most urgent want of the times, not only by the capricious voice of the
multitude, but by the first and most legitimate organs of opinion in
church and state, and the nature of which had been long before clearly
stated, and fully and generally understood,--ought to have been a
divine Reformation. Then would it have carried with it its own high
sanction--it would have proved it by the fact--and at no time and
under no condition would it have severed itself from the sacred centre
and venerable basis of Christian tradition, in order, reckless of all
legitimate decisions, preceding as well as actual, to perpetuate
discord, and seek in negation itself a new and peculiar basis for the
edifice of schismatic opinion. Such a vast, extensive, deep, and
effectual Reform, which while it kept within the limits of ancient
faith, and steadily adhered to its divine centre, would at the same
time renovate and revivify the church, was not then accomplished. The
disciplinary canons of the council of Trent undoubtedly contained many
wise, excellent and wholesome regulations, whose efficacy has been
proved by the experience of the different Catholic countries, and
whose reception has been determined by the local circumstances of
each; for these regulations intended for the correction and removal of
abuses, and for the revival of ancient discipline, were not adopted
without modification, nor received to a like extent in all Catholic
countries. On the other hand, with respect to the Protestants, the
decrees of the council of Trent, from the very nature of things, could
be only of a defensive character. Instead of the desired Reformation,
Protestantism early enough announced itself as a new and peculiar
religion, and still more was it constituted as such; but the rupture
was already consummated--the evil had become incurable, before the
remedy was applied. Protestantism was the work of man; and it appears
in no other light even in the history which its own disciples have
drawn of its origin. The Partisans of the Reformation proclaimed
indeed at the outset, that if it were more than a human work, it would
endure, and that its duration would serve as a proof of its divine
origin. But surely no one will consider this an adequate proof, when
he reflects that the great Mohammedan heresy, which more than any
other destroys and obliterates the divine image stamped on the human
soul, has stood its ground for full twelve hundred years; though this
religion, if it proceed from no worse source, is at best a human work.
But even as the mere work of man, the Reformation was unquestionably a
mighty, extraordinary, and momentous revolution, which when once it
had been outwardly established in the world, (though inwardly it
remained in a state of perpetual agitation,) has thenceforward mostly
directed the march of modern times, influenced the legislation and
policy of the European states, and stamped the character of modern
science, down to our own days, when though its influence has not been
so exclusive and undivided, as at an earlier period, it has been still
the main and stirring cause of all the great political changes, and
all the new and astonishing events of our age. We must endeavour to
view this great Revolution with the impartial eye of the historian,
and labour duly to comprehend and judge it in all its manifold
bearings, and in all its remote consequences; and if we should feel
inclined to lament and deplore the long continuance of this unhappy
division in the great European family, we should remember that such a
feeling of regret, however innocent and natural in our own bosoms, and
in our own conviction, can furnish no adequate criterion for an
historical decision. At any rate, we should in no case immoderately
repine at such an event, and murmur against Destiny, that is to say,
the ruling Providence which permits the occurrence of such evils. The
permission by God of a mere human, unsanctioned enterprise, nay, of a
mighty, general, protracted, and incurable division among mankind--a
system of opposition with all its unhappy consequences, its moral
impediments, and its political disasters; such a permission forms, as
I have already observed, the great enigma of history--the wonderful
secret of the divine decrees in the conduct of mankind, as well as in
the conduct of individuals. Perhaps this great enigma will then only
be perfectly unravelled, and the mystery which hangs over this
subject, then only be perfectly dispelled, when this mighty Revolution
shall have been terminated, and brought to a close. Even now, the
experience we have acquired, however imperfect and limited it may be,
makes one thing evident; namely, that the influence of Protestantism
has not been confined to those states and countries where it became
predominant, and where it received a public and legal establishment.
Far greater was the danger, far more fatal were the consequences, when
an open rupture, a formal separation from the church did not take
place, or had, if a temporary, at least no permanent existence--but
where Protestantism, that is to say, the spirit of Protestantism, a
like or a kindred set of opinions, was infused into the moral system
of countries externally Catholic, and secretly instilled into the
veins of the body politic, gradually corroded its vitals; till at
last, amid a false and apparent repose, the long suppressed element of
revolutionary innovation infected with its deadly virus, opinion,
science, and lastly, government and society. The conscience in its
enquiries after religious truth, to whatever decision it may come,
only looks to the determination of a point of faith as the sole clue
of its investigations. But in historical enquiries, this rigid
intersecting line of faith forms no adequate rule of judgment. The
experience of our own times, or that of the last generation has
proved, that innovations in faith, politics and philosophy ingrafted
on a Catholic nation, are far more fatal to its repose, and that of
its neighbours, than a system of Protestantism which has settled into
a state of permanent peace and stability. Hence for instance, the
policy and political interests of England, which is a state more than
any other essentially Protestant, have often been in perfect
accordance with the political system of an old leading Catholic power.
