notion of ecclesiastical authority. In his system the civil rulers
possess the spiritual functions; and, as their foremost duty is the
preservation and promotion of the true religion, it is their business to
preach. As magistrates are too much occupied with other things, they
must delegate the ministry of the word to preachers, for whose orthodoxy
they have to provide. They are bound to establish uniformity of
doctrine, and to defend it against Papists and heretics. This is not
only their right, but their duty; and not only their duty, but the
condition on which they retain office.[255] Rulers who do not act in
accordance with it are to be dismissed. Thus Zwingli combined
persecution and revolution in the same doctrine. But he was not a
fanatical persecutor, and his severity was directed less against the
Catholics than against the Anabaptists,[256] whose prohibition of all
civil offices was more subversive of order in a republic than in a
monarchy. Even, however, in the case of the Anabaptists the special
provocation was--not the peril to the State, nor the scandal of their
errors, but--the schism which weakened the Church.[257] The punishment
of heresy for the glory of God was almost inconsistent with the theory
that there is no ecclesiastical power. It was not so much provoked in
Zuerich as elsewhere, because in a small republican community, where the
governing body was supreme over both civil and religious affairs,
religious unity was a matter of course. The practical necessity of
maintaining unity put out of sight the speculative question of the guilt
and penalty of error.
Soon after Zwingli's death, Leo Judae called for severer measures against
the Catholics, expressly stating, however, that they did not deserve
death. "Excommunication," he said, "was too light a punishment to be
inflicted by the State which wields the sword, and the faults in
question were not great enough to involve the danger of death."[258]
Afterwards he fell into doubts as to the propriety of severe measures
against dissenters, but his friends Bullinger and Capito succeeded in
removing his scruples, and in obtaining his acquiescence in that
intolerance, which was, says his biographer, a question of life and
death for the Protestant Church.[259] Bullinger took, like Zwingli, a
more practical view of the question than was common in Germany. He
thought it safer strictly to exclude religious differences than to put
them down with fire and sword; "for in this case," he says, "the victims
compare themselves to the early martyrs, and make their punishment a
weapon of defence."[260] He did not, however, forbid capital punishment
in cases of heresy. In the year 1535 he drew up an opinion on the
treatment of religious error, which is written in a tone of great
moderation. In this document he says "that all sects which introduce
division into the Church must be put down, and not only such as, like
the Anabaptists, threaten to subvert society, for the destruction of
order and unity often begins in an apparently harmless or imperceptible
way. The culprit should be examined with gentleness. If his disposition
is good he will not refuse instruction; if not, still patience must be
shown until there is no hope of converting him. Then he must be treated
like other malefactors, and handed over to the torturer and the
executioner."[261] After this time there were no executions for religion
in Zuerich, and the number, even in the lifetime of Zwingli, was less
considerable than in many other places. But it was still understood that
confirmed heretics would be put to death. In 1546, in answer to the
Pope's invitation to the Council of Trent, Bullinger indignantly
repudiates the insinuation that the Protestant cantons were heretical,
"for, by the grace of God, we have always punished the vices of heresy
and sodomy with fire, and have looked upon them, and still look upon
them, with horror."[262] This accusation of heresy inflamed the zeal of
the reformers against heretics, in order to prove to the Catholics that
they had no sympathy with them. On these grounds Bullinger recommended
the execution of Servetus. "If the high Council inflicts on him the fate
due to a worthless blasphemer, all the world will see that the people of
Geneva hate blasphemers, and that they punish with the sword of justice
heretics who are obstinate in their heresy.... Strict fidelity and
vigilance are needed, because our churches are in ill repute abroad, as
if we were heretics and friends of heresy. Now God's holy providence has
furnished an opportunity of clearing ourselves of this evil
suspicion."[263] After the event he advised Calvin to justify it, as
there were some who were taken aback. "Everywhere," he says, "there are
excellent men who are convinced that godless and blaspheming men ought
not only to be rebuked and imprisoned, but also to be put to death....
