Ex Libris
C. K. OGDEN
/
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
GENERAL HISTORY.
C /»-*>»> V 2*.^ -~r)T^^vc
GENERAL HISTORY,
BRIEFLY SKETCHED,
UPON SCRIPTURAL PRINCIPLES.
C. BARTH, D.D.
LATE PASTOR OP MOTTLINGEN, IN WIRTEMBERO.
TRANSLATED BY THE
. R. F. WALKER, A.M.
CURATE OF PURLEIGH, ESSEX, AND FORMERLY CHAPLAIN OF
NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD.
LONDON:
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY ;
Instituted 1799.
SOLD AT THE DEPOSITORY, 56, PATERNOSTER ROW, AND
6.i, ST, PAUL'S CHURCHYARD.
1840.
&2?^
PREFACE.
This Work is a brief Universal History, upon
scriptural principles. There is a freshness about
it, from its German origin, which is pleasing
to English readers, who may find in the Bri-
tons AND Saxons, The Middle Ages of
England, and the historical papers in the
Visitor, more full particulars of their own
country.
In preparing this volume for the press, some
parts have been revised or abridged, and a few
particulars added ; also, some opinions expressed
by the author, on passing and future events,
have been omitted.
The Historical Maps exhibit the known world
at four different periods: — 1. At the Foundation
of Rome. 2. At the Birth of Christ. 3. At
the Reformation. 4. a. d. 1840.
A ^l
.4S732
CONTENTS.
Page
Introduction 1
First Period. — Froiii the Creation, to the Deluge.
A.M. 1 to 1656. B.C. 3943 to 2287.
1 The creation 7
2. The fall of man 9
3. Thedeluge 15
Second Period. — From the Deluge, to the Time of Ne-
buchadnezzar. A.M. 1656 to 3338. B.C. 2287 to 605.
1 . The sons of Noah IS
2. The buildinp of Babel 22
3. The dispersion of mankind 25
4. Earliest notices of Babylon, Nineveh, Phenicia, and Egypt .... 27
5. Israel and the kingdom of God.
a. Abraham and his family 31
b. The Exodus, or departure from Egypt 39
c. The period of the Judges 42
d. Israel at their most flourishing period 46
e. Israel in their decline 52
6. Traces of earliest cultivation 57
Third Period. — Frmn Nebuchadnezzar, to Augustus.
A.M. 3338 to 3916. B.C. 605 to 27.
1 . The Babylonian empire , 63
2. The Medo-Persian empire.
a. History of Cyrus 70
Vlll CONTrNTS.
Vac-.
b. End of the Bnbylonish captivity TS
c. History ol' tlio Greeks TS
d. Conllict ol' Greece with Persia US
e. Macedonia and Alexander the Great 89
3. The Grecian empire.
a. Alexander's conquests and death 9H
b. Alexander's successors 100
c. Syria and Kpypt 103
(i. The age of the Maccabees 103
e. Couditioii of the East and West 109
•I. The Roman empire.
a. Rome's earliest history Ill
b. Rome under the Consuls 117
f. The Punic wars .,, l'J5
d. Gradual introduction of the imperial monarchy 132
5. Retrospect of ancient history ., 139
Fourth Period.— Frow the Time of Angnstvs^to the
Irruption 0/ the Northern Nations. B.C. 27. a.d. .375.
1. The birth and history of Christ 146
2. The lirst promulfjatiou of Christianity l.=S3
3. Reign of Augustus and his successors, to the time of Vespasian 155
4. The destruction of Jerusalem, and persecution of the Chris-
tians 158
5. The Roman emperors from Vi-spasian to Constantine 1(38
Fifth Period. — From the Irruptimis of the Northern
Barbarians y to the Age of Charlemagne, a.d. 375 to 800.
1. Constantine and the Christian church 170
2. The intTeased decline of the Roman empire 175
3. The irruptions of the Northern barbarians.
«. The fall of the Roman empire 176
h. Settlement and position of the nations at this period \Xi
c. The Eastern empire 185
d. The Keodal system , 187
u. Christianity among the Germanic nations 189
1. The E;slerii clnncli 191
CONTENTS. IX
Page
5. Mohammedism , , 193
t). External and spiritual state of the nations at the close of this
period 198
Sixth Period. — Frmn Cliarlemagne^ to the Reformation.
A.D. 768 to 1517.
1. Account of the Carlovingian dynasty 202
2. Germany under Conrad I. and the Saxon emperors. . 214
3. Conrad II. and Henry III 218
4. Other countries of Europe 220
5. Henry IV. and the Papacy. . . , 221
6. The Feodal and Hanse system 229
7. State of cultivation and letters 232
8. The Crusades.
a. Their origin and design 234
b. The first Crusade 240
c. Chivalry 242
9. House of Hohenstaufen.
a. Conrad III 246
5. The second Crusade 248
c. Frederic I. and the third Crusade 250
d. Henry VI. and Frederic II 254
e. Conrad IV. and Conradin 257
/. Literature, and the Church 259
10. Termination and issue of the Crusades 263
11. History of independent governments at this period 268
12. The house of Hapsburg.
a. From Rudolph of Hapsburg to Albert 1 277
6. The Helvetic Confederation 283
c. From Henry VII. to Sigismund 286
d. Contentions for the Papal chair— Council of Constance .. 292
e. The Bohemian Brethren and the Hussites 294
/. From Albert U. to Maximilian 1 298
13. England, France, Spain, and other countries 303
14. Important changes at this period.
a. The invention of gunpowder 314
b. Discovery of America 316
c. Invention of printing 325
d. Important changes in political goveratnent. , 329
X CONTENTS.
iSKVF.XTH Period. — From the Eefurmation, to our oirn
Times. A.D. 1517 to 1839. .
PufCe
1. History of the Reformation.
a. Its commencement in Germany 3.S2
b. The emperor Charles V 335
c. Progress and difiiculties of the reformation in Germany .. 33S)
d. Ferdinand I. and Maximilian II 354
e. The Hugonots in P'rance 356
./'. The reformation in Kngland and Scotland 361
g. Portugral, Spain, Italy, and other countries, at the reform-
ation 367
A. Reflections upon this period .379
!. Progress of letters 381
2. The thirty years' war 383
3. Religious state of Germany at this period 398
i. Britain, and the Netherlands 403
5. The new political system, and'LouisXtV. of France 407
6. Leopold 1., and Joseph I. of Germany ..•.. 420
7. Britain, and North America 422
f^. Conflict of Sweden with Russia 425
9. The emperor Charles VI. and the province of Brandenburg .. 430
10. The papal power at this period 433
11. Religious state of Germany 435
1 2. Frederic II. of Prassia, and Maria Theresa 438
13. Russia 446
14. The emperor Joseph II , 447
15. War of independence in North America 451
16. Franc ■, and the progress of Infidelity 453
17. The French Revolution , 455
IS. Napoleon, emperor of the French 463
19. War of independence in Europe 466
20. Chinge to the presentstate of things in Europe, A.D. 1839 .. 470
CONTLCSION ,. 475
DESCRIPTION
THE HISTORICAL MAPS
Page
THE WORLD, AS KNOWN AT THE FOUNDATION
OF ROME 110
Assyrian Empire Blue
Judah and Israel Red
Phenieia Dark Bruwii
Carthage Yellow
Egypt Purple
Syria Dark Green
Greece Light Green
Italy Crimson
THE WORLD, AS KNOWN AT THE BIRTH OF
CHRIST 146
Roman Empire Crimson
Parthian Blue Green.
China Light Green
Hindoostan Yellow
THE WORLD, AS KNOWN AT THE TIME OF THE
REFORMATION 332
England, Wales, and Ireland Crimson
Scotland Pink
France Yellow
Spain Light Blue
Portugal Dark Blue
Germany Purple
Russia Yellow Green
XII DESCRIPTION OF MAPS.
Poland Red Brow )i
Hungary Red
Ottoman Empire Blue Green
Mohammedan and Tartar Countries ... Ligh( Green
Hindoostan Grey
China -. Yellow
Italy Dark Brown
Denmark, Sweden, and Norway Chocolate
THE WORLD, A.D. 1840 Frontispiece
British Empire, and Dependencies Crimson
America — United States Blue Green
Spain Light Green
Portugal Dar/c Blue
France Yellmv
Russia, and Dependencies Light Blue
Holland Red
Germany, States of Greeii
Hanover Dark Crimson
Switzerland Dark Olive
Sweden and Norway Light Yellmv
Denmark Dark Yellono
Prussia Chocolate
Austria Pink
Italy Yellow Green
Turkey RedBrmvn
Persia Purple
China Green Yellow
India, Native Powers Green
Cabul Red Brown
Baloochistan Olive Brwm
South American States — Mexico Pink Red
Guatimala Lilac
Patagonia, Columbia, Bolivia, Banoa } J)ark Brmim
Oriental >
Paraguay, Peru, Chili Sap Green
Brazil, La Plata Dark Grey
a
GENERAL HISTORY,
BRIEFLY SKETCHED,
UPON SCRIPTURAL PRINCIPLES.
INTRODUCTION.
To review the human race as one large family,
and to trace it through all its stages of develope-
ment, from the earliest to the latest times, is the
province of general history. It enters into de-
tail respecting particular nations, only so far as
they have borne an essential or a material part
in the concerns of the family at large ; for which
reason it may also be sometimes more occupied
with the memoirs of some renowned individual
than with those of a whole uncivilized nation,
and may properly attribute more importance to
a John Guttenberg, the inventor of printing,
than to all the Taladshangas of Asia. But as
we cannot certify a traveller of his having taken
the right road, until we know whither he is des-
tined ; so must we feel bewildered with unac-
countable things in general history, till we have
received some information concerning the great
B
2 INTRODUCTION.
" end of all." Nor can this " end" be guessed
at, by observing only the course of" any one jiar-
ticular nation ; every such coarse being nothing
more than as a"" single tributary rivulet, or but as
one of the numy mechanical arts or nuiterials re-
quired for the erection of a palace. Neither can
we learn it, by contemplating the state of the
world at any one particular j^eriod of its history ;
every such period being only, as it were, a stage
in the transition to some further developement :
and because the history of man so often appears
to take a retrograde movement, or at least a dif-
ferent course from that to which it is ultimately
bound. Were mankind the arbiters of the rise
and fall of nations, then might it be possible
for the events of every passing age to declare to
us the grand general result. But as the cur-
rent of events is under the influence of man's
Lord and Ruler, who prescribes the courses of
nations and of individuals, so as that all shall
concur to the fulfilment of the secret counsel of
his own will, the ultimate result can be learned
only by communications from himself. Divine
INSTRUCTION, thercfoi'e, is rcquhitc to all proper
tinderslandhuj of human hidory.
Had God left man to wander in total igno-
rance, excluded from all means of arriving
at the knowledge of his ways, tlien would it
indeed be hopeless to attempt to understand the
general drift of historical events, until the final
consummation of all things. But since his
whole determinate counsel, by which even the
minutest contingencies are overruled, is briefly
comprehended in his revealed word, Ave are en-
INTRODUCTION. 3
iibled, by this Divine lamp, to discern our way
clearly, at whatever section of man's histoiy we
pause to inqidre ; and to perceive the fitting
i-elation which every such portion of history
bears to things past, and to things future. But
the greater number of our historians, though
they have so far honoured the Bible as to give
it the credit of beinff an authentic recoi'd of an-
tiquity, yet have treated it too commonly as a
mere human book, which they allow may be
consulted with advantage in the absence of other
documents ; and have failed to notice as of
prime importance, that it contains the solution
of all historical mysteiy ; that it gives, as it
were, a voice to the dead letter of visible nature,
and exhibits that perfect and complete outline of
Providence, which all the apparent confusion
arising from man's free agency is only filling up
according to a Divinely preconcerted and settled
plan. Men's ordinary way of consideration dis-
covers to them, as it were, but the outside of
events ; like the exterior of a city to a stranger,
who is ignorant of the order of its interior, and
who mistakes for its centre one of the more pi'o-
minent buildings observed by him from his sta-
tion without the walls ; whereas that centre is
some humble fountain in the market-place, which
of course he is unable to descry. Very different
are the views of one who makes use of the word
of God as vantage ground, from whence to cast
his eye over the whole plan of general history,
its multifarious ramifications, their variety of
instruction, their mutual connexion, and their
uniform tendency to demonstrate the wisdom
4 INTRODUCTION.
and goodness of the supreme Ruler and Go-
vernor of the world. The only key, then, to a
sotind and coinprehensive knowledge of history, is
the sacred volume of Divine revelation.
But this sacred vohime is like a sealed book
to the unconverted. For " the natural man per-
ceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God,"
One part is too high for him — he cannot " un-
derstand what he reads ;" another is too low and
insignificant — it appears to him as " foolishness.''
What Avas intended to be taken literally, he mis-
takes for figurative ; and what was to be re-
garded as deep and holy mystery, he regards as
common place. Real proi3hecy is treated by him
as historical narrative ; predictions concerning
yet distant futurity, ai'e, in his account, already
fulfilled ; and the counsel of God is considered
as human device, or is retained merely to grace
the annals of human achievement. None but
the Holy Spirit himself can instruct us how to
regard the ways of God, or enlighten us in the
true import of his own words, and point out
their due proportion in reference to single or
collective events. He who hy such teaching un-
derstands the sacred record, can easily under-
stand general history. Here, then, let it be no-
ticed, once for all, that both the one and the
other can he comjyrehended only hy those rvho
surrender themselves to the guidance of the Spirit
of God.
The merely natural process of human thought,
as it never can go deeper than the outward ap-
pearance, so it theorizes upon events simply as
upon a concatenation of physical or moral causes.
INTRODUCTION. 5
and effects. Tlius it labours at finding out what
jirinciples or forces must liave operated, in pro-
ducing all the variety of historical phenomena
presented to it. But, in the vast multitude of in-
stances, it has ever failed of arriving at any satis-
factory conclusion. The great occurrences which
have so signally influenced the condition of man,
are involved in obscurity to our unassisted reason.
It knows nothing of the interposition of that
jjarticular providence, which is every where and
at all times exercised by our great Creator and
Ruler. The inspired volume directs us to com-
mence our consideration of the world's history,
with the great First Cause himself. It points out
to us on every side the Divine agency, and opens
to us a glimpse of " the mvisible things of God."
It teaches that it is by the activity of those in-
visible things that the movements in the visible
world are originated and conducted ; and more-
over that unseen agencies, both good and evil,
have all along been bearing an important part
in the concerns of nations and of individuals.
Light is thus thrown upon the most important
matters of history ; and facts, which would other-
wise appear isolated and inexplicable, i-eceive
harmonious and satisfactory solution. Here,
then, let it be further remembered, that history is
intelligible, only as it is accomjjanied by Scr'ip-
tural discoveries of Divine and spiritual agency.
The infallible key of history, is the recognition
of the Lord Jesus Christ as its central point. The
whole system of the Divine government revolves
around him. Historical works, in general, have
l2
U INTRODUCTION.
hardly taken notice of this ; and the manifesta-
tion of God in the flesh finds a place therein to
little purpose, beyond that of chronological refer-
ence to the Christian era. Rarely, indeed, have
historians looked at events in any subordination
to this great and principal one : either because
infidelity denies or stumbles at the fact, that in
Christ the Godhead itself condescended to assume
our nature ; or because it is easier to relate things
in their simple historical order, than to trace di-
rectly or indirectly their connexion with that great
deed of infinite love. If the history of man be
no fortuitous series of changes, but a regular
system of events proceeding upon a Divine plan,
then must the moment when God himself came
personally into this world in our nature, be re-
garded as the most eventful in human history.
Every thing that preceded it, must have been
designed as preparatoiy to the ushering in of
this mighty deed of God ; and every thing sub-
sequent to it, must have been equally foreor-
dained to the setting forth of its intent and ap-
plication. Christ is the centre of universal his-
tory ; rvithout rohich centre the reco7'ds of the
world must ever present themselves as a mass of
confmion. This is a most important truth, to
the elucidation of which the following pages are
mainlv devoted. '^
FIRST PERIOD.
FROM THE CREATION TO THE DELUGE,
[A.M. 1 to 1656. B.C. 3943 to 2287.]
I. THE CREATION.
As man could not have been an eye witness of
how the creation began and proceeded, we should
have possessed no information upon the subject,
had not God himself condescended to reveal it.
There can be no doubt that he imparted to our
first father all requisite information of the kind,
and that a faithful tradition of the same was
thus handed down from Adam to Moses. In
the inspired record we are taught, that *' in the
beginning God created the heavens and the
earth." We are next told of the creation of
light, and the preparation of the earth for the
abode of man. Man then, as the crowning or-
nament of this lower world, came forth on the
sixth day from the hands of his Maker, in the.
Divine image and likeness. God, having already
manifested himself in heaven as Lord of all, or-
dained and fitted man to represent him in that
respect upon earth. He appointed the inferior
creation to render homage to this his representa-
tive, and they did so, not from compulsion or
dread, much less from being trained to it by art,
4
» THE CREATION.
but from instinctive disposition, or of their own
natur.il inclination.
The Lord God planted in the regions we cull
the east, a gai-dcn, or paradise of innocent de-
light, lor man's primitive residence. The names
of the four rivers that issued from it, point ra-
thei- at Armenia than India. Although the earth's
surface must sul^sequently have been much al-
tered by the universal deluge, which would par-
ticularly affect the course of streams and rivers,
yet it is natural to suppose that such rivers as
could subsequently be recognized, still bore,
after the flood, their antediluvian names. The
first pair having been expelled from paradise,
they and their descendants were prohibited from
any attempt to return thither, and indeed fi-om
all curiosity that way, by a tieiy guard of che-
rubim appointed over against it : and then the
deluge in Noah's time must have destroyed
every trace of it ; unless we may say, with some,
that the Caspian Sea is the memorial of its site,
even as the Dead Sea was once the beautiful
vale of Sodom and Gomorrha. But we must
not pronounce our maps of Asia defective, be-
cause they contain no trace of the situation of
Eden, w^hich can be considered as absolutely
certain.
With respect to language, we consider the
faculty of it as having been conferred upon man
simultaneously with his other original endow-
ments, and that he could never have been him-
self its inventor. This also may be inlei-red with
suflicient clearness from Scripture testimony.
God, who conversed with him face to face, and
THE FALL OF MAN.
9
probably in human form, " as a father with the
son in whom he delighteth," declares, in the
book of Exodus, eh. iv. 11, with express refer-
ence to speech and eloquence, that he hath made
man's mouth. And we learn, from Gen. ii. 19,
that he brought to Adam, before Eve was form-
ed, every beast of the field, and every fowl of
the air, to see what he ivould call them ; and
that, upon this occasion, Adam gave names to
all cattle, and to every fowl of the air and beast
of the field.
II. — THE FALL OF MAN.
That our first parents came forth " good," from
the hand of the Creator, is a truth which even if
it had not been recorded in Scripture, might
have been inferred from the consideration, that
God cannot be the author of evil. Their condi-
tion was, doubtless, one of such intimate love to
God as admitted of their having no other will
but his ; from which, indeed, we can hardly
imagine it possible for them to deviate. What
higher degree of felicity they might have
reached, had they continued innocent, we know
not ; but we know, that because God saw^ it best,
on the whole, to place them in a state of proba-
tion, he did so, by laying on them an injunction
not to eat of the fruit of a certain tree, known by
the name of " the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil." But the invisible enemy of mankind,
who himself had apostatized from innocence.
10 THE FALL OF MAN.
and who looked with envy upon their felicity,
contrived a plot to effect t])cir ruin. For this
l>urj)ose he took possession of the serpent, " the
most subtle of all the beasts of the field," and,
l)y the instrumentality of this animal, he insinu-
ated into the mind of Eve those false i-epresent-
ations, by wliich Adam was likewise beguiled to
a distrust and disbelief of God. Thus becoming
discontented with their present condition, they
were instigated to raise themselves to a higher
one, suggested to them by Satan. They, there-
fore, by his advice, partook together of the for-
bidden fruit, whereupon the word of the Lord
God was immediately fulfilled ; "In the day
that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."
For they lost at once the Divine life which had
been originally bestowed upon them ; their dis-
obedience having excluded them from commu-
nion with their Creator ; so that their condition
was now no other than that of spiritual death,
of which the death of the body was the await-
ing result. After then hearing from the Most
High several additional announcements, relative
to temporal punishment for their sin, they were
finally ejected from their earthly paradise, and
hence precluded from partaking of that " tree of
life" which had been the visible pledge of their
immortality. Had permission to eat of this tree
been continued to them, it would have implied a
])crniission of their living for ever in irremedia-
ble corruption and hopeless ruin. How long
their state of innocence lasted is uncertain.
The threatened spiritual death thus realized
was soon found to be accompanied by a train of
THE FALL OF MAN. 11
temporal evils. The physical condition of the
earth ajipears to haVe been from that time re-
markably altered ; and the ground, having been
cursed for man's sake, produced now its " thorns
and thistles" in more senses ihan one, for the
chastening of man. He had been sentenced to
obtain his bread by the sweat of his brow, and,
the soil no longer spontaneously yielding its
fruits, " weariness and painfulness" had become
part of his allotment, and requisite to his sub-
sistence in this life. This, with the consciousness
of having brought it all upon himself, miglit
have proved intolerable to him, had he not been
supported by that hope of redemption and deli-
verance, for which Jehovah had graciously pro-
vided. God might in holy indignation have an-
nihilated the very name of man, or at least have
given him up to the ruin he had incurred. But,
instead of this, his infinite mercy contrived a
plan of restoration ; and his infinite loving-kind-
ness announced it at once, to preserve his guilty
creatures from utter despair. Thus, at the very
moment when the justly offended Deity ratified
the punishment of original sin, he permitted
man to hear of redeeming love. For nothing
less than redeeming love was embodied in those
words of vengeance against our great adversary :
" I will put enmity between thee and the wo-
man, and between thy seed and her seed ; it shall
bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."
Here is in reality a promise concerning our Di-
vine Messiah, by whom the power of the enemy
was to be broken, as also concerning a perpetual
conflict to be maintained between the children of
12 TFIK I'ALL OF AFAN.
God and the children of the wicked one. All
the temptations, sufferings, and persecutions,
which have come upon lioly persons ever since,
may be regarded as so many bruises on the heel
of the woman's promised Seed, inflicted by " the
old serpent ;" and, in like manner, every triumph
of faith, and every victory over sin, obtained by
the children of God, is a kind of treading upon
the serpent's head. That our first parents un-
derstood this prediction as containing a promise
of the future Redeemer, though they knew not
the time of its special fulfilment, and that they re-
ceived from God some further information about
him, though it be not recorded, appears from
that remarkable saying of Eve at the birth of
her first-born, " I have gotten the man Jeho-
vah ;" on which account she also gave him the
name of Cain, which signifies gain or acquisi-
tion. Thus it must have been Divinely inti-
mated from the beginning, that the promised Re-
deemer w^ould himself be Jehovah. The expect-
ation formed by Eve, respecting the time and hu-
man person of the Messiah was jDremature ; and
Cain, of whom she anticipated such great things,
proved to be an " evil worker,'' and a murderer.
So early had our first parents to learn, by wo-
ful experience, what an abyss of misery their
sin had opened. Adam's descendants in general
were begotten, as the Scripture expressly informs
us, " in his own image, after his own likeness ;"
that is, they were by nature spiritually dead in
Adam, under the dominion of indwelling sin,
and liable to all its evil consequences. See
Rom. V. 21. Nevertheless, from the very first.
THE FALL OF MAN. 13
a gracious process of recovery from this wretched
condition began to manifest itself; and hence,
as an anticipated fulfilment of the promise above-
mentioned, the human race soon became divided
into two distinct parties : the one consisting of
Cain's descendants, and the other of the pos-
terity of Seth, who was the righteous person
" appointed" (as his name signifies) to suptply
the place of slaughtered Abel. The latter appear
to have been those who are designated in Scrip-
ture " the sons of God ;" because from Seth,
their progenitor, the knowledge and holy fear of
God had continued among them : whereas those
who are called " the daughters of men" seem to
have been the lineal descendants of Cain ; as we
may well suppose that they exhibited without
restraint the effects of human corruption. Cain
is the first who is recorded to have built a city ;
and this was intended by him perhaps both as a
refuge from human vengeance, and to prevent
the dispersion of his posterity. The Scriptures
frequently, as in the present instance, relate the
simple fact, without accounting for it. But if our
minds are not prejudiced by the wrong notions
of modern pretenders to wisdom above what is
written, we shall often be able to deduce a train
of valuable inferences from a sincjle and slight
notice in Holy Writ. Devout familiarity with
the Scriptures, faithfulness to their instructions,
and acquaintance with the human heart, will be
found to strengthen this faculty of discernment.
There is every probability that the knowledge
of God soon became extinct among Cain's de-
scendants. Hence, " going in the way of Cain,"
c
14 THE FALL OF MAN.
was proverbial of flajijrant wickedness, Jude 11.
Those who live in the present apje of invention
and refinement should not forget that Jidjal, tlio
inventor of musical instruments, and Tubal-cain,
the inventor of hniss and iron-works, were sons of
that Lamech who introduced polygamy, and who,
like Cain his progenitor, was also a murderer.
From the express mention likewise of the sister
of Tubal-cain, and from her name, Naumah.,
which signifies heautiful, we may well conjec-
ture, that with her commenced that seduction,*
by which, in process of time, the posterity of
Seth became mingled with that of Cain, and
adopted its impiety. From this pernicious con-
nexion sprang a powerful and tyrannical race,
which aimed at the subjugation and oppression
of the rest of mankind ; and as in those times
there was no Bible, nor the civil order we at
present enjoy, every one taking an unbridled
liberty to do according to his will, the licentious-
ness of the world became more and more out-
rageous. In those its youthful days, the human
powers being fresh and vigorous, and men com-
monly living to nearly a thousand years, the
violent had sufficient time to accomplish their
giant plans of mischief, and to consolidate their
union for the purpose. Their only remaining
check, the inward rebuke of the Spirit of God in
* It should seem that heathen mythology has borrowed
from the names of Tubal-cain (pronounced, in Hebrew,
Tuval-cain) and Naumah, those of its Vulcan and Venus ; re-
taining tiie meaning of the latter {Venus as venusta^ and tiie
chief sound of tiie former (Valcain ;) and converting the
brother and sister into a husband and wife. — Trans.
THE DELUGE. 15
the conscience, becoming daily less and less felt
and recognized after that the sons of God had
allied themselves with the daughters of men,
and had entered into full communion with repro-
bates, was now to be withdrawn entirely. The
single family that still heeded the voice of God,
and lamented the growth of general corruj)tion,
had lost all influence over their godless fellow-
men, and was exposed to their hatred and con-
tempt. " All flesh had corrupted His way upon
the earth."
III. THE DELUGE.
Had the enormities of the world been permitted
to take their course, the moral condition of our
race might have sunk past recovery. But God
had purposed for it a redeeming plan, which
nothing should be allowed to frustrate. Hence
there remained but one expedient ; namely, to
destroy that corrupt generation from the earth,
and to commence a new race from the above-
mentioned single and less infected family of
Adam's descendants, the family of Noah. For
the once goodly field of human nature had now
become as a wild desert, overrun with pestiferous
weeds. It required to be wholly broken up, in
order to be sown with a new and godly seed.
Divine forbearance, however, still granted it
the respite of one hundred and twenty years,
and meanwhile vouchsafed that repentance and
righteousness should be preached abroad by
16 THE DELUGE.
Noah. But the woi-kl regarded it not. " They
did eat, they drank, they married and were
given in marriage ; they bought, they sohl, they
planted, they buikled." Tliey presumed upon
the usual longevity, and thought that as the
course of nature had all along continued the
same, it was never likely to experience any
change, much less such a change as Noah in his
preaching predicted. That holy man, however,
by Divine direction, had in the meantime con-
structed an ark, as an asylum for the representa-
tives of the animal world, and especially for
his own family, who, as the seed-corn of our
present human nature, Avere to be preserved from
the coming deluge. At a set time, and likewise
by Divine appointment, all the animals which
God had directed to be preserved, and then
Noah w'ith his wife, his three sons and their
wives, entered into the ark, and " the Lord
shut them in." And now " the fountains of the
great deep were broken up, and the cataracts of
heaven were opened," until the earth, with even
the tops of the highest mountains, Avas covered
with a universal deluge, and all its inhabitants
were drowned in the mighty waters. Even to
this day are traces every Avhere to be found, at-
testing Avhat a change was Avrought by that great
event, which indeed gave another form to the
eartli's surface. Extensive beds of elephant's re-
mains have recently been discovered in the wilds
of Siberia, Avhere, from the rigour of the climate,
none of the larger quadrupeds, much less the
elephant, or any animal of tropical countries,
can live in a wild condition, and where only the
THE DELUGE. 17
blue fox and the white bear can roam at large.
In high northern latitudes are imbedded trunks
of palm trees, metamorphosed to coal, whereas
it is well known that the palm tree can live
only in wai-m climates. On the High Alps, and
in the slate pits of Germany, are found in a pe-
trified state large beds of muscles, shoals of sea
fish, and layers of marine plants ; while many of
our roads are made and repaired witli innumera-
ble fragments of cornu-ammonis and other petri-
fied animals, which once played in antediluvian
seas, but which are now dug up as stone images
from the depths of our mountain quarries. Such
well known facts clearly testify that whole re-
gions, which at present form part of the conti-
nent, and are overrun with chains of steep and
rugged hills, composed in former ages the bed of
the ocean. To this we may add, that of all the
nations wherever travellers have penetrated,
whether in the old world or in the new, there is
scarcely one, however barbarous, that does not
retain some tradition of the deluge, and some
story of the man who was saved from it in a
vessel constructed for the purpose, although none
of these nations had ever seen or heard of tlie
Scriptures. God has even converted the stub-
born rock into a depository of his truth, and
into a record of his righteous judgments. Thus
in the very substance of a school-boy's slate, on
which the child writes out passages from the
sacred narrative of the deluge, may sometimes
be seen the skeleton form of some small animal
that perished in the general overthrow.
c2
SECOND PERIOD.
FROM THE DELUGE TO THE TIME OF
NEBUCHADNEZZAR.
[A.M. 1656 to 3338. B.C. 2287 to 605.]
I. — THE SONS OF NOAH.
When the iiat of the Almighty had gathered
back the waters of the dehige from off the face of
the ground, and the ark now rested upon the
mountains of Ararat, Noah, with his family, came
forth, and settled probably in the country of Ar-
menia. From hence were his offspring, as a new
race of mankind, to overspread all the regions of
the earth. It was at that time that God ap-
pointed the rainbow, to be a token and pledge
that he would never again destroy the world with
a flood. This natural and beautiful phenomenon
in the clouds is supposed by some to have then
first existed, by virtue of a supervening change
in the atmosphere. Some new arrangements were
now appointed, to prevent the return of such gi-
gantic corruption as had " filled" the antediluvian
earth. The ordinary life of man was henceforth
rapidly shortened to about one tenth of its former
duration. To this effect the Divine permission of
animal sustenance; of which we read nothing pre-
THE SONS OP NOAH. 19
viously, may have perhaps in some degree con-
tributed. Opportunities for accumulating so
large a measure of iniquity as heretofore were
thus curtailed ; men's natural powers were also
considerably restricted, and other external limits
to unbridled self-will, such as laws, magistracy,
and civil regulations, now gradually arose. The
knowledge and fear of God, which, through so
many centuries, had been transmitted from Adam,
and faithfully fostered by Noah, were to be com-
municated by him to the new race of men, as
their most sacred trust. But Avhat God had pro-
mised concerning the seed of the woman and the
seed of the serpent, the everlasting distinction
between the children of God and the children of
men, soon began to re-appear in Noah's imme-
diate descendants. Hence, in the spirit of pro-
phecy, did that patriarch announce to them the
opposite conditions of their remoter posterity.
His predictions have evei- since been fulfilling in
the history of all nations unto this day, and their
fulfilment is likely to continue in some respects
for a length of time to come. The predictions
we refer to are as follows : —
" Cursed be Canaan !
A i-ervant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
Blessed be Jehovah the God of tihem !
And Canaan shall be his servant,
God shall enlarge Japheth :
And he shall dwell in the tents of Shem :
And Canaan shall be his servant."
It is remarkable that the name of Canaan is in-
serted in the curse, instead of that of Ham, his
father. Whether this is on account of his havintr
20 THE SONS OF NOAH.
personally taken part in his father's impiety, we
are not informed. History, however, shows that
not Canaan's j)osterity alone have partaken oi
that curse, but that the other descendants of
Ham have been jjearinsi; it likewise to the present
hour. The nations of unhappy Africa are all
d(;scended from Ham ; and how many of these
nations have for ages been struggling with adver-
sity, or groaning imder the yoke of slaveiy, while
the oppressions they have been suffering have all
along more and more plainly fulfilled the prophecy
of Noah ! Yet the curse is expressed in general
terms ; and as it evidently relates to a temporal
rather than a spiritual condition, so it does not
preclude individuals of the race of Ham from en-
joying even temporal freedom. The hereditary
bondage of that race makes indeed its conversion
to the true God, and its consequent prosperity,
the more unpromising to human effort ; yet the
curse of slavery may have been overruled to be
the means of vast numbers of individuals ap-
proaching nearer to the light, and this has al-
ready been experienced by African negroes in.
the West Indies.
Shem is the progenitor of the swarming eastern
woi'ld in general, and of the nation of Israel in
particular : that wonderful people, who for ages
bore the distinction of the chosen seed, and on
whose special account it is that Jehovah is here
emphatically called, " The Lord God of Shem."
This people, moreover, of whom we shall pre-
sently take more particular notice, are still, " as
touching the election, beloved for the fathers'
sakes," Kom. xi. 28. Their rejection is now,
2
THE SONS OF NOAH. 21
we hope, very near to the close of its appointed
period ; for they are not cast off for ever.
Japheth is the forefather of the European
West, and of a large portion of Asia. In him is
accomplished that prediction of Noah, " God
shall eidarge Japheth ; " that is, shall spread his
descendants very extensively abroad. They have
settled in the tents of Shem, and have become
proprietors of all those countries which are part
of Shem's allotment, and which, in the future
prosperity of the Israelites, Avill virtually be re-
stored to his dominion.
As to where the immediate children of these
three patriarchs respectively fixed themselves,
the Scripture intimates but occasionally, by men-
tioning some of the heads of their families and
nations ; as it I'ecords only the great leading
events, and those which characterize a whole age
or a whole people. It passes, with a very slight
notice, over centuries that were requisite to the
early developement of the human race, or what
may be called its juvenile formation, just as it
passes over the early years of our Saviour's life ;
or as our modern biographical memoirs give but
a slight sketch of a person's younger days, or re-
cord concerning them merely what is most re-
markable. One very remarkable event in the
earlier history of man, appears suddenly in the
midst of a vacant space of nearly three centuries,
namely, between the years of the woidd 1656 and
1946 ; a period respecting which we have else
nothing beyond a list of names. That event is
the buildinfr of Babel.
22 THE BUILUINO OF BABEL.
II. THE BUILDINO OF BABEL.
From the mountainous regions of Armenia,
where Noah with his descendants liad settled,
the increase of the human family took a south-
east direction towards the plains of Shinar, a pro-
verbially fertile country, situated between those
famed rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris, and
thence called by the Hebrews, Aram Naharaiam,
(or Syria of' the two rivers,) and by the Greeks,
Mesopotamia. But as in process of time the
limits even of this country wei-e found two nar-
row for the increasing population, and as men
perceived that a large portion of their number
would soon have to seek out remoter settlements,
whereby the human family was likely to become
scattered, they resolved to build a great city and
tower, as well for their own reputation and glory
as for establishing a metropolitan centre of union.
Now in this enterprise they did not first ask
counsel of God, neither did they intend the build-
ing for the honour of his holy name, but simply
for their own renown : so soon was the bulk of
mankind again estranged from their Maker.
And, indeed, it is a fact of daily experience, that
the farther men decline from the true God, the
more is it their aim and endeavour to exalt them-
selves, and thus to usurp his authority. Hence do
men still combine together and form associations,
with no other design than to increase their power
of self-gratification. They have learned that union
is strength ; and this lesson, w^hich admits of
THE BUILDING OF BABEL. 23
such excellent use, is often misapplied to the very
worst of purposes. Such was also the case at
that period, when mankind had but one common
language, a circumstance that made it the easier
to accomplish whatever they concerted. Their
imdertaking amounted to a conspiracy against
God himself; for, in immediate opposition to his
counsel and command, they had virtually agreed
to refrain from replenishing* the distant regions
of the earth. See Gen. ix. 1. They had also
appointed to themselves another centre of unity
instead of God, and had formed a plan for set-
ting up an impious independence, which they in-
tended should command the admiration of pos-
terity.
How morally ruinous would have been the
consequences, had Babel been established ac-
cording to the intention of its builders ! It would
have been the rendezvous of every evil from
every country; so that from thence mischief
would have gone forth, in tenfold variety and
strength, to consummate the corruption of all
the families of the earth. God, therefore, "came
down to visit the city and the tower which the
children of men had builded ;" he so confounded
their language that they no longer understood
one another. Hence, they not only desisted
from their enterprise, but became divided into
distinct nations, according to their several dia-
lects or languages, and went forth to their re-
spective stations, more or less mutually remote.
This was no other than a disposal of Divine
goodness and mercy ; and, without it, the wick-
edness of mankind nii<i:ht soon have emulated
24 THE BUILDING OF BABEL.
theirs who were swept away by tlie dehige. But
now their former general sameness of condition no
longer existed ; each nation learned to pursue its
own independent aims and interests; and though
they were " all gone out of the way" of real pro-
sperity, insomuch as tliey lived without God in
the world, and sought not the Divine blessing on
their proceedings, still the power of evil could not
now be so great and general, nor its increasing in-
fection so rapid, nor the ruin of any distinct peo-
ple so precipitate ; and though one nation might
fall, another would stand, and perhaps learn, by
the fate of its neighbours, such experience and
prudence, as would serve to protract its own
downfal. Even the overthrow of any one nation
would not necessarily annihilate it ; but its hu-
miliation, under the dominion of another, might
prove so salutary to it, as to leave its recovery
still possible ; whereas, had mankind remained as
one people, their utter corruption and ruin might
soon have been, humanly speaking, unavoidable.
Yet the world has all along mistaken God's
beneficial intentions in this separation of man-
kind, and nearly every age has witnessed the
repeated attempt to reunite the nations under one
temporal head, and to subject as much of the
whole world as possible to the will of one man.
Thus it was in the times of the Assyrian, the
Babylonian, and the Persian empires ; as also in
the time of Alexander. Rome, in like manner,
first by its imperial and afterwards by its papal
power, and Napoleon, in our own day, endea-
voured to accomplish such a design ; but no at-
tempt of the kind has ever completely succeeded,
THE DISPERSION OF MANKIND. 25
because God himself is Ruler of the world, and
it would be contrary to his plan that such at-
tempts should be successful.
III. THE DISPERSION OF MANKIND.
The building of Babel occnrred in the days of
Peleg, who was born in the year of the world
1755, and died in the year 1994. The 10th
chapter of Genesis informs us, verse 25, that
" in his days was the earth divided.'" Whether
by this is likewise to be understood the severing
of the American continent from Europe or Asia,
as some think, after one division of the people
dispersed from Babel had settled in America,
we know not ; but it is evident that the words
refer to that division and dispersion of mankind
which we have already noticed, and of which Ave
are here to give some further account.
The posterity of Ham was distributed into
four great branches. The descendants of his
son Cash peopled the south-east of Asia, as
India, China, and Japan. 3Iizraim settled in
Egypt and Lybia, and spread northward into
Philistia, and southward into Abyssinia, and
probably also into Caffreland. Phut filled west-
ern Africa with a great many petty nations ;
and Canaan was the forefather of the Pheni-
cians, the earliest mercantile nation of antiquity :
he was also the ancestor of the heathen tribes
of Palestine, including those of the vale of Sid-
dim. From Japheth are descended all those
D
2() THE DISPERSION OF MANKIND.
nations which possess the whole noi'th sind soutli
of Europe, and all that part of Asia which lies
north of the Black Sea and the Caspian. The
Germanic nations also, probably, are descendetl
from his son Gonier. Offsets from Japheth
have likewise spread towards the south of Asia.
The race of Shem remained nearest to the ori-
ginal settlement of man, and replenished princi-
pally the countries between the Euphrates and
the Tigris, as Assyria and Chaldea ; but, in after
ages, the descendants of his great grandson
Heher (whence the name of the Hebrews) ex-
pelled the Canaanites, and possessed their land.
Of course, the confines of these three princijial
divisions of mankind, after their dispersion and
settlement, were not so definite as to obviate
such partial admixtures as effaced, in many coun-
tries, the original characteristics of lineage ; but
differences of complexion, acquired by variety of
climate, as also differences of langiiage, have so
clearly preserved the grand distinctions to this
day, that there are persons who even dispute the
origination of mankind from a single pair, not-
withstanding God's w'ord most evidently shows
it, and expressly says that he " hath made of one
blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face
of the whole earth," Acts xvii. 26. But it is not
yet satisfactorily discovered from which of the
three branches descend the aborigines of Ame-
rica, though it is most probable that they belong
to that of Shem ; and if so, this is a further
accomplishment of the prophecy of Noah ; Gen.
ix. 27, " God shall enlarge Japheth, and he
shall dwell in the tents of Shem.
BABYLON, NINEVEH, PHENICIA, AND EGYPT. 27
IV. EARLIEST NOTICES OF BABYLON, NINEVEH,
PHENICIA, AND EGYPT,
The rapidity with which the earth became peo-
pled after the flood, is indicated by the very
early establishment of monarchy in the land of
Shinar, under Nimrod, the grandson of Ham.
He is called in Scripture " a mighty one in the
earth," and " a mighty hunter before the Lord."
The dominion he acquired was the foundation of
the Assyro-Babylonian empire. Assur, a son
of Shem, Avho had previously settled in that
country, being supplanted from it by Nimrod's
superior force, afterwards built farther north,
and on the banks of the Tigris, the city of Nine-
veh, which was the commencement of the Assy-
rian state. Babylon itself subsequently came
under the dominion of a Chaldean race ; for, still
later, we find the Chaldeans distinguished by
precedency among the inhabitants of Babylon.
But of the earliest history of these states, and of
the probably fabulous names of their princes, as
Ninus, Semiramis, Sardanapalus, etc. we have
no further particulars that can be depended on.
Their historical importance commences where
we find them beginning to influence the desti-
nies of surrounding nations.
While the endeavour was making in Babylon,
to restrain private freedom by imperial and des-
potic power, and to found a government which,
jn-escribing to itself no limits, was continually
acquiring central consolidation, the descendants
of Canaan, who had settled at the foot of Mount
28 EARLIEST NOTICES OF BABYLON,
Lebanon, sought their prosperity by commerce,,
and realized all those experiences of" a great mer-
cantile people which have so often been repeated
in subsequent ages ; namely, abundant riches,
■wanton luxuiy, unbridled levity, grievous sins,
and sudden downfal.
The descendants of Mizraim, in Egypt, deve-
loped their character in quite another manner.
Men having now lost the knowledge of God,
and with it that of their real welfare, each nation
endeavoured to realize in a way of its ow^n the
idea it had conceived of a happy and honourable
condition. This was remarkably the case with
the Egyptians ; who, having first settled in the
regions watered by the sources of the Nile, pro})a-
gated their government of priests, from ancient
Meroe and the mountains of Ethiopia, down as
far as Thebes, thence to Memphis, and after-
wards to the Delta. The strange ideas fostered
by their idolatrous priesthood, and the elaborate
products of their speculative human wisdom, not
merely as disclosed to the initiated, but as dis-
played openly to the world, constitute them one
of the most mysterious of all the nations of anti-
quity : and, as if a vivid remembrance of Babel's
magnificence had been specially preserved among
them, we behold at this day, still towering upon
their plains, those stupendous edifices, the pyra-
mids and obelisks; and the colossal remains of
their idol temples, which are yet standing after
the lapse of thirty or forty centuries, show how
diligently this people applied themselves to ar-
chitecture, and what wonderful advancements
they made in it. Earlier, and more evidently
NINEVEH, PHENICIA, AND EGYPT. 29
than any other nation mentioned in histoiy, did
Egypt prove how soon the knowledge of the
true God was lost after the deluge ; notwith-
standing Noah survived that event three hun-
dred and fifty years, as did Shem five hundred,
and, douhtless, continued to call upon the name
of the Lord, and to proclaim it unintermittingly.
But although men forgot and abandoned the
true God, they could never rid themselves of a
sense of their dependence upon some superior
Being. They felt the need of having a God at
hand to aid them in their necessities ; but then
they wished that such a God might hinder, as
little as possible, the gratification of their lusts
and selfish desires. Thus they devised the ex-
pedient of adoring a host of natural objects, and
of making for themselves gods at pleasure, out of
carved images. Though at first they merely in-
tended to regard such things as representatives
of the invisible God, and thus to make it the
easier for their fleshly mind to ascend to what is
invisible, by shortening the vast distance be-
tween the ci'eature and the Creator ; yet even
this vain intention of idolatry was soon forgotten,
and the visible object alone became regarded.
Such was the commencement of idolatry, which
appears to have been a thing unknown to the
antediluvian world ; for before the flood man's
self-sufiiciency had chosen to have no God at all.
Now was " the glory of the incorruptible
God changed into an image like unto corruptible
man, and to birds, and fburfooted beasts, and
creeping things," Rom. i. 19, etc. Pre-emi-
Jiently is this true of Egypt, where animals of all
d2
30 NINEVEH; PHENICIA, AND EGYPT.
kinds were held sacred and were worshipped,
and where the madness of idolatry was exhibited
in every stage of the disease. The history of
that country has but too evidently shown, how
easily compatible with the utmost refinement of
mere earthly intellect, and with scientific culti-
vation of every sort, is the utmost obscuration
and debasement of all the nobler faculties of the
human mind. While the remains of Egyptian
architecture, and its other works of art, serve to
testify, that in very early ages astonishing pro-
gress was made in mechanics, geometry, and
astronomy ; they show, at the same time, that in
I'espect to the knowledge of the true God, the
Egyptians were upon a level with the wildest
savages : indeed, it may truly be said, that the
worship of the Great Spirit among the North
American Indians, is even better than all the
complex idolatry of ancient Egypt. Are we to
suppose that its priesthood had any purer know-
ledge of God, and that they only kept the peo-
ple in ignorance for the purpose of rendering
them the more abjectly instrumental to their
craft ? If so, what real worth can possibly be at-
tributed to their purer notions, when these could
permit them to debar their fellow men from ob-
taining the dearest treasure of this life, a belief
in the one living and true God ! Their case,
however, suggests an important remark ; namely,
that the neologians, and others of our own days,
have no cause to boast of their own cultivation and
refinement, as long as their religion shows itself
to be nothing better than the more refined idola-
tiy of the Egyptian priests ; that is, as long as
ISRAEL AND THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 31
they do not cordially own and serve the true
God, who was manifest in the flesh in the per-
son of our Saviour Jesus Christ.
The least offensive form of idolatry was that
of Shem's posterity, in Chaldea and Persia,
where the sun, stars, and fire were worshipped
as emblems of the invisible God. But this spe-
cies of worship is of somewhat later date ; for,
even in Jacob's time, we find that Laban, who
was a descendant of Shem, had idols in his pos-
session. The nations of southern Asia, especi-
ally of India, went to the very opposite extreme
of gross idolatry, in Avhich they have persisted
to this day, and have disclosed all its abomina-
tions and horrors to the full, in their professed
worship of devils ; but the earliest accounts of
those countries are enveloped in fable. It is in
comparatively modern times that we descry
among them a beam of that light which sprung
up in Palestine, and gmdually found its way to
distant countries.
V. ISRAEL AND THE KINGDOM Of GOD.
(a.) Abraham aud his Family,
At about the middle period between the creation
and the birth of Christ, was born, in Ur of the
Chaldees, Abraham, the son of Terah, of the
posterity of Shem. He was one of the remain-
ing few who retained the knowledge of the
true God, which was continued from Noah by
32 ISRAEL AND THE
individual descendants. It is very probable that
Abraham's family resided in the near neifijhbour-
hood of Noah's own settlement ; and that the
time of Noah's death, which was in Abraham's
sixtieth year, was the very season in which the
Lord appeared unto Abraham, " and said unto
him, Get thee out of thy countiy, and from thy
kindred, and come into the land which I shall
show thee," Acts vii. 3. Abraham accordingly
went, with his wife, his father Terah, and his
nephew Lot, into the land of Haran, where he
abode until Terah's death. Hereupon a fresh
command appears to have been given to him,
to emigrate farther, that is, into Canaan ; and
a promise was added, that God would make
him a great nation. Gen. xii. 1. Then went
Abraham forth, not knowing whither he went ;
but, having faith in the Divine word, he obey-
ed ; and his eyes were always open to ob-
serve the leadings of God's providence, or the
least intimation of his will. Herein consisted
that pre-eminence which is given him even in
the New Testament ; a pre-eminence which will
ever belong to him, on account of his remark-
able faith in God. Abraham believed God ; he
staggered not at the promise, but against hope
believed in hope. The great reason assigned,
1 Pet. iii. 20, for the severe pimishment of the
antediluvian world is, that they believed not ;
that men were so sunk in things visible, that
they totally disregarded the invisible things of
God. This infidelity, though it were not as it
commonly is, united with peculiarly evil prac-
tices, is sufficient of itself to blight every bud of
KINGDOM OF GOD. 33
liiiman liappiness, and to render us obnoxious to
Divine Avrath : whereas, real faith in God con-
tains within itself the very germ of blessedness,
and will ever bring forth its fruit in its season.
Therefore it is written of Abraham, that his
faith was counted unto him for righteousness,
Rom. iv. 3. For faith is an obedience to the
truth, which involves a renunciation of self; and
being also the most beautiful work of God in the
inner man, no wonder it is so Avell jDleasing in
his sight.
True religion became, after Noah's death,
limited to a very few. Hence it was necessary
that it should be guarded and cherished by ex-
traordinary Divine superintendence, to prevent
its utter extinction. God therefore provided for
its preservation in one branch of mankind, until
Christ himself, the Light of the world, should
come. For this purpose he appointed Abraham
to be the forefather of a nation which, as his pe-
culiar people, it pleased him to keep separate from
other nations, so as to fence out from them the
world's unbelief and idolatiy. He committed to
them the knowledge of the truth as unalienable
property ; that, in the very midst of all the idol-
,atrous and apostate nations, one place at least
might be found, from which, after a lapse of
ages, at the period of redemption, his light and
truth might shine forth upon the rest of mankind.
He condescended to take this people under his
special protection and discipline, that they might
ultimately prove a blessing to the whole Avorld.
Thus he gave them his law, his ordinances, his
worship, and a certain acquaintance with that
34 ISRAEL AND THE
plan of salvation which in due time was to be dis-
closed to all nations, for the obedience of faith.
This information was to sei-ve as a check to the
general corruption " for the time then present,"
and to make way for a better and more perma-
nent state of things.
Here then we are required to take notice of
a kingdom which God has formed for himself in
the midst of the kingdoms of this world, which
have ever sought their welfare either in military
achievements, or in the arts and sciences, or in
manufactures and commerce, and not in the Di-
vine favour and blessing. This kingdom of God
is to be regarded as twofold ; namely, as consist-
ing of an exterior form, and of an internal sub-
stance. As to its exterior form, God fashions it
by laws, ordinances, and his own peculiar guar-
dianship, into a firm barrier against the general
inundation of idolatrous rites and infidel apos-
tacy. He propagates by its institutions a pure
knowledge and worship ; he defends the true
worshippers within it in their conscientious per-
formance of his will, and causes its light to shine
also far and wide into the surrounding moral
darkness. With respect to its internal substance,
it consists of all those who, far from being satis-
fied with their ovm outward acknowledgment of
the truth, admit it also to the government of their
afi^ections and lives, walk by lively faith in God
and his promises, and make it their chief busi-
ness to diffuse the light of the gospel in the
world. These persons, whose number is not to
be reckoned and determined, are emphatically, in
all ages, the pillars of the earth, and the sustain-
KINGDOM OF GOD. 35
ers of its inhabitants. For their sakes, and in
answer to their prayers and intercessions, does
God still bear Avith an apostate world. They are
the lively, healthful, and ever renewing- flower of
his dominion here on earth, whose exterior con-
stitution would soon fade and fall off without it,
like fruit twice dead at the core. These ol)serva-
tions equally apply to the church of God under
the Old Testament.
As the conduct and condition of every nation
cannot but have a nearer or more distant relation
to this kingdom of God, so all things bear a col-
lective reference to Christ as their centre. The
whole ritual of its ordinances under the former
dispensation, all the sacrifices, festivals, and sa-
cred obsei'vances, pointed, either figuratively or
expressly, at the promised Messiah, and fore-
showed the dominion he was to have over the
earth. The kingdom of God under the New
Testament is named by the very name of Christ;
it is called Christ's kingdom. It leans for its
support upon the recorded and stupendous parts
of Christ's history, and proclaims his imperish-
able word. As all the vital members and flower
of the kingdom of God, before the birth of Christ,
testified their faith principally by trusting in the
word of promise concerning the Messiah that was
to come ; so all the spiritual members of the same
kingdom, under the New Testament, possess true
life and inward substance in exact proportion as
Christ is become alive within them, and is form-
ed within them.
Christ is the centre of the kingdom of God,
and hence of all mankind. The very time of
36 ISRAEL AND THE
his appearing was the middle period of the
world's history ; and even the country whei-e he
was manifested in the flesh, where the kingdom
of God was first propagated, and where it v/ill at
length be earliest glorified with the glory of the
latter days, is in the centre of the world's popu-
lation. The shortest distance from all parts of
the world, as known to the ancients, may be found
in the Holy Land, as a common centre for the
compass of Europe, Asia, and Africa ; and this
very situation of a country the most important
to all nations, is of no small account. Into
this land did God conduct Abraham, and pro-
mised to give it to him and to his seed for an
everlasting possession, as we read in the book of
Genesis, where his history is minutely recorded.
It required the steady eye of an eminent be-
liever to look for the fulfilment of such a pro-
mise ; for, when this promise was made, the land
was as yet, and for a long time to come, in the
hands of its ancient possessors, the heathen de-
scendants of Ham : and when Abraham wanted
in it only a small " parcel of ground," for a bu-
rial place, he was obliged to give a price for it to
the sons of Heth. But harder trials of his faith
still awaited him, especially the giving up of his
Isaac, the veiy child of promise. This trial,
however, he endured, and came off" with honour ;
so that he obtained the title of " Father of all
them that believe." The Scriptures show us
the example of his modesty. Gen. xxiii. ; his de-
voted and self-denying courage, chap. xiv. ; his
peaceable disposition, chap. xiii. ; his disinter-
estedness, chap xiv. 21 — 23. j his spiritual piety.
KINGDOM OF GOD. 37
chap. xii. 7, 8 ; xiii. 18. ; his liumility, chap,
xviii. 27; his zeal for the truth, chap, xiii, 4;
xxi. 33.* But what nation among the heathen
can show us such qualities in any of their ancient
heroes ? Yet Abraham, with all this, led the
laborious life of a nomadic wanderer : for his
large possessions of cattle obliged him to remove
from place to place for pasturage ; and when
drought prevented his finding a sufficiency of it
in the land of Canaan, he was constrained even
to go down into Egypt, and seek a place for his
flocks and herds in the rich pastures of the Nile.
Moreover, he always dwelt in tents ; a mode of
life which could not but be attended with many
inconveniences and privations. He built no city,
because he looked for a better country, that is,
an heavenly, whose builder and maker is God.
Abraham, by Divine appointment, received
the sign of circumcision as a token of the cove-
nant which God made with him ; and this sign
is still retained, not only by the chosen people
descended from Abraham by his son Isaac, but
likewise by the other numerous posterities of
Abraham, as the Ishmaelites who descend from
him by Hagar, and by the Midianites who de-
scend from him by Keturah, and who are
called at this day by the common name of Arabs
and Bedoweens. From the coimtry of Ishmael
proceeded the religion of the impostor Moham-
med, and that country is still its stronghold : its
* la these two last cited passages we find the expression^
"Call on the name of the Lord;" which is by Luther,
whose version the author follows, translated " Preach the
name of the Lord."
E
38 ISRAEL AND THE
inhabitants, also, continue to revere Ibrahin)
(Abraham) as their great progenitor.
Isaac and Jacob lived, like Abraham, a life of
faith, as sojourners in Canaan. They built altars
to the honour of Almighty God ; they preached
of his name among their heathen neighbours ;*
were honoured by him with special revelations,
and consoled themselves with the Divine pro-
mise, the fulfilment of which they "■ saw afar off."
They sought a country and a home ; but they
*' declared plainly" that it was a heavenly coun-
try for which they looked : and this is what
chiefly distinguishes them, and others like them,
from the rest of the world, who " mind earthly
things," and take up with nothing better and be-
yond. And as they maintained this heavenly
mindedness in the midst of. a crooked and per-
verse generation, therefore God put upon them
the great honour of recording their names into
his own title, by calling himself " the God of
Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob." This is a
distinction which casts into the shade all human
glory and renown. How difficult it must have
been for them, surrounded as they were with
heathen neighbours so corrupt, to exercise and
maintain this simple faith, several incidents of
their history but too plainly intimate. We need
only call to remembrance those descendants of
Ham who once peopled Sodom and Gomorrha,
Admah and Zeboiim in the vale of Siddim, who
carried their enormous wickedness to such a
height, that even the forbearance and long-suf-
* See the note on page 37.
KINGDOM OF GOD. 39
ing of God were superseded by hot displeasure,
which miraculously overthrew them by " brim-
stone and fire from the Lord out of heaven."
The Dead Sea covers with dull and cheerless
waters, that once beautiful and fruitful vale,
which was the theatre of their sins and of their
punishment.
But even among these patriarchs and their
immediate descendants is perceived the distinc-
tion, already noticed, between the interior and
exterior of God's kingdom upon earth. Witness
the distinction between Isaac and Ishmael with
Abraham's other children by Keturah, the op-
posite characters of Jacob and of Esau, and the
difference between Joseph and his brethren.
By the marvellous leadings of Providence in
the instance of Joseph, the people, whom God
had appointed to become the supporters of his
kingdom, were removed to Egypt, where, even
at that time, the kingdom of Thebes already ex-
isted. All kingdoms of the world are obliged to
do God's sei'vice, and are made use of by him as
his instruments. Thus he was pleased to use
Egypt, at that period, to minister to the tempo-
ral necessities of his people.
(6.) The Exodus, or Departure from Egypt.
When Israel emigrated to Egypt, the pecu-
liar people and kingdom of God consisted of a
single family. Whether, among otlier nations,
there were many individuals who worshipped
the true God, is uncertain. How important then
was it, that this family should be sustained ! and
40 ISRAEL AND THE
how admirable were the extraordinary measures
which God ordained for that purpose ! After
Joseph's death, when his services to Egypt were
forgotten, and Abraham's race had become ex-
ceedingly multiplied, the Egyptians began to op-
press this part of it with the greatest injustice
and rigour. There is every probability, however,
that this oppression was the very means of pre-
venting Israel's utter apostacy from the true God.
Certainly it necessitated them to cry unto the
Lord for deliverance. He heard their prayer ;
and sent, as their deliverer and conductor, his
servant Moses, who, in retirement during forty
years among the pastoral people of Midian, had
become prepared for that great office. With al-
mighty hand and_^outstretched arm God liberated
them from their oppressors, and led them through
the depths of the Red Sea as on dry land, into the.
Avilderness of Sinai. There, amidst mighty thun-
derings on the mount burning with miraculous
fire, he gave them his law from heaven ; the
constitution and ordinances of which were calcu-
lated to prevent their mixing with heathen nations
around them, and to perpetuate among themselves
the knowledge and worship of the one living and
true God. It also contained enough of what was
visible and symbolical, not only to content a peo-
ple familiar with didactic appeals to the senses,
and fond of visible demonstrations, but also to
rivet their attention. But although their know-
ledge of the truth during their hard service in
Egypt was never totally extinct, their long so-
journ and familiarity with Egyptian heathenism
had blunted their feeling for the truth ; and even
KINGDOM OF GOD. 41
God's miraculously conducting tliem out of Egypt,
his majestic manifestations and revelations on
Mount Sinai, and their marvellous sustenance by
bread and flesh from above, did not leave upon
them that impression which might well have been
looked for. Therefore God suffered that whole
generation, amounting to between two and three
hundred thousand souls, all of whom, when they
left Egypt, were twenty years old and upward, to
die during the forty years' march through the wil-
derness 5 and only the next generation, which
had grown up with God's miracles before their
eyes, and had been all along educated in his law,
were conducted by him into the promised land.
To them it was commanded utterly to extirpate
the nations descended from Ham, who hitherto
had been possessors of that country ; and this
they were to do, not only that room might be
made for the people of God, but because those na-
tions had now filled up the measure of their iniqui-
ties, and had thereby incurred the sentence of utter
destruction. To what a mass of enormity their
guilt had by this time amounted, may be conjec-
tured from the account which the Scripture gives
of the inhabitants of the vale of Siddim, who, even
several centuries before, had become ripe for the
vengeance of Heaven. The Israelites, however,
did not entirely fulfil this commio ion, but suf-
fered several of those nations, especially the Phir
listines in the south-east part of the country and
upon the coast of the Mediterranean, to live ; and
thus reserved a scourge of chastisement for their
own future disobedience.
42 ISRAEL AND THE
(c.) The Period of the Judges.
The land of Canaan was now partitioneJ
amongst the twelve tribes, and each of them took
possession of its lot. Then was put into fulfilment
the promise which God had made to Abraham,
nearly five centuries before ; " Unto thy seed will
I give this land," After the death of Joshua,
the elders of the tribes conducted the government
for a considerable period; and the fresh remem-
brance of the miracles and signs by which God
had brought them into the land, upheld among
them at this period the worship of the one true
God. But because Israel had not hearkened to
the Divine injunction, to extirpate utterly the hea-
then inhabitants, and had even suffered a portion of
them to remain in the very bosom of the country,
they became seduced by such bad neighbours
into idolatry itself, insomuch that very many of
them worshipped the Phenician gods, Baalim and
Ashtaroth. Had Jehovah the God of Israel
suffered this to pass with impunity, the whole na-
tion would by little and little have utterly declined
to idolatry, and the light of the knowledge of
his glory, which he had committed to their trust,
would have become totally extinguished. Thus
would there have been an end of the kingdom of
God, and the promise of salvation and blessed-
ness to all the families of the earth would have
been " made of none effect." To prevent such
dire consequences as these, God delivered his
people, from time to time, into the hands of their
heathen neighbours ; those very nations whose
KINGDOM OF GOB. 43
dead gods Israel had chosen in preference to then-
own living and true God. Thereupon were the
j^eople brought again to their right mind, and re-
turned in penitence to their Maker, who forthwith
delivered them out of the hand of their enemies
round about, by the instrumentality of those he-
roic believers whom he raised up among them ;
and who, generally with small means, achieved
wonderful deeds by the power of simple faith.
Such champions of Israel usually continued, dur-
ing the remainder of their lives, to judge and
conduct, or to be honoured as judges and con-
ductors of the nation ; and it was their business
to take care that the help of God should not be
forgotten.
At a subsequent period, " there was no judge
in Israel ; but every man did that which was
right in his own eyes." Thus, by degrees, the
whole nation relapsed again and again into idola-
try, for which on each occasion they were " sold
into the hand of" a heathen neighbour, and so
repenting, w^ere again restored to prosperity by
means of some Divinely commissioned deliverer.
This whole state of things lasted from their set-
tlement in Canaan to the reign of Saul; or dur
ing a period of about three centuries and a half.
A.M. 2486 to 2842.
Certain as it is that, in those early times, a
variety of sins, and especially such as always
have been in immediate connexion with idolatry,
w^ere peculiarly seductive to the Israelites; yet,
that a nation should, for so long a time, have
gone on well, and have enjoyed peace at home
and abroad, without a king, without military
44 ISRAEL AND THE
or political ascendancy, and without any of the
usual forms of government, and should have been
kept in check by the mere respect in which the
heads of families were held ; or, in weightier mat-
ters, by oracles delivered through the high priest,
immediately from God — is certainly a very re-
markable, and Avell-nigh unexampled phenome-
non. That period was not only the age of Israel's
hei'oes, but also a period when piety, simplicity,
and good morals must still have subsisted to a
considerable extent among the people at large;
though it is also true, that the sins which occa-
sionally broke out betrayed strong natural cor-
ruption, of a wild and very unsubdued kind, as
is seen in the instances of Samson and of the
Benjaraites.
At the close of this period, we find the office of
the judges in the hands of the prophet Samuel,
a man full of faith and power, a destroyer of
idolatry in Israel, and the persevering teacher of
Jehovah's law. He went upon circuits from
tribe to tribe, held public sessions, adjusted piu-
vate litigations, and founded, there is reason to
believe, those schools of the prophets in which
priests and teachers of the law were afterwards
educated for the propagation of pure doctrine,
and the prevention of idolatry. Under the ad-
ministration of Samuel, the Philistines also were
subdued and humbled ; and the whole country
enjoyed such a tranquil and well-ordered condi-
tion as it had not realized for a length of time,
and had only to wish that, if possible, such a state
of things might continue. But Samuel was
now old ; " his sons \^'alkcd not in his ways ; "
KINGDOM OF GOD. 45
and sooner or later the national confusion was
likely, as they feared, to return. This induced
them to imagine, that if they were formed into a
kingdom, like the nations around them, such
changes and disorders, as in the days of the
judges had so often shattered their prosperity,
were not likely to return. God himself, how-
ever, had long ago provided for that exigence ;
and, even in the wilderness, Deut. xvii. 14, etc.,
had intimated as much : but, though he had in-
tended they shoidd have a human king, he was
justly displeased that, in^hastily desiring one, they
had " rejected himself from being king over
them." Had they observed and followed his
will, they would have found that the regal con-
stitution and government they had now preferred
was the very one he had appointed for them.
Indeedj^ he himself would still have remained
their invisible King, and he, though a God that
hideth himself, would have politically directed
them : and hereby were the people of God to
have been distinguished from all other people.
He had shown himself able, as they very well
knew, to protect and defend them against all
their enemies ; and, during the long period of
the judges, not one of the heathen nations could
venture to assault them, except when they had
sinned against him by their idolatry. Whenever
any doubtful matter occurred concerning which
the will of their supreme Governor needed to be
known, the High Priest had only to put on the
ephod and inquire of the Lord : and how blessed
above all other nations would Israel have been,
if they had remained contented with such a
46 ISRAEL AND THE
government as this ! But it required faith to re-
gard ail invisible God as "a God at liand," and
as " a King amongst them ; " and it demanded
very devout obedience, on their part, to secure
uninterrupted pi'osperity from Him, wlio, from
time to time had evinced what great power lie
had to chastise them. Whether the uncongeni-
ality and inaptitude of man's sinful heart, to live
and abide in communion with an invisible and
holy Being, did not very materially contribute
to make them desire a visible king, we shall not
here stay to discuss ; but this portion of the sa-
cred history may well be regarded as a proof
of the deep interest which God himself takes
in all the concerns of this visible world, and how
intimate and vital is the intercourse which he
maintains with it ; as also, how little the whole
bearing of things sublunary is understood 1^ those
who regard it as self-working machinery, that
moA^es without the Divine interposition.
((/.) Israel at tlieir most flourishing Period.
When Samuel had predicted to the people
what they had to expect from the king that
should reign over them, what claims he would
exact upon their property and their services ; and
when, notwithstanding this, they persisted jn
their design, that prophet, by Divine direction,
appointed Saul to be their king, and inaugurated
him with the holy unction. This man was of an
obscure family in the tribe of Benjamin, and his
reign was spent in repeated wars with the Phi-
listines ; so that not till under David, his sue-
KINGDOM OF GOD. 47
cesser, were the Israelites enabled to effect their
sub] ligation.
Diirino: the reign of David, and that of his
son Solomon, the dominions of Israel were ex-
tended far beyond their former boundaries.
They stretched northward as far as Riblah ;
north-eastward, they had the Eiiphi-ates for their
boundary ; from thence their confines reached
beyond the countries of Ammon, Moab, and
Edom, to the eastern arm of the Red Sea.
Westward, the coast of the Mediterranean was
their limit ; Philistia was under their yoke ; and
Phenicia their willing and serviceable ally.
David was distinguished both as a man and as
a ruler. His pious heroism had been early dis-
played in his combat with Goliath ; towards
Saul he had conducted himself as a faithful and
conscientious subject; and to Jonathan he had
been a real and tenderly affectionate friend ;
noble, also, and magnanimous was his behaviour
towards Saul's descendants. Even in reviewing
his faults and crimes, we cannot overlook the
humiliation of spirit with which he comes for-
ward, and openly before the world acknowledges
and bewails them; a conduct which, however
lightly regarded by many, is in the sight of God
of great price, and infinitely more pleasing to
Him than the self-complacency of those, who,
though they live reputably, are strangers to true
humility, brokenness of spirit. Christian meek-
ness, and charity. Of his sincere piety, deep
devotional feeling, and rich acquaintance with
the things of God, we have manifold and un-
doubted testimony in his inimitable Psalms. As
48 ISRAEL AND THE
Israel's ruler, liis aim was the happiness of" his
subjects ; and, notwithstanding the many wars
he was necessitated to cany on, the nation was
contented and prosperous under his government.
He appointed proper officers over the people ; he
instituted wise arrangements in every department
of government ; and he restored and reformed
the Levitical ministrations, after having caused
the ark of the covenant to be removed to Jeru-
salem, He constituted that city his metropolis.
Its greatest ornament was the temple ; for the
btiilding of which he had amassed preparations,
and which Solomon reared and adorned. This
was the most important and most august edifice
upon earth, and was dedicated with sacrifices of
twenty-two thousand oxen, and one hundred and
twenty thousand sheep. Hitherto the sanctuary
of the people of God, the ark of the covenant,
with its furniture and appurtenances, had abode
in a tabernacle or tent of curtains and skins ;
but it was now transferred to a magnificent build-
ing, for which there had been no sparing of or-
namental gold, the most sumptuous tapestry, and
the most valuable furniture of every kind. In-
deed, the riches of Solomon were so great, that
silver in his days was little accounted of; for it
appeared plentiful " as the stones of the street."
The Scriptures speak expressly of his having
been greater in wealth and wisdom than all the
kings of the earth, and that every one desired to
see him and to hear his wisdom.
Thus the people of Israel had their flourish-
ing period, not only as other nations, but far ex-
celling them. Other nations enjoyed but some
KINGDOM OF GOD. 49
single, though pre-eminent worldly advantage,
as power and dominion, riches and splendour,
commerce and navigation, or the arts and
sciences ; whereby such nations discovered their
natural character, and gratified their ambition
for some particular kind of renown : but Israel,
in the age of Solomon, possessed all these ad-
vantages at once. They were " great among
the nations," none daring to molest them. Their
recent prowess overawed, or a considerable stand-
ing army kept down every unfriendly neigh-
bour. Their wealth, with its abundance of
luxuries, was unlimited. Compare 1 Kings x.
Their ships sailed to different parts of the earth,
and they brought home the valuable productions
of the countries they visited. The arts, especially
architecture, which they learned in part from the
Phenicians, had made wonderful advances among
them. In moral and natural philosophy, political
economy, and the science of government, as well
as in poetry and natural history, Solomon ex-
celled all his contemporaries ; for he had under-
standing, wisdom, and various knowledge, as the
sand upon the sea shore, 1 Kings iv. 29. Thus
his name was celebrated in all the surrounding
countries, and is so even to this day. But as
every distinguished nation has had to experience
that those terrestrial advantages, in which they
have sought their welfare and glory, have not
only been inadequate to afford them any true
and lasting felicity, but could not even prevent
their declining and coming to nothing : nay,
as such nations, one after another, when they
had attained the meridian of their glory, have
F
50 ISnAEL AND THE
gradually sunk into their former night of barba-
rism or subjection ; so had Israel itself to undergo
a similar experience. That pcojde of God were
ready enough, no doubt, to envy their heathen
neighbours, whose military glory, wealth, flou-
rishing commerce, and quiet enjoyment of the
good things of this life, gave them the ap-
pearance of a happy and highly favoured peo-
ple ; and it was natural for them to desire that
their own privileges, as God's favoured nation,
should be signalized by superior abundance of
similar gifts of Providence. God gave them their
desire ; he allowed them to make experiment
of earthly felicity, and thus to learn that fallen
and sinful man cannot derive true happiness
from any thing sublunary ; that all possible bless-
ings of this world can bear no comparison with
the least of the things that accompany salvation,
and belong to our peace ; and, moreover, that this
peace and salvation must be hoped for from no-
thing else but communion of spirit with God him-
self, through him, and him alone, who is the pro-
mised Seed, the Son of man, the Divine Messiah.
This all-important truth is most strikingly illus-
trated in Solomon's personal history. Pre-emi-
nently as God had favoured him with every ima-
ginable advantage of a temporal nature, and had,
in this respect, raised him far above the rest of
mortals, all was insufficient to pi-eserve him from
folly and guilt. He took to himself " outland-
ish women," wives and concubines, from among
the most idolatrous heathen, and even from
among the Canaanites themselves. He suffered
such women to seduce him to the service of their
KINGDOM OF GOD. 51
idols, and thus fell away from the Lord Jehovah
his God. Hence, immediately after his death,
the nation became miserably rent into two king-
doms : the larger part of it having contracted a
total disaffection to the house of David, which
now retained but the two tribes of Judah and
Benjamin, whose kings were thenceforth called
only kings of Judah, but retained, however, the
conquered provinces ; the other ten tribes were
denominated the kingdom of Israel, the seat of
whose government, at first was Shechem, and
afterwards Samaria. As everj^ division of what
naturally is but one body, is a proof, and at the
same time a cause of intestine weakness, so also
was it in the case before us. The kingdom of
Israel was incessantly distracted with insurrec-
tions, and had one king successively deposed by
another ; and as to its foreign relations, it was
in an almost perpetual struggle, either vrith the
Syrians or with the kingdom of Judah. More-
over, the idolatrous worship that had been intro-
duced by its first king, Jeroboam, and which
Ahab raised to general predominance, consumed
the veiy vitality of the nation ; till the whole ten
tribes, having become excessively corrupt, were
at length swept away into captivity by the kings
of Assyria. Even the line of David's direct
descendants, the kings of Judah, consisted more
of ungodly and idolatrous, than of pious and
holy persons. And though the Lord had raised
up in Judah, as also among the ten tribes, a suc-
cession of prophets, who from time to time
" showed unto the people their transgressions,
and to Israel their sins," and exhorted them
^2 ISRAEL AND THE
with the most awful warnings, and pathetic en-
treaties, to " return" to the living God ; never-
theless it came to pass, that in Juclah, whose was-
the temple, and the law, and the covenants, and
a national sanctuary of Divine institution still
abiding among them, the book of the law was
for a long period so entirely forgotten and lost,
that when that sacred volume was foiind and
brought to light, in the reign of good Josiah, the
contemporary of Zoroaster, the reading of it oc-
casioned unusual alarm, and a partial reforma-
tion. During that dark period of national es-
trangement from Divine truth, the choice and
flower of the kingdom of God, the number of
the true Israelites had become so reduced, that
neither were their voices publicly heard, nor
their teachers at all distinguished, Happy would
it have been for the Christian church, if, in the
middle ages, something very like this had not
again been witnessed ; for then, in like manner,
was the word of God nearly buried in the dark-
ness of monasteries, and remained so till it was
brought forth to open day, at the glorious Re-
formation. The fate of the kingdom of Judah
soon followed that of Israel ; for it had, in like
mannei', become at lengtli fully ri^ie for those
Divine judgments, of which the power of Baby-
lon was commissioned to be the instrument.
(e.) Israel in their Decline.
The great Assyro-Babylonian empire had,
meanwhile, after a succession of centuries, fallen
to pieces by its own weight; and out of its ruins
KINGDOM OF GOD. 53
had arisen tliree new kingdoms : that which was
called the New- Assyrian empire, the independent
kingdom of Babylon, and the kingdom of the
Medes. Of those successive kings of the New-
Assyrian dynasty, which are noticed in sacred
history by the names of Pul, 2 Kings xv. 19,
Tilgath-pilneser, 1 Chron. v. 6, Shalmaneser,
2 Kings xvii. 3, Sennacherib, 2 Kings xix.
36, and Esarhaddon, 2 Kings xix. 37 ;
Shalmaneser is he who, in the seven hundred
and twenty-second year before the Christian era,
invaded the kingdom of Israel, destroyed Sama-
ria, and removed the ten tribes to Armenia and
Media, a few years after the building of Sy-
racuse and Rome. The depopulated country,
in which but a "few'" of the men of Israel
were left behind him, was newly peopled by
him with heathen settlers, who brought witlx
them their respective idolatrous religions. For
at that period every heathen country had its pro-
vincial or national god, in which character it was
also respected by neighbouring states ; and pro-
portionably to the confidence with which the
prosperous condition of any country was ascribed
to such provincial or national god, was the super-
added respect wherewith the idol was honoured
by the neighbouring countries. Still it was the
general pagan notion, that the power of every
such deity was local, or limited to the country
where it was immediately worshipped ; in other
words, that ever}^ country had its own distinct
tutelary deity. Hence, those heathen colonists,
from various provinces, that repeopled the land
of the ten tribes, regarded Jehovah us no more
F 2
54 ISRAEL AND THE
than one of the many gods of the nations, and
as having no authority beyond the limits of the
land of Israel, though as one who was to he
feared within it. Therefore it came to pass that
this new heathen population obtained Jewisli
j)riests to instruct them in Jehovah's ritual, and
thus they paid their adorations to the true God
as one placed by the side of the imported gods.
Thus, from the motley mixture of those settlers
with such Israelites as had been left in the land,
sprang the people who were called Samaritans ;
whose religion was a compound of Judaism and
heathenism.
Some years after this, an attempt was made by
Sennacherib, the successor of Shalmaneser, to
seize in like manner the kingdom of Judah ; but
its j)ious sovereign, Hezekiah, humbled himself be-
fore God, and obtained a respite of punishment to
this guilty country : so that Judah did not utterly
fall under the Divine judgments till about thirty-
three years later, in the five hundred and eighty-
seventh year before the Christian era ; when this
kingdom also was summarily rebuked for its apos-
tacy. Jerusalem, with its temple, was now pil-
laged and destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar; the
sacred vessels, and the apostate people of Judea,
were carried away together into Babylon ; and,
to mere human observation, it seemed as if the
kingdom of God upon earth was come to an
end, and as if its few remaining members had
been swept away by an imperial and idolatrous
power.
The whole history of the children of Israel,
down to this period of their great humiliation,
3
KINGDOM OF GOD. 55
proclaims aloud the important verity, that to a
nation ruined by their sins, no external advan-
tages can be of any avail ; for such ruin always
commences with internal and spiritual corruption,
so that its evil consequences will necessarily ap-
pear, let outward circumstances be what they may.
The oppression which Israel endured in Egypt
produced in them no salutary humiliation : the
wonders which God wrought for them in the
wilderness served only to make them more in-
solent and refractory ; his establishment of them
in Canaan called for their gratitude in vain ; and
their security and abundance in the age of Solo-
mon did not render them a truly jirosperous
people. Had the glory of our blessed Redeemer
consisted only in being a great teacher, and in
his disseminating a more correct kind of know-
ledge, as some unbelievers at present imagine,
then might the Jewish nation be said to have
needed no New Testament Messiah at all ; inas-
much as the Old Testament had already furnished
them with knowledge more than sufficient to
leave them without excuse. They had possessed
a Moses, who spake with God face to face, as a
man talketh with his friend ; they had seen a
Solomon, who understood all mysteries and all
knowledge ; they had Avitnessed a succession of
prophets, who knew the ways of God, and who
proclaimed his truth. But as the recoveiy of
fallen man can be effected only by regeneration,
or thorough renewal in spirit, soul, and body ;
and as this thorough renewal can be brought
about only by the Divine communication of an
56 ISRAEL AND THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
unblemished human nature ; such a restoration
as this was not to be expected, without its
power appearing in the person of Messiah him-
self. Therefore all the Old Testament prophets,
while they called men to immediate repentance
and conversion, pointed them nevertheless to the
day of Christ, as the day of redemption and sal-
vation ; and all the trying experiences, througlj
which God conducted his people, were intended
to stir u]3, and strengthen in them a desire for
that promised Redeemer, and for his kingdom of
peace.
