§ 152. EAST AND WEST.
The papacy formed new plans for conquest in the domain of the Eastern
church, but with at most only transient success. Still more illusory
were the hopes entertained for a while in Geneva and London in regard
to the Calvinizing of the Greek church.
§ 152.1. =Roman Catholic Hopes.=--The Jesuit missions among the
Turks and schismatic Greeks failed, but among the Abyssinians
some progress was made. By promising Spanish aid, the Jesuit
Paez succeeded, in A.D. 1621, in inducing the Sultan Segued to
abjure the Jacobite heresy. Mendez was made Abyssinian patriarch
by Urban VIII. in A.D. 1626, but the clergy and people repeatedly
rebelled against sultan and patriarch. In A.D. 1642 the next
sultan drove the Jesuits out of his kingdom, and in it henceforth
no traces of Catholicism were to be found.--In Russia the false
Demetrius, in A.D. 1605, working in Polish Catholic interests,
sought to catholicize the empire; but this only convinced the
Russians that he was no true czar’s son. When his Catholic Polish
bride entered Moscow with 200 Poles, a riot ensued, in which
Demetrius lost his life.[445]
§ 152.2. =Calvinistic Hopes.=--=Cyril Lucar=, a native of Crete,
then under Venetian rule, by long residence in Geneva had come
to entertain a strong liking to the Reformed church. Expelled
from his situation as rector of a Greek seminary at Ostrog by
Jesuit machinations, he was made Patriarch of Alexandria in
A.D. 1602 and of Constantinople in A.D. 1621. He maintained
a regular correspondence with Reformed divines in Holland,
Switzerland, and England. In A.D. 1628 he sent the famous Codex
Alexandrinus as a present to James I. He wrought expressly
for a union of the Greek and Reformed churches, and for this
end sent, in A.D. 1629, to Geneva an almost purely Calvinistic
confession. But the other Greek bishops opposed his union
schemes, and influential Jesuits in Constantinople accused
him of political faults. Four times the sultan deposed and
banished him, and at last, in A.D. 1638, he was strangled as
a traitor and cast into the sea.--One of his Alexandrian clergy,
Metrophanes Critopulus, whom in A.D. 1616 he had sent for his
education to England, studied several years at Oxford, then
at German Protestant universities, ending with Helmstadt, where,
in A.D. 1625, he composed in Greek a confession of the faith
of the Greek Orthodox Church. It was pointedly antagonistic to
the Romish doctrine, conciliatory toward Protestantism, while
abandoning nothing essential in the Greek Orthodox creed, and
showing signs of the possession of independent speculative power.
Afterwards Metrophanes became Patriarch of Alexandria, and in
the synod, presided over by Lucar’s successor, Cyril of Berrhoë,
at Constantinople in A.D. 1638, gave his vote for the formal
condemnation of the man who had been already executed.[446]
§ 152.3. =Orthodox Constancy.=--The Russian Orthodox church,
after its emancipation from Constantinople and the erection of
an independent patriarchate at Moscow in A.D. 1589 (§ 73, 4),
had decidedly the pre-eminence over the Greek Orthodox church,
and the Russian czar took the place formerly occupied by the
East Roman emperor as protector of the whole Orthodox church.
The dangers to the Orthodox faith threatened by schemes of union
with Catholics and Protestants induced the learned metropolitan,
Peter Mogilas of Kiev, to compose a new confession in
catechetical form, which, in A.D. 1643, was formally authorized
by the Orthodox patriarchs as Ὀρθόδοξος ὁμολογία τῆς καθολικῆς
καὶ ἀποστολικῆς ἐκκλησίας τῆς ἀνατολικῆς.--Thirty years later
a controversy on the eucharist broke out between the Jansenists
Nicole and Arnauld, on the one side, and the Calvinists Claude
and Jurieu, on the other (§ 157, 1), in which both claimed to
be in agreement with the Greek church. A synod was convened
under =Dositheus of Jerusalem= in A.D. 1672, at the instigation
of French diplomatists, where the questions raised by Cyril
were again taken into consideration. Maintaining a friendly
attitude toward the Romish church, it directed a violent
polemic against Calvinism. In order to save the character of
the Constantinopolitan chair for constant Orthodoxy, Cyril’s
confession of A.D. 1629 was pronounced a spurious, heretical
invention, and a confession composed by Dositheus, in which
Cyril’s Calvinistic heresies were repudiated, was incorporated
with the synod’s acts.
§ 153. CATHOLICISM AND PROTESTANTISM.
The Jesuit counter-reformation (§ 151) was eminently successful
during the first decades of the century in Bohemia. The Westphalian
Peace restrained its violence, but did not prevent secret machinations
and the open exercise of all conceivable arts of seduction. Next to
the conversion of Bohemia, the greatest triumph of the restoration was
won in France in the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Besides such
victories the Catholics were able to glory in the conversion of several
Protestant princes. New endeavours at union were repeatedly made, but
these in every case proved as fruitless as former attempts had done.
