Elector of Saxony-the natural head of the Protestant party in Germany-submitted to become, at the most important crisis of the struggle, a tool in the hands of the Papists. Among the Catholic sovereigns, on the other hand, we find a religious zeal often amounting to fanaticism. Philip II. was a Papist in a very different sense from that in which Elizabeth was a Protestant. Maximilian of Bavaria, brought up under the teaching of the Jesuits, was a fervent missionary wielding the powers of a prince. The Emperor Ferdinand II. deliberately put his throne to hazard over and over again, rather than make the smallest concession to the spirit of religious innovation. Sigismund of Sweden lost a crown which he might have preserved if he would have renounced the Catholic faith. In short, everywhere on the Protestant side we see languor, everywhere on the Catholic side we see ardour and devotion.

another half century, we find her victorious and dominant in France, Belgium, Bavaria, Bohemia, Austria, Poland, and Hungary. Nor has Protestantism, in the course of two hundred years, been able to reconquer any portion of what it then lost.

It is, moreover, not to be dissembled that this wonderful triumph of the Papacy is to be chiefly attributed, not to the force of arms, but to a great reflux in public opinion. During the first half century after the commencement of the Reformation, the current of feeling, in the countries on this side of the Alps and of the Pyrenees, ran impetuously towards the new doctrines. Then the tide turned, and rushed as fiercely in the opposite direction. Neither during the one period, nor during the other, did much depend upon the event of battles or sieges. The Protestant movement was hardly checked for an instant by the defeat at Muhlberg. The Catholic reaction went on at full speed in spite of the destruction of the Armada. Not only was there, at this time, a much It is difficult to say whether the violence of the more intense zeal among the Catholics than first blow or of the recoil was the greater. among the Protestants; but the whole zeal of Fifty years after the Lutheran separation, Ca- the Catholics was directed against the Protes tholicism could scarcely maintain itself on tants, while almost the whole zeal of the Prothe shores of the Mediterranean. A hundred testants was directed against each other. years after the separation, Protestantism could Within the Catholic Church there were no sescarcely maintain itself on the shores of therious disputes on points of doctrine. The deBaltic. The causes of this memorable turn in cisions of the Council of Trent were received; human affairs well deserve to be investigated. and the Jansenian controversy nad not yet The contest between the two parties bore arisen. The whole force of Rome was, theresome resemblance to the fencing match in fore, effective for the purpose of carrying on Shakspeare "Laertes wounds Hamlet; then, the war against the Reformation. On the in scuffling, they change rapiers, and Hamlet other hand, the force which ought to have wounds Laertes." The war between Luther fought the battle of the Reformation was exand Leo was a war between firm faith and un-hausted in civil conflict. While Jesuit preachbelief, between zeal and apathy, between ers, Jesuit confessors, Jesuit teachers of youth, energy and indolence, between seriousness and overspread Europe, eager to expend every frivolity, between a pure morality and vice. faculty of their minds and every drop of their Very different was the war which degenerate blood in the cause of their church, Protestant Protestantism had to wage against regenerate doctors were confuting, and Protestant rulers Catholicism. To the debauchees, the poison- were punishing sectaries who were just as ers, the atheists, who had worn the tiara during good Protestants as themselvesthe generation which preceded the Reformation, had succeeded Popes, who, in religious fervour and severe sanctity of manners, might bear a comparison with Cyprian or Ambrose. The order of Jesuits alone could show many men not inferior in sincerity, constancy, courage, and austerity of life, to the apostles of the Reformation.

"Cumque superba foret BABYLON spolianda tropæis, Bella geri placuit nullos habitura triumphos."

In the Palatinate, a Calvinistic prince persccuted the Lutherans. In Saxony, a Lutheran persecuted the Calvinists. In Sweden every body who objected to any of the articles of the Confession of Augsburg was banished. In Scotland, Melville was disputing with other Protestants on questions of ecclesiastical goIn England, the jails were fil.ed with men who, though zealous for the Refor mation, did not exactly agree with the court or all points of discipline and doctrine. Some were in ward for denying the tenet of reprobation; some for not wearing surplices. The Irish people might at that time have been, in all probability, reclaimed from Popery, at the expense of half the zeal and activity which Whitgift employed in oppressing Puritans, and Martin Marprelate in reviing bishops.