Thus the kingdom of God, under the Old Testa-
ment, was only the beginning of what it was after-
wards to become ; and the Old Testament itself
was but a preparatory institution, designed for
pi'eserving a purer knowledge of God among his
chosen people, and for sustaining in them the
hope of spiritual and eternal redemption. And
shut out, as they were by such Divine arrange-
ments, from communion with the darkness of
this world, a beam of the light of Israel did,
fi-om time to time, shed a sort of twilight over
the surrounding nations, and served as a pledge
that God would, by and by, vouchsafe a better
knowledge of himself to the Gentiles also, ac-
cording as they should be able to bear it. Thus
was " the queen of the south" made acquainted
with the true God by her visit to Solomon, 1
Kings X. 9, and brought back a reverence for
his name among her heathen countrymen ; and
the king of Tyre, by his intercourse with David
and Solomon, learned to present his homage
4
TRACES OF EARLIEST CULTIVATION. 57
to the God of Israel, 1 Kings v. 7. To the
Assyrians of Nineveh, God even sent one of his
prophets, and caused repentance to be success-
fully preached by him among them ; and in
Babylon itself, through the transplanting of tlie
Jews into that kingdom, the name of Jehovah,
as "the God of heaven," became not only known
far abroad, but also highly extolled on various
occasions. From the light of that purer know-
ledge which, by such means, was diffused
throughout the Babylonian empire, some single
rays still lingered even down to the period when
the promised Messiah personally appeared in
our nature upon earth. Matt. ii. 1, etc.
VI. TRACES OF EARLIEST CULTIVATION.
Respecting Assyria, Babylon, and Egypt, at
this period, we have little certain information
beyond what the Scriptures report of them in
their connexion with the holy people; and as
for the rest of the nations, their history is en-
veloped in still greater obscurity. Some of them
having flourished for a season, wei'e subverted
by the righteous judgments of God, as the peo-
ple of Sodom and Gomorrha, and the Canaan-
itish nations : others enjoyed very early cvdtiva-
tion, and their chronicles refer to an age very
remote ; but what they relate is mixed with
fable concerning deified heroes, whose term of
life consisted of centuries ; and all their pretended
58 TRACES OF
records, whether historical or astronomical, are
enigmatical and inexplicable. This is the case
with the history of the Hindoos, and, in part,
with that of the Chinese. Other nations lay
quite out of the compass of history, and remain
so to this day ; as the uncivilized tribes of Africa,
and the Scythian nations in the north. Allied
to these are tlie unsettled hordes of Tartars and
Mongolians, which now and then flashed on the
page of history like scorching and desolating
meteors, but whose special distinction in the af-
fairs of the world was yet future. We look in
vain at those early ages for any record of the
Germanic tribes, which, shortly after the first
century of the Christian era, form new ground
for secular and ecclesiastical history; whereas,
the domestic annals of several nations which
were soon successively to distinguish themselves
in the great theatre of the world, had long ago
commenced ; and the manner of the earliest de-
velopement of the Persians, Greeks, and Romans,
had already intimated what a growth of power
each of those nations would at length attain. The
most particular and complete records of antiquity,
are the sacred Scriptures, and their histoiy of the
Jewish people. These records we owe to the
special providence of God, and to one peculiar
provision of that providence, namely, the early
practice of the art of writing. This art, however,
does not appear to have been in use among the
very first generations of mankind.
Since man's earliest ideas must have been
formed from sensible objects, as we may see by
EARLIEST CULTIVATION. 59
the manner in which uncultivated nations still
express their thoughts, there is some reason for
supposing that the oldest records may have been
a kind of pictures, or hieroglyphics, such as are
found on Egyptian monuments. Out of these
ma\^ have originated those signs which express
whole words at once, a mode of writing which
continues common to the Chinese : next we
have the characters which express merely sylla-
bles, as in Ethiopic : and lastly, alphabetical writ-
ing, which however was familiar to the Hebrews
and the Greeks at a very early period ; for
Moses himself was well acquainted with it, see
Exod. xvii. 14; and the ten commandments
were written with the finger of God on tables
of stone. Writing on vellum might not have
been quite so ancient, though, in the passage
last cited, writing in a book is referred to. The
science of astronomy likewise commenced in very
early times ; so early, that we know not whether
the first observations of the starry heavens were
put together by contemplative shepherds on the
mountain pastures of Armenia, or by Phenician
navio;ators. The Chaldean magi were familiar
observers of the stars, though chiefly for astro-
logical purposes; and hereby they became dis-
tinguished as a peculiar and privileged caste.
The periodical inundations of the Euphrates and
Tigris in Babylonia, and of the Nile in Egypt,
made it requisite to form large canal banks, and
other arrangements. This served to stir up the
invention of many for engineering and great
mechanical contrivances.
60 TRACES OF
Social settlement in great cities, like tiiose of
Nineveh and Babylon, was soon attended with
its natural consequence, a variety of luxuries;
and the means for these Avere furnished hy the
traffic of Phenicia, which had become a general
mart for the productions of all countries. While
that nation was also distinguishing itself by the
invention of glass, and the celebrated purple dye.
Babylonia was no less celebrated for its improve-
ments in the manufacture of leather, wool, and
linen, and especially for its varieties of carpeting
and tapestry, and its highly finished works in
wood and ivory, metal, and precious stones.
With this rising condition of arts and manufac-
tures, was connected an increasing spread of
commerce, which extended southward as far as
India, westward to Phenicia, northward to As-
syria and Armenia, and eastward into the moun-
tainous districts of Asia. Thus every thing con-
spired to render Babylon the mistress of king-
doms.
Architecture likewise had attained great perfec-
tion at this period of the world, and its productions
bore the characters of magnificence on a gigan-
tic scale, even as did empire, warfare, and wick-
edness itself at the same period : whereas the
more predominant characteristics of the succeed-
ing; aoje were those of taste and eleg-ance : for then
governments had become more concerned about
domestic improvements, and the advancement of
knowledge. Nineveh was a city of three days'
journey in circumference, with walls of extraor-
dinary height and breadth. Babylon, though
EARLIEST CULTIVATION. 61
built only of brick, was above sixty or seventy
miles in circuit ; its walls were two liundred cu-
bits high, and fifty cubits broad, with two hun-
dred and fifty towers, and one hundred gates ;
and in the centre of the city stood the temple of
Belus with its lofty tower. The wonderful build-
ings of ancient Egypt are well known; its py-
ramids, obelisks, temples, columns, and sepul-
chral monuments command still, even in their
ruins, the admiration and the astonishment of
travellers; although the lapse of four thousand
years has half buried these vast relics in the
sand. They, however, for the most part, consist
of granite and marble ; and where to look for the
buildings upon which the Israelites in their long
servitude were employed, as makers of bricks,
is not sufficiently known. Similar to those of
Egypt, and perhaps equally ancient, are the
great Indian temples in Salsette and Ellore,
which are hewn out of the native rock. All
these works of architecture bespeak the character
of those earlier times, when colossal bulk and
extent were considered the expression of great-
ness ; but when men had begun likewise to aim
at combining utility, convenience, and beauty
with such great undertakings.
The Israelites were attentive to arts and
manufactures ; and many a recorded instance of
their skill and ability would be found difficult of
imitation, even at the present day. The works
which Bezaleel and Aholiab, Exod. xxxv. 30 — 35,
finished off" in the wilderness, attest their great
skill and knowledge. And the temple of Solomon
62 TRACES OF EARLIEST CULTIVATION.
could, in taste and sumptuousness, vie with every
building of its time. Thus, if we closely examine,
we shall find that, even in such things, Israel
was the first of the nations ; for although, at a
period when measure or bulk was every thing,
this nation was of insignificant size, yet it con-
tained the glory of what is intellectual and spirit-
ual ; it had the promise of rising to something
far greater and without end, and thus lived as it
were above its time.
THIRD PERIOD.
FROM NEBUCHADNEZZAR TO AUGUSTUS.
[A.M. 3338 to 3916. B.C. 605 to 27.]
I. THE BABYLONIAN EMPIRE.
The jealous}^ which had prevailed between the
New-Assyrian and the Babylonian empires at
length broke out into open war. Media was
confederate with Babylon ; and the Assyrians
had leagued with themselves the maritime states
of Phenicia, Philistia, and Egypt, which feared
to be swallowed up if the power of Assyria were
overthrown. A great battle between the Baby-
lonians and the Egyptians, on the banks of the
Euphrates, in the year 606 before Christ, in
which the Egyptians sustained a total defeat,
decided the fate of Assyria, and left Babylon the
first power in the world. A year afterwards
Nineveh was taken, the prophecy of Nahum
fulfilled, and Assyria divided between the king-
doms of Media and Babylon. About this time
Nebuchadnezzar came to the throne, a mighty
king, of energetic character, with all the pride of
an Asiatic conqueror and despot. The kingdom
of Judah had long been enabled to maintain a
peaceful contemporary existence, having either
stood in alliance with the Babylonian monarch,
or chosen neutral ground. But zealously as did
64 THE BABYLONIAN EMPIRE.
the prophet Jeremiah warn them against per-
fidiously leaning on Egypt, tlie last kings ol"
Judah ceased not, by infatuated confederations
with that country, to provoke the powerful king
of Babylon, till at length he took and destroyed
Jerusalem, carried away captive the nation at
large, and transplanted them into his own imme-
diate provinces. The Jews, however, were not
governed there with rigour, nor treated as slaves.
Their new situation was tolerable, and even com-
fortable, as far as foreign bread in the mouth of
a captive can be without a bitter taste. Some of
them who were of royal or princely family, Ne-
buchadnezzar caused to be brought up in his own
court. It is not probable that this was merely a
political measure, for the sake of having them
xmder his eye, and rendering any intrigues im-
possible to them ; for we may well suppose, that,
with consciousness of his extensive power, he
was superior to all apprehensions of this sort.
But neither was it at first in his contemplation to
raise those distinguished Jews, whose names are
well known to be those of Daniel, Hananiah, Mi-
shael, and Azariah, to such a height of pre-emi-
nence, as to entrust them with provincial govern-
ment in his own great empire. God, however,
had selected this mighty ruler to show forth in
him his own greater power and might ; and, by
a few simple circumstances, he led him to per-
ceive and acknowledge, that all the power and
wisdom of Babylon, and of its king, were not to
be compared for a moment with the endowments
of a single servant of Jehovah. A dream, in
which God symbolically represented to him the
THE BABYLONIAN EMPIRE. 65
history of tlie future empires of the world, the
whole import, however, of which, except the
general deep impression of it, had eluded his re-
collection, he required his magi and astrolo-
gers to recover and explain to him. In such a
requirement itself, as also in the horrible threats
he added for its exaction, we behold the despotic
ruler, accustomed to see his commands and de-
sires implicitly obeyed ; and who, in the moment
of passionate displeasure, is wont, at the least op-
position or hinderance to his will, to do what he
has afterwards to regret. Had not the lives of
the magi been preserved by the intervention of
Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar had certainly put them
all to death, and probably would have bitterly
repented of it upon occasions when he should feel
the need of their counsel and advice. Here is
one instance of that implicit obedience, by which
a Nebuchadnezzar's single will kept the bulk of
his stupendous empire in order. It is also to be
observed, with respect to the great image that
was shown him in his dream, as symbolical of
the empires of the world, that its head of gold
did not symbolize the Babylonian power so as to
include Nebuchadnezzar's successors, but repre-
sented this king himself, the period of his single
reign, which was stamped as so illustrious by the
personal weight of his own name. " T]lou art
this head of gold," said Daniel, in his interpre-
tation of the dream. That this preference as-
cribed to Nebuchadnezzar above the imperial
powers that arose after him, was in some measure
owing to his recognition of the true God, can-
not be denied. He acknowledged to Daniel,
g2
66 THE BABYLOXIAN EMPIRE.
" Of a truth is it that your God is a God al)ove
all gods, and a Lord above all kings, who can
thus reveal hidden matters." It is to be lamented,
that this good confession was overclouded and
seemingly forgotten, when he (avIio after the ori-
ental pagan custom retained, with a respect for
Jehovah, a reverence at the same time for his
own national idol, Bel) desired the Jewish go-
vernors of his province to pay the same honour
likewise to Jm god which he had conceded to
their God ; because, according to his ideas, a
plurality of gods might Avell consist together.
But then the less ought it to be overlooked that,
after he had seen the striking proof of the mira-
culous deliverance of those three men by their
God, he again expressed his acknowledgment
of Jehovah as the mightiest of all gods, and
most strictly enjoined his subjects to reverence
the same.
Elam, or Susa, south-east of Babylon, was
already in Nebuchadnezzar's power ; and, after
taking Jerusalem, he sought to extend his do-
minion to the south-west . Sidon, with its ter-
ritory, fell into his hands ; as did likewise, after
a long struggle, the stronghold of Tyre. The
countries of Moab, Ammon, and Edom could
not resist this powerful conqueror. Egypt, also
shared at length the same fate as Judea ; its
colossal cities were occupied by the troops of
Nebuchadnezzar, and its wealthiest inhabitants
were transplanted to Babylon. Upon this en-
largement of his dominion, which rendered him
the mightiest monarch of the age, his heart be-
came inflated with presumptuous and very im-
THE BABYLONIAN EMPIRE. 67
pious pride, so as not only to forget that God
who had raised him to this greatness, but even
to arrogate all imaginable glory to himself.
Standing on the top of his royal citadel at Ba-
bylon, and looking down upon the great city
which he had enriched and adorned with the
spoils of his conquests, musing upon his vast em-
pire and his resistless power, he exclaimed, " Is
not this great Babylon, that I have built for the
house of the kingdom, by the might of my power,
and for the honour of my majesty ! " Such self-
exaltation in a man whom God had once taken
imder his own special instruction, and to whom
he had made his almighty power known, could
not pass without Divine rebuke. As the people
of Jehovah now resided in Babylon, this country
had become the theatre of his miraculous govern-
ment, to which, therefore, Nebuchadnezzar him-
self must yield. God punished him with tern- _
porary insanity, so that, like the beasts, he was
necessitated to dwell in the open field, and to lie
down under the dew of heaven, till seven times
should pass over him. All his opposition to the
power of the living God, and to the impressions
of the same upon his mind and disposition, was
now felt to be in vain : the " Stronger than he"
overcame him, and finally reduced him, by se-
vere discipline, to the stayed acknowledgment,
that Jehovah is the Supreme, that his kingdom
is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion en-
during for ever and ever. He also confessed,
that all his doings are in truth, and his ways
judgment ; moreover, that " those who walk in
pride, He is able to abase."
68 THE BABYLONIAN EMPIRE.
Babylon, under Nebuchadnezzar, is the first of
the four great empires : this was followed by the
Medo-Persian ; after which arose the Macedo-
nian, or Greek empire : and, lastly, that of the
Romans. Babylon stood as the head of gold in
Nebuchadnezzar's vision of the great image : in
the pursuits of life, it set the fashion to nations ;
and the succeeding empires inherited, from it
their disposition to endeavour after universal do-
minion and consolidation. Thus was Babylon
their head and commencement. And, indeed, it
was gold in comparison with the succeeding em-
pires ; for these never so substantially realized
their desire of universal dominion. In the com-
position and coherence of its several parts and
elements, there was less frangibility or dis-
ruption, moi'e unity and solidity, more constitu-
tional strength, grandeur and vigour, than in the
rest. It had the majestic nobleness of the lion,
and the high soaring aspect of the eagle. Its
wants were more simple, the life of its citizens
was more quiet and serene, its prosperity was
greater. The revelation of God. in the midst of
it was more immediate, plain, and. striking ; the
knowledge of Him, though obscurely, yet in a
variety of ways, brake forth among the people,
and was again and again brought home to them.
The imperfect accounts of history do not indeed
expressly relate tins last particular ; but we may
conclude, from the infallible word of God, that
the Babylonian empire was more golden and dis-
tinguished by such privileges, than the emjjires
which arose after it; at the same time it must
always be premised, that the aim of worldly power,
THE BABYLONIAN EMPIRE. 69
as such, to draw all things to itself, is adverse to
the kingdom of God, and that therefore, it is in
the way of comparison, and not of approbation,
that this preference is adjudged to the Babylo-
nian empire.
After the death of Nebuchadnezzar, and his
forty-three years' reign, his son Evil-merodach
succeeded to the empire, and was succeeded by
his brother-in-law Belshazzar, (otherwise called
Neriglissor, orLabynith ii.,) a profligate and ef-
feminate prince, not at all adapted to the vigorous
management of so great an empire. When he
had reigned four years, the young Persian king
Cyrus, assisted by an army of the Medes, took
Babylon in the five hundred and fifty-eighth
year before Christ, and this put an end to the
Babylonian dominion. The city itself, with tlie
surrounding country, became in long process of
time, a desert ; and thus was the prediction of
Jeremiah, ch. li. 37, literally accomplished. It
remains to this day a vast heap of rubbish, with-
out a human inhabitant ; it is seldom visited by
any traveller ; and it is a solitude of astonish-
ment and dread.
Jeremiah had prophesied of Cyrus, the con-
queror of Babylon, Jer. 1. 44; and, still earlier,
liad Isaiah prophetically mentioned him by name,
ch. xliv. 28 ; xlv. 1, etc. ; as an evidence that
God holds in his hand the destinies, not only of
his own chosen people, but likewise of all other
nations ; and that they are necessitated to perform
his pleasure, though without either intending or
being conscious of it.
70 THE MEUO-PEUSIAN EMPIRE.
II. THE MEDO-1'ERSIAN EMPIKE.
(a.) History of Cyrus.
Media, which was a provincial nation, westward
of the Tigris, had, by the dismemberment of the
old Assyro-Babylonian empire, become a sepa-
rate kingdom ; and had grown powerful by the
partition of the New-Assyrian empire. Even
the provincial nation of Persia, southward of
Media, became its tributary. Astyages, who
was king of the Medes, and father-in-law of
Nebuchadnezzar, had given his daughter in
marriage to Cambyses, prince of Persja, and
Cyrus was the son of this marriage. Bel-
shazzar, king of Babylon, had formed an alliance
with Croesus, king of Lydia, and with other
princes, for the purpose of dethroning Cyaxares
II. (Darius,) king of the Medes, to whose assist-
ance came his young nephew, Cyrus, with a va-
liant band of Persian mountain warriors, and
defeated the allied forces of Lydia and Baby-
lonia. The Lydians fled back to their own
country. Tlie kingdom of Lydia had attained
to great prosperity and extent under the govern-
ment of Croesus, whose wealth became prover-
bial. In this kingdom was comprised a large
part of Asia Minor ; and, as a mercantile state,
its central situation, with respect to Europe, Asia,
and Africa, was a most convenient one. Its
metropolis was Sardis ; the same Sardis which
is mentioned in the New Testament. But as
riches beget luxury, and luxury brings on weak-
THE MEDO-PERSIAN EMPIRE. 71
ness and effeminacy, so the Lydians had become
unable to withstand the fierce mountain troops of
Cyrus. They were totally defeated ; Sardis was
taken ; Croesus was made prisoner, but treated
with mildness ; and Cyrus now hastened back
towards Babylon, to chastise it in like manner.
He diverted the course of the Euphrates, which
hitherto had flowed through the midst of the
city ; and, by this manoeuvre, his warriors were
enabled to march into it by surprise, on the
shallow bed of the river. Thus, like a sudden
tempest, he fell upon the king and his courtiers,
at the time they Avere holding a great banquet,
the mirth of which had indeed, just before, been
awfiilly interrujjted by the miraculous hand-writ-
ing upon the wall, and by Daniel's interpreta-
tion of the same. Belshazzar was slain in the
conflict, and Cyrus handed over the lordship of
Babylon to his uncle Cyaxares ii. (Darius,) and
marched back into Persia.
Under the government of Cyaxares, who di-
vided his great empire into one hundred and
twenty provinces, the prophet Daniel held an im-
portant civil station ; and was, by the marvellous
interposition of God, preserved from the insidious
machinations of envious heathen opponents, who
had circumvented the weak monarch. This mi-
raculous deliverance of Daniel induced Cyaxares
to repeat, in the face of all his subjects, the same
humble acknowledgment of the God of Israel
which had been before expressed by Nebuchad-
nezzar. It was in the beginning of the reign of
this Medo-Persian king, that Daniel received
the important disclosure concerning the seventy
72 THE MEDO-PERSIAN EMPIRE.
weeks ; even, as in the time of Belshazzar, he had
foreseen the destinies of the four great empires,
(and the near approaching fate of the Persian
in particular,) in the symbolical vision of vari-
ous beasts of prey, Dan. vii. Cyaxares, after
a reign of seventeen years, retired into pi'ivate
life ; and Cyrus, who meanwhile had become
his son-in-law, by mariying his daughter, suc-
ceeded to the government of the united empire of
Media, Persia, and Babylonia. To all the coun-
tries which had been subjected to the sceptre of
Nebuchadnezzar, were now added, under Cyrus,
those of Media, Persia, and the Lesser Asia.
The vanquished nations were treated forbearingly
by Cyrus ; but their princes were dethroned, and
replaced by satraps, or provincial governors, spe-
cially chosen and appointed by himself. Though
such appointments served for awhile to keep the
whole empire more together under the will and
law of a single ruler, yet they tended ultimately
to the production of many discontents and par-
tial revolts, which gave, however, not so much
trouble to Cyrus himself, as to his successors ;
for he, through his personal influence, and the
respect in which he was held for his heroic deeds,
remained in undisturbed possession of the coun-
tries of which he had become master ; and, dur-
ing his whole reign, he found leisure to con-
cert means for establishing his dominion, and
especially by strengthening and multiplying the
bands of commercial intercourse. He died in his
own palace, at Persepolis ; though some histo-
rians assert that he was slain in an expedition
against the Massagetae.
THE MEDO-PERSIAN EMPIRE. 73
(J.) End of the Babylouisli Captivity.
Cyrus, likewise, though the heathen historians
give no account of it, did not omit to make an
acknowledgment of the true God. Probably
he had learned from Daniel, the miraculous de-
monstrations of Jehovah's power, which were
given to Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, and Da-
rius. It is also probable that he had heard of
Jeremiah's prophecy, that the captivity of the
Jews in Babylon should terminate after its con-
tmuance for seventy years ; for, in the yevj first
year of his autocracy, he issued throughout his
dominions the following edict : — " The Lord
God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms
of the earth ; and he hath charged me to build
him an house at Jerusalem. Who is there among
you of all his people ? his God be with him,
and let him go up to Jerusalem, and build the
house of the Lord God of Israel. He is the
God." At the same time he required all his sub-
jects to help the departing Israelites with silver
and gold, with goods and with beasts, besides the
other things which they might give as a free-will
offering for the temple of God that is in Jeru-
salem. He himself gave up the five thousand
four hundred golden and silver vessels of the
house of the Lord, which Nebuchadnezzar had
brought away from Jerusalem, and placed in the
house of his gods ; and he granted them the re-
quisite cedar timber from Mount Lebanon. But
the greater part of the Israelites had become so
domesticated in Assyria and Babylon, that they
H
74 THE MEDO-PERSIAN EMPIRE.
had no heart to exchange their prosperous and .
comfortable situation for the laborious and ha-
zardous enterprise of removal to a far distant ter-
ritory, or for the inconveniences of settlement in
a desolated country. Only forty two thousand
families, and these principally of the tribes of
Judah, Benjamin, and Levi, availed themselves
of the king's edict, and set out on a march to
the demolished city, under the conduct of their
prince Zerubbabel, and their high priest Joshua,
to rebuild in the first place the temple of the
God of Israel. What became of the great body
of the Israelites that stayed behind in the coun-
tries of their captivity, and into what parts of
the world their descendants dispersed themselves,
remains a mystery to this day.
The new temple could not, of course, equal that
of Solomon in magnificence ; and the old men,
who in their youth had seen the former temple,
could not refrain from tears and loud lamentations
over the inferiority of the latter. There was, more-
over, the hostility of the Samaritans, wdio had of-
ficiously proffered their assistance in the building,
but had been repulsed on account of their com-
munion with idolatrous heathenism, and who
hence sought to impede the work in every possible
way, so that it went on slowly. Under Cambyses,
(Ahasuerus,) the successor of Cyrus, the building
was discontinued by an imperial edict, so that it
was not completed until the sixth year of Darius
Hystaspis, five himdred and sixteen years before
Christ, after that Ezra the scribe had brought
from Babylon the rest of the vessels of the house
of the Lord, and had effected the arrangements
THE MEDO-PERSIAN EMPIRE. 75
of Divine service, the priesthood, and civil order.
The two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, had
faithfully helped to this by their inspired and
stirring exhortations and encouragements, and
had raised the spirits of the depressed Jews by
their prophecies of the coming period of Israel's
national glory. And after Nehemiah, who was
cupbearer and state minister to the Persian mo-
narch, had arrived as governor at Jerusalem,
which during the captivity and till now had
been as an unwalled village, the dilapidated
walls of that city were again raised up.
Cyrus was succeeded in the government of the
Medo-Persian empire by his son Cambyses, a
cruel tyrant, who not only prosecuted his father's
conquests, and recovered Egypt from its revolt,
but also enterprised the subjugation of Ethiopia
and Lybia ; in which, however, he was unsuc-
cessful. He died by accidentally falling upon
his own sword, and was succeeded in the empire
by Darius the son of Hystaspes, who had married
the daughter of Cyrus. This prince extended
the Persian dominions as far as the Indus, and
northward as far as Greece ; but hereby incurred
a conflict with the Greeks, which was continued
by them with his successors, until Alexander put
an end to the Medo-Persian empire. In this
manner the theatre of history became transferred
from the East to Europe.
(c.) History of the Greeks.
The country of Greece was peopled at a very
eafly period. Even about the time of Noah's
70 THE MEDO-PERSIAN EMPIRE.
death, A. m. 2006, the national family of Ash-
kenaz, the son of Gomer and grandson of Ja-
pheth, emigrated tliroiigh Lesser Asia to Europe,
and settled in the regions which lie south of
that great chain of Alps which runs through
Europe into Spain : also in Greece there re-
mained traces of their settlement. Soon after-
ward followed the descendants of Javan, (whose
name is still preserved in that of Ionia,) with
their four national families, Elisha, Tarshish,
Chittim, and Dodanim : these settled principally
in the country which is still called Greece.
Whether to Tarshish we may think of tracing
Tarsus in Cilicia, or Tartessus in Spain, or to
Elisha, Hellas, (Greece,) or the Elisa^an Islands,
(in the Atlantic,) or to Dodanim, Dodona, is
more or less imcertain. The descendants of Ti-
ras, the youngest son of Japheth, settled probably
in the north and north-east of Greece, as Thrace,
Illyria, etc. We know of no more particulars
relative to these earliest settlei's of Greece ;
even what is recorded of the first founders of its
several states, as Cecrops, Danaus, Cadmus, and
Pelops, is mixed with fable. This is partly ow-
ing to the nature of their religion, according to
which they imagined to themselves a kind of
human gods ; and had besides these a multitude
of demigods, or heroes, whom, after their
death, they deified on account of immortal
deeds ascribed to them. In later ages, it could
no longer be ascertained whether these had ever
existed as men, or whether they were creatures
of imagination.
It is uncertain whence the Greeks derived
THE MEDO-PERSIAN EMPIRE. 77
their Idolatrous and mythological religion ; but,
probably, it may be traced to the gradual corrup-
tion of the primitive patriarchal faith, which ac-
knowledged one God, but became more and
more inyested with objects of sense, in propor-
tion as this people sunk away into sensualities.
As at first they owned but one God, so they
called him Zeus, that is, the Living One ; who,
even in their later polytheism, was always re-
garded as supreme. As vital doctrine gradually
dwindled and disappeared, by traditions becoming
deformed and obscure, all consistence and pro-
portion of religious faith were at length distorted
and perverted, in this as in every other nation.
Their recognition of dependance on the true God
was forgotten : the Deity was now represented
as dependant on men, and was expected to ap-
prove of all and eveiy thing which the sensual
and circumscribed ideas of our fallen nature, the
extravagance of the imagination, or pi-iestcraft
itself, might choose to make of him ; and was re-
quired to tolerate every idol which its inventors
and abettors might be pleased to set up by the
side of him. Thus began new gods to be formed
after the himian image, or after the likeness of
creatures beneath it. Thus Zeus, or Jupiter,
was, after the manner of men, furnished with a
wife, named Here, or Juno, to whom special
functions were attributed. Thus Zeus and Here
at first were severally the sole proprietors of a
variety of cognominal appellations, indicative
of the respective duties with Avhich they were
charged ; but, in process of time, out of these
h2
78 THE MEDO-PERSIAN EMPIRE.
appellations was invented a special god or god-
dess ; and such gods and goddesses were then in-
vested with whatever office such appellations re-
spectively imported. The more the knowledge
of the one living and true God disappeared, the
more men's ideas of Deity were modelled after
human notions ; and, according to human weak-
ness and adjustment, the more Avas the Being of
God notionally divided and subdivided into gods
many, and lords many ; till at length it came to
this, that every tree, fountain, and grove had its
special deities; and men even built altars ta
unknown gods. Acts xvii. 23. All nature was
animated with distinct divinities, which, accord-
ing to legendaiy ti*adition, frequently appeared
visibly to men, and entered into familiar inter-
course with them. It is asserted, indeed, that
this was all merely poetical ; and yet there are
some among us who regret that such a poetical
religion should have been lost to the world.
Poetical indeed it was, if by that word is meant
imaginary or feigned : but sacred histoiy, as
contained in the Scriptures, appears far more
poetical, even in the best acceptation of the Avord ;
for, in sacred histoiy, we find God actually ap-
pearing among men, condescending to become
Abraham's guest, and conversing with Moses
*' as a man talketh with his friend." In sacred
history, we find angels all along maintaining in-
tercourse with men, and the Son of God himself
at length becoming man. Sacred history, then,
is surely much more poetical ; but then sacred
histoiy is truth itself. Not to mention, that to
THE MEDO-PERSIAN EMPIRE. 79
the gods of Greece were attributed eveiy passion
and gratification of our corrupt nature, yea, even
those which are of the coarsest animal kind j
and that, accordingly, the youth of Greece, when
initiated in the practices and mysteries of its re-
ligion, learned at once to know and to love all
manner of sins and vices — it is even asserted,
that such gods were only sensible representations
of important laws of nature and morals. It is pos-
sible, indeed, that Greeks of the more reflecting
and contemplative class might associate with
them such ideas ; it is possible, that some further
baseless fabric of meaning was concealed in
them ; still, in what light we are to regard the idol
superstition of the Greeks, we may learn from
the word of God itself, as it is written in Rom.
i. 18. If the wiser individuals among them
cherished a glimmering of brighter view, (for it
is possible that even among their priests, some
purer occult doctrine was originally propagated,
which, however, as there is but too abundant
proof, must have soon become very much dege-
nerated ;) if traces of such better knowledge were
found even on their public monuments, as the
inscription on the temple of Apollo at Delphi,
" Know thyself!" yet all this is insufficient to
alter, in the least degree, our opinion of the
whole as a whole. Even the purer doctrine of
a Socrates cannot be ascribed to the common
national creed, as it rather stood decidedly op-
posed to it ; and his own acknowledgment, " I
know that I know nothing," was no more than
true, though Christians may well be ashamed to
say it after him. Compare John xvi. 13 ; Eph.
80 THE MEDO-PERSIAN EMPIRE.
i. 8, 9j hi. 9—11, 17—19; iv. 13-15; Col.
i. 25—28 ; ii. 2, 3; 1 John ii. 20-27.
The most ancient race of Greeks were the
Pelasgi. Among them, perhaps, were mingled
many of the Canaanites, who, fleeing from Jo-
shua's invasion, first thronged the towns on tlie
sea coast of Palestine, until their numbers be-
coming inconvenient, they emigrated to new
settlements in the islands of the Grecian Archi-
pelago, and on the coasts of Greece. lonians,
and Acha^ans arrived after them; and, at the
period when the annals of that country descend
into historical clearness, the various component
parts of the Greek population, belonging to
earlier as well as later antiquity, had become so
blended, as to be no longer distinguishable by
any genealogically certain characteristics.
The account of the Argonantic expedition,
1250 years B.C., to the gold country of Colchis,
has never yet been properly divested of its fabu-
lous embellishments. There is something more
of historical ground in the tradition of the ten
years' siege and subjugation of Troy, in the coun-
try of Troas, Acts xvi. 8, which is situate in the
north-west of Asia Minor, by Grecian heroes,
1190 — 1180 B.C. about the time of the birth of
David. This supposed event, however, owes
most of its present celebrity to the epic poems of
Homer, the father of Grecian poetry. Fifty years
later, arose the state of Thessaly, in the north of
Greece ; and that of Beotia, to the south of Thes-
saly. At the same period was the Greek penin-
sula (Peloponnesus) colonized by the Dorians.
Here grew up, in process of tinte, the states of
THE MEDO-PERSIAN EMPIRE. 81
Corinth, Elis, Arcadia, Messene, and Sparta.
Between Corinth, which was the entrance of the
Peloponnesus, and Beotia, in the north, was the
country of Attica, with Athens its metropolis.
The character and condition of these states
present a totally different appearance from those
of the eastern kingdoms. In these we notice the
endeavour to unite and consolidate what is mani-
fold and heterogeneous : in the former, the en-
deavour to render multiform what is individual
or homogeneous. In the latter, every thing was
done for durable and unchanged establishment :
in the former, there is the most multifarious change
of form and lineament. The latter relied upon
great masses and corporeal force : the former,
upon the excellence of their interior structure, their
intellectual strength, and their moral courage.
In the East, predominated the character of what
is great, gigantic, and astonishing : in Greece,
that of the beautiful, the ornamental, the pleas-
ing, the tasteful. Government, in the East, was
despotic ; the will of one man held all together j
the people was but a mass without a will of its
own, and put in motion by the beck of its de-
spotic governor. In the Grecian states, the peo-
ple had a will, and dared to utter it ; they were
their own governors : the human mind there
developed itself freely and unrestrained; made
the highest attempts in art and science, political
wisdom, and the refinements of civil life, Gre-
cian refinement and cunning became proverbial;
the fine arts of Greece are admired to this day,
as the models for all nations. Orpheus, Homer,
Pindar, Sophocles, are still renowned as among
82 THE MEDO-PERSIAN EMPIRE.
its poets; Herodotus and Tluicydides as its his
torians ; Isocrates and Demostlienes as its orators ;
Zeuxis, Parrhasius, and Apelles as its painters ;
Phidias and Praxitiles as its sculptors. Greek
philosopliy, with its Pythagoras, its Plato, and
its Aristotle, was the only intellectual leaven that
set in motion the inert mass of the dark middle
ages. Greek scierwe was the forerimner of the
reformation ; and Grecian 7)und prevails still in
our schools of learning, and in our whole system
of education, and has incalculable influence iii
forming the spirit of our age and of our habits.
But even this attempt to derive the welfare of
mankind from the powers of human intellect, no
less than that of the East to derive it from mere
physical strength, was to be put to shame. For,
after all, it was nothing more than the fleshly
nature of the animal man, which, under the
pretext of intellectual culture and elevation,
sought to make itself the source of all good,
as the moral habits of the Greeks plainly showed :
and the great influence, which the Grecian cha-
racter has gained over the formation of man in
the West, is sufficiently accounted for, from the
enmity of the natural man against God and
against his law; to which enmity, the selfish-
ness we here speak of is but the nurturing coun-
terpart.
Greece had already wrought with no inconsi-
derable influence abroad, by the moral culture
and improvement of its colonies, planted here
and there on the shores of the Mediterranean.
Commerce and manufactures, art and science,
civil polity and popular liberty, all of the truly
THE MEDO-PERSIAN EMPIRE. 83
Grecian kind, flourished and extended in every
direction. On the western coast of Asia Minor
it planted the cities of Smyrna, Ephesus, and
Miletus ; in the south of Italy, the cities of
Magna Graecia; in Sicily, those of Messene and
Syracuse ; and in Africa, that of Cyrene. In
the islands of Sardinia and Corsica, in Spain and
Narbonensian Gaul, in Macedonia and Thrace,
stood also its colonial cities. All these widely
dispersed, biit component parts of the Greek
population were closely allied with one another,
by community of language, religion, and manners.
The most influential states of Greece were
Athens and Sparta; between which was situated
the flourishing city of Corinth. In Sparta, (the
legislation of Lycurgus being dated at about
900 B.C.) the welfare of the community was aim-
ed at in the perfecting of physical strength, by
habituating them to a hardy and simple manner
of life. The early and constant inuring of every
individual member of the state to masculine and
self-denying exercises, was enacted by law, as
the indispensable means of raising and consoli-
dating a national vigour, that should serve as
the best defence against all foreign invasion. Co-
rinth, on the other hand, meditated its security
and prosperity in wealth and commerce ; while
Athens aimed at an undisturbed national enjoy-
ment, which continually went on refining to the
highest pitch. She was not anxious to wrest to
herself dominion and predominance by force of
arms, but sought intellectual superiority by edu-
cation, polished manners, taste, and cultivation
84 THE MEDO-PERSIAN EMPIRE.
of the arts; and this superiority she indeed ar-
rived at. When her political importance and
lustre had long since disappeared, her approba-
tion in the fine arts was still anxiously courted,
even by the tyrant Nero himself. Her wisely
constructed polity was given her by Solon, about
the time that Jerusalem was destroyed by Nebu-
chadnezzar, B.C. 587. But however high was the
degree of human wisdom at which the culture of
the Greeks arrived, still their history showed that
the secret mainspring of all their exertions was
selfishness; for the petty states of Greece were
continually at strife with one another, as to which
should have pre-eminence and dominion over the
rest ; and it was only the invasion of some com-
mon enemy that served to repress for awhile the
activity of such mutual jealousy and ambition.
Athens was powerful by an excellent maritime
force, great wealth, superior cultivation, and art-
ful policy : Sparta, by her hardily trained and ex-
perienced military, and by her iron firmness. In
Athens, nearly tlie whole population had a voice
in the government : a privilege, which stirred in
the private individual a spirit of self-confidence
and ambition, and a wakefid endeavour after every
personal ability and quali^cation. In Sparta, the
whole community became as one man, through
rigid obedience to public discipline : for this
obedience was not mere mechanical conformity,
much less was it the compelled obedience of
timid eastern slaves ; but it was the free obedi-
ence of principle : inasmuch as every individual
regarded himself as a vital part and parcel of
THE MED0-PER8IAN EMPIRE. 85
the commonwealth, and his heart beat high
with patriotism, valorous pride, and contempt of
death.
(d.) Conflict of Greece with Persia.
Such were the condition, habits, and manners
of a people against Avhom Darius Hystaspis,
king of Persia, ventured to declare war. The
people of Athens had provoked his displeasure,
and Darius was resolved to chastise them. He
sent out a large armed force, which invaded the
territory of the Athenians before they could suf-
ficiently prepare to receive them. This surprise
put them indeed at first to a panic, but they soon
rallied; and, under the conduct of Miltiades, they
attacked the Persians, compared with whom they
were but as a handful of opponents. But what
could be expected of a host, however numerous,
when composed of military slaves, who fight be-
cause they are overawed to do it, and spend their
rage in the first onset ; but who, because no great
minded common interest inspires them, soon lose
all courage against a band of freemen, every one
of whom knows what he means to do, and that
he has to struggle for the very existence of his
family and native home, as well as for his own
personal honour and life ! The Persians were to-
tally beaten and put to flight, leaving all the im-
mense wealth of their luxurious camp to the plun-
der of the Greeks. This momentous victory
sei'ved, however, as an occasion for discovering
how easily those who forget gratitude to God can
be ungrateful to humah benefactors. Miltiades,
I
»b THE MEDO-PERSIAN EMPIRE.
the successful hero of Marathon, was not long af-
ter^Yards, for being less successful in a second
undertaking, brought to trial as a criminal, and
thrown into prison, where he died. This may
remind us, that the utmost civil refinement is no
preservative against eri-ors of a perverse and de-
ceived heart ; and that the wisest civil constitu-
tion, when not based on the law of the living God,
can admit of the grossest civil blunders.
Before Darius could complete his renewed
armament against the Greeks, he died ; leaving
his vast dominions to his son Xerxes, who in
Scripture history is called Ahasuerus. His so-
vereignty extended from India to Ethi6pia, and
consisted of one hundred and twenty-seven pro-
vinces. His magnificence and power, his surap-
tuousness and pride, are brilliantly described in
history. But all was rather superficial than so-
lid; it wanted interior strength and firmness.
During his reign, the Jews in Babylonia, and in
the rest of his dominions, were in great danger
of utter extinction ; but were preserved by the
intervention of Esther, a noble woman of their
nation, whom Xerxes had chosen for his queen,
and who obtained for Mordecai, her Jewish re-
lative and guardian, the ofiice of prime minister,
with licence for her nation securely to avenge
themselves on all their personal enemies. But
respecting any public ackowledgment on the
part of Xerxes concerning God, the living God,
history has nothing to record. Hence the deep
humiliation which he had to undergo. He had
inherited from his father the war with Greece,
and he prepared an immense host, large enough
THE MEDO-PERSIAN EMPIRE. 87
to vanquish ten times the number of Greeks, had
it only been as valiant and well-ordered as it was
numerous. It was raised out of fifty-six different
natiolis, and consisted of one million seven hun-
dred thousand men of arms. The march of this
vast army across the Hellespont, upon two bridges
of boats, occupied seven whole days. But its van
guard had no sooner reached the narrow pass of
Thermopylae, where the Spartan king Leonidas
with a handfxil of brave warriors sacrificed his life
to the welfare of his country, than it sustained con-
siderable loss. In the naval battle near Salamis,
in which the Athenian 2;eneral Themistocles was
commander-in-chief of the Greek forces, the host
of Xerxes was totally defeated ; and, like Napo-
leon in these modern times, who escaped from
Russia on a sledge, did Xerxes, affrighted at
Grecian valour, retreat precipitately from the
scene of conflict, in a small wherry, and escaped
to Persia. Only three hundred thousand of his
men did he leave behind in Thessaly : but these
also were entirely routed by the Spartan general
Pausanias in the battle of Plata^a ; and, on the
selfsame day, another Greek force destroyed the
whole Persian fleet on the coasts of Asia Minor.
Xerxes was assassinated : and, during the reigns
of his successors, Artaxerxes Longimanus, (Ar-
tasastha,) Xerxes ii., Darius ii., Artaxerxes ii.,
Artaxerxes iii., down to Darius Codomannus,
who was vanquished by Alexander, the Persian
empii'e was overrun with disorders, insurrections,
fratricides, and horrors of every description.
The Greeks, and especially the Athenians, hav-
ing become inordinately elated by these victories,
0» THE MEDO-PEBSIAN EMPIRE.
to which had been added one more under Cimon
the son of Miltiades, who defeated the Persians
by sea and land near the river Eurymedon in Asia
Minor ; and Athens, under Pericles, about 440
B.C., having attained the summit of her glory and
prosperity, her plunge into deep humiliation soon
ensued. For now commenced the Peloponnesian
war, which lasted twenty-seven years; in which,
after experiencing manifold vicissitudes, Athens
was at length conquered and taken by Sparta ;
since which she never was able to recover her
former power and military glory. Still her in-
tellectual advantages, her pre-eminence in arts
and sciences, could not be wrested from her ; but,
at that very period, she could in this respect boast
of her greatest and most distinguished men, whose
i-enoAvn has been transmitted through every age
to the present times. Architecture and sculpture
were then in their highest perfection, the few and
shattered memorials of which are still the admira-
tion of the world. Her greatest orators, histo-
rians, and philosophers also lived at the same
period. Pre-eminent among the latter, was So-
crates ; who, in the midst of idolatry, emerged
to the clear conviction which he was bold enough
to profess, that only one God governs the world.
Also, Plato ; who, probably, in his extensive tra-
vels, had obtained a sight of some of the sacred
writings possessed by the people of God, and thus
left to his numerous disciples a doctrine purer
than that of heathenism in general, concerning
God as the fountain of all good.
Sparta now stood for a while at the head of
Grecian power ; but was soon subverted from it
THE MEDO-PERSIAN EMPIRE. 89
by the Thebans, under Pelopidas and Epaminon-
das. Thus did one state in Greece become the
oppressor of another, and the internal weakness
which this at length produced, made it easier for
a foreign aggressor to subdue the whole country,
and to teach the Greeks, by painful experience,
that the selfish principle is the root of all mischief.
(e.) Macedou and Alexander the Great.
Macedon, in the north of Thessaly, had
formed itself into an independent state from the
commencement of the ninth century before tlie
Christian era ; and its absolute monarch, in the
year 360 B.C., was Philip, a man of great am-
bition, especially for conquest and extension of his
dominion. He succeeded in adding to it Illyria,
Paeonia, Thessaly, and Thrace ; and a similar fate
now imminently threatened Greece itself. He lost
no opportunity to mingle himself with its affairs,
by adulation and bribery, in order to establish his
interests in that country. The celebrated orator
Demosthenes was, indeed, unwearied in most ur-
gently and eloquently warning the Greeks, and
especially the Athenians, against all intercourse
with him ; for he had clearly perceived the king's
ambitious designs : but the Athenian people were
become too thoughtless and fickle to be rallied
back to sober and serious consideration. At
length, Philip poured his disciplined and veteran
troops into the Grecian territories, and gained,
in the battle of Chseronea, 338 years B.C., a
complete victory over the united Greeks. There
was now no obstacle to prevent his governing
I 2
90 THE MED0-PER8IAN EMPIRE.
them with despotic power ; but he generously
permitted them to preserve their own forms of
government, and desired only to be chosen
general of the Greeks against the Persians; for
it was to the conquest of the Persian empire that
his ambitious views were mainly directed. But,
before he could engage in this vast enterprize,
he died by the hand of an assassin. The chas-
tisement of Persia was thus delayed, but only for
a short season ; for his son Alexander had inhe-
rited from his father not only the kingdom, but
also his plans and his ambition, and was just the
man to execute what his father had begim.
With all the accomplishments of a hardy educa-
tion and training for heroic exploits, he had not
been neglected with respect to the cultivation of
his mind. The celebrated philosopher Aristotle
was his preceptor, and the poems of Homer had
enraptured his ambitious spirit. Thus, his ardent
thirst of renown had increased more and more ;
and nothing woidd satisfy him, but distinction as
a mighty conqueror. It is related of him, that
upon hearing of any new victory obtained by his
father, he exclaimed with emotion, " My father
Avill leave me nothing to conquer ! " and that,
some years after, when he himself had overrun
half the world with his victories, he was dejected
at the thought tliat he should soon conquer the
remainder, and have nothing to do. Thus was he
from his youth instigated by that spirit of Baby-
lonian despotism, that would break down eveiy
natural partition wall between nation and nation,
and unite the whole population of the globe under
one head ; though it is not likely that he, any more
THE MEDO-PERSIAN EMPIRE. 91
than othei-s of the world's conquerors, could fore-
see the unhappy and destructive consequences
which must necessarily ensue from such a union of
all nations. " God hath set eternity * in man's
heart," saith the Scripture ; that is, there is in the
human heart an insatiable longing, that can be
allayed by nothing less than a gratification which
is everlasting; and what gratification can be such,
except that of communion with the everlasting
God ? But most persons misunderstand this
insatiableness of the human soul, and seek to
quiet their own with things visible and finite,
that is, with something less than God, and there-
fore apart from God : such as riches, of which
they can never amass enough ; or sensual enjoy-
ment, which at best only momentarily diverts
this craving appetite, but which, so far from
satisfying it, serves sooner or later to increase its
uneasiness ; or with mere knowledge and science,
but this never satisfies it ; or with the honour
which cometh from men, and hath an end ; or
with the enlargement of power, in pursuing
which we always descry a superior. All these
various kinds of endeavours are vain, for they
cannot fill up the abyss of the soul's desire. Its
thirst still remains secretly unallayed, and when
it passes into the invisible world, where all those
earthly means by which it has sought to satisfy
or deafen the clamours of its ardent desire are
fallen away, then does this desire, as we see in
the case of Dives, break out into flamings and
tormenting fire. They only who satiate their
* aSyn, Eccles.iii.il, Ileb.
92 THE MEDO-PERSIAN EMPIIIE.
soul's appetite with the infinite excellences of
God, with the saving knowledge of Divine
truth, and with the " meat indeed," and the
" drink indeed," of spiritual life, can find that
true contentment which renders them happy
here and hereafter.
Alexander sought to allay the thirst of his in-
most soul, by being conqueror of the world ; and
had to experience, in attempting it, that the im-
mortal spirit suffers want amidst an overflow of
earthly sustenance. He enterprised the over-
throw of the great Persian empire with only
thirty-four thousand men. But then his soldiers
Avere practised and hardy veterans; all fired
with the spirit of their king, the spirit of greedi-
ness for worldly glory, and every one of them
was a match for every ten of the effeminate and
slavish Persians. Darius Codomannus, a good-
natured but weak prince, employed all possible
means to avert the approaching destruction of
his empire ; but, in the very first battle, at the
river Granicus, in Lesser Asia, his army was de-
feated by Alexander ; and near the little town of
Issus, in Cilicia, where Darius himself fought
in person, he lost a second battle in encounter-
ing the heroes of Macedon, and fled into the
heart of his empire. Alexander marched his
army along the coast of the Mediterranean, and
thus gave the king of Persia time to collect re-
inforcements ; for he had already such confid-
ence in his own prowess and good fortune, that
he made sure of becoming master of Persia.
Every city he reached on his march surrendered
to him ; only the inhabitants of Tyre, whose
4
THE MEDO-PERSIAN EMPIRE. 93
city, since its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar,
had been rebuilt, not on its former site, but on
an islet at a little distance from it, and which
they deemed impregnable, held out against him ;
but in vain. Alexander was not the man to leave
any enterprise unaccomplished : he constructed
a causeway from the continent to the island, and
by this means he took and razed the city. Thus
was fulfilled the prophecy concerning Tyrus, in
the 27th chapter of Ezekiel.
The government of Jerusalem had, since the
rebuilding of the temple, been in the hands of
its successive high priests ; and it does not appear
that the descendants of those who had returned
from the captivity, bore any considerable part in
the public affairs of the world at large. They
were still but a small and not a strong nation,,
and had enough to do with attending to them-
selves. But as the people of God were ap-
pointed to stand in a certain connexion with all
the great empires of the world, with the Baby-
lonian, the Medo-Persian, the Macedono-Gre-
cian, and the Roman ; partly in the way of act-
ing influentially upon them, and partly in the
way of being chastened by them ; therefore they
were not to remain untouched by the victorious
march of Alexander. And for once, at least, in
his life, was this haughty chieftain to feel the
nearness of the glory of the God of Israel, that an
occasion might be given him for doing homage
to His superior Majesty, even as Nebuchad-
nezzar and the earlier Persian kings had done.
The Jewish historian Josephus relates, that Alex-
ander had despatched a message to Jerusalem,
94 THE MEDO-PERSIAN EMPIRE.
to Jaddua the high priest, inviting him and
all his people voluntarily to come over to the
Macedonian conqueror. Jaddua returned an-
swer, that it would be treachery and ingratitude
for himself and his people, of their own will, to
revolt from the Persian government, by which
they had been treated with kindness ; and that
they could only yield to it by compulsion.
, Therefore, after Alexander had taken Gaza, he
marched before Jerusalem, in the year 332 B.C.,
and Jaddua surrendered to him the city, when he
saw that all opposition was hopeless. According
to the liberal custom of the Greeks, who allowed
every national god its own rights and privileges,
(see Acts xvii. 23,) Alexander brought an offer-
ing unto Jehovah, in the temple at Jerusalem,
as the high priest had instructed him ; and the
high priest showed him also, in the sacred books,
the prediction of the prophet Daniel, which re-
lated to the new Grecian empire, at which the
king was naturally surprised. But as to any
special impression made on the mind and dispo-
sition of Alexander, by this contact with the sanc-
tuary of Jehovah, history has nothing to relate ;
and his pride was not thereby humbled, but
perhaps only the more raised by it. Alexander,
however, granted the Jews exemption from tri-
bute every sabbatical year. Lev. xxv., and left
their peculiar constitution inviolate.
From Jerusalem he marched to Egypt, con-
quei'ed the country, and founded a new maritime
town, which he named Alexandria, and which
grew at length to a very large and important
city of commerce. For this end, he peopled it
THE MEDO-PERSIAN EMPIRE. 95
with the inhabitants of ruined Tyre. After he
had further made a strange journey to the tem-
ple of Jupiter Amraon, in the Lybian desert, he
marched from Egypt, for the purpose of giving
the final blow to the Persian empire, part of
whose pi'ovinces he had already brought under
his power. Near Gangamela, (Arbela,) a gene-
ral eno;afjement ensued. Although Darius had
brought into the field a very large and well-
armed host, yet victory again declared itself in
favour of Alexander, and his bold band of war-
riors : for if God has purposed to overthrow
an empire, even the greatest hosts are of no
avail. Darius himself escaped with difficulty ;
and Alexander, without further trouble, took the
cities of Babylon, Susa, and Persepolis. Im-
mense treasure was plundered in these several
cities, and it required twenty thousand mules and
five thousand camels to carry it off". The ruins
of the noble palace of Persepolis are to be seen at
this day. It was given to the flames, and its relics
still standing, after the lapse of twenty centuries,
remain to teach the important verity, that a
kingdom not at unity in itself, and that does not
rest its pillars upon truth and the fear of God,
must fall to pieces. Darius would fain have
rallied once more, and have made a final effort
for the recovery of his dominions ; but being sur-
prised and pursued by the Macedonians, he
ended his days by stabbing himself with a knife
borrowed from one of his attendants, and here-
with was the last spark of the great Medo-
Persian empire quenched for ever.
In the prophecy of Daniel, this empire is
96 THE MED0-PER8IAN EMPIRE.
represented by the symbol of a ravenous bear; and
again, by tlie symbol of a strong ram. It is there
further represented, as the bi'east and arms of
silver in Nebuchadnezzar's vision of the great
image of the four successive empires. The in-
terior substance and consistence of its mass is
not so firm and imposing as the empire of Ne-
buchadnezzar. The recognition of the true God
is no longer so lively ; the working of such
sacred leaven was checked by the catching dif-
fusion of the fire doctrine of the Parsees, a sect
derived from Zoroaster. The more remotely
history descends from the first generations of
mankind, the more do we find a want of primi-
tive freshness, lively simplicity, strength, and so-
lidity. " God made man upright ; but they
have sought out many inventions." They have
divided and subdivided their thoughts and facul-
ties, to make manifold the life which was in-
tended to be simple ; and things having gone
thus far, to the unnerving of the human powers,
they go still farther as by a second nature, as it
were by system and law. The sprightly brook,
which purls like crystal all alive, and presently
bounds in dashing sheets from the rocky heights,
and forming a beautiful rainbow at various ele-
vations in its clouds of spray, enters at length
the broad level below, and widens into a shallow
over the fields, is now no longer clear, by reason of
the muddy bed over which it slowly creeps ; but
generates stagnant marshes on either side, which
it would finally form into one large lake, were
not a new channel dug to let it forth. Thus
each successive form of universal empire finds
THE MEDO-PERSIAN EMPIRE. 97
its supply of interior vital strength diminished ;
so that, in order to stand, it is forced to employ
and waste its capital. Hence there is an in-
crease of poverty, a diminution of currency in
the precious metal, the gold and even the silver,
so that copper and iron are all that remain. The
more the royally stamped coin grows polished
and smooth, the more does it discover, as being
now only lackered, the inferior quality of its
substance ; and this it does, first, as is always
the case, in its more elevated spots. Human na-
ture has to be made sensible of its own jioverty
and needy condition, and to learn that all at-
tempts to construct happiness upon foundations
merely human, or to heal with simples of earthly
growth the mischief which has befallen it, must
end in disappointment and disgrace. The mul-
titude, who have been used merely as tools by
the mighty for attaining the objects of their
ambition, ought to sigh for a Deliverer, and to
learn to inquire for a Prince, to whom all souls
are precious, and who is minded to care for all.
The longing for the Messiah should be stirred
up, not only among the people of God, but also
among the people of the kingdoms of this world,
and thereby a way and entrance be prepared for
him. The more the successive empires of the
earth have sought to confirm and enlarge their
dominion at the expense of the welfare of their
people, the more prepared has the world become
for the reception of Him who is " The Father
of the everlasting age," and " The Prince of
Peace."
98 THE GRECIAN EMTIRE.
III. THE GRECIAN EMPIRE.
(a.) Alexander's Conquests and Death.
Alexander was driven on more and more by
his passion for conquest, and marched to India,
where also notliing could resist his power.
People and prince, wherever he advanced,
either voluntarily submitted to him, or were van-
quished by him, and Alexander had already re-
solved to push forward beyond the Ganges,
when his own army renounced their former im-
plicit compliance, declaring they would march
no further. They saw that home was becom-
ing every day more and more out of their reacli,
and that all prospect of that period of rest,
which, after so many and great exertions and
hardships, they had seriously longed for, was
but increasingly deferred ; and as Alexander
found them determined to abide by their de-
claration, he was obliged to yield them their
wishes, and to return to Persia. Inexpressible
toils and difficulties awaited their countermarch ;
but Alexander shared them with his meanest sol-
diery, and thus kept up the spirits of the rest.
After the half of his troops had perished in
this expedition, the remainder at length got
back to Persia, and now were all their fatigues
and hardships forgotten in the revels of eastern
luxury. Even Alexander, who had heretofore
been a pattern of moderation and self-mastery,
now gave himself up with his soldiers to the
most extravagant oriental indulgence ; he caused
THE GRECIAN EMPIRE. 99
all salutations to be made to him with bow-
ing of the knee, and abandoned himself to de-
bauchery and wine. He gave upon every oc-
casion the preference to the Persians, to their
customs, ways of living, and laws ; and hereby
disgusted and alienated from him his Mace-
donian companions in arras. But, with all this,
he did not forget his ambition of further con-
quests. He had already laid plans for the entire
subjugation of Africa and India, for the dis-
covery of a passage round Africa, and for uniting
all nations under his sole dominion, with the in-
tention of making Babylon the capital of his
universal empire ; but his death intervened, and
took him off from all his mighty projects, in the
thirty-third year of his age, B.C. 323. Here is,
then, another instance how God has ordained it
for the good of mankind in general, that their
years have, since the flood, become shortened, so
that their vast plans of mischief cannot, for want
of time, be carried into effect. Alexander was
not suffered even to attain to the ordinary age of
man, else he would doubtless have endeavoured
to realize his idea of uniting all nations under
one dominion ; but those who have come after
him in a similar career have had to begin again,
and not possessing the great and vigorous spirit
of Alexander, none of them ever arrived at their
object : notwithstanding the same endeavour to
do it has been manifested by them all, as God had
long before predicted at the building of Babel —
Behold, men will not desist from any thing
which they have imagined to do. Gen. xi. 6.
100 THE GRECIAN EMPIRE.
(/j.) Alexander's Successors.
Alexander left but two sons behind lifni, and
these were infants, and Avere murdered shortly
after his death. His principal captains then
contended with one another, during twenty years,
for the inheritance of his vast dominions, till at
length, as had been foretold in Dan. viii. 22,
his empire was divided into four parts, and the
prospect of universal monarchy was thus set at
a greater distance than ever. One of these parts
formed the kingdom of Syria, which included
the eastern portion of Alexander's possessions,
as Persia, Babylonia, etc. ; another was the king-
dom of Egypt, to which also belonged Phenicia,
Judea, and a portion of Syria Proper ; the third
was the kingdom of Lesser Asia ; and the fourth
consisted of Macedonia and Thrace. The chiefs
who obtained the lordship of these kingdoms,
were of Grecian families ; their immediate cour-
tiers and attendants were Greeks ; their most
flourishing capitals, Alexandria in Egypt, and
Antioch in Syria, were Greek colonies. Thus
was it that the Greek language, manners, cus-
toms, arts, and the spirit of Greece in general, be-
came diffused throughout the East, and mingled
with oriental habits of thinking and acting ; while
the latter insensibly had redounding influence
in remodelling the character of the West. The
principal aim of the East had been to establish
dominion and prosperity by the power of the
fleshly arm : the West, in its predominant Grecian
THE GRECIAN EMPIRE. 101
character, aimed both at the one and the other,
by the power of mind : whereas the Greek ori-
ental dynasties desired to unite these opposite
means together, which however could not be
fully effected, till brought to pass by the imperial
power that succeeded them. But, in contem-
plating the four great empires one after ano-
ther, we find it increasingly evident, that the
interior substance of each was, after all, no-
thing more than "flesh :" hence did each succes-
sively foster within itself more and more the
germ of the apostacy, the enmity of the human
heart against God ; and, consequently, the ele-
ments of penal judgment. By this penal judg-
ment have all the great empires hitherto natu-
rally fallen ; and that which shall arise last will
not escape it.
Of the four kingdoms into which Alexan-
der's conquered dominions were split, that of
Thrace, to which belonged the largest part of
Lesser Asia, first fell to ruin, partly through the
co-operation of a people of Gaulish race, who,
inarching from the banks of the Danube through
Thrace, poured into Lesser Asia, and founded
in the north of that country a kingdom of their
own, the kingdom of Galatia. Together with
it, grew up in Lesser Asia, the kingdoms of
Pontus and Bithynia. The kingdom of Ma-
cedon had much trouble with its restless neigh-
bours, especially with the Greeks. Had Greece
sought her strength by intestine unity, it had
been easy for her to have bidden defiance to the
power of Macedon ; and indeed the establish-
ment of the two popular confederacies of ^tolia
k2
102 THE GRECIAN EMPIRE.
and Achaia was for no other object ; but, owing
to the narrow selfishness which in Greece had
supplanted nearly all public spirit, the crafty
policy of the Macedonian kings found it easy to
circumvent the Greeks, to incense the two con
federacies one against the other, and thereby to
weaken them both. Even those two eminent
worthies, Aratus and Philopoemen, were unable,
with all their efforts, to preserve the independ-
ence of the declining people ; and, like all other
great men in times of gross degeneracy, they
stand as conspicuous as the scale of high water-
mark at low tide, only to show how far beneath
them the whole mass of their countrymen has
sunk away. At length was Macedonia itself sub-
dued by the Romans, in the year 197 B.C. ; and,
forty-nine years after this, it was reduced to a stated
Roman province. Likewise, about the same period,
was the fate of Greece decided. It was swallowed
up in the same great empire, which from this time
stretched itself over all countries ; and with the
infamous demolition of Corinth by the Romans,
in the year 146 B.C., were buried the last relics of
Greek political liberty and gloiy. But Greece
still retained precedency in the kingdom of intel-
lect, and even her conquerors continued in this
respect to pay her the most courtly deference.
By her numerous colonies, by the power of the
Grecian princes who then ruled the world, and
by the general diffusion and adoption of her lan-
guage, she had secured to herself an unperishing
remembrance and a permanent influence. Greek
taste superseded that which was oriental, and
even to this day is the eastern manner of thought
2
THE GRECIAN EMPIRE. 103
and expression insipid to those who have been
trained after the Grecian model.
(c.) Syria and Egypt.
But the special destinies of the Greek empire
turn principally upon the relative condition of
the two great kingdoms of Syria and Egypt,
which were at perpetual war with each other ;
during Avhich, Egypt, under its three first Greek
kings of the house of the Ptolemies, had gene-
rally the ascendancy. The mixture of the Gre-
cian and oriental character evinced itself no
where more conspicuously than in Egypt. By
the demolition of Tyre and the building of Alex-
andria, Egypt became the general mart of com-
merce, and exported the productions of Europe,
Asia, and Africa. But Alexandria was also
the seat of Greek and Eastern learning, and con-
tained immense collections of books. Even the
Jews, who in the various wars between Syria and
Egypt were brought to the latter country, and
obtained patronage and prosperity there, formed
amongst them a distinct school of learned men,
the school of the Alexandrines, a medley of scrip-
tural head knowledge and of Greek philosophy.
But under her succeeding kings, from the two
hundred and twenty-first year before Christ,
Egypt had to suffer by the prepondei'ance of
Syria ; and as early as 202 B.C., she fell under
the protectorship of the Romans, from which,
period she ceases to have her own independent
history.
To the Syrian kingdom, under the dynasty of
104 THE GRECIAN EiMPIllE.
the Selucidas, belonged the heart of the Medo-
Pei-sian territoiy, conquered by Alexander.
The countries of the Euphrates and Tigris as
far as the Indus, to which were soon added the
regions of hither Asia, formed a very consider-
able dominion, Avhich, however, needed to be
held together by a strong imperial hand, to pre-
vent their falling gradually asunder. But the
history of its dynasty is a tissue of disgrace and
abominations ; and, among the princes of the
world, none has so exclusively as king Anti-
ochus Epiphanes, the horrible pre-eminence of
being set forth in Scripture as a type of Anti-
christ. Already, about the middle of the third
century before Christ, had Parthia and Bac-
tria, two provinces of the Syrian realm, revolted
and formed distinct kingdoms. Under Anti-
ochus the Great, the affairs of Syria stood, for a
time, in splendour ; but he got into a war with
the Romans, was defeated, and compelled to re-
sign a portion of his kingdom to the Roman
power, B.C. 190. His son, the before mentioned
Antiochus Epiphanes, who carried on the fifth
war of Syria with Egypt, had purposed to make
the Greek idolatry the dominant religion of his
whole realm, and to impose it by force wherever
it should not be voluntarily accepted. This
fact, together with his having desecrated the
temple of God at Jerusalem, is what principally
constituted him a type of Antichrist. He died a
fearful death. His successors found their power
and influence continually diminishing by insur-
rections at home, and incursions abroad : and
the melancholv history of their dominion ended
THE GRECIAN EMPIRE. 105
in Syria becoming a Roman province, in the
year 64 before the birth of Christ. Thus did
the Romans completely inherit all the power
and glory which, since the time of Nebuchad-
. nezzar, had been seated in the East during the
Medo-Persian, as also during the Macedono-
Grecian government. Here, then, is the precise
point of time from which we date the transfer
of the world's imperial head-quarters from the
East to Europe.
(d.) The Age of the Maccabees.
During the reigns of the three first kings of
Egypt, as Alexander's successors in that coun-
tiy, Judea remained subject to their authority,
and retained at the same time its own civil and
ecclesiastical forms of government, which, in
both respects, was conducted by its successive
high priests. This state of things, also, con-
tinued unchanged even after the Jews had re-
nounced the authority of Egypt, and had will-
ingly subjected themselves to the Syrian king,
Antiochus the Great, which they did in the
one hundred and ninety-eighth year before
Christ. The Jews in Egypt, having suffered
oppression during the reign of Ptolemy iv.,
might have chiefly conduced to this their change
of masters. Many Jews had also been pre-
viously drawn over to settle in Syria, and espe-
cially in Antioch. Their more intimate ac-
quaintance with Grecian customs and opinions,
which was thus introduced in two ways at once,
106 THE GRECIAN EMPIRE.
was not without its influence on the internal
condition of the Jewe. About this time was
formed the sect of the Sadducees, who mingled
the Greek philosophy with the word of God ;
and who, though they admitted the books of
Moses, yet in other respects became abandoned
to a free-thinking infidelity, the prevalence of
which may easily account for Antiochus Epi-
phanes daring so ignominiously to desecrate the
Jewish sanctuary. An opposite party, indeed,
was at the same time formed to confront them,
namely, the sect of the Pharisees ; who, strictly
adhering to the letter of the laAv, rated also veiy
highly the traditions of the church : but their
zeal appears to have been, from the first, more
carnal than spiritual ; whence they were not
qualified to become a consei-vative vital force
against the inroads made by infidelity upon the
heart of the nation.
Antiochus Epiphanes, in the year 170 B.C., de-
filed and pillaged the temple with armed military,
caused the sacred books to be burned, and a mul-
titude of Jews to be put to death who would not be
seduced to apostatize from the law of their fathers.
He determined to introduce Grecian idolatry and
Grecian laws into the whole country ; and now,
a second time, even as at the destruction of Je-
rusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, only more threat-
ening, was there danger lest the kingdom of
God upon earth should be swallowed up by the
powers of the Avorld, and lest every point of con-
nexion between it and the promised Redeemer
should be dissolved and lost. But then did
THE GRECIAN EMPIRE. 107
God raise up the heroic race of the Maccabees ;
who, by wisdom and valour, wrested again out
of the hands of their enemies a kind of independ-
ence for the Jewish people ; to which John
Hyrcanus, the son of Simon Maccabseus, chiefly
contributed, by his alliance with the Romans.
His son, Aristobulus, even assumed the title of
king. But, after his death, there arose a civil
war in Judea ; and the single parties of the go-
vernment family were long at strife and conflict
with one another, till the Roman general, Pom-
pey, having undertaken the oiRce of umpire,
made himself master of Jerusalem, and appointed
Hyi'canus to the high priesthood and princedom
of Judea, on condition of his being tributary to
the Romans. During the reign of this Hyr-
canus, the Idumean Antipater gained more and
more influence in that country ; and, after many
public disturbances and contentions, Antipater's
son Herod was appointed, by the Romans, king
of Judea, in the thirty-ninth year before Christ ;
and hereby the dependence of the Jews upon
the Roman empire became more manifest and
decided.
The condition of Judea had, during the last
centuries previous to the Christian era, been
subjected to very many vicissitudes. At some
seasons she enjoyed a quiet and festal breathing
time, namely, whenever the belligerent parties
did not transfer the seat of war within her very
borders ; at others, she was actually in a state of
prosperity, as under the government of the high
priest Simon, 1 Mace. xiv. ; and, again, she had
seasons of the deepest misery, and the most
108 THE GRECIAN EMPIRE.
dreadful distraction and dismemberment, as in
the reio;ns of Antiochiis Epiphancs and of Alex-
ander Jannaeus. This condition of the Jewish peo-
ple, now become so very depressed and in.-iii2;nifi-
cant in comparison with their former flourishing
times, and which was at best never anytliing more
than a shadow of their ancient glory ; likewise the
cessation of prophecy, the last comnumication of
which had been given by Malachi, as long ago as
B.C. 400; and, again, their divisions among them-
selves into such rancorous ecclesiastical parties ; —
all this could not but contribute to raise to tlie
highest pitch, the longing expectation of a pro-
mised Messiah, and to stir up and render very
acute the feeling of their need of redemption.
And if, among the people of God themselves,
who possessed his light and integrity, there
were, at the Saviour's actual appearing, but few
found to have alive within them any sincere and
spiritual longing for his advent, this could be
no other than an additional proof how deep was
the depravation of mankind in general, and
consequently how needful was the coming of a
Redeemer. External means, as history had all
along taught, could not effect the restoration of
fallen human nature. All experiments of the
kind had failed : the highest culture of the flesh
and intellect in the East and West, the most
powerful empires, the wisest inventions of human
policy, the most splendid temporal prosperity,
the most severe chastisements, all had transpired,
and only served to manifest the corruption of the
human heart in every respect ; even the law^ of
God Avhich had been revealed from heaven, and
THE GRECIAN EMPIRE. 109
his perpetual and immediate intercourse with his
chosen nation by their priests and prophets, could
not directly help that people to true happiness,
and had only the effect of preventing- them from
sinking with so deep a plunge as the rest of the
nations, and of preserving among them a sanc-
tuary of believing hearts, with whom the Mes-
siah, at his coming in the flesh, might connect
his new work of mercy. If, then, the very peo-
ple of God themselves, Avho had his appointed
constitution, his law, and his wisdom from hea-
ven, were thus dwindled down to nothing ; how
could less be expected of the Grecian imperial
government, whose wisdom was of this world,
and contained so little of Divine and funda-
mental truth ? Even the Grecian empire was
to come to nothing, and to confess, by its fall,
that it had not within itself enough stamina of
truth and of Divine life, to overcome the powers
of dissolution and death, and to make good its
promises of happiness to the nations.
(e.) Condition of tlie East and West.
The fundamental idea of Greece, was liberty ;
that of the East, was unify hy implicit obedience.
The history of the eastern empire is a history
of attempts to plant and support unity by im-
plicit obedience. The history of Greece exhibits
a series of attempts to secure a freedom for every
department of intellect and common life. The
history of the fourth universal empire, namely,
the Roman, is pervaded by a continual struggle
between liberty and implicit obedience. Whereas,
L
110 THE GRECIAN EMPIRE.
as, in the East, every endeavour was directed to
reduce tlie importance of individuals to a mere
component fraction of the great total, by uniting
very large masses, as much as possible, under
one general absolute will, — the ruling aim in
Greece Avas to adjudge to every individual a
shai-e in the government ; so that, indeed, every
subject, and at the same time every rulei-, was
severally serviceable to the whole, though he
still remained his own master. The Gi-eeks
would neither be governed, nor govern by sensi-
ble physical strength, but by the power of mind ;
and this dominion continued with them, when
all other power was taken away. But, as they
extended their dominion, foreign mixture could
not be avoided ; and this in turn had its influ-
ence upon themselves, their constitution, and
their religion. Had the Grecian ideas, which
were diffused over nearly the Avhole civilized
world, especially by the victories of Alexander,
possessed inherent life, the nations would have
been made happy by them, and their empire
would have been rendered immoveable. But
thus was it to be made evident, that even by the
most refined and exalted education of the human
mind, which it cannot be denied that the Greeks
attained, no power is awakened in man sufficient
to restrain the corruption of human nature.
Whether the spirit of inquiry and experiment,
which was stirred by the diffiision of Grecian
ideas among the nations, served more to further
or to hinder the reception of Christian truth, it
is not easy to determine ; for often was it the
very character of this Grecian philosophy to
THE ROMAN EMPIRE. Ill
hate and despise the truth, as we learn from
Acts vi. 9, etc., and Acts xvii. 18, etc. ; and as
St. Paul himself declares, in 1 Cor. i. and in
other places, what sort of position the word of
God had to take acjainst Grecian wisdom.
IV. THE ROMAN UMPIRE.
(a.) Rome's Earliest History.
Italy was, probably at the earliest dispersion
of mankind, peopled by the family of Ashkenaz :
but every fresh eastern movement, which occa-
sioned individual nations or national families to
seek out new settlements in the West, brought a
fresh mass of settlers into these western coun-
tries ; and the genealogy of Italy's earliest pe-
riods contains such a multitude of various names,
that it can no longer be decided which settlers
came earlier or later, or which settled in Upper
and which in Lower Italy. Among them we
may mention the Etruscans, (or Etrurians,) who
appear to have had their period of cultivation in
very early times, and long before the existence
of the Romans. Beside these was the central
part of Italy, inhabited by the Latins, the Cam-
panians, the Umbrians, the Samnites, and other
petty nations. In Latium, the territory of the
Latins, was built about the year 753 B.C. that
city in which the empire of the world was for
the longest period to have its seat, and which,
next to Jerusalem, and yet in a way of contra-
I'iety and opposition to it, is to be regarded as
112 THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
the most important city in the world. Rome
was at first a small and inconsiderable town,
with four thousand inhabitants and a territory
of eight square miles ; whereas, at its most re-
nowned period, its dominion extended over five
hundred and twenty thousand square miles, and
over more than one hundred millions of men in
the three quarters of the world. Whether its
founder Romulus was a captain of robbers or a
king's son, is not clearly ascertained ; for on his
history, as also on that of his six immediate suc-
cessors, there still abides some fabulous obscu-
rity, from which, however, thus much emerges
as certain, that a struggle for aggrandizement, a
rude bold spirit of enterprise, and an immove-
able firmness, all along distinguished this infant
state from the very first. The founding of the
Roman state is coincident with the period when,
in Assyria, great commotions were stirred by a
new dynasty ; and when, as one consequence of
them, an end was put to the kingdom of the ten
tribes of Israel. Some outlines of its first con-
stitution, which indeed remained durable long
afterwards, discover themselves at this early pe-
riod ; as the establishment of its senate, the dis-
tribution of its inhabitants into patricians and ple-
beians, the introduction of a polytheism borrowed
in great measure from Greece ; and especially
wars, continually waged for conquest abroad,
and perpetual broils of popular contention against
the arrogant claims of rulers at home. In time
of war, every Roman was a soldier, and martial
superiority to their foes was with them the high-
est and noblest attainment ; whence one and the
same word in their language signifies both virtue
THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
113
and courage. During intervals of peace, tliey
practised agriculture ; and this, in their best times,
was a favourite employment even witli their chief
men ; whence the people, in general, preserved
that hardiness of constitution which was required
for holding themselves in readiness, at any time,
to engage in warlike expeditions. Their laws
were rude and severe. The father of every
family was uncontrolled lord over his children ;
and the instances in which a father, in the capa-
city of public judge, has been known to condemn
his criminal son to death, are far from being the
most revolting of the kind in Roman history.
All considerations were compelled to yield to
those of the commonwealth ; all private interests
were sacrificed to those which were considered
as belonging to the public at large.
The heroic deeds which the earliest history of
Rome exhibits, give us to understand what an
idea the Romans had of greatness and personal
excellence, and how the exercise and strengthen-
ing of courage, and the spirit of daring and en-
during enterprise served to form them into a
people so' invincible. But, willing and ready as
they were to make every sacrifice to the welfare
of the state, the lustre of v/liich, on the other
hand, favoured the ambition of the individual,
they were no less averse to connive at any thing
in their king for the sake of his person, or to
endure any arrogant pretensions from him. This,
therefore, soon gave occasion to a change in their
form of government, and their monarchy was
converted into a republic, in which the govern-
ing persons had to command only for a certain
l2
114 THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
term, and were chosen by the people. The most
ancient and simple form of" government is the
monarchical. It took its rise from the patri-
archal government of families, in which tlie
father of the house was absolute over his house-
hold. A man like Abraham was only the father
of a family, and yet a petty prince, who could
cope with the great Chedorlaomer, and pursue
him even unto the neighbourhood of Damascus.
Just in this way it may have come to pass, that
several joined themselves to a bold leader, who
proved his courage and strength in fight with
the wild beasts that had become too prevalent in
a thinly peopled region, and hence they would
naturally appoint him their lord protector ;
which appears the meaning of what the Scrip-
tures relate concerning Ninirod. Thus, Mhen
such a mighty hunter began to exercise his
prowess upon his own species, he would be-
come a conqueror ; and of this we have like-
wise the first example in the case of Nimrod,
the founder of Babel. Moreover, the monarchi-
cal form of government remained prevalent af-
terwards in the East, as the simplest and most
tried ; it was also more prevalent than any
other in the West : and the histoiy of tlie
Greeks and Romans, who made experiment o-
eveiy possible form of government, has shown
that the political constitution of nations, as it
has set out with the monarchical form, so has
it always sooner or later returned to that form
again. Highly advanced intellectual cultivation,
and elevated pride, and insolence of tlie selfish
principle, have stirred both in the Greeks and
1
THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 115
Romans a struggle for freedom from all vassal-
age; while private men among them have
been ever prompted, by a feeling of their own
strength and importance, to aspire to at least a
share in the government. Even Sparta is no
special exception to this remark, though its
popular government bore a ditlerent constitu-
tional stamp from that of Athens ; for its law-
giver, Lycurgus, Avhen exhorted by another to
introduce the popular government, had pru-
dently replied, " Make the experiment first in
your own family." But the Spartans, who were
governed first by kings, then by ephori, and
lastly by the council of the archons, had freely
yielded to this subjection ; because they believed
that by no other means could the state be
strong and united ; and the self-denial to which
it obliged every private individual, was plenti-
fully allayed by the nurture which it gave to
that selfish principle, by which, under the name
of patriotism, they were all actuated as one
man. Was the state aggrandized, powerful,
and flourishing ; or held it the first rank in
Greece, every citizen shared in all this ; each
of them had, by his very self-denial, contributed
to produce it. The prosperity of the state was
considered the prosperity of every private citizen.
To see it free from foreign influence, to see it
raised above its neighbours, he regarded as so
much freedom and advancement of his own.
The sentiment of each private Lacedemonian
was the same as that which was expressed by
Lewis XIV. of France, respecting himself, " I
am the Government." But when a nation
IIG THE nOMAN EMPIRE.
has developed all the glory of human wisdom,
polity, and hiavery ; when it has attained and
enjoyed all the jnosperity that can be attained
by these means, — then comes a time when this
artificial stretch begins to relax ; the nature that
had been restrained tears off its mask, and then
order changes to unbridled licentiousness, public
spirit to the basest kind of selfishness, wise ha-
rangue to the most insipid babbling, and firmness
of interior strength a mere vain boast. Thus ai'e
all the means for popular institutions exhausted ;
there is no longer any counterpoise, the govern-
ment sinks with the plebeian interest, because
both are one and the same thing, and the people
fall either under the power of a foreign con-
queror, as did the Greeks, or into the hands of
a despot rising from the midst of them, as did
the Romans. The republics of antiquity have
had this experience long ago ; and the same, at
pi-esent, threatens those in America. Even the
history of the I'epublican constitution of Swit-
zerland is no exception to this remark. The
Swiss were prosperous in it, as long as they
retained their ancient honesty and piety, faith-
fulness and simplicity ; and true religion ren-
ders even the woi'st constitution tolerable : but
the most recent period has taught us, in a very
critical manner, how little protection this form
of constitution has afforded against the predomi-
nance of daring infidelity, unbridled arbitrariness,
and crying injustice. Moreover, the government
of the chosen nation Avas, from the beginning,
monai'chical. Before they had kings of their
own choosing, God himself was their king ; and
THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 117
after the Babylonish captivity, the high priest
possessed monarchical power. In the promised
happy period of the kingdom of God upon earth,
they will Iiave " one prince over them ;" and the
government in heaven itself is monarchical ; it is
a kingdom, and is glorified by royal thrones, and
by many crowns.