§ 153.1. =Conversions of Protestant Princes.=--The first
reigning prince who became a convert to Romanism was the
Margrave =James III. of Baden=. He went over in A.D. 1590
(§ 144, 4), but as his death occurred soon after, his conduct
had little influence upon his people. Of greater consequence
was the conversion, in A.D. 1614, of the Count-palatine Wolfgang
William of Neuburg, as it prepared the way for the catholicizing
of the whole Palatinate, which followed in A.D. 1685. Much was
made of the passing over to the Catholic church of =Christina
of Sweden=, the highly gifted but eccentric daughter of Gustavus
Adolphus. As she had resigned the crown, the pope gained no
political advantage from his new member, and Alexander VII.
had even to contribute to her support. The Elector of Saxony,
=Frederick Augustus II.=, passed over to the Roman Catholic
church in A.D. 1697, in order to qualify himself for the Polish
crown; but the rights of his Protestant subjects were carefully
guarded. An awkwardness arose from the fact that the prince was
pledged by the directory of the Regensburg Diet of A.D. 1653 to
care for the interests of the evangelical church. Now that he
had become a Catholic, he still formally promised to do so, but
had his duties discharged by a commissioner. Subsequently this
officer was ordered to take his directions from the evangelical
council of Dresden.
§ 153.2. =The Restoration in Germany and the Neighbouring
States= (§ 151, 1).--Matthias having, in violation of the royal
letter of his predecessor Rudolph II. (§ 139, 19), refused to
allow the Protestants of Bohemia to build churches, was driven
out; the Jesuits also were expelled, and the Calvinistic
Elector-palatine Frederick V. was chosen as prince in A.D. 1619.
Ferdinand II. (A.D. 1619-1637) defeated him, tore up the
royal letter, restored the Jesuits, and expelled the Protestant
pastors. Efforts were made by Christian IV. of Denmark and other
Protestant princes to save Protestantism, but without success.
Ferdinand now issued his =Restitution Edict= of A.D. 1629,
which deprived Protestants of their privileges, and gave to
Catholic nobles unrestricted liberty to suppress the evangelical
faith in their dominions. It was then that Gustavus Adolphus of
Sweden, in religious not less than political interests, made his
appearance as the saviour of Protestantism.[447] The unhappy war
was brought to an end in A.D. 1648 by the publication at Münster
and Osnabrück of the =Peace of Westphalia=, which Innocent X.
in his bull “_Zelo Domus Dei_” of A.D. 1651 pronounced “null
and void, without influence on past, present, and future.”
Germany lost several noble provinces, but its intellectual
and religious freedom was saved. Under Swedish and French
guarantee the Augsburg Religious Peace was confirmed and even
extended to the Reformed, as related to the Augsburg Confession.
The church property was to be restored on January 1st,
A.D. 1624. The political equality of Protestants and Catholics
throughout Germany was distinctly secured. In =Bohemia=,
however, Protestantism was thoroughly extirpated, and in the
other Austrian states the oppression continued down to the time
of Joseph II. In =Silesia=, from the passing of the Restitution
Edict, over a thousand churches had been violently taken from
the evangelicals. No compensation was now thought of, but
rather the persecution continued throughout the whole century
(§ 165, 4), and many thousands were compelled to migrate, for
the most part to Upper Lusatia.
§ 153.3. Also in =Livonia=, from A.D. 1561 under Polish rule,
the Jesuits gained a footing and began the restoration, but
under Gustavus Adolphus from A.D. 1621 their machinations
were brought to an end.--The ruthless =Valteline Massacre=
of A.D. 1620 may be described as a Swiss St. Bartholomew on
a small scale. All Protestants were murdered in one day. The
conspirators at a signal from the clock tower in the early
morning broke into the houses of heretics, and put all to death,
down to the very babe in the cradle. Between four and five
hundred were slaughtered.--In =Hungary=, at the close of the
preceding century only three noble families remained Catholic,
and the Protestant churches numbered 2,000; but the Jesuits, who
had settled there under the protection of Rudolph II. in 1579,
resumed their intrigues, and the Archbishop of Gran, Pazmany,
wrought hard for the restoration of Catholicism. Rakoczy of
Transylvania, in the Treaty of Linz of A.D. 1645, concluded
a league offensive and defensive with Sweden and France, which
secured political and religious liberty for Hungary; but of
the 400 churches of which the Protestants had been robbed only
ninety were given back. The bigoted Leopold I., from A.D. 1655
king of Hungary, inaugurated a yet more severe persecution,
which continued until the publication of the Toleration Edict
of Joseph II. in A.D. 1781. The 2,000 Protestant congregations
were by this time reduced to 105.
§ 153.4. =The Huguenots in France= (§ 139, 17).--Henry IV.
faithfully fulfilled the promises which he made in the Edict of
Nantes; but under Louis XIII., A.D. 1610-1643, the oppressions
of the Huguenots were renewed, and led to fresh outbreaks.
Richelieu withdrew their political privileges, but granted
them religious toleration in the Edict of Nismes, A.D. 1629.
Louis XIV., A.D. 1643-1715, at the instigation of his confessors,
sought to atone for his sins by purging his land of heretics.
When bribery and court favour had done all that they could do in
the way of conversions, the fearful dragonnades began, A.D. 1681.
The formal =Revocation of the Edict of Nantes= followed in
A.D. 1685, and persecution raged with the utmost violence.