As the Catholics in zeal and in union had a great advantage over the Protestants, so haa they also an innately superior organization In truth, Protestanism, for aggressive purposes, had no organization at all. The Reformed

2 M

But while danger had thus called forth in the bosom of the Church of Rome many of the highest qualities of the Reformers, the Reform-vernment. ed Churches had contracted some of the corruptions which had been justly censured in the Church of Rome. They had become lukewarm and worldly. Their great old leaders had been borne to the grave, and had left no successors. Among the Protestant princes there was little or no hearty Protestant feeling. Elizabeth herself was a Protestant rather from policy than from firm conviction. James I., in order to effect his favourite object of marrying his son into one of the great continental houses, was ready to make immense concessions to Rome, and even to admit a modified primacy in the Pope. Henry IV. twice abjured the reformed doctrines from interested motives. The VOL. III.-5

Churches were mere national Churches. The Church of England existed for England alone. It was an institution as purely local as the Court of Common Pleas, and was utterly without any machinery for foreign operations. The Church of Scotland, in the same manner, existed for Scotland alone. The operations of the Catholic Church, on the other hand, took in the whole world. Nobody at Lambeth, or at Edinburgh, troubled himself about what was doing in Poland or Bavaria. But at Rome, Cracow and Munich were objects of as much interest as the purlieus of St. John Lateran. Our island, the head of the Protestant interest, did not send out a single missionary or a single instructor of youth to the scene of the great spiritual war. Not a single seminary was established here for the purpose of furnishing a supply of such persons to foreign countries. On the other hand, Germany, Hungary, and Poland were filled with able and active Catholic emissaries of Spanish or Italian birth; and colleges for the instruction of the northern youth were founded at Rome. The spiritual force of Protestantism was a mere local militia, which might be useful in case of an invasion, out could not be sent abroad, and could therefore make no conquests. Rome had such a local militia; but she had also a force disposable at a moment's notice for foreign service, however dangerous or disagreeable. If it was thought at head-quarters that a Jesuit at Palermo was qualified by his talents and character to withstand the Reformers in Lithuania, the order was instantly given and instantly obeyed. In a month, the faithful servant of the Church was preaching, catechising, confessing, beyond the Niemen.

If we went at large into this most interesting subject, we should fill volumes. We will, therefore, at present advert to only one important part of the policy of the Church of Rome. She thoroughly understands, what no other Church has ever understood, how to deal with enthusiasts. In some sects-particularly in infant sects-enthusiasm is suffered to be rampant. In other sects-particularly in sects long established and richly endowed-it is regarded with aversion. The Catholic Church neither submits to enthusiasm nor proscribes it, but uses it. She considers it as a great moving force which in itself, like the muscular powers of a fine horse, is neither good nor evil, but which may be so directed as to proJuce great good or great evil; and she as

It is impossible to deny that the polity of the Church of Rome is the very masterpiece of human wisdom. In truth, nothing but such a polity could, against such assaults, have borne up such doctrines. The experience of twelve hundred eventful years, the ingenuity and patient care of forty generations of statesmen, have improved it to such perfection, that among the contrivances of political abilities it occupies the highest place. The stronger our conviction that reason and Scripture were decidedly on the side of Protestantism, the greater is the reluctant admiration with which we regard that system of tactics against which rea-shine is on his path. He ascends the Deson and Scripture were arrayed in vain. lectable Mountains, and catches from their summit a distant view of the shining_city which is the end of his pilgrimage. Then arises in his mind a natural, and surely not a censurable desire, to impart to others the thoughts of which his own heart is full-to warn the careless, to comfort those who are troubled in spirit. The impulse which urges him to devote his whole life to the teaching of religion, is a strong passion in the guise of a duty. He exhorts his neighbours; and if he be a man of strong parts, he often does so with great effect. He pleads as if he were pleading for his life, with tears and pathetic gestures, and burning words; and he soon finds with delight, not perhaps wholly unmixed with the alloy of human infirmity, that his rude eloquence rouses and melts hearers who sleep