(J.) Rome under the Consuls.
About the time when the Jews were building
the second temple at Jerusalem, and while pre-
parations were making for the wars of the Per-
sians -with, the Greeks, was Tarquin the Proud,
the last king of Rome, driven from his throne
and country; and, in his stead, were two consuls
appointed, whose government was to last but a
single year, and then were two new ones to be
chosen : they were selected from among the
patricians, but elected by the people. One of
the first two was Brutus, who had been the prin-
cipal means of expelling the royal family. His
sons became implicated in a secret conspiracy,
which had been formed for the purpose of re-
storing the ejected king. Brutus had already
provided against this by a law which should
render it a capital offence for any one to at-
tempt it. The plot was discoyered, and Brutus
caused his two sons to be beheaded in his pre-
sence. Such strict justice and unrelenting se-
verity was, in the eyes of the Romans, of great
value. Tarquin prevailed with king Porsenna,
of Clusium, to come with an army to his assist-
ance ; and Porsenna pushed his march to the
118 THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
very walls of" Rome : only the wooden bridge
over the Tiber was now between him and the
city. After the guards of tlie bridge had fled,
Horatius Codes, with no more than two attend-
ants, made a stand against the whole body of
the enemy, pressing into its narrow pass, for a
sufficient time to allow the portion of the bridge
behind him to be cut away. His two coniiades
escaped upon the last plank, and he plunged into
the river, and swam across, under a shower of
missiles, into the city. Another young Roman,
Mutius Scoevola, soon afterwards found his way
into the royal tent of the enemy, for the purpose
of assassinating king Porsenna ; but, as he did "
not know him, he stabbed his secretary, whom
he mistook for the king. He was seized imme-
diately, and declared, without the least dismay,
that he had intended to kill the king, and that
he had no fear of death : moreover, that many
others meant to follow his example, and would
renew the attempt. The king threatened him
with burning alive, unless he should make fur-
ther discoveries ; whereupon Mutius composedly
held his hand over a pan of burning coals that
stood by, till he had totally disabled it ; to show
that such threatening could not terrify him. The
king, astonished at such firmness, made peace
Avith the Romans, and retired from the city.
Such instances serve to evince the " iron" cha-
racter of the Romans, which was suited to crush
and break every thing in pieces ; as the iron legs,
in the symbolical dream of Nebuchadnezzar, were
designed to signify.
While Rome, whose territory hitherto remained
THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 119
small, had perpetually to contend with her trou-
blesome neighbours, or, like a restless neighbour
herself, was ever attacking some petty state in
her vicinity, her own component parties at home
were also in perpetual ferment, and contended
with one another about their respective dignities
and influence in the commonwealth. The ple-
beians were hindered, by incessant wars, from the
cultivation of their lands, and yet had no other
means of subsistence ; consequently they became
loaded with debt, and dependent on the rich
patricians, and this dependence often degenerated
into the suffering of harsh treatment. This led
to resistance, and refusal to serve in war, and,
finally, to entire division and separation. The
people withdrew to a hill nine miles from Rome,
and left the patricians to shift for themselves,
who coidd not do without them for manual la-
bour, and for protection against the foreign ag-
gressor. After tedious negotiations, the people
were at length prevailed upon to return to the
city, and were allowed to choose out of their
own body two officers, called tribunes of the peo-
ple, who were privileged to attend all the ses-
sions of the senate, to hear all their resolutions,
and to have a veto upon any proposed measure
Avhich to them should seem adverse to the inter-
ests of their constituents. This appointment ren-
dered the business of government more confined,
intricate, and artificial, and restored indeed a
sort of equipoise between the patricians and ple-
beians, but contained material for never-ending
broils and discords : for it was founded on mu-
tual distrust ; and though it served as a brace to
120 THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
hold both parties together, yet it could neither
cover nor conceal the rent that had been made
between tliem. As early as in the middle of the
fifth century before the Christian era, was it at
length conceded that patricians and plebeians
might intermarry ; and in the course of the next
century, the plebeians, after a long struggle, ob-
tained as a right that persons gradually promoted
from their own rank should become as admissi-
ble to all the high offices of state as were the
patricians by birth. We shall here give but one
instance of these contentions. Immediately af-
ter the appointment of tribunes, a famine ensued 5
and, as all the chastisements of God only serve
the more to discover the perverseness of any
people who regard him not, this famine proved
an occasion of rancorous strife between the peo-
ple and the aristocracy, who imputed the cause
of it to each other, because they were alike
guiltily ignorant of their common Lord, and of sin
as the common cause of their calamity. The
senate obtained corn from Sicily, and deliberated
whether it should be sold for its value in money,
or given gratis. The stern and haughty Corio-
lanus, a veteran warrior, who had done consider-
able services to his country', insisted that it
should be sold ; being determined to avail him-
self of this opportunity of humbling the ple-
beians, and to wrest from them the rights they
had so recently obtained. The people, in resent-
ment, expelled him from the city, and he fled to
the neighbouring Volscians, who entrusted him
with the command of an army, to chastise the
Romans. With this force, he presently posted
THE ROMAN EMPIRE 121
himself in a menacing position under the walls
of Rome, and all endeavours of the alarmed in-
habitants to soften him were fruitless. At length,
his mother and wife succeeded in persuading
him to withdraw. He marched back the army
of the Volscians, but had to atone for his cle-
mency with his life, B.C. 488.
A great huiiiiliation befel the proud and hither-
to successful Romans, about the year 390 B.C.,
when a bold host from Gaul, under the conduct
of Brennus, invaded their northern territory ; a
prelude of those awful visitations which, after a
lapse of centuries, should arrive from the same
quarter, and put an end to the glory of Rome.
The Roman army was totally defeated ; the in-
habitants of the city fled ; Rome was taken and
burnt. A treaty was entered into with the Gauls,
and it was endeavoured, by a large sum of mo-
ney, to persuade them to march away : but just
at the critical moment, Camillus, a banished Ro-
man general, made his appearance with an armed
force ; he chased the Gauls out of the country,
and Rome was rebuilt.
Rome had at that time several such heroic men
as Camillus, who, from love to his country, for-
got the injustice done to himself. History re-
lates, that a wide gap had suddenly opened in
the forum, by the ground falling in ; and the sooth-
sayers insisted that it never would close up again,
until Rome should throw into it what she esteemed
most valuable to her. Whereupon Marcus Cur-
tius, a bold Roman youth, came forward armed,
and mounted on his horse ; and having declared
122 THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
that Rome's most precious things were her arms
and valour, he spurred liis horse, and threw
himself into the gulph, which immediately,
(says the story,) closed over him. Whether the
whole of the story be true or not, we see from
it what it was that the Romans were most proud
of and most confided in.
In other respects, their manner of life at that
period was generally plain, and luxury had not
yet supplanted the ancient rude simplicity.
Commerce, the usual product of luxury, had not
yet with them become maritime : agriculture
was still their most important business in times
of peace ; and Cincinnatus had to be fetched from
his plough upon being chosen to the dictatorship,
an office of absolute sovereignty, which existed
only during occasions of great national difficulty ;
and Curius Dentatus, who was three times con-
sul, was, when visited by the ambassadors of
the hostile Samnites with the vain purpose of
bribing him, found by them in his cottage, boil-
ing vegetables in an earthen pot, and was fetched
by his countrymen from such a humble dwelling
to command their armies. In Sparta, Lycurgus
had forbidden the use of gold and silver coin,
and allowed only that of iron, with a view to pre-
vent luxury ; and it was four hundred years after
this before money began to be minted at Rome
and to be called pecunia, (from pecus, cattle,)
either because cattle had been hitherto the most
common medium of bai'ter and exchange, or
because some figure of the kind was stamped
upon the coin. At Athens, in the time of Solon,
THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 123
B.C. 550, the price of an ox was five drachmas,
(about one Prussian dollar, or three shillings and
fivepence English,) and that of a sheep was half
as much. About two hundred years after this, the
standard price of a modiiis (a half bushel or two
pecks) of wheat was one as, (about one kreuzer, or
the third of an English penny.) But this is not so
much a proof of the real cheapness of commodi-
ties, as of the scarcity or high value of money.
Even Roman ladies used personally to bake bread
for their families. Wine was then rather a strange
thing ; and a reputable citizen has been known
to put his own wife to death, because she had
privately indulged in excessive drinking. The
religion of the Romans, if their superstition may
be so called, was carried to a great extent. No
enterprise was adventured on without consulting
the gods, whose favourable assent was inquired
for, by contemplating the flight of birds, by con-
sulting the entrails of sacred victims, and the
like. It was by means of such superstitions that
the priests acquired that imjiortant influence
which they exercised in all public affairs. Such
a religion could not, of course, any more than
the other superstitions of the heathen world,
teach a word concei-ning love to God, or con-
cerning the love of God to men. The gods of
the heathen were objects of dread, whom they
sought to propitiate and conciliate; this shows,
however, that at least a belief every where pre-
vailed respecting an influence from the Invisible
upon the lives and affB,irs of mankind.
Rome had always hitherto very jealous and
formidable neighbours, and her territory was not
124 THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
yet much enlarged ; neither was it till the year
338 B.C., that she had made herself entire mis-
tress of Latiura. About this period, and still
later, her wars with the Samnites were attended
with great danger, and often embarrassed and
humbled her. But Rome was constitutionally
of a persevering and indomitable spirit ; she had
such an iron constancy, that no loss or damage
could compel her to yield to her enemies, or to
accept peace from them upon any dishonourable
terms : but she always acted in these respects
like a desperate gamester, impassioned to the
utmost risk, whose notion is, " If I now give up
play, what I have lost is lost for ever ; but if I
go on, I may win it back again, and with im-
mense advantage ;" and so he risks his all upon
one more adventure. Many a one has, by such
policy, been ruined irrecoverably ; but to Rome
it was always successful, because God had des-
tined her to be the mistress of the world. Yet
how good is it, that men do not know the pros-
perity that awaits them ! Had the Romans
foreseen the power and splendour at which they
were destined to arrive, their pride would have
been intolerable to the rest of mankind ; it was
enough that their spirits were not to be broken
by misfortune.
By their subjugation of the Samnites, which
was at Rome's heroic period, a way was opened
to the conquest of all Italy. If a formidable
power here and there opposed them, yet it stood
alone, and so was easily crushed by Rome's con-
tinually augmenting strength. Even a foreign
foe, in the person of Pyrrhus, king of Epirus,
THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 125
could effect nothing against them. It is true, that
in conflict with them he gained several battles, by
means of his elephants and Grecian mode of war-
fare ; but by these his forces became continually
more and more reduced, so that he was at last
totally defeated, and fled home in precipitation.
Still more arduous and important in their conse-
quences were their wars with Carthage; for herein
they had to exert themselves to their utmost to
avert destruction : and, as a rebuke to the injus-
tice and cruelty with which they ti'eated the
vanquished, they caught from them the infection
of that insidious poison, which slowly but surely
wasted their vital strength and prepared their
downfal, namely, luxury and looseness of morals,
together with a blind confidence in what they
thouo-ht their unchanoeable good fortune. This
confidence flattered them to regard themselves
as the lords of the world, and so to push and
continue their conquests until the empire had
grown to such an unnatural bulk, that it sank
by its OAvn Aveight. Meanwliile, their luxury
and lax morals gradually robbed them of their
constitutional vigour, and so weakened their na-
tional spirit, that at last it could no longer bear
up and manage its own gigantic body, but gave
birth to such an enormous mass of depravity
and crying abominations, as necessarily brought
down upon it the judgment of dissolution.
(c.) The Punic Wars,
Mercantile states, such as Tyre, which have
possessed but a limited home territorv, and
m2
126 THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
whose population has become rapidly multiplied
by reason of their great prosperity, have some-
times been obliged to cause a portion of their in-
habitants to emigrate to regions beyond and
more thinly peopled ; or they have found it poli-
tic to get settlements established for their emi-
grant countrymen at places with which they
have been most connected in traffic, or where
they have wished to establish marts for their ar-
ticles of merchandize. From the one or the
other of these measures, when not from both to-
gether, originated the colonics of former ages.
Thus arose Tartessus (Tarshish) in Spain ; thus,
also, Carthage (New Town) on the coast of
Africa, in the country of modern Tunis, both of
which were Tyrian colonies. The latter apjiears
to have been founded about the beginning of the
ninth centuiy before the Christian era. Carthage
had inherited commerce from the mother state ;
but bore, like the effigy of justice, the sword as
well as the scales, and subdued to her dominion
the whole surrounding country, together with Sar-
dinia, Corsica, and a portion of Sicily. She had,
moreover, liei- own colonies, which were as grand-
daughters of Tyre, in Spain and Portugal, and
on the western coast of Africa. At the period
when Rome came into conflict with her, the traf-
fic of the world was no longer at the command
of a single power, as it had been in the flourish-
ing times of the Sidonians and Tyrians. Tyre
was indeed fallen, but Alexandi-ia had risen in
its stead to great wealth and influence ; Miletus,
and other cities of Asia Minor, as also the Greek
and Sicilian cities, prosecuted a vigorous cont-
THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 127
merce in all directions. Carthage found her
men of business continually multiplyinrr^ and
that it was of the last importance for her to
multiply, as far as possible, her factories, com-
mercial resorts, and stations abroad : she, there-
fore, beheld with a very jealous and invidious
eye the growing power of Rome ; especially as
the latter had now made herself complete mis-
tress of all the south of Italy. When ready com-
bustibles are brought together, a small spark
can kindle a conflagration ; and this was the case
at present. An insignificant dispute respecting
the city of Messina, in Sicily, gave the signal
for those wars of Rome with Carthage which
continued for above a century, and for the com-
mencement of which the two powers were very
unequally fitted ; for the Romans were soldiers
by profession, whereas the Carthaginians were
merchants. Rome had a veteran standing army,
already so inured to conquest, that for the pre-
sent it had no immediate employment ; and Car-
thage possessed an excellent naval force, against
Avhich the Romans could as yet bring only a
fleet of pitiful barges. But Rome was not to be
dispirited on this account : what she had under-
taken, she felt it necessary to accomplish ; and
what was not possessed, might be obtained. A
Carthaginian vessel having been stranded on
their coast, the Romans took this for their model,
and by it they soon constructed a fleet of one
hundred and twenty ships of war, with which,
upon their first naval encounter with the Cartha-
ginians, their military experience, which was now
put to a new sort of trial, strikingly displayed
128 THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
itself, and they gained a complete victory. The
marble columns which they erected, as a memo-
rial of their first grand and successful naval bat-
tle, are still standing at Rome : it took ]jlace in the
year B.C. 2C0, and from that time the Romans
Avent to work on the offensive, and deputed an
army against Carthage itself. This army, how-
ever, was beaten, and Regains, its commander,
taken prisoner. Some years afterwards, when
the Romans had recovered the ascendant, the
Carthaginians sent Regulus to Rome, with a com-
mission to treat for peace. He however, npon
his arrival, instead of executing any such com-
mission, boldly advised his fellow citizens to pro-
secute the Avar with all vigour, because he wx'U
knew the present weakened condition of Car-
thage ; and though he equally knew that a hor-
rible and lingering death aAvaited him upon his
return, the most pressing entreaties of his coun-
trymen and friends could not prevail Avith him to
break his promise of returning to Carthage.
Here Avas firmness, Avhicli was Avell AAorthy of a
better cause. Subsequently, the fortune of war
Avas turned for awhile. The Carthaginians, hoAv-
CA'^er, found themselves at length obliged, by
their great losses, to conclude a peace, under
very severe and humiliating conditions, in the
year B.C. 241.
The second Punic War, occasioned by the
treachery and insolence of Rome, commenced
B.C. 218, amidst circumstances very different
from those of the first. The Carthaginians had
now Hannibal for their general, Avho gave the
Romans a ureat deal of trouble, and Avho was an
THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 129
instance how much depends on the enterprise and
experience of a single leader. When this remark-
able person was scarcely nine years of age, his fa-
ther, Hamilcar, had made him swear everlasting
hatred to the Romans ; and had all Christians kept
their vow of devotedness to God, as faithfully as
Hannibal kept his of hatred to the Romans, the
earth had long since become a paradise. At the
time that the Romans were declaring war at
Carthage, Hannibal, with his well-appointed ar-
mament, was stationed in Spain, and now pushed
his marches across the High Pyrenees, and the
steep snow-covered Alps, among innumerable
difficulties and dangers, into Upper Italy, in order
to attack Rome from the noi'th. He lost more
than thirty thousand men in this arduous expedi-
tion, and his army amounted to only twenty-six
thousand when he encountered the Romans, for
the first time, on the banks of the Po. The lat-
ter, however, were completely beaten. A second
Roman force was annihilated by him on the
banks of the Trebia, and the consequence of this
victory was, that he became master of all Upper
Italy. A third Roman army was defeated by
him near the lake Thrasymenus, and now the
consternation at Rome became general. Since
the days of Brennus, were the Romans never in
such imminent peril, and for a long time had
they been unaccustomed to humiliation of this
sort. But despondency did not enter their mind.
When they saw that they could do nothing with
Hannibal by force, they had recourse to strata-
gem : for Hannibal, fearing to provoke them
130 THE HUMAN EMPIRE.
to the bravery of despair, had thouu;ht proper not
to attack Home at once, sword in hand, but left
it to the right, on his march into tlie south of
Italy. A Roman army, under the command of
Fabius, a skilful and prudent general, followed
him : but much as Hannibal continually wished
to bring him to a general engagement, Fabius
declined it ; and hence he got the surname of
Cunctator, or The Delayer. He, however, thus
eftected the deliverance of his countrymen ; and
though they afterwards suffered another dread-
ful defeat in Lower Italy, yet Hannibal could
make no advantage of his victories, because he
received no reinforcements from Carthage. His
army had become very greatly weakened and di-
minished, by its many battles ; and the mercantile
and covetous Carthaginians at home, got tired of
the enormous sacrifices they had to make for the
support of the state. Meanwhile, the Romans
had recruited their strength ; they conquered Si-
cily, and transported another armament against
Carthage. Hereupon, Hannibal was recalled
Avith all speed, and attempted a treaty of peace
with Scipio, the Roman general ; but the con-
ditions denianded by the Romans were too se-
vere : and the battle of Zama, in which Scipio
totally defeated Hannibal, decided the fate of
the Carthaginians, who wei-e now obliged to sub-
mit to any terms. Thus ended the second Punic
War, B.C. 201, and Rome stood with renewed
strength, enlarged territory, and greater pride
than ever.
Hannibal, how^ever, had not forgotten his
T,pE ROMAN EMPIRE. 131
oath. He fled to tlie Syrian king Antiochus
the Great, and incited him to "war against the
Romans. But to what avail ? Antiochus him-
self was defeated by them, and only increased
the power of Rome, by being compelled to cede
a portion of his dominions. Hannibal, whom
the Romans greatly desired to make their pri-
soner, fled a second time, and at length, in Bi-
thynia, put an end to his own life by poison, the
same year that his victorious antagonist Scipio
died, on his own rural estate, whither he had
been banished by the ingratitude of his country.
Carthage was now recruited, and had reco-
vered its mercantile importance ; this the Romans
could not behold without jealousy and alarm.
Hence a third Punic War was commenced, by un-
provoked hostilities on the part of the Romans,
B.C. 149. The Carthaginians desperately defend-
ed themselves for two years ; but, in B.C. 146,
Carthage was taken by Scipio the Younger, and
of her seven hundred thousand inhabitants, fifty
thousand only escaped Avith their lives. The city
was burning for seventeen days, a fearful specta-
cle, the awfulness of which seemed, to the people
of those times, not a little augmented by the ap-
pearance, just then, of a great comet with pallid
radiance. Hereupon, Scipio, while beholding
the conflagration, is said to have expressed a
dread presentiment, which was fulfilled long af-
terwards, that a time would come, when Rome
would be subjected to a similar fate. In that same
year, the city of Corinth, with its noble trea-
suries of the fine arts, was demolished and burned
by the Romans, and could never afterwards
132 THF ROMAN EMPIRE.
«
raise itself to its formev lustre. Macedonia
had, two years previously, fallen under the Ro-
man yoke.
Thus do the judgments of the Almighty come
upon great cities and states, when the measure of
their sins is full, and the time of the Divine long-
suffering and forbearance is at an end. The
abominations of the Phenician idolatry, the same
which had wrought so much desolation in Judea,
and against whicli the prophets of the Lord liad
so loudly testified, had been brought with them,
by the Carthaginian colonists, from their mother
country. The wanton luxury, which finds its
head-quarters in great commercial states, had
produced all manner of sins and vices, the torrent
of which no political enactments are sufficient to
stem. This, together with the enormous popu-
lation of the great city, introduced, as is the case
wath all great cities, a very extensive deprava-
tion of morals, which at length knew no bounds.
Thus, Carthage became ripe for judgment, and
underwent the fate of all the great states of anti-
quity which have perished in their sins.
(d ) Gradual Introduction of the Imperial Monarchy.
Rome had, by her complete conquest, gained
an important addition to her territory and
strength ; but the vast wealth, which from this
period she began to accumulate within her capi-
tal, eventually proved her destruction. Thus
was she like a certain beautiful fruit, wJiich,
when ripe, is punctured by a poisonous insect,
and looks even more beautiful in consequence of
THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 133
it, while its whole pulp is gradually changing to
dust. The generals of the Roman armies, the
governors of their conquered provinces, brought
home with them much money and many slaves,
bought up fields and houses, and converted them
into villas, and thus dispossessed the poorer
classes of labour and bread. But then these
poorer classes were Roman citizens, who had a
vote upon the filling up of any public ofiice, and
who, consequently, gave their vote to such as
paid them best for it; thus bribery rapidly found
its way in the seat of empire, and hence it came
to pass, that not always the most worthy, but
only the richest and most liberal in giving, were
chosen to the offices of government. These, as
soon as they became secure of power, sought to
indemnify themselves for their vast largesses, by
various acts of oppression, exaction, and injus-
tice. The riches of Carthage, the luxuiy and li-
centiousness of the Asiatics, the arts and refine-
ments of Greece, and the rude coarseness of
Rome, had now come together ; and wrought to-
gether to the depravation of the people, and the
prostration of their strength. Their simplicity
of manners had now to give place to pomp and
luxury, learnt from foreign nations ; and their
ancient integrity and cordiality was changed to
arrogant pretensions, ambition, and haughtiness
of manners. Their conquests, indeed, still con-
tinued ; and their warlike spirit was not yet di-
minished : they subjugated Numidia; a large
army of the Cimbri and Teutones, who had ad-
vanced from the north of Germany, was defeated
by Marias, B.C. 101 ; Spain submitted to the
N
134 THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
Roman yoke ; the Roman general, Pompey,
vanquished Mithridates, king of Pontus, added
Syria to the Roman provinces, and thereby olv
tained to the Romans the supremacy in Judea.
But, as abroad, so also in Rome itself, there
prevailed a conflict of parties, that of the com-
mons against the patricians; and that of the rich
and influential, among themselves, for power and
precedency. The civil constitution of Rome was
now declining more and more, from that of a
free republic to a despotic monarchy, in proportion
as the Romans began to set a value upon other
things than the glory of arms, public liberty, and
the honour and prosperity of their country. Al-
ready had Marius and Sylla, about B.C. 86, waged
bloody war with each other for precedency in the
state ; and Sylla had forcibly gained to himself
the office of absolute dictatorship for an imlimited
time. Twenty-five years afterwards, three men
confederated together, and divided among them-
selves the government of the empire, nameh',
Pompey, distinguished by his military merits;
Cesar, by his great talents; and Crassus, by his
riches. Crassuslosthislifein an expedition against
the Parthians ; and now the two others stood
alone, each heartily wishing to get rid of the other
as his rival, because each liked absolute dominion
best. Cesar, whose private name became the
origin of that of a succession of emperors, was
a man of good education, distinguished talents,
much variety of knowledge, and great industry
and perseverance. As a prudent and brave ge-
neral, he has seldom been equalled; and was alike
skilful in the use of the sword and the pen. His
4
THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 135
celebrated expeditions in Gaul, a country which
he entirely subdued, and his exploits in Britain,
and in western Germany, which countries he
was the first of the Romans to invade, have
been excellently described by himself, in his
" Commentaries." But he had one weakness,
which, though it at first served to elevate him,
yet, at length, occasioned his overthrow : he
could endure no superior, nor any equal ; but he
would be lord alone. This same Aveakness, or
disease, has brought many to ruin, either tem-
porally or spiritually. Cesar, at Cadiz, saw a
statue of Alexander the Great, and said with
tears to his attendants, " Had he lived to my
age, he had conquered the world; and I have as
yet done nothing." On another occasion, he was
heard to say, that he would rather be the first
person in a village, than a second person at Rome.
From such a man, who so passionately longed for
dominion, the liberty of Rome had little good
to expect ; and Cesar, as soon as an opportunity
permitted, marched with his experienced soldiers,
a whole army devoted to him, into Italy, to crush
his rival Pompey . Italy soon yielded to his arms ;
Pompey was defeated in the battle of Pharsalia,
B.C. 48, (in which German soldiers fought among
Cesar's troops,) and he was murdered in Egypt.
Cesar, indeed, had still to contend with difficulty
against Pompey's adherents in Africa and Spain ;
but he remained conqueror, and now was the
object of his desires attained. The Roman senate
appointed him dictator for ten years, and gave him
the title of Immrator, or Commander, Avhence
136 THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
the word emperor. Even the regal crown was
offered him ; but he chose rather to possess the
real power than the hated title of king, and this
power he well knew how to secure. He s])ai'ed
no pains to hush the malcontents, and to make
the people amends for their lost liberty. The
enormous wealth which he had amassed, in his
wars, was distributed by him liberally and ex-
travagantly. Each soldier got a thousand dol-
lars, and every Roman citizen received twenty.
Oil and corn were bestowed by him in abimd-
ance ; great theatrical shows, as fights of wild
beasts, etc. were given for the entertainment of
the multitude. On one occasion, all the inhabit-
ants of Rome were feasted in twenty-two thou-
sand rooms, at his own expense, and in every
room Avas set two butts of wine. General lux-
uiy, wantonness, and debauch were at a great
height in Rome, at this period. The rich lived
in Asiatic pomp and effeminacy : their houses
were of marble, and decorated with ivory, silver,
and gold. The sumptuous delicacies of all coun-
tries were collected together at their repasts. A
single supper, for a few friends, cost ten thousand
dollars : and a spendthrift, who had run through
all his property except two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars, committed suicide; because he
foresaw that what he had remaining would serve
him for only a single year.
While, on the one hand, the highest refine-
ments of fleshly life unnerved the Romans, and,
in order to meet such extravagance, they prac-
tised injustice, oppressions, and exactions of all
THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 137
kinds, especially in their conquered provinces;
there increased, on the other hand, among the
people in general, by natural connexion and con-
sequence, indolence, rudeness, and dissoluteness
in a restless and disturbing manner; and the
example of the great and rich failed not of its
influence upon the very dregs of the people, who
now, in their own way, gave free course to the
incitements of tlie corrupt heart, and developed
all manner of gross sins and vices. A few valu-
able individuals, such as the stern Cato, and the
distinguished orator and statesman Cicero, who
also gave his mind to philosophical pursuits,
could do nothing to stem the torrent of corrup-
tion, and were even themselves in part assimi-
lated to the perverse notions of their loose con-
temporaries.
Rome, however, still contained a goodly num-
ber of her better citizens, who beheld with sor-
row the long preserved liberty of their country
fallen under the yoke of a single despot ; and
though they did not take the right method for
its deliverance, namely, that which God approves
or commends, yet some allowance must be made
for the times and circumstances in which they
lived, as also for their defective knowledge, by
reason of which, their aim, though noble in it-
self, took a very wrong direction. The arbitrary
despotism with which Cesar managed the people,
and oppressed their liberties^ gave occasion to
these men to form a secret conspiracy against
him ; and, under the conduct of Brutus, a de-
scendant of the ancient Brutus, who put an end
to the monarchy, they undertook to assassinate
n2
138 THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
him. He fell, pierced with daggers, while pre-
siding in the senate, B.C. 44 ; a warning exam-
ple to all who evince much bravery in the con-
quest of others, and none in the denial of them-
selves.
But the Romans were no longer worthy of a
free constitution of government; that is, they
had become ripe for the severer discipline and
monarchy of a despotic ruler. Brutus raised an
array, but was beaten, and fell upon his own
sword. Octavianus and Antony united to
avenge Cesar's death, and then jointly governed
Rome. But they soon disagreed, and came to
open war, in which Antony fell at the battle of
Actium, B.C. 31 ; and Octavianus, Cesar's adopt-
ed son, quickly brought matters to such a crisis,
that he got the whole power into his own hands,
and dared to assume the name of Augustus, or
the Illustrious.
With Augustus, had the Roman empire al-
ready attained its summit of glory ; and, after
his time, it gradually declined. The Roman em-
pii'e was now the empire of the world, the centre
about which all profane history turns, and to
which all events recorded in it bear some I'e-
lation. It was the centre of all nations, at least
of all which were within its knowledge or in-
fluence. A poAver consolidated at home, and re-
spected abroad, had been formerly the modest
aim and ambition of the Roman people; but
now, like a youth who turns some particular
emergency to an assurance respecting his future
destination in life, so Rome, from the period of
the Punic wars, came to an assurance of her
RETROSPECT OF ANCIENT HISTORY. 139
being destined to become the mistress of the
world ; and, from that period, she laboured with
a zeal which never lost sight ot the attainment
of this object. And as already before, so now
still more than ever, was the iron character of
this power, as " stamping every thing to pieces,"
made manifest : and the nations had severely to
feel its selfish hardness, and its inflexible pride.
It was the fourth beast in Daniel's vision, Dan.
vii. 7, "dreadful and terrible, and strong exceed-
ingly ; and it had great iron teeth : it devoured
and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue
with the feet of it." Thus was Carthage trodden
down, and thus Jerusalem.
V. — RETROSPECT OF ANCIENT HISTORY.
Thus have the great empires of the world been,
one after another, presented on the theatre of pro-
fane histoiy ; and each of them has, in its own
way, summoned every effort to make its power
the only valid and durable one, to shape the world
after its own liking, and to establish the felicity
of the human race by human wisdom. But from
one such successive empire to another, and in-
deed from one century to another, it has been
continually more and more evident that all the
glory of the world passeth away, and that the
real welfare of man is not to be expected from
this world. At the very time when Rome had
concentrated in herself, and brought to the high-
est perfection of enjoyment, all the advantages
140 IlETROSPECT OF
and privileges of preceding empires, great mili-
tary power, general commerce, activity and skill
in every trade and profession, refinement and
splendour of luxury and pomp, with education
in arts and sciences ; and when, from the union
of power ahroad, Avith the rise and developement
of all the intellectual powers at home, the great-
est things might have been expected for the de-
liverance and welfare of the nations, and more
immediately of the Romans themselves ; at that
very period, the decline of the ancient order of
things, and of the ancient nations, was preparing
itself; and, at the trunk of the great tree, that
stretched its verdant branches into all lands, a
corroding rottenness had already commenced.
Except in the little country of Judea, there
reigned in all lands idolatry in its various forms,
and with it was almost eveiy where inseparably
connected the service of sin. Inasmuch, then, as
the heathen, in the very places where encourage-
ment and strength for what is good ought to
have been derived, namely, in the temples of
their gods, were here only the more incited and
privileged to sin ; we cannot wonder that all
the bands of discipline and self-government be-
came loosened, and that the shamelessness of
vice increased with every succeeding century : but
rather we must wonder that this did not happen
sooner, more precipitately, and more entirely ;
that in a people in whom the foundation of mo-
rals was so undermined, there sliould still be
found men who could avert from themselves the
influence of the general corruption, keep them-
selves clean in the midst of defilement, and by
ANCIENT HISTORY. 141
their faithfulness to their little knowledge, by
their strong courage and remarkable self-denial,
could shame many Christians of our own times.
This striking phenomenon can only be explained
by the fact, that God, though he " suffered all
nations to walk in their own ways, yet left not
himself without witness among them." Such
" witness" of his among the heathen was mani-
fold ; but was comprehended only by the think-
ing, and the lovers of truth. The manifestation
of God in their conscience, by the sight of his
works, was at the bottom of all idolatry ; which
Avas only a distortion and disfiguration of that
original true knowledge, to which nobler and
more serious minds could always re-ascend out of
the confusion of idolatrous legend around them.
That God did much good to the heathen nations,
giving them rain from heaven, and fruitful sea-
sons, and filling their hearts with food and glad-
ness. Acts xiv. 17, was a fact that could lead
an ingenuous and observinfj mind to the recog;-
nition of his greatness and goodness ; and even
his judgments, which from time to time he suf-
fered to fall upon a rotten membei- or portion oi
the human race, could serve to move such a
mind into humble subjection to his power.
Such seasons of judgment were those which
came upon Sodom, Egypt, Tyre, Babylon, Car-
thage, and Jerusalem. Among the millions
who Avere ruined by the conquering wars of Ne-
buchadnezzar, Cyrus, Alexander, and Julius
Cesar, there may have been many a soul who,
in the hour of severe trial, directed a sighing.
142 RETROSPECT OF
supplicatins; look above to the unknown God.
Fire and hail, storm and inundation, famine and
drought, earthquake and tempest, executed, from
time to time, the message of God to men ; and
certainly this message was understood by one
and another at various times. How often has
God, by pestilence, given the nations witness of
his dissatisfaction with them ! This was of fre-
quent occurrence in the Jewish history. On one
occasion, seventy thousand men died in a few
hours, 2 Sam. xxiv. 15 ; Assyria lost one hun-
dred and eighty-five thousand men in one night;
in the time of Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth king
of Rome, the pestilence carried off the greatest
part of the Roman people ; about the time
when Nehemiah rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem,
in the second year of the Peloponnesian w^ar,
B.C. 430, the pestilence extended over Ethiopia,
Lybia, Egypt, Judea, Phenicia, Syria, the whole
Persian and Roman empire, Greece and the
neighbouring countries, and raged for fifteen
years together. From the putrefaction of the
ruins of Carthage, a pestilential sickness ran
through all North Africa, and destroyed in Nu-
midia alone eight hundred thousand persons.
This pestilence was so dreadful, that in one day,
in one city, and through one gate, more than
fifteen hundred human carcasses were borne to
the pit ; and, in the same city, within a few days,
above two hundred thousand persons died. Two
years before the birth of Christ, the pestilence
pervaded all Italy, and left but few persons to cul-
tivate the ground. Who can suppose that all these
ANCIENT HISTORY. . 143
visitations of God were utterly in vain ! that
some, at least, did not become sobered by them,
and awakened to submit themselves to God !
There were also, besides, found here and there
individuals in whom a special efficacy of 'the
Spirit of God became visible in the midst of pa-
gan darkness, and who were not without influ-
ence upon those around them. Let us think
only of Socrates, the Greek philosopher, who,
in the very focus of blinding heathen idolatry,
found his way to the knowledge that there can
be only one true God ; and who expressly assert-
ed that a guardian spirit stood by him, to assist
him in obtaining this purer knowledge. Let us
think of his disciple Plato, who has received into
his philosophy so many fundamental lineaments
of truth. At the same time we cannot overlook
the certainly not inconsiderable influence which
the dispersion of the Israelites, and hereby the
diff'usion of their purer knowledge of God, had
upon the ideas of the heathen with whom they
came in contact. This dispersion of the Israel-
ites was not confined to Assyria, Babylon, and
Egypt, where they dwelt in greater numbers,
and, as it were, in mass ; a whole circle of
other countries are mentioned in the Acts of the
Apostles, ch. ii. 9 — 11, as places of their disper-
sion. How could the heathen, with all the vari-
ous intercourse the Jews thus had among them,
have failed to become acquainted with their God
and religion, their history, and their laws ? In-
deed, there was, even in the temple of Jerusa-
lem, a special quarter reserved for the heathen
themselves, which was called " the court of the
144 RETROSPECT OF
Gentiles," wliere those Gentiles worshipped the
God of Israel, who had become acquainted with
him through their Israelitish neighbours. Mean-
while God's purpose, to stir up by the leadings
of his providence a desire among the nations
for a mighty Deliverer, was in some measure an-
swered; and the severe oppression, which had
only continued to increase by the ever frustrated
attempt of the great successive empires to better
the condition of the world, so sensibly burdened
the spirits of men, that the longing for a deliver-
ance sought every where to give itself vent.
The obscure predictions which were propagated
either in the esoteric doctrine of philosophers,
or among the popular legends of the vulgar, and
which were found preserved either in the enig-
matical sayings of their ancient writers, or in
deep-thoughted chronological computations, all
marvellously coincided respecting that one and
the same period, the period of the Messiah's
birth. About the time when Augustus the em-
peror of the Romans vt^as born, " a prophet of
their own" (see Tit. i. 12) announced that the
period was come for the birth of Him who should
be Lord and King over all. Similar predictions
were at that time brought to light, and circulated
in Italy and other countries : and not only the
journey of the eastern magi to Jerusalem, but
also the great stir among the then inhabitants of
North Germany, who had been put in commo-
tion by the eastern rumours, appears to be in
connexion with them. In general, the remark-
able commotion which had already then com-
menced among the hordes of western Asia, and
ANCIENT HISTORY. 145
which subsequently broke out in their great
national emigrations, seems only to be explained
by that expectation of a change in the state of
the world, which pervaded all nations at the pe-
riod abovementioned. This change of the world
was, however, of quite another kind from what
the nations imagined, and was to be looked for
rather in its gradual consequences and effects,
than in its external commencement and charac-
ter. It set out from a little point; it began its
work from within, herein differing altogether
from preceding empires of the world ; and the
great King and universal Renovator, " the De-
sire of all nations," was born into the world in
the stable of a poor inn in Judea.
FOURTH PERIOD.
FROM THE TIME OF AUGUSTUS, TO THE IRRUP-
TION OF THE NORTHERN NATIONS.
[B.C. 27. A.D. 375.]
I. — THE BIRTH AND HISTORY OF CHRIST.
In the year 39 B.C. Herod the Idumean, also
named the Great, was ap})oiuted khifj; of Judea
by the Roman senate. Two years after this,
he took Jerusalem, extirpated all who remained
of the Maccabean dynasty, and maintained
his tenure of the crown chiefly by becoming
an early adherent of Augustus. As he was of
heathen descent, he resolved to prove the sin-
cerity of his attachment to his adopted reli-
gion, by repairing and beautifying at great ex-
pense the temple of Jerusalem, which had suf-
fered much damage under the Syrian govern-
ment. This reparation, or rather rebuilding of
the temple, which was continued by the Jews
after his death, was not completed till a.d.
64. In the latter period of the work, eighteen
thousand men were employed about it. But
Herod was, nevertheless, hated for his tyranny ;
and it was his part to increase and strengthen
more and more among the people of Israel,
who for a long time had seen nothing of good
BIRTH AND HISTORY OF CHRIST. 147
days, their longing after the final accomplish-
ment of the ancient prophecies. Yet is it at
the same time to be observed that the greatest
part of the people had already become so de-
based by tyranny and oppression, and so obdu-
rate by wickedness, that the news of the ap-
pearance of a new-born king of Judea excited
terror among them instead of joy ; and only a
few, that were " quiet in the land," sighed for
the coming of the promised Messiah. Yet to
keep alive, by all means, and to strengthen,
even in these few, such an earnest longing, was
a thing sufficiently important. It is true, that
all the Jews still expected a Messiah, but in
quite another way. They would have a deli-
verer from the Roman yoke ; a king, who should
make them again the first, the most important,
and the most prosperous nation upon earth, and
bring the dominion of the world, which was now
in the hands of the Romans, into the hands of
the Jewish nation. How the Jews came to
indulge these expectations, it is very easy to
imderstand. In the writings of their ancient
prophets they found actual promises, which en-
couraged a hope of the kind to be continually
kept alive. But the Jews in general could
not, with their earthly and fleshly mind, com-
prehend the spiritual part of those prophecies ;
and hence, they formed their notion of a Messiah,
out of the imagination and wishes of their own
coi'rupt lieart.
In Bethlehem, a little town lying south of Je-
rusalem, and celebrated as the birthplace of king
David, Avas Christ (the Messiah, or Anointed)
148 THE BIRTH AND
born, of a virgin affianced to Joseph, a carpenter,
of IS azareth ; and the virgin's name was Mary.
To her it had been announced, by the appearing
of an angel, that, through the power of the Holy
Ghost, she should bear the Son of the Highest,
the Deliverer of all nations. Mary was of the
royal line of David, which had now sunk into
obscurity ; and thus was fulfilled to him the pre-
diction which God had given him, 2 Sam. vii.
Wonderful appearances of angels at his birth,
confirmatorj' testimonies fi-om the mouth of pious
Israelites on the occasion of his being presented
in the temple, the strange arrival of the magi
from Chaldea, who desired to do homage to the
new-born King, and had seen his star in the
East, the preservation of the child from the bloody
persecution of Herod, — all this was to Mary and
Joseph a strengthening of their faith, and an en-
couragement to bring up the child committed to
their trust as carefully as their poor condition
would admit. For the rest, the child continued
in quiet retirement; and of his childhood and
youth we have but one single account preserved,
namely, of his going up to Jerusalem at the feast
of the passover when he was twelve years old.
Quite opposite to the ordinary manner was his
preparation for his great public ministiy. When-
ever, at that period, a Greek or a Roman would
prepare himself to become an orator or teacher, he
had to repair to the schools of celebrated orators
and philosophers, and to read the writings of the
ancient sages. The Romans went to Greece for
their education; the Greeks had, long before,
resorted in like manner to Egypt, to study the
HISTORY OF CHRIST. 149
occult wisdom of the priests. The Jews sat at
the feet of some noted scribe or doctor of the law,
(such as was Gamaliel in our Saviour's time,)
and thus got themselves instructed in the law,
and in their traditions. Jesus never went through
any such school of education ; therefore the
Jews exclaimed, with astonishment, when he
stood up to teach, " Whence hath this man this
wisdom, seeing that he hath never learned ? "
Jesus had scarcely read any other book except
the Scriptures of the Old Testament, neither
needed he to do so ; for if others wdll go to the
turbid streams which run out of the conduits of
human science and opinion, he made use of no
such circuitous method, he went to the fountain
itself at once. In prayers, and unintermitting
commimion with God, whom he knew from
childhood as his own real Father, he learned his
wisdom ; a wisdom which even his enemies have
respectfully ascribed to him. It was not till the
thirtieth year of his age that he came forth out
of his concealment ; and then, upon occasion of
his baptism, administered to him in the river
Jordan, by John the great prophet and preacher
of repentance, he was solemnly declared, by a
voice from heaven, to be The Son of God.
When, immediately after this event, he had
abode forty days in the wilderness, and had un-
dergone various temptations from Satan, the
prince of this world, he went into Galilee, and
gathered to himself a small company of disciples
from the lower class of society, fishermen, publi-
cans, uneducated young persons, whom he ad-
mitted from that time into constant intercourse
o2
150 THE BIUTH AND
with himself; and led them, at every oppoilu-
nity, to such a consideration of the world, nuui-
kind, and futurity, as contained little in it in
common with men's ordinary notions. In the
same tenor and manner did he likewise ojjcnly
address the people that assembled to hear him,
and that were attracted to him in great multi-
tudes by his powerful words, and by his match-
less miracles ; he thus addressed them without
any accommodation to their prejudices and i<Tno-
rant notions. The great subject-matter of his
preaching was in accordance with the preaching
of John the Baptist ; " Repent ; for the heavenly
kingdom is arrived." At another time, he said
to the pharisees, " Behold, the kingdom of
God is among you," Luke xvii. 21.
Hitherto had the great empires of the world
successively prevailed upon the earth ; but now
was set up in this world a kingdom of God, a
heavenly kingdom ; though at first and as yet in-
ward, invisible, and therefore also not yet known
to, nor acknowledged, nor discerned by the
Jews. Preparations for this kingdom, or rather
a kingdom of God in embryo, there had already
been under the Old Testament dispensation; but
now the kingdom was itself arrived : and though
it began in littleness and obscurity, yet it gradu-
ally extended itself, so that its exterior setting up
changed all the forms of the governments of this
world and of human life ; and its essence, namely,
the communion of God's children in the world,
though externally imperceived, unacknowledged,
despised, and persecuted, yet by its inward and
vital power, exercised the most decided influence
HISTORY OF CHRIST. 151
upon the affairs and history "of the nations. But
as that saying of Jesus, that " his kingdom," the
kingdom of Messiah, " cometh not with observ-
ation," was' contradictory to the expectations; of
tlie Jews, and therefore offensive to them, so
still more offensive could the implied declaration
no otherwise than be, that they, in their pi'esent
state of mind, were unfit for communion in that
kingdom ; and as he publicly reproved the pha-
risees and scribes in particular, for their un-
righteousness, hypocrisy, and wilful ignorance,
so they made use of all their great influence over
the people in opposing Jesus of Nazareth. It is
true, that Jesus, by his many beneficent miracles,
continually kept up the good will and esteem of
the people in his favour ; but the Jews were a
fickle and versatile race, and, with few excep-
tions, had no mind for the truth. Therefore,
they were offended at his sayings, when he de-
clared that God was his Father, that he came
down from heaven, that he was before Abraham,
and that he should return to heaven. At length
things came to such a crisis, that the priests and
teachers of the people, who could not but fear
they should lose their influence through that of
Jesus, contrived so to infuse their enmity among
the multitude, as to alter the disposition of the
majority, and persuade them to desire the death
of Jesus. Pilate, the Roman procurator, Avith-
out whose consent no public execution could take
place, was weak enough to yield to their impetu-
ous demands against his better judgment, and
permitted Jesus to be sacrificed by crucifixion,
a Roman mode of punishment inflicted only
152 BIRTH AND HISTORY OF CHRIST.
upon slaves ; and this under the pi-etext that he
had attempted to set himself up as king of the
Jews, and was consequently to be regarded as a
rebel against the Roman government. Thus Avas
the great plan of God, to deliver men, brought to
pass by men themselves; and, without knowing
or intending it, they thus became instruments of
the Divine counsel and foreknowledge. The very
fact, that even God's chosen people had become
so depraved, as rancorously to put to death their
greatest Benefactor and Deliverer, the most guilt-
less and best of human beings, was to serve as an
evident proof how needful was this extreme mea-
sure of God's merciful appointment, namely,
his giving up his only-begotten Son for the sal-
vation of men. By his spotless obedience in the
most trying temptations, both temporal and spi-
ritual, and in his most deep hxirailiation, even to
the death of the cross, which he underwent for
the sins of the world, he was to give proof to
heaven and earth that he was worthy to become
the Saviour of men ; and because men were not
only deficient in knowledge of the truth, but
their whole nature was corrupted by sin, he was
to be glorified both by dying and rising again ;
that by the powers with which his glorified hu-
manity was Divinely invested, he might renew,
enliven, and sanctify men's corrupted nature.
God raised him from the sepulchre, and exalted
him to his own right hand in the tlirone of hea-
ven, from whence the great work of restoring
man's fallen race was to be carried on and ac-
complished. For this end has God delivered
to him the urdimited government of the whole
PROMULGATION OF CHRISTIANITY. 153
world, that all may be renewed, and all enemies
of the Divine order of the world may be gradually
subdued. From that act began in heaven a new
period of government. A Man sits upon the
throne of the Majesty on high, and accomplishes
the Divine will in the world after a new manner.
The effects of this government become gradually
visible on the earth to those who have been
taught concerning the plan of salvation ; the
kingdom of God is spreading itself among all
nations, and is pervading the human mass as a
slowly but surely working leaven ; the world is
acquiring another form, and in individuals the
business of redemption is daily accomplishing.
II. THE FIRST PROMULGATIO^ OF CHRISTIANITY.
That this plan of God's government may be-
come known, he has provided in the best manner
by the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament,
which were written by inspired disciples of Je-
sus, and connectedly comprise not only the his-
tory of his life upon earth, and of the first exten-
sion of his church, but also the counsel of God
concerning the world at large. The writers were
fitted for their task by that Holy Spirit of Christ
which he poured out upon them at the Pentecost
after his ascension, and which thoroughly quali-
fied them to fulfil the commission he had given
them. They, and others similarly qualified,
were commanded to go forth among all nations,
and to carry the good tidings to every creature,
154 PROMULGATION OF CHRISTIANITY.
informing tliem that a new period had now
arisen upon tlie workl, that the Saviour of his
people had visited it, had made atonement by
his death for the sins of the Avhole world, and
that whosoever henceforth believingly turned to
him, should be delivered by his power from the
bondage of sin and Satan, and pass from death to
life. Whoever believed, "through their word,"
that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ, the Mes-
siah, the anointed of God, the long-promised
and expected Saviour of the world, every such
person Avas consecrated by baptism as a follower
of Jesus, and was added to the fellowship of his
believing people. This fellowship or communion
is called the church. At first it was only as a
side-chapel added to the temple at Jerusalem ;
but when this Avas destroyed, it still remained,
and thus it became manifest that it had a foiuid-
ation of its own. Its first members were JeAVS ;
and also when the apostles began to go forth into
other lands, they addressed themselves in prefer-
ence to the Jews scattered every Avhere, and only
then began to address the Gentiles after the
JeAVS had rejected their message. Thus came
the doctrine of Christ to the large commercial
cities of Lesser Asia, such as Smyrna, Ephesus,
and Miletus ; then to Macedonia, from Avhence
the third great monarchy of the Avorld arose ;
then to Athens, Avhich was still the seat of edu-
cation and the school of taste ; and to Corinth,
Avhich had recovered in some measure from its
great humiliation. But how little the spirit of
Grecian Avisdom and worldly education stood re-
lated to the Avisdom and the truth of God, was
AUGUSTUS AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 155
evinced at their first meeting together. The ex-
cellent address of the apostle Paul, at Athens, was
heard with proud contempt or scornful levity ;
and we are informed of only a few as having re-
ceived the word of truth believingly.
The kingdom of God came indeed among
men, not with that observation and display of
importance with which the empires of the world
were set up : in littleness, quietness, and com-
parative obscurity, without many external circum-
stances joining in with that already subsisting
among the Jews, only avoiding among the hea-
then all communion with idolatry and sin, it ne-
vertheless was regularly and progressively spread
abroad. Its most distinguished apostle, Paul,
Avorked as a tent maker, while he dictated his
inspired epistles, replete with profound and hea-
venly wisdom : and while he was a prisoner at
Rome, it never occurred to the luxuiious Romans
that a kingdom had already commenced which
should be the first to give to their empire a
totally different form, and then to dissolve it
altocrether.
III. REIGN OF AUGUSTUS AND HIS SUCCESSORS, TO THE
TIME OF VESPASIAN.
Meanw^hile the long reign of Augustus had
come to its end. If the Romans reflected on his
entry into Rome with Antony and Lepidus, in
the year 43 B.C., on which occasion, three hun-
dred senators, two thousand knights, a great
156 AUGUSTUS AND HIS SUCCESSORS,
multitude of other citizens, and among them the
orator Cicero, were massacred, they could not
have hojDed for much good from him : tilings,
however, went on better in his reign than was
expected. He was a lenient prince, enacted
good laws, loved justice, and was an enemy
to luxury ; in short, the Romans felt them-
selves happy under his government. The Ro-
man empire was at that time more extended
than any of the preceding great empires had
ever been : it embraced Italy, with the neigh-
bouring islands, Helvetia, (Switzerland,) Bel-
gium, Britain, Portugal, Spain, France, the
whole northern coast of Africa, Egypt, Upper
Asia as far as the Caspian Sea and beyond the
Euphrates and Tigris, Asia Minor, Greece, the
present European Turkey, and the southern por-
tion of Germany as far as the Danube. Only
in the north of Germany the Romans never
could obtain firm footing ; and a fine Roman
army under Varus was cut to pieces in the Teu-
tonian Forest, between the Rhine and the Weser,
(in the county of Lippe,) by the German gene-
ral Hermann, (Arminius.)
In the Augustan age, the arts and sciences
were in the highest state of cultivation ; the for-
mer were generally promoted by the Greeks,
and the latter had, at least, their origin from the
schools of Greece. Sallust, Tacitus, and Livy,
as historians, and Virgil]and Horace, as poets,
will bear any comparison with the Greeks them-
selves, not to mention other celebrated writers of
that age. But it is a remark of portentous con-
sideration, that the most flourishing periods of
TO THE TIME OF VESPASIAN. 157
art and science among the Greeks and Romans,
Avere also the periods of their greatest luxury ;
and that from those periods, respectively, their
prosperity began rapidly to decline.
Augustus could but little enjoy the great
public good fortune, as it is called, which had
befallen him. He had no peace in his own fa-
mily : his empress was a scandalous woman ;
and from his children he experienced only heart-
breaking sorrow. Surely he had thus to learn
upon a minor scale, what nations in all ages have
to learn upon a larger one, that all the prospe-
rity, power, and riches of this world cannot ren-
der man happy, while he wants true peace and a
right state of heart. His adopted son, Tiberius,
succeeded him in the throne, a.d. 14; the same
in whose reign Christ was crucified at Jerusalem.
He was a monstrous tyrant, who spent his im-
perial life in infamous lusts, and found horrible
gratification in seeing his fellow men murdered
in his presence. Yet more depraved was his
successor Caligula, an impotent slave to his un-
bridled passions, who wished that the Roman
people had but one neck that he might decapitate
them at a blow. For the relief of the world, his
reign was terminated in four years ; and he, like
his predecessor, was assassinated. After him
reigned Claudius, a.d. 41 — 54, or rather reigned
not ; for he was a man too weak and unfit for
empire, the business of which he committed to
his scandalous women Messalina and Agrippina ;
and the latter got rid of him by poison. The
next turn was that of Nero, who had been strictly
educated by the philosophic Seneca, whose pains
158 DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM, AND
he rewarded by causing him to be put to death ;
he also put to death his own mother. If his
predecessors did badly, he yet sur[)assed them in
frantic cruelty and monstrous irdiumanity. He
caused the city of Rome to be set on fire, and
threw the odium of it upon the Christians, Avho
lived quietly in Rome, and who had some adhe-
rents among his own imperial household : hence
they were tortured and executed in the most bar-
barous manner. In his reign the apostle Paul
likewise was beheaded, at Rome. When ven-
geance now began to threaten him for his enor-
mities, he put an end to his life, a.d. 68. Of
his three successive followers in the imperial
throne, Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, there is no-
thing to say, except that they were invested with
the purple by the power of the military ; a dis-
tinction of which they were by no means Avoi'thy,
and from which they also almost immediately
fell by the hands of vengeance.
IV. THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM, AND PERSECU-
TION OF THE CHRISTIANS.
Rome once again experienced a better period,
under a succession of more respectable rulers,
■which commenced with Vespasian. Had the
corrupt and rotten mass suffered itself to be made
fresh by the salt of Christianity, its entire de-
composition might, perhaps, have been deferred,
and a new life have been diffused throughout the
empire : but the humility of a Christian spirit
PERSECUTION OF THE CHRISTIANS. 159
was revolting to Roman pride; and wherever
the one came in contact with the other, there it
was evident that enmity against the trutli formed
a fundamental part of the Roman character.
Vespasian, for a heathen, was a noble prince ;
he removed abuses which had invaded all classes,
and restored a better order of things. He was,
as a private man, temperate ; as a judge, upright ;
and, as a general, successful. The great colisoeum
at Rome, a huge amphitheatre, with seats for the
accommodation of sixty thousand persons, and
which still remains, was built by him. He had
been sent in Nero's reign with an army to Syria,
to quell and chastise the insurgent Jews, who,
however, defended themselves against him with
inflexible obstinacy. Just at the time when he
was besieging Jerusalem itself, he was called
away to assume the reins of empire, and left the
prosecution of the siege to his son Titus. As
an immense multitude of persons were now col-
lected within the city, Titus considered it the
safest measure to shut them up in it by a circum-
vallation, and thus starve the inhabitants to a
surrender. Previously to this, the Christians
who dwelt there, regarding Christ's admonitory
prophecy, had fled chiefly to Pella, a little town
near the Jordan, and tlnis they escaped the hor-
rors of the siege. The famine within the city
became dreadful. People endeavoured to gain
a short respite from death by the most unnatural
means ; besides which tliere was the most san-
guinary and desperate contention raging between
the opposite parties within the walls. Still the
Jews surrendered not ; and Titus had to take by
160 DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM, AND
storm one portion of the city after another.
E^en the beaiitiful temple, one of the then archi-
tectural wonders of the world, and which Titus
sincerely desired to spare, was set on fire, con-
trary to his express orders, and, together with
the city, Avas reduced to a heap of ruins and
ashes. An immense multitude perished, and the
remainder were led away captive, and gradually
dispersed into all countries ; but no longer as
that salt to the earth, and light to the world,
which Israel had proved to be in former desola-
tions ; for they were now like salt that had lost
its savour, an obdurate mass that had hence-
forth become impenetrable to the renovating and
enlightening power of Christianity. Titus ob-
tained and celebrated at Rome a trhwiph, which
many captive Jews were obliged to grace, and
at which the sacred vessels of the temple, as the
golden candlestick, etc., were publicly exhibited
in the procession. The great triumphal arch
which was built for this solemn pomp of victory,
is yet standing ; and some of the medals that
were struck in commemoration of the event, are
to be seen in cabinets of ancient coins. They
represent " the Daughter of Zion" sitting in a
weeping posture under a palm tree, and are in-
scribed with the words, " Judea Capta," (Ju-
dea captured.)
Thus did Christianity lose its earliest residence
where it had passed its minority beneath the
harsh guardianship of the Jewish church, and
had now to seek for itself a new home. The
covering, which had hitherto concealed tlie king-
dom of God, was destroyed, and left it free to
PERSECUTION OF THE CHRISTIANS. 161
spread abroad to the West, there to await the
construction of a new residence for it. Hence-
forth were the privileges, which had been con-
fined to " Israel after the flesh," transferred to
the spiritual Israel, that is, to true Christians ;
and the temporal Israel were, from the time of
their dispersion, to be regarded, until the yet fu-
ture period of their restoration, as non-existent,
or at least as not in a state of life, but as dry
bones; neither do the Holy Scriptures reckon
to them the yeai's of their dispersion as any part
of their national life. " Through their fall sal-
vation is come unto the Gentiles ;" and it is
these that St. Peter now addresses in his first
epistle, ch. ii. 9, 10, " Ye are a chosen genera-
tion, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a pecu-
liar people ; that ye should show forth the excel-
lences of him who hath called you out of dark-
ness into his marvellous light : who in times
past were not a people, but are now the people
of God : who had not obtained mercy, but now
have obtained mercy." It is easy to compre-
hend how the haughty Romans found no plea-
sure in such a doctrine as this, which could at-
tribute precedency to any " nation" except their
own.
Titus was a good public governor, and had
amiable qualities as a private man, which ob-
tained him the title of " The delight of the hu-
man race." He endeavoured to mark eveiy
day with some act of beneficence, and regarded a
day as lost in which nothing of the kind had been
done. But happy as the Romans accounted
themselves during his reign, it was distinguished
V 9.
1G2 DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM, AND
by some unavoidable misfortunes ; as if God had
intended to give that people to understand that
their sins had deserved nothing else but rebuke
and wrath. A great part of the eity was destroy-
ed by an accidental conflagration ; famine and
pestilence ravaged the whole of Italy ; and, lastly,
two cities in Lower Italy, namely, Plerculaneum
and Pompeii, were buried in ashes by an extra-
ordinary eruption of Mount Vesuvius, a.d. 79.
There must have been great and crying sins pre-
valent in these cities, though not in them alone,
see Luke xiii. 1 — 5, that God should thus have
visited them with Sodom's judgment.* Their
ruins began to be disinterred about a century
ago, and the excavations have recently been re-
newed. Every thing discovered therein was to
be seen just in the situation that belonged to it
at the moment when these cities were over-
whelmed, only most of such things are blackened
or half consumed by the burning ashes. All
sorts of household furniture were found in their
places ; fruits and provisions were lying on the
tables ; human skeletons in every variety of place
and posture, just as their former tenants had
been overtaken by " sudden destruction," were
discovered both standing and sitting, whichever
way we looked. " Remember Lot's wife !"
But of the thousands who yearly visit these dis-
interred cities, it seldom occurs to even one, to
think of the judgments of God, which desolated
* It was an overthrow, which, though not miraculous like
that of Sodom and Gomorrha, in some respects resembled it.
— Trans.
PERSECUTION OF THE CHRISTIANS. 163
those places for their crying sins ; although
among the pictures and other antique relics of
fleshly o;lory, which are there so gratifyingly
admired, many a silent but speaking witness is
still found, to tell in what habitual sins those
cities had already buried themselves before the
burning ashes were rained upon them.
During the reigns of Vespasian and Titus, the
churches, of which there were many, and one
even at Rome, had rest and peace, and were edi-
fied and spread abroad. Not that there was
any express or enacted toleration of them, but
they were let alone and not inquired after. Is
it not possible that Titus, in his expedition against
Jerusalem, had an opportunity of learning to
esteem and respect the Christians ? Surely his
mere natural integrity of disposition could not
have prevented him from hating them, any more
than such a thing could forbid it to Trajan or
Hadrian, who were as upright as himself, and
yet persecuted them. Very unlike him was his
own brother and successor Domitian, who was
the only really bad emperor within the space of
a whole century. He resembled Tiberius in
cowardice and cruelty, and in being a slave to
avarice and debauchery. During his reign, and
in a persecution of the Christians which he in-
stituted, the apostle John was banished to the
isle of Patmos, in the Greek Archipelago, where
he wrote the Apocalypse. Domitian's successor
Nerva, who set the apostle at liberty, a. d.
96 — 98, was a mild and beneficent prince, who,
in the short period of his reign, devised many
prudent measures for the benefit of his subjects.
1G4 DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM, AND
Likemindcd, but more powerful, was his successor
Trajan, who also allowed the Romans as much
liberty as they could bear, added Dacia (now
Moldavia and Wallachia) to the Roman pro-
vinces, subdued the Parthians, and concpiered
part of Arabia. He was condescending, kind,
frugal, and beneficent ; his popularity is attested
by the lofty pillar erected to his memory, wliich
is still standing at Rome. He was not a friend
to the Christians, and even permitted them to be
persecuted and put to death. Probably he never
knew their real character ; and yet he heard Ig-
natius, bishop of Antioch, as a witness of the
truth, address him at Rome ; but he ordered him
to be thrown to the wild beasts in the theatre.
Equally averse to them was his successor Ha-
drian, who in other respects was a good gover-
nor, fond of peace, and so concerned for the wel-
fare of his subjects, that he travelled on foot
through a large part of his empire, reformed
abuses, and made beneficial regulations. His per-
secuting the Christians, may, perhaps, be princi-
pally attributed to the then prevailing notion
that they were nothing more than a Jewish sect ;
and the Jews had provoked the emperor's dis-
pleasure by a very formidable rebellion which they
had commenced in the East, under their leader
Barcocliab, who pretended to be the Messiah,
and which it took a great deal of trouble to sup-
press. From that time no Jew was permitted
to be seen at Jerusalem ; Hadrian sent a Roman
colony thither, and gave a new name to the city,
calling it iElia Capitolina, a name which it re-
tained till the reign of Constantine. He dedi-
PERSECUTION OF THE CHRISTIANS. 165
cated it to the heathen gods, and did what he
coidd to remove every vestige of Judaism and of
Christianity, which two religions he always con-
founded with each other. Had not God's holy
angels formed a bulwark about the Christians,
stronger than the fortress of St. Angelo, as it is
now called, which Hadrian built at Rome, and
which is yet standing, the kingdom of God
might in his reign have been utterly destroyed
from the earth. During the twenty-three years'
reign of Antoninus Pius, a.d. 138 — 161, the
Roman empire and the church enjoyed peaceful
times ; but no sooner had his successor, Marcus
Aurelius, come to the throne, together with his
partner in the empire, Lucius Verus, than san-
guinary wars commenced, namely, with the na-
tions that bordered upon the north-east frontier,
that were the harbingers of that long and fatal
struggle which was by and by brought on by the
northern irruptions. Marcus Aurelius was a
man of much knowledge and experience, and his
reign was distinguished by a mild and excellent
administration. Yet he was only another in-
stance, how little the spirit of Greek philosophy,
which with him was eveiy thing as a guide, was
compatible with Christianity. The bloody per-
secutions which befel the infant churches in
France, as at Lyons and Vienne, a.d. 177, and
the oppression of the Christians in Asia Minor,
where Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, died as a
martyr in the flames, a.d. 169, took place in the
reign of this emperor.
From that period, the empire began visibly to
decline. Of all its succeeding rulers, who were
lOG DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM, AND
mostly chosen by the military, and the greater
number of M'hora were either tyrants or profli-
gates, Alexander Sevcrus was almost the only
manly character, a.d. 222 — 235. Morals had
become excessively corrupt, and abominable
vices were exhibited without a blush, and in
open day. Extreme luxury and extreme poverty
dwelt as close neighbours ; and the constitution
of the state was more and more unsettled and
distracted, by violence, bribeiy, and corruption.
The nations of northern barbarians became every
year more formidable to the empire : tlie Mar-
coraanni, the Franks, the Caledonians, the Goths,
were troublesome upon the frontiers, and were
no sooner repulsed than they always returned in
greater numbers. No plan of settling the em-
pire was carried into effect, because it was so
constantly changing its governors, no two of
whom were successively of the same mind ; and
yet some such plan was now absolutely necessary,
to hold together an empire of so vast an extent.
The Christians had at this period but few days
of quiet; persecution, however, assailed in gene-
ral only single provinces at a time, and it was
set on foot partly by the respective governors of
such provinces, and partly by the pagan super-
stition of the multitude, who Avere ready enough
to attribute every national misfortvme, and every
calamity of a province, to the existence of the
Christians among them. It became more gene-
ral under the emperor Decius, a.d. 249 — 251,
who had determined to restore the ancient Ro-
man customs, to raise paganism to new lustre,
and utterly to extirpate Christianity. He issued
PERSECUTION OF THE CHRISTIANS. 167
a decree to that effect as soon as he came to the
throne, and thousands died the death of martyrs.
Heatlienism once more rallied all its powers, and
made the most desperate struggle to crush that
rehgion which, amidst all the persecutions it had
undergone, only bloomed afresh, and continued
to spread itself more and more abroad. What
could not be effected by violence, was now at-
tempted by other means. The idolatry of the
East was united to that of the West ; all manner
of exterior pomp on the one hand, and every in-
centive to private superstitious observance on the
other, were alike made use of in accommodation
to the most opposite tastes, in order to counter-
vail the prevalence of Christianity ; and to these
was added the seduction of a more spiritually
pretending philosophy, that of the New Platon-
ists, which aping the truth, was radically infidel.
But though the safety of the church was threat-
ened by these temptations from without, as also
by controversies and divisions from within, Chris-
tianity had taken too deep root to be extirpated,
and continued to spread imder the succeeding
emperors ; notwithstanding that several of these,
as Valerian, Dioclesian, and his colleague Maxi-
mianus, were enemies of the Christians. It
dwelt, indeed, like Abraham and the patriarchs,
in tents and in a strange land, and gained " no
certain dwelling place" on earth till the time of
Constantine ; but as in the age of the patriarchs
there was more piety, more spiritual life, and
more intimate communion with God, than in the
subsequent times of the people of Israel, and of
their temporal prosperity, so was this period of
XG8 ROMAN EMPERORS FROM
pilgrimage and estrangement much more bene-
ficial to the church of Christ, and to the f urthei--
ance of its spiritual growth, than the succeeding
age which gave it exterior security and advance-
ment.
V. THE ROMAN EMPERORS FROM VESPASIAN TO
CONSTANTINE.
Still was the fall of the Roman empire arrested
from time to time by vigorous rulers, who, through
successful deeds of. arms abroad, or by wise po-
licy at home, contrived to add fresh supports to
the crazy and tottering structure. Aurelian was
successful in opposing the increasingly oppressive
invasions of the Alemans and Goths, and made
himself master of Palmyra, a magnificent city
founded by Solomon, where Zenobia had roused
the jealousy of this Roman emperor by assuming
the title of Empress of the East, a.d. 273. Pro-
bus had in like manner to defend himself against
the Goths, Vandals, and Burgundi, in Spain and
Sicily, Parthia and Egypt ; and to this day are
to be seen, in the south-west of Germany, the
traces of tumuli and roads which he constructed,
and even of towns Avhich he planned and built.
Dioclesian successfully encountered the Nor-
manni, the Saxons, and the Alemanni, in Illyria,
and on the banks of the Danube, and availed
himself of the interval of conquered peace for
settling and strengthening the interior of the
empire. In the latter years of his reign, a.d.
VESPASIAN TO CONSTANTINE. 169
303, he set on foot a general persecution of his
Christian subjects, from which those only who
resided in France, Spain, and Britain, the pro-
vinces of Constantius Chlorus, were protected.
Constantine, who was the son of this last men-
tioned benevolent prince, who died at York, A. 7).
306, conquered for himself the sole dominion of
the whole Roman empire, whereas hitherto se-
veral Cesars had reigned at the same time in
different parts of it : and thus we see, once more,
a brief revival of the ancient power and glory
of empire, which, hoAvever, was soon to go down
and be no more !
FIFTH PERIOD.
FROM THE IKRUPTIONS OF THE NORTHERN
BARBARIANS TO THE AGE OF CHARLEMAGNE.
[A.D. 375 to 800.]
I. — CONSTANTINE AND THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
Whether Constantine was induced to become
the protector of the Christian church, solely by
an impression he had of the great power of
Christ, or merely by the prudent consideration,
that Christianity had a great number of adherents
in the Roman empire, whom he might thus gain
over to his cause, we are not disposed to deter-
mine ; probably he was influenced by both.
With him commences the succession of Christian
emperors, and, at the same time, a new form of
administration to the empire itself and to the
Christian church. Constantine removed the seat
of government to the ancient city Byzantium, at
the entrance to the Black Sea ; he rebuilt this
city, and gave it the name of Constantinople.
Christianity, from being a persecuted and op-
pressed religion, was constituted by him the do-
minant religion of the empii-e ; and the influence
of the military, wdiich they had hitherto exercised
in choosing the emperors and in governing the
state, began from his time gradually to pass into
CONSTANTINE AND CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 171
tlie hands of the clergy, whom he and his son
Constantuis raised to great temporal dignity and
power. Thus the Christians, from having hi-
therto, even in places where they formed the ma-
jority of the population, been only tolerated at
best, and often misrepresented and abused, ac-
cording to the humour and opinion of the empe-
ror, or of some provincial governor, were now
every where invested with the precedency ; while
the pagans became in their turn oppressed and
persecuted : and whereas the church assemblies
of the Christians had hitherto in many places
been holden in secret and quiet, and even their
simple oratories or houses of prayer had been
generally constructed of slight materials over the
graves of their martyrs, their meetings now as-
sumed the imposing aspect of public solemnities,
their oratories were converted into smnptuous
temples, and the heathen temples fell into con-
tempt and ruin, or were razed to the ground at
once. The Christian priests were invested with
honour and importance, and were now arranged
into different orders and degrees ; public worship
was made splendid and imposing, and more allur-
ing to the senses of Avorldly men ; and thus was
it endeavoured to make the heathen some amends
for the loss of their own pompous rites and ce-
remonies. But as the rose in a rich soil, and
under the careful nursing of the gardener, ex-
hausts all its strength in double flowers, and
forms no more blossoms into fruit ; so it was
much the same now with Christianity. The
more it tended to unfold itself in exterior formu-
lary and colouring, the less power and life
172 CONSTANTINE AND THE
remained, within it : and whereas, in the wintery
times of oppression and persecution, its life was
ever driven back ao;ain within itself, it lost, in
tlie season of woi-ldly prosperity and security,
more and more of its essential qualities, whicli
dwindled away into mere external forms. The
distinction between reality and appearance, life
and formality, true and nominal Christians, be-
came more and more necessary to be observed
than ever ; and the rise of the hermit and mo-
nastic life is to be regarded as an attempt, thougli
not altogether a successful one, to express this
distinction to the senses. Those Christians avIio
took offence at the outward condition of the
church, as remaining not wholly free from mix-
ture of heathenism, and at its increasing corrup-
tion of morals, witlidrew from the midst of its
worldly din, and desired to serve their God more
purely in the quietness of solitude, and to redeem
the precious jewel of faith from temporal defile-
ment. But a life of solitude has its temptations
no less than a life spent in the very midst of the
world ; and leaven kept apart in the chest can
never answer the purpose for which it Avas in-
tended, namely, that of leavening the whole mass
of mankind. And even though the inhabitants of
the cloister had not brought thither along with
them their own naturally corrupt hearts, still it
was impossible for them to prevent themselves
from being invaded by the increasing corruption
of the world around them ; inasmuch as their
own numbers had ever to be filled up by persons
coming to them from such a Avorld. The king-
dom of God should have been developed from
CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 173
Avithin, by the conviction and regeneration of its
individual members ; its more immediate intent,
appointment, or constitution was not for nations
or states in the gross, but for persons, for human
souls; and it was designed, as thus commencing
with individuals, to gain the ascendancy over
mankind in no other way than this of degrees,
by communicating itself from one to another. It
was to rule in human nature, rather than by any
external influence at once over a whole mass of
men. Instead of which, however, from the time
of Constantine, it was regarded and made use of
only as a new form of worship, which might be
imposed upon all nations like the putting on of a
change of garments. The heartfelt conviction,
the free and unconstrained assent and consent of
harmonious individuals with respect to its funda-
mental verities, was henceforth not so strenuously
insisted on. Externals took place of the soul's
everlasting concerns ; and God's great hospital
for the spiritually sick was converted into a ge-
neral dwelling house, into which multitudes came
to lodge, who had not yet become conscious of
their disease. The spiritually redeeming power
of Christ being no longer wholly looked to as the
source of all health and salvation, and the people
wanting patience to be ever intent upon the
Lord's gradual but effectual deliverance, hence
human power and external arrangements were
called in to help his cause, and depended on ;
so that this was only " the old man" clothing
itself in a new dress, and then imagining that all
things were become new. The word of God was
now not enough regarded as the ordy source of
q2
174 CONSTANTINE AND CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
all truth and -wisdom, nor valued as the instrument
of all life and renewal ; heathen philosophy was
considered as necessary to supply its deficiencies ;
heathen laws and ordinances Avere retained ; and,
above all, the Scripture doctrine of faith became
disfigured and adulterated by human additions.
Thus it came to pass, that even to this day our
whole common life still contains a great variety
of heathen matter, because the Christians could
never come to understand how to recognize fully
and entirely the original intent of the Scriptures,
namely, as having been given by inspiration of
God for the purpose of regulating, pervading,
and sanctifying our eveiy relation and concern-
ment of life and knowledge. Christianity has
thus all along remained too much mingled with
heathenism, and has never been as yet generally
made use of as the only foundation of the w^orld's
reform and of human happiness. Between the
kingdom of God, as it formed itself in the time
of the apostles, and the heathen world as utterly
without Christ, there hence arose a thii'd party,
namely, the external church. And it has been
ever since necessary quite as carefully to distin-
guish from it the communion of true Christians,
as not to confound with it the heathen nations.
The history of the church is properly concerned
about real Christians : the heathen nations have
no proper history at all ; because with them., as
long as they are without Christ, there can be no
developement to look for, no tendency labouring
towards a fixed object ; for this alone desei-ves
the name of history. The history of the woi-ld
limits itself to that course of developement^ which
DECLINE OF ROMAN EMPIRE. 175
the nations, either as inchided in the external
church, or as standing in some relation to it,
have taken from time to time. It is only so far
as any nation has come into some contact or
connexion with Christ, that it can form any part
of the world's real history, whose centre is no
otlier than Christ.
II. THE INCREASED DECLINE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
After the death of Constantnie, a.d. 337, his
empire, though continuing still as a whole, was
distributed among his three sons, of whom Con-
stantius, after the death of his two brothers, kept
his ground as sole emperor. The dominion,
which the Christian church had exercised under
his government, was interrupted for a time,
namely, during the reign of his successor Julian,
A D. 360 — 363; for he had grown up in the
spirit of the Greek philosophy, and he hated, or
at least despised Christianity, though he did not
persecute the Christians. After his short reign,
the ecclesiastical power rose again. Valentinian
and Valens, a.d. 364—378, had many conflicts
to maintain against the irruption of the Ger-
manic nations, the Alemanni, the Franks, the
Burgundi, and the Saxons ; and it was not
till the reign of Theodosius, a.d. 378 — 395, who
again united the Roman empire under himself as
its sole head, that, by his exertions and supe-
riority in war, some respite was obtained from
their incursions. But, by the distribution of the
176 IRRUPTIONS OF THE
empire between his two sons, Arcadius and Ho-
norius, its weakening and the fall of the ancient
Roman glory became decided ; and there Avas
now a Western empire, with Rome for its capital,
and an Eastern, whose capital was Constantinople.
From this period, Avhich commences with the
northern emigrations, the theatre of history is re-
moved from Rome to Germany; and though al-
ready the elements of a new universal empire
had been formed at Rome, yet was this rather of
a spiritual kind ; and the developement of na-
tional glory and of political power proceeded from
a new source, bearing the Germanic national
character, and issued in perpetual opposition and
most operative limitation to that worldly-spiri-
tual dominion, which more powerfully and more
dangerously than any one of the preceding im-
perial dominions, endeavoured and still endea-
vours at setting up one universal government.
III. THE IRRUPTIONS OF THE NORTHERN BARBARIANS.
(a.) The Kail of the Roman Enopire.
The Roman people, and the nations under their
dominion, had gradually become ripe for over-
throw or subjugation. Unbounded luxury,
united with the light spirit of Greek education,
had effeminated and enfeebled the Romans ;
while gross idolatry, and inibridled sins of every
kind, had wasted the vital strength of the empire.
Christianity, with its new enlivening power, had
NORTHERN BARBARIANS, 177
indeed come to their relief, but it could evince
that power in individuals only ; and the spirit of
heathenism, that shrunk with horror from real
regeneration, only made for itself, out of Chris-
tianity, a new covering, wherein it hoped still
longer to support itself under another form. In
such old, exhausted, hard-trodden, and ran-
klingly weedy soil, could the noble plant of the
gospel no longer thrive and grow. That which
was newly broken up, fresh and vigorous,
namely, the soil of barbarous nations, suited it
better ; and such a soil it found in the Germanic
swarms that were encamped on the northern
frontiers of the vast and overgrown Roman em-
pire, from the source to the estuary of the Da-
nube. The face of Germany was at that time
very different from what it is at present : it was
overrun with forests and morasses, and therefore
a much colder and less fertile country than it
now is. Agriculture, in oats and barley, was
little attended to ; numerous flocks and herds
supplied the Germans with provisions; war,
with business ; and hunting, with amusement and
recreation. Might took precedency of right,
manners were rude, but truth in keeping pro-
mises was a thing specifically regarded. Gods
they had many ; whose temples were retired open
spaces in the forest, and whose names are still
remembered in those of our week days. The
daring and warlike spirit of the tall and robust
Germanic tribes was a terror even to the Ro-
mans, who first became more particularly ac-
quainted Avith them when the Cimbri and Teu-
tones, B.C. 113, forced their way towards Italy,
178 IRRUPTIONS OF THE
whom however Mariiis subdued. Fifty yeai-s
after this, tlie Suevi, under Ariovistus, were de-
feated by Cesar ; who did not, however, venture
to })ush farther into Germany itself. The dis-
agreements of tlie Germanic tribes among them-
selves were favourable circumstances for the Ro-
mans, and prevented the defeat of Varus, in the
time of Augustus, from pi'oducing greater ad-
vantages. At a subsequent period, the Alemans,
Franks, and Goths became formidable enemies
to the empire, and were incessantly attacking it.
These Germanic tribes had, from a very early
period, planted themselves on the banks of the
Rhine and the Danube, and looked with longing
eyes across these frontiers, after the beautiful and
fruitful country of the Romans, of which they
watched every opportunity to become masters.
The Romans kejDt these hungry strangers at bay
as long as they were able ; but the increasing
enervation into which they were gradually sink-
ing, through luxury and effeminacy, could not
escape the notice of the Germans ; neither could
do less than inspirit them more and more to pro-
secute their enterprise. At length an opportu-
nity, which they had long waited for, presented
itself, of making a descent into the warm south-
ern regions. About the year a.d. 375, there
started up from the high mountainous country
of central Asia, from what occasion is not known,
a people, whose manner of life and of warfare
resembled most nearly that of the modern Cos-
sacks, only they are recorded to have been much
more rude and inhuman. These were the Huns.
