iv. 5, 6 as its forerunner, he brought forward his theory

about the incarnation of Christ, according to which the eternal Word did not assume from Mary flesh and blood but Himself became flesh and passed through Mary, simply “as the sun shines through glass,” because otherwise not Christ’s but Mary’s flesh would have suffered for us. In other respects he utterly rejected the wild, fantastic notions of the Anabaptists which were some years later developed in Münster. In his own life he was thoughtful, pure, and strictly moral, in disposition mild, benevolent, and charitable. In A.D. 1533 we find him again at Strassburg, where his fanatical-prophetical preaching soon produced such dangerous results that the magistrates felt obliged to shut him up under bolts and bars, where he could be out of the way of doing mischief. He was still in prison in A.D. 1543, and from that time onward nothing more is known of him. But a sect of Melchiorites, by no means few in number, held their ground for a long time in Alsace and Lower Germany.

2. According to other accounts =Melchior Ring=, a currier of Swabia, is represented as having wrought during the same period and throughout the same places in Sweden, Livonia, Holstein, and East Friesland, entertaining similar christological, prophetico-apocalyptic, and Anabaptist views. The identity of the Christian name, fatherland, handicraft, doctrinal tenets, date, and spheres of labour is so striking, that one is almost tempted to identify him with Melchior Hoffmann, especially as John of Leyden in his later examination is said to have affirmed that Melchior Hoffmann had actually borne the name of Ring. We feel compelled, however, to maintain the distinctness of their personalities, since, according to Hochbuth’s researches in the history of the Anabaptists in the Hessian state, Ring had been actively engaged in Hesse at a time during which it can be proved that Hoffmann was at work elsewhere.

§ 147.8. So far in respect of place and time as the influence of Hoffmann reached,--and it seems down to the time of his imprisonment to have been widely predominant throughout the whole of the north-western district,--the life and movement of the Anabaptists there kept clear of any social revolutionary tendencies, and in their aberrations from the ways of the reformers were restricted to the purely religious domain. In the beginning of the year 1530, however, a movement broke forth again in =Holland=, in which there was a resurrection of the spirit of Thomas Münzer, and the demand for a thoroughly radical and revolutionary reconstruction of social and political relations was brought into prominence. The most important representative of this tendency was a baker, =Jan Matthys= of Haarlem, who, claiming to be a prophet, proclaimed the introduction of the millennium of glory as the proper and principal task of the Baptists. For the fulfilment of this task he insisted upon the overthrow of the present order in church and State, resistance to their enemies with weapons in hand, even the destruction of all “the ungodly” from the face of the earth, in order that “the saints,” as promised in Scripture, should rule over the world, and lead to completion the kingdom of God. The doctrine of the new prophets may even already have taken root in the minds of the Baptists, roused and excited by continued persecution, without their having clearly perceived what it would ultimately lead to if successfully carried out. But when in Münster these fanatical theories were shown forth as actual realized facts, when John of Leyden set up his pretentious kingdom in that “New Jerusalem,” and sent out into all the world his numerous apostles with the demand for adhesion, in many cases they found a too willing audience. The miserable collapse of the Münster kingdom was the first thing that again called people back to their senses, and rendered their remnants susceptible to the purification of Anabaptism to which Menno Simons devoted his whole life.

§ 147.9. =The Münster Catastrophe, A.D. 1534, 1535.=--The preacher Rothmann of Münster had for some time maintained the Zwinglian theory of the Lord’s Supper, and then he took a further step in the repudiation of infant baptism. A public disputation in A.D. 1533 yielded no result, and he refused to obey an order to retire into exile. He now sought, and that successfully, to increase his following, by the adoption of new elements of the Anabaptist creed. On the festival of the Three Holy Kings in A.D. 1534, =John of Leyden= or John Bockelssohn made his entrance into the city. An illegitimate son of a girl in the Münster province, brought up by relatives in Leyden, whither he returned after several years spent in travelling about as a journeyman tailor, he was in the autumn of A.D. 1533 converted by the prophet Matthys, and soon became his most zealous apostle. In Münster the young man, now in his twenty-fifth year, handsome in appearance and endowed with rich intellectual abilities, was favourably received in the house of a rich and respectable cloth merchant, Bernard Knipperdolling, who had been long interested in the religious movement, and married his daughter. In the meantime Jan Matthys also was called from Amsterdam to Münster. Both now wrought in common among the inhabitants of the city. Their sermons, delivered with glowing eloquence, produced a great impression, especially among the women, and their following grew to such an extent that they believed they might act in defiance of the council. In consequence of a riot the magistrates were weak and yielding enough to enter into an agreement with them by which they obtained legal recognition. Then from all sides Anabaptist fanatics crowded into Münster. After some weeks they secured a majority in the council, and Knipperdolling was made burgomaster. The prophet Matthys declared it to be God’s will that all unbelievers should be expelled. This was done on 27th February, 1534. Seven deacons divided among the believers the property of those who had been banished. In May the bishop began the siege of the city. This much at least resulted from that proceeding, that the epidemic was confined to Münster. After all images, organs, and books, with the exception of the Bible, had been destroyed, they introduced the principle of community of goods. Matthys, who regarded himself as called to slay the besieging foes, in a sortie fell by their swords. Bockelssohn took his place. The council in consequence of his revelations was dissolved, and a theocratical government of twelve elders, who were ready to receive their inspiration from the new prophet, was set up. In order that he might marry Matthys’ beautiful widow, he introduced polygamy. He took seventeen wives; Rothmann satisfied himself with four. In vain did the remnants of moral consciousness existing still among the inhabitants protest. The discontented, who gathered round the smith Mollenhök, were overcome and all of them were put to death. Bockelssohn, proclaimed by one of his fellow prophets, John Dusendschur, king of the whole earth, set up a splendid court, and perpetrated the most revolting iniquities. He regarded himself as called to bring in the millennium, sent out twenty-eight apostles to spread his kingdom, and appointed twelve dukes to govern the world under him. The besiegers had meanwhile, in August, 1534, made an utterly unsuccessful attempt to storm the city. Had they not toward the end of the year received assistance from Treves, Cleves, Mainz, and Cologne, they would have been obliged to raise the siege. Even then they could only think of securing the surrender of the city by famine. It had already been reduced to sore straits. But on St. John’s night, 1535, a deserter led the soldiers to the wall. After a most determined struggle the Anabaptists were utterly overthrown. Rothmann rushed into the hottest of the battle, and there met his death. King John and his premier Knipperdolling and his chancellor Krechting were taken prisoners, and on 22nd January, 1536, were pinched to death with redhot pincers and then hung in iron chains from St. Lambert’s tower. Catholicism was finally restored to absolute and exclusive supremacy.

§ 147.10. =Menno Simons and the Mennonites.=--Menno Simons, born at Wittmarsum in Friesland in A.D. 1492, from A.D. 1516 a Catholic priest, had from careful study of Holy Scripture come to entertain serious doubts as to the Romish doctrine. The martyr courage of the Baptists called his attention to the Baptist views of this sect, and soon he came to feel convinced of their correctness. He resigned his priest’s office at Wittmarsum in A.D. 1536, and had himself baptized. Amid indescribable difficulties and with unwearied patience he laboured on, wandering from place to place, devoting all his powers to the reorganization of the sect. He gave it a definite doctrinal formula, “The Fundamental Book of the True Christian Faith,” in A.D. 1539, which in point of doctrine attached itself to the Reformed confessions, and was distinguished from these only by the rejection of infant baptism, and by an unconditional spiritualization of the idea of the church as a pure communion of true saints. It distinctly forbade military and civil service, as well as all taking of oaths, introduced feet washing in addition to baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and by severe church discipline maintained a simple manner of life and strict morality. The quiet, pious demeanour of the Mennonites soon secured for them in Holland, and later also in Germany, toleration and religious freedom. Menno died in A.D. 1559.--Even during Menno’s lifetime his Dutch followers split up into two parties, called “the Fine” and “the Coarse.” The former enforced in all its severity Menno’s strict discipline, and indeed went beyond it by prohibiting all intercourse with the excommunicated, even should these be parents or husbands and wives. The latter wished to allow to the ban only ecclesiastical and not civil disabilities, and to have it exercised only after repeated exhortations had proved ineffectual.--Continuation, § 162, 1.

§ 148. ANTITRINITARIANS AND UNITARIANS.[422]

The first to contest the doctrine of the Trinity arose from among the German Anabaptists. The Spaniard Michael Servetus wrought out his Unitarianism into connection with a system that was fundamentally pantheistic. The real home of Antitrinitarianism, however, was Italy, a fruit of the half-pagan humanism that flourished there. Banished the country, its representatives sought refuge in Switzerland. Expelled by-and-by from these regions, they betook themselves mostly to Poland, Hungary, and Transylvania, where they found protection from the princes and nobles. A thoroughly developed system of doctrine, elaborated by Lælius and Faustus Socinus, uncle and nephew, was now accepted by them, and by this means they were consolidated into a corporate society.

§ 148.1. =Anabaptist Antitrinitarians in Germany.=

1. =John Denck= from the Upper Palatinate, was, on Œcolampadius’ recommendation, whose lectures he had attended at Basel, made rector of St. Sebald’s school in Nuremberg in A.D. 1523. On account of his maintaining views inconsistent with Lutheran orthodoxy, he came into collision with the reformer of that place, Andrew Osiander, in A.D. 1524, and on the ground of a written confession of faith extorted from him he was deposed from his office and expelled the city. Nor did he find a permanent abode in Augsburg, to which he went in A.D. 1525; for Urbanus Rhegius, who at first received him in a friendly manner, was obliged at last to turn against him on account of his Anabaptist views and the great scandal he caused by maintaining the belief that the devil and all the ungodly would finally repent. He now, in A.D. 1526, went to Strassburg, where Hätzer induced him, as a zealous student of Hebrew, to assist him in his translation of the Old Testament prophets. When here also his influence assumed dangerous proportions, a disputation was arranged for between him and Bucer, in consequence of which he was expelled also from Strassburg. Like treatment awaited him at Bergzahern and also at Landau. He then went to Worms along with Hätzer, who had meanwhile been banished from Strassburg. There they completed their translation of the prophets, but from this retreat also after three months they were again driven out. Denck now once again, through Œcolampadius’ mediation, who unweariedly endeavoured, but in vain, to win him back from his errors, found a fixed abode among the more liberal-minded citizens of Basel; but he died there of the plague in A.D. 1527. Denck was indeed one of the most talented men of his day. His high intellectual endowments and his pure and noble moral life were acknowledged by his most bitterly prejudiced orthodox opponents. Of his numerous tracts and pamphlets only that “On the Law of God, how the Law is Abolished and yet must be Fulfilled,” is still accurately known. It is rich in deep thoughts cleverly put, as is also the confession of faith already mentioned, but in direct antagonism to the Lutheran doctrine on several most vital and cardinal points. He placed the inner word of God above the outward, taught that man had a natural inclination toward good, attached a fundamental importance to the fulfilling of the moral law for the attainment of salvation, gave the person of Christ only the significance of a pattern and exhibition of the Divine love, resolved the doctrine of the Trinity into pantheistic speculative ideas, and by his rejection of infant baptism became the acknowledged head of the whole German Anabaptist movement of his age, so that Bucer could designate him “the pope of the Baptists.”

2. =Louis Hätzer=, from Bischopzell in Thurgau, was priest at Wädenschwyl, on the Zürich lake. At first an enthusiastic follower of Zwingli and his fellow labourer, he soon transcended the Zwinglian reforming tendencies, and with fanatical radicalism launched out into fierce iconoclasm, and attached himself to the Anabaptists, residing partly in Switzerland, in Zürich, Basel, St. Gall, etc., partly in Germany, in Augsburg, Strassburg, Worms, etc., but soon driven out of every place, and meanwhile leading a wandering, unstable life, until at last, in A.D. 1529, he was beheaded at Constance as a bigamist and adulterer. From Denck, who far excelled him in originality and depth of thought, he derived his peculiar views. Among his literary productions only his German translation of the Old Testament prophets, which he produced in conjunction with Denck, is of any importance. It was published at Worms in A.D. 1527, two years before the Zürich version, and five years before that of Luther, and passed through several editions until it was displaced by Luther’s. He also holds no mean position as a composer of spiritual songs.

3. =John Campanus= of Jülich was expelled from Cologne, where he had studied, and went to Wittenburg [Wittenberg], as tutor to some young noblemen, in A.D. 1528. He accompanied the reformers to Marburg, where he sought to unite different parties by explaining “This is My body” to mean the body created by Me. But when he began to spread Anabaptist and Arian views in Wittenberg, and to calumniate the reformers by speech and writing, he was obliged, in A.D. 1532, to quit Saxony. He now returned to Jülich, but after labouring there for a considerable time, he was arrested on a charge of preaching revolutionary and chiliastic sermons, and died in prison after twenty years’ confinement at Cleves about A.D. 1578. His Arian-trinitarian doctrine of God was just as peculiar as his doctrine of the supper. He would acknowledge in the Godhead only two Persons, just as its type marriage is a union of only two persons. He regarded the Holy Spirit, on the one hand, as the Divine nature common to both, and, on the other hand, as the operation of these upon man.

4. =David Joris=, a painter on glass in Delft, received his first impulse from Luther’s writings about A.D. 1524, but soon plunged into wild excesses of iconoclasm and anabaptism. After the overthrow of the short-lived rule of the Münster fanatics (§ 133, 6), he travelled up and down through the whole of Germany, in order to gather together the scattered remnants of the Anabaptists, and to proclaim his revelations. He was not to be deterred or terrified by imprisonment, scourging, or banishment. At last he was pronounced an outlaw, and a price was set upon his head. He went now, in A.D. 1544, to Basel, and lived there under the assumed name of John of Bruges, outwardly professing attachment to the Reformed church, but in secret, by the diligent circulation of letters and treatises, working for his own ends, till his death in A.D. 1556. When afterwards his true name was discovered, the authorities had his bones dug up and burnt by the public hangman. In theory and practice an antinomian, he taught in his fantastic production, “T’Wonderboek” of A.D. 1542, on the ground of the most naked naturalism, how the perfection of the spiritual life and the true reconciliation of all things must be brought about. He conceived of the Trinity as the self-revelation of God in three different ways. That of the Holy Spirit came to pass with himself; the end and aim of that dispensation he represented as consisting in the gathering together of the people of God, _i.e._ all Anabaptists, who were to take possession of the whole earth, as before Israel had of the land of Canaan.

§ 148.2. =Michael Servetus= was born in A.D. 1509 at Villanueva in Arragon. He was a man of rich speculative ability, wide knowledge of science, and restless, inquiring spirit. At Toulouse he devoted himself first of all to the study of law, but soon after turned his attention with great eagerness to theological questions. He became convinced that the fundamental Christian doctrine of the Trinity in its accepted ecclesiastical form is equally opposed to Scripture and to reason, and that in this quarter pre-eminently a reformation was needed. At a later period in Paris he gave himself to the study of medicine, and is reputed the first discoverer of the circulation of the blood, and secured for himself an eminent rank as a practical physician and a writer on medical subjects. He began his polemic against the prevailing doctrine of the Church at Strassburg in A.D. 1531 with the treatise _De Trinitatis erroribus, ll. vii._ Next in order appeared at Hagenau, in A.D. 1532, his palliating and to some extent retractational _Dialogorum de Trin., ll. ii._ In A.D. 1553 he issued anonymously at Vienne his radical and revolutionary principal work, _Christianismi Restitutio_, which was the means of bringing him to the stake. As he succeeded in escaping from his prison in Vienne they were able there only to burn him _in effigie_; but at Geneva he was, at Calvin’s instigation, arrested again, and on his refusing to make a recantation was sent to the stake on 27th Oct., A.D. 1553. The last words heard from the dying man in the flames were, “Jesus, Thou Son of the eternal God, have mercy upon me.”--The reformatory aim of Servetus in his doctrinal system was to raise God as high as possible above the creature. In its very earliest form it was fundamentally pantheistic, yet even here God is thought of as the original substance, and everything existing outside of Him is conceived of as conditioned by a substantial emanation from His being. Those pantheistic principles, however, make their appearance in a much more decided form in the later and more complete developments of his system which are completely dominated by Neoplatonic speculations. In particular he regards the Logos as an emanation of the Divine element of light, which first came into possession of personal existence in the incarnation of Christ. The gross matter of His corporeity He received from His mother; the place of the male seed was taken by the Divine element of light. In both respects he is ὁμοούσιος, for even the earthly matter is only a grosser form of the primal light. Son and Spirit are only different _dispositiones Dei_, the Father alone is _tota substantia et unus Deus_. And as the Trinity makes its appearance in connection with the redemption of the world, it will disappear again when that redemption has been completed. The polemic of Servetus, however, extended beyond the doctrine of the Trinity to an attack upon the church doctrine of original sin, and the repudiation of infant baptism. He also set forth a spiritualistic theory of the Lord’s Supper, contended against the Lutheran doctrine of justification and the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination, sketched out a scheme of chiliastic expectations, etc. Amid all these vagaries he maintained his high estimate of Christ as the Logos, become Son of God by the incarnation, and the centre and end of all history; he also continued to reverence Holy Scripture as that which from its first book to its last testifies of Christ. His mystical piety, too, was deep and sincere. But owing to the immoderate violence with which he denounced views opposed to his own as doctrines of devils, among other reproachful terms applying to the church doctrine of the Trinity the name of “_triceps Cerberus_,” the three-headed dog of hell, his contemporaries were prevented from getting even a glimpse of the bright side of his life and endeavours, so that all the most notable theologians voted for his death as salutary and necessary (§ 145, 1).[423]

§ 148.3. =Italian and other Antitrinitarians before Socinus.=--=Claudius of Savoy= in A.D. 1534, at Bern, brought forward the idea that Christ is to be called God only because the fulness of the Divine Spirit has been communicated to Him. He was on this account expelled from that city, and soon after even from Basel, and was very coldly received at Wittenberg. He retracted before a synod at Lausanne in A.D. 1537, afterwards played the part of a popular agitator at Augsburg, and was regarded in Memmingen down to A.D. 1550 as a prophet. After that no further trace of him is found.--Closely connected with the previously named Tiziano, by bonds of friendship and of spiritual affinity, and subsequently also with Lælius Socinus, was the Sicilian exile from his native land, =Camillo Renato=. In A.D. 1545 he obtained at Chiavenna in Veltlin, which then belonged to the country of the Grisons, a situation as a private tutor, and soon became highly respected. He by-and-by, however, involved himself in a violent controversy with the evangelical pastor there, Agostino Mainardo, about the sacraments, which led to his being excommunicated by the Grison synod in A.D. 1550. The central point in his theology is the doctrine of predestination. Only the elect are by God’s Spirit awakened into life, and while the children of the Spirit only slumber in death, and in the resurrection assume a renewed, purely spiritual form of being, the soul of the non-elect die just like their bodies. Although a decided opponent of infant baptism, he did not go so far as to insist upon rebaptism, because he depreciated baptism generally as a mere outward sign, and therefore not necessary. And although he carefully avoided any express repudiation of the doctrine of the Trinity, it can scarcely be doubted that he and all his friends and followers favoured antitrinitarian views.--=Matthew Gribaldo=, a jurist of Padua, the physician =George Blandrata= of Saluzzo in Piedmont, and =Valentine Gentilis= of Calabria, fugitives from their native lands, took up a position of hostility to Calvin in Geneva after Servetus’ death. When Calvin proposed to have them brought before a legal tribunal Gribaldo and Blandrata retired from Geneva and went to Poland. Only Gentilis remained, and he subscribed a confession of faith which Calvin laid before him, but soon declared that he could not continue to hold by it, and set forth as consistent with Scripture doctrine the opinion that the Father as _Essentiator_ is not a person in the Godhead, but the whole substance of the Godhead, and that the Son as _Essentiatus_ proceeding from Him, is only the perfect reflex and highest image of the one deity of the Father. Having been cast into prison and condemned to death he retracted once again, and then withdrew also to Poland. Subsequently, however, he returned to Switzerland, was arrested at Bern, and beheaded as an apostate in A.D. 1566.[424] Blandrata had meanwhile betaken himself to Transylvania, was there appointed physician to the prince, secured the interest of Zapolya II. and many of the nobles for his Unitarianism, so that public recognition was given to it as a fourth confessional form of religion. According to the doctrine set forth by him worship is rendered to Jesus as the man endowed by God with grace beyond all others and raised to universal dominion. But in A.D. 1588 he was murdered by his own nephew, who had remained a Catholic, as he had not patience to wait for his death in order to secure possession of his property. Besides Blandrata we may also mention as one of the chief founders of the Unitarian sect in Transylvania =Franz Davidis= of Clausenburg. From A.D. 1552 Lutheran pastor, he became a Calvinist in A.D. 1564, and was made a Reformed superintendent, and, at Blandrata’s recommendation, Zapolya’s court preacher. He then openly attached himself by word and writing to the Unitarians, and became, in A.D. 1571, first Unitarian superintendent of Transylvania. On account of his opposing the doctrine of the supernatural conception of Christ and His right to be worshipped, he was repudiated by Blandrata, and was, in A.D. 1579, condemned by Prince Christopher Bathori, as a blasphemer and enemy of Christ, to imprisonment for life. After three months he died in prison.--The Italian Antitrinitarians who had fled to =Poland= attached themselves there to the Reformed church, and secured many followers not only among the nobles, but also among the Reformed clergy. At their head in Cracow stood the pastor Gregor Pauli, and in Princzov George Schomann. At the Synod of Patrikaw, in A.D. 1562, they first appeared as a close phalanx, making a regular attempt to have the doctrine of the Trinity set aside. Their attack, however, was repelled. A royal edict of A.D. 1564 enacted that all Italian Antitrinitarians should be banished, and a second synod at Patrikaw, in A.D. 1565, excommunicated all their followers. A final endeavour to arrive at a mutual understanding by means of yet another religious conference, while a diet was summoned in connection with this matter at Patrikaw, led to no successful result. From this time forth the Polish Antitrinitarians, who have generally been called Arians, occupy a distinct position as a separate religious denomination.--In the Reformed church of the Palatinate, too, this Unitarian movement ended in an equally tragical scene. The pastor =Adam Neuser= and the Reformed inspector =John Sylvanus= took their place about A.D. 1570 along with the Transylvanian Unitarians. During an investigation into their doctrinal views, a manuscript written out by Sylvanus in his own hand was found: “A Confessional Statement against the Tripersonal Idol and the Two Natures of Christ.” He was beheaded in A.D. 1572 in the market-place of Heidelberg. Neuser fled to Transylvania, and at a subsequent period went over to Mohammedanism.--Out of the Italian infidelity of this age probably also arose that renewal of an idea that had already appeared during the Middle Ages (§ 96, 19) in the book _De tribus impostoribus_, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed. Of a similar tendency is the _Colloquium Heptaplomeres_ of the French jurist =Jean Bodin= (§ 117, 4), who died in A.D. 1597. He was one of seven freethinking Venetian scholars who carried on a discussion upon religion, in which he maintained that deficiencies and mistakes are inherent in the same degree in all positive religions. But an ideal deism is commended as the true religion.

§ 148.4. =The Two Socini and the Socinians.=--=Lælius Socinus=, member of a celebrated family of lawyers in Siena, and himself a lawyer, became convinced at an early period that the Romish system of doctrine was not in accordance with Scripture. In order to reach an assured and certain knowledge of the truth, he learnt the original languages in which Scripture was written, by travelling made the acquaintance of the most celebrated theologians in Switzerland, Germany, and Poland, and wrought out for himself a complete and consistent theory of Unitarian belief. He died in Zürich in A.D. 1562 in his thirty-seventh year. His nephew, =Faustus Socinus=, born at Siena in A.D. 1539, was from his early days trained by personal intercourse and epistolary correspondence with his uncle, and adopted similar views. He was obliged in A.D. 1559 to make his escape to Lyons, but returned in A.D. 1562 to Italy, where for twelve years he was loaded with honours and offices at the court of the Grand-duke Francis de Medici. In order that he might carry on his studies undisturbed, he retired in A.D. 1574 to Basel, from whence in A.D. 1578, at Blandrata’s request, he proceeded to Transylvania to combat Davidis’ refusal of adoration to Christ. In the following year he went to Poland in order to unite, if possible, the various sections of the Unitarians in that country. At Cracow they insisted that he should allow them to rebaptize him, and when he firmly refused they declined to admit him to the communion table. But the decision of his character, his unwearied endeavours to secure peace and union, as well as the superiority of his theological scholarship, in the end won for his ideas a complete victory over the opposing party strifes. He succeeded gradually in expelling from the ranks of the Polish Antitrinitarians non-adorationism as well as Anabaptism, and all their ethical, social, and chiliastic outgrowths, and finally at the Synod of Racau, in A.D. 1603, he secured recognition for his own theological views as he had developed them in disputations and in writings. Persecutions and ill-treatment on the part of the Catholics were not wanting; as, _e.g.,_ in A.D. 1594 by the Catholic soldiers, and in A.D. 1598 by the Catholic students at Cracow, who dragged him from a sick-bed on Ascension Day, drew him half naked through the city, beat him till the blood flowed, and would have drowned him had not a Catholic professor delivered him out of their hands. He died in A.D. 1604.--The chief symbol of the Socinian denomination is the Racovian Catechism, published in the Polish language in A.D. 1605. Socinus himself, in company with several others, compiled it, mainly from an earlier short treatise, _Relig. christ. brevissima institutio_. It was subsequently translated into Latin and also into German.[425]--=The Socinian system of doctrine= therein set forth is essentially as follows: The Scriptures are the only source of knowledge of saving truth, and as God’s word Scripture can contain nothing that is in contradiction to reason. But the doctrine of the Trinity contradicts the Bible and reason; God is only one Person. Jesus was a mere man, but endowed with Divine powers for the accomplishment of salvation, and as a reward for his perfect obedience raised to Divine majesty, entrusted with authority to judge the living and the dead, so that to him also Divine homage should be paid. The Holy Spirit is only a power or attribute of God. The image of God in men consisted merely in dominion over the creatures. Man was by nature mortal, but had he remained without sin he would by the supernatural operation of God have entered into eternal life without death. There is no such thing as original sin, but only hereditary evil and an inherited inclination toward what is bad, which, however, does not include in it any guilt. The idea of a Divine foreknowledge of human action is to be rejected, because it would lead to the acceptance of the idea of an absolute predestination. Redemption consists in this, that Christ by life and teaching pointed out the better way; and God rewards every one who pursues this better way with the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. The death of Christ was no atoning sacrifice, but merely attached a seal to the teaching of Christ and formed for him a pathway to Divine glory. Conversion must begin by the exercise of one’s own powers, but can be perfected only through the assistance of the Holy Spirit. The sacraments are only ceremonies, which may even be dispensed with, though it is more becoming to retain them as old and beautiful customs. The immortality of the pious Christian is conditioned and made possible by the resurrection of Christ. But the ungodly, along with the devil and his angels, are annihilated; and because in this their punishment consists, Holy Scripture designates the annihilation as eternal death and eternal condemnation. There is no resurrection of the flesh; the living indeed have their bodies restored in the resurrection; but these are not fleshly, but, as Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians xv., spiritual.[426]--Continuation, § 163, 1.

IV. THE COUNTER-REFORMATION.

§ 149. THE INTERNAL STRENGTHENING AND REVIVAL OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.[427]

The strenuous endeavours put forth by the Roman Catholic church to restrict within the narrowest limits possible the victorious course of the Reformation, and so far as might be to reconquer lost ground, bulk so largely in its sixteenth century movement, that we may review that entire era in its history from the standpoint of the counter-reformation. This development was carried out, on the one hand, by means of increased strengthening and revival, and, on the other hand, by polemics and attack on those without, in this latter case advanced by missions to the heathen and by violent persecution and suppression of Protestantism. The Tridentine Council, A.D. 1545-1547, A.D. 1551, 1552, A.D. 1562, 1563, was devoted to the realization of these ends. The curialistic side of mediæval scholastic Catholicism was again presented as the sole representation of the truth, compacted with iron bands into a rigid system of doctrine, and declared to be incapable in all time to come of any alteration or reform; while at the same time it set aside or modified many of the more flagrant abuses. With two long breaks caused by political considerations, it had completed its work between 1545 and 1563 in twenty-five sessions. The first ten sittings were held A.D. 1545-1547, under Paul III.; the next six in A.D. 1551 and 1552, under Julius III.; and the last nine in A.D. 1562, 1563, under Pius IV.--The old and utterly corrupt monkish orders, which had once formed so powerful a support to the papacy, had not proved capable of surviving the shock of the Reformation. In their place there now arose a new order, that of the =Jesuits=, which for centuries formed a buttress to the severely shaken papacy, and hemmed in on all sides the further advances of the Protestant movement. Besides this great order there arose a crowd of others, partly new, partly old ones under reformed constitutions, mostly of a practical churchly tendency. The strifes and rivalries that prevailed between the different Protestant sects stirred up with the Romish Church a new and remarkable activity in the scientific study of doctrine; and mysticism flourished again in Spain, and succeeded in reaching there a considerable development.

§ 149.1. =The Popes before the Council.=--=Leo X.= (§ 110, 14) the accomplished, extravagant, luxurious, and frivolous Medici, was succeeded by one who was in every respect diametrically opposed to his predecessor, =Hadrian VI.=, A.D. 1522, 1523, the only pope who for many centuries before down to the present day retained his own honourable Christian name when he ascended the throne of St. Peter. Hadrian Dedel, the son of a poor ship-carpenter of Utrecht, a pious and learned Dominican, had raised himself to a theological professorship in the University of Louvain, when Maximilian I. chose him to be tutor to his grandson, who afterwards became the Emperor Charles V. He was thus put in the way for obtaining the highest offices in the church. He was made Bishop of Tortosa, grand-inquisitor, cardinal, and viceroy of Spain for Charles during his absence. When, after Leo’s death, neither the imperial candidate Julius Medici nor any other of the cardinals present in conclave secured the necessary votes, the imperial commissioner pointed to Hadrian, and so out of the voting box came the name of a new pope whom no one particularly wished. A thoroughly learned, scholastic commentator on the Lombard, pious and strict in his morals even to rigorism, in his domestic economy practising peasant-like simplicity, and saving even to the extent almost of niggardliness; a zealot for the Thomist system of doctrine, but holding in abhorrence the Renaissance, with all its glitter of classical culture, art, and poetry; mourning bitterly over the worldliness and corruption of the papacy, as well as over the unfathomable depravity throughout the church, and firmly resolved to inaugurate a thorough reformation in the head and members (§ 126, 1),--he seemed in that position and age, and with those surroundings, a Flemish barbarian, who could not even understand Italian, and spoke Latin with an accent intolerable to Roman ears, the greatest anomaly that had ever yet appeared in the history of the popes. The Roman people hated him with a deadly hatred, and Pasquino[428] was inexhaustibly fruitful in stinging epigrams and scurrilous verses on the new pope and his electors. The German reformers were not inclined to view him with favour; for he had previously, in his capacity as grand-inquisitor, condemned, according to Llorente, between 20,000 and 30,000 men under the Spanish Inquisition, and had more than 1,600 burnt alive. Two attempts were made by the Romans to assassinate him by dagger and by poison, but neither succeeded. He died, however, after a short pontificate of one and a half years, the last German and indeed the last non-Italian occupant of the papal throne. But the Romans wrote on the house door of his physician, “To the deliverer of the fatherland,” and enjoyed themselves, when the corpse of the deceased pope was laid between those of Pius I. and Pius II., by repeating the feeble pleasantry, _“Impius inter Pios.”_ The jubilation in Rome, however, was extravagant, when by the next conclave a member of the family of the Medici, the illegitimate son of the murdered Julius (§ 110, 11), the Cardinal Julius Medici, who had been rejected on the former occasion, was now proclaimed under the title of =Clement VII., A.D. 1523-1534=. The brave Romans did not indeed anticipate that this pope, in consequence of the shiftiness of his policy and the faithlessness of his conduct toward the emperor (§ 126, 6), to whose favour and influence mainly he owed his own elevation, would reduce their city to a condition of wretchedness and depression such as had never been witnessed since the days of Alaric and Genseric (§ 132, 2). The position of a pope like Clement, who regarded himself as called upon, not only as church prince to set right the ecclesiastical institutions of the age, which in every department had been thrown into utter confusion by the storms of the German Reformation (§ 126, 2), but also as a temporal prince to deliver Italy and the States of the church from threatened servitude to Germany and Spain, no less than from France, was one of peculiar difficulty, so that even a much more astute politician than Clement would have found it hardly possible to maintain successfully.

§ 149.2. =The Popes of the Time of the Council.=--After Clement VII. the papal dignity was conferred upon Alexander Farnese, who took the name of =Paul III.=, A.D. 1534-1549, a man of classical culture and extraordinary cunning. He owed his cardinal’s hat, received some forty years before, to an adulterous intrigue of his sister Julia Orsini with Pope Alexander VI. His entrance upon this ecclesiastical dignity, however, did not lead him to give up his sensual and immoral course of life, and after his elevation to the papal chair he practised nepotism after the example of the Borgias and the Medicis. He was, however, the only pope, at least for a long time, who seemed to be actually in earnest about coming to an understanding on doctrinal points with the German Protestants (§ 139, 23). He at last summoned the =œcumenical council=, so long in vain demanded by the emperor, to meet at Mantua on 23rd May, A.D. 1537; but afterwards postponed the opening of it, on account of the Turkish war, until 1st Nov. of that year, and then again until 1st May, A.D. 1538. On the latter day it was to meet at Vicenza, and after this date had elapsed, it was suspended indefinitely. The emperor’s continued insistence upon having a final and properly constituted council in a German city led him to fix upon =Trent=, where a council was summoned to meet on 1st Nov., A.D. 1542, but the troubles that meanwhile arose with France gave a welcome excuse for further postponement. Persistent pressure on the part of the emperor led to the issuing of a new rescript by the pope on 15th March, A.D. 1545; there was the usual delay because of the failure to secure a sufficient number of orthodox and competent bishops and delegates; and thus at last the council opened at Trent on =13th Dec., A.D. 1545=. The skilful management of the council by the Cardinal-legate del Monte, the statement carefully prepared beforehand of the distinctly anti-protestant basis upon which they were to proceed (§ 136, 4), and the well arranged scheme of the legates to secure its adoption by having the votes reckoned not according to nations, but by individuals (§ 110, 7), contributed largely during the earlier sessions to neutralize the conciliatory tendencies of the emperor as well as to prevent the possibility of Protestants taking any active share in the proceedings. When the emperor, who had now reached the very summit of his power, forbade the promulgating of these arrangements, the pope declared that he did not think it a convenient and proper thing that the council should be held in a German city; and so, on the pretext of a plague having broken out in Trent, he issued an order at the eighth session that on 11th March, A.D. 1547, it should resume at Bologna. The emperor’s decided protest obliged the German bishops to remain behind in Trent, and the bishops who assembled at Bologna under these circumstances did not venture to continue their proceedings. As the emperor persistently refused to recognise the change of seat, and in consequence the bishops present had one after another left the city, the pope issued a decree in Sept., A.D. 1547, again postponing the meeting indefinitely.--Paul was succeeded by the Cardinal-legate del Monte, who took his place on the papal throne as =Julius III.=, A.D. 1550-1555. He could indulge in nepotism only to a limited extent, but he did in that direction what was possible. Driven to it by necessity, he again opened the Council of Trent on 1st May, A.D. 1551. Protestant delegates were also to be present at it. But without regard to them the council continued to hold firmly by the anti-protestant doctrines (§ 136, 8). The position of matters was suddenly and unexpectedly changed by the appearance of the Elector Maurice. On the approach of his victorious army the council broke up, after it had at its sixteenth session, on 28th April, A.D. 1552, promulgated articles condemning all the Protestants, and resolved to sist further proceedings for two years. After the death of Julius III., =Marcellus II.= was elected in his stead, one of the noblest popes of all times, who once exclaimed, that he could not understand how a pope could be happy in the strait-jacket of the all-dominating curialism. He occupied the chair of St. Peter only for twenty-one days. He was succeeded by John Peter Caraffa (§ 139, 23), as =Paul IV.=, A.D. 1555-1559. He carried on the operations of the Inquisition, reintroduced into Rome at his instigation under Paul III. for the suppression of all Protestant movements, with the most reckless severity and insistency, was unwearied in searching out and burning all heretical books, and protested against the Religious Peace of Augsburg. He also opposed the elevation of Ferdinand I. to the imperial throne, which led the new emperor to issue a decree of state, which concluded with the words: “And every one may from this judge that his holiness, by reason of age or other causes, is no longer in full possession of his senses.” This pope also in the bull, _Cum ex apostolatus officio_ of A.D. 1558, released subjects from the duty of obedience to heretical princes, and urged orthodox rulers to undertake the conquest of their territories. But he also embittered himself among the Roman populace by his inquisitorial tyranny, so that they upon the report of his death destroyed all the buildings of the Inquisition, broke in pieces the papal statues and arms, and under threat of death forced all the members of the Caraffa family to quit the city.--The mild disposition of his successor, =Pius IV.=, A.D. 1560-1565, moderated and reduced, as far as he thought safe, the fanatical violence and narrowness of the Inquisition, and the reforming influence which he allowed to his talented nephew Charles Borromeo over the affairs of the curia bore many excellent fruits. Without much opposition he again opened the Tridentine Council on 18th Jan., A.D. 1562, which now it appeared could be resumed with less danger, beginning with the seventeenth session and ending with the twenty-fifth on the 3rd or 4th Dec., A.D. 1563. Of the 255 persons who throughout took part in it more than two-thirds were Italians. The papal legates domineered without restraint, and it was an open secret that “the Holy Ghost came from Rome to Trent in the despatch box.” In the doctrinal decisions, the mediæval dogmas, with a more decidedly anti-protestant complexion, but with a careful avoidance of points at issue between Franciscans and Dominicans (§ 113, 2), were set forth, together with a formal condemnation of the opposed doctrines of Protestantism. In the proposals for reformation, decided improvements were introduced in church order and church discipline, in so far as this could be done without prejudice to the interests of the hierarchy. German, Spanish, and especially French bishops, as well as the commissioners for Catholic courts urged at first, in the interests of conciliation and reform, for permission to priests to marry and the granting of the cup to the laity, the limiting of the number of fasts and of the worship of saints, relics, and images, as well as the more extreme hierarchical extravagances. But the legates knew well how to gain time by wily intrigues, to disgust their opponents by exciting subtle theological disputes, and to weary them out with tedious delays; and so when it came at last to the vote, the compact majority of the Italians withstood all opposition that could be shown. At the close of the last session Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine (§ 139, 13), who from the opposition had passed over to the majority, cried out, “Anathema to all heretics!” and the prelates answered in full chorus. The pope confirmed the decrees of the council, but forbade on pain of excommunication any exposition of them, as that pertained solely to the papal chair. They found unhesitating acceptance in Italy, Portugal, and Poland, and in Spain in so far as they were agreeable to the laws of the empire. In Germany, Hungary, and France the governments refused to acknowledge them; but the reforming decrees, which could really be recognised as improvements, were willingly accepted, and even the objection to particular conclusions in matters of faith was soon silenced before the sense of the importance of having the thing settled, and securing at any cost the unity of the church.[429]

§ 149.3. =The Popes after the Council.=--=Pius V.=, A.D. 1566-1572, is the only pope for many centuries before and down to the present time who has been canonized. This was done by Clement XI. in A.D. 1712. He was previously a Dominican and grand-inquisitor, and even as pope continued to live the life of a monk and an ascetic. He strove hard to raise Roman society out of its deep moral degradation, condemned strict Augustinianism in the person of Baius, made more severe the bull _In Cæna Domini_ (§ 117, 3), and set the Roman Inquisition to work with a fearful activity never before equalled. He also released all the subjects of Queen Elizabeth of England from their oaths of allegiance, threatened the Emperor Maximilian with deposition should he grant religious freedom to the Protestants, and in league with Spain and Venice gained a brilliant naval victory over the Turks at Lepanto in A.D. 1571.[430]--=Gregory XIII.=, A.D. 1572-1585, celebrated the Bloody Marriage as a glorious act of faith, produced an improved edition of the _Corpus juris canonici_, and carried out in A.D. 1582 the calendar reform that had been already moved for at the Tridentine Council. The new or Gregorian Calendar, which passed over at a bound ten days in order to get rid of the divergence that had arisen between the civil or Julian and the natural year, was only after considerable opposition adopted even by Catholic states. The evangelical governments of Germany introduced it only in A.D. 1700, England in A.D. 1752, and Sweden in A.D. 1753; while Russia and all the countries under the dominion of the Greek church continue to this day their adherence to the old Julian Calendar. Gregory’s successor, =Sixtus V.=, A.D. 1585-1590, was the greatest and most powerful of all the popes since the Reformation, not indeed as a spiritual head of the church, but as a statesman and ruler of the Papal States. Sprung from a thoroughly impoverished family, Felix Peretti was as a boy engaged in herding swine. In his tenth year, however, through the influence of his uncle, a Minorite monk, he obtained admission and elementary education in his cloister at Montalto near Ancona. After completing his studies, he distinguished himself as a pulpit orator by his eloquence, as a teacher and writer by his learning, as a consulter to the Inquisition by his zealot devotion to the interests of orthodoxy, as president of various cloisters by the strictness with which he carried out moral reforms, and, after he had passed through all the stages of the monkish hierarchy and risen to be vicar-general of his order, he was elevated by Pius V. to the rank of bishop and cardinal. He now took the name of Cardinal Montalto, and as such obtained great influence in the administration of the curia. The death of his papal patron and the succession of Gregory XIII., who from an earlier experience as joint commissioner with him to Spain entertained a bitter enmity toward him, condemned him to retirement into private life for thirteen years. He spent the period of his enforced quiet in architectural undertakings, laying out of gardens, editing the works of St. Ambrose, in the exercise of deeds of benevolence, exhibiting toward every one by the whole course of his conduct mildness, gentleness, and friendliness, and, notwithstanding occasional sharp and wicked criticisms about the pope, showing a conciliatory spirit toward his traducers. Thus the cardinals became convinced that he would be a gentle, tractable pope, and so they elected him on Gregory’s death to be his successor. There is still a story current regarding him as to how, on the very day of his elevation, he threw away the stick on which, with all the appearance of the feebleness of age, he had up to that time been wont to lean; but it is an undoubted fact, that from that same day he appeared in the guise of an altogether different man. Cold and reserved, crafty and farseeing in his schemes, recklessly and unhesitatingly determined even to the utmost extremes of harshness in carrying out his devices, greedy and insatiable in amassing treasures, parsimonious toward his dependants and in his own housekeeping, but lavish in his expenditure on great buildings for the adornment of the eternal city and for its public weal. He delivered the States of the Church from the power of the bandits, who had occasioned unspeakable confusion and introduced throughout these dominions a reign of terror. By a series of draconic laws, which were carried out in the execution of many hundreds without respect of person, he spread an indescribable fear among all evil-doers, and secured to the city and the state a security of life and property that had been hitherto unknown. In theological controversies he kept himself for the most part neutral, but in the persecution of heretics at home and abroad there was no remission of his earlier zeal. In the political movements of his time he took a most active share, and the fact that the interests of the Papal States lay nearer to his heart than the interests of the church had the most important and far reaching consequences for the future developments of State and church in Europe. That the Hapsburg universal sovereignty aspired after by Philip II. of Spain threatened also the independence of the Papal States and the political significance of the papacy was perceived by him very distinctly; but he did not perceive, or at least would not admit, that the success of this scheme would have been the one certain way to secure the utter extinction of Protestantism and the restoration of the absolute unity of the church. This was the reason why he was only half-hearted in supporting Philip in the war against the Protestant Elizabeth of England, and also so lukewarm toward the Catholic league of the Guises in France that wrought in the direction of Spanish interests. He did indeed succeed in weakening the Spanish power in Italy and in hindering Spanish aggressions in France, but at the same time he failed through these very devices in obtaining a victory over Protestantism in England and in the Netherlands, while the weakness of the German Hapsburgs over against the German Protestant princes was in great part the result of his policy. The Roman populace, excited against him, not so much by his severity as by the heavy taxes laid upon them, broke down after his death the statue which the senate had erected to his memory in the capitol.[431] The next three popes, who had all been elected in the Spanish interest, died soon after one another. =Urban VIII.= had a pontificate of only twelve days; =Gregory XIV.= reigned for ten months; and =Innocent IX.= survived only for two months. Then =Clement VIII.=, A.D. 1592-1605, ascended the papal throne, his pontificate in respect of civil and ecclesiastical polity, “a weak copy of that of Sixtus.” His successor, =Leo XI.=, died after he had occupied the chair for twenty-seven days.--Continuation, § 155, 1.