How Servetus could have been spared I cannot see."[264]
The position of OEcolampadius in reference to these questions was
altogether singular and exceptional. He dreaded the absorption of the
ecclesiastical functions by the State, and sought to avoid it by the
introduction of a council of twelve elders, partly magistrates, partly
clergy, to direct ecclesiastical affairs. "Many things," he said, "are
punished by the secular power less severely than the dignity of the
Church demands. On the other hand, it punishes the repentant, to whom
the Church shows mercy. Either it blunts the edge of its sword by not
punishing the guilty, or it brings some hatred on the Gospel by
severity."[265] But the people of Basel were deaf to the arguments of
the reformer, and here, as elsewhere, the civil power usurped the office
of the Church. In harmony with this jealousy of political interference,
OEcolampadius was very merciful to the Anabaptists. "Severe penalties,"
he said, "were likely to aggravate the evil; forgiveness would hasten
the cure."[266] A few months later, however, he regretted this leniency.
"We perceive," he writes to a friend, "that we have sometimes shown too
much indulgence; but this is better than to proceed tyrannically, or to
surrender the keys of the Church."[267] Whilst, on the other hand, he
rejoiced at the expulsion of the Catholics, he ingeniously justified the
practice of the Catholic persecutors. "In the early ages of the Church,
when the divinity of Christ manifested itself to the world by miracles,
God incited the Apostles to treat the ungodly with severity. When the
miracles ceased, and the faith was universally adopted, He gained the
hearts of princes and rulers, so that they undertook to protect with the
sword the gentleness and patience of the Church. They rigorously
resisted, in fulfilment of the duties of their office, the contemners of
the Church."[268] "The clergy," he goes on to say, "became tyrannical
because they usurped to themselves a power which they ought to have
shared with others; and as the people dread the return of this tyranny
of ecclesiastical authority, it is wiser for the Protestant clergy to
make no use of the similar power of excommunication which is intrusted
to them."
Calvin, as the subject of an absolute monarch, and the ruling spirit in
a republic, differed both from the German and the Swiss reformers in his
idea of the State both in its object and in its duty towards the Church.
An exile from his own country, he had lost the associations and habits
of monarchy, and his views of discipline as well as doctrine were
matured before he took up his abode in Switzerland.[269] His system was
not founded on existing facts; it had no roots in history, but was
purely ideal, speculative, and therefore more consistent and inflexible
than any other. Luther's political ideas were bounded by the horizon of
the monarchical absolutism under which he lived. Zwingli's were
influenced by the democratic forms of his native country, which gave to
the whole community the right of appointing the governing body. Calvin,
independent of all such considerations, studied only how his doctrine
could best be realised, whether through the instrumentality of existing
authorities, or at their expense. In his eyes its interests were
paramount, their promotion the supreme duty, opposition to them an
unpardonable crime. There was nothing in the institutions of men, no
authority, no right, no liberty, that he cared to preserve, or towards
which he entertained any feelings of reverence or obligation.
His theory made the support of religious truth the end and office of the
State,[270] which was bound therefore to protect, and consequently to
obey, the Church, and had no control over it. In religion the first and
highest thing was the dogma: the preservation of morals was one
important office of government; but the maintenance of the purity of
doctrine was the highest. The result of this theory is the institution
of a pure theocracy. If the elect were alone upon the earth, Calvin
taught, there would be no need of the political order, and the
Anabaptists would be right in rejecting it;[271] but the elect are in a
minority; and there is the mass of reprobates who must be coerced by the
sword, in order that all the world may be made subject to the truth, by
the conquerors imposing their faith upon the vanquished.[272] He wished
to extend religion by the sword, but to reserve death as the punishment
of apostasy; and as this law would include the Catholics, who were in
Calvin's eyes apostates from the truth, he narrowed it further to those
who were apostates from the community. In this way, he said, there was
no pretext given to the Catholics to retaliate.[273] They, as well as
the Jews and Mohammedans, must be allowed to live: death was only the
penalty of Protestants who relapsed into error; but to them it applied
equally whether they were converted to the Church or joined the sects
and fell into unbelief. Only in cases where there was no danger of his
words being used against the Protestants, and in letters not intended
for publication, he required that Catholics should suffer the same
penalties as those who were guilty of sedition, on the ground that the
majesty of God must be as strictly avenged as the throne of the
king.[274]
If the defence of the truth was the purpose for which power was
intrusted to princes, it was natural that it should be also the
condition on which they held it. Long before the revolution of 1688,
Calvin had decided that princes who deny the true faith, "abdicate"
their crowns, and are no longer to be obeyed;[275] and that no oaths are
binding which are in contradiction to the interests of Protestantism.[276]
He painted the princes of his age in the blackest colours,[277] and
prayed to God for their destruction;[278] though at the same time he
condemned all rebellion on the part of his friends, so long as there were
great doubts of their success.[279] His principles, however, were often
stronger than his exhortations, and he had difficulty in preventing murders
and seditious movements in France,[280] When he was dead, nobody prevented
them, and it became clear that his system, by subjecting the civil power
to the service of religion, was more dangerous to toleration than Luther's
plan of giving to the State supremacy over the Church.
