History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century Volume I Part 1

History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century.

Volume 1.

by J. H. Merle D'Aubigne.

PREFACE TO THE LAST EDITION.

My purpose is not to write the history of a party, but that of one of the greatest revolutions which has taken place among men--the history of a mighty impulse which was given to the world three centuries ago, and the influence of which is still, in our day, every where perceived. The history of the Reformation is different from the history of Protestantism. In the former, every thing bears testimony to a revival of human nature, to a transformation, social and religious, emanating from G.o.d. In the latter are too often seen a remarkable degeneracy from primitive principles, party intrigue, a sectarian spirit, and the impress of petty private feelings. The history of Protestantism might interest none but Protestants; the history of the Reformation is for all Christians, or rather all men.

The historian has a choice in the field in which he is to labour. He may describe the great events which change the face of a people, or the face of the world; or he may narrate the calm and progressive course, whether of a nation, the Church, or mankind, which usually follows great social changes. Both fields of history are highly important; but the preference, in point of interest, seems due to those epochs which, under the name of Revolutions, introduce a nation or society at large to a new era and a new life.

Such a transformation I have attempted to describe with very humble powers, hoping that the beauty of the subject will compensate for my want of ability. In styling it a _Revolution_, I give it a name which in our day is in discredit with many, who almost confound it with _revolt_. This is a mistake. A revolution is a change which takes place in the world's affairs. It is something new evolved (_revolvo_) from the bosom of humanity; and, indeed, before the end of the last century, the term was oftener used in a good than a bad sense. They spoke of "a happy," a "marvellous" revolution. The Reformation being a re-establishment of the principles of primitive Christianity, is the opposite of a revolt. For that which behoved to revive it was a regenerating--for that which must always subsist, a conservative movement. Christianity and the Reformation, while establis.h.i.+ng the grand principle that all souls are equal in the sight of G.o.d, and overthrowing the usurpations of a haughty priesthood, which presumed to place itself between the Creator and his creature, lay it down as a fundamental principle of social order, that all power is of G.o.d, and cry aloud to all, "Love your brethren, fear G.o.d, honour the king."

The Reformation differs essentially from the revolutions of antiquity, and from the greater part of those of modern times. In these, political changes are in question, and the object is to establish or overthrow the ascendancy of one, or it may be of many. The love of truth, of holiness, and eternity, was the simple, yet powerful, spring by which our Reformation was effected. It marks a step which human nature has taken in advance. In fact, if man, instead of pursuing only material, temporal, earthly interests, proposes to himself a higher aim, aspiring to immaterial and immortal blessings, he advances and makes progress. The Reformation is one of the brightest days of this glorious advance. It is a pledge that the new struggle, which is now being decided, will terminate in favour of truth, with a triumph still more pure, spiritual, and splendid.

Christianity and the Reformation are the two greatest revolutions on record. Unlike the different political movements of which we read, they took place not in one nation merely, but in several nations, and their effects must be felt to the end of the world.

Christianity and the Reformation are the same revolution, effected at different times, and under different circ.u.mstances. They vary in secondary features, but are identical in their primary and princ.i.p.al lineaments. The one is a repet.i.tion of the other. The one ended the old, the other began the new world; the middle ages lie between. The one gave birth to the other, and if, in some respects, the daughter bears marks of inferiority, she on the other hand has her own peculiar properties.

One of these is the rapidity of her action. The great revolutions which have issued in the fall of a monarchy, and the change of a whole political system, or which have thrown the human mind on a new course of development, were slowly and gradually prepared. The old power had long been undermined, and its princ.i.p.al b.u.t.tresses had one after another disappeared. It was so on the introduction of Christianity.

But the Reformation is seen, at the first glance, to present a different aspect. The Church of Rome appears, under Leo X, in all its power and glory. A monk speaks, and over the half of Europe this power and glory crumble away, thus reminding us of the words in which the Son of G.o.d announces his second advent: "As the lightning cometh out of the east, and s.h.i.+neth even unto the west, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." (Matth., xxiv, 27.)

This rapidity is inexplicable to those who see, in this great event, only a _reform_, and regard it as simply an act of criticism, which consisted in making a choice among doctrines, discarding some, retaining others, and arranging those retained, so as to form them into a new system.

