Church History, Volume 3 (of 3)
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Title: Church History, Volume 3 (of 3)
Author: J. H. Kurtz
Translator: John Macpherson
Release date: September 11, 2011 [eBook #37404]
Most recently updated: March 17, 2016
Language: English
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CHURCH HISTORY.
BY
PROFESSOR KURTZ.
_AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION FROM LATEST REVISED EDITION BY THE_
REV. JOHN MACPHERSON, M.A.
IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. III.
_SECOND EDITION._
London:
HODDER AND STOUGHTON,
27, PATERNOSTER ROW.
MDCCCXCIII.
BUTLER & TANNER,
THE SELWOOD PRINTING WORKS,
FROME, AND LONDON.
CONTENTS.
THIRD DIVISION.
(Continued.)
SECOND SECTION.
CHURCH HISTORY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
I. Relations between the Different Churches.
§ 152. EAST AND WEST.
(1) Roman Catholic Hopes.
(2) Calvinistic Hopes.
(3) Orthodox Constancy.
§ 153. CATHOLICISM AND PROTESTANTISM.
(1) Conversions of Protestant Princes.
(2) The Restoration in Germany and the Neighbouring States.
(3) Livonia and Hungary.
(4) The Huguenots in France.
(5) The Waldensians in Piedmont.
(6) The Catholics in England and Ireland.
(7) Union Efforts.
(8) The Lehnin Prophecy.
§ 154. LUTHERANISM AND CALVINISM.
(1) Calvinizing of Hesse-Cassel, A.D. 1605-1646.
(2) Calvinizing of Lippe, A.D. 1602.
(3) The Elector of Brandenburg becomes Calvinist, A.D. 1613.
(4) Union Attempts.
§ 155. ANGLICANISM AND PURITANISM.
(1) The First Two Stuarts.
(2) The Commonwealth and the Protector.
(3) The Restoration and the Act of Toleration.
II. The Roman Catholic Church.
§ 156. THE PAPACY, MONKERY, AND FOREIGN MISSIONS.
(1) The Papacy.
(2) The Jesuits and the Republic of Venice.
(3) The Gallican Liberties.
(4) Galileo and the Inquisition.
(5) The Controversy on the Immaculate Conception.
(6) The Devotion of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
(7) New Congregations and Orders.
1. Benedictine Congregation of St. Banne.
2. Benedictine Congregation of St. Maur.
3. The Fathers of the Oratory of Jesus.
4. The Piarists.
5. The Order of the Visitation of Mary.
(8) 6. The Priests of the Missions and Sisters
of Charity.
7. The Trappists.
8. The English Nuns.
(9) The Propaganda.
(10) Foreign Missions.
(11) In the East Indies.
(12) In China.
(13) Trade and Industry of the Jesuits.
(14) An Apostate to Judaism.
§ 157. QUIETISM AND JANSENISM.
(1) Francis de Sales and Madame Chantal.
(2) Michael Molinos.
(3) Madame Guyon and Fénelon.
(4) Mysticism Tinged with Theosophy and Pantheism.
(5) Jansenism in its first Stage.
§ 158. SCIENCE AND ART IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
(1) Theological Science.
(2) Church History.
(3) Art and Poetry.
III. The Lutheran Church.
§ 159. ORTHODOXY AND ITS BATTLES.
(1) Christological Controversies.
1. The Cryptist and Kenotist Controversy.
2. The Lütkemann Controversy.
(2) The Syncretist Controversy.
(3) The Pietist Controversy in its First Stage.
(4) Theological Literature.
(5) Dogmatics.
§ 160. THE RELIGIOUS LIFE.
(1) Mysticism and Asceticism.
(2) Mysticism and Theosophy.
(3) Sacred Song.
(4) ---- Its 17th Century Transition.
(5) Sacred Music.
(6) The Christian Life of the People.
(7) Missions.
IV. The Reformed Church.
§ 161. THEOLOGY AND ITS BATTLES.
(1) Preliminaries of the Arminian Controversy.
(2) The Arminian Controversy.
(3) Consequences of the Arminian Controversy.
(4) The Cocceian and Cartesian Controversies.
(5) ---- Continued.
(6) Theological Literature.
(7) Dogmatic Theology.
(8) The Apocrypha Controversy.
§ 162. THE RELIGIOUS LIFE.
(1) England and Scotland.
(2) ---- Political and Social Revolutionists.
(3) ---- Devotional Literature.
(4) The Netherlands.
(5) ---- Voetians and Cocceians.
(6) France, Germany, and Switzerland.
(7) Foreign Missions.
V. Anti- and Extra-Ecclesiastical Parties.
§ 163. SECTS AND FANATICS.
(1) The Socinians.
(2) The Baptists of the Continent.
1. The Dutch Baptists.
2. The Moravian Baptists.
(3) The English Baptists.
(4) The Quakers.
(5) ---- Continued.
(6) The Quaker Constitution.
(7) Labadie and the Labadists.
(8) ---- Continued.
(9) Fanatical Sects.
(10) Russian Sects.
§ 164. PHILOSOPHERS AND FREETHINKERS.
(1) Philosophy.
(2) ---- Continued.
(3) Freethinkers--England.
(4) ---- Germany and France.
THIRD SECTION.
CHURCH HISTORY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
I. The Catholic Church in East and West.
§ 165. THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.
(1) The Popes.
(2) Old and New Orders.
(3) Foreign Missions.
(4) The Counter-Reformation.
(5) In France.
(6) Conversions.
(7) The Second Stage of Jansenism.
(8) The Old Catholic Church in the Netherlands.
(9) Suppression of the Order of Jesuits, A.D. 1773.
(10) Anti-hierarchical Movements in Germany and Italy.
(11) Theological Literature.
(12) In Italy.
(13) The German-Catholic Contribution to the Illumination.
(14) The French Contribution to the Illumination.
(15) The French Revolution.
(16) The Pseudo-Catholics--The Abrahamites or
Bohemian Deists.
(17) ---- The Frankists.
§ 166. THE ORIENTAL CHURCHES.
(1) The Russian State Church.
(2) Russian Sects.
(3) The Abyssinian Church.
II. The Protestant Churches.
§ 167. THE LUTHERAN CHURCH BEFORE “THE ILLUMINATION.”
(1) The Pietist Controversies after the Founding of the
Halle University.
(2) ---- Controversial Doctrines.
(3) Theology.
(4) Unionist Efforts.
(5) Theories of Ecclesiastical Law.
(6) Church Song.
(7) Sacred Music.
(8) The Christian Life and Devotional Literature.
(9) Missions to the Heathen.
§ 168. THE CHURCH OF THE MORAVIAN BRETHREN.
(1) The Founder of the Moravian Brotherhood.
(2) The Founding of the Brotherhood.
(3) The Development of the Brotherhood down to
Zinzendorf’s Death, A.D. 1727-1760.
(4) Zinzendorf’s Plan and Work.
(5) Numerous Extravagances.
(6) Zinzendorf’s Greatness.
(7) The Brotherhood under Spangenberg’s Administration.
(8) The Doctrinal Peculiarities of the Brotherhood.
(9) The Peculiarities of Worship among the Brethren.
(10) Christian Life of the Brotherhood.
(11) Missions to the Heathen.
§ 169. THE REFORMED CHURCH BEFORE THE “ILLUMINATION.”
(1) The German Reformed Church.
(2) The Reformed Church in Switzerland.
(3) The Dutch Reformed Church.
(4) Methodism.
(5) ---- Continued.
(6) Theological Literature.
§ 170. NEW SECTS AND FANATICS.
(1) Fanatics and Separatists in Germany.
(2) The Inspired Societies in Wetterau.
(3) J. C. Dippel.
(4) Separatists of Immoral Tendency.
(5) Swedenborgianism.
(6) New Baptist Sects.
(7) New Quaker Sects.
(8) Predestinarian-Mystical Sects.
§ 171. RELIGION, THEOLOGY, AND LITERATURE OF THE “ILLUMINATION.”
(1) Deism, Arianism, and Unitarianism in the English Church.
1. The Deists.
2. The So-called Arians.
3. The Later Unitarians.
(2) Freemasons.
(3) The German “Illumination.”
1. Its Precursors.
(4) 2. The Age of Frederick the Great.
(5) 3. The Wöllner Reaction.
(6) The Transition Theology.
(7) The Rationalistic Theology.
(8) Supernaturalism.
(9) Mysticism and Theosophy.
(10) The German Philosophy.
(11) The German National Literature.
(12) Pestalozzi.
§ 172. CHURCH LIFE IN THE PERIOD OF THE “ILLUMINATION.”
(1) The Hymnbook and Church Music.
(2) Religious Characters.
(3) Religious Sects.
(4) The Rationalistic “Illumination” outside of Germany.
(5) Missionary Societies and Missionary Enterprise.
FOURTH SECTION.
CHURCH HISTORY OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
I. General and Introductory.
§ 173. SURVEY OF RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS OF NINETEENTH CENTURY.
§ 174. NINETEENTH CENTURY CULTURE IN RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY
AND THE CHURCH.
(1) The German Philosophy.
(2) ---- Continued.
(3) The Sciences; Medicine.
(4) Jurists; Historians; Geography; Philology.
(5) National Literature--Germany.
(6) ---- Continued.
(7) ---- Other Countries.
(8) Popular Education.
(9) Art.
(10) Music and the Drama.
§ 175. INTERCOURSE AND NEGOTIATIONS BETWEEN THE CHURCHES.
(1) Romanizing Tendencies among Protestants.
(2) The Attitude of Catholicism toward Protestantism.
(3) Romish Controversy.
(4) Roman Catholic Union Schemes.
(5) Greek Orthodox Union Schemes.
(6) Old Catholic Union Schemes.
(7) Conversions.
(8) ---- The Mortara Affair.
(9) ---- Other Conversions.
(10) The Luther Centenary, A.D. 1883.
II. Protestantism in General.
§ 176. RATIONALISM AND PIETISM.
(1) Rationalism.
(2) Pietism.
(3) The Königsberg Religious Movement, A.D. 1835-1842.
(4) The Bender Controversy.
§ 177. EVANGELICAL UNION AND LUTHERAN SEPARATION.
(1) The Evangelical Union.
(2) The Lutheran Separation.
(3) The Separation within the Separation.
§ 178. EVANGELICAL CONFEDERATION.
(1) The Gustavus Adolphus Society.
(2) The Eisenach Conference.
(3) The Evangelical Alliance.
(4) The Evangelical Church Alliance.
(5) The Evangelical League.
§ 179. LUTHERANISM, MELANCHTHONIANISM, AND CALVINISM.
(1) Lutheranism within the Union.
(2) Lutheranism outside of the Union.
(3) Melanchthonianism and Calvinism.
§ 180. THE “_PROTESTANTENVEREIN_.”
(1) The Protestant Assembly.
(2) The “_Protestantenverein_” Propaganda.
(3) Sufferings Endured.
(4) ---- In Berlin.
(5) ---- In Schleswig Holstein.
§ 181. DISPUTES ABOUT FORMS OF WORSHIP.
(1) The Hymnbook.
(2) The Book of Chorales.
(3) The Liturgy.
(4) The Holy Scriptures.
§ 182. PROTESTANT THEOLOGY IN GERMANY.
(1) Schleiermacher, A.D. 1768-1834.
(2) The Older Rationalistic Theology.
(3) Historico-Critical Rationalism.
(4) Supernaturalism.
(5) Rational Supernaturalism.
(6) Speculative Theology.
(7) The Tübingen School.
(8) Strauss.
(9) The Mediating Theology.
(10) Lutheran Theologians.
(11) Old Testament Exegetes.
(12) University Teachers.
(13) The Lutheran Confessional Theology.
(14) ---- Continued.
(15) ---- Continued.
(16) Reformed Confessionalism.
(17) The Free Protestant Theology.
(18) In the Old Testament Department.
(19) Dogmatists.
(20) Ritschl and his School.
(21) ---- Opponents.
(22) Writers on Constitutional Law and History.
§ 183. HOME MISSIONS.
(1) Institutions.
(2) The Order of St. John.
(3) The Itinerant Preacher Gustav Werner in Württemberg.
(4) Bible Societies.
§ 184. FOREIGN MISSIONS.
(1) Missionary Societies.
(2) Europe and America.
(3) Africa.
(4) ---- Livingstone and Stanley.
(5) Asia.
(6) China.
(7) Polynesia and Australia.
(8) Missions to the Jews.
(9) Missions among the Eastern Churches.
III. Catholicism in General.
§ 185. THE PAPACY AND THE STATES OF THE CHURCH.
(1) The First Four Popes of the Century.
(2) Pius IX., A.D. 1846-1878.
(3) The Overthrow of the Papal States.
(4) The Prisoner of the Vatican, A.D. 1870-1878.
(5) Leo XIII.
§ 186. VARIOUS ORDERS AND ASSOCIATIONS.
(1) The Society of Jesus and Related Orders.
(2) Other Orders and Congregations.
(3) The Pius Verein.
(4) The Various German Unions.
(5) Omnipotence of Capital.
(6) The Catholic Missions.
(7) ---- Mission Societies.
§ 187. LIBERAL CATHOLIC MOVEMENTS.
(1) Mystical-Irenical Tendencies.
(2) Evangelical-Revival Tendencies.
(3) Liberal-Scientific Tendencies.
(4) Radical-Liberalistic Tendencies.
(5) Attempts at Reform in Church Government.
(6) Attempts to Found National Catholic Churches.
(7) National Italian Church.
(8) The Frenchman, Charles Loyson.
§ 188. CATHOLIC ULTRAMONTANISM.
(1) The Ultramontane Propaganda.
(2) Miracles.
(3) Stigmatizations.
(4) ---- Louise Lateau.
(5) Pseudo-Stigmatizations.
(6) Manifestations of the Mother of God in France.
(7) Manifestations of the Mother of God in Germany.
(8) Canonizations.
(9) Discoveries of Relics.
(10) The blood of St. Januarius.
(11) The Leaping Procession at Echternach.
(12) The Devotion of the Sacred Heart.
(13) Ultramontane Amulets.
(14) Ultramontane Pulpit Eloquence.
§ 189. THE VATICAN COUNCIL.
(1) Preliminary History of the Council.
(2) The Organization of the Council.
(3) The Proceedings of the Council.
(4) Acceptance of the Decrees of the Council.
§ 190. THE OLD CATHOLICS.
(1) Formation and Development of the Old Catholic Church
in the German Empire.
(2) ---- Continued.
(3) The Old Catholics in other Lands.
§ 191. CATHOLIC THEOLOGY, ESPECIALLY IN GERMANY.
(1) Hermes and his School.
(2) Baader and his School.
(3) Günther and his School.
(4) John Adam Möhler.
(5) John Jos. Ignat. von Döllinger.
(6) The Chief Representatives of Systematic Theology.
(7) The Chief Representatives of Historical Theology.
(8) The Chief Representatives of Exegetical Theology.
(9) The Chief Representatives of the New Scholasticism.
(10) The Munich Congress of Catholic Scholars, 1863.
(11) Theological Journals.
(12) The Popes and Theological Science.
IV. Relation of Church to the Empire and to the States.
§ 192. THE GERMAN CONFEDERATION.
(1) The Imperial Commission’s Decree, 1803.
(2) The Prince-Primate of the Confederation of the Rhine.
(3) The Vienna Congress and the Concordat.
(4) The Frankfort Parliament and the Würzburg Bishops’
Congress of 1848.
§ 193. PRUSSIA.
(1) The Catholic Church to the Close of the Cologne
Conflict.
(2) The Golden Age of Prussian Ultramontanism, 1841-1871.
(3) The Evangelical Church in Old Prussia down to 1848.
(4) The Evangelical Church in Old Prussia, 1848-1872.
(5) The Evangelical Church in Old Prussia, 1872-1880.
(6) ---- Continued.
(7) The Evangelical Church in the Annexed Provinces.
(8) ---- In Hanover.
(9) ---- In Hesse.
§ 194. THE NORTH GERMAN SMALLER STATES.
(1) The Kingdom of Saxony.
(2) The Saxon Duchies.
(3) The Kingdom of Hanover.
(4) Hesse.
(5) Brunswick, Oldenburg, Anhalt, and Lippe-Detmold.
(6) Mecklenburg.
§ 195. BAVARIA.
(1) The Bavarian Ecclesiastical Polity under
Maximilian I., 1799-1825.
(2) The Bavarian Ecclesiastical Polity under
Louis I., 1825-1848.
(3) The Bavarian Ecclesiastical Polity under
Maximilian II., 1848-1864, and Louis II.
(4) Attempts at Reorganization of the Lutheran Church.
(5) The Church of the Union in the Palatine of the Rhine.
§ 196. THE SOUTH GERMAN SMALLER STATES AND RHENISH ALSACE
AND LORRAINE.
(1) The Upper Rhenish Church Province.
(2) The Catholic Troubles in Baden down to 1873.
(3) The Protestant Troubles in Baden.
(4) Hesse-Darmstadt and Nassau.
(5) In Protestant Württemberg.
(6) The Catholic Church in Württemberg.
(7) The Imperial Territory of Alsace and Lorraine
since 1871.
§ 197. THE SO-CALLED KULTURKAMPF IN THE GERMAN EMPIRE.
(1) The Aggression of Ultramontanism.
(2) Conflicts Occasioned by Protection of the Old
Catholics, 1871-1872.
(3) Struggles over Educational Questions, 1872-1873.
(4) The Kanzelparagraph and the Jesuit law, 1871-1872.
(5) The Prussian Ecclesiastical Laws, 1873-1875.
(6) Opposition in the States to the Prussian May Laws.
(7) Share in the Conflict taken by the Pope.
(8) The Conflict about the Encyclical _Quod nunquam_
of 1875.
(9) Papal Overtures for Peace.
(10) Proof of the Prussian Government’s willingness
to be Reconciled, 1880-1881.
(11) Conciliatory Negotiations, 1882-1884.
(12) Resumption on both sides of Conciliatory Measures,
1885-1886.
(13) Definitive Conclusion of Peace, 1887.
(14) Independent Procedure of the other German Governments.
1. Bavaria.
2. Württemberg.
3. Baden.
(15) 4. Hesse-Darmstadt.
5. Saxony.
§ 198. AUSTRIA-HUNGARY.
(1) The Zillerthal Emigration.
(2) The Concordat.
(3) The Protestant Church in Cisleithan Austria.
(4) The Clerical Landtag Opposition in the Tyrol.
(5) The Austrian Universities.
(6) The Austrian Ecclesiastical Laws, 1874-1876.
(7) The Protestant Church in the Transleithan Provinces.
§ 199. SWITZERLAND.
(1) The Catholic Church in Switzerland till 1870.
(2) The Geneva Conflict, 1870-1883.
(3) Conflict in the Diocese of Basel-Soleure, 1870-1880.
(4) The Protestant Church in German Switzerland.
(5) The Protestant Church in French Switzerland.
§ 200. HOLLAND AND BELGIUM.
(1) The United Netherlands.
(2) The Kingdom of Holland.
(3) ---- Continued.
(4) ---- Continued.
(5) The Kingdom of Belgium.
(6) ---- Continued.
(7) ---- Continued.
(8) The Protestant Church.
§ 201. THE SCANDINAVIAN COUNTRIES.
(1) Denmark.
(2) Sweden.
(3) Norway.
§ 202. GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.
(1) The Episcopal State Church.
(2) The Tractarians and Ritualists.
(3) ---- Continued.
(4) Liberalism in the Episcopal Church.
(5) Protestant Dissenters in England.
(6) Scotch Marriages in England.
(7) The Scottish State Church.
(8) Scottish Heresy Cases.
(9) The Catholic Church in Ireland.
(10) The Fenian Movement.
(11) The Catholic Church in England and Scotland.
(12) German Lutheran Congregations in Australia.
§ 203. FRANCE.
(1) The French Church under Napoleon I.
(2) The Restoration and the Citizen Kingdom.
(3) The Catholic Church under Napoleon III.
(4) The Protestant Churches under Napoleon III.
(5) The Catholic Church in the Third French Republic.
(6) The French “Kulturkampf,” 1880.
(7) ---- Continued.
(8) The Protestant Churches under the Third Republic.
§ 204. ITALY.
(1) The Kingdom of Sardinia.
(2) The Kingdom of Italy.
(3) The Evangelization of Italy.
(4) ---- Continued.
§ 205. SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.
(1) Spain under Ferdinand VII. and Maria Christina.
(2) Spain under Isabella II., 1843-1865.
(3) Spain under Alphonso XII., 1875-1885.
(4) The Evangelization of Spain.
(5) The Church in Portugal.
§ 206. RUSSIA.
(1) The Orthodox National Church.
(2) The Catholic Church.
(3) The Evangelical Church.
§ 207. GREECE AND TURKEY.
(1) The Orthodox Church of Greece.
(2) Massacre of Syrian Christians, 1860.
(3) The Bulgarian Ecclesiastical Struggle.
(4) The Armenian Church.
(5) The Berlin Treaty, 1878.
§ 208. THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
(1) English Protestant Denominations.
(2) The German Lutheran Denominations.
(3) ---- Continued.
(4) German-Reformed and other German-Protestant
Denominations.
(5) The Catholic Church.
§ 209. THE ROMAN CATHOLIC STATES OF SOUTH AMERICA.
(1) Mexico.
(2) In the Republics of Central and Southern America.
(3) Brazil.
V. Opponents of Church and of Christianity.
§ 210. SECTARIANS AND ENTHUSIASTS IN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC AND
ORTHODOX RUSSIAN DOMAINS.
