Leo X. projected an alliance of the sovereigns of Christendom against
the Turks. The avowed object was to oppose the progress of the Ottomans
against the Mamelukes of Egypt, who were more friendly to the
Christians; but the concealed motive with his holiness was to enrich
himself and his family with the spoils of Christendom, and to aggrandise
the papal throne by war; and such, indeed, the policy of these pontiffs
had always been in those mad crusades which they excited against the
East.
The Reformation, excellent as its results have proved in the cause of
genuine freedom, originated in no purer source than human passions and
selfish motives: it was the progeny of avarice in Germany, of novelty in
France, and of love in England. The latter is elegantly alluded to by
Gray--
And gospel-light first beam'd from Bullen's eyes.
The Reformation is considered by the Duke of Nevers, in a work printed
in 1590, as it had been by Francis I., in his Apology in 1537, as a
_coup-d'etat_ of Charles V. towards universal monarchy. The duke says,
that the emperor silently permitted Luther to establish his principles
in Germany, that they might split the confederacy of the elective
princes, and by this division facilitate their more easy conquest, and
play them off one against another, and by these means to secure the
imperial crown hereditary in the house of Austria. Had Charles V. not
been the mere creature of his politics, and had he felt any zeal for the
Catholic cause, which he pretended to fight for, never would he have
allowed the new doctrines to spread for more than twenty years without
the least opposition.
The famous League in France was raised for "religion and the relief of
public grievances;" such was the pretext! After the princes and the
people had alike become its victims, this "league" was discovered to
have been formed by the pride and the ambition of the Guises, aided by
the machinations of the Jesuits against the attempts of the Prince of
Conde to dislodge them from their "seat of power." While the Huguenots
pillaged, burnt, and massacred, declaring in their manifestoes that they
were only fighting to _release the king_, whom they asserted was a
prisoner of the Guises, the Catholics repaid them with the same
persecution and the same manifestoes, declaring that they only wished
_to liberate the Prince of Conde_, who was the prisoner of the
Huguenots. The people were led on by the cry of "religion;" but this
civil war was not in reality so much Catholic against Huguenot, as Guise
against Conde. A parallel event occurred between our Charles I. and the
Scotch Covenanters; and the king expressly declared, in "a large
declaration, concerning the late tumults in Scotland," that "religion is
only _pretended_, and used by them as a cloak to palliate their
_intended rebellion_," which he demonstrated by the facts he alleged.
There was a revolutionary party in France, which, taking the name of
_Frondeurs_, shook that kingdom under the administration of Cardinal
Mazarin, and held out for their pretext the public freedom. But that
faction, composed of some of the discontented French princes and the
mob, was entirely organized by Cardinal de Retz, who held them in hand,
to check or to spur them as the occasion required, from a mere personal
pique against Mazarin, who had not treated that vivacious genius with
all the deference he exacted. This appears from his own Memoirs.
We have smiled at James I. threatening the States-general by the English
ambassador, about Vorstius, a Dutch professor, who had espoused the
doctrines of Arminius against those of the contra-remonstrants, or
Calvinists; the ostensible subject was religious, or rather
metaphysical-religious doctrines, but the concealed one was a struggle
for predominance between the Pensionary Barnevelt, assisted by the
French interest, and the Prince of Orange, supported by the English.
"These were the real sources," says Lord Hardwicke, a statesman and a
man of letters, deeply conversant with secret and public history, and a
far more able judge than Diodati the Swiss divine, and Brandt the
ecclesiastical historian, who in the synod of Dort could see nothing but
what appeared in it, and gravely narrated the idle squabbles on phrases
concerning predestination or grace. Hales, of Eaton, who was secretary
to the English ambassador at this synod, perfectly accords with the
account of Lord Hardwicke. "Our synod," writes that judicious observer,
"goes on like a watch; the main wheels upon which the whole business
turns are least in sight; for all things of moment are acted in private
sessions; _what is done in public is only for show and entertainment_."
The _cause_ of the persecution of the Jansenists was the jealousy of the
Jesuits; the _pretext_ was _la grace suffisante_. The learned La Croze
observes, that the same circumstance occurred in the affair of Nestorius
and the church of Alexandria; the pretext was orthodoxy, the cause was
the jealousy of the church of Alexandria, or rather the fiery and
turbulent Cyril, who personally hated Nestorius. The opinions of
Nestorius, and the council which condemned them, were the same in
effect. I only produce this remote fact to prove that ancient times do
not alter the truth of our principle.
When James II. was so strenuous an advocate for _toleration_ and
_liberty of conscience_ in removing the Test Act, this enlightened
principle of government was only a _pretext_ with that monk-ridden
monarch; it is well known that the _cause_ was to introduce and make the
Catholics predominant in his councils and government. The result, which
that eager and blind politician hurried on too fast, and which therefore
did not take place, would have been that "liberty of conscience" would
soon have become an "overt act of treason" before an inquisition of his
Jesuits!
In all political affairs drop the _pretexts_ and strike at the _causes_;
we may thus understand what the heads of parties may choose to conceal.