At that time there dwelt along the North Sea,
NORTHERN BARBARIANS. 179
the Saxons, the Friesi, and the Angles ; on the
Upper Rhine, the Alemans or Suevi (Siiabians ;)
on the West Danube, the Bavarians ; in Hun-
gary, Transylvania, and South Russia, the Os-
trogoths and Visigoths ; and the Alani, beyond
the Don. These were carried along by the tor-
rent of the Huns, and poured with them into
the settlements of the Goths. The Visigoths
now sought for themselves new settlements in the
regions of the eastern empire ; while the Huns,
Alans, and Ostrogoths shared the vacated coun-
tiy, and quietly retained their station there for
some time. But the period for unmolested en-
campment and settlement was not yet arrived ;
and as there had been, for some centuries, a
perceptible gradual movement and pressing of
these nations from east to west, and occasionally
from north to south, so this now continued pro-
ceeding for a time. The Visigoths, in a.d. 380,
obtained settlements in Thrace, on condition that
they should embrace Christianity. Bishop Ul-
filas, himself a Goth, and who translated the
Bible into Gothic, successfully laboured for
their conversion. But their repose was not of
long duration, and their king Alaric was encou-
raged by the eastern emperor himself to try his
fortune in Italy, where Honorius ruled under
the influence of a Germanic guardian, the Van-
dal Stilico, who in a.d. 403, defeated the Goths
and drove them back to Pannonia. Still, having
already tasted the sweets of Italy, they had set
their affections too much upon it not to return a
second time, and a third time, till at length they
conquered and obtained possession of Rome,
180 IRRUPTIONS OF THE
where however they spared the Christians, be-
cause they tliemselves had already learned to jiro-
fess Christianity. While Stilico had to eiiij)Ioy
all his energies against the Goths,, the frontiers
of Gaid, as yet a Roman province, where, along
the Rhine, the cities of Mayence, Treves, Co-
logne, etc. already stood, were dismantled of
troops ; and the Vandals, Alans, and Suevi took
occasion from this to overrun Gaul. This country
was already entered also by the Franks, whence
its modern name of France. The Franks were
thronged to the north ; but the Vandals, Alans,
and Suevi turned towards Spain ; yet even here
they were again disturbed, when, in a.d. 412, the
Visigoths abandoned Italy, and pushed through
France into Spain, where they set up the king-
dom of the Visigoths, which extended on cither
side of the Pyrenees, and had Toulouse for its
capital. They spread so far in all directions,
that it was only in the north part of France that
the Fraidvs coidd keep their gi-ound ; while, from
the same cause, the Burgundians had to be con-
tent with the eastern part and with Switzerland ;
and the Alans and Suevi, with the west of
Spain and Avith Portugal. But the Vandals
(Wanderers) were driven out of Spain entirely,
and passed over into North Africa, where they
took possession of all the region of ancient Car-
thage. The same causes that had opened Gaul
to foreign invasions, gave likewise occasion to
great revolutions in Britain. The Roman mili-
taiy were wanted in Italy, and the aborigines of
the island, the Britons, could no longer stand
against their less civilized invaders, the Picts and
4
NORTHERN BARBARIANS. 181
Scots ; hence they called over the Anglo-Saxons
from Germany to their assistance, who drove
back the Picts and Scots, but by and by ex-
pelled the Britons also from their native territory,
in order to possess the whole, which from them
is now called England, (Angle-land.) The Bri-
tons partly took refuge in the mountains of
Wales, and partly emigrated to the northern
coast of France, which from them is still called
Brittany.
The countless swarms of the Huns had, how-
ever, in the meanwhile, if not settled, yet left the
West in repose; but now, a.d. 447, they swept
like a tempest up the Danube, carrying along
with them the Gepides, the Heruli, and the Os-
trogoths, and forced their way across the Rhine
into France. The Romans, who still possessed
one tract of province in France, provided the
combined hosts of the Franks, Visigoths, and
Burgundians with a competent leader named
Aetius ; and the Huns, in a bloody contest near
Chalons, were compelled to retreat, a.d. 451.
They then turned their course to Italy, plundered
and destroyed cities and villages, and, after the
death of their leader Attila, they became lost to
public notice, like a spent shower. Rome was
this time also as yet spared, but its entire fall
was now very near, inasmuch as only four years
afterwards Genseric, at the head of his Vandals,
came over from Africa, and treated Rome as bar-
barously as the Romans had long ago treated
Carthage. The western emperors were at this
period weak and contemptible, and not one of
them was a match for the stormv incursions of
182 IRRUPTIONS OF THE
his time. The last of" them, Romuhis Augustu-
lus, who bore the name of tlie first himj, and
also, though diminutively, the name of the first
emperor of Rome, had any thing but the good
fortune of either, and was dethroned by Odoacer
king of the Heruli, who afterwards reigned four-
teen years as king of Italy.
Thus ended the great Western Roman empire,
A.D. 476, after it had lasted one thousand two
hundred and thirty years, at the middle of which
long period it had attained its highest degree of
power and grandeur, having overthrown the Gre-
cian empire, and taken its place as the fourth
mistress of the world. It is the fourth beast
in Daniel's vision, and is mentioned by that
prophet, Dan. vii. 7, as " diverse from all the
beasts that were before it ; " as it was also tlie
inferior or iron part of the great image in Nebu-
chadnezzar's vision, Dan. ii. 31, etc. Its strug-
gle for universal dominion was more evident and
avowed, as well as more severe and oppressive ;
and in it the recognition of " the God of heaven,"
which, though in some measure acknowledged by
the three preceding empires, became in them all
along less and less discernible, and was eclipsed
entirely in the ominous splendour of this fourth
empire. In luxury and corruption of morals, it
surpassed all that had been before it : some of its
emperors w^ere monsters of mankind, and allowed
religious sacrifices to be offered, not only to them-
selves but to their effigies ; it opposed with ran-
cour and with rigour the introduction of the
light of Christianity, and put to death immense
numbers of Christian martyrs. It united in
NORTHERN BARBARIANS. 183
itself all the principal features of the preceding
empires, all the powers of the natural man ; but
it surpassed them all in wickedness, and in hav-
ing lost all recognition of the true God ; and
when at last it began to recover this, it was too
late to prevent its total overthrow. It had now
become partitioned into ten kingdoms ; the iron
of the genuine original Roman character became
mingled with the plastic clay of the Germanic
and other northern nations; a Roman spirit,
Roman laws, and the Roman language passed
into the civil constitution, habits, and religion of
the Germanic nations, and were operative in
their formation and developement ; and though
the Roman empire became extinct as to its
ancient form, yet the idea of universal dominion
was still propagated in Rome through the pa-
pacy. But as iron and clay cannot be mixed so
as organically to incorporate, in like manner the
coherence of what is essentially Roman and es-
sentially Germanic was rather mechanical and
forced than natural. A cause of perpetual dis-
union existed in the very nature of the mixture,
and manifested itself in the incessant contentions
between the Germanic imperial power and the
papacy ; as also, subsequently, in the Re-
formation.
(b.) Settlement and Position of the Nations at this Period.
What was once the ancient Roman empire
had now received quite another form. The coun-
tries about the Archipelago and the Black Sea
still constituted the eastern Roman empire, which
184 IKRUPTIONS OF THE
subsisted a thousand years longer than the
western, and had its seat at Constantinople.
The northern coast of Africa, together with Sar-
dinia and Corsica, was occupied by the Vandals.
In Italy, Odoacer ruled a medley of various na-
tions. The Burgundi were planted on both sides
of the Rhine ; the Alemanns, on the Neckar and
in the Black Forest, with the Bavarians on their
right ; the Thuringians had settled northward of
the Maine ; the Slavonians, on the Oder and
the Vistula ; and the Friesi and Saxons, in
the Netherlands. The Franks had possessed
themselves of the north of France, and the Visi-
goths occupied the south, with part of Spain
across the Pyrenees. The Suevi inhabited Por-
tugal and the rest of Spain. But now the Ostro-
goths, who hitherto had kept pretty quiet in the
north of the Greek Roman empire, began to
move, and at length forced their way, like a tor-
rent, into Italy. Odoacer, its king, was beaten
in three battles, and at last assassinated. Theo-
doric, (Dieterich,) king of the Ostrogoths, hereby
became master of Italy, and governed it with
prudence, clemency, and diligence : he endea-
voured to revive and re-establish the arts and
sciences, but in vain, for it was a period of bar-
barism ; but public quiet and private security
were more effectually restored by him than had
been witnessed for a long time in Italy.
At the same time Clovis, king of the Franks,
extended his dominion in several directions.
After he had annihilated the last relics of Roman
government in France, he compelled the Thurin-
gians to acknowledge his power, and, in a.d. 496,
NORTHERN BARBARIANS. 185
he overcame tlie Alemanni in tlie battle of Zuel-
pich. Christianity also was at that period in-
troduced among the Franks, even as it had been
earlier received by the Visigoths, Ostrogoths,
Vandals, and Burgundians ; that is, too much
as a mere form of religion, with which much
heathen superstition was made compatible. In-
deed, among the inhabitants of Italy itself, much
heathen superstition was still to be met with as
late as the beginning of the sixth century. Clovis
likewise put an end to the dominion of the Visi-
goths in France, and raised the Frankish power
to a height at which it long remained, thoixgh it
was more immediately linked with his own per-
sonal valour and prudence ; for his successors
were weak and effeminate men : and hence it
was that the government, by and by, passed from
the Merovingian to the Carlovingian dynasty.
(c.) The Eastern Empire.
The Eastern or Greek Roman empire was
less affected by the violent agitations under
which all Europe trembled ; for, finding itself
too weak for warlike resistance, it contrived to
keep the hungry nations from its borders by
presents of money. But the emperor Justinian,
A.D. 527 — 565, determined to reunite to his do-
minions the kingdom of Italy, now in the pos-
session of the Ostrogoths, and sent for this pur-
pose his general Belisarius to Carthage, to put
an end to the Vandal dominion. The Vandal
king, Gelimer, was taken prisoner, and his
kingdom was converted into a Greek province.
r2
186 IRRUPTIONS OF THE
Belisiarius then turned towards Italy, a.d. 536,
]tu.s]ied his victorious marches as far as Rome,
where he sustained a loiitr sle^e, and made him-
self master of Ravenna, the capital of the Goths;
but, in the very flush of triumph, he was re-
called by the jealousy of the emperor. What
he had begun was accomplished by Narses, an-
other Greek general, who put an end to the do-
minion of the Ostrogoths, and reduced Italy to
a Greek province, a.d. 554. But this country
was now horribly devastated by incessant war-
fare ; its towns and villages were plundered and
destroyed ; its fields lay bare and uncultivated,
and immense numbers of its population perished
by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence.
God's rebuking judgments had passed over its
wanton and luxurious cities in full measure.
Christendom was torn by unhappy divisions
and factions, which arose from differences partly
in religious opinions, and partly about church
ceremonies ; and the chief seat of these contro-
versies was Constantinople itself, where the em-
peior Justinian had trouble enough, amidst the
perpetual feuds which were decided by fire and
sword, to keep up even a little appearance of
order. It is a remarkable circumstance, that at
the very period when justice was least regarded,
and disorders of every kind had gotten the
upper hand, the study of jurisprudence was pi'o-
secuted with the greatest zeal. Such -was the
case at Rome during the last period of the Ro-
man emperors ; such was it during the reign of
Justinian, who originated and got completed
that code of the Roman laws which is called
NORTHERN BARBARIANS. 187
the Justinian Code, and which is to this day tlie
foundation of civil law in many countries of
Europe. In like manner have men ever sought
remedial help from externals, when spiritual life
and strength have begun to sink. Thus medi-
cine is more diligently prosecuted in our own
age than at any former period ; because, at pre-
sent, health is so much impaired by luxury.
(rf.) TheFeodal System.
The kingdom of the Ostrogoths had had its
seat at Verona ; the Greek emperor's procurator
set it up at Ravenna ; but soon did another city,
Pavia, become the centre of dominion over
Italy, when the Longobards or Lombards, an-
other Gei'manic nation, who had turned their
course from North Germany to the abandoned
seats of the Ostrogoths in Pannonia, afterwards
gained possession of the former distracted and
ravaged country. The eastern coasts of middle
Italy, with Rome and the gi-eatest portion of
lower Italy, still remained indeed under Greek
pre-eminence ; but all the rest was obtained and
possessed by the Lombards, whose kingdom con-
tinued for two centuries, and whose dominion is
still remembered in Upper Italy, which retains
the name of Lombardy. They introduced into
Italy the feodal system, which had taken root in
the whole outlay of Germanic national govern-
ment, and the branches of which we find ex-
tending through the whole history of the middle
ages. Each Germanic nation was composed of
freemen and bondmen, and the freemen were
188 IRRUPTIONS OF THE
ao;aiii divided into nobles and serving men.
The nobles were the more rich and powerful ;
the serving men willingly adhered to them, and
were their ready followers in war. When a
country was conquered, the victors distributed it
among themselves ; and the chief also, who, by
the greatest number of his followers and retain-
ers, had most contributed to the conquest, ob-
tained the largest share of the conquered lands:
but tlie noble^ who had but few or no serving
men, was as independent, upon his own little
estate, as any of the greater chiefs. The rich
nobles made over a portion of their large pos-
sessions to each of their free serving men, to be
enjoyed by the latter as long as they continued
in the service of the former : these possessions
were called fiefs, or feods ; those who conferred
them were styled lords of fief oi- feodal lords ;
and the receivers of them were called fief-men,
feodals, or vassals. But the cultivation of such
r--tates was the business of the third class, called
hondmcn, rillahis, or i^erfs, who were made over
to the ]iosscssor with the lands as attaches to the
soil, and who consisted chiefly of the original
and conquered inhabitants of the country. When-
ever war arose, the king proclaimed the arriere-
han ; and every freeman was then obliged to ap-
pear at the head of his vassals. The bondmen
were governed with rigour, and no better ac-
counted of than the dogs and horses. Wherever
mere valour is regarded as the only virtue, and
war as the only business, human feelings becoine
blunted, morals are at a low ebb, and manners
are rucle and cruel. Society had no middle
NORTHERN BARBARIANS. 189
class, but consisted of fierce lords and abject
slaves ; neither the one nor the other according
with the spirit of Christianity : and, indeed, the
Christianity of that time was among those na-
tions little more than a set of immeaning cere-
monies, mixed up with solemnities which were
not understood by the people in general ; and
the real import of which was strange to them,
just in the same proportion as the Holy Scrip-
tures were to them a sealed book. The clergy
had degenerated into semi-barbarism ; establish-
ments for instruction there were none throughout
the West, and public worship was generally held
in Latin, that is, in an unknown tongue. Laxity
of morals increased in proportion as the idea be-
came diffused every where, that external penance,
and gifts to churches and monasteries, could
make amends for the guilt of sin. The bishop
of Rome, after frequent embroiling contests with
the bishop of Constantinople about supremacy,
had at length brought it to pass, that he was ac-
knowledged as the first bishop in Christendom ;
and he carried on his endeavours to enlarge his
influence and dominion, by using the utmost
diligence for the conversion of the heathenish
nations, in which respects his unholy zeal could
not fail of producing some good effects.
(e.) Christianity among the Germanic Nations.
Christianity had at an early period been
propagated in England, and had spread very
considerably in the reign of Constantius Chlorus,
190 IRRUrTIONS OF NORTHERN BARBARIANS.
and that of his son Constantino the Great ; it
had likewise found its way to Ireland, by the
preaching of Patricius, (St. Patrick.) But
when the heathen tribes of the Anglo-Saxons
became possessors of England, its Christianity
was di'iven into the mountains of Wales, and the
conversion of those tribes gave the church new
work, in which bishop Gregory the Great, of
Rome, took a deep interest. In the year 596,
Ethelred, the most powerful of the Saxon hept-
archy, received baptism ; after which, the con-
version of the people at large proceeded more
rapidly. Even before this time had Christian
preachers come over from Ireland to Germany,
where in quietness and simplicity they had
begun the work of conversion among its pagan
inhabitants. Of the number of such preachers
were Fridolin among the Alemanns in the Upper
Rhine, and Gall and Columban near the Lake
of Constance, and the latter also among the
Lombards ; to these were afterwards added Ki-
lian in Franconia, Willibrord among the Frise-
landers, and Winfried (Bonifacius) among vari-
ous Germanic tribes. Still later were also the
Slavonians in the north-east of Germany, and
the Normans in Denmark, Sweden^ and Nor-
way, brought by Ansgarius and others to pro-
fess Christianity. Most of this was indeed no-
thing but outward form, mixed up with much
ignorance and superstition ; nevertheless a be-
ginning was thus made towards uprooting the
horrible idolatry which hitlierto had full sway
among the heathen Germans, and for extending
THE EASTERN CHURCH. 191
the ])rotection of the external church to those
who really wished to serve God from the heart.
France was, after the death of Clovis, parti-
tioned into three kingdoms, Neustria, Austrasia,
and Bui'gundy. These were perpetually at war
with one another, and moreover disquieted by
unhappy broils between the reigning families.
Pepin of Heristal, who was mayor of the palace,
or prime minister of the Prankish government,
taking advantage of these circumstances, espe-
cially as the princes were all of them weak and
profligate characters, got the whole power of
government into his hands, a.d. 687, and made
his dignity hereditary in his family. He con-
quered the Alemanns and Bavarians, and made
the Priselanders his tributaries. Equally power-
ful was his son Charles Martell ; and his
grandson Pepin le Bref contrived, with the as-
sistance of the bishop of Rome, who already pos-
sessed great political influence, to dethrone Chil-
deric, the last of the Merovingian dynasty, and
to get into his own hands the sole government of
France. His son was Charlemafrne.
IV. THE EASTERN CHURCH.
Immediately after the death of Justinian, the
eastern empire fell away into great weakness ; it
was oppressed on one side by the Persians, on
another by the Avarians of the Lower Danulie,
and was obliged, in the year 615, to cede even
to Persia tbe whole of Syi'ia, with Jerusalem,
192 THE EASTERN CHURCH.
Alexandria, Carthage, and a part of Lesser Asia.
Nevertheless, the emperor Heraclius, in the year
622, matched victoriously through Armenia and
Syria, and in 029 he again set up the cross in
Jerusalem ; on which account the Roman Catho-
lics to the present time keep their annual feast
of the erection of the cross, on the 14th of Sep-
tember. But the triumph was short ; for the
rebuke of Divine judgments, which had been
appointed for the eastern church, was now at
the door. Petty but vehement controversies,
upon various points of doctrine and notions of
faith, had rent this church for more than two
centuries, and by its intimate connexion with the
state, it shared in all those disgraceful deeds
which were perpetrated without boimds under
tiie government of weak, intriguing, and arbi-
trary monarchs ; indeed, a great part of such
evils proceeded from the church itself. Luxury,
effeminacy, and riotous living, insurrection, and
murder, prevailed and ruled, not only in Con-
stantinople, but also in the other great cities of
the empire ; as, for instance, in Alexandria :
image or picture worshijj had already become
very extensively prevalent. In a word, if we
read the description of the abominations which
reigned in the Eastern empire at this period, we
no longer wonder that God suffered one part of
it to perish for a warning to the other part, but
w^e only wonder that his patience could permit
that other part to continue so long, especially
when the warning was without effect.
MOHAMMEDANISM. 193
V. — MOHAMMEDANISM.
Arabia, tlie native country of the impostor Mo-
hammed, who founded a new religion of empire^^
was peopled principally by the posterity of Ish-
raael and the descendants of Joktan, Gen. x,
25, 26 ; XXV. 2 ; the latter chiefly as a settled
mercantile people in towns and ports of the Red
Sea and the Persian Gulf; the former as wan-
dering Bedoweens, who supported themselves by
pasturage, hunting, and plunder, and led a no-
madic life in the wilds of Arabia Petrfea, as a na-
tion that had never been conquered. Mohammed
was born at Mecca, near the Red Sea, about the
year 570, was brought up as a merchant, and, by
long journeys in traffic to foreign countries, and
having a contemplative mind, he acquired a va-
riety of knowledge and experience. He was ac-
quainted with the Jewish and the Christian reli-
gions ; for he not only came in contact with Jews
and Christians abroad, but must have met with
not a few of them in Arabia itself. He was satis-
fied, however, with neither of these religions ;
either because he had become acquainted with
Christianity in only its outward forms, which
forms were at that time already very much disfi-
gured ; or, which is more probable, because it was
more congenial to the pride of his heart to become
the founder of a new religion, than to humble him-
self under the doctrine of Christ. As the Scrip-
tures, which foretold the rise of his imposture,
ascribe the great spread of it to tlie influence of
s
194 MOHAMMEDANISM.
multitudes of the spirits of darkness ; so we may
not unreasonably suppose he was influenced in a
similar way himself. That he was acquainted
with the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament,
is evident from the book of his religion, the ko-
ran, which he began to publish in the same year
that Heraclius again set up the cross at Jerusalem.
The best parts of his book, the moral precepts,
he borrowed with some alterations from the sa-
cred writings. His grand maxim is, " There is
but one God, and Mohammed is his prophet."
By this he does not mean to deny that Moses
and Christ were also sent of God, but he re-
gards them as merely making a preparation,
which, without the completion introduced by
himself, is insufficient. Thus he sets his doctrine
in the same relation to Christianity which Chris-
tianity bears to Judaism. His accommodating
the knowledge of the better sort with the doc-
trine of one God, his flattering the sensuality of
his adherents with the promises of a carnal para-
dise, his training their dispositions to cool-headed
soberness by restriction from wine and by other
ordinances and religious rites, and to death and
contempt of death by his doctrine concerning un-
alterable fatality, can as little account fully for
the amazingly rapid spread of the Mohammedan
faith, as can the deep apostacy of the eastern
churches and the military violence with whicli
he advanced the imposture. In order fully to
comprehend these great and rapid effects, we must
take into account the influence of the invisible
power of darkness ; for to this do the Holy Scrip-
tures her(! tlicniselves direct our attention.
MOHAMMEDANISM. 195
As Mohammed's new doctrine at the outset
found no reception among his fellow-citizens at
Mecca, but as even those of his own tribe and
family became his persecutors on its account, he
thought it expedient to try his fortune in another
city, and therefore fled to Medina, the same year
that the Greek emperor Heraclius rose up to re-
conquer from the Persians the lost provinces of
his empire, a.d. 622. From this flight have
his followers ever since dated their chronological
reckoning. Mohammed found many adherents
at Medina, gathered troops, and by force of
arms took Mecca and subdued all Arabia. He
died in 632, after he had raised up many disci-
ples of his new religion, who called themselves
Moslemin, or believers, whence the name of Mu-
sulmans. After Mohammed's death, Abubeker
was chosen caliph, or successor of the prophet,
and united in his own person both political and
spiritual power. He conquered the Arabian
kingdom of Hira towards the Euphrates, and
the kingdom of the Cassanides south-east of
Damascus. Still more successful in his con-
quests was the caliph Omar, who subjected to
his yoke all Syria and Phenicia, Persia, Egypt,
and the north coast of Africa. After his death,
which was by assassination, the caliphs pushed
their conquests further eastward, took the islands
of Cyprus and Rhodes, subdued Armenia, and,
notwithstanding their intestine dissensions, they
overran with their victories the Greek islands
as far as before Constantinople, and extended
their dominion in North Africa to the shores
of the Atlantic. While the Greek empire was
196 MOHAMMEDANISM.
threatened with utter extinction by this new ene-
my, against whom it held out only by its ex-
cellent naval armament, it had also to withstand
hostile invasions from the north by the Ava-
I'ians, (Hungarians,) the Bulgarians, and Chaza-
rians. At this period, the Slavonian tribes es-
tablished their independence in Bohemia, Mora-
via, Servia, Bosnia, Slavonia, Dalmatia and
Croatia ; whereas hitherto they had been parti-
ally under the influence of the Greek empire.
The emperor Leo iii. the Isaurian, in the year
727, made a stand against the Arabians by his
valour ; but a new danger threatened his empire,
by reason of their attempting to advance from
the west of Europe, and to attack Constantinople
by land. Already, in the reign of the caliph
Omar, had four thousand Christian churches in
the conquered countries been destroyed. The
whole coast of North Africa, which had con-
tained so many Christian churches, was in this
respect laid in ruins ; and the churches of the
West w^ere now menaced with the heavy Mo-
hammedan yoke. The Arabians crossed the
Straits of Gibraltar into Spain. The kingdom of
the Visigoths had subsisted there till now, and
had kept under their yoke the Suevi in Portugal,
but its safety had become undermined through
the feodal system, which had now forced its way
even into the government of the church. For
discontented vassals offered their hand to the
Arabians, and these invaded the Visigoths with
a great army. A battle which continued eight
days left the Arabians masters of the field, a.d.
711. The whole of Spain, except its inaccessible
MOHAMMEDANISM. 197
mountainous regions, fell into their hands ; and
thus inspirited, they pushed across the Pyrenees
into the south of France, destroyed every thing
in the way of their march, and put the Chris-
tians in great terror. Charles Martell, the high
steward of France, was called to their assistance,
and a decisive battle took place near Poitiers,
A.D. 732. The Arabians were commanded by
the valiant warrior Abderrahman; and his hi-
therto victorious forces, amounting to four hun-
dred thousand, who rushed to battle with enthu-
siastic contempt of death, would undoubtedly
have been victorious on this occasion also, as
they had been over the heroic Visigoths, if
God had not said, " Hitherto shalt thou come,
but no further. And here shall thy proud waves
be stayed ! " For had the Arabians broken this
barrier also, the very existence of Christianity
would have been endangered. Charles Martell's
victory was complete ; and Abderrahman, after
losing the greatest part of his army, found him-
self obliged to retreat into Spain. There, how-
ever, he formed for himself from this time an
Arabian kingdom, which was not forced entirely
to yield to Christianity till seven hundred years
afterwards. Christianity, notwithstanding its
corruption in the East, and its barbarous condi-
tion in the West, contained in it nevertheless, as
the salt of the earth, an inward power, by which
Christendom in those days was protected against
being entirely overpowered by a false religion
within and belonging to itself, otherwise Mo-
hammedanism might easily have become the
universally prevailing religion.
s2
198 EXTERNAL AND Sl'IlllTUAL
VI. — EXTERNAL AND SPIRITUAL STATE OF THE
NATIONS AT THE CLOSK OF THIS PERIOD.
How totally different a form had those nations
which make up the subject of histoiy assumed,
since the commencement of the period now under
consideration ! The great Roman empire, which
at that time still subsisted in its Avide extent
and structui'c, though its strength was gone, and
which had so long comprised within itself the
whole dominion of the more cultivated part of
mankind, had now, even to its very form, disap-
peared from the theatre of the world ; and its
last branch, the Greek empire, was almost wholly
confined to Greece itself and to Asia Minor.
The scene of history was shifted from Rome,
where the countries about the Mediterranean had
formed its boundaries, into the narrower circle
of the Germanic nations, which gradually be-
came the focus of civilization, cidture, and novel
ecclesiastical regime. In the countries where
the church of Christ had once her most flourish-
ing fields of labour, was all her glory now anni-
hilated by the sudden and rapidly comprehensive
grasp of a new false religion j and the crescent
took the place of the cross. Hitherto had his-
tory always but one ostensible middle point about
which the whole turned, even the whole power
of the world ; but now had two independent and
opj)osite powers planted themselves in the field
of events : a power professedly Christian in the
West, and a Mohammedan one in the East j and
STATE OF THE NATIONS. 199
these in the following period were almost always
in conflict with each other. Nations, which hi-
therto had lain beyond the circle of history, were
now drawn within its vortex, and almost entirely
composed the material with which it wrought,
namely, the Germanic nations in the West, and
the Arabian nations in the East. The history
of the world now resembled a pair of balances,
in one scale of which lay Christianity, and in the
other Mohammedanism ; the one I'ising, and the
other sinking.
Again, as in the East, there was a special
mutual relation between the empire of the ca-
liphs and the Greek empire ; so was there al-
I'eady to be perceived in the West, the contra-
riety between the temporal and the spiritual
power : and as the empire of the caliphs oscil-
lated between the opposite parties, the Ommia-
des and the Abassides, so likewise did the tem-
poral power in the West exhibit a scene of in-
testine rupture and disunion. Moreover this
new world, in which the form of Christianity
has all along occupied the ascendant station,
never yet came to understand that true greatness
is a thing which begins with the state of the
mind and heart ; that the success and welfare of
nations must, like endogenous trees and plants,
develope from within, and are of a spiritual ori-
gin. Instead of this, it has sought, and still
seeks, only the very same things which it had
ever sought in its heathen profession, though
under another form, namely, exterior enlarge-
ment, the delights of sense, and the display of
temporal grandeur and glitter. Indeed it has
200 EXTERNAL AND SPIRITUAL
ever sought to mix up these things with Christi-
anity ; ami lias still to loarn, tliat the glory of
the flesh certainly cannot save us, because it
contains within itself the seeds of corruption and
dissolution. Yet has it evinced, no less than the
heathen world, a disposition to struggle for em-
pii'e, and for concentrating all temporal power
in one point ; hut the thing can never succeed ;
" it shall not prosper ;" the elements of discord
and division are interwoven in its very nature.
Even the civil arrangements of the modern
world we are now contemplating, especially
tended to j)roduce such an effect. The prince
distributed his lands among his vassals, the
king his among the dukes, and the dukes theirs
among the carls. This was an arrangement
suited to establish and to enlarge power and em-
pire ; and it often happened, that the fee, which
had been granted only at the time of serving at
court or in war, was made hereditary ; and par-
ticularly whenever the landlord himself happened
to be a weak character. Even civil and ecclesi-
astical offices became likewise hereditary fiefs ;
and this served to beget a mean and selfish de-
pendence on the part of state ministers, as well
as ignorance and immorality in the clergy. And
then the administration of justice was based upon
a weak foundation, for punishments were award-
ed according to the rank of the complainant.
Thus the murder of a prince, an earl, or an ec-
clesiastic, was more severely punished than the
murder of a humble vassal or humbler serf; and
in many cases it was deemed necessary to prove
the guilt of the accused by the trial of Uie ordeal
STATE OF THE NATIONS. 201
of fire or water, etc., wliicli was regarded as an
appeal to " the judgment of God."
The bishop of Rome, having hitherto con-
tended against the Greek patriarchs for the su-
premacy, against the Greek emperors for inde-
pendence, and against the princes of Germanic
descent, as, for instance, against the king of the
Visigoths, for the casting voice in all ecclesiastical
matters, had become at the close of this period
almost universally acknowledged as the supreme
head of the western church. The appointment
of the Germanic princes, which seems to have
been expressly that ordained by Providence to
counteract his ever growing influence, had not
yet manifested itself; but the struggle of his
power to spread itself into universal empire, and
to continue playing on, in a spiritual garb, the
part of the Roman empire, which had now fallen
into decay, had begun to be discovered in a va-
riety of traceable instances ; a struggle which in
the following age was most decidedly put forth
in all directions.
SIXTH PERIOD.
FROM CHARLEMAGNE TO THE REFORMATION.
[A.D. 768 to 1517.]
I. ACCOUNT OF THE CARLOVINGIAN DYNASTY.
When Charlemagne, in the year 768, ascended
tlie throne of the Franks, there were as yet no
indications appearing to predict that the coun-
tries under his sway would one day become the
seats of liberal education. He himself had
never been taught even to write, and had to
learn it in after life. His reign consisted of an
uninterrupted succession of wars, and may be
regarded, if not as a designed, yet a pretty suc-
cessftil attempt to unite all nations of the Ger-
manic tongue under one autocrat, which had at
least this beneficial effect, that the hitherto con-
tinual feuds among the German tribes were al-
layed for a season. His first war, which was
also the longest, was that against the Saxons,
A.D, 772 — 803, the east-bordering neighbours
of the Franks, and with whom his father before
him had had some trouble. In the first cam-
paign he pushed his victorious march to the
banks of the Weser, and destroyed on his way a
heathen temple : for he at the same time under-
took to bring over the Saxons to Christianity ;
CARLOVINOIAN DYNASTY. 203
because he well knew, that by no other means
could they become inured to peace and civiliza-
tion. Having concluded a peace, and received
promises from the Saxons, he was, in the follow-
ing year, invited by the bishop of Rome to assist
him against the Lombards, who had invaded the
territory of the latter. The city of Rome, with
its exarchate, (or neighbouring territory,) had,
since Justinian's time, been nominally at least a
part of the Greek Roman empire ; but Pepin le
Bref, who had the real power of it, presented to
the Roman bishop that city, and also Ravenna,
with their respective territories, out of gratitude
for the s\ipport he had received from him in his
election to the throne ; and thus the pope had
become an independent temporal prince, A. d.
756. For though the Frankish king remained
his feudal lord, yet this was a relation which
could undergo many changes through circum-
stances or design. Pepin, at the same time,
humbled the Lombards ; and their king Desi-
derius acted very imprudently in pi'ovoking
against himself the potent Charles, and had to
repent of it in the loss of his throne, after which
he retired into a convent, and his kingdom be-
came a part of that of the Franks. This was
the occasion of Charles's first visit to Rome,
where he confirmed to the bishop the grant of
Pepin, and was honoured by him with the title
of Protector of the Roman Church. Fresh in-
roads from the Saxons recalled him to his own
immediate territory. He chastised them ; they
sued for peace ; but broke it again that same
year. In 778, Charles marched into Spain, to
204 ACCOUNT OF THE
the assistance of an Arab prince, and hereby
extended his own territory to tlie banks of tlie
Ebro. He had aojain to contend with the Sax-
ons unon his return, and as they immediately
after this invaded his country a second time, his
wrath against them overstepped the usual bounds,
and he caused four thousand five hundred Sax-
ons to be beheaded at once. For as the wrath
of man worketh not the righteousness of God,
so it does not even stay to consider what is wise
and prudent in the sight of men. The Saxons
were enraged beyond measure, and from this time
defended themselves with desperation. Never-
theless, Charles, by the year 785, so prevailed
over them, that their redoubted leader Wittekind
came of his own accord into his presence, and
allowed himself to be baptized ; and his influen-
tial example was followed by many others of the
Saxon nation. In succeeding years, from a.d.
794 to 798, Charles had to be absent in Italy,
Bavaria, and Brandenburg, against the Wil-
zians; and in Hungary, against the Avari. New
insuiTections of the Saxons were the conse-
quence. In the year 800 he was proclaimed, at
Rome, western emperor, or emperor of the Ro-
mans : and this dignity, which had been extinct
for more than three centuries, and certainly was
become merely titular, was uniformly handed
down, such as it was, to his successors. What
would a real Cesar have thought, could he upon
looking in his own times, into the horrible wilds
of Germany, have been addressed as follows :
" Lo, the princes of these savage nations of the
forest, will one day be thy successors, and here.
CARLOVINGIAN DYNASTY. 205
as from their head-quarters, will tliey give law
to proud and magnificent Rome ! " In the year
803, Charles succeeded in quite pacificating the
Saxons, and in introducing Christianity into their
whole nation. He established episcopal sees
and fortresses throughout their country, and the
latter grew to towns and cities ; such were Ham-
burgh, Magdeburg, Halle, Halberstadt, Hil-
desheim, Bremen, Verden, Paderborn, Osnabruck,
and Muenster. But, for security from further
disturbances, he transplanted a portion of this
people to France, in the same manner as the
Jews were transplanted to Assyria, Babylon,
and Egypt. Charles had yet, in his latter years,
to struggle with the Danes, and succeeded in
making the Eider the settled northern boundary
of his empire. Thus it extended from the Ebro
in Spain to the Raab in Hungary, and from
the North and East Sea to the Roman Tiber.
Of many a similarly successful conqueror it
can only be said, that he was in body and soul
a warrior, and cared for nothing besides. But this
cannot be correctly said of Charlemagne. He
was also in peace a wise and firm governor, a
kind father to his household, a zealous friend of
the church, and a patron of science. His favour-
ite residence cities were Aix la Chapelle, Nym-
wegen, and Ingelheim near Mayence; and these
very stations serve to remind us, that he was as
much loi'd of France as he was of Germany.
Very highly did he value learned men, of whom
there were at that period so few ; as Alcuin of Eng-
land, and Eginhard : he invited and drew them
to his court, and was himself a hearer of the
206 ACCOUNT OF THE
instruction wliicli he p;ot them to give to liis cliil-
dren and others. The churcli singing of the
Franks, wliich to Italian ears seemed as rough as
the jarring of carriage wheels, he amended by
means of organs and precentors introduced from
Italy. But the churches and clergy required more
reform and amendment still. The latter had now
so forgotten the sacredness of their character,
that he further found it necessary to forbid their
committing acts of violence, and their engaging
in unbecoming diversions, as that of the chase,
for instance ; and he corrected ungrammatical
faults in their letters with as much care as im-
moral faults in their lives. As they were for the
most part veiy ignorant, he appointed a selection of
good sermons from the Greek and Latin fathei-s,
to be read by them from the pulpit, for the benefit
of the people at large. Charles, moreover, did
what he could towards promoting the fixing and
cultivation of the Germanic language, as also for
ensuring the proper care of the sick and poor, and
for the encouragement of industry in architec-
ture, husbandly, trade, and manufactures. He
had a kind of personal piety ; he humbled him-
self in the daily worship of God, and certainly
intended well to the church of Christ, as far as
his defective knowledge permitted. He was, in
many respects, superior to the age he lived in ;
though, in many others, he partook of its rude
ideas, and this was in some degree owing to his
numerous wars. The violent manner and mea-
sures he adopted for imposing the Christian reli-
gion upon the Saxons we are ready enough to
excuse, when we consider the ignorance of the
2
CARLOVINGIAN DYNASTY. 207
times; but this very conduct of his well-inten-
tioned zeal at once bespeaks what iron times they
were, together with the rude and even semi-bar-
barous state of the visible church. The contrariety
of Christianity to heathenism, the latter depend-
ing upon mere externals, was now almost entirely
forgotten ; and Christianity itself was in general
reduced to an outward form, which often showed
itself as very little better than another species of
idolatry. For though image worship, which had
occasioned so many disturbances in Constantino-
ple under Leo in. and had been sanctioned by
the Roman pontiff, was condemned at a synod
convened by Charlemagne, still so many heathen
superstitions had found their way into the Ger-
man church, that the pagans would have gained
but little by the exchange, were it not that every
professed Christian has the privilege of consult-
ing the word of God, of which the church is the
depositaiy. And though even this was as a
sealed book to the generality, it remained among
them ; and if one generation could not profit by
it, another could. Heathenism could furnish no-
thing like it.
Charles died in 814, and was interred at Aix
la Chapelle. The remains of his castle at Nim-
wegen are still to be seen as a beautiful ruin.
His main service to the Christian church con-
sisted not in his having extended its boundaries
by the sword, but in his care for the education
of the clergy and lay teachers, his erection of in-
stitutions for that purpose, and in his munifi-
cent establishment of seminaries expressly for the
general improvement of his subjects throughout
208 ACCOUNT OF THE
the empire. Hence originated the schools attach-
ed to the cathedrals and monasteries, at Paris,
Tours, Lyons, Orleans, Rheims, Fulda, Corvey,
Hirschaii, likewise at Reichenau, (which already
had been a seat of leai-ning ever since the time
of Clovis,) and lastly at St. Gall. These
seminaries diffused, for several succeeding centu-
ries, considerable light through the surround-
ing darkness in their respective vicinities.
Meanwhile, in the eastern world, the empire
of the caliphs had at length become subjected to
the dynasty of the Abassidae, and Al Manzour,
the second caliph of this race, had transplanted
their seat to Bagdad, near the ruins of old Ba-
bylon, A.J). 762. The most flourishing period
of the caliphs was under this dynasty, and es-
pecially at the time when the empire of the
Franks, under Charlemagne, was at the height
of its power. His contemporary was the caliph
Haroim al Raschid, a.d. 786 — 808, a name
which to this day is as famous in the East as
that of Charlemagne in the West. He, on seve-
ral occasions, sent embassies to Charles, whose
great renown had reached even to him, and whom
he regarded in some measure as his ally, because
Charles had carried on war in Spain against the
preceding caliph dynasty of the race of Omar.
The arts and sciences attained under his govern-
ment a high degree of cultivation ; and the
Arabians, at that period, excelled the nations of
the West, in chemistry, astronomy, medicine,
geometry, poetry, architecture, and other ac-
quirements. The predominance of the Moham-
medan religion was also extended vcrv far into
CARLOVINGIAN DYNASTY. 209
the East. But though Al Maiiioun, tlie son of
Al Raschid, was likewise a distinguished ruler,
and a great encourager of learning, yet from his
time the power and glory of the Saracens he-
gan to decline, even as did those of the empire
of the Franks after the age of Charlemagne.
As in the Babylonian empire after Nebuchad-
nezzar's death, and in the Grseco-Persian after
the death of Alexander, and in the kingdom
of Israel after the glorious age of Solomon,
weakness, division, and disorder immediately
succeeded ; such was also the issue immediately
subsequent to the strong armed government of
Charlemagne. His son Lewis (le debonnaire),
who succeeded him in the empire, was a kind-
hearted, well-meaning prince, who exerted himself
for the extension and safe establishment of the
Christian church ; but who neither in his own
household, nor in his vast empire, evinced the firm
and manly spirit of his father. He showed him-
self ready to indemnify every one who had been
treated with any injustice under his father's go-
vernment ; but he himself committed one of the
greatest acts of political injustice against the na-
tions under his sceptre. For he had not reigned
three years before he consented to a partition of
his dominions among his three sons, Lotharius,
Pepin, and Lewis the German ; and hereby fur-
nished occasion for miserable distractions of the
empire. He also assigned some provinces to a
fourth son, Charles the Bald, who was the child
of his second marriage. Soon were his own
sons found in hostility against their father ; they
even obliged him to an amende honorable, and
t2
210 ACCOUNT OF THE
with the assistance of the clergy, who had then
already become very powerful, they made him
contemptible to all the people ; and though royal
authority was restored to him, yet as he was
now too weak and worn out to proceed against
such children with fatherly severity, their rebel-
lions and nmtual contentions still continued, till
at lengtli weary of life, and of a government
saturated with the most painful and humiliating
experiences, he ended his days, in the year 840.*
Could the blessing of God attend such sons as
these ? Immediately after the death of their fa-
ther, they renewed their wars with one another,
and Lotharius was totally defeated at the battle
* We supply, chiefly from Tytler, the following more par-
ticular summary of these transactions. To Pepin, his second
son, he gave Aquitaine, the southern third of France ; to
Lewis, surnamed the German, who was youngest, Bavaria ;
and he associated his eldest son Lotharius with himself in
the government of the rest. The three princes quarrelled
among themselves, agreeing in nothing but in hostility
against their father, who thus proved the unintentional au-
thor of most serious civil troubles. They made open war
against him, supported by pope Gregory iv. ; the pretence
was, that the emperor having a younger son, Charles, born
to him by a second wife, and after this partition of the states,
wanted to provide this child likewise with a share, which
could not be done but at the expense of his elder brothers,
Lewis was compelled to surrender himself a prisoner to his
rebellious children. They confined him for a year to a mo-
nastery, and treated him with great contempt ; till, on a new
quarrel between Lewis the younger and Pepin, Lotharius
once more restored his father to the throne. But his spirits
were broken, and his health decayed, so as to disable him
from exercising any paternal severity or royal firmness; thus
the rebellions and dissensions of the brothers still continued,
and he finished soon alter by his death an inglorious and
turbulent reign, a.w. 840. — Trans.
CARLOVINGIAN DYNASTY. 211
of Fontenay, in France. However, in the year
843, a new partition of the empire was made by
the treaty of Verdun. Lotharius retained the im-
perial dignity, the possession of Italy, and a tract
of country on the left bank of the Rhine, stretch-
ing to the coast of the North Sea. The province
of Lothringen (Lorraine) was so called from his
name. But his family became extinct a few years
after his death, and his territory, with the impe-
rial dignity, came into the hands of Charles the
Bald, to whom France, and a portion of Spain
extending to the Ebro, had been assigned by the
abovementioned partition of the empire. But
this prince was unable to defend his territory
against the invasions of the Normans, who
poured in upon it from Denmark, Norway, and
Sweden ; and who, upon their arrival, gave im-
mediate independence to several powerful vassals
of the emperor, and established new kingdoms
in Lower Burgundy, (the south-east part of
France,) and in Upper Burgundy, (France, east
and west of Mount Jura, including Switzerland ;)
while another part of them settled in the north-
west part of France, which is still called Nor-
mandy. His successors, Lewis the Stammerer,
Charles the Gross, Charles the Simple, and
Lewis the Lazy, were weak princes. The last
had at length no more than the territories of two
cities remaining to him ; and, upon his death, in
987, Hugh Capet, count of Paris, the father of
the Capetian race of monarchs, established him-
self on the throne, and from him are descended
the present royal families of France.
In Germany, tlie Carlovingian line had even
212 ACCOUNT OF TUK
earlier become extinct. At the abovementioned
partition of tlie eni|)ire, the best [>art of" Germany
had fallen to the share of Lewis the (ierman.
But he and his successors had to encounter per-
petual incursions from the Hungarians, Slavo-
nians, Moravians, and Normans ; and tlie last of
his line, namely, Lewis surnamcd the Child,
died in a.d. 911. The incessant invasions from
these foreigners occasioned the erection of innu-
merable fortresses and castles, many ruins of
which to this day still hang about the hills and
heights of Germany. The original tenants of
these once fortified places bade defiance not only
to the invading foe, but sometimes even to the
power of their own lawful sovereign. The evil
of the Germanic feodal system had been all along
more and more discovering itself in dissensions,
inteinal weakness, lawlessness, and anarchy ;
and the chasm between the haughty nobles and
the oppressed vassals, as having no industrious
and educated middle class to fill it up, became
more and more observable. It was in Italy that
the struggle was first made to remedy this evil.
In that cotuitry, during the feeble government
of the Carlovingians, several powerful vassals
rebelled, and contended for independent posses-
sion of their lands ; while the poor people at large
groaned under their oppression, as also under
that of the clergy. As in Germany, castles and
fortresses were multiplied for protection against
the plunder of foreign invaders ; so in Italy, for
the same object, were large towns newly built,
while others were enlarged and fortified. Ex-
tended traffic produced affluence, and affluence,
CARLOVINGIAN DYNASTY. 213
with the living together of large bodies of popu-
lation, called forth new wants and necessities.
Hence arts and manufactures began to flourish.
And although in these free towns the partition
wall between nobility and common citizens made
its appearance, and temporal power upon a lesser
scale was here as much the object of ambition and
struggle as it had been in the great empires, yet
the circumstances of the middling and lower
classes were not so oppressive, and the Avay was
opened to a better adjustment of the various ranks
of society. While, in the south of Europe, the
new nations had gradually become established,
disturbing and unsettling changes still continued
in its northern and eastern parts. These were
chiefly occasioned by the ISormans, who were
looking about in various diiections for a new
home. One branch of their nation had planted
itself in the north of France : they made deso-
lating incursions into Germany ; in Russia, they
established, in 862, a distinct Norman state ; they
peopled Iceland ; and, in England, they main-
tained severe contests against Alfred the Great,
(an excellent prince, who restored tranquillity
and order to his country,) but they could not
prevail against him. A lai'ge part of them em-
braced Christianity, and settled in England ;
but, at a later period, they at length obtained the
perpetual sovereignty of that country.
In the ninth century, during the itinerancy of
Ansgarius as the apostle of the north, Christi-
anity from Constantinople was planted in Bohe-
mia and Moravia, which two countries at that
214 GERMANY UNDER CONRAD I,
period formed one powerful kingdom, that often
troubled Germany with invasions.
II. GERMANY UNDER CONRAD 1. AND THE SAXON
EMPERORS.
After the extinction of the Carlovingian fa-
mily, Conrad, duke of the Franks, was chosen
king in Germany. He was a brave and able
prince, but reigned only seven years, and was suc-
ceeded by Henry the Fowler^ duke of Saxony,
A.D. 918 — 936, the most powerful and best qua-
lified German prince of the age. The dukes of
Swabia and Bavaria, who opposed him, he soon
found means to reduce to subjection, and reunited
to Germany the dukedom of Lorraine, which
had formed part of France ; for as these two
countries were manifestly distinct by their lan-
guages, so the separation between them had been
all along becoming more and more apparent.
He concluded a treaty of peace with the Hunga-
rians, a barbarous and fierce nation, who from
time to time had invaded Germany, and had
made frightful ravages ; and he availed himself
of this interval to fortify his cities, discipline his
troops, commence obstinate skirmishes with the
Slavonian tribes, and habituate his Germans to
this kind of warfare. When the stipulated pe-
riod for cessation of hostilities with the Hunga-
rians had elapsed, and Henry had refused to pay
them any further tribute, they invaded Saxony
AND THE SAXON EMPERORS. 215
with a large army, and a battle ensued near
Merseburg, in the year 933. Henry attacked
them with ejaculations to God, and soon routed
them with great slaughter. The tumulus is still
pointed out upon the field where they were
buried. Henry solemnized a general thanksgiv-
ing in the church at Merseburg, for this signal
victory. The towns which he built and fortified
for defence against the Hungarians, were the
first foundation of that Germanic citizenship
which began to form from his time. He granted
to their inhabitants special rights and immuni-
ties, chartered them with the privilege of annual
markets and conventions, and armed them
against foreign intruders. Arts and manufac-
tures now advancing, became a means of prospe-
rity to the poor inhabitants, and gave rise to a
powerful middle rank, between those nobles and
serfs that heretofore had comprised nearly the
whole population of Germany.
The throne, after his death, devolved to his
son Otho I., a prince who inherited his father's
virtues and valour. His reign was one uninter-
rupted course of warfare, and his sword was al-
most incessantly drawn. Several of the rebel-
lions he had to encounter originated from his
own family ; but he showed on all such occa-
sions, not only his courage in putting them down,
but likewise his religious magnanimity in so
readily yielding pardon to the vanquished. He
was active in pi'evailing with the Wends, as far
as the Oder, to embrace Christianity ; and he
humbled king Harold of Denmark, so far as to
extort from him a promise to receive baptism.
216 GERMANY UNDER CONRAD I.
He also made himself master of Italy, which at
that time was subject to the margrave Berenga-
rius ; and got himself crowned at Pavia as king
of Italy, and at Rome as emperor of the Ro-
mans. From that time it became a usage for
the sovereign of Germany to assume the title of
Roman emperor. The Hungarians also renewed
their hostilities, and in 955 they invaded Ba-
varia, whereupon his brother Henry, duke of
Bavaria, sent for his immediate assistance. Otho
lost no time in collecting as good an army as the
hurry would permit, and his troops spent the
night before the battle in preparing for the
hazai'd of the following day, in fasting and
prayer. On the 10th of August the general en-
gagement ensued ; and when at its very com-
mencement all seemed to be lost, Otho fell on
his knees, and prayed for the help of God. He
then at the head of his Saxon troops poured
down upon the enemy, and almost annihilated
their whole army. The Hungarians desisted
from that time from their invasions of Germany.
After Otho had made several other expeditions
to Italy, whose inhabitants were continually re-
volting from him, he died in the year 973. He
was one of the most distinguished princes that
Germany ever possessed, for which reason he
was also surnamed the Great. His remains
were interred in the cathedral of Magdeburg.*
As the Romans of ancient history had, from
the time of Augustus, to put forth their utmost
strength upon Germany, so the strength of the
* Wbere his splendid mausoleum is still to be seen. — Tuans.
AND THE SAXON EMPERORS. 217
Germans, from the time of the first Roman ex-
pedition of Otho the Great, began to exhaust it-
self in Italy. Every Germanic emperor from
that time thought himself obliged to undertake
an expedition into that country, to secure his
dominion over the conquered provinces, and to
solemnize his imperial coronation as sovereign
of the West. This proved very detrimental to
Germany ; its affairs at home were, during such
intervals, frequently retarded or altogether neg-
lected, so that they fell under more manifold and
effectual influence of the papal power ; while its
feodal princes of the larger provinces, the dukes
of Lorraine, Saxony, Franconia, Bavaria, Swa-
bia, etc. took occasion, from the emperor's ab-
sence, to abuse their power for their own ag-
grandizement and greater independence. Their
example was followed by the lesser princes and
lords, who held their possessions, some as an im-
mediate fief from the emperor himself, others as
a tenure from the princes who themselves were
his vassals. Amidst the many and variously
opposing interests and struggles which arose out
of these relative dependencies, in which the serfs
conflicted with the inferior nobles ; these, with
the ducal princes ; the latter, with the emperor ;
and again, the ducal princes, counts, and knights
with one another ; the cities, by little and little,
struggled into freedom, as did also the individual
possessors of land ; that is, they shook off" the
yoke of vassalage to their princely lords, and
remained only under the supremacy of the em-
pei'or. Thus, though such absence in Italy of tlie
successive Germanic emperors proved injurious
u
218 CONRAD ir. AND HENRY III.
for the time to peace and oi-der in Gci'inany,
it will be perceived tliat they wei-e part of the
plan of Providence for preserving an equipoise
in Chi'istendom at large. The harmony and co-
herence of the German states was, indeed, in
many ways hereby endangei-ed : Italian demora-
lization and luxury were introduced, and not
only many an emperor, but also many an army
from Germany found a grave in Italy ; yet all
this served, from time to time, as a check upon
the glowing influence of the papacy, which was
continually more and more discovering its aim
at universal dominion, and thus was it prevented
from ripening into a decidedly anti-christian
power.
The immediate successors of Otho the Great,
namely, Otho ii., Otho iii., and Henry ii., who
reigned from 973 to 1024, had already experi-
enced that the possession of Italy, for which
they incessantly struggled, was the destruction
of repose and power both to themselves and to
their German country. Continually had they to
conflict with the refractory Romans : the two
former left their lives in Italy, and the Saxon
imperial dynasty ended with Henry ii., by whom
the kingdom of Burgundy was annexed to Ger-
many.
III. CONRAD II. AND HENRY III.
After his death, Conrad of Franconia was
chosen emperor, at an assembly of the pj'inces
and nobles, which was held between Mayence
CONRAD II. AND HENRY III. 219
and Worms. With him commenced the line of
the Franconian, or Salic emperors. In his mili-
tary expeditions to Italy, Burgundy, and Lor-
raine, he gave proof of his German valour and
firmness ; in his transactions with Denmark and
Poland, his political wisdom ; and in his arrange-
ments and exertions for the welfare of Germany,
he evinced his sincere and benevolent intentions.
What might not princes of such bold character,
as was both he and his son Henry iii., have
achieved, had they appeared in more civilized
times, with less raw material to fashion, and
fewer martial hinderences to conflict with ! Con-
rad died at Utrecht, in 1039, and was succeeded
by Henry iii., who was then twenty-two years
of age. Conrad had provided that this his son
should receive homage in his father's lifetime as
king of Germany, Burgundy, and Italy ; indeed,
it was generally the aim of the Frankish dynasty
all along to make the empire hereditary to them-
selves, without wishino; to abolish that ri^ht of
election which the German estates hereditarily
exercised. The unity of the whole country and
of its form of government was thus best provided
for : the sovereign himself had hereby an addi-
tional inducement to rule his empire with care-
fulness, forbearance, and fidelity, if he might
hope to bequeath to his own family the benefits
of his diligence ; and as the right of the elec-
toral princes .would still be exercised, at least in
form, it could upon any occasion interpose with
effect and benefit whenever any emperor's son
should appear of less hopeful character as an
heir to the crown. It would, perhaps, be unjust
2*20 OTHER COUNTRIES OF EUROPE.
to regard, as a more piece of self-interest, the en-
deavours of the Saxon and Prankish emperors to
make the Germanic throne hereditary ; and much
more to maintain, that in these they had no eye
whatever to the welfare of their country. Henry
III. governed with great power, and died in the
year 1056. He humbled Bohemia and Hun-
gary, kept in check the restless Saxons, and de-
throned and appointed popes by his sole impe-
rial right and might. As he had the means, so
probably he had laid plans for extending his
conquests and dominions ; and hence, perhaps,
God saw fit to cut him off" in the thirty-ninth
year of his age, though the minority of his son
Henry iv. yielded an occasion for lamentable
disorders in Germany.
IV. — OTHER COUNTRIES OF EUROPE.
In France, about this time, the regal authority
was engaged in perpetual broils with its powerful
vassals, who, like their kings, struggled for
absolute dominion in their own allotted territo-
ries, and cared little for the welfare and prospe-
rity of the nation at large, or for its general
consolidation and unity. The strongest of these
vassals was the duke of Normandy ; and if the
whole of France did not become subject to him,
it was only because the Normans had distributed
their forces into expeditions for foreign conquest,
they having erected a Norman kingdom in
Lower Italy and Sicily ; and, beside this, they
HENRY IV. AND THE PAPACY. 221
had constantly an eye to the possessing of Eng-
land. The Anglo-Saxon king, Edward the
Confessor, who had no children, chose William,
duke of Normandy, for his successor ; who hav-
ing defeated the Anglo-Saxons in the battle of
Hastings, on the 14th of October, 1066, was
crowned king of England at Westminster Abbey.
From that period were the Normans the masters
of England, and the Saxon party was crushed
for ever. Moreover, in Denmark and the other
northern kingdoms, about the end of the tenth
century, the contest of Christianity with heathen-
ism was decided, while great political commo-
tions changed the aspect of those realms. Ca-
nute the Great founded a powerful dominion in
the north, where various ancient dynasties hence-
forth became extinct. At the same period, prince
AVladimir introduced Christianity into Russia,
and united himself to the Greek church.
V. — HENRY IV. AND THE PAPACY.
Henry iv. was spoiled in his education by un-
skilful and unprincipled tutors ; having been
taught only to humour his own will, and to put
in execution his unbridled fancies, however
much to the inconvenience of other men. His
quarrel with the Saxons, whom he oppressed and
injured, proved the occasion of his dethronement
by the Germanic princes. He found, indeed,
help in the loyal cities, and even succeeded in
defeating and subduing the refractory Saxons ;
u2
222 HENRY IV. AND THE PAPACY.
but soon tliere arose against him a more power-
ful foe, to whom he was obliged most abjectly
to submit. For, about this time, a.d. 1073,
Hildebrand, the son of a carpenter, was elected
bishop, or pope of Rome, by the title of Gregory
VII. Hitherto it had been customary for the
Roman bishop, as the more generally acknow-
ledged head of the Western church, to be elected
conjointly by the clergy in Rome, by the people,
and by the emperor, as temporal sovereign of
Italy. But Gregory vii. put an end to this
heieditary custom. For though he himself
grudgingly received from Henry iv. his confirm-
ation in the popedom, yet he decreed the rule
that, in future, the supreme bishop should be
elected only by that body of the chief clergy at
Rome which is called the conclave of cardinals.
Gregory, in general, pursued with vigorous bold-
ness that line of policy which had been begun,
about the middle of the eleventh century, by Leo
IX. ; and, with iron firmness, he made it conti-
nually his object to remedy abuses which had
crept into the church, and ttf restore unity within
its pale. The princes and kings had hitherto
exercised the right of their own choice in appoint-
ing clergymen to vacant livings within their re-
spective dominions, and it frequently happened
that they bestowed such appointments on those
who offered most money for them, and thus
they literally sold the preferments of the church.
To this ecclesiastical trafiic, (which, fi'om the
case recorded in Acts viii. 18, etc. is called Si-
mony,) it was Gregory's pleasure to put an end,
HENRY IV. AND THE PAPACY. 223
to wrest from the princes the right of choosing
and appointing- church ministers, and to leave
them merely the right of confirming the choice,
or rather the mere form of doing so. He pub-
lished a decree to this effect, and affixed the ban
^of excommunication to its non-observance. He
also introduced the laAv of celibacy, by which the
clergy were " forbidden to marry," that family
cares might not render them subservient to the
interests of their respective princes, but that
they might be at leisure to devote themselves
exclusively to the papal throne as the centre of
ecclesiastical unity. Nor did this alone satisfy
him. Quite new ideas of the relative bearing
of spiritual and temporal power were from this
time to become current in Chiistendom. Hi-
therto the bishop of Rome had been considered
as a subject of the empire. Gregory w^as not
content to set the popedom upon an equality
with the imperial dignity, but it was his pleasure
that the former should have the precedency.
He maintained that the pope was "Christ's vicar
upon earth ;" and that, as such, he is above
every temporal power ; that the pope is the sun,
and the emperor the moon, receiving its light
from the sun, as the sun receives its own from
God ; that the Germanic empire and every other
kingdom of Christendom are to be regarded as
feudatory to the Roman see, the latter having
power to bestow and to withdraw them at ])lea-
sure ; and that it belongs to the emperor, as the
pope's chief vassal, to regard him as his supreme
judge. This endeavour of the hierarchy, to
224 HENRY IV. AND THE PAPACY.
prostrate beneath it every thing great, had al-
ready budded in the popedom before tlie time of
Gregory ; and we meet with similar aims in the
aneient heathen hierai'ehies of Egypt and India,
as also in the modern ones of Thibet and Japan.
But this endeavour assumed its anti-clirhtian
character only in the papacy, because it here
wrought under the pretext of Christian truth.
As long as the temporal princes, and especially
the German emperors, who from this time be-
came involved in perpetual broils with the pa-
pacy, stood in the way as hindrances to its abso-
lute domination, it could not develope itself into
that anti-christianity which exalteth itself against
God himself, and against the very worship of
God, 2 Thess. ii. 4—7 ; for it could not with
any success oppose itself to the tempoi-al power,
except under the pretext of confessing Christ ;
and the pope is consequently not the anti-christ
as long as he confesses Christ, however hypo-
critically. But, though the popes could not
succeed to rob the temporal rulers of all their
power, they have hitherto not wanted the will
to do it ; and should the pope ever succeed in
uniting all the power of Christendom in his own
pei'son, and in making all Christian rulers de-
pendent on himself, we may then confidently
look for a still further fulfilment of the Scripture
prophecies concerning anti-christ. Certainly an
ambition for such supreme temporal dominion, —
an ambition which has devolved from the an-
cient Roman and temporal power to the modern
Roman ecclesiastical one, — may evidently be dis-
HENRY IV. AND THE PAPACY. 225
ccvned in the papacy ever since the age of Gre-
coiy VII. ; and therefore is Rome, in the pro-
jjhetic language of Scripture, denominated Ba-
bylon, because in Rome has the spirit of that
first great universal empire continued to operate.
We must not, however, confound the popedom
with all papists indiscriminately. Some of the
latter were personally too good, others too weak,
others of too common rank in the world, to be
in reality even conscious of this ambitious strug-
gle, much less to be really accessory to its pro-
motion ; and even those who were distinguished
as promoting it, had not in view the ultimate
object wherein popery dev elopes itself as anti-
christianism ; hence they did not foresee whither
their aims would finally lead, and even some
palliations for their conduct may be found in the
circumstances of the times they lived in. The
church was unsettled, sunk away into abuses ;
was oppressed, overreached, or ill dealt with by
princes, and rent by divisions ; and such indivi-
duals wished to restore it to its splendour, power,
and unity, and to deliver it from the influence of
profane hands. But, in all this they, and even
the better minded among them, were instruments
of an invisible power, which was labouring upon
a fixed plan for a distant object ; and it is only
in this way that we can account for the fact, that
the individual members of this great body of do-
minion, however mutually divei'se their per-
sonal characters, and the circumstances of the
various times in which they severally lived, still
ever held fast the same principles, and laboured
226 HENRY IV. AND THE PAPACY.
towards the same end for so many centuries to-
gether. This is a phenomenon quite without a
j)arallel in human history.
Henry iv. was complained of to pope Gre-
gory, by the malcontent Saxons, and the haughty
pontiff gladly availed himself of this occasion
to evince his spiritual power, and to humble the
emperor. He cited him to Rome, there to an-
swer for his proceedings. But Henry, not hav-
ing forgotten the puissant deeds of his own fa-
thei', who had dethroned three popes, was in no
wise inclined to comply with such a citation.
On the contrary, in an assembly of German
bishops at Worms, a.d. 1076, he obtained a
formal deposition of the pope himself; and sent
him notice to that effect by an ambassador.
Hereupon, Gregory pronounced against Henry
the sentence of excommunication, declared him
unworthy of the imperial crown, and absolved
the Germans from their oath of allegiance to
him. Now, as Heniy, by his arbitrary and op-
pressive government, had made himself many
enemies, this strange and unexampled measure
of the pope gained even much applause among
the German princes, so that tlie emperor was
])lainly enough given to understand, that unless
he reconciled himself to the pojie within a year,
the imperial dignity would pass into other hands.
This remonstrance was wliat Henry had not ex-
l^ected, and it came like waters into his very
soul ; for, hitherto, he had not feared the pope's
interdict or anathema. He, therefore, set out
with a few faithfid attendants, crossed with great
toil and danger the snow-covered Alps, and
HENRY IV. AND THE PAPACY. 227
found the pope at the castle of Canossa. Gre-
gory made him feel all his iron severity : three
whole days was the king obliged to wait, dressed
in a linen frock, on the snowy ground of the
castle-yard, until it was that potent priest's plea-
sure to admit him into his presence ; and the
conditions which he imposed upon him bore all
the characters of revolting hardship. Henry
was required to forego all exercise of his imperial
rights, and to lay aside all insignia of his im-
perial dignity, until he had answered all the
charges brought against him before a tribunal
of the princes of the empire ; nor until then was
it to be decided whether he should be suffered to
retain the crown. Henry made the most solemn
promises to perform all that Mas required of him ;
but when he was again at large, and on his way
back, his high-born pride began again to stir it-
self with much displeasure at the indignities he
had received. The hatred which the people of
Upper Italy had conceived against the violent and
arbitraiy pontiff came seasonably to his help, and
he soon appeared at the head of a powerful ai-my,
to which the loyal German cities joined them-
selves, to meet in the field Rudolph of Swabia,
who, during his absence, had been set up as em-
peror in opposition to him. A sanguinary en-
gagement took place near Merseburg, in which
Henry indeed was beaten, but then also his
opponent Rudolph had fallen in that engage-
ment, and a great part of the Germans, r^urn-
ing to their allegiance, joined Henry, so that he
was now enabled to mai'ch into Italy, and to be-
siege the pope under the walls of Rome itself.
228 HENRY IV. AND THE PAPACY.
Gregory made his escape to Salerno, in Lower
Italy, and put himself under the protection of
Robert Guiscard, duke of the Normans, and
died soon after. His firmness forsook him not
to the day of his death; he ])referred to sacrifice
his life, rather than to make the least concession
to the emperor; and he would have commanded
our admiration, had he been the champion of a
worthier cause.
But Henry had soon to experience, that, though
a pope may die, the papal power still lives. For
Gregory's successors, Victor in. and Urban ii.,
renewed the anathema against him; and the lat-
ter soon prompted Henry's own sons, Conrad
and Henry, to rebellion against their father.
Henry iv. spent the latter days of his life in pri-
son, whither one of his sons had allured him ; and,
at length, in 110(5, he died at Luettich, after he
had plentifully, and through his own fault, tasted
all the bitterness of a miserable princely life.
Neither did his son and successor, Henry v., go
unpunished ; for God generally does, in the most
observable manner, chastise undutiful children
for flagrant offences against their parents. It is
true, he obtained successes in war against the
Hungarians and Poles, and kept the Germanic
empire better together than did his father; but
he also got into contention with the pope at
Rome, concerning hereditary right in Upper
Italy, as likewise with the Germanic princes ;
and he was not favoured with a son to inheiit
his dominions after him, so that with his death
the Prankish dynasty became extinct, a.d. 1125.
Lotharius ii., duke of Saxony, was elected his
THE FEODAL AND HANSE SYSTEM. 229
successor, and pope Innocent ii. crowned him
emperor of the Romans, after Lotharius had de-
clared himself for Innocent in his contest with
the rival pope Anacletus ii. This emperor ne-
vertheless found himself obliged to continue
against that very pope the quai-rel of Henry v.,
respecting hereditary right in Upper Italy, till,
at length, he came to a stipulation to hold it as
a feodal tenure under the pope, and to pay him
a yearly tribute for the same. Hitherto the
Roman pontiff had held his possessions, called
" the land of the church," as a fexidatory to the
emperor ; but now the emperor was become the
pope's vassal for his property in Tuscany. Be-
side this, Lotharius ii, had ever to contend with
the dukes of Franconia and Swabia, who were
both of them of the house of Hohenstaufen, and
who disputed his claims, they considering them-
selves the rightful heirs of Henry v. ; and, for-
asmuch as he had also given the dukedom of
Saxony to his nephew Henry of Bavaria, sur-
named the Proud, as a balance against the
power of the Swabian party, he hereby laid the
foundation of that long conflict between the
Welfs and Waiblings, (Guelphs and Gibbelines,)
which we shall meet with in our review of the
Hohenstaufen imperial dynasty.
VI. THE FEODAL AND HANSE SYSTEM.
While, at this period, through community of
manners and customs, language and laws, as
X
230 THE FEODAL
also by being under one and the same imperial
head, elected all along by the ducal princes, with
the concurrence of" the freemen, the various
Germanic tribes, the Bavarians, Franks, Saxons,
Swabians, etc., continued, on the one hand, to
assimilate more and more, so as to become one
German people ; their mutual distinctions wei-c,
nevertheless, on the other hand, kept up by the
circumstance, that the gi'eat feodal tenures (of
dukedoms and margraviates) became more and
more hereditary. The emperors retained indeed
the riglit to grant and vest them in their respec-
tive inheritors ; but, in general, they saw them-
selves necessitated to leave the sons of the ducal
princes in their hereditary possessions, and to
confirm them therein, because their own imperial
power was in part dependent on the good will of
the princes ; for, as soon as they were elected to
the imperial dignity, they were obliged to abdi-
cate their own dukedom to another, and thus no
longer possessed any hereditaiy dominion. The
ducal princes availed themselves of such occasions
to confirm and extend their own power ; while
the emperors, in order not to leave their own fa-
milies quite curtailed under such circumstances,
sought their indemnification in making the im-
perial sovereignty hereditary. The title of duke,
margrave, count palatine, earl, etc., now no
longer, as at first, denoted an oflice held merely
for life, but the hereditary tenure of a large fee
under the crown, and which adhered to some
particular family. Thus the distinction between
higher and lower nobility, the latter of which
has moi'c and more all along borne the same re-
4
AND HANSE SYSTEM. 231
lation to the ducal princes, as that of the ducal
princes to the emperor, now gradually began to
show itself. The tenures of the chief ecclesias-
tics, as archbishops, bishops, and abbots, became
separated from the temporal ones ; and the third,
or middle rank, that of artisans and tradesmen,
to which Heni'v v. o;ave the general title of free
burghers, gained wider footing, and more rights
and privileges. Some of the towns which they
itdiabited were under the direct jurisdiction of
the ducal princes, and others immediately un-
der that of the king or emperor himself. As
it was the lot of the few latter to enjoy the
greater freedom, or less oppression, so the
others, which composed the greater number,
made strenuous efforts to stand in the same more
free relation to their ducal princes. These
struggles issued in the constitution of what are
called the free imperial cities, whose civil rights
as burghers even persons of noble rank and
descent were glad to enjoy. Ever since the dis-
covery and working of the silver mines in Sax-
ony, which began in the time of Otho the Great,
wealth and industry were also promoted in the
German provinces, and the manufacture of me-
tals, broad cloth and linen, made very considerable
advancements. With these stood connected the
promotion of traffic in general, which became
established at Bremen, Hamburg, Cologne, and
other favourably situated towns, thougTi it was
still for the most part in the hands of Jews.
232 STATE OF CULTIVATION
VII. — STATE OF CULTIVATION AND LETTERS.
The manners of this period were still very bar-
barous. Drunkenness, quarrelsonmess, passion
for huntinaj and war, plunder, and murder, were
prevalent in every quarter. Even the ecclesias-
tics shared in these rude manners, and occasion-
ally settled matters by arms, even within the
walls of their churches. Even their " God's
truce," a law that was enacted in the year 1038,
and whereby all quarrels were forbidden from
Wednesday evening to Monday morning, was
insufficient to restore tranquillity. The power of
the stronger, (which was called '^Jist right,")
was everywhere acknowledged as valid. Ne-
vertheless, the church wrought at times with
some softening influence upon these rude usages,
and in the newly established rank of free citizens,
(burghers,) there were gradually developed more
quiet and domestic manners, more continence
and general civilization. The bulk of the peo-
ple were not yet lulled by luxuiy, and effemi-
nated by debauchery ; but their grand disease
was an ovei'weening feeling of their bodily
strength. The power of corporeal sense was the
ruling one, and was not yet sufficiently human-
ized and refined by the education of the intel-
lectual powers ; but then it was also not as yet
unnerved and estranged from truth, by false re-
finements, and by the sickly and wrong aims of
mere human wisdom. As in the period of the
Babylonian and Persian empire, before the
AND LETTERS. 233
Gvecian spirit transformed it, sti'engtli and
unity by bodily force, but withal some recog-
nition of the true God, amidst all their idola-
try, may be said to have characterized those
rimes ; so the same may be said of this period of
the habits of the Germanic nations. With all
the rudeness of their mere expression of strength,
with all the sallies of their uncivilized nature,
there was still much honesty and fidelity ; with
all their ignorance, and still in part heathen su-
perstition, there was much susceptibility of reli-
gious influence, great esteem for what is sacred,
much public spirit and patriotic self-denial.
The ignorance of those times was indeed great
and general : even the redoubted emperors had of-
ten scarcely learned to read ; and as to any schools
for the special instruction of the people at large,
such things could not then be thought of, tor
want of the common means of education, especi-
ally on account of the great scarcity and enor-
mous price of books. And then the modern ver-
nacular languages were not so formed and settled,
as to be available for general public instruction ;
this being never found to precede, but always to
follow, some preliminary scientific advancement
of the few ; whereas, at that time, the language of
the learned as yet continued to be exclusively the
Latin tongue. And while, in those tempestuous
and military days, every thing like science had
taken refuge almost exclusively in the cloister,
where the monks, with their industrious tran-
scribing of ancient books, as the Scriptures, the
fathers, the Latin and Greek classics, etc.,
wei-e busied in providing rather for after times
X 2
234 THE CRUSADES.
than for their own, the work also of education
itself was very rarely attended to, except in such
monastic seminaries as were then to be met with
in Italy, at Bologna ; in Spain, at Barcelona,
Seville and Cordova ; in France, at Paris,
Rheijus Metz, Laon, Toulouse, Marseilles, and
F6r2.K^vo'^ ; in Germany, at Fulda, Hirschau,
Reichenau, St. Gall, Corvey, Hirschfeld, Weis-
senburg, Ratisbon, Treves, Mayence, Utrecht,
Liittich, Cologne, Bremen, Hildesheim, and
Paderborn. In England, those scientific habits
which had flourished under the Anglo-Saxon
kings, were violently disturbed by the martial
disquietude of that period, and were quite inter-
rupted, for a time, by the invasions of the rude
Danes and Normans. The more eminent men
of learning, in those days, were Lanfranc of
Pavia, who died in 1089, Berengarius of
Tours, {oh. 1089,) abbot William of Hirschau,
(oh. 1091,) abbot Notker of St. Gall, (ob.
1029,) Adam of Bremen, (ob. 1076,) Lam-
bert of AschafiFenburg, (ob. 1077,) Marianus
of Fulda, (ob. 1086,) and Guido of Arezzo,
(oh. 1028.) Such men, also, distinguished
themselves by their services in the general diffu-
sion of knowledge.
Vin. THE CRUSADES.
(a.) Tlieir Origin and Design.
The Christians had, from very early times,
learned to regard with affection and sacred respect
THE CRUSADES. 235
the j)lace where the Son of God had spent his
eartlily life, had manifested forth his glory, and
had accomplished his great work of redemption ;
and the empress Helena, mother of Constantine
the Great, having erected a church over the spot
which is still regarded as that where our Saviour
was buried, almost everybody had long ac-
counted it one of the greatest blessings of this
life to be able to visit that sacred place, at what-
ever distance from their own country. The more
Christianity became corrupted with error and
superstition, and especially with the notion of
acquiring merit before God by our own doings,
and by ceremonial performances, the more value
was set upon pilgrimages to the holy sepulchre,
and the more frequent did these become. Even
the Saracens, who took Jerusalem in 637, were
so far from discouraging such pilgrim visits, that
they themselves entertained a reverence for Je-
rusalem as the holy city. The Christians, through
a mistaken idea of the predicted millenium, had
cherished a notion that Christ's second personal
coming would take place in a thousand years af-
ter his first coming, and that he would then es-
tablish his kingdom over the whole world. This
was what gave occasion to those very mimerous
pilgrimages that were made to Jerusalem about
the beginning of the tenth century ; and they
commued to be made for a great length of time,
because others, even after that hope was frus-
trated, still reckoned the thousand years to com-
mence from Christ's ascension, or from the de-
struction of Jerusalem by Titus. Thus, from
Bavaria alone, there went, upon one occasion,
236 THE CUUSADES.
twelve thousand men and women as pilgrimB to
the Holy Land, because they supposed the jud»;-
iiient day to be near, and hence were desirous to
be ready upon the spot where it was expected
tliat Christ would appear. Whatever remai'k-
able phenomena or visitations upon any country
were observable, such as comets, famine, earth-
quake, pestilence, locusts, etc., all served to kee])
the people of those days in awful expectation, and
to incite them to the use of extraordinary means
for the quieting of their minds. When now, in
the year 1094, Jerusalem had been taken by the
Seldshuk Turks, who disturbed and maltreated
the pilgrims, the latter, on returning to Europe,
vented their mortified feelings in loud complaints
respecting the great misfortune that liad befallen
the holy sepulchre, and made strong appeals to
Christendom for its recovery out of the hands of
the infidels. The most urgent and successful
appellant of this sort was a French monk,
named Peter of Amiens, who soon found pope
Urban ii. ready to favour his cause; and who,
by his violent and enthusiastic harangues befbi'c
immense assemblies of ignorant hearers, made a
deep impression upon their excitable minds.
Itinerating from town to town, he everywhere
inflamed thousands to the resolution of wear-
ing the badge of a red cross of woollen cloth,
in token that they had pledged themselves to
join an exjiedition to the Holy Land, for the
I'ecovery of the sepulchre, etc., from the Mo-
hammedans. What he had thus done by way
of prej)aration, Avas comj)leted by po|)e Urban
II., in two great public meetings at Placenza and
THE CRUSADES. 237
Clermont, in 1095. One large military host
made preparations for the adventurous expedi-
tion ; and another larger band of mingled peo-
ple, who had not patience to wait for such pre-
parations, set out at once, under the conduct of
Peter the hermit, and of the knight Walter of
Habenicht.
Such was the origin of those crusades, which,
with several interruptions, were continued for
nearly two centuries ; and though they did not
gain their chief object for any permanency, j^et
had they the most decided influence in re-mo-
delling the state of European habits and man-
ners.
From the obscurity that still hangs over the
history of this century, it is not easy to point out
all the causes in connexion, which wrought to-
gether in stirring up the mighty mass of a rude
people to such strange and persevering exertions.
As the word of God itself furnishes us with no
disclosure of the hidden springs of such a mighty
movement, so we know not how much of it is at-
ti'ibutable to the activity of invisible powers ;
though other and similar instances justify us in
suspecting, that such a kind of activity may in-
deed have been exercised. Evident, however, is
it, that superstition and ignorance must have
very much perverted men's minds, before they
could set such value on attaining so worthless an
object ; while, on the other hand, they must
have had a great esteem for sacred things, and a
deep religious susceptibility, before they could
have been roused to such enthusiasm for the ima-
ginary honour and glory of the Christian church,
238 THE CRUSADES.
and tliis while they were so very deficient in real
practical Christianity. Did such a religious dis-
jjosition exist to the same degree, in our own
times, we should turn it to a worthier and
weightier object, more accordant with the pre-
sent state of knowledge, namely, to the conver-
sion of the heathen ; whereas this noble busi-
ness is as yet left to the exertions of a compara-
tively few individuals, and is quite overlooked,
if not very much despised by the generality.
Doubtless also, many, in thus hazarding and
throwing away their lives in the East, were not a
little influenced by a feeling of unsatisfied si)iri-
tual desire. The soul's unbounded longing after
truth, and after inward peace and blessedness,
had been awakened by the ordinances of the
church, but not satisfied by them. The con-
sciousness of sin, and of the need of forgiveness,
was caused to be felt, but not allayed ; for in-
ward peace can come by nothing but the gospel,
and this was not preached ; but superstitious
ceremonies, whose meaning the people could not
understand, had taken its place. Thus were men
led into the error of thinking to make amends
for their sins by every species of mortification
and self-denial, and to earn salvation by their
own performances ; and this because the true
doctrine of salvation by free grace and mercy, —
tlie doctrine of justification by faith without any
merit of works, had fallen quite into the back-
ground : and to take part in the crusades, which
the popes and priests cried up as a thing highly
meritorious before God, was regarded as one of
the means by which men were to rid themselves
THE CRUSADES. 239
of their secret disquietude for sin, and to enjoy
peace with their Maker ; and it was made use of
accordingly. The severe toils and privations of
a crusade, and to die in the Holy Land, which
was reckoned equivalent to Christian martyrdom,
were to make amends for all sins committed in
any other country.
