Book III.

THE INDULGENCES AND THESES.

CHAP. I.

Cortège--Tezel--His Discourse--Sale of Indulgences--Public

Penance--Letter of Indulgence--Feasting and Debauchery, 180

CHAP. II.

The Soul in the Burying-Ground--Shoemaker of Hagenau--Myconius--

Stratagem--Miner of Schneeberg, 187

CHAP. III.

Leo X--His Necessities--Albert--His Character--Franciscans and

Dominicans, 193

CHAP. IV.

Tezel Approaches--Luther in the Confessional--Tezel's Rage--

Luther's Discourse--The Elector's Dream, 197

CHAP. V.

Luther's Theses--Letter to Albert--Dissemination of the Theses, 203

CHAP. VI.

Reuchlin--Erasmus--Flek--Bibra--The Emperor--The Pope--Myconius--

The Monks--Adelman--An Old Priest--Bishop of Brandenburg--

Luther's Moving Principle, 213

CHAP. VII.

Tezel's Attack--Luther's Reply--Luther and Spalatin--Study of

Scripture--Scheurl and Luther--Luther pleads for the

People--A new Suit, 221

CHAP. VIII.

Disputation at Frankfort--Tezel's Theses--Knipstrow--Luther's

Theses burnt--Tezel's Theses burnt, 227

CHAP. IX.

Prierio--His Dialogue--Luther's Reply--Hochstraten--Eck--'The

Obelisks'--'The Asterisks,' 235

CHAP. X.

Popular Writings--Lord's Prayer--Sermon on Repentance, 244

CHAP. XI.

Apprehensions of Luther's Friends--Journey to Heidelberg--

Bibra--The Palatinate Castle--The Paradoxes--Bucer--

Brentz--Snepf--The Old Professor, 249

BOOK FOURTH.

LUTHER BEFORE THE LEGATE.

CHAP. I.

'Solutions'--Leo X--Luther to the Bishop--To the Pope--To

the Vicar-General--Rovere to the Elector--Discourse on

Excommunication, 258

CHAP. II.

Diet of Augsburg--The Emperor to the Pope--Luther cited to

Rome--Luther's Peace--Intercession of the University--

Papal Brief--The Pope to the Elector, 266

CHAP. III.

Schwarzerd--His Wife--Philip Melancthon--His Genius--His

Studies--Call to Wittemberg--Leipsic--Parallel between

Luther and Melancthon--Education, 273

CHAP. IV.

Luther and Staupitz--Order to Appear--Luther's Departure for

Augsburg--Weimar--Nuremberg, 280

CHAP. V.

Arrival at Augsburg--De Vio--Serra-Longa--Safe-Conduct--Luther

to Melancthon, 285

CHAP. VI.

First Appearance--Conditions of Rome--Propositions to Retract--

Luther's Reply--Impressions on both Sides--Arrival of

Staupitz, 293

CHAP. VII.

Communication to the Legate--Second Appearance--Luther's

Declaration--The Legate's Reply--The Legate's Volubility--

Luther's Request, 299

CHAP. VIII.

Third Appearance--Treasury of Indulgences--Humble Request--

Legate's Rage--Luther Retires, 303

CHAP. IX.

De Vio and Staupitz--Staupitz and Luther--Luther and Spalatin

Communion--Departure of Staupitz and Link--Luther to

Cajetan--Luther's Departure--Appeal to the Pope, 307

CHAP. X.

Luther's Flight--Luther's Wish--The Legate to the Elector--The

Elector to the Legate--Prosperity of the University, 316

CHAP. XI.

Thoughts of Departure--Adieus to the Church--Critical Moment--

Luther's Courage--Discontentment at Rome--Papal Bull--

Appeal to a Council, 321

PREFACE TO THE LAST EDITION.

My purpose is not to write the history of a party, but that of one of

the greatest revolutions which has taken place among men--the history

of a mighty impulse which was given to the world three centuries ago,

and the influence of which is still, in our day, every where

perceived. The history of the Reformation is different from the

history of Protestantism. In the former, every thing bears testimony

to a revival of human nature, to a transformation, social and

religious, emanating from God. In the latter are too often seen a

remarkable degeneracy from primitive principles, party intrigue, a

sectarian spirit, and the impress of petty private feelings. The

history of Protestantism might interest none but Protestants; the

history of the Reformation is for all Christians, or rather all men.

The historian has a choice in the field in which he is to labour. He

may describe the great events which change the face of a people, or

the face of the world; or he may narrate the calm and progressive

course, whether of a nation, the Church, or mankind, which usually

follows great social changes. Both fields of history are highly

important; but the preference, in point of interest, seems due to

those epochs which, under the name of Revolutions, introduce a nation

or society at large to a new era and a new life.

Such a transformation I have attempted to describe with very humble

powers, hoping that the beauty of the subject will compensate for my

want of ability. In styling it a _Revolution_, I give it a name which

in our day is in discredit with many, who almost confound it with

_revolt_. This is a mistake. A revolution is a change which takes

place in the world's affairs. It is something new evolved (_revolvo_)

from the bosom of humanity; and, indeed, before the end of the last

century, the term was oftener used in a good than a bad sense. They

spoke of "a happy," a "marvellous" revolution. The Reformation being a

re-establishment of the principles of primitive Christianity, is the

opposite of a revolt. For that which behoved to revive it was a

regenerating--for that which must always subsist, a conservative

movement. Christianity and the Reformation, while establishing the

grand principle that all souls are equal in the sight of God, and

overthrowing the usurpations of a haughty priesthood, which presumed

to place itself between the Creator and his creature, lay it down as a

fundamental principle of social order, that all power is of God, and

cry aloud to all, "Love your brethren, fear God, honour the king."

The Reformation differs essentially from the revolutions of antiquity,

and from the greater part of those of modern times. In these,

political changes are in question, and the object is to establish or

overthrow the ascendancy of one, or it may be of many. The love of

truth, of holiness, and eternity, was the simple, yet powerful, spring

by which our Reformation was effected. It marks a step which human

nature has taken in advance. In fact, if man, instead of pursuing only

material, temporal, earthly interests, proposes to himself a higher

aim, aspiring to immaterial and immortal blessings, he advances and

makes progress. The Reformation is one of the brightest days of this

glorious advance. It is a pledge that the new struggle, which is now

being decided, will terminate in favour of truth, with a triumph still

more pure, spiritual, and splendid.

Christianity and the Reformation are the two greatest revolutions on

record. Unlike the different political movements of which we read,

they took place not in one nation merely, but in several nations, and

their effects must be felt to the end of the world.

Christianity and the Reformation are the same revolution, effected at

different times, and under different circumstances. They vary in

secondary features, but are identical in their primary and principal

lineaments. The one is a repetition of the other. The one ended the

old, the other began the new world; the middle ages lie between. The

one gave birth to the other, and if, in some respects, the daughter

bears marks of inferiority, she on the other hand has her own peculiar

properties.

One of these is the rapidity of her action. The great revolutions

which have issued in the fall of a monarchy, and the change of a whole

political system, or which have thrown the human mind on a new course

of development, were slowly and gradually prepared. The old power had

long been undermined, and its principal buttresses had one after

another disappeared. It was so on the introduction of Christianity.

But the Reformation is seen, at the first glance, to present a

different aspect. The Church of Rome appears, under Leo X, in all its

power and glory. A monk speaks, and over the half of Europe this power

and glory crumble away, thus reminding us of the words in which the

Son of God announces his second advent: "As the lightning cometh out

of the east, and shineth even unto the west, so shall also the coming

of the Son of man be." (Matth., xxiv, 27.)

This rapidity is inexplicable to those who see, in this great event,

only a _reform_, and regard it as simply an act of criticism, which

consisted in making a choice among doctrines, discarding some,

retaining others, and arranging those retained, so as to form them

into a new system.

How could a whole nation, how could several nations, have so quickly

performed an operation so laborious? How could this critical

examination have kindled that fire of enthusiasm which is essential to

great, and, above all, to rapid revolutions? The Reformation, as its

history will show, was altogether different. It was a new effusion of

the life which Christianity brought into the world. It was the triumph

of the greatest of doctrines, that which animates those who embrace it

with the purest and strongest enthusiasm--the doctrine of faith, the

doctrine of grace. Had the Reformation been what many Catholics and

many Protestants in our day imagine,--had it been that negative system

of negative reason, which childishly rejects whatever displeases it,

and loses sight of the great ideas and great truths of Christianity,

it had never passed the narrow limits of an academy, a cloister, or a

cell. It had nothing in common with what is generally understood by

Protestantism. Far from being a worn-out, emaciated body, it rose up

like a man of might and fire.

Two considerations explain the rapidity and the extent of this

revolution. The one must be sought in God, the other among men. The

impulse was given by a mighty and invisible hand, and the change

effected was a Divine work. This is the conclusion at which an

impartial and attentive observer, who stops not at the surface,

necessarily arrives. But the historian's task is not finished; for God

works by second causes. A variety of circumstances, many of them

unperceived, gradually prepared men for the great transformation of

the sixteenth century, and, accordingly, the human mind was ripe when

the hour of its emancipation pealed.

The task of the historian is to combine these two great elements in

the picture which he presents, and this has been attempted in the

present history. We shall be easily understood, when we come to trace

the second causes which contributed to the Reformation, but some

perhaps will not understand us so well, and will even be tempted to

tax us with superstition, when we attribute the accomplishment of the

work to God. The idea, however, is particularly dear to us. This

history, as indicated by the inscription on its title-page, places in

front and over its head the simple and prolific principle, GOD IN

HISTORY. But this principle being generally neglected, and sometimes

disputed, it seems necessary to expound our views with regard to it,

and thereby justify the method which we have seen it proper to adopt.

History cannot, in our day, be that lifeless series of events which

the greater part of previous historians deemed it sufficient to

enumerate. It is now understood that in history as in man are two

elements, matter and spirit. Our great historians, unable to satisfy

themselves with a detail of facts, constituting only a barren

chronicle, have sought for a principle of life to animate the

materials of past ages.

Some have borrowed this principle from art, aiming at vivid, faithful,

and graphic description, and endeavouring to make their narrative live

with the life of the events themselves.

Others have applied to philosophy for the spirit which should give

fruit to their labours. To facts they have united speculative views,

instructive lessons, political and philosophical truths, enlivening

their narrative by the language which they have made it speak, and the

ideas which it has enabled them to suggest.

Both methods doubtless are good, and should be employed within certain

limits. But there is another source to which, above all others, it is

necessary to apply for the spirit and life of the past--I mean

Religion. History should be made to live with its own proper life. God

is this life. God must be acknowledged--God proclaimed--in history.

The history of the world should purport to be annals of the government

of the Supreme King.

I have descended into the field to which the narratives of our

historians invited me, and there seen the actions of men and of states

in energetic development and violent collision: of the clang of arms,

I have heard more than I can tell; but no where have I been shown the

majestic form of the Judge who sits umpire of the combat.

