dom independent ; he made himself the head of the Church in the place of the Pope. The virtuous Sir Thomas More was beheaded ; a poor friar, who could not understand how a temporal sovereign could be his spiritual head, was burnt, to make him the better comprehend the nature of the Eeformation. Still, while Henry threw off the Pope's authority, he did not change the dominant religion. The law of the Six Articles, which he estabhshed by an Act of his subservient Parliament, establishal all the main articles of the faith of the Church of Kome. In the reign of Edward VI., by the same royal authority the Eeformation of the Church was introduced. But again, by virtue of the power of the Crown, Mary restored the Pope's supremacy in spiritual matters. Still she did not attempt to repeal the old laws, by which, before the accession of Henry VIII., the inde- T 274 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. pendence of tlie Crown of England was affirmed ; Cecil, Bedford, and other reformers went to mass. With Elizabeth came a new change. The spirit of the Eeformation was not so deeply implanted in the minds of the people as it was in Scotland. But the clergy and the nation were, generally speaking, ready to adopt the new doctrines at the command of their sovereign. Thus free, Elizabeth neither overthrew everything, like John Knox, nor restored everything, like her sister Mary. Elizabeth herself loved the grandeur of Westminster Abbey and York Minster, and the Cathedrals of Can- terbury and Lincoln. The pomp of the old worship was not distasteful to her ; she therefore preserved, as far as in her lay, the old buildings, and reserved a fund for their repair. At the same time she perceived the wisdom of the advice of Cecil to stand by the Eeforma- tion, as the seal of the vahdity of her mother's marriage and her only title to the crown. There had arisen, however, during the reign of her sister two parties, which equally called for the reforma- tion of the Church, but with far different objects. These parties had disputed at Frankfort during the prevalence of Queen Mary and the Eoman Church ; they came to contend for mastery in England when a Protestant Queen had ascended the throne. One of these parties was for moderate and inevitable changes ; the other consisted of the followers of Calvin at Geneva, and of John Knox in Scotland. The latter of these two parties came to be called by THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 275 the name of Puritans ; Miles Coverdale was their leader, and is represented by Jack in Swift's ' Tale of the Tub.' A number of political patriots belonged to this party. It could not long be doubtfid to which of these two parties Elizabeth would give the preference. Unfor- tunately she gave that preference too absolutely, and excluded too openly the influence of the Piuitanical party. In the year 1562, the Articles of Rehgion, approved by the Queen, were ' deliberately read and confirmed again by the subscription of the hands of the Arch- bishops and Bishops of the Upper House, and by the subscription of the whole clergy of the Nether House in their convocation.' The first five articles of the Church of England treat of the Trinity ; of God, of Christ, and the Holy Ghost, according to the doctrines of the Council of Nice. The sixth article rejects tradition as a ground of faith in these words — ' Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation ; so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man that it should be beUeved as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.' The Article proceeds to name the Canonical Books of the Old Testament. All the books of the New Tes- tament are received. The Articles proceed to state how far the commands of the Old Testament are binding on Christians (Art. vii.), and declare that the three creeds, the Nicene, that of Athanasius, and that which is commonly called X 2 276 HISTORY OP THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. the Apostles Creed, may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture (Art. viii.). In the sixteenth article it is pronounced that sins committed after baptism may be forgiven upon repent- ance and amendment. In the seventeenth article Predestination is accepted as a true doctrine. But it is at the same time declared that ' for curious and carnal persons, lacking the Spirit of Christ, to have continually before their eyes the sentence of God's predestination, is a most dangerous downfall, whereby the devil doth thrust them either into desperation, or into wretchlessness of most unclean living, no less perilous than desperation.* Of the Church it is said. Arts. 19 and 20-— 'As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch have erred ; so also the Church of Rome hath erred not only in their living and manner of ceremonies, but also in matters of faith.' Again, ' Wherefore, although the Church be a witness and a keeper of holy writ, yet as it ought not to decree anything against the same, so besides the same ought it not to enforce anything to be believed for necessity of salvation.*' The 'errors of the Church of Rome are protested against, not only in the general terms already quoted, but in particular doctrines referred to. Thus in the twenty-second article^-' The Romish doctrine con- cerning purgatory, pardons, worshipping, and adora- tion, as well of images as of reliques, and also invocation of saints, is a fond thing vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God.' THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 277 So likewise in the twenty -fourth article : ' It is a thing plainly repugnant to the Word of God, and the custom of the Primitive Church, to have public prayer in the Church, or to minister the sacraments, in a tongue not understanded of the people.' The question of Transubstantiation is treated very positively in the twenty-eighth article — ' Transubstan- tiation (or the change of the substance of bread and wine) in the Supper of the Lord cannot be proved by holy writ ; but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions.' Queen Elizabeth took care not to assume any priestly office, or to prescribe anything beyond that which had been already read and confirmed again by the bishops and clergy of the Chiurch of England. It is, therefore, plainly declared in the thirty-seventh article how far her authority extends, and what are the offices to which she does not pretend : — * The Queen's Majesty hath the chief power in this realm of England, and other her dominions^ unto whom the chief government of all estates of this realm, whether they be ecclesiastical or civil, in all causes doth appertain, and is not, nor ought to be, subject to any foreign jurisdiction. ' Where we attribute to the Queen's Majesty the chief government, by which titles we understand the minds of some slanderous folks to be offended, we give not to our princes the ministering either of God's Word or of the sacraments, the which thing the injunctions also lately set forth by Elizabeth our Queen do most plainly 278 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. testify ; but that only prerogative which we see to have been given always to all godly princes in Holy Scrip- tures by God himself ; that is, that they should rule all estates and degrees committed to their charge by God, whether they be ecclesiastical or temporal, and restrain with the civil sword the stubborn and evil doers.' ' The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this realm of England.' ^ Such were the Articles of Religion, adopted by the bishops and clergy, sanctioned by the Queen. Elizabeth took care not to alter those provisions of Acts of Parliament made in the time of her father, by which the State reserved to itselfthe independent power of explaining, hmiting, and defining the meaning of the Articles of Religion. Secular judges were joined with spiritual prelates in the interpretation of the national standards ; the authority to admit within the portals of the Church the different schools of Cal- vinists and Arminians ; the power to arrest the tide of persecution by which all churchmen seem to be carried away. This most useful prerogative was retained by Elizabeth ; the imperfect tribunals constituted by Henry YTLl. and his daughter have in our time been remodelled and reformed by the genius of Brougham. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is the only security we have that the spirit of Laud or the spirit of John Knox shall not indulge itself in prohibitions and exclusions, banishing from the Church such men as Clarke, Middleton, and Hampden, and narrowing within the strict hmits of an uncharitable orthodoxy the large > Art. 37. THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 279 and comprehensive Cliurch which is rightly denomi- nated the Church of England. In looking at the Articles of Religion as a whole, we may see to lament several things contained in them. We must regret that, instead of adopting the words of Christ, the Church of England sanctioned the meta- physical creeds of the Council of Nice, and the creed called of St. Athanasius, which if they may be proved by ' siu^e warrant of Scripture,' were most certainly never used by Christ, or by St. John, his beloved disciple, nor by St. Paul, to whom the Holy Spirit gave utterance. Neither the Eoman centurion, nor the Jewish scribe, whose words were blessed with the sanction of Jesus Christ, ever professed their faith in the language used by the Nicene Council or by the writer of the creed called the Athanasian. It was, therefore, a mistake of the bishops and clergy of England to embrace so warmly and uncon- ditionally those human inventions. But considering the opinions entertained in that age not only by the Church of Rome but by Luther and Calvin, and the great body of the German and Swiss Reformers, we cannot be surprised at the language adopted by the Chiu:ch of England. On the great questions upon which the Pope and the Reformers were divided, it must, I think, be admitted that the founders of the Reformed Church of England took a temperate and considerate line. They con- demned what all Protestants considered as the obvious errors and glaring abuses of the Church of Rome : tran- 280 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. substantiation, worship of saints, purgatory, celibacy of the clergy, teaching rehgion in a language unknown to the people; all indulgences and pardons for sin granted by priestly authority. On the other hand, they condemned, though not sufficiently, the extremes of the Calvinistic doctrines. The Church of England always opposed the Puritans, and endeavoured to restrain their zeal on behalf of the doctrines which belonged to Calvin rather than to any other chief. Lord Chatham said, with more wit than truth, that the Church of England consisted of a popish liturgy, Calvinistic articles, and an Arminian clergy. It may be said, with more justice, that of all the churches which may be called established, or which count among their adherents a great national com- munity, the Church of England is that which follows with the most fidelity the spirit of the Gospel, and which combines in the general character of its members. It cannot be said that in the Articles of Eeligion the Church sanctions rehgious liberty. It is declared, that * although the Chiurch be a keeper and a witness of holy writ, yet as it ought not to decree anything against the same, so besides the same ought it not to enforce anything to be believed for necessity of salva- tion.' This declaration is ambiguous, for it is not clear whether although what is ' besides the same ' may hot be enforced as necessary to salvation, it may or may not be preached by others without fear of tem- poral penalties. But in the Liturgy, in the prayer for all conditions of men, it is directed that 'more es- pecially we pray for the good estate of the Catholic THE CHURCH OP ENGLAND. 281 Church, that it may be so guided and governed by Thy good Spirit, that all who profess and call them- selves Christians may be led into the way of truth, and hold the faith in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life.'^ Those who profess and call themselves Christians are Eoman Catholics, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Cal- vinists, the Church of England, Baptists, Independents or Congregationalists, Quakers, Unitarians, and others. We are not directed to pray that they may hold the faith in unity of doctrine, but in unity of spirit, which may be the same in a Roman Catholic and a Unitarian, in a Fenelon and a Channing. Nor is anything declared to be necessary to salvation which is not con- tained in the Bible. The interpretation of the Holy Scripture is left to faith, guided by love and charity. While the Articles and the Liturgy of the Church of England were becoming firmly estabhshed in the southern part of our island, James was carrying on a doubtful and difficult contest with the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. In 1592 Episcopacy was utterly abohshed by the General Assembly of the Church. In 1596 James adopted a desperate expedient in defiance of his duty to his people, and of a nature to inflame to madness their resentment and disafiection. He turned into Edinburgh the most savage of the Highland clans, and supporting them with an armed force, gave them licence to plunder, to violate women, to slay men who should resist the destruction of his ' See the Book of CJommon Prayer ; prayer when the Litany is not read. 282 HISTORY OP THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. own royal capital. For a time this violence succeeded, and the episcopal office was nominally recognised and restored. But the determination, the perseverance, and the sagacity of the Scottish Lowlanders were not thus to be permanently subdued. Andrew Melville, a man of great talents and unflinching courage, took the place which the death of Knox had left vacant. For four years the contest was carried on, with great popular enthusiasm, against the office of bishop, a printed liturgy, and a distinction of ranks among the ministers of the Presbyterian Church. In 1600 James, finding himself overpowered by numbers as well as zeal, virtually surrendered, and allowed his enemies to govern Scotland again^ his own wishes. But in his succession to the Crown of England he perceived, as he thought, the means of gratifying his ambition, his ecclesiastical preferences, and his revenge. Lord Dartmouth, in a note to ' Burnet's History of His Own Time,' says : ' The Earl of Seafield told me that King James frequently declared that he never looked upon himself to be more than King of Scotland in name till he came to be King of England, but now he said one kingdom would help him to govern the other, or he had studied kingcraft to very little pur- pose from his cradle to that time.' ^ History tells us what that study of kingcraft produced. It was a study, be it remarked, which was pursued by James I., his son Charles I., and his two grandsons, Charles II. and James 11. The policy was varied in its ' Burnet, Oxford Ed. vol. i. p. 15. THE CHURCH OP ENGLAND. 