Thousands of churches were torn down, vast numbers of confessors
were tortured, burnt, or sent to the galleys. In spite of the
terrible penal laws against emigrating, in spite of the watch
kept over the frontiers, hundreds of thousands escaped, and were
received with open arms as _refugees_ in Brandenburg, Holland,
England, Denmark, and Switzerland. Many fled into the wilds of
the Cevennes, where under the name of Camisards they maintained
a heroic conflict for years, until at last exterminated by an
army at least ten times their strength. The struggle reached
the utmost intensity of bitterness on both sides in A.D. 1702,
when the fanatical and inhumanly cruel inquisitor, the Abbé
du Chaila, was slain. At the head of the Camisard army was
a young peasant, Jean Cavalier, who by his energetic and skilful
conduct of the campaign astonished the world. At last the
famous Marshal Villars, by promising a general amnesty, release
of all prisoners, permission to emigrate with possessions,
and religious toleration to those who remained, succeeded in
persuading Cavalier to lay down his arms. The king ratified
this bargain, only refusing the right of religious freedom.
Many, however, submitted; while others emigrated, mostly to
England. Cavalier entered the king’s service as colonel; but
distrusting the arrangements fled to Holland, and afterwards
to England, where in A.D. 1740 he died as governor of Jersey.
In A.D. 1707 a new outbreak took place, accompanied by prophetic
fanaticism, in consequence of repeated dragonnades, but it
was put down by the stake, the gallows, the axe, and the wheel.
France had lost half a million of her most pious, industrious,
and capable inhabitants, and yet two millions of Huguenots
deprived of all their rights remained in the land.[448]
§ 153.5. =The Waldensians in Piedmont= (§ 139, 25).--Although
in A.D. 1654 the Duke of Savoy confirmed to the Waldensians
their privileges, by Easter of the following year a bloody
persecution broke out, in which a Piedmontese army, together
with a horde of released prisoners and Irish refugees,
driven from their native land by Cromwell’s severities, to
whom the duke had given shelter in the valleys, perpetrated
the most horrible cruelties. Yet in the desperate conflict
the Waldensians held their ground. The intervention of the
Protestant Swiss cantons won for them again a measure of
toleration, and liberal gifts from abroad compensated them
for their loss of property. Cromwell too sent to the relief
of the sufferers the celebrated Lord Morland in A.D. 1658.
While in the valleys he got possession of a number of MSS.
(§ 108, 11), which he took home with him and deposited in
the Cambridge Library. In A.D. 1685 the persecution and civil
war were again renewed at the instigation of Louis XIV. The
soldiers besieged the valleys, and more than 14,000 captives
were consigned to fortresses and prisons. But the rest of the
Waldensians plucked up courage, inflicted many defeats upon
their enemy, and so moved the government in A.D. 1686 to release
the prisoners and send them out of the country. Some found their
way to Germany, others fled to Switzerland. These last, aided
by Swiss troops, and led by their own pastor, Henry Arnaud, made
an attack upon Piedmont in A.D. 1689, and conquered again their
own country. They continued in possession, notwithstanding all
attempts to dislodge them.
§ 153.6. =The Catholics in England and Ireland.=--When James I.,
A.D. 1603-1625, the son of Mary Stuart, ascended the English
throne (§ 139, 11), the Catholics expected from him nothing
short of the complete restoration of the old religion. But
great as James’ inclination towards Catholicism may have been,
his love of despotic authority was still greater. He therefore
rigorously suppressed the Jesuits, who disputed the royal
supremacy over the church; and the bitterness of the Catholics
now reached its height. They organized the so-called =Gunpowder
Plot=, with the intention of blowing up the royal family and
the whole Parliament at the first meeting of the house. At
the head of the conspiracy stood Rob. Catesby, Thomas Percy
of Northumberland, and Guy Fawkes, an English officer in the
Spanish service. The plan was discovered shortly before the day
appointed for its execution. On November 5th, A.D. 1605, Fawkes,
with lantern and matches, was seized in the cellar. The rest of
the conspirators fled, but, after a desperate struggle, in which
Catesby and Percy fell, were arrested, and, together with two
Jesuit accomplices, executed as traitors. Great severities were
then exercised toward the Catholics, not only in England, but
also in Ireland, where the bulk of the population was attached
to the Romish faith. James I. completed the transference of
ecclesiastical property to the Anglican church, and robbed
the Irish nobles of almost all their estates, and gifted them
over to Scottish and English favourites. All Catholics, because
they refused to take the oath of supremacy, _i.e._ to recognise
the king as head of the church, were declared ineligible
for any civil office. These oppressions at last led to the
fearful =Irish massacre=. In October, A.D. 1641, a desperate
outbreak of the Catholics took place throughout the country.
It aimed at the destruction of all Protestants in Ireland.
The conspirators rushed from all sides into the houses of the
Protestants, murdered the inhabitants, and drove them naked and
helpless from their homes. Many thousands died on the roadside
of hunger and cold. In other places they were driven in crowds
into the rivers and drowned, or into empty houses, which were
burnt over them. The number of those who suffered is variously
estimated from 40,000 to 400,000. Charles I., A.D. 1625-1649,
was suspected as instigator of this terrible deed, and it may
be regarded as his first step toward the scaffold (§ 155, 1).
After the execution of Charles, Oliver Cromwell, in A.D. 1649,
at the call of Parliament, took fearful revenge for the Irish
crime. In the two cities which he took by storm he had all
the citizens cut down without distinction. Panic-stricken, the
inhabitants of the other cities fled to the bogs. Within nine
months the whole island was reconquered. Hundreds of thousands,
driven from their native soil, wandered as homeless fugitives,
and their lands were divided among English soldiers and settlers.