§ 149.4. =Papal Infallibility.=--The counter-reformation during this period exerted itself in bringing again into the foreground the assertion of the infallibility of the pope, which had been postponed or set to one side during the previous century (§ 110, 15). The noble Hadrian VI. indeed had, in his scholastic work, _Quæstiones de sacramentis_, of A.D. 1516, reissued during his pontificate, laid it down as beyond all doubt that even the popes in matters of faith might err and often had erred, “_plures enim fuerunt pontifices Rom. hæretici_.” On the other hand, Leo X., in the bull issued against Luther, had distinctly affirmed that the popes of Rome had never erred in their decrees and bulls. Gregory XIII. declared in A.D. 1584, that all papal bulls which contained disciplinary decisions on points of order were infallible. Sixtus V., in the bull _Æternus ille_, with which he issued his unfortunate edition of the Vulgate in A.D. 1589, claimed for the popes the right of infallibly deciding upon the correctness of the readings of the biblical text; but he hastened by the recalling or suppressing of the bull to have the mistake covered in oblivion. Bellarmine taught that the pope is infallible only when he speaks _ex cathedra_; _i.e._ defines a dogma and prescribes it for the belief of all Christendom. But when, in spite of all the efforts of the Jesuit general Lainez, no final decision was come to at Trent upon the question as to whether or how far the pope was to be regarded as infallible, the matter remained undefined and uncertain for more than three centuries (§ 187, 3).

§ 149.5. =The Prophecy of St. Malachi.=--In his book “_Lignum Vitæ_,” published at Venice in A.D. 1595, the Benedictine Wion made public for the first time a prophecy ascribed to St. Malachi, Archbishop of Armagh, who died in A.D. 1148, in which all the popes from Cœlestine II., in A.D. 1143, down to the end of the world, embracing in all one hundred and eleven, are characterized by short descriptive sketches. He also issued a paper purporting to be written by the Dominican Ciaconius, who died in A.D. 1599, the author of a history of the popes, which, however, in many particulars does not harmonize with this document. In this additional fragment we have short and frequent characterizations of the first seventy-four popes, reaching down to Urban VII., in A.D. 1590. The devices for the most part correctly represent the coat of arms, the name, the birthplace, the monkish order, etc., of the several popes; but these in every case are derived from the history of the man before he ascended the papal throne. On the other hand, the devices used to designate the three succeeding popes down to A.D. 1595 are utterly inapplicable and arbitrary. The same is true in almost every case of attempts to characterize the later popes. It can therefore be regarded as only the result of a chance coincidence, if now and again there should seem to be some fair measure of correspondence. Thus No. 83, _Montium custos_, describes Alexander VII., whose arms show six mountains; No. 100, _De balneis Etruriæ_, answers to Gregory XVI., who belonged to a Tuscan cloister; and No. 102, _Lumen in cœlo_, designates Leo XIII., who has a star in his coat of arms. If after Leo’s death, as Harnack remarks, a German pope were possible, No. 103, _Ignis ardens_, might be most exactly realized by the election of the Cardinal Hohenlohe. Still more striking, though breaking through the principle that is rigidly followed with respect to the earlier numbers from 1 to 74, is the way in which under No. 96, _Peregrinus apostolicus_, ridicule is cast upon the misfortune of Pius VI. (§ 165, 10, 13); and in No. 101 _Crux de cruce_ is applied to Pius IX. (§ 184, 2, 3). Upon the whole, there can be no doubt that the composition of the document belongs to A.D. 1590, and indeed to the period during which the conclave sat for almost two months after the death of Urban VII., and that the author, though unsuccessfully, endeavoured to influence the cardinals in their election by making it appear that the appointment of Cardinal Simoncelli of Orvieto, _i.e._ _Urbs vetus_, with the device, _De antiquitate urbis_, had been thus divinely indicated. He chose the name of St. Malachi, because his friend and biographer, St. Bernard, had ascribed to him the gift of prophecy. His series of popes had, therefore, to begin with a contemporary of St. Malachi; and since the author must speak of him as a pope that has yet to be elected, he gives designations to him, and to all who follow down to his own times, which point exclusively to characteristics and relations belonging to them before their election to the papal dignity. Weingarten thinks that Wion himself is author both of the prophecy and of its explanatory appendix, but Harnack has given weighty reasons for questioning this conclusion.

§ 149.6. =Reformation of Old Monkish Orders.=

1. The controversies that prevailed within the ranks of the =Franciscans= (§ 112, 3) were finally put to rest by Pope Leo X. in A.D. 1517. The Conventuals and Observants were allowed to choose respectively their own independent general, and from that time forth maintained on equal terms a more peaceful relation to one another. The general of the Observants, however, who were in number, influence, and reputation greatly the superior, boasted of pre-eminence over his Conventual colleague. Although all Observants under him formed a close and thoroughly united society, there were still distinguished within the same _regular_, _strict_, and _most strict_ Observants. Among the regulars the most prominent were the _Cordeliers_ of France, so called because they were girt merely with a cord; to the strict belonged the Barefooted monks; and to the most strict the Alcantarines, founded by Peter of Alcantara in Spain. The founder of the =Capuchins= was the Italian Observant Minorite Matth. de Bassi. As he reported that St. Francis had worn a cowl with long sharp peak or capouch, and soon thereafter saw the saint himself in a vision dressed in such a garb, he withdrew from his cloister, went to Rome, and obtained from Clement VII., in A.D. 1526, the right of restoring the capouch. Falling out with the Observants over this, his followers attached themselves, in A.D. 1528, to the Conventuals as an independent congregation with their own vicar-general. The unusual style of dress produced a sensation. Whenever one of the brethren appeared the gutter children would run after him, crying out in mockery, _Capucino_. But the name that was given in reproach they accepted as a title of honour. Their self-denying benevolence upon the outbreak of the pestilence in Italy in A.D. 1528 soon won high reputation to the order, and secured its further spread. In consequence of their vicar-general, Bernardino Ochino (§ 139, 24), going over to the Reformed church, the order came for a long time into disrepute. Thoroughly characteristic of them was their utter deficiency in scientific culture, which often went the length of a relapse in utter rudeness and vulgarity, and debased their preaching into burlesque “_capuchinades_.”

2. A reformation of the Carmelites was brought about by St. Theresa de Jesus in A.D. 1562. The restored order bore the name of the “Shoeless Carmelites,” and its members distinguished themselves as teachers of the young and in works of charity. Alongside of her, as restorer of the male Carmelites, stood the pious mystic John of the Cross.[432]

3. A reformed congregation of =Cistercians= was founded in A.D. 1586 by Jean de la Barrière, abbot of the monastery of Feuillans [Feuillants]. The mode of life of these Feuillants was so severe that fourteen brothers sank under the burden within a short time, and this led to the modification of the rules in A.D. 1595. The founder was called by Henry III. to establish a monastery near Paris. He continued faithful to the king after he had withdrawn from the league, and thus drew down upon himself the hatred of the fanatical Catholic members of the order to such a degree that they deposed and banished him in A.D. 1592. A later commission of inquiry, however, under Cardinal Bellarmine pronounced him innocent.

§ 149.7. =New Orders for Home Missions.=

1. =The Theatines= had their origin in an association of pious priests at Theate, which Cajetan, at the advice of John Peter Caraffa, bishop of that place, afterwards Pope Paul IV., constituted into an order. In A.D. 1524, having been organized as _clerici regulares_, they chose to live not by begging but by depending on Divine providence, _i.e._ on gifts bestowed without asking, and came to be of importance as a training school for the higher clergy. Their statutes expressly required of them to instruct the people by frequent preaching, to attend to the bodies and souls of the sick, to seek the spiritual good of criminals, and to labour for the overthrow of heresy.

2. =The Barnabites=, also a society of regular clergy, founded by Antonio Maria Zaccaria at Milan, and confirmed by Clement VII. in A.D. 1533. They assigned to themselves the duty of devoting their whole life to works of mercy, pastoral care, education of the young, preaching, hearing confession, and conducting missions. They took the name Barnabites from the church of St. Barnabas, which was given over to them. To them was also attached the order of =Angelicals=, founded by Louisa Torelli, Countess Guastalla, a rich lady who was widowed for the second time in her twenty-fifth year, and confirmed by Paul III. in A.D. 1534. At first they accompanied the Barnabites on their missions, and wrought for the conversion of women, while the Barnabites devoted their attention to the men. Subsequently, however, on account of loose behaviour, they were obliged to keep within their convents. Each of the nuns in addition to her own name took that of the order, Angelica, which was intended to remind her of her obligation to keep herself pure as the angels.

3. The congregation of the =Somaskians=, or regular clergy of St. Majolus, trace their origin from Jerome Emiliani of Somascho, a town of Lombardy. While serving as an officer in the army, a thoroughly careless man of the world, he happened to be cast into prison. In his gloomy cell he repented of his past sinful life, and made his escape, it is said, by the assistance of the blessed Virgin, in a manner similar to that recorded in Acts v. 19. Some years after, in A.D. 1518, he entered holy orders, and now devoted his whole life to a self-denying practice of benevolence, by founding orphanages and training schools, asylums for fallen women, etc. In order to secure support, instruction, and pastoral care for his numerous and varied dependants, he joined with himself several like-minded clergymen in A.D. 1532, and formed a benevolent society. Its richly blessed activity extended over all northern Italy as far down as Rome, and was not arrested even by the founder’s early death in A.D. 1537. Pius V. in A.D. 1568 prescribed to the society the rule of St. Augustine, and on the ground of this raised it into an order of St. Majolus, so called from a church gifted to it at Pavia by St. Charles Borromeo.

4. =The Brothers of Charity=, in Spain called Hospitallers, in France Frères de Charité, were originally a secular fraternity for giving gratuitous attention to the sick, which was founded in Granada, in A.D. 1540, by a Portuguese, Juan Ciudad, poor in goods but rich in love, to whom his bishop gave the honourable title John of God, Juan di Dios, and who was canonized by Pope Alexander VIII. in A.D. 1690.[433] After Pius V. had in A.D. 1572 given the order the character of a monkish order by putting its members under the rule of St. Augustine, it soon spread over Italy, France, Germany, and Poland. Its cloisters were arranged as well-equipped hospitals for the destitute sick, without distinction of religious confession, so that their studies were directed even more to the medical than to the theological sciences.

5. =The Ursuline Nuns=, founded in A.D. 1537 by a pious virgin, Angela Merici of Brescia, for affording help to needy sufferers of every sort, but especially for the education of girls.

6. =The Priests of the Oratory=, or the Order of the Holy Trinity, founded by St. Philip Neri of Florence in A.D. 1548, a saint of the most profound piety, possessed at the same time with a bright and genial humour. They combined works of charity with exercises of common prayer and Bible study, which they conducted in the oratory of a hospital erected by them.[434]--Continuation, § 156, 7.

§ 149.8. =The Society of Jesus: Founding of the Order.=--=Ignatius Loyola=, Don Inigo Lopez de Recalde, born at the castle of Loyola in A.D. 1491, was descended from a distinguished family of Spanish knights. Seriously wounded at the siege of Pampeluna by the French in A.D. 1521, he sought to relieve the tedium of a prolonged and painful sickness by reading romances of chivalry and, when he had finished these, the legends of the saints. These last made a deep impression upon him, and enkindled in him a glowing zeal for the imitation of the saints in their abandonment of the world, and their superiority to the world’s thoughts and ways. Nervous convulsions and appearances of the queen of heaven gave their Divine consecration to this new tendency. After his recovery he distributed his goods among the poor, and in beggar’s garb subjected himself to the most rigorous asceticism. At the age of thirty-three years he began, in A.D. 1524, sitting among boys, to learn the first elements of Latin, then studied philosophy at Complutum and theology at Salamanca and Paris. With iron determination of will he overcame all difficulties. In Paris, six like-minded men joined together with him: Peter Favre of Savoy, who was already a priest; Francis Xavier, belonging to a family of Spanish grandees; James Lainez, a Castilian; Simon Rodriguez, a Portuguese; Alphonso Salmeron and Nicholas Bobadilla, both Spaniards. With glowing enthusiasm they drew out the plan of a new order, which, by its very name, “Compañia de Jesus,” indicated its character as that of a spiritual army, and by combining in itself all those features which separately were found to characterize the several monkish orders, advanced the bold claim of being the universal and principal order of the Romish church. But pre-eminently they put themselves under obligation, in A.D. 1534, by a solemn vow of absolute poverty and chastity, and promised to devote themselves to the service of the Catholic faith at the bidding of the pope. Practising the strictest asceticism they completed their studies, and obtained ordination as priests. As insurmountable difficulties, arising from the war carried on by Venice with the Turks, prevented the accomplishing of their original intention of a spiritual crusade to the Holy Land, they travelled to Rome, and after some hesitation Paul III., in A.D. 1540, confirmed their association as the =Ordo Societatis Jesu=. Ignatius was its first general. As such he continued to devote himself with great energy of will to spiritual exercises, to the care of the sick, to pastoral duties, and to the conflict with the heretics. He died in A.D. 1556, and was beatified by Paul V. in A.D. 1609, and canonized by Gregory XV. in A.D. 1622. A collection of his letters was published in three vols. by the Jesuits in A.D. 1874.[435]--Among his disciples who emulated their master in genius, insight, and wide, world-embracing schemes, we must name the versatile Lainez, the energetic Francis Borgia, a Spanish grandee, grandson of the murdered Giovanni Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI. (§ 110, 12), but above all the Neapolitan Claudio Aquaviva, A.D. 1581-1615, who in many respects deserves to be regarded as a new founder of Loyola’s creation. Under these the order entered upon a career of universal significance in history, as a new spiritual army for the defence of the papacy. The popes showed their favour by heaping unheard of privileges upon it, so that it grew from year to year more and more powerful and comprehensive. Never has any human society come to understand better how to prove spirits, and to assign to each individual a place, and to set him to work for ends for which he is best suited; and never has a system of watchful espionage been more consistently and strictly carried out. Everything must be given up to the interests of the order in unconditional obedience to the commands of the superior, even that which is to men most dear and sacred, fatherland, relations, likings and dislikings. One’s own judgment and conscience count for nothing; the order is all in all. They have understood how to use everything that the world affords, science, learning, art, worldly culture, politics, and, in carrying out their foreign missions, colonization, trade, and industry, as means for accomplishing their own ends (§ 156, 13). The order got into its own hands the education of the children of the higher ranks, and thus secured devoted and powerful patrons. By preaching, pastoral work, and the founding of numerous brotherhoods and sisterhoods they wrought upon the people, became advisers of the princes through the confessional, wormed their way into connections and into all secrets. And all these innumerable appliances, all these conspicuous powers and talents, united under the direction of one will, were unwaveringly directed to one end: on the positive side, the furthering and spread of Catholicism; on the negative side, the overthrow and uprooting of Protestantism. On the death of the founder, in A.D. 1556, the order already numbered over 1,000 members in thirteen provinces and 100 colonies; and seventy years later, the number of provinces had increased to thirty-nine, with 15,493 members in 803 houses.[436]--Continuation, §§ 151, 1; 165, 9.

§ 149.9. =Constitution of the Jesuit Order.=--Required to yield obedience and render an account of their doings only to the pope, exempted from every other kind of ecclesiastical supervision, and therefore scorning to accept any spiritual dignities and benefices, such as bishoprics, canonries, pastorates, etc., this order, thoroughly self-contained, presents a more perfect and compact organization than any large association on this earth has ever been able to show. Only those who had good bodily health and intellectual ability were admitted to the two years’ novitiate. After this period of probation had been passed in a satisfactory manner, the novices were released from the discipline of the novice master and put under the usual three monkish vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity. They now either entered immediately as “_secular coadjutors_” on the duties assigned to such in administrating and taking care of the outward affairs of the houses of the order, or as “_scholastici approbati_” for their further intellectual culture were received into collegiate establishments provided for such under the direction of a rector. After completing the prescribed studies and exercises, they proceeded as “_scholastici formati_” to engage upon their duties as “_spiritual coadjutors_,” who were required to continue the prosecution of their studies, teach the young, and perform pastoral work. After many years’ trial, the most able and active of them were received into the number of the “_professi_,” who live purely on alms in a distinct and special kind of institution presided over by a superior. But among the _professi_, there is a distinction made between those who adopt three and those who adopt four vows. The latter, who, in addition to the other usual vows, take also one of obedience to the pope in regard to any mission among heathens and heretics which he may please to commission them to undertake, as the choice spirits of the order, constitute its very core and form the circle immediately around the general, who with monarchical absolutism stands at the head of all. Even this autocrat however is himself watched over by the four assistants associated with him and by an admonisher, who is at the same time his confessor, so that he may not commit anything contrary to the rules of the order and unduly stretch his own prerogatives; and he is also answerable to the general congregation of all the _professi_, which is convened every third year. The provincials officiate as his viceroys in different countries in which the order has a footing. Alongside of the spiritual superior of every house of the order stands a procurator, usually of clerical rank, for the administration of the property and the superintendence of the secular coadjutors. Like the general all the other superiors are watched over by the assistants or advisers associated with them, and by the admonishers or father confessors. The _Constitutiones Societatis Jesu_ (Rom., 1583), p. vi., c. i. 1, thus describe the obedience that must be rendered to the superiors: _Quisquis sibi persuadeat, quod qui sub obedientia vivunt, se ferri ac regi a divina providentia per superiores suos sinere debent perinde ac si cadaver essent, quod quoquoversus ferri et quacunque ratione tractari se sinit: vel similiter atque senis baculus, qui ubicunque et quacunque in re velit eo uti, qui cum manu tenet, ei inservit_. By all members of the order, of every rank of degree, by novices and adepts alike, four weeks were usually devoted once a year under an exercise master chosen for that work to _exercitia spiritualia_, in which rigid attention was given to prayer, meditation, examination of conscience, mortification, etc., as an effectual means of breaking in and breaking down the individual will. The first sketch of a directory for exercises of this sort was made by the founder himself in his _Exercitia Spiritualia_ (Antwerp, 1638). This work, annotated, enlarged, and completed, was finally adopted by the general congregation in A.D. 1594, and issued under the title _Directorium in exer. sp._--The original rule of the Jesuits is set forth in the _Constitutiones Societatis Jesu_ already referred to; their later rule, finally perfected at the eighteenth general congregation, is given in the _Institutum Soc. Jesu_ (2 vols., Prag., 1757). The so called _Monita secreta Soc. Jesu_, first published at Cracow in A.D. 1612, professing to have been obtained from private instructions communicated by Aquaviva, the fifth general of the order, only to the most trustworthy of the very _élite_ of the _professi_, which gives without the slightest reserve an account of the devices, often of the most unscrupulous description, to be practised in order to secure an increase to the order of power, reputation, influence, and possessions, have been repudiated with horror by the order as a malevolent calumny, by which probably some offender who had been ejected sought vent for his revenge. The author, who at all events betrays a thorough acquaintance with the internal arrangements of the order, under the fictitious form of a course of instruction given by the general named, may have communicated, with considerable exaggerations, an account of the practices current within the society of his own day.[437]

§ 149.10. =The Doctrinal and Moral System of the Jesuits.=--In =dogmatics= Loyola himself and his immediate disciples were firmly attached to the prevailing doctrinal system of Thomas (§ 113, 2). Gradually, however, it came to be seen, that upon this ground their conflict with the Protestants in regard to the fundamental doctrines of sin and grace, justification and sanctification was in various ways precarious, and this occasioned an inclination more and more toward the Scotist side. Their general Aquaviva, in his order of study prescribed in A.D. 1586, publicly announced this departure from the doctrine of the _Doctor Angelicus_, restricting it, however, to the doctrines of grace and of the immaculate conception. On the other hand, they were the most zealous defenders of the characteristic doctrines of St. Thomas (§ 96, 23) even in their extremest form, the papal infallibility, the pope’s universal episcopate, and his absolute supremacy over every earthly potentate. In the interests of the papacy they thus laid the foundations of a theory of the sovereignty of the people in matters of civil life: Only the papal power is, according to Matthew xvi. 18, immediately from God, that of the princes is from the people. The people therefore, if their prince be a heretic or a tyrant, can rid themselves of him by deposing, banishing, or even putting him to death; _i.e._ tyrannicide. Thus taught Bellarmine, who died in A.D. 1621, speaking for the whole order, in his treatise _De potestate pontificis in temporalibus_, and still more decidedly and openly the careful and reliable Spanish historian Juan Mariana, who died in A.D. 1624, in his “Mirror for Princes,” _De rege et regis institutione_, which was therefore condemned by the parliament of Paris to be burnt; while another work of his, published only after his death, reflecting upon the despotic proceedings of the general of the order, Aquaviva, and mercilessly exposing many other offences of the society, was condemned by Urban VIII. Alongside of the Pelagianizing Jesuit doctrine of grace there was also developed a lax =doctrine of morals=, which threatened to sap the very foundations of morality. This they made familiar to people generally through the confessional. The following are the principal points upon which their quibbling casuistry has been exercised in such a manner as to bring the morality of the Jesuits into thorough disrepute:

1. _Probabilism_, which teaches, that in a case where the conscience is undecided as to what should be done or borne in that particular instance, one is not necessarily bound to the more certain and probable meaning, but may even take a less certain and less probable view, if this were supported by weighty reasons, or could be sustained by the authority of some distinguished theologian, a _doctor gravis_.

2. _Intentionalism_, or the doctrine that any action, even it be in itself sinful, is to be judged only according to the intention with which it was performed, pointedly expressed in the saying, The end justifies the means, “_quia cum finis est licitus etiam media sunt licita_” (Busembaum).

3. The distinction between _philosophical and theological sin_, according to which only the latter, as a sin committed with a clear understanding of the sinfulness of the deed, and with the present consciousness and intention thereby expressly to break a Divine command, is condemnable before God.

4. The doctrine of the permissibility of a secret reserve, _reservatio mentalis_, and the use of ambiguous language, by means of which, if one, upon giving a solemn affirmation or denial upon oath, has so arranged his words, that besides the meaning naturally to be taken from them that is contrary to the truth or the intention, they admit of another that is in accordance with fact, he is not to be regarded as guilty of giving false witness, of breach of faith, deceit, or perjury.

These and other suchlike moral axioms, not indeed expressed for the first time by the Jesuit order, but already for the most part rooted in the mediæval system of casuistry, were certainly first carried out with reckless consistency in the moral code of the Society of Jesus. In the most frivolous and lighthearted way they were applied to the life, and openly and unreservedly set forth in the confessional, by the most celebrated moralists of the order. They were laid down as well established principles, not merely in learned theological discussion, but in the regularly authorized handbooks of morals, approved by the congregation of the order, of which some fifty or seventy treatises, _e.g._ those of Escobar and Busembaum (§ 157, 1), are still extant. They cannot therefore be repudiated as the individual opinions of some rash and inconsistent writers. They will also be found to lie at the foundation of the whole scheme and procedure of the order in their prosecution of foreign missions (§§ 150; 156, 12) and in their attempts to proselytise Protestants (§ 151, 1, 2), to supply the principle underlying their ecclesiastical and civil policy, their industrial and commercial activity (§ 156, 13), their pastoral and educational work. They are also thoroughly illustrative of their well known motto, _Omnia in majorem Dei gloriam_. It need not, however, be denied that the order has at all times numbered among its members many distinguished by deep piety and strict moral principles, and indeed some among them expressly combated from Scripture and experience those doctrines so perilous to moral truth and purity. The most notorious of the Jesuit moralists who taught and defended these pernicious views were Francis Toletus, who died in A.D. 1596, Gabriel Vasquez, who died in A.D. 1604, Thomas Sanchez, who died in A.D. 1610, Francis Suarez, who died in A.D. 1617, the Westphalian Hermann Busembaum, who died in A.D. 1668, and the Spaniard Escobar de Mendoza, who died in A.D. 1699. The name of the last mentioned has obtained an unenviable notoriety by the adoption of the word _escobarderie_ into the French language.[438]

§ 149.11. =Jesuit Influence upon Worship and Superstition.=--As Jesuitism itself may be described as in every respect a reproduction in an exaggerated form of the Catholicism of the mediæval papacy, with all its unevangelical and anti-evangelical deterioration, all this showed itself pre-eminently and characteristically in reference to worship and superstition. Above all, this appeared in the mariolatry, in which the doctrine and practice of the Jesuits far outstripped all the extravagances of the Middle Ages. In the scheme of worship recommended and practised by the Jesuits the Divine Trinity was supplanted by a quaternity, in which Mary was assigned her place as the adopted daughter of the Father, mother of the Son, and spouse of the Holy Ghost, and thus her fervent devotees made her worship overshadow that of the three Persons of the Godhead. Along with the worship of Mary the order gave a new impetus to the veneration of St. Ann (§ 57, 2), whom Thomas de St. Cyrillo in his book, _De laudibus b. Annæ_, celebrated as “the grandmother of God and mother-in-law of the Holy Ghost.” In like manner it gave an impulse to worship of saints, images, and relics, to processions, pilgrimages, and rosary devotions, as well as to superstitious beliefs about wonder working scapularies, girdles, medals, amulets, and talismans (§ 186, 2), Ignatius and Xavier-water, endowed with healing properties through contact with the relics or models of these saints. The Jesuits were also making endless discoveries of new miracle legends and relics previously unknown. They originated the worship of the heart of Jesus (§ 156, 6), renewed the practice of flagellation, gave a new vitality to the indulgence nuisance, and diligently fostered belief in sorcery, demoniacal possession, apparitions of the devil, and exorcism. They also encouraged the silly notions of the people about witches, with all their cruel and horrible consequences (§ 117, 4). The Jesuit Delrio, with the approval of his order, published, in A.D. 1599, a book with the title, “Disquisitiones Magicæ,” which, as a worthy companion volume to the “Hammer for Witches,” branded as heresy every doubt as to the truth of witchcraft witnessed to by so many infallible popes, and gave a powerful impetus to witch persecutions throughout Roman Catholic countries. That two noble Jesuits, Tanner, who died in A.D. 1632, and Spee, who died in A.D. 1635, are to be numbered among the first opponents of the gross delusion, does not in the very least affect the indictment brought against the order; for Tanner was persecuted on account of his utterances being contrary to the principles of the society, and Spee’s “_Cautio Criminalis_” could venture into the light only anonymously, and be printed only in a Protestant town (Ruiteln, 1631).

§ 149.12. =Educational Methods and Institutions of the Jesuits.=--The Jesuit order never interested itself in elementary and popular education. The pulpit and confessional, as well as the founding and control of spiritual brotherhoods and sisterhoods, afforded ample means and opportunities for impressing their influence upon the lower orders of the people. On the other hand, the order laboured unweariedly to secure professorships in gymnasiums, seminaries for priests, and universities, and that, not merely in the department of theology, but also in all the other faculties. By these means and by the founding of regular Jesuit schools they sought to get into their own hands the education of the higher ranks, so as to secure from among them as large a number as possible of members, friends, and protectors. Under the general Aquaviva this movement obtained an authorized directory and rule in the _Ratio et institutio studiorum Soc. J._, published in A.D. 1586. And very remarkable although thoroughly one-sided, and thus no doubt most effectually realizing the ends desired, were the results which the order gained in the department of Catholic education, which had been thrown into deep shade by the brilliant advances of Protestant scholarship and educational methods. The study of philology had for its almost sole object the acquiring of the Latin language with Ciceronian elegance, but this only produced fluency in writing and speaking. Greek was studied only by the way; and the knowledge of classical antiquities, as well as the arts and sciences generally, with the exception of mathematics, was utterly neglected. But special attention was devoted to rhetoric, and by means of disputations, public lectures, and dramatic representations readiness in speaking and replying was obtained; but freedom of thought and independent culture were rigorously suppressed. The whole course of instruction, as well as the method of tuition, had for its aim the breaking in and subduing of the pupil’s will. Adherence to rigid order, and unconditional obedience to reasonable demands, and a mild discipline, with strict control, and a regular system by which one was set to watch another, were the means used for arousing to the utmost a spirit of emulation and giving a sharp spur to ambition. The course of study which a scholastic of the order had to pass through in the collegiate establishments was divided into the _studia inferiora_ and _superiora_. The former, consisting of three classes, embraced the _Grammatica_ as a preliminary basis for the two higher classes of the _Humanitas_ and the _Rhetorica_. The _superiora_ comprised a three years’ course of Aristotelian philosophy, and a four years’ course of scholastic theology upon the _Sentences_ of the Lombard and the _Summa_ of St. Thomas, together with Bible study upon the Vulgate and the original texts, a little Church history, and, as the crown of the whole curriculum, casuistic ethics.

§ 149.13. =Theological Controversies.=

1. The old controversy about the immaculate conception of the blessed Virgin had not by any means obtained a final settlement at Trent. By firmly maintaining the decree on the universality of original sin the Franciscans hoped, with the zealous support of the Jesuits Lainez and Salmeron, to obtain express recognition of the pet doctrine of their order (§ 104, 7); but, on the other hand, the Dominicans so vehemently protested, that the council, in order to prevent a threatened schism, was obliged to leave the point in dispute undecided, and was satisfied with renewing the constitution of Sixtus IV., of A.D. 1483 (§ 112, 4), and thus prohibiting the one party from accusing the other of heresy.--Continuation, § 156, 5.

2. The council for the same reason was just as little able to set at rest the burning controversy between Thomists and Scotists on the =doctrine of grace= (§ 113, 2) by issuing any decisive statement on the subject. When the pious and learned professor =Michael Baius= of Lyons came forward in lectures and writings as a zealous defender of Augustinianism, the Franciscans extracted from his works seventy-six propositions, which were condemned by Pius V., A.D. 1567. And when again the Jesuits came forward in support of the papal verdict, the theological faculty of Lyons in A.D. 1587, took the field and passed censure upon thirty-four Pelagianizing propositions of the Jesuits Leonard Less and John Hamel as opposed to Holy Scripture and St. Augustine. In the following year the Portuguese Jesuit =Louis Molina=, in his treatise _Liberi arbitrii cum gratiæ donis concordia_ of A.D. 1588, set forth a semi-pelagian modification of the disputed propositions; the Dominicans, with the learned Dominicus Bañez at their head, opposed with a bitter polemic. But now the whole order of the Jesuits stood together as one man on the side of Molina. Besieged from both sides into complaints and demands, Clement VIII., in A.D. 1597, appointed a commission, the so called _congregatio de auxiliis_, to make a thorough investigation into the matter, and to give an exhaustive report. After this commission had spent ten years in vainly endeavouring to construct a formula which would give satisfaction to both parties, Paul V. dissolved it in A.D. 1607, promised to make known his decision at a more suitable time, and then in A.D. 1611 forbade all further disputings on that question. But after little more than thirty years the controversy broke out again at another place in a far more threatening and dangerous form (§ 156, 5).

§ 149.14. =Theological Literature.=--Various kinds of expedients were tried in order thoroughly to secure the establishment of the Tridentine system of belief. Paul IV. had as early as A.D. 1499 drawn up a list of prohibited books, which was again ratified at Trent in A.D. 1562, and has been since then continued and enlarged through some forty editions as the _Index librorum prohibitorum et expurgandorum_ (with the note, _donec corrigatur_). Pius V. founded in A.D. 1571 a special “Congregation of the Index,” for looking after this business.[439] The _Professio fidei Tridentinæ_ of A.D. 1564, and the _Catechismus Romanus_ of A.D. 1566, were issued as authentic statements of the Tridentine doctrine; and in A.D. 1588 a permanent congregation was instituted for the explaining of that system in all cases of dispute that might arise. Also the new _Breviarium Romanum_ of A.D. 1568 (§ 56, 2), as well as the _Missale Romanum_ of A.D. 1570, served the same end. In A.D. 1566 Pius V. had appointed a commission, the so called _Correctores Romani_, for the preparing of a new edition of the _Corpus juris canonici_, which Gregory XIII. issued as the only authentic form in A.D. 1582. Sixtus V. published in A.D. 1589 a new edition of the Vulgate, _Editio Sixtina_, and, notwithstanding its numerous errata, often only pasted over or scratched out, pronounced it authentic. Clement VIII., however, issued a much altered revision, _Editio Clementina_, in A.D. 1592, and strictly forbade any alteration of it, but was induced himself to send out next year a second edition, which was guilty of this very fault. Meanwhile Roman Catholics and scholars began, in spite of the Tridentine decree as to the authenticity of the Vulgate, to give diligent attention to the study of the original text of Holy Scripture. The Dominican Santes =Pagninus= of Lucca, who died in A.D. 1541, a pupil of Savonarola, after careful study of all rabbinical aids, produced a Hebrew lexicon in A.D. 1529, a Hebrew grammar in A.D. 1528, a literally exact rendering of the Old and the New Testaments from the original texts, upon which he was engaged for thirty years, an introduction, with a thorough treatment of the tropical language of Scripture, and commentaries on the Pentateuch and Psalms. The literal meaning was with him _palea, folium, cortex_; the mystical, _triticum, fructus, nucleus suavissimus_. More importance was attached to the historical sense by the Dominican =Sixtus of Siena=, by birth a Jew, who died in A.D. 1569. His _Bibliotheca sancta_ is an introduction to Holy Scripture extremely credible for that age. The Roman Inquisition condemned him to death because of heretical expressions in that work, especially with regard to the deutero-canonical books of the Old Testament; but Pius V. pardoned him, after he had prevailed upon him to retract. The Jesuit Cardinal =Robert Bellarmine=, who died in A.D. 1621, in his _Ll. IV. de verbo Dei_ controverted the Protestant principle, _Scriptura scripturæ interpres_. Jerome =Emser= bitterly inveighed against Luther’s translation of the Bible, and, in A.D. 1527, set over against it an attempted translation of his own, which, however, is nothing more than a reprint of Luther’s, with the changes necessary in consequence of following the Vulgate and unimportant transpositions and alterations of words. The same barefaced impudence was practised by John =Dietenberger= of Mainz, in whose pretended rendering of the Old Testament of A.D. 1534, the translation of Luther and Leo Judä is followed almost word for word. John =Eck= of Ingolstadt produced, in A.D. 1537, a translation of the Bible from the Vulgate in the most wretched German, without the least consultation of the original text. On the other hand, the Augustinian monk =Luis de Leon=, who died in A.D. 1591, was not only celebrated as a learned and brilliant exegete, but also distinguished as a poet and prose writer of the first rank in the national literature of Spain. He was thrown into the prison of the Spanish Inquisition because of a translation and exposition of the Song of Songs in the mystico-ecclesiastical sense, circulated only in manuscript, and because of his depreciation of the Vulgate; and only after a five years’ confinement, during which he narrowly escaped the hands of the hangman, was he set free. The learned Spaniard =Arias Montanus=, under the patronage of King Philip II., edited the Antwerp polyglott in eight vols. folio, with learned notes and excursuses, in A.D. 1569 ff. The number of exegetes who now gave decided prominence to the literal sense became very considerable toward the end of the century. The most notable of these are Arias Montanus, who died in A.D. 1598, having commented on almost the whole Bible; the Jesuit John Maldonatus, who died in A.D. 1583, on the four gospels; John Mariana, who died in A.D. 1624, _Scholia in V. et N.T._; Nich. =Serrarius=, who died in A.D. 1609, on the Old and New Testaments; and also William =Estius= of Douay, who died in A.D. 1613, on the New Testament epistles.--In the department of dogmatics the old traditional method was still followed by commenting on the Lombard. The most important schoolman of the age was the Spanish Jesuit Francis Suarez. In A.D. 1528 Berth. Pirstinger, Bishop of Chiemsee, under the title “Tewtsche Theologey,” wrote a complete handbook of theology in the High German dialect, which had completely emancipated itself from the scholastic forms (§ 125, 5). John =Eck= also produced a rival work to Melanchthon’s _Loci_, the _Enchiridion locorum communium_, which within fifty years passed through forty-six editions. But of much greater importance are the _Loci theologici_ of the Spanish Dominican Melch. =Canus=, who died in A.D. 1550, which were published at Salamanca in A.D. 1563. They consist not so much of a system of doctrines properly so called, as rather of comprehensive and learned preliminary investigations about the sources, principles, method, and fundamental ideas of dogmatics. He rejects the charge of absolute perversity brought against scholasticism, but grants that the method should be simplified, and what is good in it preserved. For instructions in higher and lower schools the two catechisms of the first German Jesuit provincial, =Petrus [Peter] Canisius= (§ 161, 1), _Cat. major_ of A.D. 1554, and _Cat. parvus_ of A.D. 1566, were epoch-making. They were circulated in numberless editions and translations,--the Little Catechism being printed more than 500 times,--and used for two centuries in all the Catholic schools in Germany; and even yet they are held in high esteem. Among the Catholic polemical writers, Cardinal Bellarmine occupies beyond dispute the foremost rank. His _Disputationes de controversiis chr. fidei adv. hujus temp. hæreticos_, A.D. 1588-1593, are in many respects unsurpassed even to this day. Before him William =Lindanus=, Bishop of Ghent, author of _Panoplia evangelica_ (Colon., A.D. 1563), and the Jesuit Francis =Coster= of Mechlin, author of _Enchiridion controversiarum_ (Colon., A.D. 1585), had won a great reputation among their own party as disputants against Protestantism. The services rendered to church history by Cardinal =Baronius= have already been referred to under § 5, 2.

