Chapter XI (2)

The death of Servetus has perhaps as many circumstances of
aggravation as any execution for heresy that ever took place. One
of these, and among the most striking is, that he was not the
subject of Geneva, nor domiciled in the city, nor had the
Christianismi Restitutio been published there, but at Vienne.
According to our laws, and those, I believe, of most civilised
nations, he was not amenable to the tribunals of the republic.

The tenets of Servetus are not easily ascertained in all respects,
nor very interesting to the reader. Some of them were considered
infidel and even pantheistical; but there can be little ground for
such imputations, when we consider the tenor of his writings, and
the fate which he might have escaped by a retractation. It should
be said in justice to Calvin, that he declares himself to have
endeavoured to obtain a commutation of the sentence for a milder
kind of death. Genus mortis conati sumus mutare, sed frustra.
Allwoerden, p. 106. But he has never recovered, in the eyes of
posterity, the blow this gave to his moral reputation, which the
Arminians, as well as Socinians, were always anxious to depreciate.
De Serveto, says Grotius, ideo certi aliquid pronuntiare ausus non
sum, quia causam ejus non bene didici; neque Calvino ejus hosti
capitali credere audeo, cum sciam quam inique et virulente idem
ille Calvinus tractaverit viros multo se meliores, Cassandrum,
Balduinum, Castellionem. Grot. Op. Theolog. iv. 639. Of Servetus
and his opinions he says in another place very fairly, Est in illo
negotio difficillimo facilis error, p. 655.

[1003] Lubienecius, Hist. Beformat Polonicæ. Rees, History of Racovian
Catechism. Bayle, art. Socinus. Mosheim. Dupin. Eichhorn.

28. As this is a literary, rather than an ecclesiastical history, we shall neither advert to the less learned sectaries, nor speak of controversies which had chiefly a local importance, such as those of the English Puritans with the established church. Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity will claim attention in a subsequent chapter.

|Religious intolerance.|

|Castalio.|

29. Thus, in the second period of the Reformation, those ominous symptoms which had appeared in its earlier stage, disunion, virulence, bigotry, intolerance, far from yielding to any benignant influence, grew more inveterate and incurable. Yet some there were, even in this century, who laid the foundations of a more charitable and rational indulgence to diversities of judgment, which the principle of the Reformation itself had in some measure sanctioned. It may be said that this tolerant spirit rose out of the ashes of Servetus. The right of civil magistrates to punish heresy with death had been already impugned by some Protestant theologians, as well as by Erasmus. Luther had declared against it; and though Zuingle, who had maintained the same principle as Luther, has been charged with having afterwards approved the drowning of some Anabaptists in the lake of Zurich, it does not appear that his language requires such an interpretation. The early Anabaptists, indeed, having been seditious and unmanageable to the greatest degree, it is not easy to show that they were put to death simply on account of their religion. But the execution of Servetus, with circumstances of so much cruelty, and with no possible pretext but the error of his opinions, brought home to the minds of serious men the importance of considering, whether a mere persuasion of the truth of our own doctrines can justify the infliction of capital punishment on those who dissent from them; and how far we can consistently reprobate the persecutions of the church of Rome, while acting so closely after her example. But it was dangerous to withstand openly the rancour of the ecclesiastics domineering in the Protestant churches, or the usual bigotry of the multitude. Melanchthon himself, tolerant by nature, and knowing enough of the spirit of persecution which disturbed his peace, was yet unfortunately led by timidity to express, in a letter to Beza, his approbation of the death of Servetus, though he admits that some saw it in a different light. Calvin, early in 1554, published a dissertation to vindicate the magistrates of Geneva in their dealings with this heretic. But Sebastian Castalio, under the name of Martin Bellius, ventured to reply in a little tract, entitled “De Hereticis quomodo cum iis agendum sit variorum sententiæ.” This is a collation of different passages from the fathers and modern authors in favour of toleration, to which he prefixed a letter of his own to the Duke of Wirtemburg, more valuable than the rest of the work, and, though written in the cautious style required by the times, containing the pith of those arguments which have ultimately triumphed in almost every part of Europe. The impossibility of forcing belief, the obscurity and insignificance of many disputed questions, the sympathy which the fortitude of heretics produced, and other leading topics are well touched in this very short tract, for the preface does not exceed twenty-eight pages in 16mo.[1004]

[1004] This little book has been attributed by some to Lælius Socinus;
I think Castalio more probable. Castalio entertained very different
sentiments from those of Beza on some theological points, as
appears by his dialogues on predestination and free will, which are
opposed to the Augustinian system then generally prevalent. He
seems also to have approximated to the Sabellian theories of
Servetus on the Trinity. See p. 144, edit. 1613.

|Answered by Beza.|

30. Beza answered Castalio, whom he perfectly knew under the mask of Bellius, in a much longer treatise, “De Hæreticis a Civili Magistratu Puniendis.” It is unnecessary to say, that his tone is that of a man who is sure of having the civil power on his side. As to capital punishments for heresy, he acknowledges that he has to contend, not only with such sceptics as Castalio, but with some pious and learned men.[1005] He justifies their infliction, however, by the magnitude of the crime, and by the Mosaic law, as well as by precedents in Jewish and Christian history. Calvin, he positively asserts, used his influence that the death of Servetus might not be by fire, for the truth of which he appeals to the Senate; but though most lenient in general, they had deemed no less expiation sufficient for such impiety.[1006]

[1005] Non modo cum nostris academicis, sed etiam cum piis alioqui et
eruditis hominibus mihi negotium fore prospicio, p. 208. Bayle has
an excellent remark (Beza, note F.) on this controversy.