And yet in all the movements of nations, there is a living principle

which emanates from God. God is present on the vast stage on which the

generations of men successively appear. True! He is there a God

invisible; but if the profane multitude pass carelessly by, because He

is concealed, profound intellects, spirits which feel a longing for

the principle of their existence, seek him with so much the more

earnestness, and are not satisfied until they are prostrated before

Him. And their enquiries are magnificently rewarded. For, from the

heights which they must reach in order to meet with God, the history

of the world, instead of exhibiting to them, as to the ignorant crowd,

a confused chaos, is seen like a majestic temple, on which the

invisible hand of God himself is at work, and which, from humanity, as

the rock on which it is founded, is rising up to his glory.

Shall we not see God in those great phenomena, those great personages,

those great states, which rise, and suddenly, so to speak, spring from

the dust of the earth, giving to human life a new impulse, form, and

destiny? Shall not we see Him in those great heroes who start up in

society, at particular epochs, displaying an activity and a power

beyond the ordinary limits of man, and around whom individuals and

nations come without hesitation, and group themselves as around a

higher and mysterious nature? Who flung forward into space those

comets of gigantic form and fiery tail, which only appear at long

intervals, shedding on the superstitious herd of mortals either plenty

and gladness, or pestilence and terror? Who, if not God?... Alexander

seeks his origin in the abodes of Divinity; and in the most

irreligious age there is no great renown which strives not to connect

itself in some way with heaven.

And do not those revolutions, which cast down dynasties, or even whole

kingdoms into the dust; those huge wrecks which we fall in with in the

midst of the sands; those majestic ruins which the field of humanity

presents, do not those cry loud enough, God in History? Gibbon,

sitting amid the wrecks of the Capitol, and contemplating the

venerable ruins, acknowledges the intervention of a higher power. He

sees, he feels it, and in vain would turn away from it. This spectre

of a mysterious power reappears behind each ruin, and he conceives the

idea of describing its influence in the history of the disorganisation,

the decline and fall of this Roman power, which had subjugated the

nations. This powerful hand, which a man of distinguished genius, one,

however, who had not bent the knee before Jesus Christ, perceives

athwart scattered fragments of the tomb of Romulus, reliefs of Marcus

Aurelius, busts of Cicero and Virgil, statues of Cæsar and Augustus,

trophies of Trajan, and steeds of Pompey, shall not we discover amid

all ruins, and recognise as the hand of our God?

Strange! this interposition of God in human affairs, which even Pagans

had recognised, men reared amid the grand ideas of Christianity treat

as superstition.

The name which Grecian antiquity gave to the Sovereign God, shows us

that it had received primitive revelations of this great truth of a

God, the source of history, and of the life of nations. It called him

_Zeus_,[1] that is to say, He who gives _life_ to all that lives, to

individuals and nations. To his altars kings and subjects come to take

their oaths, and from his mysterious inspirations Minos and other

legislators pretend to have received their laws. Nay more, this great

truth is figured by one of the most beautiful myths of Pagan

antiquity. Even Mythology might teach the sages of our day. This is a

fact which it may be worth while to establish; perhaps there are

individuals who will oppose fewer prejudices to the lessons of

Paganism than to those of Christianity. This Zeus, then, this

Sovereign God, this Eternal Spirit, the principle of life, is father

of Clio, the Muse of History, whose mother is Mnemosyne or Memory.

Thus, according to antiquity, history unites a celestial to a

terrestrial nature. She is daughter of God and man. But, alas! the

short-sighted wisdom of our boasted days is far below those heights of

Pagan wisdom. History has been robbed of her divine parent, and now an

illegitimate child, a bold adventurer, she roams the world, not well

knowing whence she comes, or whither she goes.

[1] From ζαω, I live.

But this divinity of Pagan antiquity is only a dim reflection, a

flickering shadow of the Eternal Jehovah. The true God whom the

Hebrews worship, sees meet to imprint it on the minds of all nations

that he reigns perpetually on the earth, and for this purpose gives,

if I may so express it, a bodily form to this reign in the midst of

Israel. A visible Theocracy behoved for once to exist on the earth,

that it might incessantly recall the invisible Theocracy which will

govern the world for ever.

And what lustre does not the great truth--God in History--receive from

the Christian Dispensation? Who is Jesus Christ, if he be not God in

History? It was the discovery of Jesus Christ that gave John Müller,

the prince of modern historians, his knowledge of history. "The

Gospel," he says, "is the fulfilment of all hopes, the finishing point

of all philosophy, the explanation of all revolutions, the key to all

the apparent contradictions of the physical and moral world; in short,

life and immortality. Ever since I knew the Saviour, I see all things

clearly; with him there is no difficulty which I cannot solve."[2]

[2] Letter to Charles Bonnet.

So speaks this great historian; and, in truth, is not the fact of

God's appearance in human nature the key-stone of the arch, the

mysterious knot which binds up all the things of earth, and attaches

them to heaven? There is a birth of God in the history of the world,

and shall God not be in history? Jesus Christ is the true God in the

history of men. The very meanness of his appearance proves it. When

man wishes to erect a shade or shelter on the earth, you may expect

preparations, materials, scaffolding, workmen, tools, trenches,

rubbish. But God, when he is pleased to do it, takes the smallest

seed, which a new-born babe could have clasped in its feeble hand,

deposits it in the bosom of the earth, and, from this grain, at first

imperceptible, produces the immense tree under which the families of

the earth recline. To do great things by imperceptible means is the

law of God.

In Jesus Christ this law receives its most magnificent fulfilment. Of

Christianity, which has now taken possession of the portals of

nations, which is, at this moment, reigning or wandering over all the

tribes of the earth from the rising to the setting sun, and which

incredulous philosophy herself is obliged to acknowledge as the

spiritual and social law of the world--of this Christianity, (the

greatest thing under the vault of heaven, nay, in the boundless

immensity of Creation,) what was the commencement? An infant born in

the smallest town of the most despised nation of the earth--an infant

whose mother had not what the poorest and most wretched female in any

one of our cities has, a room for birth--an infant born in a stable

and laid in a manger!... There, O God, I behold and I adore Thee!

The Reformation knew this law of God, and felt she had a call to

accomplish it. The idea that God is in history was often brought

forward by the Reformers. In particular, we find it on one occasion

expressed by Luther, under one of those grotesque and familiar, yet

not undignified figures which he was fond of employing in order to be

understood by the people. "The world," said he one day at table among

his friends; "the world is a vast and magnificent game at cards,

consisting of emperors, kings, and princes. For several ages the pope

has beaten the emperors, princes, and kings, who stooped and fell

under him. Then our Lord God came and dealt the cards, taking to

himself the smallest, [Luther,] and with it has beaten the pope, who

beat the kings of the earth.... God used it as his ace. 'He hath put

down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree,'

says Mary." (Luke, i, 52.)

The period whose history I am desirous to trace, is important with

reference to the present time. Man, on feeling his weakness, is

usually disposed to seek for aid in the institutions which he sees

existing around him, or in devices, the offspring of his own

imagination. The history of the Reformation shows that nothing new is

done with what is old, and that if, according to our Saviour's

expression, there must be new vessels for new wine, there must also be

new wine for new vessels. It directs man to God, the sole actor in

history--to that divine Word--always ancient, from the eternity of the

truths which it contains--always new, by the regenerating influence

which it exerts, which three centuries ago purified society, restoring

faith in God to those whom superstition had enfeebled; and which, at

all epochs in the world's history, is the source from which salvation

proceeds.

It is singular to see a great number of individuals under the

agitation produced by a vague longing for some fixed belief, actually

applying to old Catholicism. In one sense, the movement is natural.

Religion being so little known, they imagine the only place to find it

is where they see it painted, in large characters, on a banner, which

age makes respectable. We say not that every kind of Catholicism is

incapable of giving man what he wants. Our belief is, that a

distinction should be carefully drawn between Catholicism and the

Papacy. The Papacy we hold to be an erroneous and destructive system;

but we are far from confounding Catholicism with it. How many

respectable men, how many true Christians has not the Catholic Church

contained! What immense services did not Catholicism render to

existing states on their first formation, at a time when it was still

strongly impregnated with the Gospel, and when the Papacy was only

sketched above it in faint outline! But we are far away from those

times. In our day an attempt is made to yoke Catholicism to the

Papacy; and if catholic Christian truths are presented, they are

little else than baits to allure men into the nets of the hierarchy.

There is nothing to be expected from that quarter. Has the papacy

abandoned one of its practices, its doctrines, its pretensions? Will

not this religion, which other ages were unable to bear, be still less

tolerable to ours? What revival was ever seen to emanate from Rome? Is

it from the Papal hierarchy, all engrossed by earthly passions, that

the spirit of faith, hope, and charity, which alone will save us, can

proceed? Is it an effete system, which has no life for itself, which

is everywhere struggling with death, and exists only by aid borrowed

from without, that will give life to others, and animate Christian

society with the heavenly breath for which it sighs?

Or will this void in heart and soul, which some of our contemporaries

begin to feel, dispose others of them to apply to the new

Protestantism which has in several places supplanted the principal

doctrines taught in the days of the Apostles and Reformers? A great

vagueness of doctrine reigns in many of those Reformed Churches whose

original members gave their blood as a seal of the living faith which

animated them. Men of distinguished talents, alive to all that is

beautiful in creation, have fallen into singular aberrations. A

general faith in the divinity of the Gospel is the only standard which

they are willing to follow. But what is this Gospel? This is the

essential question; and yet all are silent on it, or, rather, each

speaks in his own way. What avails it to know that in the midst of the

people stands a vessel placed there by God in order to cure them, if

none care for its contents, if none endeavour to appropriate them?

This system cannot fill up the existing void. While the faith of the

Apostles and Reformers is now in all quarters displaying its activity

and power in the conversion of the world, this vague system does

nothing, gives no light, no life.

But let us not be without hope. Does not Roman Catholicism confess the

great doctrines of Christianity, God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,

Creator, Saviour, and Sanctifier, the Truth? Does not vague

Protestantism hold in its hand the Book of Life, which is "profitable

for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in

righteousness?" And how many upright spirits, honourable in the eyes

of men, and pleasing in the sight of God, are found among the

followers of these two systems! How shall we not love them?--how shall

we not ardently desire their complete emancipation from the elements

of the world? Charity is of vast extent; she takes the most opposite

opinions into her embrace, that she may bring them to the feet of

Jesus Christ.

Already there are signs which show that these two extreme opinions are

in course of approximating to Jesus Christ, who is the centre of

truth. Are there not some Roman Catholic churches in which the reading

of the Scriptures is recommended and practised? And, in regard to

Protestant rationalism, how great the advance which it has already

made! It did not originate in the Reformation, for the history of this

great revolution will prove that it was a time of faith; but may we

not hope that it is tending towards it? May not the force of truth

reach it through the Word of God, and, reaching, transform it? Even

now it gives signs of religious sentiment, inadequate, no doubt, but

still forming an approach towards sound doctrine, and giving hopes of

decisive progress.