§ 149.15. =Art and Poetry.=--In the second Dutch school (§ 115, 8) musical taste was thoroughly depraved, and =Church music= especially became so artificial, florid, and secularized, that some of the Tridentine fathers in all seriousness proposed that figured music should be completely banished from the church services, at least in the performance of mass. It was when matters had reached this low ebb that =Palestrina=, Giovanni Pietro Aloisio Sante of Palestrina, appeared as the saviour and regenerator of sacred musical art. He was a scholar of Goudimel, who, before he passed over to the Reformed church (§ 143, 2), had founded a school of music in Rome. As early as A.D. 1560, in his sacred compositions on Micah vi. 3 ff., which to this day are performed always on Good Friday in the Sistine Chapel, Palestrina secured a firm position as an unsurpassed master of genuine ecclesiastical music. The commission appointed by Pius IV. for the reformation of church music called upon him therefore to submit specimens of his compositions. He produced three masses in A.D. 1565, among which was the celebrated _Missa Marcelli_, dedicated to his former patron, the deceased pope Marcellus II. With this masterpiece, which represents the highest perfection of Catholic church music, and entitled its author to rank as a prince of musical art, _Musicæ princeps_, the retention of the figured music in the mass, so keenly contested in the council, was decided upon.--The immense success of the =sacred song of= the Protestant church as a means for spreading the Reformation constrained the Catholic church, very unwillingly, to seek to counteract this danger by the translation of Latin hymns and the composition of songs of praise in German (§ 115, 7), as well as by the liberal introduction of them into the public services. Between A.D. 1470 and A.D. 1631 there have been enumerated no fewer than sixty-two collections of German Catholic church hymns. The most important are those of Michael Vehe, Provost of Halle, A.D. 1537; of George Witzel, a renegade Lutheran, A.D. 1550; of John Leisetritt, dean of the cathedral at Budissin, A.D. 1567; and Gregory Corner, Abbot of Gottweih, in his “Great Catholic Hymnbook,” A.D. 1625. Caspar Ulenberg, previously a Lutheran, in A.D. 1582 rendered the psalms of David into German rhyme; and Rutzer Eding published in A.D. 1583 a German mass, with translation of the Latin church hymns. The names of the poets and translators are for the most part unknown. Many a beautiful sacred song, too, is met with among these rich materials, an evidence of what might have been the result if the Catholic church of Germany, instead of having been opposed or only half-hearted, had fostered and encouraged this important part of the Divine service with whole-hearted enthusiasm.--The arts of architecture and painting continued to be still cultivated successfully in the Roman Catholic church (§ 115, 13). Besides Correggio and Titian, and after them, named with the noble masters of =painting=, are the two Caracci, uncle and nephew, Domenichino and Guido Reni. Michael Angelo Buonarotti, who died in A.D. 1564 an old man of ninety years, gave expression to the most profound Christian ideas in his works of painting and sculpture. The Renaissance style during the 16th century gave scope for the further application and development of ecclesiastical =architecture=. The most magnificent church building of the century was the rebuilding of St. Peter’s church at Rome, undertaken by Pope Julius II. in A.D. 1506, which Bramante began and Michael Angelo after his plan carried out. As painter and statuary, Angelo had refused slavishly to follow the traditions of the church in respect of the worship of Mary and the saints, and so, too, as a poet in glowing sonnets he only gave expression to deep sorrow for sin, and his true spiritual faith in the crucified Sin-bearer. His countryman Torquato Tasso, who died in A.D. 1595, in his “Jerusalem Delivered,” celebrated the Christian heroic of mediæval Catholicism. In the history of Spanish poetry, the Christian lyrics of St. Theresa and Luis de Leon are regarded even to this day as unsurpassed in excellence.

§ 149.16. =The Spanish Mystics.=--In consequence of the Reformation, the Roman Catholic church was compelled to have recourse to the revivification of the mediæval mysticism from which it had become alienated in life and doctrine, in order by means of it to give that intensity and inward power to the religious life which was now felt to be indispensably necessary without falling away from the church in which alone salvation can be found, and without making surrender to the _inanis fiducia hæreticorum_. Thus there arose from about the middle of the century, first of all in Spanish cloisters, a new development of mysticism, which, without expressly attacking the “outer way” of the ecclesiastical practice of piety, introduced and recommended a second higher and nobler method, called the “inner way,” because leading to Christian perfection. This consisted in a regular and deeply spiritual exercise in prayer and contemplation, with a decided preference for inward unuttered prayer, with complete mortification of one’s own self-will and absolute self-surrender to the Divine guidance, having for its aim and climax the most blessed rest in fellowship with God. A pious Minorite, =St. Peter of Alcantara=, gave to this tendency a doctrinal basis by his treatise, _De oratione et meditatione_, published in A.D. 1545, in which he manifests a most bitter opposition to Protestantism, and a zealous readiness to co-operate in all the horrid cruelties of the Spanish counter-reformation. Its highest point is reached in the famous Carmelite nun of Avila in Old Castile, =St. Theresa de Jesus=, who died in A.D. 1582, the most celebrated saint of the Spanish church. Introduced by Peter of Alcantara in A.D. 1560 to the profound mysteries of contemplation, and favoured amid the convulsions of her life of prayer with frequent visions of Christ, she undertook, in A.D. 1562, by the founding of a new cloister, to lead her order back to the strict observance of this old rule. The fame of her sanctity soon had spread over all Spain, but all the more did the hatred of the brothers and sisters of her order who favoured the lax observance increase. They even carried the bitterness so far as to get the Inquisition to originate a heretic prosecution against her in A.D. 1579, on the ground of her pretension to have visions, but this was abandoned by command of the king. Among her numerous writings, of which Luis de Leon, in A.D. 1583, issued a complete edition, which have been translated into all the languages of Europe, the “Castillo interior,” _i.e._ the City of Mansoul, or the seven Residences of the Soul, is the one in which her mysticism is most completely developed. It describes the stages through which the soul must pass in order to become wholly one with God. Her faithful fellow labourer in the reforming of the order, =St. John of the Cross=, who died in A.D. 1591, in regard to mysticism occupied the same ground with her. His writings, among which the _Subida del Monte Carmel_, “The Climbing of Mount Carmel,” is the most comprehensive, are not to be compared with those of St. Theresa in the rare witchery of an enchanting style, but are distinguished by solidity and maturity of thought. The brethren of the order opposed to reform showed toward John a far more severe and continuous bitterness than they did toward Theresa. Even in A.D. 1575 he was imprisoned in one of their cloisters, and cruelly ill used. He made his escape indeed in the following year by flight, but only in A.D. 1588 did a papal brief, by a formal establishment of the Congregation of the Barefooted Carmelites, put an end to all oppressions and persecutions. The mysticism recommended by him and St. Theresa found entrance now more and more into the cloisters, not only of the Carmelites, but also of the other orders, and numbered many adherents among the higher and lower clergy, as well as among cultured laymen.--But while on this side the traditional forms and doctrines usual in the practice of piety in the church sank indeed into the background, but were never expressly repudiated or contradicted, there arose upon this same mystical basis numerous sects designated _enlightened_ “=Alumbrados=,” who went all the length of pouring abuse and contempt upon every kind of church form and doctrine, and thus calling forth down to the 17th century constant persecution from the Inquisition. Theresa was canonized in A.D. 1622, Peter of Alcantara in A.D. 1669, and John of the Cross in A.D. 1726.--Continuation, § 156.

§ 149.17. There were also many noble products of the =practical Christian life= brought forth in that new departure which Catholicism after the Reformation in the interests of self-preservation had been obliged to undertake. Evidence of this practical endeavour was given in the zealous manner in which home missions were prosecuted. From out of the general body of Catholicism there sprang up a new series of saints, who were quite worthy to rank alongside those of the Middle Ages. Most highly distinguished among these was =Charles Borromeo=, born A.D. 1538, died A.D. 1584, who, from his position as nephew of Pope Pius IV., and from his high rank in the church as cardinal and Archbishop of Milan, exerted a powerful influence upon the Tridentine Council and the curia, which he used for the removal of many abuses. His life is the realization of the perfect ideal of that of a Catholic pastor and prelate. He also proved himself worthy of being so regarded during the dreadful pestilence that raged in Milan in A.D. 1576. Paul V. canonized him in A.D. 1610, and to this day his tall figure in a colossal statue looks out upon the province of Milan as the patron of the state.[440]--Along with the intensification of the specifically Catholic sentiment awakened in the cloisters by means of the endeavours put forth in the counter-reformation and spreading out from these into the general Catholic community, we meet with a revival of the old zeal for monkish =asceticism=. The Jesuits especially laboured earnestly for the restoration of the =discipline of the lash=, brought at an early period into discredit by the extravagances of the Flagellants (§ 116, 3). And besides these many also of the new and reformed orders gave themselves to further and advance the counter-reformation. Cardinal Borromeo, above referred to, took a lively interest in this mode of spiritual disciplinary exercise. After he had at a council at Milan, in A.D. 1569, given a new organization to the flagellant societies of his diocese, and Pope Gregory XIII., in A.D. 1572, had endowed with a rich indulgence all the associations of that sort, they in a very short time spread again over all Italy. In Rome alone they numbered over a hundred, which, according to their colours, were designated as white, gray, black, red, green, blue, etc. Especially on Good Friday they vied with one another in getting up their flagellant processions on the most magnificent scale. In France they were patronized by Cardinal Charles of Lorraine, and King Henry III. was himself a devoted and enthusiastic member of the order. In Germany, too, the Jesuits brought the flagellants into favour, wherever they could get a footing, especially in the north German cities. The learned Jesuit, Jac. Gretson, in Ingolstadt, in the very beginning of the 17th century, wrote seven elaborate rhetorical controversial tracts, _De spontanea disciplinarum s. flagellorum cruce_, etc., against the Protestant opponents of the flagellant craze. Afterwards, however, the ardour and zeal for the practice of this discipline cooled down more and more in most of the monkish orders as well as in general society, and local flagellant processions, in which there was generally more of a vain, empty show than of real penitential earnestness, are to be met with now only as occasional displays in Spain and Italy, and in the Romish states of America.

§ 150. FOREIGN MISSIONS.

The grand discoveries of new continents which had preceded the Reformation age, and the serious losses sustained in European countries, revived the interest in missions throughout the Roman Catholic church. Commercial enterprise and campaigns for the conquest of the world, which were still almost exclusively in the hands of the Catholic states, afforded opportunities for the prosecution of mission work in the New World; and abundant means for carrying it on were furnished by the numerous monkish orders.

§ 150.1. =Missions to the Heathen: East Indies and China.=--The Portuguese founded the first bishopric in the =East Indies=, at Goa on the Malabar Coast, in A.D. 1534. Soon thereafter a tribunal of the Inquisition was established alongside of it. The bishop confined his attention to the European immigrants, and the inquisitors applied themselves mainly to secure the destruction of the Thomas-Christians settled there. Neither of them had the remotest idea of doing any properly speaking mission work among the native races. But it was quite different when, in A.D. 1542, Loyola’s companion =Francis Xavier=, the Apostle of the Indians, made his appearance as papal nuncio in this wide field along with two other Jesuits. Working with glowing zeal and unparalleled self-denial, he baptized in a short time a hundred thousand, mostly of the low, despised caste of pariahs, going forward certainly with a haste which never allowed him time to make sure that the spiritual fruits should bear any proportion to the outward successes. His unmeasured missionary fervour, to which characteristic expression was given in his saying, _Amplius! amplius!_ impelled him constantly to go on seeking for new fields of labour. From the East Indies he moved on to Japan, and only his death, which occurred in A.D. 1552, hindered him from pushing his way into China. Numerous successors from Loyola’s order undertook the carrying on of his work, and so soon as A.D. 1565 the converts of the East Indies numbered 300,000.[441]--Commerce opened the way for missions into =China=, where all traces of earlier Christianity (§§ 72, 1; 93, 15) had already completely vanished, and proud contempt of everything stood in the way of the introduction of any western customs or forms of worship. But the Jesuits, with =Matthew Ricci= of Ancona at their head, by making use of their knowledge of mathematical, mechanical, and physical science, secured for themselves access even to the court. Ricci at first completely nationalized himself, and then began his missionary enterprise by introducing Christian instructions into his mathematical and astronomical lectures. In order to render the Chinese favourable to the adoption of Christianity, he represented it to be a renewal and restoration of the old doctrine of Confucius. The confession of faith which the new converts before baptism were required to make was confined to an acknowledgment of one God and recognition of the obligation of the ten commandments. And even in worship he tolerated many heathen practices and customs. The mathematical and astronomical writings composed by him in the Chinese language are said to have extended to 150 volumes. The Chinese artillery also stood under his immediate supervision. When he died, in A.D. 1610, the Jesuits had even then formed a network of hundreds of churches spread over a great part of the land.[442]--Continuation, § 156, 11, 12.

§ 150.2. =Japan.=--Xavier had here, chiefly on account of his defective acquaintance with the language, relatively speaking only a very small measure of success. But other Jesuits followed in his footsteps, and enjoyed the most brilliant success; so that in A.D. 1581 there were already more than two hundred churches and about 150,000 Christians in the land, of whom many belonged to the old feudal nobility, the daimios, while some were even imperial princes. This distinguished success was greatly owing, on the one hand, to the favour of the then military commander-in-chief Nobunaga, who greeted the advance of Christianity as a welcome means for undermining the influence of the Buddhist bonzes, which had become supreme, and, on the other hand, to the abundance of money put by Portugal and Spain at the disposal of the Jesuits, which they used as well in the adorning of the Catholic services as in the bestowing of liberal gifts upon the converts. It was, however, chiefly owing to the close and essential relationship between the Romish ritual and constitution and those of Buddhism, which rendered the transition from the one to the other by no means very difficult. Then everything that had gone to secure for Buddhism in Japan a superiority over the simple old national Sintuism or ancestor-worship, as well as everything that the Japanese Buddhists had been wont to regard as indispensable requisites of worship, the elegance of the temples, altars glittering with bright colours blending together, theatrical display in the vestments for their priests, grand solemn processions and masses, incense, images, statues and rosaries, a hierarchical system, the tonsure, celibacy, cloisters for monks and nuns, worship of saints and images, pilgrimages, etc., was given them in even an exaggerated degree in Jesuit Christianity. The zealous neophytes from among the daimios effectually backed up the preaching of the Jesuit fathers by fire and sword. They compelled the subjects of their provinces to go over to the Christian religion, banished or put to death those who proved refractory, and overthrew the Buddhist temples and cloisters. In A.D. 1582 they sent an embassy of four young noblemen to Europe to pay homage to the pope. After they had received the most flattering reception in Madrid from Philip II., and in Rome from Gregory XIII. and Sixtus V., they returned to their own home in A.D. 1590, accompanied by seventeen Jesuit priests, who were soon followed by whole crowds of mendicant friars. By the close of the century the number of native Christians had increased to 600,000. But meanwhile the axe was already being laid at the root of the tree that had thriven so wondrously. Nobunaga’s successor Hidejoshi found occasion, in A.D. 1587, to issue a decree banishing from the country all foreign missionaries. The Jesuits were wise enough to cease at once all public preaching, but the begging monks treated the decree with contempt and open defiance. In consequence of this six Franciscans and seventeen Japanese converts of theirs, and along with them also three Jesuits, were arrested at Nagasaki and there crucified (§ 156, 11). Soon afterwards Hidejoshi died. One of his generals, Ijejasu, to whom he had assigned the regency during the minority of his six year old son, assumed the sovereign power to himself. A civil war was the result, and in A.D. 1600 his opponents, among whom were certain Christian daimios, were conquered in a bloody battle. Ijejasu persuaded the mikado to give him the hereditary rank of _shiogun_, _i.e._ field-marshal of the empire; and his successors down to the revolution of A.D. 1867 (§ 182, 5), as military vice-emperors alongside of the really powerless mikado, had all the power of government in their own hands. Thus were corrupting elements introduced which led to the complete overthrow of the Japanese church.[443]

§ 150.3. =America.=--The desire to spread Christ’s kingdom was not by any means the smallest among the impulses that contributed to Christopher Columbus’ enthusiasm for the discovery of new countries; but the greediness, cruelty, and animosity of the Spanish conquerors, who had less interest in converting the natives into Christians than in reducing them to slavery, was a terrible hindrance to the Christianizing of the New World. The Christian missionaries indeed most emphatically, but with only a small measure of success, defended the human rights of the ill-used Indians. The noble Mexican bishop, =Bartholomew de las Casas=, in particular wrought unweariedly, devoting his whole life, A.D. 1474 to A.D. 1566, to the sacred task, not only of instructing the Indians, but also of saving them from the hands of his greedy and bloodthirsty fellow countrymen. Six times he journeyed to Spain in order to use personal influence in high quarters for ameliorating the lot of his _protégés_, and he was obliged to undertake a seventh journey in order to justify himself and repel the violent accusations of his enemies. Even in A.D. 1517 Charles V. had, at the bishop’s entreaty, granted personal liberty to the Indians, but at the same time gave permission to the Spanish colonists to introduce African negro slaves for the laborious work in the mines and on the plantations. The enslaving of the natives, however, was still continued, and only in A.D. 1547 were vigorous measures taken to secure the suppression of the practice, after many millions of Indians had been already sacrificed. So far as the Spanish dominion extended Christianity also spread, and was established by means of the Inquisition.--In South America the Portuguese held sway in the rich and as yet little known empire of Brazil. In A.D. 1549 King John III. sent thither a Jesuit mission, with Emanuel Nobreya at its head. Amid unspeakable hardships they won over the native cannibals to Christianity and civilization.[444]

§ 150.4. The newly awakened missionary zeal of the church made an attempt also upon the =schismatical Churches of the East=. The enterprise, however, was even moderately successful only in reference to a portion of the Persian and East Indian =Nestorians= (§ 72, 1), who in Persia were called Syrian or Chaldæan Christians, because of the language which they used in their liturgy, and in India Thomas-Christians, because they professed to have had the Apostle Thomas as their founder. They had their origin really, in A.D. 1551, in Mesopotamia, in consequence of a double episcopal election there. The one party chose a priest Sulakas, whom Pope Julius III. had consecrated priest under the name of John, but the other party refused to acknowledge him. The Archbishop Alexius Menezius also became involved in these controversies, and succeeded in getting the former party to recognise the Roman primacy and accept the Catholic doctrine; while, on the other hand, Rome permitted the retention of its ancient ritual and form of constitution. These united Nestorians were now called by way of eminence Chaldæan Christians. Their chief, chosen by themselves and approved by the pope, was called Bishop of Babylon, but had his residence at Mosul in Mesopotamia. The Thomas-Christians of India, however, proved much more troublesome. But even they were obliged, after a long, protracted struggle, at a synod at Diampur in A.D. 1599, to abjure the Nestorian heresy. All Syrian books were burnt, and a new Malabar liturgy in accordance with the Romish type was introduced.--The existence of an independent =Jacobite= Christian church in Abyssinia (§ 64, 1) first became known in Europe in the beginning of the sixteenth century through Portuguese commercial and diplomatic missions. The Abyssinian sultan, David, in A.D. 1514, upon promise of Portuguese help, of which he stood in need because of the aggressions of the neighbouring Mohammadan [Mohammedan] states, agreed to receive the physician Bermudez as Catholic patriarch. But the next sultan, Claudius, expelled him from his land. In A.D. 1562 Jesuit missionaries began to settle in the country; but Claudius denounced them as Arians, and wished the people to have nothing to do with them. As the result of a friendly communication from the Coptic patriarch, Paul V., in the beginning of the 17th century, sent the Jesuit Rodriguez into =Egypt=. The patriarch accepted the rich presents which the Jesuit brought with him, and then made him return home without having gained the object of his mission.

§ 151. ATTEMPTED REGENERATION OF ROMAN CATHOLICISM.

Paul III. had in A.D. 1542 erected a new tribunal of the Inquisition for the suppression of Protestantism, which Paul IV. (§ 149, 2) brought up to the highest point of its development. And scarcely had the Catholic church secured for itself a stable position throughout its own domains by the happy conclusion of the Tridentine Council, than it directed all its powers with the utmost energy to reconquer as far as then possible the ground that had been lost. The means used for this end were mainly of two sorts: the territorial system, legitimated by a law of the empire (§ 137, 5), which, devised originally in order to save Protestantism (§ 126, 6), was now employed for its overthrow; and the Jesuits, who, sometimes openly and sometimes with carefully concealed plans, sometimes in conjunction with the civil power, sometimes intriguing against it, spread like swarms over all the countries of Europe where Protestantism had already struck its roots. The craftiness of the members of this order, their diplomatic acts, their machinations, their practice in controversy, succeeded in some cases in fanning the scarcely glimmering embers of Catholicism into a bright flame, in other cases in blighting Protestant churches that had been in a flourishing condition. They hoped thus to be able to destroy these churches root and branch, or to reduce Protestantism within the narrow limits of a barely tolerated sect. But above all they were careful to get into their hands the control of the higher and lower schools, in order to be able to implant in the hearts of the young and rising generation a bitter hatred of Protestantism.

§ 151.1. =Attempts at Regeneration in Germany.=--From the time of the Passau Compact the political convulsions and the weariness of controversy shown by the princes proved strongly in favour of Protestantism. In Catholic states, too, the Protestant religion had made rapid advances. The deputies of provinces, and especially the nobles, gave unmistakable expression to their sympathies, and for every grant of territory demanded a religious concession from the prince. Many prelates or spiritual princes had more Protestant than Catholic councillors. The Protestant nobles frequented their courts without constraint. Their residences were often Protestant cities, and their revenues not unfrequently in the hands of evangelical superiors. But for the Jesuits, in spite of territorial influence and prelatical restrictions (§ 137, 5), in a few decades all Germany would have fallen into the hands of the evangelical church. In A.D. 1558 a Venetian observer of the country and the people could bring back the report that in Germany only a tenth of the population remained true to the old church; that of the other nine parts seven had gone over to the Lutherans, and two were distributed among the various anti-Catholic denominations. Of all the German cities Ingolstadt was the first, in A.D. 1549, to be favoured with a visit of the Jesuits, who were brought there by William IV. of Bavaria as teachers of theology. Next in order comes Vienna, where, in A.D. 1551, thirteen Jesuits, under the name of Spanish priests, were introduced by Ferdinand. Some years later they settled in Prague, as also in Cologne. From those four capitals they spread out within a few years over the whole territorially Catholic Germany, and throughout the Austrian states. In A.D. 1552 Loyola founded at Rome the _Collegium Germanicum_, which was subsequently extended under the name of the _Collegium Germ.-Ungaricum_, for the training of German youths for the conversion of Protestants in their native land. The first Jesuit provincial for Germany was the Dutchman Peter Canisius, who, first of all from Vienna, and afterwards, when Maximilian II. (§ 137, 8) put the Jesuits in Austria under intolerable restrictions, from Friesburg, had so successfully carried the regeneration into Switzerland, until his death in A.D. 1598, that while the Protestants designated him _Canis Austriacus_ because of his ruthless persecution, the members of his order honoured him as the second Apostle of the Germans, and Pius IX., in recognition of his services, beatified him in A.D. 1864.--The Catholic regeneration began in Bavaria in A.D. 1564. Duke Albert V., converted into a zealous Catholic by the opposition of his Protestant members of parliament, excluded the Protestant nobles from the Bavarian diet, banished the evangelical pastors, compelled his Protestant subjects who refused to abandon their faith to emigrate, and obliged all professors and officials to subscribe the Tridentine _Professio fidei_. The Jesuits praised him as a second Josiah and Theodosius, called Munich a second Rome, and the pope invested him with the ecclesiastico-political privileges of a _summus episcopus_ throughout his own dominions. When by inheritance he became Count of the Hague, and also Baden-Baden came under his rule as regent, Protestantism was there thoroughly rooted out. Bavaria’s example was followed, though in a more temperate manner, by the electors of Treves (Jac. von Eltz) and Mainz (Daniel Brendel). The latter restored Catholicism in A.D. 1574 into the hitherto thoroughly Protestant city Eichsfelde. In A.D. 1575 the Abbot of Fulda also, Balth. von Dernbach, who in all his territory was almost the only Catholic, acted in a similar manner. In making this attempt Balthasar [Balthazar] came into collision with his chapter, and was by it and his knights expelled. The Bishop of Würzburg, Jul. Echter of Mispelbrunn, who had been aiding them in the revolution, in A.D. 1576 undertook the administration of the diocese. But in the beginning of the following year the abbot was restored by an imperial order, and thus the last vestige of Protestantism was rooted out. Julius of Würzburg, seriously compromised, would probably have followed the example of Gebhard of Cologne (§ 137, 7), though that prelate’s proceedings were dictated by altogether different considerations; but by A.D. 1584 he worked himself into power again by completely rooting out Protestantism from his own territory, which had been almost completely Protestant. The bishops of Bamberg, Salzburg, Hildesheim, Münster, Paderborn, etc., pursued a similar policy. At all points Jesuits were at the front and Jesuits were in the rear. In the newly constituted nuncio court, at Vienna, in A.D. 1581, at Cologne, in A.D. 1582, they had the grand centres of their conspiracies and machinations. Ferdinand II. of Styria, emperor from A.D. 1619, and Maximilian I. of Bavaria, were both educated by the Jesuits at Ingolstadt. When in A.D. 1596 Ferdinand celebrated Easter at Grätz, he was the only one there who communicated according to the Roman Catholic rite. Two years later he successfully carried out the counter-reformation, and his cousin, the Emperor Rudolph II., followed his example.--Continuation, § 153, 2.

§ 151.2. But the regeneration was not confined to Germany. It spread out over all =Europe=. The Jesuits pressed into every country, and were successful in compassing their ends even in places where there had been very little prospect of success. The Cardinal Charles Borromeo (§ 149, 17) laboured with peculiar energy to establish Catholicism, and spread it yet more widely in the Catholic and mixed cantons of Switzerland. He himself undertook a journey thither in A.D. 1570; contrived in A.D. 1574 to get the Jesuits introduced into Lucerne, in A.D. 1586 into Freiburg; founded at Milan a _Collegium Helveticum_ for the training of Catholic priests for Switzerland, and secured the appointment of a permanent nuncio, who had his residence at Lucerne. In the province of Chablais on Lake Geneva, under Piedmontese rule, St. Francis de Sales, by the forcible conversion of 80,000 heretics in A.D. 1596, completely rooted out Protestantism (§ 156, 1).--In France the bloody civil wars began in A.D. 1562. The Duke of Alva appeared in the Netherlands in A.D. 1567. In Poland the Jesuits secured an entrance first in A.D. 1569, and from thence made their way over into Livonia. In A.D. 1578 the crafty Jesuit Ant. Possevin gained access to Sweden, and there converted the king (§ 139, 1). Even in England, where Elizabeth in A.D. 1582 had threatened every Jesuit with capital punishment, crowds of them wrought away in secret, and in hope of better times tended the flickering spark of Catholicism smouldering under the ashes (§ 153, 6).

§ 151.3. =Russia and the United Greeks.=--The attempts, renewed from time to time since the meeting of the Florentine Council (§ 73, 6), to win over the Russian church, had always failed of the end in view. In A.D. 1581, when the war so disastrous for Russia between Ivan IV. Wassiljewitch and Stephen Bathori of Poland afforded to the pope the desired excuse for putting in an appearance as a peacemaker, Gregory XIII. sent the clever Jesuit Possevin for this purpose to Poland and Russia. The tsar gave him a most flattering reception, allowed him to hold a religious conference, but was not prepared either to attach himself to Rome or to banish the Lutherans. On the other hand, Rome scored a victory, inasmuch as in the West Russian province detached and given to Poland the union was consummated, partly by force, partly by manœuvre, and obtained ecclesiastical sanction at the Council of Brest, in A.D. 1596. These “United Greeks” were obliged to acknowledge the Roman supremacy and the Romish doctrines, but were allowed to retain their own ancient ritual.--Continuation, § 203, 2.

SECOND SECTION.

CHURCH HISTORY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

I. Relations between the Different Churches.

§ 152. EAST AND WEST.

The papacy formed new plans for conquest in the domain of the Eastern church, but with at most only transient success. Still more illusory were the hopes entertained for a while in Geneva and London in regard to the Calvinizing of the Greek church.

§ 152.1. =Roman Catholic Hopes.=--The Jesuit missions among the Turks and schismatic Greeks failed, but among the Abyssinians some progress was made. By promising Spanish aid, the Jesuit Paez succeeded, in A.D. 1621, in inducing the Sultan Segued to abjure the Jacobite heresy. Mendez was made Abyssinian patriarch by Urban VIII. in A.D. 1626, but the clergy and people repeatedly rebelled against sultan and patriarch. In A.D. 1642 the next sultan drove the Jesuits out of his kingdom, and in it henceforth no traces of Catholicism were to be found.--In Russia the false Demetrius, in A.D. 1605, working in Polish Catholic interests, sought to catholicize the empire; but this only convinced the Russians that he was no true czar’s son. When his Catholic Polish bride entered Moscow with 200 Poles, a riot ensued, in which Demetrius lost his life.[445]

§ 152.2. =Calvinistic Hopes.=--=Cyril Lucar=, a native of Crete, then under Venetian rule, by long residence in Geneva had come to entertain a strong liking to the Reformed church. Expelled from his situation as rector of a Greek seminary at Ostrog by Jesuit machinations, he was made Patriarch of Alexandria in A.D. 1602 and of Constantinople in A.D. 1621. He maintained a regular correspondence with Reformed divines in Holland, Switzerland, and England. In A.D. 1628 he sent the famous Codex Alexandrinus as a present to James I. He wrought expressly for a union of the Greek and Reformed churches, and for this end sent, in A.D. 1629, to Geneva an almost purely Calvinistic confession. But the other Greek bishops opposed his union schemes, and influential Jesuits in Constantinople accused him of political faults. Four times the sultan deposed and banished him, and at last, in A.D. 1638, he was strangled as a traitor and cast into the sea.--One of his Alexandrian clergy, Metrophanes Critopulus, whom in A.D. 1616 he had sent for his education to England, studied several years at Oxford, then at German Protestant universities, ending with Helmstadt, where, in A.D. 1625, he composed in Greek a confession of the faith of the Greek Orthodox Church. It was pointedly antagonistic to the Romish doctrine, conciliatory toward Protestantism, while abandoning nothing essential in the Greek Orthodox creed, and showing signs of the possession of independent speculative power. Afterwards Metrophanes became Patriarch of Alexandria, and in the synod, presided over by Lucar’s successor, Cyril of Berrhoë, at Constantinople in A.D. 1638, gave his vote for the formal condemnation of the man who had been already executed.[446]

§ 152.3. =Orthodox Constancy.=--The Russian Orthodox church, after its emancipation from Constantinople and the erection of an independent patriarchate at Moscow in A.D. 1589 (§ 73, 4), had decidedly the pre-eminence over the Greek Orthodox church, and the Russian czar took the place formerly occupied by the East Roman emperor as protector of the whole Orthodox church. The dangers to the Orthodox faith threatened by schemes of union with Catholics and Protestants induced the learned metropolitan, Peter Mogilas of Kiev, to compose a new confession in catechetical form, which, in A.D. 1643, was formally authorized by the Orthodox patriarchs as Ὀρθόδοξος ὁμολογία τῆς καθολικῆς καὶ ἀποστολικῆς ἐκκλησίας τῆς ἀνατολικῆς.--Thirty years later a controversy on the eucharist broke out between the Jansenists Nicole and Arnauld, on the one side, and the Calvinists Claude and Jurieu, on the other (§ 157, 1), in which both claimed to be in agreement with the Greek church. A synod was convened under =Dositheus of Jerusalem= in A.D. 1672, at the instigation of French diplomatists, where the questions raised by Cyril were again taken into consideration. Maintaining a friendly attitude toward the Romish church, it directed a violent polemic against Calvinism. In order to save the character of the Constantinopolitan chair for constant Orthodoxy, Cyril’s confession of A.D. 1629 was pronounced a spurious, heretical invention, and a confession composed by Dositheus, in which Cyril’s Calvinistic heresies were repudiated, was incorporated with the synod’s acts.

§ 153. CATHOLICISM AND PROTESTANTISM.

The Jesuit counter-reformation (§ 151) was eminently successful during the first decades of the century in Bohemia. The Westphalian Peace restrained its violence, but did not prevent secret machinations and the open exercise of all conceivable arts of seduction. Next to the conversion of Bohemia, the greatest triumph of the restoration was won in France in the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Besides such victories the Catholics were able to glory in the conversion of several Protestant princes. New endeavours at union were repeatedly made, but these in every case proved as fruitless as former attempts had done.

§ 153.1. =Conversions of Protestant Princes.=--The first reigning prince who became a convert to Romanism was the Margrave =James III. of Baden=. He went over in A.D. 1590 (§ 144, 4), but as his death occurred soon after, his conduct had little influence upon his people. Of greater consequence was the conversion, in A.D. 1614, of the Count-palatine Wolfgang William of Neuburg, as it prepared the way for the catholicizing of the whole Palatinate, which followed in A.D. 1685. Much was made of the passing over to the Catholic church of =Christina of Sweden=, the highly gifted but eccentric daughter of Gustavus Adolphus. As she had resigned the crown, the pope gained no political advantage from his new member, and Alexander VII. had even to contribute to her support. The Elector of Saxony, =Frederick Augustus II.=, passed over to the Roman Catholic church in A.D. 1697, in order to qualify himself for the Polish crown; but the rights of his Protestant subjects were carefully guarded. An awkwardness arose from the fact that the prince was pledged by the directory of the Regensburg Diet of A.D. 1653 to care for the interests of the evangelical church. Now that he had become a Catholic, he still formally promised to do so, but had his duties discharged by a commissioner. Subsequently this officer was ordered to take his directions from the evangelical council of Dresden.

§ 153.2. =The Restoration in Germany and the Neighbouring States= (§ 151, 1).--Matthias having, in violation of the royal letter of his predecessor Rudolph II. (§ 139, 19), refused to allow the Protestants of Bohemia to build churches, was driven out; the Jesuits also were expelled, and the Calvinistic Elector-palatine Frederick V. was chosen as prince in A.D. 1619. Ferdinand II. (A.D. 1619-1637) defeated him, tore up the royal letter, restored the Jesuits, and expelled the Protestant pastors. Efforts were made by Christian IV. of Denmark and other Protestant princes to save Protestantism, but without success. Ferdinand now issued his =Restitution Edict= of A.D. 1629, which deprived Protestants of their privileges, and gave to Catholic nobles unrestricted liberty to suppress the evangelical faith in their dominions. It was then that Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, in religious not less than political interests, made his appearance as the saviour of Protestantism.[447] The unhappy war was brought to an end in A.D. 1648 by the publication at Münster and Osnabrück of the =Peace of Westphalia=, which Innocent X. in his bull “_Zelo Domus Dei_” of A.D. 1651 pronounced “null and void, without influence on past, present, and future.” Germany lost several noble provinces, but its intellectual and religious freedom was saved. Under Swedish and French guarantee the Augsburg Religious Peace was confirmed and even extended to the Reformed, as related to the Augsburg Confession. The church property was to be restored on January 1st, A.D. 1624. The political equality of Protestants and Catholics throughout Germany was distinctly secured. In =Bohemia=, however, Protestantism was thoroughly extirpated, and in the other Austrian states the oppression continued down to the time of Joseph II. In =Silesia=, from the passing of the Restitution Edict, over a thousand churches had been violently taken from the evangelicals. No compensation was now thought of, but rather the persecution continued throughout the whole century (§ 165, 4), and many thousands were compelled to migrate, for the most part to Upper Lusatia.

§ 153.3. Also in =Livonia=, from A.D. 1561 under Polish rule, the Jesuits gained a footing and began the restoration, but under Gustavus Adolphus from A.D. 1621 their machinations were brought to an end.--The ruthless =Valteline Massacre= of A.D. 1620 may be described as a Swiss St. Bartholomew on a small scale. All Protestants were murdered in one day. The conspirators at a signal from the clock tower in the early morning broke into the houses of heretics, and put all to death, down to the very babe in the cradle. Between four and five hundred were slaughtered.--In =Hungary=, at the close of the preceding century only three noble families remained Catholic, and the Protestant churches numbered 2,000; but the Jesuits, who had settled there under the protection of Rudolph II. in 1579, resumed their intrigues, and the Archbishop of Gran, Pazmany, wrought hard for the restoration of Catholicism. Rakoczy of Transylvania, in the Treaty of Linz of A.D. 1645, concluded a league offensive and defensive with Sweden and France, which secured political and religious liberty for Hungary; but of the 400 churches of which the Protestants had been robbed only ninety were given back. The bigoted Leopold I., from A.D. 1655 king of Hungary, inaugurated a yet more severe persecution, which continued until the publication of the Toleration Edict of Joseph II. in A.D. 1781. The 2,000 Protestant congregations were by this time reduced to 105.

§ 153.4. =The Huguenots in France= (§ 139, 17).--Henry IV. faithfully fulfilled the promises which he made in the Edict of Nantes; but under Louis XIII., A.D. 1610-1643, the oppressions of the Huguenots were renewed, and led to fresh outbreaks. Richelieu withdrew their political privileges, but granted them religious toleration in the Edict of Nismes, A.D. 1629. Louis XIV., A.D. 1643-1715, at the instigation of his confessors, sought to atone for his sins by purging his land of heretics. When bribery and court favour had done all that they could do in the way of conversions, the fearful dragonnades began, A.D. 1681. The formal =Revocation of the Edict of Nantes= followed in A.D. 1685, and persecution raged with the utmost violence. Thousands of churches were torn down, vast numbers of confessors were tortured, burnt, or sent to the galleys. In spite of the terrible penal laws against emigrating, in spite of the watch kept over the frontiers, hundreds of thousands escaped, and were received with open arms as _refugees_ in Brandenburg, Holland, England, Denmark, and Switzerland. Many fled into the wilds of the Cevennes, where under the name of Camisards they maintained a heroic conflict for years, until at last exterminated by an army at least ten times their strength. The struggle reached the utmost intensity of bitterness on both sides in A.D. 1702, when the fanatical and inhumanly cruel inquisitor, the Abbé du Chaila, was slain. At the head of the Camisard army was a young peasant, Jean Cavalier, who by his energetic and skilful conduct of the campaign astonished the world. At last the famous Marshal Villars, by promising a general amnesty, release of all prisoners, permission to emigrate with possessions, and religious toleration to those who remained, succeeded in persuading Cavalier to lay down his arms. The king ratified this bargain, only refusing the right of religious freedom. Many, however, submitted; while others emigrated, mostly to England. Cavalier entered the king’s service as colonel; but distrusting the arrangements fled to Holland, and afterwards to England, where in A.D. 1740 he died as governor of Jersey. In A.D. 1707 a new outbreak took place, accompanied by prophetic fanaticism, in consequence of repeated dragonnades, but it was put down by the stake, the gallows, the axe, and the wheel. France had lost half a million of her most pious, industrious, and capable inhabitants, and yet two millions of Huguenots deprived of all their rights remained in the land.[448]

§ 153.5. =The Waldensians in Piedmont= (§ 139, 25).--Although in A.D. 1654 the Duke of Savoy confirmed to the Waldensians their privileges, by Easter of the following year a bloody persecution broke out, in which a Piedmontese army, together with a horde of released prisoners and Irish refugees, driven from their native land by Cromwell’s severities, to whom the duke had given shelter in the valleys, perpetrated the most horrible cruelties. Yet in the desperate conflict the Waldensians held their ground. The intervention of the Protestant Swiss cantons won for them again a measure of toleration, and liberal gifts from abroad compensated them for their loss of property. Cromwell too sent to the relief of the sufferers the celebrated Lord Morland in A.D. 1658. While in the valleys he got possession of a number of MSS. (§ 108, 11), which he took home with him and deposited in the Cambridge Library. In A.D. 1685 the persecution and civil war were again renewed at the instigation of Louis XIV. The soldiers besieged the valleys, and more than 14,000 captives were consigned to fortresses and prisons. But the rest of the Waldensians plucked up courage, inflicted many defeats upon their enemy, and so moved the government in A.D. 1686 to release the prisoners and send them out of the country. Some found their way to Germany, others fled to Switzerland. These last, aided by Swiss troops, and led by their own pastor, Henry Arnaud, made an attack upon Piedmont in A.D. 1689, and conquered again their own country. They continued in possession, notwithstanding all attempts to dislodge them.