How could a whole nation, how could several nations, have so quickly performed an operation so laborious? How could this critical examination have kindled that fire of enthusiasm which is essential to great, and, above all, to rapid revolutions? The Reformation, as its history will show, was altogether different. It was a new effusion of the life which Christianity brought into the world. It was the triumph of the greatest of doctrines, that which animates those who embrace it with the purest and strongest enthusiasm--the doctrine of faith, the doctrine of grace. Had the Reformation been what many Catholics and many Protestants in our day imagine,--had it been that negative system of negative reason, which childishly rejects whatever displeases it, and loses sight of the great ideas and great truths of Christianity, it had never pa.s.sed the narrow limits of an academy, a cloister, or a cell. It had nothing in common with what is generally understood by Protestantism. Far from being a worn-out, emaciated body, it rose up like a man of might and fire.

Two considerations explain the rapidity and the extent of this revolution. The one must be sought in G.o.d, the other among men. The impulse was given by a mighty and invisible hand, and the change effected was a Divine work. This is the conclusion at which an impartial and attentive observer, who stops not at the surface, necessarily arrives. But the historian's task is not finished; for G.o.d works by second causes. A variety of circ.u.mstances, many of them unperceived, gradually prepared men for the great transformation of the sixteenth century, and, accordingly, the human mind was ripe when the hour of its emanc.i.p.ation pealed.

The task of the historian is to combine these two great elements in the picture which he presents, and this has been attempted in the present history. We shall be easily understood, when we come to trace the second causes which contributed to the Reformation, but some perhaps will not understand us so well, and will even be tempted to tax us with superst.i.tion, when we attribute the accomplishment of the work to G.o.d. The idea, however, is particularly dear to us. This history, as indicated by the inscription on its t.i.tle-page, places in front and over its head the simple and prolific principle, G.o.d IN HISTORY. But this principle being generally neglected, and sometimes disputed, it seems necessary to expound our views with regard to it, and thereby justify the method which we have seen it proper to adopt.

History cannot, in our day, be that lifeless series of events which the greater part of previous historians deemed it sufficient to enumerate. It is now understood that in history as in man are two elements, matter and spirit. Our great historians, unable to satisfy themselves with a detail of facts, const.i.tuting only a barren chronicle, have sought for a principle of life to animate the materials of past ages.

Some have borrowed this principle from art, aiming at vivid, faithful, and graphic description, and endeavouring to make their narrative live with the life of the events themselves.

Others have applied to philosophy for the spirit which should give fruit to their labours. To facts they have united speculative views, instructive lessons, political and philosophical truths, enlivening their narrative by the language which they have made it speak, and the ideas which it has enabled them to suggest.

Both methods doubtless are good, and should be employed within certain limits. But there is another source to which, above all others, it is necessary to apply for the spirit and life of the past--I mean Religion. History should be made to live with its own proper life. G.o.d is this life. G.o.d must be acknowledged--G.o.d proclaimed--in history.

The history of the world should purport to be annals of the government of the Supreme King.

I have descended into the field to which the narratives of our historians invited me, and there seen the actions of men and of states in energetic development and violent collision: of the clang of arms, I have heard more than I can tell; but no where have I been shown the majestic form of the Judge who sits umpire of the combat.

And yet in all the movements of nations, there is a living principle which emanates from G.o.d. G.o.d is present on the vast stage on which the generations of men successively appear. True! He is there a G.o.d invisible; but if the profane mult.i.tude pa.s.s carelessly by, because He is concealed, profound intellects, spirits which feel a longing for the principle of their existence, seek him with so much the more earnestness, and are not satisfied until they are prostrated before Him. And their enquiries are magnificently rewarded. For, from the heights which they must reach in order to meet with G.o.d, the history of the world, instead of exhibiting to them, as to the ignorant crowd, a confused chaos, is seen like a majestic temple, on which the invisible hand of G.o.d himself is at work, and which, from humanity, as the rock on which it is founded, is rising up to his glory.

Shall we not see G.o.d in those great phenomena, those great personages, those great states, which rise, and suddenly, so to speak, spring from the dust of the earth, giving to human life a new impulse, form, and destiny? Shall not we see Him in those great heroes who start up in society, at particular epochs, displaying an activity and a power beyond the ordinary limits of man, and around whom individuals and nations come without hesitation, and group themselves as around a higher and mysterious nature? Who flung forward into s.p.a.ce those comets of gigantic form and fiery tail, which only appear at long intervals, shedding on the superst.i.tious herd of mortals either plenty and gladness, or pestilence and terror? Who, if not G.o.d?... Alexander seeks his origin in the abodes of Divinity; and in the most irreligious age there is no great renown which strives not to connect itself in some way with heaven.