Both Protestantism and old Catholicism are in themselves out of the

question, and off the field; and it must be from some other source

that the men of our day are to derive a saving power. There must be

something which comes not of man, but of God. "Give me," said

Archimedes, "a point outside the world, and I will lift it from its

poles." True Christianity is this point outside the world. It lifts

the human heart from the double pivot of egotism and sensuality, and

will one day lift the whole world from its evil course, and make it

turn on a new axis of righteousness and peace.

Whenever religion is in question, three objects engage the

attention--God, man, and the priest. There can only be three religions

on the earth, according as God, man, or the priest, is the author and

head. By the religion of the priest, I mean that which is invented by

the priest for the glory of the priest, and is ruled over by a

sacerdotal caste. By the religion of man, I mean those systems, those

various opinions which human reason forms, and which, created by man

under disease, are, in consequence, utterly devoid of power to cure

him. By the religion of God, I mean the truth as God himself has given

it, having for its end and result the glory of God and the salvation

of men.

Hierarchism, or the religion of the priest, Christianity, or the

religion of God, rationalism, or the religion of man, are the three

systems which in our days share Christendom among them. There is no

safety either for man or for society in hierarchism and rationalism.

Christianity alone will give life to the world; but, unhappily, of the

three dominant systems it is not the one which counts the greatest

number of followers.

Followers, however, it has. Christianity is doing its work of

regeneration among many Catholics in Germany, and, doubtless, in other

countries also. In our opinion, it is accomplishing it more purely and

efficaciously among the evangelical Christians in Switzerland, France,

Great Britain, the United States, etc. Blessed be God, the revivals,

individual or social, which the Gospel produces, are no longer in our

day rare events, for which we must search in ancient annals!

What I design to write, is a general history of the Reformation. I

purpose to follow its course among the different nations, and to show

that the same truths have everywhere produced the same results; at the

same time, pointing out the diversities occasioned by differences of

national character. And, first, it is in Germany especially that we

find the primitive type of reform. There it presents the most regular

development, there, above all, it bears the character of a revolution

not limited to this or that people, but embracing the whole world. The

Reformation in Germany is the fundamental history of reform. It is the

great planet; the other Reformations are secondary planets, which

turn with it, lighted by the same sun, and adapted to the same system,

but still having a separate existence, each shedding a different

light, and always possessing a peculiar beauty. To the Reformation of

the sixteenth century we may apply the words of St. Paul, "There is

one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory

of the stars; for one star differeth from another star in glory." (1

Cor., xv, 41.) The Swiss Reformation took place at the same time with

that of Germany, and independently of it, and presented, more

especially at an after period, some of the grand features which

characterise the German Reformation. The Reformation in England has

very special claims on our attention, from the powerful influence

which the Church of that kingdom is now exercising over the whole

world. But recollections of family and of flight, the thought of

battles, sufferings, and exile endured for the cause of the

Reformation in France, give it, in my eyes, a peculiar attraction.

Considered in itself, and also in the date of its commencement, it

presents beauties of its own.

I believe that the Reformation is a work of God; this must have been

already seen. Still, I hope to be impartial in tracing its history. Of

the principal Roman Catholic actors in this great drama--for example,

of Leo X, Albert of Magdeburg, Charles V, and Doctor Eck--I believe I

have spoken more favourably than the greater part of historians have

done. On the other hand, I have not sought to hide the faults and

failings of the Reformers.

Since the winter of 1831-32, I have delivered public lectures on the

period of the Reformation, and I then published my opening Address.[3]

These lectures have served as a preparative for the work which I now

offer to the public.

[3] Discours sur l'Etude de l'Histoire du Christianisme, et son

utilité pour l'époque actuelle. Paris, 1832, chez J. J. Risler.

This history has been drawn from sources made familiar to me by long

residence in Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, and by the

study, in the original tongues, of documents relating to the religious

history of Great Britain, and some other countries besides. These

sources are indicated by notes throughout the work, and therefore

require not to be mentioned here.

I could have wished to authenticate the different parts of my

narrative by numerous original notes, but found that, if long and

frequent, they might interrupt the course of the narrative in a manner

disagreeable to the reader. I have, therefore, confined myself to

certain passages which seemed fitted to make him more thoroughly

acquainted with subject.

I address this history to those who love to see past events simply as

they were, and not by the help of the magic mirror of genius, which

magnifies and gilds, but sometimes also diminishes and distorts them.

Neither the philosophy of the eighteenth, nor the romance of the

nineteenth century, will furnish my opinions or my colours. I write

the history of the Reformation in its own spirit. Principles, it has

been said, have no modesty. Their nature is to rule, and they doggedly

insist on the privilege. If they meet in their path with other

principles which dispute their ascendancy, they give battle instantly;

for a principle never rests till it has conquered. Nor can it be

otherwise. To reign is its life; if it reigns not, it dies. Hence,

while declaring that I am not able, and that I have no wish to rival

other historians of the Reformation, I make a reservation in favour of

the principles on which this history rests, and fearlessly maintain

their superiority.

I cannot help thinking that as yet no history of the memorable epoch

which I am about to describe exists in French. When I commenced my

work, I saw no indication that the blank was to be filled up. This

circumstance alone could have induced me to undertake the work, and I

here bring it forward as my excuse. The blank exists still; and I pray

Him from whom every good gift "cometh down" to grant that this humble

attempt may not be without benefit to some of its readers.

J. H. M. D'AUBIGNÉ.

EAUX-VIVES, NEAR GENEVA.

HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

BOOK I.

CHAP. I.

STATE OF MATTERS BEFORE THE REFORMATION.

Christianity--Two distinguishing Principles--Formation of

the Papacy--First encroachments--Influence of

Rome--Co-operation of Bishops and Factions--External Unity

of the Church--Internal Unity of the Church--Primacy of St.

Peter--Patriarchates--Co-operation of Princes--Influence of

the Barbarians--Rome invokes the Franks--Secular

Power--Pepin and Charlemagne--The Decretals--Disorders of

Rome--The Emperor the Pope's Liege Lord--Hildebrand--His

character--Celibacy--Struggle with the Emperor--Emancipation

of the Pope--Hildebrand's Successors--The Crusades--The

Church--Corruption of Doctrine.

The enfeebled world was rocking on its base when Christianity

appeared. National religions which had sufficed for the fathers, could

no longer satisfy the children. The new generation could not be

moulded in the ancient forms. The gods of all nations transported to

Rome, had there lost their oracles, as the nations had there lost

their liberty. Brought face to face in the Capitol, they had mutually

destroyed each other, and their divinity had disappeared. A great void

had been made in the religion of the world.

A kind of deism, destitute of spirit and life, kept floating, for some

time, over the abyss in which the vigorous superstitions of the

ancients were engulfed. But, like all negative beliefs, it was unable

to build. Narrow national distinctions fell with the gods, and the

nations melted down into one another. In Europe, Asia, and Africa,

there was now only one empire, and the human race began to feel its

universality and its unity.

Then the Word was made flesh.

God appeared among men, and as a man, "to save that which was lost."

In Jesus of Nazareth "dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily."

This is the greatest event in the annals of the world. Ancient times

had prepared it,--new times flow from it. It is their centre, their

bond, and their unity.

Thenceforth all the popular superstitions were without meaning, and

the slender remains which they had saved from the great shipwreck of

infidelity sank before the Majestic Sun of eternal truth.

The Son of man lived thirty-three years here below, curing the sick,

instructing sinners, having no place where to lay his head, yet

displaying, in the depth of this humiliation, a grandeur, a holiness,

a power, and divinity, which the world had never known. He suffered,

died, rose again, and ascended to heaven. His disciples, beginning at

Jerusalem, traversed the empire and the world, everywhere proclaiming

their Master "the Author of eternal salvation." From the heart of a

nation, which stood aloof from all nations, came forth a mercy which

invited and embraced all. A great number of Asiatics, Greeks, and

Romans, till then led by priests to the feet of dumb idols, believed

the Word which suddenly illumined the earth "like a sunbeam," as

Eusebius expresses it.[4] A breath of life began to move over this

vast field of death. A new people, a holy nation, was formed among

men, and the astonished world beheld, in the disciples of the

Galilean, a purity, a self-denial, a charity, a heroism, of which it

had lost even the idea.

[4] Οια τις ηλιου βολη. (Hist. Eccl., ii, 3.)

Two principles, in particular, distinguished the new religion from all

the human systems which it drove before it. The one related to the

ministers of worship, the other to doctrine.

The ministers of Paganism were in a manner the gods whom those human

religions worshipped. The priests of Egypt, Gaul, Scythia, Germany,

Britain, and Hindostan, led the people so long, at least, as the eyes

of the people were unopened. Jesus Christ, no doubt, established a

ministry, but he did not found a particular priesthood. He dethroned

the living idols of the nations, destroyed a proud hierarchy, took

from man what man had taken from God, and brought the soul again into

immediate contact with the divine source of truth, proclaiming himself

sole Master and sole Mediator.--"One is your Master, even Christ,"

said he; "and all ye are brethren." (Matt., xxiii, 8.)

In regard to doctrine, human religions had taught that salvation was

of man. The religions of the earth had framed an earthly religion.

They had told man that heaven would be given him as a hire--they had

fixed its price, and what a price! The religion of God taught that

salvation came from God, was a gift from heaven, the result of an

amnesty, of an act of grace by the Sovereign. "God," it is said, "has

given eternal life."

It is true, Christianity cannot be summed up under these two heads,

but they seem to rule the subject, especially where history is

concerned; and as we cannot possibly trace the opposition between

truth and error, in all points, we must select those of them which are

most prominent.

Such, then, were two of the constituent principles of the religion

which at that time took possession of the empire, and of the world.

_With_ them we are within the true land-marks of Christianity--_out

of_ them Christianity disappears. On the preservation or the loss of

them depended its greatness or its fall. They are intimately

connected; for it is impossible to exalt the priests of the church, or

the works of believers, without lowering Jesus Christ in his double

capacity of Mediator and Redeemer. The one of these principles should

rule the history of religion, the other should rule its doctrine.

Originally, both were paramount; let us see how they were lost. We

begin with the destinies of the former.

The Church was at first a society of brethren, under the guidance of

brethren. They were all taught of God, and each was entitled to come

to the Divine fountain of light, and draw for himself. (John, vi, 45.)

The Epistles, which then decided great questions of doctrine, were not

inscribed with the pompous name of a single man--a head. The Holy

Scriptures inform us, that the words were simply these, "The apostles,

elders, and brethren, to our brethren." (Acts, xv, 23.)

But even the writings of the apostles intimate, that from the midst of

these brethren a power would rise and subvert this simple and

primitive order. (2 Thess., ii, 2.)

Let us contemplate the formation, and follow the development of this

power--a power foreign to the Church.

Paul of Tarsus, one of the greatest apostles of the new religion, had

arrived at Rome, the capital of the empire and of the world, preaching

the salvation which comes from God. A church was formed beside the

throne of the Cæsars. Founded by this apostle, it consisted at first

of some converted Jews, some Greeks, and some citizens of Rome. For a

long time it shone like a pure light on a mountain top. Its faith was

everywhere spoken of; but at length it fell away from its primitive

condition. It was by small beginnings that the two Romes paved their

way to the usurped dominion of the world.