§ 153.6. =The Catholics in England and Ireland.=--When James I., A.D. 1603-1625, the son of Mary Stuart, ascended the English throne (§ 139, 11), the Catholics expected from him nothing short of the complete restoration of the old religion. But great as James’ inclination towards Catholicism may have been, his love of despotic authority was still greater. He therefore rigorously suppressed the Jesuits, who disputed the royal supremacy over the church; and the bitterness of the Catholics now reached its height. They organized the so-called =Gunpowder Plot=, with the intention of blowing up the royal family and the whole Parliament at the first meeting of the house. At the head of the conspiracy stood Rob. Catesby, Thomas Percy of Northumberland, and Guy Fawkes, an English officer in the Spanish service. The plan was discovered shortly before the day appointed for its execution. On November 5th, A.D. 1605, Fawkes, with lantern and matches, was seized in the cellar. The rest of the conspirators fled, but, after a desperate struggle, in which Catesby and Percy fell, were arrested, and, together with two Jesuit accomplices, executed as traitors. Great severities were then exercised toward the Catholics, not only in England, but also in Ireland, where the bulk of the population was attached to the Romish faith. James I. completed the transference of ecclesiastical property to the Anglican church, and robbed the Irish nobles of almost all their estates, and gifted them over to Scottish and English favourites. All Catholics, because they refused to take the oath of supremacy, _i.e._ to recognise the king as head of the church, were declared ineligible for any civil office. These oppressions at last led to the fearful =Irish massacre=. In October, A.D. 1641, a desperate outbreak of the Catholics took place throughout the country. It aimed at the destruction of all Protestants in Ireland. The conspirators rushed from all sides into the houses of the Protestants, murdered the inhabitants, and drove them naked and helpless from their homes. Many thousands died on the roadside of hunger and cold. In other places they were driven in crowds into the rivers and drowned, or into empty houses, which were burnt over them. The number of those who suffered is variously estimated from 40,000 to 400,000. Charles I., A.D. 1625-1649, was suspected as instigator of this terrible deed, and it may be regarded as his first step toward the scaffold (§ 155, 1). After the execution of Charles, Oliver Cromwell, in A.D. 1649, at the call of Parliament, took fearful revenge for the Irish crime. In the two cities which he took by storm he had all the citizens cut down without distinction. Panic-stricken, the inhabitants of the other cities fled to the bogs. Within nine months the whole island was reconquered. Hundreds of thousands, driven from their native soil, wandered as homeless fugitives, and their lands were divided among English soldiers and settlers. During the time of the English Commonwealth, A.D. 1649-1660, all moderate men, even those who had formerly demanded religious toleration, not only for all Christian sects, but also for Jews and Mohammedans, and even atheists, were now at one in excluding Catholics from its benefit, because they all saw in the Catholics a party ready at any moment to prove traitors to their country at the bidding of a foreign sovereign.--The Restoration under Charles II. could not greatly ameliorate the calamities of the Irish. Religious persecution indeed ceased, but the property taken from the Catholic church and native owners still remained in the hands of the Anglican church and the Protestant occupiers. To counterbalance the Catholic proclivities of Charles II. (§ 155, 3), the English Parliament of A.D. 1673 passed the =Test Act=, which required every civil and military officer to take the test oaths, condemning transubstantiation and the worship of the saints, and to receive the communion according to the Anglican rite as members of the State church. The statements of a certain Titus Oates, that the Jesuits had organized a plot for murdering the king and restoring the papacy, led to fearful riots in A.D. 1678 and many executions. But the reports were seemingly unfounded, and were probably the fruit of an intrigue to deprive the king’s Catholic brother, James II., of the right of succession. When James ascended the throne, in A.D. 1685, he immediately entered into negotiations with Rome, and filled almost all offices with Catholics. At the invitation of the Protestants, the king’s son-in-law, William III. of Orange, landed in England in A.D. 1688, and on James’ flight was declared king by the Parliament. The Act of Toleration, issued by him in A.D. 1689, still withheld from Papists the privileges now extended to Protestant dissenters (§ 155, 3).[449]

§ 153.7. =Union Efforts.=

1. Although =Hugo Grotius= distinctly took the side of the Remonstrants (§ 160, 2), his whole disposition was essentially irenical. He attempted, but in vain, not only the reconciliation of the Arminians and Calvinists, but also the union of all Protestant sects on a common basis. Toward Catholicism he long maintained a decidedly hostile attitude. But through intimate intercourse with distinguished Catholics, especially during his exile in France, his feelings were completely changed. He now invariably expressed himself more favourably in regard to the faith and the institutions of the Catholic church. Its semi-Pelagianism was acceptable to him as a decided Arminian. In his “_Votum pro Pace_” he recommended as the only possible way to restore ecclesiastical union, a return to Catholicism, on the understanding that a thorough reform should be made. But that he was himself ready to pass over, and was hindered only by his sudden death in A.D. 1645, is merely an illusion of Romish imagination.[450]

2. King Wladislaus [Wladislaw] IV. of Poland thought a union of Protestants and Catholics in his dominions not impossible, and with this end in view arranged the =Religious Conference of Thorn= in A.D. 1645. Prussia and Brandenburg were also invited to take part in it. The elector sent his court preacher, John Berg, and asked from the Duke of Brunswick the assistance of the Helmstadt theologian, George Calixt. The chief representatives of the Lutheran side were Abraham Calov, of Danzig, and John Hülsemann, of Wittenberg. That Calixt, a Lutheran, took the part of the Reformed, intensified the bitterness of the Lutherans at the outset. The result was to increase the split on all sides. The Reformed set forth their opinions in the “_Declaratio Thorunensis_,” which in Brandenburg obtained symbolical rank.

3. J. B. =Bossuet=, who died in A.D. 1704, Bishop of Meaux, used all his eloquence to prepare a way for the return of Protestants to the church in which alone is salvation. In several treatises he gave an idealized exposition of the Catholic doctrine, glossed over what was most offensive to Protestants, and sought by subtlety and sophistry to represent the Protestant system as contradictory and untenable.[451] During the same period the Spaniard =Spinola=, Bishop of Neustadt, who had come into the country as father confessor of the empress, proposed a scheme of union at the imperial court. The controverted points were to be decided at a free council, but the primacy of the pope and the hierarchical system, as founded _jure humano_, were to be retained. In prosecuting his scheme, with the secret support of Leopold I., Spinola, between A.D. 1676 and 1691, travelled through all Protestant Germany. He found most success, out of respect for the emperor, in Hanover, where the Abbot of Loccum, Molanus, zealously advocated the proposed union, in which on the Catholic side Bossuet, on the Protestant side the great philosopher =Leibnitz=, took part. But the negotiations ended in no practical result. That Leibnitz had himself been already secretly inclined to Catholicism, some think to have proved by a manuscript, found after his death, entitled in another’s hand, “_Systema Theologicum Leibnitii_.” Favourably disposed as Leibnitz was to investigate and recognise what was profound and true even in Catholicism, so that he reached the conviction that neither of the two churches had given perfect and adequate expression to Christian truth, he has apparently sought in this work to make clear to himself what and how much of specifically Catholic doctrines were justifiable, and to sketch out a system of doctrine occupying a place superior to both confessions. In this treatise many doctrines are expressed in a manner quite divergent from that of the Tridentine creed, while several expressions show how clearly he perceived the contradiction between his own Protestant faith and the Romish system, amid all his attempts to effect a reconciliation.

§ 153.8. =The Lehnin Prophecy.=--The hope entertained, about the end of the seventeenth century, by Catholics throughout Germany of the speedy restoration of the mother church was expressed in the so called =Vaticinium Lehninense=. Professedly composed in the thirteenth century by a monk called Hermann, of the cloister of Lehnin in Brandenburg, it characterized with historical accuracy in 100 Leonine verses the Brandenburg princes down to Frederick III., of whose coronation in A.D. 1701 it is ignorant, and after this proceeds in a purely fanciful and arbitrary manner. From Joachim II., who openly joined the Reformation, it enumerates eleven members, so that the history is just brought down to Frederick William III. With the eleventh the Hohenzollern dynasty ends, Germany is united, the Catholic church restored, and Lehnin raised again to its ancient glory. Under Frederick William IV., the Catholics diligently sought to prove the genuineness of the prophecy, and by arbitrary methods to extend it so as to include this prince. Lately “the deadly sin of Israel” spoken of in it has been pointed to as a prophecy of the _Kultur-kampf_ of our own day (§ 197). The first certain trace of the poem is in A.D. 1693. Hilgenfeld thinks that its author was a fanatical pervert, Andr. Fromm, who was previously a Protestant pastor in Berlin, and died in A.D. 1685 as canon of Leitmeritz, in Bohemia.

§ 154. LUTHERANISM AND CALVINISM.

The Reformed church made its way into the heart of Lutheran Germany (§ 144) by the Calvinizing of Hesse-Cassel and Lippe, and by the adherence of the electoral house of Brandenburg. Renewed attempts to unite the two churches were equally fruitless with the endeavours after a Catholic-Protestant union.

§ 154.1. =Calvinizing of Hesse-Cassel, A.D. 1605-1646.=--Philip the Magnanimous, died 1567, left to his eldest son, William IV., one half of his territories, comprising Lower Hesse and Schmalcald, with residence at Cassel; to Louis IV. a fourth part, _viz._ Upper Hesse, with residence at Marburg; while his two youngest sons, Philip and George, were made counts, with their residence at Darmstadt. Philip died in 1583 and Louis in 1604, both childless; in consequence of which the greater part of Philip’s territory and the northern half of Upper Hesse with Marburg fell to Hesse-Cassel, and the southern half with Giessen to Hesse-Darmstadt.--Landgrave =William IV.= of Hesse-Cassel sympathised with his father’s union and levelling tendencies, and by means of general synods wrought eagerly to secure acceptance for them throughout Hesse by setting aside the _ubiquitous_ Christology (§ 141, 9) and the Formula of Concord, while firmly maintaining the _Corpus Doctrinæ Philippicum_ (§ 141, 10). The fourth and last of those general synods was held in 1582. Further procedure was meanwhile rendered impossible by the increase of opposition. For, on the one hand, Louis IV., under the influence of the acute and learned but contentious Ægidius Hunnius, professor of theology at Marburg, 1576-1592, became more and more decidedly a representative of exclusive Lutheranism; and, on the other hand, William’s Calvinizing schemes became from day to day more reckless. His son and successor =Maurice= went forward more energetically along the same lines as his father, especially after the death of his uncle Louis in 1604, who bequeathed to him the Marburg part of his territories. These had been given him on condition that he should hold by the confession and its apology as guaranteed by Charles V. in 1530. But in 1605 he forbad the Marburg theologians to set forth the ubiquity theology; and when they protested, issued a formal prohibition of the dogma with its presuppositions and consequences, and insisted on the introduction of the Reformed numbering of the commandments of the decalogue, and the breaking of bread at the communion, and the removal of the remaining images from the churches (§ 144, 2). The theologians again protested, and were deprived of their offices. The result was the outbreak of a popular tumult at Marburg, which Maurice suppressed by calling in the military. When in several places in Upper and even in Lower Hesse opposition was persisted in, and the resisting clergy could not be won over either by persuasion and threatening or by persecution, Maurice in 1607 convened consultative diocesan synods at Cassel, Eschwege, Marburg, St. Goar, and soon after a general synod at Cassel, which, giving expression on all points to the will of the landgrave, drew up, besides a new hymnbook and catechism, a new “Christian and correct confession of faith,” by which they openly and decidedly declared their attachment to the Reformed church. Soon Hesse accepted these conclusions, but not the rest of the state, where the opposition of the nobles, clergy, and people, in spite of all attempts to enforce this acceptance by military power, imprisonment, and deposition, could not be altogether overcome.--Meanwhile George’s son and successor, =Louis V.=, 1596-1626, had been eagerly seeking to make capital of those troubles in his cousin’s domains in favour of the Darmstadt dynasty. He gave his protection to the professors expelled from Marburg in 1605, founded in 1607 a Lutheran university at Giessen, and made accusations against his cousin before the imperial supreme court, which in 1623, on the basis of the will of Louis IV. and the Religious Peace of Augsburg (§ 137, 5), declared the inheritance forfeited, and entrusted the electors of Cologne and Saxony with the execution of the sentence. These in conjunction with the troops of the league under Tilly attacked Upper and Lower Hesse; the Lutheran University of Giessen was transferred to Marburg, and Upper Hesse, after the banishment of the Reformed pastors, went over wholly to the Lutheran confession. Maurice, completely broken down, resigned in favour of his son =William V.=, who was obliged to make an agreement, according to which he made over Upper Hesse, Schmalcald, and Katzenelnbogen to =George II.= of Hesse-Darmstadt, the successor of Louis V. In consequence of his attachment to Gustavus Adolphus in the Thirty Years’ War the ban of the empire was pronounced upon William. He died in 1637. His widow, =Amalie Elizabeth=, undertook the government on behalf of her young son William VI., and in 1646, after repeated victories over George’s troops, made a new agreement with him, by which the territories taken away in 1627 were restored to Hesse-Cassel, under a guarantee, however, that the _status quo_ in matters of religion should be preserved, and that they should continue predominantly Lutheran. The university property was divided; Giessen obtained a Lutheran, Marburg a Reformed institution, and Lower Hesse received a moderately but yet essentially Reformed ecclesiastical constitution.

§ 154.2. =Calvinizing of Lippe, A.D. 1602.=--Count Simon VI. of Lippe, in his eventful life, was brought into close relations with the Reformed Netherlands and with Maurice of Hesse. His dominions were thoroughly Lutheran, but from A.D. 1602 Calvinism was gradually introduced under the patronage of the prince. The chief promoter of this innovation was Dreckmeyer, chosen general superintendent in A.D. 1599. At a visitation of churches in A.D. 1602, the festivals of Mary and the apostles, exorcism, the sign of the cross, the host, burning candles, and Luther’s catechism were rejected. Opposing pastors were deposed, and Calvinists put in their place. The city Lemgo stood out longest, and persevered in its adherence to the Lutheran confession during an eleven years’ struggle with its prince, from A.D. 1606 to 1617. After the death of Simon VI., his successor, Simon VII., allowed the city the free exercise of its Lutheran religion.

§ 154.3. =The Elector of Brandenburg becomes Calvinist, A.D. 1613.=--John Sigismund, A.D. 1608-1619, had promised his grandfather, John George, to maintain his connexion with the Lutheran church. But his own inclination, which was strengthened by his son’s marriage with a princess of the Palatinate, and his connexion with the Netherlands, made him forget his promise. Also his court preacher, the crypto-Calvinist Solomon Fink, contributed to the same result. On Christmas Day, A.D. 1613, he went over to the Reformed church. In order to share in the Augsburg Peace, he still retained the Augsburg Confession, naturally in the form known as the _Variata_. In A.D. 1624, he issued a Calvinist confession of his own, the _Confessio Sigismundi_ or _Marchica_, which sought to reconcile the universality of grace with the particularity of election (§ 168, 1). His people, however, did not follow the prince, not even his consort, Anne of Prussia. The court preacher, Gedicke, who would not retract his invectives against the prince and the Reformed confession, was obliged to flee from Berlin, as also another preacher, Mart. Willich. But when altars, images, and baptismal fonts were thrown out of the Berlin churches, a tumult arose, in A.D. 1615, which was not suppressed without bloodshed. In the following year the elector forbade the teaching of the _communicatio idiomatum_ and the _ubiquitas corporis_ (§ 141, 9) at the University of Frankfort-on-the-Oder. In A.D. 1614, owing to the publication of a keen controversial treatise of Hutter (§ 159, 5) he forbade any of his subjects going to the University of Wittenberg, and soon afterwards struck out the Formula of Concord from the collection of the symbolical books of the Lutheran church of his realm.--Continuation, § 169, 1.

§ 154.4. =Union Attempts.=--Hoë von Hoënegg, of an old Austrian family, was from A.D. 1612 chief court preacher at Dresden, and as spiritual adviser of the elector, John George, on the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War, got Lutheran Saxony to take the side of the Catholic emperor against the Calvinist Frederick V. of the Palatinate, elected king of Bohemia. In A.D. 1621, he had proved that “on ninety-nine points the Calvinists were in accord with the Arians and the Turks.” At the Religious Conference of Leipzig of A.D. 1631 a compromise was accepted on both sides; but no practical result was secured. The Religious Conference of Cassel, in A.D. 1661, was a well meant endeavour by some Marburg Reformed theologians and Lutherans of the school of Calixt (§ 158, 2); but owing to the agitation caused by the Synergist controversy, no important advance toward union could be accomplished. The union efforts of Duke William of Brandenburg, A.D. 1640-1688, were opposed by Paul Gerhardt, preacher in the church of St. Nicholas in Berlin. On refusing to abstain from attacks on the Reformed doctrine he was deposed from his office. He was soon appointed pastor at Lübben in Lusatia, where he died in A.D. 1676.--The most zealous apostle of universal Protestant union, embracing even the Anglican church, was the Scottish Presbyterian John Durie. From A.D. 1628 when he officiated as pastor of an English colony at Elbing, till his death at Cassel in A.D. 1640, he devoted his energies unweariedly to this one task. He repeatedly travelled through Germany, Sweden, Denmark, England, and the Netherlands, formed acquaintance with clerical and civil authorities, had intercourse with them by word and letter, published a multitude of tracts on this subject; but at last could only look back with bitter complaints over the lost labours of a lifetime.[452]--Continuation, § 169, 1.

§ 155. ANGLICANISM AND PURITANISM.[453]

On the outbreak of the English Revolution, occasioned by the despotism of the first two Stuarts, crowds of Puritan exiles returned from Holland and North America to their old home. They powerfully strengthened their secret sympathisers in their successful struggle against the episcopacy of the State church (§ 139, 6); but, breaking up into rival parties, as Presbyterians and Independents (§ 143, 3, 4), gave way to fanatical extravagances. The victorious party of Independents also split into two divisions: the one, after the old Dutch style, simple and strict believers in Scripture; the other, first in Cromwell’s army, fanatical enthusiasts and visionary saints (§ 161, 1). The Restoration, under the last two Stuarts, sought to re-introduce Catholicism. It was William of Orange, by his Act of Toleration of A.D. 1689, who first brought to a close the Reformation struggles within the Anglican church. It guaranteed, indeed, all the pre-eminent privileges of an establishment to the Anglican and Episcopal church, but also granted toleration to dissenters, while refusing it to Catholics.

§ 155.1. =The First Two Stuarts.=--=James I.=, dominated by the idea of the royal supremacy, and so estranged from the Presbyterianism in which he was brought up (§ 139, 11), as king of England, A.D. 1603-1625, attached himself to the national Episcopal church, persecuted the English Puritans, so that many of them again fled to Holland (§ 143, 4), and forced Episcopacy upon the Scotch. =Charles I.=, A.D. 1625-1649, went beyond his father in theory and practice, and thus incurred the hatred of his Protestant subjects. William Laud, from A.D. 1633 Archbishop of Canterbury, was the recklessly zealous promoter of his despotic ideas, representing the Episcopacy, by reason of its Divine institution and apostolic succession, as the foundation of the church and the pillar of an absolute monarchy. Laud used his position as primate to secure the introduction of his own theory into the public church services, among other things making the communion office an imitation as near as possible of the Romish mass. But when he attempted to force upon the Scotch such “Baal-worship” by the command of the king, they formed a league in A.D. 1638 for the defence of Presbyterianism, the so called Great Covenant, and emphasised their demand by sending an army into England. The king, who had ruled for eleven years without a Parliament, was obliged now to call together the representatives of the people. Scarcely had the Long Parliament, A.D. 1640-1653, in which the Puritan element was supreme, pacified the Scotch, than oil was anew poured on the flames by the Irish massacre of A.D. 1641 (§ 153, 6). The Lower House, in spite of the persistent opposition of the court, resolved on excluding the bishops from the Upper House and formally abolishing Episcopacy; and in A.D. 1643, summoned the Westminster Assembly to remodel the organization of the English church, at which Scotch representatives were to have a seat. After long and violent debates with an Independent minority, till A.D. 1648, the Assembly drew up a Presbyterian constitution with a Puritan service, and in the Westminster Confession a strictly Calvinistic creed. But only in Scotland were these decisions heartily accepted. In England, notwithstanding their confirmation by the Parliament, they received only partial and occasional acceptance, owing to the prevalence of Independent opinions among the people.--Since A.D. 1642, the tension between court and Parliament had brought about the Civil War between Cavaliers and Roundheads. In A.D. 1645, the royal troops were cut to pieces at Naseby by the parliamentary army under Fairfax and Cromwell. The king fled to the Scotch, by whom he was surrendered to the English Parliament in A.D. 1647. But when now the fanatical Independents, who formed a majority in the army, began to terrorise the Parliament, it opened negotiations for peace with the king. He was now ready to make almost any sacrifice, only on religious and conscientious grounds he could not agree to the unconditional abandonment of Episcopacy. Even the Scotch, whose Presbyterianism was now threatened by the Independents, as before it had been by the Episcopalians, longed for the restoration of royalty, and to aid in this sent an army into England in A.D. 1648. But they were defeated by Cromwell, who then dismissed the Parliament and had all its Presbyterian members either imprisoned or driven into retirement. The Independent remnant, known as the Rump Parliament, A.D. 1648-1653, tried the king for high treason and sentenced him to death. On January 30th, A.D. 1649, he mounted the scaffold, on which Archbishop Laud had preceded him in A.D. 1645, and fell under the executioner’s axe.[454]

§ 155.2. =The Commonwealth and the Protector.=--Ireland had never yet atoned for its crime of A.D. 1641 (§ 153, 6), and as it refused to acknowledge the Commonwealth, Cromwell took terrible revenge in A.D. 1649. In A.D. 1650 at Dunbar, and in A.D. 1651 at Worcester, he completely destroyed the army of the Scots, who had crowned Charles II., son of the executed king, drove out, in April A.D. 1653, the Rump of the Long Parliament, which had come to regard itself as a permanent institution, and in July opened, with a powerful speech, two hours in length, on God’s ways and judgments, the Short or Barebones’ Parliament, composed of “pious and God-fearing men” selected by himself. In this new Parliament which, with prayer and psalm-singing, wrought hard at the re-organization of the executive, the bench, and the church, the two parties of Independents were represented, the fanatical enthusiasts indeed predominating, and so victorious in all matters of debate. To this party Cromwell himself belonged. His attachment to it, however, was considerably cooled in consequence of the excesses of the Levellers (§ 161, 2), and the fantastic policy of the parliamentarian Saints disgusted him more and more. When therefore, on December 12th, A.D. 1653, after five months’ fruitless opposition to the radical demands of the extravagant majority, all the most moderate members of the Parliament had resigned their seats and returned their mandates into Cromwell’s hands, he burst in upon the psalm-singing remnant with his soldiers, and entered upon his life-long office of the Protector of the Commonwealth with a new constitution. He proclaimed toleration of all religious sects, Catholics only being excepted on political grounds (§ 153, 6), giving equal rights to Presbyterians, and offering no hindrance to the revival of Episcopacy. He yet remained firmly attached to his early convictions. He believed in a kingdom of the saints embracing the whole earth, and looked on England as destined for the protection and spread of Protestantism. Zürich greeted him as the great Protestant champion, and he showed himself in this _rôle_ in the valleys of Piedmont (§ 153, 5), in France, in Poland, and in Silesia. He joined with all Protestant governments into a league, offensive and defensive, against fanatical attempts of Papists to recover their lost ground. When Spain and France sued for his alliance, he made it a condition with the former that, besides allowing free trade with the West Indies, it should abolish the Inquisition; and of France he required an assurance that the rights of Huguenots should be respected. And when in Germany a new election of emperor was to take place, he urged the great electors that they should by no means allow the imperial throne to continue with the Catholic house of Austria. Meanwhile his path at home was a thorny one. He was obliged to suppress fifteen open rebellions during five years of his reign, countless secret plots threatened his life every day, and his bitterest foes were his former comrades in the camp of the the saints. After refusing the crown offered him in A.D. 1657, without being able thereby to quell the discontents of parties, he died on September 3rd, A.D. 1658, the anniversary of his glorious victories of Dunbar and Worcester.[455]

§ 155.3. =The Restoration and the Act of Toleration.=--The Restoration of royalty under =Charles II.=, A.D. 1660-1685, began with the reinstating of the Episcopal church in all the privileges granted to it under Elizabeth. The Corporation Act of December, A.D. 1661, was the first of a series of enactments for this purpose. It required of all magistrates and civil officers that they should take an oath acknowledging the royal supremacy and communicate in the Episcopal church. The Act of Uniformity of May, A.D. 1662, was still more oppressive. It prohibited any clergyman entering the English pulpit or discharging any ministerial function, unless he had been ordained by a bishop, had signed the Thirty-nine Articles, and undertook to conduct worship exactly in accordance with the newly revised Book of Common Prayer. More than 2,000 Puritan ministers, who could not conscientiously submit to those terms, were driven out of their churches. Then in June, A.D. 1664, the Conventicle Act was renewed, enforcing attendance at the Episcopal church, and threatening with imprisonment or exile all found in any private religious meeting of more than five persons. In the following year the Five Mile Act inflicted heavy fines on all nonconformist ministers who should approach within five miles of their former congregation or indeed of any city. All these laws, although primarily directed against all Protestant dissenters, told equally against the Catholics, whom the king’s Catholic sympathies would willingly have spared. When now his league with Catholic France against the Protestant Netherlands made it necessary for him to appease his Protestant subjects, he hoped to accomplish this and save the Catholics by his “Declaration of Indulgence” of A.D. 1672, issued with the consent of Parliament, which suspended all penal laws hitherto in force against dissenters. But the Protestant nonconformists saw through this scheme, and the Parliament of A.D. 1673 passed the anti-Catholic Test Act (§ 153, 6). Equally vain were all later attempts to secure greater liberties and privileges to the Catholics. They only served to develop the powers of Parliament and to bring the Episcopalians and nonconformists more closely together. After spending his whole life oscillating between frivolous unbelief and Catholic superstition, Charles II., on his death-bed, formally went over to the Romish church, and had the communion and extreme unction administered by a Catholic priest. His brother and successor =James II.=, A.D. 1685-1688, who was from A.D. 1672 an avowed Catholic, sent a declaration of obedience to Rome, received a papal nuncio in London, and in the exercise of despotic power issued, in A.D. 1687, a “Declaration of Freedom of Conscience,” which, under the fair colour of universal toleration and by the setting aside of the test oath, enabled him to fill all civil and military offices with Catholics. This act proved equally oppressive to the Episcopalians and to Protestant dissenters. This intrigue cost him his throne. He had, as he himself said, staked three kingdoms on a mass, and lost all the three. =William III.= of Orange, A.D. 1689-1702, grandson of Charles I. and son-in-law of James II., gave a final decision to the rights of the national Episcopal church and the position of dissenters in the =Act of Toleration= of A.D. 1689, which he passed with consent of the Parliament. All penal laws against the latter were abrogated, and religious liberty was extended to all with the exception of Catholics and Socinians. The retention of the Corporation and Test Acts, however, still excluded them from the exercise of all political rights. They were also still obliged to pay tithes and other church dues to the Episcopal clergy of their dioceses, and their marriages and baptisms had to be administered in the parish churches. Their ministers were also obliged to subscribe the Thirty-nine Articles, with reservation of those points opposed to their principles. The Act of Union of A.D. 1707, passed under Queen Anne, a daughter of James II., which united England and Scotland into the one kingdom of Great Britain, gave legitimate sanction to a separate ecclesiastical establishment for each country. In Scotland the Presbyterian churches continued the established church, while the Episcopal was tolerated as a dissenting body. Congregationalism, however, has been practically limited to England and North America.[456]--Continuation, § 202, 5.

II. The Roman Catholic Church.

§ 156. THE PAPACY, MONKERY, AND FOREIGN MISSIONS.

Notwithstanding the regeneration of papal Catholicism since the middle of the sixteenth century, Hildebrand’s politico-theocratic ideal was not realized. Even Catholic princes would not be dictated to on political matters by the vicar of Christ. The most powerful of them, France, Austria, and Spain, during the sixteenth century, and subsequently also Portugal, had succeeded in the claim to the right of excluding objectionable candidates in papal elections. Ban and interdict had lost their power. The popes, however, still clung to the idea after they had been obliged to surrender the reality, and issued from time to time powerless protestations against disagreeable facts of history. Several new monkish orders were instituted during this century, mostly for teaching the young and tending the sick, but some also expressly for the promoting of theological science. Of all the orders, new and old, the Jesuits were by far the most powerful. They were regarded with jealousy and suspicion by the other orders. In respect of doctrine the Dominicans were as far removed from them as possible within the limits of the Tridentine Creed. But notwithstanding any such mutual jealousies, they were all animated by one yearning desire to oppose, restrict, and, where that was possible, to uproot Protestantism. With similar zeal they devoted themselves with wonderful success to the work of foreign missions.

§ 156.1. =The Papacy.=--=Paul V.=, A.D. 1605-1621, equally energetic in his civil and in his ecclesiastical policy, in a struggle with Venice, was obliged to behold the powerlessness of the papal interdict. His successor, =Gregory XV.=, A.D. 1621-1623, founded the Propaganda, prescribed a secret scrutiny in papal elections, and canonized Loyola, Xavier, and Neri. He enriched the Vatican Library by the addition of the valuable treasures of the Heidelberg Library, which Maximilian I. of Bavaria sent him on his conquest of the Palatinate. =Urban VIII.=, A.D. 1623-1644, increased the Propaganda, improved the Roman “Breviary” (§ 56, 2), condemned Jansen’s _Augustinus_ (§ 156, 5), and compelled Galileo to recant. But on the other hand, through his onesided ecclesiastical policy he was led into sacrificing the interests of the imperial house of Austria. Not only did he fail to give support to the emperor, but quite openly hailed Gustavus Adolphus, the saviour of German Protestantism, as the God-sent saviour from the Spanish-Austrian tyranny. For this he was pronounced a heretic at the imperial court, and threatened with a second edition of the sack of Rome (§ 132, 2). At the same time his soul was so filled with fanatical hatred against Protestantism, that in a letter of 1631 he congratulated the Emperor Ferdinand II. on the destruction of Magdeburg as an act most pleasing to heaven and reflecting the highest credit upon Germany, and expressed the hope that the glory of so great a victory should not be restricted to the ruins of a single city. On receiving the news of the death of Gustavus Adolphus in 1632 he broke out into loud jubilation, saying that now “the serpent was slain which with its poison had sought to destroy the whole world.” His successor, =Innocent X.=, A.D. 1644-1655, though vigorously protesting against the Peace of Westphalia (§ 153, 2), was, owing to his abject subserviency to a woman, his own sister-in-law, reproached with the title of a new _Johanna Papissa_. =Alexander VII.=, A.D. 1655-1667, had the expensive guardianship of his godchild Christina of Sweden (§ 153, 1), and fanned into a flame the spark kindled by his predecessor in the Jansenist controversy (§ 156, 5), so that his successor, =Clement IX.=, A.D. 1667-1670, could only gradually extinguish it. =Clement X.=, A.D. 1670-1676, by his preference for Spain roused the French king Louis XIV., who avenged himself by various encroachments on the ecclesiastical administration in his dominions. =Innocent XI.=, A.D. 1676-1689, was a powerful pope, zealously promoting the weal of the church and the Papal States by introducing discipline among the clergy and attacking the immorality that prevailed among all classes of society. He unhesitatingly condemned sixty-five propositions from the lax Jesuit code of morals. Against the arrogant ambassador of Louis XIV. he energetically maintained his sovereign rights in his own domains, while he unreservedly refused the claims of the French clergy, urged by the king on the ground of the exceptional constitution of the Gallican church. =Alexander VIII.=, A.D. 1689-1691, continued the fight against Gallicanism, and condemned the Jesuit distinction between theological and philosophical sin (§ 149, 10). =Innocent XII.=, A.D. 1691-1700, could boast of having secured the complete subjugation of the Gallican clergy after a hard struggle. He too wrought earnestly for the reform of abuses in the curia. Specially creditable to him is the stringent bull “_Romanum decet pontificem_” against nepotism, which extirpated the evil disease, so that it was never again openly practised as an acknowledged right.--Continuation, § 165, 1.

§ 156.2. =The Jesuits and the Republic of Venice.=--Venice was one of the first of the Italian cities to receive the Jesuits with open arms, A.D. 1530. But the influence obtained by them over public affairs through school and confessional, and their vast wealth accumulated from bequests and donations, led the government, in A.D. 1605, to forbid their receiving legacies or erecting new cloisters. In vain did Paul V. remonstrate. He then put Venice under an interdict. The Jesuits sought to excite the people against the government, and for this were banished in A.D. 1606. The pious and learned historian of the Council of Trent and adviser of the State, Paul Sarpi, proved a vigorous supporter of civil rights against the assumptions of the curia and the Jesuits. When in A.D. 1607 he refused a citation of Inquisition, he was dangerously wounded by three dagger stabs, inflicted by hired bandits, in whose stilettos he recognised the _stilum curiæ_. He died in A.D. 1623. After a ten months’ vain endeavour to enforce the interdict, the pope at last, through French mediation, concluded a peace with the republic, without, however, being able to obtain either the abolition of the objectionable ecclesiastico-political laws or permission for the return of the Jesuits. Only after the republic had been weakened through the unfortunate Turkish war of A.D. 1645 was it found willing to submit. Even in A.D. 1653 it refused the offer of 150,000 ducats from the Jesuit general for the Turkish campaign; but when Alexander VII. suppressed several rich cloisters, their revenues were thankfully accepted for this purpose. In A.D. 1657, on the pope’s promise of further pecuniary aid, the decree of banishment was withdrawn. The Jesuit fathers now returned in crowds, and soon regained much of their former influence and wealth. No pope has ever since issued an interdict against any country.[457]

§ 156.3. =The Gallican Liberties.=--Although =Louis XIV.= of France, A.D. 1643-1715, as a good Catholic king, powerfully supported the claims of papal dogmatics against the Jansenists (§§ 156, 5; 165, 7), he was by no means unfaithful to the traditional ecclesiastical polity of his house (§§ 96, 21; 110, 1, 9, 13, 14), and was often irritated to the utmost pitch by the pope’s opposition to his political interests. He rigorously insisted upon the old customary right of the Crown to the income of certain vacant ecclesiastical offices, the _jus regaliæ_, and extended it to all bishoprics, burdened church revenues with military pensions, confiscated ecclesiastical property, etc. Innocent XI. energetically protested against such exactions. The king then had an assembly of the French called together in Paris on March 19th, A.D. 1682, which issued the famous =Four Propositions of the Gallican Clergy=, drawn up by Bishop Bossuet of Meaux. These set forth the fundamental rights of the French church:

1. In secular affairs the pope has no jurisdiction over princes and kings, and cannot release their subjects from their allegiance;

2. The spiritual power of the pope is subject to the higher authority of the general councils;

3. For France it is further limited by the old French ecclesiastical laws; and,

4. Even in matters of faith the judgment of the pope without the approval of a general assembly of the church is not unalterable.

Innocent consequently refused to institute any of the newly appointed bishops. He was not even appeased by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in A.D. 1685. He was pleased indeed, and praised the deed, and celebrated it by a _Te Deum_, but objected to the violent measures for the conversion of Protestants as contrary to the teaching of Christ. Then also there arose a keen struggle against the mischievous extension of the right of asylum on the part of foreign embassies at Rome. On the pope’s representation all the powers but France agreed to a restriction of the custom. The pope tolerated the nuisance till the death of the French ambassador in A.D. 1687, but then insisted on its abolition under pain of the ban. In consequence of this Louis sent his new ambassador into Rome with two companies of cavaliers, threw the papal nuntio in France into prison, and laid siege to the papal state of Avignon (§ 110, 4). But Innocent was not thus to be terrorized, and the French ambassador was obliged, after eighteen months’ vain demonstrations, to quit Rome. Alexander VIII. repeated the condemnation of the Four Propositions, and Innocent XIII. also stood firm. The French episcopate, on the pope’s persistent refusal to install bishops nominated by the king, was at last constrained to submit. “Lying at the feet of his holiness,” the bishops declared that everything concluded in that assembly was null and void; and even Louis XIV., under the influence of Madame de Maintenon (§ 157, 3), wrote to the pope in A.D. 1693, saying that he recalled the order that the Four Propositions should be taught in all the schools. There still, however, survived among the French clergy a firm conviction of the Gallican Liberties, and the _droit de régale_ continued to have the force of law.[458]--Continuation, § 197, 1.

§ 156.4. =Galileo and the Inquisition.=--Galileo Galilei, professor of mathematics at Pisa and Padua, who died in A.D. 1642, among his many distinguished services to the physical, mathematical, and astronomical sciences, has the honour of being the pioneer champion of the Copernican system. On this account he was charged by the monks with contradicting Scripture. In A.D. 1616 Paul V., through Cardinal Bellarmine, threatened him with the Inquisition and prison unless he agreed to cease from vindicating and lecturing upon his heretical doctrine. He gave the required promise. But in A.D. 1632 he published a dialogue, in which three friends discussed the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems, without any formal conclusion, but giving overwhelming reasons in favour of the latter. Urban VIII., in A.D. 1636, called upon the Inquisition to institute a process against him. He was forced to recant, was condemned to prison for an indefinite period, but was soon liberated through powerful influence. How far the old man of seventy-two years of age was compelled by torture to retract is still a matter of controversy. It is, however, quite evident that it was forced from him by threats. But that Galileo went out after his recantation, gnashing his teeth and stamping his feet, muttering, “Nevertheless it moves!” is a legend of a romancing age. This, however, is the fact, that the Congregation of the Index declared the Copernican theory to be false, irrational, and directly contrary to Scripture; and that even in A.D. 1660 Alexander VII., with apostolic authority, formally confirmed this decree and pronounced it _ex cathedrâ_ (§ 149, 4) irrevocable. It was only in A.D. 1822 that the curia set it aside, and in a new edition of the Index (§ 149, 14) in A.D. 1835 omitted the works of Galileo as well as those of Copernicus.[459]

§ 156.5. =The Controversy on the Immaculate Conception= (§ 112, 4) received a new impulse from the nun =Mary of Jesus, died 1665, of Agreda=, in Old Castile, superior of the cloister there of the Immaculate Conception, writer of the “Mystical City of God.” This book professed to give an inspired account of the life of the Virgin, full of the strangest absurdities about the immaculate conception. The Sorbonne pronounced it offensive and silly; the Inquisition in Spain, Portugal, and Rome forbad the reading of it; but the Franciscans defended it as a divine revelation. A violent controversy ensued, which Alexander VII. silenced in A.D. 1661 by expressing approval of the doctrine of the immaculate conception set forth in the book.--Continuation, § 185, 2.

§ 156.6. =The Devotion of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.=--The nun =Margaret Alacoque=, in the Burgundian cloister of _Paray le Monial_, born A.D. 1647, recovering from a painful illness when but three years old, vowed to the mother of God, who frequently appeared to her, perpetual chastity, and in gratitude for her recovery adopted the name of Mary, and when grown up resisted temptations by inflicting on herself the severest discipline, such as long fasts, sharp flagellations, lying on thorns, etc. Visions of the Virgin no longer satisfied her. She longed to lavish her affections on the Redeemer himself, which she expressed in the most extravagant terms. She took the Jesuit =La Colombière= as her spiritual adviser in A.D. 1675. In a new vision she beheld the side of her Beloved opened, and saw his heart glowing like a sun, into which her own was absorbed. Down to her death in A.D. 1690 she felt the most violent burning pains in her side. In a second vision she saw her Beloved’s heart burning like a furnace, into which were taken her own heart and that of her spiritual adviser. In a third vision he enjoined the observance of a special “Devotion of the Sacred Heart” by all Christendom on the Friday after the octave of the _Corpus Christi_ festival and on the first Friday of every month. La Colombière, being made director, put forth every effort to get this celebration introduced throughout the church, and on his death the idea was taken up by the whole Jesuit order. Their efforts, however, for fully a century proved unavailing. At this point, too, their most bitter opponents were the Dominicans. But even without papal authority the Jesuits so far succeeded in introducing the absurdities of this cult, and giving expression to it in word and by images, that by the beginning of the eighteenth century there were more than 300 male and female societies engaged in this devotion, and at last, in A.D. 1765, =Clement XIII.=, the great friend of the Jesuits, gave formal sanction to this special celebration.--Continuation, § 188, 12.

§ 156.7. =New Congregations and Orders.=

1. At the head of the new orders of this century stands the =Benedictine Congregation of St. Banne= at Verdun, founded by Didier de la Cour. Elected Abbot of St. Banne in A.D. 1596, he gave his whole strength to the reforming of this cloister, which had fallen into luxurious and immoral habits. By a papal bull of A.D. 1604 all cloisters combining with St. Banne into a congregation were endowed with rich privileges. Gradually all the Benedictine monasteries of Lorraine and Alsace joined the union. Didier’s reforms were mostly in the direction of moral discipline and asceticism; but in the new congregation scholarship was represented by Calmet, Ceillier, etc., and many gave themselves to work as teachers in the schools.

2. Much more important for the promotion of theological science, especially for patristics and church history, was another Benedictine congregation founded in France in A.D. 1618 by Laurence Bernard, that of =St. Maur=, named after a disciple of St. Benedict. The members of this order devoted themselves exclusively to science and literary pursuits. To them belonged the distinguished names, Mabillon, Montfaucon, Reinart, Martène, D’Achery, Le Nourry, Durand, Surius, etc. They showed unwearied diligence in research and a noble liberality of judgment. The editions of the most celebrated Fathers issued by them are the best of the kind, and this may also be said of the great historical collections which we owe to their diligence.

3. =The Fathers of the Oratory of Jesus= are an imitation of the Priests of the Oratory founded by Philip Neri (§ 149, 7). Peter of Barylla, son of a member of parliament, founded it in A.D. 1611 by building an oratory at Paris. He was more of a mystic than of a scholar, but his order sent out many distinguished and brilliant theologians; _e.g._ Malebranche, Morinus, Thomassinus, Rich, Simon, Houbigant.

4. =The Piarists=, _Patres scholarum piarum_, were founded in Rome in A.D. 1607 by the Spaniard Joseph Calasanza. The order adopted as a fourth vow the obligation of gratuitous tuition. They were hated by the Obscurantist Jesuits for their successful labours for the improvement of Catholic education, especially in Poland and Austria, and also because they objected to all participation in political schemes.

5. =The Order of the Visitation of Mary=, or _Salesian Nuns_, instituted in A.D. 1610 by the mystic Francis de Sales and Francisca Chantal (§ 157, 1). They visited the poor and sick in imitation of Elizabeth’s visit to the Virgin (Luke i. 39); but the papal rescript of A.D. 1618 gave prominence to the education of children.

§ 156.8.