During the time of the English Commonwealth, A.D. 1649-1660,
all moderate men, even those who had formerly demanded religious
toleration, not only for all Christian sects, but also for Jews
and Mohammedans, and even atheists, were now at one in excluding
Catholics from its benefit, because they all saw in the
Catholics a party ready at any moment to prove traitors to their
country at the bidding of a foreign sovereign.--The Restoration
under Charles II. could not greatly ameliorate the calamities of
the Irish. Religious persecution indeed ceased, but the property
taken from the Catholic church and native owners still remained
in the hands of the Anglican church and the Protestant occupiers.
To counterbalance the Catholic proclivities of Charles II.
(§ 155, 3), the English Parliament of A.D. 1673 passed the =Test
Act=, which required every civil and military officer to take
the test oaths, condemning transubstantiation and the worship
of the saints, and to receive the communion according to the
Anglican rite as members of the State church. The statements
of a certain Titus Oates, that the Jesuits had organized a plot
for murdering the king and restoring the papacy, led to fearful
riots in A.D. 1678 and many executions. But the reports were
seemingly unfounded, and were probably the fruit of an intrigue
to deprive the king’s Catholic brother, James II., of the right
of succession. When James ascended the throne, in A.D. 1685,
he immediately entered into negotiations with Rome, and
filled almost all offices with Catholics. At the invitation of
the Protestants, the king’s son-in-law, William III. of Orange,
landed in England in A.D. 1688, and on James’ flight was
declared king by the Parliament. The Act of Toleration, issued
by him in A.D. 1689, still withheld from Papists the privileges
now extended to Protestant dissenters (§ 155, 3).[449]
§ 153.7. =Union Efforts.=
1. Although =Hugo Grotius= distinctly took the side of
the Remonstrants (§ 160, 2), his whole disposition was
essentially irenical. He attempted, but in vain, not
only the reconciliation of the Arminians and Calvinists,
but also the union of all Protestant sects on a common
basis. Toward Catholicism he long maintained a decidedly
hostile attitude. But through intimate intercourse with
distinguished Catholics, especially during his exile
in France, his feelings were completely changed. He now
invariably expressed himself more favourably in regard
to the faith and the institutions of the Catholic church.
Its semi-Pelagianism was acceptable to him as a decided
Arminian. In his “_Votum pro Pace_” he recommended as the
only possible way to restore ecclesiastical union, a return
to Catholicism, on the understanding that a thorough reform
should be made. But that he was himself ready to pass over,
and was hindered only by his sudden death in A.D. 1645, is
merely an illusion of Romish imagination.[450]
2. King Wladislaus [Wladislaw] IV. of Poland thought
a union of Protestants and Catholics in his dominions
not impossible, and with this end in view arranged the
=Religious Conference of Thorn= in A.D. 1645. Prussia
and Brandenburg were also invited to take part in it.
The elector sent his court preacher, John Berg, and asked
from the Duke of Brunswick the assistance of the Helmstadt
theologian, George Calixt. The chief representatives of
the Lutheran side were Abraham Calov, of Danzig, and John
Hülsemann, of Wittenberg. That Calixt, a Lutheran, took
the part of the Reformed, intensified the bitterness of
the Lutherans at the outset. The result was to increase
the split on all sides. The Reformed set forth their
opinions in the “_Declaratio Thorunensis_,” which in
Brandenburg obtained symbolical rank.
3. J. B. =Bossuet=, who died in A.D. 1704, Bishop of Meaux,
used all his eloquence to prepare a way for the return of
Protestants to the church in which alone is salvation. In
several treatises he gave an idealized exposition of the
Catholic doctrine, glossed over what was most offensive
to Protestants, and sought by subtlety and sophistry
to represent the Protestant system as contradictory
and untenable.[451] During the same period the Spaniard
=Spinola=, Bishop of Neustadt, who had come into the
country as father confessor of the empress, proposed
a scheme of union at the imperial court. The controverted
points were to be decided at a free council, but the
primacy of the pope and the hierarchical system, as
founded _jure humano_, were to be retained. In prosecuting
his scheme, with the secret support of Leopold I., Spinola,
between A.D. 1676 and 1691, travelled through all Protestant
Germany. He found most success, out of respect for the
emperor, in Hanover, where the Abbot of Loccum, Molanus,
zealously advocated the proposed union, in which on the
Catholic side Bossuet, on the Protestant side the great
philosopher =Leibnitz=, took part. But the negotiations
ended in no practical result. That Leibnitz had himself
been already secretly inclined to Catholicism, some
think to have proved by a manuscript, found after his
death, entitled in another’s hand, “_Systema Theologicum
Leibnitii_.” Favourably disposed as Leibnitz was to
investigate and recognise what was profound and true
even in Catholicism, so that he reached the conviction
that neither of the two churches had given perfect and
adequate expression to Christian truth, he has apparently
sought in this work to make clear to himself what and how
much of specifically Catholic doctrines were justifiable,
and to sketch out a system of doctrine occupying a place
superior to both confessions. In this treatise many
doctrines are expressed in a manner quite divergent from
that of the Tridentine creed, while several expressions
show how clearly he perceived the contradiction between
his own Protestant faith and the Romish system, amid all
his attempts to effect a reconciliation.
§ 153.8. =The Lehnin Prophecy.=--The hope entertained, about
the end of the seventeenth century, by Catholics throughout
Germany of the speedy restoration of the mother church
was expressed in the so called =Vaticinium Lehninense=.