And do not those revolutions, which cast down dynasties, or even whole kingdoms into the dust; those huge wrecks which we fall in with in the midst of the sands; those majestic ruins which the field of humanity presents, do not those cry loud enough, G.o.d in History? Gibbon, sitting amid the wrecks of the Capitol, and contemplating the venerable ruins, acknowledges the intervention of a higher power. He sees, he feels it, and in vain would turn away from it. This spectre of a mysterious power reappears behind each ruin, and he conceives the idea of describing its influence in the history of the disorganisation, the decline and fall of this Roman power, which had subjugated the nations. This powerful hand, which a man of distinguished genius, one, however, who had not bent the knee before Jesus Christ, perceives athwart scattered fragments of the tomb of Romulus, reliefs of Marcus Aurelius, busts of Cicero and Virgil, statues of Caesar and Augustus, trophies of Trajan, and steeds of Pompey, shall not we discover amid all ruins, and recognise as the hand of our G.o.d?

Strange! this interposition of G.o.d in human affairs, which even Pagans had recognised, men reared amid the grand ideas of Christianity treat as superst.i.tion.

The name which Grecian antiquity gave to the Sovereign G.o.d, shows us that it had received primitive revelations of this great truth of a G.o.d, the source of history, and of the life of nations. It called him _Zeus_,[1] that is to say, He who gives _life_ to all that lives, to individuals and nations. To his altars kings and subjects come to take their oaths, and from his mysterious inspirations Minos and other legislators pretend to have received their laws. Nay more, this great truth is figured by one of the most beautiful myths of Pagan antiquity. Even Mythology might teach the sages of our day. This is a fact which it may be worth while to establish; perhaps there are individuals who will oppose fewer prejudices to the lessons of Paganism than to those of Christianity. This Zeus, then, this Sovereign G.o.d, this Eternal Spirit, the principle of life, is father of Clio, the Muse of History, whose mother is Mnemosyne or Memory.

Thus, according to antiquity, history unites a celestial to a terrestrial nature. She is daughter of G.o.d and man. But, alas! the short-sighted wisdom of our boasted days is far below those heights of Pagan wisdom. History has been robbed of her divine parent, and now an illegitimate child, a bold adventurer, she roams the world, not well knowing whence she comes, or whither she goes.

[1] From ?a?, I live.

But this divinity of Pagan antiquity is only a dim reflection, a flickering shadow of the Eternal Jehovah. The true G.o.d whom the Hebrews wors.h.i.+p, sees meet to imprint it on the minds of all nations that he reigns perpetually on the earth, and for this purpose gives, if I may so express it, a bodily form to this reign in the midst of Israel. A visible Theocracy behoved for once to exist on the earth, that it might incessantly recall the invisible Theocracy which will govern the world for ever.

And what l.u.s.tre does not the great truth--G.o.d in History--receive from the Christian Dispensation? Who is Jesus Christ, if he be not G.o.d in History? It was the discovery of Jesus Christ that gave John Muller, the prince of modern historians, his knowledge of history. "The Gospel," he says, "is the fulfilment of all hopes, the finis.h.i.+ng point of all philosophy, the explanation of all revolutions, the key to all the apparent contradictions of the physical and moral world; in short, life and immortality. Ever since I knew the Saviour, I see all things clearly; with him there is no difficulty which I cannot solve."[2]

[2] Letter to Charles Bonnet.

So speaks this great historian; and, in truth, is not the fact of G.o.d's appearance in human nature the key-stone of the arch, the mysterious knot which binds up all the things of earth, and attaches them to heaven? There is a birth of G.o.d in the history of the world, and shall G.o.d not be in history? Jesus Christ is the true G.o.d in the history of men. The very meanness of his appearance proves it. When man wishes to erect a shade or shelter on the earth, you may expect preparations, materials, scaffolding, workmen, tools, trenches, rubbish. But G.o.d, when he is pleased to do it, takes the smallest seed, which a new-born babe could have clasped in its feeble hand, deposits it in the bosom of the earth, and, from this grain, at first imperceptible, produces the immense tree under which the families of the earth recline. To do great things by imperceptible means is the law of G.o.d.