6. =The Priests of the Missions and Sisters of Charity= were both founded by Vincent de Paul. Born of poor parents, he was, after completing his education, captured by pirates, and as a slave converted his renegade master to Christianity. As domestic chaplain to the noble family of Gondy he was characterized in a remarkable degree for unassuming humility, and he wrought earnestly and successfully as a home missionary. In A.D. 1618 he founded the order of Sisters of Mercy, who became devoted nurses of the sick throughout all France, and in A.D. 1627 that of the Priests of the Missions, or Lazarists, who travelled the country attending to the spiritual and bodily wants of men. After the death of the Countess Gondy in A.D. 1625, he placed at the head of the Sisters of Mercy the widow Louise le Gras, distinguished equally for qualities of head and heart. Vincent died in A.D. 1660, and was subsequently canonized.[460]

7. =The Trappists=, founded by De Rancé, a distinguished canon, who in A.D. 1664 passed from the extreme of worldliness to the extreme of fanatical asceticism. The order got its name from the Cistercian abbey La Trappe in Normandy, of which Rancé was commendatory abbot. Amid many difficulties he succeeded, in A.D. 1665, in thoroughly reforming the wild monks, who were called “the bandits of La Trappe.” His rule enjoined on the monks perpetual silence, only broken in public prayer and singing and in uttering the greeting as they met, _Memento mori_. Their bed was a hard board with some straw; their only food was bread and water, roots, herbs, some fruit and vegetables, without butter, fat, or oil. Study was forbidden, and they occupied themselves with hard field labour. Their clothing was a dark-brown cloak worn on the naked body, with wooden shoes. Very few cloisters besides La Trappe submitted to such severities (§ 185, 2).

8. =The English Nuns=, founded at St. Omer, in France, by Mary Ward, the daughter of an English Catholic nobleman, for the education of girls. Originally composed of English maidens, it was afterwards enlarged by receiving those of other nationalities, with establishments in Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. It did not obtain papal confirmation, and in A.D. 1630 Urban VIII., giving heed to the calumnies of enemies, formally dissolved it on account of arrogance, insubordination, and heresy. All its institutions and schools were then closed, while Mary herself was imprisoned and given over to the Inquisition in Rome. Urban was soon convinced of her innocence and set her free. Her scattered nuns were now collected again, but succeeded only in A.D. 1703 in obtaining confirmation from Clement XI. Their chief tasks were the education of youth and care of the sick. They were arranged in three classes, according to their rank in life, and were bound by their vows for a year or at the most three years, after which they might return to the world and marry. Their chief centre was Bavaria with the mother cloister in Munich.--Continuation, § 165, 2.

§ 156.9. =The Propaganda.=--Gregory XV. gave unity and strength to the efforts for conversion of heretics and heathens by instituting, in A.D. 1662, the _Congregatio de Propaganda Fide_. Urban VIII. in A.D. 1627 attached to it a missionary training school, recruited as far as possible from natives of the respective countries, like Loyola’s _Collegium Germanicum_ founded in A.D. 1552 (§ 151, 1). He was thus able every Epiphany to astonish Romans and foreigners by what seemed a repetition of the pentecostal miracle of tongues. At this institute training in all languages was given, and breviaries, mass and devotional books, and handbooks were printed for the use of the missions. It was also the centre from which all missionary enterprises originated.--Continuation, § 204, 2.

§ 156.10. =Foreign Missions.=--Even during this century the Jesuits excelled all others in missionary zeal. In A.D. 1608 they sent out from Madrid mission colonies among the wandering Indians of South America, and no Spaniard could settle there without their permission. The most thoroughly organized of these was that of =Paraguay=, in which, according to their own reports, over 100,000 converted savages lived happily and contented under the mild, patriarchal rule of the Jesuits for 140 years, A.D. 1610-1750; but according to another well informed, though perhaps not altogether impartial, account, that of Ibagnez, a member of the mission, expelled for advising submission to the decree depriving it of political independence, the paternal government was flavoured by a liberal dose of slave-driver despotism. It was at least an undoubted fact, notwithstanding the boasted patriarchal idyllic character of the Jesuit state, that the order amassed great wealth from the proceeds of the industry of their _protégés_.--Continuation, § 165, 3.

§ 156.11. =In the East Indies= (§ 150, 1) the Jesuits had uninterrupted success. In A.D. 1606, in order to make way among the Brahmans, the Jesuit Rob. Nobili assumed their dress, avoided all contact with even the converts of low caste, giving them the communion elements not directly, but by an instrument, or laying them down for them outside the door, and as a Christian Brahman made a considerable impression upon the most exclusive classes.--In =Japan= the mission prospects were dark (§ 150, 2). Mendicants and Jesuits opposed and mutually excommunicated one another. The Catholic Spaniards and Portuguese were at feud among themselves, and only agreed in intriguing against Dutch and English Protestants. When the land was opened to foreign trade, it became the gathering point of the moral scum of all European countries, and the traffic in Japanese slaves, especially by the Portuguese, brought discredit on the Christian cause. The idea gained ground that the efforts at Christianization were but a prelude to conquest by the Spaniards and Portuguese. In the new organization of the country by the _shiogun_ Ijejasu all governors were to vow hostility to Christians and foreigners. In A.D. 1606 he forbad the observance of the Christian religion anywhere in the land. When the conspiracy of a Christian daimio was discovered, he caused, in A.D. 1614, whole shiploads of Jesuits, mendicants, and native priests to be sent out of the country. But as many of the banished returned, death was threatened against all who might be found, and in A.D. 1624 all foreigners, with the exception of Chinese and Dutch, were rigorously driven out. And now a bloody persecution of native Christians began. Many thousands fled to China and the neighbouring islands; crowds of those remaining were buried alive or burnt on piles made up of the wood of Christian crosses. The victims displayed a martyr spirit like those of the early days. Those who escaped organized in A.D. 1637 an armed resistance, and held the fortress of Arima in face of the _shiogun’s_ army sent against them. After a three months’ siege the fortress was conquered by the help of Dutch cannon; 37,000 were massacred in the fort, and the rest were hurled down from high rocks. The most severe enactments were passed against Christians, and the edicts filled with fearful curses against “the wicked sect” and “the vile God” of the Christians were posted on all the bridges, street corners, and squares. Christianity now seemed to be completely stamped out. The recollection of this work, however, was still retained down to the nineteenth century. For when French missionaries went in A.D. 1860 to Nagasaki, they found to their surprise in the villages around thousands (?) who greeted them joyfully as the successors of the first Christian missionaries.

§ 156.12. =In China=, after Ricci’s death (§ 150, 1), the success of the mission continued uninterrupted. In A.D. 1628 a German Jesuit, Adam Schell, went out from Cologne, who gained great fame at court for his mathematical skill. Louis XIV. founded at Paris a missionary college, which sent out Jesuits thoroughly trained in mathematics. But Dominicans and Franciscans over and over again complained to Rome of the Jesuits. They never allowed missionaries of other orders to come near their own establishments, and actually drove them away from places where they had begun to work. They even opposed priests, bishops, and vicars-apostolic sent by the Propaganda, declared their papal briefs forgeries, forbad their congregations to have any intercourse with those “heretics,” and under suspicion of Jansenism brought them before the Inquisition of Goa. Clement X. issued a firm-toned bull against such proceedings; but the Jesuits gave no heed to it, and attended only to their own general. The papal condemnation a century later of the Jesuits’ accommodation scheme, and their permission of heathen rites and beliefs to the new converts, complained against by the Dominicans, was equally fruitless. In A.D. 1645 Innocent X. forbad this practice on pain of excommunication; but still they continued it till the decree was modified by Alexander VII. in A.D. 1656. After persistent complaints by the Dominicans, Innocent XII. appointed a new congregation in Rome to investigate the question, but their deliberations yielded no result for ten years. At last Clement XI. confirmed the first decree of Innocent X., condemned anew the so called Chinese rites, and sent the legate Thomas of Tournon in A.D. 1703 to enforce his decision. Tournon, received at first by the emperor at Pekin with great consideration, fell into disfavour through Jesuit intrigues, was banished from the capital, and returned to Nankin. But as he continued his efforts from this point, and an attempt to poison him failed in A.D. 1707, he went to Macao, where he was put in prison by the Portuguese, in which he died in A.D. 1710. Clement XI., in A.D. 1715, issued his decree against the Chinese rites in a yet severer form; but the Franciscan who proclaimed the papal bull was put in prison as an offender against the laws of the country, and, after being maltreated for seventeen months, was banished. So proudly confident had the Jesuits become, that in A.D. 1720 they treated with scorn and contempt the papal legate Mezzabarba, Patriarch of Alexandria, who tried by certain concessions to move them to submit. A more severe decree of Clement XII. of A.D. 1735 was scoffed at by being proclaimed only in the Latin original. Benedict XIV. succeeded for the first time, in A.D. 1742, in breaking down their opposition, after the charges had been renewed by the Capuchin Norbert. All the Jesuit missionaries were now obliged by oath to exclude all pagan customs and rites; but with this all the glory and wonderful success of their Asiatic missions came to an end.--Continuation, § 165, 3.

§ 156.13. =Trade and Industry of the Jesuits.=--As Christian missions generally deserve credit, not only for introducing civilization and culture along with the preaching of the gospel into far distant heathen lands, but also for having greatly promoted the knowledge of countries, peoples, and languages among their fellow countrymen at home, opening up new fields for colonization and trade, these ends were also served by the world-wide missionary enterprises of the Jesuits, and were in perfect accordance with the character and intention of this order, which aimed at universal dominion. In carrying out these schemes the Jesuits abandoned the ascetical principles of their founder and their vow of poverty, amassing enormous wealth by securing in many parts a practical monopoly of trade. Their fifth general, Aquaviva (§ 149, 8), secured from Gregory XIII., avowedly in favour of the mission, exclusive right to trade with both Indies. They soon erected great factories in all parts of the world, and had ships laden with valuable merchandise on all seas. They had mines, farms, sugar plantations, apothecary shops, bakeries, etc., founded banks, sold relics, miracle-working amulets, rosaries, healing Ignatius- and Xavier-water (§ 149, 11), etc., and in successful legacy-hunting excelled all other orders. Urban VIII. and Clement XI. issued severe bulls against such abuses, but only succeeded in restricting them to some extent.--Continuation, § 165, 9.

§ 156.14. =An Apostate to Judaism.=--Gabriel, or as he was called after circumcision, =Uriel Acosta=, was sprung from a noble Portuguese family, originally Jewish. Doubting Christianity in consequence of the traffic in indulgences, he at last repudiated the New Testament in favour of the Old. He refused rich ecclesiastical appointments, fled to Amsterdam, and there formally went over to Judaism. Instead of the biblical Mosaism, however, he was disappointed to find only Pharisaic pride and Talmudic traditionalism, against which he wrote a treatise in A.D. 1623. The Jews now denounced him to the civil authorities as a denier of God and immortality. The whole issue of his book was burnt. Twice the synagogue thundered its ban against him. The first was withdrawn on his recantation, and the second, seven years after, upon his submitting to a severe flagellation. In spite of all he held to his Sadducean standpoint to his end in A.D. 1647, when he died by his own hand from a pistol shot, driven to despair by the unceasing persecution of the Jews.

§ 157. QUIETISM AND JANSENISM.

Down to the last quarter of the seventeenth century the Spanish Mystics (§ 149, 16), and especially those attached to Francis de Sales, were recognised as thoroughly orthodox. But now the Jesuits appeared as the determined opponents of all mysticism that savoured of enthusiasm. By means of vile intrigues they succeeded in getting Molinos, Guyon, and Fénelon condemned, as “Quietist” heretics, although the founder of their party had been canonized and his doctrine solemnly sanctioned by the pope. Yet more objectionable to the Jesuits was that reaction toward Augustinianism which, hitherto limited to the Dominicans (§ 149, 13), and treated by them as a theological theory, was now spreading among other orders in the form of French Jansenism, accompanied by deep moral earnestness and a revival of the whole Christian life.

§ 157.1. =Francis de Sales and Madame Chantal.=--Francis Count de Sales, from A.D. 1602 Bishop of Geneva, _i.e._ _in partibus_, with Annecy as his residence, had shown himself a good Catholic by his zeal in rooting out Protestantism in Chablais, on the south of the Genevan lake. In A.D. 1604 meeting the young widowed Baroness de Chantal, along with whom at a later period he founded the Order of the Visitation of Mary (§ 156, 7), he proved a good physician to her amid her sorrow, doubts, and temptations. He sought to qualify himself for this task by reading the writings of St. Theresa. Teacher and scholar so profited by their mystical studies, that in A.D. 1665 Alexander VII. deemed the one worthy of canonization and the other of beatification. In A.D. 1877 Pius IX. raised Francis to the dignity of _doctor ecclesiæ_. His “Introduction to the Devout Life” affords a guide to laymen to the life of the soul, amid all the disturbances of the world resting in calm contemplation and unselfish love of God. In the Catholic Church, next to À Kempis’ “Imitation of Christ,” it is the most appreciated and most widely used book of devotion. In his “_Theotime_” he leads the reader deeper into the yearnings of the soul after fellowship with God, and describes the perfect peace which the soul reaches in God.[461]

§ 157.2. =Michael Molinos.=--After Francis de Sales a great multitude of male and female apostles of the new mystical gospel sprang up, and were favourably received by all the more moderate church leaders. The reactionaries, headed by the Jesuits, sought therefore all the more eagerly to deal severely with the Spaniard Michael Molinos. Having settled in Rome in A.D. 1669, he soon became the most popular of father confessors. His “Spiritual Guide” in A.D. 1675 received the approval of the Holy Office, and was introduced into Protestant Germany through a Latin translation by Francke in A.D. 1687, and a German translation in A.D. 1699 by Arnold. In it he taught those who came to the confessional that the way to the perfection of the Christian life, which consists in peaceful rest in the most intimate communion with God, is to be found in spiritual conference, secret prayer, active and passive contemplation, in rigorous destruction of all self-will, and in disinterested love of God, fortified, wherever that is possible, by daily communion. The success of the book was astonishing. It promptly influenced all ranks and classes, both men and women, lay and clerical, not only in Italy, but also by means of translations in France and Spain. But soon a reaction set in. As early as A.D. 1681 the famous Jesuit =Segneri= issued a treatise, in which he charged Molinos’ contemplative mysticism with onesidedness and exaggeration. He was answered by the pious and learned Oratorian =Petrucci=. A commission, appointed by the Inquisition to examine the writings of both parties, pronounced the views of Molinos and Petrucci to be in accordance with church doctrine and Segneri’s objections to be unfounded. All that Jesuitism reckoned as foundation, means, and end of piety was characterized as purely elementary. No hope could be entertained of winning over Innocent XI., the bitter enemy of the Jesuits. But Louis XIV. of France, at the instigation of his Jesuit father confessor, Lachaise, expressed through his ambassador his surprise that his holiness should, not only tolerate, but even encourage and support so dangerous a heretic, who taught all Christendom to undervalue the public services of the Church. In A.D. 1685 Innocent referred the matter to the tribunal of the Inquisition. Throughout the two years during which the investigation proceeded all arts were used to secure condemnation. Extreme statements of fanatical adherents of Molinos were not rarely met with, depreciating the public ordinances and ceremonies, confession, hearing of mass, church prayers, rosaries, etc. The pope, facile with age, amid groans and lamentations, allowed things to take their course, and at last confirmed the decree of the Inquisition of August 28th, A.D. 1687, by which Molinos was found guilty of spreading godless doctrine, and sixty-eight propositions, partly from his own writings, partly from the utterances of his adherents, were condemned as heretical and blasphemous. The heretic was to abjure his heresies publicly, clad in penitential garments, and was then consigned to lifelong solitary confinement in a Dominican cloister, where he died in A.D. 1697.[462]

§ 157.3. =Madame Guyon and Fénelon.=--After her husband’s death, =Madame Guyon=, in company with her father confessor, the Barnabite =Lacombe=, who had been initiated during a long residence at Rome into the mysteries of Molinist mysticism, spent five years travelling through France, Switzerland, Savoy, and Piedmont. Though already much suspected, she won the hearts of many men and women among the clergy and laity, and enkindled in them by personal conference, correspondence, and her literary work, the ardour of mystical love. Her brilliant writings are indeed disfigured by traces of foolish exaggeration, fanaticism and spiritual pride. She calls herself the woman of Revelation xii. 1, and the _mère de la grace_ of her adherents. The following are the main distinguishing characteristics of her mysticism: The necessity of turning away from everything creaturely, rejecting all earthly pleasure and destroying every selfish interest, as well as of turning to God in passive contemplation, silent devotion, naked faith, which dispensed with all intellectual evidence, and pure disinterested love, which loves God for Himself alone, not for the eternal salvation obtained through Him. On her return to Paris with Lacombe in A.D. 1686 the proper martyrdom of her life began. Her chief persecutor was her step-brother, the Parisian superior of the Barnabites, La Mothe, who spread the most scandalous reports about his half-sister and Lacombe, and had them both imprisoned by a royal decree in A.D. 1688. Lacombe never regained his liberty. Taken from one prison to another, he lost his reason, and died in an asylum in A.D. 1699. Madame Guyon, however, by the influence of Madame de Maintenon, was released after ten months’ confinement. The favour of this royal dame was not of long continuance. Warned on all sides of the dangerous heretic, she broke off all intercourse with her in A.D. 1693, and persuaded the king to appoint a new commission, in A.D. 1694, with Bishop =Bossuet= of Meaux at its head, to examine her suspected writings. This commission meeting at Issy, had already, in February, A.D. 1695, drawn up thirty test articles, when =Fénelon=, tutor of the king’s grandson, and now nominated to the archbishopric of Cambray, was ordered by the king to take part in the proceedings. He signed the articles, though he objected to much in them, and had four articles of his own added. Madame Guyon also did so, and Bossuet at last testified for her that he had found her moral character stainless and her doctrine free from Molinist heresy. But the bigot Maintenon was not satisfied with this. Bossuet demanded the surrender of this certificate that he might draw up another; and when Madame Guyon refused, on the basis of a statement by the crazed Lacombe, she was sent to the Bastile [Bastille] in A.D. 1696. In A.D. 1697 Fénelon had written in her defence his “_Explication des Maximes des Saintes sur la Vie Intérieur_,” showing that the condemned doctrines of passive contemplation, secret prayer, naked faith, and disinterested love, had all been previously taught by St. Theresa, John of the Cross, Francis de Sales, and other saints. He sent this treatise for an opinion to Rome. A violent controversy then arose between Bossuet and Fénelon. The pious, well-meaning pope, =Innocent XII.=, endeavoured vainly to bring about a good understanding. Bossuet and the all-powerful Maintenon wished no reconciliation, but condemnation, and gave the king and pope no rest till very reluctantly he prohibited the objectionable book by a brief in A.D. 1699, and condemned twenty-three propositions from it as heretical. Fénelon, strongly attached to the church, and a bitter persecutor of Protestants, made an unconditional surrender, as guilty of a defective exposition of the truth. But Madame Guyon continued in the Bastile [Bastille] till A.D. 1701, when she retired to Blois, where she died in A.D. 1717. Bossuet had died in A.D. 1704, and Fénelon in A.D. 1715. She published only two of her writings: “An Exposition of the Song,” and the “_Moyen Court et très Facile de faire Oraison_.” Many others, including her translation and expositions of the Bible, were during her lifetime edited in twenty volumes by her friend, the Reformed preacher of the Palatinate, Peter Poiret.[463]

§ 157.4. =Mysticism Tinged with Theosophy and Pantheism.=--=Antoinette Bourignon=, the daughter of a rich merchant of Lille, in France, while matron of a hospital in her native city, had in A.D. 1662 gathered around her a party of believers in her theosophic and fantastic revelations. She was obliged to flee to the Netherlands, and there, by the force of her eloquence in speech and writing, spread her views among the Protestants. Among them she attracted the great scientist Swammerdam. But when she introduced politics, she escaped imprisonment only by flight. Down to her death in A.D. 1680 she earnestly and successfully prosecuted her mission in north-west Germany. Peter Poiret collected her writings and published them in twenty-one volumes at Amsterdam, in A.D. 1679.--Quite of another sort was the pantheistic mysticism of =Angelus Silesius=. Originally a Protestant physician at Breslau, he went over to the Romish church in A.D. 1653, and in consequence received from Vienna the honorary title of physician to the emperor. He was made priest in A.D. 1661, and till his death in A.D. 1677 maintained a keen polemic against the Protestant church with all a pervert’s zeal. Most of his hymns belong to his Protestant period. As a Catholic he wrote his “_Cherubinischer Wandersmann_,” a collection of rhymes in which, with childish _naïveté_ and hearty, gushing ardour, he merges self into the abyss of the universal Deity, and develops a system of the most pronounced pantheism.

§ 157.5. =Jansenism in its first Stage.=--Bishop Cornelius Jansen, of Ypres, who died in A.D. 1638, gave the fruits of his lifelong studies of Augustine in his learned work, “_Augustinus s. doctr. Aug. de humanæ Naturæ Sanitate, Ægritudine, et Medicina adv. Pelagianos et Massilienses_,” which was published after his death in three volumes, Louvain, 1640. The Jesuits induced Urban VIII., in A.D. 1642, to prohibit it in his bull _In eminenti_. Augustine’s numerous followers in France felt themselves hit by this decree. Jansen’s pupil at Port Royal from A.D. 1635, Duvergier de Hauranne, usually called St. Cyran, from the Benedictine monastery of which he was abbot, was the bitter foe of the Jesuits and Richelieu, who had him cast into prison in A.D. 1638, from which he was liberated after the death of the cardinal in A.D. 1643, and shortly before his own. Another distinguished member of the party was Antoine Arnauld, doctor of the Sorbonne, who died in A.D. 1694, the youngest of twenty children of a parliamentary advocate, whose powerful defence of the University of Paris against the Jesuits called forth their hatred and lifelong persecution. His mantle, as a vigorous polemist, had fallen upon his youngest son. Very important too was the influence of his much older sister, Angelica Arnauld, Abbess of the Cistercian cloister of Port Royal des Champs, six miles from Paris, which under her became the centre of religious life and effort for all France. Around her gathered some of the noblest, most pious, and talented men of the time: the poet Racine, the mathematician and apologist Pascal, the Bible translator De Sacy, the church historian Tillemont, all ardent admirers of Augustine and determined opponents of the lax morality of the Jesuits. Arnauld’s book, “_De la fréquente Communion_,” was approved by the Sorbonne, the Parliament, and the most distinguished of the French clergy; but in A.D. 1653 Innocent X. condemned five Jansenist propositions in it as heretical. The Augustinians now maintained that these doctrines were not taught in the sense attributed to them by the pope. Arnauld distinguished the _question du fait_ from the _question du droit_, maintaining that the latter only were subject to the judgment of the Holy See. The Sorbonne, now greatly changed in composition and character, expelled him on account of this position from its corporation in A.D. 1656. About this time, at Arnauld’s instigation, Pascal, the profound and brilliant author of “_Pensées sur la Religion_,” began, under the name of Louis de Montalte to publish his famous “Provincial Letters,” which in an admirable style exposed and lashed with deep earnestness and biting wit the base moral principles of Jesuit casuistry. The truly annihilating effect of these letters upon the reputation of the powerful order could not be checked by their being burnt by order of Parliament by the hangman at Aix in A.D. 1657, and at Paris in A.D. 1660. But meanwhile the specifically Jansenist movement entered upon a new phase of its development. Alexander VII. had issued in A.D. 1656 a bull which denounced the application of the distinction _du fait_ and _du droit_ to the papal decrees as derogatory to the holy see, and affirmed that Jansen taught the five propositions in the sense they had been condemned. In order to enforce the sentence, Annal, the Jesuit father confessor of Louis XIV., obtained in 1661 a royal decree requiring all French clergy, monks, nuns, and teachers to sign a formula unconditionally accepting this bull. Those who refused were banished, and fled mostly to the Netherlands. The sorely oppressed nuns of Port Royal at last reluctantly agreed to sign it; but they were still persecuted, and in A.D. 1664 the new archbishop, Perefixe, inaugurated a more severe persecution, placed this cloister under the interdict, and removed some of the nuns to other convents. In A.D. 1669, Alexander’s successor, Clement IX., secured the submission of Arnauld, De Sacy, Nicole, and many of the nuns by a policy of mild connivance. But the hatred of the Jesuits was still directed against their cloister. In A.D. 1705 Clement XI. again demanded full and unconditioned acceptance of the decree of Alexander VII., and when the nuns refused, the pope, in A.D. 1708, declared this convent an irredeemable nest of heresy, and ordered its suppression, which was carried out in A.D. 1709. In A.D. 1710 cloister and church were levelled to the ground, and the very corpses taken out of their graves.[464]--Continuation, § 165, 7.

§ 158. SCIENCE AND ART IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

Catholic theology flourished during the seventeenth century as it had never done since the twelfth and thirteenth. Especially in the liberal Gallican church there was a vigorous scientific life. The Parisian Sorbonne and the orders of the Jesuits, St. Maur, and the Oratorians, excelled in theological, particularly in patristic and historical, learning, and the contemporary brilliancy of Reformed theology in France afforded a powerful stimulus. But the best days of art, especially Italian painting, were now past. Sacred music was diligently cultivated, though in a secularized style, and many gifted hymn-writers made their appearance in Spain and Germany.

§ 158.1. =Theological Science= (§ 149, 14).--The parliamentary advocate, Mich. le Jay, published at his own expense the Parisian Polyglott in ten folio vols., A.D. 1629-1645, which, besides complete Syriac and Arabic translations, included also the Samaritan. The chief contributor was the Oratorian =Morinus=, who edited the LXX. and the Samaritan texts, which he regarded as incomparably superior to the Masoretic text corrupted by the Jews. The Jansenists produced a French translation of the Bible with practical notes, condemned by the pope, but much read by the people. It was mainly the work of the brothers =De Sacy=. The New Testament was issued in A.D. 1667 and the Old Testament somewhat later, called the Bible of Mons from the fictitious name of the place of publication. =Richard Simon=, the Oratorian, who died in A.D. 1712, treated Scripture with a boldness of criticism never before heard of within the church. While opposed by many on the Catholic side, the curia favoured his work as undermining the Protestant doctrine of Scripture. =Cornelius à Lapide=, who died A.D. 1637, expounded Scripture according to the fourfold sense.--In systematic theology the old scholastic method still held sway. Moral theology was wrought out in the form of casuistry with unexampled lasciviousness, especially by the Jesuits (§ 149, 10). The work of the Spaniard =Escobar=, who died in A.D. 1669, ran through fifty editions, and that of =Busembaum=, professor in Cologne and afterwards rector of Münster, who died A.D. 1668, went through seventy editions. On account of the attempted assassination of Louis XV. by Damiens in A.D. 1757, with which the Jesuits and their doctrine of tyrannicide were charged, the Parliament of Toulouse in A.D. 1757, and of Paris in A.D. 1761, had Busembaum’s book publicly burnt, and several popes, Alexander VII., VIII., and Innocent XI., condemned a number of propositions from the moral writings of these and other Jesuits. Among polemical writers the most distinguished were =Becanus=, who died in A.D. 1624, and =Bossuet= (§ 153, 7). Among the Jansenists the most prominent controversialists were =Nicole= and =Arnauld=, who, in order to escape the reproach of Calvinism, sought to prove the Catholic doctrine of the supper to be the same as that of the apostles, and were answered by the Reformed theologians Claude and Jurieu. In apologetics the leading place is occupied by =Pascal=, with his brilliant “_Pensées_.” =Huetius=, a French bishop and editor of Origen, who died in A.D. 1721, replied to Spinoza’s attacks on the Pentateuch, and applying to reason itself the Cartesian principle, that philosophy must begin with doubt, pointed the doubter to the supernatural revealed truths in the Catholic church as the only anchor of salvation. The learned Jesuit =Dionysius Petavius=, who died in A.D. 1652, edited Epiphanius and wrote gigantic chronological works and numerous violent polemics against Calvinists and Jansenists. His chief work is the unfinished patristic-dogmatic treatise in five vols. folio, A.D. 1680, “_De theologicis Dogmatibus_.” The Oratorian =Thomassinus= wrote an able archæological work: “_Vetus et Nova Eccl. Disciplina circa Beneficia et Beneficiarios_.”

§ 158.2. In church history, besides those named in § 5, 2, we may mention Pagi, the keen critic and corrector of Baronius. The study of sources was vigorously pursued. We have collections of mediæval writings and documents by Sirmond, D’Achery, Mabillon, Martène, Baluzius; of acts of councils by Labbé and Cossart, those of France by =Jac. Sirmond=, and of Spain by Aguirre; acts of the martyrs by =Ruinart=; monastic rules by =Holstenius=, a pervert, who became Vatican librarian, and died at Rome A.D. 1661. =Dufresne Ducange=, an advocate, who died in A.D. 1688, wrote glossaries of the mediæval and barbarous Latin and Greek, indispensable for the study of documents belonging to those times. The greatest prodigy of learning was =Mabillon=, who died in A.D. 1707, a Benedictine of St. Maur, and historian of his order. =Pet. de Marca=, who died Archbishop of Paris A.D. 1662, wrote the famous work on the Gallican liberties “_De Concordia Sacerdotii et Imperii_.” The Jansenist doctor of the Sorbonne, =Elias du Pin=, who died A.D. 1719, wrote “_Nouvelle Bibliothèque des Auteurs Eccles._” in forty-seven vols. The Jesuit Maimbourg, died A.D. 1686, compiled several party histories of Wiclifism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism; but as a Gallican was deprived of office by the pope, and afterwards supported by a royal pension. The Antwerp Jesuits Bolland, Henschen, Papebroch started, in A.D. 1643, the gigantic work “_Acta Sanctorum_,” carried on by the learned members of their order in Belgium, known as =Bollandists=. It was stopped by the French invasion of A.D. 1794, when it had reached October 15th with the fifty-third folio vol. The Belgian Jesuits continued the work from A.D. 1845-1867, reaching in six vols. the end of October, but not displaying the ability and liberality of their predecessors. In Venice =Paul Sarpi= (§ 155, 2) wrote a history of the Tridentine Council, one of the most brilliant historical works of any period. =Leo Allatius=, a Greek convert at Rome, who died in A.D. 1669, wrote a work to show the agreement of the Eastern and Western churches. Cardinal =Bona= distinguished himself as a liturgical writer.--In France pulpit eloquence reached the highest pitch in such men as Flechier, Bossuet, Bourdaloue, Fénelon, Massillon, and Bridaine. In Vienna =Abraham à St. Clara= inveighed in a humorous, grotesque way against the corruption of manners, with an undercurrent of deep moral earnestness. Similar in style and spirit, but much more deeply sunk in Catholic superstition, was his contemporary the Capuchin =Martin of Cochem=, who missionarized the Rhine Provinces and western Germany for forty years, and issued a large number of popular religious tracts.--Continuation, § 165, 14.

§ 158.3. =Art and Poetry= (§ 149, 15).--The greatest master of the musical school founded by Palestrina was _Allêgri_, whose _Miserere_ is performed yearly on the Wednesday afternoon of Passion Week in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. The oratorio originated from the application of the lofty music of this school to dramatic scenes drawn from the Bible, for purely musical and not theatrical performance. Philip Neri patronized this music freely in his oratory, from which it took the name. This new church music became gradually more and more secularized and approximated to the ordinary opera style.--In =ecclesiastical architecture= the Renaissance style still prevailed, but debased with senseless, tasteless ornamentation.--In the Italian school of =painting= the decline, both in creative power and imitative skill, was very marked from the end of the sixteenth century. In Spain during the seventeenth century religious painting reached a high point of excellence in Murillo of Seville, who died in A.D. 1682, a master in representing calm meditation and entranced felicity.--The two greatest =poets= of Spain, the creators of the Spanish drama, =Lope de Vega= (died A.D. 1635) and =Pedro Calderon= (died A.D. 1681), both at first soldiers and afterwards priests, flourished during this century. The elder excelled the younger, not only in fruitfulness and versatility (1,500 comedies, 320 autos, § 115, 12, etc.), but also in poetic genius and patriotism. Calderon, with his 122 dramas, 73 festival plays, 200 preludes, etc., excelled De Vega in artistic expression and beauty of imagery. Both alike glorify the Inquisition, but occasionally subordinate Mary and the saints to the great redemption of the cross.--Specially deserving of notice is the noble German Jesuit =Friedr. von Spee=, died A.D. 1635. His spiritual songs show deep love to the Saviour and a profound feeling for nature, approaching in some respects the style of the evangelical hymn-writers. Spee was a keen but unsuccessful opponent of witch prosecution. Another eminent poetic genius of the age was the Jesuit =Jac. Balde= of Munich, who died in A.D. 1688. He is at his best in lyrical poetry. A deep religious vein runs through all his Latin odes, in which he enthusiastically appeals to the Virgin to raise him above all earthly passions. To Herder belongs the merit of rescuing him from oblivion.

III. The Lutheran Church.

§ 159. ORTHODOXY AND ITS BATTLES.[465]

The Formula of Concord commended itself to the hearts and intelligences of Lutherans, and secured a hundred years’ supremacy of orthodoxy, notwithstanding two Christological controversies. Gradually, however, a new dogmatic scholasticism arose, which had the defects as well as the excellences of the mediæval system. The orthodoxy of this school deteriorated, on the one hand, into violent polemic on confessional differences, and, on the other, into undue depreciation of outward forms in favour of a spiritual life and personal piety. These tendencies are represented by the Syncretist and Pietist controversies.

§ 159.1. =Christological Controversies.=

1. =The Cryptist and Kenotist Controversy= between the Giessen and Tübingen theologians, in A.D. 1619, about Christ’s state of humiliation, led to the publication of many violent treatises down to A.D. 1626. The Kenotists of Giessen, with Mentzer and Feuerborn at their head, assigned the humiliation only to the human nature, and explained it as an actual κένωσις, _i.e._ a complete but voluntary resigning of the omnipresence and omnipotence immanent in His divinity (κτῆσις, but not χρῆσις), yet so that He could have them at His command at any moment, _e.g._ in His miracles. The Cryptists of Tübingen, with Luc. Osiander and Thumm at their head, ascribed humiliation to both natures, and taught that all the while Christ, even _secundum carnem_, was omnipresent and ruled both in heaven and earth, but in a hidden way; the humiliation is no κένωσις, but only a κρύψις. After repeated unsuccessful attempts to bring about a reconciliation, John George, Elector of Saxony, in A.D. 1623, accepted the Kenotic doctrine. But the two parties still continued their strife.[466]

2. =The Lütkemann Controversy= on the humanity of Christ in death was of far less importance. Lütkemann, a professor of philosophy at Rostock, affirmed that in death, because the unity of soul and body was broken, Christ was not true man, and that to deny this was to destroy the reality and the saving power of his death. He held that the incarnation of Christ lasted through death, because the divine nature was connected, not only with the soul, but also with the body. Lütkemann was obliged to quit Rostock, but got an honourable call to Brunswick as superintendent and court preacher, and there died in A.D. 1655. Later Lutherans treated the controversy as a useless logomachy.

§ 159.2. =The Syncretist Controversy.=--Since the Hofmann controversy (§ 141, 15) the University of Helmstadt had shown a decided humanistic tendency, and gave even greater freedom in the treatment of doctrines than the Formula of Concord, which it declined to adopt. To this school belonged =George Calixt=, and from A.D. 1614 for forty years he laboured in promoting its interests. He was a man of wide culture and experience, who had obtained a thorough knowledge of church history, and acquaintance with the most distinguished theologians of all churches, during his extensive foreign travels, and therewith a geniality and breadth of view not by any means common in those days. He did not indeed desire any formal union between the different churches, but rather a mutual recognition, love, and tolerance. For this purpose he set, as a secondary principle of Christian theology, besides Scripture, as the primary principle, the consensus of the first five centuries as the common basis of all churches, and sought to represent later ecclesiastical differences as unessential or of less consequence. This was denounced by strict Lutherans as Syncretism and Cryptocatholicism. In A.D. 1639 the Hanoverian preacher Buscher charged him with being a secret Papist. After the Thorn Conference of A.D. 1645, a violent controversy arose, which divided Lutherans into two camps. On the one side were the universities of Helmstadt and Königsberg; on the other hand, the theologians of the electorate of Saxony, Hülsemann of Leipzig, Waller of Dresden, and Abr. Calov, who died professor in Wittenberg in A.D. 1686. Calov wrote twenty-six controversial treatises on this subject. Jena vainly sought to mediate between the parties. In the _Theologorum Sax. Consensus repetitus Fidei vera Lutheranæ_ of A.D. 1655, for which the Wittenberg divines failed to secure symbolical authority, the following sentiments were branded as Syncretist errors: That in the Apostles’ Creed everything is taught that is necessary to salvation; that the Catholic and Reformed systems retain hold of fundamental truths; that original sin is of a merely privative nature; that God _indirecte, improprie, et per accidens_ is the cause of sin; that the doctrine of the Trinity was first clearly revealed in the New Testament, etc. Calixt died A.D. 1656 in the midst of most violent controversies. His son Ulrich continued these, but had neither the ability nor moderation of his father. Even the peaceably disposed Conference of Cassel of A.D. 1661 (§ 154, 4) only poured oil on the flames. The strife lost itself at last in actions for damages between the younger Calixt and his bitter opponent Strauch of Wittenberg. Wearied of these fruitless discussions, theologians now turned their attention to the rising movement of Pietism.[467]

§ 159.3. =The Pietist Controversy in its First Stage.=--=Philip Jacob Spener= born in Alsace in A.D. 1635, was in his thirty-first year, on account of his spirituality, distinguished gifts, and singularly wide scholarship, made president of a clerical seminary at Frankfort-on-Main. In A.D. 1686 he became chief court preacher at Dresden, and provost of Berlin in A.D. 1691, when, on account of his intense earnestness in pastoral work, he had been expelled from Dresden. He died in Berlin in A.D. 1705. His year’s attendance at Geneva after the completion of his curriculum at Strassburg had an important influence on his whole future career. He there learned to value discipline for securing purity of life as well as of doctrine, and was also powerfully impressed by the practical lectures of Labadie (§ 163, 7) and the reading of the “Practice of Piety” and other ascetical writings of the English Puritans (§ 162, 3). Though strongly attached to the Lutheran church, he believed that in the restoration of evangelical doctrine by the Wittenberg Reformation, “not by any means had all been accomplished that needed to be done,” and that Lutheranism in the form of the orthodoxy of the age had lost the living power of the reformers, and was in danger of burying its talent in dead and barren service of the letter. There was therefore a pressing need of a new and wider reformation. In the Lutheran church, as the depository of sound doctrine, he recognised the fittest field for the development of a genuinely Christian life; but he heartily appreciated any true spiritual movement in whatsoever church it arose. He went back from scholastic dogmatics to Holy Scripture as the living source of saving knowledge, substituted for the external orthodox theology the theology of the heart, demanded evidence of this in a pious Christian walk: these were the means by which he sought to promote his reformation. A whole series of Lutheran theologians of the seventeenth century (§ 159) had indeed contributed to this same end by their devotional works, hymns, and sermons. What was new in Spener was the conviction of the insufficiency of the hitherto used means and the undue prominence given to doctrine, and his consequent effort vigorously made to raise the tone of the Christian life. In his childlike, pious humility he regarded himself as by no means called to carry out this work, but felt it his duty to insist upon the necessity of it, and indicate the means that should be used to realize it. This he did in his work of A.D. 1675, “_Pia Desideria_.” As it was his aim to recommend biblical practical Christianity to the heart of the individual Christian, he revived the almost forgotten doctrine “Of Spiritual Priesthood” in a separate treatise. In A.D. 1670 he began to have meetings in his own house for encouraging Christian piety in the community, which soon were imitated in other places. Spener’s influence on the Lutheran church became greater and wider through his position at Dresden. Stirred up by his spirit, three young graduates of Leipzig. A. H. Francke, Paul Anton, and J. K. Schade, formed in A.D. 1686 a private _Collegia Philobiblica_ for practical exposition of Scripture and the delivery of public exegetical lectures at the university in the German language. But the Leipzig theological faculty, with J. B. Carpzov II. at its head, charged them with despising the public ordinances as well as theological science, and with favouring the views of separatists. The _Collegia Philobiblica_ was suppressed, and the three friends obliged to leave Leipzig in A.D. 1690. This marked the beginning of the Pietist controversies. Soon afterwards Spener was expelled from Dresden; but in his new position at Berlin he secured great influence in the appointments to the theological faculty of the new university founded at Halle by the peace-loving elector Frederick III. of Brandenburg, in opposition to the contentious universities of Wittenberg and Leipzig. Francke, Anton, and Breithaupt were made professors of theology. Halle now won the position which Wittenberg and Geneva had held during the Reformation period, and the Pietist controversy thus entered upon a second, more general, and more critical epoch of its history.[468]--Continuation, § 166, 1.

§ 159.4. =Theological Literature= (§ 142, 6).--The “_Philologia Sacra_” of =Sol. Glassius= of Jena, published in A.D. 1623, has ranked as a classical work for almost two centuries. From A.D. 1620 till the end of the century, a lively controversy was carried on about the Greek style of the New Testament, in which Lutherans, and especially the Reformed, took part. The purists maintained that the New Testament idiom was pure and classical, thinking that its inspiration would otherwise be endangered. The first historico-critical introduction to the Scriptures was the “_Officina Biblica_” of Walther in A.D. 1636. =Pfeiffer= of Leipzig gained distinction in biblical criticism and hermeneutics by his “_Critica Sacra_” of A.D. 1680 and “_Hermeneutica_” of A.D. 1684. Exegesis now made progress, notwithstanding its dependence on traditional interpretations of doctrinal proof passages and its mechanical theory of inspiration. The most distinguished exegetes were =Erasmus Schmidt= of Wittenberg, who died in A.D. 1637: he wrote a Latin translation of New Testament with admirable notes, and a very useful concordance of the Greek New Testament, under the title Ταμεῖον, which has been revised and improved by Bruder; =Seb. Schmidt= of Strassburg, who wrote commentaries on several Old Testament books and on the Pauline epistles; and =Abr. Calov= of Wittenberg, who died in A.D. 1686, in his 74th year, whose “_Biblia Illustrata_,” in four vols., is a work of amazing research and learning, but composed wholly in the interests of dogmatics.--Little was done in the department of church history. Calixt awakened a new enthusiasm for historical studies, and =Gottfried Arnold= (§ 159, 2), pietist, chiliast, and theosophist, bitterly opposed to every form of orthodoxy, and finding true Christianity only in sects, separatists, and heretics, set the whole theological world astir by his “_Unparteiische Kirchen- und Ketzer-historie_,” in A.D. 1699 (§ 5, 3).