283 path by the different tempers of these four kings, but it never varied in its ultimate object, to root out civil and religious liberty in Great Britain, and place in supreme authority the will of the House of Stuart. Charles I. failed in his attempts to arrest the five members ; had he succeeded and obtained, as he would have obtained, bad juries to condemn them, the five members would have had the fate which Eussell and Sidney had to undergo. As it happened, the threat of Cromwell against Charles, ' I will cut off his head with the crown upon it,' was first fulfilled. But the execution of Charles I., by the pity it inspired, led to the Eestoration ; the Eestoration gave scope to the tyranny and folly of James II., the tyranny and folly of James II. caused the Revolution. The Eevolution speedily led the way to religious Hberty. It would not be just to leave unnoticed the re- proaches which have been cast upon a noble people by one^ whose early death the world of thought must ever mourn, who has ventured to liken the bigotry of Scotland to the bigotry of Spain. The fact is that John Knox, who was one of the greatest men of his age, was engaged in leading the people of Scotland from a state of miser- able rehgious and pohtical servitude to a state of political independence, in which they could assert their freedom of worship and their pohtical hberty against the perfidy and cruelty of the House of Stuart. In the course of this ' Mr. Buckle. 284 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. struggle, a religious creed was adopted which had no doubt much of the cruelty of Calvin and much of the bigotry of the age in which he hved. But when Wil- ham in. had estabhshed in Scotland the Presbyterian worship, men arose, who, hke Dr. Eobertson, combined the most enhghtened rehgious toleration with the utmost freedom of discussion. Compare this with the slavery and darkness of- Spain from 1600 to 1808. The maintenance of the Inquisition in that country, less cruel than at its beginning, but not less pervading or less absolute, has been favoured by the Austrian kings of Spain and their successors of the House of Bourbon, down to the times of the Eevolution which overthrew the throne of Isabella. Those who showed any inclina- tion to become Protestants were imprisoned without mercy, and at Seville, even the English Protestants who resorted to the chapel in the Consul's house were not permitted to carry their Prayer-books openly through the streets. A Portuguese gentleman, with whom I was acquainted, told me, that having let fall some un- guarded expressions at dinner, in the presence of his uncle, who was an Inquisitor, he was much alarmed the next morning at seeing some of the officers of that Holy Tribunal enter his bedroom. He was carried off to the prison of the Inquisition, but, being a relation of the judge, was let off with an admonition and a short confinement. While such was the state of Spain and Portugal, let us ask what has been the domestic observance of re- ligion in the famiUes of Scotland. This is nowhere better described than in the poetry of Burns, who loved APPENDIX TO ESSAY XVI. 285 his country and knew its people. I cannot do better than extract some of his stanzas : — The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face, They, round the ingle, form a circle wide j The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace, The big ha'-Bible, ance his father's pride : His bonnet reverently is laid aside, His lyart haffeta wearing thin an' bare ; Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, He wales a portion with judicious care ; And 'Let us worship God I' he says, with solemn air.. They chant their artless notes in simple guise ; They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim ; Perhaps * Dundee's ' wild warbling measures rise, Or plaintive ' Martyrs,' worthy of the name ; Or noble * Elgin ' beets the heavenwards flame, The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays ; Compared with these, Italian trills are tame ; The tickled ears no heartfelt raptures raise ; Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise. The priest-like father reads the sacred page — How Abram was the friend of God on high j Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage With Amalek's ungracious progeny ; Or how the royal bard did groaning lie Beueath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire j Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry ; Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire ; Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme — How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed j How He, who bore in Heaven the second name, Had not on earth whereon to lay His head : How His first followers and servants sped ; The precepts sage they wrote to many a land :• How he, who lone in Patmos banish^, Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand : And heard great Babylon'a doom pronounced by Heaven'a command. 286 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Then kneeling down, to Heaven's Eternal King The saint, the father, and the husband prays : Hope * springs exulting on triumphant wing,' That thus they all shall meet in future days : There ever bask in uncreated rays. No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear, Together hjrmning their Creator's praise. In such society, yet still more dear ; While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere. Compared with this, how poor Religion's pride, In all the pomp of method, and of art. When men display to congregations wide, Devotion's every grace, except the heart ! The power, incensed, the pageant will desert. The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole ; But, haply, in some cottage far apart. May hear, well-pleased, the language of the soul And in His Book of Life the inmates poor enrol.' * Bums' Cottar's Saturday Night. 287 ESSAY xvn. GENERAL RESULT OF THE REFORMATION. Having given a sketch of the sayings and acts of Luther, Zuinglius, and Calvin, we are enabled to take a view of the tendency and general result of the Eeform- ation in the principal countries of Europe. Luther seems to have considered it as the great object of his mission on earth to open the Bible to all nations, and at the same time to declare the principal doctrines which the German Eeformers deduced from the Holy Scrip- tures. This object was accomphshed by the Con- fession of Augsburg. But there was a further object which was not attained by the Eeformers in Germany, in France, in Sweden, in England, or in Scotland : this was the abstinence on the part of the clergy and the teachers of religion from any attempts to propagate their doctrines by violence or to imitate in any way the persecutions of the Eoman Church. In the early ages of the propagation of the Christian religion, it was easy for the bishops to separate those whose faith was erro- neous or whose conduct was immoral from the mass of the Christian community. Those who failed in their adherence to Christian doctrine or who disgraced themselves by their bad Hves, fell into the general ranks of the Pagan community, and enjoyed the privileges 288 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. of the Other subjects of a pagan emperor. But when the emperor was himself a Christian, the spuit of per- secution unfortunately arose, and the majority endea- voured, by fire and sword, to make the minority em- brace what was considered the orthodox creed. Then arose the dogma, 'There is no salvation beyond the pale of the Church' — a maxim which was equally acceptable to popes desirous to propagate their faith, and to emperors and kings who wished to compre- hend all their subjects under one uniform and de- spotic rule. Hence the bloody wars between the Athanasians and the Arians, which did not cease till the Arians were utterly subdued in the field of battle. Hence the persecutions of the Albigenses, and the cruel watch-word when a town was taken by assault by an orthodox army, ' Slay all — God will know his own.' Hence the massacres and executions which marked with blood various countries of Europe and led to the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition. It was to be hoped that Protestants would, in con- formity with their early declarations at Augsburg, endeavour to convert the followers of the Church of Kome by persuasion only. Above all, it was hoped by moderate men, that, resting their own right of protest on the privilege which every man inherits of guiding his conduct in matters of reHgion by the dictates of his own conscience, a Protestant ruler or Protestant assembly would grant the same liberty to those whose minds led them to difier upon articles of doctrine or upon ecclesiastical disciphne and Church ceremonies. Unhappily this has not been the case ; the Eefor- GENERAL RESULT OF THE REFORMATION. 289 mation violated for centuries the sacred right of rehgious hberty. The reformers of England, under the guidance of Cranmer, persecuted those who would not submit to their testa of religion. A Protestant bishop commanded to be burnt, in his presence, a friar who refused to the king the title of ' Head of the Church.' In vain the poor friar protested that he could not understand how a temporal sovereign, himself a layman, could be the head of a spiritual community. Disdaining any answer to this reasonable doubt, the reforming bishop authorised the burning till the friar was consumed to ashes. In Scotland, the spirit of the Calvinistic Church was not milder or more tolerant. Mr. Buckle has exposed, with a severity beyond measure, the narrow and in- tolerant spirit of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. It is to be said, however, that in England and in Scotland the principles of the Eeformation, in the course of time, overcame the passion of religious persecution. In England Elizabeth, being herself latitudinarian, refused to punish by death Eoman Catholics who had not conspired to deprive her, by arms or by assassination, of her royal sceptre. Oliver Cromwell, renouncing the lessons of the Presbyterians, and embracing the toleration taught by the Independents, refused to persecute, except on the ground of political hostility. When William III. ascended the throne, his own favourite maxim that ' Conscience is God's province ' induced him to favour religious liberty, both in England and Scotland. A bill introduced by Lord Nottingliam,^ u 290 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. ■which became law, gave the Protestant dissenters of England the right of worship, according to their own religious forms and doctrines, in chapels built by them- selves. This Act, either with a view to conciliate the bigots, or to smooth the passions of the orthodox, was called the Toleration Act. But in fact it was an Act for the establishment of religious liberty. This is proved by Lord Mansfield's famous judgment, delivered in the House of Lords in 1768. In Scotland the Presbyterian Church was erected, and the Englisli Liturgy banished from the State Church. But the English Church obtained for her sons the same liberty which the Presbyterians obtained in England after the accession of the House of Hanover : the Whig party Government, while it refused to Protestant dissenters political equality, gave them full liberty to worship God and educate their children according to their own opinions. This was a liberty which the Tory ministry of Queen Anne had denied to Nonconformists. It would seem that from the beginning of the world it has been the ambition of men to learn the nature of the Supreme Being who created heaven and earth ; to penetrate into the secrets of Omnipotence, to climb the heights of heaven, and to sound with a plummet-hne the depths of hell. Thus it is that Prometheus is re- presented as bound, and sufiering perpetual agony, for stealing the celestial fire. Thus it is that the giants have been buried under Pelion and Ossa for their assault of Olympus. Thus it is that the ascent of Sisyphus is constantly baffled ; and in Hke manner the thirst of Tantalus is never assuaged. So likewise in i GEXERAL RESULT OF THE REFORMATION. 291* Holy Writ it is related in a passage, evidently allegorical, that the people said, ' Go to ; let us build a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven ; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad on the face of the whole earth.' ^ A similar ambition animated the followers of the Church of Christ. He had never Himself said what was His essence or His substance ; the Council of Nice, eager to punish Arians, undertook to define. In like manner He had never said more of His relation as a Son to the Father, than that His Father was greater than He. The anonymous author of a thu'd and anonymous creed was not satisfied with Christ's humihty, and undertook to afiirm that He was equal to the Father. With a similar ambition and equal presumption, Luther and Calvin undertook to point out the way to heaven, and throwing aside the words of Christ, and the teaching of St. John, St. James, and St. Paul, declared that by faith alone man could be saved. They disdained the words of Christ in reference to the Pagan centurion and the Jewish scribe ; they looked aside when they were reminded that God is Love ; they refused to accept the words of St. Paul, ' Faith, hope, and love, these three ; but the greatest of these is love.' Happily there is a remedy. Talleyrand, when age and experience had taught him a prophetic strain, said in the Senate of France, ' There is somebody who has more cleverness than Voltaire, more cleverness than Bonaparte ; this somebody is everybody.' ' Genesis, c. xi. v. 4. 