(1) Sects and Fanatics in the Roman Catholic Domain.
1. The Order of New Templars.
2. St. Simonians.
3. Aug. Comte.
(2) 4. Thomas Pöschl.
5. Antonians.
6. Adamites.
7. David Lazzaretti.
(3) Russian Sects and Fanatics.
(4) ---- Continued.
§ 211. SECTARIES AND ENTHUSIASTS IN THE PROTESTANT DOMAIN.
(1) The Methodist Propaganda.
(2) The Salvation Army.
(3) Baptists and Quakers.
(4) Swedenborgians and Unitarians.
(5) Extravagantly Fanatical Manifestations.
(6) Christian Communistic Sects.
1. Harmonites.
2. Bible Communists.
(7) Millenarian Exodus Communities.
1. Georgian Separatists.
2. Bavarian Chiliasts.
(8) 3. Amen Community.
4. German Temple Communities.
(9) The Community of “the New Israel.”
(10) The Catholic Apostolic Church of the Irvingites.
(11) The Darbyites and Adventists.
(12) The Mormons or Latter Day Saints.
(13) ---- Continued.
(14) ---- Continued.
(15) The Taepings in China.
(16) ---- Continued.
(17) The Spiritualists.
(18) Theosophism or Occultism.
§ 212. ANTICHRISTIAN SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM.
(1) The Beginnings of Modern Communism.
(2) St. Simonism.
(3) Owenists and Icarians.
(4) The International Working-Men’s Association.
(5) German Social Democracy.
(6) Russian Nihilism.
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLES.
INDEX.
THIRD DIVISION.
(Continued.)
SECOND SECTION.
CHURCH HISTORY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
I. Relations between the Different Churches.
§ 152. EAST AND WEST.
The papacy formed new plans for conquest in the domain of the Eastern
church, but with at most only transient success. Still more illusory
were the hopes entertained for a while in Geneva and London in regard
to the Calvinizing of the Greek church.
§ 152.1. =Roman Catholic Hopes.=--The Jesuit missions among the
Turks and schismatic Greeks failed, but among the Abyssinians
some progress was made. By promising Spanish aid, the Jesuit
Paez succeeded, in A.D. 1621, in inducing the Sultan Segued to
abjure the Jacobite heresy. Mendez was made Abyssinian patriarch
by Urban VIII. in A.D. 1626, but the clergy and people repeatedly
rebelled against sultan and patriarch. In A.D. 1642 the next
sultan drove the Jesuits out of his kingdom, and in it henceforth
no traces of Catholicism were to be found.--In Russia the false
Demetrius, in A.D. 1605, working in Polish Catholic interests,
sought to catholicize the empire; but this only convinced the
Russians that he was no true czar’s son. When his Catholic Polish
bride entered Moscow with 200 Poles, a riot ensued, in which
Demetrius lost his life.[445]
§ 152.2. =Calvinistic Hopes.=--=Cyril Lucar=, a native of Crete,
then under Venetian rule, by long residence in Geneva had come
to entertain a strong liking to the Reformed church. Expelled
from his situation as rector of a Greek seminary at Ostrog by
Jesuit machinations, he was made Patriarch of Alexandria in
A.D. 1602 and of Constantinople in A.D. 1621. He maintained
a regular correspondence with Reformed divines in Holland,
Switzerland, and England. In A.D. 1628 he sent the famous Codex
Alexandrinus as a present to James I. He wrought expressly
for a union of the Greek and Reformed churches, and for this
end sent, in A.D. 1629, to Geneva an almost purely Calvinistic
confession. But the other Greek bishops opposed his union
schemes, and influential Jesuits in Constantinople accused
him of political faults. Four times the sultan deposed and
banished him, and at last, in A.D. 1638, he was strangled as
a traitor and cast into the sea.--One of his Alexandrian clergy,
Metrophanes Critopulus, whom in A.D. 1616 he had sent for his
education to England, studied several years at Oxford, then
at German Protestant universities, ending with Helmstadt, where,
in A.D. 1625, he composed in Greek a confession of the faith
of the Greek Orthodox Church. It was pointedly antagonistic to
the Romish doctrine, conciliatory toward Protestantism, while
abandoning nothing essential in the Greek Orthodox creed, and
showing signs of the possession of independent speculative power.
Afterwards Metrophanes became Patriarch of Alexandria, and in
the synod, presided over by Lucar’s successor, Cyril of Berrhoë,
at Constantinople in A.D. 1638, gave his vote for the formal
condemnation of the man who had been already executed.[446]
§ 152.3. =Orthodox Constancy.=--The Russian Orthodox church,
after its emancipation from Constantinople and the erection of
an independent patriarchate at Moscow in A.D. 1589 (§ 73, 4),
had decidedly the pre-eminence over the Greek Orthodox church,
and the Russian czar took the place formerly occupied by the
East Roman emperor as protector of the whole Orthodox church.
The dangers to the Orthodox faith threatened by schemes of union
with Catholics and Protestants induced the learned metropolitan,
Peter Mogilas of Kiev, to compose a new confession in
catechetical form, which, in A.D. 1643, was formally authorized
by the Orthodox patriarchs as Ὀρθόδοξος ὁμολογία τῆς καθολικῆς
καὶ ἀποστολικῆς ἐκκλησίας τῆς ἀνατολικῆς.--Thirty years later
a controversy on the eucharist broke out between the Jansenists
Nicole and Arnauld, on the one side, and the Calvinists Claude
and Jurieu, on the other (§ 157, 1), in which both claimed to
be in agreement with the Greek church. A synod was convened
under =Dositheus of Jerusalem= in A.D. 1672, at the instigation
of French diplomatists, where the questions raised by Cyril
were again taken into consideration. Maintaining a friendly
attitude toward the Romish church, it directed a violent
polemic against Calvinism. In order to save the character of
the Constantinopolitan chair for constant Orthodoxy, Cyril’s
confession of A.D. 1629 was pronounced a spurious, heretical
invention, and a confession composed by Dositheus, in which
Cyril’s Calvinistic heresies were repudiated, was incorporated
with the synod’s acts.
§ 153. CATHOLICISM AND PROTESTANTISM.
The Jesuit counter-reformation (§ 151) was eminently successful
during the first decades of the century in Bohemia. The Westphalian
Peace restrained its violence, but did not prevent secret machinations
and the open exercise of all conceivable arts of seduction. Next to
the conversion of Bohemia, the greatest triumph of the restoration was
won in France in the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Besides such
victories the Catholics were able to glory in the conversion of several
Protestant princes. New endeavours at union were repeatedly made, but
these in every case proved as fruitless as former attempts had done.
§ 153.1. =Conversions of Protestant Princes.=--The first
reigning prince who became a convert to Romanism was the
Margrave =James III. of Baden=. He went over in A.D. 1590
(§ 144, 4), but as his death occurred soon after, his conduct
had little influence upon his people. Of greater consequence
was the conversion, in A.D. 1614, of the Count-palatine Wolfgang
William of Neuburg, as it prepared the way for the catholicizing
of the whole Palatinate, which followed in A.D. 1685. Much was
made of the passing over to the Catholic church of =Christina
of Sweden=, the highly gifted but eccentric daughter of Gustavus
Adolphus. As she had resigned the crown, the pope gained no
political advantage from his new member, and Alexander VII.
had even to contribute to her support. The Elector of Saxony,
=Frederick Augustus II.=, passed over to the Roman Catholic
church in A.D. 1697, in order to qualify himself for the Polish
crown; but the rights of his Protestant subjects were carefully
guarded. An awkwardness arose from the fact that the prince was
pledged by the directory of the Regensburg Diet of A.D. 1653 to
care for the interests of the evangelical church. Now that he
had become a Catholic, he still formally promised to do so, but
had his duties discharged by a commissioner. Subsequently this
officer was ordered to take his directions from the evangelical
council of Dresden.
§ 153.2. =The Restoration in Germany and the Neighbouring
States= (§ 151, 1).--Matthias having, in violation of the royal
letter of his predecessor Rudolph II. (§ 139, 19), refused to
allow the Protestants of Bohemia to build churches, was driven
out; the Jesuits also were expelled, and the Calvinistic
Elector-palatine Frederick V. was chosen as prince in A.D. 1619.
Ferdinand II. (A.D. 1619-1637) defeated him, tore up the
royal letter, restored the Jesuits, and expelled the Protestant
pastors. Efforts were made by Christian IV. of Denmark and other
Protestant princes to save Protestantism, but without success.
Ferdinand now issued his =Restitution Edict= of A.D. 1629,
which deprived Protestants of their privileges, and gave to
Catholic nobles unrestricted liberty to suppress the evangelical
faith in their dominions. It was then that Gustavus Adolphus of
Sweden, in religious not less than political interests, made his
appearance as the saviour of Protestantism.[447] The unhappy war
was brought to an end in A.D. 1648 by the publication at Münster
and Osnabrück of the =Peace of Westphalia=, which Innocent X.
in his bull “_Zelo Domus Dei_” of A.D. 1651 pronounced “null
and void, without influence on past, present, and future.”
Germany lost several noble provinces, but its intellectual
and religious freedom was saved. Under Swedish and French
guarantee the Augsburg Religious Peace was confirmed and even
extended to the Reformed, as related to the Augsburg Confession.
The church property was to be restored on January 1st,
A.D. 1624. The political equality of Protestants and Catholics
throughout Germany was distinctly secured. In =Bohemia=,
however, Protestantism was thoroughly extirpated, and in the
other Austrian states the oppression continued down to the time
of Joseph II. In =Silesia=, from the passing of the Restitution
Edict, over a thousand churches had been violently taken from
the evangelicals. No compensation was now thought of, but
rather the persecution continued throughout the whole century
(§ 165, 4), and many thousands were compelled to migrate, for
the most part to Upper Lusatia.
§ 153.3. Also in =Livonia=, from A.D. 1561 under Polish rule,
the Jesuits gained a footing and began the restoration, but
under Gustavus Adolphus from A.D. 1621 their machinations
were brought to an end.--The ruthless =Valteline Massacre=
of A.D. 1620 may be described as a Swiss St. Bartholomew on
a small scale. All Protestants were murdered in one day. The
conspirators at a signal from the clock tower in the early
morning broke into the houses of heretics, and put all to death,
down to the very babe in the cradle. Between four and five
hundred were slaughtered.--In =Hungary=, at the close of the
preceding century only three noble families remained Catholic,
and the Protestant churches numbered 2,000; but the Jesuits, who
had settled there under the protection of Rudolph II. in 1579,
resumed their intrigues, and the Archbishop of Gran, Pazmany,
wrought hard for the restoration of Catholicism. Rakoczy of
Transylvania, in the Treaty of Linz of A.D. 1645, concluded
a league offensive and defensive with Sweden and France, which
secured political and religious liberty for Hungary; but of
the 400 churches of which the Protestants had been robbed only
ninety were given back. The bigoted Leopold I., from A.D. 1655
king of Hungary, inaugurated a yet more severe persecution,
which continued until the publication of the Toleration Edict
of Joseph II. in A.D. 1781. The 2,000 Protestant congregations
were by this time reduced to 105.
§ 153.4. =The Huguenots in France= (§ 139, 17).--Henry IV.
faithfully fulfilled the promises which he made in the Edict of
Nantes; but under Louis XIII., A.D. 1610-1643, the oppressions
of the Huguenots were renewed, and led to fresh outbreaks.
Richelieu withdrew their political privileges, but granted
them religious toleration in the Edict of Nismes, A.D. 1629.
Louis XIV., A.D. 1643-1715, at the instigation of his confessors,
sought to atone for his sins by purging his land of heretics.
When bribery and court favour had done all that they could do in
the way of conversions, the fearful dragonnades began, A.D. 1681.
The formal =Revocation of the Edict of Nantes= followed in
A.D. 1685, and persecution raged with the utmost violence.
Thousands of churches were torn down, vast numbers of confessors
were tortured, burnt, or sent to the galleys. In spite of the
terrible penal laws against emigrating, in spite of the watch
kept over the frontiers, hundreds of thousands escaped, and were
received with open arms as _refugees_ in Brandenburg, Holland,
England, Denmark, and Switzerland. Many fled into the wilds of
the Cevennes, where under the name of Camisards they maintained
a heroic conflict for years, until at last exterminated by an
army at least ten times their strength. The struggle reached
the utmost intensity of bitterness on both sides in A.D. 1702,
when the fanatical and inhumanly cruel inquisitor, the Abbé
du Chaila, was slain. At the head of the Camisard army was
a young peasant, Jean Cavalier, who by his energetic and skilful
conduct of the campaign astonished the world. At last the
famous Marshal Villars, by promising a general amnesty, release
of all prisoners, permission to emigrate with possessions,
and religious toleration to those who remained, succeeded in
persuading Cavalier to lay down his arms. The king ratified
this bargain, only refusing the right of religious freedom.
Many, however, submitted; while others emigrated, mostly to
England. Cavalier entered the king’s service as colonel; but
distrusting the arrangements fled to Holland, and afterwards
to England, where in A.D. 1740 he died as governor of Jersey.
In A.D. 1707 a new outbreak took place, accompanied by prophetic
fanaticism, in consequence of repeated dragonnades, but it
was put down by the stake, the gallows, the axe, and the wheel.
France had lost half a million of her most pious, industrious,
and capable inhabitants, and yet two millions of Huguenots
deprived of all their rights remained in the land.[448]
§ 153.5. =The Waldensians in Piedmont= (§ 139, 25).--Although
in A.D. 1654 the Duke of Savoy confirmed to the Waldensians
their privileges, by Easter of the following year a bloody
persecution broke out, in which a Piedmontese army, together
with a horde of released prisoners and Irish refugees,
driven from their native land by Cromwell’s severities, to
whom the duke had given shelter in the valleys, perpetrated
the most horrible cruelties. Yet in the desperate conflict
the Waldensians held their ground. The intervention of the
Protestant Swiss cantons won for them again a measure of
toleration, and liberal gifts from abroad compensated them
for their loss of property. Cromwell too sent to the relief
of the sufferers the celebrated Lord Morland in A.D. 1658.
While in the valleys he got possession of a number of MSS.
(§ 108, 11), which he took home with him and deposited in
the Cambridge Library. In A.D. 1685 the persecution and civil
war were again renewed at the instigation of Louis XIV. The
soldiers besieged the valleys, and more than 14,000 captives
were consigned to fortresses and prisons. But the rest of the
Waldensians plucked up courage, inflicted many defeats upon
their enemy, and so moved the government in A.D. 1686 to release
the prisoners and send them out of the country. Some found their
way to Germany, others fled to Switzerland. These last, aided
by Swiss troops, and led by their own pastor, Henry Arnaud, made
an attack upon Piedmont in A.D. 1689, and conquered again their
own country. They continued in possession, notwithstanding all
attempts to dislodge them.
§ 153.6. =The Catholics in England and Ireland.=--When James I.,
A.D. 1603-1625, the son of Mary Stuart, ascended the English
throne (§ 139, 11), the Catholics expected from him nothing
short of the complete restoration of the old religion. But
great as James’ inclination towards Catholicism may have been,
his love of despotic authority was still greater. He therefore
rigorously suppressed the Jesuits, who disputed the royal
supremacy over the church; and the bitterness of the Catholics
now reached its height. They organized the so-called =Gunpowder
Plot=, with the intention of blowing up the royal family and
the whole Parliament at the first meeting of the house. At
the head of the conspiracy stood Rob. Catesby, Thomas Percy
of Northumberland, and Guy Fawkes, an English officer in the
Spanish service. The plan was discovered shortly before the day
appointed for its execution. On November 5th, A.D. 1605, Fawkes,
with lantern and matches, was seized in the cellar. The rest of
the conspirators fled, but, after a desperate struggle, in which
Catesby and Percy fell, were arrested, and, together with two
Jesuit accomplices, executed as traitors. Great severities were
then exercised toward the Catholics, not only in England, but
also in Ireland, where the bulk of the population was attached
to the Romish faith. James I. completed the transference of
ecclesiastical property to the Anglican church, and robbed
the Irish nobles of almost all their estates, and gifted them
over to Scottish and English favourites. All Catholics, because
they refused to take the oath of supremacy, _i.e._ to recognise
the king as head of the church, were declared ineligible
for any civil office. These oppressions at last led to the
fearful =Irish massacre=. In October, A.D. 1641, a desperate
outbreak of the Catholics took place throughout the country.
It aimed at the destruction of all Protestants in Ireland.
The conspirators rushed from all sides into the houses of the
Protestants, murdered the inhabitants, and drove them naked and
helpless from their homes. Many thousands died on the roadside
of hunger and cold. In other places they were driven in crowds
into the rivers and drowned, or into empty houses, which were
burnt over them. The number of those who suffered is variously
estimated from 40,000 to 400,000. Charles I., A.D. 1625-1649,
was suspected as instigator of this terrible deed, and it may
be regarded as his first step toward the scaffold (§ 155, 1).
After the execution of Charles, Oliver Cromwell, in A.D. 1649,
at the call of Parliament, took fearful revenge for the Irish
crime. In the two cities which he took by storm he had all
the citizens cut down without distinction. Panic-stricken, the
inhabitants of the other cities fled to the bogs. Within nine
months the whole island was reconquered. Hundreds of thousands,
driven from their native soil, wandered as homeless fugitives,
and their lands were divided among English soldiers and settlers.
During the time of the English Commonwealth, A.D. 1649-1660,
all moderate men, even those who had formerly demanded religious
toleration, not only for all Christian sects, but also for Jews
and Mohammedans, and even atheists, were now at one in excluding
Catholics from its benefit, because they all saw in the
Catholics a party ready at any moment to prove traitors to their
country at the bidding of a foreign sovereign.--The Restoration
under Charles II. could not greatly ameliorate the calamities of
the Irish. Religious persecution indeed ceased, but the property
taken from the Catholic church and native owners still remained
in the hands of the Anglican church and the Protestant occupiers.
To counterbalance the Catholic proclivities of Charles II.
(§ 155, 3), the English Parliament of A.D. 1673 passed the =Test
Act=, which required every civil and military officer to take
the test oaths, condemning transubstantiation and the worship
of the saints, and to receive the communion according to the
Anglican rite as members of the State church. The statements
of a certain Titus Oates, that the Jesuits had organized a plot
for murdering the king and restoring the papacy, led to fearful
riots in A.D. 1678 and many executions. But the reports were
seemingly unfounded, and were probably the fruit of an intrigue
to deprive the king’s Catholic brother, James II., of the right
of succession. When James ascended the throne, in A.D. 1685,
he immediately entered into negotiations with Rome, and
filled almost all offices with Catholics. At the invitation of
the Protestants, the king’s son-in-law, William III. of Orange,
landed in England in A.D. 1688, and on James’ flight was
declared king by the Parliament. The Act of Toleration, issued
by him in A.D. 1689, still withheld from Papists the privileges
now extended to Protestant dissenters (§ 155, 3).[449]
§ 153.7. =Union Efforts.=
1. Although =Hugo Grotius= distinctly took the side of
the Remonstrants (§ 160, 2), his whole disposition was
essentially irenical. He attempted, but in vain, not
only the reconciliation of the Arminians and Calvinists,
but also the union of all Protestant sects on a common
basis. Toward Catholicism he long maintained a decidedly
hostile attitude. But through intimate intercourse with
distinguished Catholics, especially during his exile
in France, his feelings were completely changed. He now
invariably expressed himself more favourably in regard
to the faith and the institutions of the Catholic church.
Its semi-Pelagianism was acceptable to him as a decided
Arminian. In his “_Votum pro Pace_” he recommended as the
only possible way to restore ecclesiastical union, a return
to Catholicism, on the understanding that a thorough reform
should be made. But that he was himself ready to pass over,
and was hindered only by his sudden death in A.D. 1645, is
merely an illusion of Romish imagination.[450]
2. King Wladislaus [Wladislaw] IV. of Poland thought
a union of Protestants and Catholics in his dominions
not impossible, and with this end in view arranged the
=Religious Conference of Thorn= in A.D. 1645. Prussia
and Brandenburg were also invited to take part in it.
The elector sent his court preacher, John Berg, and asked
from the Duke of Brunswick the assistance of the Helmstadt
theologian, George Calixt. The chief representatives of
the Lutheran side were Abraham Calov, of Danzig, and John
Hülsemann, of Wittenberg. That Calixt, a Lutheran, took
the part of the Reformed, intensified the bitterness of
the Lutherans at the outset. The result was to increase
the split on all sides. The Reformed set forth their
opinions in the “_Declaratio Thorunensis_,” which in
Brandenburg obtained symbolical rank.
3. J. B. =Bossuet=, who died in A.D. 1704, Bishop of Meaux,
used all his eloquence to prepare a way for the return of
Protestants to the church in which alone is salvation. In
several treatises he gave an idealized exposition of the
Catholic doctrine, glossed over what was most offensive
to Protestants, and sought by subtlety and sophistry
to represent the Protestant system as contradictory
and untenable.[451] During the same period the Spaniard
=Spinola=, Bishop of Neustadt, who had come into the
country as father confessor of the empress, proposed
a scheme of union at the imperial court. The controverted
points were to be decided at a free council, but the
primacy of the pope and the hierarchical system, as
founded _jure humano_, were to be retained. In prosecuting
his scheme, with the secret support of Leopold I., Spinola,
between A.D. 1676 and 1691, travelled through all Protestant
Germany. He found most success, out of respect for the
emperor, in Hanover, where the Abbot of Loccum, Molanus,
zealously advocated the proposed union, in which on the
Catholic side Bossuet, on the Protestant side the great
philosopher =Leibnitz=, took part. But the negotiations
ended in no practical result. That Leibnitz had himself
been already secretly inclined to Catholicism, some
think to have proved by a manuscript, found after his
death, entitled in another’s hand, “_Systema Theologicum
Leibnitii_.” Favourably disposed as Leibnitz was to
investigate and recognise what was profound and true
even in Catholicism, so that he reached the conviction
that neither of the two churches had given perfect and
adequate expression to Christian truth, he has apparently
sought in this work to make clear to himself what and how
much of specifically Catholic doctrines were justifiable,
and to sketch out a system of doctrine occupying a place
superior to both confessions. In this treatise many
doctrines are expressed in a manner quite divergent from
that of the Tridentine creed, while several expressions
show how clearly he perceived the contradiction between
his own Protestant faith and the Romish system, amid all
his attempts to effect a reconciliation.