§ 159.5. The orthodox school applied itself most diligently to dogmatics in a strictly scholastic form. =Hutter= of Wittenberg, who died in A.D. 1616, wrote “_Loci communes theologici_” and “_Compendium Loc. Theol._” =John Gerhard= of Jena, who died in A.D. 1637, published in A.D. 1610 his “_Loc. Theologici_” in nine folio vols., the standard of Lutheran orthodoxy. =J. Andr. Quenstedt= of Wittenberg, who died A.D. 1688, exhibited the best and worst of Lutheran scholasticism in his “_Theol. didactico-polemica_.” The most important dogmatist of the Calixtine school was Conrad Horneius. Calixt himself is known as a dogmatist only by his lectures; but to him we owe the generally adopted distinction between morals and dogmatics as set forth in his “_Epitome theol. Moralis_.”--Polemics were carried on vigorously. =Hoë von Hoënegg= of Dresden (§ 154, 3, 4) and =Hutter= of Wittenberg were bitter opponents of Calvinism and Romanism. Hutter was styled by his friends _Malleus Calvinistorum_ and _Redonatus Lutherus_. The ablest and most dignified polemic against Romanism was that of =John Gerhard= in his “_Confessio Catholica_.” =Nich. Hunnius=, son of Ægid. Hunnius, and Hutter’s successor at Wittenberg, from A.D. 1623 superintendent at Lübeck, distinguished himself as an able controversialist against the papacy by his “_Demonstratio Ministerii Lutherani Divini atque Legitimi_.” Against the Socinians he wrote his “_Examen Errorum Photinianorum_,” and against the fanatics a “Chr. Examination of the new Paracelsist and Weigelian Theology.” His principal work is his “_Διάσκεψις de Fundamentali Dissensu Doctrinæ Luth. et Calvin_.” His “_Epitome Credendorum_” went through nineteen editions. The most incessant controversialist was =Abr. Calov=, who wrote against Syncretists, Papists, Socinians, Arminians, etc.--Continuation, § 167, 4.

§ 160. THE RELIGIOUS LIFE.

The attachment of the Lutheran church of this age to pure doctrine led to a one-sided over-estimation of it, often ending in dead orthodoxy. But a succession of able and learned theologians, who recognised the importance of heart theology as well as sound doctrine, corrected this evil tendency by Scripture study, preaching, and faithful pastoral work. A noble and moderate mysticism, which was thoroughly orthodox in its beliefs, and opposing orthodoxy only where that had become external and mechanical, had many influential representatives throughout the whole country, especially during the first half of it. But also separatists, mystics, and theosophists made their appearance, who were decidedly hostile to the church. Sacred song flourished afresh amid the troubles of the Thirty Years’ War; but gradually lost its sublime objective church character, which was poorly compensated by a more flowing versification, polished language, and elegant form. A corresponding advance was also made in church music.

§ 160.1. =Mysticism and Asceticism.=--At the head of the orthodox mystics stands =John Arndt=. His “True Christianity” and his “_Paradiesgärtlein_” are the most widely read Lutheran devotional books, but called forth the bitter hostility of those devoted to the maintenance of a barren orthodoxy. He died in A.D. 1621, as general superintendent at Celle. He had been expelled from Anhalt because he would not condemn exorcism as godless superstition, and was afterwards in Brunswick publicly charged by his colleague Denecke and other Lutheran zealots with Papacy, Calvinism, Osiandrianism, Flacianism, Schwenckfeldism, Paracelsism, Alchemism, etc. As men of a similar spirit, anticipators of the school of Spener, may be named =John Gerhard= of Jena, with his “_Meditationes Sacræ_” and “_Schola pietatis_,” and =Christian Scriver=, whose “Gotthold’s Emblems” is well known to English readers. =Rahtmann= of Danzig maintained that the word of God in Scripture has not in itself the power to enlighten and convert men except through the gracious influence of God’s Spirit. He was supported, after a long delay, in A.D. 1626 by the University of Rostock, but opposed by Königsberg, Jena, and Wittenberg. In A.D. 1628, the Elector of Saxony obtained the opinion of the most famous theologians of his realm against Rahtmann; but his death, which soon followed, brought the controversy to a close.--The Württemberg theologian, =John Valentine Andreä=, grandson of one of the authors of the Formula of Concord, was a man of striking originality, famous for his satires on the corruptions of the age. His “Order of Rosicrucians,” published at Cassel in A.D. 1614, ridiculed the absurdities of astrology and alchemy in the form of a satirical romance. His influence on the church of his times was great and wholesome, so that even Spener exclaimed: “Had I the power to call any one from the dead for the good of the church, it would be J. V. Andreä.” His later devotional work was almost completely forgotten until attention was called to it by Herder.[469]

§ 160.2. =Mysticism and Theosophy.=--A mystico-theosophical tendency, partly in outward connexion with the church, partly without and in open opposition to it, was fostered by the alchemist writings of Agrippa and Paracelsus, the theosophical works of Weigel (§ 146, 2) and by the profound revelations of the inspired shoemaker of Görlitz, =Jacob Boehme=, _philosophus teutonicus_, the most talented of all the theosophists. In a remarkable degree he combined a genius for speculation with the most unfeigned piety that held firmly by the old Lutheran faith. Even when an itinerant tradesman, he felt himself for a period of seven days in calm repose, surrounded by the divine light. But he dates his profound theosophical enlightenment from a moment in A.D. 1594, when as a young journeyman and married, thrown into an ecstasy, he obtained a knowledge of the divine mysteries down to the ultimate principles of all things and their inmost quality. His theosophy, too, like that of the ancient gnostics, springs out of the question about the origin of evil. He solves it by assuming an emanation of all things from God, in whom fire and light, bitter and sweet qualities, are thoroughly tempered and perfectly combined, while in the creature derived by emanation from him they are in disharmony, but are reconciled and reduced to godlike harmony through regeneration in Christ. Though opposed by Calov, he was befriended by the Dresden consistory. Boehme died in A.D. 1624, in retirement at Görlitz, in the arms of his family.[470]--In close connexion with Boehmists, separatists, and Pietists, yet differing from them all, =Gottfried Arnold= abused orthodoxy and canonized the heretics of all ages. In A.D. 1700 he wrote “The Mystery of the Divine Sophia.” When Adam, originally man and woman, fell, his female nature, the heavenly Sophia, was taken from him, and in his place a woman of flesh was made for him out of a rib; in order again to restore the paradisiacal perfection Christ brought again the male part into a virgin’s womb, so that the new creature, the regenerate, stands before God as a “male-virgin;” but carnal love destroys again the connexion thus secured with the heavenly Sophia. But the very next year he reached a turning-point in his life. He not only married, but in consequence accepted several appointments in the Lutheran church, without, however, signing the Formula of Concord, and applied his literary skill to the production of devotional tracts.

§ 160.3. =Sacred Song= (§ 142, 3).--The first epoch of the development of sacred song in this century corresponds to the period of the Thirty Years’ War, A.D. 1618-1648. The Psalms of David were the model and pattern of the sacred poets, and the profoundest songs of the cross and consolation bear the evident impress of the times, and so individual feeling comes more into prominence. The influence of Opitz was also felt in the church song, in the greater attention given to correctness and purity of language and to the careful construction of verse and rhyme. Instead of the rugged terseness and vigour of earlier days, we now find often diffuse and overflowing utterances of the heart. =John Hermann= of Glogau, who died in A.D. 1647, composed 400 songs, embracing these: “Alas! dear Lord, what evil hast Thou done?” “O Christ, our true and only Light;” “Ere yet the dawn hath filled the skies;” “O God, thou faithful God.” =Paul Flemming=, a physician in Holstein, who died in A.D. 1640, wrote on his journey to Persia, “Where’er I go, whate’er my task.” =Matthew Meyffart=, professor and pastor at Erfurt, who died in A.D. 1642, wrote “Jerusalem, thou city fair and high.” =Martin Rinkart=, pastor at Eilenburg in Saxony, who died A.D. 1648, wrote, “Now thank we all our God.” =Appelles von Löwenstern=, who died A.D. 1648, composed, “When anguished and perplexed, with many a sigh and tear.” =Joshua Stegmann=, superintendent in Rinteln, who died A.D. 1632, wrote, “Abide among us with thy grace.” =Joshua Wegelin=, pastor in Augsburg and Pressburg, wrote, “Since Christ is gone to heaven, his home.” =Justus Gesenius=, superintendent in Hanover, who died in A.D. 1673, wrote, “When sorrow and remorse.” =Tob. Clausnitzer=, pastor in the Palatinate, who died A.D. 1648, wrote, “Blessed Jesus, at thy word.” The poets named mostly belong to the first Silesian school gathered round Opitz. A more independent position, though not uninfluenced by Opitz, is taken up by =John Rist=, who died in A.D. 1667. He composed 658 sacred songs, of which many are remarkable for their vigour, solemnity, and elevation; _e.g._ “Arise, the kingdom is at hand;” “Sink not yet, my soul, to slumber;” “O living Bread from heaven;” “Praise and thanks to Thee be sung.” At the head of the Königsberg school of the same age stood =Simon Dach=, professor of poetry at Königsberg, who died in A.D. 1659. He composed 150 spiritual songs, among which the best known are, “O how blessed, faithful souls, are ye!” “Wouldest thou inherit life with Christ on high?” The most distinguished members of this school are: =Henry Alberti=, organist at Königsberg, author of “God who madest earth and heaven;” and =George Weissel=, pastor in Königsberg, who died in A.D. 1655, author of “Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates.”

§ 160.4. From the middle of the seventeenth century sacred song became more subjective, and so tended to fall into a diversity of groups. No longer does the church sing through its poets, but the poets give direct expression to their individual feelings. Confessional songs are less frequent, and their place is taken by hymns of edification with reference to various conditions of life; songs of death, the cross and consolation, and hymns for the family become more numerous. With objectivity special features of the church song disappear in the hymns of the period; but some of its essential characteristics remain, especially the popular form and contents, the freshness, liveliness, and simplicity of diction, the truths of personal experience, the fulness of faith, etc. We distinguish three groups:

1. =The Transition Group=, passing from objectivity to subjectivity. Its greatest masters, indeed after Luther the greatest sacred poet of the evangelical church, is undoubtedly =Paul Gerhardt=, who died A.D. 1676, the faith witness of the Lutheran faith under the wars and in persecution (§ 154, 4). In him we find the new subjective tendency in its noblest form; but there is also present the old objective style, giving immediate expression to the consciousness of the church, adhering tenaciously to the confession, and a grand popular ring that reminds us of the fulness and power of Luther. His 131 songs, if not all church songs in the narrower sense, are almost all genuine poems: _e.g._ “All my heart this night rejoices;” “Cometh sunshine after rain;” “Go forth, my heart, and seek delight;” “Be thou content: be still before;” “O world, behold upon the tree;” “Now all the woods are sleeping;” and “Ah, wounded head, must thou?” based on Bernard’s _Salve, caput cruentatum_. To this school also belongs =George Neumark=, librarian at Weimar, who died in A.D. 1681, author of “Leave God to order all thy ways.” Also =John Franck=, burgomaster at Guben in Lusatia, who died A.D. 1677, next to Gerhardt the greatest poet of his age. His 110 songs are less popular and hearty, but more melodious than Gerhardt’s; _e.g._ “Redeemer of the nations, come;” “Ye heavens, oh haste your dews to shed;” “Deck thyself, my soul, with gladness.” =George Albinus=, pastor at Naumburg, died A.D. 1679, wrote: “Not in anger smite us, Lord;” “World, farewell! Of thee I’m tired.”

2. The =next stage= of the sacred song took the Canticles instead of the Psalter as its model. The spiritual marriage of the soul is its main theme. Feeling and fancy are predominant, and often degenerate into sentimentality and trifling. It obtained a new impulse from the addition of a mystical element. =Angelus Silesius= (§ 156, 4) was the most distinguished representative of this school, and while Protestant he composed several beautiful songs; _e.g._ “O Love, who formedst me to wear;” “Thou holiest Love, whom most I love;” “Loving Shepherd, kind and true.” =Christian Knorr v. Rosenroth=, who died at Sulzbach A.D. 1689, wrote “Dayspring of eternity.” =Ludämilie Elizabeth=, Countess of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, who died in A.D. 1672, wrote 215 “Songs of Jesus.” =Caspar Neumann=, professor and pastor at Breslau, died A.D. 1715, wrote, “Lord, on earth I dwell in pain.”

3. =Those of Spener’s Time and Spirit=, men who longed for the regeneration of the church by practical Christianity. Their hymns are for the most part characterized by healthy piety and deep godliness. Spener’s own poems are of slight importance. =J. Jac. Schütz=, Spener’s friend, a lawyer in Frankfort, who died A.D. 1690, composed only one, but that a very beautiful hymn: “All praise and thanks to God most high.” =Samuel Rodigast=, rector in Berlin, died A.D. 1708, wrote, “Whate’er my God ordains is right.” =Laurentius Laurentii=, musical director at Bremen, died A.D. 1722, wrote, “Is my heart athirst to know?” “O thou essential Word.”--=Gottfried Arnold=, died A.D. 1714, wrote, “Thou who breakest every chain;” “How blest to all thy followers, Lord, the road!”-- In Denmark, where previously translations of German hymns were used, =Thomas Kingo=, from A.D. 1677 Bishop of Fünen, died A.D. 1703, was the much-honoured founder of Danish national hymnology.[471]--Continuation, § 167, 6.

§ 160.5. =Sacred Music= (§ 142, 5).--The church music in the beginning of the seventeenth century was affected by the Italian school, just as church song was by the influence of Opitz. The greatest master during the transition stage was =John Crüger=, precentor in the church of St. Nicholas in Berlin, died A.D. 1662. He was to the chorale what Gerhardt was to the church song. We have seventy-one new melodies of his, admirably adapted to Gerhardt’s, Hunnius’s, Franck’s, Dach’s, and Rinkart’s songs, and used in the church till the present time. With the second half of the century we enter on a new period, in which expression and musical declamation perish. Choir singing now, to a great extent, supersedes congregational singing. =Henry Schütz=, organist to the Elector of Saxony, died A.D. 1672, is the great master of this Italian sacred concert style. He introduced musical compositions on passages selected from the Psalms, Canticles, and prophets, in his “_Symphoniæ Sacræ_” of A.D. 1629. After a short time a radical reform was made by =John Rosenmüller=, organist of Wolfenbüttel, died A.D. 1686. A reaction against the exclusive adoption of the Italian style was made by =Andr. Hammerschmidt=, organist at Zittau, died A.D. 1675, one of the noblest and most pious of German musicians. By working up the old church melodies in the modern style, he brought the old hymns again into favour, and set hymns of contemporary poets to bright airs suited to modern standards of taste. The accomplished musician =Rud. Ahle=, organist and burgomaster at Mühlhausen, died A.D. 1673, introduced his own beautiful airs into the church music for Sundays and festivals. His sacred airs are distinguished for youthful freshness and power, penetrated by a holy earnestness, and quite free from that secularity and frivolousness which soon became unpleasantly conspicuous in such music.--Continuation, § 167, 7.

§ 160.6. =The Christian Life of the People.=--The rich development of sacred poetry proves the wonderful fulness and spirituality of the religious life of this age, notwithstanding the many chilling separatistic controversies that prevailed during the terrible upheaval of the Thirty Years’ War. The abundance of devotional literature of permanent worth witnesses to the diligence and piety of the Lutheran pastors. Ernest the Pious of Saxe-Gotha, who died A.D. 1675, stands forth as the ideal of a Christian prince. For the Christian instruction of his people he issued, in the midst of the confusion and horrors of the war, the famous Weimar or Ernestine exposition of the Bible, upon which John Gerhard wrought diligently, along with other distinguished Jena theologians. It appeared first in A.D. 1641, and by A.D. 1768 had gone through fourteen large editions. A like service was done for South Germany by the “Württemberg Summaries,” composed by three Württemberg theologians at the request of Duke Eberhard III., a concise, practical exposition of all the books of Scripture, which for a century and a half formed the basis of the weekly services (_Bibelstunden_) at Württemberg.--Continuation, § 167, 8.

§ 160.7. =Missions.=--In the Lutheran church, missionary enterprise had rather fallen behind (§ 142, 8). Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden carried on the Lapp mission with new zeal, and Denmark, too, gave ready assistance. A Norwegian pastor, Thomas Westen, deserves special mention as the apostle of the mission. A German, Peter Heyling of Lübeck, went on his own account as a missionary to Abyssinia in A.D. 1635, while several of his friends at the same time went to other eastern lands. Of these others no trace whatever has been found. An Abyssinian abbot who came to Europe brought news of Heyling. At first he was hindered by the machinations of the Jesuits; but when these were expelled, he found favour at court, became minister to the king, and married one of the royal family. What finally came of him and his work is unknown. Toward the end of the century two great men, the philosopher Leibnitz and the founder of the Halle Orphanage, A. H. Francke, warmly espoused the cause of foreign missions. The ambitious and pretentious schemes of the philosopher ended in nothing, but Francke made his orphanages, training colleges and centres from which the German Lutheran missions to the heathens were vigorously organized and successfully wrought.--Continuation, § 167, 9.

IV. The Reformed Church.

§ 161. THEOLOGY AND ITS BATTLES.

The Reformed scholars of France vied with those of St. Maur and the Oratory, and the Reformed theologians of the Netherlands, England, and Switzerland were not a whit behind. But an attempt made at a general synod at Dort to unite all the Reformed national churches under one confession failed. Opposition to Calvin’s extreme theory of predestination introduced a Pelagianizing current into the Reformed church, which was by no means confined to professed Arminians. In the Anglican church this tendency appeared in the forms of latitudinarianism and deism (§ 164, 3); while in France it took a more moderate course, and approximated rather to the Lutheran doctrine. It was a reaction of latent Zwinglianism against the dominant Calvinism. The Voetian school successfully opposed the introduction of the Cartesian philosophy, and secured supremacy to a scholasticism which held its own alongside of that of the Lutherans. In opposition to it, the Cocceian federal school undertook to produce a purely biblical system of theology in all its departments.

§ 161.1. =Preliminaries of the Arminian Controversy.=--In the _Confessio Belgica_ of A.D. 1562 the Protestant Netherlands had already a strictly Calvinistic symbol, but Calvinism had not thoroughly permeated the church doctrine and constitution. There were more opponents than supporters of the doctrine of predestination, and a Melanchthonian-synergistic (§ 141, 7), or even an Erasmian-semipelagian, (§ 125, 3) doctrine, of the freedom of the will and the efficacy of grace, was more frequently taught and preached than the Augustinian-Calvinistic doctrine. So also Zwingli’s view of the relation of church and state was in much greater favour than the Calvinistic Presbyterial church government with its terrorist discipline. But the return of the exiles in A.D. 1572, who had adopted strict Calvinistic views in East Friesland and on the Lower German Rhine, led to the adoption of a purely Calvinistic creed and constitution. The keenest opponent of this movement was Coornhert, notary and secretary for the city of Haarlem, who combated Calvinism in numerous writings, and depreciated doctrine generally in the interests of practical living Christianity. Political as well as religious sympathies were enlisted in favour of this freer ecclesiastical tendency. The Dutch War of Independence was a struggle for religious freedom against Spanish Catholic fanaticism. The young republic therefore became the first home of religious toleration, which was scarcely reconcilable with a strict and exclusive Calvinism.--Meanwhile within the Calvinistic church a controversy arose, which divided its adherents in the Netherlands into two parties. In opposition to the strict Calvinists, who as supralapsarians held that the fall itself was included in the eternal counsels of God, there arose the milder infralapsarians, who made predestination come in after the fall, which was not predestinated but only foreseen by God.

§ 161.2. =The Arminian Controversy.=--In A.D. 1588, James Arminius (born A.D. 1560), a pupil of Beza, but a declared adherent of the Ramist philosophy (§ 143, 6), was appointed pastor in Amsterdam, and ordered by the magistrates to controvert Coornhert’s universalism and the infralapsarianism of the ministers of Delft. He therefore studied Coornhert’s writings, and by them was shaken in his earlier beliefs. This was shown first in certain sermons on passages from Romans, which made him suspected of Pelagianism. In A.D. 1603 he was made theological professor of Leyden, where he found a bitter opponent in his supralapsarian colleague, Francis Gomarus. From the class-rooms the controversy spread to the pulpits, and even into domestic circles. A public disputation in A.D. 1608, led to no pacific result, and Arminius continued involved in controversies till his death in A.D. 1609. Although decidedly inclined toward universalism, he had directed his polemic mainly against supralapsarianism, as making God himself the author of sin. But his followers went beyond these limits. When denounced by the Gomarists as Pelagians, they addressed to the provincial parliament of Holland and West Friesland, in A.D. 1610, a remonstrance, which in five articles repudiates supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism, and the doctrines of the irresistibility of grace, and of the impossibility of the elect finally falling away from it, and boldly asserts the universality of grace. They were hence called Remonstrants and their opponents Contraremonstrants. Parliament, favourably inclined toward the Arminians, pronounced the difference non-fundamental, and enjoined peace. When Vorstius, who was practically a Socinian, was appointed successor to Arminius, Gomarus charged the Remonstrants with Socinianism. Their ablest theological representative was Simon Episcopius, who succeeded Gomarus at Leyden in A.D. 1612, supported by the distinguished statesman, Oldenbarneveldt, and the great jurist, humanist, and theologian, Hugo Grotius of Rotterdam. Maurice of Orange, too, for a long time sided with them, but in A.D. 1617 formally went over to the other party, whose well-knit unity, strict discipline, and rigorous energy commended them to him as the fittest associates in his struggle for absolute monarchy. The republican-Arminian party was conquered, Oldenbarneveldt being executed in 1619, Grotius escaping by his wife’s strategem. =The Synod of Dort= was convened for the purpose of settling doctrinal disputes. It held 154 sessions, from Nov. 13th, 1618, to May 9th, 1619. Invitations were accepted by twenty-eight theologians from England, Scotland, Germany, and Switzerland. Brandenburg took no part in it (§ 154, 3), and French theologians were refused permission to go. Episcopius presented a clear and comprehensive apology for the Remonstrants, and bravely defended their cause before the synod. Refusing to submit to the decisions of the synod, they were at the fifty-seventh session expelled, and then excommunicated and deprived of all ecclesiastical offices. The Heidelberg Catechism and the Belgic Confession were unanimously adopted as the creed and manual of orthodox teaching. In the discussion of the five controverted points, the opposition of the Anglican and German delegates prevented any open and manifest insertion of supralapsarian theses, so that the synodal canons set forth only an essentially infralapsarian theory of predestination.--Remonstrant teachers were now expelled from most of the states of the union. Only after Maurice’s death in A.D. 1625 did they venture to return, and in A.D. 1630 they were allowed by statute to erect churches and schools in all the states. A theological seminary at Amsterdam, presided over by Episcopius till his death, in A.D. 1643, rose to be a famous seat of learning and nursery of liberal studies. The number of congregations, however, remained small, and their importance in church history consists rather in the development of an independent church life than in the revival of a semipelagian and rationalistic type of doctrine.[472]

§ 161.3. =Consequences of the Arminian Controversy.=--The Dort decrees were not accepted in Brandenburg, Hesse, and Bremen, where a moderate Calvinism continued to prevail. In England and Scotland the Presbyterians enthusiastically approved of the decrees, whereas the Episcopalians repudiated them, and, rushing to the other extreme of latitudinarianism, often showed lukewarm indifferentism in the way in which they distinguished articles of faith as essential and non-essential. The worthiest of the latitudinarians of this age was Chillingworth, who sought an escape from the contentions of theologians in the Catholic church, but soon returned to Protestantism, seeking and finding peace in God’s word alone. Archbishop Tillotson was a famous pulpit orator, and Gilbert Burnet, who died A.D. 1715, was author of a “History of the English Reformation.” In the French Reformed church, where generally strict Calvinism prevailed, =Amyrault= of Saumur, who died A.D. 1664, taught a _universalismus hypotheticus_, according to which God by a _decretum universale et hypotheticum_ destined all men to salvation through Jesus Christ, even the heathen, on the ground of a _fides implicita_. The only condition is that they believe, and for this all the means are afforded in _gratia resistibilis_, while by a _decretum absolutum et speciale_ only to elect persons is granted the _gratia irresistibilis_. The synods of Alençon, A.D. 1637, and Charenton, A.D. 1644, supported by Blondel, Daillé, and Claude, declared these doctrines allowable; but Du Moulin of Sedan, Rivetus and Spanheim of Leyden, Maresius of Groningen [Gröningen], and others, offered violent opposition. Amyrault’s colleague, =De la Place=, or _Placæus_, who died A.D. 1655, went still further, repudiating the unconditional imputation of Adam’s sin, and representing original sin simply as an evil which becomes guilt only as our own actual transgression. The synods just named condemned this doctrine. Somewhat later Claude =Pajon= of Saumur, who died A.D. 1685, roused a bitter discussion about the universality of grace, by maintaining that in conversion divine providence wrought only through the circumstances of the life, and the Holy Spirit through the word of God. Several French synods condemned this doctrine, and affirmed an immediate as well as a mediate operation of the Spirit and providence.--Genuine Calvinism was best represented in Switzerland, as finally expressed in the =Formula Consensus= _Helvetica_ of Heidegger of Zürich, adopted in A.D. 1675 by most of the cantons. It was, like the _Formula Concordiæ_, a manual of doctrine rather than a confession. In opposition to Amyrault and De la Place, it set forth a strict theory of predestination and original sin, and maintained with the Buxtorfs, against Cappellus of Saumur, the inspiration of the Hebrew vowel points.

§ 161.4. =The Cocceian and Cartesian Controversies.=--If not the founder, certainly the most distinguished representative in the Netherlands of that scholasticism which sought to expound and defend orthodoxy, was =Voetius=, who died A.D. 1676, from A.D. 1607 pastor in various places, and from A.D. 1634 professor at Utrecht. A completely different course was pursued by =Cocceius= of Bremen, who died A.D. 1669, professor at Franeker in A.D. 1636, and at Leyden in A.D. 1650. The famous Zürich theologian, Bullinger (§ 138, 7), had in his “_Compend. Rel. Chr._” of A.D. 1556, viewed the whole doctrine of saving truth from the point of view of a covenant of grace between God and man; and this idea was afterwards carried out by Olevianus of Heidelberg (§ 144, 1) in his “_De Substantia Fœderis_,” of A.D. 1585. This became the favourite method of distribution of doctrine in the whole German Reformed church. In the Dutch church it was regarded as quite unobjectionable. In England it was adopted in the Westminster Confession of A.D. 1648 (§ 155, 1), and in Switzerland in A.D. 1675, in the _Formula Consensus_. Cocceius is therefore not the founder of the federal theology. He simply gave it a new and independent development, and freed it from the trammels of scholastic dogmatics. He distinguished a twofold covenant of God with man: the _fœdus operum s. naturæ_ before, and the _fœdus gratiæ_ after the fall. He then subdivided the covenant of grace into three economies: before the law until Moses; under the law until Christ; and after the law in the Christian church. The history of the kingdom of God in the Christian era was arranged in seven periods, corresponding to the seven apocalyptic epistles, trumpets, and seals. In his treatment of his theme, he repudiated philosophy, scholasticism, and tradition, and held simply by Scripture. He is thus the founder of a purely biblical theology. He attached himself as closely as possible to the prevailing predestinationist orthodoxy, but only externally. In his view the sacred history in its various epochs adjusted itself to the needs of human personality, and to the growing capacity for appropriating it. Hence it was not the idea of election, but that of grace, that prevailed in his system. Christ is the centre of all history, spiritual, ecclesiastical, and civil; and so everything in Scripture, history, doctrine, and prophecy, necessarily and immediately stands related to him. The O.T. prophecies and types point to the Christ that was to come in the flesh, and all history after Christ points to his second coming; and O. and N.T. give an outline of ecclesiastical and civil history down to the end of time. Thus typology formed the basis of the Cocceian theology. In exegesis, however, Cocceius avoided all arbitrary allegorizing. It was with him an axiom in hermeneutics, _Id significan verba, quod significare possunt in integra oratione, sic ut omnino inter se conveniant_. Yet his typology led him, and still more many of his adherents, into fantastic exegetical errors in the prophetic treatment of the seven apocalyptic periods.

§ 161.5. A controversy, occasioned by Cocceius’ statement, in his commentary on Hebrews in A.D. 1658, that the Sabbath, as enjoined by the O.T. ceremonial law, was no longer binding, was stopped in A.D. 1659 by a State prohibition. Voetius had not taken part in it. But when Cocceius, in A.D. 1665, taught from Romans iii. 25, that believers under the law had not full “ἄφεσις,” only a “πάρεσις,” he felt obliged to enter the lists against this “Socinian” heresy. The controversy soon spread to other doctrines of Cocceius and his followers, and soon the whole populace seemed divided into Voetians and Cocceians (§ 162, 5). The one hurled offensive epithets at the other. The Orange political party sought and obtained the favour of the Voetians, as before they had that of the Gomarists; while the liberal republican party coalesced with the Cocceians. Philosophical questions next came to be mixed up in the discussion. The philosophy of the French Catholic =Descartes= (§ 164, 1), settled in A.D. 1629 in Amsterdam, had gained ground in the Netherlands. It had indeed no connexion with Christianity or church, and its theological friends wished only to have it recognised as a formal branch of study. But its fundamental principle, that all true knowledge starts from doubt, appeared to the representatives of orthodoxy as threatening the church with serious danger. Even in A.D. 1643 Voetius opposed it, and mainly in consequence of his polemic, the States General, in A.D. 1656, forbad it being taught in the universities. Their common opposition to scholasticism, however, brought Cocceians and Cartesians more closely to one another. Theology now became influenced by Cartesianism. Roëll, professor at Franeker and Utrecht, who died A.D. 1718, taught that the divinity of the Scriptures must be proved to the reason, since the _testimonium Spir. s. internum_ is limited to those who already believe, rejected the doctrine of the imputation of original sin, the doctrine that death is for believers the punishment of sin, and the application of the idea of eternal “generation” to the Logos, to whom the predicate of sonship belongs only in regard to the decree of redemption and incarnation. Another zealous Cartesian, Balth. Bekker, not only repudiated the superstitions of the age about witchcraft (§ 117, 4), but also denied the existence of the devil and demons. The Cocceians were in no way responsible for such extravagances, but their opponents sought to make them chargeable for these. The stadtholder, William III., at last issued an order, in A.D. 1694, which checked for a time the violence of the strife.

§ 161.6. =Theological Literature.=--Biblical oriental philology flourished in the Reformed church of this age. =Drusius= of Franeker, who died A.D. 1616, was the greatest Old Testament exegete of his day. The two =Buxtorfs= of Basel, the father died A.D. 1629, the son A.D. 1664, the greatest Christian rabbinical scholars, wrote Hebrew and Chaldee grammars, lexicons, and concordances, and maintained the antiquity and even inspiration of the Hebrew vowel points against Cappellus of Saumur. =Hottinger= of Zürich, who died A.D. 1667, vied with both in his knowledge of oriental literature and languages, and wrote extensively on biblical philology, and besides found time to write a comprehensive and learned church history. =Cocceius=, too, occupies a respectable place among Hebrew lexicographers. In England, both before and after the Restoration, scholarship was found, not among the controversial Puritans, but among the Episcopal clergy. =Brian Walton=, who died A.D. 1661, aided by the English scholars, issued an edition of the “London Polyglott” in six vols., in A.D. 1657, which, in completeness of material and apparatus, as well as in careful textual criticism, leaves earlier editions far behind. =Edm. Castellus= of Cambridge in A.D. 1669 published his celebrated “_Lexicon Heptaglottum_.” The Elzevir printing-house at Amsterdam and Leyden, boldly assuming the prerogatives of the whole body of theological scholars, issued a _textus receptus_ of the N.T. in A.D. 1624. The best established exegetical results of earlier times were collected by Pearson in his great compendium, the “_Critici Sacri_,” nine vols. fol., London, 1660; and Matthew Pool in his “_Synopsis Criticorum_,” five vols. fol., London, 1669. Among the exegetes of this time the brothers, J. Cappellus of Sedan, who died A.D. 1624, and Louis Cappellus II. of Saumur, who died A.D. 1658, were distinguished for their linguistic knowledge and liberal criticism. =Pococke= of Oxford and =Lightfoot= of Cambridge were specially eminent orientalists. =Cocceius= wrote commentaries on almost all the books of Scripture, and his scholar =Vitringa= of Franeker, who died A.D. 1716, gained great reputation by his expositions of Isaiah and the Apocalypse. Among the Arminians the famous statesman =Grotius=, who died A.D. 1645, was the greatest master of grammatico-historical exposition in the century, and illustrated Scripture from classical literature and philology. The Reformed church too gave brilliant contributions to biblical archæology and history. =John Selden= wrote “_De Syndriis Vett. Heb._,” “_De diis Syris_,” etc. =Goodwin= wrote “Moses and Aaron.” =Ussher= wrote “_Annales V. et N.T._” =Spencer= wrote “_De Legibus Heb._” The Frenchman =Bochart=, in his “_Hierozoicon_” and “_Phaleg_,” made admirable contributions to the natural history and geography of the Bible.

§ 161.7. Dogmatic theology was cultivated mainly in the Netherlands. =Maccovius=, a Pole, who died A.D. 1644, a professor at Franeker, introduced the scholastic method into Reformed dogmatics. The Synod of Dort cleared him of the charge of heresy made against him by Amesius, but condemned his method. Yet it soon came into very general use. Its chief representatives were Maresius of Groningen [Gröningen], Voetius and Mastricht of Utrecht, Hoornbeck [Hoornbeeck] of Leyden, and the German Wendelin, rector of Zerbst. Among the Cocceians the most distinguished were Heidanus of Leyden, Alting of Groningen [Gröningen], and, above all, Hermann Witsius of Franeker, whose “Economy of the Covenants” is written in a conciliatory spirit. The most distinguished Arminian dogmatist after Episcopius was =Phil. Limborch= of Amsterdam, who died A.D. 1712, in high repute also as an apologist, exegete, and historian. The greatest dogmatist of the Anglican church was =Pearson=, who died A.D. 1686, author of “An Exposition of the Creed.” The Frenchman =Peyrerius= obtained great notoriety from his statement, founded on Romans v. 12, that Adam was merely the ancestor of the Jews (Gen. ii. 7), while the Gentiles were of pre-Adamite origin (Gen. i. 26), and also by maintaining that the flood had been only partial. He gained release from prison by joining the Catholic church and recanted, but still held by his earlier views.--Ethics, consisting hitherto of little more than an exposition of the decalogue, was raised by =Amyrault= into an independent science. Amesius dealt with cases of conscience. =Grotius=, in his “_De Veritate Relig. Chr._” and =Abbadie=, French pastor at Berlin, and afterwards in London, who died A.D. 1727, in his “_Vérité de la Rel. Chrét._,” distinguished themselves as apologists. =Claude= and =Jurieu= gained high reputation as controversialists against Catholicism and its persecution of the Huguenots.--The Reformed church also in the interests of polemics pursued historical studies. Hottinger of Zürich, Spanheim of Leyden, Sam. Basnage of Zütpfen, and Jac. Basnage of the Hague, produced general church histories. Among the numerous historical monographs the most important are =Hospinian’s= “_De Templis_,” “_De Monachis_,” “_De Festis_,” “_Hist. Sacramentaria_,” “_Historia Jesuitica_;” =Blondel’s= “_Ps.-Isidorus_,” “_De la Primauté de l’Egl._,” “_Question si une Femme a été Assisse au Siège Papal_” (§ 82, 6), “_Apologia sent. Hieron. de Presbyt._” Also =Daillé= of Saumur on the non-genuineness of the “Apostolic Constitutions” and the Ps.-Dionysian writings, and his “_De Usu Patrum_” in opposition to Cave’s Catholicizing over-estimation of the Fathers. We have also the English scholar =Ussher=, who died A.D. 1656, “_Brit. Ecclesiarum Antiquitates_;” H. Dodwell, who died A.D. 1711, “_Diss. Cyprianicæ_,” etc.; Wm. Cave, who died A.D. 1713, “Hist. of App. and Fathers,” “_Scriptorum Ecclst. Hist. Literaria_,” etc.--Special mention should be made of =Eisenmenger=, professor of oriental languages at Heidelberg. In his “_Entdecktes Judenthum_,” two vols. quarto, moved by the over-bearing arrogance of the Jews of his day, he made an immense collection of absurdities and blasphemies of rabbinical theology from Jewish writings. At his own expense he printed 2,000 copies; for these the Jews offered him 12,000 florins, but he demanded 30,000. They now persuaded the court at Venice to confiscate them before a single copy was sold. Eisenmenger died in A.D. 1704, and his heirs vainly sought to have the copies of his work given up to them. Even the appeal of Frederick I. of Prussia was refused. Only when the king had resolved, in A.D. 1711, at his own expense to publish an edition from one copy that had escaped confiscation, was the Frankfort edition at last given back.

§ 161.8. =The Apocrypha Controversy= (§ 136, 4).--In A.D. 1520 Carlstadt raised the question of the books found only in the LXX., and answered it in the style of Jerome (§ 59, 1). Luther gave them in his translation as an appendix to the O.T. with the title “Apocrypha, _i.e._ Books, not indeed of Holy Scripture, but useful and worthy to be read.” Reformed confessions took up the same position. The Belgic Confession agreed indeed that these books should be read in church, and proof passages taken from them, in so far as they were in accord with the canonical Scriptures. The Anglican Book of Common Prayer gives readings from these books. On the other hand, although at the Synod of Dort the proposal to remove at least the apocryphal books of Ezra or Esdras, Tobit, Judith, Bel and the Dragon, was indeed rejected, it was ordered that in future all apocryphal books should be printed in smaller type than the canonical books, should be separately paged, with a special title, and with a preface and marginal notes where necessary. Their exclusion from all editions of the Bible was first insisted on by English and Scotch Puritans. This example was followed by the French, but not by the German, Swiss, and Dutch Reformed churches.--Continuation, § 182, 4.

§ 162. THE RELIGIOUS LIFE.[473]

The religious life in the Reformed church is characterized generally by harsh legalism, rigorous renunciation of the world, and a thorough earnestness, coupled with decision and energy of will, which nothing in the world can break or bend. It is the spirit of Calvin which impresses on it this character, and determines its doctrine. Only where Calvin’s influence was less potent, _e.g._ in the Lutheranized German Reformed, the catholicized Anglican Episcopal Church, and among the Cocceians, is this tendency less apparent or altogether wanting. On the other hand, often carried to the utmost extreme, it appears among the English Puritans (§§ 143, 3; 155, 1) and the French Huguenots (§ 153, 4), where it was fostered by persecution and oppression.

§ 162.1. =England and Scotland.=--During the period of the English Revolution (§ 155, 1, 2), after the overthrow of Episcopacy, Puritanism became dominant; and the incongruous and contradictory elements already existing within it assumed exaggerated proportions (§ 143, 3, 4), until at last the opposing parties broke out into violent contentions with one another. The ideal of Scottish and English =Presbyterianism= was the setting up of the kingdom of Christ as a theocracy, in which church and state were blended after the O.T. pattern. Hence all the institutions of church and state were to be founded on Scripture models, while all later developments were set aside as deteriorations from that standard. The ecclesiastical side of this ideal was to be realized by the establishment of a spiritual aristocracy represented in presbyteries and synods, which, ruling the presbyteries through the synods, and the congregations through the presbyteries, regarded itself as called and under obligation to inspect and supervise all the details of the private as well as public life of church members, and all this too by Divine right. Regarding their system as alone having divine institution, Presbyterians could not recognise any other religious or ecclesiastical party, and must demand uniformity, not only in regard to doctrine and creed, but also in regard to constitution, discipline, and worship.[474]--On the other hand, =Independent Congregationalism=, inasmuch as it made prominent the N.T. ideas of the priesthood of all believers and spiritual freedom, demanded unlimited liberty to each separate congregation, and unconditional equality for all individual church members. It thus rejected the theocratic ideal of Presbyterianism, strove after a purely democratic constitution, and recognised toleration of all religious views as a fundamental principle of Christianity. Every attempt to secure uniformity and stability of forms of worship was regarded as a repressing of the Spirit of God operating in the church, and so alongside of the public services private conventicles abounded, in which believers sought to promote mutual edification. But soon amid the upheavals of this agitated period a fanatical spirit spread among the various sects of the Independents. The persecutions under Elizabeth and the Stuarts had awakened a longing for the return of the Lord, and the irresistible advance of Cromwell’s army, composed mostly of Independents, made it appear as if the millennium was close at hand. Thus chiliasm came to be a fundamental principle of Independency, and soon too prophecy made its appearance to interpret and prepare the way for that which was coming. From the _Believers_ of the old Dutch times we now come to the =Saints= of the early Cromwell period. These regarded themselves as called, in consequence of their being inspired by God’s Spirit, to form the “kingdom of the saints” on earth promised in the last days, and hence also, from Daniel ii. and vii., they were called Fifth Monarchy Men. The so called Short Parliament of A.D. 1653, in which these Saints were in a majority, had already laid the first stones of this structure by introducing civil marriage, with the strict enforcement, however, of Matthew v. 32, as well as by the abolition of all rights of patronage and all sorts of ecclesiastical taxes, when Cromwell dissolved it. The Saints had not and would not have any fixed, formulated theological system. They had, however, a most lively interest in doctrine, and produced a great diversity of Scripture expositions and dogmatic views, so that their deadly foes, the Presbyterians, could hurl against them old and new heretical designations by the hundred. The fundamental doctrine of predestination, common to all Puritans, was, even with them, for the most part, a presupposition of all theological speculation.