Professedly composed in the thirteenth century by a monk
called Hermann, of the cloister of Lehnin in Brandenburg,
it characterized with historical accuracy in 100 Leonine
verses the Brandenburg princes down to Frederick III., of
whose coronation in A.D. 1701 it is ignorant, and after this
proceeds in a purely fanciful and arbitrary manner. From
Joachim II., who openly joined the Reformation, it enumerates
eleven members, so that the history is just brought down to
Frederick William III. With the eleventh the Hohenzollern
dynasty ends, Germany is united, the Catholic church restored,
and Lehnin raised again to its ancient glory. Under Frederick
William IV., the Catholics diligently sought to prove the
genuineness of the prophecy, and by arbitrary methods to extend
it so as to include this prince. Lately “the deadly sin of
Israel” spoken of in it has been pointed to as a prophecy of
the _Kultur-kampf_ of our own day (§ 197). The first certain
trace of the poem is in A.D. 1693. Hilgenfeld thinks that its
author was a fanatical pervert, Andr. Fromm, who was previously
a Protestant pastor in Berlin, and died in A.D. 1685 as canon
of Leitmeritz, in Bohemia.
§ 154. LUTHERANISM AND CALVINISM.
The Reformed church made its way into the heart of Lutheran
Germany (§ 144) by the Calvinizing of Hesse-Cassel and Lippe, and by
the adherence of the electoral house of Brandenburg. Renewed attempts
to unite the two churches were equally fruitless with the endeavours
after a Catholic-Protestant union.
§ 154.1. =Calvinizing of Hesse-Cassel, A.D. 1605-1646.=--Philip
the Magnanimous, died 1567, left to his eldest son, William IV.,
one half of his territories, comprising Lower Hesse and
Schmalcald, with residence at Cassel; to Louis IV. a fourth
part, _viz._ Upper Hesse, with residence at Marburg; while
his two youngest sons, Philip and George, were made counts,
with their residence at Darmstadt. Philip died in 1583 and
Louis in 1604, both childless; in consequence of which the
greater part of Philip’s territory and the northern half
of Upper Hesse with Marburg fell to Hesse-Cassel, and the
southern half with Giessen to Hesse-Darmstadt.--Landgrave
=William IV.= of Hesse-Cassel sympathised with his father’s
union and levelling tendencies, and by means of general synods
wrought eagerly to secure acceptance for them throughout Hesse
by setting aside the _ubiquitous_ Christology (§ 141, 9) and
the Formula of Concord, while firmly maintaining the _Corpus
Doctrinæ Philippicum_ (§ 141, 10). The fourth and last of
those general synods was held in 1582. Further procedure was
meanwhile rendered impossible by the increase of opposition.
For, on the one hand, Louis IV., under the influence of the
acute and learned but contentious Ægidius Hunnius, professor of
theology at Marburg, 1576-1592, became more and more decidedly
a representative of exclusive Lutheranism; and, on the other
hand, William’s Calvinizing schemes became from day to day more
reckless. His son and successor =Maurice= went forward more
energetically along the same lines as his father, especially
after the death of his uncle Louis in 1604, who bequeathed to
him the Marburg part of his territories. These had been given
him on condition that he should hold by the confession and
its apology as guaranteed by Charles V. in 1530. But in 1605
he forbad the Marburg theologians to set forth the ubiquity
theology; and when they protested, issued a formal prohibition
of the dogma with its presuppositions and consequences, and
insisted on the introduction of the Reformed numbering of the
commandments of the decalogue, and the breaking of bread at
the communion, and the removal of the remaining images from
the churches (§ 144, 2). The theologians again protested, and
were deprived of their offices. The result was the outbreak
of a popular tumult at Marburg, which Maurice suppressed
by calling in the military. When in several places in Upper
and even in Lower Hesse opposition was persisted in, and the
resisting clergy could not be won over either by persuasion
and threatening or by persecution, Maurice in 1607 convened
consultative diocesan synods at Cassel, Eschwege, Marburg,
St. Goar, and soon after a general synod at Cassel, which,
giving expression on all points to the will of the landgrave,
drew up, besides a new hymnbook and catechism, a new “Christian
and correct confession of faith,” by which they openly and
decidedly declared their attachment to the Reformed church.
Soon Hesse accepted these conclusions, but not the rest of
the state, where the opposition of the nobles, clergy, and
people, in spite of all attempts to enforce this acceptance
by military power, imprisonment, and deposition, could not
be altogether overcome.--Meanwhile George’s son and successor,
=Louis V.=, 1596-1626, had been eagerly seeking to make capital
of those troubles in his cousin’s domains in favour of the
Darmstadt dynasty. He gave his protection to the professors
expelled from Marburg in 1605, founded in 1607 a Lutheran
university at Giessen, and made accusations against his cousin
before the imperial supreme court, which in 1623, on the basis
of the will of Louis IV. and the Religious Peace of Augsburg
(§ 137, 5), declared the inheritance forfeited, and entrusted
the electors of Cologne and Saxony with the execution of the
sentence. These in conjunction with the troops of the league
under Tilly attacked Upper and Lower Hesse; the Lutheran
University of Giessen was transferred to Marburg, and Upper
Hesse, after the banishment of the Reformed pastors, went
over wholly to the Lutheran confession. Maurice, completely
broken down, resigned in favour of his son =William V.=, who
was obliged to make an agreement, according to which he made
over Upper Hesse, Schmalcald, and Katzenelnbogen to =George II.=
of Hesse-Darmstadt, the successor of Louis V. In consequence
of his attachment to Gustavus Adolphus in the Thirty Years’
War the ban of the empire was pronounced upon William. He died
in 1637. His widow, =Amalie Elizabeth=, undertook the government
on behalf of her young son William VI., and in 1646, after
repeated victories over George’s troops, made a new agreement
with him, by which the territories taken away in 1627 were
restored to Hesse-Cassel, under a guarantee, however, that
the _status quo_ in matters of religion should be preserved,
and that they should continue predominantly Lutheran. The
university property was divided; Giessen obtained a Lutheran,
Marburg a Reformed institution, and Lower Hesse received
a moderately but yet essentially Reformed ecclesiastical
constitution.