The first pastors or bishops of Rome early engaged in the conversion

of the villages and towns around the city. The necessity which the

bishops and pastors of the Campagna di Roma felt of recurring in cases

of difficulty to an enlightened guide, and the gratitude which they

owed to the Church of the metropolis, led them to remain in close

union with it. What has always been seen in analogous circumstances

was seen here; this natural union soon degenerated into dependence.

The superiority which the neighbouring churches had freely yielded,

the bishops of Rome regarded as a right. The encroachments of power

form one large part of history, while the resistance of those whose

rights were invaded forms the other. Ecclesiastical power could not

escape the intoxication which prompts all those who are raised to aim

at rising still higher. It yielded to this law of humanity and nature.

Nevertheless, the supremacy of the Roman bishop was at this time

limited to oversight of the churches within the territory civilly

subject to the prefect of Rome.[5] But the rank which this city of the

Emperors held in the world, presented to the ambition of its first

pastor a larger destiny. The respect paid in the second century to the

different bishops of Christendom was proportioned to the rank of the

city in which they resided. Now Rome was the greatest, the richest,

and the most powerful city in the world. It was the seat of

Empire,--the mother of nations; "All the inhabitants of the earth

belong to it," says Julian;[6] and Claudian proclaims it "the fountain

of law."[7]

[5] "Suburbicaria loca," suburban places. See the Sixth Canon of the

Council of Nice, which Rufinus (Hist. Eccl., x, 6) quotes thus: "Et ut

apud Alexandriam et in urbe Roma, vetusta consuetudo servetur, ut vel

ille Egypti, vel hic suburbicariarum ecclesiarum solicitudinem gerat,"

etc. And as at Alexandria, and in the city of Rome, an ancient custom

is observed; viz., That the bishop of the former has charge of the

churches in Egypt, and the latter of those in the suburbs.

[6] Julian., Or. 1.

[7] Claud. in Paneg. Stilic., lib. 3.

If Rome is queen of the cities of the world, why should not its pastor

be the king of bishops? Why should not the Roman Church be the mother

of Christendom? Why should not the nations be her children, and her

authority their sovereign law? It was easy for the ambitious heart of

man to reason in this way. Ambitious Rome did so.

Thus Pagan Rome, when she fell, sent the proud titles which her

invincible sword had conquered from the nations of the earth to the

humble minister of the God of peace seated amidst her ruins.

The bishops in the different quarters of the empire, led away by the

charm which Rome had for ages exercised over all nations, followed the

example of the Campagna di Roma, and lent a hand to this work of

usurpation. They took pleasure in paying to the Bishop of Rome

somewhat of the honour which belonged to the Queen city of the world.

At first there was no dependence implied in this honour. They treated

the Roman pastor as equal does equal;[8] but usurped powers grow like

avalanches. What was at first mere brotherly advice soon became, in

the mouth of the Pontiff, obligatory command. In his eyes a first

place among equals was a throne.

[8] Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 1. v, c. 24. Socrat. Hist. Eccl. c. 21.

Cyprian, Ep. 59, 72, 75.

The Western bishops favoured the designs of the pastors of Rome,

either from jealousy of the Eastern bishops or because they preferred

the supremacy of a pope to the domination of a temporal power.

On the other hand, the theological factions which rent the East

sought, each in its turn, to gain the favour of Rome, anticipating

their triumph from the support of the principal Church of the West.

Rome carefully registered these requests, these mediations, and smiled

when she saw the nations throwing themselves into her arms. She let

slip no occasion of increasing and extending her power. Praise,

flattery, extravagant compliments, consultation by other churches, all

became, in her eyes, and in her hands, titles and evidents of her

authority. Such is man upon the throne; incense intoxicates him, and

his head turns. What he has he regards as a motive to strive for more.

The doctrine of the Church, and of the necessity of her external

unity, which began to prevail so early as the third century, favoured

the pretensions of Rome. The primary idea of the Church is, that it is

the assembly of the saints, (1 Cor., i, 2,) the assembly of the

first-born whose names are written in heaven. (Heb., xii, 23.) Still,

however, the Church of the Lord is not merely internal and invisible.

It must manifest itself outwardly, and it was with a view to this

manifestation that the Lord instituted the Sacraments of Baptism and

the Eucharist. The Church considered as external, has characteristics

different from those which distinguish her as the Church invisible.

The internal Church, which is the body of Christ, is necessarily and

perpetually one. The visible Church, doubtless, has part in this

unity, but considered in herself, multiplicity is a characteristic

attributed to her in the Scriptures of the New Testament. While they

speak to us of a Church of God,[9] they mention, when speaking of the

Church, as externally manifested, "the Churches of Galatia," "the

Churches of Macedonia," "the Churches of Judea," "all the Churches of

the Saints."[10] These different Churches, unquestionably, may to a

certain extent cultivate external union; but though this tie be

wanting, they lose none of the essential qualities of the Church of

Christ. In primitive times, the great tie which united the members of

the Church was the living faith of the heart, by which all held of

Christ as their common Head.

[9] 1 Cor. xv, 9. 1 Tim. iii, 15.

[10] 1 Cor. xvi, i. 2 Cor. viii, 1. Gal. i, 22. 1 Cor. xiv, 33.

Various circumstances early contributed to originate and develop the

idea of the necessity of an external unity. Men accustomed to the ties

and political forms of an earthly country, transferred some of their

views and customs to the spiritual and eternal kingdom of Jesus

Christ. Persecution, powerless to destroy, or even to shake this new

society, drew its attention more upon itself, and caused it to assume

the form of a more compact incorporation. To the error which sprung up

in deistical schools, or among sects, was opposed the one universal

truth received from the Apostles, and preserved in the Church. This

was well, so long as the invisible and spiritual Church was one with

the visible and external Church. But a serious divorce soon took

place; the form and the life separated from each other. The semblance

of an identical and external organisation was gradually substituted

for the internal and spiritual unity which forms the essence of

genuine religion. The precious perfume of faith was left out, and then

men prostrated themselves before the empty vase which had contained

it. The faith of the heart no longer uniting the members of the

Church, another tie was sought, and they were united by means of

bishops, archbishops, popes, mitres, ceremonies, and canons. The

living Church having gradually retired into the hidden sanctuary of

some solitary souls, the external Church was put in its place, and

declared to be, with all its forms, of divine institution. Salvation,

no longer welling up from the henceforth hidden Word, it was

maintained that it was transmitted by means of the forms which had

been devised, and that no man could possess it if he did not receive

it through this channel. None, it was said, can, by his own faith,

attain to eternal life. Christ communicated to the Apostles, and the

Apostles communicated to the Bishops, the unction of the Holy Spirit;

and this Spirit exists nowhere but in that order! Originally,

whosoever had the Spirit of Jesus Christ was a member of the Church,

but the terms were now reversed, and it was maintained that none but

members of the Church received the Spirit of Jesus Christ.[11]

[11] "Ubi ecclesia, ibi et Spiritus Dei. Ubi Spiritus Dei, illic

ecclesia." (Irenæus.) Where the Church, there too the Spirit of God.

Where the Spirit of God, there the Church.

In proportion as these ideas gained ground, the distinction between

clergy and people became more marked. The salvation of souls no longer

depended solely on faith in Christ, but also, and more especially, on

union with the Church. The representatives and heads of the Church

obtained a part of the confidence due only to Jesus Christ, and in

fact became mediators for the flock. The idea of the universal

priesthood of Christians accordingly disappeared step by step; the

servants of the Church of Christ were likened to the priests under the

Old Dispensation; and those who separated from the bishop were put in

the same class with Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. From an individual

priesthood, such as was then formed in the Church, to a sovereign

priesthood, such as Rome now claims, the step was easy.

In fact, as soon as the error as to the necessity of a visible unity

of the Church was established, a new error was seen to arise, viz.,

that of the necessity of an external representative of this unity.

Although we nowhere find in the gospel any traces of a pre-eminence in

St. Peter over the other apostles; although the very idea of primacy

is opposed to the fraternal relations which united the disciples, and

even to the spirit of the gospel dispensation, which, on the contrary,

calls upon all the children of the Father to be servants one to

another, recognising one only teacher, and one only chief; and

although Jesus Christ sharply rebuked his disciples, as often as

ambitious ideas of pre-eminence arose in their carnal hearts, men

invented, and by means of passages of Scripture ill understood,

supported a primacy in St. Peter, and then in this apostle, and his

pretended successors at Rome, saluted the visible representatives of

visible unity--the heads of the Church!

The patriarchal constitution also contributed to the rise of the Roman

Papacy. So early as the three first centuries, the churches of

metropolitan towns had enjoyed particular respect. The Council of

Nice, in its Sixth Canon, singled out three cities, whose churches

had, according to it, an ancient authority over those of the

surrounding provinces; these were Alexandria, Rome, and Antioch. The

political origin of this distinction is betrayed by the very name

which was at first given to the bishop of these cities. He was called

Exarch, in the same way as the civil governor.[12] At a later period,

the more ecclesiastical name of Patriarch was given to him. This name

occurs for the first time in the Council of Constantinople, but in a

different sense from that which it received at a later period; for it

was only a short time before the Council of Chalcedon, that it was

applied exclusively to the great metropolitans. The second ecumenical

Council created a new patriarchate, that of Constantinople itself, the

new Rome, the second capital of the empire. The Church of Byzantium,

so long in obscurity, enjoyed the same privileges, and was put by the

Council of Chalcedon in the same rank as the Church of Rome. Rome then

shared the patriarchate with these three churches; but when the

invasion of Mahomet annihilated the sees of Alexandria and

Antioch--when the see of Constantinople decayed, and later, even

separated from the west, Rome remained alone, and circumstances

rallied all around her see, which from that time remained without a

rival.

[12] See Canon, Sardic. VI; and also the Council of Chalcedon, Canons

8 and 18, ο εξαρχος της διοικησεως, the exarch of

the diocese.

New accomplices, the most powerful of all accomplices, came also to

her aid. Ignorance and superstition seized upon the Church, and gave

her up to Rome with a bandage on her eyes, and chains on her hands.

Still this slavery was not completed without opposition. Often did the

voice of the churches protest their independence: This bold voice was

heard especially in proconsular Africa and the East.[13]

[13] Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, says of St. Stephen, Bishop of

Rome:--"Magis ac magis ejus _errorem_ denotabis, qui hæreticorum

causam contra Christianos et contra _Ecclesiam Dei_ asserere conatur

... qui unitatem et veritatem de divina lege venientem non tenens....

Consuetudo sine veritate vetustas erroris est." (Epist. 74.) "You will

more and more observe the error of him who is trying to maintain the

cause of heretics against Christians and against the Church of God ...

who not holding the unity and truth which come by the Divine law....