17 2 292 HISTOUY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Now what does everybody say of the rehgion of EngUshmen ? Let us consult a living writer, master of a powerful style, hostile to the Church of England, but candid in judging the English nation. ' Bible religion,' says Dr. Newman, ' is both the recognised title and the best description of English religion. It consists not in rites and creeds, but mainly in having the Bible read in church, in the family, and in private. Now I am far indeed from undervaluing that mere knowledge of Scripture which is imparted to the population thus promiscuously. At least in England it has to a certain point made up for grievous losses in its Christianity. The restoration again and again in fixed course in the public service of the words of inspired teachers, under both covenants, and that in grave, majestic English, has, in matter of fact, been to our people a vast benefit. It has attuned their minds to religious thoughts ; it has given them a high moral standard ; it has trained them in associating rehgion with compositions which, even humanly considered, are among the most sublime and beautiful ever written ; especially it has impressed upon them the series of Divine providences in behalf of man, from his creation to his end ; and above all, the words, deeds, and sacred sufferings of Him in whom all the providences of God centre.' Again, ' What Scripture especially illustrates, fi'om its first page to its last, is God's providence ; and that js nearly the only doctrine held with a real assent by the mass of religious Englishmen. Hence the Bible is so great a solace and refuge to them in trouble. I GENERAL RESULT OF THE REFORMATIOX. 293 repeat, I am not speaking of particular schools and parties in England, whether of the High Church or of the Low, but of the mass of piously-minded and well- living people in all ranks of the community.' ^ I pass from Dr. Newman to Dr. Milman, the Protes- tant Dean of St. Paul's. Judging Latin and Teutonic Christianity in his balanced scales, he says : ' The subjective, more purely internal, less demon- strative character of Teutonic rehgion is equally im- patient of the more distinct, and definite, and rigid objectiveness of Latin Christianity. That which seems to lead the Southern up to heaven, the regular, inter- mediate ascending host of saints, martyrs, apostles, the Virgin, to the contemplative Teuton obscures and intercepts his awful intuitive sense of the Godhead, un- spiritualises his Deity, whom he can no longer worship as a pure Spirit. To him it is the very vagueness, vastness, incomprehensibility of his conception of the Godhead which proclaims its reality. If here God must be seen in the altar in a materialised form, at once visible and invisible ; if God must be working a per- petual miracle ; if the passive Spirit must await the descent of the Godhead in some sensible sign or symbol ; there on the other hand (especially as the laws of nature become better known and more familiar, and what of old seemed arbitrary variable agencies are become manifest laws) the Deity recedes, as it were, into unapproachable majesty.' Ao-ain, ' As it is my own confident belief that the words of Christ, and His words alone (the primal ind^^ * Grammar of Assent, pp. 54, 55, ^ 294 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. feasible truths of Christianity) shall not pass away, so I cannot presume to say that men may not attain to a clearer, and at the same time more full and comprehen- sive and balanced sense of these words than has yet been generally received in the Christian world. As all else is transient and mutable, these only eternal and universal, assuredly whatever hght may be thrown on the mental constitution of man, even in the constitution of nature, and the laws which govern the world, will be concentred so as to give a more penetrating vision of those undying truths.' ^ In reflecting upon these words I cannot but perceive that the Latin Christian embraces his faith more with his heart than his understanding, and the Teuton more with his understanding than his heart. Each has his strong foundation to rest upon. The Latin or Eoman Christian adores God ^vith all his soul ; he bends with intense gratitude before the image of Christ, who gave His hfe to save mankind from the punishment of their sins, and he hastens to take in the stranger, to feed the hungry, to heal the sick as a proof of his acknowledgment of the propitiation offered for his sins, and as practical evidence that he loves his neighbour as himself The Teuton Christian learns from his Divine Master that God is a Spirit, and that it is his duty to worship Him in spirit and in truth. He searches the Scriptures to enlighten and fix his faith, and he acquires from his studies the conviction that if he hopes to be forgiven he must forgive. He rejoices in his liberty, but he uses it only to perform * Milman, Lat. Christ, vol. vi. pp. 631, 633. GENERAL RESULT OF THE REFORMATION. 295 with his whole mind and soul his duty to God and to his neighbour. Among the Teutonic Christians must be reckoned the Lutherans of Germany, the Presbyterians of Swit- zerland and of Scotland, the Calvinists of France, the Congregationalists, the Baptists, and the Unitarians of England and of her colonies, and of the United States of America. It is not probable that any one form of Christian doctrine, that any one Church, whether of Eome, of England, of Geneva, or of Scotland, will be embraced by the whole body of Christians. It is not probable that the Eoman Catholic population of Italy and Spain will join in the same worship or recite the same catechism as the Presbyterians of Scotland, or the Unitarians of Massachusetts. But doctrinal differences, differences in manner of worship, divergencies in church govern- ment, are losing much of the acerbity of former ages. Eoman Catholics, after three centuries of separation, can hardly expect that Lutherans and Presbyterians will return to the ancient fold, nor can they in charity continue to pronounce the eternal perdition of all who protest against their Church. Calvinists on their side are losing the stern fidelity with which they once fol- lowed the institutes of their master, and in England, Switzerland, and parts of Scotland, are mitigating, if not openly abandoning, the harsher doctrines of election and predestination. Dogma has no longer the sway it once had ; St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Dominic, and John Knox, are no longer obeyed with unhesitating faith. Instead of preaching unity of doctrine, men are told to 296 HISTORY OF the christian religion. hold the faith in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness of hfe. May this bond of peace one day unite all Christians in brotherly love, forgive- ness of trespasses, and universal cliarity. But let us return to the first effects of the Eeformation. While, during and after the Eeformation, the disap- pointment caused to the friends of religious liberty by the measures of intolerance sanctioned by the govern- ments of France, Austria, Spain, Italy and Eussia, was painful, there was likewise a failure on the part of the Eeformers in their attempts to reform effectually the abuses of the Church of Eome, or to substitute a new Church founded expressly and entirely on the doctrines contained in the Gospel. The laws maintained by the different countries of Europe left the Church of Eome in possession of the theory of infallibility, whether exercised by the Pope in person, or by a council of bishops. On the opposite side, Luther and Calvin had failed to erect a new superstructure founded on the Gospel. Neither the dogma of salvation by faith alone, nor the »still more arbitrary dogma of predestination, the favourite dogma of the Calvinists, could be said to have their foundations fixed on the words of Scripture. The cardinals and bishops, who denounced at Trent tthe heresy of Luther and the Protestant divines, who (Opposed at Lambeth the theory of Calvin, both pre- vailed m reasoning over their adversaries. But while neither the Eomanists nor the Ee- formers succeeded in founding a new scriptural and impregnable Qjiurch, there is no reason to despair that GENERAL RESULT OF THE REFORMATION. 297 such a Church, immortal and unchanged, may be founded in the age yet to come. M. Merle D'Aubigne says of Farel, one of the most fervid of the Eeformers, who hoped for the reign of peace and concord, ' Christian union thus found, in the first moments of the Eeformation, a fervent apostle. The nineteenth century is called upon to take up this work, which the sixteenth was not able to accomplish.'^ But whatever might be the failures of the Papal Church of Eome or of the Eeformed Churches of the sixteenth century, there was one immense service rendered to the cause of true religion and to the hopes of peace and goodwill among men, which nothing can destroy. In the sixteenth century, by the efforts of Erasmus, of Luther, of Zuinglius, and of Calvin, the Bible was opened to all Protestants, and the doctrines of love and mercy which it contains were spread among all nations. Chillingworth declares that the Bible is the religion of Protestants. It is the Bible which, making its way with the progress of civilisation among all Christians, has abolished the abominable crime of the slave-trade and the sin of slavery in England and in America. It is by the force of Christianity and civilisation that respect for the rights of conscience has gradually prevailed over persecution, and that, except in Eussia, all the nations of Europe permit men to worship according to the dictates of their own consciences. It is by the same operation of the lessons of the Bible, and the increased and increasing mildness of succeeding ' Hist, de la Reformation du IGme Steele, vol. iv. p. 302. Ed. Paris, 1860. "298 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION". ages, that penal laws have lost much of their cruelty, and governments much of their intolerance. It may be hoped that capital punishments will be abohshed, and toleration be sovereign even in social intercourse. While we acknowledge these benefits as owing to the influence of Christianity, and while we boast that the shows of gladiators, which made the Eoman holi- day, would be viewed with abhorrence by the spectators of modern theatres, let us take care to pay due homage to the Eeformation, and admit that the spirit it pro- duced has been favourable to political liberty and to the propagation of spiritual truth. We may lament that learning and wisdom did not preside over all the events of the Eeformation ; we may wish that Erasmus had been endowed with the energy and perseverance of Luther ; or that Luther and Calvin had shared the temper and discretion of Erasmus. But these wishes are vain, the Reformation went on its way, as a torrent bearing along all that it caught up in its impetuous career ; and we have inherited the marks of its destruc- tive course, as well as the fertility which it spread around, hke the inundations of the Nile. . But, while thus rejoicing over the victories of the Eeformation, let us not suppose that the Eoman Church can be extinguished by anything less than a revolution which would destroy Christianity, or a change in the nature of man which would deprive him of feeling and imagination. A young lady endowed with beauty and talents was deeply attached to a Frenchman of noble family and eminent qualities. Her lover gained her affections, and GENERAL RESULT OF THE REFORMATION. 299 earnestly exliorted her to join the Eoman Church. But such a coijcession would have deeply afflicted her mother, and she refused. After their marriage the husband suffered seriously from illness. The wife bore patiently the calamity ; but when the illness became severe and dangerous, she exclaimed on a sudden, ' I am a Catholic ! ' She had seen no priest ; she had heard no arguments. Her heart had retained her a Protestant ; her heart had made her a Catholic. Every age gives an Italian of genius to the world. Manzoni, the author of the ' Promessi Sposi,' has been the genius given by Italy to this age. In his ode on tlie death of Napoleon, he poetically exclaims — Bella, Immortal, benefica, Fede ai trionfi awezza, Scrivi ancor questo : Allegrati Che piu superba altezza, Al disonor del Golgota, Giammai non si chimo.' To the same effect, portraying admirably the Eoman Church, Abbondio, in the * Promessi Sposi,' complains that while he is sharply rebuked for marrying irregu- larly a virtuous young couple, the Innominato, who had pursued a career of crimes of the most atrocious nature, is received by the cardinal with forgiveness and bene- dictions. Such is the influence of the heart and the imagination in guiding to conversion and depth of devotion. The Eoman priesthood know it well. They know that the influence they exercise is founded securely on the faculties of imagination and on the heart planted in man by his Creator. ^ Cinque Maggio. 301 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. ESSAY xvm. PRESENT STATE AND FUTURE PROSPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. In writing an essay on the state and prospects of Christianity, I propose to treat, not of the Christianity of Athanasius or Thomas Aquinas, not of the Emperor Constantine or of the Emperor Theodosius, not of Pope Gregory VII. or of Pope JuHiis II., not of Luther or of Calvin, but of Christ and His Apostles, of St, Peter, of St. John, and St. Paul. It is needful to point out that Christianity thus defined rests on the various declarations of Christ, pointing out that not those who called ' Lord, Lord,' should be acknowledged by Him as His followers, but those who did the will of God. In the same spirit He declared that those would be truly blessed who did what His Father in heaven had commanded. In the Sermon on the Mount the meek and the humble, the peace-makers, and the poor in spirit are commended. At all times He called upon men to love God with all their heart, mind, and soul, and to love their neighbours as themselves. He never suggested that there could be any dispensation from these two great duties. To the same effect Paul taught that love, which worketh no ill, is to be cherished, and while he commends to us ' faith, hope, and love, PROSPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 300 Jiese three,' he adds, ' the greatest of these is love.' [t has been shown by a hving author how much mis- taken those are who place love, goodwill, harmony, purity of life, in the second rank of Paul's lessons to Christians. Indeed, it would be absurd to suppose that Christ spent His life in teaching what were merely secondary lessons without bearing on life and immor- tality, which He is declared to have brought to hght, or that Paul gave the labour of his days and nights to a work which the death of Christ had made subordi- nate and almost superfluous.^ There have indeed been found persons in these days who maintain that their salvation is already secured by the death of Christ, and that they have nothing to do but to forbear from all action and exertion. They expect the fulfilment of the promises which they deem to have been made by a God incapable of breaking His word, or of depart- ing in any way from His decree.