Calvin was as positive as Luther in asserting the duty of obedience to
rulers irrespective of their mode of government[281] He constantly
declared that tyranny was not to be resisted on political grounds; that
no civil rights could outweigh the divine sanction of government; except
in cases where a special office was appointed for the purpose. Where
there was no such office--where, for instance, the estates of the realm
had lost their independence--there was no protection. This is one of the
most important and essential characteristics of the politics of the
reformers. By making the protection of their religion the principal
business of government, they put out of sight its more immediate and
universal duties, and made the political objects of the State disappear
behind its religious end. A government was to be judged, in their eyes,
only by its fidelity to the Protestant Church. If it fulfilled those
requirements, no other complaints against it could be entertained. A
tyrannical prince could not be resisted if he was orthodox; a just
prince could be dethroned if he failed in the more essential condition
of faith. In this way Protestantism became favourable at once to
despotism and to revolution, and was ever ready to sacrifice good
government to its own interests. It subverted monarchies, and, at the
same time, denounced those who, for political causes, sought their
subversion; but though the monarchies it subverted were sometimes
tyrannical, and the seditions it prevented sometimes revolutionary, the
order it defended or sought to establish was never legitimate and free,
for it was always invested with the function of religious
proselytism,[282] and with the obligation of removing every traditional,
social, or political right or power which could oppose the discharge of
that essential duty.
The part Calvin had taken in the death of Servetus obliged him to
develop more fully his views on the punishment of heresy. He wrote a
short account of the trial,[283] and argued that governments are bound
to suppress heresy, and that those who deny the justice of the
punishment, themselves deserve it.[284] The book was signed by all the
clergy of Geneva, as Calvin's compurgators. It was generally considered
a failure; and a refutation appeared, which was so skilful as to produce
a great sensation in the Protestant world.[285] This famous tract, now
of extreme rarity, did not, as has been said, "contain the pith of those
arguments which have ultimately triumphed in almost every part of
Europe;" nor did it preach an unconditional toleration.[286] But it
struck hard at Calvin by quoting a passage from the first edition of his
_Institutes_, afterwards omitted, in which he spoke for toleration.
"Some of those," says the author, "whom we quote have subsequently
written in a different spirit. Nevertheless, we have cited the earlier
opinion as the true one, as it was expressed under the pressure of
persecution,"[287] The first edition, we are informed by Calvin himself,
was written for the purpose of vindicating the Protestants who were put
to death, and of putting a stop to the persecution. It was anonymous,
and naturally dwelt on the principles of toleration.
Although this book did not denounce all intolerance, and although it was
extremely moderate, Calvin and his friends were filled with horror.
