be no mistake respecting the real sentiments of these zealous Reformers, on the following day, Luther mounted the pulpit, and openly declared that the confla gration they had just seen was a matter of small importance; that "it would be more to the purpose if the Pope himself, or in other words, the Papal See, were also burnt!" "This indecent and persecuting behaviour was imitated by the friends of the Reformation in se veral parts of Germany. How unlike the conduct of him who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, threatened not! What a pity that these Reformers should have been so anxious to get rid of every thing in Popery, but its persecuting spirit! That the strict discipline, and the various means and motives to a holy life, which are found in the Catholic Church, should be all rejected as " filthy rags," and nothing be retained but that gloomy spirit of bigotry, which in fact does not belong essentially to any religious profession, but which the darkness of the age had so injuriously ingrafted on the faith of Christians! Nor was this the only instance of Luther's intolerant zeal: he called upon Charles V. the young Emperor, to rise up and oppose himself to the kingdom of Antichrist; and he addressed a book in the Ger. man language to the Emperor and nobles, endeavouring to excite them to war against the Pope,† * " Parum esse hoc deflagrationis negotium; ex re fore, ut Papa quoque, hoc est, sedes Papalis consumaretur.' Luth. Op. vol. ii. p. 320. + Sekendorf Comment. de Lutheran. lib. i. sec. xxiv, p. 127, whom he called a wolf, possessed by an evil spirit, and who, as he afterwards said, " is so full of devils, that he spits them from his mouth, and blows them from his nose." Nor was this, as Bossuet remarks, an orator, whom the warmth of the harangue might have hurried into indeliberate conclusions; but a doctor that dogmatized in cold blood. When abuse and slander had been pretty well lavished and exhausted, he turned the strains of his invective into the most foul and disgusting railing, employing the lowest figures, the vilest comparisons, and the most execrable puns, which his fertile imagination could devise, to pour contempt and reproach on the head of the Church; insomuch, that his language had at times much more the appearance of delirious rav ings, than that of a wise and holy reformer of abuses. Supposing himself to be speak. ing to the Pope, Paul III. he says: "My little Paul, my little Pope; my little ass, walk gently, the frost has made it slippery thou wilt break a leg-thou wilt befoul thyself, and people will ery out, O the devil! how the little ass of a Pope has befouled himself!" Again: « An ass knows that he is an ass; a stone knows that it is a stone; but these little asses of Popes do not know that they are asses. The Pope cannot take me for an ass; for he knows very well that through God's goodness and his particular grace, I am more learned in scripture than he and all Luth. Op. tom. vii. in Reeve's Christian Church, vol. iii. 63. § Variations of the Protestant Churches, vol. i. p. 24. his asses put together." He afterwards adds: "Were I sovereign of the Empire, I would make but one bundle of both Pope and Cardinals, and souce them all together into the little ditch called by the Latins the Tyrrhen sea. This bath would cure them, I pass my word for it, and give Jesus Christ for surety !"* Surely, one would have thought this latter blasphemy might have been spared! It could hardly have been needful to enlist the meek and lowly Jesus in this ignoble service. Yet with all the good intentions of our enraged Reformer, his attempt to create a real war against the Pope did not succeed, at least not immediately. "Such was the spirit and behayiour of Luther! And yet our reason has been, beguiled during the long space of three hundred years about this holy man of God -this Apostle of the Most High -this incomparable reviver of all that is good in religion and morals," the ever-glorious Lu ther!" If to be a good Catholic, it is required that we adopt the spirit of some Catholic princes and other bigots-if to be a Lutheran, it is needful to follow the example of this Augustine friar if to be a pious Calvinist, it is indispensable to imitate the conduct of the infuriate priest who burned Servetust -if no one can * Vid. Papasinuli, in tom. vii. p. 474. + Walch's Lives of the Popes, p. 248. Readers, who can distinguish between Calvinism, as a system of Religion, and the conduct of its founder (as every Protestant should do with regard to the Catholic Religion and Popery in its worst sense), may consult, with advantage, that faithful and interesting book, entitled, An Apology for Servetus, by the Rev. R. Wright, be a good Protestant who does not conform himself to all the maxims of the earliest Reformers, then, indeed, the author of the present work is neither a Catholic, a Lutheran, a Calvinist, nor any kind of Protestant; for, whoever may be offended at the assertion, he fears not to say, that he is as much ashamed of the conduct of most of the Reformers, as he abhors the persecuting edicts and