Upon the whole, then, it seems impossible to establish on historical ground the theory of an uninterrupted transmission of the original faith from the primitive times to those of Luther. Indications of its occasional existence may be discovered, but no proof of its continuity. Yet is this no disparagement to those faithful witnesses, who were called into existence in the iron days of the Church. They bequeathed to their more fortunate successors their principles and their example. Nor were they in their own times without influence, nor even without peril to the pontifical predominance. Innocent III. did not despise their infancy: he beheld it, on the contrary, with such anxious apprehension, as to divert the engine, with which he was armed for other purposes, to their destruction. He knew the real character of his own despotism, and the secret of its weakness; and while, by his clamour for the crusades, he subdued the understanding of mankind, his own deeper penetration taught him, from what quarter the storm must really issue, which would finally overthrow his throne: and in the lineaments of that little cloud, which raised its prophetic hand in the horizon of heresy, he read the denunciation of future wrath, and heard the distant murmur of advancing reason. On the treatment of Heretics by the Church. III. It was not till the Popes had established their authority in most of the Courts of Europe, that the principles of persecution were displayed in their full extent, or the practice attended with much barbarity. The previous efforts of Alexander III. and Calixtus II. betrayed the disposition and showed the sting-but it was not yet armed and poisoned. The execution of the mystics of Orleans, at a still earlier period, was perpetrated by the king and the bishop, without any excuse of pontifical interference. In fact, the unity of the Church was not protected by the authorized use of the sword, until the reign of Innocent III. His great power enabled him not only to turn a casual storm against a particular sect of the heretics of the day; but to engage the temporal weapon, by a general and perpetual edict, in the service of the spiritual. The third Canon of the Lateran council, held by that Pontiff, contained an injunction to the effect, that temporal lords be admonished, and, if necessary, compelled by censures, to take a public oath to exterminate heretics from their territories. If any one, being thus required, shall refuse to purge his land, he shall be excommunicated by the Metropolitan and his suffragans; and if he shall give proofs of still further contumacy, the Pope shall absolve his subjects from their fealty*...' Of Roman Catholic writers, those who would willingly cleanse their Church from the stain of blood, and those who disapprove of its claims to temporal authority, are equally perplexed by this edict. But while there are some who affect to doubt its genuineness; while others affirm, that it was directed only against feudatories, not against the supreme Lord; others, that it was dictated by Innocent to a council so servile, as even to impeach its authority; others again, that it was only levelled against the contemporary here * The words are these:-'Si vero Dominus Temporalis requisitus et monitus ab ecclesia terram suam purgare neglexerit ab hac heretica fœditate, per metropolitanos et cæteros episcopos comprovinciales excommunicationis vinculo innodetur. Et si satisfacere contempserit infra annum, significetur hoc summo pontifici: et extunc ipse vassallos ab ejus fidelitate denuntiet absolutos, et terram exponet catholicis occupendam...salvo jure domini principalis, dummodo super hoc ipse nullum præstet obstaculum, nec aliquod impedimentum opponat: eadem nihilominus lege servata circa eos, qui non habent dominos principales.' See Labb. Concil. Collect. tom. xxii. p. 981, et seq., et supra chap. xviii. p. 349. tics, whose detested Manicheism deserved the sentence-a more plausible excuse may be alleged in the consent or silence of the princes and ambassadors, who were present at the council. In fact, on Innocent's death, which followed soon afterwards, Honorius, his successor, applied to Frederic II. to insert the Canon among the constitutions of the empire. He did so. And having thus embarked the State in the same conspiracy with the Church, and degraded it, besides, to be the mere executioner of the sentences of its accomplice, he loaded the former with ignominy, and shared without in any respect diminishing the guilt of the latter. Henceforward, the ecclesiastical and civil authorities legally and systematically co-operated in the destruction of many bold and virtuous spirits, who for three successive centuries asserted, under different forms and names, the private right of reading and interpreting the Gospel. Henceforward, the secular arm was ever in subservient attendance on the decisions of sacerdotal