§ 154.2. =Calvinizing of Lippe, A.D. 1602.=--Count Simon VI.
of Lippe, in his eventful life, was brought into close relations
with the Reformed Netherlands and with Maurice of Hesse. His
dominions were thoroughly Lutheran, but from A.D. 1602 Calvinism
was gradually introduced under the patronage of the prince.
The chief promoter of this innovation was Dreckmeyer, chosen
general superintendent in A.D. 1599. At a visitation of churches
in A.D. 1602, the festivals of Mary and the apostles, exorcism,
the sign of the cross, the host, burning candles, and Luther’s
catechism were rejected. Opposing pastors were deposed, and
Calvinists put in their place. The city Lemgo stood out longest,
and persevered in its adherence to the Lutheran confession
during an eleven years’ struggle with its prince, from A.D. 1606
to 1617. After the death of Simon VI., his successor, Simon VII.,
allowed the city the free exercise of its Lutheran religion.
§ 154.3. =The Elector of Brandenburg becomes Calvinist,
A.D. 1613.=--John Sigismund, A.D. 1608-1619, had promised his
grandfather, John George, to maintain his connexion with the
Lutheran church. But his own inclination, which was strengthened
by his son’s marriage with a princess of the Palatinate, and
his connexion with the Netherlands, made him forget his promise.
Also his court preacher, the crypto-Calvinist Solomon Fink,
contributed to the same result. On Christmas Day, A.D. 1613,
he went over to the Reformed church. In order to share in the
Augsburg Peace, he still retained the Augsburg Confession,
naturally in the form known as the _Variata_. In A.D. 1624,
he issued a Calvinist confession of his own, the _Confessio
Sigismundi_ or _Marchica_, which sought to reconcile the
universality of grace with the particularity of election
(§ 168, 1). His people, however, did not follow the prince,
not even his consort, Anne of Prussia. The court preacher,
Gedicke, who would not retract his invectives against the
prince and the Reformed confession, was obliged to flee from
Berlin, as also another preacher, Mart. Willich. But when
altars, images, and baptismal fonts were thrown out of the
Berlin churches, a tumult arose, in A.D. 1615, which was
not suppressed without bloodshed. In the following year the
elector forbade the teaching of the _communicatio idiomatum_
and the _ubiquitas corporis_ (§ 141, 9) at the University of
Frankfort-on-the-Oder. In A.D. 1614, owing to the publication
of a keen controversial treatise of Hutter (§ 159, 5) he
forbade any of his subjects going to the University of
Wittenberg, and soon afterwards struck out the Formula of
Concord from the collection of the symbolical books of the
Lutheran church of his realm.--Continuation, § 169, 1.
§ 154.4. =Union Attempts.=--Hoë von Hoënegg, of an old Austrian
family, was from A.D. 1612 chief court preacher at Dresden,
and as spiritual adviser of the elector, John George, on the
outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War, got Lutheran Saxony to
take the side of the Catholic emperor against the Calvinist
Frederick V. of the Palatinate, elected king of Bohemia.
In A.D. 1621, he had proved that “on ninety-nine points the
Calvinists were in accord with the Arians and the Turks.” At
the Religious Conference of Leipzig of A.D. 1631 a compromise
was accepted on both sides; but no practical result was secured.
The Religious Conference of Cassel, in A.D. 1661, was a well
meant endeavour by some Marburg Reformed theologians and
Lutherans of the school of Calixt (§ 158, 2); but owing to
the agitation caused by the Synergist controversy, no important
advance toward union could be accomplished. The union efforts
of Duke William of Brandenburg, A.D. 1640-1688, were opposed by
Paul Gerhardt, preacher in the church of St. Nicholas in Berlin.
On refusing to abstain from attacks on the Reformed doctrine
he was deposed from his office. He was soon appointed pastor
at Lübben in Lusatia, where he died in A.D. 1676.--The most
zealous apostle of universal Protestant union, embracing even
the Anglican church, was the Scottish Presbyterian John Durie.
From A.D. 1628 when he officiated as pastor of an English colony
at Elbing, till his death at Cassel in A.D. 1640, he devoted his
energies unweariedly to this one task. He repeatedly travelled
through Germany, Sweden, Denmark, England, and the Netherlands,
formed acquaintance with clerical and civil authorities,
had intercourse with them by word and letter, published
a multitude of tracts on this subject; but at last could
only look back with bitter complaints over the lost labours
of a lifetime.[452]--Continuation, § 169, 1.