§ 153.8. =The Lehnin Prophecy.=--The hope entertained, about
the end of the seventeenth century, by Catholics throughout
Germany of the speedy restoration of the mother church
was expressed in the so called =Vaticinium Lehninense=.
Professedly composed in the thirteenth century by a monk
called Hermann, of the cloister of Lehnin in Brandenburg,
it characterized with historical accuracy in 100 Leonine
verses the Brandenburg princes down to Frederick III., of
whose coronation in A.D. 1701 it is ignorant, and after this
proceeds in a purely fanciful and arbitrary manner. From
Joachim II., who openly joined the Reformation, it enumerates
eleven members, so that the history is just brought down to
Frederick William III. With the eleventh the Hohenzollern
dynasty ends, Germany is united, the Catholic church restored,
and Lehnin raised again to its ancient glory. Under Frederick
William IV., the Catholics diligently sought to prove the
genuineness of the prophecy, and by arbitrary methods to extend
it so as to include this prince. Lately “the deadly sin of
Israel” spoken of in it has been pointed to as a prophecy of
the _Kultur-kampf_ of our own day (§ 197). The first certain
trace of the poem is in A.D. 1693. Hilgenfeld thinks that its
author was a fanatical pervert, Andr. Fromm, who was previously
a Protestant pastor in Berlin, and died in A.D. 1685 as canon
of Leitmeritz, in Bohemia.
§ 154. LUTHERANISM AND CALVINISM.
The Reformed church made its way into the heart of Lutheran
Germany (§ 144) by the Calvinizing of Hesse-Cassel and Lippe, and by
the adherence of the electoral house of Brandenburg. Renewed attempts
to unite the two churches were equally fruitless with the endeavours
after a Catholic-Protestant union.
§ 154.1. =Calvinizing of Hesse-Cassel, A.D. 1605-1646.=--Philip
the Magnanimous, died 1567, left to his eldest son, William IV.,
one half of his territories, comprising Lower Hesse and
Schmalcald, with residence at Cassel; to Louis IV. a fourth
part, _viz._ Upper Hesse, with residence at Marburg; while
his two youngest sons, Philip and George, were made counts,
with their residence at Darmstadt. Philip died in 1583 and
Louis in 1604, both childless; in consequence of which the
greater part of Philip’s territory and the northern half
of Upper Hesse with Marburg fell to Hesse-Cassel, and the
southern half with Giessen to Hesse-Darmstadt.--Landgrave
=William IV.= of Hesse-Cassel sympathised with his father’s
union and levelling tendencies, and by means of general synods
wrought eagerly to secure acceptance for them throughout Hesse
by setting aside the _ubiquitous_ Christology (§ 141, 9) and
the Formula of Concord, while firmly maintaining the _Corpus
Doctrinæ Philippicum_ (§ 141, 10). The fourth and last of
those general synods was held in 1582. Further procedure was
meanwhile rendered impossible by the increase of opposition.
For, on the one hand, Louis IV., under the influence of the
acute and learned but contentious Ægidius Hunnius, professor of
theology at Marburg, 1576-1592, became more and more decidedly
a representative of exclusive Lutheranism; and, on the other
hand, William’s Calvinizing schemes became from day to day more
reckless. His son and successor =Maurice= went forward more
energetically along the same lines as his father, especially
after the death of his uncle Louis in 1604, who bequeathed to
him the Marburg part of his territories. These had been given
him on condition that he should hold by the confession and
its apology as guaranteed by Charles V. in 1530. But in 1605
he forbad the Marburg theologians to set forth the ubiquity
theology; and when they protested, issued a formal prohibition
of the dogma with its presuppositions and consequences, and
insisted on the introduction of the Reformed numbering of the
commandments of the decalogue, and the breaking of bread at
the communion, and the removal of the remaining images from
the churches (§ 144, 2). The theologians again protested, and
were deprived of their offices. The result was the outbreak
of a popular tumult at Marburg, which Maurice suppressed
by calling in the military. When in several places in Upper
and even in Lower Hesse opposition was persisted in, and the
resisting clergy could not be won over either by persuasion
and threatening or by persecution, Maurice in 1607 convened
consultative diocesan synods at Cassel, Eschwege, Marburg,
St. Goar, and soon after a general synod at Cassel, which,
giving expression on all points to the will of the landgrave,
drew up, besides a new hymnbook and catechism, a new “Christian
and correct confession of faith,” by which they openly and
decidedly declared their attachment to the Reformed church.
Soon Hesse accepted these conclusions, but not the rest of
the state, where the opposition of the nobles, clergy, and
people, in spite of all attempts to enforce this acceptance
by military power, imprisonment, and deposition, could not
be altogether overcome.--Meanwhile George’s son and successor,
=Louis V.=, 1596-1626, had been eagerly seeking to make capital
of those troubles in his cousin’s domains in favour of the
Darmstadt dynasty. He gave his protection to the professors
expelled from Marburg in 1605, founded in 1607 a Lutheran
university at Giessen, and made accusations against his cousin
before the imperial supreme court, which in 1623, on the basis
of the will of Louis IV. and the Religious Peace of Augsburg
(§ 137, 5), declared the inheritance forfeited, and entrusted
the electors of Cologne and Saxony with the execution of the
sentence. These in conjunction with the troops of the league
under Tilly attacked Upper and Lower Hesse; the Lutheran
University of Giessen was transferred to Marburg, and Upper
Hesse, after the banishment of the Reformed pastors, went
over wholly to the Lutheran confession. Maurice, completely
broken down, resigned in favour of his son =William V.=, who
was obliged to make an agreement, according to which he made
over Upper Hesse, Schmalcald, and Katzenelnbogen to =George II.=
of Hesse-Darmstadt, the successor of Louis V. In consequence
of his attachment to Gustavus Adolphus in the Thirty Years’
War the ban of the empire was pronounced upon William. He died
in 1637. His widow, =Amalie Elizabeth=, undertook the government
on behalf of her young son William VI., and in 1646, after
repeated victories over George’s troops, made a new agreement
with him, by which the territories taken away in 1627 were
restored to Hesse-Cassel, under a guarantee, however, that
the _status quo_ in matters of religion should be preserved,
and that they should continue predominantly Lutheran. The
university property was divided; Giessen obtained a Lutheran,
Marburg a Reformed institution, and Lower Hesse received
a moderately but yet essentially Reformed ecclesiastical
constitution.
§ 154.2. =Calvinizing of Lippe, A.D. 1602.=--Count Simon VI.
of Lippe, in his eventful life, was brought into close relations
with the Reformed Netherlands and with Maurice of Hesse. His
dominions were thoroughly Lutheran, but from A.D. 1602 Calvinism
was gradually introduced under the patronage of the prince.
The chief promoter of this innovation was Dreckmeyer, chosen
general superintendent in A.D. 1599. At a visitation of churches
in A.D. 1602, the festivals of Mary and the apostles, exorcism,
the sign of the cross, the host, burning candles, and Luther’s
catechism were rejected. Opposing pastors were deposed, and
Calvinists put in their place. The city Lemgo stood out longest,
and persevered in its adherence to the Lutheran confession
during an eleven years’ struggle with its prince, from A.D. 1606
to 1617. After the death of Simon VI., his successor, Simon VII.,
allowed the city the free exercise of its Lutheran religion.
§ 154.3. =The Elector of Brandenburg becomes Calvinist,
A.D. 1613.=--John Sigismund, A.D. 1608-1619, had promised his
grandfather, John George, to maintain his connexion with the
Lutheran church. But his own inclination, which was strengthened
by his son’s marriage with a princess of the Palatinate, and
his connexion with the Netherlands, made him forget his promise.
Also his court preacher, the crypto-Calvinist Solomon Fink,
contributed to the same result. On Christmas Day, A.D. 1613,
he went over to the Reformed church. In order to share in the
Augsburg Peace, he still retained the Augsburg Confession,
naturally in the form known as the _Variata_. In A.D. 1624,
he issued a Calvinist confession of his own, the _Confessio
Sigismundi_ or _Marchica_, which sought to reconcile the
universality of grace with the particularity of election
(§ 168, 1). His people, however, did not follow the prince,
not even his consort, Anne of Prussia. The court preacher,
Gedicke, who would not retract his invectives against the
prince and the Reformed confession, was obliged to flee from
Berlin, as also another preacher, Mart. Willich. But when
altars, images, and baptismal fonts were thrown out of the
Berlin churches, a tumult arose, in A.D. 1615, which was
not suppressed without bloodshed. In the following year the
elector forbade the teaching of the _communicatio idiomatum_
and the _ubiquitas corporis_ (§ 141, 9) at the University of
Frankfort-on-the-Oder. In A.D. 1614, owing to the publication
of a keen controversial treatise of Hutter (§ 159, 5) he
forbade any of his subjects going to the University of
Wittenberg, and soon afterwards struck out the Formula of
Concord from the collection of the symbolical books of the
Lutheran church of his realm.--Continuation, § 169, 1.
§ 154.4. =Union Attempts.=--Hoë von Hoënegg, of an old Austrian
family, was from A.D. 1612 chief court preacher at Dresden,
and as spiritual adviser of the elector, John George, on the
outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War, got Lutheran Saxony to
take the side of the Catholic emperor against the Calvinist
Frederick V. of the Palatinate, elected king of Bohemia.
In A.D. 1621, he had proved that “on ninety-nine points the
Calvinists were in accord with the Arians and the Turks.” At
the Religious Conference of Leipzig of A.D. 1631 a compromise
was accepted on both sides; but no practical result was secured.
The Religious Conference of Cassel, in A.D. 1661, was a well
meant endeavour by some Marburg Reformed theologians and
Lutherans of the school of Calixt (§ 158, 2); but owing to
the agitation caused by the Synergist controversy, no important
advance toward union could be accomplished. The union efforts
of Duke William of Brandenburg, A.D. 1640-1688, were opposed by
Paul Gerhardt, preacher in the church of St. Nicholas in Berlin.
On refusing to abstain from attacks on the Reformed doctrine
he was deposed from his office. He was soon appointed pastor
at Lübben in Lusatia, where he died in A.D. 1676.--The most
zealous apostle of universal Protestant union, embracing even
the Anglican church, was the Scottish Presbyterian John Durie.
From A.D. 1628 when he officiated as pastor of an English colony
at Elbing, till his death at Cassel in A.D. 1640, he devoted his
energies unweariedly to this one task. He repeatedly travelled
through Germany, Sweden, Denmark, England, and the Netherlands,
formed acquaintance with clerical and civil authorities,
had intercourse with them by word and letter, published
a multitude of tracts on this subject; but at last could
only look back with bitter complaints over the lost labours
of a lifetime.[452]--Continuation, § 169, 1.
§ 155. ANGLICANISM AND PURITANISM.[453]
On the outbreak of the English Revolution, occasioned by the
despotism of the first two Stuarts, crowds of Puritan exiles returned
from Holland and North America to their old home. They powerfully
strengthened their secret sympathisers in their successful struggle
against the episcopacy of the State church (§ 139, 6); but, breaking
up into rival parties, as Presbyterians and Independents (§ 143, 3, 4),
gave way to fanatical extravagances. The victorious party of
Independents also split into two divisions: the one, after the old
Dutch style, simple and strict believers in Scripture; the other,
first in Cromwell’s army, fanatical enthusiasts and visionary saints
(§ 161, 1). The Restoration, under the last two Stuarts, sought to
re-introduce Catholicism. It was William of Orange, by his Act of
Toleration of A.D. 1689, who first brought to a close the Reformation
struggles within the Anglican church. It guaranteed, indeed, all the
pre-eminent privileges of an establishment to the Anglican and Episcopal
church, but also granted toleration to dissenters, while refusing it to
Catholics.
§ 155.1. =The First Two Stuarts.=--=James I.=, dominated by
the idea of the royal supremacy, and so estranged from the
Presbyterianism in which he was brought up (§ 139, 11), as
king of England, A.D. 1603-1625, attached himself to the
national Episcopal church, persecuted the English Puritans,
so that many of them again fled to Holland (§ 143, 4), and
forced Episcopacy upon the Scotch. =Charles I.=, A.D. 1625-1649,
went beyond his father in theory and practice, and thus incurred
the hatred of his Protestant subjects. William Laud, from
A.D. 1633 Archbishop of Canterbury, was the recklessly zealous
promoter of his despotic ideas, representing the Episcopacy,
by reason of its Divine institution and apostolic succession,
as the foundation of the church and the pillar of an absolute
monarchy. Laud used his position as primate to secure the
introduction of his own theory into the public church services,
among other things making the communion office an imitation
as near as possible of the Romish mass. But when he attempted
to force upon the Scotch such “Baal-worship” by the command of
the king, they formed a league in A.D. 1638 for the defence of
Presbyterianism, the so called Great Covenant, and emphasised
their demand by sending an army into England. The king, who had
ruled for eleven years without a Parliament, was obliged now
to call together the representatives of the people. Scarcely
had the Long Parliament, A.D. 1640-1653, in which the Puritan
element was supreme, pacified the Scotch, than oil was anew
poured on the flames by the Irish massacre of A.D. 1641
(§ 153, 6). The Lower House, in spite of the persistent
opposition of the court, resolved on excluding the bishops
from the Upper House and formally abolishing Episcopacy;
and in A.D. 1643, summoned the Westminster Assembly to
remodel the organization of the English church, at which
Scotch representatives were to have a seat. After long
and violent debates with an Independent minority, till
A.D. 1648, the Assembly drew up a Presbyterian constitution
with a Puritan service, and in the Westminster Confession
a strictly Calvinistic creed. But only in Scotland were these
decisions heartily accepted. In England, notwithstanding their
confirmation by the Parliament, they received only partial and
occasional acceptance, owing to the prevalence of Independent
opinions among the people.--Since A.D. 1642, the tension between
court and Parliament had brought about the Civil War between
Cavaliers and Roundheads. In A.D. 1645, the royal troops were
cut to pieces at Naseby by the parliamentary army under Fairfax
and Cromwell. The king fled to the Scotch, by whom he was
surrendered to the English Parliament in A.D. 1647. But when
now the fanatical Independents, who formed a majority in the
army, began to terrorise the Parliament, it opened negotiations
for peace with the king. He was now ready to make almost
any sacrifice, only on religious and conscientious grounds he
could not agree to the unconditional abandonment of Episcopacy.
Even the Scotch, whose Presbyterianism was now threatened by
the Independents, as before it had been by the Episcopalians,
longed for the restoration of royalty, and to aid in this
sent an army into England in A.D. 1648. But they were defeated
by Cromwell, who then dismissed the Parliament and had all
its Presbyterian members either imprisoned or driven into
retirement. The Independent remnant, known as the Rump
Parliament, A.D. 1648-1653, tried the king for high treason
and sentenced him to death. On January 30th, A.D. 1649, he
mounted the scaffold, on which Archbishop Laud had preceded
him in A.D. 1645, and fell under the executioner’s axe.[454]
§ 155.2. =The Commonwealth and the Protector.=--Ireland had
never yet atoned for its crime of A.D. 1641 (§ 153, 6), and
as it refused to acknowledge the Commonwealth, Cromwell took
terrible revenge in A.D. 1649. In A.D. 1650 at Dunbar, and in
A.D. 1651 at Worcester, he completely destroyed the army of the
Scots, who had crowned Charles II., son of the executed king,
drove out, in April A.D. 1653, the Rump of the Long Parliament,
which had come to regard itself as a permanent institution,
and in July opened, with a powerful speech, two hours in length,
on God’s ways and judgments, the Short or Barebones’ Parliament,
composed of “pious and God-fearing men” selected by himself.
In this new Parliament which, with prayer and psalm-singing,
wrought hard at the re-organization of the executive, the
bench, and the church, the two parties of Independents were
represented, the fanatical enthusiasts indeed predominating,
and so victorious in all matters of debate. To this party
Cromwell himself belonged. His attachment to it, however,
was considerably cooled in consequence of the excesses of
the Levellers (§ 161, 2), and the fantastic policy of the
parliamentarian Saints disgusted him more and more. When
therefore, on December 12th, A.D. 1653, after five months’
fruitless opposition to the radical demands of the extravagant
majority, all the most moderate members of the Parliament
had resigned their seats and returned their mandates into
Cromwell’s hands, he burst in upon the psalm-singing remnant
with his soldiers, and entered upon his life-long office of
the Protector of the Commonwealth with a new constitution. He
proclaimed toleration of all religious sects, Catholics only
being excepted on political grounds (§ 153, 6), giving equal
rights to Presbyterians, and offering no hindrance to the
revival of Episcopacy. He yet remained firmly attached to
his early convictions. He believed in a kingdom of the saints
embracing the whole earth, and looked on England as destined
for the protection and spread of Protestantism. Zürich greeted
him as the great Protestant champion, and he showed himself
in this _rôle_ in the valleys of Piedmont (§ 153, 5), in
France, in Poland, and in Silesia. He joined with all Protestant
governments into a league, offensive and defensive, against
fanatical attempts of Papists to recover their lost ground. When
Spain and France sued for his alliance, he made it a condition
with the former that, besides allowing free trade with the West
Indies, it should abolish the Inquisition; and of France he
required an assurance that the rights of Huguenots should be
respected. And when in Germany a new election of emperor was
to take place, he urged the great electors that they should by
no means allow the imperial throne to continue with the Catholic
house of Austria. Meanwhile his path at home was a thorny one.
He was obliged to suppress fifteen open rebellions during five
years of his reign, countless secret plots threatened his life
every day, and his bitterest foes were his former comrades in
the camp of the the saints. After refusing the crown offered
him in A.D. 1657, without being able thereby to quell the
discontents of parties, he died on September 3rd, A.D. 1658,
the anniversary of his glorious victories of Dunbar and
Worcester.[455]
§ 155.3. =The Restoration and the Act of Toleration.=--The
Restoration of royalty under =Charles II.=, A.D. 1660-1685,
began with the reinstating of the Episcopal church in all the
privileges granted to it under Elizabeth. The Corporation Act
of December, A.D. 1661, was the first of a series of enactments
for this purpose. It required of all magistrates and civil
officers that they should take an oath acknowledging the royal
supremacy and communicate in the Episcopal church. The Act
of Uniformity of May, A.D. 1662, was still more oppressive.
It prohibited any clergyman entering the English pulpit or
discharging any ministerial function, unless he had been
ordained by a bishop, had signed the Thirty-nine Articles,
and undertook to conduct worship exactly in accordance with
the newly revised Book of Common Prayer. More than 2,000 Puritan
ministers, who could not conscientiously submit to those terms,
were driven out of their churches. Then in June, A.D. 1664,
the Conventicle Act was renewed, enforcing attendance at the
Episcopal church, and threatening with imprisonment or exile
all found in any private religious meeting of more than five
persons. In the following year the Five Mile Act inflicted
heavy fines on all nonconformist ministers who should approach
within five miles of their former congregation or indeed of any
city. All these laws, although primarily directed against all
Protestant dissenters, told equally against the Catholics, whom
the king’s Catholic sympathies would willingly have spared.
When now his league with Catholic France against the Protestant
Netherlands made it necessary for him to appease his Protestant
subjects, he hoped to accomplish this and save the Catholics
by his “Declaration of Indulgence” of A.D. 1672, issued with
the consent of Parliament, which suspended all penal laws
hitherto in force against dissenters. But the Protestant
nonconformists saw through this scheme, and the Parliament
of A.D. 1673 passed the anti-Catholic Test Act (§ 153, 6).
Equally vain were all later attempts to secure greater liberties
and privileges to the Catholics. They only served to develop
the powers of Parliament and to bring the Episcopalians and
nonconformists more closely together. After spending his
whole life oscillating between frivolous unbelief and Catholic
superstition, Charles II., on his death-bed, formally went over
to the Romish church, and had the communion and extreme unction
administered by a Catholic priest. His brother and successor
=James II.=, A.D. 1685-1688, who was from A.D. 1672 an avowed
Catholic, sent a declaration of obedience to Rome, received
a papal nuncio in London, and in the exercise of despotic power
issued, in A.D. 1687, a “Declaration of Freedom of Conscience,”
which, under the fair colour of universal toleration and by the
setting aside of the test oath, enabled him to fill all civil
and military offices with Catholics. This act proved equally
oppressive to the Episcopalians and to Protestant dissenters.
This intrigue cost him his throne. He had, as he himself
said, staked three kingdoms on a mass, and lost all the three.