^ Hence there has arisen, on the part of the Calvinistic Eeformers, a state of mind at total variance with the solemn lessons and positive precepts of Christ. The Church of England in her Articles has carefully avoided two sources of error — the superstitions of the Church of Eome, and the fanaticism of the Church of Calvin. The Articles of the Church of England, after declaring ' There is but one hving and true God, ever- ' Lord Macaulay found on a book-stall in London this couplet, as part of a poetical sermon : — Your ticket, Faith, to heaven will attain ; Your works will follow by the luggage train. • See Short Essays on Great Subjects, by Mr. Froude. 302 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. lasting, without body, parts, or passions, of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, the Maker and Pre server of all things, both visible and invisible,' goef on to make the following declarations : ' Transubstanti ation (or the change of the substance of bread and wine in the Supper of the Lord cannot be proved by H0I3 Writ, but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture overthroweth the nature of a sacrament, and hatl given occasion to many superstitions. The body o Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper only after an heavenly and spiritual manner. And th( mean whereby the body of Christ is received anc eaten in the Supper is Faith. The Sacrament of th( Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance reserved carried about, hfted up, or worshipped.' As to Cal vinism, it is said, ' As the godly consideration of pre destination, and our election in Christ, is full of sweet pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons and such as feel in themselves the working of th. Spirit of Christ, mortifying the works of the flesh am their earthly members, and drawing up their mind t( high and heavenly things, as well because it dotl greatly establish and confirm their faith of eterna salvation to be enjoyed through Christ, as because i doth fervently kindle their love towards God ; so, fo curious and carnal persons, lacking the Spirit of Christ to have continually before their eyes the sentence o God's predestination is a most dangerous downfall whereby the devil doth thrust them either into despera tion or into wretchlessness of mo5t unclean living, n^ PROSPECTS OF CHEISTIANITY. 303 loss perilous than desperation. Furthermore, we must ^ receive God's promises in such wise as they be gene- \ ; rally set forth to us in Holy Scripture : and, in our • doings, that will of God is to be followed which we ; have expressly declared unto us in the Word of God.' f ; There is another declaration at the end of the service i of the Holy Communion in the Book of Common u Prayer, which shows still more strongly how far the f Church of England has been from recognising the v doctrine of Transubstantiation. It is in the following fi terras : ' Whereas it is ordained in this office for the ^ administration of the Lord's Supper that the communi- |. cants should receive the same kneeling (which order is {, well meant for a signification of our humble and I- grateful acknowledgment of the benefits of Christ , therein given to all worthy receivers, and for the j; avoiding of such profanation and disorder in the Holy j Communion as might otherwise ensue) ; yet, lest the |. same kneeling should by any persons, either out of I ignorance or infirmity, or out of malice and obstinacy, ji be misconstrued and depraved, it is hereby declared that thereby no adoration is intended, or ought to be done, either unto the sacramental bread or wine there bodily received, or unto any corporal presence of Christ's natural flesh and blood. For the sacramental bread and wine remain still in their very natural sub- stances, and therefore may not be adored (for that were idolatry, to be abhorred of all faithful Christians) ; and the natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ are in heaven, and not here ; it being against the truth 304 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTFAN RELIGION. of Christ's natural body to be at one time in more places than one.' ^ It was decided, at the beginning of the English Eeformation, that the power of deciding upon all controversies of faith, which had hitherto belonged to the Pope, should be transferred to judges appointed by the king. The stability of the Church of England depends upon this enactment ; and, although many churchmen have complained of it, as a rein upon their necks and a curb in their mouths, the decisions of recent years have shown how valuable the in- terposition of the judges has been to the security of the Church itself. Upon three great questions three decisions have preserved at once the authority of the law and the harmony of contending ecclesiastical parties : — 1. The question of baptism, contended be- tween the High and Low Church, decided in favour of the liberty of the Low Church. 2. The question of ' Essays and Eeviews,' contended between the High Church and the Broad Church, decided in favour of the liberty of the Broad Church. 3. The question of liberty of speculation regarding the Eucharist within the limits of the Articles of the Church of England, contended between the High Church and its enemies, decided in favour of liberty of speculation on the part . of the High Church. I The ' Edinburgh Eeview,' in the number for Julyl872, records the following remarks on a late judgment regard- ing Mr. Bennett : — ' There are, however, other aspects of the judgment which are more than sufficient to compen- * Book of Common Prayer. PROSPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 305 sate for any temporary defeat of one party, or tem- porary exaltation of the other. The decision in the case of Mr. Bennett is but a signal carrying out of those prin- ciples of law and equity, which have characterised the greater judgments of the Supreme Court of Appeal for the last twenty years, which we in these pages have earnestly and constantly defended, and against which the High Church party have hitherto vehemently pro- tested. It was they who began the series of ecclesias- tical litigations in the case of Mr. Gorham, and who continued it in the cases of Mr. Wilson and Dr. Wil- liams. In both instances they were foiled by the determination of the Supreme Tribunal to view the state- ments sought to be assailed, not in the heated atmo- sphere of partisan theologians, but by the dry daylight of English law, not with the intention of excluding everything which could possibly be excluded, but of including everything that could possibly be included. Of these principles the Evangelicar party reaped the fruits in 1850, and the Liberal Theologians in 1864. And now the wheel of theological prosecution had turned round its whole cycle, and the defeated assailants of 1850 and 1864 found themselves the endangered defendants in 1872. Had the policy which they so vehemently, we may say so fiercely, urged on the -two former occasions been applied to themselves on this occasion, there cannot be a doubt of the result. Mr. Bennett must have been condemned, and his admirers must have sustained at least an ignominious discomfiture, if not a rigid exclusion from the Church. But the Supreme Court of Appeal held on its even X 306 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. course, undeterred by intimidations or recriminations on one side or the other, and the result has been that the same measure that was meted, in spite of the furious protestations from the High Church School, to the Vicar of Bramford Speke and the Vicar of Broad Chalk has been now meted out to the Vicar of Frome Selwood. Again and again, in the course of the recent decision, the toleration of the Lutheran or Eoman doctrine of the Eucharist is based on the maxims laid down for the toleration of the Calvinistic doctrine of baptism, of the free critical interpretation of the Scriptures, and of the Origenist doctrine of fiiture punishment. It is the last and crowning triumph of the Christian Latitudi- narianism of the Church of England. And the very- extravagance of Mr. Bennett's positions, by offering the most crucial test for the application of these just and wise principles, signalises the extent of the victory thus obtained in the cause of freedom. Even had his original statement been preserved intact, it seem* to us that the breadth of the principles here laid down would have been sufficient to have covered it. A " visible pre- sence " of that which on all hands is allowed to be invisible, might fairly have been declared to be itself unmeaning ; and, if unmeaning, then capable of the same charitable construction which, under like circum- stances, the judgment has placed on the words " adora- tion," " sacrifice," and " objective presence." In fact, there are very few deviations from the formularies which this decision would not cover ; and if, in the case of Mr. Heath and Mr. Voysey, an acquittal was not found possible, it is enough (without referring to the more PROSPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 307 special peculiarities of those two prosecutions) to point out that the principles which guided the Gorham judgment were not on those occasions, as on this, ex- pressly invoked. It is to be hoped that all parties may learn some lessons of moderation from this striking failure of the attempt to convict one who had, even in the favourable judgment of the Dean of the Court of Arches and of his own party, been guilty of crude, rash, and inconsiderate expressions, and whose own exposition of his opinions had been condemned as " erroneous by the very divine whose opinions Mr. Bennett seems to have sought to represent." The theological disputants of all the various schools within the Church may see that there is a more excellent way of silencing their opponents than by bringing them before a Court of Law, which is, by the very nature of the case, precluded from discussing the tendencies and pretensions which are really, or would be deemed by the combatants, the most dangerous. All may learn the wisdom and charity of abstaining from wild defiances and coarse exaggerations, which, though they happily fail in most cases to disturb the unim- passioned atmosphere of a legal tribunal, are needlessly irritating and inflaming to the mass of minds, which constitute the public opinion of the Church at large.' * In this manner, as far as the legal position of the Church is concerned, the Church of England has become more of a National Church than it had ever been before ; it comprehends those diversities of opinion which are sure to arise in a free ountry, and > Edin. Review, July 1872. 308 HISTORY' OF THE CHRISTIAX RELIGION. which are happily found by the keenest lawyers com- patible with the Articles and the Liturgy. It remain> to be asked, what is the general state of opinion in the nation with regard to the Church of England ? But before I enter on this question, it will be well to give the judgment of Macaulay upon the at- tempt of the Commissioners of King William to rewrite a great part of the Liturgy : — ' It was determined to remove some obvious blemishes. And it would have been wise in the Commissioners to stop here. Unfor- tunately they determined to rewrite a great part of the Prayer Book. It was a bold undertaking, for in general the style of that volume is such as cannot be improved. The English Liturgy, indeed, gains by being compared even with those fine ancient hturgies from which it is to a great extent taken. The essential qualities of devotional eloquence, conciseness, majestic simplicity, pathetic earnestness of supplication, sobered by a pro- found reverence, are common between the translations and the original. But in the subordinate graces of diction the originals must be allowed to be far inferior to the translations. And the reason is obvious. The technical phraseology of Christianity did not become a part of the Latin language till that language had passed the age of maturity and was sinking into barbarism. But the technical phraseology of Christianity was found in the Anglo-Saxon and in the Norman French, long before the union of those two dialects had produced a third dialect superior to either. The Latin of the Roman Catholic services, therefore, is Latin in the last PROSPECTS OF CHEISTIANITY. 309 stage of decay. The English of our services is English in all the vigour and suppleness of early youth.' Eeturning to the question of public opinion in Eng- land, the decisions of the School-Boards formed under the Education Act of 1870, shows the use which those boards have made of the discretion vested in them to adopt or to reject religious instruction in the edu- cation to be given in schools under their control. On March 6, 1872, Mr, Forster made the follow- ing statement in the House of Commons : — ' I have not gathered from either the addresses or the actions of the School-Boards that they are in favour of a secular system. Having felt it to be my duty to go through the statistics on the subject, I find that eight only, representing a population of less than two hun- dred thousand^ have so far agreed with the honorable member as to recommend that the Bible should be read in the schools without note or comment ; whereas thirty- eight, representing a population of more than six millions^ have decided that the Bible shall be read, with ex- planations such as a child can easily understand. But not one of these School-Boards has adopted the secular system, which they have a perfect right to do under the provisions of the Act.' ^ If this account be correct, it confirms very fully the account of the rehgion of the people of England given by Dr. Newman in the ' Grammar of Assent.' Considering the Church of England in as flourish- ing a state as it has ever reached, we must now take ' Sixty-seventh Report of the British and Foreign School Society, May 1872. 