sumes the direction to herself. It would be absurd to run down a horse like a wolf. I would be still more absurd to let him run wild, breaking fences and trampling down passen gers. The rational course is to subjugate his will, without impairing his vigour-to teach him to obey the rein, and then to urge him to full speed. When once he knows his master, he is valuable in proportion to his strength and spirit. Just such has been the system of the Church of Rome with regard to enthusiasts. She knows that when religious feelings have obtained the complete empire of the mind, they impart a strange energy, that they raise men above the dominion of pain and pleasure, that obloquy becomes glory, that death itself is contemplated only as the beginning of a higher and happier life. She knows that a person in this state is no object of contempt. He may be vulgar, ignorant, visionary, extravagant; but he will do and suffer things which it is for her interest that somebody should do and suffer, yet from which calm and sober-minded men would shrink. She accordingly enlists him in her service, assigns to him some forlorn hope, in which intrepidity and impetuosity are more wanted than judgment and self-command, and sends him forth with her benedictions and her applause.

In England it not unfrequently happens that a tinker or coal-heaver hears a sermon, or falls in with a tract, which alarms him about the state of his soul. If he be a man of excitable nerves and strong imagination, he thinks him. self given over to the Evil Power. He doubts whether he has not committed the unpardon. able sin. He imputes every wild fancy that springs up in his mind to the whisper of a fiend. His sleep is broken by dreams of the great judgment-seat, the open books, and the unquenchable fire. If, in order to escape from these vexing thoughts, he flies to amusement or to licentious indulgence, the delusive relief only makes his misery darker and more hope less. At length a turn takes place. He is re conciled to his offended Maker. To borrow the fine imagery of one who had himself been thus tried, he emerges from the Valley of the Shadow of Death, from the dark land of gins and snares, of quagmires and precipices, of evil spirits and ravenous beasts. The sun

very composedly while the rector preaches on | religion, the chance is, that though she may the apostolical succession. Zeal for God, love disapprove of no one doctrine or ceremony of for his fellow-creatures, pleasure in the exer- the Established Church, she will end by giving cise of his newly discovered powers, impel her name to a new schism. If a pious and him to become a preacher. He has no quarrel benevolent woman enters the cells of a prison, with the establishment, no objection to its for- to pray with the most unhappy and degraded mularies, its government, or its vestments. of her own sex, she does so without any auHe would gladly be admitted among its hum- thority from the Church. No line of action is blest ministers. But, admitted or rejected, his traced out for her; and it is well if the Ordivocation is determined. His orders have come nary does not complain of her intrusion, and down to him, not through a long and doubtful if the Bishop does not shake his head at such series of Arian and Papist bishops, but direct irregular benevolence. At Rome, the Countess from on high. His commission is the same of Huntingdon would have a place in the ca that on the Mountain of Ascension was given lendar as St. Selina, and Mrs. Fry would be to the Eleven. Nor will he, for lack of human foundress and first Superior of the Blessed credentials, spare to deliver the glorious mes- Order of Sisters of the Jails. sage with which he is charged by the true Place Ignatius Loyola at Oxford. He is Head of the Church. For a man thus minded, certain to become the head of a formidable sethere is within the pale of the establishment no cession. Place John Wesley at Rome. He is place. He has been at no college; he cannot certain to be the first General of a new society construe a Greek author, nor write a Latin devoted to the interests and honour of the theme; and he is told that, if he remains in the Church. Place St. Theresa in London. Her communion of the Church, he must do so as a restless enthusiasm ferments into madness, not hearer, and that, if he is resolved to be a untinctured with craft. She becomes the proteacher, he must begin by being a schismatic. phetess, the mother of the faithful, holds dispuHis choice is soon made. He harangues on tations with the devil, issues sealed pardons to Tower Hill or in Smithfield. A congregation her adorers, and lies in of the Shiloh. Place is formed. A license is obtained. A plain Joanna Southcote at Rome. She founds an brick building, with a desk and benches, is run order of barefooted Carmelites, every one of up, and named Ebenezer or Bethel. In a few whom is ready to suffer martyrdom for the weeks the Church has lost forever a hundred Church;-a solemn service is consecrated to families, not one of which entertained the least her memory:-and her statue, placed over the scruple about her articles, her liturgy, her go- holy water, strikes the eye of every stranger verment, or her ceremonies. who enters St. Peter's.