[1006] Sed tanta erat ejus hominis rabies, tam execranda tamque
horrenda impietas, ut Senatus alioqui clementissimus solis
flammis expiari posse existimarit, p. 91.

|Aconcio.|

31. A treatise written in a similar spirit to that of Castalio, by Aconcio, one of the numerous exiles from Italy, “De Stratagematibus Satanæ, Basle, 1565,” deserves some notice in the history of opinions, because it is, perhaps, the first wherein the limitation of fundamental articles of Christianity to a small number is laid down at considerable length. He instances, among doctrines which he does not reckon fundamental, those of the real presence and of the Trinity; and, in general, such as are not either expressed in Scripture, or deducible from it by unequivocal reasoning.[1007] Aconcio inveighs against capital punishments for heresy; but his argument, like that of Castalio, is good against every minor penalty. “If the clergy,” he says, “once get the upper hand, and carry this point, that, as soon as one opens his mouth, the executioner shall be called in to cut all knots with his knife, what will become of the study of Scripture? They will think it very little worth while to trouble their heads with it; and, if I may presume to say so, will set up every fancy of their own for truth. O unhappy times! O wretched posterity! if we abandon the arms, by which alone we can subdue our adversary.” Aconcio was not improbably an Arian; this may be surmised, not only because he was an Italian Protestant, and because he seems to intimate it in some passages of his treatise, but on the authority of Strype, who mentions him as reputed to be such, while belonging to a small congregation of refugees in London.[1008] This book attracted a good deal of notice; it was translated both into French and English; and, in one language or another, went through several editions. In the next century it became of much authority with the Arminians of Holland.

[1007] The account given of this book in the Biographie Universelle is
not accurate; a better will be found in Bayle.

[1008] Strype’s Life of Grindal, p. 42; see also Bayle. Elizabeth gave
him a pension for a book on fortification.

|Minus Celsus Koornhert.|

32. Mino Celso, of Siena, and another of the same class of refugees, in a long and elaborate argument against persecution, De Hereticis Capitali Supplicio non Afficiendis, quotes several authorities from writers of the sixteenth century in his favour.[1009] We should add to these advocates of toleration the name of Theodore Koornhert, who courageously stood up in Holland against one of the most encroaching and bigoted hierarchies of that age. Koornhert, averse in other points to the authority of Calvin and Beza, seems to have been a precursor of Arminius; but he is chiefly known by a treatise against capital punishment for heresy, published in Latin after his death. It is extremely scarce, and I have met with no author, except Bayle and Brandt, who speaks of it from direct knowledge.[1010] Thus, at the end of the sixteenth century, the simple proposition, that men for holding or declaring heterodox opinions in religion ought not to be burned alive, or otherwise put to death, was itself little else than a sort of heterodoxy; and, though many privately must have been persuaded of its truth, the Protestant churches were as far from acknowledging it as that of Rome. No one had yet pretended to assert the general right of religious worship, which, in fact, was rarely or never conceded to the Romanists in a Protestant country, though the Huguenots shed oceans of blood to secure the same privilege for themselves.

[1009] Celso was formerly supposed to be a fictitious person, but the
contrary has been established. The book was published in 1584, but
without date of place. He quotes Aconcio frequently. The following
passage seems to refer to Servetus. Superioribus annis, ad hæretici
cujusdam in flammis constantiam, ut ex fide dignis accepi, plures
ex astantibus sanæ doctrinæ viri, non posse id sine Dei spiritu
fieri persuasum habentes, ac propterea hæreticum martyrem esse
plane credentes, ejus hæresin pro veritate complexi, in fide
naufragium fecerunt, fol. 109.

[1010] Bayle, Biogr. Univ. Brandt, Hist. de la Reformation des
Provinces Unies, i. 435. Lipsius had, in his Politica, inveighed
against the toleration of more religions than one in a
commonwealth. Ure, seca, ut membrum potius aliquod, quam totum
corpus intereat. Koornhert answered this, dedicating his answer to
the magistrates of Leyden, who, however, thought fit to publish
that they did not accept the dedication, and requested that those
who read Koornhert would read also the reply of Lipsius, ibid. This
was in 1590, and Koornhert died the same year.