fulminating decrees of some princes, hot-brained popes, and intolerant priests. But it will be said that Luther's intole rance was the fault of the age. True: yet it should not be for. gotten, that he was raised up, as he pretended, to correct the faults of the age; and, therefore, was more inexcusable for there was not a single error of the Roman Court, against which he dis rected his mighty talents, so hateful in the sight of God, so injurious to the welfare and happiness of Christians, or so disgraceful to religion and morals, as that which sanctioned the burning of heretics; and yet it is evident that this practice, of all others, he cherished and wished to have imitated!" : ence was" propitious to the world of Literature," yet we have the following concessions even on this topic: "That its tendency, indeed, was exclusively beneficial to the interests of learning or the belles lettres, cannot be admitted; and that many of the revolutions in poetical taste, and on general science, must be ascribed to causes that would have operated, had the Reformation never been effected, it does not become the candour or the honesty of a Protestant writer to deny. The history of poetry and the other departments of elegant literature, does not justify us in supposing that its immediate operation was in any degree favourable to refinement of taste, or to the successful flights of poetical genius. The most celebrated poets and historians of modern Europe men whose genius was only equalled by their learning and their taste-Tasso, Guarini, Metastasio, Ariosto, and Boccaccio, were natives of Italy, and sincere Catholics. Many of them existed before the Reformation, and yet displayed a freedom of excursion into the regions of profane literature, of which a Protestant might not be ashamed. The solemn and lofty character of the Catholic worship is chiefly observable when it ennobles their images, and exalts their sentiments. It would appear a priori, indeed, that the influence of the Refor•mation on the poetical taste of the continental converts, must have been in some degree injurious. It dissipated the habits and the emotions that must have been impressed and excited by the frequent contemplation of Catho lic magnificence, and by the fre quent participation of the awful. and magnificent ceremonies of the Church. In place of these, it substituted an austerity of manner which characterized even those individuals who had no regard to strictness of conduct, and taught even the most enlightened Protestants to regard every description of tasteful illusion, or splendid display, as partaking of sinfulness and idolatry. Those pleasing associations which are the offspring of superstition, contribute to the excellence of every production of fancy, and animate and assist the strains of legitimate poetry. From the use of many allusions and images, also, of essential consequence to poetical effect, the continental Protestants were excluded; and even in England a large proportion of the community regarded the " holy anthem sounding from afar," and the "full-drawn tone of the organ," as reliques of the most detestable idolatry. In Germany and the Nether. lands, indeed, poetry had not! flourished, and, therefore, could not be degraded by the progress of the Reformation; but it is not unreasonable to presume that the latent predisposition to that art, so evident in all communities' emerging from a state of comparative barbarism and oppression, was repressed by the austere plainness of external observance, and the abhorrence of every thing united with their former superstition. Part of the English Reformers, indeed, held a middle course; they preserved in their ceremonials a mixture of grandeur and simplicity, and this association at once ennobles and animates the poetry of Milton." Reformation produced in regard to religious opinions; and to make some observations concerning that diversity of sentiment on almost every point of Christian Doctrine and Worship which the Refor mation naturally engendered." "But," adds Mr. Nightingale, extent of the change which the (p. 247)" it was in the science. and practice of politics that the influence of the Reformation was most strikingly observable." Our opinions partly coincide with those of Mr. N. on this subject; and yet one would hardly suppose that this could be in any way owing to the influence of Reform, seeing that even at the present day, the most strenuous advocates of the Reformation are those who are the most clamorous for "the Divine Right of Kings," and even Mr. N. very justly describes the "No Popery" Protestants in the following manner : "The men who persist in oppos. ing the claims of Catholics and Dissenters, I am persuaded, care little about the religion of either. The system is a political one; they know that those persons, Ca tholics and others, who now feel themselves injured and insulted, on account of their religious opi nions, are the friends of civil liberty, the enemies of interminable war, and courtly corruption; they know, that by enfranchising them in religious matters, they would at the same time be