=William III.= of Orange, A.D. 1689-1702, grandson of Charles I.
and son-in-law of James II., gave a final decision to the rights
of the national Episcopal church and the position of dissenters
in the =Act of Toleration= of A.D. 1689, which he passed with
consent of the Parliament. All penal laws against the latter
were abrogated, and religious liberty was extended to all with
the exception of Catholics and Socinians. The retention of the
Corporation and Test Acts, however, still excluded them from the
exercise of all political rights. They were also still obliged
to pay tithes and other church dues to the Episcopal clergy
of their dioceses, and their marriages and baptisms had to be
administered in the parish churches. Their ministers were also
obliged to subscribe the Thirty-nine Articles, with reservation
of those points opposed to their principles. The Act of Union
of A.D. 1707, passed under Queen Anne, a daughter of James II.,
which united England and Scotland into the one kingdom of Great
Britain, gave legitimate sanction to a separate ecclesiastical
establishment for each country. In Scotland the Presbyterian
churches continued the established church, while the Episcopal
was tolerated as a dissenting body. Congregationalism, however,
has been practically limited to England and North
America.[456]--Continuation, § 202, 5.
II. The Roman Catholic Church.
§ 156. THE PAPACY, MONKERY, AND FOREIGN MISSIONS.
Notwithstanding the regeneration of papal Catholicism since the
middle of the sixteenth century, Hildebrand’s politico-theocratic
ideal was not realized. Even Catholic princes would not be dictated
to on political matters by the vicar of Christ. The most powerful of
them, France, Austria, and Spain, during the sixteenth century, and
subsequently also Portugal, had succeeded in the claim to the right of
excluding objectionable candidates in papal elections. Ban and interdict
had lost their power. The popes, however, still clung to the idea after
they had been obliged to surrender the reality, and issued from time
to time powerless protestations against disagreeable facts of history.
Several new monkish orders were instituted during this century, mostly
for teaching the young and tending the sick, but some also expressly
for the promoting of theological science. Of all the orders, new and
old, the Jesuits were by far the most powerful. They were regarded with
jealousy and suspicion by the other orders. In respect of doctrine the
Dominicans were as far removed from them as possible within the limits
of the Tridentine Creed. But notwithstanding any such mutual jealousies,
they were all animated by one yearning desire to oppose, restrict, and,
where that was possible, to uproot Protestantism. With similar zeal
they devoted themselves with wonderful success to the work of foreign
missions.
§ 156.1. =The Papacy.=--=Paul V.=, A.D. 1605-1621,
equally energetic in his civil and in his ecclesiastical
policy, in a struggle with Venice, was obliged to behold
the powerlessness of the papal interdict. His successor,
=Gregory XV.=, A.D. 1621-1623, founded the Propaganda,
prescribed a secret scrutiny in papal elections, and canonized
Loyola, Xavier, and Neri. He enriched the Vatican Library
by the addition of the valuable treasures of the Heidelberg
Library, which Maximilian I. of Bavaria sent him on his
conquest of the Palatinate. =Urban VIII.=, A.D. 1623-1644,
increased the Propaganda, improved the Roman “Breviary”
(§ 56, 2), condemned Jansen’s _Augustinus_ (§ 156, 5), and
compelled Galileo to recant. But on the other hand, through
his onesided ecclesiastical policy he was led into sacrificing
the interests of the imperial house of Austria. Not only did
he fail to give support to the emperor, but quite openly hailed
Gustavus Adolphus, the saviour of German Protestantism, as the
God-sent saviour from the Spanish-Austrian tyranny. For this he
was pronounced a heretic at the imperial court, and threatened
with a second edition of the sack of Rome (§ 132, 2). At the
same time his soul was so filled with fanatical hatred against
Protestantism, that in a letter of 1631 he congratulated the
Emperor Ferdinand II. on the destruction of Magdeburg as an
act most pleasing to heaven and reflecting the highest credit
upon Germany, and expressed the hope that the glory of so great
a victory should not be restricted to the ruins of a single
city. On receiving the news of the death of Gustavus Adolphus
in 1632 he broke out into loud jubilation, saying that now “the
serpent was slain which with its poison had sought to destroy
the whole world.” His successor, =Innocent X.=, A.D. 1644-1655,
though vigorously protesting against the Peace of Westphalia
(§ 153, 2), was, owing to his abject subserviency to a woman,
his own sister-in-law, reproached with the title of a new
_Johanna Papissa_. =Alexander VII.=, A.D. 1655-1667, had the
expensive guardianship of his godchild Christina of Sweden
(§ 153, 1), and fanned into a flame the spark kindled by his
predecessor in the Jansenist controversy (§ 156, 5), so that his
successor, =Clement IX.=, A.D. 1667-1670, could only gradually
extinguish it. =Clement X.=, A.D. 1670-1676, by his preference
for Spain roused the French king Louis XIV., who avenged himself
by various encroachments on the ecclesiastical administration
in his dominions. =Innocent XI.=, A.D. 1676-1689, was a powerful
pope, zealously promoting the weal of the church and the Papal
States by introducing discipline among the clergy and attacking
the immorality that prevailed among all classes of society.
He unhesitatingly condemned sixty-five propositions from the
lax Jesuit code of morals. Against the arrogant ambassador
of Louis XIV. he energetically maintained his sovereign
rights in his own domains, while he unreservedly refused
the claims of the French clergy, urged by the king on the
ground of the exceptional constitution of the Gallican church.
=Alexander VIII.=, A.D. 1689-1691, continued the fight against
Gallicanism, and condemned the Jesuit distinction between
theological and philosophical sin (§ 149, 10). =Innocent XII.=,
A.D. 1691-1700, could boast of having secured the complete
subjugation of the Gallican clergy after a hard struggle. He
too wrought earnestly for the reform of abuses in the curia.
Specially creditable to him is the stringent bull “_Romanum
decet pontificem_” against nepotism, which extirpated the
evil disease, so that it was never again openly practised as
an acknowledged right.--Continuation, § 165, 1.
§ 156.2. =The Jesuits and the Republic of Venice.=--Venice was
one of the first of the Italian cities to receive the Jesuits
with open arms, A.D. 1530. But the influence obtained by them
over public affairs through school and confessional, and their
vast wealth accumulated from bequests and donations, led the
government, in A.D. 1605, to forbid their receiving legacies
or erecting new cloisters. In vain did Paul V. remonstrate.
He then put Venice under an interdict. The Jesuits sought to
excite the people against the government, and for this were
banished in A.D. 1606. The pious and learned historian of the
Council of Trent and adviser of the State, Paul Sarpi, proved
a vigorous supporter of civil rights against the assumptions
of the curia and the Jesuits. When in A.D. 1607 he refused a
citation of Inquisition, he was dangerously wounded by three
dagger stabs, inflicted by hired bandits, in whose stilettos
he recognised the _stilum curiæ_. He died in A.D. 1623.
After a ten months’ vain endeavour to enforce the interdict,
the pope at last, through French mediation, concluded a peace
with the republic, without, however, being able to obtain either
the abolition of the objectionable ecclesiastico-political laws
or permission for the return of the Jesuits. Only after the
republic had been weakened through the unfortunate Turkish war
of A.D. 1645 was it found willing to submit. Even in A.D. 1653
it refused the offer of 150,000 ducats from the Jesuit general
for the Turkish campaign; but when Alexander VII. suppressed
several rich cloisters, their revenues were thankfully accepted
for this purpose. In A.D. 1657, on the pope’s promise of further
pecuniary aid, the decree of banishment was withdrawn. The
Jesuit fathers now returned in crowds, and soon regained much
of their former influence and wealth. No pope has ever since
issued an interdict against any country.[457]
§ 156.3. =The Gallican Liberties.=--Although =Louis XIV.=
of France, A.D. 1643-1715, as a good Catholic king, powerfully
supported the claims of papal dogmatics against the Jansenists
(§§ 156, 5; 165, 7), he was by no means unfaithful to the
traditional ecclesiastical polity of his house (§§ 96, 21;
110, 1, 9, 13, 14), and was often irritated to the utmost
pitch by the pope’s opposition to his political interests.
He rigorously insisted upon the old customary right of
the Crown to the income of certain vacant ecclesiastical
offices, the _jus regaliæ_, and extended it to all bishoprics,
burdened church revenues with military pensions, confiscated
ecclesiastical property, etc. Innocent XI. energetically
protested against such exactions. The king then had an assembly
of the French called together in Paris on March 19th, A.D. 1682,
which issued the famous =Four Propositions of the Gallican
Clergy=, drawn up by Bishop Bossuet of Meaux. These set forth
the fundamental rights of the French church:
1. In secular affairs the pope has no jurisdiction over
princes and kings, and cannot release their subjects
from their allegiance;
2. The spiritual power of the pope is subject to the higher
authority of the general councils;
3. For France it is further limited by the old French
ecclesiastical laws; and,
4. Even in matters of faith the judgment of the pope without
the approval of a general assembly of the church is not
unalterable.
Innocent consequently refused to institute any of the newly
appointed bishops. He was not even appeased by the Revocation
of the Edict of Nantes in A.D. 1685. He was pleased indeed, and
praised the deed, and celebrated it by a _Te Deum_, but objected
to the violent measures for the conversion of Protestants as
contrary to the teaching of Christ. Then also there arose a
keen struggle against the mischievous extension of the right
of asylum on the part of foreign embassies at Rome. On the
pope’s representation all the powers but France agreed to
a restriction of the custom. The pope tolerated the nuisance
till the death of the French ambassador in A.D. 1687, but
then insisted on its abolition under pain of the ban. In
consequence of this Louis sent his new ambassador into Rome
with two companies of cavaliers, threw the papal nuntio in
France into prison, and laid siege to the papal state of
Avignon (§ 110, 4). But Innocent was not thus to be terrorized,
and the French ambassador was obliged, after eighteen months’
vain demonstrations, to quit Rome. Alexander VIII. repeated the
condemnation of the Four Propositions, and Innocent XIII. also
stood firm. The French episcopate, on the pope’s persistent
refusal to install bishops nominated by the king, was at last
constrained to submit. “Lying at the feet of his holiness,”
the bishops declared that everything concluded in that assembly
was null and void; and even Louis XIV., under the influence of
Madame de Maintenon (§ 157, 3), wrote to the pope in A.D. 1693,
saying that he recalled the order that the Four Propositions
should be taught in all the schools. There still, however,
survived among the French clergy a firm conviction of the
Gallican Liberties, and the _droit de régale_ continued to
have the force of law.[458]--Continuation, § 197, 1.
§ 156.4. =Galileo and the Inquisition.=--Galileo Galilei,
professor of mathematics at Pisa and Padua, who died in
A.D. 1642, among his many distinguished services to the
physical, mathematical, and astronomical sciences, has the
honour of being the pioneer champion of the Copernican system.
On this account he was charged by the monks with contradicting
Scripture. In A.D. 1616 Paul V., through Cardinal Bellarmine,
threatened him with the Inquisition and prison unless he agreed
to cease from vindicating and lecturing upon his heretical
doctrine. He gave the required promise. But in A.D. 1632
he published a dialogue, in which three friends discussed
the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems, without any formal
conclusion, but giving overwhelming reasons in favour of the
latter. Urban VIII., in A.D. 1636, called upon the Inquisition
to institute a process against him. He was forced to recant,
was condemned to prison for an indefinite period, but was soon
liberated through powerful influence. How far the old man of
seventy-two years of age was compelled by torture to retract
is still a matter of controversy. It is, however, quite evident
that it was forced from him by threats. But that Galileo went
out after his recantation, gnashing his teeth and stamping
his feet, muttering, “Nevertheless it moves!” is a legend
of a romancing age. This, however, is the fact, that the
Congregation of the Index declared the Copernican theory to
be false, irrational, and directly contrary to Scripture; and
that even in A.D. 1660 Alexander VII., with apostolic authority,
formally confirmed this decree and pronounced it _ex cathedrâ_
(§ 149, 4) irrevocable. It was only in A.D. 1822 that the curia
set it aside, and in a new edition of the Index (§ 149, 14)
in A.D. 1835 omitted the works of Galileo as well as those
of Copernicus.[459]
§ 156.5. =The Controversy on the Immaculate Conception=
(§ 112, 4) received a new impulse from the nun =Mary of Jesus,
died 1665, of Agreda=, in Old Castile, superior of the cloister
there of the Immaculate Conception, writer of the “Mystical
City of God.” This book professed to give an inspired account
of the life of the Virgin, full of the strangest absurdities
about the immaculate conception. The Sorbonne pronounced it
offensive and silly; the Inquisition in Spain, Portugal, and
Rome forbad the reading of it; but the Franciscans defended
it as a divine revelation. A violent controversy ensued, which
Alexander VII. silenced in A.D. 1661 by expressing approval
of the doctrine of the immaculate conception set forth in the
book.--Continuation, § 185, 2.
§ 156.6. =The Devotion of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.=--The
nun =Margaret Alacoque=, in the Burgundian cloister of _Paray
le Monial_, born A.D. 1647, recovering from a painful illness
when but three years old, vowed to the mother of God, who
frequently appeared to her, perpetual chastity, and in gratitude
for her recovery adopted the name of Mary, and when grown up
resisted temptations by inflicting on herself the severest
discipline, such as long fasts, sharp flagellations, lying
on thorns, etc. Visions of the Virgin no longer satisfied her.
She longed to lavish her affections on the Redeemer himself,
which she expressed in the most extravagant terms. She took the
Jesuit =La Colombière= as her spiritual adviser in A.D. 1675.
In a new vision she beheld the side of her Beloved opened,
and saw his heart glowing like a sun, into which her own was
absorbed. Down to her death in A.D. 1690 she felt the most
violent burning pains in her side. In a second vision she saw
her Beloved’s heart burning like a furnace, into which were
taken her own heart and that of her spiritual adviser. In a
third vision he enjoined the observance of a special “Devotion
of the Sacred Heart” by all Christendom on the Friday after the
octave of the _Corpus Christi_ festival and on the first Friday
of every month. La Colombière, being made director, put forth
every effort to get this celebration introduced throughout the
church, and on his death the idea was taken up by the whole
Jesuit order. Their efforts, however, for fully a century proved
unavailing. At this point, too, their most bitter opponents were
the Dominicans. But even without papal authority the Jesuits
so far succeeded in introducing the absurdities of this cult,
and giving expression to it in word and by images, that by the
beginning of the eighteenth century there were more than 300
male and female societies engaged in this devotion, and at last,
in A.D. 1765, =Clement XIII.=, the great friend of the Jesuits,
gave formal sanction to this special celebration.--Continuation,
§ 188, 12.
§ 156.7. =New Congregations and Orders.=
1. At the head of the new orders of this century stands
the =Benedictine Congregation of St. Banne= at Verdun,
founded by Didier de la Cour. Elected Abbot of St. Banne
in A.D. 1596, he gave his whole strength to the reforming
of this cloister, which had fallen into luxurious and
immoral habits. By a papal bull of A.D. 1604 all cloisters
combining with St. Banne into a congregation were endowed
with rich privileges. Gradually all the Benedictine
monasteries of Lorraine and Alsace joined the union.
Didier’s reforms were mostly in the direction of moral
discipline and asceticism; but in the new congregation
scholarship was represented by Calmet, Ceillier, etc., and
many gave themselves to work as teachers in the schools.
2. Much more important for the promotion of theological
science, especially for patristics and church history,
was another Benedictine congregation founded in France
in A.D. 1618 by Laurence Bernard, that of =St. Maur=,
named after a disciple of St. Benedict. The members of
this order devoted themselves exclusively to science and
literary pursuits. To them belonged the distinguished
names, Mabillon, Montfaucon, Reinart, Martène, D’Achery,
Le Nourry, Durand, Surius, etc. They showed unwearied
diligence in research and a noble liberality of judgment.
The editions of the most celebrated Fathers issued by
them are the best of the kind, and this may also be said
of the great historical collections which we owe to their
diligence.
3. =The Fathers of the Oratory of Jesus= are an imitation
of the Priests of the Oratory founded by Philip Neri
(§ 149, 7). Peter of Barylla, son of a member of parliament,
founded it in A.D. 1611 by building an oratory at Paris.
He was more of a mystic than of a scholar, but his order
sent out many distinguished and brilliant theologians;
_e.g._ Malebranche, Morinus, Thomassinus, Rich, Simon,
Houbigant.
4. =The Piarists=, _Patres scholarum piarum_, were founded
in Rome in A.D. 1607 by the Spaniard Joseph Calasanza. The
order adopted as a fourth vow the obligation of gratuitous
tuition. They were hated by the Obscurantist Jesuits for
their successful labours for the improvement of Catholic
education, especially in Poland and Austria, and also
because they objected to all participation in political
schemes.
5. =The Order of the Visitation of Mary=, or _Salesian Nuns_,
instituted in A.D. 1610 by the mystic Francis de Sales
and Francisca Chantal (§ 157, 1). They visited the poor
and sick in imitation of Elizabeth’s visit to the Virgin
(Luke i. 39); but the papal rescript of A.D. 1618 gave
prominence to the education of children.
§ 156.8.
6. =The Priests of the Missions and Sisters of Charity= were
both founded by Vincent de Paul. Born of poor parents,
he was, after completing his education, captured by
pirates, and as a slave converted his renegade master
to Christianity. As domestic chaplain to the noble family
of Gondy he was characterized in a remarkable degree
for unassuming humility, and he wrought earnestly and
successfully as a home missionary. In A.D. 1618 he founded
the order of Sisters of Mercy, who became devoted nurses
of the sick throughout all France, and in A.D. 1627 that
of the Priests of the Missions, or Lazarists, who travelled
the country attending to the spiritual and bodily wants
of men. After the death of the Countess Gondy in A.D. 1625,
he placed at the head of the Sisters of Mercy the widow
Louise le Gras, distinguished equally for qualities of head
and heart. Vincent died in A.D. 1660, and was subsequently
canonized.[460]
7. =The Trappists=, founded by De Rancé, a distinguished canon,
who in A.D. 1664 passed from the extreme of worldliness
to the extreme of fanatical asceticism. The order got its
name from the Cistercian abbey La Trappe in Normandy, of
which Rancé was commendatory abbot. Amid many difficulties
he succeeded, in A.D. 1665, in thoroughly reforming the
wild monks, who were called “the bandits of La Trappe.”
His rule enjoined on the monks perpetual silence, only
broken in public prayer and singing and in uttering
the greeting as they met, _Memento mori_. Their bed
was a hard board with some straw; their only food was
bread and water, roots, herbs, some fruit and vegetables,
without butter, fat, or oil. Study was forbidden, and they
occupied themselves with hard field labour. Their clothing
was a dark-brown cloak worn on the naked body, with wooden
shoes. Very few cloisters besides La Trappe submitted to
such severities (§ 185, 2).
8. =The English Nuns=, founded at St. Omer, in France, by
Mary Ward, the daughter of an English Catholic nobleman,
for the education of girls. Originally composed of English
maidens, it was afterwards enlarged by receiving those of
other nationalities, with establishments in Germany, Italy,
and the Netherlands. It did not obtain papal confirmation,
and in A.D. 1630 Urban VIII., giving heed to the calumnies
of enemies, formally dissolved it on account of arrogance,
insubordination, and heresy. All its institutions and
schools were then closed, while Mary herself was imprisoned
and given over to the Inquisition in Rome. Urban was
soon convinced of her innocence and set her free. Her
scattered nuns were now collected again, but succeeded only
in A.D. 1703 in obtaining confirmation from Clement XI.
Their chief tasks were the education of youth and care
of the sick. They were arranged in three classes, according
to their rank in life, and were bound by their vows for
a year or at the most three years, after which they might
return to the world and marry. Their chief centre was
Bavaria with the mother cloister in Munich.--Continuation,
§ 165, 2.
§ 156.9. =The Propaganda.=--Gregory XV. gave unity and strength
to the efforts for conversion of heretics and heathens by
instituting, in A.D. 1662, the _Congregatio de Propaganda
Fide_. Urban VIII. in A.D. 1627 attached to it a missionary
training school, recruited as far as possible from natives of
the respective countries, like Loyola’s _Collegium Germanicum_
founded in A.D. 1552 (§ 151, 1). He was thus able every Epiphany
to astonish Romans and foreigners by what seemed a repetition of
the pentecostal miracle of tongues. At this institute training
in all languages was given, and breviaries, mass and devotional
books, and handbooks were printed for the use of the missions.
It was also the centre from which all missionary enterprises
originated.--Continuation, § 204, 2.
§ 156.10. =Foreign Missions.=--Even during this century the
Jesuits excelled all others in missionary zeal. In A.D. 1608
they sent out from Madrid mission colonies among the wandering
Indians of South America, and no Spaniard could settle there
without their permission. The most thoroughly organized of
these was that of =Paraguay=, in which, according to their
own reports, over 100,000 converted savages lived happily
and contented under the mild, patriarchal rule of the Jesuits
for 140 years, A.D. 1610-1750; but according to another well
informed, though perhaps not altogether impartial, account,
that of Ibagnez, a member of the mission, expelled for advising
submission to the decree depriving it of political independence,
the paternal government was flavoured by a liberal dose of
slave-driver despotism. It was at least an undoubted fact,
notwithstanding the boasted patriarchal idyllic character of
the Jesuit state, that the order amassed great wealth from the
proceeds of the industry of their _protégés_.--Continuation,
§ 165, 3.