Far different is the policy of Rome. The ignorant enthusiast, whom the Anglican Church makes an enemy, and, whatever the learned and polite may think, a most dangerous enemy, the Catholic Church makes a champion. She bids him nurse his beard, covers him with a gown and hood of coarse dark stuff, ties a rope round his waist, and sends him forth to teach in her name. He costs her nothing. He takes not a ducat away from the revenues of her beneficed clergy. He lives by the alms of those who respect his spiritual character, and are grateful for his instructions. He preaches, not exactly in the style of Massillon, but in a way which moves the passions of uneducated hearers; and all his influence is employed to strengthen the Church of which he is a minister. To that Church he becomes as strongly attached as any of the cardinals, whose scarlet carriages and liveries crowd the entrance of the palace on the Quirinal. In this way the Church of Rome unites in herself all the strength of establishment and all the strength of dissent. With the utmost pomp of a dominant hierarchy above, she has all the energy of the voluntary system below. It would be easy to mention very recent instances in which the hearts of hundreds of thousands, estranged from her by the selfishness, sloth, and cowardice of the beneficed clergy, have been brought back by the zeal of the begging friars.

Even for female agency there is a place in her system. To devout women she assigns spiritual functions, dignities, and magistracies. In our country, if a noble lady is moved by more than ordinary zeal for the propagation of

We have dwelt long on this subject, because we believe, that of the many causes to which the Church of Rome owed her safety and her triumph at the close of the sixteenth century, the chief was the profound policy with which she used the fanaticism of such persons as St Ignatius and St. Theresa.

The Protestant party was now, indeed, vanquished and humbled. In France, so strong had been the Catholic reaction, that Henry IV. found it necessary to choose between his religion and his crown. In spite of his clear hereditary right, in spite of his eminent personal qualities, he saw that, unless he reconciled himself to the Church of Rome, he could not count on the fidelity even of those gallant gentlemen whose impetuous valour had turned the tide of battle at Ivry. In Belgium, Poland, and Southern Germany, Catholicism had ob tained a complete ascendant. The resistance of Bohemia was put down. The Palatinate was conquered. Upper and Lower Saxony were overflowed by Catholic invaders. The King of Denmark stood forth as the Protector of the Reformed Churches; he was defeated, driven out of the empire, and attacked in his own possessions. The armies of the house of Austria pressed on, subjugated Pomerania, and were stopped in their progress only by the ramparts of Stralsund.

And now again the tide turned. Two vic lent outbreaks of religious feeling in opposite directions had given a character to the history of a whole century. Protestantism had at firs driven back Catholicism to the Alps and the Pyrenees. Catholicism had rallied, and had

driven back Protestantism even to the German land and Protestant Holland joined with Catho Ocean. Then the great southern reaction be- lic Savoy and Catholic Portugal, for the pur. gan to slacken, as the great northern movement pose of transferring the crown of Spain from had slackened before. The zeal of the Catho-one bigoted Catholic to another. 'ies became cool; their union was dissolved. The paroxysm of religious excitement was over on both sides. The one party had degenerated as far from the spirit of Loyola as the other from the spirit of Luther. During three generations, religion had been the mainspring of politics. The revolutions and civil wars of France, Scotland, Holland, Sweden, the long struggle between Philip and Elizabeth, the bloody competition for the Bohemian crown, all originated in theological disputes.