|Decline of Protestantism.|

33. In the concluding part of the century, the Protestant cause, though not politically unprosperous, but rather manifesting some additional strength through the great energies put forth by England and Holland, was less and less victorious in the conflict of opinion. It might, perhaps, seem to a spectator, that it gained more in France by the dissolution of the League, and the establishment of a perfect toleration, sustained by extraordinary securities in the edict of Nantes, than it lost by the conformity of Henry IV. to the Catholic religion. But, if this is considered more deeply, the advantage will appear far greater on the other side; for this precedent, in the case of a man so conspicuous, would easily serve all who might fancy they had any public interest to excuse them, from which the transition would not be long to the care of their own. After this time, accordingly, we find more numerous conversions of the Huguenots, especially the nobler classes, than before. They were furnished with a pretext by an unlucky circumstance. In a public conference, held at Fontainebleau, in 1600, before Henry IV., from which great expectation had been raised, Du Plessis Mornay, a man of the noblest character, but, though very learned as a gentleman, more fitted to maintain his religion in the field than in the schools, was signally worsted, having been supplied with forged or impertinent quotations from the fathers, which his antagonist, Perron, easily exposed. Casaubon, who was present, speaks with shame, but without reserve, of his defeat; and it was an additional mortification, that the king pretended ever afterwards to have been more thoroughly persuaded by this conference, that he had embraced the truth, as well as gained a crown, by abandoning the Protestant side.[1011]

[1011] Scaliger, it must be observed, praises very highly the book of
Du Plessis Mornay on the mass, and says, that no one after Calvin
and Beza had written so well; though he owns that he would have
done better not to dispute about religion before the king.
Scaligerana Secunda, p. 461. Du Plessis himself, in a publication
after the conference of Fontainebleau, retaliated the charge of
falsified quotations on Perron. I shall quote what Casaubon has
said on the subject in another chapter. See the article Mornay, in
the Biographie Universelle, in which, though the signature seems to
indicate a descendant or relation, the inaccuracy of the quotations
is acknowledged.

|Desertion of Lipsius.|

34. The men of letters had another example, about the same time, in one of the most distinguished of their fraternity, Justus Lipsius. He left Leyden on some pretence in 1591 for the Spanish Low Countries, and soon afterwards embraced the Romish faith. Lest his conversion should be suspected, Lipsius disgraced a name, great at least in literature, by writing in favour of the local superstitions of those bigoted provinces. It is true, however, that some, though the lesser, portion of his critical works were published after his change of religion.

|Jewell’s Apology.|

35. The controversial divinity poured forth during this period is now little remembered. In England it may be thought necessary to mention Jewell’s celebrated apology. This short book is written with spirit; the style is terse, the arguments pointed, the authorities much to the purpose; so that its effects are not surprising. This treatise is written in Latin; his Defence of the Apology, a much more diffuse work, in English. Upon the merits of the controversy of Jewell with the Jesuit Harding, which this defence embraces, I am not competent to give any opinion; in length and learning it far surpasses our earlier polemical literature.

|English theologians.|

36. Notwithstanding the high reputation which Jewell obtained by his surprising memory and indefatigable reading, it cannot be said that many English theologians of the reign of Elizabeth were eminent for that learning which was required for ecclesiastical controversy. Their writings are neither numerous nor profound. Some exceptions ought to be made. Hooker was sufficiently versed in the fathers, and he possessed also a far more extensive knowledge of the philosophical writers of antiquity than any others could pretend. The science of morals, according to Mosheim, or rather of casuistry, which Calvin had left in a rude and imperfect state, is confessed to have been first reduced into some kind of form, and explained with some accuracy and precision by Perkins, whose works, however, were not published before the next century.[1012] Hugh Broughton was deep in Jewish erudition. Whitaker and Nowell ought also to be mentioned. It would not be difficult to extract a few more names from biographical collections, but names so obscure that we could not easily bring their merit as scholars to any sufficient test. Sandys’s sermons may be called perhaps good, but certainly not very distinguished. The most eminently learned man of the queen’s reign seems to have been Dr. John Rainolds; and a foreign author of the last century, Colomies, places him among the first six in copiousness of erudition whom the Protestant churches had produced.[1013] Yet his works are, I presume, read by nobody, nor am I aware that they are ever quoted; and Rainolds himself is chiefly known by the anecdote, that having been educated in the church of Rome, as his brother was in the Protestant communion, they mutually converted each other in the course of disputation. Rainolds was on the Puritan side, and took a part in the Hampton Court conference.

[1012] Mosheim, Chalmers.

[1013] Colomesiana. The other five are Usher, Gataker, Blondel, Petit,
and Bochart. See also Blount, Baillet, and Chalmers, for
testimonies to Rainolds, who died in 1607. Scaliger regrets his
death as a loss to all Protestant churches, as well as that of
England. Wood admits that Rainolds was “a man of infinite reading,
and of a vast memory:” but laments that, after he was chosen
divinity lecturer at Oxford in 1586, the face of the university was
much changed towards Puritanism. Hist. and Antiq. In the Athenæ,
ii. 14, he gives a very high character of Rainolds, on the
authority of Bishop Hall and others, and a long list of his works.
But, as he wanted a biographer, he has become obscure in comparison
with Jewell, who probably was not at all his superior.