Custom without truth is the antiquity of error."... Firmilian, Bishop

of Cæsarea, in Cappadocia, also says after the middle of the third

century: "Eos autem qui Romæ sunt, non ea in omnibus observare quæ

sunt ab origine tradita, et frustra auctoritatem apostolorum

prætendere.... Cæterum nos veritati et consuetudinem jungimus, et

consuetudini Romanorum, consuetudinem sed veritatis opponimus; ab

initio hoc tenentes quod a Christo et ab apostolo traditum est."

(Cypr. Ep. 75.) "But they do not in all things observe what was

originally delivered, and in vain pretend the authority of the

apostles.... But we (the Bishops of the Churches of Asia, more ancient

than those of Rome) to truth join custom also, and to the custom of

the Romans oppose custom, but the custom of truth, holding from the

beginning what was delivered by Christ and an apostle." These

testimonies are of great weight.

But Rome found new allies to stifle the cry of the Churches. Princes,

whom tempestuous times often caused to totter on the throne, offered

her their support if she would in return support them. They offered

her spiritual authority, provided she would reinstate them in secular

power. They gave her a cheap bargain of souls, in the hope that she

would help them to a cheap bargain of their enemies. The hierarchical

power which was rising, and the imperial power which was declining,

thus supported each other, and, by this alliance, hastened their

double destiny.

Here Rome could not be a loser. An edict of Theodosius II, and of

Valentinian III, proclaimed the bishop of Rome "Rector of the whole

Church."[14] Justinian issued a similar edict. These decrees did not

contain all that the popes pretended to see in them; but in those

times of ignorance it was easy for them to give prevalence to the

interpretation which was most in their favour. The power of the

emperors in Italy becoming always more precarious, the Bishops of Rome

failed not to avail themselves of the circumstance to shake off their

dependence.

[14] Rector totius Ecclesiæ.

But energetic promoters of the Papal power had by this time emerged

from the forests of the North. The barbarians, who had invaded the

West, and there fixed their abode, after intoxicating themselves with

blood and rapine, behoved to lower their fierce sword before the

intellectual, power which they encountered. Altogether new to

Christianity, ignorant of the spiritual nature of the Church, and

requiring in religion a certain external show, they prostrated

themselves, half savages, and half Pagans, before the High Priest of

Rome. With them the West was at his feet. First, the Vandals, then the

Ostrogoths, a little later the Burgundians, afterwards the Visigoths,

lastly, the Lombards and Anglo-Saxons, came to do obeisance to the

Roman Pontiff. It was the robust shoulders of the sons of the

idolatrous North which finished the work of placing a pastor of the

banks of the Tiber on the supreme throne of Christendom.

These things took place in the West at the beginning of the seventh

century, precisely at the same period when the power of Mahomet, ready

also to seize on a portion of the globe, was rising in the East.

From that time the evil ceases not to grow. In the eighth century we

see the Bishops of Rome with one hand repulsing the Greek Emperors,

their lawful sovereigns, and seeking to chase them from Italy, while,

with the other, they caress the Mayors of France, and ask this new

power, which is beginning to rise in the West, for a share in the

wrecks of the empire. Between the East, which she repels, and the

West, which she invites, Rome establishes her usurped authority. She

rears her throne between two revolts. Frightened at the cry of the

Arabs, who, become masters of Spain, vaunt that they will soon arrive

in Italy by the passes of the Pyrennees and the Alps, and proclaim the

name of Mahomet on the seven hills--amazed at the audacious

Astolphus, who, at the head of his Lombards, sends forth his

lion-roar, and brandishes his sword before the gates of the eternal

city, threatening massacre to every Roman,[15]--Rome, on the brink of

ruin, looks around in terror, and throws herself into the arms of the

Franks. The usurper Pepin asks a pretended sanction to his new

royalty; the Papacy gives it to him, and gets him in return to declare

himself the defender of the "Republic of God." Pepin wrests from the

Lombards what they had wrested from the emperor; but, instead of

restoring it to him, he deposits the keys of the towns which he has

conquered on the altar of St. Peter, and, swearing with uplifted hand,

declares that it was not for a man he took up arms, but to obtain the

forgiveness of his sins from God, and do homage to St. Peter for his

conquests.

[15] "Fremens ut leo, asserens omnes uno gladio jugulari."

(Anastasius, Bibl. Vit. Pontif, p. 83.) Roaring like a lion, declaring

that he would slaughter all with one sword.

Charlemagne appears. The first time, he goes up to the Cathedral of

St. Peter devoutly kissing the steps. When he presents himself a

second time, it is as master of all the kingdoms which formed the

empire of the West, and of Rome herself.

Leo III deems it his duty to give the title to him who already has the

power, and, in the year 800, at the feast of Noel, places on the head

of the son of Pepin the crown of the Emperor of Rome.[16] From that

time the pope belongs to the empire of the Franks, and his relations

with the East are ended. He detaches himself from a rotten tree which

is about to fall, in order to engraft himself on a vigorous wild

stock. Among the Germanic races, to which he devotes himself, a

destiny awaits him to which he had never ventured to aspire.

[16] "Visum est et ipsi Apostolico Leoni, ... Ut ipsum Carolum

imperatorem nominare debuisset, qui ipsam Romam tenebat, ubi semper

Cæsares sedere soliti erant et reliquas sedes."... (Annalista

Lambecianus; ad an. 801.) It seemed to Apostolic Leo that he ought to

give Charles the name of Emperor, inasmuch as he was in possession of

Rome herself, where the Cæsars were always wont to sit, and of their

other possessions.

Charlemagne bequeathed to his feeble successors only the wrecks of his

empire. In the ninth century civil power being everywhere weakened by

disunion, Rome perceived that now was the moment for her to lift her

head. When could the Church better make herself independent of the

State than at this period of decline, when the crown which Charles

wore was broken, and its fragments lay scattered on the soil of his

ancient empire?

At this time the spurious Decretals of Isidore appeared. In this

collection of pretended decrees of the popes, the most ancient

bishops, the contemporaries of Tacitus and Quintilian, spoke the

barbarous Latin of the ninth century. The customs and constitutions

of the Franks were gravely attributed to the Romans of the time of the

emperors; popes quoted the Bible in the Latin translation of St.

Jerome, who lived one, two, or three centuries after them; and Victor,

Bishop of Rome, in the year 192, wrote to Theophilus, who was

Archbishop of Alexandria, in 395. The impostor, who had forged this

collection, strove to make out that all the bishops derived their

authority from the Bishop of Rome, who derived his immediately from

Jesus Christ. Not only did he record all the successive conquests of

the pontiffs, but he, moreover, carried them back to the remotest

periods. The popes were not ashamed to avail themselves of this

despicable invention. As early as 865, Nicholas I selected it as his

armour[17] to combat princes and bishops. This shameless forgery was

for ages the arsenal of Rome.

[17] See Ep. ad univer. Episc. Gall. (Mansi xv.)

Nevertheless, the vices and crimes of the pontiffs were for some time

to suspend the effects of the Decretals. The Papacy celebrates its

admission to the table of kings, by shameful libations. It proceeds to

intoxicate itself, and its head turns amidst the debauch. It is about

this time that tradition places upon the Papal throne a damsel named

Joan, who had fled to Rome with her lover, and, being taken in labour,

betrayed her sex in the middle of a solemn procession. But let us not

unnecessarily aggravate the disgrace of the Court of the Roman

Pontiffs. Abandoned females did reign in Rome at this period. A

throne, which pretended to exalt itself above the majesty of kings,

grovelled in the mire of vice. Theodora and Marozia, at will,

installed and deposed the pretended Masters of the Church of Christ,

and placed upon the throne of Peter their paramours, their sons, and

their grandsons. These scandalous proceedings, which are but too true,

perhaps, gave rise to the tradition of Popess Joan. Rome becomes a

vast theatre of disorder, on which the most powerful families in Italy

contend for ascendancy--the Counts of Tuscany usually proving

victorious. In 1033, this house dares to place upon the pontifical

throne, under the name of Benedict the Ninth, a young boy brought up

in debauchery. This child of twelve, when pope, continues his

ineffable turpitude.[18] A faction elects Sylvester in his stead, and

at length Pope Benedict, with a conscience loaded with adultery, and

a hand dyed with the blood of murders,[19] sells the popedom to an

ecclesiastic of Rome.

[18] "Cujus quidem post adeptum sacerdotium, vita quam turpis, quam

fœda, quamque execranda extiterit, horresco referre." (Desiderius,

Abbot of Cassino, afterwards Victor III. De Miraculis a S. Benedicto,

etc., lib. 3, init.) How base, how foul, and how execrable his life

was, after he attained the priesthood, I shudder to relate.

[19] "Theophylactus, cum post multa adulteria et homicidia manibus

suis perpetrata," etc. (Bonizo, Bishop of Sutri, afterwards of

Plaisance. Liber ad amicum.) Theophylact, (Benedict,) after many

adulteries, and many murders perpetrated by his own hand.

The Emperors of Germany, indignant at so many disorders, cleansed Rome

with the sword. The empire, exercising its rights of superiority, drew

the triple crown out of the mire into which it had fallen, and saved

the degraded popedom by giving it decent men for heads. Henry III, in

1046, deposed three popes, and his finger, adorned with the ring of

the Roman Patricians, pointed out the bishop to whom the keys of the

confession of St. Peter were to be remitted. Four popes, all Germans,

and nominated by the emperor, succeeded each other. When the pontiff

of Rome died, deputies from that Church appeared at the imperial

court, like the envoys from other dioceses, to request a new bishop.

The emperor was even glad to see the pope reforming abuses,

strengthening the Church, holding councils, inducting and deposing

prelates, in spite of foreign monarchs; the Papacy, by these

pretensions, only exalted the power of the emperor, its liege lord.

But there was great danger in allowing such games to be played. The

strength which the popes were thus resuming, by degrees, might be

turned, all at once, against the emperor himself. When the viper

recovered, it might sting the bosom which warmed it. This was what

actually happened.

Here a new epoch in the Papacy begins. It starts up from its

humiliation, and soon has the princes of the earth at its feet. To

exalt it is to exalt the Church, is to aggrandise religion, is to

secure to the mind its victory over the flesh, and to God his triumph

over the world. These are its maxims, and in these ambition finds its

profit, fanaticism its excuse.

The whole of this new tendency is personified in one man,--Hildebrand.

Hildebrand, by turns unduly extolled or unjustly stigmatised, is the

personification of the Roman pontificate in its power and glory. He is

one of those master spirits of history, which contain in them an

entire order of new things, similar to those presented in other

spheres by Charlemagne, Luther, and Napoleon.

Leo IX took up this monk in passing through Clugny, and carried him to

Rome. From that time Hildebrand was the soul of the popedom, until he

became the popedom itself. He governed the Church in the name of

several pontiffs before his own reign under that of Gregory VII. One

great idea took possession of this great genius. He wishes to found a

visible theocracy of which the pope, as vicar of Jesus Christ, will be

head. The remembrance of the ancient universal dominion of Pagan Rome

haunts his imagination, and animates his zeal. He wishes to restore to

Papal Rome all that the Rome of the Emperors had lost. "What Marius

and Cæsar," said his flatterers, "could not do by torrents of blood,

thou performest by a word."