The geographical frontier between the two religions has continued to run almost precisely where it ran at the close of the Thirty Years' War; nor has Protestantism given any proofs of that "expansive power" which has been ascribed to it. But the Protestant boasts, and most justly, that wealth, civilization, and intelligence have increased far more on the northern than on the southern side of the boundary: that countries so little favoured by nature as Scotland and Prussia are now among But a great change now took place. The the most flourishing and best governed portions contest which was raging in Germany lost its of the world-while the marble palaces of religious character. It was now, on the one side, Genoa are deserted-while banditti infest the less a contest for the spiritual ascendency of beautiful shores of Campania-while the fertile the Church of Rome than for the temporal as- sea-coast of the Pontifical State is abandoned cendency of the house of Austria. On the to buffaloes and wild boars. It cannot be other, it was less a contest for the reformed doubted, that since the sixteenth century, the doctrine than for national independence. Go- Protestant nations-fair allowance being made vernments began to form themselves into new for physical disadvantages-have made de combinations, in which community of political | cidedly greater progress than their neighbours. interest was far more regarded than communi- The progress made by those nations in which ty of religious belief. Even at Rome the pro- Protestantism, though not finally successful, yet gress of the Catholic arms was observed with maintained a long struggle, and left permanent very mixed feelings. The Supreme Pontiff traces, has generally been considerable. But was a sovereign prince of the second rank, and when we come to the Catholic Land, to the was anxious about the balance of power, as part of Europe in which the first spark of rewell as about the propagation of truth. It was formation was trodden out as soon as it appear known that he dreaded the rise of a universal ed, and from which proceeded the impulse monarchy even more than he desired the pros- which drove Protestantism back, we find, at perity of the Universal Church. At length abest, a very slow progress, and on the whole a great event announced to the world that the retrogression. Compare Denmark and Por war of sects had ceased, and that the war of tugal. When Luther began to preach, the states had succeeded. A coalition, including superiority of the Portuguese was unquestion Calvinists, Lutherans, and Catholics, was able. At present the superiority of the Danes formed against the house of Austria. At the is no less so. Compare Edinburgh and Flohead of that coalition were the first statesman rence. Edinburgh has owed less to climate, and first warrior of the age; the former to soil, and to the fostering care of rulers. than prince of the Catholic Church, distinguished any capital, Protestant or Catholic. In all by the vigour and success with which he had these respects, Florence has been singularly put down the Huguenots-the latter a Protestant happy. Yet whoever knows what Florence king, who owed his throne to the revolution and Edinburgh were in the generation precaused by hatred of Popery. The alliance of ceding the Reformation, and what they are Richelieu and Gustavus marks the time at now, will acknowledge that some great cause which the great religious struggle terminated. has, during the last three centuries, operated The war which followed was a war for the to raise one part of the European family, and equilibrium of Europe. When, at length, the to depress the other. Compare the history of peace of Westphalia was concluded, it appear- England and that of Spain during the last cen ed that the Church of Rome remained in full tury. In arms, arts, sciences, letters, com possession of a vast dominion, which in the merce, agriculture, the contrast is most strik middle of the preceding century she seemed ing. The distinction is not confined to this to be on the point of losing. No part of Eu- side of the Atlantic. The colonies planted by rope remained Protestant, except that part England in America have immeasurably out which had become thoroughly Protestant be- grown in power those planted by Spain. Yet fore the generation which heard Luther preach we have no reason to believe that, at the be had passed away. ginning of the sixteenth century, the Castilian was in any respect inferior to the Englishman. Our firm belief is, that the North owes its great civilization and prosperity chiefly to the moral effect of the Protestant Reformation; and that the decay of the Southern countries of Europe is to be mainly ascribed to the great Catholic revival.

Since that time there has been no religious war between Catholics and Protestants as such. In the time of Cromwell, Protestant England was united with Catholic France, then governed by a priest, against Catholic Spain. William he Third, the eminently Protestant hero, was at the head of a coalition which included many Catholic powers, and which was secretly fa- About a hundred years after the final settle voured even by Rome, against the Catholic ment of the boundary line between Protestant Luis In the time of Anne, Protestant Eng-ism and Catholicism, began to appear the