310 HISTORY OP THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. into our view the position of the Eoman Church. If we reflect on the relation of the Church of Eome with France, Austria, Italy, and Spain, we shall be able to judge how far that Church has decMned in power. She can no longer point to Rome and the grand Cathedral of St. Peter's as ' caput m*bis et orbis ; ' the Pope can no longer expect the sovereigns of Ger- many and France to vie with each other in acts of pro- found homage ; nor can he assume for the Holy See, with faint contradiction, the temporal as well as the spiritual sovereignty of the world. The treaties made with the Pope under the name of ' Concordats ' are falling into disuse, the oath of obedience to the Pope, added by the Jesuits to their monastic vows, raises only a smile, or at best a contradiction. The temporal power assumed is matter of scorn in England and in Germany, and is little regarded in France, Italy, or Spain. Yet, with all this decline of visible power, there remains to the Eoman Church one of the great elements of her former sway, the devotion of millions of hearts. In ray opinion, and that of Protestants in general, it was a great mistake of the Eoman Church, when the revival of letters induced men to resort to the works of- philosophy and of oratory, derived from Greece and Eome, not to acknowledge the progress of reason in Europe, and abandon those appeals to the senses, which enabled her to teach that bread and wine were converted into flesh and blood, and to permit a kind of homage to images of the Virgin Mary and the Saints, which resembled, but too nearlyj acts of worship and adoration which are due only t( PROSPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 311 God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. A very able French philosopher, the late M. Cousin, gave me his opinion, that if the Eoman Catholic Church had spread the Bible everywhere, in her own version, she would have maintained a supremacy over the world. The Eoman Church might then have partaken of the general movement of mind in the cultivated nations of Europe. Vittoria Colonna might then have been al- lowed to make her appeal to God, without the inter- cession of any Saint, and Galileo might then have been allowed to prove the motion of the earth without being subjected to torture. But it is to be said, on the other hand, that the hearts of multitudes of the poorer classes are attracted by those very appeals to the senses. How many women pour out their griefs before an image of the Virgin Mary, and beheve that they derive from the sympathy of the Mother of God, rehef and consolation. Lord Macaulay, in one of the most powerful of his Essays, has described the Jesuit Confessor as conniving at the infidehty to their husbands of the wives of the higher classes, and as teaching that it was better to be an unfaithful wife and a true member of the Church, than a faithful wife and a heretic. But there is no reason to suppose that the Jesuits, or any other spiritual confessors, were parties to so sinful a com- promise. It is rather to be presumed that the clergy, regular and secular, always taught virtuous behaviour, or repentance for sin committed, but of course they were unable to control the passions of their fair peni- tents. These unlawful bonds were often stronger than the holy ties of marriage. At one time, Madame de 312 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Montespan had fully resolved to relinquish her inti- mate relations with Louis XIV. The cessation of this notorious scandal was to be treated as a solemnity ; but when the courtiers expected a sad and affecting parting, they were surprised to see that the lovers had resolved upon reconcihation instead of repentance. The courtiers were all dismissed, and thi-ee children were added to the list of legitimatised offspring as the result of this solemn scene. But when the proud Vashti was really discarded, and the widow of Scarron, the buffoon author, had triumphed over her, a marriage which astounded the whole Court, reconciled the pre- cepts of the priests with the society of the lady pre- ferred, and she was left to amuse a king who was no longer amusable. It is to be said, however, that the sins of Louis XIV. might always be absolved in virtue of the persecution of the Protestants, and that a regiment of dragoons, cutting to pieces a congregation in the Cevennes, and putting to death husbands and wives, mothers and children, for the crime of praying to God in a Huguenot version of the Psalms, atoned for years of sin on the part of the pious monarch. It is no wonder if the Church of Eome — possessed of this strength, and filled with the pride arising from the recovery of the Papal power after the shock of the Eeformation, and the restoration of the Pope to his seat in the Vatican after the storm of the French Revolution, and the squall of his deposition by Napoleon — should adhere to her ancient rules, and fondly trust to see the Powers of Europe again in subjection PROSPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 313 to her throne. Yet I cannot forbear from pointing out two circumstances, the one a source of weakness to the Church of Eome, the other a cause of enmity and opposition on the part of all the friends of progress and the leaders of civilization in this advanced stage of the world. 1. The element of weakness is the constant appeal to the senses, in a period when the great diffusion of knowledge and the spread of education over the greater part of the nations of Europe have accustomed men to attend to the facts of physical science, and when the habit of reading popular works of the greatest authors of England, France, Italy, and Germany has pre- pared men to doubt the truth of dogmas, which seem addressed rather to the blindness of superstition than to the reasoning of a critical age. Gibbon, refer- ring to the conversion of Constantine, and the force of the evidence to which he yielded, says, ' Nor can it be deemed incredible that the mind of an unlettered soldier should have yielded to the weight of evi- . denca wliich in a more enlightened age has satisfied or subdued the reason of a Grotius, a Pascal, or a Locke.' ^ Such a reference, and the authority of men endowed with ' the reason of a Grotius, a Pascal, and a Locke,' may well make persons of less power of understanding pause, and, ' looking before and after,' hesitate before they use their ' capability and godlike reason' to reject narratives thus vouched, and argu- ments thus fortified. Those who have studied the writings of these celebrated men must have perceived * Gibbon's Decline and Fall, chap. xx. 314 HISTORY OP THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. with how much eare and reflection they sought to weigh and examine the proofs of a miraculous inter- ference in the affliirs of the world. It was long after the introduction of Christianity that an obscure theologian invented the dogma of Transubstantiation, and many a priest in the celebra- tion of the Mass will be disposed to address the bread and wine in the language which Luther heard from the dignified priesthood of Kome — Panis es et panis manebis, vinum es et vinum manebis. In the same manner, the veneration paid, although without professed adoration, to the images of the Virgin Mary and the Saints, the frequent miracles attributed to them, and the respect which the Church shows in preserving relics, are apt to excite ridicule rather than reverence in a cultivated mind. Boccaccio describes the trick played by some mischievous boys upon a friar, by placing cinders in a box, in which he kept a parrot's feather, to delude the multitude by pre- tending to show them a part of the wing of the Archangel Gabriel. The friar, however, outwitted his persecutors, telling the people that by mistake he had brought some of the cinders which were used in the martyrdom of St. Lawrence. All tliese appeals to the senses, so well fitted to the fourteenth century, were unsuited to the period of the revival of letters, and ought to have been relinquished for the lessons of St. Athanasius, St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, and other works in which the Church of Eome is so rich and so abundant. PKOSPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 315 2. I come now to the second circumstance by which the Eoman Church, if not directly weakened, is ex- posed to the enmity, the sarcastic irony, the jfree enquiry, and the witty ridicule of the surrounding world. Calvin and John Knox, in their indignant in- vectives. Swift and Voltaire, in their witty parodies, have exposed the hollow pretensions of a power which assumes infalhbihty, and displays the most deplorable weakness. It is singular to find that, in this nineteenth centm-y. Pope Pius IX. proclaimed at Eome (on Decem- ber 8th, 1864) the most astounding claims to the most humble obedience, coupled with a defiance of all that the science of three centuries had discovered and affirmed, and proclaimed the most absolute right of interference by force in the affairs of the world. The Powers of Eiurope have one after another been ab- juring the allegiance so haughtily required. The Syllabus has been rejected by every Eoman CathoHc nation of Eiu^ope as utterly incompatible with civil government, subversive of the rights of every people, and breaking the bonds of that civil allegiance which every Government requires at the hands of its sub- jects. Yet it may be instructive to extract some out of the eighty propositions stated in the title of the Syllabus to embrace the principal errors of our times which have been censured in Consistorial Allocutions, Encychcals, and other Apostohc Letters of our Most Holy Father, Pope Pius IX. At this very time, the Government of England is hesitating whether it may not be better to give up the edu- cation of the people of Ireland to the orders of 316 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Cardinal Cullen and the decrees of Pope Pius IX., subjecting all who disobey these orders and decrees to deprivation of their rights as freemen. I will begin with Articles XII. and XIII. : — XII. The decrees of the Apostolic See and of the Eoman congregations interfere with the free progress of science. XIII. The method and principles whereby the an- cient scholastic doctors cultivated theology are not suited to the necessities of our time, and to the pro- gress of the sciences. It would appear that, by Article Xn. of the Syllabus, the interference of the Apostolic See with the progress of Galileo, and even his punish- ment, are not to be accounted an interference with the free progress of science, and that the asser- tion of Gahleo, that the earth moves, is to be con- sidered as an heretical refusal to comply with astro- nomical truths which the Holy See has solemnly proclaimed. Article XVIII. of the Syllabus is to the following effect : — ' Protestantism is nothing else than a different form of the same Christian rehgion, in which it is permitted to please God equally as in the true Catholic Church.' Unless the Eitualists of England are prepared to abjure altogether the Church of England, they must fall under the weight of this censure. I will proceed to copy some more of the Articles, or rather the doctrines, which are pointed out for con- demnation as fallacies. XXIV. The Church has no power of employing force, nor has she any temporal power, direct or in- direct. PROSPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 317 XXXVn. National Churches, separated and totally- disjoined from the Eoman Pontiff's authority, may be instituted. XTiV. The whole government of public schools, wherein the youth of any Christian state is educated, episcopal seminaries only being in some degree ex- cepted, may and should be given to the civil power ; and in such sense be given, that no right be recognised in any other authority of mixing itself up in the ma- nagement of the schools, the direction of studies, the conferring of degrees, the choice or approbation of teachers. LXII. The principle of non-intervention (as it is called) should be proclaimed and observed. LXIII. It is lawful to refuse obedience to legitimate princes, and even rebel against them. LXXIII. By vui;ue of a purely civil contract, there may exist among Christians marriage, truly so called ; and it is false that either the contract of marriage among Christians is always a Sacrament, or that there is no contract if the Sacrament be excluded. It is well known that on the questions of education and marriage, the Eoman Church claims a plenary and despotic authority. I propose here to refer to the dis- pute which has taken place in Ireland, with respect to the management and direction of three or four paro- chial schools. The parish priest of three or four paiishes, Mr. O'Keeffe, gave notice of an action for slander against a Roman Catholic coadjutor bishop. As soon as his intention was known, the coadjutor bishop applied to the superior spiritual authorities with 318 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. regard to the offence of appealing to the jurisdiction ot the civil courts. Cardinal CuUen decided that the parish priest must be dismissed for appealing to a civil court with regard to a Eoman Catholic priest. The parish priest was dismissed, and his successor asked the Education Board to recognise him as the manager of the parish schools. The Education Board has been in the habit, when a priest has been dismissed under the rules of the Eoman Catholic Church, to recognise his successor as manager of the parish schools ; but this was a peculiar case. The priest had not been dis- missed for any moral or ecclesiastical offence. His offence was that he did not acknowledge the immunity of the Eoman clergy from the civil courts. It was obvious that this immunity could not be acknowledged by the Education Board of Ireland without placing the whole education of Ireland under Cardinal CuUen. His language — that is to say, the language of Cardinal Cullen, in reference to the Bulla Coenae, and the bull of October 12, 1869 — asserts for the clergy immunity from the jurisdiction of the civil courts, and places the money raised from the taxes, paid by the English and Scotch people, at the disposal of Cardinal CuUen and his sove- reign the Pope. In the Gospel of St. Mark, it is writ- ten of Christ's enemies : — * And they sought to lay hold on Him, but feared the people: for they knew that He had spoken the parable against them : and they left Him and went their way. And they sent unto Him certain of the Pharisees and Herodians to catch Him in His words. And when they were come, they say unto Him, Master, PROSPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 319 we know that thou art true, and carest for no man, for thou regardest not the person of men, but teachest the way of God in truth : Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not ? But He, knowing their hjrpocrisy, said unto them. Why tempt ye Me? Bring Me a penny, that I may see it : and they brought it. And He saith unto them, Whose is this image and super- scription? And they said unto Him, Csesar's. And Jesus answering said unto them. Render to C^sar THE THINGS THAT ARE CiESAR's, AND TO GOD THE THINGS THAT ARE God's.' ^ If the schoolmastcr of Callan, when he saw the coined sovereigns contributed by the State to assist the school, had asked, ' Whose image and superscription is this ? ' he would have been told ' Queen Victoria's.' It is to be hoped that, as the Board of Education seem to have been misled by the precedents which they had before them, some means will be taken in a future session to remedy the wrongs inflicted upon the people of Great Britain. But who is to define the things that are Caesar's, and the things that are God's ? Is it to be the sacerdotal power ? In answer to this question, Cardinal Cullen maintains that education belongs to the spiritual power. He must argue, that if a Eoman Catholic boy learn the multiplication table with a Protestant companion, his faith and morals are en- dangered ; that if a Eoman Catholic professor be not allowed to teach the Syllabus approved by the Pope, the faith and morals of Ireland — of Eoman Cathohc Ireland, at least — are endangered. Against all this I ^ St. Mark, chap. xii. ^ 320 HISTOEY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. protest. I know that if the Papal doctrines of the Syllabus are taught to the educated youth of Ireland, high treason, under a covert form, will be the daily food of the Irish mind. The issue is serious, and far more important than the continuance of any Cabinet. The laws of Henry VIII. and of William III. must be maintained, or the king- dom of Ireland transferred to the Pope. The Eoman Catholic parish priest of Callan, in Ireland, had made known his intention of prosecuting for slander the coadjutor Bishop of Ossory. It appears to be a rule of the Eoman Church that no ecclesiastic of that Church shaU bring any ecclesiastic of the same Church into a court of law. The coadjutor bishop was supported by Cardinal Cullen, Archbishop of Dublin ; the cardinal was supported by the Pope ; the parish priest of Callan was displaced, and was also dismissed from the office of manager of the parish schools of Callan in a majority of one of the National Board of Education, led by the Lord Chancellor of Ireland against Chief Justice Monahan, both being Eoman Catholics. It is obvious that a grievous wrong has been done. The Pope, as the head of the Eoman Church, had the right to appoint and to displace the parish priest of Callan, but he had no right to appoint or displace the manager of the parish schools of Callan, nor had the Lord Chancellor of Ireland any right to interfere in any way to influence, directly or indirectly, the decision of a com't of justice. The Sovereign of this country has declared by Magna Charta — 'To no one will we PROSPECTS OP CHRISTIANITY. 