§ 156.11. =In the East Indies= (§ 150, 1) the Jesuits had
uninterrupted success. In A.D. 1606, in order to make way
among the Brahmans, the Jesuit Rob. Nobili assumed their
dress, avoided all contact with even the converts of low
caste, giving them the communion elements not directly, but
by an instrument, or laying them down for them outside the
door, and as a Christian Brahman made a considerable impression
upon the most exclusive classes.--In =Japan= the mission
prospects were dark (§ 150, 2). Mendicants and Jesuits opposed
and mutually excommunicated one another. The Catholic Spaniards
and Portuguese were at feud among themselves, and only agreed
in intriguing against Dutch and English Protestants. When the
land was opened to foreign trade, it became the gathering point
of the moral scum of all European countries, and the traffic in
Japanese slaves, especially by the Portuguese, brought discredit
on the Christian cause. The idea gained ground that the efforts
at Christianization were but a prelude to conquest by the
Spaniards and Portuguese. In the new organization of the country
by the _shiogun_ Ijejasu all governors were to vow hostility to
Christians and foreigners. In A.D. 1606 he forbad the observance
of the Christian religion anywhere in the land. When the
conspiracy of a Christian daimio was discovered, he caused,
in A.D. 1614, whole shiploads of Jesuits, mendicants, and
native priests to be sent out of the country. But as many
of the banished returned, death was threatened against all
who might be found, and in A.D. 1624 all foreigners, with the
exception of Chinese and Dutch, were rigorously driven out.
And now a bloody persecution of native Christians began. Many
thousands fled to China and the neighbouring islands; crowds
of those remaining were buried alive or burnt on piles made up
of the wood of Christian crosses. The victims displayed a martyr
spirit like those of the early days. Those who escaped organized
in A.D. 1637 an armed resistance, and held the fortress of Arima
in face of the _shiogun’s_ army sent against them. After a three
months’ siege the fortress was conquered by the help of Dutch
cannon; 37,000 were massacred in the fort, and the rest were
hurled down from high rocks. The most severe enactments were
passed against Christians, and the edicts filled with fearful
curses against “the wicked sect” and “the vile God” of the
Christians were posted on all the bridges, street corners, and
squares. Christianity now seemed to be completely stamped out.
The recollection of this work, however, was still retained down
to the nineteenth century. For when French missionaries went
in A.D. 1860 to Nagasaki, they found to their surprise in the
villages around thousands (?) who greeted them joyfully as the
successors of the first Christian missionaries.
§ 156.12. =In China=, after Ricci’s death (§ 150, 1), the
success of the mission continued uninterrupted. In A.D. 1628
a German Jesuit, Adam Schell, went out from Cologne, who gained
great fame at court for his mathematical skill. Louis XIV.
founded at Paris a missionary college, which sent out Jesuits
thoroughly trained in mathematics. But Dominicans and Franciscans
over and over again complained to Rome of the Jesuits. They
never allowed missionaries of other orders to come near their
own establishments, and actually drove them away from places
where they had begun to work. They even opposed priests,
bishops, and vicars-apostolic sent by the Propaganda, declared
their papal briefs forgeries, forbad their congregations to have
any intercourse with those “heretics,” and under suspicion of
Jansenism brought them before the Inquisition of Goa. Clement X.
issued a firm-toned bull against such proceedings; but the
Jesuits gave no heed to it, and attended only to their own
general. The papal condemnation a century later of the Jesuits’
accommodation scheme, and their permission of heathen rites
and beliefs to the new converts, complained against by the
Dominicans, was equally fruitless. In A.D. 1645 Innocent X.
forbad this practice on pain of excommunication; but still
they continued it till the decree was modified by Alexander VII.
in A.D. 1656. After persistent complaints by the Dominicans,
Innocent XII. appointed a new congregation in Rome to
investigate the question, but their deliberations yielded no
result for ten years. At last Clement XI. confirmed the first
decree of Innocent X., condemned anew the so called Chinese
rites, and sent the legate Thomas of Tournon in A.D. 1703 to
enforce his decision. Tournon, received at first by the emperor
at Pekin with great consideration, fell into disfavour through
Jesuit intrigues, was banished from the capital, and returned
to Nankin. But as he continued his efforts from this point,
and an attempt to poison him failed in A.D. 1707, he went to
Macao, where he was put in prison by the Portuguese, in which
he died in A.D. 1710. Clement XI., in A.D. 1715, issued his
decree against the Chinese rites in a yet severer form; but
the Franciscan who proclaimed the papal bull was put in prison
as an offender against the laws of the country, and, after
being maltreated for seventeen months, was banished. So proudly
confident had the Jesuits become, that in A.D. 1720 they treated
with scorn and contempt the papal legate Mezzabarba, Patriarch
of Alexandria, who tried by certain concessions to move them
to submit. A more severe decree of Clement XII. of A.D. 1735
was scoffed at by being proclaimed only in the Latin original.
Benedict XIV. succeeded for the first time, in A.D. 1742, in
breaking down their opposition, after the charges had been
renewed by the Capuchin Norbert. All the Jesuit missionaries
were now obliged by oath to exclude all pagan customs and rites;
but with this all the glory and wonderful success of their
Asiatic missions came to an end.--Continuation, § 165, 3.
§ 156.13. =Trade and Industry of the Jesuits.=--As Christian
missions generally deserve credit, not only for introducing
civilization and culture along with the preaching of the gospel
into far distant heathen lands, but also for having greatly
promoted the knowledge of countries, peoples, and languages
among their fellow countrymen at home, opening up new fields
for colonization and trade, these ends were also served by
the world-wide missionary enterprises of the Jesuits, and
were in perfect accordance with the character and intention of
this order, which aimed at universal dominion. In carrying out
these schemes the Jesuits abandoned the ascetical principles
of their founder and their vow of poverty, amassing enormous
wealth by securing in many parts a practical monopoly of
trade. Their fifth general, Aquaviva (§ 149, 8), secured from
Gregory XIII., avowedly in favour of the mission, exclusive
right to trade with both Indies. They soon erected great
factories in all parts of the world, and had ships laden
with valuable merchandise on all seas. They had mines, farms,
sugar plantations, apothecary shops, bakeries, etc., founded
banks, sold relics, miracle-working amulets, rosaries, healing
Ignatius- and Xavier-water (§ 149, 11), etc., and in successful
legacy-hunting excelled all other orders. Urban VIII. and
Clement XI. issued severe bulls against such abuses, but only
succeeded in restricting them to some extent.--Continuation,
§ 165, 9.
§ 156.14. =An Apostate to Judaism.=--Gabriel, or as he was
called after circumcision, =Uriel Acosta=, was sprung from
a noble Portuguese family, originally Jewish. Doubting
Christianity in consequence of the traffic in indulgences,
he at last repudiated the New Testament in favour of the Old.
He refused rich ecclesiastical appointments, fled to Amsterdam,
and there formally went over to Judaism. Instead of the biblical
Mosaism, however, he was disappointed to find only Pharisaic
pride and Talmudic traditionalism, against which he wrote
a treatise in A.D. 1623. The Jews now denounced him to the
civil authorities as a denier of God and immortality. The whole
issue of his book was burnt. Twice the synagogue thundered its
ban against him. The first was withdrawn on his recantation,
and the second, seven years after, upon his submitting to a
severe flagellation. In spite of all he held to his Sadducean
standpoint to his end in A.D. 1647, when he died by his own
hand from a pistol shot, driven to despair by the unceasing
persecution of the Jews.
§ 157. QUIETISM AND JANSENISM.
Down to the last quarter of the seventeenth century the Spanish
Mystics (§ 149, 16), and especially those attached to Francis de Sales,
were recognised as thoroughly orthodox. But now the Jesuits appeared as
the determined opponents of all mysticism that savoured of enthusiasm.
By means of vile intrigues they succeeded in getting Molinos, Guyon,
and Fénelon condemned, as “Quietist” heretics, although the founder
of their party had been canonized and his doctrine solemnly sanctioned
by the pope. Yet more objectionable to the Jesuits was that reaction
toward Augustinianism which, hitherto limited to the Dominicans
(§ 149, 13), and treated by them as a theological theory, was
now spreading among other orders in the form of French Jansenism,
accompanied by deep moral earnestness and a revival of the whole
Christian life.
§ 157.1. =Francis de Sales and Madame Chantal.=--Francis Count
de Sales, from A.D. 1602 Bishop of Geneva, _i.e._ _in partibus_,
with Annecy as his residence, had shown himself a good Catholic
by his zeal in rooting out Protestantism in Chablais, on the
south of the Genevan lake. In A.D. 1604 meeting the young
widowed Baroness de Chantal, along with whom at a later period
he founded the Order of the Visitation of Mary (§ 156, 7),
he proved a good physician to her amid her sorrow, doubts,
and temptations. He sought to qualify himself for this task
by reading the writings of St. Theresa. Teacher and scholar
so profited by their mystical studies, that in A.D. 1665
Alexander VII. deemed the one worthy of canonization and the
other of beatification. In A.D. 1877 Pius IX. raised Francis
to the dignity of _doctor ecclesiæ_. His “Introduction to
the Devout Life” affords a guide to laymen to the life of
the soul, amid all the disturbances of the world resting in
calm contemplation and unselfish love of God. In the Catholic
Church, next to À Kempis’ “Imitation of Christ,” it is the
most appreciated and most widely used book of devotion. In
his “_Theotime_” he leads the reader deeper into the yearnings
of the soul after fellowship with God, and describes the perfect
peace which the soul reaches in God.[461]
§ 157.2. =Michael Molinos.=--After Francis de Sales a great
multitude of male and female apostles of the new mystical
gospel sprang up, and were favourably received by all the
more moderate church leaders. The reactionaries, headed by the
Jesuits, sought therefore all the more eagerly to deal severely
with the Spaniard Michael Molinos. Having settled in Rome in
A.D. 1669, he soon became the most popular of father confessors.
His “Spiritual Guide” in A.D. 1675 received the approval of the
Holy Office, and was introduced into Protestant Germany through
a Latin translation by Francke in A.D. 1687, and a German
translation in A.D. 1699 by Arnold. In it he taught those who
came to the confessional that the way to the perfection of
the Christian life, which consists in peaceful rest in the
most intimate communion with God, is to be found in spiritual
conference, secret prayer, active and passive contemplation,
in rigorous destruction of all self-will, and in disinterested
love of God, fortified, wherever that is possible, by daily
communion. The success of the book was astonishing. It promptly
influenced all ranks and classes, both men and women, lay and
clerical, not only in Italy, but also by means of translations
in France and Spain. But soon a reaction set in. As early
as A.D. 1681 the famous Jesuit =Segneri= issued a treatise,
in which he charged Molinos’ contemplative mysticism with
onesidedness and exaggeration. He was answered by the pious
and learned Oratorian =Petrucci=. A commission, appointed
by the Inquisition to examine the writings of both parties,
pronounced the views of Molinos and Petrucci to be in accordance
with church doctrine and Segneri’s objections to be unfounded.
All that Jesuitism reckoned as foundation, means, and end of
piety was characterized as purely elementary. No hope could
be entertained of winning over Innocent XI., the bitter enemy
of the Jesuits. But Louis XIV. of France, at the instigation
of his Jesuit father confessor, Lachaise, expressed through
his ambassador his surprise that his holiness should, not only
tolerate, but even encourage and support so dangerous a heretic,
who taught all Christendom to undervalue the public services
of the Church. In A.D. 1685 Innocent referred the matter to
the tribunal of the Inquisition. Throughout the two years
during which the investigation proceeded all arts were used to
secure condemnation. Extreme statements of fanatical adherents
of Molinos were not rarely met with, depreciating the public
ordinances and ceremonies, confession, hearing of mass, church
prayers, rosaries, etc. The pope, facile with age, amid groans
and lamentations, allowed things to take their course, and at
last confirmed the decree of the Inquisition of August 28th,
A.D. 1687, by which Molinos was found guilty of spreading
godless doctrine, and sixty-eight propositions, partly from
his own writings, partly from the utterances of his adherents,
were condemned as heretical and blasphemous. The heretic was
to abjure his heresies publicly, clad in penitential garments,
and was then consigned to lifelong solitary confinement in a
Dominican cloister, where he died in A.D. 1697.[462]
§ 157.3. =Madame Guyon and Fénelon.=--After her husband’s
death, =Madame Guyon=, in company with her father confessor,
the Barnabite =Lacombe=, who had been initiated during a long
residence at Rome into the mysteries of Molinist mysticism,
spent five years travelling through France, Switzerland,
Savoy, and Piedmont. Though already much suspected, she won
the hearts of many men and women among the clergy and laity,
and enkindled in them by personal conference, correspondence,
and her literary work, the ardour of mystical love. Her
brilliant writings are indeed disfigured by traces of foolish
exaggeration, fanaticism and spiritual pride. She calls herself
the woman of Revelation xii. 1, and the _mère de la grace_
of her adherents. The following are the main distinguishing
characteristics of her mysticism: The necessity of turning
away from everything creaturely, rejecting all earthly pleasure
and destroying every selfish interest, as well as of turning
to God in passive contemplation, silent devotion, naked faith,
which dispensed with all intellectual evidence, and pure
disinterested love, which loves God for Himself alone, not
for the eternal salvation obtained through Him. On her return
to Paris with Lacombe in A.D. 1686 the proper martyrdom of
her life began. Her chief persecutor was her step-brother,
the Parisian superior of the Barnabites, La Mothe, who spread
the most scandalous reports about his half-sister and Lacombe,
and had them both imprisoned by a royal decree in A.D. 1688.
Lacombe never regained his liberty. Taken from one prison to
another, he lost his reason, and died in an asylum in A.D. 1699.
Madame Guyon, however, by the influence of Madame de Maintenon,
was released after ten months’ confinement. The favour of
this royal dame was not of long continuance. Warned on all
sides of the dangerous heretic, she broke off all intercourse
with her in A.D. 1693, and persuaded the king to appoint a
new commission, in A.D. 1694, with Bishop =Bossuet= of Meaux
at its head, to examine her suspected writings. This commission
meeting at Issy, had already, in February, A.D. 1695, drawn
up thirty test articles, when =Fénelon=, tutor of the king’s
grandson, and now nominated to the archbishopric of Cambray,
was ordered by the king to take part in the proceedings. He
signed the articles, though he objected to much in them, and
had four articles of his own added. Madame Guyon also did so,
and Bossuet at last testified for her that he had found her
moral character stainless and her doctrine free from Molinist
heresy. But the bigot Maintenon was not satisfied with this.
Bossuet demanded the surrender of this certificate that he
might draw up another; and when Madame Guyon refused, on
the basis of a statement by the crazed Lacombe, she was sent
to the Bastile [Bastille] in A.D. 1696. In A.D. 1697 Fénelon
had written in her defence his “_Explication des Maximes des
Saintes sur la Vie Intérieur_,” showing that the condemned
doctrines of passive contemplation, secret prayer, naked
faith, and disinterested love, had all been previously taught
by St. Theresa, John of the Cross, Francis de Sales, and other
saints. He sent this treatise for an opinion to Rome. A violent
controversy then arose between Bossuet and Fénelon. The pious,
well-meaning pope, =Innocent XII.=, endeavoured vainly to
bring about a good understanding. Bossuet and the all-powerful
Maintenon wished no reconciliation, but condemnation, and gave
the king and pope no rest till very reluctantly he prohibited
the objectionable book by a brief in A.D. 1699, and condemned
twenty-three propositions from it as heretical. Fénelon,
strongly attached to the church, and a bitter persecutor
of Protestants, made an unconditional surrender, as guilty
of a defective exposition of the truth. But Madame Guyon
continued in the Bastile [Bastille] till A.D. 1701, when she
retired to Blois, where she died in A.D. 1717. Bossuet had
died in A.D. 1704, and Fénelon in A.D. 1715. She published
only two of her writings: “An Exposition of the Song,” and
the “_Moyen Court et très Facile de faire Oraison_.” Many
others, including her translation and expositions of the
Bible, were during her lifetime edited in twenty volumes by
her friend, the Reformed preacher of the Palatinate, Peter
Poiret.[463]
§ 157.4. =Mysticism Tinged with Theosophy and
Pantheism.=--=Antoinette Bourignon=, the daughter of a rich
merchant of Lille, in France, while matron of a hospital in
her native city, had in A.D. 1662 gathered around her a party
of believers in her theosophic and fantastic revelations.
She was obliged to flee to the Netherlands, and there, by
the force of her eloquence in speech and writing, spread her
views among the Protestants. Among them she attracted the
great scientist Swammerdam. But when she introduced politics,
she escaped imprisonment only by flight. Down to her death
in A.D. 1680 she earnestly and successfully prosecuted
her mission in north-west Germany. Peter Poiret collected
her writings and published them in twenty-one volumes at
Amsterdam, in A.D. 1679.--Quite of another sort was the
pantheistic mysticism of =Angelus Silesius=. Originally
a Protestant physician at Breslau, he went over to the
Romish church in A.D. 1653, and in consequence received from
Vienna the honorary title of physician to the emperor. He
was made priest in A.D. 1661, and till his death in A.D. 1677
maintained a keen polemic against the Protestant church
with all a pervert’s zeal. Most of his hymns belong to his
Protestant period. As a Catholic he wrote his “_Cherubinischer
Wandersmann_,” a collection of rhymes in which, with childish
_naïveté_ and hearty, gushing ardour, he merges self into the
abyss of the universal Deity, and develops a system of the most
pronounced pantheism.
§ 157.5. =Jansenism in its first Stage.=--Bishop Cornelius
Jansen, of Ypres, who died in A.D. 1638, gave the fruits
of his lifelong studies of Augustine in his learned work,
“_Augustinus s. doctr. Aug. de humanæ Naturæ Sanitate,
Ægritudine, et Medicina adv. Pelagianos et Massilienses_,”
which was published after his death in three volumes, Louvain,
1640. The Jesuits induced Urban VIII., in A.D. 1642, to prohibit
it in his bull _In eminenti_. Augustine’s numerous followers
in France felt themselves hit by this decree. Jansen’s pupil
at Port Royal from A.D. 1635, Duvergier de Hauranne, usually
called St. Cyran, from the Benedictine monastery of which he
was abbot, was the bitter foe of the Jesuits and Richelieu,
who had him cast into prison in A.D. 1638, from which he was
liberated after the death of the cardinal in A.D. 1643, and
shortly before his own. Another distinguished member of the
party was Antoine Arnauld, doctor of the Sorbonne, who died in
A.D. 1694, the youngest of twenty children of a parliamentary
advocate, whose powerful defence of the University of Paris
against the Jesuits called forth their hatred and lifelong
persecution. His mantle, as a vigorous polemist, had fallen
upon his youngest son. Very important too was the influence
of his much older sister, Angelica Arnauld, Abbess of the
Cistercian cloister of Port Royal des Champs, six miles from
Paris, which under her became the centre of religious life and
effort for all France. Around her gathered some of the noblest,
most pious, and talented men of the time: the poet Racine, the
mathematician and apologist Pascal, the Bible translator De Sacy,
the church historian Tillemont, all ardent admirers of Augustine
and determined opponents of the lax morality of the Jesuits.
Arnauld’s book, “_De la fréquente Communion_,” was approved
by the Sorbonne, the Parliament, and the most distinguished
of the French clergy; but in A.D. 1653 Innocent X. condemned
five Jansenist propositions in it as heretical. The Augustinians
now maintained that these doctrines were not taught in the
sense attributed to them by the pope. Arnauld distinguished
the _question du fait_ from the _question du droit_, maintaining
that the latter only were subject to the judgment of the
Holy See. The Sorbonne, now greatly changed in composition
and character, expelled him on account of this position from
its corporation in A.D. 1656. About this time, at Arnauld’s
instigation, Pascal, the profound and brilliant author of
“_Pensées sur la Religion_,” began, under the name of Louis
de Montalte to publish his famous “Provincial Letters,” which
in an admirable style exposed and lashed with deep earnestness
and biting wit the base moral principles of Jesuit casuistry.
The truly annihilating effect of these letters upon the
reputation of the powerful order could not be checked by
their being burnt by order of Parliament by the hangman at
Aix in A.D. 1657, and at Paris in A.D. 1660. But meanwhile
the specifically Jansenist movement entered upon a new phase
of its development. Alexander VII. had issued in A.D. 1656
a bull which denounced the application of the distinction _du
fait_ and _du droit_ to the papal decrees as derogatory to the
holy see, and affirmed that Jansen taught the five propositions
in the sense they had been condemned. In order to enforce the
sentence, Annal, the Jesuit father confessor of Louis XIV.,
obtained in 1661 a royal decree requiring all French clergy,
monks, nuns, and teachers to sign a formula unconditionally
accepting this bull. Those who refused were banished, and
fled mostly to the Netherlands. The sorely oppressed nuns of
Port Royal at last reluctantly agreed to sign it; but they were
still persecuted, and in A.D. 1664 the new archbishop, Perefixe,
inaugurated a more severe persecution, placed this cloister
under the interdict, and removed some of the nuns to other
convents. In A.D. 1669, Alexander’s successor, Clement IX.,
secured the submission of Arnauld, De Sacy, Nicole, and many
of the nuns by a policy of mild connivance. But the hatred
of the Jesuits was still directed against their cloister. In
A.D. 1705 Clement XI. again demanded full and unconditioned
acceptance of the decree of Alexander VII., and when the nuns
refused, the pope, in A.D. 1708, declared this convent an
irredeemable nest of heresy, and ordered its suppression, which
was carried out in A.D. 1709. In A.D. 1710 cloister and church
were levelled to the ground, and the very corpses taken out of
their graves.[464]--Continuation, § 165, 7.