In Jesus Christ this law receives its most magnificent fulfilment. Of Christianity, which has now taken possession of the portals of nations, which is, at this moment, reigning or wandering over all the tribes of the earth from the rising to the setting sun, and which incredulous philosophy herself is obliged to acknowledge as the spiritual and social law of the world--of this Christianity, (the greatest thing under the vault of heaven, nay, in the boundless immensity of Creation,) what was the commencement? An infant born in the smallest town of the most despised nation of the earth--an infant whose mother had not what the poorest and most wretched female in any one of our cities has, a room for birth--an infant born in a stable and laid in a manger!... There, O G.o.d, I behold and I adore Thee!

The Reformation knew this law of G.o.d, and felt she had a call to accomplish it. The idea that G.o.d is in history was often brought forward by the Reformers. In particular, we find it on one occasion expressed by Luther, under one of those grotesque and familiar, yet not undignified figures which he was fond of employing in order to be understood by the people. "The world," said he one day at table among his friends; "the world is a vast and magnificent game at cards, consisting of emperors, kings, and princes. For several ages the pope has beaten the emperors, princes, and kings, who stooped and fell under him. Then our Lord G.o.d came and dealt the cards, taking to himself the smallest, [Luther,] and with it has beaten the pope, who beat the kings of the earth.... G.o.d used it as his ace. 'He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree,'

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

The period whose history I am desirous to trace, is important with reference to the present time. Man, on feeling his weakness, is usually disposed to seek for aid in the inst.i.tutions which he sees existing around him, or in devices, the offspring of his own imagination. The history of the Reformation shows that nothing new is done with what is old, and that if, according to our Saviour's expression, there must be new vessels for new wine, there must also be new wine for new vessels. It directs man to G.o.d, the sole actor in history--to that divine Word--always ancient, from the eternity of the truths which it contains--always new, by the regenerating influence which it exerts, which three centuries ago purified society, restoring faith in G.o.d to those whom superst.i.tion had enfeebled; and which, at all epochs in the world's history, is the source from which salvation proceeds.

It is singular to see a great number of individuals under the agitation produced by a vague longing for some fixed belief, actually applying to old Catholicism. In one sense, the movement is natural.

Religion being so little known, they imagine the only place to find it is where they see it painted, in large characters, on a banner, which age makes respectable. We say not that every kind of Catholicism is incapable of giving man what he wants. Our belief is, that a distinction should be carefully drawn between Catholicism and the Papacy. The Papacy we hold to be an erroneous and destructive system; but we are far from confounding Catholicism with it. How many respectable men, how many true Christians has not the Catholic Church contained! What immense services did not Catholicism render to existing states on their first formation, at a time when it was still strongly impregnated with the Gospel, and when the Papacy was only sketched above it in faint outline! But we are far away from those times. In our day an attempt is made to yoke Catholicism to the Papacy; and if catholic Christian truths are presented, they are little else than baits to allure men into the nets of the hierarchy.

There is nothing to be expected from that quarter. Has the papacy abandoned one of its practices, its doctrines, its pretensions? Will not this religion, which other ages were unable to bear, be still less tolerable to ours? What revival was ever seen to emanate from Rome? Is it from the Papal hierarchy, all engrossed by earthly pa.s.sions, that the spirit of faith, hope, and charity, which alone will save us, can proceed? Is it an effete system, which has no life for itself, which is everywhere struggling with death, and exists only by aid borrowed from without, that will give life to others, and animate Christian society with the heavenly breath for which it sighs?

Or will this void in heart and soul, which some of our contemporaries begin to feel, dispose others of them to apply to the new Protestantism which has in several places supplanted the princ.i.p.al doctrines taught in the days of the Apostles and Reformers? A great vagueness of doctrine reigns in many of those Reformed Churches whose original members gave their blood as a seal of the living faith which animated them. Men of distinguished talents, alive to all that is beautiful in creation, have fallen into singular aberrations. A general faith in the divinity of the Gospel is the only standard which they are willing to follow. But what is this Gospel? This is the essential question; and yet all are silent on it, or, rather, each speaks in his own way. What avails it to know that in the midst of the people stands a vessel placed there by G.o.d in order to cure them, if none care for its contents, if none endeavour to appropriate them?

This system cannot fill up the existing void. While the faith of the Apostles and Reformers is now in all quarters displaying its activity and power in the conversion of the world, this vague system does nothing, gives no light, no life.

But let us not be without hope. Does not Roman Catholicism confess the great doctrines of Christianity, G.o.d the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Creator, Saviour, and Sanctifier, the Truth? Does not vague Protestantism hold in its hand the Book of Life, which is "profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness?" And how many upright spirits, honourable in the eyes of men, and pleasing in the sight of G.o.d, are found among the followers of these two systems! How shall we not love them?--how shall we not ardently desire their complete emanc.i.p.ation from the elements of the world? Charity is of vast extent; she takes the most opposite opinions into her embrace, that she may bring them to the feet of Jesus Christ.