§ 155. ANGLICANISM AND PURITANISM.[453]
On the outbreak of the English Revolution, occasioned by the
despotism of the first two Stuarts, crowds of Puritan exiles returned
from Holland and North America to their old home. They powerfully
strengthened their secret sympathisers in their successful struggle
against the episcopacy of the State church (§ 139, 6); but, breaking
up into rival parties, as Presbyterians and Independents (§ 143, 3, 4),
gave way to fanatical extravagances. The victorious party of
Independents also split into two divisions: the one, after the old
Dutch style, simple and strict believers in Scripture; the other,
first in Cromwell’s army, fanatical enthusiasts and visionary saints
(§ 161, 1). The Restoration, under the last two Stuarts, sought to
re-introduce Catholicism. It was William of Orange, by his Act of
Toleration of A.D. 1689, who first brought to a close the Reformation
struggles within the Anglican church. It guaranteed, indeed, all the
pre-eminent privileges of an establishment to the Anglican and Episcopal
church, but also granted toleration to dissenters, while refusing it to
Catholics.
§ 155.1. =The First Two Stuarts.=--=James I.=, dominated by
the idea of the royal supremacy, and so estranged from the
Presbyterianism in which he was brought up (§ 139, 11), as
king of England, A.D. 1603-1625, attached himself to the
national Episcopal church, persecuted the English Puritans,
so that many of them again fled to Holland (§ 143, 4), and
forced Episcopacy upon the Scotch. =Charles I.=, A.D. 1625-1649,
went beyond his father in theory and practice, and thus incurred
the hatred of his Protestant subjects. William Laud, from
A.D. 1633 Archbishop of Canterbury, was the recklessly zealous
promoter of his despotic ideas, representing the Episcopacy,
by reason of its Divine institution and apostolic succession,
as the foundation of the church and the pillar of an absolute
monarchy. Laud used his position as primate to secure the
introduction of his own theory into the public church services,
among other things making the communion office an imitation
as near as possible of the Romish mass. But when he attempted
to force upon the Scotch such “Baal-worship” by the command of
the king, they formed a league in A.D. 1638 for the defence of
Presbyterianism, the so called Great Covenant, and emphasised
their demand by sending an army into England. The king, who had
ruled for eleven years without a Parliament, was obliged now
to call together the representatives of the people. Scarcely
had the Long Parliament, A.D. 1640-1653, in which the Puritan
element was supreme, pacified the Scotch, than oil was anew
poured on the flames by the Irish massacre of A.D. 1641
(§ 153, 6). The Lower House, in spite of the persistent
opposition of the court, resolved on excluding the bishops
from the Upper House and formally abolishing Episcopacy;
and in A.D. 1643, summoned the Westminster Assembly to
remodel the organization of the English church, at which
Scotch representatives were to have a seat. After long
and violent debates with an Independent minority, till
A.D. 1648, the Assembly drew up a Presbyterian constitution
with a Puritan service, and in the Westminster Confession
a strictly Calvinistic creed. But only in Scotland were these
decisions heartily accepted. In England, notwithstanding their
confirmation by the Parliament, they received only partial and
occasional acceptance, owing to the prevalence of Independent
opinions among the people.--Since A.D. 1642, the tension between
court and Parliament had brought about the Civil War between
Cavaliers and Roundheads. In A.D. 1645, the royal troops were
cut to pieces at Naseby by the parliamentary army under Fairfax
and Cromwell. The king fled to the Scotch, by whom he was
surrendered to the English Parliament in A.D. 1647. But when
now the fanatical Independents, who formed a majority in the
army, began to terrorise the Parliament, it opened negotiations
for peace with the king. He was now ready to make almost
any sacrifice, only on religious and conscientious grounds he
could not agree to the unconditional abandonment of Episcopacy.
Even the Scotch, whose Presbyterianism was now threatened by
the Independents, as before it had been by the Episcopalians,
longed for the restoration of royalty, and to aid in this
sent an army into England in A.D. 1648. But they were defeated
by Cromwell, who then dismissed the Parliament and had all
its Presbyterian members either imprisoned or driven into
retirement. The Independent remnant, known as the Rump
Parliament, A.D. 1648-1653, tried the king for high treason
and sentenced him to death. On January 30th, A.D. 1649, he
mounted the scaffold, on which Archbishop Laud had preceded
him in A.D. 1645, and fell under the executioner’s axe.[454]
§ 155.2. =The Commonwealth and the Protector.=--Ireland had
never yet atoned for its crime of A.D. 1641 (§ 153, 6), and
as it refused to acknowledge the Commonwealth, Cromwell took
terrible revenge in A.D. 1649. In A.D. 1650 at Dunbar, and in
A.D. 1651 at Worcester, he completely destroyed the army of the
Scots, who had crowned Charles II., son of the executed king,
drove out, in April A.D. 1653, the Rump of the Long Parliament,
which had come to regard itself as a permanent institution,
and in July opened, with a powerful speech, two hours in length,
on God’s ways and judgments, the Short or Barebones’ Parliament,
composed of “pious and God-fearing men” selected by himself.
