第39章 LETTER 6(2)

A View of the Ecclesiatical Government of Europe from the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century Observe then,my lord,that the demolition of the papal throne was not attempted with success till the beginning of the sixteenth century.If you are curious to cast your eyes back,you will find Berenger in the eleventh,who was soon silenced;Arnoldus in the same,who was soon hanged;Valdo in the twelfth,and our Wickliff in the fourteenth,as well as others perhaps whom I do not recollect.Sometimes the doctrines of the church were alone attacked;and sometimes the doctrine,the discipline,and the usurpations of the pope.But little fires,kindled in corners of a dark world,were soon stifled by that great abettor of Christian unity,the hangman.When they spread and blazed out,as in the case of the Albigeois and of the Hussites,armies were raised to extinguish them by torrents of blood;and such saints as Dominic,with the crucifix in their hands,instigated the troops to the utmost barbarity.Your lordship will find that the church of Rome was maintained by such charitable and salutary means,among others,till the period spoken of;and you will be curious,I am sure,to inquire how this period came to be more fatal to her than any former conjuncture.A multitude of circumstances,which you will easily trace in the histories of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,to go no further back,concurred to bring about this great event: and a multitude of others,as easy to be traced,concurred to hinder the demolition from becoming total,and to prop the tottering fabric.Among these circumstances,there is one less complicated and more obvious than others,which was of principal and universal influence.The art of printing had been invented about forty or fifty years before the period we fix:from that time,the resurrection of letters hastened on apace;and at this period they had made great progress,and were cultivated with great application.Mahomet the Second drove them out of the east into the west;and the popes proved worse politicians than the mufties in this respect.Nicholas the Fifth encouraged learning and learned men.Sixtus the Fourth was,if I mistake not,a great collector of books at least:and Leo the Tenth was the patron of every art and science.The magicians themselves broke the charm by which they had bound mankind for so many ages:and the adventure of that knight-errant,who,thinking himself happy in the arms of a celestial nymph,found that he was the miserable slave of an infernal bag,was in some sort renewed.As soon as the means of acquiring and spreading information grew common,it is no wonder that a system was unravelled,which could not have been woven with success in any ages,but those of gross ignorance,and credulous superstition.I might point out to your lordship many other immediate causes,some general like this that I have mentioned,and some particular.The great schism,for instance,that ended in the beginning of the fifteenth century,and in the council of Constance,had occasioned prodigious scandal.Two or three vicars of Christ,two or three infallible heads of the church roaming about the world at a time,furnished matter of ridicule as well as scandal:and whilst they appealed,for so they did in effect,to the laity,and reproached and excommunicated one another,they taught the world what to think of the institution,as well as exercise of the papal authority.The same lesson was taught by the council of Pisa,that preceded,and by that of Basle,that followed the council of Constance.The horrid crimes of Alexander the Sixth,the saucy ambition of Julius the Second,the immense profusion and scandalous exactions of Leo the Tenth;all these events and characters,following in a continued series from the beginning of one century,provided the way for the revolution that happened in the beginning of the next.The state of Germany,the state of England,and that of the North,were particular causes in these several countries,of this revolution.Such were many remarkable events that happened about the same time,and a little before it,in these and in other nations;and such were likewise the characters of many of the princes of that age,some of whom favored the reformation,like the elector of Saxony,on a principle of conscience;and most of whom favored it,just as others opposed it,on a principle of interest.This your lordship will discover manifestly to have been the case;and the sole difference you will find between Henry the Eighth and Francis the First,one of whom separated from the pope,as the other adhered to him,is this:Henry the Eighth divided,with the secular clergy and his people,the spoil of the pope,and his satellites,the monks;Francis the First divided,with the pope,the spoil of his clergy,secular and regular,and of his people.With the same impartial eye that your lordship surveys the abuses of religion,and the corruptions of the church as well as court of Rome,which brought on the reformation at this period;you will observe the characters and conduct of those who began,who propagated,and who favored the reformation:and from your observation of these,as well as of the unsystematical manner in which it was carried on at the same time in various places,and of the want of concert,nay even of charity,among the reformers,you will learn what to think of the several religions that unite in their opposition to the Roman,and yet hate one another most heartily;what to think of the several sects that have sprouted,like suckers,from the same great roots;and what the true principles are of protestant ecclesiastical policy.This policy had no being till Luther made his establishment in Germany;till Zwinglius began another in Switzerland,which Calvin carried on,and,like Americus Vesputius who followed Christopher Columbus,robbed the first adventurer of his honor;and till the reformation in our country was perfected under Edward the Sixth and Elizabeth.Even popish ecclesiastical policy is no longer the same since that era.His holiness is no longer at the head of the whole western church:and to keep the part that adheres to him,he is obliged to loosen their chains,and to lighten his yoke.The spirit and pretensions of his court are the same,but not the power.He governs by expedient and management more,and by authority less.His decrees and his briefs are in danger of being refused,explained away,or evaded,unless he negotiates their acceptance before he gives them,governs in concert with his flock,and feeds his sheep according to their humor and interest.In short,his excommunications,that made the greatest emperors tremble,are despised by the lowest members of his own communion;and the remaining attachment to him has been,from this era,rather a political expedient to preserve an appearance of unity,than a principle of conscience;whatever some bigotted princes may have thought,whatever ambitious prelates and hireling scribblers may have taught,and whatever a people,worked up to enthusiasm by fanatical preachers,may have acted.Proofs of this would be easy to draw,not only from the conduct of such princes as Ferdinand the First and Maximilian the Second,who could scarce be esteemed papists though they continued in the pope's communion;but even from that of princes who persecuted their protestant subjects with great violence.Enough has been said,I think,to show your lordship how little need there is of going up higher than the beginning of the sixteenth century in the study of history,to acquire all the knowledge necessary at this time in ecclesiastical policy,or in civil policy as far as it is relative to this.Historical monuments of this sort are in every man's hand,the facts are sufficiently verified,and the entire scenes lie open to our observation:even that scene of solemn refined banter exhibited in the council of Trent,imposes on no man who reads Paolo,as well as Pallavicini,and the letters of Vargas.