The crusades, moreover, could not but help
the papacy in its gigantic aims at independence,
of temporal dominion, and towards its attain-
ment of complete supremacy. Princes who, by
their power or influential character, appeared
likely to obstruct those aims, were urged by the
pope to take the cross, and to spend their
strength in the East against the Turks, that they
might thus be disabled from applying it to the
limitation of the papal power, whose real object
it was to shift them off to their death in that re-
mote country. The popes sought, also, in the
same way to disburden themselves of heretics,
that is, of those who, with arguments sound or
unsound, dared to controvert the papal supre-
macy, or any of the prevalent dogmas of the
Romish church. Thus often those who were
merely suspected of heresy were artfully di-
rected to join a crusade ; and then, when once
a few successful exploits had been wrought by
the pilgrims in the Holy Land, these were im-
mediately alleged as a proof that there was no-
thing impossible in the enterprise, and every ar-
gument was urged from the consideration, that
what had once been gained must not again be
lost ; as this would be to make a mere plaything
of the Christian name and of European heroism.
240 THE CRUSADES.
Such a concurrence of circumstances, consid'cr-
ations, plans, and events, serves to account, in
some degree, if not entirely, for that insatiate
zeal with which one immense host after another
plunged into a monstrous grave, that was pre-
pared in the East for Western warriors in gene-
ral, and for those of Germany in particular.
(i.) The Firat Crusade.
The great and unbridled multitude, drawn from
the lower classes, who, with Peter and Walter,
and other adventurers at their head, had set out
from France and Germany, conducted them-
selves in such a disorderly manner on their way
through Hungary and Greece, that most of them
were overtaken by Divine rebukes before they
could force their passage through the Lesser Asia.
Of the whole immense host, not more than three
thousand finally escaped with their lives, and fled
back to Constantinople. The main crusading
army, under the command of Godfrey, duke of
Bouillon, did not march till the year 1096. It
was joined by several princes of France, the
Netherlands, and South Italy, and when en-
camped all together before Constantinople, it
numbered four hundred thousand strong, besides
an innumerable baggage attendance, etc. But
no sooner had it begun to move through Lesser
Asia, than a large portion of it became disabled,
and perished by the treacheiy of the Greeks, by
famine, the heat of the climate, and the Turkish
sword. Before Antioch in Syria, a city at that
time Avell fortified and defended, this host of cru-
THE CRUSADES. 241
saders lay encamped as besiegers for eight
months together, and had ah-eady lost the
greater number of its able-bodied troops, when
it, at length, succeeded in taking the city, by
means of treachery within. But soon were they,
in turn, besieged at Antioch, by a great army of
Saracens, (Turks ;) and famine arose to such a
degree, that even Baldwin, count of Flanders,
one of their wealthiest and boldest leaders, went
about the city begging for a morsel of bread.
Superstition was the means of delivering them
from this extremity. Some one pretended to
have discovered the sacred spear with which our
Saviour's body was pierced upon the cross, and
this announcement roused the spirits of the sol-
diers to make one desperate effort more to repulse
the enemy. The Saracen army was beaten, and
the crusaders pushed on for Jerusalem. But the
strength of their army had very much wasted
away, so that they now amounted to no more
than twenty thousand foot, and fifteen hun-
dred horse, and Jerusalem was well guarded and
garrisoned with a powerful force. Nevertheless,
on the 15th of July, 1099, they took the city by
storm, and the whole Turkish garrison, with all
the Mohammedan inhabitants, were cruelly
butchered, so that the streets literally ran down
with blood. The government of Jerusalem was
committed to Godfrey of Bouillon, who died the
next year, and left it in the hands of his brother
Baldwin. From that time, till the year 1187,
there reigned at Jerusalem a succession of Chris-
tian kings, and Christianity seemed to have
erected for itself a permanent residence once
Y
242 THE CRUSADES.
more in the place from wlience it had iirst pro-
ceeded. And yet this dominion was, upon the
whole, nothing better than the dream of an cx-
])elled monarch, imagining in his sleep that his
kingdom had been restored to him.
(c.) Chivalry.
For the protection of the Holy Sepulchre,
and for reinforcing the power of Christendom in
the East, there were formed, in 1116, the order of
the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, that of
the Knights Temjilars in 1118, and that of the
Teutonic Knights in 1190; as chivalry in general,
which was a peculiar characteristic of the middle
ages, at that time developed itself with powerful
effect. The dignity of knighthood depended not
on high birth or power, but on personal valour,
and was conferred upon none but those who had
given proof of it by going through its required
exercises and trials. It was necessary, indeed,
that every knight should be free born, and also
have the means of providing and maintaining a
horse and a servant ; but even as the dignities of
our universities, — that of doctor for instance, — can
be conferred only upon those who have distin-
guished themselves by intellectual acquirements,
so could no one attain the honour of knighthood
wdio had not distinguished himself by personal
advantages, by valour, activity, skill, and un-
blemished reputation ; and therefore, as the son
of the most learned professor cannot inherit by
birth his father's professorship, no more could
the son of the bravest knight, though the latter
THE CRUSADES. 243
were even a duke, lawfully inherit by birth the
honour of knio^hthood ; thou2:h it is true that such
considerations were not always entirely over-
looked. The candidate for this honour was
obliged to undergo preparation, by fasting, prayer,
and confession, before he was allowed to take
the chivalrous vow, which bound him to protect
the church, with its widows and orphans, to
draw the sword at any time in defence of right
and innocence, to hear mass every day, and to
lead a blameless life. Even eminent princes ac-
counted it an honour to receive the order of
knighthood ; and Francis i,, king of France,
permitted this dignity to be conferred on himself
by the chevalier de Bayard, a mere nobleman.
In times of peace, the tournaments or prize com-
bats, which somewhat resembled those of the
Grecian games, furnished to the knights an op-
portunity of displaying their valour and dexterity
in arms. But at such a martial period they had
opportunity enough, in more serious combats,
either to gain the prize, or to sell their lives as
dearly as possible.
Chivalry derived its earliest origin from the
warlike spirit of the Germanic tribes, and it
served effectually to nurture and support that
spirit in its turn. The knights, by reason of the
frequent wars of those times, became accustomed
to an errant and irregular manner of life, in
which they were consequently disposed to con-
tinue during intervals of peace ; and many among
them did so, because they had no property suffi-
cient for their support, and lived only by their
sword. The richer sort resided in their strono'
244 THE CRUSADES.
rocky castles, and found plentiful occasion for
mutual feuds, in an age when the right of the
stronger was reckoned valid upon almost every
occasion, and when every one sought to help him-
self before he claimed the help of the magistrate.
The poorer knights lived by plunder : they
pillaged the tradespeople, as the latter travelled
with their goods from one town to another ; or
they engaged, for pay, to convoy and protect such
against other highwaymen. Others were received
by the monasteries as ward and watch, and thin-
ned them for it of some of their wealth ; or they
joined, for regular pay, some standing garrison
in the towns and cities. The orders of St. John,
the Templars, and the Teutonic Knights, were
distinguished by particular laws and ordinances
of their own. Care of the sick, defence and sup-
port of the needy, and especially the protection
of pilgrims to the Holy Sepulchre, and unremit-
ting combat with the Saracens, with the observ-
ance of their special vow of celibacy, obedience,
and poverty, constituted their principal engage-
ments. The vast possessions of land and wealth,
which they soon acquired as free-will offerings
or presents in all countries, accrued not to the
individual knights as private property, but to
their order as a corporate body. Subsequently,
when Jerusalem was again lost, the order of St.
John removed their central residence to the is-
land of Cyprus, and from thence to that of
Rhodes ; but, finally, in the sixteenth century,
to Malta, where they sustained a perpetual strug-
gle with the Turks, and continued to exist until
the end of the eighteenth century. That of the
THE CRUSADES. 245
Knights Templars was abolished without mercy as
early as the year 1307, by Philip iv. of France,
because it was charged with great degeneracy and
gross vices. The Teutonic order, when Palestine
tell under the Turkish power, turned towards
Germany, and subsequently had its chief resid-
ence in Mergentheim.
Though much of what was noble and admira-
ble pervaded the original institution and history
of these orders, and of chivalry in general, such
things soon degenerated ; as every institution has
done and must do, when not founded simply on
the word of God, but in part, at least, on the
mere powers and resources of human nature. It
was especially by means of chivalry that false
notions of honour, and godless self-confidence,
became more and more prevalent ; and hence
that noblest victory, which consists in the real
renunciation of self, though it hereby received
nuich apparent homage, necessarily sunk more
than ever in public estimation, amidst such pre-
dominant striving for the mastery of exterior
foes. Nevertheless, the institution of chivalry
was of great importance in the history of the
middle ages, whose more peculiar characteristic
was a struggle between spiritual and temporal
power. The martial spirit was kept up by it,
effeminacy was prevented, and a barrier was op-
posed to the perfecting of papal domination. As
long as temporal princes had such supporters,
the papacy could not fully grasp the empire of
the world ; and though it exercised great power
and authority over men's minds, by the influence
of its principles and of its spiritual terrors, yet it
y2
246 HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN.
dared not touch with violent hands those tem-
poral possessions, which natural men value more
than freedom of thought, or than liberty of con-
science. It is true, that even in the chivalrous
as in the other dominant ranks of Germany and
Italy, as well as amonjj learned men themselves,
(such as Bernard of Clairvaux and Arnold of
Brescia,) there was clearly enough manifested the
fierce opposition between spiritual and temporal
power, and that there were spiritual as well as
temporal orders of knighthood ; still, however,
the clergy were never disposed to consign them-
selves as mere passive instruments to the papal
plans.
IX. — HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN.
(a.) Conrad III.
In the north-west dependency of Alb, within
the present kingdom of Wirtemberg, on a lone
mountain peak, which commands an extensive
prospect, and is visible from a great distance,
there is still standing a small portion of masonry,
which is the only little relic of the ancient castle,
where, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the
powerful line of Hohenstaufen kept their resi-
dence. Frederic of Hohenstaufen had received
from his father-in-law, who was that unfortunate
emperor Henry iv., the dukedom of Swabia ;
and his two sons, relying on their I'oyal affinity,
sued for the imperial dignity after the demise of
HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN. 247
Heniy v., but were superseded by Lotharius,
duke of Saxony, a.d. 1125 — 1137. But after
his death, at the same time when Albert the
Bear raised the marquisate of Brandenburg, the
chief focus of the present Prussian territory, to
power and influence, and the cities of Berlin and
Vienna arose, then with Conrad iii., who hi-
therto had only been duke of Franconia, was
raised to the imperial dignity in Germany, the
house of Hohenstaufen, a distinguished ruling
family, under whose dominion Germany lived to
witness her most illustrious period. Conrad's
bitterest enemy was Henry the Proud, who was
duke of Bavaria and Saxony, and son-in-law to
the late emperor Lotharius. As Henry himself
had earnestly sued for the imperial throne, and
as he would not give up his two dukedoms in
compliance with Conrad's desire, this emperor
deprived him of both, and enfeoffed Albert the
Bear with that of Saxony, and Leopold, mar-
grave of Austria, with that of Bavaria. After
Henry's death, his brother Guelph attempted to
stand up for his rights, and attacked Conrad,
but was defeated near Weinsberg, in Swabia.
On that occasion occurred the well-known story
which is told of the women of Weinsberg.
Things, however, came to such a pass, that
Henry the Lion, son of Henry the Proud, re-
covered the dukedom of Saxony, in obtaining
which he was mainly assisted by the attachment
of the Saxons themselves. Conrad had also
much trouble occasioned him by the factions in
Italy, but was so prudent as not to mix himself
up with any of them ; for his whole activity was
248 HOUSE of uohenstaufex.
sufficiently occupied in Germany itelf. And
yet the religious notions of that age permitted
him not to refuse an invitation to tlie next cru-
sade, though he clearly saw that it would be
far more advantageous to his own realm for him
to remain at home, and though, on this very
account, it was long before he could consent to
take the cross.
(A.) The Second Crusade.
In Palestine, let it be observed, the Christian
community of Jerusalem had meanwhile beconie
considerably enlarged, and, as has been already
noticed, the descendants of Godfrey had hitherto
kept themselves upon the throne. The Seld-
shiiks, however, had now recovered from their
defeats, and were in no wise inclined quietly to
leave the possession of the conquered country in
the hands of the Christians. The city of Edessa,
where Boemund the Norman had, as early as in
the year 1099, founded a separate Christian prin-
cipality, w as taken and destroyed by these Turks,
in 1144, and the tidings of such a misfortune
alarmed all Christendom in the West. As Peter
of Amiens on the former occasion, so now Ber-
nard of Clairvaux, a man of eminent piety, but
not siqierior to the superstition of his times, ac-
tively itinerated from countiy to country, and
preached up a new crusade. He pledged him-
self for the safety of the undertaking, assured
his hearers that it would have a happy issue,
and promised to all who should share in it tlie
111 11 remission of their srns. His animated ad-
HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN. 249
ilress persuaded Lewis yu- of France, together
with a great retinue of his nobles and their de-
pendents, to undertake a new crusade. He"
found it less easy to prevail upon the emperor
Conrad iii., who for a long time parried him
off; but, ultimately, at Spires, suffered himself
to feel the force of his arguments, and consented
to unite in the enterprise. In the year 1147,
the Germans marched, amidst a variety of perils,
through Hungary to Constantinople and Lesser
Asia : but the treachery of the Greeks, and the
peculiar mode of warfare practised by hosts of
enemies, who hovered continually upon their
march, and at length fell upon them by surprise,
proved the destruction of almost their whole
army ; so that, of seventy thousand strong and
well-armed men, only the tenth part escaped
back to Constantinople, and from thence put to
sea for Palestine. Here the Germans found
king Lewis of France, with the remnant of his
army, that had been put to as great extremities
as themselves ; and both armies now marched in
combination to Damascus, which they besieged
for a long time, and to no purpose. Disunion
amongst their various leaders, — a thing which in
the first crusade, as indeed in all the succeeding
ones, either weakened or quite frustrated every
undertaking, — was the chief occasion of their
present ill success. Hence both these princes
despaired of effecting any thing, and returned to
their respective governments in Europe, whei-e
their presence was very much needed. Conrad
III. died three jjears afterwards, a.d. 1152.
250 HOUSE OV HOHEiVSTAUFEN.
(c.) Fred.ric J., and the Third Crusade.
Conrad was succeeded by his brotlier's bon,
Frederic i., surnamed Red Beard, (Barbarossa,)
one of the greatest German emperors, if we
measure him by the standard of those times.
His whole reign was almost one unintermitting
struggle against the papal claims, and against
the Guelphic party, who sided with the pope.
Yet he voluntarily gave back to Heniy the Lion,
the two dukedoms of Saxony and Bavaria, which
liis Henry's father had possessed ; and, at tlie
same time, he released from fealty to himself the
ii^argraviate of Austria, and made it an indepen-
dent dukedom, but received very poor thanks for
his liberality. The greatest part of his time Avas
necessarily spent in quieting the insurgent cities
of Upper Italy, among which Milan was the
most powerful ; hence he could not do so much
for his German kingdom as his own love of jus-
tice and order, and his power at ascending the
throne, might have warranted his subjects to
expect. His first expedition into Italy was made
in the year 1154, upon which occasion he ad-
justed differences at Rome between the pope and
the people; the latter having been stirred up by
Arnold of Brescia, a vehement and influential
opposer of priestcraft and papal domination.
Frederic here yielded to the temptation of great
severity, and had the cruelty to sentence Arnold
to be burnt alive. The authority of the pope
had at that time already risen so high, that the
great emj^ror himself condescended to hold the
HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN. "251
pope's stirrup while he mounted his horse. The
humiliation of the one, and the exaltation of the
other, can only be accounted for from the rude
and superstitious notions of the age. The Mi-
lanese had insolently offended their sovereign
the emperor, when he was upon this occasion in
Italy ; and four years afterwards, Frederic came
the second time, to chastise their disloyalty.
When he had taken and destroyed the city of
Crema, which had heroically defended itself,
Milan also, in 1162, after an obstinate resistance,
was compell^ to yield. The inhabitants were
forced to leave the place, and the city was razed
to the ground. This brought a panic upon the
cities of Lombardy ; and they, from mere weak-
ness, were constrained for a time to be quiet.
But when, after the death of pope Hadrian, two
popes were elected, namely, Alexander in. and
Victor III., the latter of whom was supported by
the emperor ; then did Hadrian stir up afresh
against Frederic the malcontent cities of Lom-
bardy, and the emperor had again to march into
Italy, in the year 1166. He now took Rome by
storm, and obliged pope Alexander to fly ; but,
in the midst of victory, his ariny was suddenly
seized with a pestilential malady, by which it was
nearly annihilated. Frederic hastened back in
helplessness to Germany, and the cities of Lom-
bardy hence rose to revolt with only the moi-e
power and violence ; and though Frederic, in
the year 1174, returned thither with a great
army, those strongly fortified cities held out
against him with defiance, so that his most in-
fluential vassal, Henry the Lion, as still feeling
252 HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFBN.
the sting of the old Guelpliie grudge, deserted
the army, and returned to Germany, tliough
Frederic on liis knees entreated him to remain
with him. Frederic's good fortune appeared
also fi'om that moment to have left him. He
was totally defeated by the Lombards in open
battle, and obliged to sue for peace ; a severe
humiliation to the then most potent prince in
Christendom. He acknowledged Alexander as
pope, he held the stirrup for him, and he then
hastened to Germany to chastise the revolted
Henry. This prince he stripped of all his dig-
nities and fiefs, so that Heniy was now obliged
on his knees to ask pardon of Frederic, and tiius
underwent the same humiliation that Frederic
had just before condescended to express to him.
Frederic recognised with tears this Divine i-etri-
bution, and granted him his patrimonial duke-
dom of Brunswick and Liineburg, but banished
him for seven years fi'om Germany, his native
country. He fled to his father-in-law, the king
of England, and became the ancestor of the pre-
sent royal family of Great Britain. Frederic
bestowed the dukedom of Bavaria as a fief upon
Otho of Wittelsbach, the ancestor of the royal
family of Bavaria, and the dukedom of Saxony
on the count of Anhalt, the son of Albert the
Bear. He concluded a treaty of peace, at Con-
stance, with the cities of Lombardy, in 1183, and
by marrying his son Henry to Constantia, who
was heiress to the kingdom of Naples, he ob-
tained to his family the royal reversion of Na-
ples and Sicily : he little imagined that this
very possession would ultimately prove the ruin
HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN. 253
of his family ; even as Xerxes, when he con-
quered Macedonia, little thought that a prince of
this small country would deal the death blow to
his great empire.
Frederic had attained his sixty-seventh year,
when he became induced to enter upon a crusade.
The spirited sultan Saladin of Egypt, a very re-
nowned warrior, had conquered Syria, Arabia,
and at length also Jerusalem, in the year 1187.
■ When the tidings of this mournful event reached
Europe, all Christendom was panic-struck. The
pope died of vexation, and his successor issued
the most pressing summons to all the Christian
princes and people of the West, to arm for renewed
warlike enterprise against the infidels. Even
Frederic could not resist this appeal. He was,
according to the standard of the times, a pious
man, and certainly had much respect for sacred
things. With a great array he reached Asia
Minor, amidst the same toils and hardships as
his predecessors, and after experiencing the same
treacherous conduct on the part of the Greek em-
peror. An immense host of three hundred thou-
sand Turks was notwithstanding defeated, and
quite put to the route by the fatigued and ha-
rassed crusaders ; who, following Frederic's ex-
ample, had encouraged one another by prayer.
He now pushed forward at the head of his army
as far as the river Cydnus,* when, in attempting
to swim on horseback across the swollen river,'
he was carried down by the stream, and drowned.
Then Avas it most convincingly seen with what
* Or rather, the river Calycadnus. — 1'rans.
Z
254 HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN.
love and esteem the Germans were attached to
him. They deplored his loss as that of a father,
and the event soon showed that he had l)een the
main pillar of the whole enterprise. For though
his son Frederic conducted the army further on
their march, yet disorderliness, sickness, and
other misfortunes, now wasted it away, so that
the dispirited remnant, after their leader had
sunk under disease, hasted back to Germany.
Another crusade, undertaken in that same year,
by Richard Cceur de Lion of England and
Philip Augustus of France, found no better suc-
cess ; inasmuch as its various leaders impiudently
strove with each other for presidency, for posses-
sion of any conquered place, and for other by-
way matters, and did not powerfully co-operate
as with one mind. Saladin, however, out of re-
spect for the valour of Richard, granted a three
years' truce, with unmolested pilgrimage to Je-
rusalem.
(d.) Henry VI. and Frederic n,
Frederic Barbarossa was succeeded by his
son Henry vi., an inhuman character, and the
only one who was a disgrace to the house of
Hohenstaufen. He spent his life principally in
Naples and Sicily, the hereditaiy dominions of
his consort, where he was reluctantly acknow-
ledged as king, and where he established his au-
thority by barbarous and tyrannical measures.
His subjects thanked God for his death, which
took place in the year 1197.
He left behind him a son, four years of age.
HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN. 255
who is well known in history by the name of
Frederic ii. This prince was acknowledged at
Naples as heir to the crown ; but, in Germany,
duke Philip of Swabia and Otho iv., the son of
Henry the Lion, contended for the empire : and
when the former of these was assassinated, and
the latter fell at variance with Innocent iii.,
who was one of the most powerful popes, this
pontiff contrived to get Frederic ii. elected, at
fourteen years of age, as emperor of Germany.
Innocent, however, was by and by desirous that
Frederic should leave the government of his ter-
ritories in Italy to the hands of his son Henry,
in the hope probably of bringing tliem to dis-
xmion and disagreement, and of thus weakening
their power. At the same time, he seems to
have apprehended some detriment to the papal
authority, from the active and high spirit of
Frederic, and therefore he laid on him the obli-
gation of a crusade to Palestine. Frederic,
however, was by no means inclined to regard
himself as a client of the pope, but put off the
crusade as long as he could, and found it more
convenient to reside in the beautiful southern
country of Naples, than in the ruder and north-
ern country of Germany. Hence he managed
to have his son Henry elected German emperor,
and got himself crowned king of the Romans by
the pope. Innocent would hardly have given
him his way in this matter, but he had died be-
fore these measures were urged, and the more
pacific Honorius iii. had succeeded to the papal
chair. This pope, indeed, reminded the emperor
continually of his promise, and threatened him
256 HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN.
at last with the ban of excommunication. The
emperor, however, who had no longing desire tor
Jerusalem, was not to be intimidated into com-
pliance ; but Gregory ix., the succeeding pope,
by the decisive line of conduct which he set out
with, and persevered in, prevailed at length uj)on
him, in the year 1227, to depart with an army
for Palestine ; where he not only arrived, but
even regained, by a treaty with the sultan of the
Saracens, both Jerusalem and other places ac-
counted sacred, and replaced them in the hands
of the Christians. He put upon his own head
the crown of Jerusalem, to which he was consi-
dered as having just claim by affinity ; and
hence it is, that the subsequent German emperors
have always been titular kings of Jerusalem.
But, on his return to Italy, new troubles awaited
him. The cities of Lorabardy that remained af-
fected to the Guelphic interest, had revolted
from him at the instigation of the pope ; and
their cause was even espoused by his own son
Henry, the ruling sovereign of Germany. Fre-
deric hastened to Germany, deposed his son
Henry, and caused his second son, Conrad iv.,
to be elected in his stead. He also married at
Cologne a second wife, who was the king of
England's sister ; and he held a great diet at
Mayence, on which occasion many wise and be-
neficial arrangements, designed for the pacifica-
tion of Germany, were concerted and settled.
He next subdued the cities of Lombardy ; but
here he allowed his good fortune to seduce him
to the ado[)tion of harsh measui'es, by wiiich he
HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN. 257
once more so stirred up the pope against him,
that he was a second time threatened with the
ban of excommunication. Henceforth his life
was one perpetual and violent struggle with the
papacy ; in Germany were Henry Raspe, land-
grave of Thuringia, and count William of Hol-
land set up as his rivals ; his nearest friends
were either forced from him, or proved unfaith-
ful to him ; all his attempts at reconciliation
with the pope were treated as abortive, and only
his death, in 1250, put an end to these his pain-
ful difficulties.
(e.) Conrad IV. and Couradin.
Conrad iv. had also to endure the curse of
the papal ban, (2 Pet. ii. 10, 11,) and died in
1254, by poison, said to have been administered
to him by his half-brother Manfred. His son
Conradin, the last branch of the Hohenstaufen
family, yet survived, but at his father's death
he was only two years of age, and was carefully
educated in Germany. For him, as the rightful
heir of Naples and Sicily, as also of the duke-
doms of Swabia, Franconia, and Alsace, the go-
vernment of Lower Italy was conducted by
Manfred, whom the pope stoutly opposed, hav-
ing now determined once for all to expel the
house of Hohenstaufen from their possession of
Italy. He actually offered their territory to se-
veral princes, and at length found Charles of
Anjou, the brother of Lewis ix. of France, in-
clined to accept his proposals. With a well-
z2
258 HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN.
appointed army this prince marched into the ter-
ritory, and by a battle near Bencvento, a.d. 1266,
in which Manlied was defeated and slain, was
the allotment of these possessions decided. One
more attempt was made, and this by Conradin
himself while yet a youth, to recover his here-
ditary dominions ; but he was vanquished, and
taken prisoner at the battle of Tagliacozzo, in
1266, and, with his friend Frederic of Austi'ia,
was publicly executed. Thus became extinct the
house of Hohenstaufen, to wdiich Germany had
been indebted for her greatest emperors, and
which had made her name renowned in all other
countries. This family may truly be said to
have sunk under the violence of the pope's en-
mity, but not till it had fulfilled its destination
of effectually making head against the grasping
and boundless ambition of the papal power in a
dark and sujjerstitious age. How far the indi-
vidual emperors of this family were conscious
that they were fulfilling that Divine commission,
it is not so easy to determine ; but then general
history is more immediately concerned with the
facts themselves, and with the plan which God
has accomj)lished by the instruments of his go-
vernment, who are often as unconcerned about
the Divine ))roceedings, as they are intent upon
the fulfilment of their own. Whether any per-
son has perceived and owned himself an instru-
ment of Providence, or voluntarily endeavoured
to act as such, is a matter latlier of biography
than of history.
HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN. 259
(f.) Literature, and the Church.
Under the patronage of the Hohenstaulen
dynasty, mental cultivation in the West received
a new impulse and new direction, and the pow-
erful movements and inventions that changed the
aspect of the political world, affected also each
department of science, art, and ordinary life.
While among the disciples of the schoolmen,
in France and England, such as Anselm of Can-
terbuiy, who died in 1109, Abelard, {ob. 1149,)
Thomas Aquinas, {oh. 1274,) Duns Scotus, {ph.
1308,) and several others, the Greek philosophy
was blended with Christianity, and the doctrines
of the church were defended by intellectual sub-
tleties ; even the fine arts seem also to have en-
tered into a special covenant with Christianity.
Thus was produced the poesy of romantic fiction,
by the troubadours in the south of Fi-ance and in
Italy, the amatory or Swabian poets of Germany,
(among whom were some of the house of Ho-
henstaufen itself,) and the minstrels in England.
Hence, likewise, originated the architecture which
is styled Gothic ; and which is so magnificently
displayed in the cathedral structures of Strasburg,
Cologne, Friburg, Vienna, etc. The poetry of
romantic fiction flourished also about the same
period in the more northern countries of Europe,
and likewise in Spain. In the former of these,
it may be traced to the struggle between declin-
ing paganism and rising Christianity ; and, in
the latter country, it was called forth by opposi-
tion to the Mohammedan I'cligion and power.
260 HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN.
At that period, also, Persian poetry began to
flourish ; for it was the age of Ansari, Ferdusi,
Sadi, and others. Moreover, among the dis-
persed Jews there arose, in those times, such dis-
tinguished learned men as that nation had never
shown since its dispersion. And even in the
church itself there seemed to be stirring a kind
of new life, which would, in all probability, have
been attended with still more important eflects,
had it not been suppressed by main force. In the
valleys of the south of France, where it borders
upon Italy, Christian individuals and churches
were still subsisting from early times, who,
from the place of their abode, were called the
})eople of the valleys, the Vallenses, or Wal-
denses, and w^ho protested against papal church
government, as also against the abuses and mere
human dogmas that had forced their way into
the church. They regarded the word of God
as the only rule of faith, and were so governed
by it in their habits of life, that their most inve-
tei'ate enemies could not but concede their fa-
vourable testimony to them in this particular.
These Christians rallied around like-minded wor-
thies of that period, such as Peter and Heniy
de Bruys, 1104—1148, and Peter Waldo, who
lived about the year 1170, by whose assistance
they were from time to time revived and encou-
raged ; and a number of other sects, as the Ca-
thari, the Albigenses, the Lollards, etc., who ei-
ther joined them, or were confounded with them,
had, at least, one feature in common with them,
that they were oj)j)osed to priestly domination
and j)opery. This, however, after their numbers
HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN. 261
had considerably increased, and they had come
forward more openly with the confession of their
faith, provoked the vehement opposition of the
popes, who dreaded no heresy so much as that of
doubting the lawfulness of their supremacy. But
the severe decrees of the popes against these he-
7'eticx, and against their writings, availed as little
as did the crusade which the same persecuting
power sent against them for their annihilation,
and in which they were indeed most inhumanly
treated and massacred by thousands. Still the
most effectual instrument of their destruction
was the infernal inquisition, which arose out of a
similar dissatisfaction with the dominant church.
The monasteries, by their strict discipline and
simple manner of life, had proved, at first, an ob-
stacle to those worldly and licentious habits that
had crept into the church ; but they soon proved
an unequal barrier against such growing corrup-
tions ; indeed, a great many of them had already
become the abodes of hixury and vice. Men of
a serious cast, who lamented this falling away,
and who, from being unacquainted with the only
real means of purification, namely, the word of
God, looked for salvation and renewal in self-
imposed severities and in exterior sanctity,
thought they could best aid the church in this
emergency by forming new monastic orders,
each of which was to observe a strict rule of dis-
cipline of its own ; and these institutions they de-
signed, on the one hand, should give opportunity
for penitential ameruU, and for quiet seclusion
from the world to those who were tired of its fol-
lies ; and, on the other, produce some benefical
262 HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN.
cflfef't upon fallen Christendom by their examples
of holy living, and by serious admonition and
exhortation. Thus oi'iginated those strict mo-
nastic orders, the Carthusians in 1084, the Cis-
tercians in 1098, the Premonstrants in 1120, tlie
Carmelites in 1156, the Franciscans in 1210,
and the Dominicans in 1216. These, at least
at their commencement, formed a severe oppo-
sition to the corrupt spirit of the times ; but,
through their servility of attachment to the ])a-
pal interests, they only tended, at length, to foster
that corrupt spirit in another manner. Hence
they soon, at* least the two orders last mentioned,
fell into the self-same errors against which they
were originally set up to testify : and, if we re-
flect how much mischief has been put forward
by the Dominican order alone, Ave can hardly
continue in doubt whether its rise is to be attri-
buted to the activity of the Good Spirit, or to
that of the wicked one. The founder of the
Dominicans itinerated for ten years together
among the martial Albigenses, and endeavoured
to convert them to the Romish church ; but his
endeavours were of little avail. After his death,
however, the pope instituted the inquisition, as
a court for the trial of heretics, and committed
the whole business of it to the Dominican order
in 1233. This court, from whose inquisitorial
authority neither birth, nor age, nor wealth, nor
learning, nor power, nor honesty, was any pro-
tection, has both privately .and publicly put out
of the world many thousands of persons, and
has proved itself the highest triumph of satanical
wickedness, and the foulest blot in the history
TERMINATION OF THE CRUSADES. 263
of popery. In these later times it has exercised
its influence more particularly in Spain. Heresy
was by its means almost entirely extirpated in
France ; and every attempt to raise the sunken
church, to curtail its extravagances, and to prune
its excrescences, was choked in the birth by the
viffilance of that institution.
X. TERMINATION AND ISSUE OF THE CRUSADES.
In all the above-mentioned phenomena of this
period, the influence of the crusades, which ter-
minated Avith the thirteenth century, can hardly
fail to be discerned. The enthusiastic zeal had
at length cooled, which at the beginning of this
centuiy had fired even a host of forty thousand
very young people of Germany and France, to
undertake an expedition of conquest to Jerusa-
lem. After Lewis ix. of France, who is still
called Saint Lewis, had yet, in 1250, made a
fruitless attempt in Egypt to assail the Turkish
power, and foi'ce it to give up Jerusalem, one
city after another came over into the hands of
the Turks, till, at length, Ptolemais, (Acre,) the
last of them, was surrendered in 1291, and
herewith terminated those crusades which had
been carried on for two centuries.
The most immediate and largest amount of
profit by the crusades resulted to the great Italian
merchant cities, such as Pisa, Genoa, Venice,
etc., which had taken a lively and active part
in those expeditions, and in this way had opened
264 TERMINATION AND ISSUE
and availed themselves of a variety of commei--
cial connexions with the East, to the enliveninjj
of their own traffic. This was afterwards shared
by the German cities, whose trade communi-
cated with the East through Augsburg ; France
also trafficked in the same way through Mar-
seilles ; and, in later times, England did the same.
New commodities and valuables, which in the
West had hitherto been little known, or quite
unknown, were brought from India, Persia, and
other oriental countries to the European market;
they created new wants, and subserved the
awakening of industry, and increasing refine-
ment. Hereby was, at least in one respect, the
cultivation of the West promoted. As, in the
Macedono-Grecian period of antiquity, the Gre-
cian taste combined itself with Eastern luxury ;
so the vigorous but rude manners of the West
acquired, through the crusades, a more polished
cast, though they received with it many a seed
of moral depravation. At this period, likewise,
an important advance was made towards the de-
velopment of the middle rank of society, and
thus to the filling up of that wide chasm which
had hitherto existed between the higher and the
lower classes. Every serf that took the cross
for Palestine, by his so doing was declared free,
and opportunities of the kind were readily seized
by very many. Again, many a possessor of
serfs had spent all his wealth upon a crusade,
and at his return from the Holy Land, was rea-
dily induced to manumit, for a small considera-
tion, his dependents; who, meanwhile, had raised
some little property by their own earnings. The
OF THE CRUSADES. 265
cities and towns had become wealthier, through
buying up the estates of extinct families, as well
as through the spread of commerce; thus the
burghers, or middle classes, had acquired more
power and influence, became better skilled in
trade and business, and the arts and sciences
were rendered more than ever the common pro-
perty of all ranks. But though men's scope
was thus enlarged, and the human understanding
had received a greater enlightening in earthly
things, still the lordship over conscience which
the church exercised, was in no respect dimi-
nished : and man's judgment concerning spiri-
tual things still remained in the trammels of Su-
perstition. The church had for her own worldly
interest stirred up and promoted the crusades ;
and, indeed, in this respect she reaped from them
no small advantage. Superstitious reverence
for visible sanctuaries had impelled the ignorant
Europeans into the East; and even the many
repeated disappointments of their enterprizes
proved insufficient to open their eyes. For as
men had hitherto yielded their whole minds to
the desire of visiting sacred spots in the Holy
Land, so the clergy now provided that, by the
spread of innumerable relics, this superstition
should be every where cherished and upheld.
Every successful issue was placed by the church
to her own account, while every unfortunate
event was interpreted as a Divine chastisement
for disobedience to her authority, and thus
was rendered subservient to the support of eccle-
siastical influence. The invisible chief of all
the crusades was the pope himself; every such
2a
"266 TERMINATION ANB ISSUE
expedition was specially designed bv him Ibi- the
extension of his own influence ; and he consi-
dered liimsclf sufficiently indemnified for all losses
in the East, by the terror which, through ban
and interdict, he was enabled to diffuse in the
West, to the effect of increasing his thraldom
upon the minds of men. If the cities were ag-
grandized by the occupation of escheated estates,
so neither were the abbeys and other ecclesi-
astical establishments behind them in this i-e-
spect, but extended their power, partly by having
presents and legacies bestowed upon them,
and partly by making very considerable addi-
tional purchases of land. Nevertheless, at the
very time when princes and nobles, cities and
burghers, were trying their strength against the
swords of the Saracens, their weakness, on the
contrary, was rendered more and more manifest
by the power of the clergy ; and this because
they knew not how to wield the weapons of the
Spirit and of the word of God : and while brave
warriors were spending their blood for the *' Holy
Cross" in the East, the inquisition was raging
with unbounded tyranny among their families
and friends in the West.
One of the most striking characteristics of this
period, was men's ignorance in the administra-
tion of justice. Neither of the two digests of
Germanic laws, the one entitled " The Saxon
Mirror," and compiled in the year 1215, and
the other " The Swabian Mirror," compiled m
1255, nor the Justinian Code, to which time had
given the precedency, nor the peace-enactments
of powerful German emperors, were found ade-
OF THE CRUSADES. 267
quate to maintain the peace of civil rights, or to
the prevention of such numberless private feuds
as endangered the public safety. The Jist-right,
or decision of quarrels by battle, had become,
especially in the period that followed the extinc-
tion of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, more and
more prevalent ; and even those secret tribunals
of criminal justice that were called Fehvi courts,
which originated in Westphalia, were inadequate
to the prevention of all violence, and soon them-
selves degenerated into violence of the worst
kind. As by the fist-law, or right of private
warfare, the safety of the roads, and conse-
quently of all traffic and business, was very
much disturbed, while gangs of plundering
knights lurked every whei'e about the highways
to pillage travellers going to and from the mar-
kets ; hence, at the close of this period, several
towns in the north of Germany formed among
themselves a league for mutual protection, which
soon gained so many members, and such consoli-
dation and influence, that it raised and kept a
standing army of its own. For even the nobles
had become impoverished, in proportion as the
towns increased in wealth ; and as the former
looked with an invidious eye upon the treasures
of the wealthy burghers, so the latter knew of
no means of protection against their seizures
and ravages, except such an union among them-
selves. This union was called Hansa, (which
signifies a.<sociaf«o«, or /ea^we,) whence the towns
that were taken into it were called Ilanse towns.
Liibeck, Hamburg, Bremen, Stettin, Dantzig,
and Konigsberg, were among their number.
268 INDEPENDENT GOVEIlNMfc,NTS
Another confederation of cities on the Rhine was
formed for the same object, but it never acquired
such importance as the preceding.
It is not necessary to be a German, in order
to regard the history of the German empire at
that period as the focus of history in general,
and thei'efore to treat it here with moi'e attention
and particularity than all the other sovereignties
of the world. Not only was the German sove-
reign regarded as the supreme temporal head of
Western Christendom, (inasmuch as he wore the
Roman imperial crown,) but he was also its most
powei'ful and most indefatigable champion and
protector against the despotic claims of the pa-
pacy ; and thus the precedence further belongs
to him, because such conflict, between the tem-
poral power and the spiritual one, is the most
conspicuous and important feature of the middle
ages, and because all other events of those times
appear more or less connected with it. This
being premised, we proceed to take a cursoiy
glance at the history of that period, as it respects
the countries which boi'der upon the German
empire.
XI. HISTOEY OF INDEPENDENT GOVERNMENTS AT THIS
PERIOD.
In England, the male line of William the Con-
queror had become extinct at the demise of his
son Henry i., who was succeeded, in the year
1154, by his grandson Henry ii. This prince
possessed, by inhei-itance, a large part of France,
AT THIS PERIOD. 269
namely, the county of Anjou, witli the dukedom
of Normandy, and also Guienne and Poitou,
and added Ireland to his dominions by con-
quest, in the year 1167. Thus, if great power
enjoyed by a prince at the commencement of his
reign were any pledge of his future success,
Henry ii. of England would not have been
without prosperity for the rest of his life. But,
as king David, after triumphantly vanquishing
his enemies, had to experience the keenest sorrow
from his own sons ; and as Augustus, in the
plenitude of his imperial power, met with no-
thing but unhappiness in his own family ; so was
the reign of Henry ii., at least in the last years of
it, a tragical history indeed, and what he, by his
matrimonial unfaithfulness and his other faults,
had been guilty of, he had to suffer for in full
measure, and to a most painful degree. He had
imprudently lavished favours upon his youngest
son John, having preferred him to the elder
brothers ; and thus incensed them to rancorous
hatred and unnatural opposition against himself,
their own father. Like David, he had the un-
happiness of being obliged to go out to war
against his own offspring ; and when, at last, even
John most ungratefully deserted his interests, he
died of grief, and bequeathed to his sons that
curse which failed not to overtake them. The
eldest of them, Richard Coeur de Lion, who suc-
ceeded him in the throne, engaged in a crusade
to the Holy Land, in 1189, with Philip Augus-
tus, the king of France. In this crusade he
achieved wonders of personal valour ; but, as his
ambitious pretensions disunited him from his
2a2
270 INDEPENDENT GOVERNMENTS
royal companions in the war, he failed of effect-
ing any thing of importance. Without ever
reacliing Jerusalem, he was constrained to leave
Palestine ; and, on his return home through
Germany, he was taken prisoner by Leopold,
duke of Austria, whom he had bitterly offended
in the East, and was kept in close confinement
for more than a year, by the emperor Henry vi.
At length, by the pope's mediation, he regained
his liberty, forgave his brother John, who
meanwhile had attempted to seize the crown,
and died soon after, in 1099, by a fatal arrow in
a war with France. Neither did John escape
Divine rebuke. He indeed succeeded to the
throne after Richard's death, but became em-
broiled in perpetual quarrels with the clergy and
with his haughty vassals, and demeaned himself
so far, as to take his kingdom as a fief of the
pope. He was forced to grant the famous
Magna Charta, the foundation of English liber-
ties ; and, after a turbulent reign of seventeen
years, he was driven from his dominions by his
rebellious subjects, and died on his flight to
North Britain ; whence he was also called John
Lackland. In the reign of his son, Henry ill.,
1216 — 1272, the country Avas desolated by bands
of robbers and by civil wars ; and Edward i.,
Henry's successor, had enough to do only to
restore things in some degree to better order.
France was still governed by the family of the
Capetian monarchs, from a.d. 987 to 1328,
who meantime had many contests with their
most powerful vassals, the successive dukes of
Normandy, Political government, in that king-
AT THIS PERIOD. 271
(lorn, proceeded chiefly upon the principle of one-
ness and compactness ; subservient to which was
the settlement, that the crown was hereditary :
and the exertions of the French monarchs to get
into their own hands gradually all the feudal
tenures, and to put an end to vassalage, were
made for the purpose of acting out that princi-
ple. These exertions succeeded, after a long
struggle of opposition against them, so that
France became an absolute monarchy, when all its
vassals had, by little and little, been brought to
give up their domains into the immediate posses-
sion of the crown. Germany proceeded in an
opposite direction. While, by its constitution,
the imperial dignity was no very strict bond of
union to a diversity of interests, and only those
of its emperors who were of firm and established
character had the skill to manage with a tighter
rein, all circumstances contributed to form the
distribution of the empire into something which
became every day more and more decided than
the general uniformity of character belonging
both to territory and people might have war-
ranted us to expect ; and to render the feodal
tenants more and more fixed and independent in
in their possessions.
Philip Augustus, king of France, a.d. 1180
— 1223, the same who had crusaded to Pales-
tine with Richard Coeur de Lion, had already
taken one important step towards the establish-
ment of absolute monarchy in his dominions.
While king John of England was occupied
with his troubles at home, all his possessions in
France were openly seized by Philip Augustus.
272 INDEPENDIiNT CiOVEIlN MliNTS
Touiaine, Maine, Anjou, Normandy, and Poitou,
came thus into the possession of the kings of
France; and Lewis ix., a.u. 1226 — 1270,
gained, in addition to these, the dominions of
Toulouse and Provence. Lewis ix., who is
also called St. Louis, whose name has been
mentioned already in our notice of the crusades,
was a pious man, of excellent qualities, mild and
placable, serious and firm. His piety indeed
was expressed, according to the ideas of those
times, in extreme abstinence, frequency at mass,
severe mortifications, and superstitious rever-
ence for things of exterior sanctity, as shrines and
relics ; still his piety was not merely exterior,
but proceeded from his heart. Hence it is the
moi'e remarkable, that, with all his devotedness
to the Romish church, he made the most decided
opposition to her demands, whenever his con-
science did not approve of them. It was like-
wise an honest, though mistaken zeal, which in-
duced him to enter upon a crusade to Palestine,
at the time that Jerusalem was retaken by the
Mohammedans, in 1244. He had indeed the
misfortune to be taken prisoner while in Egypt ;
but even thei'e he so retained his Christian con-
stancy, that the veiy Mohammedans learned to
reverence him. The ill success of this crusade
did not deter him from undertaking a second, in
which he laid siege to Tunis, and died befoi-e
that city, in 1270, aged fifty-five yeai's. His
last words were those of the Psalmist ; " Lord !
I will enter into thine house : I will worship in
thy holy temple, and give glory to thy name."
Of a very different character was king Philip
AT THIS PERIOD. 273
IV., surnamed The Fair, who reigned from 1285
to 1314. He concerned himself entirely about
confirming his power and increasing his wealth ;
and to this object he made every thing sub-
servient, whether sacred or profane. He im-
posed taxes upon the clergy, from which they
had hitherto been exempt, and hereby incurred
a long and violent contest with pope Boniface
VIII., who, at last, even excommunicated him,
which, however, not at all daunted this auda-
cious monarch. On the contrary, he employed
an emissary to treat the pope with such contempt
and personal violence, and this at the pope's own
residence, that the pontiff, from vexation and
grief, became insane, and dashed his own brains
out against the wall. The succeeding pope,
Clement v., was even compelled to fix his resi-
dence at Avignon : in short, the same Philip
left an indelible stain upon his own character, as
one of the most inhuman of tyrants, by his cruel
massacre and extirpation of the whole order of
Knights Templars, whom he had indiscriminately
chai'ged with the most abominable crimes. Di-
vine rebuke " lingered not." He died soon af-
ter. And, within fourteen years from his own
death, his three sons, who succeeded to his
throne, were all dead likewise; and with them
the direct male line of the Capetian monarchs
became extinct, a.d. 1328.
In Spain, since the year 756, the Saracen dy-
nasty of the Ommiades had flourished at Cor-
dova, and had taken a lively interest in promot-
ing the ai'ts and sciences in the East ; so that, in
the tenth century, even European Christians
274 INDEPENDENT GOVERNMENTS
studied at that Arabian seat of learning. But
over against tliat dynasty had arisen, as their
formidable rivals, the Christian kingdoms of
Castile and Arragon, whose monarchs, in the
thiiteenth century, conquered the Arabian do-
minions of Murcia, Valencia, Majorca, and Mi-
norca. Sicily, also, where, on the occasion that
is called the Sicilian Vespers, in 1282, all that
had come thither with Charles of Anjou were
massacred, came into the hands of king Peter of
Arragon, who was related to the house of Hohen-
staufen. Cordova, Seville, and Cadiz were ul-
timately united to the kingdom of Castile ; and
the king of Grenada, the only then remaining
Mohammedan ruler in Spain, became tributary
to the Castilian king Alphonso. In the same
period, a.d. 1139, was also formed the Christian
kingdom of Portugal.
The Greek empire at Constantinople had
much to endure at this period, from the incessant
pressure of rude Asiatic hordes of invaders ; and^
during the continuance of the crusades, it was
little more than a scene of desolating armies
passing and repassing, and of numberless con-
flicts between the Christians and the Turks. In
the year 1204, there was even what may properly
be called a Latin empire, set up at Constantinople
by the ciaisaders ; and it was not till 1261 that
it merged back into that of the Greek imperial
family of the Comneni, who for a time had kept
their residence at Trebisond and Nicsea.
At the beginning of the thirteenth century, a
swarm of powerful and barbarous tribes pressed
in upon that empire; a people who up to this
AT THIS PEUIOD. 275
period had been out of the limits of national
historical notice, but had now become so formi-
dable, as to threaten with desolation and renewed
barbarism the whole civilized East and West.
These were the Moguls, who had conquered
China, overthrown the caliphate of Bagdad,
subdued Persia and Asia Minor, and, under the
conduct of their intrepid leader Jengiskhan, had
now overrun Armenia, and penetrated into
Russia and Hungary. In 1240, they took Mos-
cow and Kiew, deluged with their arms the
countries of Servia, Bosnia, Illyria, and Dal-
matia, and seized Poland. It was not till the
battle of Liegnitz, in 1241, that the Moguls,
though still victorious, learned to I'espect German
warriors ; by whose brave resistance they sus-
tained very considerable losses ; and finally, by
the death of their great khan Oktai, did Divine
Providence effect deliverance to the West.
In Prussia, and in its north-eastern regions,
there still remained, at the commencement of
this period, the pagan tribes of the Lettes, (or
Lettonians,) whose conversion to Christianity it
was thought right, according to the rude notions
of those times, to attempt with the sword. The
emperor Frederic ii. and pope Gregory ix.
conferred on the Teutonic Knights the possession
of all the country situated between the Vistula
and Memel, on condition that they should intro-
duce Christianity. Their consequent struggle
with the pagan inhabitants, during fifty years,
extirpated nearly the whole population ; but
having built Thorn, Culm, and other towns,
they peopled them with German settlers : hence
276 INDEPENDENT GOVERNMENTS.
German laws and manners, together with the
profession of the Christian religion, obtained as-
cendancy in that country ; and Marienburg be-
came the chief residence of the Teutonic order in
the year 1309.
In Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, there was
still a troublous ferment and continuing strug--
gle for political settlement, civil order, and re-
cognition of the rights of the emergent middle
classes ; nor is it till the succeeding period that
we find these kingdoms making a figure in his-
tory, as nations graced with a more ti-anquil
condition. For even the political and intellec-
tual formation of such cold countries seemed,
like the fruits of their fields and trees, to be the
later in ripening the farther they were situated
north.
Upon the death of Conrad iv., the last mo-
narch of the Hohenstaufen family, there followed
a considerable period of great disorder ; and the
electoral princes, as if in their native country
there was not another worthy to be found capa-
ble of wearing the impei-ial crown, venally prof-
fered their votes to foreign princes. Thus it came
to pass, that some of those electors chose Rich-
ard, duke of Cornwall, brother of Henry iii.
of England, and others Alphonso x. of Castile,
to the sovereignty of Germany. But as the
former came among them but very seldom, and
the latter never at all, and as two rival sovereigns
of the same kingdom are equivalent to none, on
account of their mutually destructive pretensions,
theiefore the period of their neutralized reign,
HOUSE OF HAPSBURG. 277
from 1250 to 1272, is called the Tnterregnmn.
For, as properly they could not be said to rei^n
at all, so the fist-rnjht (the law of armed force,
or right of private warfare) was sovereign duiing-
that interval. Each private individual, taking
the law in his own hands, helped himself as well
as he could : the weaker went to the wall, and
the stronger were in perpetual feud with one
another. Such a state of anarchy was found, at
length, burdensome to all ; and, upon Richard's
death, they meditated the choice of some woi-thy
sovereign, to whom they might look for the re-
stoi'ation of tranquillity and order.
XII. THE HOUSE OF HAPSBURG.
(«.) From Rudolph of Hapsburs to Albert I.
From the summit of the Botzberg, in the
Northern Swiss Canton of Aargau, the eye can
command a whole group of objects of special in-
terest to the historical inquirer. He beholds those
two streams, the Limmat and the Reuss, joining
the Aar at a little distance before its own junction
with the Rhine ; also, in the foreground, the lit-
tle town of Brugg with the neighbouring ruined
monaster}^ of Konigsfelden, where the cell of
Agnes, queen of Hungaiy, is still shown ; and,
just by it, the spot where the emperor Albert,
her father, was muj'dered by his nephew John
of Swabia ; and near it, the place where stood
the ancient Roman town of Vindonissa : further
2b
278 HOUSE OF HAPSBURG.
on, old (Swiss) Baden, with its hot springs ; and,
on a lofty eminence on the right bank of the
Aar, about three miles above Brugg, the ruins
of the ancient castle of Hapsburg. There are
few places which, within so small a compass, re-
tain so many great historical reminiscences be-
longing to a whole course of centuries. The
resident of Hapsburg, at this period, was count
Rudolph, whose domains were scattered about
to a considerable distance from the castle, and
who was a person of high reputation for piety
and justice, as well as for wisdom and valour.
At the very time that he was engaged in a feud
with the citizens of Basel, and had laid siege to
their capital, a courier brought him the tidings
that the assembled princes of Germany had
elected him as their sovereign, and were waiting
to crown him at Aix-la-Chapelle. Rudolph ac-
cepted their offer, and immediately hastened into
Germany, though he w^as well aware that his
new promotion would give him much trouble :
for the oppressed among the Germans were now
very clamorous for justice ; and their oppressors,
who, during the late period of anarchy and con-
fusion, had acquired many a possession by unjust
means, were not disposed to give back a particle
of such plundered property. The universal pre-
valence of misrule could only be remedied by
strong aggressive measures, and by the most re-
solute perseverance in their application ; so that
Rudolph could not promise himself any speedy
arrival of easy and agreeable days. Nevertheless,
he determined, in good earnest, to put an end to
HOUSE OF HAPSBURG. 279
this unsettled state of things, and trusted to the
help of God for ability to accomplish it.
The first to oppose this salutary design, was
king Ottocar of Bohemia ; a country which had
been hitherto considered as a fief of the Ger-
manic empire. During the interregnum, this
prince had seized, and added to his dominions,
the dukedoms of Austria, Stiria, Carniola, and
Carinthia, and refused not only to give them up,
but even to acknowledge Rudolph as his feodal
lord. Rudolph, therefore, saw it necessary to in-
vade his territory ; which he did with such sur-
prise, that Ottocar was fain to supplicate for par-
don, and to vow faithful allegiance. But in the
year 1278, having violated his solemn engage-
ments, he was attacked once more. His troops
were defeated, and he himself fell in battle as a
sacrifice to his own perfidy and haughtiness.
Rudolph was neither severe nor elated at victory.
He treated his enemies with gentle magnanimity,
and restored Ottocar's sons to their hereditary
tenure of Bohemia as feodatory to the empire.
His feodal grant of the vacated dukedom of Aus-
tria to his own sons, Albert and Rudolph, cannot
well be termed injustice, if we take into consider-
ation the circumstances of those times. The law-
less period just gone by had sufficiently evinced
what an unsafe pledge of future tranquillity and
good order were the position and state of the
electoral body ; and Rudolph had considered
that, to native German minds, it could appear no-
thing less than a degradation and disgrace for
the Germanic people to have become the subjects
280 HOUSE OF HAPSBURG.
of a foreigner. He, therefore, put forth every en-
ergy to give to the imperial succession more sta-
bility, and thereby insure to the empire at large
more general order and security. No one loves
to labour in vain ; but Rudolph felt that he
should have to regard as in vain his unwearied
labours for the restoration of tranquillity to the
empii-e, if he should leave any occasion for appre-
hending that, after his decease, the unbridled ar-
bitrariness of private individuals should again ob-
tain the upper hand. His support, moreover,
foi' the accomplishment of his pacific plans, so
depended on the goodwill of the princes of the
empire, while his own individual jjower was so
inconsiderable by itself for any effectual check
upon refractory vassals, that he found it neces-
sary to devise out of his own resources, and to
create out of his own family, some check of a
firmer nature. It was from the same well con-
certed policy, that he also obtained the maixiage
of his three daughters to three of the native
princes of the empire. But with all this, he was
unable to prevail upon the princes in general,
so jealous were they for their elective rights, to
promise the election of his son to the crown after
his own demise. Nearly the whole term of his
reign, from 1273 to 1291, he had to contend
with turbulent vassals, and especially with many
plundering castled knights, who, sallying from
their strong fortresses, fell upon whole towns and
villages, made travelling perilous on the high
roads, and kept civil life in continual broil. He
destroyed many of their castles, and executed
such of their possessors as made obstinate resist-
HOUSE OF HAPSBURG. 281
aiice. But he showed not so mac}i lenity to all
as he did to count Everard of Wirtemberg, sur-
named the Wrangler ; who carried for his motto,
" GocVs friend, and all the worMs foe,'^ and
whose well fortified city of Stuttgart he besieged.
Yet even this prince would probably not have
come off with such moderate treatment, had Ru-
dolph's power itself been greater, and had there
been less distraction of other business engaging
him from all quarters. Rudolph, however, by
his indefatigable exertions, effected the revival
of agriculture and commerce, and the recovery
of general good order. He was so prudent, as to
dedicate his whole powers to this object, instead
of suffering himself to be drawn aside into ruin-
ous expeditions either to Italy or Palestine.
Much rather did he prefer making some volun-
tary concessions to the pope, as in transferring to
him Ravenna, Bologna, Urbino, and Spoleto.
Thus we see that the period of vehement struggle
between the imperial and papal powers, had
ended with the extinction of the Hohenstaufen
dynasty. Nevertheless, in after times, did the
German emperors, and the other Christian
princes, resume the formation of those barriers
which the ])apacy was never permitted to demo-
lish, although it occasionally overstepped them.
The Germanic princes, who considered more
their own private interests than the general good
of the empire, elected, after Rudolph's death,
count Adolphus of Nassau ; because from him,
as being a poor and powerless knight, they had
no ground for apprehending any danger to them-
selves. This prince first lost all his credit by a
2 b 2
282 HOUSE OF HAPSBURG.
long and unjust contention with the sons of Al-
bert of Thuiingia and Misnia ; and then, after
Albert of Austria had been elected to supei'sede
him in the throne of the empire, Adolphus lost
his life by contending with him, a.d. 1298. In
his time, 1292, the dignity of landgrave was
conferred upon Henry of Hessia.
Albert was now left in undisputed possession
of the empire, and reigned ten years, from 1298
to 1308 ; but if he followed his father in his po-
licy of enlarging the demesnes of the imperial
family, for the purpose of establishing an extended
and solid basis to their power, yet was he
mournfully deficient in the prudence, equity, and
moderation with which Rudolph brought that
policy into exercise. His thrift, and love for in-
creasing property, degenerated into selfishness
and avarice ; and these, in conjunction with the
natural severity of his character, caused him to
be distrusted and despised, involved him in
many quarrels, and, at length, cost him his life.
" They that will be rich fall into temptation and
a snare ; for the love of money is a root of all
evil." After having quarrelled with the princes
of the Rhine, and with the landgraves of Thu-
ringia, namely, Frederic " with the bitten
cheek," and Dietzmann, and having been de-
feated by the two latter near Altenburg, in 1307,
he sought to recover his disappointed hopes, and
to indemnify himself for his severe losses, by
turning his attention to Switzerland, wdiere his
original family estates were situated. These
estates he wished to consolidate with every por-
tion of fi'eehold land that lay between them, and
HOUSE OF HAPSBURG.
283
to vest the whole as an hereditary principality in
his family.
(6.) The Helvetic Confederation.
Switzerland had long been regarded as part
of Germany : since the year 493, it had been
subjected to the kings of the Prankish and Car-
lovingian race ; and, in the year 888, it was ap-
portioned to the kingdom of Upper Burgundy.
With Burgundy it became a portion of the
Germanic empire, in 1032, but with special im-
munities, for which it was indebted both to
the natural fortification of its mountains, and to
the poverty of its inhabitants, as well as to other
circumstances. Thus, for instance, the whole
country consisted of many small and separate
districts. The chief cities of eveiy such district
enjoyed, for the most part, a kind of independ-
ence of one another, after the manner of the free
imperial towns of Germany. Between them lay
the estates of individual nobles, among whom
the counts of Savoy, of Kyburg, of Hapsburg,
etc., were the most powerful. The inhabit-
ants of the rude mountain districts, a fine spi-
rited, religiously disposed, and pastoral people,
whose habits left no room for luxury, concerned
themselves very little about what was proceeding
in the world abroad ; and the authority of the
Germanic emperors, to which, in the same man-
ner as free imperial cities, they were immediately
subject, was not felt as any thing oppressive to
them ; inasmuch as they were governed by their
own native magistrates, and according to their
284 HOUSE OF HAPSBURO.
own native laws, which, both in tlieir constitu-
tion and administration, conceded ample libeity
to the mountaineer. Hence, and especially in
the case of the three forest towns of Uri, Schwyz,
and Unterwalden, which had hitherto been re-
garded as belonging to the dukedom of Swabia,
it was a double inj ustice that Albert endeavoured
to prevail with them to become subject to the
house of Austria. This was injustice to the
German imperial power, from whose immediate
regency they were to be severed ; and, of course,
it was injustice enough to those cities and can-
tons themselves to take a step which tended so
considerably to abridge them of their liberties.
Now, because those three forest towns showed
no desire to comply with Albert's proposals, but,
on the contraiy, requested him to grant them
his ratification of theii' ancient rights, this impe-
rial king had recourse at once to summary mea-
sures, and sent among them two Austrian go-
vernors, who shamefully treated this poor pea-
sant population with haughtiness, insult, and in-
human severity, till the latter could endure it no
longer. Therefore, in the winter of 1307, thirty-
three spirited and respectable men, of the three
cantons above-mentioned, bound themselves to-
gether by a vow, to endeavour the effecting of
deliverance to their fatherland without any
bloodshed or revolt : only it was insisted, that
tlie inhuman governors who had been forced
upon them, should, together with their subordi-
nate officers, be expelled from the country. The
assassination of the governor Gessler, by the
Uri patriot, William Tell, whose feelings had
HOUSE OF HAPSBURG. 285
been so outraged by him that he lost all pati-
ence, unexpectedly lightened the work, by giv-
ing the signal for a general eruption of the long-
suppressed rancour. On new year's day, 1308,
the castle of the other governor was surprised
by the confederates, and he was taken and con-
ducted by them in safety beyond the frontiers :
a moderation which well deserves to be noticed,
considering the rudeness and violence of the
times, and the cruelty which this poor people
had experienced from that governor ; indeed it
can only be accounted for by the generally reli-
gious feelings of those simple mountaineers.
The imperial Albert, when this news reached
him, felt his wrath inflamed to the utmost. He
immediately set off upon a march against them,
under pretence of chastising two or three refrac-
tory forest towns, but, in reality, determining to
reduce the whole country to absolute subjection.
Among his attendants was his brother's son,
John of Swabia, whom the deceased father had
left to his guardianship, but whom Albert was
now unjustly withholding from his paternal in-
heritance. This nephew, in revenge, murdei'ed
him by the, way, near the conflux of the Reuss
and the Aar, almost under the very walls of
Hapsburg, their family castle. Thus fell Al-
bert, a victim to his own insatiable avarice.
His murderer fled, and was never more heard
of. Hereupon the Swiss determined never to
let go their dearly purchased freedom; and,
with a small army of four or five hundred
men, they defeated, in 1315, an immense host of
the Austrians, in the pass of Morgarten, and
286 HOUSE OF HAPSBURG.
established, in the same year, at Biunnen, wliat
was called, The Perpetual Confederacy, from
which they were called The Confederates, and
which was soon joined by several other Swiss
cities and their cantons.
(c.) From Henry VII. to Sipismund.
Albert's immediate successor was count
Henry vii. of" Luxemburg, who was crowned
emperor at Rome, but died in 1313; in conse-
quence of which there arose a long struggle be-
tween two competitors for the crown. These
were Lewis of Bavaria and Frederic of Aus-
tria, whose contest terminated in Frederic be-
ing taken prisoner, and in Lewis's noble resolu-
tion, voluntarily to admit him to a participation
in the government. Their joint reign continued
to the death of Fi-ederic, which took place in
1330. During the reign of Lewis, the struggle
between the emperor and the pope, the latter of
whom had since the year 1309 resided at Avig-
non, became again very active ; and it was only
the glaring fact, that Philip iv. of France had
the pope's person completely in his power, that
weakened the impressiveness of his arrogant pi'e-
tensions and violent measures. Clement v., im-
mediately after the death of Henry vii., had not
hesitated to assert that the papal dignity was su-
perior to that of the emperor ; and his successor,
John XXII., in the year 1324, fulminated the
ban of excommunication against the emperor
Lewis. He also, some years afterwards, put all
Germany under an intei-dict, which required
HOUSE OF HAPSBURG. 287
every church to be shut up, and all Divine ser-
vice to be suspended. This proceeding, how-
ever, did not originate entirely with the ecclesi-
astical interest ; for the policy of the French
monarchs, who desired the humiliation of Ger-
many, had very much to do with it : the Ger-
mans themselves viewed it in this light. How-
ever, at an imperial diet, held at Frankfort on
the Maine, in 1338, they solemnly declared both
the imperial dignity and the elective choice of
the electoral princes to be altogether independ-
ent of the pope. Still the popes thundered at
Lewis, again and again, their bulls of excommu-
nication : Avlience it is easy to understand why,
in his indignation, he renounced his respect for
ecclesiastical authority, and took upon himself
to grant divorces, and new marriage licences to
the divorced. F'or men of bold spirits, like
Lewis, can easily, in the heat of opposition,
overstep the bounds of propriety. From Charles
IV. of Bohemia, who by the intrigues of the
pope had been set up as anti-emperor, Lewis
had nothing to apprehend ; inasmuch as his own
power, authority, and character had become too
well established to be thus shaken.
This Charles iv., the king of Bohemia, as
being a grandson of the emperor Henry vii.,
whose son John had obtained the Bohemian
crown by marriage, was however, after the death
of Lewis, elected to succeed him, and was crowned
emperor at Rome, in the year 1355. The policy
inherited by the German sovereigns from Ru-
dolph of Hapsburg, whose position required it, to
avail themselves of every opportunity in their
288 HOUSE OF HAPSBURO.
reign to establish, consolidate, and enlai-ge their
own imperial demesnes, was likewise the pei-petual
object of Charles. He united Silesia and Lusatia,
as also the margraviate of Brandenburg, the last
by piu'chase, to his own Bohemian dominions.
He also contrived to raise money for himself by
elevating the condition of the barons, counts, and
princes, and by granting patents of nobility.
But little as he may, in othei- respects, have had
at heait the welfare of the German empire, he
did a i-eally meritorious service towards bringing
it about, by means of what was called the; Golden
Bull, of 1356, the prime fundamental law of the
Germanic empire. By this w^as conferred on the
seven electoral princes, namely, those of May ence,
Treves, Cologne, Brandenburg, Saxony, Bohe-
mia, and the Palatinate, the exclusive right of
electing the Germanic sovereign, with several
other prerogatives connected therewith ; such as
that primogeniture should be the legitimate claim
to each several electorate, and that electoral do-
main|^ should never be subject to partition. It
was also hereby ordained, that the Germanic em-
peror should always be elected at Frankfoit, and
crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle. Mayence and the
Palatinate were to have the right of voting first
on every such occasion. The electors of Mayence,
Treves, and Cologne, as being likewise arch-
bishops, were denominated spiritual prince elect-
ors. The succession to their dominions, inasmuch
as it could not proceed by inheritance, remained,
of course, under the influence of the popes, who
hereby had very considerable weight in the elec-
tion of the imperial sovereigns. The ducal pro-
HOUSE OF HAPSBURG. 289
vinces, both of Swabia and Franconia, as having
less political importance, had, since the extinction
of the Hohenstaufen family, been occupied no
longer by reigning dukes, but gradually became
portioned out into small domains and town liber-
ties. Thus did the counts of Wirtemberg gain
continually an increase of territory in Swabia by
purchase and force of arms ; so that, in process
of time, the largest portion of what had been the
dukedom of Swabia, became appended to the do-
minions of this princely family. Bavaria, like-
wise, was at this period no longer reckoned as one
of the principalities of Germany, nor was it till
later times that it recovered its elevation to greater
political importance, and to the electoral dignity.
Charles iv. performed another meritorious ser-
vice ; and this was to education and science, by
founding, in 1348, the university of Prague.
There already existed similar high schools at Paris
and Bologna ; and the univei'sity of Heidelberg
had been founded in 1339, though it did not re-
ceive its inauguration nor begin to act till 1386.
The university of Prague had attained quite a
flourishing condition in the time of John Huss ;
but the same year in which it was founded, 1348,
God himself addressed a penitential admonition
to the whole population of Europe, by a dreadful
pestilence that spread from the Levant, and swept
away several millions of human beings : it was
called " the black death." At the same period, the
oppression with which the clergy burdened the
laity increased more and more ; and the taxes be-
came the more oppressive, because the pope
wanted vast sums in order to further his own
•2 c
290 HOUSE OF HAl'SBUHG.
ambitious schemes of policj\ Is:norance also, and
laxity of raovals so geneially prevailed, and espe-
cially among the clei'gy, that the people them-
selves felt more or less powerfully and convinc-
ingly the need of some restorative and remedy.
As the way of salvation was concealed from the
degraded multitude, men were easily induced to
have recourse to any thing that seemed to pro-
mise to quiet the conscience. Many went on pil-
grimages to Rome, especially at the celebration
of the jubilee year in 1350, and to other places
accounted sacred : they purchased indulgences ;
they placed implicit confidence in the power to
save souls assumed by the begging friars, who
juggled them with every kind of religious fraud;
they established scourging fraternities, and a
variety of more or less extravagantly ei-roneous
sects ; but a few united themselves either with
those Waldenses who still privately among them
maintained their ground, or with other reputed
or real heretics. A general sense of the want of
reformation, both in ecclesiastics and laity, con-
tinued to be felt more and more, but the time for
it was not yet come.
Greater still was the ferment and confusion of
Germany, in political respects, during the reign
of Wenceslaus, the son of Charles iv., a.d. 1378
— 1400. That prince, by his indecision and in-
difference, suffered the fist-right, or law of private
warfare, to regain ascendancy, and quite lost his
royal authority both in Bohemia and Germany.
The great insecurity of life and property which at
that time prevailed, when princes and nobles could
with impunity come upon opulent towns and ci-
HOUSE OF HAPSBURG. 201
ties, and levy upon them conti'ibntions by threats
of burning and })lundering, caused such cities and
towns to form amongst themselves an alliance
offensive and defensive: thus arose, for instance,
the S7vabian league. Such princes and nobles, on
the other hand, formed also similar confederacies
of their own to oppose them : thus we read of the
Lion league, the league of St. George, the Schleg-
ler kings, and the 3Iartins birds. The league of
the Swiss towns also, which hitherto had con-
sisted of the eight ancient places, Lucern, Zii-
rich, Glarus, Zug, Berne, and the three forest
towns, I'eceived about this period new confirma-
tion. Duke Leopold of Austria, a nephew of
the duke Leopold that was defeated at the pass
of Morgarten, longed to chastise the Swiss, be-
cause they had come to the assistance of his op-
pressed subjects on the Hapsburg estates. With
a considerable band of well-armed knights he
marched against them in the year 1386, when
no more than fourteen hundred men, with small
arms and unmailed, were forthcoming to op-
pose him near Sempach, and were no match for
the iron mass, with their Ibng spears stretched
out before them in all directions.
The Swiss fell on their knees, and supplicated
God for deliverance; but as for victory, they
expected it not, but only to die in defence of the
land of their fathers. Then stepped forward Ar-
nold of Winkelried, a hero worthy of the age of
the Maccabees, and crying out to his countrymen,
" I will make an opening for you ; " he dashed at
the enemy, pressed to his bosom as niany as he
could grasp of their spears pointed against him,
202 HOUSE OF HAPSBUUG.
and fell dead Avith them in his body. Instantly
did his comrades pour into the opening which he
had thus effected, and being inflamed to the ut-
most by this sacrifice of his own life, they made,
with their heavy sword strokes, a dreadful
slaughter of the enemy, and wrung from them in
that hot day a most complete victory. Thus
their liberty was once more sealed.
Wenceslaus had lost the respect of his subjects,
not only by his incompetency to preserve order
among them, but also by acts of tyranny. Every
old biidgein the Roman Catholic part of Germany
retains to this day a memorial of his cruelty,
namely, in having upon it a statue of John of Ne-
pomuc, an official to the archbishop of Pi-ague.
This John, by the emperor's order, was thrown
into the river Moldau, from the top of the main
bridge, which crosses it in the city of Prague,
and was afterwards canonized by the pope. Wen-
ceslaus at last was dethroned, a.d. 1400; and
after prince Rupert of the Palatinate, who was
much occupied in Italy, had reigned till 1410,
the imperial crown came to Wenceslaus's younger
brother Sigismund, king of Hungary, who dis-
played moi-e energy and circumspection, but,
at the same time, was of a fickle and unstable
character.
(<t) Contentions lor the Papal Chair — Council ol' Constance.
At this period, not only was the church, but
the papacy also, in a state of deep debasement.
Since the time of Clement v., 1305, seven suc-
cessive popes had resided at Avignon; and, what
21
HOUSE OF HArSBUliU. 293
is iiKtro, they were all native subjects oi' Fiunce,
which displays the influence of the French kings
in their appointment. If such a circumstance
tended to lessen the impression of the pope's
claims to infallibility, that impression must have
been still more weakened, v/hon, in 1378, Urban
VI., an Italian, was elected pope at Rome, and,
at the very same time, Clement vii., a French-
man, was crowned with the triple tiara at Fondi.
Moreover, we find these popes not only acknow-
ledged by several countries of Europe, but out-
bidding each other by intrigue, simony, oppres-
sions, and exactions. By and by, even a third
made his appearance, by the name of Alexander
v., after whose death, John xxiii., a vicious
wretch, supplied his place, a.d. 1410.
Amidst all this profligacy of the times, the cry
for a general council, to put an end to these
long and unhappy divisions, and to establish the
rightful pope in his proper seat of supremacy^,
became more and more audible. After evading
or frustrating a multitude of endeavours to bring
it about, John xxiii. was, at length, prevailed on
to issue his rescript for a general council to be
held at Constance, and to attend it in person, a.d.
1414. All the three popes were now formally de-
posed, and the Germans insisted that immediate
attention should be given to the amending of
ecclesiastical discipline and arrangements, the
remedying of abuses, and the limitation of the
papal claims. But the Italians, after long con-
tentions, prevailed, in the first place, to get a new
pope elected by the name of Martin v., who by
artful concessions, and a variety of fair promises,
2 c 2
294 HOUSE OF HAPSBURG.
contrived so to manage the council, that after
spending four years in ett'ecting nothing, it broke
up ; and the pope once more came fortli triumph-
ant from the perilous struggle. And how could
it be expected that an assembly of ecclesiastical
rulers, who so awfully fostered immorality, as to
suffer more than seven hundred harlots and con-
cubines to be found amongst them, could coun-
sel anything beneficial to the chui'ch? — an as-
sembly which, instead of humbling themselves
before God for the prevailing sins and corrup-
tions, only burdened themselves still more hea-
vily with the guilt of blood ; and of whom, at
that time, it was proverbial among the Swabians
to say, that it would take more than thirty years
to cleanse Constance, by any expiatory saci'ificc,
from those foul abominations which were most
disgracefully committed in it by the council it-
self! Indeed, even the Germanic sovereign, the
emperor Sigismund, showed himself quite una-
ware of his high commission to curb the exor-
bitant power of the papacj^, neither did he make
use of the favourable opportunity, as Frederic i.
would have done. This is most evident from
the fate of John Huss, whose cruel martyrdom
is the darkest shade in the whole picture of this
ecclesiastical council.
(f^) The Bohemian Brethren and the Hussites.
Towards the close of the twelfth centuiy,
many of the Waldensian witnesses of the faith,
who luid been driven out of France, had escaped
to BoJicniia; and thei'c thev served their God in
HOUSE OF HAPSBURG. 295
close concealment. It is certain, however, that
their residence hi Bohemia was not without in-
fluence at Prague on those active and estimable
preachers, who, in the fourteenth century, openly
and boldly testified against church corruptions,
and especially against the gross immoralities of
the clergy. In England, at the same period, the
vices and irrqjositions of the begging friars, and
the abominations of the papal throne, were cou-
rageously exposed by Wickliff; who, by his nu-
merous tracts, and by his translation of the
Scriptures into the language of the nation, made
a general and lasting impression upon the people.
By the above-mentioned preachers at Prague,,
as also by Wicklift''s writings, there was stirred
up the spirit of the famous John Huss, a clergy-
man and professor in the university of Prague,
to speak loudly against the ecclesiastical abuses,
especially against the ti'ade of indulgences, and
to direct the attention of his numerous hearers
to the true doctrine of the written word of God.
The council of Constance summoned him to
appear before them, and to answer to certain
articles alleged against him : and, as he had a
great many friends among the higher classes in
Bohemia, a safe-conduct was obtained for him
from the emperor Sigismund, by virtue of which
he was to go thither and return without molesta-
tion. The clergy, however, paid no regard to
this safe-conduct, but persuaded the emperor
that no faith was to be kept with a heretic ;
and Sigismund disgracefully yielded to their
arguments, and broke his imperial word. Huss
was put in chains at ConstancO; and dragged
296 HOUSE OF HAPSBURG.
from one prison to another, four in all ; in the
dungeons of which, though mostly very tlamj)
and injurious to his health, he was cruelly con-
fined for months together. After undergoing
three different trials before the council, in which
his arguments of defence were never once exa-
mined, he was condemned to death ; and was
burned alive at the stake, in 1415, and his ashes
Avere scattered upon the Rhine. In the same
manner was also his friend and fellow-labourer
in the faith, Jerome of Prague, deprived of life
in the following year ; and all who in any way
had embraced the sentiments of Huss were de-
nominated Hussites, and wei'e pronounced he-
retics.
From the warlike spirit of that age, during
which both violence and lawlessness were the or-
der of the day, as also from the circumstance, that
among the Hussites were many knights and per-
sons of distinction, who regarded patient suffer-
ing as no honour, but rather a reproach to them-
selves, it is evident that a powerful opposition
was formed against the proceedings of the coun-
cil of Constance, an opjjosition that was not to be
silenced by the diet which Sigismund convened
at Briinn, in the year 1419. Hence things
came at length to open war ; and Sigismund's
army was defeated by the Hussites, (who had
put themselves under the command of John
Zisca,) on the 3rd of April, 14*20; and as a
great part of the latter contended more for li-
berty than for Christian truth, and the rest in
general brought with them crude and lawless
notions, they practised much violence and cru-
HOUSE OF HAPSBURG. 297
elty upon the adherents of the papal party.
They were put under the ban by tlie pope , who
also proclaimed a crusade against them ; but the
crusading army was again totally defeated, and
the Hussites spread such terror among their ene-
mies, that the latter seldom ventured courage-
ously to attack them. An imperial force, which
again marched to oppose them, was not more
successful. After Zisca's death, the Hussites
found two more leaders, named Procopius, who
were equally daring and successful ; and they
even desolated Saxony, Lusatia, and other neigh-
bouring provinces. Meanwhile, however, they
fell out among themselves, and became divided
into two parties, called the Calixtines and the
Taborites ; but, at length, after all their princi-
pal leaders had been slain in the battle of Boeh-
misch-Brod, (Bohemian Bread,) fought upon the
30th of May, 1434, the fourteen pacific articles
which had been drawn up by the council of
Basle, whose sittings and deliberations had been
holding since 1431, were accepted, and Sigis-
mund was acknowledged by the Hussites as
king of Bohemia. But the contention was not
long arrested ; for the Hussites were again, from
time to time, indiscriminately ojipressed and per-
secuted, till, in the year 1457, the best of them
became imited into a Christian community, which
from that time has been distinguished by the
name of the Church of the Brethren of Bo-
Iiemia and 3Ioravia ; a church that, amidst
many persecutions, preserved the jewel of thoir
faith and religious liberty entire from one cen-
tury to another, and which still subsists in that
298 HOUSE OF HAPSBUUO.
offset of it, wliich at this day is so well known,
as the Revived Evangelical Church of the United
Hrethren.
Meanwhile the council of Basle had seriously
applied themselves to the remedying of many
abuses in ecclesiastical matters, and had already
passed some important resolutions to that effect :
but it had ever been the policy of the papal
power not to yield to any such decrees of coun-
cils, but to insist on every one of its asserted
claims, and of its acquired prerogatives ; and
Eugenins iv., who then wore the triple crown,
endeavoured to evade the danger, by transferring
the sittings of the council to Italy. The coun-
cil, at lirst, stedfastly resisted this interference of
the pope, and even deposed him ; but their zeal
soon abated, and, after the year 1441, the coun-
cil was gradually dissolved. The popes, how-
ever, from that time were never able to recover
all their former mighty influence, nor to regain
the formidable position which they had main-
tained in preceding centuries. At that period,
1417, the mark (margraviate) of Brandenburg-
devolved to Frederic of Zollern, the progenitor
of the present royal family of Prussia.