§ 158. SCIENCE AND ART IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
Catholic theology flourished during the seventeenth century as it
had never done since the twelfth and thirteenth. Especially in the
liberal Gallican church there was a vigorous scientific life. The
Parisian Sorbonne and the orders of the Jesuits, St. Maur, and the
Oratorians, excelled in theological, particularly in patristic and
historical, learning, and the contemporary brilliancy of Reformed
theology in France afforded a powerful stimulus. But the best days
of art, especially Italian painting, were now past. Sacred music was
diligently cultivated, though in a secularized style, and many gifted
hymn-writers made their appearance in Spain and Germany.
§ 158.1. =Theological Science= (§ 149, 14).--The parliamentary
advocate, Mich. le Jay, published at his own expense the
Parisian Polyglott in ten folio vols., A.D. 1629-1645, which,
besides complete Syriac and Arabic translations, included also
the Samaritan. The chief contributor was the Oratorian =Morinus=,
who edited the LXX. and the Samaritan texts, which he regarded
as incomparably superior to the Masoretic text corrupted by
the Jews. The Jansenists produced a French translation of
the Bible with practical notes, condemned by the pope, but
much read by the people. It was mainly the work of the brothers
=De Sacy=. The New Testament was issued in A.D. 1667 and the
Old Testament somewhat later, called the Bible of Mons from
the fictitious name of the place of publication. =Richard Simon=,
the Oratorian, who died in A.D. 1712, treated Scripture with
a boldness of criticism never before heard of within the church.
While opposed by many on the Catholic side, the curia favoured
his work as undermining the Protestant doctrine of Scripture.
=Cornelius à Lapide=, who died A.D. 1637, expounded Scripture
according to the fourfold sense.--In systematic theology
the old scholastic method still held sway. Moral theology
was wrought out in the form of casuistry with unexampled
lasciviousness, especially by the Jesuits (§ 149, 10). The
work of the Spaniard =Escobar=, who died in A.D. 1669, ran
through fifty editions, and that of =Busembaum=, professor in
Cologne and afterwards rector of Münster, who died A.D. 1668,
went through seventy editions. On account of the attempted
assassination of Louis XV. by Damiens in A.D. 1757, with
which the Jesuits and their doctrine of tyrannicide were
charged, the Parliament of Toulouse in A.D. 1757, and of Paris
in A.D. 1761, had Busembaum’s book publicly burnt, and several
popes, Alexander VII., VIII., and Innocent XI., condemned a
number of propositions from the moral writings of these and
other Jesuits. Among polemical writers the most distinguished
were =Becanus=, who died in A.D. 1624, and =Bossuet= (§ 153, 7).
Among the Jansenists the most prominent controversialists were
=Nicole= and =Arnauld=, who, in order to escape the reproach of
Calvinism, sought to prove the Catholic doctrine of the supper
to be the same as that of the apostles, and were answered
by the Reformed theologians Claude and Jurieu. In apologetics
the leading place is occupied by =Pascal=, with his brilliant
“_Pensées_.” =Huetius=, a French bishop and editor of Origen,
who died in A.D. 1721, replied to Spinoza’s attacks on the
Pentateuch, and applying to reason itself the Cartesian
principle, that philosophy must begin with doubt, pointed
the doubter to the supernatural revealed truths in the Catholic
church as the only anchor of salvation. The learned Jesuit
=Dionysius Petavius=, who died in A.D. 1652, edited Epiphanius
and wrote gigantic chronological works and numerous violent
polemics against Calvinists and Jansenists. His chief work
is the unfinished patristic-dogmatic treatise in five vols.
folio, A.D. 1680, “_De theologicis Dogmatibus_.” The Oratorian
=Thomassinus= wrote an able archæological work: “_Vetus et Nova
Eccl. Disciplina circa Beneficia et Beneficiarios_.”
§ 158.2. In church history, besides those named in § 5, 2, we
may mention Pagi, the keen critic and corrector of Baronius.
The study of sources was vigorously pursued. We have collections
of mediæval writings and documents by Sirmond, D’Achery,
Mabillon, Martène, Baluzius; of acts of councils by Labbé
and Cossart, those of France by =Jac. Sirmond=, and of Spain
by Aguirre; acts of the martyrs by =Ruinart=; monastic rules
by =Holstenius=, a pervert, who became Vatican librarian,
and died at Rome A.D. 1661. =Dufresne Ducange=, an advocate,
who died in A.D. 1688, wrote glossaries of the mediæval and
barbarous Latin and Greek, indispensable for the study of
documents belonging to those times. The greatest prodigy of
learning was =Mabillon=, who died in A.D. 1707, a Benedictine
of St. Maur, and historian of his order. =Pet. de Marca=, who
died Archbishop of Paris A.D. 1662, wrote the famous work on
the Gallican liberties “_De Concordia Sacerdotii et Imperii_.”
The Jansenist doctor of the Sorbonne, =Elias du Pin=, who died
A.D. 1719, wrote “_Nouvelle Bibliothèque des Auteurs Eccles._”
in forty-seven vols. The Jesuit Maimbourg, died A.D. 1686,
compiled several party histories of Wiclifism, Lutheranism,
and Calvinism; but as a Gallican was deprived of office
by the pope, and afterwards supported by a royal pension.
The Antwerp Jesuits Bolland, Henschen, Papebroch started,
in A.D. 1643, the gigantic work “_Acta Sanctorum_,” carried
on by the learned members of their order in Belgium, known
as =Bollandists=. It was stopped by the French invasion
of A.D. 1794, when it had reached October 15th with the
fifty-third folio vol. The Belgian Jesuits continued the
work from A.D. 1845-1867, reaching in six vols. the end of
October, but not displaying the ability and liberality of their
predecessors. In Venice =Paul Sarpi= (§ 155, 2) wrote a history
of the Tridentine Council, one of the most brilliant historical
works of any period. =Leo Allatius=, a Greek convert at Rome,
who died in A.D. 1669, wrote a work to show the agreement of
the Eastern and Western churches. Cardinal =Bona= distinguished
himself as a liturgical writer.--In France pulpit eloquence
reached the highest pitch in such men as Flechier, Bossuet,
Bourdaloue, Fénelon, Massillon, and Bridaine. In Vienna
=Abraham à St. Clara= inveighed in a humorous, grotesque way
against the corruption of manners, with an undercurrent of deep
moral earnestness. Similar in style and spirit, but much more
deeply sunk in Catholic superstition, was his contemporary
the Capuchin =Martin of Cochem=, who missionarized the Rhine
Provinces and western Germany for forty years, and issued
a large number of popular religious tracts.--Continuation,
§ 165, 14.
§ 158.3. =Art and Poetry= (§ 149, 15).--The greatest master
of the musical school founded by Palestrina was _Allêgri_,
whose _Miserere_ is performed yearly on the Wednesday afternoon
of Passion Week in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. The oratorio
originated from the application of the lofty music of this
school to dramatic scenes drawn from the Bible, for purely
musical and not theatrical performance. Philip Neri patronized
this music freely in his oratory, from which it took the name.
This new church music became gradually more and more secularized
and approximated to the ordinary opera style.--In =ecclesiastical
architecture= the Renaissance style still prevailed, but debased
with senseless, tasteless ornamentation.--In the Italian school
of =painting= the decline, both in creative power and imitative
skill, was very marked from the end of the sixteenth century.
In Spain during the seventeenth century religious painting
reached a high point of excellence in Murillo of Seville, who
died in A.D. 1682, a master in representing calm meditation
and entranced felicity.--The two greatest =poets= of Spain,
the creators of the Spanish drama, =Lope de Vega= (died
A.D. 1635) and =Pedro Calderon= (died A.D. 1681), both at
first soldiers and afterwards priests, flourished during
this century. The elder excelled the younger, not only in
fruitfulness and versatility (1,500 comedies, 320 autos,
§ 115, 12, etc.), but also in poetic genius and patriotism.
Calderon, with his 122 dramas, 73 festival plays, 200 preludes,
etc., excelled De Vega in artistic expression and beauty of
imagery. Both alike glorify the Inquisition, but occasionally
subordinate Mary and the saints to the great redemption of
the cross.--Specially deserving of notice is the noble German
Jesuit =Friedr. von Spee=, died A.D. 1635. His spiritual songs
show deep love to the Saviour and a profound feeling for nature,
approaching in some respects the style of the evangelical
hymn-writers. Spee was a keen but unsuccessful opponent of
witch prosecution. Another eminent poetic genius of the age
was the Jesuit =Jac. Balde= of Munich, who died in A.D. 1688.
He is at his best in lyrical poetry. A deep religious vein
runs through all his Latin odes, in which he enthusiastically
appeals to the Virgin to raise him above all earthly passions.
To Herder belongs the merit of rescuing him from oblivion.
III. The Lutheran Church.
§ 159. ORTHODOXY AND ITS BATTLES.[465]
The Formula of Concord commended itself to the hearts and
intelligences of Lutherans, and secured a hundred years’ supremacy of
orthodoxy, notwithstanding two Christological controversies. Gradually,
however, a new dogmatic scholasticism arose, which had the defects
as well as the excellences of the mediæval system. The orthodoxy of
this school deteriorated, on the one hand, into violent polemic on
confessional differences, and, on the other, into undue depreciation
of outward forms in favour of a spiritual life and personal piety.
These tendencies are represented by the Syncretist and Pietist
controversies.
§ 159.1. =Christological Controversies.=
1. =The Cryptist and Kenotist Controversy= between the
Giessen and Tübingen theologians, in A.D. 1619, about
Christ’s state of humiliation, led to the publication of
many violent treatises down to A.D. 1626. The Kenotists
of Giessen, with Mentzer and Feuerborn at their head,
assigned the humiliation only to the human nature, and
explained it as an actual κένωσις, _i.e._ a complete but
voluntary resigning of the omnipresence and omnipotence
immanent in His divinity (κτῆσις, but not χρῆσις),
yet so that He could have them at His command at any
moment, _e.g._ in His miracles. The Cryptists of Tübingen,
with Luc. Osiander and Thumm at their head, ascribed
humiliation to both natures, and taught that all the
while Christ, even _secundum carnem_, was omnipresent
and ruled both in heaven and earth, but in a hidden
way; the humiliation is no κένωσις, but only a κρύψις.
After repeated unsuccessful attempts to bring about
a reconciliation, John George, Elector of Saxony, in
A.D. 1623, accepted the Kenotic doctrine. But the two
parties still continued their strife.[466]
2. =The Lütkemann Controversy= on the humanity of Christ in
death was of far less importance. Lütkemann, a professor
of philosophy at Rostock, affirmed that in death, because
the unity of soul and body was broken, Christ was not true
man, and that to deny this was to destroy the reality and
the saving power of his death. He held that the incarnation
of Christ lasted through death, because the divine nature
was connected, not only with the soul, but also with the
body. Lütkemann was obliged to quit Rostock, but got an
honourable call to Brunswick as superintendent and court
preacher, and there died in A.D. 1655. Later Lutherans
treated the controversy as a useless logomachy.
§ 159.2. =The Syncretist Controversy.=--Since the Hofmann
controversy (§ 141, 15) the University of Helmstadt had shown
a decided humanistic tendency, and gave even greater freedom in
the treatment of doctrines than the Formula of Concord, which
it declined to adopt. To this school belonged =George Calixt=,
and from A.D. 1614 for forty years he laboured in promoting
its interests. He was a man of wide culture and experience,
who had obtained a thorough knowledge of church history, and
acquaintance with the most distinguished theologians of all
churches, during his extensive foreign travels, and therewith
a geniality and breadth of view not by any means common in
those days. He did not indeed desire any formal union between
the different churches, but rather a mutual recognition,
love, and tolerance. For this purpose he set, as a secondary
principle of Christian theology, besides Scripture, as the
primary principle, the consensus of the first five centuries
as the common basis of all churches, and sought to represent
later ecclesiastical differences as unessential or of less
consequence. This was denounced by strict Lutherans as
Syncretism and Cryptocatholicism. In A.D. 1639 the Hanoverian
preacher Buscher charged him with being a secret Papist. After
the Thorn Conference of A.D. 1645, a violent controversy arose,
which divided Lutherans into two camps. On the one side were
the universities of Helmstadt and Königsberg; on the other
hand, the theologians of the electorate of Saxony, Hülsemann
of Leipzig, Waller of Dresden, and Abr. Calov, who died
professor in Wittenberg in A.D. 1686. Calov wrote twenty-six
controversial treatises on this subject. Jena vainly sought to
mediate between the parties. In the _Theologorum Sax. Consensus
repetitus Fidei vera Lutheranæ_ of A.D. 1655, for which the
Wittenberg divines failed to secure symbolical authority, the
following sentiments were branded as Syncretist errors: That
in the Apostles’ Creed everything is taught that is necessary
to salvation; that the Catholic and Reformed systems retain
hold of fundamental truths; that original sin is of a merely
privative nature; that God _indirecte, improprie, et per
accidens_ is the cause of sin; that the doctrine of the Trinity
was first clearly revealed in the New Testament, etc. Calixt
died A.D. 1656 in the midst of most violent controversies. His
son Ulrich continued these, but had neither the ability nor
moderation of his father. Even the peaceably disposed Conference
of Cassel of A.D. 1661 (§ 154, 4) only poured oil on the flames.
The strife lost itself at last in actions for damages between
the younger Calixt and his bitter opponent Strauch of Wittenberg.
Wearied of these fruitless discussions, theologians now turned
their attention to the rising movement of Pietism.[467]
§ 159.3. =The Pietist Controversy in its First
Stage.=--=Philip Jacob Spener= born in Alsace in A.D. 1635,
was in his thirty-first year, on account of his spirituality,
distinguished gifts, and singularly wide scholarship, made
president of a clerical seminary at Frankfort-on-Main. In
A.D. 1686 he became chief court preacher at Dresden, and
provost of Berlin in A.D. 1691, when, on account of his intense
earnestness in pastoral work, he had been expelled from Dresden.
He died in Berlin in A.D. 1705. His year’s attendance at Geneva
after the completion of his curriculum at Strassburg had an
important influence on his whole future career. He there learned
to value discipline for securing purity of life as well as of
doctrine, and was also powerfully impressed by the practical
lectures of Labadie (§ 163, 7) and the reading of the “Practice
of Piety” and other ascetical writings of the English Puritans
(§ 162, 3). Though strongly attached to the Lutheran church,
he believed that in the restoration of evangelical doctrine
by the Wittenberg Reformation, “not by any means had all been
accomplished that needed to be done,” and that Lutheranism in
the form of the orthodoxy of the age had lost the living power
of the reformers, and was in danger of burying its talent in
dead and barren service of the letter. There was therefore a
pressing need of a new and wider reformation. In the Lutheran
church, as the depository of sound doctrine, he recognised
the fittest field for the development of a genuinely Christian
life; but he heartily appreciated any true spiritual movement
in whatsoever church it arose. He went back from scholastic
dogmatics to Holy Scripture as the living source of saving
knowledge, substituted for the external orthodox theology the
theology of the heart, demanded evidence of this in a pious
Christian walk: these were the means by which he sought to
promote his reformation. A whole series of Lutheran theologians
of the seventeenth century (§ 159) had indeed contributed to
this same end by their devotional works, hymns, and sermons.
What was new in Spener was the conviction of the insufficiency
of the hitherto used means and the undue prominence given to
doctrine, and his consequent effort vigorously made to raise
the tone of the Christian life. In his childlike, pious humility
he regarded himself as by no means called to carry out this work,
but felt it his duty to insist upon the necessity of it, and
indicate the means that should be used to realize it. This he
did in his work of A.D. 1675, “_Pia Desideria_.” As it was his
aim to recommend biblical practical Christianity to the heart
of the individual Christian, he revived the almost forgotten
doctrine “Of Spiritual Priesthood” in a separate treatise.
In A.D. 1670 he began to have meetings in his own house for
encouraging Christian piety in the community, which soon
were imitated in other places. Spener’s influence on the
Lutheran church became greater and wider through his position
at Dresden. Stirred up by his spirit, three young graduates of
Leipzig. A. H. Francke, Paul Anton, and J. K. Schade, formed
in A.D. 1686 a private _Collegia Philobiblica_ for practical
exposition of Scripture and the delivery of public exegetical
lectures at the university in the German language. But the
Leipzig theological faculty, with J. B. Carpzov II. at its
head, charged them with despising the public ordinances as
well as theological science, and with favouring the views
of separatists. The _Collegia Philobiblica_ was suppressed,
and the three friends obliged to leave Leipzig in A.D. 1690.
This marked the beginning of the Pietist controversies.
Soon afterwards Spener was expelled from Dresden; but in
his new position at Berlin he secured great influence in the
appointments to the theological faculty of the new university
founded at Halle by the peace-loving elector Frederick III.
of Brandenburg, in opposition to the contentious universities
of Wittenberg and Leipzig. Francke, Anton, and Breithaupt
were made professors of theology. Halle now won the position
which Wittenberg and Geneva had held during the Reformation
period, and the Pietist controversy thus entered upon
a second, more general, and more critical epoch of its
history.[468]--Continuation, § 166, 1.
§ 159.4. =Theological Literature= (§ 142, 6).--The “_Philologia
Sacra_” of =Sol. Glassius= of Jena, published in A.D. 1623,
has ranked as a classical work for almost two centuries. From
A.D. 1620 till the end of the century, a lively controversy was
carried on about the Greek style of the New Testament, in which
Lutherans, and especially the Reformed, took part. The purists
maintained that the New Testament idiom was pure and classical,
thinking that its inspiration would otherwise be endangered.
The first historico-critical introduction to the Scriptures was
the “_Officina Biblica_” of Walther in A.D. 1636. =Pfeiffer= of
Leipzig gained distinction in biblical criticism and hermeneutics
by his “_Critica Sacra_” of A.D. 1680 and “_Hermeneutica_”
of A.D. 1684. Exegesis now made progress, notwithstanding its
dependence on traditional interpretations of doctrinal proof
passages and its mechanical theory of inspiration. The most
distinguished exegetes were =Erasmus Schmidt= of Wittenberg,
who died in A.D. 1637: he wrote a Latin translation of New
Testament with admirable notes, and a very useful concordance
of the Greek New Testament, under the title Ταμεῖον, which
has been revised and improved by Bruder; =Seb. Schmidt= of
Strassburg, who wrote commentaries on several Old Testament
books and on the Pauline epistles; and =Abr. Calov= of
Wittenberg, who died in A.D. 1686, in his 74th year, whose
“_Biblia Illustrata_,” in four vols., is a work of amazing
research and learning, but composed wholly in the interests
of dogmatics.--Little was done in the department of church
history. Calixt awakened a new enthusiasm for historical
studies, and =Gottfried Arnold= (§ 159, 2), pietist, chiliast,
and theosophist, bitterly opposed to every form of orthodoxy,
and finding true Christianity only in sects, separatists,
and heretics, set the whole theological world astir by his
“_Unparteiische Kirchen- und Ketzer-historie_,” in A.D. 1699
(§ 5, 3).
§ 159.5. The orthodox school applied itself most diligently to
dogmatics in a strictly scholastic form. =Hutter= of Wittenberg,
who died in A.D. 1616, wrote “_Loci communes theologici_” and
“_Compendium Loc. Theol._” =John Gerhard= of Jena, who died
in A.D. 1637, published in A.D. 1610 his “_Loc. Theologici_”
in nine folio vols., the standard of Lutheran orthodoxy. =J.
Andr. Quenstedt= of Wittenberg, who died A.D. 1688, exhibited
the best and worst of Lutheran scholasticism in his “_Theol.
didactico-polemica_.” The most important dogmatist of the
Calixtine school was Conrad Horneius. Calixt himself is known
as a dogmatist only by his lectures; but to him we owe the
generally adopted distinction between morals and dogmatics
as set forth in his “_Epitome theol. Moralis_.”--Polemics
were carried on vigorously. =Hoë von Hoënegg= of Dresden
(§ 154, 3, 4) and =Hutter= of Wittenberg were bitter opponents
of Calvinism and Romanism. Hutter was styled by his friends
_Malleus Calvinistorum_ and _Redonatus Lutherus_. The ablest
and most dignified polemic against Romanism was that of =John
Gerhard= in his “_Confessio Catholica_.” =Nich. Hunnius=, son
of Ægid. Hunnius, and Hutter’s successor at Wittenberg, from
A.D. 1623 superintendent at Lübeck, distinguished himself as an
able controversialist against the papacy by his “_Demonstratio
Ministerii Lutherani Divini atque Legitimi_.” Against the
Socinians he wrote his “_Examen Errorum Photinianorum_,”
and against the fanatics a “Chr. Examination of the new
Paracelsist and Weigelian Theology.” His principal work is
his “_Διάσκεψις de Fundamentali Dissensu Doctrinæ Luth. et
Calvin_.” His “_Epitome Credendorum_” went through nineteen
editions. The most incessant controversialist was =Abr. Calov=,
who wrote against Syncretists, Papists, Socinians, Arminians,
etc.--Continuation, § 167, 4.
§ 160. THE RELIGIOUS LIFE.
The attachment of the Lutheran church of this age to pure doctrine led
to a one-sided over-estimation of it, often ending in dead orthodoxy.
But a succession of able and learned theologians, who recognised the
importance of heart theology as well as sound doctrine, corrected this
evil tendency by Scripture study, preaching, and faithful pastoral work.
A noble and moderate mysticism, which was thoroughly orthodox in its
beliefs, and opposing orthodoxy only where that had become external and
mechanical, had many influential representatives throughout the whole
country, especially during the first half of it. But also separatists,
mystics, and theosophists made their appearance, who were decidedly
hostile to the church. Sacred song flourished afresh amid the troubles
of the Thirty Years’ War; but gradually lost its sublime objective
church character, which was poorly compensated by a more flowing
versification, polished language, and elegant form. A corresponding
advance was also made in church music.