321 sell, to no one will we deny, to no one will we delay right or justice.' Thus the Board of Education in Ireland disobeyed the precept of Christ, and violated the spirit of Magna Charta. In 1215, a Eoman Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury vindicated the laws, the hberties, and the independence of England. In ]872, upwards of six hundred years afterwards, an Irish Archbishop of Dublin was allowed to proclaim the jurisdiction of the Pope, a foreign prince, over the Queen's kingdom of Ireland. It is clear that, in some way or other, this flagrant violation of Divine and human law must be reviewed^ reconsidered, and reversed. 322 ESSAY XIX. THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE CON- STITUTION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. It is important to consider in what manner a country- like England, which accepted the Bible as its rule of faith, made terms of amity with one of the three parts of the United Kingdom, which professed, by the voice of a great majority of its people, attachment to the Eoman Cathohc Church, and obedience to its spiritual authority. In 1829 Eoman CathoHcs were admitted, when duly elected, to seats in the House of Commons, Irish peers, duly elected, were included in the roll of the House of Lords, and Eoman Catholics were made capable of holding offices under the Crown, not ex- cepting those of Secretary of State, First Lord of the Treasury, and other Cabinet offices. But in the bill introduced by Mr. Peel, it was enacted, 'that from and after the commencement of this Act, it shall and may be lawful for any person professing the Eoman Catholic rehgion, being a peer, or who shall after the commencement of this Act be returned as a member of the House of Commons, to sit and vote in either House of Parliament respectively, being in all other respects duly qualified to sit and vote therein, uponji taking and subscribing an oath, instead of the oaths oi ROMAN CHURCH — BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 323 allegiance, abjuration, and supremacy, and instead of making and subscribing the declaration against tran- substantiation and the invocation of saints, and the sacrifice of the mass as practised in the Church of Rome.' In the oath prescribed in the Roman Cathohc Rehef Bill, introduced by Mr. Peel, there are contained, besides the disavowal of many obsolete or imaginary tenets, the follomng words : 'And I do declare, that I do not believe that the Pope of Rome, or any other foreign prince, prelate, person, state, or potentate, hath or ought to have any temporal or civil jiurisdiction, power, superiority, or pre-eminence, directly or indi- rectly, within this realm.' The question hereupon arises, what is temporal or civil jurisdiction, and what subjects properly belong to spiritual jurisdiction ? The laws relating to marriage and education are asserted by the Pope to be subjects pertaining to spiritual jurisdiction. In France and Italy the laws relating to marriage and education are de- clared by the laws of those countries to belong to the civil law. In France and Italy the civil marriage is the only form of marriage binding upon those nations. In England the form of marriage enacted by the canon law of Rome is, with certain conditions of registration^ allowed to be vahd. But on the question of education a contest is evidently impending. Will England as- sume for herself, as she has hitherto done, the power of laying down, by her own Parhamentary authority, the conditions according to which the education of the young must be carried on, or will Pope Pius IX. be allowed to assume, by himself and his legates, y -2 524 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. by Cardinal Culleu and the Irish Roman Catholic j bishops, the supreme direction of education ? This question • is one of those which our Frencli neighbours, by an expressive phrase, call ' burning.' In 1830 or 1831, the late Lord Derby, then Lord! Stanley, Archbishop Whately, and Eaii Grey, estab- lished a new system of national education for Ireland ; and on the faith of the equity and efficiency of that ; system, the Government, for many years, proposed and carried the grant of large sums of money by the House of Commons. I have often had to defend that system in company with Mr. Chichester Fortescue. The principle of that system of national education was, that secular instruction should be in common, but that rehgious instruction should be separate..; Accordingly a placard is exhibited in the schools,, with the words secular instruction or religious in- struction printed in large letters, according to the* hours of local regulation. This is no theoretical dis- tinction. The Roman Church has declared in effect that faith and morals will be endangered, if a Roman Cathohc child is found learning the multiplication table side by side with a Protestant boy, or if the two ai'e found playing at trap-ball together in the playground. Father O'Keeffe, a Roman Catholic priest, has beem caught in one of the many snares which the Jesuits oft Rome have prepared, and he has lost upwards of 300/. a year, by being deprived of the management of the schools of Callan. No doubt upon each of the coins- which he has lost, the image and superscription of'^ Victoria, that is the image and superscription of Cassar,. ROMAN CHURCH — BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 325 were inscribed. Every Englishman and every Scotch- man, by submitting to the decree of the National Board of Education in Ireland, has virtually consented to the supremacy of Pope Pius IX., and has thereby de- parted from the precedent set long before the Eefor- mation, when Stephen Langton, the Popish Archbishop of Canterbury, boldly asserted the independence of England on the plain of Eunnymede. That this is no trifling matter may be illustrated by the solemn warning which Sir Eobert Peel, in con- cluding his speech in favour of the admission of Eoman Catholics to Parliament and to office, gave to the House of Commons. He then said : 'In the course I have taken, I have been mainly influenced by the anxious desire to provide for the maintenance of Protestant interests, and for the security of Protestant estabhshments. This is my defence — this is my consolation — this shall be my revenge. ' Sir, I will hope for the best. God grant that the moral storm may be appeased, that the turbid waters of strife may be settled and composed, and that, having found their just level, they may be mingled, with equal flow, in one clear and common stream. Biit if these expectations are to be disappointed, if unhappily civil strife and contention shall survive the restoration of pohtical privilege ; if there be something inherent in the spirit of the Eoman Catholic religion which dis- dains equality, and will be satisfied with nothing but ascendency — still, I am content to run the hazard of the change. The contest, if inevitable, will be fought for other objects, and with other arms. The struggle 826 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. will be not for the abolition of civil distinctions, but for the predominance of an intolerant religion. * Sir, I contemplate the progress of that struggle with pain ; but I look forward to its issue with perfect composure and confidence. We shall have dissolved the great moral alliance that has hitherto given strength to the cause of the Eoman Catholics. We shall range on our side the illustrious authorities which have heretofore been enhsted upon theirs; the rallying cry of "Civil Liberty " will then be all our own. We shall enter the field with the full assurance of victory, armed with the consciousness of having done justice, and of being in the right ; backed by the unanimous feeling of England, by the firm union of orthodoxy and dissent, by the applauding voice of Scotland ; and, if other aid be requisite, cheered by the sympathies of every free state in either hemisphere, and by the wishes and the prayers of every free man, in whatever clime ori under whatever form of government his lot may have been cast.' These are solemn words, not to be forgotten by the members for England, for Scotland, and for Ulster in the House of Commons ; they will not be forgiven if they transfer the sovereignty of Ireland from Queen Victoria to Pope Pius IX. Unhappily a change has taken place in Ireland which is unfavourable to the prospects of peace and conciliation. Dr. Murray was the Eoman CathoHc Archbishop of Dublin ; Cardinal CuUen is the Eoman Cathohc Arch- bishop of Dublin. It may be said there is no differ- ROMAN CHURCH — BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 327 ence : Dr. Murray was a Eoman Catholic archbishop ; Cardinal CuUen is a Eoman Catholic archbishop. The difference is this : Dr. Murray was more Cathohc than Eoman ; Cardinal CuUen is more Eoman than Cathohc. Dr. Murray agreed with Archbishop Whately ; Cardinal CuUen has accepted the Syllabus, and looks to force as the true mode of restoring the Eoman supremacy as caput urbis et orhis. We must either take up the gauntlet or admit that the Pope has, and ought to have, temporal jiurisdiction in Ireland. The policy piursued towards Scotland has been since the Ee volution of 1688 wise, both in its enlarged sphit and its practical effect. When King Wilham obtained the Crown of England, he consulted the wishes of the Scotch nation as to the nature of the Chiurch establishment. The Stuarts had endeavoured, by force, by persecution, and by tortiu-e, to plant the Church of England, its bishops, and its Liturgy in Scot - land. William saw how completely their efforts had foiled, and he consented at once to a form of Presby- terian Church government in Scotland. Wlien Wilham was succeeded by Anne, and a union of the two par- liaments was contemplated. Lord Somers, with wisdom akin to that of William, gave the strongest pledges to Scotland that her Chiurch should be maintained by all the succeeding kings and queens of England. We have seen in the last Essay that the Pope in his Syllabus has condemned the error of those who say ' the Church not only ought never to animadvert on philosophy, but ought to tolerate the errors of philosophy, and leave it to her to correct herself. 328 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Now we know that the Church of Eome, so far from tolerating the errors of Gahleo, who beheved that the earth moved, endeavoured to persuade him of his mistake by torture, and was unable to convince that obstinate heretic even by so cogent an argument. We know also that the Chiu-ch of Eome denounced a similar error put forth by one Isaac Newton, who was not only an arch-heretic, but a Whig member of Par- liament into the bargain. But we are now told that teachers of the Eoman Catholic Church will be sup- plied in DubHn, who, no doubt, will accept the Syllabus of Pope Pius IX., given at Eome in December 1864, and who, if they admit the possibility of the earth moving at all, will no doubt do so with the quahfica- tion prefixed to Newton's works by two of his able editors. In the edition of Newton's ' Principia,' by Le Seur and Jacquier, 1760, is the following declara- tion : — Declaratio. Nevtonus in hoc tertio libro telluris motas hypo- thesem assumit, auctoris propositiones aliter explicari non poterant, nisi e^dem quoque justd hypothesi. Hinc ahenam coacti sumus gerere personam, caeterum latis a summis Pontificibus contra telluris motum decretis nos obsequi profitemur.