(/.) From Albert II. to Maximilian I.
When Albert ii., whose government was
of a very hopeful character, had by death been
called away fi-om the Germanic imperial throne,
after reigning but two years, this dignity came
to duke Frederic in. of Austria, a.d. 1439 —
1493 ; and from that time the electoral princes
HOUSE OF HAPSBURG. 299
abode by the house of Austria as long as its di-
rect male line subsisted. Frederic iii. had
very little in common with his two great Hohen-
staiifen predecessors of that name, save only his
well-meaning disposition. Their decision, pei'-
severance, and thorough-going spirit were quite
wanting in him. The union of the Germanic
princes in the one common interest of the empire
was now become very lax. A selfishness and
private narrowness of exclusive policy in the se-
veral cities and princes, had left less and less
room for public spirit and general patriotism ;
and Frederic was not the man that knew how,
by open and influential and decisive measures, to
set bounds to this collision of interests. He
was so little respected, that tlie princes com-
monly took their part in the general diets by
their deputies only : indeed, he was more than
once besieged in his castle by his own subjects ;
and the princes, on one occasion, even thought
seriously of deposing him. Had he been cast
upon better times, he might, perhaps, have been
a good governor ; but in an age of such dis-
quietude and ferment, as was the latter half of the
fifteenth century, when an entirely new form of
things became developed in Europe, it required
a prince of much more penetration, deep reflec-
tion, and vigorous activity, to control all the
mighty movements of such a period, and to
bring them to bear upon one great object.
Fault is found with historians in general,
that instead of giving a full description of the
nations, and of their developments, they merely
confine themselves to memoirs of the reigning
300 HOUSE OF HAPSBURG.
])rinccs. Such a censure has only an appai-cnt
foundation. As tlic word of God itself follows
this same method in the history of the peojde of
Israel, it cannot in any other case be so faulty as
is pretended. From the close mutual connexion
that subsists between people and prince, the histo-
ry of the one is inseparable from that of the other ;
tliat of the latter is, as it wei'e, the commentary
and echo of the former; and from the premised
truth, that " the powers that be are ordained of
God," as instruments whereby he blesses or
chastises the nations, it is easy to comprehend
how the condition of a people can easily be in-
ferred from that of its prince. It might be ex-
pected that, under the government of so weak
an emperor as Frederic in., things must have
gone on in a strangely confused manner. And if
such an insecure and, therefore, anxious state of
public affairs, which must necessarily have re-
sulted from the many private wrongs of indivi-
duals, is to be regarded as, on the one hand, a
Divine rebuke of the gross immorality of those
times ; it may be considered, on the other hand,
as a salutary preparative of better times ap-
proaching, inasmuch as it exposed the unhappy
consequences of general estrangement from God.
Thus it served to make men desirous of a i"c-
medy, as also glad to avail themselves of the
only means of amendment, by returning to God
and to his word. These means were soon pre-
sented in the glorious Reformation.
Frederic in., who indeed was also poor, his
patrimonial possessions consisting of only a part
of Austria, and who, therefore, was the less able
HOUSE OF HAPSBURG. 301
to act with influence, had the unhappiness to see
his family bereaved of its hereditary kingdoms of
Bohemia and Hungary, which had accrued to that
family by Albert of Austria, in 1437. Pie more-
over incurred great peril by an invasion of king
Matthias Corvinus of Hungary ; and it was
only the speedy death of this warlike Hungarian
prince that delivered him from it. On the other
hand, he had the gratification of seeing his son,
the bold, active, and worthy Maximilian, prospec-
tively elected as his successor ; and by the mar
riage of the latter with Mary of Burgundy, the
rich possessions of her family devolved to the
house of Austria, and compensated for the loss of
Hungary and Bohemia.
The commencement of the reign of the chival-
rous emperor Maximilian i., 1493 — 1p519, forms'
a worthy close to the middle age, and a transi-
tion to a better period. He was a zealous pro-
moter of the arts and sciences, and a vigorous
ruler. In his youth he showed himself of a
very rash and adventurous disposition, for in-
stance, on the Tyrolese Martin's Wall,* where
he experienced a most remarkable preservation.
The first acts of his government were his aboli-
tion of the fist-right, (or law of private war-
fare,) in 1495, and his instituting the tribunal of
the imperial chamber, to which was afterwai'ds
added the court of the imperial council. All
litigations of importance, even those between
* An exceedingly high precipice, to the top of which he had
with difficulty climbed, and from which he fell to the bottom
of the abyss below, without receiving any serious injury.
Such is the report in Germany — Trans.
2d
302 HOUSE OF HAPSBURG.
princes and subjects, or among the j)rinccs them-
selves, were settled in these com-ts witliout fur-
ther appeal; and if their dilatory and slovenly
way of business afterwai'ds became proverbial,
the fault at least does not belong to their first
institution. Maximilian likewise introduced more
order into the justiciaiy administration of the
empire, by dividing it into ten districts, and is-
suing general laws of police for all. It was in
his reign that the post offices were first in-
troduced into Germany. His appointment of
these was soon found of great benefit to the na-
tion. Lewis XI. of France had set him the
example of it in the year 1480. Not so success-
ful was Maximilian in his foreign undertakings.
To the Swiss, whom he required to accede to the
Swabian league, he was obliged to yield their
independence, by the peace of Basle ; and the
exertions he used for acting a decisive part in
the wars of France with Italy had no immediate
effect, except that pope Julius ii. allowed him
the title of elected Roman emperor; a title
which everj'^ successive emperor from that time
took at once, as soon as elected by the princes,
without first getting leave for it at Rome.
More effectual were the steps he took to en-
large the possessions of the house of Hapsburg.
He accomplished the reunion of all its Austrian
hereditary dominions ; he obtained, by his mar-
riage, the rich possessions of Burgundy ; also,
by the marriage of his children, he gained to the
house of Hapsburg the succession to the throne
of Spain ; and, by the marriage of his grand-
children, he made hereditaiy in the same family
ENGLAND, AND OTHER COUNTRIES. 303
the crown of Hungary. These acquisitions were
of some benefit to Germany, inasmuch as by the
securing of the succession in those kingdoms,
there was thus far secured to it tranquillity and
order; but they became a source of manifold
contentions, wars, and mischief.
XIU. ENGLAND, FKANCE, SPAIN, AND OTHER
COUNTRIES.
The history of England in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries is a picture with little light,
but much dark and red colouring. Little, either
at home or abroad, except war, devastation, cru-
elties, deadly hate, and a multiplicity of murders.
The Scots, in 1314, by a battle with Edward ii.,
gained their independence ; and England, during
his reign, was rent with intestine divisions. More
prosperous was Edward iii., who reigned from
1327 to 1377, at least in the first half of his reign;
when, by the victories of his son, the Black Prince,
he got possession of a large portion of the king-
dom of France, which, howevei', was afterwards
regained by that nation. His grandson, Richard
II., lost his crown and life by insurrections at
home ; and it was not till the reign of Henry v. of
England that its sovereign could renew his claims
to the French crown ; but this Henry died in
1422, before he was in a condition to profit by his
victories. These princes took no heed to learn,
from the misfortunes of their predecessors, that to
endeavour after new conquests is to bring into
304 ENGLAND, FRANCE, SPAIN,
danger what they liave possessed hitherto ; and
that it were more prudent to have less, and to go-
vern and enjoy their own right, than to sacrifice
all their powers and tranquillity to insatiable co-
vetousness. Henry vi. seemed destined to unite
the Clowns of France and England, and had
already reduced the French to extremities, when
great deliverance was unexpectedly brought
them ; and the English saw themselves com-
pelled again to evacuate all France, save only the
single town of Calais. Still the sword of the
English was not put up in its scabbard, but was
turned about to be thrust into the heart of their
own countrv. Dreadful civil wars ratjed during
the reigns of Henry vi., Edward iv., and Richard
III.; occasioned by the contention between the
houses of York and Lancaster, (called the red
and the white roses,) which might be compared to
the discords between the Guelphs and Ghibellines
of Germany, only those of England were much
more furious and sanguinary. The fields of bat-
tle and the scaffolds were deluged with blood ;
and the most wretched confusion prevailed in all
the relations of civil life. Such miseries con-
tinued till Henrj^ vii., having united in himself
by his marriage the claims of both houses, re-
stored peace to the country.
During the very time such sanguinary pro-
ceedings distracted England, those, at least, in
England who were of a better mind, and revolted
at these cruelties and horrors, those who groaned
under their oppression, and longed for consola-
tion, had opened to them, by their countryman,
John Wickliff, the way to its true source, by his
AND OTHER COUNTRIES. 305
directing their attention to the word of God,
which lie rendered accessible through his trans-
lation of the Scriptures into the English language.
It is thus God has opened to his people in every
age, even when the free declaration of the truths
of salvation has been prevented, a way by which
they might flee to him from the tumult and con-
fusion of this evil world, and find consolation
and refreshing from the Spirit of the Lord.
The government of France devolved, in the
year 1328, with Philip vi., to the house of Valois,
a collateral branch of the Capetian race of mo-
narchs. Philip, in his hot contest with Edward
III. of England, lost a portion of his dominions
in France ; but obtained by purchase several other
provinces, and died in 1350. Still more unfor-
tunate was his son John, 1350 — 1364 ; who,
having been unsettled by a formidable insurrec-
tion of the peasantry, was defeated by the Eng-
lish, found it necessaiy to cede some important
parts of his dominions, and was even a prisoner
in England at his death. In his reign arose the
powerful house of the dukes of Burgundy, who af-
terwards occasioned such disturbances in France.
His son Charles v. regained, and especially
through the military achievements of his general
Bertrand du Gueslin, the greater portion of his
lost dominions : but, in the reign of his succes-
sor, the imbecile Charles vi., the crown of France
devolved for a short period to the English sove-
reign, A.D. 1422. Under such calamitous cir-
cumstances, his son Charles vii., who had been
excluded from the succession, undertook the go-
vernment. The English army had seized one
2 D 2
306 ENGLAND, FRANCE, SPAIN,
province after another ; the duke of Bur<juncly
had even joined them in the spoliation ; and
Orleans, the only town which Charles vii.
retained in the northern half of his kingdom,
was besieged by the English troops, so that
its seizure was daily apprehended.
At this critical juncture Divine Providence
sent help in a remarkable manner to the dis-
tressed monarch ; and thus chastised and hum-
bled the boasting pride of the enemy. A pea-
sant's daughter, the native of a humble village
in Lorraine, who confidently gave out that she
was incited by a call from Heaven, put herself at
the head of the French troops, and with soldiers
inspirited by confidence in such an extraordi-
nary leader, delivered the city of Orleans, con-
ducted the king in solemn procession to his
coronation at Rheims, and was universally ex-
tolled by the French, whom she exhorted to
unanimity and the fear of God, as a deliverer
sent to them by the special vouchsafement of
Heaven. The overawed English retreated every
where at her approach, abandoning one French
town after another ; and thus she proceeded to
clear the country of its enemies. Her own fate,
however, soon proved a very pitiable one. She
was at last taken prisoner by the English, and
was burnt alive by them as a witch, a.d. 1431.
The conduct and success of this extraordinary
woman are to be recorded among the most re-
markable events in history, whether ancient or
modern. All was directed and overruled by a
higher and wiser jjower than that of aay earthly
leader. The Enyliih, after this, were gradualh
AND OTHER COUNTRIES. 307
expelled from France, and retained only Calais
and a few small French islands. In the year
1457, the French even attempted the invasion of
England. Meanwhile, the general dissoluteness
and disregard of all civil order, which still pre-
vailed in France, show how little salutary im-
pression this remarkable deliverance had made
upon the nation at large, as also how much they
stood in need of a fresh leavening of Divine truth,
to prevent the little good that remained among
them from degenerating into utter corruption.
Lewis XI., an artful and intriguing monarch,
who reigned from 1461 to 1483, concluded a
definitive treaty with England in 1475, and
made it his principal object to weaken the power
of his vassals, in order to establish and render
quite absolute his own despotic monarchy. He
seldom resorted to open violence, for he was a
perfect master of intrigue ; but he was at con-
tinual variance with duke Charles of Burgundy,
who was surnamed The Bold, and who was the
most formidable of all his vassals. This prince,
who possessed not only a portion of France, but
likewise the whole of the Netherlands, and was
very rich, and fond of state and pomp, wished
only for an opportunity of becoming independ-
ent of France, and was ambitious for the title of
king over his own dominions. This, however,
the emperor Frederic iii. thought fit to refuse
him, at the intrio-uinfj instance of Lewis. The
duke's haughty and enterprising spirit suggested
to himself the subjugation of all the provinces
bordering on either bank of the Rhine, which in-
volved him in a war with the Swiss, who hitherto
308 ENGLAND, FRANCE, Sl'AIN,
had maintained their independence, and who, with
the hereditary land of their fathers, retained their
national simplicity, honesty, valour, and piety.
On the 2nd of March, 1476, the Swiss encoun-
tered the Burgundian army near Granson, in a
general engagement. But before the battle com-
menced, they fell on their knees, and, in sight of
the enemy, supplicated the help of God. This
astonished the latter as a strange thing indeed ;
but they were soon made to experience the power
of such praying, for they were routed and put to
flight, leaving immense booty behind them on
the held, Charles was excessively chagrined at
this repulse from undisciplined peasantry, and lost
no time in meditating revenge. By Midsummer
he was again in the field with a great reinforce-
ment, and in a general battle, which took place
near Murten, on the 22nd of June, he was again
totally defeated, with the loss of twenty thousand
men, and of all his baggage, guns, and ammuni-
tion. As recently as about the beginning of the
present century, bones in the charnel-house near
Murten still showed how great had been the
slaughter in that single battle. Charles, who was
almost frantic at this disgrace, which his un-
humbled pride knew not how to brook, contrived
to rally once more ; but he lost, near the town
of Nancy, January 5, 1477, both the battle and
his life, leaving to the world a warning example
of God's power to lay low the haughtiness of
men, Friburg, Soleure, Basle, Schaffliausen, and
Appenzell now joined that Helvetic confederacy,
which from this time consisted of thirteen can-
tons, and which, in the last year of the fifteenth
AND OTHER COUNTRIES. 309
century, effected their entire independence of the
Germanic empire.
Charles left but one surviving child, namely,
his daughter Maria, whom Maximilian, the son
of Frederic iii., obtained in marriage, and with
her the rich inheritance of Burgundy. Lewis,
however, who was now, by the death of Charles,
freed from his most formidable enemy, contrived
to reduce Burgundy Proper into a feodatory to
his crown, as also to incorporate with the original
kingdom of France, the extensive feodal territo-
ries of Guienne, Berry, Normandy, Maine, An-
jou, and Provence. Charles viii., the succes-
sor of this dishonest monarch, who reigned from
1483 to 1498, was a weak prince, under whose
government the peace of the country was dis-
turbed by many civil commotions. He obtained,
however, the additional province of Britanny,
by marrying its hereditary princess Anna ; and,
moreover, he assumed the title of Greek emperor,
which had been made over to him by Andrew
Palocologus, the last prince of Greece. He took
indeed Florence and Naples ; but, as a powerful
confederacy was formed against him, he was
obliged to march back to France, and with diffi-
culty escaped from the hands of his enemies.
With Charles viii. became extinct, a.d. 1498,
the male line of the ancient house of Valois ; and
with Lewis xii., a prince of excellent qualities,
came the house of Orleans to the throne. He
adopted the unsuccessful policy of Charles viii.
in Italy, and took Milan and Naples, which in-
volving him in a war with Spain, he was, in a.d.
1505, constrained to surrender Naples, though
310 ENGLAND, FRANCE, SPAIN,
he retained Milan and Genoa. But even these
acquisitions lie lost six years afterwards, in conse-
quence of a league which the pope had concerted
with Spain and Germany. Hereupon he deter-
mined to put an end to the papal power altoge-
ther, and had already caused medals to be
struck with the inscription, Perdam Dahylonh
nomen ; " I will destroy the very name of Baby-
lon ; " when another pope succeeded to the pon-
tifical chair, with whom he concluded a peace.
He died in 1515. He had no want of military
courage ; and among his brave generals was the
heroic chevalier Bayard, called " the fearless and
blameless knight ; " but his honest character M'as
no match for the artful and intriguing policy of
his active and experienced opponents. Though
he was engaged in so many wars, he was not
negligent in the direction of affairs at home ; he
corrected the administration of justice, lessened
the burdens of taxation, and was hailed by his
subjects as the "the father of his country."
The history of Spain pi-esents, after the Mo-
hammedan invasion, a twofold contest, which
comes to its decision at the end of this period.
On the one hand, there w^as the struggle for the
extermination of the Saracens from that country,
and which was concluded by king Ferdinand
of Aragon taking Grenada, the last seat of Moor-
ish dominion in Spain. On the other hand, there
was an obstinate conflict among the petty sove-
reignties into Avhich that country was divided;
the object, which was at length attained, was
gradually to unite the whole into one great con-
solidated powei"; an object which the perpetual
AND OTHER COUNTRIES. 311
war with the Moors had made desirable, but
which had its general ground in that Babylo-
nian spirit of universal empire, which so often
awoke in the independent kingdoms of Europe,
but which has never been permitted to succeed,
as in the case of the ancient monarchies. This
is foretold by Daniel, ii. 43. King Ferdinand,
by his marriage with Isabella, queen of Castille,
brought under one rule the government of all
Spain, in the year 1469. Likewise the small
kingdom of Portugal now began to raise itself
to historical importance, by its acquisitions in
distant parts of the world.
While, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
the king of Aragon held the sovereignty of
Sicily, and the house of Anjou that of Naples,
the latter under the powerful influence of the
pope, great changes took place in Upper Italy.
The cities of Lombardy becoming wealthy and
flourishing by their manufactures and commerce,
had, in a long and obstinate struggle against
their own sovereigns the German emperors, at-
tained to a consideralile degree of independence ;
and had multiplied their riches, especially at
the period of the crusades, while they maintain-
ed their freedom by their warlike spirit. But
nations continue to thrive only as long as they
can support themselves by unaffected simplicity
and unity. Excessive wealth begets luxury,
brings on the corruption of morals, and either
enervates the spirit of liberty, or inflames it to
licentiousness. This has continually been re-
alized, both in republics and in despotic govern-
ments. Added to this, " the natural man"
312 ENGLAND, FRANCE, BPAIN,
strives to get not so much liberty for others,
as license for himself; nor is it so really liberty
that he seeks, though he calls it by that name,
but it is rather to have power in his own
hands : his desire is not merely to have no lord
over him, but morever to be lord himself. All
history, in every age, has evinced this to be the
fact. Now, whenever the individual in a fi-ee
state, who is more actuated by pride than by
motives of luxurious indulgence, obtains through
wealth, or favourable circumstances, or his pub-
lic services, the means of giving furtherance to
the secret wishes of his soul, he, for the most
part, endeavours to bring under the yoke his
fellow citizens, and nothing will serve him but
the change of a free constitution into on« that is
more despotic. Such was the experience of the
Greeks and Romans of antiquity ; and such was
now that of the free cities of Upper Italy. Pri-
vate families rose into power, acquired special
privileges and prerogatives, exercised important
influence over the government, and thus became,
at length, the sole masters. This was the case
with Milan, which, in the year 1395, was
raised to a dukedom, and gained several other
cities to its jurisdiction. The same was the case
with Mantua, Florence, Genoa, and Venice. The
dukedom of Savoy was also formed in a similar
manner, in 1416. The most powerful of all these
states was at that time the commercial one of
Venice, which united under its dominion not
only sevei-al cities of Upper Italy, and some
islands of the Mediterranean, but also the
greater part of Dalmatia, and Avhieh, at the
AND OTHER COUNTRIES. 313
close of this period, had in its hands the com-
merce of the East, and especially of India.
In the East, there had been formed, out of
that large portion of it which had been subdued
by Gengis Khan, several Mogul sovereignties.
Out of one of these came Timur Beg, (Tamer-
lane,) in the year 1369, who conquered Persia,
India, and all Western Asia as far as Moscow :
he also subdued the Ottoman Turks, who a
short time before had pushed their march into
Europe, conquered a portion of the Greek em-
pire, and made Adrianople their head-quarters.
Just as he was meditating the conquest of China
he was removed by death, and his empire soon
fell to pieces. But the empire of the Great
Mogul, as a remnant of the same, survived in
India for a long period. After his death, the
Turks recovered their strength, and soon proved
themselves the most formidable neighbours of
the Greek empire ; the whole interior of which
had already exceedingly decayed, through gross
effeminacy, and vice of every description. In the
year 1453, they sacked Constantinople, and put
an end to its imperial power, as a righteous inflic-
tion from God upon that depraved city, in which
sin, perfidy, folly, and the corruption of Chris-
tian truth by idolatry, had arisen to the highest
provocation of the Divine displeasure. At that
time was John Hunnyades at the helm of the
Hungarian government. He was a poAverful
and brave warrior, who, in conjunction with
George Kastriota, (Scanderbeg,) the equally
l>rave prince of Epirus, had long encountered the
Turks, without being able to avert the downfal
2e
314 IMPORTANT CHANGES
of the Greek empire. After his death, liis son
Matthias Corvinus was chosen king of Hnn-
g;ary. He, like his father, was an undaunted
warrior, who put all his neighbours in terror,
enlarged his dominions, and yet, like a parent of
his country, provided for the instruction and
welfare of his subjects. His successors, Ladis-
laus and Lewis ii., were the last independent
sovereigns ; for afterwards this country, and also
Bohemia, devolved to the house of Austria.
Poland was at one time a dependence of Ger-
many ; at another it was united with Hungary ;
but subsequently, a.d. 1386, its crown devolved
to the house of Jagellon, dukes of Lithuania,
which region had been conquered, and com-
pelled to embrace Christianity, by the Teutonic
Knights. That reigning house united Lithuania
and West Prussia to Poland. Russia, towards
the end of this century, was freed from the yoke
of the Moguls, A.D. 1477, by Jwan Wasilje-
witch, who also extended its territory.
XIV. IMPORTANT CHANGES AT THIS PERIOD.
(«.) The Invention of Gunpowder.
The two centuries immediately preceding the
Reformation may be considered as a period of
great and manifold preparations and develop-
ments ; the germs of which partly had lain con-
cealed in the bosom of ages, and partly had now,
for the first time, been, as it were, accidentally
AT THIS PERIOD. 315
cast into it. Thus their present coincidence as-
sisted to the formation of a new epoch.
Important inventions and discoveries now pro-
duced also great effect. Government by mere
physical power was characteristic of the middle
ages ; might had every where precedency of
right ; and the great wall of separation between
the nobles and the people, as likewise the whole
mode of warfare at that period, was mainly
grounded on this principle. But later times
have brought things more to an equalization ; and
even before modern politics and the more general
diffusion of knowledgre had beffun to contribute
to this effect, the invention of gunpowder, and
the consequent change in European Avarfare, had
occasioned the first advance towards it. Through
this invention, which is said to have been dis-
covered as early as the middle of the fourteenth
century, though it was not till some time
afterwards that it began to be generally applied
to the art of war, the value of mere per-
sonal prowess was nearly annihilated ; for the
bravest hero had no ability to withstand a ball
that might be levelled at him from a distance :
fortified cities and castles could no longer bid
defiance by their strong walls, and the desire of
gentlemen and of the wealthier sort to expose
their lives in the field of battle disappeared.
They themselves preferred to stay at home, and
to pay men of the common people, who set less
value on their lives, with money which could be
more easily spared, that such might form the
main body on the field in their stead. Now, in
proportion as personal strength and prowess
316 IMP0U7ANT CHANGES
sunk in value, so it was accounted wortli while
to seek distinction by prudent considerateness
and calculation, by activity and geneial supe-
riority of intellect. Thus arose the new art of
war, and the practice of keeping a standing
army of paid military, who were called soldiers,
from sold, or the j)CilJ which they now received.
In these respects, as well as in all the other de-
partments of common life in modern times, in-
tellectual culture and the rule of mind gradually
gained ascendancy over all greatness of a merely
corporeal nature.
(6.) Discovery of America.
Some time before this, an invention had been
set on foot in Europe, which led the way to
other important discoveries. This was that of the
magnetic needle, w'hich, by its regularly pointing
to the north, was now found to be a secure guide
to mariners. They had hitherto directed their
course by the stars ; but as these in foul weather
cannot be seen, vessels at sea could only be
steered in sight of shore, which often rendered
their passage very dangerous, and, of course,
forbad all voyages of discovery. Now, however,
at the beginning of the fifteenth century, the
Portuguese had discovered the Azores and Ca-
nary Islands, and afterwards the Cape de Verde
Islands, and the coast of Guinea in West Africa.
At length, the navigator, Bartholomew Diaz,
succeeded in reaching the Cape of Good Hope,
in 1486; and, twelve years afterwards, Vusco de
Gama sailed round Africa, and discovered the
AT THIS PERIOD. - 317
passage to India. Hitherto the Italian cities of
Venice, Genoa, Pisa, etc., had monopolized the
trade for Indian produce, which was brought
overland by Arabia ; and the great increase of
their wealth, by these means, had excited the
envy and jealousy of other European nations.
But the Portuguese, having now found a new
and more easy way to India, drew over, by de-
grees, the India trade to themselves ; and hereby
this abundant source of wealth became lost en-
tirely to the Italian commercial cities. Even
the object of Christopher Columbus, the son of
a common citizen of Genoa, who about this
time discovered America, had been only to find
a passage to India; for he, rightly assuming
that the earth is spherical, hoped to reach India
trom the east, by steering continually westward.
But as he did not possess means to fit out ves-
sels for such a distant voyage, he applied to the
governments of several European countries; and,
at length, after seven years perseverance, found
Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain disposed to
listen to him. It was neither ambition nor
avarice that inspired him to such perseverance,
but a noble spirit of piety, which, though it was
tinctured with the notions of an ignorant and
superstitious age, nevertheless commands our re-
spect and veneration. He, like many thousands
of pious souls before him, had laid it much to
heart that the Holy City was again in the hands
of the infidels, (the Turks ;) and he hoped, by
the discovery of a new passage to wealthy India,
to obtain means for rescuing Jerusalem from the
unholy violence of the Musulmans. He had
2e2
318 IMPORTANT CHANQBS
carried this tliought about with hiui lor a long
time ; but his subsequent misfortunes had always
thrown some hinderance in the way of its accom-
plishment. At length, with three old vessels,
and a hundred and twenty men, he put to sea, on
the 3d of August, 1492, from a Spanish har-
bour; and, out on the great ocean, he was uncer-
tain whether he should have to make a voyage
of four weeks or four months before he should
arrive in sight of land. Even from old times
there had existed the obscure legendary report
of a great kingdom of Atlantis, which was said
to have been situated where the middle billows
of the Atlantic now roll, and to have been long
ago buried beneath its mighty waters.
Whether there is any ground for such a report ;
whether such a country was the bridge by which
the American aborigines passed over into the New
World; or whether their course was eastwai'd,
across the tract which is now called Behring's
Straits, and which might then liave been dry
land, cannot now be determined : but certain it is,
that, in the latter way of coming to America, the
primeval emigrations must have deviated from
their ordinary course. For the great movements
of the patriarchal nations had ever followed the
sun's progress from east to west ; and the spread
of human cultivation, the great scenes of history,
and the Christian religion, may be observed to
have followed the same direction. Whatever
proceeded in an opposite one, was generally
either something unnatural and wrong, as the
crusades, and the outbreaking of Mohammedisni ;
the latter spreading both east and west ; or
AT THIS PKUIUD. 310
it produced no permanent effect, such as the
missions of the Nestorians. Our own times,
wherein missions are diverging in all directions,
are a singular exception to this uniformity, and
bear, if only on such account, the character of a
grand epoch, in which the ordinary rules are no
longer observed, because it is opening to us the
fulfilment of the Divine promise, that the gospel
shall be preached to all nations.
Of the aborigines of America we have no early
records that can be depended on. As they have
been quite ignorant of writing, during at least
three thousand years, the accounts which they
give of their origin consist of nothing better than
obscure and uncertain traditions, among which,
however, that of a jjeneral deluo-e is not the least
remarkable. But they appear to have enjoyed
periods of cultivation as well as of wildness ; and,
like the other nations of antiquity, to have made
various attempts to express, by architectural me-
morials of human greatness, the natural desire of
fallen man for worldly glory and prosperity.
The history of the Peruvians is an instance of
the oral traditions ; and the present ruins of Pa-
lenque, in Mexico, is one among other memorials
of the architectural kind. But even the history
of these nations is a striking proof, that a peojjle
suffered of God to walk in their own ways, na-
turally tui-n aside to error, and become corrupt ;
and that the human heart, without the light of
revelation, loses itself in the most perverted ideas.
In not one of all these nations, ])arted off as they
have been by their great distance from the rest
of the world, has been preserved the knowledge
320 [MPOKTANT CHANGES
of the true God, which they could not but have
originally received from their earliest patri-
archal settlements in the old world ; and though
there was found in Peru a less deformed species
of idolatry, similar to that of the Persian worship
of the sun, yet among their more northern neigh-
bours, the Mexicans, the most hideous kind of
image worship was universally prevalent. Even
in America, as in the old eastern world, the na-
tives have all along been partly nations of some
culture, and partly nomades ; only they have
been every way far behind them in skill and
condition, as having been no sharers in the pro-
gressive leaven of knowledge and general infor-
mation.
The Mexicans and Peruvians have, in their own
way, been people of culture to some considerable
degree of perfection ; arts, manufactures, aud hix-
uries have not been at the lowest ebb among them.
The Mexicans will, in these respects, bear a com-
parison with the Hindoos, or the ancient Babylo-
nians ; the Peruvians with the Lydians ; the In-
dians of North America with the ancient Ger-
mans. But as the more cultivated nations
of the old world were the earliest to become
ripened for destruction by luxury and vice, and
hurried on their own decay and dissolution ; so
also were those of America. Imposing as was
the exterior condition of Mexico and Peru, at the
time of their being discovered by the Spaniards,
it was soon found that they were so degraded
to the worst habits of vice, and in such a state of
selfishness and disunion, that they would speedily
have come to dissolution of themselves, even hud
2
AT THIS PERIOD. 321
vicious Europeans never appeared amono; them.
This serves to account for those dreadful visita-
tions which God permitted to befal those countries
through the rapacity of their Spanish conquerors.
They had become ripe for destruction and exter-
mination, like the Canaanites of old, with only
this difference, that the sword of the Israelites in
Canaan was unsheathed by the express command
of God, so that they were conscious instruments
of his righteous judgments ; whereas the Spa-
niards unconsciously executed the will of the su-
preme Lord, and were as scourges in his hand,
that were thrown away as soon as done with :
for as they inflicted punishment on the corrupt
Americans, merely from the incitement of avarice
and their own bad spirit, so they themselves, in
turn, were subjected to the blasting rebuke of
God's righteous displeasure.
Columbus, after long and severe trials of pa-
tience, having fallen in with an island of the West
Indies, thought at first that he had now arrived
at India itself, in a quarter hitherto unknown to
Europeans. He went on discovering one island
after another, till finally he reached the westei'n
continent, which, however, he supposed to be only
a new island. The tidings of his success occa-
sioned great rejoicings in Spain, and hence arose
an irresistible passion for fitting out vessels and
making discoveries. The immediate object of
desire was gold and variety of wealth ; while
more piously disposed persons thought also on
the acquisitions which the Christian church
might gain by the conversion of the heathen na-
tives. But to prevent the danger of a war with
322 IMPORTANT CHANGES
the Portuguese, who for some time had far pi-e-
eeded them in the field of discovery, recourse
was had to the pope for his sanction and decision.
So rude in that period were ecclesiastical notions,
that men had been accustomed to look up to the
pope as the supreme judge in all matters of ap-
peal, and to regard him as God's vicegerent
upon earth, although at this time his influence
was no longer at its highest point. But selfish-
ness had so thoroughly pervaded all their ideas,
and had so blunted every feeling of reasonable-
ness and equity, that men and governments al-
lowed themselves to be invested by the pope with
grants of lands and counti'ies, which, nevertheless,
had already their rightful owners and possessors.
The pope drew upon the map a line, on one side
of which all newly discovered country was to be-
long to the Portuguese, and on the other side of
Avhich all was allotted to the Spaniards ; and
with this arbitration of the supreme head of
Christendom, were their consciences perfectly
composed and satisfied. Thus the Portuguese
possessed Brazil, and the Spaniards conquered
and took possession of the West Indian islands
one after another, together with Mexico and
Peru. The defenceless natives of these countries
were treated as if they had been no part of the
human race ; their valuables and their lands
were taken from them unasked ; their lives were
regarded as no more than those of animals ; and
they were compelled, by the most disgraceful
methods, to profess the Christian religion. To
drain the country of its gold, the natives were
handled as slaves j they were put to the hardest
AT THIS PERIOD. 323
labour in tlie mines, to which they had not been
accustomed ; and in consequence of which they
died by thousand^. Hereupon the noble and
devout Dominican, Bartholomew de las Casas,
who had dedicated his life to the welfare of the
poor Indians, hit upon the thought of employ-
ing strong-bodied Africans in this work, and
published a proposition to that effect. Thus,
without dreaming of such a consequence as the
monstrous and horrible slave-trade, he laid the
foundation for that very trade itself, which has
since annually brought one hundred thousand
negroes into cruel bondage, and to extirpate
which entirely, all endeavours hitherto have
been unavailing.* In the same year in which
* An official return has recently been printed, stating the
number of vessels engaged in the slave trade to the coast
of Brazil, under the Portuguese flag, that arrived at the Port
of Rio de Janeiro, in ballast or otherwise, for the several
months of the year 1837. This return is extracted from
"The Correspondence with Foreign Powers, relating to the
Slave Trade, 1837 ;" and " Further series of Correspondence,
1837, presented to both Houses of Parliament, by command
of Her Majesty, 1838."
From this return it appears, as stated by Mr. Gordon to
Viscount Palmerston, January 19, 1838, that " during
the year 1837, ninett/-tu)c) vessels, under the Portuguese flag,
have entered this port from the coast of Africa, alter land-
ing their cargoes of slaves in the neigiibourhood. By these
vessels forty-one thousand six hundied and sixteen slaves have
been imported. This number, however, is short of the ac-
tual importation ; because some vessels have made two or
three voyages during the year, without having entered the
port; and no account has been made of their cargoes, ex-
cept for the voyage on which they have entered to refit. The
leal importation, therefore, may be estimated at not less than
J'oity-six thousand.
" The slave trade with this port, I regret to add, has
324 IMPORTANT CHAiXOES
Cortez discovered Mexico, did Magellan disco-
ver a passage round the southern cape of Ame-
rica into the Great Pacific Ocean, and thus he
circumnavigated the globe. Thus the Spanish
voyages of discovery westward, and those of the
Portuguese, who sailed eastward, met each other;
and soon was the face of tlie whole habitable
globe laid open to the eye of the naturalist, and to
the enterprise of the merchant. Geography, na-
tural history, astronomy, mathematics, and other
sciences, gained thereby a much more enlarged
field of vision, and more appropriate destinations ;
as it was now found necessary to labour at such
sciences more closely for the sake of self-interest.
Commerce, that had hitherto been limited al-
most entirely to the Mediterranean, became now
extended to every part of the known world, and
brought the most distant nations, as it w^ere, into
contact with each other ; though the most im-
portant use, which, by the design of Divine Pro-
vidence, was to be made of this easier common
intercourse, the spread of the gospel among all
nations, was not contemplated by the Christian
church in general till a considerable period after-
wards. The old world transported their pro-
increased to a fearful and unprecedented extent. In the
year 1829, (the last during which this horrible traffic was
lawful,) the importations were considered to be immense ;
still, in that year, the number of slaves imported was only
forty-four thousand, in one hundred and five vessels.
" New negroes are now openly exposed for sale in several
parts of the city ; and at Taquany, a few le;igues distant,
there is established a regular market for them, exactly as
before the passing of the law of November 7, 1831." —
Trans.
AT THIS PERIOD. 325
ductions to America; and the new, sent theirs to
Europe, which was partly a gainer by this ex-
change, (in potatoes, Peruvian bark, etc.,) and
partly a loser, (in tea, tobacco, etc.) The
quantity of gold and silver brought from Ame-
rica to Europe, from the year 1492 to the year
1803, — and which amounted to about twelve
thousand millions of florins; or one thousand
and thirty-nine millions three hundred and thirty
thousand pounds, six shillings, and eightpence
sterling, — has contributed to make money to be-
come the idol of Europe, and to raise luxury to
an inordinate height.
(c.) Invention of Printing.
A DISCOVERY producing a still more important
change in the manners of Europe, and in the
Christian church, had been already for some
time on foot, namely, the art of printing ; a
thing so simple in itself, that it would be unac-
countable how men, with so many other and far
more difficult inventions, did not hit upon this at
a much earlier period : only we know, that all
human inventions themselves, and the season of
their maturity, are dependent on the government
of God. In the middle ages, there were no
books but in manuscript, and the few that ex-
isted could not be purchased, except at a very
high price. And then the people in general of
those times, as having directed their attentioa
to the external world only, were the less con-
scious of any need of helps to the formation
of the mind by new kinds of knowledge, and
2 F
326 IMPORTANT CHANGES
perseverino; reflection. This scarcity of books,
and especially of copies of tlie Scriptures, was
one main inlet to popery and ecclesiastical ty-
ranny ; because the people, in their i<rnorance,
had no staridai'd whei'eby to estimate such arro-
fjant claims according to the word of God,
But now, with the invention of printino;, the
overthrow of ecclesiastical dominion over con-
science was certain. Already, in the fourteentli
century, had the art of engraving in wood
been invented; and, at about the same period,
paper had begun to be manufactured from linen
rags ; whereas, before that time, all writing
was done upon costly vellum, or upon cotton
paper, which was equally expensive and less
durable. Engraving upon wood was, at first,
applied merely to the printing of playing-cards
and portraits of legendary saints, etc. ; but
soon was also attempted the art of printing
off single sentences and texts, cut in wooden
blocks ; and such sentences became, by and by,
whole pages. Thus far had Lawrence Koster,
of Harlem, advanced the art, between the years
1420—1425. John Guttenberg, of Mayence,
went farther ; he was the first who attempted
the compositor's art, by putting together wooden
lettei's, cut separately, and thus printing them off.
After the year 1445, he entered into partnership
with John Fust and Peter SchoefFer, of Ger-
mersheim, the latter of whom was the first to cut
matrices for casting types of molten tin, or lead.
From this time the process went on rapidly. In
the year 1457 was obtained the earliest printed
4
. THIS PERIOD. ^^4
psalter in Latin. Of this a few copies still
exist ; and after the year 1462, the art of print-
ing ceased to be a secret, as the workmen had
fled from Mayence, in consequence of the war,
and thus removed their business to various
places, especially into Italy.
The effects of this invention are incalculable.
The whole external life of man has, by means of
it., acquired another form ; and to the inward re-
vival and renewal of the Christian church it was
almost indispensable. In the promotion of sci-
ence, arts, and manufactures, in political as well
as commercial advancements, in morals also, and
in religion, it has been attended with the same
powerful influence, though not always with the
same beneficial effects. It has been instrumen-
tal to the extension both of faith and of infidel-
ity, piety and immorality, loyalty and rebellion,
sound knowledge and superficial acquirements ;
all the energies of good and evil, all the bad
passions, and all the plans and institutions for
the welfare and salvation of the world, have
taken it into their respective services. A re-
formation of the church could never, humanly
speaking, have been effected without the art
of printing; and the grand design of the press,
on the part of Divine Providence, was mani-
fested by the press itself, in its very earliest pro-
ductions. The Bible, and distinct portions of
it, were the first writings published from the
printing press at Mayence ; and it was not till
transported into Italy, that it was made to serve
the interests of heathen authors. For, at that
328 IMPORTANT CHANGES
time, the study of the Greek and Roman classics
was carried to a great extent in Italy, Hungary,
and Germany, at Oxford, and in Paris, and had
wonderful encoui-agenient and support by the
diffusion of such woi-ks from the press. Their
study was principally promoted, partly by learned
Italians and literary Greeks who had settled
in Italy, and partly by the patronage be-
stowed upon it by several ruling families in
that country, among which was the famous
Medici family at Florence. And, indeed, even
this revival of Greek and Roman literature
served to the furtherance of the kingdom of
God ; for men's notions became refined by clas-
sical study, and thus a pui-er taste was formed :
monasticism and superstition, those supports of
popery, became exposed in their naked de-
formity, and a way was opened for the servants
of God to render his Scriptures accessible to
the people generally. But then classical studies
brought with them many elements of ancient
heathenism into Christian philosophy and re-
ligion, corrupted the imagination with much
of mere pagan device, and led, at the pei'iods
of their highest cultivation, to oj)en contem])t
and enmity against the gospel. As in the mid-
dle ages, the dominion of massive magnitude
and corporeal strength forms the charactei'istic
of those times, so do modern ages more and
more develope to the present hour, in all the
departments of knowledge and of common life,
and particularly in the church itself, the undue
jn-edominance of merely human intellect. This
AT THIS PERIOD. 329
began to be perceptible as early as the Reforma-
tion, during the combat with ignorance and su-
perstition ; and, soon after, in the argumentative
conceptions and rigid tenets of dry orthodoxy ;
while later, and in our own days, we behold its
subtleties applied to the purpose of undermining
the fundamental truths of the everlasting gospel.
In all this has the revived classical spirit borne
no insignificant part ; and the universities, whose
number continued to multiply, as that of Upsal
in 1476, Tubingen in 1477, Copenhagen in
1478, soon became its nurses. In these it gra-
dually superseded the declining literature of the
schoolmen ; and assimied the same adverse posi-
tion as this had holden, with respect to those
pious members of the church of Christ who
conceived of and embraced the great truths of
Christianity, not so much with the intellect, as
with the spirit of their mind ; and preferred con-
forming their philosophy, not to heathen notions,
but to the principles of Holy Scripture.
(d) Imuortant Changes in Political Government.
That which the Reformation brought to light
in an ecclesiastical respect, namely, that the iron
and clay could not naturally be incorporated
with each other, became gradually manifested
likewise in a political respect ; and nearly all the
nations or princes of Christendom had experi-
enced, one after another, conflicts with the papal
power. But then, also, it became more and
more evident, that the period of division into
2f2
330 IMPORTANT CHANGES
the ten toes of tlie great image was now ar-
rived. In the middle ages, the pope and tlie
emperor contended for supremacy over all Chris-
tendom, and both of them regarded it as a whole
that was to be kept together. But this keeping
together became continually more relaxed to in-
dependence, till, at length, the individual states
separated themselves by distinct constitution,
language, education, and interests ; and cabinet
policy arose, whereby each state aimed at mak-
ing itself exclusive, and guarded against the rest,
and concerted means for its own independent
strength. This may serve to account for the
longer duration of this European political sys-
tem, than of that of any one of the former great
empires. As no grand idea of one common per-
vading interest any longer held these nations to-
gether, even the external bond could not but be-
come less and less strict, while the connexion it-
self, such as it was, might probably assist to
their mutual independence. Each of these na-
tions, now without control, developed its own pe-
culiar character ; their mutual emulation served
greatly to the promotion of the arts and sciences,
and to form a variety of characteristic national
usages ; their now isolated condition, relative to
each other, forbad any one of them to overstep
the natural bounds of the rest, and tended to
the conservation of a balance of power ; and the
pernicious notions and outbreakings of depraved
nature could not sjiread in every direction so
rapidly, as they could in the great empires them-
selves, where the will of one man was the main
2
AT THIS PERIOD. .331
movement of the whole. Particularly was this
state of political division conducive to the blessed
Reformation ; for true Christians, when perse-
cuted in one country, could flee into another,
and find protection. Had all Christendom then
remained under one temporal supremacy, or had
the papal power been able to exercise equal in-
fluence in every Christian country, it might have
been possible to have crushed the whole work of
the Reformation at a single blow.
SEVENTH PERIOD.
FROM THE REFORMATION TO OUR OWN TIMES.
[A.D. 1517 to 1836.]
I. HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION.
(a.) Its Coraraencement in Germany.
All these preparations had brought together
combustibles sufficient, and there needed only
an effectual spark to kindle the whole into a
bright flame, to illumine the darkness of Europe.
Such a spark is only effectual, when struck
at the right season ; and that right season was
now arrived. Emperors and kings, Waldenses
and Hussites, had previously attempted a
reformation ; but God's hour had not yet come,
and therefore all such attempts were frustrated.
That the Reformation might be signally mani-
fested as tlie work of God, it was to be accom-
plished by a man who had no such object in
view, but who was carried to it, against his will,
by the force of circumstances ; that is, by an
overrulinof Providence. An undertaking that
was intended for the highest exaltation and
glory of the Romish church, the building of the
magnificent cathedral of St. Peter's at Rome,
was to become the first occasion of breaking the
power of the j)apacy, and of giving a ruinous
HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION. 333
shock to the strong pillars that supported it.
T , ^ n. .1 ... 1 . _. j,-vg,>1»<.. "lVT,irl,'/i; in jirlmap
C
C
O C E A N >=
105 120
u
r.
HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION. 333
shock to the strong pillars that supported it.
Leo X., of the house of the Medici, in whose
court prevailed the greatest luxury and looseness
of morals, and who therefore wanted large sup-
plies of money, issued, in the year 1517, an in-
dulgence, which he committed for Germany to
the farming management of the electoral prince,
archbishop of Mayence. This archbishop ap-
pointed for the purpose a certain number of ec-
clesiastical agents, who itinerated the countiy,
and sold, at stipulated prices, forgiveness of sins
for the living and the dead. One of these agents,
a Dominican friar named John Tetzel, pushed on
this traffic with the greatest effrontery in the
neighbourhood of Wittenberg in Saxony, and
even preached up the indulgence as remitting all
future sins to those who should purchase it.
Martin Luther resided in Wittenberg at that
time, as professor and doctor of theology. He
was a monk of the Augustinian order, and was
born at Eisleben, in Saxony, a.d. 1483. He had
become acquainted with the fundamental doc-
trines of the Christian chui-ch by means of a Latin
Bible, which he had accidentally discovered ; and,
in a visit to Rome, he had witnessed with his
own eyes the gross corruption of the clergy in
that city ; but he still maintained great rever-
ence for the pope, as head of the Christian
church, and had not the remotest idea of ever
renouncing obedience to him. Hearing of the
mischief which Tetzel was doing by the sale
of indulgences, he was fired with holy indig-
nation ; and he posted on the church door in the
castle of Wittenberg ninety-five Latin articles, in
334 HISTOKY OF
which he instructed Christian men respecting
the character and abuses of indulgences. These
in a short time became known to all Germany.
As Luther could not be induced by threats
or pron)iscs to recant tliem, the pope, in the
year 15'20, published a bull against him. But
Luther, meanwhile, had become better acquainted
with the papacy, and now saw it in a very dif-
ferent light, namely, as a power opposed to the
kingdom of God. He was, moreover, protected
by the electoral prince of Saxony, Frederic the
Wise, who, after the death of Maximilian, had
been chosen regent of the empire ; and thus he
ventured to take a bold step, which was, in fact,
a total renunciation of the pope's authority : he
publicly burnt the papal bull. No sooner had
this daring act become known throughout Ger-
many, than it excited universal astonishment.
It occasioned, however, no little joy to many
hearts ; and all who mourned in secret over the
miseries of the church, took fresh courage at
hearing of it. For professed Christians, and
especially the clergy, were at that time become
so corrupt, that it was no uncommon thing to
relate jests of buffoonery even in the churches,
and to hear a burst of laughter upon the occa-
sion ; indeed, the very clergy and monks set the
example in luxury, laziness, ignorance, and im-
moral practices. Extortion of money, and the
gratification of their lusts, were the main concern
of the generality ; and the groaning oppression
of all ranks had sufficiently prepared men's
minds for welconiing the tidings of an attempt
at their deliverance. Many a soul was famish-
THE REFORMATION. 335
ing foi" the truth, and was disappointed at not
finding it in the church ; no, not even when ser-
mons were preached in the vernacular tongue, as
they had begun to be at some places in Germany.
Besides this, there still liv^ed in concealment
many scattered Waldenses, Wickliffites, and Bo-
hemian Brethren, who cordially agreed with
what Luther taught and did, and who eagerly
devoured every thing he wrote.
(4.) The Emperor Cliarles V.
Meanwhile Charles i. of Spain, the grand-
son of Maximilian i., after he had accepted the
electoral constitutions that were laid before him,
was chosen German emperor, in the year 1519,
by the title of Charles v. He held his first im-
perial diet at Worms, in the year 1521, and
hither was Luther summoned, personally to ap-
pear and plead in his own defence. But as he
refused to recant a single article of his tenets,
unless Convinced of its falsehood by the testi-
mony of Scripture alone, he and his followers
were put, by the young sovereign, under the
ban of the empire. God, howevei", had provided,
in another quarter, that its consequences should
be rendered perfectly harmless ; for the emperor
was involved in a war with France, with which
he was so fully occupied, that for a considerable
time he could but little concern himself with the
affairs of Germany. This absence of Charles
was very important to the Reformation, as it
furnished opportunity for its diffusion and taking
root without disturbance; and when emperors
336 HISTORY OF
afterwards laboured to check its progress, it had
ah-eady gained such strong and extended ramifi-
cation, that it was beyond all danger of being
eradicated.
After the diet at Worms, Luther, at the de-
sire of prince Frederic, resided for a time in the
castle of Wartburg, near Eisenach, and em-
ployed this season of his concealed retirement in
translating the Scriptures into the German lan-
guage. For though several vernacular transla-
tions were already extant, none of them merited
the least recommendation for correctness or per-
spicuity, nor at all deserved to be compared with
that of Luther. As, the securest support of the
papacy consisted in withholding God's word from
the common jjcople, so the most blessed and be-
neficial means of the Reformation was having
the Bible put into their hands. As in the hea-
then world at present every Bible is a silent mis-
sionary, so at that time every Bible was a silent
reformer. To serious and attentive readers there
was no need to point out the contradiction of
the Romish church to Scripture doctrine ; for it
was too obvious not to be seen by them at once.
Whoever read the Bible with any serious re-
flection, became immediately convinced that the
church was sunk in corruption, and that the
pope was an adversary of Christ.
The same cause that induced Luther first to
oppose, and at length to renounce all submis-
sion to the papacy, had, independently of any
connexion with Luther, converted into a re-
former Ulric Zwingle, a clergyman of Ziirich, in
the vear L519. This cause was the infamous
THE REFORMATION. 337
traffic of indulgences, already noticed. But this
traffic served to open his eyes to other abuses,
wliich he no sooner perceived, than he began
publicly to preach against them ; meanwhile
the chief magistrate of Ziirich was disposed to
protect him, and to promote his cause. Hence,
in a short time, the Romish worship was pro-
hibited throughout the whole canton, and seve-
ral of the other cantons declared likewise for the
Reformation. Among the worthies who wrought
with gfreat eflPect in bringing about this changre,
were Ecolampadius and Capito at Basle, Haller
at Bern, Sebastian Hofmeister at Schafflaausen
and at St. Gail. Other cantons united in obsti-
nate defence of the Romish church.
The government of France, a.d. 1515, de-
volved to Francis i. ; and his first public under-
taking was an expedition to Upper Italy, for the
recovery of Milan to the French ci'own. And
in this he succeeded, after defeating the Swiss
allies of the duke of Milan, in the battle of
Marignano. But as he himself had also been
a competitor for th e empire, and was displeased
that Charles had been preferred before him, he
thus became involved in a new war with that
prince; which, between the years 1521 — 1525,
was carried into Italy, and ended in his total
defeat at the battle of Pavia. The same year,
there broke out in Germany the war with the
peasants, which soon spread itself over all Swa-
bia, Alsace, Lorraine, Franconia, Thuringia, and
Lower Saxony. The country ])eople had been
grievously oppressed, and obliged to put up
with many acts of injustice. The princes, the
2g
338 HISTORY OF
landholders, and the clergy had imposed taxes
upon them, which they were iinal)le to pay ;
and being utterly without education and re-
ligious knowledge, they met this oppression
by taking the law into their own hands.
The reproach which this rebellious movement
drew upon the Refoi-mation, was therefore most
unjust ; for such a war was only another evi-
dence of the inexcusable neglect of the people
on the part of the clergy, and consequently of
the necessity of a reformation. These disturb-
ances were not terminated till after many cru-
elties had been committed on both sides. A
second war, between Francis i. and Charles v.,
in which the pope, siding with Fi'ance, was be-
sieged at Rome, and was obliged to suffer terms
of peace to be dictated to him by Charles v.,
turned out likewise favourably for the latter.
But Francis was still determined not to rest ;
and almost to the day of his death, which took
place in 1547, he kept Charles in perpetual war.
Into this war he drew the Turks; in consequence
of which Charles conducted an expedition against
Tunis in the year 1535, and against Algiers in
1541. By these wearisome and complicated
quarrels, which always required his own per-
sonal attendance, and because of the great danger
thus incurred to Germany from the Turks,
Charles was prevented from attending as he
wished to the home administration of this coun-
try. And his bi'other Ferdinand, king of the
Romans, who acted as his viceroy, was afraid
to risk an open rupture with the German princes,
THE REFORMATION. 339
whose assistance he so much needed against the
Turkish aggressions.
(c.) Progress and Difficulties of the Reformation in Germany.
At the diet of Nuremberg, in 1523, a pro-
posal was made to convene a general synod, that
should decide the pending controversies in reli-
gion. But as the princes who had favoured the
Reformation knew what to expect from such a
synod, they, in the mean time, went on rectifying
abuses in their own territories, and establishing a
better form of worship, and better seminaries of
religious instruction. This was done in Saxony,
Hesse, Anhalt, and elsewhere. Luther, with
Pliilip Melancthon, and other bold coadjutors,
was indefatigable ; and his excellent popular
writings, which were quite adapted to the un-
derstandings of the common people, were blessed
throughout Germany, and other countries, to the
instruction and conversion of many. After the
death of the elector Frederic the Wise, the
Saxon government devolved by hereditary right
to John the Constant, who was a constant and
feithful friend to the Reformation, and took
Luther and his work under his special protec-
tion. The princes of Saxony, Hesse, Bruns-
wick, Anhalt, etc. formed, in 1526, the league of
Torgau, and protested, at the diet of Spires, in
1529, against the popish resolution, that no in-
novations should be made in ecclesiastical mat-
ters ; whence the adherents of the Reformation
have ever since received the name of Protestants.
340 HISTORY OF
At length, in the diet of Augsburg, in 1530,
which was attended by Charles himself, these
princes presented that confession of their faith,
which is well known by the name of the Augsburg
Confession, Still no adjustment between the two
parties was effected, because the emperor felt too
little interest in it, and had too little impartiality
to examine such controversies for himself; and
his counsellors were continually stirring him up
to oppose them. The two parties dissolved the
diet in no good humour with each other; and
the Protestant princes, apprehending hostile mea-
sures, formed, in 1531, the lea/jue of Smalcald,
by which they engaged to protect one another,
should any violence be offered them on account
of their religion. But things came not at present
to these extremes; the work of God was still to
advance, and obtain firmer footing; and the
Turks themselves were to be made accessory to
this; for all things serve Him. The Turkish
power stood forward with menacing aspect upon
the frontiers ; and Ferdinand needed the help of
the princes, who however insisted upon religious
liberty as the condition of their giving it. Thus
was effected the peace of Nuremberg, in 1532,
which may be regarded as a spiritual armistice ;
for it merely protracted the decision of their cause.
Of this interval the Protestants made good use.
As early as in 1521, Albert of Brandenburg
had resigned his coat of office as grand master
of the Teutonic Knights, and had come over to
Protestantism in his temporal capacity as duke
of Prussia. To the countries already named as
in the Protestant interest, were now added
THE REFORMATION. 341
Wirtemberg, Pomerania, Denmark, Schwarz-
hm-g, and Nassau, whose princes favoured the
introduction of reformation within their re-
si)ective territories. With these might be enu-
merated many independent cities; the Refor-
mation had also many adherents in countries
whose rulers remained firm to the Romish
church, as in Austria, Bavaria, Bohemia,
Silesia, etc. In Sweden, the diet of Westeras,
in 1527, declared for the new doctrine. In
England, partly through Luther's writings, and
partly through the quarrel of Henry viii. with
the pope, it became favoured by a very lai'ge
party. In Poland, Hungary, and Transylvania,
numerous Protestant communities were formed
and subsisted amidst oppression and persecu-
tion. In France, where Francis i. persecuted the
Reformed, at the very time when, from political
hatred to Charles v., he was encouraging the
Protestants in Germany, the purified part of the
church nevertheless obtained a firm footing ;
and even in Italy and Spain there were numer-
ous friends of Luther, who were only prevented
from living and multiplying, by the violent se-
verities of the inquisition.
Many monasteries in Germany were dissolved
at the Reformation, and many ecclesiastical in-
stitutions applied to better purposes. Monks
and nuns now entered upon the married life ; the
invocation of saints, and especially of the Virgin
Mary, was done away ; and of the seven sacra-
ments two only were retained. The pope's woixl
of infallibility was no longer regarded ; but the
word of God alone was made the ultimate
2g2
342 HISTORY OF
ground of appeal in matters of faith ; ecclesias-
tical tradition was submitted to the decision of
holy writ, instead of the latter beino, as her(!to-
fore, interpreted by the former. In the place
of masses in the Latin tongue, which not unfre-
quently constituted the whole of the church ser-
vice, sermons in the vernacular tongue were
substituted : and for the schools, in which a new
and better generation was to be educated, Luther
wrote his greater and lesser catechisms ; those
masterly works, which by the Divine blessing
are to this day productive of so much benefit to
the young. But more important than any of
these exterior arrangements, though in part
closely connected with them, was the setting up,
especially by Luther's ministry, of the first grand
principle of the evangelical church, the doctrine
of free grace; or, salvation without the supposed
nmrit of human works. The notion of justifica-
tion from sin by our own works or deservings,
was the palladium of the Romish church, the
very life of all her abuses, and of her deep apos-
tacy. No spiritual change of mind and renewal
of heart were required by her, but only external
works and sacrifices. The evangelical church,
on the contrary, as set up by the reformers, re-
quires the righteousness of /"aii^; consequently,
a renovation of the heart, which man cannot ef-
fect, but only God. Therefore, she directs men
immediately to God himself, who has become
nigh to us in Christ ; and suffers them not to
seek their peace and happiness abroad, but in
their own hearts, where God is willing to plant
and prosper his own work. This was the doc-
THE REFORMATION. 343
trine of the apostles themselves, from which the
Roman Catholic church has fallen away.
In this prime doctrine of the Reformation,
the Swiss reformers fully agreed with those in
Saxony ; but they were at issue witli them upon
another point, namely, the presence of the body
and blood of Christ in the sacrament of the
Lord's supper : and the controversy, between
Luther and Zwingle upon this subject, was
carried on with such vehemence, that even
the more accommodating views of Calvin could
form no adjustment between them. The ho-
nesty of the two opponents, throughout the
whole controversy, was unquestionable : they
were equally unwilling to give up any thing
which they believed to be truth ; but the in-
terests of the Reformation were unspeakably
injured through this controversy, its powers
were divided, and hereby weakened; and thus
the progress of the truth was hindered. Had
the Protestants been all united among them-
selves, they would have gained a much more
firm and commanding position ; and, doubtless,
the Reformation itself would have gone to a
much wider extent. But thus it was evinced
at the very outset, that it was allied with human
infirmity, and that it was but a provisional ap-
pointment, adapted for the saving of individuals,
for continuing the blessings of salvation, and
developing the elements of a better period ; but
not that kingdom of peace and righteousness
itself, for which the world has so long been
waiting.
Meantime, in Switzerland, the Reformed and
344 HISTORY OF
the Romtm Catholic cantons had come to an
open religious war, much as Zwingle laboured
to preserve peace. He, himself, was obliged to
accompany the army as chaplain, and was slain
at the battle of Kappel, in 1531. But a treaty
of peace was concluded that same year, which left
the Reformed in possession of religious liberty.
The loss of Zwingle was replaced by John Cal-
vin, a man of undaunted and inflexible character,
great abilities, and deep acquaintance with the
Scriptures. He resided at Geneva, but his acti-
vity was felt throughout Switzerland, the Ne-
therlands, England, and Scotland. In Geneva
he had such great influence, that his opinion
was regarded as decisive, not only in church
matters, but also in those of the state. Yet the
wall of separation between the Lutherans and
the Reformed, (for so were the two parties called,)
became every day more fixed ; and things pro-
ceeded so far, that a Lutlieran would have no
more commutiication with one of the Reformed
than with a Roman Catholic.
Eveiy new triumph of truth provokes the
power of darkness to fresh exertions against the
kingdom of God, and especially by tempting
men to dangerous exti'emes. In every age this
temptation is discernible, and has always been at-
tended with more or less eflfect. The stronger and
more full of sap a fruit tree becomes, the more
cause is there to look after and prune away the
suckers and redundant branches, that rob it of its
productiveness. Nor was the Reformation free
from such excrescences. Already, at the time
when Luther was concealed in the castle of
THE REFORMATION. 345
Wartburg, degeneracy threatened his work at
Wittenberg, through the disturbances raised
about church images by Dr. Carolstadt. The in-
surrection of Miinzer proceeded farther still ; and
the fanatical follies of the anabaptists of Miinster,
in Westphalia, were at their height. Yet even
such enthusiastic extremes are useful for warning
to the rest, and teach them the value of sober
circumspection. The Reformation was evidently
the work of God, but it was accomplished by
fallible man, who needed such correction and
purification : this was, no doubt, the thing God
intended in permitting the troubles of war now
to break out upon the Protestants of Germany.
Charles v., himself, clearly saw that the Ro-
man Catholic church needed cleansing and
amendment ; but his notion was, that such
amendment must be attempted by the higher
powers. Of the spiritual force of that Divine
truth, which had made for itself a way by the
Reformation, he had no idea; his imperial au-
thority, he supposed, would soon bring every
thing back into the right direction. He never
imagined the possibility of a continued opposi-
tion ; but thought that, if he could but first get his
empire into a state of settled security from with-
out, he should then be able, without molestation,
to attend to the affairs of Germany, and then
would he soon despatch business with the Pro-
testants ; for he was never accustomed to bear
contradiction. In the meantime, he endeavoured
by diets, public religious disputations, and, at
length, by a long promised general council, to
compose these important differences. But when
346 HISTORY OF
all had proved of no avail, when the Protestants
had refused to send deputies to the council, be-
cause they well knew what would be the result,
and when their pi-inces had made preparations,
and a league among themselves, in case of a war,
he at length determined to chastise them for con-
tumacy, by force of arms. Luther did not live to
see the outbreaking of hostilities : his work was
ended on the 18th of February, 1546, after he
had borne, with blessed success, the burden and
heat of the day. In that same year, the army
of the league of Smalcald marched against the
emperor, who was stationed with his troops in
Bavaria. It would have been easy to have de-
feated him, had unity of plan and wise manage-
ment prevailed among the princes themselves ;
but, from a foolish mutual jealousy, they had neg-
lected to choose one of their number to take
the lead, and thus the best opportunity was suf-
fered to slip by unimproved. Meanwhile, duke
Maurice, of Saxony, having made himself mas-
ter of the electoral territories, the elector, John
Frederic, left the army of the league, to go and
recover his hereditary dominions. Charles found
it easy to defeat the rest ; they were com-
pelled to retreat, and the next year he himself
marched into Saxony ; attacked by surprise, on
the 24th of April, 1547; the army of John
Frederic, near Miihlberg ; swept it away, and
made the elector his prisoner. In like manner
was the landgrave, Philip of Hesse, compelled
to submit to the emperor, and both of these
princes remained several years in captivity, while
Maurice had become elector of Saxonr.
THE REFORMATION. 347
The league of Smalcald being thus abolished,
the emperor was now able to fulfil, without opposi-
tion, the promise he had given the pope, of extir-
pating the Protestant religion in Germany. But
probably he had seen that its doctrines had be-
come too deeply rooted in the hearts of the peo-
ple, and that he might, after all, be a loser by
harsh conduct ; probably God had put a fear
into his heart respecting it; for he once more
had recourse to conciliatory measures. By
his command a convention of Roman Catho-
lic and Protestant delegates was summoned
at Augsburg, and drew up that neutral docu-
ment of accommodation between popish and
Protestant doctrine and discipline, which was
called the Interim, because it was to serve in the
tnean while for pacific purposes, as the general
prescript of religious belief throughout Ger-
many, till the decisions of the council of Trent
should be known. Charles, by sanctioning such
a thing, doubtless gave a hint to that council itself,
that it would be requisite to proceed with mo-
deration, and that he himself wished to see
many an alteration effected in the church. But,
by such a trimming half-measure, it was found
impossible to satisfy either the Protestants or
the Romanists ; and its introduction was almost
every where opposed by obstacles which could
be overrim only by violence ; that is, by banish-
ing the Protestant clergy from Germany.
What added to the difficulty, was the imperious
language of prerogative, which Charles, in the
consciousness of his power, made use of at the
diets, and which made the princes seriously
348 HISTORY OF
concerned for tlicir rights and liberties. Miiurice
likewise was uneasy about the misfortunes of his
uncle John Frederic, in which he also bore a
guilty l»art ; and about the decline of the Protes-
tant interest, to which he from conviction be-
longed ; for he himself had not consented to
accept the Interim. He, thei'efore, secretly
meditated a decisive blow at tlie emperor, in
order to comjjel him both to liberate the caji-
tive i)rinces, and to show greater lenity towards
the Protestants in general. With the utmost
quietness, but, as it were, with the rapidity of
lightning, he had marched his army to Inn-
spruck, where Charles was then residing ; and
with the greatest speed was the latter, in the
night and the fog, compelled to flee before him.
It was now Maurice's turn to dictate conditions;
and unaccustomed, as the haughty emperor felt
himself, to be obliged to yield to one of his own
princes, yet hereby was effected the treaty of
Pasmu, by which the landgrave Philip was set
at liberty, and the Protestants were allowed
greater freedom till the decision of the next diet.
These events occurred in the year 1552, before
which John Frederic had been already liberated.
The Interim was now abolished, and at the diet
of Augsburg a peace was concluded concei-ning
matters of religion. By this peace the Protes-
tants of Germany were allowed the fi'ee exercise
of their religion. Charles had likewise, during
the few last years of his reign, a variety of diffi-
culties to encounter with the Turks, and with
France, without gaining much advantage by
them ; and one humilifition after another came
THE RKFORMATION, 349
upon him. Wearied, at length, and disgusted
with such contests and troubles, he resigned the
government, and . gave the Netherlands and
Spain to his son Philip it., 1555 and 1556, and
the imperial throne of Germany to his brother
Ferdinand i. He himself retired into a monas-
tic hermitage in Spain, where he died, in the
year 1558. The light of evangelical truth had
often approached very near him in the course of
his public life, and repeatedly had he heard it
testified by some of the most powei'ful servants
of God in his day ; but there is no evidence
of its having made any impression upon his
heart. Indeed, in his last days, supei-stition
was his comfort ; at least the report, that he
died trusting in the free mercy of God in
Christ Jesus, is not satisfactorily attested. How
great a person and blessing might this man have
been, had he put himself at the head of that
great work which God was working before his
eyes !
The elector Maurice died previously, 1553,
in battle against the savage and plundering Al-
bert, the margrave of Brandenbui'g. He was a
prince of considerable talent and political wisdom,
as well as a courageous general; yet, after all,
his character was somewhat ambiguous. His
last prayer discovers more personal feeling on
the subject of religion than clear knowledge of
evangelical truth.
Great changes took place in the countries
where the Reformation gained permanent foot-
ing ; especially in Germany, where it had early
found enti'ance, and taken deep root. Not onlv
2 II
350 HISTORV OF
Luther, by his translation of the Bible, but the
Retbrinatiou in general, by the introduction of
pi'eaching in the vernacular tongue, and by the
establishment of numerous schools, was of the
greatest service in advancing the settlement and
refinement of the German language, the diffusion
of general knowledge, and the progress of science.
The common congregational psalmody in our
churches, the practice of catechising, and other
edifying institutions, are all to be traced to this as
the period of their origin. For the establishing of
schools, universities, and theological seminaries,
etc., means were obtained by the appropriation
of the rich convents, abbeys, and bishoprics,
that hitherto had served to cherish the indolence,
luxury, and licentiousness of the ecclesiastics.
Moreover, there was no longer any necessity for
sending large yearly sums of money to Rome,
as hitherto had been the custom ; for all con-
nexion with the pope had ceased, and the su-
preme decision in church affairs, the nomination
to benefices, dispensations, and the like, in the
Protestant countries, were now consigned to
their respective temporal sovereigns. The con-
nexion also between the clergy and the laity was
quite altered. The great distance, at which
the brahminical caste of the ecclesiastics had
hitherto stood from the people, now disappeared ;
the clergyman came into closer alliance with his
flock, as a teacher and under shepherd of souls ;
and whereas a strong and harsh distinction had
before been observed between the person of a
priest and that of a human being, as if the man
THE REFORMATION. 351
who held the office had in his single self these
two distinct personalities, so that the badness of
the man was not to be accounted the badness of
the priest, it was very different now on the prin-
ciples of the Reformation; for the clei'gyman
had henceforth to stand or fall by the opinion of
his fellow-men, and to give effect to his word by
his own personal worth and blameless conduct.
As the pope had lost his infallibility, so the
priests could not expect to retain theirs. What
they taught was now believed no longer because
they were priests of the cliurch ; but every pri-
vate individual had now access for himself to the
word of God, that fountain of Christian truth,
and with it the right of trying the preacher's
doctrine, whether it were agreeable to that word.
So extensive and influential were the conse-
quences of the Reformation, that they even af-
fected that church which most abhorred its prin-
ciples, and which has all along sought to smo-
ther them. While the Romish church stood
absolute, and received from all the western world
the name of Catholic, the pope and his bishops
could exercise tyrannical dominion over the laity,
without fear of its being wrested from their
hands ; for whither could the oppressed flee
from these oppressors ? But now an asylum was
opened for all who had any cause of dissatisfac-
tion with ecclesiastical superiors ; and the liberty
held out to them on the part of the Protestants,
besides other advantages, could not but ap-
pear inviting to the human heart, which natu-
rally affects liberty. Hence the popes and
352 HISTORY OF
bisliops Ibiind it necessary to beliiive more j)ru-
dently and forbearingly towards tlie hidk of the
people, in order to avoid provoking them to a
total secession. And then the education, learn-
ing, blameless character, and ministerial activity
of the Protestant clergy, required that the Ro-
man Catholic priests, especially in countries
where the two churches were in contact, should
not be behind them; lest by the comparison
they should sink entirely in public opinion. It
is more especially to this view of things, that the
popish church is indebted for the introduction of
preaching in hei' congregations. Nor were the
Holy Scriptures themselves entirely confined to
the Protestants, but came frequently into the
hands of the Roman Catholics ; and the latter
have also had their, share in all those advances
of science and useful knowledge, which we owe
to the Reformation.
That the Romish church has never acknow-
ledged this debt, is no more than was to be ex-
pected from the nature of the case ; indeed, as
early as at the council of Trent, she openly
showed that she never would do it. For that
council, at its second sitting, in 1546, anathema-
tized the Protestants ; and all its subsequent con-
clusions proceeded in the same spirit. Po[)e
Pius v., between the years 15G5 and 1572, pub-
lished his bull '■'■ In Ccend Domini," which was
afterwards read in all Romish congregations
once every year, upon Maunday Thursday, and
which solemnly denounces damnation upon all
heretics and protectors of heretics, and with
THE REFORMATION. 353
equal solemnity declares all princes amenable to
the pope's supremacy.
As the separation of the Protestants from the
Romish church was signified by the council of
Trent to be irreconcileable, so was likewise the
division between the Reformed and the Luther-
ans formally pronounced, by the concordat of
1580, to be an important circumstance, which
was found to have a decided influence, not only
upon the ecclesiastical relations of the Protest-
ants, but also upon their political destination.
As the papacy had lost, by the Reformation,
so important a portion of its dominion, the insti-
tution of the order of the Jesuits, whose plans
and operations promised no small indemnifica-
tion of this loss, could not but be welcomed by it
in the highest degree. A Spaniard, named Ig-
natius Loyola, founded this order in the year
1534, and the succeeding generals of the order
introduced its laws and regulations. The vow of
implicit obedience to its General, distinguished it
above every other religious fraternity; and the
strenuous endeavours of its members to get into
their own hands the superintendence of all edu-
cation, and to occupy the place of confessors or
chaplains, especially in families of the higher
classes, obtained it an influence unexampled of
the kind. Literary attainments and pleasing
manners, refined and prudent conduct, were its
letters of recommendation to such places of
trust ; cunning calculation and laying in wait
for circumstances, were its fundamental prin-
ciples ; its morality was self-interest ; a prudent
' 2 H 2
354 HISTORY OF
distribution of its members to the most suitable
stations, and artful connexion and communica-
tion with one another, so as to work together
like one man for one grand object, was its
univei'sal policy. Every thing was to be made
subservient to the strengthening and extension
of the Romish church and the influence of the
papacy; and as so many thousand individuals
gave themselves up implicitly as instruments
to be made use of for such an object, it may
easily be imagined what a spirit animated them
to subordinate every thing of their own to this
single aim, and to act like the multifarious
wheels of a great machine, in continual har-
mony. This order, at its most flourishing pe-
riod, had fourteen hundred colleges, and more
than twenty-two thousand members. Its effici-
ency has been great and comprehensive ; and
what was predicted respecting it by its General,
Francis Borgia, who died in the year 1572, has
to this day been too truly and accurately re-
alized ; namely,
" We lidve cunie in like Iambs ;
We shall rule like wolves;
We shall be driven oui like dogs ;
We shall be renewed like the eagles."
(ci.) Ferdinand I. and Maximilian ll.
Ferdinand i., who succeeded his brother
Charles v. in the empire of Gei-many, was a
man of pacific measures, whose treatment of his
Protestant subjects was neither with harshness
THK REFORMATION. 355
nor unreasonableness ; though, amidst the variety
of controversies maintained by the Protestants
among themselves, he might perhaps have found
occasion for both. His reign continued only
till 1564 ; and his son Maximilian ii., a prince
of the same mild character, was his successor.
Under this emperor the Protestants in Germany
enjoyed freedom from outward molestation, but
were only the more at variance among them-
selves. No sooner had the conciliatory spirit of
Melancthon, who had hitherto contrived to pre-
serve peace, left the earth, in 1563, than the
cnjpto-calvinutic and other controversies bi'oke
out unrestrained, and the noble work of God
was disfigured under the hands of jarring theo-
logians.
How free Maximilian ii. was from narrow-
hearted bigotry, is evinced by his opposition to
the insinuating and intriguing policy of the pope
and the Jesuits, by his confidential friendship
with the truly noble duke Christopher of Wiir-
temberg, a decided friend of the Reformation;
and by the permission he gave the Protestants to
have a minister and a house of prayer in Vienna
itself. He would neither exercise dominion over
conscience, nor allow others to do it, because he
ascribed this right to God alone. His death,
A.D. 1576, was universally and sincerely la-
mented, and the more so, as his successor, Ru-
dolph II., 1576 — 1612, though a good-natured
and well-informed man, had too little of the de-
cision and vigour of a competent governor, and
had not the resolution to subordinate his private
356 HISTORY 01'
incliiuitioiis to liis public duties ; moreover, lie
followed too implicitly the counsel obtruded on
him by the Jesuits. Thus the German princes
had their hands moi-e at liberty, whence a state
of disquietude throuf^hout the whole country,
and of mutual grievances and disunion among
the principalities gradually ensued ; and here-
from, at length, in the year 1609, proceeded the
double alliance of the German princes; the leaijue
which embraced the Roman Catholic princes,
and the union which comprised those of the
Protestants: the latter, however, was exclusive
of the electorate of Saxony. Thus were already
laid in the bosom of the empire the combustible
materials of that religious war, which soon after-
wards desolated all Germany ; and the Protest-
ants of Bohemia and Silesia could not long en-
joy those advantages of the free exercise of their
religion, which they had wrested from the em-
peror Rudolph, in his so-called letters patent, in
the year 1609. Rudolph himself, falling a sa-
crifice to his own caj)rice and indecision, was
obliged to give up one tcrritoiy after another to
his own brotlier Matthias ; who, by and by, after
Rudolph's death, obtained the imperial crown, in
1612, but did very little better than his prede-
cessor.
(e.) The Hugonots in France.
While the Reformation in Germany, under
the government of I't.isonable emperors, among
whom, in so far as he tlid not absolutely j)erse-
THE REFORMATION. 357
cute, we may number Charles v. himeelf, was
permitted to develope and spread, to take root
downward and bear fruit upward, the history
of the Protestants in France, at the same period,
was one of extreme sufferings. Francis i., who
reigned from a.d. 1515 to 1547, a chivahous
soldier, but no soldier of Jesus Christ, and who
was concerned merely foi' his own interest, not
for the honour of God, persecuted his Pro-
testant subjects, who had allied themselves to the
Reformation in Switzerland, and even connived at
some of them being burnt alive. The new plant
of the Reformation had found a fruitful soil in
France, where there still remained Waldenses ;
and, as early as 1521, a church of evangelical
Christians, who were known by the name of
Hugonots, had been formed at Meaux ; but as
fast as its adherents spread abroad through-
out France, was Francis alei't in their rear to
extirpate them ; and persecutions for this purpose
continued, almost without intermission, during
the whole of his reign. Twenty-two towns and
villages of the Hugonots in Provence were burnt
or destroyed, and their inhabitants were massa-
cred with the most horrible barbarities. Under
his successors, Henry ii., Francis ii., Charles
IX., and Henry iii., the oppression of the Pro-
testants went on with little intermission, and the
most atrocious cruelties were practised upon
them. Of these the Paris massacre, on the
night of St. Bartholomew, in 1572, instigated by
king Charles ix., or rather by his mother Ca-
therine de Medicis, is a most striking proof to
358 HISTOKY OF
what lengths of iniquity hatred of religion can
carry those who follow the inclinations of their
own corrupt hearts, and what sort of value popery
itself has set upon human life. In that single
night were surprised and murdered, in Paris and
at other places, more than sixty thousand persons,
among whom was admiral de Coligny, the noble
champion of the Protestants in France. This
enormous massacre was perpetrated upon them
for no other reason than because they held a dif-
ferent religious belief; and pope Gregory xiii.
testified his joy on the occasion by great festivi-
ties. The Hugonots, like the Hussites in Bo-
hemia, long before them, had previously taken
up arms for the obtaining of religious liberty ;
and some princes of the blood had joined them
in this contest.* The treatment they met with,
which had for its object the extinction of all
Hugonots in France at one blow, was not likely
to restore peace. Therefore, immediately in the
next year, the war broke out afresh : parties and
leagues were formed both at court and among
the people ; and France became a scene of entire
confusion, till, in the year 1589, the reins of
government were assumed by Henry iv., who
hitherto, as king of Navarre, had himself de-
fended in arms the cause of the Protestants,
* And to this very thing both the great Bengel and Sau-
rin ascribe their principal temporal troubles, as a chastise-
ment from God for having herein acted so differently from
the persecuted Christians of the primitive times, through for-
getting one of the main principles of our holy religion, and
violating the express command ot our blessed Saviour him-
self: Matt. X. 23; xxvi. 52.— Tkans.
THE REFORMATION. 359
and had risked his life for his faith. With
him the throne of France became hereditary
ill the house of Bourbon, a collateral branch
of the house of Valois. It is easy to compre-
hend why the acknowledgment of Henry's
right to the succession met with so much op-
position from the majority of the Roman Catho-
lics, in consequence of which he had to contend
for it a long time. That he, at last, in order to
gain over his enemies, sacrificed his religious pro-
fession, and went over to the Romish church,
though still remaining a Protestant in his heart,
who can defend it ! Surely none but some Jesuit,
who justifies evil as a means for the sake of speci-
ous good as its end ; or some reckless worldling,
who regards the possession of a throne as more
valuable than peace of conscience. That Henry
IV. did not take this long-considered step from
motives of ambition or covetousness, we may
perhaps allow ; he may have thought, that, as
king of France, he should have it in his power
to obtain religious liberty for the Protestants ;
and that this was reason enough why he should
even venture to go over to the Romish church.
But then he forgot that Christ requii-es every
one personally to profess the truth; and that God
can and will protect his people, when they
keep in the direct way of truth. He may have
meant well ; but his policy in this respect was
sinful : and supposing his excellent government
made good this false step before men, yet that
could never make it good in the sight of God.