"What remains of Christianity," exclaimed Beza, "if we silently admit
what this man has expectorated in his preface?... Since the beginning of
Christianity no such blasphemy was ever heard."[288] Beza undertook to
defend Calvin in an elaborate work,[289] in which it was easy for him to
cite the authority of all the leading reformers in favour of the
practice of putting heretics to death, and in which he reproduced all
the arguments of those who had written on the subject before him. More
systematic than Calvin, he first of all excludes those who are not
Christians--the Jews, Turks, and heathen--whom his inquiry does not
touch; "among Christians," he proceeds to say, "some are schismatics,
who sin against the peace of the Church, or disbelievers, who reject her
doctrine. Among these, some err in all simplicity; and if their error is
not very grave, and if they do not seduce others, they need not be
punished."[290] "But obstinate heretics are far worse than parricides,
and deserve death, even if they repent."[291] "It is the duty of the
State to punish them, for the whole ecclesiastical order is upheld by
the political."[292] In early ages this power was exercised by the
temporal sovereigns; they convoked councils, punished heretics,
promulgated dogmas. The Papacy afterwards arose, in evil times, and was
a great calamity; but it was preferable a hundred times to the anarchy
which was defended under the name of merciful toleration.
The circumstances of the condemnation of Servetus make it the most
perfect and characteristic example of the abstract intolerance of the
reformers. Servetus was guilty of no political crime; he was not an
inhabitant of Geneva, and was on the point of leaving it, and nothing
immoral could be attributed to him. He was not even an advocate of
absolute toleration.[293] The occasion of his apprehension was a dispute
between a Catholic and a Protestant, as to which party was most zealous
in suppressing egregious errors. Calvin, who had long before declared
that if Servetus came to Geneva he should never leave it alive,[294] did
all he could to obtain his condemnation by the Inquisition at Vienne. At
Geneva he was anxious that the sentence should be death,[295] and in
this he was encouraged by the Swiss churches, but especially by Beza,
Farel, Bullinger, and Peter Martyr.[296] All the Protestant authorities,
therefore, agreed in the justice of putting a writer to death in whose
case all the secondary motives of intolerance were wanting. Servetus was
not a party leader. He had no followers who threatened to upset the
peace and unity of the Church. His doctrine was speculative, without
power or attraction for the masses, like Lutheranism; and without
consequences subversive of morality, or affecting in any direct way the
existence of society, like Anabaptism.[297] He had nothing to do with
Geneva, and his persecutors would have rejoiced if he had been put to
death elsewhere. "Bayle," says Hallam,[298] "has an excellent remark on
this controversy." Bayle's remark is as follows: "Whenever Protestants
complain, they are answered by the right which Calvin and Beza
recognised in magistrates; and to this day there has been nobody who has
not failed pitiably against this _argumentum ad hominem_."
No question of the merits of the Reformation or of persecution is
involved in an inquiry as to the source and connection of the opinions
on toleration held by the Protestant reformers. No man's sentiments on
the rightfulness of religious persecution will be affected by the
theories we have described, and they have no bearing whatever on
doctrinal controversy. Those who--in agreement with the principle of the
early Church, that men are free in matters of conscience--condemn all
intolerance, will censure Catholics and Protestants alike. Those who
pursue the same principle one step farther and practically invert it, by
insisting on the right and duty not only of professing but of extending
the truth, must, as it seems to us, approve the conduct both of
Protestants and Catholics, unless they make the justice of the
persecution depend on the truth of the doctrine defended, in which case
they will divide on both sides. Such persons, again, as are more
strongly impressed with the cruelty of actual executions than with the
danger of false theories, may concentrate their indignation on the
Catholics of Languedoc and Spain; while those who judge principles, not
by the accidental details attending their practical realisation, but by
the reasoning on which they are founded, will arrive at a verdict
adverse to the Protestants. These comparative inquiries, however, have
little serious interest. If we give our admiration to tolerance, we must
remember that the Spanish Moors and the Turks in Europe have been more