adding to their political influence, which, more than their faith, they dread. No men would be more tolerant in matters of religion than the "No Popery" men, if they did not fear that the consequen ces of granting religious liberty would be injurious to that line of polities which they think fit to pursue." "The IXth Section attempts an estimate of the "influence of the Reformation on Religion and Morals in general." In making this estimate, the author has thought it "necessary to enquire into the "The Faith of Catholics has, at all times, and in all places, been ever the same.The Opinions of private individuals, members of that great and general community, have varied. But, long before the Reformation, large portions of Christians, in various parts of the world, had been either not subject to the papal see, or, if properly belonging to that communion, were privileged with various exemptions, and tolerated in some customs and opinions, which the peculiar nature of their circumstances or countries might obvis ously require. fin Europe, the Greek Church was early separated from the papal jurisdiction; but they retain ed all the great and obvious tenets of the Roman Catholic faith ; and the Greek schismatics were hardly chargeable with the crime of heresy, according to the com mon acceptation of that term. It is chiefly on points of discipline that the Roman and Grecian churches differ. The Muscovites, who have their peculiar Patriarch of Moscow, may be considered nearly in the same light as the members of the Greek church. "Asia was very early distinguished by several sorts of Chris tians; as those of Palestine, under the Patriarch of Jerusalem; the Syrians, or Melchites, under the Patriarch of Antioch; the Armenians, under the two Catholic Patriarchs; the Georgians, un der their respective Metropoli tans; the Mingrellians, Circassians, and Christians of Asia Minor, under the Constantinopolitan Patriarch; a few Christians in the same quarter of the globe, under the Patriarch of Moscow; the Nestorians, under the Patriarch of Mousel; the Jacobite Mono physites, under their peculiar Patriarch; the Christians of St. Thomas; and, lastly, the Maconites, under their own Patriarch. To these Asian Christians might be added, those who were subject to the Emir of Sidon; the Mordwits, between the Russians and Tartary; and the Christians inhabiting the great isle of Taro bana and the islands adjoining. “ Africa, in like manner, has had its divisions of Christians; particularly the Egyptians, or Copts, under the Patriarch of Alexandria; and the Ethiopian Christians, subject to their Abunna, or Patriarch of Ethiopia. "On examining the several creeds or formularies of these various denominations, it will appear, though they added, in a few cases, many absurd opinions and superstitious practices to the leading articles of faith, held by the Churches of Rome or of Constantinople, they might be regarded rather as schismatics than as heretics, and as differing, in doctrinals, but very slightly from the universal Church. Unless, indeed, we may except the Nestorians,* whose opinions, "Some of my readers will think that potice should have been taken of the ancient Culdees. I have read Mr. Jamieson's very curious and interesting account of the Culdees of Iona. But I am convinced that little reliance ought to be placed on the vague and meagre Culdean history. The Culdees were certainly not of Scotish but of Irish or rather whose phraseology, respecting the Virgin Mary, whom they style the Mother of Christ, instead of the Mother of God, as the Latins phrase it, had some resemblance to the notions of the Arians. Since the origin of the Nestorian sect, a considerable change has taken place in regard to their opinions about the two natures in Christ. Many of them verged into a more consistent orthodoxy; and the Pope has now, I believe, a titular Patriarch of Mousel. "This point of the analogy of the Latin and Greek dogmas will be clearly illustrated by the following testimonies: "With Rome the Greek Church concurs in the opinion of transubstantiation; and, generally, in the sacrifice and whole body of the mass. * ל "Dr. Potter+ and Bp. Forbest tell us, "That the question in the Florentine Council, between origin, and were in fact attached to the Roman episcopacy, though they were, particularly in Scotland under their first teacher, Columba, privileged with certain favours, in having a sort of chief abbot or presbyter governor, to whom, as Bede informs us, the whole province, unusual constitution, and even the bishops themselves, by an were subject. Columba himself was not a bishop, but a presbyter and monk. Whatever might hav have been the peculiar character of the discipline or government of the monks of Iopa, their leading articles of faith were, doubtless, conformable to the Catholic creed. The reader may consult, along with Mr. Jamieson's work on this subject, the Columbanus ad Hibernos of Doctor O'Connor, No. IV. p. 40, et seq. *Sandys' Relation of West. Religi ons, p. 233. Potter's Answer to Charity Mistaken, p. 225. Forbes' De Euc. lib. i. c. 3. p. 412. |