|Bellarmin.|

37. As the century drew near its close, the church of Rome brought forward her most renowned and formidable champion, Bellarmin, a Jesuit, and afterwards a cardinal. No one had entered the field on that side with more acuteness, no one had displayed more skill in marshalling the various arguments of controversial theology, so as to support each other and serve the grand purpose of church authority. “He does not often,” says Dupin, “employ reasoning, but relies on the textual authority of Scripture, of the councils, the fathers, and the consent of the theologians; seldom quitting his subject, or omitting any passage useful to his argument; giving the objections fairly, and answering them in few words. His style is not so elegant as that of writers who have made it their object, but clear, neat, and brief, without dryness or barbarism. He knew well the tenets of Protestants, and states them faithfully, avoiding the invective so common with controversial writers.” It is nevertheless alleged by his opponents, and will not seem incredible to those who know what polemical theology has always been, that he attempts to deceive the reader, and argues only in the interests of his cause.

38. Bellarmin, if we may believe Du Perron, was not unlearned in Greek;[1014] but it is positively asserted on the other side that he could hardly read it, and he quotes the writers in that language only from translations. Nor has his critical judgment been much esteemed. But his abilities are best testified by Protestant theologians, not only in their terms of eulogy, but indirectly in the peculiar zeal with which they chose him as their worthiest adversary. More than half a dozen books in the next fifty years bear the title of Anti-Bellarminus: it seemed as if the victory must remain with those who should bear away the _spolia opima_ of this hostile general. The Catholic writers, on the other hand, borrow everything, it has been said, from Bellarmin, as the poets do from Homer.[1015]

[1014] Perroniana.

[1015] Dupin. Bayle. Blount. Eichhorn, vi. part ii. p. 30. Andrès,
xviii. 243. Niceron, vol. xxxi.

|Topics of controversy changed.|

39. In the hands of Bellarmin, and other strenuous advocates of the church, no point of controversy was neglected. But in a general view we may justly say that the heat of battle was not in the same part of the field as before. Luther and his immediate disciples held nothing so vital as the tenet of justification by faith alone; while the arguments of Eckius and Cajetan were chiefly designed to maintain the modification of doctrine on that subject, which had been handed down to them by the fathers and schoolmen. The differences of the two parties, as to the mode of corporeal presence in the eucharist, though quite sufficient to keep them asunder, could hardly bear much controversy, inasmuch as the primitive writers, to whom it was usual to appeal, have not, as is universally agreed, drawn these metaphysical distinctions with much preciseness. But when the Helvetic churches, and those bearing the general name of Reformed, became, after the middle of the century, as prominent, to say the least, in theological literature as the Lutheran, this controversy acquired much greater importance; the persecutions in England and the Netherlands were principally directed against this single heresy of denying the real presence, and the disputes of the press turned so generally upon no other topic.

|It turns on Papal power.|

40. In the last part of the century, through the influence of some political circumstances, we find a new theme of polemical discussion, more peculiarly characteristic of the age. Before the appearance of the early reformers, a republican or aristocratic spirit in ecclesiastical polity strengthened by the decrees of the councils of Constance and Basle, by the co-operation, in some instances, of the national church with the state in redressing, or demanding the redress of abuses, and certainly also both by the vices of the court of Rome, and its diversion to local politics, had fully counter-balanced, or even in a great measure silenced, the bold pretensions of the school of Hildebrand. In such a lax notion of papal authority, prevalent in Cisalpine Europe, the Protestant Reformation had found one source of its success. But for this cause the theory itself lost ground in the Catholic church. At the council of Trent the aristocratic or episcopal party, though it seemed to display itself in great strength, comprising the representatives of the Spanish and Gallican churches, was for the most part foiled in questions that touched the limitations of papal supremacy. From this time the latter power became lord of the ascendant. “No Catholic,” says Schmidt, “dared after the Reformation to say one hundredth part of what Gerson, Peter d’Ailly, and many others had openly preached.” The same instinct of which we may observe the workings in the present day, then also taught the subjects of the church that it was no time to betray jealousy of their own government when the public enemy was at their gates.

|This upheld by the Jesuits.|

41. In this resuscitation of the court of Rome, that is, of the papal authority, in contradistinction to the general doctrine and discipline of the Catholic church, much, or rather most, was due to the Jesuits. Obedience, not to that abstraction of theologians, the Catholic church, a shadow eluding the touch and vanishing into emptiness before the enquiring eye, but to its living acting centre, the one man, was their vow, their duty, their function. They maintained, therefore, if not quite for the first time, yet with little countenance from the great authorities of the schools, his personal infallibility in matters of faith. They asserted his superiority to general councils, his prerogative of dispensing with all the canons of the church, on grounds of spiritual expediency, whereof he alone could judge. As they grew bolder, some went on to pronounce even the divine laws subject to this control; but it cannot be said that a principle which seemed so paradoxical, though perhaps only a consequence from their assumptions, was generally received.