tolerant than the Christians; and if we admit the principle of
intolerance, and judge its application by particular conditions, we are
bound to acknowledge that the Romans had better reason for persecution
than any modern State, since their empire was involved in the decline of
the old religion, with which it was bound up, whereas no Christian
polity has been subverted by the mere presence of religious dissent. The
comparison is, moreover, entirely unreasonable, for there is nothing in
common between Catholic and Protestant intolerance. The Church began
with the principle of liberty, both as her claim and as her rule; and
external circumstances forced intolerance upon her, after her spirit of
unity had triumphed, in spite both of the freedom she proclaimed and of
the persecutions she suffered. Protestantism set up intolerance as an
imperative precept and as a part of its doctrine, and it was forced to
admit toleration by the necessities of its position, after the rigorous
penalties it imposed had failed to arrest the process of internal
dissolution.[299]
At the time when this involuntary change occurred the sects that caused
it were the bitterest enemies of the toleration they demanded. In the
same age the Puritans and the Catholics sought a refuge beyond the
Atlantic from the persecution which they suffered together under the
Stuarts. Flying for the same reason, and from the same oppression, they
were enabled respectively to carry out their own views in the colonies
which they founded in Massachusetts and Maryland, and the history of
those two States exhibits faithfully the contrast between the two
Churches. The Catholic emigrants established, for the first time in
modern history, a government in which religion was free, and with it the
germ of that religious liberty which now prevails in America. The
Puritans, on the other hand, revived with greater severity the penal
laws of the mother country. In process of time the liberty of conscience
in the Catholic colony was forcibly abolished by the neighbouring
Protestants of Virginia; while on the borders of Massachusetts the new
State of Rhode Island was formed by a party of fugitives from the
intolerance of their fellow-colonists.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 193: _The Rambler_, March 1862.]
[Footnote 194: "Le vrai principe de Luther est celui-ci: La volonte est
esclave par nature.... Le libre examen a ete pour Luther un moyen et non
un principe. Il s'en est servi, et etait contraint de s'en servir pour
etablir son vrai principe, qui etait la toute-puissance de la foi et de
la grace.... C'est ainsi que le libre examen s'imposa au Protestantisme.
L'accessoire devint le principal, et la forme devora plus ou moins le
fond" (Janet, _Histoire de la Philosophie Morale_, ii. 38. 39).]
[Footnote 195: "If they prohibit true doctrine, and punish their
subjects for receiving the entire sacrament, as Christ ordained it,
compel the people to idolatrous practices, with masses for the dead,
indulgences, invocation of saints, and the like, in these things they
exceed their office, and seek to deprive God of the obedience due to
Him. For God requires from us this above all, that we hear His Word, and
follow it; but where the Government desires to prevent this, the
subjects must know that they are not bound to obey it" (Luther's
_Werke_, xiii. 2244). "Non est, mi Spalatine, principum et istius
saeculi Pontificum tueri verbum Dei, nec ea gratia ullorum peto
praesidium" (Luther's _Briefe_, ed. De Wette, i. 521, Nov. 4, 1520). "I
will compel and urge by force no man; for the faith must be voluntary
and not compulsory, and must be adopted without violence" ("Sermonen an
Carlstadt," _Werke_, xx. 24, 1522).]
[Footnote 196: "Schrift an den christlichen Adel" (_Werke_, x. 574, June
1520). His proposition, _Haereticos comburi esse contra voluntatem
spiritus_, was one of those condemned by Leo X. as pestilent,
scandalous, and contrary to Christian charity.]
[Footnote 197: "Nihil non tentabunt Romanenses, nec potest satis
Huttenus me monere, adeo mihi de veneno timet" (De Wette, i. 487).
"Etiam inimici mei quidam miserti per amicos ex Halberstadio fecerunt
moneri me: esse quemdam doctorem medicinae, qui arte magica factus pro
libito invisibilis, quemdam occidit, mandatum habentem et occidendi
Lutheri, venturumque ad futuram Dominicam ostensionis reliquiarum: valde
hoc constanter narratur" (De Wette, i. 441). "Est hic apud nos Judaeus
Polonus, missus sub pretio 2000 aureorum, ut me veneno perdat, ab amicis
per literas mihi proditus. Doctor est medicinae, et nihil non audere et
facere paratus incredibili astutia et agilitate" (De Wette, ii. 616).
See also Jarcke, _Studien zur Geschichte der Reformation_, p. 176.]