Gregory VII was not led by the Spirit of the Lord. To this Spirit of

truth, humility, and meekness, he was a stranger. He sacrificed what

he knew to be true, when he judged it necessary to his designs. In

particular, he did so in the affair of Berenger. But a spirit far

superior to that of the common run of pontiffs, a deep conviction of

the justice of his cause, undoubtedly did animate him. Bold,

ambitious, and inflexible in his designs, he was, at the same time,

dexterous and supple in the employment of means to ensure their

success.

His first labour was to embody the militia of the Church, for he

behoved to make himself strong before he attacked the empire. A

Council held at Rome cut off pastors from their families, and obliged

them to belong entirely to the hierarchy. The law of celibacy,

conceived and executed under popes who were themselves monks, changed

the clergy into a kind of monastic order. Gregory VII pretended to

have over all the bishops and priests of Christendom the same power

which an abbot of Clugny had over the order over which he presided.

The legates of Hildebrand, comparing themselves to the proconsuls of

ancient Rome, traversed the provinces to deprive pastors of their

lawful wives, and if need were, the pope himself stirred up the

populace against married ministers.[20]

[20] "Hi quocumque prodeunt, clamores insultantium, digitos

ostendentium, colaphos pulsantium, perferunt. Alii membris mutilati,

alii per longos cruciatus superbe necati," etc. (Martene et Durand,

Thesaurus Nov. Anecd. i, 23.) These, wherever they appear, are

subjected to insulting cries, to pointed fingers, and to blows. Some

are mutilated, others by long tortures cruelly slain.

But Gregory's main purpose was to shake Rome free of the empire. This

bold design he never would have ventured to conceive, had not the

dissensions which troubled the minority of Henry IV, and the revolt of

the German princes, favoured its execution. The pope was then like one

of the grandees of the empire. Making common cause with the other

great vassals, he forms a party in the aristocratic interest, and then

forbids all ecclesiastics, under pain of excommunication, to receive

investiture to their benefices from the Emperor. He breaks the

ancient ties which unite churches and their pastors to the authority

of the prince, but it is to yoke all of them to the pontifical throne.

His aim is by a powerful hand to enchain priests, kings, and people,

and make the pope a universal monarch. It is Rome alone that every

priest must fear, in Rome alone that he must hope. The kingdoms and

princedoms of the earth are his domain, and all kings must tremble

before the thunder of the Jupiter of modern Rome. Woe to him who

resists! Subjects are loosed from their oath of allegiance, the whole

country is smitten with interdict, all worship ceases, the churches

are shut, and their bells are mute; the sacraments are no longer

administered, and the word of malediction reaches even to the dead, to

whom the earth, at the bidding of a haughty pontiff, refuses the peace

of the tomb.

The pope, who had been subject from the earliest days of his

existence, first to the Roman Emperors, then to the Frank Emperors,

and, lastly to the German Emperors, was now emancipated, and walked,

for the first time, their equal, if not, indeed, their master. Gregory

VII was, however, humbled in his turn; Rome was taken, and Hildebrand

obliged to flee. He died at Salerno, saying, "I have loved

righteousness and hated iniquity, therefore die I in exile."[21] Words

thus uttered at the portals of the grave who will presume to charge

with hypocrisy?

[21] "Dilexi justitiam, et odivi iniquitatem, propterea morior in

exilio."

The successors of Gregory, like soldiers who arrive after a great

victory, threw themselves, as conquerors, on the subjugated churches.

Spain, rescued from Islamism, Prussia, delivered from idols, fell into

the hands of the crowned priest. The crusades, which were undertaken

at his bidding, every where widened and increased his authority. Those

pious pilgrims, who had thought they saw saints and angels guiding

their armies, and who, after humbly entering the walls of Jerusalem

barefoot, burned the Jews in their synagogue, and, with the blood of

thousands of Saracens, deluged the spots to which they had come,

seeking the sacred footsteps of the Prince of Peace, carried the name

of pope into the East, where it had ceased to be known from the time

when he abandoned the supremacy of the Greeks for that of the Franks.

On the other hand, what the armies of the Roman republic and of the

empire had not been able to do, the power of the Church accomplished.

The Germans brought to the feet of a bishop the tribute which their

ancestors had refused to the most powerful generals. Their princes, on

becoming emperors, thought they had received a crown from the popes,

but the popes had given them a yoke. The kingdoms of Christendom,

previously subjected to the spiritual power of Rome, now became its

tributaries and serfs.

Thus every thing in the Church is changed.

At first it was a community of brethren, and now an absolute monarchy

is established in its bosom. All Christians were priests of the living

God, (1 Peter, ii, 9,) with humble pastors for their guides; but a

proud head has risen up in the midst of these pastors, a mysterious

mouth utters language full of haughtiness, a hand of iron constrains

all men, both small and great, rich and poor, bond and slave, to take

the stamp of its power. The holy and primitive equality of souls

before God is lost, and Christendom, at the bidding of a man, is

divided into two unequal camps--in the one, a caste of priests who

dare to usurp the name of Church, and pretend to be invested in the

eyes of the Lord with high privileges--in the other, servile herds

reduced to blind and passive submission, a people gagged and swaddled,

and given over to a proud caste. Every tribe, language, and nation of

Christendom, fall under the domination of this spiritual king, who has

received power to conquer.

CHAP. II.

Grace--Dead Faith--Works--Unity and

Duality--Pelagianism--Salvation at the hands of

Priests--Penances--Flagellations--Indulgences--Works of

Supererogation--Purgatory--Taxation--Jubilee--The Papacy and

Christianity--State of Christendom.

But, along with the principle which should rule the history of

Christianity was one which should rule its doctrine. The grand idea of

Christianity was the idea of grace, pardon, amnesty, and the gift of

eternal life. This idea supposed in man an estrangement from God, and

an impossibility on his part to reenter into communion with a Being of

infinite holiness. The opposition between true and false doctrine

cannot, it is true, be entirely summed up in the question of salvation

by faith, and salvation by works. Still it is its most prominent

feature, or rather, salvation considered as coming from man is the

creating principle of all error and all abuse. The excesses produced

by this fundamental error led to the Reformation, and the profession

of a contrary principle achieved it. This feature must stand

prominently out in an introduction to the history of the Reformation.

Salvation by grace, then, is the second characteristic which

essentially distinguished the religion of God from all human

religions. What had become of it? Had the Church kept this great and

primordial idea as a precious deposit? Let us follow its history.

The inhabitants of Jerusalem, Asia, Greece, and Rome, in the days of

the first emperors, heard the glad tidings, "By grace are ye saved

through faith--it is the gift of God." (Ephes., ii, 8.) At this voice

of peace--at this gospel--at this powerful word--many guilty souls

believing were brought near to Him who is the source of peace, and

numerous Christian churches were formed in the midst of the corrupt

generation then existing.

But a great misapprehension soon arose as to the nature of saving

faith. Faith, according to St. Paul, is the means by which the whole

being of the believer--his intellect, his heart, and his will--enter

into possession of the salvation which the incarnation of the Son of

God has purchased for him. Jesus Christ is apprehended by faith, and

thenceforth becomes every thing for man, and in man. He imparts a

divine life to human nature; and man thus renewed, disengaged from the

power of selfishness and sin, has new affections, and does new works.

Faith (says Theology, in order to express these ideas) is the

subjective appropriation of the objective work of Christ. If faith is

not an appropriation of salvation, it is nothing; the whole Christian

economy is disturbed, the sources of new life are sealed up, and

Christianity is overturned at its base.

Such was the actual result. The practical view being gradually

forgotten, faith soon became nothing more than what it still is to

many--an act of the understanding--a simple submission to superior

authority.

This first error necessarily led to a second. Faith being stripped of

its practical character, could not possibly be said to save alone.

Works no longer coming after it, behoved to be placed beside it, and

the doctrine that man is justified by faith and by works gained a

footing in the Church. To the Christian unity, which includes under

the same principle justification and works, grace and law, doctrine

and duty, succeeded the sad duality, which makes religion and morality

to be quite distinct,--a fatal error, which separates things that

cannot live unless united, and which, putting the soul on one side,

and the body on the other, causes death. The words of the apostle,

echoing through all ages, are, "Having begun in the Spirit, are ye

now made perfect by the flesh?" (Gal., iii, 3.)

Another great error arose to disturb the doctrine of grace. This was

Pelagianism. Pelagius maintained that human nature is not fallen--that

there is no hereditary corruption--and that man, having received the

power of doing good, has only to will it in order to perform it.[22]

If goodness consists in certain external actions, Pelagius is right.

But if we look to the motives from which those external actions

proceed, we find in every part of man selfishness, forgetfulness of

God, pollution, and powerlessness. The Pelagian doctrine, driven back

from the Church by Augustine, when it advanced with open front, soon

presented a side view in the shape of semi-Pelagianism, and under the

mask of Augustinian formulæ. This heresy spread over Christendom with

astonishing rapidity. The danger of the system appeared, above all, in

this--by placing goodness, not within, but without, it caused a great

value to be set on external works, on legal observances, and acts of

penance. The more of these men did, the holier they were; they won

heaven by them, and individuals were soon seen (a very astonishing

circumstance, certainly) who went farther in holiness than was

required. Pelagianism, at the same time that it corrupted doctrine,

strengthened the hierarchy; with the same hand with which it lowered

grace it elevated the Church; for grace is of God, and the Church is

of man.

[22] "Velle et esse ad hominem referenda sunt, quia de arbitrii fonte

descendunt."--(Pelagius in Aug. de Gratia Dei, cap. 4.) To will and to

be are properties of man, because they spring from the fountain of

free will.

The deeper our conviction that the whole world is guilty before God,

the more will we cleave to Jesus Christ as the only source of grace.

With such a view, how can we place the Church on a level with him,

since she is nothing but the whole body of persons subject to the same

natural misery? But, so soon as we attribute to man a holiness of his

own, all is changed, and ecclesiastics and monks become the most

natural medium of receiving the grace of God. This was what happened

after Pelagius. Salvation, taken out of the hands of God, fell into

the hands of priests, who put themselves in the Lord's place. Souls

thirsting for pardon behoved no longer to look towards heaven, but

towards the Church, and, above all, towards its pretended head. To

blinded minds, the Pontiff of Rome was instead of God. Hence the

greatness of the popes and indescribable abuses. The evil went farther

still. Pelagianism, in maintaining that man may attain perfect

sanctification, pretended, likewise, that the merits of saints and

martyrs might be applied to the Church. A particular virtue was even

ascribed to their intercession. They were addressed in prayer, their

aid was invoked in all the trials of life, and a real idolatry

supplanted the adoration of the true and living God.

Pelagianism, at the same time, multiplied rites and ceremonies. Man

imagining that he could, and that he ought, by good works, to render

himself worthy of grace, saw nothing better fitted to merit it than

outward worship. The law of ceremonies becoming endlessly complicated,

was soon held equal at least to the moral law, and thus the conscience

of Christians was burdened anew with a yoke which had been declared

intolerable in the times of the apostles. (Acts, xv, 10.)