barbarity; and it was in this subordinate ministry of an independent power, that the real executioners found a pretext to proclaim their own unsullied charity-that their hands, at least, were undefiled; that the Church was merciful and long-suffering, and that the penal flames were lighted by the vengeance of the temporal powers! The Inquisition embodied the principles and practice of persecution : and, notwithstanding the abhorrence which it raised in some places, it was an engine of good service in protecting the Unity of the Roman Catholic Church. That fatal principle, of which the name, at least, and even the seeds may be traced to the earliest ages, occasioned more than half the crimes that stain the ecclesiastical annals. Every hope of salvation was confined to the bosom of the Church; should any dare to abandon that exclusive sanctuary, their heritage was eternal perdition-if, then, by the fear or endurance of mere temporary torture men could be preserved from eternal inflictions, was not the office salutary? was not the duty peremptory? Alas! for the presumption of those who were sincere in this profession. But, if any there were who falsely joined the cry, with no further object, than to support the system by which they profited, there may be pardon reserved for them in the mercy of God, but there is no term in the vocabulary of crime which can express their guilt. It would be an insult on human nature not to suppose, that among the ministers of the Roman Church there were many, who individually abhorred the practice, and softened by their private tolerance the rigour of the ecclesiastical code. But the high and dominant party in the Church was always that, which stretched the principle of its Unity' to its extreme length, and pursued the victims of that principle with as much severity, as the policy of princes and the endurance of the laity would permit. As in the thirteenth century, so was it in the fifteenth ; as in the Lateran, so was it in the halls of Constance; as with Innocent, so with Gerson and Clemangis, and the reformers of Innocent's abuses*. The *It must not be understood that Innocent III. deliberately corrupted, or even relaxed, the ecclesiastical discipline-on the contrary, he published many excellent decrees for its severer observance only, by unduly aggrandizing papal authority he rendered those decrees in effect nugatory. Thus, for instance, respecting the abuses of pluralities and non-residence the fourteenth canon of the Third Lateran Council (held by Alexander III.) denounced both those practices in very strong terms, as in direct violation of the ancient canons-and added: Cum igitur ecclesia, vel ecclesiasticum ministerium committi debuerit, talis ad hoc persona quæratur, quæ residere in loco, et curam ejus per seipsum valeat exercere -on the penalty of deprivation to the minister, and loss of patronage to the patron. Innocent III., thirty-six years afterwards, published a canon (the twenty spirit possessed the Church: thence it emanated and swelled the bosoms of its ministers; and the more devoted was the individual to the service of that Church, the more thoroughly was his soul impregnated with the venom. It was not, that even these Ecclesiastics were necessarily destitute of private virtues, or that they lost, in the exercise of official barbarity, all sense of justice and all feeling of mercy. They might be compassionate, they might even be charitable. It might be, that they were only cruel and unjust, and uncharitable, in as far as they were imbued with the high ecclesiastical principle-in as far as they identified the religion of the Gospel with their own modification of it-in as far as they mistook the interests of their order for the honour of Christ. A practice sanctified by the authority, and enforced by the zeal of the sacred body, found innumerable advocates among the laity, and it was never in more general favour, than at the end of the fifteenth century. Even the philosophers of that age were hostile to the exercise, or perhaps ignorant of the name, of tolerance. The Popes pressed with unrelenting rigour the hereditary usage; and the arm of the Inquisition was lengthened, and its ingenuity sharpened and refined. In the rarity of Christian* victims-for the Hussites were not victims, but enemies and warriorsattention was turned to the perversity of the Jews; and Sixtus IV., Innocent VIII. and Alexander VI. added to their other offences the crime of persecution. Persecution was, indeed, at this time almost the only proof which the Court of Rome affected to exhibit of its attachment to religion. It was become the apparent object of the spiritual government; and the perpetrator of every enormity sought atonement for his guilt in the blood of the misbeliever. It was become a part of ecclesiastical morality; and it was now founded not so much on hostility to any particular opinion, or