|Claim to depose princes.|

|Bull against Elizabeth.|

42. But the most striking consequence of this novel position of the papacy was the renewal of its claims to temporal power, or, in stricter language, to pronounce the forfeiture of it by lawful sovereigns for offences against religion. This pretension of the Holy See, though certainly not abandoned, had in a considerable degree lain dormant in that period of comparative weakness which followed the great schism. Paul III. deprived Henry VIII. of his dominions, as far as a bull could have that effect; but the deposing power was not generally asserted with much spirit against the first princes who embraced the Reformation. In this second part of the century, however, the see of Rome was filled by men of stern zeal and intrepid ambition, aided by the Jesuits and other regulars with an energy unknown before, and favoured also by the political interests of the greatest monarch in Christendom. Two circumstances of the utmost importance gave them occasion to scour the rust away from their ancient weapons--the final prostration of the Romish faith in England by Elizabeth, and the devolution of the French crown on a Protestant heir. Incensed by the former event, Pius V., the representative of the most rigid party in the church, issued in 1570 his famous bull, releasing English Catholics from their allegiance to the queen, and depriving her of all right and title to the throne. Elizabeth and her parliament retaliated, by augmented severities of law against these unfortunate subjects, who had little reason to thank the Jesuits for announcing maxims of rebellion it was not easy to carry into effect. Allen and Persons, secure at St. Omer and Douay, proclaimed the sacred duty of resisting a prince who should break his faith with God and the people, especially when the supreme governor of the church, whose function it is to watch over its welfare, and separate the leprous from the clean, has adjudged the cause.

|And Henry IV.|

|Deposing power owned in Spain.|

43. In the war of the League men became more familiar with this tenet. Those who fought under that banner did not all acknowledge, or at least would not in other circumstances have admitted, the pope’s deposing power; but no faction will reject a false principle that adds strength to its side. Philip II., though ready enough to treat the See of Rome as sharply and rudely as the Italians do their saints when refractory, found it his interest to encourage a doctrine so dangerous to monarchy when it was directed against Elizabeth and Henry. For this reason we may read with less surprise in Balthazar Ayala, a layman, a lawyer, and judge-advocate in the armies of Spain, the most unambiguous and unlimited assertion of the deposing theory:--“Kings abusing their power may be variously compelled,” he says, “by the sovereign pontiff to act justly; for he is the earthly vicegerent of God, from whom he has received both swords, temporal as well as spiritual, for the peace and preservation of the Christian commonwealth. Nor can he only control, if it is for the good of this commonwealth, but even depose kings, as God, whose delegate he is, deprived Saul of his kingdom, and as pope Zachary released the Franks from their allegiance to Childeric.”[1016]

[1016] Ayala, De Jure et Officiis Bellicis (Antwerp 1597), p. 32.

|Asserted by Bellarmin.|

44. Bellarmin, the brilliant advocate of whom we have already spoken, amidst the other disputes of the protestant quarrel, did not hesitate to sustain the papal authority in its amplest extension. His treatise “De Summo Pontifice, Capite Totius Militantis Ecclesiæ,” forms a portion, and by no means the least important, of those entitled “The Controversies of Bellarmin,” and first appeared separately in 1586. The pope, he asserts, has no direct temporal authority in the dominions of Christian princes; he cannot interfere with their merely civil affairs, unless they are his feudal vassals, but indirectly, that is, for the sake of some spiritual advantage, all things are submitted to his disposal. He cannot depose these princes, even for a just cause, as their immediate superior, unless they are feudally his vassals; but he can take away and give to others their kingdoms, if the salvation of souls require it.[1017] We shall observe hereafter how artfully this papal scheme was combined with the more captivating tenets of popular sovereignty; each designed for the special case, that of Henry IV., whose legitimate rights, established by the constitution of France, it was expected by this joint effort to overthrow.

[1017] Ranke, ii. 182.

|Methods of theological doctrine.|

45. Two methods of delivering theological doctrine had prevailed in the Catholic church for many ages. The one, called positive, was dogmatic rather than argumentative, deducing its tenets from immediate authorities of scripture or of the fathers, which it interpreted and explained for its own purpose. It was a received principle, conveniently for this system of interpretation, that most parts of scripture had a plurality of meaning; and that the allegorical, or analogical senses were as much to be sought as the primary and literal. The scholastic theology, on the other hand, which acquired its name, because it was frequently heard in the schools of divinity and employed the weapons of dialectics, was a scheme of inferences drawn, with all the subtlety of reasoning, from the same fundamental principles of authority, the scriptures, the fathers, the councils of the church. It must be evident upon reflection, that where many thousand propositions, or sentences easily convertible into them, had acquired the rank of indisputable truths, it was not difficult, with a little ingenuity in the invention of middle terms, to raise a specious structure of connected syllogisms; and hence the theology of the schools was a series of inferences from the acknowledged standards of orthodoxy, as their physics were from Aristotle, and their metaphysics from a mixture of the two.