And I would ask, has the Atheism of the eighteenth century been
productive of fewer commotions and less convulsion in the world, than
Protestantism in the first period of its existence, or in the era of
religious wars; although the infidel party in the last century by no
means constituted a distinct and separate sect, but was like a deadly
contagion of the spirit of the times, infecting all beside and around,
above and below it, whithersoever the wind of chance, or the breath of
fanatic zeal might carry it.
According to my own personal conviction, the theological point of view
is to be preferred in historical enquiries as the best and final rule
of investigation. But in these latter times, when religious opinion is
so divided, and where the juridical view of things, in which each
party struggles to make out a favourable case for itself, leads only
to endless disputes; the historian is compelled to view the diseased
state of society with the eye of a pathologist. In medicine it is
considered far better and more advantageous, that a dangerous disease
should be got rid of in a decisive but happily terminated struggle for
life or death, than that by any sudden check given to the crisis, the
disorder should fall on any internal part, and thus attack and corrode
the vital powers. This principle, which the history of particular
countries has shewn to be equally applicable to man's moral existence,
may be applied to the general state of Europe at that period. If
Protestantism had then been outwardly suppressed and put down, would
it not have raged inwardly, that is to say, would not the most
essential part of Protestantism, the spirit of Revolutionary
innovation, the spirit of destructive negation, rationalism, in a
word, have secretly remained? And may we not conclude from the
examples of a partial experience, that that secret and inward working
of the disease would have been far more dangerous and fatal?--I should
wish that these and other like expressions before made use of, should
not be taken as so many categorical assertions; for the question of
doctrine, lying as it does beyond the reach of doubt, does not fall
within the limits of my plan, and the perfect reconciliation of minds
is not in the power of man, but can come only from God. But these
expressions are merely meant to convey a conciliatory view of things
in history, (and, as is the proper duty of the philosophic historian,)
to vindicate the ways of providence. Undoubtedly this great religious
contest, this long protracted struggle has tended to excite the
emulation of both parties in the pursuits of learning, and the labours
of science, to stir up a mutual vigilance in the moral conduct of
individuals, as well as in the administration of states, and thus to
keep both parties in a state of salutary watchfulness and activity.
Even from the collision of these two conflicting elements, there has
sprung up in some countries a new and third element, which though not
such as could be desired, nor entirely conformable to Christianity,
has still been productive of important and remarkable consequences. Of
the eight or nine countries, in which Protestantism has obtained a
firm footing, and acquired a permanent existence, there are three in
particular, where it has been attended with mighty historical
effects, and where the originally destructive conflict of hostile
elements has given birth to three new and momentous phenomena in the
history of mankind. These are, in Germany the religious pacification,
which forms the basis of her future prosperity, stamps the peculiar
character of the German nation, and designates its future moral
destiny: in England, the highly valued, or as it is there called, the
glorious Constitution of 1688, whose mere outward form, or dead
letter, has been an object of desire to so many other nations:--lastly
in France, the Revolution in philosophy, produced by the indirect
influence of Protestantism, and the combination of so many Protestant,
or semi-protestant elements, and which gave birth to a frightful
political Revolution, which after a short intervenient period of
military despotism, has been succeeded in its turn by a mighty epoch
of moral and social regeneration--a regeneration which indeed has not
yet been consummated, which is still in a state of precarious and
convulsive labour, but is even on that account the more entitled to
the historian's attention.