In the year 1598, he issued the celebrated edict
3G0 iiisTonv OF
of Nantes, whicli not only secured full religious
liberty to the Protestants, but likewise threw
open to them the offices of state. It was his
anxious wish to restore tranquillity and prospe-
rity to his whole realm ; and in this he was very
powerfully supported by his equally distinguished
minister Sully, who was exactly of the same age
with himself. He took care to have the taxes
reduced as low as possible, and to set an exam-
ple of rigid economy ; agriculture and commer-
cial intercourse became advanced, and every
thing was done for the restoration of general
contentment and comfort. In the latter part of
his life he was busily occupied in planning a
Christian state alliance, which was to consist of
fifteen national governments of equal magnitude
and importance, and having for its object the
preservation of peace, and a balance of power in
Europe. All were to bind themselves to .chas-
tise any single state that should be disposed to
break the peace. Whether it was the good in-
tention of preventing the formation of a new
universal monarchy that put him upon this plan,
or whether he was also moved to it by that jea-
lousy of the predominance possessed in Spain
and Germany by the house of Hapsburg, which
had dictated the French policy ever since the
reign of Francis i. ; still we cannot but wonder
how a man of his excellent undei'standing could
put his whole soul into such a scheme, or ima-
gine that the several states of Eui-ope could ac-
quiesce in such a distribution, and in some in-
stance's diminution of their respective powers,
or that such an arrangement, even if effected.
THE REFORMATION. 361
could be durable, considering it would owe its
existence to the mere constraint of an armed ma-
jority. Just at the time when he was meditating
the trial of it in Austria, in the fifty-sixth year
of his age, and while he was still in vigour, a.d.
1610, he died by the hand of an assassin named
Ravaillac. In the ensuing regency, during
the minority of Lewis xiii., vexatious attempts
were renewed against the Hugonots ; the flame
of civil war was rekindled, and the Pi-otestants
were gradually deprived of all their strong places,
till, in the year 1628, Rochelle, the last of these,
was taken and reduced : but they still were per-
mitted to enjoy liberty of conscience.
(y.) The Reformation in England and Scotland.
England had had a sovereign who had intro-
duced the Reformation into that country ; but the
immediate sequel showed how much a good work
is weakened, when the great and powerfid them-
selves are not attached to it with their whole,
heart. Had Henry viii. been a pious man, who
from conscientious motives had taken part in the
Reformation, then might that great work in Eng-
land have spread most flourishingly under his
protection, especially as Wickliff" had long before
prepared the way for it among the mass of the
people. Whereas, the main occasion of his se-
parating from the pope was his dissatisfaction
with him for refusing to sanction the divorce of
his queen, when he desired to marry another.
Hereupon, Henry resolved to become entirely
independent of papal authority, the enormities of
2i
362 HISTORY OF
which he now perceived. He declared himself
head of the Anglican church ; he allowed no
more money to be sent from England to Rome,
nor any mandates from Rome to be received any
more in England; he dissolved the monasteries
and ecclesiastical houses, which had, for the most
part, become dens of corruption, against which
the nation cried aloud ; and he caused an English
translation of the Scriptures to be printed. Yet
he was too proud and self-willed to acknowledge
the principles of the German reformation ; and
he caused books of doctrine to be set forth,
which retained many corruptions of scriptural
truth. In his unfeeling insolence, he caused
alike both the Papists, who persisted in adhering
to the authority of the pope against his own,
and the Reformed, who wished to reject all the
doctrinal errors of popery, to be publicly put to
death. This was indeed not the way to recom-
mend and gain a general acceptance to the new
doctrine : yet, withal, was an important opening
and preparation made for it ; the papal power in
England was broken, and driring the short reign
of his young son and successor, Edward vi., a.d.
1547 — 1553, that pious and hopeful youth, who
might be compared to king Josiah, archbishop
Cranmer, with the help of German and other
reformers, was enabled to project and carry on a
more effectual amendment of the English church.
But the heaviest trials often remain to be un-
dergone, when we are apt to think Ave have sur-
mounted the worst. When the newly-scattered
seed had now not only sprung up, but risen to
THE REFORMATION. 363
something more than the young green blade, a
violent storm once more blew over it, upon the
succession of Mary, the daughter of Henry viii.
by his first marriage, to the throne. She
was a gloomy adherent to the popish super-
stitions, and her marriage with the bigoted
Philip II. of Spain, only served to confirm and
sti'engthen her in her sanguinary notions and
proceedings. During her reign, from 1553 to
1558, the papal authority and establishment was
I'estored in England; all sincere Protestants
were obliged to flee or conceal themselves, and
many of them were cruelly executed; among
whom were archbishop Cranmer, and bishops
Ridley and Latimer, who died martyrs at the
stake ; nearly three hundred of all ranks being
burned alive in three years.
For the relief of England, Mary was soon re-
moved by natural death, and the crown devolved
to Elizabeth, another daughter of Henry viii.,
who had all along favoured the Reformation,
and who, immediately upon her accession to the
throne, abolished the pope's authority and the
Roman Catholic worship. Under her govern-
ment the present Anglican episcopal church was
settled, which agrees, in the main things, with
the doctrines of the retbrmation on the conti-
nent, but in its formulas and ecclesiastical ar-
rangements coincides with neither of the two
continental i-eformed branches, and retains some
ceremonies which part of the evangelical body
in England disapproved of; whence arose the
Puritans.
364 HISTORY OF
How Ijir, after all, queen Elizabeth herself
was influenced by personal piety is very doubt-
ful, or rather it is not difficult to determine ;
because true piety knows nothing of duplicity or
worldly policy : nevertheless, her reign was a
period of prosperity and splendour in the history
of England. Manufactures and commerce, and
every sort of national wealth increased under
her government; several voyages were made
round the globe, and great treasure was obtained
as booty by the way. The invincible armada
of Philip II. of Spain was dispersed by the aid
of a tempest, and mostly destroyed, a.d. 1588,
when both the queen and her subjects gave God
the glory for this deliverance.
In Scotland, already had the youthful Pa-
trick Hamilton pi-eached the new doctrine, and
been burned alive for it at the stake, in 3528.
Others had to follow him in the same track of
martyrdom : nevertheless, such cruelties did not,
in the least, suppress the desire of reformation
which was felt by the people at large, and espe-
cially by many of the nobility. What could not
be effected by remonstrance and petition, they
sought to accomplish by other means, in self-de-
fence ; and things proceeded with such decision,
that, by the year 1547, John Knox, a friend and
fellow-disciple of Calvin at Geneva, was able to
preach the gospel to his own countrymen with-
out molestation. The church of Scotland owes
the rescuing of her religious libeity chiefly to
the undaunted courage and inflexibility of this
eminent man. The then queen of Scotland,
Mary Stuait, who for a short time had been queen
THE REF"ORMATION. 365
of France, as consort of Francis ii., was very
much attached to the Romisli church ; but the
power of her Protestant-minded nobility had
ah-eady become too great for her to resist ; and
she herself had so weakened her influence, by
her levity and notorious offences against the
dignity of royalty, and both human and Divine
law, that she had no power at all to check the
everywhere prevailing cause of the Reformation.
As early as the year 1560, the confession of
faith, and the Presbyterian form of government,
which in the church of Scotland retain in sub-
stance their validity to the present day, were in-
troduced into that country. Maiy had to hear
strong remonstrances personally uttered to her
by Knox ; and, had she heeded such faithful and
plain dealing, she might have been spared many
an infliction still more severe. After she had
suffered herself to stand in several connexions of
a very suspicious nature, and had been even
accused, and not without reason, of having been
implicated in the murder of lord Darnley, her
second husband, she was obliged, at length, to
resign the government, and imprudently fled
into the territory of her cousin, queen Elizabeth
of England, who was not upon good terms with
her, from her having claimed the throne of Eng-
land, and who caused her to be detained. Con-
spiracies were set on foot in favour of this un-
fortimate queen, and to restore popery, which
threatened the life of Elizabeth, and these were
the cause for which, after long deliberation,
Mary was beheaded. That Mary was really con-
nected with these conspiracies, the most recent
2i2
366 HISTOKY 01'
inquii'ies do not permit us to doubt ; neverthe-
less, her execution was, to say the least, a very
wrong measure.
Elizabeth died in the year 1603, after a reign
of forty-five years. Her general character was
a strange compound of feminine weakness and
masculine firmness; but the latter decidedly
prevailed. If, in one and the same public
character, we may distinguish the good quali-
ties of the ruler from those of the person, then
we may say, that Elizabeth possessed the
former in a far greater degree than the latter.
As she lived unmarried, her successor was
James, king of Scotland, the son of Mary
Stuart ; a man of coarse and pedantic charac-
ter, who knew not how to gain the affection
of his subjects. The Romanists of England had
set great hopes upon him, for he himself was not
unfavourable to some doctrines of Romanism
in his heart; but his own natural vacillation,
and the prudent fear of opposition from the
powerful Pi'otestant party, restrained him from
taking any decisive steps in favour of the former.
The Romish party, however, became bitterly in-
censed against him and his parliament ; and the
well-known gunpowder plot, which was attri-
buted to the Jesuits, was intended to get rid of
both him and them in one day ; but was pro-
videntially discovered, just in time to save the
realm, a.d. 1605. In his leign Scotland was
united to England, though still for a long time
it continued to have a parliament and laws of its
own.
THE KEFOKMATION. 367
(ff.) Portugal, Spain, Italy, and other Countries,
at the Reformation.
Portugal, through her discovery of the pas-
saoe to India, her possession of Brazil, and the
brisk commerce which thence arose, and which
made Lisbon, for a time, the first commercial
city in Europe, had become rich and powerful,
and had her most flourishing period in the first
half of the sixteenth century. But the influence
of the Jesuits soon brought her down from her
eminence; and, in the year 1581, she even came
under the dominion of Spain, from which she
was not liberated till the year 1640.
Spain, at this period, was at the zenith of
her power, Charles v., and his son Philip ii.,
could say, that the sun never set in their domi-
nions ; but, at the same time, they used all their
exertions that the sun of true knowledge should
never rise in the same. Naples and Sicily,
Burgundy and the Netherlands, Milan and Sar-
dinia, the Canaries and the richest West India
islands, Mexico and Peru, Chili and the Philip-
pines, Spain and Portugal, were under the scep-
tre of Phihp II. ; and if power and wealth could
make a country happy, then Spain would have
experienced no want of happiness ; for gold and
silver came to her in abundance from America.
But, with all this, thei-e was no prosperity, for
there was no Divine blessing. Philip was a bi-
goted, gloomy man, and allowed the Inquisition
to rage without restraint in his country, for the
purj)ose of extinguishing that light of the gospel
368 HISTORY OF
which had been richly poui-ed into it. The num-
ber of the ev^^ngehcully minded had so increased
in many of the cities and towns of S])ain, about
the middle of the sixteenth century, that the In-
quisition had enough to do to stop the further
spread of the Lutheran doctrine, and a midtitude
of its adherents were publicly burned alive. Phi-
lip, however, had to undergo all sorts of misfor-
tunes on this account. The united Netherlands
revolted from his government ; his own son, Don
Carlos, rebelled against him,* and died in pri-
son ; his invincible armada, which he sent
against England, was dispersed in a storm, and
partly annihilated ; and the guilt of the blood of
so many thousands of innocent and barbarously
murdered Protestants allowed him no re])ose,
and lay also as a heavy burden upon his nation,
which, at the end of his reign, was already sunk
away from its former eminence to a state of de-
gradation, from which his son, Philip iii., who
reigned from 1598 to 1621, could not recover it.
In Philip II. we may also witness one striking
instance of the true remark, that it is not gold,
but the blessing of the Lord, that maketh rich.
With all this monarch's abundant treasure that
was brought him from America, he had, at last,
a burden of debt amoimting to more than eight
hundred millions of florins; or ^68,887,500
sterling ; and was obliged to get money collected
for him from house to house.
In Italy, the once free cities of Milan, Genoa,
* According to other accounts, he was falsely accused of
doing so, and was executed by his father's command.
3
THE REFOIIMATION. 369
Venice, etc. had become the hereditary domi-
nions of single potent families within them.
Tlie quari'els of these families with one another,
as also with the cities themselves, together with
their sharing in the struggles maintained against
the pope by the great princes of Germany,
France, and Spain, formed an iinpleasing and
involved tissue of history, wherein the selfish
principle shows itself accompanied with all man-
ner of intrigues and vices. The flourishing state
of the arts and sciences, which marks this period
of Italian history, proved no remedy whatever
against the evils of which we complain ; and
which were too deeply rooted to be removed by
any such means. The stir that was made in
various parts of that country in favour of the
Reformation, which, kindling there from out
of Germany, had been cherished by such wor-
thies as Occhino, Curio, Vergerius, Palearius,
and others, and had found its way even to Na-
jjles, was soon extinguished by papal vigilance,
and the murderous activity of the Inquisition.
The readiness with which the principles of the
Reformation were received in Italy and Spain,
shows how extensive was the influence of this
great religious movement, and what a dis-
satisfaction generally prevailed respecting papal
abominations and abuses, when it could not but
show itself in the very precincts of the glorious
sanctuaiy, as it is called, of the Roman Catholic
church.
While Charles v. was consolidating a vast
portion of the West under his imperial autho-
rity, and thus recalling to men's minds the old
370 HISTORY OF
universal empire, there was exliibited in the
East, in the Turkish sultan Soliman ii., who
came to the throne at the same time with
Charles, a similar endeavour to obtain the mo-
narchy of the world. Happily, however, the
ambition of both these great princes so obstruct-
ed each other, that the one could not fail to
force back the other within his proper limits.
The sultan Selim i., a.d. 1512 — 1519, had es-
tablished and extended the Ottoman empire,
and Soliman ii., a.d. 1519 — 1566, proceeded in
the same career. He was a spirited warrior and
an experienced politician, but a man of violent
temper, and who could sometimes practise cru-
elty. He took Belgrade, which was the key
to Europe ; he expelled the knights of St. John,
in 1522, from the island of Rhodes, which they
had possessed for two hundred and twelve years;
he defeated the Hungarians in the same year
that the Protestants in Germany concluded the
league of Torgau ; and in the year 1529, Avhen
they protested at the diet of Spires, he besieged
Vienna, and attacked it by storm for twenty
days together. But God had set him a boun-
dary, so that, after he had lost eighty thousand
men in the attempt, he was obliged to raise the
siege. Yet scarcely had he rested for a season,
Avhen he renewed his attack upon his old ene-
mies, the knights of St. John, to whom Charles
V. had granted the island of Malta, after their
loss of Rhodes, and who have thence been al-
ways called the knights of Malta. Here, how-
(wer. La Valette's firm and steady conduct Ihis-
tratcd all Soliman's endeavours, who, at the same
THE REFORMATION. 371
time, suffered a loss in Persia. The old lion,
inflamed with rage, shook his mane once more,
and arose to devour his prey which had hereto-
fore escaped him, the city of Vienna. But the
heroic defence of the Hungarian fortress of
Szigeth, maintained by the high-spirited Zriny,
checked his course ; and his vexation, on account
of it, cost him his life, in the year 1566. Syria,
Palestine, Egypt, Arabia, many islands of the
Mediterranean, Greece, Moldavia, Wallachia,
and part of Hungary, belonged at that time to
the Turkish empire, and its dominions extended
from the Euphrates to the African Mountains of
the Moon. But now was it arrived at its greatest
height ; and the time of its brightest lustre was
gone by. For, after this, it was but once more
that Europe had cause to tremble at the Turks.
Into Hungary and Transylvania the gospel
had an early entrance ; for in these countries
also were found Bohemian Brethren and Wal-
denses, who had received it with joy ; and Hun-
garian youths, who had been educated in the
high schools of Germany, brought back, at the
same time, to their native country the first tid-
ings and writings of the Reformation. Mat-
thias Devay, a disciple of Luther, and Martin
Cyriaci, preached the pure doctrine in Hun-
gary : John Honter did the same in Transylva-
nia ; and, notwithstanding serious persecution,
there were already, in the year 1530, many Pro-
testant churches ; and soon was the greater part
of Transylvania, and a considerable part of Hun-
gaiy, brought over to the Reformation. The
resolution, passed at the diet of Pesth, to burn all
372 HISTORY OF
Lutherans, and that of the diet of Pi-eshurg,
to tolerate no religion but the Roman Catholic,
had come too late ; the Reformation having al-
ready spread too extensively to be suppressed.
Subsequently, the Protestants even obtained an
acknowledgment of their rights and liberti(!S ;
but then they lived under Roman Catholic
rulers, on whose favourable disposition it de-
pended, whether they should enjoy such things
unmolested ; and at no period were they exempt
from injuries and oppressions. It is not impro-
bable, that the great troubles occasioned in flun-
gary by the Turkish invasion, just at the time
of the Reformation, were all helpful to the re-
ception of evangelical truth. The anxiety that
burdened many a mind, in such a situation, was
likely to be a good preparation for the comfort
of the word of God, as making men acquainted
with the true Deliverer, and with the prospects
held out by an eternal redemption. The vigo-
rous Hungarian king, Matthias Corvinus, was
succeeded by the weak Ladislaus ; and the latter
by Lewis ii., a.d. 1516 — 1526. The last was
defeated by the Turks in the battle of Mohacz,
A.D. 1526; from whose hands, endeavouring by
flight to escape, he sunk in a morass, and was lost.
After his death, Ferdinand of Austria, and Za-
polya of Transylvania, contended for the crown
of Hungary, the latter under the protection of
the sultan Soliman. The struggle continued till
1546, and Hungary was left to the possession of
Aiistria, though amidst manifold contentions
with the Transylvanian princes, and in perpetual
hostility with Turkey.
THE REFORIMATION. 373
In Russia, after the deliverance of tliat coun-
try from the Mogul yoke, the grand-duke Was-
silji received the title of Czar of all Russia.
He and his son Iwan, a.d. 1534 — 1584, warred
with Poland, Sweden, the Moguls, and Tartars ;
and the latter prince conquered Astrachan and
Siberia. But, after this, there came again a pe-
riod of decline, till, in 1613, the sovereignty
devolved to the house of Romanov, in the person
of Michael Fedorowitsch.
In Poland, under the Jagellonian sovereigns,
Alexander, Sigismund, and Augustus, who
reigned in succession from 1501 to 1572, there
was formed an aristocracy, that exercised its in-
fluence not only downwards upon the subject,
but also upwards upon the king himself. The
whole population consisted of a very numerous
nobility, and of poor serfs ; exactly after the
manner of the middle ages. There was no
middle rank of free, trading, and industrious ci-
tizens, but the services of such a class were gra-
dually undertaken by Jews ; who, nevertheless,
were unable to gain for themselves the inde-
pendent condition of such a class. This state of
society, which has undergone little alteration
down to our own times, is the real source of the
manifold troubles with which that country has
been distracted, and of the sad afflictions which,
even till quite recently, it has had to experience.
Upon the extinction of the race of Jagellon, in
1572, Henry of Anjou was chosen king. He,
however, only two years afterwards, returned to
France to take possession of the French crown,
which he* valued more, and which had devolved
2k
374 HISTORY OF
to him by the death of his brother Charles ix.
After Stephen Bathory, of Transylvania, had
possessed the throne of Poland, in 1586, Si<^is-
mund, king of Sweden, was elected to it; and,
reigning till 1632, was nearly the whole time
engaged in defensive war against Sweden.
The Reformation quickly found its way into Po-
land. The Bohemian Brethren, who had been
driven from Bohemia and Moravia, had settled
there in great numbers, and they formed the first
shelter there for the new Christian church. As
early as about tlie year 1520, books and minis-
ters, both Lutheran and Reformed, had arrived
in Poland, and gained considerable bodies of ad-
herents. John of Lasco is distinguished among
the Polish reformers. But even had they not
had to encounter there the secret opposition of
the Jesuits, the difference of views which pre-
vailed among the opposers of the Romish com-
munion themselves, and which prevented their
acting together as one body, was of itself a great
hinderance to the flourishing spread of Protestant
truth in that country. In addition to the Lu-
theran, the Reformed, and the Bohemian Bre-
thren, it contained many not yet united mem-
bers of the Greek church. Unitarians, Ana-
baptists, and other sects, all active in every di-
rection to promote their own separate interests.
Moreover, the Sendomir compact, which took
place in the year 1570, and which comprised the
common confession of faith of the Lutheran, the
Reformed, and the Bohemian Brethren, proved
insufficient to remove entirely disunion among
them : and of this failure the Romanists conti-
THE REFORMATION. 375
nually availed themselves to abridge the rights
of the Protestants, and even to persecute them ;
notwithstanding that, by the general diet of'1573,
equal rights and privileges were adjudged to
belong to all parties.
In Sweden, a dissatisfaction had long existed
with the government of its Danish kings ; and
when the crown of Denmark came to the house
of Oldenburg in Christiern i., the Swedes elected
their supreme rulers from among themselves, and
these carried on the government for fifty years ;
namely, from 1470 to 1520. But, at this time,
a party of their malcontents invited Christiern
II. of Denmark into Sweden, who thus obtained
possession of the sovereignty ; and, by his ty-
ranny and cruelty, brought the whole country
into rebellion. Hence, Gustavus Vasa, who
was a descendant of the ancient Swedish mo-
narchs, put himself at the head of the populace,
drove out the Danes, and, in 1523, was chosen
king of Sweden. He was strongly attached to
the principles of the Reformation, and endea-
voured from the very first to promote them in
his country. Laurentius, Olaus Petri, and Law-
I'ence Anderson, who had already, in 1523,
translated the Scriptures into the Swedish lan-
guage, helped him in this enterprise ; so that,
at the diet of Westeras, in 1527, the foundation
was laid for extending the Reformation through-
out the whole country ; and, at the diet of 1544,
all remains of popery were got rid of, and the
established church of Sweden from tliat time
adopted the Lutheran communion. Church re-
form and amendment had never yet been so far
376 HISTORY OF
carried in any country as here ; and it is to be
regaixled as a fruit of its influence upon the poli-
tical state of that country, that, in 1527, the com-
mons, consisting of the mercantile and agricultural
classes, became numbered among the estates of the
realm, to whose counsels the welfare of the coun-
try was committed ; and this upon the same foot-
ing as the nobles and the clergy. The attempts
of their king, John, a.d. 1569—1592, to make
Romanism again predominant, were frustrated
by the enlightened and well-principled attach-
ment with which the people in general held fast
the liberty of their belief. The election of their
king, Charles ix., to the exclusion of the Romish
Sigismund, who had the sovereignty of Poland,
occasioned that long war between the Poles and
the Swedes, which ended not till the reign, and
by the exertions of Gustavus Adolphus, A.i).
1611—1632.
In Denmark, the house of Oldenburg haying
come to the throne, in 1448, conflicted long with
Sweden, till the Swedes, at last, gained their in-
dependence of that family. But the same cause
that rendered Christiern ii. so hated in Sweden,
namely, his intolerance towards the nobility and
clergy, together with his meanness and barbarous
cruelty, made him also a burden to the Danes
themselves ; so that, in the year 1523, he was
deposed from the government, by the estates of
the realm ; and Frederick i., the duke of Schles-
wick and Holstein, was chosen, and reigned as
his successor, from 1523 to 1533. This pi-ince,
in 1526, peisonally gave himself to church
reform,ation ; which, since 1521, had been be-
I
THE REFORMATION. 377
gun under much opposition, by John Taussan,
a disciple of Luther. He at once declared him-
self a member of the Lutheran communion ; and,
at the diet of Odensee, in 1527, a universal free-
dom and equalization was effected, for all confes-
sions, in Denmark. Still many hinderances re-
mained in the way, especially such as were oc-
casioned by the bishops ; nor was it till the reign
of Christiern iii., in 1536, that the cause of
Protestantism gained stability in that country.
After this, the far greater part of the Danes came
over to it, and the Reformation was thence propa-
gated to Norway and Iceland.
The Netherlands had become a property of the
house of Hapsburg, by the marriage of Maiy of
Burgundy to the emperor Maximilian, and as
such they passed into the hands of Charles v.
They then consisted of seventeen flourishing pro-
vinces. A most vigorous commerce in the pro-
ductions of the East and West had made their
cities wealthy, and their burgesses opulent ; and
Antwerp was at that time one of the most impor-
tant commercial places in the world. This, in
connexion with their special immunities and pri-
vileges, had infused a public spirit and a love of
liberty in the peojjle at large, and had promoted
education very greatly among them, so that
the liberal principles of the Reformation soon
found entrance, and obtained a footing in many
places, notwithstanding the opposition of Charles
V. The Lutheran version of the New Testament
was published in a Dutch re-translation, as early
as 1523. But Philip ii. of Spain, to whom the
sovereignty of the Netherlands devolved from
2k2
378 nisTouy of
his father, was a declared foe to the Reformation:
for as he had determined to be an absohite des-
pot in his extensive and various dominions, so
he conld not brook that any one of his subjects
should have a will or a religious belief tliat dif-
fered from his own ; he therefore resolved to
annihilate, in a summary manner, not only the
political privileges, but also the religious liberty
of the Netherlanders ; and for this purpose he
introduced among them the Inquisition, and op-
pressed them in every possible way. The first
instrument of his tyranny was cardinal Gran-
vella; and afterwards the duke of Alva, who
was as bigoted and gloomy a tyrant as his mas-
ter. Alva brought to the block some of the most
eminent personages in the country, as count Eg-
mont, Hoorn, etc.; and, after the year 1566,
eighteen thousand persons perished, by his order,
under the hands of the public executioner. But
the Netherlanders, though they w^ere too prudent
and Christian-minded to rise against their merci-
less governors without necessity, had neverthe-
less been too little inured to slavery to endure it
without resistance; and, in 1561, ten of the
seventeen provinces, headed by the pious and
prudent William of Orange, declared their inde-
pendence. The necessities of commerce had
already accustomed them to sea fighting ; and
while the Spaniards laboured in vain to wrest
back from them the lost dominion, the Nether-
landers seized the colonies, which had belonged
at first to the Portuguese, but afterwards, from
the year 1581, to Spain ; they also took posses-
sion of Java, Ceylon, and the Moluccas, and
4
THE KEFORMATION. 379
with these the whole of the spice trade. The
fierce struggle, by which the religious liberty of
the North-eastern provinces of the Netherlands
was obtained, ended not till the year 1609, when
there was an armistice of twelve years. But the
ten liberated provinces, which maintained their
independence by the name of The United Ne-
therlands, never came again under the Spanish
yoke.
(A.) Redections upon this Period.
Thus the Reformation, as militating directly
against the political tactics of the age, had al-
most every where to make its way amidst the
opposition of temporal piinces, as well as of that
dominant church, which saw her pillars one
after another falling to the ground. While hu-
man policy every where aimed at confirming its
ascendancy by force of numbers, by standing
armies, and profusion of gold, that is, by na-
tional power in general, the Reformation every
where put the weight of intellectual and spiritual
greatness into the scale, and tendered to the
sickly nations the medicine of the soul. The
temporal princes thought to bring more order
and tranquillity into the affairs of political go-
vernment by making additions to their domi-
nions, by consolidating their ruling influence,
and by contracting within still narrower limits
the liberties that stood in their way ; but the
ncAV spirit of the age, which found vent and room
for itself in the Reformation, sought to effect the
same object by inward purification and the healing
of the corrupted elements, by the improvement
380 HISTORY OF
of the mind. The observation of things as
they came to pass at that period, viewed by the
help of the word of God, teach us that things
could not possibly go on longer in the same
way as they had done at the period immediately
preceding the Reformation, except by the entire
destruction of the few witnesses of the truth
that still remained ; that is, except by the entire
overthrow of the true church of Christ, which
had been all along persecuted by the dominant
worldly church. This dominant church, whose
vitality as a church of Christ had long been
consumed, not only by superstition and vice,
but also by infidelity itself, needed herself
a thorough renovation, in order not to become a
prey to entire rottenness. But the invisible
power of darkness, which had thought its victory
over all good to be so near at hand, could not
but make the most inflexible opposition to the
revival of that good ; and while other causes ac-
count for the opposition made by the princes and
the Romish clergy, this chiefly explains how it
was that so many of the common people them-
selves, who evidently would have been only
gainers by the Reformation, were nevertheless
its bitterest enemies.
It is a remarkable fact, that, just at the
time of the Reformation, several nations of Eu-
rope were at the height of their power and pro-
sperity. Thus it Avas with England under
Elizabeth, the Netherlands under William and
Maurice of Orange, Spain under Charles v.
and Philip ii., and Turkey under Soliman u.
It was, therefore, a remai'kable epoch of great
THE REFORMATION. 381
developments in the political world itself; and
the Reformation is closely connected M'ith the
same, partly as exercising an influence over it,
and partly as having been favourably or in-
juriously affected by it. As in the first ages
of Christianity, the Roman empire was at the
height of its power, and yet was overcome
by the spiritual energy of our holy religion ;
so had the flourishing kingdoms of Europe
at the Reformation to experience, that the spi-
ritual force of truth is greater than military
and political strength, and that the highest de-
gree of earthly prosperity, of worldly honour
and might, is insufficient to satisfy the vast de-
sires of the human soul. And if the victory
gained by the Reformation over popery was not
so signal and complete as was the primitive vic-
tory of Christianity over heathenism, we must
remember, that to the true Christian faith at the
Reformation was opposed not merely heathen
unbelief and heathen superstition, but a super-
stition which for centuries had been given out
and received under the name of Christianity
itself: and that it was not mere error that now
contended with Christian truth, but such error
as itself bore the appearance of Christian truth,
and offered to men's minds at least a pretended
satisfaction.
(i.) Progress of Letters.
Even out of the geographical limits of the
Reformation, a great stir during this period was
observable in all the provinces of human know-
ledge, and for the advancement of the arts and
382 HISTORY OF THE UEl-'ORMATION.
sciences. The study of classical literature \va«
SO supported and encouraged by the newly form-
ed universities, libraries, and high schools, that
it increased more and more ; and the works
of Reuchlin, (Capnio,) Ei-asmus, and others,
tended to pi'omote the Reformation. The vari-
ous branches of philosophy, especially that of
astronomy,* also political science, poetry, paint-
ing, mathematics, history, and other departments
of knowledge and of the arts, were diligently
cultivated. Painting and poetry, in particular,
attained, through individuals named in the note
below,t to such a height of improvement, that
to this day it has never been surpassed. Many
a production also of those times has, with all the
advances that have since been made, never even
been equalled ; as, for instance, the Lutheran
version of the Scriptures. But how far such
exertions served as helps or impediments to the
kingdom of God, w'ould be an inquiry too
extensive for our present limits. As long as
the sciences are not employed in the service of
the word of God, or, at least, not in obedience to
it, and under its direction, though they cannot
injure the truth itself, they can injure the per-
sons who by such things allow themselves to
be quite absorbed, or led away from the ge-
* N. Copernicus died in 1543; Tyeho Brahe, in 1601 ;
Galileo Galilei, in 1642.
f Ariosto died in 1533; Tasso, in 1595; Cervantes, on
tiie 23rd of April, 1616, and Siiakspeare on the same day ;
Canioens, in 1579 ; Hans Sachs, in 1576 ; I,eonardo da Vinci,
in 1519; Michael Angelo, in 1564; Raphael, in 1520;
Titian, in 1576 ; Corregio, in 1534 ; Albert Durer, in 1528 ;
Luke Cranach, in 1533 ; and Hans Holbein, in 1554.
THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 383
nuine fountain of all wisdom and truth, and
are consequently strangers to the only right rule
for proving all things, and holding fast that
which is good. Meanwhile, whatever we obtain
in the various paths of intellectual cultivation
and taste, does often of necessity, however fo-
reign to our own intention, become subservient
to the cause of God ; and the Christian man of
science enjoys the sweet fruit of the stately tree
of knowledge, while the enemies of Divine truth
only suck in death from its poisonous rind.
II. — THE THIRTY YEARS WAR.
The unhappy strife of religious party-feeling
in Germany was, at length, cut short by war ;
which, like many other important events in
the world's history, proceeded not from any de-
liberate human plan laid to produce it, but
occasioned by an event quite unforeseen, and ap-
parently accidental.
The Utraquists, in Bohemia, who were so
called because they received the Lord's supper
(sub iitraque) in both kinds, had, in 1G09, by
letters patent from the emperor Rudolph ii., ob-
tained permission for the free exercise of their
religion, and the right to build new schools and
churches. Two cases occurred in which this
their right was contested, and their complaint
thereupon to the emperor Matthias met with no
fiiendly reception. In consequence of this, se-
veral of the nobility, who were exasperated at
384 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR.
the emperor's severe answer, applied to tlie go-
vernment at Prague, to bring to examination
certain imperial counsellors in that city, whom
they suspected of exercising hostile influence.
As the persons who were thus questioned gave
only harsh and unsatisfactory replies, they were
thrown out at the window, according to the
rude usages of the Bohemians in those days, a.d.
1618. Such violent proceedings could not, of
course, be allowed to pass unnoticed or unresented
by the emperor ; but though the Bohemian no-
bility, to secure themselves from punishment,
imprisoned thirty imperial magistrates, expelled
the Jesuits, and formed leagues with Protestants
of other countries, yet the empei-or preferred pa-
cific negotiations, which were continued to the
time of his death, in 1619.
The election of the new emperor, Ferdinand ii.,
duke of Steyermark, was not likely to put the
Bohemians upon other measures, or upon a safer
footing ; for he was, if possible, more danger-
ous to them than his predecessor : he had been
educated by Jesuits, and was a bigoted adherent
of Romanism, who had learned to consider it his
sacred duty, and highly meritorious in the sight
of God, to root out heretics. They, therefore,
refused to acknowledge his succession to the
throne of Bohemia, to which he had an heredi-
tary claim ; and they chose, instead of him, the
elector Frederic of the Palatinate, who was at
that time at the head of the Protestant Union
in Germany. Because he was of the Reformed
communion, the electorate of Saxony, in blind
zeal for the Lutheran church, had declined to
THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 385
join the Union, and now even went so far as to
declare against him, and for the emperor. Here,
then, is a striking proof, how dangerous to the
position of the Protestants must have been this
division and dispute between the Lutherans
and the Reformed. The Roman Catholic
League with the duke Maximilian of Bavaria at
its head, sided, as did also Spain, with the new
emperor. The Bohemian count Von Thurn,
who had already carried on secret negotia-
tions with the Hungarians, and with Bethlen
Gabor, the prince of Transylvania, even march-
ed before Vienna, and bombarded the imperial
castle ; but the steadiness of Ferdinand compel-
led him to retreat, and, in a short time, the
fortune of war was quite turned against him.
On the 8th of November, 1620, king Frederic
was defeated by Maximilian of Bavaria, in the
battle of the White Mountain, near Prague, and
fled with all precipitation to Holland. The Pa-
latinate, with its electoral dignity, was now con-
ferred on Maximilian. The emperor Ferdinand
marched triumphantly into Prague, cut to pieces
the letters patent with his own hands, expelled
the Protestant clergy, reinstated the Jesuits, ar-
rested a great many of the nobility, and some of
these he disposed of by the scaffold, and others
by banishment. About fifty thousand Protest-
ant families were thus compelled to emigrate,
and they settled in Saxony, Prussia, and Bran-
denburg.
The Protestant Union was now dissolved ;
and only individual princes, such as the count
of Mansfeld, Christian, duke of Brunswick,
2l
386 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR.
and George Fi-edoric, the margrave of Badcii-
Durlacli, continued, upon their own account,
the struggle witli the Roman Catholic poten-
tates. Mansfeld, a practised and courageous
freebooter, raised a considerable force ; and,
marching with fiie and sword through several
provinces, especially through Alsace, was pur-
sued by the Bavarian general Tilly, but seldom
overtaken, and never dispirited. But the de-
cision of the cause was not granted by Pro-
vidence through him, but the struggle only
protracted ; and the result of his expeditions
bore no proportion to the enormous sacrifices
which they required.
Equally unsuccessful was the margrave of
Baden, who was defeated by Tilly, in the bat-
tle of Wimpfen, on the 6th of May, 1622,
and who, being disheartened by his defeat,
retired immediately into private life. In this
battle, four hundred citizens of Pforzheim fought
with manly courage against Tilly, and every
one of them was slain in the heat of the conflict.
Likewise duke Christian of Brunswick was twice
defeated by Tilly, without having achieved any
thing of consequence to the Protestant cause.
And now Christiern iv. of Dermiark, in the
capacity of chief of the circle of Lower Saxony,
stood up to oppose the Romanists, and drew
count Mansfeld and the duke of Brunswick into
his service. But he also was defeated by Tilly,
at the battle of Lutter on the Barenbei'g, and
was driven back into Denmark. Meanwhile
general Wallenstein, an expert warrior, whom
the emperor had created duke of Friediand, and
THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 387
who himself had raised for him a large military
force, was sent by him to relieve Tilly the general
of the League, and to take the chief command.
Coimt Mansfeld met him for battle near Dessau,
but was defeated and fled, and pursued by Wal-
lensteui into Transylvania, to Bethlen Gabor.
Here, for want of money, he was reduced to the
necessity of disbanding his troops, and went to
Venice, where death soon overtook him. Wal-
lenstein marched back into Germany, devastated
Schleswick and Jiitland, and permitted his sol-
diers to make dreadful ravages. After this, he
drove out of their dominions the dukes of Meck-
lenburg, who had assisted the king of Denmark,
and got himself appointed by the emperor to
that dukedom, and with it the dignity of elec-
toral prince of the empire. After besieging the
city of Salstund without success, he suddenly,
in 1629, concluded a peace with Denmark, and
tranquillity seemed to be restored to all Germany.
But the emperor, being elated to insolence by
his victorious position, knew no bounds of mo-
deration ; and, at the instigation of the Jesuits,
he issued what was called the Restitution Edict,
which required the Protestants to restore all
church property in their possession, and com-
manded all of the Lutheran persuasion to return
imder the dominion of Romanism. And now
the cause of the Protestants appeared indeed to
be thi'eatened with imminent ruin, for they were
not united among themselves ; they had neither
money nor troops, and Wallenstein stood with
his powerful army in their neighboui'hood,
ready at any moment to give them battle. Then
388 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR.
(lid God send them deliverance by Gustavus
Adolphus, kinfj of Sweden, who had ])roved
himself a fit champion for the purpose, hav-
ing commanded in the war with Poland. The
French minister, cardinal Richelieu, having,
according to the old policy of his nation, in its
endeavour to weaken the house of Hapsburg,
effected a peace between Poland and Sweden,
this left Gustavus at liberty to aid the German
Protestants, whose support he liad very much
at heart, and to undertake the mediation of their
liberties in Germany itself. He landed on the
Pomeranian coast, with a small veteran army,
on the 21st of June, 1G30, exactly a centuiy
afler the presentation of the Augsburg Confes-
sion, drove the imperial troops out of Poraerania
and Mecklenburg, reinstated the expelled dukes
of Mecklenburg in their dominions, and pushed
forward on his march to Saxony. But his ne-
gotiations with the elector of Saxony, who long
hesitated to join him, considerably retarded his
advance, which he had meant should have been
very rapid ; and, meanwhile, Magdeburg was
taken, plundered, and burnt, by general Tilly,
on the 10th of May, 1631 . But Divine rebuke
soon visited this unfeeling incendiary's hoiTid
treatment of the inhabitants of Magdeburg ; for,
on the 7th of the following September, he was
totally defeated by Gustavus, in the battle of
Leipsic.
Germany w-as now open on every side to the
king of Sweden, from whom the emperor had
hitherto entertained but little apprehension.
Tilly had been defeated, and therefore entire
THE THIRTY YEAKs' WAR, 389
confidence could no longer be placed in his ge-
neralship : and Wallenstein had been displaced,
because from all quarters, and especially from
the Roman Catholic princes themselves, loud
complaints had been made of his haughtiness
and arrogance towards themselves, of his cruel-
ties and exactions towards their subjects, and
of his disobedience to the emperor's orders.
The Saxons pushed into Bohemia; Gustavus
turned his march towards the Rhine, and from
thence to Bavaria, where he forced the passage
of the Lech, on which occasion, Tilly, who had
been victorious in thirty-six engagements, was
killed by a shot from the Swedish military.
Miinich, Augsburg, and Landshut were forced
to open their gates to the conqueror ; the road
to Vienna was undefended before him, and the
emperor trembled in his castle. The only ex-
pedient left, was for him to entreat the offended
Wallenstein to raise a new army, and take the
command of it. The latter consented, but upon
severe conditions ; for what could be refused him
in such circumstances ! Meanwhile, it Avas the
pleasure of his vindictive spirit to leave still
longer in anxiety, the elector Maximilian of
Bavai'ia, who had been forward to urge his dis-
missal ; and, therefore, it was only by slow marches
that he advanced towards the Swedish army.
From his fortified camp near Nuremberg he
looked down with proud security upon the brave
Swedes, -sAho attacked it by storm, and reti'eated
with severe loss ; but, as soon as Gustavus had
maiched away from the place, Wallenstein hast-
ened with his force towards Saxony, to chastise
390 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR.
that impoverished country for the revolt of its*
prince. Gustavus bein<r called by the elector
to his help, advanced by forced marches, and
found his powerful foe near Liitzen, in the vici-
nity of Leipsic. On the 16th of November,
1G32, a general engagement ensued; in the very
heat of which, the king was struck by a ball,
and died on the field of battle. But his Swedes,
as soon as apprised of this event, were only the
more fired with resentment, and fought on with
irresistible bravery, so that they stood their
ground against the greatly superior numbers of
Wallenstein, and remained masters of the field.
If no one can be called great, who is not supe-
rior to selfishness, nor able to subdue his pas-
sions as well as his enemies, then Wallenstein
was far from great ; for he suffered the passions
of avarice, pride, and revenge to rule over him
with violence ; whereas, Gustavus Adolphus may
well deserve the appellation of great, for he was
an open-hearted, upright, magnanimous, and
heroic commander; who forgave offences, and
never availed himself of the most inviting op-
portunities of revenge, as may be seen in his
conduct with respect to Bavaria and Saxony.
But the difference between these two remarkable
persons was of a still deeper description. Wal-
lenstein had no faith in God, beyond mere super-
stition ; and the only god he sincerely worshipped
was self. Gustavus Adolphus, on the contrary,
was a sincerely pious man, who trusted in the
living God ; therefore, he allowed no soldier in
his army to live disorderly, nor to practise any
ill-treatment or cruelty in a con<]uei'ed country.
THE THIRTY YEARs' WAR. 391
Public worship, and singing of pious hymns, dis-
tinguished his troops above all others ; and no
battle was begun by them without prayer. Eve-
ry sincere Protestant in Germany gratefully
cherishes his memory ; for though he defended
the cause of German Protestantism during little
more than two years, yet he, in that short
time, gave quite a new turn to its affairs, and
laid the foundation for its recovery of religious
liberty. For this he sacrificed his ease, his king-
dom, and his life ; and has laid obligations upon
the Germans, which they have never been able
to repay.
Wallenstein, instead of renewing his attack
upon the Swedish army, after they had lost their
leader, retreated quietly towards Bohemia, and
attempted a negotiation with the Swedes and
Saxons, who, however, had no more confidence
in his honesty, than had the emperor himself.
The latter apprehended that he would declare
his independence, and take the crown of Bohe-
mia ; and as so dangerous a man was not to be
approached with open force, he got rid of him
by procuring his assassination, at Eger, in 1634,
and gave to his own son, the archduke Ferdi-
nand, the command of the army.
The Swedes, after their great king's death,
were commanded by Bernard, the brave duke of
Saxe- Weimar; while the home administration
of their country was conducted by the wise chan-
cellor Oxenstiern. But the same unhappy cause
that had wrested victory from the Protestant
princes, when they encountered Charles v. near
Ingolstadt, the want of union among themselves,
392 THE THIRTY YEAUS' WAR.
])ioved alike detrimental to the Swedish army,
when, on the 7th of September, 1534, they faced
the imperialists near Noi-dlingen. The exciellent
general Horn wished to refrain from engaging the
enemy ; hut the fiery duko Bernard outvoted him.
The Swedes were defeated, and Horn himself
Avas taken prisoner. Saxony now fell away from
the Swedes, and concluded a separate peace witli
the emperor ; but Oxenstiern sought help from
the French government, whose self-interested
policy easily induced them to grant it ; for they
hoped that they should now have an opportu-
nity of uniting Alsace to France.
The German princes, since the peace of Sax-
ony, had gradually, one after the other, come
over to the emperor, and had left the Swedes
deserted; so that the latter had no expedient
left. But the Swedes were again successful in a
bloody victory gained near Wittstock, on the
24th of September, 1636, over the Saxons and
Austrians, by the Swedish army under the com-
mand of general Banner ; and, in 1638, duke
Bernard defeated the Austrians near Rheinfelde,
and then turned his march foi- the conquest of
Alsace, which had been promised him in a treaty
with France. But as he could not consent to de-
livei' up to the French the fortress of Breisach,
that key of Germany, which, in 1639, he had
taken, after a long siege, his death was brought
about in a sudden manner, probably by poison,
at the instance of the French minister Richelieu.
Tlie emperor Ferdinand ii. had died about two
years previously, his sixteen yeai's' reign having
been without a single interval of peace ; and his
THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 393
son Ferdinand iii. was elected emperor, whose
disposition was more mild ; so that his govern-
ment was more inclined to pacific measures. Ge-
neral Banner, who conducted the Swedes after
duke Bernard's death, was one of the most valua-
ble men of the military followers of Gustavus
Adolphus ; but he also died, in 1641, and left the
command to general Torstensohn, a paralytic man,
who had to be carried about in a chair, but who
united with quick and keen-sightedness, courage-
ous decision and rapid execution. The infirm
general flew as on eagles' wings, at the head of
his army, from one end of Germany to another,
seized Glogau and Schweidnitz, and pushed for-
ward with precipitation into Moravia. The
imperial territories had hitherto been spared
the vexations of war ; and the Swedish soldiers,
who had marched into the heart of Germany
through provinces quite impoverished and ex-
hausted, had long eagerly desired to visit for
once the rich and flourishing regions of Austria,
and to refresh themselves there from their fa-
tigues and hardships. People had already begun
to tremble in Vienna itself; but the emperor's ge-
neral Piccolomini drove the Swedes back to Sax-
ony. Torstensohn there turned about, and faced
the imperialists, upon the same field of battle
which had become renowned by the victory that
Gustavus Adolphus gained over Tilly ; and there,
on the 2nd of November, 1642, he, in like man-
ner, gained a complete victory. In the following
year, he again poured his troops into Bohemia
and Moravia, and sent his cavalry forward to
the very gates of Vienna. In the year 1644, he
394 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR.
defeated the imperial general Gallas; and, in
1645, the generals Hatzfeld and Goetz : so that
now there was no imperial army in readiness to
protect Vienna, upon whieh Torstensohn me-
naced an attack. Sickness, which had di-
minished the Swedish army by one half, and
Torstensohn's own bad state of health, proved
the saving of the emperor, by obliging Torsten-
sohn to retreat into Bohemia, and to resign the
command to general Wrangel. Saxony, which
had been dreadfully desolated by friend and foe,
and had dearly paid for the inconstancy of its
electoral prince, Avas, at length, compelled, in
1645, to conclude an armistice, and to i-emain
neutral in future. The elector of Bavaria was
compelled to do the same, in 1647, in consequence
of the ravages which the French and Swedes
had made in his dominions ; and, when he in-
fringed the articles of neutrality, these desolations
were renewed by Turenne and Wrangel. At the
same time, 25th July, 1648, the Swedish ge-
neral Konigsmark had made himself master of
part of the city of Prague, and was just about
to storm the citadel, when despatches arrived
informing him that peace was concluded.
For twelve years past conditions of peace had
been agitated ; for all the belligerent powers had
become quite weary of this devastating war,
which had crippled agricultuie and commerce,
drained every countiy of its produce, and des-
troyed hundreds of thousands of lives ; and
they longed for tranquillity and repose, in order
to be healed of the wounds with which the na-
tions were bleeding. But neither party would
THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 395
be the first to sheath the sword ; because each
was resolved to gain advantages by the peace, or
at least to obtain indemnification for the many
losses it had sustained ; and desired, by the one or
the other alternative, to come off with advantage
as much as possible, at the termination of hostili-
ties, in order to be enabled to assert still further
claims. At length, however, they succeeded in
adjusting interests so very different and opposite ;
so that peace, which has generally been called
the peace of Westphalia, was concluded with the
Swedes at Osnabriick, and with the French at
Miinster. By this treaty, so important in the
affairs of the German empire, and in the history
of the Reformation, France obtained Sundgau
and the greater part of Alsace; Sweden, five
millions of dollars, (nearly seven hundred and
fifty thousand pounds sterling,) together with the
island of Riigen, the citadel of Stettin, Hither
Pomerania, Wismar, Breman and Verden, and
a sitting and vote in the Germanic Diet. The
Palatinate of the Rhine was restored to the son
of the elector Fredei'ic ; and other princes were
indemnified in other ways. The United Nether-
lands and Switzerland were acknowledged as free
and independent states ; civil and political equa-
lity, and the unrestricted exercise of their religion,
w^ere accorded to all the various parties ; and
possession of the appropriated ecclesiastical lands
and establishments was to continue as it had
been in the year 1624.
Other countries of Germany, whose princes
had been driven out from them l)y the wai-, as
Wijrtemberg, Baden, Nassau, etc. were given
396 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR.
back to their rightful governors. Sovereignty
was accorded to the German princes and estates
in their respective territories, together with the
right of contracting with foreign powei's, as long
as it did not militate against the empire and its
ruler. The more, in this way, the influence of
the emperor was lessened, which was also fur-
ther limited by the diet, the more did the imme-
diate estates of the empire gain thereby, and the
more was at the same time lost by those cities
which had hitherto possessed such great immu-
nities ; and, of all the Hanseatic towns, only
Hamburg, Bremen, and Liibeck remained con-
federate with one another, and in possession of
their independence. The bond, that in earlier
times had kept together tlie imperial sovereign
and his empire, had been all along gradually re-
laxing, and the partition of the several German
countries from one another, had been in propor-
tion becoming more and more distinct and de-
cided. Much as all this tended to weaken the
power of Germany in reference to foreign nations,
and to undennine its political importance, it was,
on the other hand, beneficial as to the develop-
ment of science, and all the advantages of civil
society, through the mutual emulation for which
it made way between these different countries ;
it helped also to insure a balance of power, and
a protection to the church of Chi'ist. What we
have said already upon the several states of Eu-
rope itself, as to the advantages of their separa-
tion from under one general head, is equally ap-
plicable to this partition of the German empire.
About two-thirds of the German empire had,
THE THIRTY YEARs' WAR. 397
during the thirty years' wai-, perished by the
sword, or by sickness, or famine, or outrage of
every description. Most of the cities and towns
were demolished or impoverished ; arable land
was every where covered with weeds; many
villages had become totally depopulated, and
others so utterly annihilated that their place
could no more be found. Thus, in Wiirtemberg,
the population, which had amounted to three
hundred and forty thousand at the beginning of
the war, had sunk down to forty-eight thousand ;
and vineyards to the amount of fort}^ thousand
acres, corn lands and vegetable gardens to the
amount of two hundred and forty-eight thousand
acres, and pasture land to the amount of
twenty-four thousand acres, remained utterly
neglected ; eight towns were destroyed ; thirty-
six thousand houses burnt to the ground ;
and, in twenty-two years, landed property had
suffered a loss to the amoimt of one hundred and
eighteen millions of florins, or ten millions, one
hundred and sixty-three thousand, eight hundred
and eighty-seven pounds sterling.
Although this war immediately concerned
only Germany, yet nearly all countries at the
same period were undergoing great commotions,
while new kingdoms were forming, or new dy-
nasties coming to their thrones. In 1589, the
house of Bourbon became invested with the so-
vereignty of France ; the house 'of Stuart with
that of England in 1G09 ; that of Braganza first
possessed the throne of Portugal in 1640 ; that
of Romanov first held the empire of Russia in
1613 ; and the family of Steyermark the crown
2 M
398 RELIGIOUS STATE OF GERMANY
of Bohemia in 1G18. Likewise, in the East,
about this time, great chancres took place ; the
Maiidshu Tartars obtained the empire of China
in 1610 ; and in Persia arose the powerful dy-
nasty of the Abbassides, Avho made extensive
conquests. Also in Abyssinia, Tunis, and Mo-
rocco, similar changes occurred. If by faith
we ''see that which is invisible," and consider
that there are powers of darkness ever at work
in the course of this world, we shall probably
find it easier to account for commotions of one
and the same description in human history, aris-
ing at one and the same period, in countries and
circumstances the most different and remote
from each other.
III. RELIGIOUS STATE OF GERMANY AT THIS
PERIOD.
The opposition made to blind papal supersti-
tion in the way of head-knowledge, that is, by
intelligent argumentation from the truths of
Scripture, had soon become more popular in the
Protestant church, than that equally inteUigent,
and still more important opposition, which vital
faith makes against papal errors. Instead of
drawing every answer, in the cheerful possession
of this faith, from the rich treasures of the word
of God ; and instead of making these treasures
altogether their own in life and conversation ;
the Protestant clergy were far more occupied in
ilefining, distinguishing, and svstematizinsr the va-
3
AT THIS PERIOD. 399
rious points of church doctrine; and spent their
diligence much more in the refutation of errors,
than in the positive recognition of Divine truth,
or in holding forth the word of life. The Lu-'
theran divines did not rest merely in endeavours
to prove the scriptural correctness of their con-
fession of faith, in opposition to the Papists and
the Reformed ; but, even in the bosom of their own
churches, thei'e arose about their common con-
fession a considerable variety of conflicting opi-
nions, to which a too great importance was sure
to be attached, and in the discussion and main-
tenance of which was spent too much of time
and toil, especially as these controvei'sies could
seldom be conducted with the calmness, moder-
ation, and love of peace which such things
always require. Thus, while the controversies
among the Reformed ran chiefly upon the doc-
trines of election and free-will, the Lutherans, in
like manner, controverted various errors warmly
with one another, and especially such views as
seemed to imply that man, by good works, can
contribute any thing to his own salvation. There
was formed by degrees a cold lifeless orthodoxy,
which consisted in mere notions, and which came
very far short of vital Christianity.
The Protestant church, about the time when
the thirty years' war broke out, very much needed
a revival ; and God, as if to show that his king-
dom cannot be destroyed by war, did in that
very season of it raise up such worthies as the
church stood in need of; men, who insisted more
upon living in the Spirit of Christ, with heartfelt
piety and genuine conversion to God, than upon
400 RELIGIOUS STATE OF GERMAN k'
accurate definitions of scriptural subjects; and
who, amidst the pressures and difficulties ai'ising
from the state of the times, and the unnumljered
troubles of war, were enabled to rendei' th(! desired
consolations of the word of God accessible to the
broken spirits of the oppressed. Such were John
Arndt, John Gerard, Stephen Pretorius, Henry
Miiller, Christian Scriver, John Valentine An-
dreae, and others.
How needful Avas the vital counteraction
wrought by such men's labours, to oppose the
dead ideal theology of the times, may be ga-
thered from the fact, that the writings of Arndt,
whose '■'■ True Christianity" has, by the Divine
blessing, been made useful to so many thou-
sands of souls, were declared by the orthodox
Luke Osiander to be pestilential, papistical, and
evil; and that Arndt, on account of them, was
even charged by him with blaspheming against
the Holy Ghost. Philip James Sjiener, in the
latter half of the seventeenth century, followed
up the train of those excellent men, and testified
in the same spirit against the dry scholastical
kind of theology which had so long prevailed ;
and as he had no prospect of being able to com-
pass the whole church, by reason of its internal
differences and divisions, he invited all real
Christians to unite in more practically acknow-
ledged communion with one another, and to
aim at mutual edification, in the simplicity of
devout reflection upon the word of God. The
great good he was in this way enabled to effect,
may be regarded as a second part of the blessed
Reformation ; which second part, sooner or later,
AT THIS I'ERIOD. 401
could not but become developed out of its first
important work ; and indeed as that real essence
of it, which perhaps was not to be so fully dis-
closed to the world, till what had hitlierto con-
fined it was broken open by the sword of war
and public calamities. The chief business of the
Reformation at its commencement was separation
from Popery, the rectifying of abuses and er-
roneous doctrines, the free possession of the word
of God, and the diligent preaching and reading
of the same. Now, upon all these things men
could become enlightened and convinced, with-
out being really converted to God ; and hence
the Protestant church exhibited little more than
a new medley of persons of various opinions,
who were kept together by one and the same
general scriptural profession of faith. The re-
formers had found it necessary to make use of a
sieve of the coarser sort, and Spener now used
one of a finer texture. The general mass of
those who separated from Popery, at the period of
the Reformation, remind us of the ten thousand
which Gideon, after the first proving of his men,
had still remaining; but those whom Spener
severed may be compared to the three hundred
who lapped at the brook without using their
hands. We mean that, in the first hundred years
after the Reformation, it was sufficiently evident
that the general character of the Protestant
church did not amount to the character of a
communion of true believers in Jesus, and that
the spirit of it could just as easily remain cold
and dead, with an evangelical confession of faith,
as with a popish one. And yet Spener's aim
2m2
402 RELIGIOUS STATE OF GERMANY.
was, of course, not to obtain such a communion of
saints as should have no tares at all mixed with
it, the Lord himself having already, in Matt. xiii.
24 — 30, assured him that this, under the present
dispensation, is out of the question ; but only a
communion of Christians, whose consciences
should have become awakened to that certain
verity, that nothing Init heartfelt conversion and
our being born again can fit us for the kingdom
of God ; that no public confession of faith, be it
ever so scriptural and orthodox, can suffice for
such a purpose. Now, this distinction, which
was the one upon which Spener insisted, to-
gether with the effect it was instrumental in pro-
ducing, must not, in any attempt to contemplate
this Avorld's history on scriptural principles, be
overlooked or disregarded ; inasmuch as the
great religious revivals, so remarkable at the
beo^innino; of the eighteenth and nineteenth cen-
turies, and which have been even attended with
considerable influence on the political world, are
intimately connected with this vital distinction
in spiritual matters. Especially must it not be
fororotten, that the Christian exertions which
have been making during the last hundred years
for the conversion of the heathen, and which
have of late been productive of such surprising
and important effects, were actually stirred up
through this very same practically essential dis-
tinction. Zeal for the salvation of the heathen,
as a zeal persevering and successful, can only
manifest itself in a community of real and cor-
dially affectionate Christians. Moreover, as
heathen tribes becoming converted enter into tiie
BRITAIN, AND THE NETHERLANDS. 403
pi'ovince of history, and assume their part in the
development of man, so the conversion ah'eady
effected in the instance of any heathen tribe,
is to be regarded as one advance in the progress
of snch human development.
IV. BRITAIN, AND THE NETHERLANDS.
While the thirty years' war was raging in
Germany, England also was visited with troubles
of another sort, which indeed bore, in like man-
ner, an ecclesiastical character, though political
interest was their mainspring, as was religious
profession that of the German commotions. From
the year 1625, the sovereignty of Great Britain
was in the hands of Charles i., a rash man, of
arbitrary character, not deficient in many good
qualities, but greatly so in discretion and right
decision. By keeping his parliament dissolved
for eleven years together, and by his endeavour to
impose uniformity in religion upon all his sub-
jects, agreeably to some innovations of his own,
he provoked a very general indignation against
himself, and thus occasioned, especially by the
cause last mentioned, no inconsiderable emigra-
tions of the English Puritans to North America,
where they founded the first British American
colonies. The Scots, who were determined to
oppose his arbitrary proceedings, entered into a
Solemn League and Coveyiant with one another,
for the protection and defence of their religious
liberty. Charles hereupon invaded them with
404 HRITAIN, AND THE
his troops, which they defeated and repulsed
from their borders. The English obliged him,
in 1040, to call a new ])arliament, which sat for
eight years without molestation, and hence was
called the Long Parliament. The parliamentary
measures that were carried, one after another,
and which collectively aimed at humbling the
sovereign, he found it no longer in his power to
prevent or defeat. The issue of this was a civil
war, that continued for four years ; and in which
the party that favoured Romanism, together
with the prelates and most of the nobility, was
opposed to the commons and the puritans. This
war raised to distinction the parliamentary gene-
ral, Oliver Cromwell, a man of respectable pa-
rentage, but who had spent his time at the uni-
versity, rather in the levities of idle students than
in literary occupations. How far his professed
piety was any thing more than superficial, when
all at once he changed his coarse dissipations
for solitude and self-attention, it is difficult to
say ; but surely, had it been deep and genuine,
we might have expected before his death some
expressions of penitential regret for that falling
away which was unquestionably manifested in
his public life. Yet, at its outset, he does not
appear to have been consciously dishonest. He
joined himself to the most zealous of the Puri-
tans, and soon went to an enthusiastical extreme
in his adoption of their views. Not only did
he signalize himself in arms, but also, by his
religious representations, he gathered to him-
self a party having civil and religious equality
for their main object, rejecting all the gradations
NETHERLANDS. 405
of rank and dignity in the church, exemplified
in episcopacy, or even in the presbytery. The
king's party became weaker and weaker; and
the unhappy monarch found himself, at length,
so deserted, that he threw himself into the arms
of the Scots, who, however, delivered him up to
the English parliament. Cromwell, whose spirit
felt the stirrings of ambition, began to meditate
getting rid of the king ; and for this end he
drove out, by his military, all whom he consi-
dered obnoxious members, from the Long Par-
liament, and left in it only the shadow of its
former authority. And now he could easily effect
that the king should be brought to trial, and be
condemned to death, without a dissentient voice.
The sentence of death was passed accordingly,
and was executed on the 30th of January, 1649.
Few will now be found who attempt to excuse
or defend this act. An attempt, that was begun
in Scotland, to place the king's son upon the
throne, met with such unfavourable reception,
that by two battles, in which Cromwell Avas vic-
torious, it was totally defeated. Cromwell hav-
ing, in 1653, expelled the Long Parliament, soon
ruled all England with unlimited regal power,
though he chose to bear merely the title of Pro-
tector.
The United Netherlands had, meanwhile,
brought their maritime commerce to a very flou-
rishing state ; they had crippled the commercial
interests of Spain and Portugal ; they had
formed trading companies for the East and West
Indies; they had planted many colonies, (as
that of the Cape of Good Hope in 1653,) and
409 BRITAIN, AND THIi NETHERLANDS.
had defended them by renowned admirals, such
as Van Tromp and De Ruyter. But Cromwell
put an end to all this glory, by the naval expe-
ditions which he sent out in his war with the
Dutch, and thus England become a maritime
power of the first rank. He took Jamaica and
Dunkirk from the Spaniards, and set on foot
many wise regulations for the political interests
of his countiy. Nevertheless, he had but little
personal enjoyment of the power that had come
into his possession. The evident uneasiness of
his conscience, his sense of blood-guiltiness, and
especially of the unjust condemnation of his law-
ful sovereign, appear to have disturbed him, so
that he found no peace of mind. The dread of
an avenging hand by assassination continually
haunted him, and the terrors of God embittered
his retired moments. He died a natural death,
in the year 1658 ; and was succeeded in the pro-
tectorate by his son Richard ; who, having found
a reign of one year to be more than enough for
his political incapacity, Avillingly shrunk into pri-
vate life and retirement : and the Scottish ge-
neral, Monk, now availed himself of the oppor-
tunity of setting Charles ii., the son of the mur-
dered king, upon the throne.
THE NEW POLITICAL SYSTEM. 407
V. THE NEW POLITICAL SYSTEM. AND LEWIS XIV.
OF FRANCE.
The nearer the stream of history descends to our
own times, the more does it part off into numer-
ous ramifications ; and this renders it the less
easy to command even a perspective view of the
whole. Or, comparing it to a tree, we may add,
that as lono; as its few oris^inal branches are seen
as yet not far raised above the main stem, or
running up with it, as it were, in parallel lines,
the historian's work is not difficult ; but when
we are obliged to look beyond the stem, to where
the eye commands only a complication and con-
fusion of branch and foliage, we have then to
notice the form and relative proportions of every
principal part. Human history, at its earliest
periods, shows chiefly the origin and broad out-
lines of the successive great empires ; and thus
the description we have to make is more simple.
And even in the middle ages, the Germanic
power, as being but a continuation of the Ro-
man, serves as a natural centre, about which the
other nations stand, and with which they are
connected in a variety of interesting particulars.
That empire, in the middle ages, is not only
seen to have been the most powerful, by reason
of its widely spread dominion, but is also re-
garded as the first in rank, on account of its
having inherited the Roman imperial dignity;
and, indeed, there is scarcely a nation of Europe
which it has not, in earlier or modern times,
408 THE NEW POLITICAL SYSTEM,
furnished with a sovereign niler, or a wliole dy-
nasty. Thus, in En<;huid, Denmark and Nor-
way, and in Sweden, Poland, Russia, Hungary
and Bohemia, in Italy, in Naples and Sicily, in
the popedom, in France, Spain, Constantinople,
and Jerusalem, Ave behold, sooner or later, the
reins of government in the hands of Germanic
princes. But, by the thirty years' war, the Ger-
man empire lost much of its lustre ; the power
of Germany abroad was broken ; the kingdoms
became severed from one another by a new line
of policy. The crooked artifices of this new po-
licy, which originated chiefly in France, are per-
ceptible in single instances at an earlier period ;
but it was not till now that they were regularly
adopted as leading principles of government-
Germany, that had not sufficiently seen through
these subtleties of the French policy, and still
less was able to requite it with similar dealing,
her interests being too much divided, and her
constitution too unwieldy and enfeebled, could
not successfully act against such cabinet in-
trigue. France and Sweden had become the
dictating and disposing powers that set the other
nations to work, and formed the nucleus of his-
tory. This cabinet policy had so much the more
free play, since the private subject could no
longer, as in the middle ages, take a personal
part in the decision of public matters. His right
of suffi-age was now limited by his prince, and
wars were henceforth prosecuted by means of
standing armies. Other interests, partly of a
humbler, and partly of a loftier kind than those
of nationality, or of participation in tlu; govern-
AND LEWIS XIV, OF FRANCE. 409
ment of their country, now began to occupy
men's minds. Some had sought and found their
indemnification in religion ; others learned to
forget state affairs in the cultivation of rising and
enriched sciences and arts ; others were wholly
engaged in the acquisition of wealth : and the
bulk of the people had enough to do to earn
their bread by their daily toil. As one proof of the
unconcern of the common people about matters
of government, we may instance the first publi-
cation of newspapers, about the year 1563, * as
these at that time furnished active statesmen with
a means of concealing their own designs ; while,
on the other hand, the increase of post offices f is
an evidence of the increasing complexity o^ poli-
tical, as well as of civil relations.
The new policy was organized principally by
cardinal Richelieu, the prime minister of France,
who was at the helm of the grovernment durino;
the minority and childish manhood of Lewis
XIII., from 1610 to 1643. The secret mainspring
of that government was selfishness ; mere self-
interest. It was quite a stranger to moral princi-
ples, the principles of common equity and hu-
manity. One and the same line of proceeding
could be pursued or abandoned by it at pleasure,
as the question was not how equitable, but how
advantageous any purpose might be. Success
was regarded as a proof of political wisdom, and
* The first Germaa newspaper was published in the year
1615.
f These were first introduced into Germany by the counts
von Thurn and Taxis, at the beginning of the sixteenth
century.
2n
410 THE NEW POLITICAL SYSTEM,
5WcA wisdom passed for honesty and law ! Riche-
lieu did not rest till he had extorted from the
French Protestants their last place of refuge, Ro-
chelle ; and yet, immediately after tliis, he ren-
dered powerful assistance to the Protestants of
Germany; not because of any alteration of his
own opinions, but because it was French policy
to seize every opportunity of working detriment
and humiliation to the house of Hapsburg.
His great object was to raise the power of the
state to its highest degree, partly by acquisi-
tions abroad, and partly by lowering and con-
tracting the rights and privileges which were pos-
sessed by powerful individual subjects at home.
The ascendancy of government was to become
continually greater, that is, more extensive and
absolute. Formerly the notion of the people
had been, that they needed a prince to conduct
them in war, and decide causes for them in
peace ; in a word, to be the conservator of pub-
lic order and safety. But now, the notion had
begun to prevail, that the people were one of
the requisites of the prince, for his enjoyment
of sovereign power ; that territory was another,
for the supplying of his revenues ; and an army
another, for the accomplishment of his will : and
the next king, namelj' Lewis xiv., made no secret
of this notion, when he said, " I am the state."
The only right and scriptural principle, that
rulers are '^ God's ministers," and that " the
powers that be" are " ordained of God," as his
instruments for diffusing his blessings among
the nations, or for promulgating his displeasure
AND LEWIS XIV. OF FRANCE. 411
against the sins of men, Avas thus more and
more forgotten both by princes and people.
Upon the death of Richelieu, in 1644, his
political principles continued to be acted upon,
namely, by cardinal Mazarin, who managed the
aifaii's of the government during the minority of
Lewis XIV., but who, by his reckless oppression
of the people, provoked such opposition as broke
out at length into a civil war. After Mazarin's
death, in 1661, Lewis had in every thing more
decidedly his own way; he soon, however,
showed that he was a most tractable scholar of
the new political system. He felt a passion for
universal empire; and though he never could at-
tain his object, his long reign of seventy-two years
was one of perpetual war for the purpose. He
was a man not gifted with any one remarkable
endowment; pride, ambition, selfishness, and cun-
ning, were his most conspicuous qualities ; but
he had the good fortune to possess distinguished
statesmen and generals, who achieved great
things in his name, and were prudent enough
to permit the whole credit to redound to him-
self. Colbert, his minister of the interior, by
his encouragement of trade, industry, planning
and cutting of canals, establishment of colonies in
West Africa and in the West Indies, as also by
his introduction of new manufactures, and his
advancement of the maritime power of France,
put great life into commerce, while he likewise
patronized and much furthered the interests of
agriculture, and did his utmost to alleviate
the burdens of taxation. But while Colbert's
412 THE NEW POLITICAL SYSTEM,
administration was thus tending to promote the
prosperity of France, that prosperity was pro-
jiortionably countervailed and undermined by its
incessantly aggressive wars ; for though Lewis
was, for the most jiart, successful in them, and
hereby increased his territoiy, yet were they pro-
secuted with so many acts of glaring injustice,
that no real benefit, nothing that bore the sem-
blance of a Divine blessing, could result from
them ; so that when this king died he left a
burden of debt to the amount of one thousand
millions of florins, or nearly fifty-one millions
and a quarter sterling.*
His generals, Catinat, Turenne, Conde, Vau-
ban, and the marshal of Luxembourg, greatly
signalized themselves in the wars which Lewis
waged from ambition of conquest. In the first
Spanish war, a.d. 1667, Lewis desired to seize
the Spanish Netherlands, and had made con-
siderable progress in his enterprise, when an al-
liance, between England, Holland, and Sweden,
obliged him to conclude a peace, at Aix-la-Cha-
pelle, in 1668. Four years afterwards, he at-
tempted revenge upon the Dutch, and fell upon
them with a powerful army. But Holland hav-
ing declared William of Orange their hereditary
stadholder, this undaunted and wise champion
of their cause, by an alliance with the emperor
Leopold I. and Spain, and with the aid of ad-
miral de Ruyter's naval victories, reduced the
French king to the necessity of concluding the
peace of Nymwegen, a.d. 1678. Lewis, how-
*£ 51,422,22-2. 13s. 4ri.
AND LEWIS XIV. OF FRANCE. 413
ever, could not long be contented to remain
quiet; but, in 1681, he took Strasburg and
other German districts away by surprise, un-
der the pretext that formerly they had be-
longed to Alsace, which had been ceded to
France by the peace of Westphalia. In the year
1688, he seized the Palatinate, its inheritance
having lapsed by the demise of the electoral
prince Charles, and to which he thought he
could maintain the claim. The Palatinate and
the upper provinces of the Rhine were then most
cruelly devastated by the French : Heidelberg,
Mannheim, Spires, Worms, and a number of
other cities, were burned to the ground ; and de-
population and plunder, such as had been car-
ried on by the Huns in time of Attila, converted
the beautiful vale of the Rhine into a dreary
wilderness. The German emperor formed an
alliance with England, Holland, Spain, and Sa-
voy, against the French ; and though the latter
gained the battle of Fleurus in 1690, and that of
Neerwinden in 1693, yet their fleet was destroyed
by the English in 1692. At length was con-
cluded the peace of Ryswick, in 1697, by which
Lewis was obliged to give back the provinces he
had so iniquitously seized, on the left bank of
the Rhine.
A new struggle commenced in 1701, in con-
sequence of the death of Charles ii. of Spain,
who died without issue, and whose kingdom
was claimed both by Lewis and by the emperor
Leopold I. Lewis had still some valuable ge-
nerals, as Villars and Vendome; but they were
no match against such distinguished commanders
2n2
414 THE NEW POLITICAL SYSTEM,
among the allies, as were prince Eugene of Sa-
voy, Lewis the margrave of Baden, and Eng-
land's captain, the duke of Marlborough. In
the battles of Hochstadt or Blenheim, Ram li-
lies, Turin, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet, the
French were beaten ; and Lewis would have
found it necessary to submit to the hardest
terms, had not the death of the emperor Joseph,
and the recal of Marlborough, intervened to his
relief. By the peace of Utrecht in 1713, and
that of Rastatt in 1714, he still gained very fa-
vourable conditions : Philip of Anjou obtained
the crown of Spain with its colonies ; Austria
was provided with Belgium, Milan, Naples and
Sardinia ; and the English were allowed to hold
Gibraltar and some important West Indian
islands.
Lewis patronized the arts and sciences ;
chiefly, perhaps, because in so doing he gratified
his vanity, and advanced his fame. France,
during his reign, was furnished with eminent
writers, as Bossuet, Racine, Corneille, Moliere,
Boileau, Montesquieu, Lafontaine ; and with
accomplished artists, as Le Brun, Poussin,and
Claude Lorraine. And though there were not
wanting noble spirited and pious men, as Pascal
and Fenelon, yet, at the same time, France gave
birth to a Rousseau and Voltaire, by ^^•hose
writings chiefly it was that the spii'it of infidelity
and apostacy from Christ became diff"used
throughout Europe, and by which the minds of
so many still remain seduced and debased. For
Paris was considered, in the reign of Lewis xiv.,
as not only the centre of politics, but also the
AJVJJ LEWIS XIV. OF FRANCE. 415
metropolis of education and politeness in the
Western world. Its language, which in corres-
pondence and general use had supei'seded tlie
Latin, became the common language of Euro-
pean courts, and of the upper classes in neigh-
bouring nations ; its refined education set the
tone every where ; its manners and fashions
gained the ascendancy, and were everywhere
imitated. As Athens, in the flourishing period
of Greece, was referred to upon all matters of
taste, so was Paris in the eighteenth century.
But, together with all this, became diffiised like-
wise the spirit of French levity, libertinism, in-
difference to and derision of holy things : so that,
even then were already sown abundantly the
seeds of that revolutionary mischief, which, in a
few years, leavened not only France, but more
or less every country of Europe. The two prin-
cipal means of its furtherance were the absolute
monarchy strained to tyranny, and a general
recklessness about morality and religion, those
pillars of national prosperity and of all good
government.
Splendid then as was the reign of Lewis xiv.
it ended in having drained France of its essential
and vital strength. The profligacy of the I'oyal
household and of the court, the monarch's own
senseless extravagance, the standing armies, and
the numerous wars, had introduced oppressive
taxation ; and, after the death of the minister
Colbert, the common people became so burdened
Avith exorbitant imposts, that they often had
scarcely bread to eat, at the very time when the
grossest luxuiy prevailed at court, and while
41G THE NEW rOLITlCAL SYSTEM,
the nobility were excused from payment of taxes.
The whole country, which, besides its natural
fertility, the ever active Colbert had brought to
such a high degree of culture and prosperity,
had become, at the time of Lewis's death, quite
impoverished and exhausted. Lewis xiv., after
the reign of seventy-two years, including his mi-
nority, had sunk into his grave amidst the in-
dignant curses of his subjects. But the evil did
not die with him. The systematic and flagmnt
injustice which marked his whole despotic
reign, the unfeeling levity with which his mi-
nister Louvois could advise and determine upon
a war, and cause imoffending countries to be
devastated with Vandal barbarity, for the diver-
sion of his master, could never surely exalt a
nation, nor bring upon it the blessing of Hea-
ven, any more than this blessing could be ex-
pected from the perfidy and inhuman cruelties
with which Lewis drove his Protestant subjects
to death, or to perpetual banishment from their
native land.
And here let it be impressively observed, that
violent persecutions, on account of religion, have
not been practised only by ignorant j^agans ; or
merely under the influence of those rude notions,
which prevailed in the church during the middle
ages : for we may learn from the age of Lewis
XIV., that even the highest culture and most
polished manners are no preservatives against
committing the most coarse and cruel abomina-
tions of fanatical bigotry ; because the spirit of
the world, under every form, and at every period,
is erjually averse to the real dominion of Christ
AND LEWIS XIV. OF FRANCE. 417
and his religion ; and its boasted liberality and
indulgence have ever been lavished only upon
what is wicked and impure. That Lewis xiv.
consented, as he did, in 1685, to revoke the
Edict of Nantes, which had been granted by
Henry iv., and which guaranteed to the Protes-
tants the free exercise of their religion, is an
everlasting reproach to a prince whose reign is
boasted to have been a new era of light, and
who himself was considered to have introduced
to the world a new generation of illuminatl ; and
is either a sign of his enmity against the truth,
if the cruelty originated with himself, or a proof
of his weakness and want of character, if he suf-
fered himself to be persuaded to it by Louvois,
Maintenon, and the Jesuits. It is evident that
the latter had very great influence over him ; and
it is even asserted, that, shortly before his death,
he secretly became a member of their order,
thinking thereby to alleviate his wretched state
of mind, as his conscience tormented him about
the impieties and abominations of his past life.
The revocation of the Edict of Nantes, intro-
duced the attempt to dragoon the French Protes-
tants back to Romanism ; and the most horrible
oppressions, injuries, and tortures that were prac-
tised upon them, brought back to France the
period of the Albigenses. They were even for-
bidden to emigrate ; nevertheless, more than
fifty thousand families, leaving their property
behind them, fled into Germany, and found a
hospitable refuge in various Protestant countries,
especially in Brandenburg ; and recompensed
the kind reception they met with, by the great
418 THE NEW POLITICAL SYSTEM,
commercial activity, and new branches of em-
ployment which they introduced. Many also
took refusce in Enfjland. and in Holland.
During the reign of Lewis xiv. there arose no
small stir among the French Romanists them-
selves, through the controversies between the
Jesuits and the Jansenists. The latter were
greatly attached to the writings of Augustine,
respecting the doctrine of original sin, free grace,
and personal election ; whereas the Jesuits, who
defended the peculiar tenets of Romanism, de-
pai'ted upon those points as much from the Scrip-
tures, as from Augustine himself. The Jansen-
ists, in opposition to the Jesuits, insisted much
upon the maintenance of rigid moral principles,
as also upon the circulation of the Scriptures,
and the education of the people ; they refused to
acknowledge the pope's infallibility, and yet
were equally far fi'om approving of Protestant-
ism. The pope, however, condemned them,
and Lewis xiv. persecuted them, so that they
Avere constrained to take refuge in the Nether-
lands, where they founded an independent
church. Also, the controversies with the Quiet-
ists, who made the essence of religion to consist
rather in inward feelings and elevation of the
soul to God, than in outward profession and ac-
tivity agreeable to it in common life, took place
at this period ; for Fenelon had joined the Quiet-
ists. These persons may be considered as exem-
plifying mysticism in practice, its theory having
been set forth by Jacob Behmen, a shoemaker
of Gorlitz, A.D. 1575 — 1624, in his profoundly
speculative writings. The French Benedictines,
AND LEWIS XIV. OF FRANCE. 419
on the other hand, entering less into religious
controversies, chiefly concerned themselves about
the instruction of youth, and scientific researches ;
which have proved, even to this day, of no small
service to the learned.
Lewis XIV. got embarrassed in a remarkable
struggle between his own bigoted Romanism,
and his pride as a prince, in consequence of the
pope's claiming the right of control over the in-
terior regulations of the Galilean church. The
kings of France had long exercised the right
of allowing to be managed, in their own name,
the revenues of every vacant see, till it should be
filled up ; as also, the right of absolutely appoint-
iuf to all offices of the inferior clergy. Lewis
wished to extend the exercise of this right to his
conquered provinces ; and the pope, of course,
would not sanction the measure. Lewis, not
without the influence of the Jesuits, who were
also then at variance with the pope, and wished to
see the power of the latter restricted, held a synod
in Paris, a.d. 1682, at which four principles
were established, as the pillars of the Galilean
church liberty. By these principles, the power
of the pope was to be considered as belonging
only to spiritual, and not to temporal matters,
and especially was no pope to be acknowledged
as having the right of deposing princes in any
manner or upon any pretence. Moreover, the
popes were not to override, but only to have a
voice in ecclesiastical assemblies ; hence, to that
voice was to be attributed no infallibility, except
with the consent of the whole church. Finally,
the exercise of papal jurisdiction was, in all
420 LEOPOLD I., AND
mattei's of right, to be regulated by the ancient
French ecclesiastical laws. Evident as it is that
these principles arose more out of civil policy
than any interest for the Romish church, yet
they might have conduced in a very important
deo-ree to the definite settlement of matters ec-
clesiastical in France. But the popes refused to
yield, in a single point, to any thing of the kind ;
and their determined resistance at length tri-
umphed, in the reign of Innocent xii.,a.d. 1691
— 1700. These principles, however, continued
to be cherished with great regai'd in France
itself. Two things are hereby clearly evinced,
namely, that men's notions of papal authority
had now become altered, and that the power of
the pope had gradually declined even in the still
bigoted Romish church itself; also, that papal
policy remained unaltered, in not relinquishing
any of its alleged prerogatives.