|Loci Communes.|

46. The scholastic method, affecting a complete and scientific form, led to the compilation of theological systems, generally called Loci Communes. These were very common in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, both in the church of Rome, and, after some time, in the two protestant communions. But Luther, though at first he bestowed immense praise upon the Loci Communes of Melanchthon, grew unfavourable to all systematic theology. His own writings belong to that class we call positive. They deal with the interpretation of scripture, and the expansion of its literal meaning. Luther rejected, except in a very sparing application, the search after allegorical senses. Melanchthon also, and in general the divines of the Augsburg confession, adhered chiefly to the principle of single interpretation.[1018]

|In the Protestant,|

The Institutes of Calvin, which belong to the preceding part of the century, though not entitled Loci Communes, may be reckoned a full system of deductive theology. Wolfgang Musculus published a treatise with the usual title. It should be observed that, in the Lutheran church, the ancient method of scholastic theology revived after the middle of this century, especially in the divines of Melanchthon’s party, one of whose characteristics was a greater deference to ecclesiastical usage and opinion, than the more rigid Lutherans would endure to pay. The Loci Theologici of Chemnitz and those of Strigelius were, in their age, of great reputation; the former, by one of the compilers of the Formula Concordiæ, might be read without risk of finding those heterodoxies of Melanchthon, which the latter was supposed to exhibit.[1019]

[1018] Eichhorn, Gesch. der Cultur. vi. part i. p. 175. Mosheim, cent.
16, sect. 3, part ii.

[1019] Eichhorn, 236. Mosheim.

|and Catholic Church.|

47. In the church of Rome the scholastic theology retained an undisputed respect; it was for the heretical protestants to dread a method of keen logic, by which their sophistry was cut through. The most remarkable book of this kind, which falls within the sixteenth century, is the Loci Theologici of Melchior Canus, published at Salamanca in 1563, three years after the death of the author, a Dominican, and professor in that university. It is of course the theology of the reign and country of Philip II.; but Canus was a man acquainted with history, philosophy, and ancient literature. Eichhorn, after giving several pages to an abstract of this volume, pronounces it worthy to be still read. It may be seen by his analysis how Canus, after the manner of the schoolmen, incorporated philosophical with theological science. Dupin, whose abstract is rather different in substance, calls this an excellent work, and written with all the elegance we could desire.[1020]

[1020] Eichhorn, p. 216-227. Dupin, cent. 16, book 5.

|Catharin.|

48. Catharin, one of the theologians most prominent in the council of Trent, though he seems not to have incurred the charge of heresy, went farther from the doctrine of Augustin and Aquinas than was deemed strictly orthodox in the Catholic church. He framed a theory to reconcile predestination with the universality of grace, which has since been known in this country by the name of Baxterianism, and is, I believe, adopted by many divines at this day. Dupin, however, calls it a new invention, unknown to the ancient fathers, and never received in the schools. It has been followed, he adds, by nobody.

|Critical and expository writings.|

49. In the critical and expository department of theological literature, much was written during this period, forming no small proportion of the great collection called Critici Sacri. In the Romish church, we may distinguish the Jesuit Maldonat, whose commentaries on the evangelists have been highly praised by theologians of the Protestant side; and among these, we may name Calvin and Beza, who occupy the highest place,[1021] while below them are ranked Bullinger, Zanchius, Musculus, Chemnitz, and several more. But I believe that, even in the reviving appetite for obsolete theology, few of these writers have yet attracted much attention. A polemical spirit, it is observed by Eichhorn, penetrated all theological science, not only in dogmatical writings, but in those of mere interpretation; in catechisms, in sermons, in ecclesiastical history, we find the author armed for combat, and always standing in imagination before an enemy.

[1021] Literas sacras, says Scaliger of Calvin, tractavit ut tractandæ
sunt, vere inquam et pure ac simpliciter sine ullis argutationibus
scholasticis, et divino vir præditus ingenio multa divinavit quæ
non nisi a linguæ Hebraicæ peritissimis (cujusmodi tamen ipse non
erat), divinari possunt. Scaligerana Prima. A more detailed, and
apparently a not uncandid statement of Calvin’s character as a
commentator on Scripture, will be found in Simon, Hist. Critique du
Vieux Testament. He sets him, in this respect, much above Luther.
See also Blount, art. Calvin. Scaliger does not esteem much the
learning of Beza, and blames him for affecting to despise Erasmus
as a commentator. I have named Beza in the text as superior to
Zanchius and others, in deference to common reputation, for I am
wholly ignorant of the writings of all.

|Ecclesiastical historians.|

50. A regular and copious history of the church, from the primitive ages to the Reformation itself, was first given by the Lutherans under the title, Centuriæ Magdeburgenses, from the name of the city where it was compiled. The principal among several authors concerned, usually called Centuriators, was Flacius Illyricus, a most inveterate enemy of Melanchthon. This work has been more than once reprinted, and is still, in point of truth and original research, the most considerable ecclesiastical history on the Protestant side. Mosheim, or his translator, calls this an immortal work;[1022] and Eichhorn speaks of it in strong terms of admiration for the boldness of the enterprise, the laboriousness of the execution, the spirit with which it cleared away a mass of fable, and placed ecclesiastical history on an authentic basis. The faults, both those springing from the imperfect knowledge, and from the prejudices of the compilers, are equally conspicuous.[1023] Nearly forty years afterwards, between the years 1588 and 1609, the celebrated Annals of Cardinal Baronius, in twelve volumes, appeared. These were brought down by him only to the end of the twelfth century; their continuation by Rainaldus, published from 1646 to 1663, goes down to 1566. It was the object of protestant learning in the seventeenth century, to repel the authority and impugn the allegations of Baronius. Those of his own communion, in a more advanced stage of criticism, have confessed his mistakes; many of them arising from a want of acquaintance with the Greek language, indispensable, as we should now justly think, for one who undertook a general history of the church, but not sufficiently universal in Italy, at the end of the sixteenth century, to deprive those who did not possess it of a high character for erudition. Eichhorn speaks far less favourably of Baronius than of the Centuriators.[1024] But of these two voluminous histories, written with equal prejudice on opposite sides, an impartial and judicious scholar has thus given his opinion.