^ But I have better hopes for Ireland and for the pre- sent House of Commons. There are in Ireland, as we well know, many Eoman Cathohcs, some judges, some * Philosophice Naturalis Principia Mathematica, 1760, vol. iik ROMAN CHURCH BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 329 priests, many lawyers, and many country gentlemen, who, with a profound veneration for the Eoman Catholic Church, mingle a large and liberal understanding of the great truths of science, and of the great facts of history, who do not applaud the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, or recoil from the manly assertion of the principles upon which the constitutional monarchy of England and the republic of the United States found their laws and vindicate their Hberties. Let me add one reflection on the policy of great Enghsh and Irish statesmen. Mr. Pitt, Lord Grenville, Lord Spencer, Lord Melville, Mr. Windliam, and, I believe, Mr. Grattan, were agreed to recommend a grant in money to the Eoman Cathohc Church, but not to adopt by the State any part of the Eoman Cathohc rehgion. The Duke of WeUington was desirous in opening the door of Parliament and of office to Eoman Cathohcs to provide by parliamentary grant 300,000/. a year for the subsistence of the clergy of the Eoman Catholic communion. Mr. Grattan concurred in and advised the parliamentary grants to Maynooth, on the ground that as the majority of the people of Ireland would certainly receive their instruc- tion in reUgion from Eoman Catholic priests, it was the interest of the State that those priests should be well and not ill educated. Even this moderate grant, given on those reasonable grounds, has been abolished of late years. Indeed it seems that the whole policy of the State is to be rested on grounds of a totally different nature from those approved by Mr. Pitt, Lord Grenville, and 330 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. the Duke of Wellington. Instead of a grant of money, and a refusal to sanction any part of the Eoman Catholic creed, all money grants are to be refused, but the Pope's Syllabus, and the teaching of young men by Papal professors, are to receive the recognition and the sanction of the Parliament of the United Kingdom ! So that Parliament will only have to choose between Mr. Butt and Home Eule, or Cardinal Cullen and Foreign Eule ! As Mr. Burke said on another occa- sion, ' An ugly alternative.' But a great question remains for solution. If, ac- cording to the opinion of Butler, Bishop of Durham, Milman, Dean of St. Paul's, and Dr. Newman, of the Eoman Church, Christianity is to have a new develop- ment, the question remains, in what direction is it to he developed ? Shall it be developed in the direction of the Chui'ch of England, of the Church of Eome, of the Lutherans, the Calvinists, the Baptists, the Inde- pendents, or the Unitarians? This question shall be partially, if not fully, examined. 331 ESSAY XX. ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. Let us now recur to the general belief in Christianity, as entertained by the people of England and Scotland, and of the continent of Europe. I have already stated the view of Dr. Newman of the Church of Eome, and of Dean Milman of the Church of England, upon this subject. A question of very great importance remains for the future — What changes are the chief Churches of Chris- tendom hkely to make for themselves, and what has been the tendency of men of the greatest minds, and the most enhghtened faculties, belonging to the Church of England, the Church of Eome, and the Lutheran Church of Germany ? I. With respect to the Church of England, we may take as samples Archbishop Tillotson, Bishop Butler, and the late Dean of St. Paul's. It will be found that each of these enlightened men, without wishing to alter the letter, is of opinion that the whole spirit of the Scripture was imperfectly understood, and required to be revised by the progress of learning and of liberty. We know that Archbishop Tillotson objected to the Athanasian Creed, and wished that the Church were 332 HISTOEY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. well rid of it. In this sense, therefore, must be understood the second article of his proposals for comprehension drawn up in 1689 — ' That the Liturgy be carefully reviewed, and such alterations and changes be therein made as may supply the defects, and re- move as much as possible all ground of exception to any part of it, by leaving out the apocryphal lessons, and correcting the translation of the Psalms used in the public service where there is need of it, and in many other particulars.' ^ Such also was the opinion of Bishop Butler, when he wrote in his Analogy that ' the Bible contains many truths as yet undiscovered.' ' And as,' he says, * the whole scheme of Scripture is not yet understood, so, if it ever comes to be under- stood, before the restitution of all things, and without miraculous interpositions, it must be in the same way as natural knowledge is come at, by the continuance and progress of learning and of liberty, and by par- ticular persons attending to, comparing, and pursuing intimations scattered up and down it, which are over- looked and disregarded by the generahty of the world. For this is the way in which all improvements are made ; by thoughtful men's tracing on obsciu-e hints, as it were, dropped as by nature accidentally, or which seem to come into our minds by chance.' And again : ' Our existence is not only successive, as it must be of necessity, but one state of our life and being is ap- pointed by God to be a preparation for another, and * St. Paul and Protestantism^ p. 180. ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 333 that to be the means of attaining to another succeed- ing one ; infancy to childhood, childhood to youth, youth to mature age. Men are impatient, and for precipitating things ; but the Author of Nature appears dehberate throughout His operations, accomphshing His natural ends by slow successive steps. Thus, in the daily course of natural providence, God operates in the veiy same manner as in the dispensation of Chris- tianity, making one thing subservient to another, this to somewhat further, and so on through a progressive series of means which extend both backward and for- ward beyond our utmost view. Of this manner of operation, everything we see in the course of nature is as much an instance as any part of the Christian dispensation.' ^ The late Dean of St. Paul's has said : ' What distinct- ness of conception, what precision of language, may be indispensable to true faith ; what part of the ancient dogmatic system may be allowed silently to fall into disuse, as at least superfluous, and as beyond the proper range of human thought and human language ; how far the sacred records may, without real peril to their truth, be subjected to closer investigation ; to what wider interpretation, especially of the Semitic portion, those records may submit, and wisely submit, in order to harmonize them with the irrefutable conclusions of science ; how far the Eastern veil of allegory which hangs over their truth may be lifted or torn away to show their unshadowed essence ; how far the poetic • Butler, Analogy of Natural and Revealed Beligion. 334 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. vehicle through which truth is conveyed may be gently severed from the truth — all this must be left to the future historian of our religion. As it is my own confident belief that the words of Christ, and His words alone (the primal, indefeasible truths of Chris- tianity), shall not pass away ; so I cannot presume to say that men may not attain to a clearer, at the same time more full and comprehensive and balanced sense of those words, than has as yet been generally received in the Christian world. As all else is transient and mutable, these only eternal and universal, assuredly whatever fight may be thrown on the mental constitu- tion of man, even on the constitution of nature, and the laws which govern the world, will be concentrated so as to give a more penetrating vision of those undying truths. Teutonic Christianity (and this seems to be its mission and privilege), however nearly in its more perfect form it may already have approximated, may approximate still more closely to the absolute and perfect faith of Christ ; it may discover and establish the sublime unison of religion and reason; keep in tone the triple-chorded harmony of faith, hofiness, and charity ; assert its own full freedom, know the bounds of that freedom in others. Christianity may yet have to exercise a far wider, even if more silent and un- traceable influence, through its primaiy, all-penetrating, all-pervading principles, on the civilization of mankind.' ^ We must now proceed to notice the views of one of the most able and one of the most plausible of the * Hist, of Latin Christianity, voL vi. p. 633- ox THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 335 advocates of the Eoman Chiirch. Dr. Newman, in his ' Grammar of Assent/ has pointed out, that as there are many kinds of minds, so there are various dispositions and tendencies which affect reHgious as well as civil questions. Thus, he says most truly, tradition, which may produce conviction in one man, may only produce scorn and disdain in another. The early legends of Eome might be accepted by Colonel Miu-e, to whom tradition is a welcome ground of be- lief, while they are rejected, in virtue of an inexorable rule, by the mind of Sir George Lewis. Yet Dr. Newman accepts as a law of history, and of human natiu'e, the postulate, that the progress of knowledge, the necessity of the times, and the intuitive sagacity of man, may produce great changes of opinion. ' We have to account,' says Dr. Newman, in his Essay on Development, ' for that apparent variation and growth of doctrine which embarrasses us when we would consult history for the true idea of Christianity. The increase and expansion of the Christian creed and ritual, and the variations which have attended the process in the case of individual writers and churches, are the necessary attendants on any philosophy or polity which takes possession of the intellect and heart, and has had any wide or extended dominion. From the nature of the human mind, time is necessary for the full comprehension and perfection of great ideas. The highest and most wonderful truths, though com- municated to the world once for all by inspired teachers, could not be comprehended all at once by the recipients ; but, as admitted and transmitted by 336 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. minds not inspired, and through media which were human, have required only the longer time and deeper thought for their full elucidation.' And again : ' Ideas may remain when the expression of them is indefinitely varied. Nay, one cause of corruption in religion is the refusal to follow the course of doctrine as it moves on, and an obstinacy in the notions of the past. So Our Lord found His people precisians in their obedience to the letter ; He condemned them for not being led on to its spirit — that is, its development. The Gospel is the development of the Law ; yet what difference seems wider than that which separates the unbending rule of Moses from the grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ ? The more claim an idea has to be considered living, the more various will be its aspects ; and the more social and political is its nature, the more com- plicated and subtle will be its developments, and the longer and more eventful will be its course. Such is Christianity.' And once more : ' It may be objected that inspired documents, such as the Holy Scriptures, at once determine doctrine without further trouble. But they were intended to create an idea, and that idea is not in the sacred text, but in the mind of the reader ; and the question is, whether that idea is com- municated to him in its completeness and minute accu- racy on its first apprehension, or expands in his heart and intellect, and comes to perfection in the course of time. If it is said that inspiration supplied the place of this development in the first recipients of Christianity, still the time at length came when its recipients ceased to he inspired; and on these recipients the revealed truths ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 337 would fall as in other cases, at first vaguely and gene- rally, and would afterwards be completed by develop- ments.' Again : ' Development is not an effect of wishing and resolving, or of forced enthusiasm, or of any mechanism of reasoning, or of any mere subtlety of intellect; but comes of its own innate power of expansion within the mind in its season, though with the use of reflection and argument and original thought, more or less as it may happen, with a dependence on the ethical growth of the mind itself, and with a reflex influence upon it.' ^ We may accept the general reasoning of Dr. New- man, but we must take care not to be entangled in the consequences in which he would involve us. Like a skilful advocate, he draws from the premisses, which he has so well laid down, the prodigious inference, that the decrees, bulls, and organization of the Church of Eome are the very development of which we are in search. Admitting with Bishop Butler and Dr. New- man, that the words of Scripture give us ideas, and that it is for men to whom those words were uttered or written to fill up the full meaning, we have a right to examine and investigate whether the Church of Eome fulfils the expectations we have a right to entertain of a holy, pure, and benevolent Church. The words sung by the Angels, ' Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and goodwill toward men,' contain the promise given by God to mankind, as the substance of His revelation. * Essay on Development^ by Dr. Newman. Z 338 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Examining the history of the Church of Eome by this test, I find — 1. Admitting the chronology of learned men, that St. Peter was crucified and St. Paul beheaded at Eome ; ^ I can find no authority for the assumption, that a per- petual succession of a Head as Pope was to take place ; and still less that any body of cardinals or princes were authorised to express an affirmative or negative voice in the choice of the Pope. 2. It appears clear firom history that the words adopted by the Council of Nice, ' being of the same substance,' are words not authorised by Scripture, and were inserted solely for the purpose of confuting, de- stroying, and putting to death the abettors of the Arian heresy. 3. That the articles adopted at Paris of what is called the Athanasian Creed, were articles derived from Arabic translations of the theories of Aristotle, and, however they may agree with Aristotelian logic, are repugnant to the words of Christ. 4. That the doctrine of the Transubstantiation of the bread and wine of the Holy Communion into the Body and Blood of Christ is not to be found in Scripture, and affirms the presence on earth of Christ, who is in Heaven. 5. The Eoman Church has adopted many super- stitious practices, prayers to Saints, of whom we know not whether they be saints or no, and supplications for the intercession of fallible and sinful men and women, * See Art de Verifier les Dates. ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 339 instead of humble supplications to the throne of Al- mighty God. 6. That some of the most vicious men hving at the time, known for the most scandalous and horrible crimes, have been placed on the throne of Peter from age to age, and worshipped as infalHble guides. 7. That the most cruel wars, the most bloody exe- cutions, and the most destructive ravages of civilised countries have, in the case of the Albigenses, of the Arians, of the Lutherans, of John Huss, of Jerome of Prague, and of many others in Italy and in Spain, in Prance and in England, in Germany and the Low Countries, been sanctioned by those who ought to have been the examples of mercy and of forgiveness. 