§ 162.2. At the same time with the _Saints_ there appeared among the Independents the =Levellers=, political and social revolutionists, rather than an ecclesiastical and religious sect. They were unjustly charged with claiming an equal distribution of goods. Over against the absolutist theories of the Stuarts, all the Independents maintained that the king, like all other civil magistrates, is answerable at all times and in all circumstances to the people, to whom all sovereignty originally and inalienably belongs. This principle was taken by the Levellers as the starting-point of their reforms. As their first regulative principle in reconstructing the commonwealth and determining the position of the church therein they did not take the theocratic constitution of the O.T., as the Presbyterians did, nor the biblical revelation of the N.T., as the moderate Independents did, nor even the modern professed prophecy of the “Saints,” but the law of nature as the basis of all revelation, and already grounded in creation, with the sovereignty of the people as its ultimate foundation. While the rest of the Independents held by the idea of a Christian state, and only claimed that all Christian denominations, with the exception of the Catholics (§ 153, 6), should enjoy all political rights, the Levellers demanded complete separation of church and state. This therefore implied, on the one hand, the non-religiousness of the state, and, on the other, again with the exception of Catholics, the absolute freedom, independence, and equality of all religious parties, even non-Christian sects and atheists. Yet all the while the Levellers themselves were earnestly and warmly attached to Christian truth as held by the other Independents.--Roger Williams (§ 163, 3), a Baptist minister, in A.D. 1631 transplanted the first seeds of Levellerism from England to North America, and by his writings helped again to spread those views in England. When he returned home in A.D. 1651 he found the sect already flourishing. The ablest leader of the English Levellers was John Lilburn. In A.D. 1638, when scarcely twenty years old, he was flogged and sentenced to imprisonment for life, because he had printed Puritan writings in Holland and had them circulated in England. Released on the outbreak of the Revolution, he joined the Parliamentary army, was taken prisoner by the Royalists and sentenced to death, but escaped by flight. He was again imprisoned for writing libels on the House of Lords. Set free by the Rump Parliament, he became colonel in Cromwell’s army, but was banished the country when it was found that the spread of radicalism endangered discipline. Till the dissolution of the Short Parliament his followers were in thorough sympathy with the Saints. Afterwards their ways went more and more apart; the Saints drifted into Quakerism (§ 163, 4), while the Levellers degenerated into deism (§ 164, 3).

§ 162.3. Out of the religious commotion prevailing in England before, during, and after the Revolution there sprang up a voluminous =devotional literature=, intended to give guidance and directions for holy living. Its influence was felt in foreign lands, especially in the Reformed churches of the continent, and even German Lutheran Pietism was not unaffected by it (§ 159, 3). That this movement was not confined to the Puritans, among whom it had its origin, is seen from the fact that during the seventeenth century many such treatises were issued from the University Press of Cambridge. =Lewis Bayly=, Bishop of Bangor A.D. 1616-1632, wrote one of the most popular books of this kind, “The Practice of Piety,” which was in A.D. 1635 in its thirty-second and in A.D. 1741 in its fifty-first edition, and was also widely circulated in Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, and Polish translations.--Out of the vast number of important personages of the Revolution period we name the following three:

1. In =John Milton=, the highly gifted poet as well as eloquent and powerful politician, born A.D. 1608, died A.D. 1674, we find, on the basis of a liberal classical training received in youth, all the motive powers of Independency, from the original Puritan zeal for the faith and Reformation to the politico-social radicalism of the Levellers, combined in full and vigorous operation. From Italy, the beloved land of classical science and artistic culture, he was called back to England in A.D. 1640 at the first outburst of freedom-loving enthusiasm (§ 155, 1), and made the thunder of his controversial treatises ring over the battlefield of parties. He fought against the narrowness of Presbyterian control of conscience not less energetically than against the hierarchism of the Episcopal church; vindicates the permissibility of divorce (in view, no doubt, of his own first unhappy marriage); advanced in his “_Areopagitica_” of A.D. 1644 a plea for the unrestricted liberty of the press; pulverized in his “_Iconoclastes_” of A.D. 1649 the Εἰκὼν βασιλική, ascribed to Charles I.; in several tracts, “_Defensio pro Populo Anglicano_,” etc., justified the execution of the king against Salmasius’s “_Defensio Regia pro Carolo I._;” and, even after he had in A.D. 1652 become incurably blind, he continued unweariedly his polemics till silenced by the Restoration. The “_Iconoclastes_” and “_Defensio_” were burned by the hangman, but he himself was left unmolested. He now devoted himself to poetry. “Paradise Lost” appeared in A.D. 1665, and “Paradise Regained” in A.D. 1671. To this period, when he had probably turned his back on all existing religious parties, belongs the composition of his “_De doctrina Christiana_,” a first attempt at a purely biblical theology, Arian in its Christology and Arminian in its soteriology.[475]

2. =Richard Baxter=, born A.D. 1615, died A.D. 1691, was quite a different sort of man, and showed throughout a decidedly ironical tendency. At once attracted and repelled by the Independent movement in Cromwell’s army, he joined the force in A.D. 1645 as military chaplain, hoping to moderate, if not to check, their extravagances. A severe illness obliged him to withdraw in A.D. 1647. After his recovery he returned to his former post as assistant-minister at Kidderminster in Worcestershire, and there remained till driven out by the Act of Uniformity of A.D. 1662 (§ 155, 3). Those fourteen years formed the period of his most successful labours. He then composed most of his numerous devotional works, three of which, “The Saint’s Everlasting Rest,” “The Reformed Pastor,” “A Call to the Unconverted,” are still widely read in the original and in translations. At first he hoped much from the Restoration; but when, on conscientious grounds, he refused a bishopric, he met only with persecution, ill treatment, and imprisonment. Through William’s Act of Toleration of A.D. 1689, he was allowed to pass the last year of his life in London. On the doctrine of predestination he took the moderate position of Amyrault (§ 161, 3). His ideal church constitution was a blending of Presbyterianism and Episcopacy, by restoring the original episcopal constitution of the second century, when even the smaller churches had each its own bishop with a presbytery by his side.[476]

3. =John Bunyan=, born A.D. 1628, died A.D. 1688, was in his youth a tinker or brazier, and as such seems to have led a rough, wild life. On the outbreak of the Civil War in A.D. 1642, he was drafted into the Parliamentary army.[477] At the close of the war he married a poor girl from a Puritan family, whose only marriage portion consisted in two Puritan books of devotion. It was now that the birthday of a new spiritual life began to dawn in him. He joined the Baptist Independents, the most zealous of the Saints of that time, was baptized by them in A.D. 1655, and travelled the country as a preacher, attracting thousands around him everywhere by his glorious eloquence. In A.D. 1660 he was thrown into prison, from which he was released by the Indulgence of A.D. 1672 (§ 155, 3). He now settled in Bedford, and from this time till his death, amid persecution and oppression, continued his itinerant preaching with ever-increasing zeal and success. “The Pilgrim’s Progress” was written by him in prison. It is an allegory of the freshest and most lively form, worthy to rank alongside the “Imitation of Christ” (§ 114, 7). In it the fanatical endeavour of the Saints to rear a millennial kingdom on earth is transfigured into a struggle overcoming all hindrances to secure an entrance into the heavenly Zion above. It has passed through numberless editions, and has been translated into almost all known languages.[478]

§ 162.4. =The Netherlands.=--From England the Reformed Pietism was transplanted to the Netherlands, where =William Teellinck= may be regarded as its founder. After finishing his legal studies he resided for a while in England, where he made the acquaintance of the Puritans and their writings, and was deeply impressed with their earnest and pious family life. He then went to Leyden to study theology, and in A.D. 1606 began a ministry that soon bore fruit. He was specially blessed at Middelburg in Zealand, where he died A.D. 1629. His writings, larger and smaller, more than a hundred in number, in which a peculiar sweetness of mystical love for the Redeemer is combined with stern Calvinistic views, after the style of St. Bernard, were circulated widely in numerous editions, eagerly read in many lands, and for fully a century exerted a powerful influence throughout the whole Reformed church. Teellinck in no particular departed from the prevailing orthodoxy, but unwittingly toned down its harshness in his tracts, and with the gentleness characteristic of him counselled brotherly forbearance amid the bitterness of the Arminian controversy. In spite of much hostility, which his best efforts could not prevent, many university theologians stood by his side as warm admirers of his writings. It will not be wondered at that among these was the pious Amesius of Franeker (§ 161, 7), the scholar of the able Perkins (§ 143, 5); but it is more surprising to find here the powerful champion of scholastic orthodoxy, Voetius of Utrecht, and his vigorous partisan, Hoornbeeck of Leyden. =Voetius= especially, who even in his preacademic career as a pastor had pursued a peculiarly exemplary and godly life, styled Teellinck the Reformed Thomas à Kempis, and owned his deep indebtedness to his devout writings. He opened his academic course in A.D. 1634 with an introductory discourse, “_De Pietate cum Scientia conjungenda_,” and year after year gave lectures on ascetical theology, out of which grew his treatise published in A.D. 1664, “_Τὰ Ἀσκητικὰ s. Exercita Pietatis in usum Juventutis Acad._,” which is a complete exposition of evangelical practical divinity in a thoroughly scholastic form.

§ 162.5. During the controversy in the Dutch Reformed Church between =Voetians and Cocceians=, beginning in A.D. 1658, the former favoured the pietistic movement. In the German Pietist controversy the Cocceians were with the Pietists in their biblical orthodoxy joined with confessional indifferentism, but with the orthodox in their liberality and breadth on matters of life and conduct. The earnest, practical piety of the Voetians, again, made them sympathise with the Lutheran Pietists, and their zeal for pure doctrine and the Church confession brought them into relation with the orthodox Lutherans. As discord between the theologians arose over the obligation of the Sabbath law, so the difference among the people arose out of the question of Sabbath observance. The Voetians maintained that the decalogue prohibition of any form of work on Sabbath was still fully binding, while the Cocceians, on the ground of Mark ii. 27, Galatians iv. 9, Colossians ii. 16, etc., denied its continued obligation, their wives often, to the annoyance of the Voetians, sitting in the windows after Divine service with their knitting or sewing. But the opposition did not stop there; it spread into all departments of life. The Voetians set great value upon fasting and private meditation, avoided all public games and plays, dressed plainly, and observed a simple, pious mode of life; their pastors wore a clerical costume, etc. The Cocceians, again, fell in with the customs of the time, mingled freely in the mirth and pastimes of the people, went to public festivals and entertainments, their women dressed in elegant, stylish attire, their pastors were not bound by hard and fast symbols, but had full Scripture freedom, etc.--Continuation, § 169, 2.

§ 162.6. =France, Germany, and Switzerland.=--The Reformed church of =France= has gained imperishable renown as a martyr-church. Fanatical excesses, however, appeared among the prophets of the Cevennes (§ 153, 4), the fruits of which continued down into the eighteenth century, and appeared now and again in England, Holland, and Germany (§ 160, 2, 7).--In =Germany= the Reformed church, standing side by side with the numerically far larger Lutheran church, had much of the sternness and severity that characterized the Romanic-Calvinistic party in doctrine, worship, and life greatly modified; but where the Reformed element was predominant, as in the Lower Rhine, it was correspondingly affected by a contrary influence. The Reformed church in Germany in its service of praise kept to the psalms of Marot and Lobwasser (§ 143, 2). Maurice of Hesse published Lobwasser’s in A.D. 1612, accompanied by some new bright melodies, for the use of the churches in the land. Lutheran hymns, however, gradually found their way into the Reformed church, which also produced two gifted poets of its own. =Louisa Henrietta=, Princess of Orange, wife of the great elector, and Paul Gerhardt’s sovereign, wrote “Jesus my Redeemer lives;” and =Joachim Neander=, pastor in Bremen, wrote, “Thou most Highest! Guardian of mankind,” “To heaven and earth and sea and air,” “Here behold me, as I cast me.”--In German =Switzerland= the noble =Breitinger= of Zürich, who died A.D. 1645, the greatest successor of Zwingli and Bullinger, wrought successfully during a forty years’ ministry, and did much to revive and quicken the church life. That the spirit of Calvin and Beza still breathed in the church of Geneva is proved by the reception given there to such men as Andreä (§ 160, 1), Labadie (§ 163, 7), and Spener (§ 159, 3).

§ 162.7. =Foreign Missions.=--From two sides the Reformed church had outlets for its Christian love in the work of foreign missions; on the one side by the cession of the Portuguese East Indian colonies to the Netherlands in the beginning of the seventeenth century, and on the other side by the continuous formation of English colonies in North America throughout the whole century. In regard to missionary effort, the Dutch government followed in the footsteps of her Portuguese predecessors. She insisted that all natives, before getting a situation, should be baptized and have signed the Belgic Confession, and many who fulfilled these conditions remained as they had been before. But the English Puritans settled in America showed a zeal for the conversion of the Indians more worthy of the Protestant name. John Eliot, who is rightly styled the apostle of the Indians, devoted himself with unwearied and self-denying love for half a century to this task. He translated the Bible into their language, and founded seventeen Indian stations, of which during his lifetime ten were destroyed in a bloody war. Eliot’s work was taken up by the Mayhew family, who for five generations wrought among the Indians. The last of the noble band, Zacharias Mayhew, died on the mission field in A.D. 1803, in his 87th year.[479]--Continuation, § 172, 5.

V. Anti- and Extra-Ecclesiastical Parties.

§ 163. SECTS AND FANATICS.

Socinianism during the first decades of the century made extraordinary progress in Poland, but then collapsed under the persecution of the Jesuits. Related to the continental Anabaptists were the English Baptists, who rejected infant baptism; while the Quakers, who adopted the old fanatical theory of an inner light, set baptism and the Lord’s supper entirely aside. In the sect of the Labadists we find a blending of Catholic quietist mysticism and Calvinistic Augustinianism. Besides those regular sects, there were various individual enthusiasts and separatists. These were most rife in the Netherlands, where the free civil constitution afforded a place of refuge for all exiles on account of their faith. Here only was the press free enough to serve as a thoroughgoing propaganda of mysticism and theosophy. Finally the Russian sects, hitherto little studied, call for special attention.

§ 163.1. =The Socinians= (§ 148, 4).--The most important of the Socinian congregations in =Poland=, for the most part small and composed almost exclusively of the nobility, was that at Racau in the Sendomir Palatinate. Founded in 1569, this city, since 1600 under James Sieninski, son of the founder, recognised Socinianism as the established religion; and an academy was formed there which soon occupied a distinguished position, and gave such reputation to the place that it could be spoken of as “the Sarmatian Athens.” But the congregation at Lublin, next in importance to that of Racau, was destroyed as early as 1627 by the mob under fanatical excitement caused by the Jesuits. The same disaster befell Racau itself eleven years later. A couple of idle schoolboys had thrown stones at a wooden crucifix standing before the city gate, and had been for this severely punished by their parents, and turned out of school. The Catholics, however, made a complaint before the senate, where the Jesuits secured a sentence that the school should be destroyed, the church taken from “the Arians,” the printing press closed, but the ministers and teachers outlawed and branded with infamy. And the Jesuits did not rest until the Reichstag at Warsaw in 1658 issued decrees of banishment against “all Arians,” and forbad the profession of “Arianism” under pain of death.--The Davidist non-adoration party of =Transylvanian= Unitarians (§ 148, 3) was finally overcome, and the endeavours after conformity with the Polish Socinians prevailed at the Diet of Deesch in 1638, where all Unitarian communities engaged to offer worship to Christ, and to accept the baptismal formula of Matthew xxviii. 19. And under the standard of this so called _Complanatio Deesiana_ 106 Unitarian congregations, with a membership of 60,000 souls, exist in Transylvania to this day.--In =Germany= Socinianism had, even in the beginning of the century, a secret nursery in the University of Altdorf, belonging to the territory of the imperial city of Nuremberg. Soner, professor of medicine, had been won over to this creed by Socinians residing at Leyden, where he had studied in 1597, 1598, and now used his official position at Altdorf for, not only instilling his Unitarian doctrines by means of private philosophical conversations into the minds of his numerous students, who flocked to him from Poland, Transylvania, and Hungary, but also for securing the adhesion of several German students. Only after his death in 1612 did the Nuremberg council come to know about this propaganda. A strict investigation was then made, all Poles were expelled, and all the Socinian writings that could be discovered were burned.--The later Polish Exultants sought and found refuge in Germany, especially in Silesia, Prussia, and Brandenburg, as well as in the Reformed Palatinate, and also founded some small Unitarian congregations, which, however, after maintaining for a while a miserable existence, gradually passed out of view. They had greater success and spread more widely in the =Netherlands=, till the states-general of 1653, in consequence of repeated synodal protests, and on the ground of an opinion given by the University of Leyden, issued a strict edict against the Unitarians, who now gradually passed over to the ranks of the Remonstrants (§ 161, 2) and the Collegiants. Also in =England=, since the time of Henry VIII., antitrinitarian confessors and martyrs were to be found. Even in 1611, under James I., three of them had been consigned to the flames. The Polish Socinians took occasion from this to send the king a Racovian Catechism; but in 1614 it was, by order of parliament, burned by the hands of the hangman. The Socinians were also excluded from the benefit of the Act of Toleration of 1689, which was granted to all other dissenters (§ 155, 3). The progress of deism, however, among the upper classes (§§ 164, 3; 171, 1) did much to prevent the extreme penal laws being carried into execution.--The following are the most distinguished among the numerous learned theologians of the Augustan age of Socinian scholarship, who contributed to the extending, establishing, and vindicating of the system of their church by exegetical, dogmatic, and polemical writings: John Crell, died 1631; Jonas Schlichting, died 1661; Von Wolzogen, died 1661; and Andr. Wissowatius, a grandson of Faustus Socinus, died 1678; and with these must also be ranked the historian of Polish Socinianism, Stanislaus Lubienicki, died 1675, whose “_Hist. Reformat. Polonicæ_,” etc., was published at Amsterdam in 1685.

§ 163.2. =The Baptists of the Continent.=

1. =The Dutch Baptists= (§ 147, 2). Even during Menno’s lifetime the Mennonites had split into the _Coarse_ and the _Fine_. The _Coarse_, who had abandoned much of the primitive severity of the sect, and were by far the most numerous, were again divided during the Arminian controversy into Remonstrants and Predestinationists. The former, from their leader, were called Galenists, and from having a lamb as the symbol of their Church, Lambists. The latter were called Apostoolers from their leader, and Sunists because their churches had the figure of the sun as a symbol. The Lambists, who acknowledged no confession of faith, were most numerous. In A.D. 1800, however, a union of the two parties was effected, the Sunists adopting the doctrinal position of the Lambists.--During the time when Arminian pastors were banished from the Netherlands, three brothers Van der Kodde founded a sect of =Collegiants=, which repudiated the clerical office, assigned preaching and dispensation of sacraments to laymen, and baptized only adults by immersion. Their place of baptism was Rhynsburg on the Rhine, and hence they were called Rhynsburgers. Their other name was given them from their assemblies, which they styled _collegia_.

2. =The Moravian Baptists= (§ 147, 3). The Thirty Years’ War ruined the flourishing Baptist congregations in Moravia, and the reaction against all non-Catholics that followed the battle of the White Mountain near Prague, in A.D. 1620, told sorely against them. In A.D. 1622 a decree for their banishment was issued, and these quiet, inoffensive men were again homeless fugitives. Remnants of them fled into Hungary and Transylvania, only to meet new persecutions there. A letter of protection from Leopold I., A.D. 1659, secured them the right of settling in three counties around Pressburg. But soon these rigorous persecutions broke out afresh; they were beset by Jesuits seeking to convert them, and when this failed they were driven out or annihilated. At last, by A.D. 1757-1762, they were completely broken up, and most of them had joined the Roman Catholic church. A few families preserved their faith by flight into South Russia, where they settled in Wirschenka. When the Toleration Edict of Joseph II., of A.D. 1781, secured religious freedom to Protestants in Austria, several returned again to the faith of their fathers, in the hope that the toleration would be extended to them; but they were bitterly disappointed. They now betook themselves to Russia, and together with their brethren already there, settled in the Crimea, where they still constitute the colony of Hutersthal.

§ 163.3. =The English Baptists.=--The notion that infant baptism is objectionable also found favour among the English Independents. Owing to the slight importance attached to the sacraments generally, and more particularly to baptism, in the Reformed church, especially among the Independents, the supporters of the practice of the church in regard to baptism to a large extent occupied common ground with its opponents. The separation took place only after the rise of the fanatical prophetic sects (§ 161, 1). We must, however, distinguish from the continental Anabaptists the English Baptists, who enjoyed the benefit of the Toleration Act of William III., of A.D. 1689, along with the other dissenters, by maintaining their Independent-Congregationalist constitution (§ 155, 3). In A.D. 1691, over the Arminian question, they split up into Particular and General, or Regular and Free Will, Baptists. The former, by far the more numerous, held by the Calvinistic doctrine of _gratia particularis_, while the latter rejected it. The Seventh-Day Baptists, who observed the seventh instead of the first day of the week, were founded by Bampfield in A.D. 1665.[480]--From England the Baptists spread to North America, in A.D. 1630, where Roger Williams (§ 162, 2), one of their first leaders, founded the little state of Rhode Island, and organized it on thoroughly Baptist-Independent principles.[481]--Continuation, § 170, 6.

§ 163.4. =The Quakers.=--=George Fox=, born A.D. 1624, died A.D. 1691, was son of a poor Presbyterian weaver in Drayton, Leicestershire. After scant schooling he went to learn shoemaking at Nottingham, but in A.D. 1643 abandoned the trade. Harassed by spiritual conflicts, he wandered about seeking peace for his soul. Upon hearing an Independent preach on 2 Peter i. 19, he was moved loudly to contradict the preacher. “What we have to do with,” he said, “is not the word, but the Spirit by which those men of God spake and wrote.” He was seized as a disturber of public worship, but was soon after released. In A.D. 1649 he travelled the country preaching and teaching, addressing every man as “thou,” raising his hat to none, greeting none, attracting thousands by his preaching, often imprisoned, flogged, tortured, hunted like a wild beast. The core of his preaching was, not Scripture, but the Spirit, not Christ without but Christ within, not outward worship, not churches, “steeple-houses,” and bells, not doctrines and sacraments, but only the inner light, which is kindled by God in the conscience of every man, renewed and quickened by the Spirit of Christ, which suddenly lays hold upon it. The number of his followers increased from day to day. In A.D. 1652 he found, along with his friends, a kindly shelter in the house of Thomas Fell, of Smarthmore near Preston, and in his wife Margaret a motherly counsellor, who devoted her whole life to the cause. They called themselves “The Society of Friends.” The name Quaker was given as a term of reproach by a violent judge, whom Fox bad “quake before the word of God.” After the overthrow of the hopes of the Saints through the dissolution of the Short Parliament and Cromwell’s apostasy (§ 155, 2), many of them joined the Quakers, and led them into revolutionary and fanatical excesses. Confined hitherto to the northern counties, they now spread in London and Bristol, and over all the south of England. In January, A.D. 1655, they held a fortnight’s general meeting at Swannington, in Leicestershire. Crowds of apostles went over into Ireland, to North America and the West Indies, to Holland, Germany, France, and Italy, and even to Constantinople. They did not meet with great success. In Italy they encountered the Inquisition, and in North America the severest penal laws were passed against them. In A.D. 1656 James Naylor, one of their most famous leaders, celebrated at Bristol the second coming of Christ “in the Spirit,” by enacting the scene of Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. But the king of the new Israel was scourged, branded on the forehead with the letter B as a blasphemer, had his tongue pierced with a redhot iron, and was then cast into prison. Many absurd extravagances of this kind, which drew down upon them frequent persecutions, as well as the failure of their foreign missionary enterprises, brought most of the Quakers to adopt more sober views. The great mother Quakeress, Margaret Fell, exercised a powerful influence in this direction. George Fox, too, out of whose hands the movement had for a long time gone, now lent his aid. Naylor himself, in A.D. 1659, issued a recantation, addressed “to all the people of the Lord,” in which he made the confession, “My judgment was turned away, and I was a captive under the power of darkness.”

§ 163.5. The movement of Quakerism in the direction of sobriety and common sense was carried out to its fullest extent during the Stuart Restoration, A.D. 1660-1688. Abandoning their revolutionary tendencies through dislike to Cromwell’s violence, and giving up most of their fanatical extravagances, the Quakers became models of quiet, orderly living. Robert Barclay, by his “_Catechesis et Fidei Confessio_,” of A.D. 1673, gave a sort of symbolic expression to their belief, and vindicated his doctrinal positions in his “_Theologiæ vere Christianæ Apologia_” of A.D. 1676. During this period many of them laid down their lives for their faith. On the other side of the sea they formed powerful settlements, distinguished for religious toleration and brotherly love. The chief promoter of this new departure was =William Penn=, A.D. 1644-1718, son of an English admiral, who, while a student at Oxford, was impressed by a Quaker’s preaching, and led to attend the prayer and fellowship meetings of the Friends. In order to break his connexion with this party, his father sent him, in A.D. 1661, to travel in France and Italy. The frivolity of the French court failed to attract him, but for a long time he was spellbound by Amyrault’s theological lectures at Saumur. On his return home, in A.D. 1664, he seemed to have completely come back to a worldly life, when once again he was arrested by a Quaker’s preaching. In A.D. 1668 he formally joined the society. For a controversial tract, _The Sandy Foundation Shaken_, he was sent for six months to the Tower, where he composed the famous tract, _No Cross, no Crown_, and a treatise in his own vindication, “Innocency with her Open Face.” His father, who, shortly before his death in A.D. 1670, was reconciled to his son, left him a yearly income of £1,500, with a claim on Government for £16,000. In spite of continued persecution and oppression he continued unweariedly to promote the cause of Quakerism by speech and pen. In A.D. 1677, in company with Fox and Barclay, he made a tour through Holland and Germany. In both countries he formed many friendships, but did not succeed in establishing any societies. His hopes now turned to North America, where Fox had already wrought with success during the times of sorest persecution, A.D. 1671, 1672, In lieu of his father’s claim, he obtained from Government a large tract of land on the Delaware, with the right of colonizing and organizing it under English suzerainty. Twice he went out for this purpose himself, in A.D. 1682 and 1699, and formed the Quaker state of Pennsylvania, with Philadelphia as its capital. The first principle of its constitution was universal religious toleration, even to Catholics.[482]

§ 163.6. =The Quaker Constitution=, as fixed in Penn’s time, was strictly democratic and congregationalist, with complete exclusion of a clerical order. At their services any man or woman, if moved by the Spirit, might pray, teach, or exhort, or if no one felt so impelled they would sit on in silence. Their meeting-houses had not the form or fittings of churches, their devotional services had neither singing nor music. They repudiated water baptism, alike of infants and adults, and recognised only baptism of the Spirit. The Lord’s supper, as a symbolical memorial, is no more needed by those who are born again. Monthly gatherings of all independent members, quarterly meetings of deputies of a circuit, and a yearly synod of representatives of all the circuits, administered or drew up the regulations for the several societies. =The Doctrinal Belief of the Quakers= is completely dominated by its central dogma of the “inner light,” which is identified with reason and conscience as the common heritage of mankind. Darkened and weakened by the fall, it is requickened in us by the Spirit of the glorified Christ, and possesses us as an inner spiritual Christ, an inner Word of God. The Bible is recognised as the outer word of God, but is useful only as a means of arousing the inner word. The Calvinistic doctrine of election is decidedly rejected, and also that of vicarious satisfaction. But also the doctrines of the fall, original sin, justification by faith, as well as that of the Trinity, are very much set aside in favour of an indefinite subjective theology of feeling. The operation of the Holy Spirit in man’s redemption and salvation outside of Christendom is frankly admitted. On the other hand, the ethical-practical element, as shown in works of benevolence, in the battle for religious freedom, for the abolition of slavery, etc., is brought to the front. In regard to =life and manners=, the Quakers have distinguished themselves in all domestic, civil, industrial, and mercantile movements by quiet, peaceful industry, strict integrity, and simple habits, so that not only did they amass great wealth, but gained the confidence and respect of those around. They refused to take oaths or to serve as soldiers, or to engage in sports, or to indulge in any kind of luxury. In social intercourse they declined to acknowledge any titles of rank, would not bow or raise the hat to any, but addressed all by the simple “thou.” Their men wore broad-brimmed hats, a plain, simple coat, without collar or buttons, fastened by hooks. Their women wore a simple gray silk dress, with like coloured bonnet, without ribbon, flower, or feathers, and a plain shawl. Wearing mourning dress was regarded as a heathenish custom.[483]--Continuation, § 211, 3.

§ 163.7. =Labadie and the Labadists.=--Jean de Labadie, the scion of an ancient noble family, born A.D. 1610, was educated in the Jesuit school at Bordeaux, entered the order, and became a priest, but was released from office at his own wish in A.D. 1639, on account of delicate health. Even in the Jesuit college the principles that manifested themselves in his later life began to take root in him. By Scripture study he was led to adopt almost Augustinian views of sin and grace, as well as the conviction of the need of a revival of the church after the apostolic pattern. This tendency was confirmed and deepened by the influence of Spanish Quietism, which even the Jesuits had favoured to some extent. In the interest of these views he wrought laboriously for eleven years as Catholic priest in Amiens, Paris, and other places, amid the increasing hostility of the Jesuits. Their persecution, together with a growing clearness in his Augustinian convictions, led him formally to go over to the Reformed church in A.D. 1650. He now laboured for seven years as Reformed pastor at Montauban. In A.D. 1657, owing to political suspicions against him spread by the Jesuits, he withdrew from Montauban, and, after two years’ labour at Orange, settled at Geneva, where his preaching and household visitations bore abundant fruit. In A.D. 1666 he accepted a call to Middelburg, in Zealand. There he was almost as successful as he had been in Geneva; but there too it began to appear that in him there burned a fire strange to the Reformed church. The French Reformed synod took great offence at his refusal to sign the Belgic Confession. It was found that at many points he was not in sympathy with the church standards, that he had written in favour of chiliasm and the Apokatastasis, that in regard to the nature and idea of the church and its need of a reformation he was not in accord with the views of the Reformed church. The synod in 1668 suspended him from office, and, as he did not confess his errors, in the following year deposed him. Labadie then saw that what he regarded as his lifework, the restoration of the apostolic church, was as little attainable within the Reformed as within the Catholic church. He therefore organized his followers into a separate denomination, and was, together with them, banished by the magistrate. The neighbouring town of Veere received them gladly, but Middelburg now persuaded the Zealand council to issue a decree banishing them from that town also. The people of Veere were ready to defy this order, but Labadie thought it better to avoid the risk of a civil war by voluntary withdrawal; and so he went, in August, A.D. 1669, with about forty followers, to Amsterdam, where he laid the foundations of an apostolic church. This new society consisted of a sort of monastic household consisting only of the regenerate. They hired a commodious house, and from thence sent out spiritual workers as missionaries, to spread the principles of the “new church” throughout the land. Within a year they numbered 60,000 souls. They dispensed the sacrament according to the Reformed rite, and preached the gospel in conventicles. The most important gain to the party was the adhesion of Anna Maria von Schürman, born at Cologne A.D. 1607 of a Reformed family, but settled from A.D. 1623 with her mother in Utrecht, celebrated for her unexampled attainment in languages, science, and art. When in A.D. 1670, the government, urged by the synod, forbad attendance on the Labadists’ preaching, the accomplished and pious Countess-palatine Elizabeth, sister of the elector-palatine, and abbess of the rich cloister of Herford, whose intimate friend Schürman had been for forty years, gave them an asylum in the capital of her little state.

§ 163.8. In Herford “the Hollanders” met with bitter opposition from the Lutheran clergy, the magistracy, and populace, and were treated by the mob with insult and scorn. They themselves also gave only too good occasion for ridicule. At a sacramental celebration, the aged Labadie and still older Schürman embraced and kissed each other and began to dance for joy. In his sermons and writings Labadie set forth the Quietist doctrines of the limitation of Christ’s life and sufferings in the mortification of the flesh, the duty of silent prayer, the sinking of the soul into the depths of the Godhead, the community of goods, etc. Special offence was given by the private marriage of the three leaders, Labadie, Yvon, and Dulignon with young wealthy ladies of society, and their views of marriage among the regenerate as an institution for raising up a pure seed free from original sin and brought forth without pain. The Elector of Brandenburg, hitherto favourable, as guardian of the seminary was obliged, in answer to the complaints of the Herford magistracy, to appoint a commission of inquiry. Labadie wrote a defence, which was published in Latin, Dutch, and German, in which he endeavoured to harmonize his mystical views with the doctrines of the Reformed church. But in A.D. 1671 the magistrates obtained a mandate from the imperial court at Spires, which threatened the abbess with the ban if she continued to harbour the sectaries. In A.D. 1672 Labadie settled in Altona, where he died in A.D. 1674. His followers, numbering 160, remained here undisturbed till the war between Denmark and Sweden broke out in A.D. 1675. They then retired to the castle of Waltha in West Friesland, the property of three sisters belonging to the party. Schürman died in A.D. 1678, Dulignon in A.D. 1679, and Yvon, who now had sole charge, was obliged in A.D. 1688 to abolish the institution of the community of goods, after a trial of eighteen years, being able to pay back much less than he had received. After his death in A.D. 1707 the community gradually fell off, and after the property had gone into other hands on the death of the last of the sisters in A.D. 1725, the society finally broke up.

§ 163.9. During this age various =fanatical sects= sprang up. In Thuringia, =Stiefel= and his nephew =Meth= caused much trouble to the Lutheran clergy in the beginning of the century by their fanatical enthusiasm, till convinced, after twenty years, of the errors of their ways. =Drabicius=, who had left the Bohemian Brethren owing to differences of belief, and then lived in Hungary as a weaver in poor circumstances, boasted in A.D. 1638 of having Divine revelations, prophesied the overthrow of the Austrian dynasty in A.D. 1657, the election of the French king as emperor, the speedy fall of the Papacy, and the final conversion of all heathens; but was put to death at Pressburg in A.D. 1671 as a traitor with cruel tortures. Even Comenius, the noble bishop of the Moravians, took the side of the prophets, and published his own and others’ prophecies under the title “_Lux in Tenebris_.”--=Jane Leade= of Norfolk, influenced by the writings of Böhme, had visions, in which the Divine Wisdom appeared to her as a virgin. She spread her Gnostic revelations in numerous tracts, founded in A.D. 1670 the Philadelphian Society in London, and died in A.D. 1704, at the age of eighty-one. The most important of her followers was =John Pordage=, preacher and physician, whose theological speculation closely resembles that of Jac. Böhme. To the Reformed church belonged also =Peter Poiret= of Metz, pastor from A.D. 1664 in Heidelburg [Heidelberg], and afterwards of a French congregation in the Palatine-Zweibrücken. Influenced by the writings of Bourignon and Guyon, he resigned his pastorate, and accompanied the former in his wanderings in north-west Germany till his death in 1680. At Amsterdam in A.D. 1687 he wrote his mystical work, “_L’Économie Divine_” in seven vols., which sets forth in the Cocceian method the mysticism and theosophy of Bourignon. He died at Rhynsburg in A.D. 1719.--From the Lutheran church proceeded Giftheil of Württemburg [Württemberg], Breckling of Holstein, and Kuhlmann, who went about denouncing the clergy, proclaiming fanatical views, and calling for impracticable reforms. Of much greater importance was =John George Gichtel=, an eccentric disciple of Jac. Böhme, who in A.D. 1665 lost his situation as law agent in his native town of Regensburg, his property, and civil rights, and suffered imprisonment and exile from the city for his fanatical ideas. He died in needy circumstances in Amsterdam in A.D. 1710. He had revelations and visions, fought against the doctrine of justification, and denounced marriage as fornication which nullifies the spiritual marriage with the heavenly Sophia consummated in the new birth, etc. His followers called themselves Angelic Brethren, from Matthew xxii. 20, strove after angelic sinlessness by emancipation from all earthly lusts, toils, and care, regarded themselves as a priesthood after the order of Melchizedec [Melchisedec] for propitiating the Divine wrath.--Continuation, § 170.

§ 163.10. =Russian Sects.=--A vast number of sects sprang up within the Russian church, which are all included under the general name =Raskolniks= or apostates. They fall into two great classes in their distinctive character, diametrically opposed the one to the other.

1. The =Starowerzi=, or Old Believers. They originated in A.D. 1652, in consequence of the liturgical reform of the learned and powerful patriarch Nikon, which called forth the violent opposition of a large body of the peasantry, who loved the old forms. Besides stubborn adhesion to the old liturgy, they rejected all modern customs and luxuries, held it sinful to cut the beard, to smoke tobacco, to drink tea and coffee, etc. The Starowerzi, numbering some ten millions, are to this day distinguished by their pure and simple lives, and are split up into three parties:

i. _Jedinowerzi_, who are nearest to the orthodox church, recognise its priesthood, and are different only in their religious ceremonies and the habits of their social life;

ii. The _Starovbradzi_, who do not recognise the priesthood of the orthodox church; and

iii. the _Bespopowtschini_, who have no priests, but only elders, and are split up into various smaller sects.

Under the peasant Philip Pustosiwät, a party of Starowerzi, called from their leader Philippins, fled during the persecution of A.D. 1700 from the government of Olonez, and settled in Polish Lithuania and East Prussia, where to the number of 1,200 souls they live to this day in villages in the district of Gumbinnen, engaged in agricultural pursuits, and observing the rites of the old Russian church.

2. At the very opposite pole from the Starowerzi stand the =Heretical Sects=, which repudiate and condemn everything in the shape of external church organization, and manifest a tendency in some cases toward fanatical excess, and in other cases toward rationalistic spiritualism. As the sects showing the latter tendency did not make their appearance till the eighteenth century (§ 166, 2), we have here to do only with those of the former class. The most important of these sects is that of the =Men of God=, or Spiritual Christians, who trace their origin from a peasant, Danila Filipow, of the province of Wladimir. In 1645, say they, the divine Father, seated on a cloud of flame, surrounded by angels, descended from heaven on Mount Gorodin in a chariot of fire, in order to restore true Christianity in its original purity and spirituality. For this purpose he incarnated himself in Filipow’s pure body. He commanded his followers, who in large numbers, mainly drawn from the peasant class, gathered around him, not to marry, and if already married to put away their wives, to abstain from all intoxicating drinks, to be present neither at marriages nor baptisms, but above all things to believe that there is no other god besides him. After some years he adopted as his son another peasant, Ivan Suslow, who was said to have been born of a woman a hundred years old, by communicating to him in his thirtieth year his own divine nature. Ivan, as a new Christ, sent out twelve apostles to spread his doctrine. The Czar Alexis put him and forty of his adherents into prison; but neither the knout nor the rack could wring from them the mysteries of their faith and worship. At last, on a Friday, the czar caused the new Christ to be crucified; but on the following Sunday he appeared risen again among his disciples. After some years the imprisoning, crucifying, and resurrection were repeated. Imprisoned a third time in 1672, he owed his liberation to an edict of grace on the occasion of the birth of the Prince Peter the Great. He now lived at Moscow along with the divine father Filipow, who had hitherto consulted his own safety by living in concealment in the enjoyment of the adoration of his followers unmolested for thirty years, supported by certain wealthy merchants. Filipow is said to have ascended up in the presence of many witnesses, in 1700, into the seventh and highest heaven, where he immediately seated himself on the throne as the “Lord of Hosts,” and the Christ, Suslow, also returned thither in 1716, after both had reached the hundredth year of the human existence. As Suslow’s successor appeared a new Christ in Prokopi Lupkin, and after his death, in 1732, arose Andr. Petrow. The last Christ manifestation was revealed in the person of the unfortunate Czar Peter III., dethroned by his wife Catharine II. in 1762, who, living meanwhile in secret, shall soon return, to the terrible confusion of all unbelievers. With this the historical tradition of the earlier sect of the Men of God is brought to a close, and in the Skopsen, or Eunuchs, who also venerate the Czar Peter III. as the Christ that is to come again, a new development of the sect has arisen, carrying out its principles more and more fully (§ 210, 4). Other branches of the same party, among which, as also among the Skopsen, the fanatical endeavour to mortify the flesh is carried to the most extravagant length, are the Morelschiki or Self-Flagellators, the Dumbies, who will not, even under the severest tortures, utter a sound, etc. The ever-increasing development of this sect-forming craze, which found its way into several monasteries and nunneries, led to repeated judicial investigations, the penitent being sentenced for their fault to confinement in remote convents, and the obdurate being visited with severe corporal punishments and even with death. The chief sources of information regarding the history, doctrine, and customs of the “Men of God” and the Skopsen are their own numerous spiritual songs, collected by Prof. Ivan Dobrotworski of Kasan, which were sung in their assemblies for worship with musical accompaniment and solemn dances. On these occasions their prophets and prophetesses were wont to prophesy, and a kind of sacramental supper was celebrated with bread and water. The sacraments of the Lord’s supper and baptism, as administered by the orthodox church, are repudiated and scorned, the latter as displaced by the only effectual baptism of the Spirit. They have, indeed, in order to avoid persecution, been obliged to take part in the services of the orthodox national church, and to confess to its priests, avoiding, however, all reference to the sect.[484]

§ 164. PHILOSOPHERS AND FREETHINKERS.[485]

The mediæval scholastic philosophy had outlived itself, even in the pre-Reformation age; yet it maintained a lingering existence side by side with those new forms which the modern spirit in philosophy was preparing for itself. We hear an echo of the philosophical ferment of the sixteenth century in the Italian Dominican Campanella, and in the Englishman Bacon of Verulam we meet the pioneer of that modern philosophy which had its proper founder in Descartes. Spinoza, Locke, and Leibnitz were in succession the leaders of this philosophical development. Alongside of this philosophy, and deriving its weapons from it for attack upon theology and the church, a number of freethinkers also make their appearance. These, like their more radical disciples in the following century, regarded Scripture as delusive, and nature and reason as alone trustworthy sources of religious knowledge.