[1022] Cent. 16, sect. 3, part ii. c. 9. This expression is probably in
the original; but it is difficult to quote Maclaine’s translation
with confidence, on account of the liberties which he took with the
text.

[1023] Vol. vi. part ii. p. 149.

[1024] Id. p. 180.

|Le Clerc’s character of them.|

51. “An ecclesiastical historian,” Le Clerc satirically observes, “ought to adhere inviolably to this maxim, that whatever can be favourable to heretics is false, and whatever can be said against them is true; while, on the other hand, all that does honour to the orthodox is unquestionable, and everything that can do them discredit is surely a lie. He must suppress too with care, or at least extenuate, as far as possible, the errors and vices of those whom the orthodox are accustomed to respect, whether they know anything about them or no; and must exaggerate, on the contrary, the mistakes and faults of the heterodox to the utmost of his power. He must remember that any orthodox writer is a competent witness against a heretic, and is to be trusted implicitly on his word; while a heretic is never to be believed against the orthodox, and has honour enough done him, in allowing him to speak against his own side, or in favour of our own. It is thus that the Centuriators of Magdeburg, and thus that Cardinal Baronius have written; each of their works having by this means acquired an immortal glory with its own party. But it must be owned that they are not the earliest, and that they have only imitated most of their predecessors in this plan of writing. For many ages, men had only sought in ecclesiastical antiquity, not what was really to be found there, but what they conceived ought to be there for the good of their own party.”[1025]

[1025] Parrhasiana, vol. i. p. 168.

|Deistical writers.|

52. But in the midst of so many dissentients from each other, some resting on the tranquil bosom of the church, some fighting the long battle of argument, some catching at gleams of supernatural light, the very truths of natural and revealed religion were called in question by a different party. The proofs of this before the middle of the sixteenth century are chiefly to be derived from Italy. Pomponatius has already been mentioned, and some other Aristotelian philosophers might be added. But these, whose scepticism extended to natural theology, belong to the class of metaphysical writers, whose place is in the next chapter. If we limit ourselves to those who directed their attacks against Christianity, it must be presumed that, in an age when the tribunals of justice visited, even with the punishment of death, the denial of any fundamental doctrine, few books of an openly irreligious tendency could appear.[1026] A short pamphlet by one Vallée, cost him his life in 1574. Some others were clandestinely circulated in France before the end of the century; and the list of men suspected of infidelity, if we could trust all private anecdotes of the time, would be by no means short. Bodin, Montaigne, Charron, have been reckoned among the rejecters of Christianity. The first I conceive to have acknowledged no revelation but the Jewish; the second is free, in my opinion, from all reasonable suspicion of infidelity; the principal work of the third was not published till 1601. His former treatise, “Des Trois Vérités,” is an elaborate vindication of the Christian and Catholic religion.[1027]

[1026] The famous Cymbalum Mundi, by Bonaventure des Periers, published
in 1538, which, while it continued extremely scarce, had the
character of an irreligious work, has proved, since it was
reprinted, in 1711, perfectly innocuous, though there are a few
malicious glances at priests and nuns. It has always been the habit
of the literary world, as much as at present, to speak of books by
hearsay. The Cymbalum Mundi is written in Dialogue, somewhat in the
manner of Lucian, and is rather more lively than books of that age
generally were.

[1027] Des Trois Vérités contre les Athées, Idolatres, Juifs,
Mahumetans, Hérétiques, et Schismatiques. Bourdeaux, 1593. Charron
has not put his name to this book; and it does not appear that he
has taken anything from himself in his subsequent work, De la
Sagesse.

|Wierus, De Præstigiis.|

53. I hardly know how to insert, in any other chapter than the present, the books that relate to sorcery and demoniacal possessions, though they can only in a very lax sense be ranked with theological literature. The greater part are contemptible in any other light than as evidences of the state of human opinion. Those designed to rescue the innocent from sanguinary prejudices, and chase the real demon of superstition from the mind of man, deserve to be commemorated. Two such works belong to this period. Wierus, a physician of the Netherlands, in a treatise, “De Præstigiis,” Basle, 1564, combats the horrible prejudice by which those accused of witchcraft were thrown into the flames. He shows a good deal of credulity as to diabolical illusions, but takes these unfortunate persons for the devil’s victims rather than his accomplices. Upon the whole, Wierus destroys more superstition than he seriously intended to leave behind.

|Scot on Witchcraft.|

54. A far superior writer is our countryman, Reginald Scot, whose object is the same, but whose views are incomparably more extensive and enlightened. He denies altogether to the devil any power of controlling the course of nature. It may be easily supposed that this solid and learned person, for such he was beyond almost all the English of that age, did not escape in his own time, or long afterwards, the censure of those who adhered to superstition. Scot’s Discovery of Witchcraft was published in 1584.[1028] Bodin, on the other hand, endeavoured to sustain the vulgar notions of Witchcraft in his Demonomanie des Sorciers. It is not easy to conceive a more wretched production; besides his superstitious absurdities, he is guilty of exciting the magistrate against Wierus, by representing him as a real confederate of Satan.