§ 160.1. =Mysticism and Asceticism.=--At the head of the orthodox
mystics stands =John Arndt=. His “True Christianity” and his
“_Paradiesgärtlein_” are the most widely read Lutheran devotional
books, but called forth the bitter hostility of those devoted
to the maintenance of a barren orthodoxy. He died in A.D. 1621,
as general superintendent at Celle. He had been expelled
from Anhalt because he would not condemn exorcism as godless
superstition, and was afterwards in Brunswick publicly charged
by his colleague Denecke and other Lutheran zealots with
Papacy, Calvinism, Osiandrianism, Flacianism, Schwenckfeldism,
Paracelsism, Alchemism, etc. As men of a similar spirit,
anticipators of the school of Spener, may be named =John Gerhard=
of Jena, with his “_Meditationes Sacræ_” and “_Schola pietatis_,”
and =Christian Scriver=, whose “Gotthold’s Emblems” is well known
to English readers. =Rahtmann= of Danzig maintained that the
word of God in Scripture has not in itself the power to enlighten
and convert men except through the gracious influence of God’s
Spirit. He was supported, after a long delay, in A.D. 1626 by
the University of Rostock, but opposed by Königsberg, Jena,
and Wittenberg. In A.D. 1628, the Elector of Saxony obtained
the opinion of the most famous theologians of his realm against
Rahtmann; but his death, which soon followed, brought the
controversy to a close.--The Württemberg theologian, =John
Valentine Andreä=, grandson of one of the authors of the
Formula of Concord, was a man of striking originality, famous
for his satires on the corruptions of the age. His “Order of
Rosicrucians,” published at Cassel in A.D. 1614, ridiculed the
absurdities of astrology and alchemy in the form of a satirical
romance. His influence on the church of his times was great and
wholesome, so that even Spener exclaimed: “Had I the power to
call any one from the dead for the good of the church, it would
be J. V. Andreä.” His later devotional work was almost completely
forgotten until attention was called to it by Herder.[469]
§ 160.2. =Mysticism and Theosophy.=--A mystico-theosophical
tendency, partly in outward connexion with the church, partly
without and in open opposition to it, was fostered by the
alchemist writings of Agrippa and Paracelsus, the theosophical
works of Weigel (§ 146, 2) and by the profound revelations of
the inspired shoemaker of Görlitz, =Jacob Boehme=, _philosophus
teutonicus_, the most talented of all the theosophists. In a
remarkable degree he combined a genius for speculation with the
most unfeigned piety that held firmly by the old Lutheran faith.
Even when an itinerant tradesman, he felt himself for a period
of seven days in calm repose, surrounded by the divine light. But
he dates his profound theosophical enlightenment from a moment in
A.D. 1594, when as a young journeyman and married, thrown into an
ecstasy, he obtained a knowledge of the divine mysteries down to
the ultimate principles of all things and their inmost quality.
His theosophy, too, like that of the ancient gnostics, springs
out of the question about the origin of evil. He solves it by
assuming an emanation of all things from God, in whom fire and
light, bitter and sweet qualities, are thoroughly tempered and
perfectly combined, while in the creature derived by emanation
from him they are in disharmony, but are reconciled and reduced
to godlike harmony through regeneration in Christ. Though opposed
by Calov, he was befriended by the Dresden consistory. Boehme
died in A.D. 1624, in retirement at Görlitz, in the arms of his
family.[470]--In close connexion with Boehmists, separatists, and
Pietists, yet differing from them all, =Gottfried Arnold= abused
orthodoxy and canonized the heretics of all ages. In A.D. 1700 he
wrote “The Mystery of the Divine Sophia.” When Adam, originally
man and woman, fell, his female nature, the heavenly Sophia,
was taken from him, and in his place a woman of flesh was made
for him out of a rib; in order again to restore the paradisiacal
perfection Christ brought again the male part into a virgin’s
womb, so that the new creature, the regenerate, stands before God
as a “male-virgin;” but carnal love destroys again the connexion
thus secured with the heavenly Sophia. But the very next year he
reached a turning-point in his life. He not only married, but in
consequence accepted several appointments in the Lutheran church,
without, however, signing the Formula of Concord, and applied his
literary skill to the production of devotional tracts.
§ 160.3. =Sacred Song= (§ 142, 3).--The first epoch of the
development of sacred song in this century corresponds to the
period of the Thirty Years’ War, A.D. 1618-1648. The Psalms of
David were the model and pattern of the sacred poets, and the
profoundest songs of the cross and consolation bear the evident
impress of the times, and so individual feeling comes more into
prominence. The influence of Opitz was also felt in the church
song, in the greater attention given to correctness and purity
of language and to the careful construction of verse and rhyme.
Instead of the rugged terseness and vigour of earlier days, we
now find often diffuse and overflowing utterances of the heart.
=John Hermann= of Glogau, who died in A.D. 1647, composed
400 songs, embracing these: “Alas! dear Lord, what evil hast
Thou done?” “O Christ, our true and only Light;” “Ere yet the
dawn hath filled the skies;” “O God, thou faithful God.” =Paul
Flemming=, a physician in Holstein, who died in A.D. 1640, wrote
on his journey to Persia, “Where’er I go, whate’er my task.”
=Matthew Meyffart=, professor and pastor at Erfurt, who died in
A.D. 1642, wrote “Jerusalem, thou city fair and high.” =Martin
Rinkart=, pastor at Eilenburg in Saxony, who died A.D. 1648,
wrote, “Now thank we all our God.” =Appelles von Löwenstern=,
who died A.D. 1648, composed, “When anguished and perplexed,
with many a sigh and tear.” =Joshua Stegmann=, superintendent
in Rinteln, who died A.D. 1632, wrote, “Abide among us with thy
grace.” =Joshua Wegelin=, pastor in Augsburg and Pressburg, wrote,
“Since Christ is gone to heaven, his home.” =Justus Gesenius=,
superintendent in Hanover, who died in A.D. 1673, wrote, “When
sorrow and remorse.” =Tob. Clausnitzer=, pastor in the Palatinate,
who died A.D. 1648, wrote, “Blessed Jesus, at thy word.” The
poets named mostly belong to the first Silesian school gathered
round Opitz. A more independent position, though not uninfluenced
by Opitz, is taken up by =John Rist=, who died in A.D. 1667. He
composed 658 sacred songs, of which many are remarkable for their
vigour, solemnity, and elevation; _e.g._ “Arise, the kingdom is
at hand;” “Sink not yet, my soul, to slumber;” “O living Bread
from heaven;” “Praise and thanks to Thee be sung.” At the head
of the Königsberg school of the same age stood =Simon Dach=,
professor of poetry at Königsberg, who died in A.D. 1659. He
composed 150 spiritual songs, among which the best known are,
“O how blessed, faithful souls, are ye!” “Wouldest thou inherit
life with Christ on high?” The most distinguished members of this
school are: =Henry Alberti=, organist at Königsberg, author of
“God who madest earth and heaven;” and =George Weissel=, pastor
in Königsberg, who died in A.D. 1655, author of “Lift up your
heads, ye mighty gates.”
§ 160.4. From the middle of the seventeenth century sacred song
became more subjective, and so tended to fall into a diversity
of groups. No longer does the church sing through its poets, but
the poets give direct expression to their individual feelings.
Confessional songs are less frequent, and their place is taken
by hymns of edification with reference to various conditions of
life; songs of death, the cross and consolation, and hymns for
the family become more numerous. With objectivity special features
of the church song disappear in the hymns of the period; but some
of its essential characteristics remain, especially the popular
form and contents, the freshness, liveliness, and simplicity of
diction, the truths of personal experience, the fulness of faith,
etc. We distinguish three groups:
1. =The Transition Group=, passing from objectivity to
subjectivity. Its greatest masters, indeed after Luther
the greatest sacred poet of the evangelical church, is
undoubtedly =Paul Gerhardt=, who died A.D. 1676, the
faith witness of the Lutheran faith under the wars and in
persecution (§ 154, 4). In him we find the new subjective
tendency in its noblest form; but there is also present
the old objective style, giving immediate expression to
the consciousness of the church, adhering tenaciously to
the confession, and a grand popular ring that reminds us
of the fulness and power of Luther. His 131 songs, if not
all church songs in the narrower sense, are almost all
genuine poems: _e.g._ “All my heart this night rejoices;”
“Cometh sunshine after rain;” “Go forth, my heart, and
seek delight;” “Be thou content: be still before;” “O world,
behold upon the tree;” “Now all the woods are sleeping;” and
“Ah, wounded head, must thou?” based on Bernard’s _Salve,
caput cruentatum_. To this school also belongs =George
Neumark=, librarian at Weimar, who died in A.D. 1681, author
of “Leave God to order all thy ways.” Also =John Franck=,
burgomaster at Guben in Lusatia, who died A.D. 1677, next
to Gerhardt the greatest poet of his age. His 110 songs are
less popular and hearty, but more melodious than Gerhardt’s;
_e.g._ “Redeemer of the nations, come;” “Ye heavens, oh
haste your dews to shed;” “Deck thyself, my soul, with
gladness.” =George Albinus=, pastor at Naumburg, died
A.D. 1679, wrote: “Not in anger smite us, Lord;” “World,
farewell! Of thee I’m tired.”
2. The =next stage= of the sacred song took the Canticles
instead of the Psalter as its model. The spiritual marriage
of the soul is its main theme. Feeling and fancy are
predominant, and often degenerate into sentimentality and
trifling. It obtained a new impulse from the addition of
a mystical element. =Angelus Silesius= (§ 156, 4) was the
most distinguished representative of this school, and while
Protestant he composed several beautiful songs; _e.g._
“O Love, who formedst me to wear;” “Thou holiest Love, whom
most I love;” “Loving Shepherd, kind and true.” =Christian
Knorr v. Rosenroth=, who died at Sulzbach A.D. 1689, wrote
“Dayspring of eternity.” =Ludämilie Elizabeth=, Countess
of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, who died in A.D. 1672, wrote
215 “Songs of Jesus.” =Caspar Neumann=, professor and pastor
at Breslau, died A.D. 1715, wrote, “Lord, on earth I dwell
in pain.”
3. =Those of Spener’s Time and Spirit=, men who longed for
the regeneration of the church by practical Christianity.
Their hymns are for the most part characterized by healthy
piety and deep godliness. Spener’s own poems are of slight
importance. =J. Jac. Schütz=, Spener’s friend, a lawyer in
Frankfort, who died A.D. 1690, composed only one, but that
a very beautiful hymn: “All praise and thanks to God most
high.” =Samuel Rodigast=, rector in Berlin, died A.D. 1708,
wrote, “Whate’er my God ordains is right.” =Laurentius
Laurentii=, musical director at Bremen, died A.D. 1722,
wrote, “Is my heart athirst to know?” “O thou essential
Word.”--=Gottfried Arnold=, died A.D. 1714, wrote, “Thou
who breakest every chain;” “How blest to all thy followers,
Lord, the road!”-- In Denmark, where previously translations
of German hymns were used, =Thomas Kingo=, from A.D. 1677
Bishop of Fünen, died A.D. 1703, was the much-honoured
founder of Danish national hymnology.[471]--Continuation,
§ 167, 6.
§ 160.5. =Sacred Music= (§ 142, 5).--The church music in the
beginning of the seventeenth century was affected by the Italian
school, just as church song was by the influence of Opitz. The
greatest master during the transition stage was =John Crüger=,
precentor in the church of St. Nicholas in Berlin, died A.D. 1662.
He was to the chorale what Gerhardt was to the church song.
We have seventy-one new melodies of his, admirably adapted to
Gerhardt’s, Hunnius’s, Franck’s, Dach’s, and Rinkart’s songs, and
used in the church till the present time. With the second half
of the century we enter on a new period, in which expression and
musical declamation perish. Choir singing now, to a great extent,
supersedes congregational singing. =Henry Schütz=, organist
to the Elector of Saxony, died A.D. 1672, is the great master
of this Italian sacred concert style. He introduced musical
compositions on passages selected from the Psalms, Canticles, and
prophets, in his “_Symphoniæ Sacræ_” of A.D. 1629. After a short
time a radical reform was made by =John Rosenmüller=, organist
of Wolfenbüttel, died A.D. 1686. A reaction against the exclusive
adoption of the Italian style was made by =Andr. Hammerschmidt=,
organist at Zittau, died A.D. 1675, one of the noblest and most
pious of German musicians. By working up the old church melodies
in the modern style, he brought the old hymns again into favour,
and set hymns of contemporary poets to bright airs suited to
modern standards of taste. The accomplished musician =Rud.
Ahle=, organist and burgomaster at Mühlhausen, died A.D. 1673,
introduced his own beautiful airs into the church music for
Sundays and festivals. His sacred airs are distinguished for
youthful freshness and power, penetrated by a holy earnestness,
and quite free from that secularity and frivolousness which soon
became unpleasantly conspicuous in such music.--Continuation,
§ 167, 7.
§ 160.6. =The Christian Life of the People.=--The rich
development of sacred poetry proves the wonderful fulness and
spirituality of the religious life of this age, notwithstanding
the many chilling separatistic controversies that prevailed
during the terrible upheaval of the Thirty Years’ War. The
abundance of devotional literature of permanent worth witnesses
to the diligence and piety of the Lutheran pastors. Ernest the
Pious of Saxe-Gotha, who died A.D. 1675, stands forth as the
ideal of a Christian prince. For the Christian instruction of his
people he issued, in the midst of the confusion and horrors of
the war, the famous Weimar or Ernestine exposition of the Bible,
upon which John Gerhard wrought diligently, along with other
distinguished Jena theologians. It appeared first in A.D. 1641,
and by A.D. 1768 had gone through fourteen large editions.
A like service was done for South Germany by the “Württemberg
Summaries,” composed by three Württemberg theologians at the
request of Duke Eberhard III., a concise, practical exposition
of all the books of Scripture, which for a century and a half
formed the basis of the weekly services (_Bibelstunden_) at
Württemberg.--Continuation, § 167, 8.
§ 160.7. =Missions.=--In the Lutheran church, missionary
enterprise had rather fallen behind (§ 142, 8). Gustavus Adolphus
of Sweden carried on the Lapp mission with new zeal, and Denmark,
too, gave ready assistance. A Norwegian pastor, Thomas Westen,
deserves special mention as the apostle of the mission. A German,
Peter Heyling of Lübeck, went on his own account as a missionary
to Abyssinia in A.D. 1635, while several of his friends at the
same time went to other eastern lands. Of these others no trace
whatever has been found. An Abyssinian abbot who came to Europe
brought news of Heyling. At first he was hindered by the
machinations of the Jesuits; but when these were expelled, he
found favour at court, became minister to the king, and married
one of the royal family. What finally came of him and his work
is unknown. Toward the end of the century two great men, the
philosopher Leibnitz and the founder of the Halle Orphanage,
A. H. Francke, warmly espoused the cause of foreign missions.
The ambitious and pretentious schemes of the philosopher ended in
nothing, but Francke made his orphanages, training colleges and
centres from which the German Lutheran missions to the heathens
were vigorously organized and successfully wrought.--Continuation,
§ 167, 9.
IV. The Reformed Church.
§ 161. THEOLOGY AND ITS BATTLES.
The Reformed scholars of France vied with those of St. Maur
and the Oratory, and the Reformed theologians of the Netherlands,
England, and Switzerland were not a whit behind. But an attempt made
at a general synod at Dort to unite all the Reformed national churches
under one confession failed. Opposition to Calvin’s extreme theory of
predestination introduced a Pelagianizing current into the Reformed
church, which was by no means confined to professed Arminians. In the
Anglican church this tendency appeared in the forms of latitudinarianism
and deism (§ 164, 3); while in France it took a more moderate course,
and approximated rather to the Lutheran doctrine. It was a reaction of
latent Zwinglianism against the dominant Calvinism. The Voetian school
successfully opposed the introduction of the Cartesian philosophy, and
secured supremacy to a scholasticism which held its own alongside of
that of the Lutherans. In opposition to it, the Cocceian federal school
undertook to produce a purely biblical system of theology in all its
departments.
§ 161.1. =Preliminaries of the Arminian Controversy.=--In the
_Confessio Belgica_ of A.D. 1562 the Protestant Netherlands
had already a strictly Calvinistic symbol, but Calvinism had
not thoroughly permeated the church doctrine and constitution.
There were more opponents than supporters of the doctrine of
predestination, and a Melanchthonian-synergistic (§ 141, 7),
or even an Erasmian-semipelagian, (§ 125, 3) doctrine, of
the freedom of the will and the efficacy of grace, was more
frequently taught and preached than the Augustinian-Calvinistic
doctrine. So also Zwingli’s view of the relation of church
and state was in much greater favour than the Calvinistic
Presbyterial church government with its terrorist discipline.
But the return of the exiles in A.D. 1572, who had adopted
strict Calvinistic views in East Friesland and on the Lower
German Rhine, led to the adoption of a purely Calvinistic creed
and constitution. The keenest opponent of this movement was
Coornhert, notary and secretary for the city of Haarlem, who
combated Calvinism in numerous writings, and depreciated doctrine
generally in the interests of practical living Christianity.
Political as well as religious sympathies were enlisted in
favour of this freer ecclesiastical tendency. The Dutch War
of Independence was a struggle for religious freedom against
Spanish Catholic fanaticism. The young republic therefore
became the first home of religious toleration, which was scarcely
reconcilable with a strict and exclusive Calvinism.--Meanwhile
within the Calvinistic church a controversy arose, which divided
its adherents in the Netherlands into two parties. In opposition
to the strict Calvinists, who as supralapsarians held that the
fall itself was included in the eternal counsels of God, there
arose the milder infralapsarians, who made predestination come
in after the fall, which was not predestinated but only foreseen
by God.
§ 161.2. =The Arminian Controversy.=--In A.D. 1588, James
Arminius (born A.D. 1560), a pupil of Beza, but a declared
adherent of the Ramist philosophy (§ 143, 6), was appointed
pastor in Amsterdam, and ordered by the magistrates to controvert
Coornhert’s universalism and the infralapsarianism of the
ministers of Delft. He therefore studied Coornhert’s writings,
and by them was shaken in his earlier beliefs. This was shown
first in certain sermons on passages from Romans, which made him
suspected of Pelagianism. In A.D. 1603 he was made theological
professor of Leyden, where he found a bitter opponent in his
supralapsarian colleague, Francis Gomarus. From the class-rooms
the controversy spread to the pulpits, and even into domestic
circles. A public disputation in A.D. 1608, led to no pacific
result, and Arminius continued involved in controversies
till his death in A.D. 1609. Although decidedly inclined
toward universalism, he had directed his polemic mainly against
supralapsarianism, as making God himself the author of sin.
But his followers went beyond these limits. When denounced by
the Gomarists as Pelagians, they addressed to the provincial
parliament of Holland and West Friesland, in A.D. 1610, a
remonstrance, which in five articles repudiates supralapsarianism
and infralapsarianism, and the doctrines of the irresistibility
of grace, and of the impossibility of the elect finally
falling away from it, and boldly asserts the universality of
grace. They were hence called Remonstrants and their opponents
Contraremonstrants. Parliament, favourably inclined toward
the Arminians, pronounced the difference non-fundamental,
and enjoined peace. When Vorstius, who was practically a
Socinian, was appointed successor to Arminius, Gomarus charged
the Remonstrants with Socinianism. Their ablest theological
representative was Simon Episcopius, who succeeded Gomarus at
Leyden in A.D. 1612, supported by the distinguished statesman,
Oldenbarneveldt, and the great jurist, humanist, and theologian,
Hugo Grotius of Rotterdam. Maurice of Orange, too, for a long
time sided with them, but in A.D. 1617 formally went over to
the other party, whose well-knit unity, strict discipline, and
rigorous energy commended them to him as the fittest associates
in his struggle for absolute monarchy. The republican-Arminian
party was conquered, Oldenbarneveldt being executed in 1619,
Grotius escaping by his wife’s strategem. =The Synod of Dort=
was convened for the purpose of settling doctrinal disputes.
It held 154 sessions, from Nov. 13th, 1618, to May 9th, 1619.
Invitations were accepted by twenty-eight theologians from
England, Scotland, Germany, and Switzerland. Brandenburg took
no part in it (§ 154, 3), and French theologians were refused
permission to go. Episcopius presented a clear and comprehensive
apology for the Remonstrants, and bravely defended their cause
before the synod. Refusing to submit to the decisions of the
synod, they were at the fifty-seventh session expelled, and then
excommunicated and deprived of all ecclesiastical offices. The
Heidelberg Catechism and the Belgic Confession were unanimously
adopted as the creed and manual of orthodox teaching. In the
discussion of the five controverted points, the opposition
of the Anglican and German delegates prevented any open and
manifest insertion of supralapsarian theses, so that the synodal
canons set forth only an essentially infralapsarian theory of
predestination.--Remonstrant teachers were now expelled from
most of the states of the union. Only after Maurice’s death
in A.D. 1625 did they venture to return, and in A.D. 1630 they
were allowed by statute to erect churches and schools in all the
states. A theological seminary at Amsterdam, presided over by
Episcopius till his death, in A.D. 1643, rose to be a famous
seat of learning and nursery of liberal studies. The number of
congregations, however, remained small, and their importance
in church history consists rather in the development of an
independent church life than in the revival of a semipelagian
and rationalistic type of doctrine.[472]
§ 161.3. =Consequences of the Arminian Controversy.=--The Dort
decrees were not accepted in Brandenburg, Hesse, and Bremen,
where a moderate Calvinism continued to prevail. In England
and Scotland the Presbyterians enthusiastically approved of the
decrees, whereas the Episcopalians repudiated them, and, rushing
to the other extreme of latitudinarianism, often showed lukewarm
indifferentism in the way in which they distinguished articles
of faith as essential and non-essential. The worthiest of the
latitudinarians of this age was Chillingworth, who sought an
escape from the contentions of theologians in the Catholic church,
but soon returned to Protestantism, seeking and finding peace in
God’s word alone. Archbishop Tillotson was a famous pulpit orator,
and Gilbert Burnet, who died A.D. 1715, was author of a “History
of the English Reformation.” In the French Reformed church, where
generally strict Calvinism prevailed, =Amyrault= of Saumur, who
died A.D. 1664, taught a _universalismus hypotheticus_, according
to which God by a _decretum universale et hypotheticum_ destined
all men to salvation through Jesus Christ, even the heathen, on
the ground of a _fides implicita_. The only condition is that
they believe, and for this all the means are afforded in _gratia
resistibilis_, while by a _decretum absolutum et speciale_
only to elect persons is granted the _gratia irresistibilis_.