Of the countries immediately contiguous to Germany, the home and
cradle of Protestantism, Switzerland was at the commencement of the
Reformation, the theatre of a fierce civil war, in which the Swiss
Reformer fell fighting on the field of battle. But the strong federal
spirit of the Swiss, the necessity of mutual defence, and the nearly
equal numbers and strength of both religious parties, produced at an
early period a religious pacification. The indirect Protestant
influence which French Switzerland has exerted over France, has
continued very great and powerful from Calvin to Rousseau. After the
German treaty of Westphalia, the Austrian Emperors established in
Hungary, which was already half subdued by the Turks, and still more
exposed to their ravages, the principle of religious toleration--a
principle that became a received maxim of state, and was incorporated
into the very constitution of the country. In the last half of the
sixteenth century, there penetrated into Poland the sect of Socinus,
which professed tenets distinct from those of the primitive Reformers,
and which with the usually rapid march of religious innovation, and
schismatic dissent, had now rejected along with the great Mystery of
devotion, the fundamental article of Christian theology, the doctrine
of the Trinity. As long as the Socinians formed a distinct and
separate body of religionists, they were not very numerous in Poland,
or elsewhere; but during the prevailing infidelity of the eighteenth
century, they acquired many more disciples, and in many countries have
become almost the predominant sect.--How Prussia, the land of the
Teutonic order was transformed into a secular duchy, which for about a
century remained connected with Poland, I have already had occasion to
observe. Into no country of Europe was Christianity introduced so
late as into Lithuania, where the faith was planted only towards the
end of the fourteenth century. In the ancient Russian provinces of
Poland, as well as in Hungary and other neighbouring countries, a
large portion of the population belonged to the Greek church. In the
great struggle of the following age, and in the perpetual wars which
Poland had to sustain against Turkey, Sweden and Russia, all these
hostile and heterogeneous elements of which I have spoken, and to
which may be added the real or apparent attachment of the religious
Dissenters to Sweden, increased the general ferment and confusion in
the Polish state, down to the final dissolution and dismemberment of
the kingdom. Russia, which towards the end of the fifteenth century
had been restored to a high degree of power and splendour by Wassili
Ivanowitch, (who entertained the most friendly relations with the
Emperor Maximilian, and who had established in his Empire the German
Hanseatic league), Russia still remained totally separated from the
European community, and was exempt from the influence of
Protestantism, like Spain and Italy at the opposite extremity of
Europe. The Scandinavian countries at the commencement of the
fifteenth century, had been incorporated into one state, and
considered merely in a geographical point of view, they might have
formed a great and lasting power in the North; and under many
vicissitudes, they remained united till the sixteenth century. Yet
the voice and feelings of the two nations were against the Union; and
Gustavus Vasa effected at once the total and definitive separation of
Sweden from Denmark, the establishment of his own monarchical sway in
the former country, and the introduction of Protestantism, which was
brought into Sweden, not as in other countries, by the torrent of
popular opinion, but by the arm of power--by the authority of a
sovereign who knew how to conduct the enterprise with steady
perseverance, and slow, patient and consummate skill. In Sweden,
however, Episcopacy was retained. By its situation betwixt Prussia and
Poland, and by the Protestant influence in Germany, Sweden became for
a time in the seventeenth century a great European power; and to this
political eminence the personal qualities of Gustavus Adolphus, as
well as of several other Swedish monarchs principally contributed. In
Sweden, Protestantism did not give rise to any events of a new and
peculiar character, or of great historical moment, as in England and
Germany. The Reformation was established in Denmark, chiefly though
not exclusively as in Sweden, by sovereign power; in Iceland, its
establishment was almost the work of violence. In those still regions
of the North, the real abuses and scandals existing in the Catholic
church were neither so great nor numerous as in the Southern
countries. There was greater simplicity of manners; and corruption
was much less diffused, much less generally known than even in
Germany; and thus the ancient faith had struck deeper roots in the
minds of men, and could not be eradicated but with difficulty. To that
old Revolutionary spirit of the Swedes, which in their earlier history
had often displayed itself in the party-contests of their high
aristocracy, a wider field was now opened by the Reformation
introduced by the court; and armed in the Protestant cause, this
spirit found fuller scope in the troubles of Poland, in its connection
with Prussia and other states, and above all, in the great religious
war of Germany. When at a later period, and after the Swedish
ascendancy in Europe had passed away, this spirit became compressed
within narrower limits, and was thrown back upon itself, it then broke
out into many violent internal commotions.
It was only under the successor of the despotic Henry that
Protestantism was really introduced into England; but it there
appeared under two different forms, and with two parties in a state of
mutual and violent hostility. In England Episcopacy was retained; but
in Scotland, the Puritans, the Methodists of those days, had the
ascendant. But under Queen Mary, the wife of Philip II., King of
Spain, a Catholic re-action took place; and this again was succeeded
by a Protestant re-action under Elizabeth, whose steady and inflexible
policy alone consolidated the establishment of Protestantism--a policy
at whose shrine the head of the unhappy Mary Stuart fell a sacrifice.