any bigoted belief in the opposite, as on the determination, that no new opinion should be broached with impunity. It was not against the results of thought, but against the liberty of thinking, that the bolts were now really levelled. The rebellion was more detestable than the heresy; and the wretches, who dared to plead their Bible against their Church, were marked out, not for conversion, but for massacret. ninth) in the Fourth Lateran, on the same subject. Herein, he referred to the law of Alexander, mentioned the little fruit which it had produced, and decreed in confirmation of it, ut quicunque receperit aliquod beneficium habens curam animarum annexam, si prius tale beneficium obtinebat, eo sit jure ipso privatus: et si forte illud retinere contenderit, alio etiam spolietur.' He added, moreover, that no one should hold two dignities in the same church, even without cure of souls. But then he concluded with a salvo, which Alexander had not interposed, in favour of the Pope's dispensing power; Circa sublimes tamen et literatas personas, quæ majoribus sunt beneficiis honorandæ, cum ratio postulaverit, per sedem apostolicam poterit dispensari.' *It should not, however, be forgotten that the Vaudois suffered several severe outrages during this period. In 1400 they were attacked in the Valley of Pragela and driven to the summits of the mountains, where many died from starvation. In 1460 the Separatists in the Val Fressinière (on the French side) were persecuted by a Franciscan, under the authority of the Archbishop of Ambrun. Every thing that fraud and calumny could invent seems on that occasion to have been practised against them. In 1487 and 1488 fresh bulls were issued, followed by military violence. Albert de Capitaneis, Archdeacon of Cremona, was deputed by Innocent VIII. to command the attack. But the fortune of war appears for this time to have favoured the oppressed. See Milner, Cent. xiii. chap. iii. On ne voulait point convertir les Bohémiens (says Sismondi), on voulait les traîner sur le bûcher.' We may plead the authority of that historian for the justice of some of these last remarks. See likewise Semler, Secul. xv. cap. iii. p. 51, &c. &c. Still it should be observed, that a certain latitude of private judgment, on certain subjects, was The end, being holy, sanctified the means; and in pursuing the details of religious warfare, we shall commonly observe, that, if the deeds of pure atrocity are equally balanced, the superiority in fraud, perfidy and perjury, is without any comparison on the side of the Catholics. Some individual IV. It is needless here to repeat the names of the anti-papal adherents of Louis the Bavarian, or of the more eminent reformers of Constance and Basle. Nor shall we recur to the premature, but not fruitless, efforts of Wiclif and Huss. But it is proper to make some mention of those individuals who were distinguished for their opposition to ecclesiastical abuses during the latter part of the fifteenth century. These were the immediate precursors of Luther; and though differing on many matters from each other and from him; and though his inferiors in evangelical wisdom, in intellectual power and personal character, they were not without their use in preparing the path for his triumph. In 1479, John of Wesalia incurred, by some opinions unfavourable to the pretensions of the hierarchy, the indignation of the Monastic Orders. He pronounced indulgences to be of no avail— that the Pope, bishops and priests were not instruments John of Wesalia. for the obtaining of salvation. He spoke with disparagement of the fasts, of the holy oil, of pilgrimages, of the Pope and his Councils. He advocated the Greek doctrine on the procession of the Holy Ghost. Moreover, he was a zealous Nominalist, at a moment when the violence of the rival scholastics equalled any recorded display of theological rancour. He was brought to trial; among his judges Monks and Realists preponderated; if Christ (said he) were now present, and ye were to treat him as ye treat me, He might be condemned by you as a heretic.' He was pronounced guilty; and, in spite of a tardy retractation, was committed to penitential confinement in a monastery, where he presently died. John Wesselus, of Gröningen, was more eminent in genius and learning, and more fortunate in the circumstances of his John Wesselus. fate; since he enjoyed the friendship of Sixtus IV., and died in peace (in 1489) in his native city. His general attainments were such as to acquire for him the title of the Light of the World;' and among the numerous witnesses of the truth*, it is he who has been more peculiarly designated the Forerunner of generally indulged to the members of the Church, as, for instance, to many Mystics; but this was either when the 'Latitudinarians' were in themselves deemed innocent, or when the opinions touched none of the essentials of