Already there are signs which show that these two extreme opinions are in course of approximating to Jesus Christ, who is the centre of truth. Are there not some Roman Catholic churches in which the reading of the Scriptures is recommended and practised? And, in regard to Protestant rationalism, how great the advance which it has already made! It did not originate in the Reformation, for the history of this great revolution will prove that it was a time of faith; but may we not hope that it is tending towards it? May not the force of truth reach it through the Word of G.o.d, and, reaching, transform it? Even now it gives signs of religious sentiment, inadequate, no doubt, but still forming an approach towards sound doctrine, and giving hopes of decisive progress.

Both Protestantism and old Catholicism are in themselves out of the question, and off the field; and it must be from some other source that the men of our day are to derive a saving power. There must be something which comes not of man, but of G.o.d. "Give me," said Archimedes, "a point outside the world, and I will lift it from its poles." True Christianity is this point outside the world. It lifts the human heart from the double pivot of egotism and sensuality, and will one day lift the whole world from its evil course, and make it turn on a new axis of righteousness and peace.

Whenever religion is in question, three objects engage the attention--G.o.d, man, and the priest. There can only be three religions on the earth, according as G.o.d, man, or the priest, is the author and head. By the religion of the priest, I mean that which is invented by the priest for the glory of the priest, and is ruled over by a sacerdotal caste. By the religion of man, I mean those systems, those various opinions which human reason forms, and which, created by man under disease, are, in consequence, utterly devoid of power to cure him. By the religion of G.o.d, I mean the truth as G.o.d himself has given it, having for its end and result the glory of G.o.d and the salvation of men.

Hierarchism, or the religion of the priest, Christianity, or the religion of G.o.d, rationalism, or the religion of man, are the three systems which in our days share Christendom among them. There is no safety either for man or for society in hierarchism and rationalism.

Christianity alone will give life to the world; but, unhappily, of the three dominant systems it is not the one which counts the greatest number of followers.

Followers, however, it has. Christianity is doing its work of regeneration among many Catholics in Germany, and, doubtless, in other countries also. In our opinion, it is accomplis.h.i.+ng it more purely and efficaciously among the evangelical Christians in Switzerland, France, Great Britain, the United States, etc. Blessed be G.o.d, the revivals, individual or social, which the Gospel produces, are no longer in our day rare events, for which we must search in ancient annals!

What I design to write, is a general history of the Reformation. I purpose to follow its course among the different nations, and to show that the same truths have everywhere produced the same results; at the same time, pointing out the diversities occasioned by differences of national character. And, first, it is in Germany especially that we find the primitive type of reform. There it presents the most regular development, there, above all, it bears the character of a revolution not limited to this or that people, but embracing the whole world. The Reformation in Germany is the fundamental history of reform. It is the great planet; the other Reformations are secondary planets, which turn with it, lighted by the same sun, and adapted to the same system, but still having a separate existence, each shedding a different light, and always possessing a peculiar beauty. To the Reformation of the sixteenth century we may apply the words of St. Paul, "There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differeth from another star in glory." (1 Cor., xv, 41.) The Swiss Reformation took place at the same time with that of Germany, and independently of it, and presented, more especially at an after period, some of the grand features which characterise the German Reformation. The Reformation in England has very special claims on our attention, from the powerful influence which the Church of that kingdom is now exercising over the whole world. But recollections of family and of flight, the thought of battles, sufferings, and exile endured for the cause of the Reformation in France, give it, in my eyes, a peculiar attraction.

Considered in itself, and also in the date of its commencement, it presents beauties of its own.

I believe that the Reformation is a work of G.o.d; this must have been already seen. Still, I hope to be impartial in tracing its history. Of the princ.i.p.al Roman Catholic actors in this great drama--for example, of Leo X, Albert of Magdeburg, Charles V, and Doctor Eck--I believe I have spoken more favourably than the greater part of historians have done. On the other hand, I have not sought to hide the faults and failings of the Reformers.

Since the winter of 1831-32, I have delivered public lectures on the period of the Reformation, and I then published my opening Address.[3]

These lectures have served as a preparative for the work which I now offer to the public.

[3] Discours sur l'Etude de l'Histoire du Christianisme, et son utilite pour l'epoque actuelle. Paris, 1832, chez J. J. Risler.