Thus things proceeded from one extremity to another--from the
execution of King Charles I. to the establishment of a Republic, and
the absolute sway of a Protector--till amid the various disputes of
the Scotch and English Protestants, and the various struggles of
national rivalry, the court fell back upon Catholicism. At last, King
William from Holland, a century before the breaking out of the French
Revolution, gave the final triumph to Protestantism, and brought to
maturity the glorious constitution of that island, which has been so
repeatedly transplanted, imitated and modified on the Continent and in
other parts of the world. On this basis, a thorough Protestant policy
was established, which affected even the public and international law
of Europe--a policy which has so eminently characterized England in
modern times, particularly during the period of her great power, and
which was followed, or even accompanied by a Protestant philosophy. I
should premise that this Protestantism in philosophy should not by any
means be confounded with, but should carefully be distinguished from,
the Revolutionary philosophy--from an unbridled anarchy in science and
speculation, though the former in its corruption may easily degenerate
into the latter. For the modern Paganism--the avowed Atheism of the
eighteenth century acquired many more partisans and assumed a far
bolder attitude on the Continent, than in the Constitutional island,
which even in philosophy oscillates in a sort of artificial equipoise
between truth and error.
In the Netherlands, Protestantism was indeed a strong co-operative
cause, but not the only cause of the rupture with Spain; for even in
earlier times the Burgundian spirit had been prone to turbulence, and
the arbitrary rule of the Spaniards had excited in other countries
also general dissatisfaction, aversion, and resistance. When the
Protestant half of the Netherlands had separated from Spain, and had
established the sovereign and independent state of Holland, the latter
ever exerted a powerful influence on England in all religious and
political matters, in the same way as Belgium has ever exercised a
marked influence over France. But in Holland, Protestantism did not
give rise, as in Germany and England, to any events of a new and
peculiar character, if we except the general toleration of religious
sects, which was there carried to a further extent than in any other
state.
In her own interior, Spain had an arduous problem to solve--she had to
overcome the old energetic resistance of a whole people,--the
tolerably numerous descendants of the former lords and conquerors of
the country, who still adhered to the Arabian manners and language,
and even in part professed the doctrines of Mohammedanism. This
struggle, which commenced under Philip II. by very severe laws
against the Moriscoes, terminated under Philip the Third, with the
barbarous expulsion of the whole Moorish population to the coasts of
Africa. That from the intimate and manifold relations which existed
between Spain and Germany under Charles V., the armies of the Emperor
may have introduced into Spain the opinions of the new German
gospellers to a greater extent perhaps than can be now stated with
certainty, or than is now susceptible of minute and accurate proof, is
by no means improbable; and this fact would serve to explain, though
not entirely to justify many acts of the Spanish government. At any
rate, the Spanish mind and character, in other repects so generous and
upright, so little prone to selfish cunning or fickle frivolity,
became in the long strife and animosities of a fierce religious war,
more and more partial and exclusive, arbitrary and violent. There yet
lingered, however, many chivalrous virtues peculiar to this
high-minded nation--many extraordinary and lofty effusions of
religious genius, such as are displayed in the wonderful writings of
St. Theresa, whose holy meditations are couched in language of such
inimitable beauty. Among no other people did the spirit and character
of the middle age, in its most beautiful and dignified form, so long
continue and survive in manners, ways of thinking, intellectual
culture, and works of imagination and poetry, as among the Spaniards;
and it is not the mere effect of chance, but it is a very remarkable
and characteristic fact, that in Spain alone, the peculiar poetry of
the middle age attained to its utmost perfection, and reached its last
exquisite bloom.
In Italy, too, art and poetry flourished in her beautiful language;
and classical erudition made considerable progress, and even arrived
to a very advanced state, during that troubled period when the rest of
Europe was involved in religious disputes and civil wars. But the fair
and flourishing Italian literature of that age may be compared to a
blooming garden, situated on a volcanic soil. No immediate danger then
threatened Italy, though we are not to estimate private opinions by
the standard of those which publicly prevailed; there were at least no
public examples of that excessive partiality and passionate enthusiasm
for Pagan antiquity, which occurred in that earlier and brilliant
period of moral ferment and false security--the fifteenth century. On
the contrary, in some individual instances the real progress of
science was impeded, and on the whole its march retarded by a dread of
the danger of its abuse; and hence the old scholasticism remained
longer than was right in hereditary possession of its exclusive
empire, although that contentious and partly negative Rationalism of
the middle age was ill calculated to supply the place of a truly
Christian philosophy, which the circumstances of the church then so
imperiously demanded. It should then have been borne in mind, that
every new error--every new shape which the old Proteus may assume in
the changing spirit of time, requires, not indeed a new philosophy
(for philosophy itself, which is, as the ancients said, the science of
divine and human things, is in the sanctuary of its highest subjects
and problems an edifice unchangeable through all ages, and built on
the everlasting foundation of divine truth), but a new form and
direction given to philosophy, a new resuscitation of its powers.