The synods of Alençon, A.D. 1637, and Charenton, A.D. 1644,
supported by Blondel, Daillé, and Claude, declared these doctrines
allowable; but Du Moulin of Sedan, Rivetus and Spanheim of Leyden,
Maresius of Groningen [Gröningen], and others, offered violent
opposition. Amyrault’s colleague, =De la Place=, or _Placæus_,
who died A.D. 1655, went still further, repudiating the
unconditional imputation of Adam’s sin, and representing original
sin simply as an evil which becomes guilt only as our own actual
transgression. The synods just named condemned this doctrine.
Somewhat later Claude =Pajon= of Saumur, who died A.D. 1685,
roused a bitter discussion about the universality of grace,
by maintaining that in conversion divine providence wrought
only through the circumstances of the life, and the Holy
Spirit through the word of God. Several French synods condemned
this doctrine, and affirmed an immediate as well as a mediate
operation of the Spirit and providence.--Genuine Calvinism was
best represented in Switzerland, as finally expressed in the
=Formula Consensus= _Helvetica_ of Heidegger of Zürich, adopted
in A.D. 1675 by most of the cantons. It was, like the _Formula
Concordiæ_, a manual of doctrine rather than a confession. In
opposition to Amyrault and De la Place, it set forth a strict
theory of predestination and original sin, and maintained with
the Buxtorfs, against Cappellus of Saumur, the inspiration of
the Hebrew vowel points.
§ 161.4. =The Cocceian and Cartesian Controversies.=--If not
the founder, certainly the most distinguished representative in
the Netherlands of that scholasticism which sought to expound
and defend orthodoxy, was =Voetius=, who died A.D. 1676,
from A.D. 1607 pastor in various places, and from A.D. 1634
professor at Utrecht. A completely different course was pursued
by =Cocceius= of Bremen, who died A.D. 1669, professor at
Franeker in A.D. 1636, and at Leyden in A.D. 1650. The famous
Zürich theologian, Bullinger (§ 138, 7), had in his “_Compend.
Rel. Chr._” of A.D. 1556, viewed the whole doctrine of saving
truth from the point of view of a covenant of grace between God
and man; and this idea was afterwards carried out by Olevianus
of Heidelberg (§ 144, 1) in his “_De Substantia Fœderis_,” of
A.D. 1585. This became the favourite method of distribution
of doctrine in the whole German Reformed church. In the Dutch
church it was regarded as quite unobjectionable. In England it
was adopted in the Westminster Confession of A.D. 1648 (§ 155, 1),
and in Switzerland in A.D. 1675, in the _Formula Consensus_.
Cocceius is therefore not the founder of the federal theology.
He simply gave it a new and independent development, and freed
it from the trammels of scholastic dogmatics. He distinguished
a twofold covenant of God with man: the _fœdus operum s. naturæ_
before, and the _fœdus gratiæ_ after the fall. He then subdivided
the covenant of grace into three economies: before the law
until Moses; under the law until Christ; and after the law in
the Christian church. The history of the kingdom of God in the
Christian era was arranged in seven periods, corresponding to the
seven apocalyptic epistles, trumpets, and seals. In his treatment
of his theme, he repudiated philosophy, scholasticism, and
tradition, and held simply by Scripture. He is thus the founder
of a purely biblical theology. He attached himself as closely as
possible to the prevailing predestinationist orthodoxy, but only
externally. In his view the sacred history in its various epochs
adjusted itself to the needs of human personality, and to the
growing capacity for appropriating it. Hence it was not the idea
of election, but that of grace, that prevailed in his system.
Christ is the centre of all history, spiritual, ecclesiastical,
and civil; and so everything in Scripture, history, doctrine, and
prophecy, necessarily and immediately stands related to him. The
O.T. prophecies and types point to the Christ that was to come
in the flesh, and all history after Christ points to his second
coming; and O. and N.T. give an outline of ecclesiastical and
civil history down to the end of time. Thus typology formed the
basis of the Cocceian theology. In exegesis, however, Cocceius
avoided all arbitrary allegorizing. It was with him an axiom in
hermeneutics, _Id significan verba, quod significare possunt in
integra oratione, sic ut omnino inter se conveniant_. Yet his
typology led him, and still more many of his adherents, into
fantastic exegetical errors in the prophetic treatment of the
seven apocalyptic periods.
§ 161.5. A controversy, occasioned by Cocceius’ statement, in his
commentary on Hebrews in A.D. 1658, that the Sabbath, as enjoined
by the O.T. ceremonial law, was no longer binding, was stopped
in A.D. 1659 by a State prohibition. Voetius had not taken
part in it. But when Cocceius, in A.D. 1665, taught from Romans
iii. 25, that believers under the law had not full “ἄφεσις,”
only a “πάρεσις,” he felt obliged to enter the lists against this
“Socinian” heresy. The controversy soon spread to other doctrines
of Cocceius and his followers, and soon the whole populace seemed
divided into Voetians and Cocceians (§ 162, 5). The one hurled
offensive epithets at the other. The Orange political party
sought and obtained the favour of the Voetians, as before they
had that of the Gomarists; while the liberal republican party
coalesced with the Cocceians. Philosophical questions next
came to be mixed up in the discussion. The philosophy of the
French Catholic =Descartes= (§ 164, 1), settled in A.D. 1629 in
Amsterdam, had gained ground in the Netherlands. It had indeed
no connexion with Christianity or church, and its theological
friends wished only to have it recognised as a formal branch of
study. But its fundamental principle, that all true knowledge
starts from doubt, appeared to the representatives of orthodoxy
as threatening the church with serious danger. Even in A.D. 1643
Voetius opposed it, and mainly in consequence of his polemic,
the States General, in A.D. 1656, forbad it being taught in the
universities. Their common opposition to scholasticism, however,
brought Cocceians and Cartesians more closely to one another.
Theology now became influenced by Cartesianism. Roëll, professor
at Franeker and Utrecht, who died A.D. 1718, taught that the
divinity of the Scriptures must be proved to the reason, since
the _testimonium Spir. s. internum_ is limited to those who
already believe, rejected the doctrine of the imputation
of original sin, the doctrine that death is for believers
the punishment of sin, and the application of the idea of
eternal “generation” to the Logos, to whom the predicate of
sonship belongs only in regard to the decree of redemption
and incarnation. Another zealous Cartesian, Balth. Bekker, not
only repudiated the superstitions of the age about witchcraft
(§ 117, 4), but also denied the existence of the devil and demons.
The Cocceians were in no way responsible for such extravagances,
but their opponents sought to make them chargeable for these. The
stadtholder, William III., at last issued an order, in A.D. 1694,
which checked for a time the violence of the strife.
§ 161.6. =Theological Literature.=--Biblical oriental philology
flourished in the Reformed church of this age. =Drusius= of
Franeker, who died A.D. 1616, was the greatest Old Testament
exegete of his day. The two =Buxtorfs= of Basel, the father
died A.D. 1629, the son A.D. 1664, the greatest Christian
rabbinical scholars, wrote Hebrew and Chaldee grammars,
lexicons, and concordances, and maintained the antiquity and
even inspiration of the Hebrew vowel points against Cappellus
of Saumur. =Hottinger= of Zürich, who died A.D. 1667, vied with
both in his knowledge of oriental literature and languages, and
wrote extensively on biblical philology, and besides found time
to write a comprehensive and learned church history. =Cocceius=,
too, occupies a respectable place among Hebrew lexicographers.
In England, both before and after the Restoration, scholarship
was found, not among the controversial Puritans, but among the
Episcopal clergy. =Brian Walton=, who died A.D. 1661, aided by
the English scholars, issued an edition of the “London Polyglott”
in six vols., in A.D. 1657, which, in completeness of material
and apparatus, as well as in careful textual criticism, leaves
earlier editions far behind. =Edm. Castellus= of Cambridge in
A.D. 1669 published his celebrated “_Lexicon Heptaglottum_.” The
Elzevir printing-house at Amsterdam and Leyden, boldly assuming
the prerogatives of the whole body of theological scholars,
issued a _textus receptus_ of the N.T. in A.D. 1624. The best
established exegetical results of earlier times were collected
by Pearson in his great compendium, the “_Critici Sacri_,” nine
vols. fol., London, 1660; and Matthew Pool in his “_Synopsis
Criticorum_,” five vols. fol., London, 1669. Among the exegetes
of this time the brothers, J. Cappellus of Sedan, who died
A.D. 1624, and Louis Cappellus II. of Saumur, who died A.D. 1658,
were distinguished for their linguistic knowledge and liberal
criticism. =Pococke= of Oxford and =Lightfoot= of Cambridge were
specially eminent orientalists. =Cocceius= wrote commentaries
on almost all the books of Scripture, and his scholar =Vitringa=
of Franeker, who died A.D. 1716, gained great reputation by his
expositions of Isaiah and the Apocalypse. Among the Arminians the
famous statesman =Grotius=, who died A.D. 1645, was the greatest
master of grammatico-historical exposition in the century, and
illustrated Scripture from classical literature and philology.
The Reformed church too gave brilliant contributions to biblical
archæology and history. =John Selden= wrote “_De Syndriis Vett.
Heb._,” “_De diis Syris_,” etc. =Goodwin= wrote “Moses and Aaron.”
=Ussher= wrote “_Annales V. et N.T._” =Spencer= wrote “_De
Legibus Heb._” The Frenchman =Bochart=, in his “_Hierozoicon_”
and “_Phaleg_,” made admirable contributions to the natural
history and geography of the Bible.
§ 161.7. Dogmatic theology was cultivated mainly in the
Netherlands. =Maccovius=, a Pole, who died A.D. 1644, a
professor at Franeker, introduced the scholastic method into
Reformed dogmatics. The Synod of Dort cleared him of the charge
of heresy made against him by Amesius, but condemned his method.
Yet it soon came into very general use. Its chief representatives
were Maresius of Groningen [Gröningen], Voetius and Mastricht
of Utrecht, Hoornbeck [Hoornbeeck] of Leyden, and the German
Wendelin, rector of Zerbst. Among the Cocceians the most
distinguished were Heidanus of Leyden, Alting of Groningen
[Gröningen], and, above all, Hermann Witsius of Franeker, whose
“Economy of the Covenants” is written in a conciliatory spirit.
The most distinguished Arminian dogmatist after Episcopius
was =Phil. Limborch= of Amsterdam, who died A.D. 1712, in
high repute also as an apologist, exegete, and historian. The
greatest dogmatist of the Anglican church was =Pearson=, who died
A.D. 1686, author of “An Exposition of the Creed.” The Frenchman
=Peyrerius= obtained great notoriety from his statement, founded
on Romans v. 12, that Adam was merely the ancestor of the Jews
(Gen. ii. 7), while the Gentiles were of pre-Adamite origin
(Gen. i. 26), and also by maintaining that the flood had been only
partial. He gained release from prison by joining the Catholic
church and recanted, but still held by his earlier views.--Ethics,
consisting hitherto of little more than an exposition of the
decalogue, was raised by =Amyrault= into an independent science.
Amesius dealt with cases of conscience. =Grotius=, in his “_De
Veritate Relig. Chr._” and =Abbadie=, French pastor at Berlin,
and afterwards in London, who died A.D. 1727, in his “_Vérité de
la Rel. Chrét._,” distinguished themselves as apologists. =Claude=
and =Jurieu= gained high reputation as controversialists against
Catholicism and its persecution of the Huguenots.--The Reformed
church also in the interests of polemics pursued historical
studies. Hottinger of Zürich, Spanheim of Leyden, Sam. Basnage
of Zütpfen, and Jac. Basnage of the Hague, produced general
church histories. Among the numerous historical monographs the
most important are =Hospinian’s= “_De Templis_,” “_De Monachis_,”
“_De Festis_,” “_Hist. Sacramentaria_,” “_Historia Jesuitica_;”
=Blondel’s= “_Ps.-Isidorus_,” “_De la Primauté de l’Egl._,”
“_Question si une Femme a été Assisse au Siège Papal_” (§ 82, 6),
“_Apologia sent. Hieron. de Presbyt._” Also =Daillé= of Saumur
on the non-genuineness of the “Apostolic Constitutions” and the
Ps.-Dionysian writings, and his “_De Usu Patrum_” in opposition
to Cave’s Catholicizing over-estimation of the Fathers. We have
also the English scholar =Ussher=, who died A.D. 1656, “_Brit.
Ecclesiarum Antiquitates_;” H. Dodwell, who died A.D. 1711,
“_Diss. Cyprianicæ_,” etc.; Wm. Cave, who died A.D. 1713, “Hist.
of App. and Fathers,” “_Scriptorum Ecclst. Hist. Literaria_,”
etc.--Special mention should be made of =Eisenmenger=, professor
of oriental languages at Heidelberg. In his “_Entdecktes
Judenthum_,” two vols. quarto, moved by the over-bearing
arrogance of the Jews of his day, he made an immense collection
of absurdities and blasphemies of rabbinical theology from Jewish
writings. At his own expense he printed 2,000 copies; for these
the Jews offered him 12,000 florins, but he demanded 30,000.
They now persuaded the court at Venice to confiscate them before
a single copy was sold. Eisenmenger died in A.D. 1704, and his
heirs vainly sought to have the copies of his work given up to
them. Even the appeal of Frederick I. of Prussia was refused.
Only when the king had resolved, in A.D. 1711, at his own expense
to publish an edition from one copy that had escaped confiscation,
was the Frankfort edition at last given back.
§ 161.8. =The Apocrypha Controversy= (§ 136, 4).--In A.D. 1520
Carlstadt raised the question of the books found only in the
LXX., and answered it in the style of Jerome (§ 59, 1). Luther
gave them in his translation as an appendix to the O.T. with the
title “Apocrypha, _i.e._ Books, not indeed of Holy Scripture,
but useful and worthy to be read.” Reformed confessions took
up the same position. The Belgic Confession agreed indeed that
these books should be read in church, and proof passages taken
from them, in so far as they were in accord with the canonical
Scriptures. The Anglican Book of Common Prayer gives readings
from these books. On the other hand, although at the Synod of
Dort the proposal to remove at least the apocryphal books of Ezra
or Esdras, Tobit, Judith, Bel and the Dragon, was indeed rejected,
it was ordered that in future all apocryphal books should be
printed in smaller type than the canonical books, should be
separately paged, with a special title, and with a preface and
marginal notes where necessary. Their exclusion from all editions
of the Bible was first insisted on by English and Scotch Puritans.
This example was followed by the French, but not by the German,
Swiss, and Dutch Reformed churches.--Continuation, § 182, 4.
§ 162. THE RELIGIOUS LIFE.[473]
The religious life in the Reformed church is characterized generally
by harsh legalism, rigorous renunciation of the world, and a thorough
earnestness, coupled with decision and energy of will, which nothing in
the world can break or bend. It is the spirit of Calvin which impresses
on it this character, and determines its doctrine. Only where Calvin’s
influence was less potent, _e.g._ in the Lutheranized German Reformed,
the catholicized Anglican Episcopal Church, and among the Cocceians,
is this tendency less apparent or altogether wanting. On the other
hand, often carried to the utmost extreme, it appears among the English
Puritans (§§ 143, 3; 155, 1) and the French Huguenots (§ 153, 4), where
it was fostered by persecution and oppression.
§ 162.1. =England and Scotland.=--During the period of the
English Revolution (§ 155, 1, 2), after the overthrow of
Episcopacy, Puritanism became dominant; and the incongruous
and contradictory elements already existing within it assumed
exaggerated proportions (§ 143, 3, 4), until at last the opposing
parties broke out into violent contentions with one another.
The ideal of Scottish and English =Presbyterianism= was the
setting up of the kingdom of Christ as a theocracy, in which
church and state were blended after the O.T. pattern. Hence
all the institutions of church and state were to be founded on
Scripture models, while all later developments were set aside
as deteriorations from that standard. The ecclesiastical side of
this ideal was to be realized by the establishment of a spiritual
aristocracy represented in presbyteries and synods, which,
ruling the presbyteries through the synods, and the congregations
through the presbyteries, regarded itself as called and under
obligation to inspect and supervise all the details of the
private as well as public life of church members, and all this
too by Divine right. Regarding their system as alone having
divine institution, Presbyterians could not recognise any other
religious or ecclesiastical party, and must demand uniformity,
not only in regard to doctrine and creed, but also in regard to
constitution, discipline, and worship.[474]--On the other hand,
=Independent Congregationalism=, inasmuch as it made prominent
the N.T. ideas of the priesthood of all believers and spiritual
freedom, demanded unlimited liberty to each separate congregation,
and unconditional equality for all individual church members.
It thus rejected the theocratic ideal of Presbyterianism, strove
after a purely democratic constitution, and recognised toleration
of all religious views as a fundamental principle of Christianity.
Every attempt to secure uniformity and stability of forms
of worship was regarded as a repressing of the Spirit of God
operating in the church, and so alongside of the public services
private conventicles abounded, in which believers sought to
promote mutual edification. But soon amid the upheavals of this
agitated period a fanatical spirit spread among the various sects
of the Independents. The persecutions under Elizabeth and the
Stuarts had awakened a longing for the return of the Lord, and
the irresistible advance of Cromwell’s army, composed mostly
of Independents, made it appear as if the millennium was close
at hand. Thus chiliasm came to be a fundamental principle of
Independency, and soon too prophecy made its appearance to
interpret and prepare the way for that which was coming. From the
_Believers_ of the old Dutch times we now come to the =Saints= of
the early Cromwell period. These regarded themselves as called,
in consequence of their being inspired by God’s Spirit, to form
the “kingdom of the saints” on earth promised in the last days,
and hence also, from Daniel ii. and vii., they were called Fifth
Monarchy Men. The so called Short Parliament of A.D. 1653, in
which these Saints were in a majority, had already laid the
first stones of this structure by introducing civil marriage,
with the strict enforcement, however, of Matthew v. 32, as well
as by the abolition of all rights of patronage and all sorts
of ecclesiastical taxes, when Cromwell dissolved it. The Saints
had not and would not have any fixed, formulated theological
system. They had, however, a most lively interest in doctrine,
and produced a great diversity of Scripture expositions and
dogmatic views, so that their deadly foes, the Presbyterians,
could hurl against them old and new heretical designations
by the hundred. The fundamental doctrine of predestination,
common to all Puritans, was, even with them, for the most part,
a presupposition of all theological speculation.
§ 162.2. At the same time with the _Saints_ there appeared
among the Independents the =Levellers=, political and social
revolutionists, rather than an ecclesiastical and religious sect.
They were unjustly charged with claiming an equal distribution of
goods. Over against the absolutist theories of the Stuarts, all
the Independents maintained that the king, like all other civil
magistrates, is answerable at all times and in all circumstances
to the people, to whom all sovereignty originally and inalienably
belongs. This principle was taken by the Levellers as the
starting-point of their reforms. As their first regulative
principle in reconstructing the commonwealth and determining the
position of the church therein they did not take the theocratic
constitution of the O.T., as the Presbyterians did, nor the
biblical revelation of the N.T., as the moderate Independents
did, nor even the modern professed prophecy of the “Saints,” but
the law of nature as the basis of all revelation, and already
grounded in creation, with the sovereignty of the people as
its ultimate foundation. While the rest of the Independents
held by the idea of a Christian state, and only claimed that
all Christian denominations, with the exception of the Catholics
(§ 153, 6), should enjoy all political rights, the Levellers
demanded complete separation of church and state. This therefore
implied, on the one hand, the non-religiousness of the state,
and, on the other, again with the exception of Catholics, the
absolute freedom, independence, and equality of all religious
parties, even non-Christian sects and atheists. Yet all the
while the Levellers themselves were earnestly and warmly attached
to Christian truth as held by the other Independents.--Roger
Williams (§ 163, 3), a Baptist minister, in A.D. 1631
transplanted the first seeds of Levellerism from England to North
America, and by his writings helped again to spread those views
in England. When he returned home in A.D. 1651 he found the sect
already flourishing. The ablest leader of the English Levellers
was John Lilburn. In A.D. 1638, when scarcely twenty years old,
he was flogged and sentenced to imprisonment for life, because he
had printed Puritan writings in Holland and had them circulated
in England. Released on the outbreak of the Revolution, he joined
the Parliamentary army, was taken prisoner by the Royalists
and sentenced to death, but escaped by flight. He was again
imprisoned for writing libels on the House of Lords. Set free
by the Rump Parliame
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