§ 164.1. =Philosophy.=--=Campanella= of Stilo in Calabria entered the Dominican order, but soon lost taste for Aristotelian philosophy and scholastic theology, and gave himself to the study of Plato, the Cabbala, astrology, magic, etc. Suspected of republican tendencies, the Spanish government put him in prison in A.D. 1599. Seven times was he put upon the rack for twenty-four hours, and then confined for twenty-seven years in close confinement. Finally, in A.D. 1626, Urban VIII. had him transferred to the prison of the papal Inquisition. He was set free in A.D. 1629, and received a papal pension; but further persecutions by the Spaniards obliged him to fly to his protector Richelieu in France, where in A.D. 1639 he died. He composed eighty-two treatises, mostly in prison, the most complete being “_Philosophia Rationalis_,” in five vols. In his “_Atheismus Triumphatus_” he appears as an apologist of the Romish system, but so insufficiently, that many said _Atheismus Triumphans_ was the more fitting title. His “_Monarchia Messiæ_” too appeared, even to the Catholics, an abortive apology for the Papacy. In his “_Civitas Solis_,” an imitation of the “Republic” of Plato, he proceeded upon communistic principles.--=Francis Bacon of Verulam=, long chancellor of England, died A.D. 1626, the great spiritual heir of his mediæval namesake (§ 103, 8), was the first successful reformer of the plan of study followed by the schoolmen. With a prophet’s marvellous grasp of mind he organized the whole range of science, and gave a forecast of its future development in his “_De Augmentis_” and “_Novum Organon_.” He rigidly separated the domain of _knowledge_, as that of philosophy and nature, grasped only by experience, from the domain of _faith_, as that of theology and the church, reached only through revelation. Yet he maintained the position: _Philosophia obiter libata a Deo abducit, plene hausta ad Deum reducit_. He is the real author of empiricism in philosophy and the realistic methods of modern times. His public life, however, is clouded by thanklessness, want of character, and the taking of bribes. In A.D. 1621 he was convicted by his peers, deprived of his office, sentenced to imprisonment for life in the Tower, and to pay a fine of £40,000; but was pardoned by the king.[486]--The French Catholic =Descartes= started not from experience, but from self-consciousness, with his “_Cogito, ergo sum_” as the only absolutely certain proposition. Beginning with doubt, he rose by pure thinking to the knowledge of the true and certain in things. The imperfection of the soul thus discovered suggests an absolutely perfect Being, to whose perfection the attribute of being belongs. This is the ontological proof for the being of God.--His philosophy was zealously taken up by French Jansenists and Oratorians and the Reformed theologians of Holland, while it was bitterly opposed by such Catholics as Huetius and such Reformed theologians as Voetius.[487]--=Spinoza=, an apostate Jew in Holland, died A.D. 1677, gained little influence over his own generation by his profound pantheistic philosophy, which has powerfully affected later ages. A violent controversy, however, was occasioned by his “_Tractatus Theologico-politicus_,” in which he attacked the Christian doctrine of revelation and the authenticity of the O.T. books, especially the Pentateuch, and advocated absolute freedom of thought.[488]

§ 164.2. =John Locke=, died A.D. 1704, with his sensationalism took up a position midway between Bacon’s empiricism and Descartes’ rationalism, on the one hand, and English deism and French materialism, on the other. His “Essay concerning Human Understanding” denies the existence of innate ideas, and seeks to show that all our notions are only products of outer or inner experience, of sensation or reflection. In this treatise, and still more distinctly in his tract, “The Reasonableness of Christianity,” intended as an apology for Christianity, and even for biblical visions and miracles, as well as for the messianic character of Christ, he openly advocated pure Pelagianism that knows nothing of sin and atonement.[489]--=Leibnitz=, a Hanoverian statesman, who died A.D. 1716, introduced the new German philosophy in its first stage. The philosophy of Leibnitz is opposed at once to the theosophy of Paracelsus and Böhme and to the empiricism of Bacon and Locke, the pantheism of Spinoza, and the scepticism and manichæism of Bayle. It is indeed a Christian philosophy not fully developed. But inasmuch as at the same time it adopted, improved upon, and carried out the rationalism of Descartes, it also paved the way for the later theological rationalism. The foundation of his philosophy is the theory of monads wrought out in his “_Theodicée_” against Bayle and in his “_Nouveaux Essais_,” against Locke. In opposition to the atomic theory of the materialists, he regarded all phenomena in the world as eccentricities of so called monads, _i.e._ primary simple and indivisible substances, each of which is a miniature of the whole universe. Out of these monads that radiate out from God, the primary monad, the world is formed into a harmony once for all admired of God: the theory of pre-established harmony. This must be the best of worlds, otherwise it would not have been. In opposition to Bayle, who had argued in a manichæan fashion against God’s goodness and wisdom from the existence of evil, Leibnitz seeks to show that this does not contradict the idea of the best of worlds, nor that of the Divine goodness and wisdom, since finity and imperfection belong to the very notion of creature, a metaphysical evil from which moral evil inevitably follows, yet not so as to destroy the pre-established harmony. Against Locke he maintains the doctrine of innate ideas, contests Clarke’s theory of indeterminism, maintains the agreement of philosophy with revelation, which indeed is above but not contrary to reason, and hopes to prove his system by mathematical demonstration.[490]--Continuation, § 171, 10.

§ 164.3. =Freethinkers.=--The tendency of the age to throw off all positive Christianity first showed itself openly in England as the final outcome of Levellerism (§ 162, 2). This movement has been styled naturalism, because it puts natural in place of revealed religion, and deism, because in place of the redeeming work of the triune God it admits only a general providence of the one God. On philosophic grounds the English deists affirmed the impossibility of revelation, inspiration, prophecy, and miracle, and on critical grounds rejected them from the Bible and history. The simple religious system of deism embraced God, providence, freedom of the will, virtue, and the immortality of the soul. The Christian doctrines of the Trinity, original sin, satisfaction, justification, resurrection, etc., were regarded as absurd and irrational. Deism in England spread almost exclusively among upper-class laymen; the people and clergy stood firmly to their positive beliefs. Theological controversial tracts were numerous, but their polemical force was in great measure lost by the latitudinarianism of their authors.--The principal English deists of the century were

1. =Edward Herbert of Cherbury=, A.D. 1581-1648, a nobleman and statesman. He reduced all religion to five points: Faith in God, the duty of reverencing Him, especially by leading an upright life, atoning for sin by genuine repentance, recompense in the life eternal.

2. =Thomas Hobbes=, A.D. 1588-1679, an acute philosophical and political writer, looked on Christianity as an oriental phantom, and of value only as a support of absolute monarchy and an antidote to revolution. The state of nature is a _bellum omnium contra omnes_; religion is the means of establishing order and civilization. The state should decide what religion is to prevail. Every one may indeed believe what he will, but in regard to churches and worship he must submit to the state as represented by the king. His chief work is “Leviathan; or, The Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil.”

3. =Charles Blount=, who died a suicide in A.D. 1693, a rabid opponent of all miracles as mere tricks of priests, wrote “Oracles of Reason,” “_Religio Laici_,” “Great is Diana of the Ephesians,” and translated Philostratus’ “Life of Apollonius of Tyana.”

4. =Thomas Browne=, A.D. 1635-1682, a physician, who in his “_Religio Medici_” sets forth a mystical supernaturalism, took up a purely deistic ground in his “Vulgar Errors,” published three years later.

Among the opponents of deism in this age the most notable are Richard Baxter (§ 162, 3) and Ralph Cudworth, A.D. 1617-1688, a latitudinarian and Platonist, who sought to prove the leading Christian doctrines by the theory of innate ideas. He wrote “Intellectual System of the Universe” in A.D. 1678. The pious Irish scientist, Robert Boyle, founded in London, in A.D. 1691, a lectureship of £40 a year for eight discourses against deistic and atheistic unbelief.[491]--Continuation, § 171, 1.

§ 164.4. A tendency similar to that of the English deists was represented in Germany by =Matthias Knutzen=, who sought to found a freethinking sect. The Christian “Coran” contains only lies; reason and conscience are the true Bible; there is no God, nor hell nor heaven; priests and magistrates should be driven out of the world, etc. The senate of Jena University on investigation found that his pretension to 700 followers was a vain boast.--In France the brilliant and learned sceptic =Peter Bayle=, A.D. 1647-1706, was the apostle of a light-hearted unbelief. Though son of a Reformed pastor, the Jesuits got him over to the Romish church, but in a year and a half he apostatised again. He now studied the Cartesian philosophy, as Reformed professor at Sedan, vindicated Protestantism in several controversial tracts, and as refugee in Holland composed his famous “_Dictionnaire Historique et Critique_,” in which he avoided indeed open rejection of the facts of revelation, but did much to unsettle by his easy treatment of them.--Continuation, § 171, 3.

THIRD SECTION.

CHURCH HISTORY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.[492]

I. The Catholic Church in East and West.

§ 165. THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.

During the first half of the century the Roman hierarchy suffered severely at the hand of Catholic courts, while in the second half storms gathered from all sides, threatening its very existence. Portugal, France, Spain, and Italy rested not till they got the pope himself to strike the deathblow to the Jesuits, who had been his chief supporters indeed, but who had now become his masters. Soon after the German bishops threatened to free themselves and their people from Rome, and what reforms they could not effect by ecclesiastical measures the emperor undertook to effect by civil measures. Scarcely had this danger been overcome when the horrors of the French Revolution broke out, which sought, along with the Papacy, to overthrow Christianity as well. But, on the other hand, during the early decades of the century Catholicism had gained many victories in another way by the counter-reformation and conversions. Its foreign missions, however, begun with such promise of success, came to a sad end, and even the home missions faded away, in spite of the founding of various new orders. The Jansenist controversy in the beginning of the century entered on a new stage, the Catholic church being driven into open semi-Pelagianism, and Jansenism into fanatical excesses. The church theology sank very low, and the Catholic supporters of “_Illumination_” far exceeded in number those who had fallen away to it from Protestantism.

§ 165.1. =The Popes.=--=Clement XI.=, 1700-1721, protested in vain against the Elector Frederick III. of Brandenburg assuming the crown as King Frederick I. of Prussia, on Jan. 18th, A.D. 1701. In the Spanish wars of succession he sought to remain neutral, but force of circumstances led him to take up a position adverse to German interests. The new German emperor, Joseph I., A.D. 1705-1711, scorned to seek confirmation from the pope, and Clement consequently had the usual prayer for the emperor omitted in the church services. The relations became yet more strained, owing to a dispute about the _jus primarum precum_, Joseph claiming the right to revenues of vacancies as the patron. In A.D. 1707, the pope had the joy of seeing the German army driven out, not only of northern Italy, but also of Naples by the French. Again they came into direct conflict over Parma and Piacenza, Clement claiming them as a papal, the emperor claiming them as an imperial, fief. No pope since the time of Louis the Bavarian had issued the ban against a German emperor, and Clement ventured not to do so now. Refusing the invitation of Louis XIV. to go to Avignon, he was obliged either unconditionally to grant the German claims or to try the fortune of war. He chose the latter alternative. The miserable papal troops, however, were easily routed, and Clement was obliged, in A.D. 1708, to acknowledge the emperor’s brother, the Grand-duke Charles, as king of Spain, and generally to yield to Joseph’s very moderate demands. Clement was the author of the constitution _Unigenitus_, which introduced the second stage in the history of Jansenism. After the short and peaceful pontificate of =Innocent XIII.= A.D. 1721-1724, came =Benedict XIII.=, A.D. 1724-1730, a pious, well-meaning, narrow-minded man, ruled by a worthless favourite, Cardinal Coscia. He wished to canonize Gregory VII., in the fond hope of thereby securing new favour to his hierarchical views, but this was protested against by almost all the courts. All the greater was the number of monkish saints with which he enriched the heavenly firmament. He promised to all who on their death-bed should say, “Blessed be Jesus Christ,” a 2,000 years’ shortening of purgatorial pains. His successor =Clement XII.=, A.D. 1730-1740, deprived the wretched Coscia of his offices, made him disgorge his robberies, imposed on him a severe fine and ten years’ imprisonment, but afterwards resigned the management of everything to a greedy, grasping nephew. He was the first pope to condemn freemasonry, A.D. 1736. =Benedict XIV.=, A.D. 1740-1758, one of the noblest, most pious, learned, and liberal of the popes, zealous for the faith of his church, and yet patient with those who differed, moderate and wise in his political procedure, mild and just in his government, blameless in life. He had a special dislike of the Jesuits (§ 156, 12), and jestingly he declared, if, as the curialists assert, “all law and all truth” lie concealed in the shrine of his breast, he had not been able to find the key. He wrote largely on theology and canon law, founded seminaries for the training of the clergy, had many French and English works translated into Italian, and was a liberal patron of art. To check popular excesses he tried to reduce the number of festivals, but without success.--Continuation, in Paragraphs § 165, 9, 10, 13.

§ 165.2. =Old and New Orders.=--Among the old orders that of =Clugny= had amassed enormous wealth, and attempts made by its abbots at reformation led only to endless quarrels and divisions. The abbots now squandered the revenues of their cloisters at court, and these institutions were allowed to fall into disorder and decay. When, in A.D. 1790, all cloisters in France were suppressed, the city of Clugny bought the cloister and church for £4,000, and had them both pulled down.--The most important new orders were:

1. =The Mechitarist Congregation=, originated by Mechitar the Armenian, who, at Constantinople in A.D. 1701, founded a society for the religious and intellectual education of his countrymen; but when opposed by the Armenian patriarch, fled to the Morea and joined the United Armenians (§ 72, 2). In A.D. 1712 the pope confirmed the congregation, which, during the war with the Turks was transferred to Venice, and in A.D. 1717 settled on the island St. Lazaro [Lazzaro]. Its members spread Roman Catholic literature in Armenia and Armenian literature in the West. At a later time there was a famous Mechitarist college in Vienna, which did much by writing and publishing for the education of the Catholic youth.

2. =Frères Ignorantins=, or Christian Brothers, founded in A.D. 1725 by De la Salle, canon of Rheims, for the instruction of children, wrought in the spirit of the Jesuits through France, Belgium, and North America. After the expulsion of the Jesuits from France in A.D. 1724, they took their place there till themselves driven out by the Revolution in A.D. 1790.[493]

3. The =Liguorians or Redemptorists=, founded in A.D. 1732 by Liguori, an advocate, who became Bishop of Naples in A.D. 1762. He died in A.D. 1787 in his ninety-first year, was beatified by Pius VII. in A.D. 1816, and canonized by Gregory XVI. in A.D. 1839, and proclaimed _doctor ecclesiæ_ by Pius IX. in A.D. 1871 as a zealous defender of the immaculate conception and papal infallibility. His devotional writings, which exalt Mary by superstitious tales of miracles, were extremely popular in all Catholic countries. His new order was to minister to the poor. He declared the pope’s will to be God’s, and called for unquestioning obedience. Only after the founder’s death did it spread beyond Italy.--Continuation, § 186, 1.

§ 165.3. =Foreign Missions.=--In the accommodation controversy (§ 156, 12), the Dominicans prevailed in A.D. 1742; but the abolishing of native customs led to a sore persecution in China, from which only a few remnants of the church were saved. The Italian Jesuit Beschi, with linguistic talents of the highest order, sought in India to make use of the native literature for mission purposes and to place alongside of it a Christian literature. Here the Capuchins opposed the Jesuits as successfully as the Dominicans had in China. These strifes and persecutions destroyed the missions.--The Jesuit state of Paraguay (§ 156, 10) was put an end to in A.D. 1750 by a compact between Portugal and Spain. The revolt of the Indians that followed, inspired and directed by the Jesuits, which kept the combined powers at bay for a whole year, was at last quelled, and the Jesuits expelled the country in A.D. 1758.--Continuation § 186, 7.

§ 165.4. =The Counter-Reformation= (§ 153, 2).--Charles XII. of Sweden, in A.D. 1707, forced the Emperor Joseph I. to give the Protestants of =Silesia= the benefits of the Westphalian Peace and to restore their churches. But in =Poland= in A.D. 1717, the Protestants lost the right of building new churches, and in A.D. 1733 were declared disqualified for civil offices and places in the diet. In the Protestant city of Thorn the insolence of the Jesuits roused a rebellion which led to a fearful massacre in A.D. 1724. The Dissenters sought and obtained protection in Russia from A.D. 1767, and the partition of Poland between Russia, Austria, and Prussia in A.D. 1772 secured for them religious toleration. In =Salzburg= the archbishop, Count Firmian, attempted in A.D. 1729 a conversion of the evangelicals by force, who had, with intervals of persecution in the seventeenth century, been tolerated for forty years as quiet and inoffensive citizens. But in A.D. 1731 their elders swore on the host and consecrated salt (2 Chron. xiii. 5) to be true to their faith. This “covenant of salt” was interpreted as rebellion, and in spite of the intervention of the Protestant princes, all the evangelicals, in the severe winter of A.D. 1731, 1732, were driven, with inhuman cruelty, from hearth and home. About 20,000 of them found shelter in Prussian Lithuania; others emigrated to America. The pope praised highly “the noble” archbishop, who otherwise distinguished himself only as a huntsman and a drinker, and by maintaining a mistress in princely splendour.

§ 165.5. In =France= the persecution of the Huguenots continued (§ 153, 4). The “pastors of the desert” performed their duties at the risk of their lives, and though many fell as martyrs, their places were quickly filled by others equally heroic. The first rank belongs to Anton Court, pastor at Nismes from A.D. 1715; he died at Lausanne A.D. 1760, where he had founded a theological seminary. He laboured unweariedly and successfully in gathering and organizing the scattered members of the Reformed church, and in overcoming fanaticism by imparting sound instruction. Paul Rabaut, his successor at Nismes, was from A.D. 1730 to 1785 the faithful and capable leader of the martyr church. The judicial murder of =Jean Calas= at Toulouse in A.D. 1762 presents a hideous example of the fanaticism of Catholic France. One of his sons had hanged himself in a fit of passion. When the report spread that it was the act of his father, in order to prevent the contemplated conversion of his son, the Dominicans canonized the suicide as a martyr to the Catholic faith, roused the mob, and got the Toulouse parliament to put the unhappy father to the torture of the wheel. The other sons were forced to abjure their faith, and the daughters were shut up in cloisters. Two years later Voltaire called attention to the atrocity, and so wrought on public opinion that on the revision of the proceedings by the Parisian parliament, the innocence of the ill-used family was clearly proved. Louis XV. paid them a sum of 30,000 livres; but the fanatical accusers, the false witnesses, and the corrupt judges were left unpunished. This incident improved the position of the Protestants, and in A.D. 1787 Louis XVI. issued the Edict of Versailles, by which not only complete religious freedom but even a legal civil existence was secured them, which was confirmed by a law of Napoleon in A.D. 1802.

§ 165.6. =Conversions.=--Pecuniary interests and prospect of marriage with a rich heiress led to the conversion, in A.D. 1712, of Charles Alexander while in the Austrian service; but when he became Duke of Württemburg [Württemberg] he solemnly undertook to keep things as they were, and to set up no Catholic services in the country save in his own court chapel. Of other converts Winckelmann and Stolberg are the most famous. While Winckelmann, the greatest of art critics, not a religious but an artistic ultramontane, was led in A.D. 1754 through religious indifference into the Romish church, the warm heart of Von Stolberg was induced, mainly by the Catholic Princess Gallitzin (§ 172, 2) and a French emigrant, Madame Montague, to escape the chill of rationalism amid the incense fumes of the Catholic services.--Continuation, § 175, 7.

§ 165.7. =The Second Stage of Jansenism= (§ 157, 5).--=Pasquier Quesnel=, priest of the Oratory at Paris, suspected in 1675 of Gallicanism, because of notes in his edition of the works of Leo the Great, fled into the Netherlands, where he continued his notes on the N.T. Used and recommended by Noailles, Archbishop of Paris, and other French bishops, this “Jansenist” book was hated by the Jesuits and condemned by a brief of Clement XI. in A.D. 1708. The Jesuit confessor of Louis XIV., Le Tellier, selected 101 propositions from the book, and induced the king to urge their express condemnation by the pope. In the =Constitution Unigenitus= of A.D. 1713, Clement pronounced these heretical, and the king required the expulsion from parliament and church of all who refused to adopt this bull, which caused a division of the French church into _Acceptants_ and _Appellants_. As many of the condemned propositions were quoted literally by Quesnel from Augustine and other Fathers, or were in exact agreement with biblical passages, Noailles and his party called for an explanation. Instead of this the pope threatened them with excommunication. In A.D. 1715 the king died, and under the Duke of Orleans’ regency in A.D. 1717, four bishops, with solemn appeal to a general council, renounced the papal constitution as irreconcilable with the Catholic faith. They were soon joined by the Sorbonne and the universities of Rheims and Nantes, Archbishop Noailles, and more than twenty bishops, all the congregations of St. Maur and the Oratorians with large numbers of the secular clergy and the monks, especially of the Lazarists, Dominicans, Cistercians, and Camaldulensians. The pope, after vainly calling them to obey, thundered the ban against the Appellants in A.D. 1718. But the parliament took the matter up, and soon the aspect of affairs was completely changed. The regent’s favourite, Dubois, hoping to obtain a cardinal’s hat, took the side of the Acceptants and carried the duke with him, who got the parliament in 1720 to acknowledge the bull, with express reservation, however, of the Gallican liberties, and began a persecution of the Appellants. Under Louis XV. the persecution became more severe, although in many ways moderated by the influence of his former tutor, Cardinal Fleury. Noailles, who died in 1729, was obliged in 1728 to submit unconditionally, and in A.D. 1730 the parliament formally ratified the bull. Amid daily increasing oppression, many of the more faithful Jansenists, mostly of the orders of St. Maur and the Oratory, fled to the Netherlands, where they gave way more and more to fanaticism. In 1727 a young Jansenist priest, Francis of Paris, died with the original text of the appeal in his hands. His adherents honoured him as a saint, and numerous reports of miracles, which had been wrought at his grave in Medardus churchyard at Paris, made this a daily place of pilgrimage to thousands of fanatics. The excited enthusiasts, who fell into convulsions, and uttered prophecies about the overthrow of church and state, grew in numbers and, with that mesmeric power which fanaticism has been found in all ages to possess powerfully influenced many who had been before careless and profane. One of these was the member of parliament De Montgeron, who, from being a frivolous scoffer, suddenly, in 1732, fell into violent convulsions, and in a three-volumed work, “_La Vérité des Miracles Opérés par l’Intercession de François de Paris_,” 1737, came forward as a zealous apologist of the party. The government, indeed, in 1732 ordered the churchyard to be closed, but portions of earth from the grave of the saint continued to effect convulsions and miracles. Thousands of convulsionists throughout France were thrown into prison, and in 1752, Archbishop Beaumont of Paris, with many other bishops, refused the last sacrament to those who could not prove that they had accepted the constitution. The grave of “St. Francis,” however, was the grave of Jansenism, for fanatical excess contains the seeds of dissolution and every manifestation of it hastens the catastrophe. Yet remnants of the party lingered on in France till the outbreak of the Revolution, of which they had prophesied.

§ 165.8. =The Old Catholic Church in the Netherlands.=--The first Jesuits appeared in Holland in A.D. 1592. The form of piety fostered by superior and inferior clergy in the Catholic church there, a heritage from the times of the Brethren of the Common Life (§ 112, 9), was directed to the deepening of Christian thought and feeling; and this, as well as the liberal attitude of the Archbishop of Utrecht, awakened the bitter opposition of the Jesuits. At the head of the local clergy was Sasbold Vosmeer, vicar-general of the vacant archiepiscopal see of Utrecht. Most energetically he set himself to thwart the Jesuit machinations, which aimed at abolishing the Utrecht see and putting the church of Holland under the jurisdiction of the papal nuncio at Cologne. On the ground of suspicions of secret conspiracy Vosmeer was banished. But his successors refused to be overruled or set aside by the Jesuits. Meanwhile in France the first stage of the Jansenist controversy had been passed through. The Dutch authorities had heartily welcomed the condemned book of their pious and learned countryman; but when the five propositions were denounced, they agreed in repudiating them, without, however, admitting that they had been taught in the sense objected to by Jansen. The Jesuits, therefore, charged them with the Jansenist heresy, and issued in A.D. 1697 an anonymous pamphlet full of lying insinuations about the origin and progress of Jansenism in Holland. Its beginning was traced back to a visit of Arnauld to Holland in A.D. 1681, and its effects were seen in the circulation of prayer-books, tracts, and sermons, urging diligent reading of Scripture, in the depreciation of the worship of Mary, of indulgences, of images of saints and relics, rosaries and scapularies (§ 186, 2), processions and fraternities, in the rigoristic strictness of the confessional, the use of the common language of the country in baptism, marriage, and extreme unction, etc. The archbishop of that time, Peter Codde, in order to isolate him, was decoyed to Rome, and there flattered with hypocritical pretensions of goodwill, while behind his back his deposition was carried out, and an apostolic vicar nominated for Utrecht in the person of his deadly foe Theodore de Cock. But the chapter refused him obedience, and the States of Holland forbad him to exercise any official function, and under threat of banishment of all Jesuits demanded the immediate return of the archbishop. Codde was now sent down with the papal blessing, but a formal decree of deposition followed him. Meanwhile the government pronounced on his rival De Cock, who avoided a trial for high treason by flight, a sentence of perpetual exile. But Codde, though persistently recognised by his chapter as the rightful archbishop, withheld on conscientious grounds from discharging official duties down to his death in A.D. 1710. Amid these disputes the Utrecht see remained vacant for thirteen years. The flock were without a chief shepherd, the inferior clergy without direction and support, the people were wrought upon by Jesuit emissaries, and the vacant pastorates were filled by the nuncio of Cologne. Thus it came about that of the 300,000 Catholics remaining after the Reformation, only a few thousands continued faithful to the national party, while the rest became bitter and extreme ultramontanes, as the Catholic church of Holland still is. Finally, in A.D. 1723, the Utrecht chapter took courage and chose a new archbishop in the person of Cornelius Steenowen. Receiving no answer to their request for papal confirmation, the chapter, after waiting a year and a half, had him and also his three successors consecrated by a French missionary bishop, Varlet, who had been driven away by the Jesuits. But in order to prevent the threatened loss of legitimate consecration for future bishops after Varlet’s death in A.D. 1742, a bishop elected at Utrecht was in that same year ordained to the chapter of Haarlem, and in A.D. 1758 the newly founded bishopric of Deventer was so supplied. All these, like all subsequent elections, were duly reported to Rome, and a strictly Catholic confession from electors and elected sent up; but each time, instead of confirmation, a frightful ban was thundered forth. This, however, did not deter the Dutch government from formally recognising the elections.--Meanwhile the second and last act of the Jansenist tragedy had been played in France. Many of the persecuted Appellants sought refuge in Holland, and the welcome accorded them seemed to justify the long cherished suspicion of Jansenism against the people of Utrecht. They repelled these charges, however, by condemning the five propositions and the heresies of Quesnel’s book; but they expressly refused the bull of Alexander VII. and its doctrine of papal infallibility. This put a stop to all attempts at reconciliation. The church of Utrecht meanwhile prospered. At a council held at Utrecht in A.D. 1765 it styled itself “The Old Roman Catholic Church of the Netherlands,” acknowledged the pope, although under his anathema, as the visible head of the Christian church, accepted the Tridentine decrees as their creed, and sent this with all the acts of council to Rome as proof of their orthodoxy. The Jesuits did all in their power to overturn the formidable impression which this at first made there; and they were successful. Clement XIII. declared the council null, and those who took part in it hardened sons of Belial. But their church at this day contains, under one archbishop and two bishops, twenty-six congregations, numbering 6,000 souls.[494]--Continuation, § 200, 3.

§ 165.9. =Suppression of the Order of Jesuits, A.D. 1773.=--The Jesuits had striven with growing eagerness and success after worldly power, and instead of absolute devotion to the interests of the papacy, their chief aim was now the erection of an independent political and hierarchical dominion. Their love of rule had sustained its first check in the overthrow of the Jesuit state of Paraguay; but they had secured a great part of the world’s trade (§ 156, 13), and strove successfully to control European politics. The Jansenist controversy, however, had called forth against them much popular odium; Pascal had made them ridiculous to all men of culture, the other monkish orders were hostile to them, their success in trade roused the jealousy of other traders, and their interference in politics made enemies on every hand. The Portuguese government took the first decided step. A revolt in Paraguay and an attempt on the king’s life were attributed to them, and the minister Pombal, whose reforms they had opposed, had them banished from Portugal in A.D. 1759, and their goods confiscated. =Clement XIII.=, A.D. 1758-1769, chosen by the Jesuits and under their influence, protected them by a bull; but Portugal refused to let the bull be proclaimed, led the papal nuncio over the frontier, broke off all relations with Rome, and sent whole shiploads of Jesuits to the pope. France followed Portugal’s example when the general Ricci had answered the king’s demand for a reform of his orders: _Sint ut sunt, aut non sint_. For the enormous financial failure of the Jesuit La Valette, the whole order was made responsible, and at last, in A.D. 1764, banished from France as dangerous to the state. Spain, Naples, and Parma, too, soon seized all the Jesuits and transported them beyond the frontiers. The new papal election on the death of Clement XIII. was a life and death question with the Jesuits, but courtly influences and fears of a schism prevailed. The pious and liberal Minorite Ganganelli mounted the papal throne as =Clement XIV.=, A.D. 1769-1774. He began with sweeping administrative reforms, forbad the reading of the bull _In cœna Domini_ (§ 117, 3), and, pressed by the Bourbon court, issued in A.D. 1773 the bull _Dominus ac Redemtor Noster_ suppressing the Jesuit order. The order numbered 22,600 members and the pope felt, in granting the bull, that he endangered his own life. Next year he died, not without suspicion of poisoning. All the Catholic courts, even Austria, put the decree in force. But the heretic Frederick II. tolerated the order for a long time in Silesia, and Catherine II. and Paul I. in their Polish provinces.--=Pius VI.=, A.D. 1775-1799, in many respects the antithesis of his predecessor, was the secret friend of the exiled and imprisoned ex-Jesuits. After the outbreak of the French Revolution, a proposal was made at Rome, in A.D. 1792, for the formal restoration of the order, as a means of saving the seriously imperilled church, but it did not find sufficient encouragement.

§ 165.10. =Anti-hierarchical Movements in Germany and Italy.=--Even before Joseph II. could carry out his reforms in ecclesiastical polity, the noble elector =Maximilian Joseph III.=, A.D. 1745-1777, with greater moderation but complete success, effected a similar reform in the Jesuit-overrun Bavaria. Himself a strict Catholic, he asserted the supremacy of the state over a foreign hierarchy, and by reforming the churches, cloisters, and schools of his country he sought to improve their position. But under his successor, Charles Theodore, A.D. 1777-1799, everything was restored to its old condition.--Meanwhile a powerful voice was raised from the midst of the German prelates that aimed a direct blow at the hierarchical papal system. =Nicholas von Hontheim=, the suffragan Bishop of Treves, had under the name _Justinus Febronius_ published, in A.D. 1763, a treatise _De Statu Ecclesiæ_, in which he maintained the supreme authority of general councils and the independence of bishops in opposition to the hierarchical pretensions of the popes. It was soon translated into German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian. The book made a great impression, and Clement XIII. could do nothing against the bold defender of the liberties of the church. In A.D. 1778, indeed, Pius VI. had the poor satisfaction of extorting a recantation from the old man of seventy-seven years, but he lived to see yet more deadly storms burst upon the church. Urged by Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria, the pope, in A.D. 1785, had made Munich the residence of a nuncio. The episcopal electors of Mainz, Cologne, and Treves, and the Archbishop of Salzburg, seeing their archiepiscopal rights in danger, met in congress at Ems in A.D. 1786, and there, on the basis of the Febronian proofs, claimed, in the so called =Punctation of Ems=, practical independence of the pope and the restoration of an independent German national Catholic church. But the German bishops found it easier to obey the distant pope than the near archbishops. So they united their opposition with that of the pope, and the undertaking of the archbishops came to nothing.--More threatening still for the existence of the hierarchy was the reign of =Joseph II.= in Austria. German emperor from A.D. 1765, and co-regent with his mother Maria Theresa, he began, immediately on his succession to sole rule in A.D. 1780, a radical reform of the whole ecclesiastical institutions throughout his hereditary possessions. In A.D. 1781 he issued his =Edict of Toleration=, by which, under various restrictions, the Protestants obtained civil rights and liberty of worship. Protestant places of worship were to have no bells or towers, were to pay stole dues to the Catholic priests, in mixed marriages the Catholic father had the right of educating all his children and the Catholic mother could claim the education at least of her daughters. By stopping all episcopal communications with the papal curia, and putting all papal bulls and ecclesiastical edicts under strict civil control, the Catholic church was emancipated from Roman influences, set under a native clergy, and made serviceable in the moral and religious training of the people, and all her institutions that did not serve this end were abolished. Of the 2,000 cloisters, 606 succumbed before this decree, and those that remained were completely sundered from all connexion with Rome. In vain the bishops and Pius VI. protested. The pope even went to Vienna in A.D. 1782; but though received with great respect, he could make nothing of the emperor. Joseph’s procedure had been somewhat hasty and inconsiderate, and a reaction set in, led by interested parties, on the emperor’s early death in A.D. 1790.--The Grand-duke =Leopold of Tuscany=, Joseph’s brother, with the aid of the pious Bishop Scipio von Ricci, inclined to Jansenism, sought also in a similar way to reform the church of his land at the Synod of Pistoia, in A.D. 1786. But here too at last the hierarchy prevailed.

§ 165.11. =Theological Literature.=--The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, A.D. 1685, gave the deathblow to the French Reformed theology, but it also robbed Catholic theology =in France= of its spur and incentive. The Huguenot polemic against the papacy, and that of Jansenism against the semi-pelagianism of the Catholic church, were silenced; but now the most rabid naturalism, atheism, and materialism held the field, and the church theology was so lethargic that it could not attempt any serious opposition. Yet even here some names are worthy of being recorded. Above all, =Bernard de Montfaucon= of St. Maur, the ablest antiquarian of France, besides his classical works, issued admirable editions of Athanasius, Chrysostom, Origen’s “_Hexapla_,” and the “_Collectio Nova Patrum_.” =E. Renaudot=, a learned expert in the oriental languages, wrote several works in vindication of the “_Perpétuité de la Foi cath._,” a history of the Jacobite patriarchs of Alexandria, etc., and compiled a “_Collectio liturgiarum Oriental_,” in two vols. Of permanent worth is the “_Bibliotheca Sacra_” of the Oratorian =Le Long=, which forms an admirable literary-historical apparatus for the Bible. The learned Jesuit =Hardouin=, who pronounced all Greek and Latin classics, with few exceptions, to be monkish products of the thirteenth century, and denied the existence of all pre-Tridentine general councils, edited a careful collection of Acts of Councils in twelve vols. folio in Paris, 1715, and compiled an elaborate chronology of the Old Testament. His pupil, the Jesuit =Berruyer=, wrote a romancing “_Hist. du Peuple de Dieu_,” which, though much criticised, was widely read. Incomparably more important was the Benedictine =Calmet=, died A.D. 1757, whose “_Dictionnaire de la Bible_” and “_Commentaire Littéral et Critique_” on the whole Bible are really most creditable for their time. And, finally, the Parisian professor of medicine, =Jean Astruc=, deserves to be named as the founder of the modern Pentateuch criticism, whose “_Conjectures sur les Mémoires Originaux_,” etc., appeared in Brussels A.D. 1753.--Within the limits of the French Revolution the noble theosophist =St. Martin=, died A.D. 1805, a warm admirer of Böhme, wrote his brilliant and profound treatises.

§ 165.12. =In Italy= the most important contributions were in the department of history. =Mansi=, in his collection of Acts of Councils in thirty-one vols. folio, A.D. 1759 ff., and =Muratori=, in his “_Scriptores Rer. Italic._,” in twenty-eight vols., and “_Antiquitt. Ital. Med. Ævi_,” in six vols., show brilliant learning and admirable impartiality. =Ugolino=, in a gigantic work, “_Thesaurus Antiquitt. ss._,” thirty-four folio vols., A.D. 1744 ff., gathers together all that is most important for biblical archæology. The three =Assemani=, uncle and two nephews, cultured Maronites in Rome, wrought in the hitherto unknown field of Syrian literature and history. The uncle, Joseph Simon, librarian at the Vatican, wrote “_Bibliotheca Orientalis_,” in four vols., A.D. 1719 ff., and edited Ephraem’s [Ephraim’s] works in six vols. The elder nephew, Stephen Evodius, edited the “_Acta ss. Martyrum Orient. et Occid._,” in two vols., and the younger, Joseph Aloysius, a “_Codex Liturgicus Eccles. Univ._,” in thirteen vols. Among dogmatical works the “_Theologia hist.-dogm.-scholastica_,” in eight vols. folio, Rome, 1739, of the Augustinian =Berti= deserves mention. =Zaccaria= of Venice, in some thirty vols., proved an indefatigable opponent of Febronianism, Josephinism, and such-like movements, and a careful editor of older Catholic works. The Augustinian =Florez=, died A.D. 1773, did for =Spain= what Muratori had done for Italy in making collections of ancient writers, which, with the continuations of the brethren of his order, extended to fifty folio volumes.--In =Germany= the greatest Catholic theologian of the century was =Amort=. Of his seventy treatises the most comprehensive is the “_Theologia Eclectica, Moralis et Scholastica_,” in four vols. folio, A.D. 1752. He conducted a conciliatory polemic against the Protestants, contested the mysticism of Maria von Agreda (§ 156, 5), and vigorously controverted superstition, miracle-mongering, and all manner of monkish extravagances. To the time of Joseph II. belongs the liberal, latitudinarian supernaturalist =Jahn= of Vienna, whose “Introduction to the Old Testament,” and “Biblical Antiquities” did much to raise the standard of biblical learning. For his anti-clericalism he was deprived of his professorship in A.D. 1805, and died in A.D. 1816 a canon in Vienna. To this century also belongs the greatly blessed literary labours of the accomplished mystic, =Sailer=, beginning at Ingolstadt in A.D. 1777, and continued at Dillingen from A.D. 1784. Deprived in A.D. 1794 of his professorship on pretence of his favouring the Illuminati, it was not till A.D. 1799 that he was allowed to resume his academic work in Ingolstadt and Landshut. By numerous theological, ascetical, and philosophical tracts, but far more powerfully by his lectures and personal intercourse, he sowed the seeds of rationalism, which bore fruit in the teachings of many Catholic universities, and produced in the hearts of many pupils a warm and deep and at the same time a gentle and conciliatory Catholicism, which heartily greeted, even in pious Protestants, the foundations of a common faith and life. Compare § 187, 1.--Continuation, § 191.

§ 165.13. =The German-Catholic Contribution to the Illumination.=--The Catholic church of Germany was also carried away with the current of “the Illumination,” which from the middle of the century had overrun Protestant Germany. While the exorcisms and cures of Father Gassner in Regensburg were securing signal triumphs to Catholicism, though these were of so dubious a kind that the bishops, the emperor, and finally even the curia, found it necessary to check the course of the miracle worker, =Weishaupt=, professor of canon law in Ingolstadt, founded, in A.D. 1776, the secret society of the =Illuminati=, which spread its deistic ideas of culture and human perfectibility through Catholic South Germany. Though inspired by deadly hatred of the Jesuits, Weishaupt imitated their methods, and so excited the suspicion of the Bavarian government, which, in A.D. 1785, suppressed the order and imprisoned and banished its leaders.--Catholic theology too was affected by the rationalistic movement. But that the power of the church to curse still survived was proved in the case of the Mainz professor, =Laurence Isenbiehl=, who applied the passage about Immanuel, in Isaiah