[1028] It appears by Scot’s book that not only the common, but the more
difficult tricks of conjurers were practised in his time; he shows
how to perform some of them.

|Authenticity of Vulgate.|

55. We may conclude this chapter, by mentioning the principal versions and editions of Scripture. No edition of the Greek Testament, worthy to be specified, appeared after that of Robert Stephens, whose text was invariably followed. The council of Trent declared the Vulgate translation of Scripture to be authentic, condemning all that should deny its authority. It has been a commonplace with Protestants to inveigh against this decree, even while they have virtually maintained the principle upon which it is founded--one by no means peculiar to the church of Rome--being no other than that it is dangerous to unsettle the mind of the ignorant, or partially learned in religion; a proposition not easily disputable by any man of sense, but, when acted upon, as incompatible as any two contraries can be, with the free and general investigation of truth.

|Latin versions and editions by Catholics.|

56. Notwithstanding this decision in favour of the Vulgate, there was room left for partial uncertainty. The council of Trent, declaring the translation itself to be authentic, pronounced nothing in favour of any manuscript or edition; and as it would be easier to put down learning altogether than absolutely to restrain the searching spirit of criticism, it was soon held that the council’s decree went but to the general fidelity of the version, without warranting every passage. Many Catholic writers, accordingly, have put a very liberal interpretation on this decree, suggesting such emendations of particular texts as the original seemed to demand. They have even given new translations; one by Arias Montanus is chiefly founded on that of Pagninus, and an edition of the Vulgate, by Isidore Clarius, is said to resemble a new translation, by his numerous corrections of the text from the Hebrew.[1029] Sixtus V. determined to put a stop to a license which rendered the Tridentine provisions almost nugatory. He fulfilled the intentions of the council by causing to be published in 1590 the Sistine Bible; an authoritative edition to be used in all churches. This was, however, superseded by another, set forth only two years afterwards by Clement VIII., which is said to differ more than any other from that which his predecessor had published as authentic; a circumstance not forgotten by Protestant polemics. The Sistine edition is now very scarce. The same pope had published a standard edition of the Septuagint in 1587.[1030]

[1029] Andrès, xix. 40. Simon, 358.

[1030] Andrès, xix, 44. Schelhorn, Amœnit. Literar, vol. ii. 359,
and vol. iv. 439.

|By Protestants.|

57. The Latin translations made by Protestants in this period were that by Sebastian Castalio, which, in search of more elegance of style, deviates from the simplicity, as well as sense, of the original, and fails therefore of obtaining that praise at the hands of men of taste for which more essential requisites have been sacrificed;[1031] and that by Tremellius and Junius, published at Frankfort in 1575, and subsequent years. It was retouched some time afterwards by Junius, after the death of his coadjutor. This translation was better esteemed in Protestant countries, especially at first, than by the Catholic critics. Simon speaks of it with little respect. It professedly adheres closely to the Hebrew idiom. Beza gave a Latin version of the New Testament. It is doubtful whether any of these translations have much improved upon the Vulgate.

[1031] Andrès, xix. 166. Castalio, according to Simon (Hist. Critique
du V. T., p. 363), affects politeness to an inconceivable degree of
bad taste, especially in such phrases as these in his translation
of the Canticles:--Mea columbula, ostende mihi tuum vulticulum; fac
ut audiam tuam voculam, &c. He was, however, Simon says, tolerably
acquainted with Hebrew, and spoke modestly of his own translation.

|Versions into modern languages.|

58. The new translations of the Scriptures into modern languages were naturally not so numerous as at an earlier period. Two in English are well known; the Geneva Bible of 1560, published in that city by Coverdale, Whittingham, and other refugees, and the Bishop’s Bible of 1568. Both of these, or at least the latter, were professedly founded upon the prior versions, but certainly not without a close comparison with the original text. The English Catholics published a translation of the New Testament from the Vulgate at Rheims in 1582. The Polish translation, commonly ascribed to the Socinians, was printed under the patronage of Prince Radzivil in 1563, before that sect could be said to exist, though Lismanin and Blandrata, both of heterodox tenets, were concerned in it.[1032] This edition is of the greatest rarity. The Spanish bible of Ferrara, 1553, and the Sclavonian of 1581, are also very scarce. The curious in bibliography are conversant with other versions and editions of the sixteenth century, chiefly of rare occurrence.[1033]

[1032] Bayle, art. Radzivil.

[1033] Brunet, &c.