But what most of all deformed Christianity was the system of penance

which rose out of Pelagianism. Penance at first consisted in certain

public signs of repentance, which the Church required of those whom

she had excluded for scandal, and who were desirous of being again

received into her bosom.

By degrees, penance was extended to all sins, even the most secret,

and was considered as a kind of chastisement to which it was necessary

to submit, in order to acquire the pardon of God through the

absolution of priests.

Ecclesiastical penance was thus confounded with Christian repentance,

without which there cannot be either justification or sanctification.

Instead of expecting pardon from Christ only by faith, it was expected

chiefly from the Church by works of penance.

Great importance was attached to the outward marks of repentance,

tears, fastings, and macerations, while the internal renewal of the

heart, which alone constitutes true conversion, was forgotten.

As confession and works of penance are easier than the extirpation of

sin, and the abandonment of vice, many ceased to struggle against the

lusts of the flesh, deeming it better to supply their place by means

of certain macerations.

Works of penance substituted in lieu of the salvation of God kept

multiplying in the Church from the days of Tertullian in the third

century. The thing now deemed necessary was to fast, go barefoot, and

wear no linen, etc., or to quit house and home for distant lands, or,

better still, to renounce the world and embrace the monastic state!

To all this were added, in the eleventh century, voluntary

flagellations. These, at a later period, became a real mania in Italy,

which at that time was violently agitated. Nobles and peasants, young

and old, even children of five, go two and two by hundreds, thousands,

and tens of thousands, through villages, towns and cities, with an

apron tied round their waist, (their only clothing,) and visit the

churches in procession in the dead of winter. Armed with a whip, they

flagellate themselves without mercy, and the streets resound with

cries and groans, such as to force tears from those who hear them.

Still long before the evil had reached this height, men felt the

oppression of the priests and sighed for deliverance. The priests

themselves had perceived, that if they did not apply a remedy, their

usurped power would be lost, and, therefore, they invented the system

of barter, so well known under the name of Indulgences. What they said

was this:--"You penitents are not able to fulfil the tasks which are

enjoined you? Well, then, we, priests of God, and your pastors, will

take the heavy burden on ourselves. For a fast of seven weeks," says

Regino, Abbot of Prum, "there will be paid by a rich man twentypence,

by one less so tenpence, by the poor threepence, and so in like

proportion for other things."[23] Bold voices were raised against this

traffic, but in vain.

[23] Libri Duo de Ecclesiasticis Disciplinis.

The pope soon discovered the advantages which he might draw from these

indulgences. In the thirteenth century, Alexander Hales, the

irrefragable doctor, invented a doctrine well fitted to secure this

vast resource to the Papacy, and a bull of Clement VII declared it an

article of faith. Jesus Christ, it was said, did far more than was

necessary to reconcile God to men; for that a single drop of his blood

would have sufficed; but he shed much blood in order to found a

treasury for his church, a treasury which even eternity should not be

able to exhaust. The supererogatory merits of the saints, i. e. the

value of the works which they did beyond their obligation, served also

to augment this treasury, the custody and administration of which have

been intrusted to Christ's vicar upon earth, who applies to each

sinner for the faults committed after baptism these merits of Jesus

Christ and the saints according to the measure and quantity which his

sins render necessary. Who will venture to attack a practice whose

origin is so holy?

This inconceivable traffic soon extends, and becomes more complex. The

philosophers of Alexandria speak of a fire in which souls are to be

made pure. This philosophical opinion, which several ancient doctors

had adopted, Rome declared to be a doctrine of the Church. The pope,

by a bull, annexed purgatory to his domain. He decreed that man should

there expiate what he might not be able to expiate here below, but

that indulgences could deliver souls from that intermediate state in

which their sins must otherwise detain them. This dogma is expounded

by Thomas Aquinas in his famous theological Summa. Nothing was spared

to fill the mind with terror. The torments which the purifying fire

inflicts on those who become its victims were painted in dreadful

colours. Even at the present day, in many Catholic countries, we see

pictures exhibited in churches, or in the public streets, in which

poor souls in the midst of burning flames are calling in agony for

relief. Who could refuse the redemption money which, on falling into

the treasury of Rome, was to ransom the soul from such sufferings?

In order to give regularity to this traffic, there was shortly after

drawn up (probably by John XXII,) the famous and scandalous taxation

of indulgences, of which there have been more than forty editions.

Ears the least delicate would be offended were we to repeat all the

horrible things contained in it.

Incest will cost, if it is not known, five groschen, if known, six; so

much will be paid for murder, so much for infanticide, adultery,

perjury, house-breaking, etc. "Shame upon Rome," exclaims Claudius

Esperse, a Roman theologian, and we add, Shame upon human nature! for

we cannot reproach Rome with anything which does not recoil upon man

himself. Rome is humanity magnified in some of its evil propensities.

We say this for the sake of truth, and we also say it for the sake of

justice.

Boniface VIII, the boldest and most ambitious of the popes after

Gregory VII, outstripped all his predecessors.

In the year 1300 he published a bull, by which he announced to the

Church, that every hundred years all persons repairing to Rome would

there obtain a plenary indulgence. Crowds flocked from Italy, Sicily,

Sardinia, Corsica, France, Spain, Germany, Hungary, and all quarters.

Old men of sixty and seventy set out, and there was counted at Rome in

one month to the number of two hundred thousand pilgrims. All these

strangers bringing rich offerings, the pope and the Romans saw their

treasury filled.

Roman avarice soon fixed each jubilee at fifty years, next at

thirty-three, and at last at twenty-five. Then for the greater

convenience of buyers, and the greater profit of sellers, the jubilee

and its indulgences were transported from Rome to all parts of

Christendom. There was no occasion to leave home. What others had

gone to seek beyond the Alps, each might purchase at his own door.

The evil could not go farther.

Then the Reformer arose.

We formerly saw what became of the principle which should rule the

history of Christianity, and we have now seen what became of that

which should rule its doctrine; both were lost.

To establish a mediating caste between man and God, and insist that

the salvation which God gives shall be purchased by works, penances,

and money, is the Papacy.

To give to all by Jesus Christ without a human mediator, and without

that power, which is called the Church, free access to the great gift

of eternal life, which God bestows on man, is Christianity and the

Reformation.

The Papacy is an immense wall raised between man and God by the labour

of ages. Whosoever would pass it must lay his account with paying or

suffering. And yet will it not be passed?

The Reformation is the power which threw down this wall, restored

Christ to man, and levelled the path by which he may come to his

Creator.

The Papacy interposes the Church between God and man. Christianity and

the Reformation make them meet face to face. The Papacy separates--the

Gospel unites them.

Having thus traced the history of the decay and extinction of the two

great principles which distinguish the religion of God from all the

religions of man, let us attend to some of the results of this vast

alteration.

First, however, let us pay some tribute of respect to this Church of

the middle ages which succeeded that of the Apostles and Fathers, and

preceded that of the Reformers. The Church, although decayed, and

always more and more enslaved, still was the Church, that is to say,

still remained the most powerful friend that man possessed. Her hands,

though tied, could still bless. During those ages, great servants of

Jesus Christ, men, who in essential doctrines were true Protestants,

shed a benign light, and in the most humble convent or the most

obscure parish, were found poor monks and poor priests to solace deep

griefs. The Catholic Church was not the Papacy. The latter acted the

part of oppressor, the former that of the oppressed. The Reformation,

which declared war on the one came to deliver the other. And yet,

truth to tell, the Papacy itself was sometimes, in the hands of God,

who brings good out of evil, a necessary counterpoise to the power and

ambition of princes.

CHAP. III.

Religion--Relics--Easter

Merriment--Manners--Corruption--Dissorderly Lives of

Priests, Bishops, and Popes--A Priest's

Family--Education--Ignorance--Ciceronians.

Let us now attend to the State of the Church before the Reformation.

The people of Christendom no longer expecting the gratuitous gift of

eternal life from the true and living God, it was necessary, in order

to obtain it, to have recourse to all the methods which a

superstitious, timid, and frightened conscience could invent. Heaven

is full of saints and mediators who can solicit the favour. Earth is

full of pious works, sacrifices, observances, and ceremonies, which

can merit it. Such is the picture of the religion of this period, as

drawn by one who was long a monk, and afterwards a fellow-worker with

Luther.

Myconius says, "The sufferings and merits of Christ were as a vain

tale, or as the Fables of Homer. Not a word was said of the faith by

which the righteousness of the Saviour, and the inheritance of eternal

life, are secured. Christ was a severe judge, ready to condemn all who

did not recur to the intercession of saints, or the indulgences of

popes. Instead of him there figured as intercessors, first the Virgin

Mary, like the Diana of Paganism, and after her saints, of whom the

popes were continually enlarging the catalogue. These mediators gave

the benefit of their prayers only to those who had deserved well of

the orders founded by them. For this it was necessary to do not what

God commands in his word, but a great number of works which monks and

priests had devised, and which brought in large sums of money. These

were, Ave-Marias, prayers of St. Ursula, and St. Bridget. It was

necessary to chant and cry night and day. There were as many places of

pilgrimage as there were mountains, forests, or valleys. But these

toils might be bought off with money. Money, therefore, and every

thing that had any value, chickens, geese, ducks, eggs, wax, straw,

butter, and cheese, were brought to the convents and to the priests.

Then chants resounded, and bells were rung, perfumes filled the

sanctuary, and sacrifices were offered; kitchens were stuffed, glasses

rattled, and masses winding up threw a cover over all these pious

works. The bishops did not preach, but they consecrated priests,

bells, monks, churches, chapels, images, books, cemeteries, all these

things yielding large returns. Bones, arms, and feet, were presented

in gold and silver boxes. They were given out to be kissed during

mass, and this too yielded a large profit."

"All these folks maintained, that the pope being in the place of God,

(2 Thess., ii, 4,) could not be deceived, and they would not hear of

any thing to the contrary."[24]

[24] Myconius' History of the Reformation, and Seckendorf's History of

Lutheranism.

In the Church of All Saints at Wittemberg were shown a piece of Noah's

Ark, a small portion of soot from the furnace of the Three Young Men,

a bit of the manger in which our Saviour was laid, hair from the beard

of the great Christopher, and nineteen thousand other relics of

greater or less value. At Schaffhausen was shown the breath of St.

Joseph, which Nicodemus had received into his glove. In Wurtemberg, a

vender of indulgences was seen selling his wares, and having his head

adorned with a large feather, plucked from the wing of the archangel

Michael.[25] But there was no occasion to go to a distance in quest of

these precious treasures. Persons with hired relics travelled the

country, and hawked them about, as has since been done with the Holy

Scriptures. The faithful, having them thus brought to their houses,

were spared the trouble and expence of pilgrimage. Relics were

exhibited with great ceremony in the churches, while those travelling

hawkers paid a fixed sum to the owners, and also gave them so much per

centage on their returns. The kingdom of heaven had thus disappeared,

and men, to supply its place on the earth, had opened a disgraceful

traffic.