8. That the errors and crimes, the forgery of de- cretals, the usmrpation of secular power, the blessings bestowed upon St. Bartholomew's Day and other mas- sacres, the assumption of a control over science and over a knowledge of astronomy and physics, have not yet been abandoned as errors due to human infirmity or casual inadvertence, but are held up in the Papal Syllabus of 1870 as the unerring judgments of a sove- reign lord, who claims both spiritual and temporal supremacy. These appear to me sufficient grounds for not bowing to the claim of infallibihty put forth by the last Council of the Vatican, for not yielding to the control of the Eoman Church over the relations of marriage and education, asserted by the Pope and assented to by Eoman Catholic bishops of Germany and of Ireland as the proper domain of spiritual and ecclesiastical power. z 2 340 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Convinced, as I am, that the Protestants of Europe and America will never bend their necks beneath a yoke which could only be imposed upon mankind by risking the loss of all progress, of all advance in freedom, and of all national independence, I put aside this claim as one that can never be admitted. We must, therefore, have recourse to the Protestant communities of the world, with the hope of finding among them some firm ground upon wliich the future rehgion of Christians may take the shape of a perma- nent and progressive institution. Let us pass over some of these various sects and commiuiities, not with a view of fixing the boundaries of truth or developing the hidden meaning of Divine lessons, but rather in the hope of pointing out errors which have been pre- vaihng, efibrts of which the direction has been mis- taken, and the spirit in which progress may be made rather than creeds which may safely be adopted. Let us first say that neither Luther nor Calvin, the one a monk and the other a priest, contending three centuries ago, in the midst of the most violent conflicts between old institutions and new speculations, can be looked to as having arrived at conclusions upon which mankind or even the educated part of Christendom can be contented to rest. Let us next observe that in these times there is a wide distinction between the professions of different sects and the opinions really entertained by the ma- jority of those who profess themselves members of certain established Churches or adherents of voluntary sects. Men of the highest education in France an t ON THE DE^^5L0PMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 341 Italy are professed members of the Eoman Catholic Church, but if any one enquires as to the prevailiu*'- opinions he will find that the greater part of them are what is called Voltairians, who, while they worship God as Eoman Catholics, are Deists, and not really Chris- tians. An error of an opposite kind is made with regard to the higher classes of England. It is presumed or taken for granted, that a man who has learned political economy, and has adopted the policy of the enlightened classes, disregards or disbelieves the Christian religion. Yet this would be an absurd mistake. It is not because a man is so far a free-trader as to admit that corn and cotton, wool and silk may pass freely from one country to another, that he loses sight of rehgious obligations. On the contrary, if a statesman says, it shall be free to him who raises a bushel of corn in Michigan or Ohio to exchange it at a fair price with the weaver of a yard of cotton or woollen-cloth in Lancashire, it is no proof that he has no faith in Christ, it proves rather. that where there is no paramount pohtical objection, he is willing that the various nations of the world should be free to help one another. Still more, if the Parliaments and Assemblies of England and the United States agree, first to prohibit slave-trade, and after a course of years to aboUsh slavery, so far from proving that they disre- gard the Christian religion, the facts imply, although they may not make a boast of their motives, that the spirit of Christ's commandments has entered into their speeches and guided their acts. Lord Althorp, when asked by Lord Melbourne to 342 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. accept the office of Governor of Canada, told me that if he had been able to ascertain that it was the will of God that he should go to Canada, he would have gone. As he could not convince himself it was the will of God, he dechned the office. Much has been made of the differences said to exist among the clergy of the Church of England ; but these differences amount to tendencies rather than to broad distinctions. The High Church tend towards the Church of Eome, or, as Bishop Pearce expressed it, * Tendimus in Latium.' The Low Church tend towards the teaching of Calvin. The Broad Church are content with the letter and the spirit of the words of Christ. But these differences, not being of vital importance, will change from time to time. It little matters whether what is called the Athanasian Creed is omitted in the Liturgy or whether the congregation, imitating what King George III. is said to have done, shut up their Prayer-books when that Creed is read. The great matter is, that the people of England should do, as Dr. Newman says they do, namely, read their Bibles and be sensibly alive to the superintending providence of God. If such is the religion of the people of England and of Scotland, we need not be very uneasy as to the result. For my part I believe that such is the state of the case. In the prayer for ' all conditions of men,' in- serted in the Book of Common Prayer, the Church of ' England prays that ' the Catholic Church may be so guided and governed by thy good Spirit, that all who profess and call themselves Christians, may be led into ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 343 the way of truth, and hold the faith, in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life.' It will be observed that the Church of England, in this prayer, does not ask that all who profess and call themselves Christians may hold the faith in unity of dogma. Every Enghsh clergyman knows full well that in 1768 Lord Mansfield, in one of the most elaborate and enlightened judgments ever delivered in the House of Lords, declared that the Protestant dissenters were by Act of Parliament not tolerated, but established. In attending their own chapels, in using their own forms of worsliip and their own language of prayer, the Protestant dissenters are not making use of an indulgence, but exercising a right. By Acts passed in 1778, in 1792, in 1828, and in subsequent years, Eoman Catholics enjoy the same rights, and are entitled to similar political privileges. The Unitarians have been admitted to woi-ship God in their own chapels, the Jews in their synagogues, and to participate in all civil privi- leges. It is clear, therefore, that at the present time, all who profess and call themselves Christians and the Jews are in the full enjoyment of religious Hberty. It is true that the members of the Established Church have some advantages, not in point of income, but in point of the source from which that income is derived. The clergy- man of the Established Chiurch, who conducts public worship in the borough of Southwark, receives his income as a commutation for tithe rent-charge. The dissenting minister who receives an equal or probably a greater income in Camberwell, derives that income 344 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. from voluntary contributions. The chief effect of this distinction between the different sources of income is that the extremes of superstition and fanaticism are kept in check by the intervention of the Crown, and of lay proprietors who have received all the advantages of a liberal education without imbibing sacerdotal prejudices. Those who wish to promote the ascendancy of Eoman Catholic superstitions, or of Calvinistic en- thusiasm, are more restrained than they would be if the Church of England were disestablished. In like manner, if no religious lessons derived from the Bible were read in the primary schools, the various sects would enforce their own peculiar views in their own chapels with increased emphasis, with augmented bitterness, with war and ill-wall upon earth. There are many who desire this change ; for my part I shall deprecate and oppose it as long as my life remains. The word progress is often used in these times, and there are few educated men who will not be ready to promote the cause of true and rational progress. But there exists in these times too great a disposition to be satisfied with the word, and to apply it to any measure of which the writer or speaker has a favourable opinion. Yet there is a vast and necessary distinction, which I can best explain by an illustration. Since the beginning of the present century, the science of agriculture has made great progress, and the effects of that progress are to be seen in the great increase in food for man and beast, the great extension of tillage, and the improvement in the means of in- creasing our green crops. For instance, since the time ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 345 of Charles I., great sums have been appHed in Cam- bridgeshire, Lincolnshire, and adjoining counties in the erection of dykes, and making new channels to the sea for the lazy rivers that pass through what is called the Bedford Level. But it is only of late years that a skilful engineer, acting in conjunction with Mr. Brassey, has transformed a shallow lake, which I had known for many years as Whittlesea Mere, into fertile fields, producing barley and oats, turnips and clover. Such is true progress. I will take an instance of false progress from the author of two of the cleverest books in our language, ' The Tale of a Tub ' and ' Gulliver's Travels.' Li the latter of these works Swift relates that an inge- nious philosopher of Laputa taught that the germinal principle of corn was really to be found in chaff. He had tried the experiment for many years, but had never succeeded in producing a good crop of wheat. Such are some of the projects to which our philoso- phers and advanced Liberals, emulating the philosopher of Laputa, give the name of progress. But they are no more successful than their unhappy predecessor. Secrecy and falsehood, evasions and misrepresentations are tried in vain, and the teachers of those arts are obhged to confess that true progress is not to be attained by a thousand bushels of chaff, and that no harvest is gathered from their mistaken industry. Before I ask the reader to consider the state of Christianity in the established communities of Europe and of America, I will ask liim to cast his eye upon a table formed by a society of Nonconformists contain- inff the number of sittings in places of worship in sixty- 346 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. four towns frequented by members of the Established Church, and by adherents to the voluntary principle : — SITTINGS 1872. In sixty-four towns. Church of England . . . . . 881,937 Wesleyans 283,440 Congregationalists ...... 265,053 Baptists 189,247 Roman Catholics 117,976 Primitive Methodists 100,591 United Methodists 93,534 New Connexion Methodists .... 54,112 Presbyterians 66,532 Unitarians ....... 35,244 Society of Friends 23,981 In looking at the present state of Christianity in Europe, and the progress of opinion among the Chris- tian communities of America, Asia, and Africa, there is much to encourage Christianity ; great reason for hope, and no ground for despair. In France and Italy civil marriage has been established, and no other marriage is legal. In France and Italy educa- tion is in the hands of the State, and is making great progress. In Austria there existed a few years ago by a concordatum, or treaty made with the Pope, a complete control over education in the hands of the bishops. But the authority of this treaty has been entirely over- thrown, and by recent legislation the State is ftdly empowered to deal with education as it thinks fit. In Eussia rehgious liberty is subject to violent interference authorised by the Emperor. By the laws of England the rehgious rites sanctioned by different denomina- tions for marriage are protected and registered ; civil ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 347 marriages also are sanctioned by law. In Ireland the Eoman Catholic Church has of late years inter- fered with rehgious Hberty on the subject of educa- tion, but it is to be hoped that this interference will not be much longer permitted. Nearly two centuries ago the Parliament of England proclaimed rehgious Hberty by the Toleration Act. Forty years ago Sir Robert Peel, while proposing the admission of Eoman Cathohcs to Parliament, and to political office, bound them to take an oath, that neither the Pope nor any other foreign prince could claim any temporal juris- diction in the United Kingdom. In the United States of America religious liberty is permanently and uni- versally established. British subjects in India and in the colonies enjoy the same rights as the Queen's subjects in England. The intolerance which used to prevail to the injury of Eoman Catholics in Sweden has been greatly miti- gated of late years, but I fear that rehgious Hberty is not fully established. Thus, upon the whole, the prospects of religious liberty among the Christian communities of the world have of late years become far brighter than they had been during the whole period which has elapsed from the reign of Tiberius to the present time. It was of Httle advantage to a Christian subject of a Eoman Emperor that a Gallio should take no heed of his religion, if a Pliny could put him to death because he woidd neither adore the Emperor nor abjure Christ. Let us hope that before long a boy of Jiish parents may not be separated from the children of Protestant 348 HISTORY OF the christian religion. parents from a fear lest his faith and morals should be endangered by their learning together the mysteries of the multiplication table, and that in the German pro- vince? of Russia a young girl of fourteen years old may not be kept twelve hours of the night without food in order to compel her to embrace the orthodoxy of the Greek Church. I trust the time is coming when in regard to morarl as to physical darkness the Divin< command will issue, ' Let there be light, and therj^ WAS light.' ftl'OTTlflWOODS AXU (.XJ., SKW-MTRKKT 94L'.\RI 39 Pjltbbkostbb Roiir, £.C. London : Nbwmber 1872. GENERAL LIST OF WORKS PVBUSnKD BT Messrs. 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