In this new Parliament which, with prayer and psalm-singing,
wrought hard at the re-organization of the executive, the
bench, and the church, the two parties of Independents were
represented, the fanatical enthusiasts indeed predominating,
and so victorious in all matters of debate. To this party
Cromwell himself belonged. His attachment to it, however,
was considerably cooled in consequence of the excesses of
the Levellers (§ 161, 2), and the fantastic policy of the
parliamentarian Saints disgusted him more and more. When
therefore, on December 12th, A.D. 1653, after five months’
fruitless opposition to the radical demands of the extravagant
majority, all the most moderate members of the Parliament
had resigned their seats and returned their mandates into
Cromwell’s hands, he burst in upon the psalm-singing remnant
with his soldiers, and entered upon his life-long office of
the Protector of the Commonwealth with a new constitution. He
proclaimed toleration of all religious sects, Catholics only
being excepted on political grounds (§ 153, 6), giving equal
rights to Presbyterians, and offering no hindrance to the
revival of Episcopacy. He yet remained firmly attached to
his early convictions. He believed in a kingdom of the saints
embracing the whole earth, and looked on England as destined
for the protection and spread of Protestantism. Zürich greeted
him as the great Protestant champion, and he showed himself
in this _rôle_ in the valleys of Piedmont (§ 153, 5), in
France, in Poland, and in Silesia. He joined with all Protestant
governments into a league, offensive and defensive, against
fanatical attempts of Papists to recover their lost ground. When
Spain and France sued for his alliance, he made it a condition
with the former that, besides allowing free trade with the West
Indies, it should abolish the Inquisition; and of France he
required an assurance that the rights of Huguenots should be
respected. And when in Germany a new election of emperor was
to take place, he urged the great electors that they should by
no means allow the imperial throne to continue with the Catholic
house of Austria. Meanwhile his path at home was a thorny one.
He was obliged to suppress fifteen open rebellions during five
years of his reign, countless secret plots threatened his life
every day, and his bitterest foes were his former comrades in
the camp of the the saints. After refusing the crown offered
him in A.D. 1657, without being able thereby to quell the
discontents of parties, he died on September 3rd, A.D. 1658,
the anniversary of his glorious victories of Dunbar and
Worcester.[455]
§ 155.3. =The Restoration and the Act of Toleration.=--The
Restoration of royalty under =Charles II.=, A.D. 1660-1685,
began with the reinstating of the Episcopal church in all the
privileges granted to it under Elizabeth. The Corporation Act
of December, A.D. 1661, was the first of a series of enactments
for this purpose. It required of all magistrates and civil
officers that they should take an oath acknowledging the royal
supremacy and communicate in the Episcopal church. The Act
of Uniformity of May, A.D. 1662, was still more oppressive.
It prohibited any clergyman entering the English pulpit or
discharging any ministerial function, unless he had been
ordained by a bishop, had signed the Thirty-nine Articles,
and undertook to conduct worship exactly in accordance with
the newly revised Book of Common Prayer. More than 2,000 Puritan
ministers, who could not conscientiously submit to those terms,
were driven out of their churches. Then in June, A.D. 1664,
the Conventicle Act was renewed, enforcing attendance at the
Episcopal church, and threatening with imprisonment or exile
all found in any private religious meeting of more than five
persons. In the following year the Five Mile Act inflicted
heavy fines on all nonconformist ministers who should approach
within five miles of their former congregation or indeed of any
city. All these laws, although primarily directed against all
Protestant dissenters, told equally against the Catholics, whom
the king’s Catholic sympathies would willingly have spared.
When now his league with Catholic France against the Protestant
Netherlands made it necessary for him to appease his Protestant
subjects, he hoped to accomplish this and save the Catholics
by his “Declaration of Indulgence” of A.D. 1672, issued with
the consent of Parliament, which suspended all penal laws
hitherto in force against dissenters. But the Protestant
nonconformists saw through this scheme, and the Parliament
of A.D. 1673 passed the anti-Catholic Test Act (§ 153, 6).
Equally vain were all later attempts to secure greater liberties
and privileges to the Catholics. They only served to develop
the powers of Parliament and to bring the Episcopalians and
nonconformists more closely together. After spending his
whole life oscillating between frivolous unbelief and Catholic
superstition, Charles II., on his death-bed, formally went over
to the Romish church, and had the communion and extreme unction
administered by a Catholic priest. His brother and successor
=James II.=, A.D. 1685-1688, who was from A.D. 1672 an avowed
Catholic, sent a declaration of obedience to Rome, received
a papal nuncio in London, and in the exercise of despotic power
issued, in A.D. 1687, a “Declaration of Freedom of Conscience,”
which, under the fair colour of universal toleration and by the
setting aside of the test oath, enabled him to fill all civil
and military offices with Catholics. This act proved equally
oppressive to the Episcopalians and to Protestant dissenters.
This intrigue cost him his throne. He had, as he himself
said, staked three kingdoms on a mass, and lost all the three.
=William III.= of Orange, A.D. 1689-1702, grandson of Charles I.
and son-in-law of James II., gave a final decision to the rights
of the national Episcopal church and the position of dissenters
in the =Act of Toleration= of A.D. 1689, which he passed with
consent of the Parliament. All penal laws against the latter
were abrogated, and religious liberty was extended to all with
the exception of Catholics and Socinians. The retention of the
Corporation and Test Acts, however, still excluded them from the
exercise of all political rights. They were also still obliged
to pay tithes and other church dues to the Episcopal clergy
of their dioceses, and their marriages and baptisms had to be
administered in the parish churches. Their ministers were also
obliged to subscribe the Thirty-nine Articles, with reservation
of those points opposed to their principles. The Act of Union
of A.D. 1707, passed under Queen Anne, a daughter of James II.,
which united England and Scotland into the one kingdom of Great
Britain, gave legitimate sanction to a separate ecclesiastical
establishment for each country. In Scotland the Presbyterian
churches continued the established church, while the Episcopal
was tolerated as a dissenting body. Congregationalism, however,
has been practically limited to England and North
America.[456]--Continuation, § 202, 5.