[25] Muller's Reliquien, vol. iii, p. 22.

In this way, a profane spirit had invaded religion, and the most

sacred seasons of the Church, those which, most forcibly and

powerfully invited the faithful to self-examination and love, were

dishonoured by buffoonery and mere heathen blasphemies. The "Easter

Drolleries" held an important place in the acts of the Church. As the

festival of the resurrection required to be celebrated with joy, every

thing that could excite the laughter of the hearers was sought out,

and thrust into sermons. One preacher imitated the note of the cuckoo,

while another hissed like a goose. One dragged forward to the altar a

layman in a cassock; a second told the most indecent stories; a third

related the adventures of the Apostle Peter, among others, how, in a

tavern, he cheated the host by not paying his score.[26] The inferior

clergy took advantage of the occasion to turn their superiors into

ridicule. The churches were thus turned into stages, and the priests

into mountebanks.

[26] Œcolampad. De Risu Paschali.

If such was the state of religion, what must that of morals have been?

It is true, and equity requires we should not forget, that, at this

time, corruption was not universal. Even when the Reformation took

place, much piety, righteousness, and religious vigour, were brought

to light. Of this, the mere sovereignty of God was the cause; but

still, how can it be denied, that He had previously deposited the

germs of this new life in the bosom of the Church? In our own day,

were all the immoralities and abominations which are committed in a

single country brought together, the mass of corruption would

undoubtedly fill us with alarm. Still it is true, that, at this

period, evil presented itself in a form, and with a universality,

which it has never had since. In particular, the abomination of

desolation was seen standing in the holy place, to an extent which has

not been permitted since the period of the Reformation.

With faith morality had decayed. The glad tidings of eternal life is

the power of God for the regeneration of man. But take away the

salvation which God gives, and you take away purity of heart and life.

This was proved by the event.

The doctrine and the sale of indulgences operated on an ignorant

people as a powerful stimulus to evil. It is no doubt true, that,

according to the doctrine of the Church, indulgences were of use only

to those who promised to amend, and actually kept their promise. But

what was to be expected of a doctrine which had been invented with a

view to the profit which it might be made to yield? The venders of

indulgences, the better to dispose of their wares, were naturally

disposed to present them in the most winning and seductive form. Even

the learned were not too well informed on the subject, while the only

thing seen by the multitude was, that indulgences gave them permission

to sin. The merchants were in no haste to disabuse them of an error so

greatly in favour of the trade.

In those ages of darkness, what disorders and crimes must have

prevailed when impunity could be purchased with money! What ground

could there be for fear when a trifling contribution to build a church

procured exemption from punishment in the world to come! What hope of

renovation, when all direct communication between men and their God

had ceased--when, estranged from him, their spirit and life, they

moved to and fro among frivolous ceremonies and crude observances in

an atmosphere of death!

The priests were the first to yield to the corrupting influence. In

wishing to raise, they had lowered themselves. They had tried to steal

from God a ray of his glory, that they might place it in their own

bosom; but, instead of this, had only placed in it some of the leaven

of corruption, stolen from the Evil one. The annals of the period teem

with scandalous stories. In many places people were pleased to see

their priest keeping a mistress, in the hope that it might secure

their wives from seduction.[27] How humbling the scene which the house

of such a priest must have presented! The unhappy man maintained the

woman and the children she might have borne him, out of tithes and

alms.[28] His conscience upbraided him. He blushed before his people,

his servants, and his God. The woman fearing, that, in the event of

the priest's death, she might become destitute, sometimes made

provision beforehand, and played the thief in her own house. Her

honour was gone, and her children were a living accusation against

her. Objects of universal contempt, both parties rushed into

quarrelling and dissipation. Such was the home of a priest!... In

these fearful scenes, the people read a lesson of which they were not

slow to avail themselves.[29]

[27] Nicol de Clemangis, De Præsulibus Simoniacis.

[28] Words of Seb. Stor., Pastor of Leichstall in 1524.

[29] Füsslin Beytræge, ii, 224.

The rural districts became the theatre of numerous excesses. The

places where priests resided were often the abodes of dissoluteness.

Corneille Adrian at Bruges,[30] and Abbot Trinkler at Cappel,[31]

imitated the manners of the East, and had their harems. Priests

associating with low company, frequented taverns and played at dice,

crowning their orgies with quarrels and blasphemy.[32] The Council of

Schaffhausen issued an order forbidding priests to dance in public

except at marriages, or to carry more than one kind of weapon. They,

moreover, ordered that such priests as were found in houses of bad

fame should be stript of their cassocks.[33] In the archbishopric of

Mayence, they leapt the walls at night, and then shouted and revelled

in all sorts of debauchery within taverns and inns. Doors and locks

were not secure from their attacks.[34] In several places, each priest

was liable to the bishop in a certain tax for the female he kept, and

for every child she bore him. One day, a German bishop, who was

attending a great festival, openly declared that in a single year, the

number of priests who had been brought before him for this purpose

amounted to eleven thousand. This account is given by Erasmus.[35]

[30] Metern. Nederl. Hist. viii.

[31] Hottinger, Hist. Eccles. ix, 305.

[32] Order of 3rd March, 1517, by Hugo, Bishop of Constance.

[33] Müller's Reliq. iii, 251.

[34] Steubing. Gesch. der Nass. Oran Lande.

[35] "Uno anno ad se delata undecim millia sacerdotum palam

concubinariorum." (Erasm. Op. tom. ix, p. 401.) In one year eleven

thousand priests were reported to him as living in open concubinage.

Among the higher orders of the priesthood, the corruption was equally

great. The dignitaries of the Church preferred the turmoil of camps to

chanting at the altar, and to take lance in hand, and reduce those

around them to obedience, was one of the first qualities of a bishop.

Baldwin of Tours, who was constantly warring with his vassals and

neighbours, razed their castles, built others of his own, and thought

of nothing but enlarging his territory. It is told of a certain bishop

of Eichstadt, that when he sat in his court, he had a coat-of-mail

under his gown, and a large sword in his hand. One of his sayings was,

that in fair fight he was not afraid of five Bavarians.[36] The

bishops and the inhabitants of the towns where they resided were

perpetually at war. The burghers demanded freedom, while the priests

insisted on absolute obedience. When the latter proved victorious,

they punished revolt, and satiated their vengeance with numbers of

victims; but the flame of insurrection burst forth at the very moment

when they imagined they had suppressed it. And what a spectacle was

presented by the pontifical throne at the period immediately preceding

the Reformation! To say the truth, even Rome was not often witness to

such infamy.

[36] Schmidt, Gesch. der Deutschen. tom. iv.

Roderigo Borgia, after he had lived with a lady of Rome, continued the

same illegitimate intercourse with her daughter, Rosa Vanozza, and had

five children by her. This man, a cardinal and an archbishop, was

living at Rome with Vanozza, and other females besides, frequenting

churches and hospitals, when the pontifical chair became vacant by the

death of Innocent VIII. Borgia secured it by buying each cardinal for

a regular price. Four mules loaded with gold publicly entered the

palace of Cardinal Sforza, the most influential among them. Borgia

became Pope under the name of Alexander VI, and was delighted at

having thus reached the pinnacle of pleasure.

On his coronation-day, he appointed his son Cæsar, a youth of

ferocious temper and dissolute habits, Archbishop of Valentia and

Bishop of Pampeluna. Then, when his daughter Lucretia was married, he

celebrated the occasion in the Vatican with fêtes which were attended

by his mistress, Julia Bella, and enlivened by comedies and obscene

songs. "All the ecclesiastics," says a historian,[37] "had mistresses,

and all the convents of the capital were houses of bad fame." Cæsar

Borgia espoused the faction of the Guelphs, and when, by their

assistance, he had destroyed the Ghibelins, he turned round upon the

Guelphs, and, in like manner, destroyed them. But he was unwilling

that any should share the spoil with him, and, therefore, after

Alexander had, in 1497, made his eldest son Duke of Benevento, the

Duke disappeared. George Schiavoni, a dealer in wood on the banks of

the Tiber, one night saw a dead body thrown into the river, but said

nothing; such occurrences were common. The dead body proved to be that

of the Duke, who had been murdered by his brother Cæsar.[38] Nor was

this enough. Having taken offence at his brother-in-law, he made him

be stabbed on the stair of the pontifical palace. The wounded man,

covered with blood, was carried to his apartment, where he was

constantly watched by his wife and sister, who, dreading Cæsar's

poison, prepared his food with their own hands. Alexander placed

sentinels at his door, but Cæsar laughed at their precautions, and as

the pope was going to see his son-in-law, Cæsar said to him, "What is

not done at dinner will be done at supper." In short, he one day

forced his way into the room, drove out the wife and sister, and

calling in his executioner, Michilotto, the only person to whom he

showed any confidence, looked on while his brother-in-law was

strangled.[39] Alexander had a favourite, named Peroto. The pope's

partiality for him offended the young Duke. He pursued him, and

Peroto, taking refuge under the pontifical mantle, clasped the pope in

his arms. Cæsar stabbed him, and the blood of his victim sprung into

the pontiffs face.[40] "The pope," adds a contemporary witness to

these scenes, "loves his son the Duke, and is much afraid of him."

Cæsar was the handsomest and most powerful man of his age. He fought

with six wild bulls, and despatched them with ease. Every morning at

Rome persons were found who had been assassinated during the night,

while poison carried off those whom the sword could not reach. Men

dared not to move or breathe in Rome, every one trembling till his own

turn should arrive. Cæsar Borgia was the hero of crime. The spot of

earth where iniquity attained this dreadful height was the pontifical

throne. When once man has given himself over to the powers of

darkness, the higher the station he pretends to occupy in the sight of

God, the deeper he sinks into the abysses of hell. The dissolute fêtes

which were given in the pontifical palace by the pope, his son Cæsar,

and his daughter Lucretia, cannot be described, or even thought of,

without horror. The impure groves of antiquity, perhaps, never saw the

like. Historians have accused Alexander and Lucretia of incest, but

the proof seems defective. The pope had prepared poison for a rich

cardinal, in a small box of comfits which were to be served after a

sumptuous repast. The cardinal being put on his guard, bribed the

steward, and the poisoned box was placed before Alexander, who ate of

it and died.[41] The whole city ran to see the dead viper, and could

not get enough of the sight.[42]

[37] Infessura.

[38] "Amazzò il fratello Ducha di Gandia et lo fa butar nel Tevere."

He assassinated his brother, the Duke of Gandia, and made him be

thrown into the Tiber. (MS. of Capello, ambassador at Rome in 1500,

extracted by Ranke.)

[39] Intro in camera ... fe ussir la moglie e sorella ... estrangolò

dito zovene.--(Ibid.)

[40] Adeo il sangue il saltò in la faza del papa.--(Ibid.)

[41] E messe la scutola venenata avante il papa.--(Sanato.)

[42] Gordon, Tomasi Infessura, Guicciardini, etc.

Such was the man who occupied the pontifical see at the beginning of

the century in which the Reformation commenced.