¡

signs of the fourth great peril of the Church on the wheel at Toulouse-when a youth, of Rome. The storm which was now rising guilty only of an indiscretion, was burned at against her was of a very different kind from Abbeville-when a brave officer, borne down. those which had preceded it. Those who had by public injustice, was dragged, with a gag in formerly attacked her had questioned only a his mouth, to die on the Place de Grêve, a part of her doctrines. A school was now voice instantly went forth from the banks of growing up which rejected the whole. The Lake Leman, which made itself heard from Albigenses, the Lollards, the Lutherans, the Moscow to Cadiz, and which sentenced the Calvinists, had a positive religious system, unjust judges to the contempt and detestation and were strongly attached to it. The creed of all Europe. The really efficient weapons of the new sectaries was altogether negative. with which the philosophers assailed the evanThey took one of their premises from the gelical faith were borrowed from the evangeliCatholics, and one from the Protestants. cal morality. The ethical and dogmatical From the former they borrowed the principle, parts of the Gospel were unhappily turned that Catholicism was the only pure and ge- against each other. On the one side was a nuine Christianity. With the latter they held church boasting of the purity of a doctrine dethat some parts of the Catholic system were rived from the apostles; but disgraced by the contrary to reason. The conclusion was ob- massacre of St. Bartholomew, by the murder vious. Two propositions, each of which sepa- of the best of kings, by the war of the Cevenrately is compatible with the most exalted nes, by the destruction of Port-Royal. On the piety, formed, when held in conjunction, the other side was a sect laughing at the Scripgroundwork of a system of irreligion. The tures, shooting out the tongue at the sacradoctrine of Bossuet, that transubstantiation is ments, but ready to encounter principalities affirmed in the Gospel, and the doctrine of and powers in the cause of justice, mercy, and Tillotson, that transubstantiation is an absurd- toleration. ity, when put together, produced by logical necessity the inferences of Voltaire.

Irreligion, accidentally associated with phi lanthropy, triumphed for a time over religion Had the sect which was rising at Paris been accidentally associated with political and soa sect of mere scoffers, it is very improbable cial abuses. Every thing gave way to the that it would have left deep traces of its exist-zeal and activity of the new reformers. In ence in the institutions and manners of Eu- France, every man distinguished in letters rope. Mere negation-mere Epicurean infi- was found in their ranks. Every year gave delity, as Lord Bacon most justly observes birth to works in which the fundamental prinhas never disturbed the peace of the world. It ciples of the Church were attacked with argufurnishes no motive for action. It inspires no ment, invective, and ridicule. The Church enthusiasm. It has no missionaries, no cru- made no defence, except by acts of power. saders, no martyrs. If the Patriarch of the Censures were pronounced - editions were Holy Philosophical Church had contented seized-insults were offered to the remains of himself with making jokes about Saul's asses infidel writers; but no Bossuet, no Pascal, and David's wives, and with criticising the came forth to encounter Voltaire. There appoetry of Ezekiel in the same narrow spirit in peared not a single defence of the Catholic which he criticised that of Shakspeare, the doctrine which produced any considerable efChurch would have had little to fear. But it is fect, or which is now even remembered. A due to him and to his compeers to say, that the bloody and unsparing persecution, like that real secret of their strength lay in the truth which put down the Albigenses, might have which was mingled with their errors, and in put down the philosophers. But the time for the generous enthusiasm which was hidden De Montforts and Dominics had gone by. The under their flippancy. They were men who, punishments which the priests were still able with all their faults, moral and intellectual, to inflict were sufficient to irritate, but not suf sincerely and earnestly desired the improve- ficient to destroy. The war was between ment of the condition of the human race-power on the one side, and wit on the other, whose blood boiled at the sight of cruelty and and the power was under far more restraint injustice-who made manful war, with every than the wit. Orthodoxy soon became a badge faculty which they possessed, on what they of ignorance and stupidity. It was as necesconsidered as abuses-and who on many sig- sary to the character of an accomplished man nal occasions placed themselves gallantly be- that he should despise the religion of his countween the powerful and the oppressed. While try, as that he should know his letters. The they assailed Christianity with a rancour and new doctrines spread rapidly through Christenan unfairness disgraceful to men who call dom. Paris was the capital of the whole con. themselves philosophers, they yet had, in far tinent. French was everywhere the language greater measure than their opponents, that of polite circles. The literary glory of Italy charity towards men of all classes and races and Spain had departed. That of Germany which Christianity enjoins. Religious perse- had not yet dawned. The teachers of France cution, judicial torture, arbitrary imprison- were the teachers of Europe. The Parisian ment, the unnecessary multiplication of capital opinions spread fast among the educate punishments, the delay and chicanery of tri- classes beyond the Alps; nor could the vigi bunals, the exactions of farmers of the revenue, lance of the Inquisition prevent the contraband slavery, the slave trade, were the constant sub- importation of the new heresy into Castile and jects of their lively satire and eloquent disqui- Portugal. Governments-even arbitrary gositions. When an innocent man was broken vernments-saw with pleasure the progress