Indeed the venerable Bishop and holy man of God, St. Charles Borromeo,
had in his Manual of Religion furnished an example, in which we see
the utmost profundity of ascetic science united with a beautiful
lucidness of expression, and the greatest simplicity and purity of
taste. But the regular philosophy of the schools remained for a long
time yet much too scholastic; and it was prejudicial, or at least
disadvantageous to the Catholic cause, that the first foundations of a
better philosophy, of one at least more faithful to its high vocation,
and of an enlarged and improved science, should have been laid by men,
like Bacon and Leibnitz, who belonged to the opposite party.
Protestantism had penetrated into France from French Switzerland, as
the very name of Hugonots indicates. The religious wars in France
broke out much later than in Germany; and the religious disputes in
that country had this distinctive character; that the Princes and
noble leaders of the Opposition, the factious among the high
aristocracy, and the contending parties at Court, made the Protestants
(who formed indeed only the minority among the people, and still more
in the state, but yet a very important and powerful minority), the
tools and instruments of their own political designs and intrigues. It
is this peculiar combination of circumstances which has stamped the
character of the French religious wars, and which distinguishes them
from those of Germany. The religious wars in the former country were
not of such long and uninterrupted duration, nor were they of so
destructive and desolating a character as the thirty years' war. On
the other hand, the treaties of religious pacification were of much
shorter duration, and were renewed even five or six times, for they
were ever followed by new insurrections. Even the edict of Nantes,
which was destined to terminate this long anarchy, did not prevent the
recurrence of troubles after the assassination of Henry IV., and was
itself totally repealed at a subsequent period. The various political
intrigues of discontented nobles, and of factious leaders of the
Opposition, gave a very hateful complexion to the religious wars in
France; and that disposition to vindictive retaliation, which swayed
parties in the various alternations of power, presented formidable,
and almost insurmountable obstacles to the establishment of a
permanent religious peace. That odious character in the religious wars
of France, appears in England under equally revolting colours in the
despotism of the eighth Henry, in the crafty policy of Elizabeth, in
the great anarchical and regicide rebellion, and in the tyranny of
Cromwell, and has been often and strongly pourtrayed by the national
historians. It is extremely worthy of remark, as the fact serves to
explain many posterior events in history, that the struggle in France
remained undecided, partook from first to last of an uncertain and
fluctuating character, and led neither to the establishment of a free
Constitution, as in England; nor to the foundation of a firm, lasting,
and irrevocable religious pacification, as in Germany. But this
struggle remained an unsolved problem of state-policy, like the
religious dispute itself--a dispute whose contagion infected the
Catholics themselves, inoculated that portion of the population, and
continued to rage among their descendants. In France, the Protestants
were in a decided minority, and it was by other and subordinate causes
that they acquired a temporary power and importance in the first
religious wars; but in England they probably became the majority at a
very early period, though not such an overwhelming majority as they
form at the present day.
The Catholic and Protestant parties then divided Germany into two
nearly equal portions, as in point of numbers they do at the present
day; and although political power does not depend on numbers,
particularly when, as was at that time the case, so many
heterogeneous elements were combined, yet both the contending parties
were sufficiently strong not to succumb easily in the contest. It is
this fact which ultimately established the necessity of a cordial and
permanent religious peace, and caused that necessity to be so
universally acknowledged. But this very equality of numbers, and still
more the active interference of almost all the great continental
powers in the contest, rendered it at first more obstinate and
lasting. Never was there a religious war, so widely extended and so
complicated in its operations, so protracted in duration, and
entailing misery on so many generations. That period of thirty years'
havoc, in which the early civilization, and the noblest energies of
Germany were destroyed, forms in history the great wall of separation
between the ancient Germany, which in the middle age was the most
powerful, flourishing, and wealthy country in Europe, and the new
Germany of recent and happier times, which is now gradually recovering
from her long exhaustion and general desolation, and rising again into
light and life from the sepulchral darkness--the night of death, to
which her ancient disputes had consigned her.