VI, LEOPOLD I., AND JOSEPH I. OF GERMANY.
On the death of Ferdinand in., in 1057, Leo-
pold I. was elected his successor in the empire of
Germany ; he, however, was also under tlie in-
fluence of the Jesuits. In his reign, the " Ger-
manic Diet" was made a standing representative
body, which ever since held its sittings at Ratis-
bon, from a.d. 1663 to a.d. 1806. Leopold's
first struggle was with the Turks, who, in 1662,
had penetrated into Moravia, but were driven
back by the imperial general Montecuculi. A
1
JOSEPH I. OF GERMANY. 421
second war with Turkey took pkice at the time
when Lewis xiv. invaded Germany, for the pur-
pose of seizing the districts which had formerly
belonged to Alsace ; and when Louvois, his
minister of war, caused the Palatinate to be laid
waste. Leopold was unable to repel these unjust
aggressions, because he was then so fully occu-
pied with the Turks. The Ottoman grand vi-
zier, Kara Mustapha, advanced through Hun-
gary, with two hundred thousand men, as far as
Vienna, and he besieged this city in 1682. But
its inhabitants stood bravely on the defensive, till
John Sobieski, king of Poland, with some of the
German princes, came to their relief, and re-
pulsed the Turks. The war was now transferred
to Hungary : the electoral prince of Bavaria
took Belgrade in 1688 ; and after prince Eu-
gene of Savoy had totally defeated the Turks,
near Zenta, in 1697, Hungary, Transylvania,
and Slavonia, came into the possession of Aus-
tria. Leopold I. died in 1705, at the time when
the war, in which he took a special part, was
carrying on respecting the Spanish succession ;
and his successor Joseph i., who prosecuted it
with vigour, did not live to its termination. His
brother, Charles vi. who was emperor, a.d. 1711
— 1740, concluded a treaty with France in 1714,
and by this treaty he exchanged Sardinia for
Sicily, which had been obtained at the same
treaty by the duke of Savoy. In a war that
soon after broke out again with the Turks, prince
Eugene gained over them near Peterwardein, in
1716, and near Belgrade, in 1717, such decided
victories, that thev were obliged to cede Bosnia,
2o
422 BRITAIN, AND NORTH AMERICA.
Servia, and part of Wallachia, to Austria. On
the other hand, they got back tlie Morea, whicli
till then had been retained by the Venetians.
Vlt. — BRITAIN, AND NORTH AMERICA.
In England, after the abdication of Richard
Cromwell, Charles ii., of the house of Stuart,
had returned from exile, and come to the throne.
He reigned from 16G0 to 1685, without, how-
ever, having learned by the misfortunes of his
father, the wisdom which he so much needed.
If the English put up with his arbitrary and in-
considerate conduct, it was, on the whole, be-
cause the manifold miseries of recent revolution
were as yet fresh in their minds. He united
himself with the policy of France, and hereby
made the Dutch his enemies, to whom, however,
his terror at De Ruyter's appearance on the
Thames, induced him to cede the colony of Su-
rinam. The parliament, finding that his par-
tiality to Popery endangered the peace of the
realm, prevailed with him to sign the Test Act,
Avhich they had carried through both houses in
1673, to prevent Papists from exercising power ;
as also the Habeas Corpus Act, which was car-
ried in 1679, for securing the personal liberty of
the subject. His successor was James ii., from
1685 to 1689, who, being himself a Papist,
openly attempted to restore the ascendancy of
the Romish church. The struggle between the
Tory party, who favoured the stretch of royal pi"e-
BRITAIN, AND NORTH AMERICA. 423
rogative, and the Wliigs, who were their regular
opponents, ended in the latter inviting to their as-
sistance William iii., prince of Orange, and
stadholder of the Netherlands, in pursuance of
which he speedily arrived with an ai-my of the
Dutch. His father-in-law, James ii., fled to
France; the English and Scots declared the
crown abdicated, and William was chosen as his
successor, to reign jointly with his wife, queen
Mary. Ireland, which had refused to acknow-
ledge William, because he was a Protestant, was
reduced to obedience by force of arms. William
restored the English Protestant constitution, and
provided for England's prosperity and power by
the measures of his government. His successor,
queen Anne, who reigned from 1702 to 1714, took
a decided part in the war of the Spanish succes-
sion, by her distinguished general Marlborough.
After her death, the house of Stuart endeavoured
in vain to become reinstated in their forfeited
rights ; and with George i., the elector of Han-
over, the house of Brunswick, the present Eng-
lish royal family, came to the throne.
The first English settlement in North America
had been planted as early as the year 1585, and
was named Virginia, but was of no continuance.
A new settlement on the coast of New England,
in the year ]606, owed its origin to commerce
with the aboriginal Indians ; from this were
peopled the settlements in Nova Scotia and Ca-
nada. Disabilities and hardships in England,
on account of religious differences, soon contri-
buted, with other causes, to much emigration
of the English to North America; and thus
424 BRITAIN, AND NORTH AMERICA.
commenced tlic cultivation of the provinces on
the middle eastern coast. Hereupon, many, from
various parts of Europe, avIio had been sufferers
on account of their religion, took refuge in
North America, where they could enjoy without
molestation the opinions which they held for
conscience' sake. Thus did Hugonots, Puritans,
Quakers, and other religious sects, settle there
together. Many Quakers emigrated with Wil-
liam Penn, to the province named from him,
Pennsylvania, and built the city of Philadelphia.
These emigrations increased every year, especi-
ally from Germany and England ; and the In-
dian aborigines were continually forced further
back westward. Their removal at first was by
voluntary agreement, and for a reasonable in-
demnification ; afterwards, occasionally, by war
and defeat ; and, at last, by compulsory treaties,
which, though adjudging them payment for
evacuated tracts of territory, left them no option
to remain or remove. Little concern was mani-
fested about carrying to the poor Indians the
true riches of the gospel, as an amends for the
loss of their hereditary possessions, and only a
few individuals and primitive worthies, such as
Eliot and Brainerd, and the Moravian mission-
aries, went among them with the spirit of apos-
tles, and devoted their lives to this noble work
of faith and labour of love. But the Europeans,
in general, carried to them the sins and diseases
of Europe, together with its specific poison,
namely, ardent spirits, and the numbers of the
Indian tribes rapidly diminished. The compo-
sition of the gradually forming United States
CONFLICT OF SWEDEN WITH RUSSIA. 425
appeal's to be specially designed for the develop-
ment of a peculiar plan of Providence, which,
however, is likely to be better understood by
posterity than by the present generation.
VIII. — CONFLICT OF SWEDEN WITH RUSSIA.
While the wars of Louis xiv. occupied all
the nations in the south and west of Europe,
commotions of the same kind disturbed also the
north-east, as if the thirty years' war had not
given men enough of warfare. Christina, the
daughter and successor of the great Gustavus
Adolphus, took more delight in scientific than
political pursuits, and resigned the crown in the
year 1654. But it was strange, indeed, that
the daughter of the heroic champion of the Pro-
testants, who sacrificed his life in defence of the
evangelical faith, could offer such a reproach to
the memory of her illustrious father, as to go
over to Popery, and spend the remainder of her
life at Rome, where she died in the year 1689 !
She was succeeded in the throne by her relative,
Charles Gustavus of Deuxponts, a turbulent,
warlike prince, who subdued Poland, and ])rose-
cuted wars with Russia, Denmark, and Bran-
denburg, to the day of his death, which took
place in 1660. He was succeeded by his son,
Charles xi., who reigned till 1697. The ruler
of Brandenburg was, at that time, the great
elector Frederic William. Albert, the grand
master of the Teutonic Knights, had ajipropriated
•2o2
426 CONFLICT 01'
to himself East Prussia as an hereditary duke-
dom, whicli, however, still remained as a fief
of the Polish crown; and the Teutonic Oi'der
had removed their seat to Mergentheim. But
when Albert's family became extinct, Prussia de-
volved to John Sigismund, elector of Branden-
burg, in 1618 ; whose grandson, Frederic Wil-
liam, who reigned from a.d. 1640 to 1688, was
distinguished by the name of the Great Elector.
By the peace of Westj3halia, he acquired Hither
Pomerania, Magdeburg, Halberstadt, Cammin,
and Minden. By the treaty of Welau, in 16-57,
he obtained from the Poles the independence of
the Prussian dukedom. While, in the war of
France with the Dutch, he was absent on his
march for the relief of the Netherlands, the
French, by their Swedish allies, invaded Bran-
denburg ; but Frederic William gained a cele-
brated victory over the latter in 1675, near Fehr-
bellin, and nothing but another victory, gained
by the French themselves, preserved the Swedes
from the loss of all their possessions in Germany.
Even in the present instance, they were obliged
to cede a portion of Pomerania to Brandenburg.
Charles xi., of Sweden, had, according to the
policy of his time, been labouring to strengthen
monarchy at the expence of the nobility ; and
thus was his son, Charles xii., the more absolute
and independent upon his accession to the throne,
A.D. 1697, in the fifteenth year of his age; so
that, in the very earliest years of his reign, he
involved himself in a war Avith Russia, Polaiul,
and Denmark, which occupied him to the end
of his life.
SWEDEN WITH RUSSIA. 427
Russia had hitherto stood in no political lela-
tion to the other states of Europe ; its manners,
customs, and mode of government had been
more Asiatic than European, and it had not yet
been touched by the culture of the West. This
interposition was reserved for Romanov's grand-
son, the czar Peter, who reigned from 1682 to
1725; and was the instrument of Russia's be-
coming not only great and powerful, but also
politically metamorphosed. The Russians were
by his means brought within the compass of
European nations. Peter left home as a rude,
unpolished personage, of half-civilized manners ;
but he had an ardent thirst for knowledge, and
longed not only to be educated himself, but also
to have his subjects educated, and to multiply
the means of increasing the prosperity of his do-
minions ; and, for these purposes, he travelled
through several countries of Europe, got every
thing shown him that was worth seeing, and
made very particular inquiries wherever he went
w'ith the view of introducing into Russia, and
imitating there, whatever was useful and avail-
able. He was especially anxious to further
among his people the advantages of trade and
commerce ; and, for this end, he spared no pains
to construct a sea-port : for, up to this time,
Russia had no properly maritime coast. Peter
had taken indeed Azov from the Turks, and
wished to have extended his dominion to the
Baltic, in its foreign trade, in order to employ
Russian merchant vessels; but the coasts of the
Baltic in those regions belonged to Sweden.
Peter now formed a coalition with Poland and
428 CONFLICT 01'
Denmark, which nations were jealous with him-
self of the great power of Sweden, iip;ainst the
young Charles xii., a man of extraordhuuy abili-
ties and intrepidity. The Swedish monarch first
attacked Denmark, that lie might be free from
an enemy nearer home ; and, by his sudden ap-
pearance before Copenhagen, he put the Danish
king, Frederic iv., in such teri'or, that the latter
was glad immediately to make peace. Charles
lost no time in marching into Livonia, against
the Russians ; and, with only eight thousand
Swedes, he put to the route a Russian force of
ten times the number. A third enemy, Augus-
tus II., king of Poland, and elector of Saxony,
still remained to be attacked. This prince, to
obtain the crown of Poland, had made no scruple
of apostatizing to the Romanists ; and a Divine
rebuke of his imfaithfulness was now to overtake
him, Charles subdued Lithuania and Poland,
set Stanislaus Leszinski on the Polish throne,
and then pursued Augustus into his Saxon ter-
ritories ; where, in 1706, a treaty was conclud-
ed, by which Augustus abdicated the crown of
Poland. Charles remained in Saxony till the
following year, and prepared for further wai-s j
he also obtained, by his mediation with the em-
peror of Germany, for the Protestants in Sili-
sia, greater freedom in the exercise of their re-
ligion. Meanwhile, the czar Peter had wrested
Ingria from the Swedes, and founded the city
of Petersburg, which he intended for his capital,
and for his imperial residence. Charles ad-
vanced triumphantly into Russia, but impru-
dently suifered himself to be diverted towaixb
SWEDEN WITH RUSSIA. 429
the Ukraine, where, near Pultowa, he was, a.d.
1709, so totally defeated by Peter, who had al-
ready annihilated another Swedish army com-
manded by general Lowenhanpt, that he was
compelled to seek his safety by flight into Tnr-
key. The dethroned Polish king, Augustus ii.,
thought this a good opportunity to break his
treaty with Charles ; therefore he invaded and
re-conquered Poland. Denmark also renewed
the war with Sweden ; and Peter now made
himself master of Livonia, Esthonia, and part of
Finland. Charles was honourably received by
the Turks, and contrived, after much solicita-
tion, to stir them up even to a war with Russia.
Peter, as soon as the tidings of it reached him,
advanced into Moldavia, and was so surrounded
by the Turks, on the banks of the Pruth, and
lost so many of his troops, that his ruin seemed
decided ; but his deliverance was effected by
bribery, and Charles had nothing but his own
powerless indignation to oppose to the treachery
of the Turkish vizier. The Ottoman emperor,
however, stedfastty refused to give up the king
of Sweden into the hands of Peter upon any
terms ; though the latter made him great ofters
for that purpose. Charles abode some years in
Turkey, as if he had forgotten his native coun-
try. At length, he all at once recollected that
he still possessed a kingdom at home ; so he
mounted his horse, left Turkey with the utinost
speed, and reaching Stralsund, he sailed from
that port to Sweden, in 1714, where, finding
that his old enemies had reunited against him,
he endeavoured to make peace with Russia ;
430 CHARLES VI., AND
but, meanwhile, as his active mind would not
suffer him to be quiet, he turned to the concjuest
of Norway ; and there, under the fortifications
of Fredericshall, to which port he was laying
siege, he was killed by the shot of an assassin,
in the year 1718. His country was afterwards
obliged to submit to great losses in the several
treaties of peace which it had to make with
Hanover, Prussia, Denmark, and Russia. It
lost its possessions in Germany ; it resigned Li-
vonia, Esthonia, Ingria, and other portions of
its territory to Russia 5 and, as it had now be-
come impoverished at home by so many wars,
it sunk down from its political elevation, as
eveiy country must, that, with so few interior
resources, has only risen to greatness by tlie
personal prowess of individual sovereigns. May
we not say, It was good for Sweden to have
been obliged to seek its welfare not thus precari-
ously abroad, but in its own internal consolida-
tion and development ?
IX. —THE EMPEROR CHARLES VI., AND THE
PROVINCE OF BRANDENBURG.
No sooner was the spii-it of war damped at
one end of Europe, than it again broke forth
at anotlier. For, immediately after the rati-
fication of peace in the north, a Spanish fleet
took Sai'dinia and Sicily, but was defeated by
a fleet of the English, in 1718 ; and a qua-
druple alliance having been formed between
PROVINCE OF BRANDENBURG. 431
England, France, Austria, and Holland, the
above-mentioned exchange of Sardinia for Sicily,
and the elevation of the duke of Savoy as king
of Sardinia, (in exchange for Sicily,) were hereby
effected, a.d. 1720. But the death of Augus-
tus, king of Poland, which took place in the
year 1733, gave occasion to renewed war, wliich
arose as follows. The electing nobility of Po-
land were not unanimous in their choice of a
new sovereign : some preferring Augustus ii.,
the elector of Saxony ; and others, Stanislaus
Leszinski. His son-in-law, the French king,
Lewis XV., interested himself for the latter : but
a Russian army compelled him to throw himself
into Dantzic; and upon the approach of the
Russians to that port, which they seized in
1734, he was obliged to hasten on board one of
his own vessels, and make his escape to France.
Meanwhile, the Spaniards had gained advan-
tages by their arms in Italy, whereby Austria,
that had also declared for Stanislaus, found it
necessary at once to treat for peace ; which,
however, was not fully concluded till 1738.
In the artful terms and adjustments of this peace,
the policy of the French minister was very cha-
racteristic ; for this treaty obliged the emperor
Charles vi. to make important sacrifices for the
sake of his own domestic policy ; as having no
male heir, he had drawn up a settlement of inhe-
ritance, which received the name of the Py'Mjtna-
tir. Sanction, the acknowledging of which by the
other states of Europe, was what he wished
to obtain at all events. This settlemejit or-
dained, that all the Austrian territones sliould
432 CHARLES VI., AND BRANDENBURG.
pass to the next heir by primogeniture ; conse-
quently to his eldest daughter, Maria Theresa,
at his decease ; and in return for the sanction
of" it, he engaged to accept the other articles
of the treaty. By these articles the elector of
Saxony retained the crown of Poland ; Stanis-
laus also retained the title of king, and had Lor-
raine given him in lieu of Poland ; the duke of
Lorraine received instead of it the grand duke-
dom of Tuscany, the house of Medici having be-
come extinct in 1737 ; and Lorraine, after the
demise of Stanislaus, was to escheat to France.
To prince Charles of Spain, the emperor gave
lip Naples and Sicily, and received in return the
duchies of Parma and Placentia. While Austria
was a loser in this respect, it had also, after its
unsuccessful war with the Turks, which lasted
from 1735 to 1738, to resign to them Belgrade,
Servia, and part of Wallachia.
Brandenburg, under the great elector, rose
from an insignificant German province to such
eminence, as was soon to become a focus of Eu-
ropean history. By his hospitable reception of
the fugitive Hugonots, and by other wise mea-
sures, he jjromoted agriculture and manufactur-
ing establishments in his country, and hereby
so aggrandized it, that his son, Frederic in.,
could already undertake the obtaining of regal
dignity to his family. Thus, in 1701, Prussia
was ranked among kingdoms. Frederic William
I., the son of Frederic in., and who reigned from
1713 to 1740, a prince of firm and resolute
character, sometimes harsh, but of strict inte-
grity, and rather a soldier than a scholar, se-
THE PAPAL POWER AT THIS PERIOD, 433
cured to tlie new kingdom its place among the
powers of Europe, by his military establish-
ments and his well-disciplined and effective
army, Prussia was also, in his reign, the asylum
of the Salzburg Protestants, who fled from per-
secution moved against them by the bishop of
that county, in 1731.
X. THE PAPAL POWER AT THIS PERIOD.
The popes hadall along endeavoured to uphold
their claims in Germanv, but without much
effect. Thus Clement xi,, a.d. 1700-1721,
sought still to exercise the prerogatives which the
papacy had been suffered to enjoy in the dark
middle ages, but now another age had arrived
that was not so easily to be imposed upon ; this,
however, Clement either did not, or would not
see. He offended the emperor Joseph i. The
earlier emperors exercised the right of prece-
dency in recommending to all vacant benefices ;
but the pope was pleased to dispute this as an
imperial right with Joseph i., and to consider it
as a mere personal matter of papal favour.
Upon this, however, he was obliged, in sub-
stance, to yield to the firmness of the emperor,
though he took care, as usual with papal policy,
to have his own claims acknowledged, at least in
form. The pope had again the disadvantage in
another quarrel with Joseph i. The conquest of
Parma having been provoked by the conduct of
the clergy, the emperor taxed them with part of
434 THE PAPAL POWER AT THIS PEIIIOD.
the war expences ; but the pope, insisting that
Parma was a papal fief, disputed his riglit to do
this, and threatened him with excommunication
for contumacy in maintaining it. He was com-
pelled to come to terms with the emperor, and
to relinquish his protestations ; upon which occa-
sion, he was brought, likewise, to renounce the
connexion which he had formed with France
against the imperial interest. In a contest about
ecclesiastical rights in Sicily, he was likewise
obliged to yield. Against the elevation of Prus-
sia into a kingdom, Clement xi. protested with
all his might, as if he had anticipated that this
country would become as a strong wall of" pro-
tection to Protestantism ; but his opposition was
fruitless. Benedict xiii., his next successor but
one, A.D. 1724 — 1730, was involved in a quarrel
with Portugal, which ended with a remmciation
of the pope's authority on the part of that coun-
try, in 1739; and he endeavoured in vain to ef-
fect the canonization of Gregory vii., because the
consent of the European princes to such a mea-
sure, would have implied their approbation of
Gregory's principles of papal government. The
Romish church, on the other hand, sought to
make good its loss of territory and influence in
Europe, by new acquisitions in other quarters of
the world ; and herein the Jesuits were specially
helpful to its aims. As Popery retained its pre-
ponderance in the south of Europe, while the
north decidedly inclined to Protestant liberty j so
also, in South America, did Popery gain the upper
hand; while, in North America, Protestantism
was paramount. In the Portuguese settlements
RELIGIOUS STATE OF GERMANY. 435
in the East Indies, not only did the Romish
church in general, but the inquisition in particu-
lar, as at Goa, obtain firm footing. And in
China, and the countries bordering upon it, the
Jesuits, under the cloak of science, introduced a
Romish Christianity, in some respects assimi-
lated to heathenism ; which, amidst many a
bloody persecution, has been retained by a small
number to this day, and which, even in its papal
deformity, was not without some instances of in-
dividual pious missionaries and convei'ts. On
the other hand, in Japan, where the Jesuit mis-
sionaries interfered with isolitical concerns, they
were compelled entirely to withdraw ; and the
Japanese have ever since been inexorably averse
to Christianity, and to all free communication
with the western world.
XI. RELIGIOUS STATE OF GERMANY,
The attempts that were made in the Protestant
church, to unite its divided parties, had ])roved
unavailing ; the distinction between Lutherans
and the Reformed remained as wide as ever : and
as the synod of Dort, in 1618, gave the church
of the Reformed in the Netherlands a definitive
exterior form of its own, so was a perpetual sys-
tem of doctrine and discipline moulded in the
Swiss Reformed church, in 1675, by its formula
consensus, (formulary of agreement.)
The case of the Protestant churches was that
M^f a tree, Avhich, the more it grows and gains a
436 RELIGIOUS STATE OF GERMANY.
stronger trunk, it puts forth a loftier outward
show of leaves and fruit ; and yet, the larger it
becomes, the more woody is it within among the
branches, so that, by little and little, it fails of its
fruitfulness. Then the gardener takes a fresh
young scion, and plants it in a separate place in
the garden, that it may also become a tree.
Now, as the trees of Protestantism — for so we
may call the various Protestant communions —
were thus grown more and more woody, God
provided that new communions should grow up
in fresh and youthful life and power. Such was
the revival he brought about by Spener, who, at a
period of deplorable lukewarmness, introduced in-
to evangelical Christendom more life and vigour,
by insisting, with pious fervour and judicious zeal,
on the distinction between external dead ortho-
doxy, and real heartfelt conversion to God ; by
setting before men, in a convincing manner, the
difference between dead and living members of the
church, and by endeavouring to bring this home
to the consciences of its professed members ; a
thing he coidd not effect without great opposi-
tion. Such, also, were the revivals God effected
by Zinzendorf, who gathered about him the re-
mains of the Bohemian and Moravian Brethren,
and, in the year 1722, sought the building of
primitive communities on the plan of their an-
cient tried and approved doctrine and discipline.
Such was, also, what God wrought in England
by Wesley and Whitefield, who broke away
from the deathly cold and stiff formality of their
day, and laboured with great success to plant, in
England and America, a renewed and vital»
RELIGIOUS STATE OF GERMANY. 437
Christianity, despising persecution, and being
designated as Methodists. We are not to be
surprised if there be seen growing, by little and
little, even upon these fresh plants, a superfluity
of unfruitful wood and bark, and unhealthy in-
crustations, for this is in the nature of human
things. The vitality of these new Christian
communities has been shown, especially in zea-
lous labours for the conversion of the heathen, in
which they have displayed at once quite different
notions from those which inspired the converting
methods of the middle ages, and the missions of
the Romish church, in that they have looked,
not to the number, but to the excellence of their
converts, and have used no other means of con-
version than the power of the word of God.
As early as in the year 1697, had been formed
in England the Society for the Propagation of
the Gospel in Foreign Parts ; and, at the com-
mencement of the eighteenth century, was esta-
blished the Danish Missionary Society. In the
year 1733, the church of the United Brethren
began their labours among the heathen ; and
some time after this, the Methodists entered upon
the prosecution of their endeavours for the con-
version of the negro slaves in the West Indies.
A fresh breeze of spiritual life, about this
time, had passed over the Protestant Christian
church ; and though the various forms which
the general revival assumed, were moulded either
after the respective forms of church government
among which they arose, or by the personal cha-
racters of the men from whom they proceed-
ed, or by other circumstances, yet it everywhere
2 p2
438 FREDERIC II. OF PRUSSIA,
appeared that men were dissatisfied with the old
stiff and cold religious formality, and were long-
ing for a vernal season of spiritual life. Even in
the papal communion was something of this de-
scription perceivable, among the 3Ii/sticH, Qidet-
ists, P'iatkts, and some other classes of Roman
Catholics ; and in the Greek church, those who
were called the jieoj^le of the ancient faith, were
a contrast to the dominant system. In the Re-
formed church appeared the Methodint^ ; and
in the German Protestant church, the Pietists
and Herrnhuters. The opposition, and, in some
instances, the persecution, Avhich those parties had
to experience from the dominant churches, j)re-
served them from lukewarmness and inaction.
And there was a beneficial reaction which they
imperceptibly wrought upon the parties that op-
posed them ; and whether in arousing to emula-
tion those from whom they were shut out, as in
the case of the Methodists, or by working like
leaven among those in whose external connexion
they remained, as did the Pietists, its importance
was still the same, and preserved the visible
church from more general and fatal laxity.
XII. FRF.DKRIC 11. OF PRUSSIA, AND MARIA THERESA.
With the year 1740 commenced a new and im-
portant period of histoiy. The male line of the
house of Hapsburg, having given to Germany
sixteen successive emperors, had now become
extinct. The throne of Prussia was filled by
AND MARIA THERESA. 439
Frederic ii., who raised his kingdom to become
the second German power, and put all Europe
in motion by his wars ; while, by his patronage of
French education, he laid Germany open to a
flood of infidelity. In the same year the throne
of the apostate western church was mounted by
Benedict xiv., who was the first that, of his
own accord, began to see that the period for un-
limited papal dominion over crowns and consci-
ences was gone by ; a fact to which his successors
have become wilfully blind. The mock sim of
superstition had long passed its meridian, and
the darkness of infidelity had very considerably
succeeded it. Faith had generally governed the
Christian world till the rise of the Papacy ; with
this was superstition all along predominant ; the
authority of the latter declining with that of the
former, was preceded by infidelity : and when-
ever superstition and bigotry shall regain ascend-
ancy, and become allied with infidelity, then will
there indeed be suffering days for Christendom.
Charles vi. had purchased, at a dear rate, the
recognition of the 2Jrag7natic sanction : but the
policy of this period no longer partook of the
simpler and more honest principles of former
ages ; it vvas now governed by mere self-interest.
That emperor had no sooner departed this life,
on the 20th of October, 1740, than ambition was
displayed in all quarters to obtain a share of his
dominions. Frederic ii., who had substantial
claims to some Silesian principalities, invaded
Silesia before the end of that year ; for his
thrifty father had left him an army of seventy
thousand well-disciplined men, and plenty of
440 FREDERIC II. OF PRUSSIA,
money. He defeated the Austrians near Moll-
witz ; and as Bavaria, Saxony, Spain, and
France had joined him with the same ambitious
views, a large part of" Austria, together with Bo-
hemia, was reduced to their dominion, and tlie
partition of Austria among themselves was now
resolved on. The elector of Bavaria Avas made
king of Bohemia, and even emperor of Germany,
in 1745, Avith the title of Charles vii. Maria
Theresa, the daughter and heiress of the late
emperor Charles vi., applied to her faithful
Hungarians, and, with their aid, she expelled
the allied enemy from Austria and Bohemia.
Moreover, George ii., of England, brought an
army to her assistance, drove the French out of
Germany, and induced Frederic ii. to make
peace. The Austrian troops marched into Ba-
varia, and occupied the whole countiy ; the em-
peror Charles vii. fled to Frankfort, and died in
that same year, 1745, at Miinich. His son was
obliged to recognize the pragmatic sanction ; and
Francis of Lorraine, who had married Maria
Theresa, was chosen emperor, by the name of
Francis i. Meanwhile, Frederic ii. had invaded
Bohemia a second time, and had gained one vic-
tory after another ; likewise, a French army,
under marshal Saxe, had successfully opposed
the power of Austria in the Netherlands. Peace,
however, was effected with Frederic, in 1745, at
Dresden ; and even France acceded, in 1748, to
the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, after the empress
Elizabeth of Russia had sent a Russian force
into Germany to the assistance of Maria Theresa.
Silesia was, by this treaty, given up to Prussia;
AND MARIA THERESA. 441
and Parma and Placentia to Spain. Thus ter-
minated the war about the Austrian succession.
How changeable politics at that time were, is
evident from the seven years' war that not long
afterwards broke out. Maria Theresa, who em-
ployed the interval of peace in effecting wise and
beneficial arrangements for the domestic govern-
ment of her states, had still looked all along with
no little dissatisfaction at the wi'esting of Silesia
from her dominions, and had watched for an op-
portunity of recovering it. Eight years had
hardly passed since the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle,
Avhen preparations were again on foot for another
war. In the former contest for Silesia, the king
of England had rendered her important help;
but now he became her enemy, by taking part
with Prussia. The former hostile alliance had
been designed for the partition of Austria itself;
but now Austria, Russia, Saxony, and France,
united for the partition of Prussia. The cause
of this alienation on the part of England, and of
her unwise interference in continental warfare,
was a quarrel with France resj^ecting the North
American colonies ; as also the design of ob-
taining a protection for Hanover against France.
Brunswick, likewise, and Hesse, took the side
of Frederic. The latter did not wait till he
should be attacked, but marched his troops into
Saxony by surprise, took Dresden, and made
the Saxon army prisoners, a.d. 1756. This
brought a declaration of war against him from
the electoral princes themselves, and Frederic
was now menaced with danger on eveiy side.
Victory and defeat went on, alternating on both
442 FREDERIC II. OF PRUSSIA,
sides during the succeeding years, in which Fre-
deric lost the liard fought battle of Kunnersdorf,
1759, and his condition was by every one consi-
dered desperate, till he was again successful in
the battles of Liegnitz and Torgau. Frederic's
entire self-possession, his wise improvement of
circumstances that were overlooked by others,
and his quickness of discernment and penetra-
tion, allowed him not to despond in the most
critical situations, but always prompted him to
some means of relief. Indeed, it was God who
upheld and still prospered him ; because, had
Prussia fallen, the main support of Protestantism
in Germany had fallen with it ; and because this
monarch was destined to bear a conspicuous
part in the great political movements of Europe
during many years to come. The unexpected
death of the Russian empress Elizabeth, in
1762, is an instance of this ; for from that time
circumstances changed very considerably in fa-
vour of Prussia. Her successor, Peter iii., im-
mediately made peace ; and the other powers,
being weary of the impoverishing war, followed
his example. Unimportant as appeared the first
occasion of the war, nearly all Europe had be-
come more or less involved in it ; and it was
one consequence of the new politics, that nearly
every war affected all Europe ; a consequence to
which the undue concern to preserve the balance
of power had not a little contributed. While
in Germany, Austrian, Russian, and French
armies were conflicting with the Prussians and
the English, France and England were also
prosecuting the war in their American colonies,
AND MARIA THERESA.
443
and likewise in India, Africa, and wherever
these two nations had colonies or ships. Thus
the seven years' war, as formerly that of die
thirty years', extended to most parts of the globe.
The French had lost nearly all their transmarine
possessions, and were obliged to relinquish them
to England, at the peace of Versailles, in 1763 ;
but at the peace of Hubertsburg, which in the
same month was concluded between Austria and
Prussia, all on the continent was restored to its
former footing, and Maria Theresa was obliged
to resign Silesia, which it had been so much her
object to gain, to the Prussians.
Frederic ii., having, in the first half of his
forty-six years' reign, shown himself to be the
greatest general in Europe, enjoyed considerable
repose during the remainder of his days, and was
thus enabled, without molestation, to engage in
improving the interior government of his coun-
try ; but once more, at nearly the close of his life,
a contest arose between him and the emperor Jo-
seph II., concerning the claims which the latter
made to a portion of Bavaria. This contest is
therefore called the war of the Bavarian succes-
sion ; but it never openly broke out, and a treaty
in 1779 put an end to it without a single battle.
Prussia had suffered exceedingly in the seven
years' war, and it required much time and atten-
tion to heal its many and severe woimds. Fre-
deric applied himself in a fatherly manner, and
with powerful effect, to that purpose ; and though
he did not please his subjects by his introduction
of toll and excise, and the monopoly of tobacco,
yet they could not but be convinced, by his other
444 FREDERIC II. OF PRUSSIA,
regulations, by the many proofs lie gave of his
love of justice, by his laboriousness and conde-
scending conduct, that he had their prosperity at
heart. On the other hand, the partition of Po-
land, a work of the new unconscionable poHtics,
and which was concei'ted and executed by Fre-
deric II., in conjunction with Russia and Austria,
remains altogether inexcusable. What these
three powers still left of Poland continued in
powerless dependence, till some years afterwards
this also was entirely dismembered. It is true,
the condition of that country was so bad, that,
sooner or later, such must have been its fate. Its
king had no authority ; the numerous nobility
did as they pleased; and the agricultural popu-
lation, who were mere serfs, were grievously
oppressed. While every where, in the middle
and west of Europe, a more free and liberal con-
dition of the community, and legal constitutions
far more effectually based, had become deve-
loped, and especially, by the influence of the Re-
formation, the Poles still were held in the tram-
mels of the middle ages, without any abatement;
and the consequence of this backwardness to
follow the march of the times, was either to feel
the violence of neighbouring nations, or, which
Avas equally destructive, to burst into change at
once, and to spurn, with maddened impatience,
all intermediate gradations of development.
Both of these effects were experienced by Po-
land. The former was from the three great
powers, Prussia, Austria, and Russia ; the latter
was from the infidel and revolutionary spirit of
France, which spread much more rapidly in
AND MARIA THERESA. 445
Poland than in other countries, and the matured
fruits of which, our own times have so lately
witnessed throughout the continent of Europe.
Frederic ii., as a man and a king, deserved
beyond many others the name of " the great."
His presence of mind, and his spirit of prompt
decision, his unshaken firmness and inexhausti-
ble fertility of expedients in war, his unwearied
diligence, his love of order and justice in peace,
were exemplary. But, to Christian discern-
ment, his character, in other respects, appears la-
mentable. His education had i-epresented Chris-
tianity to him in a very imfavourable light, and
his strong prejudices in favour of French man-
ners and French literature, together with the
dry and formal manner in which learning was
then prosecuted in Germany, were the means
of his becoming allured into intimacy with the
fearfully increasing infidelity of France, and with
those talented, but godless free-thinkers, who re-
jected the inspired word of God, and substituted
their own notions in its stead. Among these
stood pre-eminent the Avretched blasphemer Vol-
taire ; and though Frederic clearly discerned his
low, dishonest, and vulgar character, as the
slave of avarice and of other vices, yet he idol-
ized his wit and acuteness, and overlooked the
badness of the man, for the sake of his great,
but disgracefully misapplied talents. Thus was
this originally plain-minded, and once well-in-
clined king seduced, so that he refused to con-
cede to God and his word, to Christ and his
disciples, that justice which he so conscientiously
accorded to his fellow men in general. Or,
2q
440 RUSSIA.
more properly speaking, Frederic ii. had a mind
remarkably open to every thing beautiful and
great; he was a person of magnanimity and
sympathy, of equity and firmness ; but for that
which is of the highest value, and of the utmost
importance, for the truth revealed to mankind by
God in Christ, he had no mind ; he was what
the world calls a great man, but he was not a
Christian.
XIII. RUSSIA.
Peter the Great had endeavom-ed to raise his
people from barbarism, and by his encourage-
ment of navigation, commerce, and manufac-
tures, he had introduced a new epoch in the
histoiy of his country. But all endeavours of
thi^ sort are found to fail of the desired effect,
unless the Christian education of the people,
from the lowest to the highest classes, by the
establishment of schools and by the diffusion of
the word of God, go with them hand in hand.
Moreover, the trammels of the Greek church, and
the great influence of its ignorant clergy, put
insurmountable obstacles in the way, and thus
hindered their advancement into more civilized
life, so that education was almost entirely re-
stricted to the higher ranks. Nor was any re-
markable progress of the kind made under Pe-
ter's immediate successors, Catharine i., (17*25 —
1727,) Peter ii., (1727—1730,) Anna, (1730—
1740,) Iwan iii., (1740,) Elizabeth, (1741—
THE EMPEROR JOSEPH II. 447
1762,) and Peter in., (1762.) Court intrigue,
and the dominion of favourites, with quarrels
about the right of succession, and dethronements
by violence, produced much general disquietude
from time to time. More vigorous and important
■was the reign of the empress Catharine ii.,
(1762 — 1796,) who by successful wars, especially
against the Turks, enlarged her dominions, was a
patroness of learning, planned wise arrangements
for the interior, and exercised no inconsiderable
influence in the national affairs of Europe.
Since her days, Russia has taken an active part
in all the political movements of the world. But
Catharine, also, was an instance of one called
great by the world, while really wretched and
miserable, from being under the dominion of in-
fidelity and sinful lusts.
XIV. THE EMPEROR JOSEPH II.
In Austria, the Geraian empress Maria Theresa
reigned till the year 1780. Her wars with Fre-
deric II. have been already noticed; and she was
equally zealous and more successful in her endea-
vours to rule her subjects with parental care. Her
great activity and beneficence, her love of equity,
her tolerance towards those of a different creed,
and her enlightened views, to which Austria owes
the removal of that instrument of torture, the
rack, and of the inquisition ; also her zeal in es-
tablishing and improving schools for general in-
struction, acquired for her the affection of her
448 THE EMPEROR JOSEPH II.
subjects, and made her memorv valuable to pos-
terity. Her son, Joseph ii., trod in her steps,
and lost no time in endeavouring to get rid of
remaining abuses in church and state, as if he
had anticipated the shortness of his reign. But,
as he had not sufficient patience to wait till these
amendments should be willingly received through
the diffusion of more enlightened ideas, he put
them forth at once by his own imperial authority ;
and as he did not live long enough to habituate
his subjects gradually to such new arrangements,
they fell to the ground after his decease. He
abolished the law which restricted the freedom
of the press from making any remarks on the
proceedings of government; and he thus availed
himself of public opinion, as a means of learning
what change or amendment might be made for
the general good. In criminal punishments
and judicial awards, he showed no respect of
persons ; but the I'ichest and greatest were amen-
able to the same penalties as the lowest ranks.
He was also as accessible to the latter as to the
former, and refused audience to none who had
any complaint to bring before him. He was
not fond of any remarkable expressions of ho-
mage, and laboured with all his might to banish
luxury. If these things made some men his
enemies, his innovations in ecclesiastical matters
made him still more ; for upon these the bigoted
Romish clergy, both openly and secretly, did
every thing in their power to thwart him.
Benedict xiv., who attained the papal dignity
in the year 1740, was an educated and scientific
THE EMPEROR JOSEPH II. 449
man, Avho was determined to think for himself;
and he perceived that the Romish church could
not keep her influential position unless she kept
pace with the times, and this especially by im-
proving the education of her clergy. For this
reason he made it his chief care to effect a sort
of reformation in the Romish church, and he
even meditated lessening the numbei* of its holi-
days, — a thing which, however, from the great
opposition it met with, he was constrained to
postpone. He endeavoured to keep peace with
the princes of Europe, and succeeded in restoring
a good understanding with Portugal. From
pursuing a still more important undertaking, the
abolition of the order of the Jesuits, his death
alone prevented him, in the year 1758. His
successor, Clement xiii., was elected through
Jesuit influence, and Being entirely of the old
papal principles, he issued a bull for the protec-
tion of that order, but could not prevent the ex-
pulsion of its members from Portugal, and was
obliged to let a German bishop go unpunished,
who had written in strong language against ihe
papacy. Neither could he do any thing to humble
the duke of Parma, who had curtailed the pri-
vileges of the clergy in his dominions, although
he tried against him the old and worn-out wea-
pon of excommunication. For the Bourbon
princes sided with the duke, and made use of
the more effectual weapons of temporal power,
from which nothing but death delivered him, in
the year 1769. The succeeding pope, Clement
XIV. {Ganganelli, 1769 — 1774) pursued the
2q2
450 THE EMPEROIl JOSEPH II.
policy of Benedict xiv., and after wise prepa-
rations, abolished tlie order of the Jesuits, in
1773;* therefore it is no wonder that he was
taken off by poison in the following year. The
history of the popes, since the year 1740, shows
clearly, that a period of humiliation to the pope-
dom had arrived.
The emperor, Joseph ii., laboured to render
the Roman Catholics in his dominions indepen-
dent of the pope. For this purpose he suffered
no papal rescript to be published without his
own approval : he abolished appeals to Rome,
put the monastic orders under subjection to the
bishops, and aimed at restoring to the latter their
original diocesan independence. Neither eccle-
siastical acknowledgements in money, nor eccle-
siastics themselves, were permitted any longer
officially to travel to Rome. Convents of friars
and of nuns, unless some [useful eraploionents
could be proved as belonging to them, were
abolished, and new parishes were endowed out
of their revenues. In vain were all the pope's
remonstrances ; in vain his visit to Vienna : the
emperor treated him courteously, but took care
that he should be closely watched, and that he
should in due time return without effecting any
thing. Similar efforts for ecclesiastical reform
in the grand dukedom of Tuscany, and in the
German electoral archbishoprics were only frus-
trated in consequence of this emperor's death,
which took place in 1790, and because his suc-
cessor, Leopold II., did not inherit the same
* Its restoration is mentioned afterwards.
WAR OF INDEPENDENCE IN AMERICA. 451
state of mind. But, after a time, the papacy
arose with its former strength renewed, and its
determined opposition to the best interests of
mankind.
XV. — WAR OF INDEPENDENCE IN NORTH AMERICA.
In the history of England, from the succession
of the house of Hanover under George i. to the
time of George iii., besides the prominent part
already spoken of, which this country took in
the contentions between Austria and Prussia,
three events of great importance are jjrincipally
to be noticed : the naval war, which was carried
on between England and France, on account of
the North American possessions, and which be-
gan in 17565 the conquest of Bengal at the
same period, together with the establishment of
the power of the English East India Company,
which has greatly extended the commerce and
power of England; and, lastly, the war with
the North American colonies, which ended in
their independence. The English had laid taxes
upon them, and had injured their trade by re-
strictions : to these the Americans were resolved
not to submit, and thus provoked the English to
adopt still severer measures. At length, in
1776, thirteen provinces declared themselves in-
dependent of the mother country ; this pro-
duced an open war, in which the American ge-
neral, Washington, by his prudence and cou-
rage, and with the help of France and Spain, got
the better of the English, in 1781. Two years
452 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE IN AMERICA.
afterwards, England found it necessary, at the
peace of Paris, to acknowledge the independence
of the Thirteen United States, who immediately
proceeded to settle their own constitution of go-
vernment. The congress is their supreme coun-
cil, which consists of two chambers, the sena-
torial and the representative. Its president, who
is elected every foixr years, and whose office was
first filled by Washington himself, is the general
director of affairs.
Every degree of personal liberty is guaranteed
by this constitution, beyond what has ever yet
been done in any other civilized country ; hence
it is to be regarded as a new attempt to bring
about, by merely temporal means, and in a way
never before tried, the welfare of mankind, and
that happy state of things which men in ge-
neral have so long and so ardently desired.
Full liberty is allowed to all, of whatever creed :
every religious fraternity is protected in its o\vn
civil right to worship God after its own way ;
but it must also find its own means of support.
In this manner have the most opposite religious
parties settled together in the United States, and
have had more or fewer adherents. Twenty-
seven such parties have been counted, most of
whom are of the Protestant profession. How
far the above distinct object of this civil and ec-
clesiastical arrangement has been hitherto at-
tained, or made attainable, the short period of
its trial permits us not to determine ; but there
are serious indications already that the political
constitution is likely to be severely tried ere
long, for it is threatened with great dangers
FRANCE, AND INFIDELITY. 453
from private and personal selfishness, and from
the opposite interests of the several states.
XVI. FRANCE, AND THE PROGRESS OF INFIDELITY.
Levtis XIV. was succeeded by his great grand-
son, Lewis XV., 1715 — 1774, during whose mi-
nority, continuing till 1723, the kingdom was
governed by the duke of Orleans. Unbridled
licentiousness rose to an enormous height in the
French court, and its example had the most in-
jurious influence upon public morals. Nor did
things become better when Lewis xv. jjersonally
assumed the government ; for he was a man of
no principle or character, but cared only for the
gratification of his passions, and suffered himself
and his people to be governed by unprincipled
ministers and vile mistresses. Thus France be-
came involved in wars that were attended with
the loss of her military glory and of her colo-
nies, and with an enormous increase of the na-
tional debt. The disagreements between the
court and the parliaments proceeded to a degree
of rancour that unsettled the whole nation ; and,
meanwhile, the writings of the French infidel
philosophers, which were widely circulated, and
read with avidity, were supplanting in the hearts
of the people all moral and religious principle,
and consequently all civil obedience. There had
ever, from time to time, been seen existing in
Christendom, individuals, and indeed whole
sects, who had been wont to raise doubts
454 FRANCE, AND INFIDELITY.
respecting some one or more of tlie articles of
the true Christian faith ; and especially since the
days of Arius, who lived about the year 325,
there had been sceptics upon the doctrine of the
ever-blessed Trinity. The deep apostacy of the
Romish church, at about the period of the Re-
formation, had this among other consequences,
that, in Italy in particular, there were many
such people to be found ; as also that in Tran-
sylvania there was an organized ecclesiastical
body of Unitarians. These afterwards were
joined by the Socinians, who likewise originated
from Italy : they still longer enjoyed immo-
lested religious liberty in Poland, and subse-
quently found a refuge in England and Ame-
rica. Beyond these went the so-called Free-
thinkers, the Deists, and the Naturalists, who be-
came conspicuous in England and France in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries ; and Avho,
in Germany, had individual adherents and imi-
tators, but never formed any distinct ecclesiasti-
cal community. While the English and French
free-thinkers erected for themselves, upon mere
human philosophy, a distinct and specious sys-
tem of pretended truth, and utterly rejected Di-
vine revelation, those in Germany aimed at unit-
ing their own invented notions with the truths
of Scripture, by wresting, deforming, and dilut-
ing the latter 5 or they laboured to disprove the
authenticity of important texts ; or they set up
their own reason in judgment upon the word of
God, and received, as truth, only so much of the
latter as the former approved of. But most success
attended the diligence of those enemies of tnith,
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 455
the French philosophers, who were not satisfied
merely with the rejection of particular points of
Christian doctrine, but meditated the entire over-
throw of revealed religion. These men, such as
Voltaire, Maupertuis, D'Argens, LaMettrie, and
others, assailed the Christian religion and its mi-
nisters with sparkling wit, raillery, and malig-
nity ; and these ingredients, together with their
fascinating and elegant style of writing, made way
for the introduction of their books among the
fashionable and educated circles of Europe, and
hence among the people at large, not only through-
out France, but Germany also, and other coun-
tries, by means of translations. Henceforth it was
reckoned the privilege of the educated to have
no belief in the Holy Scriptures, nor even in
the existence of God ; and to regard the institu-
tions of religion as nothing but an engine of state,
intended to keep the ignorant in oi-der. And peo-
ple the more readily fell in with these new notions
of infidelity, because they were notions less strictly
opposed to the lusts of the depraved human heart ;
for they had their v.=ry origin in the immorality
and levity of the French nation.
XVII, THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
With the French apostacy from the living God
was also necessarily connected the dissolution of
political society ; for, under every government
which is not held together by absolute despot-
ism, obedience can be insured only by a sense
456 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
of religion. Rousseau, D'Alembert, Diderot,
and others, liad not only laboured in their writ-
ings to overthrow the Christian church, but also
sought to overturn all existing governments ; and
the disgraceful inefficiency of the French govern-
ment, with the miserable management of the re-
venue, served to increase the people's desire for
such changes. Little regard was had by them
to the facts and experience of past times, or to
rights of however long standing; indeed, the
government itself, by its faithless and unprinci-
pled policy, under a long succession of monarchs,
had set the bad example, and corrupted the moral
sense of the people ; and a great part of the ex-
isting rights, if they may be so called, were, in
fact, oppressions upon the mass of the people, in
favour of what were called the privileged orders.
All these evils working together, produced, at
length, that dreadful revolution in France, which,
by its violent shocks, convulsed and changed the
whole aspect of Christendom.
Lewis XVI., who, since the year 1774, had
been on the throne of France, required no ordi-
nary firmness and wisdom to meet the critical
condition of the country, and the violent fer-
mentation of all parties, to maintain his own
authority, and to remedy the mighty mischief.
But, though he would have been an estimable
man in private life, having many good quali-
ties, yet he had not the wisdom, the firmness of
character, and the prompt decision which such a
time demanded. The disposition which, in more
peaceful times, would have rendered him a be-
loved and prosperous governor, facilitated his
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 457
overthrow. By the ancient law of France, the
nobility and priests were entirely exempt from
government imposts and taxes : these were borne
by the mercantile and middle classes, and by the
peasantry ; and, at such a time as the present,
when the load of national debt was so great, and
extravagance so imbounded, these burdens had
become intolerably oppressive. That the mid-
dle classes would no longer endure this with pa-
tience, is the less to be wondered at ; because the
})eople felt that this wide distinction of ranks,
and the luxuries of the one at the expense of the
other, were unnatural and unreasonable. Lewis
was, at length, even j^^'evailed upon to call
together the states general, which had never
been convened since the year 1626. This as-
sembly consisted of 600 deputed clergy and no-
bility, and the same number of commons ; and
they met on the 15th of May, 1789. But they
soon disagreed among themselves : the commons
separating from the rest, and calling themselves
the constituent national assembly. These were
immediately joined by many of the nobility and
clergy, who voluntarily laid aside their high
titles and privileges. The populace, stirred up by
the duke of Orleans, and by other enemies of the
king, began to commit great disorders, demo-
lished the state prison in Paris, which was called
the Bastille, and even menaced the safety of the
royal family. Already, in August, 1789, had
the national convention abolished all the privi-
leges of rank, and proclaimed the liberty and
equality of all French citizens. Most of the
court, and a large part of the nobility, having
2 R
458 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
left France, the king himself attempted to do the
same, on the 20th of June, 1791 ; but Avas stopped
on the road, and brought back to Paris. In tlie
new constitution, which the constituent assembly
published on the 3rd of September, 1791, Lewis
was allowed to remain king, but with little more
than the shadow of authority ; and the new as-
sembly, the national convention, the majority
of which consisted of enemies of royalty, called
Jacobins, declared, on September 21st, of the next
year, all kingly authority abolished, and consti-
tuted France a republic. Previously to this, an
Austrian and Prussian army had in vain at-
tempted to restore the absolute authority of the
king, by invading France : the royal family were
imprisoned ; and, by the month of September,
1792, some of the leading revolutionary dema-
gogues had committed dreadful massacres in the
metropolis. But the king's enemies were not
content with having despoiled him of his
crown, they determined to put him to death.
He was arraigned before the convention, and al-
though half of its members all but five wished to
save his life, yet he was publicly beheaded, by
the guillotine, on the 21st of January, 1793 ; his
queen, Marie Antoinette, a princess of the house
of Austria, whose conduct had long before made
her an object of great dislike, shared the same
cruel fate on the 16th of the following October,
In proportion as the revolutionary mania in-
creased in France, it became more infectious in
other countries. As the volcanic shocks, which
forty years before destroyed Lisbon, extended
also through Asia, and beyond, namely, across
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 459
the ocean as far as Peru ; so did the revolution-
ary spirit, that as a legion of unclean spirits
manifested their influence in revolution, pass
through the countries of the earth ; and at St.
Domingo, in the West Indies, there were pro-
ceedings as tempestuous as those in Paris. The
national convention, by setting up the principle,
that all kings must be extirpated, virtually sum-
moned all nations to rebellion. Many estimable
pei'sons in Germany were seized with the revo-
lutionary mania, and advocated it for a while,
until its greatest horrors had come to their ma-
turity. And their having done so was not witli-
out influence, in producing that unhappy sequel,
which ensued after the attacks made upon France
by the European powers, that were stirred up by
England. The French armies, conducted by
talented and experienced generals, fought most
vigorously ; and, among the armies brought
against them, many a hand was slackened by
the notion, that the French were only fighting
in the cause of the oppressed. The French soon
made themselves masters of all the German pos-
sessions beyond the Rhine, together with Bel-
gium and Holland. But while, by their splen-
did victories, they were recovering the military
glory which they had lost in the seven years'
w^ar, the condition of Paris, under the mad mis-
rule of the Jacobins, Marat, Danton, Robespierre,
and others, was the bitterest satire upon the
loudly- extolled liberty of the French people.
France presented, at this time, a most shocking
scene of unheard of barbarities. Political par-
ties persecuted and crushed one another in rapid
460 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
succession. Blood was shed like water ; and no
persons Avere secure of life ao;ainst whom could
be raised the slightest suspicion of discontent
with the new misrule, or who had incurred the
private resentment of any one in authority. The
pretended liberty consisted only in the circum-
stance, that the strongest who happened to ))re-
side at the helm for a while, had it in his power
to commit the most dreadful acts of injustice,
without being immediately called to account.
The infatuated rage for independence was not
satisfied with having no longer a king ; it would
not even endure the thought of God as above
itself. It was to be publicly manifested to the
world, that its fire was kindled " from beneath ;"
and that this revolution was a work of that
wicked spirit which goeth forth to draw man
into its own apostacy from God. The anti-
christian character of this revolution could not
be concealed. Already, on the 13th of Novem-
ber, 1793, the cathedral of Paris was converted
into a temple of rcat^on ; and a woman of ill fame
was carried about in ])rocession, as the goddess
of reason, when it had been publicly declared
that there was no God in heaven. Within a few
days after this two thousand popish churches in
France, whose priests had been driven away, were
converted into temples of reason and banqueting
houses ; and the sabbath, which had long been
openly profaned, as is generally the case in
popish countries, was abolished. When this
raging madness had cooled a little, a public de-
claration was issued, on the 4th of May, 1794,
that the French nation acknowledged the Supreme
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 461
Being, and the immortality of the soul ; and a
festival was ordered for the Supreme Being. At
length, -when Hobespierre, who had ruled with
uncontrolled despotism, had breathed out his
dark soid at the guillotine, 1794, and the French
had begun to be weary of their intestine scenes of
blood and tyrannical oppressions, the national
convention was dissolved, on the 26th of October,
1795, and a new government was formed under
the name of the Directory, consisting of two
chambers, the council of ancients, and the council
of five hundred, and an executive of live di-
rectors.
The wars which were carried on by France, in
Upper Italy, and in the Upper and Lower
Rhenish provinces, as well as the commotions
in other countries connected with the same, oc-
casioned such perpetual alterations in the system
of state partition, that the most recent maps of
Europe were almost useless. A second partition
of Poland took place in 1793, and a third in
1795 ; the Austrian Netherlands, Savoy, and
Nizza, were conquered and consigned to other
hands. Mantua and Milan fell, and the Rhine
was made the boundary of France. Prussia,
Sweden, Spain, and Tuscany, made peace with
France in 1795 ; Austria, in 1797 ; and in this
same year was opened the congress of Rastadt.
Pope Pius VI. had from the beginning shown
himself opposed to the principles of the revo-
lution, on account of its threatening the entire
subversion of his church, and had pronounced
his anathema against it ; but such ecclesiastical
weapons had now become blunted and harmless.
2r2
462 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
The French carried him off as a prisoner to
France, where, however, he persisted in assert-
ing his dignity witli inflexible firmness, and died
in the year 1799.
Meanwhile, Napoleon Buonaparte, one of the
bold French generals, (who was born in Corsica,
15th August, 1769,) having signalized himself
in the campaigns of Upper Italy, had under-
taken an adventurous expedition to Egypt, for
the purpose of opening an overland communi-
cation with India, in order, finally, to wrest the
commerce of the East out of the hands of the
English. In the year 1798 he seized Malta;
and, after a successful battle near the Pyramids,
he obtained possession of all Egypt, while the
British admiral, Nelson, destroyed the French
fleet in the bay of Aboukir. A new war being
now declared against France, by Austria, Russia,
England, and Turkey ; together with the per-
plexed and inefficient state of the French go-
vernment ; urged Buonaparte's return to Europe,
in 1799. He hurried back with all speed to
Paris, and put down the Directory ; whereupon
came now to be tried, under the name of the
Consulate, a fourth experiment for the govern-
ment of France. Three consuls, assisted by se-
veral inferior bodies of directors, were appointed
to hold authority for ten years ; and Buonaparte,
asjirst conml, henceforth made it his prime ob-
ject to l)ring back France (which had suffered se-
veral losses of late) to the very height of tri-
umph. And, indeed, with the aid of general
Moreau, he became in a short time so successful,
tliat every govcrnmcjit, between the years 1801
NAPOLEON, EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH. 463
and 1803, made peace with France. This peace,
however, was not of long continuance.
XVIII. NAPOLEON, EMPKROK OF THE FRENCH.
As the consulate of ancient Rome merged, at
length, into imperial power, so, in a very little
time, did the consulate of France ; and to this
their own political constitution tended by degrees.
Out of the five directors came three consuls, and
out of the three consuls came one consul for life
(Buonaparte,) in the year 1802 ; and only two
years after this, on the 18th of May, 1804, was
the single consul elected emperor of the French
by the name of Napoleon i. Henceforth was
he distinguished by his carrying the selfish prin-
ciple to its highest pitch, by his making every
thing subservient merely to his own interests
by his total disregard of rights and persons
and by his openly aiming at universal empire.
Thus France again stood at the head of Euro-
pean policy, from which it had been degraded
by Prussia, after the death of Lewis xiv. ; and
all the countries of Europe, England in some
measure excepted, had to endure, under this
second Attila, this " scourge of God," Napoleon
a season of humiliation, which might be regard-
ed, at least by Germany, as a righteous rebuke
from Heaven, for the open apostacy of so many
from the holy and everlasting gospel. Durino-
the war, which again broke out in 1803, Austria
(by the battles of Ulm and Austerlitz, in 1805,)
464 NAPOLEON, EMPEROR
Prussia, (by the battles of Jena and Auerstadt,
in 1806,) and Russia, (by the battles of Eylau
and Fiiedland, in 1807,) were made to feel the
humbling; hand of God, by the arms of Napo-
leon. Austria "was forced to give up Venice,
the Tyrol, and its western dominions ; the Ger-
manic-Roman empire, (which, under the title of
Boman, had lasted eighteen hundred years,)
ceased in 1807 ; and tlie emperor, Francis ii.,
the successor of Leopold ii., was now only em-
peror of Austria. Prussia lost its possessions
between the Rhine and the Elbe, and its portion
of Poland ; while England, which, at the battle
of Trafalgar, had destroyed the maritime power
of France, and taken possession of most of the
French and Dutch colonies, was unable to retain
Hanover. Against England, Napoleon formed
the Confederation of the Rhine, and assumed
the title of its " Protector." Bavaria, Wirtem-
berg, and Saxony, were raised to kingdoms.
Hesse, Brunswick, Hanover, and the portion of
territory which had been taken from Prussia,
were formed into the new kingdom of Westpha-
lia, and given to Jerome, a brother of Napoleon.
To Joseph, another brother. Napoleon gave the
kingdom of Naples ; and to his brother Lewis,
the kingdom of Holland. Italy had previously
become a kingdom, wliich Napoleon took into
his own possession. In all countries of the
middle and south of Europe territorial posses-
sion had undergone, within the last few years,
frequent changes, which still continued through
succeeding years. The royal house of Braganza
in Portugal was, in the year 1807, driven to
OF THE FRENCH. 465
Brazil. The king of Spain was compelled, in
1808, to abdicate, and Napoleon's brother, Jo-
seph, was removed from the throne of Naples to
that of Spain. The crown of Naples was confer-
red on Napoleon's brother-in-law, Murat. King
Lewis, of Holland, resigned his sovereignty,
because he found it impossible to comply with
Napoleon's restriction upon Dutch commerce
with England ; and thus Holland was added to
the French territory, in 1810. A fresh war, of
France with Austria, in 1809, ended with another
loss of territory to the latter country ; by which
it was entirely cut off from the Mediterranean.
In the same year was the Swedish royal family,
of the house of Vasa, dethroned by a revolution ;
and soon afterwards the French general, Berna-
dotte, was chosen king of Sweden.
At Rome, Pius vii. had been elected to the
popedom, in the year 1800 ; and though, by the
concordat of 1801, he restored a good under-
standing with France ; yet he soon found him-
self in a contest with the revolution. Unfavour-
able as were the circumstances of the times to
the papal power, he persisted, like his prede-
cessor, with iron firmness, in its principles and
claims, and lost none of his spirit amidst the po-
litical storms that overwhelmed him. He had,
indeed, yielded, in 1804, to anoint Napoleon em-
peror of the French ; but remaining immove-
able against all further demands of this military
despot, he hereby brought upon himself the hu-
miliating seizure of the Land of the Church, by
Napoleon, in 1809, who was not be deterred by
the papal ban. Napoleon added Rome to the
466 VVAU OF INDEPENDENCE
French territory, made the pope his prisoner,
and brought him to Fontainebleau. Still Pius
VII. would concede nothing ; and it appeared
that the time for the total annihilation of the pa-
pacy was not yet arrived.
Meanwhile, in Spain and Portugal, was vio-
lent opposition kindled against the French.
The hereditary royal families had been driven
from those coimtries ; but the people at large
were far from being satisfied with their lb-
reign rulers, and rose in mass against them as
oppressors. England came to the assistance
of the Portuguese and Spaniards; and, after
four years of obstinate fightmg, Wellington,
the English general, drove the French out of
Spain.
XIX. WAR OF INDEPENDENCE IN EUROPE.
Napoleon, in 1810, had come into more peace-
ful connexion with Austria, by his marriage of
Maria Louisa, the daughter of the emperor
Francis ii. ; and even Prussia had joined him ;
when, in 1812, he determined to fall upon Rus-
sia with a war of extermination. He crossed
the Russian frontier with an immense army, to
which nearly every country of Europe, except
England and Sweden, had furnished its contin-
gent. He was victorious in several battles, and
took Moscow, the ancient capital of the Russian
empire. But God had set a bound for him.
This large city Avas suddenly found to be on fire
IN EUROPE, 467
in every part of it, and was burned to the
ground, thus the invaders were deprived of spoil
and of shelter; provisions failed; tlie Russian
army, still not dispirited, was on the advance,
and Napoleon found himself compelled to at-
tempt a retreat at the most unfavourable season of
the year, at the beginning of a Russian winter.
All the best calculated expedients, all military
talent and skill, were now useless. The cold of
a northern winter, to which the French had
never been inured, and especially the extraordi-
nary cold of that winter of 1812, the want of
the common supports of life, which was the more
felt in consequence of such severe weather, and
the Russian armies mercilessly pursuing them,
swept away hundreds of thousands of them ; all
order in their retreat was gone ; none coidd
think of anything but self-preservation ; and,
after the dreadful loss which the passage of the
Beresina occasioned, there were only a few
masses of the grand army left, and these en-
deavoured with the utmost precipitation to escape
into Germany. The most insensible could
hardly help acknowledging that God had spe-
cially interposed to effect this deliverance to Eu-
rope ; and a hope began to be indulged by the
nations, that the time was come for breaking in
pieces the yoke of the oppressor. The war was
now no longer a matter of political adjustments,
but of self-security ; a war of liberation from a
military despot, who had resolved to rule over
all. And the successes of the English army,
under Wellmgton, in the Spanish peninsula,
gave the more favourable opportunity for the
4G8 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
northern nations to unite against the French
autocrat. The Prussians were the first to fall
away from Napoleon, and rose against him as
one man, under the command of general Bliicher ;
and though Napoleon, having reinforced himself
with fresh troops, gained the battles of Liitzen
and Bautzen, in May, 1813, yet he had the dis-
advantage in other encounters. When Aus-
tria likewise declared against him, and had
pi'oposed the general emancipation of Germany,
he was so totally defeated in the great na-
tional battle of Leipsic, on the 18th of Octo-
ber, 1813, that he fled with the utmost speed to
France. But the three sovereigns, Frederic
William iii. of Prussia, the emperor Francis
II. of Austria, and the emperor Alexander of
Russia, gave God the glory, and publicly offered
thanks for this wondeiful help and deliverance.
His brother Joseph had already been driven
from Spain, by the utter defeat of the French
army at Vittoria.
After the battle of Leipsic, the allied armies
advanced across the Rhine, and, after Napoleon
had thrown many a serious obstacle in their way,
and occasioned them many a loss, they took pos-
session of Paris, on the 31st of March, 1814.
Immediately thereupon. Napoleon, who by his
despotic government had also given dissatisfac-
tion to a considerable part of the French nation,
was dethroned, and banished to the isle of Elba.
The Bourbon family was now restored, with
Lewis XVIII,, the brother of the murdered Lewis
XVI., to the throne of France; and this nation
was obliged to give up all the territory which,
IN EUROPE. 469
since the year 1792, it had taken from other
countries.
A congress of the allied sovereigns met at
Vienna, on the 1st of November, 1814, to de-
liberate on a settlement of the present affairs of
Europe. But as yet all was not suffered to be
quiet. Most unexpectedly, on the 1st of March,
1815, Napoleon again appeared in France, was
received by the French with great demonstra-
tions of joy, and had, by the time he reached
Paris, again mustered an army around him.
The Bourbons were obliged to flee, and the Eu-
ropean powers had to renew the war. In the
great battles of Ligny, Quartre Bras, and Wa-
terloo, which began on the 16th, and terminated
on the 18th of June, the destinies of Europe
were again decided, by the firmness with which
the English troops were enabled to maintain
their ground, under Wellington, against Napo-
leon at the head of his chosen troops. Thus
Napoleon was defeated hy the English and Prus-
sian armies, the former commanded by the duke
of Wellington, and the latter by marshal Bliicher,
and soon after abdicated the crown. And now
the English, to whom he surrendered, when he
found he could not hope to escape by sea to
America, placed him in the island of St. Helena,
where he was allowed personal liberty, but closely
guarded, and cut off from all further intercourse
with Europe. By the time that the news of his
death, of an hereditary disease, arrived, in 1821,
a new period, and a new oider of things had
already commenced.
France, though compelled to indemnify the
2s
470 CHANGE TO THE PRESENT
allies to a very considerable ainouut in the ex-
pences of the war, yet was, upon the whole, very
gently handled, as if the entire blame had been
suffered to rest on the head of her banished
chief. She was again restricted' within her boun-
daries of the year 1790, had to give up to Prus-
sia a portion of the left bank of the Rhine, to
restore Upper Italy to Austria, and to surrender
several of her colonial possessions to England.
Russia now obtained the greatest part of Poland ;
another part of that country, with the province
of Saxony, was allotted to Prussia. Belgium
and Holland were united into one kingdom of
the.Netlierlands, and assigned to the house of
Orange. Hanover, Savoy, Naples, Spain, and
Portugal, were restored to their rightful sove-
reigns. In Germany there was formed, by articles
agreed to on the 8th of June, 1815, the alliance
of the German states, at their meeting for that
purpose in Frankfort ; and to this belong thirty-
eiffht o;reater and lesser sovereign states.
XX. CHANGE TO THE PRESENT STATE OF THINGS IN
EUROPE, A.D. 1839.
On the 2Gth of September, 1815, Russia, Aus-
tria, and Prussia formed what is called " the
holy alliance ;" to which nearly all the European
powers, except England and the pope, acceded.
State policy, as grounded hitherto upon a mere
physical equilibrium, had now proved its own
nothingness ; and these powei's professed hence-
STATE IN EUROPE. 471
t'ertli to make religion the groundwork of all
policy, and to subject national affairs, both
foreign and domestic, to the principles of the
gospel. But the question must be asked, What
did these powers mean by religion ? We much
fear not that of the New Testament. Yet open
and avowed infidelity was thus brought more and
more into contempt : some desire for the support
of spiritual food was evinced ; this appeared by
the jubilee of the Reformation in 1817, and sup-
plies to satisfy this hunger were sought after
through the Bible Societies, and the increasing
number of living witnesses to the truth in the
pulpits : neither was it any longer regarded as a
mark of polite education to despise or slight the
gospel. But, as has been the case hitherto in
every age of the Christian church, the number
of real disciples has still continued to be vastly
the minority, and the multitude at large have
looked for their welfare in the improvement of
theii- temporal condition, not in a spiritual life
and conversation, and in serious and entire con-
version to God and to his word. The gospel
had now indeed gained in general estimation ;
but the nations of Europe, notwithstanding that
some of their eminent princes have nobly come
forward with the acknowledgment, have not gone
so far as to admit the piinciples of the gospel as
their rule in all mutual relations. It has been
too generally thought, that sufficient respect is
jiaid it, by giving it a place collaterally with
other sources of knowledge and rules of life, in-
stead of exalting it above all others. The atten-
tion of men in general has been chieflv turned to
472 CHANGE TO THE PRESENT
the reforming of political constitutions, and has
been expecting all kinds of good from the resto-
ration of a representative system ; a thing which
indeed has been effected in several German
states, but has proved no radical cure for national
evil ; and why ? because such a cure requires
that Christ, before all things, should be formed
in those representative bodies themselves, from
whom the amendments and improvements have
been looked for. But the distrust which this
sort of constitution implies, with respect to
princes as such, could not fail to increase, by
reason of those disappointed expectations in the
people which had been raised : and with such a
distrust we find intimately connected that lawless
revolutionary spirit, which has never entirely
been got rid of; and this is a spirit of anti-chris-
tianity, which works in opposition to all order
and subordination.
This spirit of individual self-will has received
a manifest increase from another quarter, namely,
from the papacy ; which, ever since its restora-
tion, has boldly grasped on eveiy side, as with
the arms of a polypus, in order to avail itself as
profitably as possible of the new state of things.
Pius VII. having, in 1814, regained his liberty
and ecclesiastical patrimony, set about at once
reviving the old principles of Popery. For this
purpose he, in 1814, reinstated the order of the
Jesuits in their former privileges and efficiency,
and laboured to the utmost to recover his influ-
ence over Germany itself, where the ecclesiasti-
cal princes had now lost all their spiritual power.
His successor also, Leo xii., 1823 — 1829, la-
STATE IN EUROPE.
473
houred in the same spirit ; he anathematized, as
Pius VII. had done in 1816, the Bible Societies,
rebuilt the prisons of the inquisition, and solem-
nized a papal jubilee in 1825. On the one hand,
indeed, and correspondently to the return to the
Christian faith on the part of Protestant Ger-
many, there had appeared in the Roman Catho-
lic countries a revival of attachment to the
Popish church ; but, on the other hand, a multi-
tude of I'e volution ary ideas and exertions had
become rife, in consequence of the unsettled state
of things during the war. The papacy, while it
sought to suppress this spirit, and to bring not
only civil, but religious liberty once more into
bondage and implicit submission, hereby did but
stir up that active opposition which has laboured
to vent itself in the commotions of Sj>ain, since
1820 until now ; as it also did in Italy, Portu-
gal, Naples, and Piedmont, during the years
1820 and 1821. But in the most striking man-
ner of all was shown, by the revolution in France,
in 1830, how much the papal system of op-
pression had been really helpful to the plans of
the movement party, which had all along been
secretly increasing. Charles x., who, in 1824,
had succeeded his brother Lewis xviii. in the
government, and upon whom the warnings of
the revolutionary period had been expended in
vain, had made it his endeavour to suppress the
new constitution of France, and thus provoked
the people to a most violent resistance, which
ended only with his dethronement and banish-
ment, and with the elevation of Lewis Philip of
Orleans to the government of the French. This
2s2
474 CUAiNUE TO THli rUESEWT STATE.
event was like electricity to other countries, and
occasioned new revolutionary exertions abroad.
The Belgians tore themselves away from Hol-
land, and chose Leopold of Saxe Coburg as a
king of their own. The Poles endeavoured, by a
powerful ins-Liriection, to regain their long-lost
independence; but, after an indignant struggle,
they again succumbed to the superior strength of
Russia. Likewise, in the German states, the
spirit of insurrection broke loose ; but showed
itself more in secret conspiracies, than in open
rebellion. Already had the Spanish provinces
in America, as Mexico, Guatimala, Columbia,
Peru, Chili, and Buenos- Ayres, since the year
1810, and after long and sanguinary conflicts,
obtained their independence. The Greeks, with
the aid of the European powers, ireed themselves
from the Turkish yoke; and afterwards ob-
tained Otho of Bavaria as their king. And in
Portugal and Spain, since 1831, have the prin-
ciples of a more liberal form of government found
acceptance with all ranks, and have introduced
a greatly altered state of things. The papacy
has suffered considerable losses by all these
movements and changes ; but without resigning
on that account any one of its claims or hopes.
England, which alone of all the nations of
Europe had remained all along spared from hos-
tile invasion, sought, by some changes in her
constitution, to provide against violent revolu-
tion, for which even in that country there was
no Avant of materials and desires; and in this she
has reaped the reward of her having more sted-
fastly adhered to the doctrines of the word of
4
CONCLUSION. 475
God, of her having openly declared her reverence
for things sacred, and of her manifold labours
(though these indeed have been rather the work
of private individuals than of the nation) to ex-
tend the Divine blessing to Christian as well as
heathen countries, by means of Bible and Mis-
sionary Societies, and other Christian benevo-
lent institutions.
CONCLUSION.
The history of mankind has, according to the
chronology of some, ab-eady completed a course
of six thousand years ; or, according to others,
a period exceeding seven thousand ; and has all
along hitherto come short of its grand object.
All the powers of man have, in their course,
either successively or together, been put forth
in the attempt to bring about the desired felicity
of the world. Power and liberty, great empires
and petty states, the luxury of wealth, the sim-
plicity of rustic life, and the arts and sciences,
all in their turn have been proposed and applied,
as means for securing the welfare of mankind,
and yet have not furnished the remedy. The
Son of God himself has come from heaven, and
by his sufferings, death, and resurrection, has
become the Redeemer of our race ; a Deliverer,
who in his own body and blood has opened the
spring of a new life and of a complete I'estora-
tion. But individuals only have hitherto been
effectually liberated thereby ; the families of
476 CONCLUSION.
mankind at large are still in the bondage of their
inward death, and in a jiitiable outward (lon-
dition conformable to that inward death. As
long as all swords are not beaten into })lougli-
shares, and all idols of the world not cast into
the holes and caves of the earth, to the moles
and to the bats, the kingdom of God cannot be
said to prevail among men. The present na-
tional policy has indeed, in some measure, di-
rected itself to bring about a peaceful order of
tilings, and is endeavouring, with consummate
skill, to unravel the knots which have been
formed by manifold entanglements in all dii"ec-
tions ; but success to its plans is another thing,
which lies quite beyond its command; and last-
ing peace on earth is not to be expected by mere
human policy, but only by the revelation of the
glorious power of God.
The political condition of Europe is at present
upon an artificial stretch, whose breaking might
happen in an instant, if we consider the mis-
trustful mutual vigilance and sensitiveness of the
respective governments; and this is only pre-
vented by the Divine power, working indeed
through the instrumentality of men. It has ap-
peared to depend mainly on the diplomatic pru-
dence and management of the several govern-
ments, and not without strenuous exertion on
their part for that purpose. England and Russia
are as the two opposite poles, in this system of
policy. To the former, adhere France and
Spain, and represent with it the liberal constitu-
tion : to the latter, adhere Prussia and Austria,
the supports of the monarchical principle. IMie
CONCLUSION. 477
guarantee of popular freedom consists, with the
former, in the balance maintained between each
government and the popular will as expressed
by parliaments ; with the latter, it rests solely
on the personal character of the respective mo-
narchs, and in the firmness with which they
maintain their principles. The knot of their
political difficulties is found in the entangled af-
fairs of the East ; and in this respect it is sought
to preserve the balance of power against Russia,
by supporting the Turkish empire, which of
late has become much endangered, and of whose
approaching extinction, warning appears to be
given in the words of prophecy ; while there
is jealousy at Russia's increasing maritime
strength, at its influence in Turkey and Persia,
and at its attempts to obtain a share in the com-
merce of India. The exertions of the pasha of
Egypt, to extend his dominion, and to render
himself independent, form an important part in
this entanglement.
The condition of North America is still more
and more developing itself, as its population and
cultui'e are continuing rapidly to increase ; but
already is that country disquieted with political
parties, which originate in the decomposing ele-
ment of selfishness, and in the adverse powers
of natural corruption. The republics in Central
and South America remain also in a state of
ferment ; and as they want the solidity of a re-
ligious basis, little good is at present to be ex-
pected from them.
Of Asia, the inhospitable north is under Rus-
sian dominion, and its nomadic population is
478 CONCLUSION.
hardly above tlio lowest degree of civilization.
Western Asia is suffering under disijuietudes,
which the approaching fall of Mohammedanisni
brings with it. And the vast empire of China,
which comprises a third of the population of the
globe, has hitherto kept itself in its political and
religious exclusiveness, and for many centuries
has stood at one and the same degree of culture :
what it may yet have to do in the development
of human history, can be known only by poste-
rity. ^ . • . '
Africa is bordered on all sides with European
colonies ; but the interior, with its dense popu-
lation, is, for the most part, an unknown region ;
and it is only by the horrible annual exports of
slaves, that it has contributed its contingent to
the history of human cultivation and develop-
ment : it is reserved for coming years to raise
its multitude of nations into historical import-
ance; but that this is to be done by the influ-
ence of Christianity, rather than by any human
policy, is what we are taught to expect by the
word of God. The same may be said of all the
greater and lesser tribes of Austral Asia and
Polynesia. The isles of the Pacific, indeed,
already present more extensive national reception
of Christianity than any other of the lands of the
heathen.
Meanwhile, we see the individual states of
Europe zealously endeavouring to attain to the
highest degree of outward prosperity, by pushing
in every direction the occupations and improve-
ments of their national powers. Steam naviga-
tion, canals, railways, manufactures, mercantile
CONCLUSION. 479
companies, and many other enterprises of the
kind, are accompHshed with surprising celerity.
If such tilings have, on the one hand, the salutary
effect of drawing off men's thoughts from revo-
lution, they are, however, partly to be regarded,
on the other, as a novel way of error, by which
the nations are led to lose sight of the only sa-
tisfying source of real welfare, and become con-
firmed in the notion that human evil is to be re-
medied from beneath, rather than from above.
Besides this, there is but too much reason for ap-
prehending, that the very means which are now
affording such facilities to commerce, may prove
fearfully instrumental to the spread of evil, and
to the quicker execiition of plans of extensive
mischief; but still they present increased facilities
for good, and evidently form a leading feature
in the rapidly accelerating development of the
vast plans of Divine Providence.
While, however, we contemplate the Christian
world in general, as more and more led away
afler merely human expedients, and trusting in
" the things that are seen" for their recovery of
true happiness, we still can say, that the power
of Divine truth is showing itself as any thing
but a spirit of slumber; and inconsiderable as
the flock of Christ's real disciples may yet ap-
pear, in comparison with the population of the
earth, it is evident that God has of late, from
one period of ten years to another, given them
no insignificant triumphs, and multiplied his
blessing on their labours. Through Missionary
Societies, Religious Tract Societies, and Bible
Societies, which liave arisen both before the
480 CONCLUSION.
beginning of the present century and subsequent-
ly, in England, Germany, North America, and
France, incalculable benefits have, under the
Divine blessing, been spread abroad, both in Eu-
rope and in heathen lauds ; and the faith of the
evangelical church of God, much as it has been
assailed by anti-evangelical persons, or rather
by covert infidels bearing the Christian name,
who have laboured both in preaching and Avrit-
ing to wrest or explain away all the marvellous
truths of Divine revelation, has nevertheless
weathered every storm, and gained a general re-
spect at the present period. Moreover, the hu-
manly invented systems of unsound philosophy
are found melting away one after another, before
the light of gospel truth. Many have begun to
see their folly, and are renewing their homage
to Christ, as at the foot of the cross; the doc-
trines of which are daily gaining increased ac-
ceptance, and evincing by their power, that
Messiah rules in the midst of his enemies.
FINIS.
J. HUl, Printer, Black Horse Court, Fleet Street, London.
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