the ecclesiastical system, none of the sources of dignity, revenue, &c. Thus, for example, in the dispute between Luther and Cardinal Carvajal, there were two grand subjects of difference, indulgences and justification. Luther was disposed to attach by far the highest importance to the latter; but the Cardinal assured him, that if he would retract his error respecting indulgences, the other affair could be easily arranged. The Catalogus Testium Veritatis,' by Flacius, is intended, we presume, to contain every name and thing which has in any age and by any means done any ill to Papacy. Out of the various particulars of this Catalogue (which begins with Sacra Scriptura and ends with Concilia XV. Seculi), we select as specimens the following names:-Constantine, Gregory the Great, Bede, Charlemagne, Claudius of Turin, Hinemar, Paschasius Radbertus, Otho Frisingensis, Nicholaus Örem., Scotus, Occam, Dante, Petrarch, Wiclif, Gerson, Ziska, Peter of Luna, Æneas Sylvius, Platina, Trithemius, Wesalia, Wesselus, Savonarola, Machiavel, and above all Germania vulgus. Reasons are alleged under each of these names for its insertion in the honourable list. Luther. The resemblance between them was, indeed, remarkable, not only as to the conclusions at which they arrived, but as to the steps by which they reached them. Insomuch, that Luther himself, in a preface, in which he recommended to more general attention some of the works of Wesselus, used the following expressions: It is very plain that he was taught of God, as Isaiah prophesied that Christians should be ; and as in my case, so with him, it cannot be supposed that he received his doctrines from men. If I had read his works before, my enemies might have supposed that I had learnt every thing from Wesselus, such a perfect coincidence there is in our opinions. As to myself, I not only derive pleasure, but strength and courage from this publication. It is now impossible for me to doubt, whether I am right in the points which I have inculcated, when I see so entire an agreement in sentiment, and almost the same words used by this eminent person, who lived in a different age, in a distant country, and in circumstances very unlike my own. I am surprised that this excellent Christian writer should be so little known-the reason may be that he lived without blood and contention, for this is the only thing in which he differed from me.....' This was written in 1522, when Luther had made some progress towards evangelical perfection. His testimony makes it unnecessary to particularize the opinions of Wesselus; but we may relate one anecdote respecting him, which proves that the humble, unambitious spirit of the Gospel had penetrated to his heart, and influenced his conduct under powerful temptation. When Sixtus IV. was raised to the chair, not forgetful of his antient friendship with Wesselus, he offered to grant him any request. Wesselus replied by a solemn exhortation to the Pontiff, faithfully to discharge his weighty duties. That (replied Sixtus) shall be my care: but do you ask something for yourself. Then (rejoined Wesselus), I beg you to give me out of the Vatican library, a Greek and a Hebrew bible.'-' You shall have them (said Sixtus); but, is not this folly? Why do you not ask for some Bishopric, or something of that sort? Because I want not such things.'-It is recorded, that the Hebrew Bible, which was given in consequence of this dialogue, was long preserved in the library at Gröningen*. John Laillier, licentiate in theology, advanced, at Paris, in July, 1485, various offensive positions, derogating from the power and primacy of St. Peter; asserting an equality of ranks John Laillier. in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, the uselessness of even pontifical indulgences, and the human institution of confession. He argued, that the decrees and decretals were mere mockeries, that the Roman Church was not the key of the other churches, with other matters of a like nature, and he defended his opinions in public disputation against the doctors of the Sorbonne. We find nine of his propositions expressly specified, together with the censure affixed to each of them, and we shall here insert two or three of the most curious :-) :-Pro Hæc nobis erunt curæ; tu pro te aliquod pete. Rogo, ergo, inquit Wesselus, ut mihi detis ex Bibliotheca Vaticana Græca et Hebræa Biblia. Ea, inquit Sextus, tibi dabuntur-Sed tu stultè; quare non petis episcopatum aliquem, aut simile quidpiam ? Respondit Wesselus, quia iis non indigeo.' See Vita Wesseli inter Vitas Professorum Groningens. The story is there related as one, that was frequently told by Wesselus himself. Some valuable abstracts from the writings of this reformer are given by Milner, History of the Church, end of cent. xv. and Semler, cent. xv. cap. iv. p. 212219. Bayle calls him 'un des plus habiles hommes du quinzième siècle.' |