and in cases which might be deemed favor-proposition equally certain and sublime; able. But in a series of ages, caution and the basis of all pure ethics, the cement of decorum disappeared. The practice of the the eternal alliance between morality and distributors of indulgences widely deviated religion, and the badge of the independfrom the professed principle of such grants, ence of both on the low motives and dim and they threw off all the restraints by insight of human laws. Luther, in a more which the pious prudence of former times specific application of his principle, used had labored to render such a practice safe, it to convey his doctrine of justification by or indeed tolerable. faith; but the very generality of his own terms proves the applicability of the principle to be far more extensive.

The execution of the bull for indulgences in Germany was intrusted to men who rendered all the abuses to which they were He saw the pure moral principle in its liable most offensively conspicuous. Tetzel, religious form; but his words enounce it as a Dominican, one of the chief distributors, it exists in itself, independent of all applivended his infallible specific with the ex- cation. He did not perceive that this docaggeration and fiction of the coarsest em- trine rendered the use of fear and force to piric. Wittemberg was one of the towns make men more virtuous and religious, the which he visited on his journey. A scene most absurd of all impossible attempts; here opened for the learning, the integrity, since virtue and religion have their seats the piety, the ardor and impetuosity of Lu- in an inviolable sanctuary, which neither ther. A great practical abuse was brought force nor fear can approach; and that it to his dwelling, with all the aggravations placed in the clearest light the natural unwhich it could receive from the peculiar fitness of law, which seeks only to restrain circumstances of a country remote, undis- outward acts, and which has, indeed, no turbed, and unawakened by controversy, means of going farther, for a coalition with and from the character of the shameless those purer and more elevated principles collectors, who extolled the sovereign which regard human actions as only valuefficacy of their specific in language dis- able when they are the outward and visible claimed by all the authorities and by all the signs of inward and mental excellence scholars of the Roman Catholic church. But it is evident that a mind engrossed That church must, nevertheless, bear the by considerations of this nature was not in grave disapprobation due to her sanction of a mood to endure with patience the mona practice, the abuse of which was so in- strous language of Tetzel. Luther had not evitable, and so easily foreseen, that on this travelled in search of grievances; he had account alone it must be regarded as irre- even buried in respectful silence the result ligious and immoral. A doctrine or a of his observation on the immorality and practice, however guarded in the words irreligion of Rome. He was assailed at that describe it, which has for centuries home by representations, which, if our acproduced a preponderance of evil, must in counts be accurate, were little less than its nature be evil. It was fortunate that it dissuasives from the cultivation of virtuous might be impugned without questioning the dispositions. It is now no longer contended authority of the church; or of the supreme that he was instigated by resentment at a pontiff, which the reformer, magnanimous supposed transfer of the distribution of inas he was, might not have yet dared to as- dulgences to the Dominicans, from his own sail. It was fortunate, also, that the enor- order the Augustinians, who in truth had mities of Tetzel found Luther busied in the very seldom enjoyed that privilege. It had contemplation of the principle which is the been chiefly in the hands of the Dominicans basis of all ethical judgment, and by the for two hundred years, and only bestowed power of which he struck a mortal blow at on one Augustinian for more than half a superstition: "Men are not made truly century before Luther.†

righteous by performing certain actions He published in 1517 ninety-five theses, which are externally good; but men must in the usual form of themes for disputation, have righteous principles in the first place, in which he impugned the abuse of induland then they will not fail to perform vir- gences, and denied the power extravagantly tuous actions." Whether Luther rightly ascribed to them, not without striking some understood the passages of the New Testa- blows at the doctrine itself, thus ready to ment on which he founded the peculiar be turned to evil purposes, but concluding doctrines for the sake of which he advanc- with a solemn declaration, that he affirmed ed this comprehensive principle, is a ques- nothing, but submitted the whole matter to tion of pure theology, not in the province the judgment of the church. Nor is there of history to answer. But the general any reason to question his sincerity; he at terms which are here used enunciate a that time, doubtless, confined his views to * Epist. Luth. ad Spalat, Oct. 1516, in Milner, iv. 331.

Sleidan, i. 22; Secker, Hist. Lutherenismi; especially Mosheim, iv. 31.

the evil which awakened his zeal. In was pronounced to be an obstinate heretic, after-times, the inflexible obstinacy with was excommunicated, and delivered untó which the church refused to reform abuse Satan for the destruction of his flesh; and compelled him to explore the foundations all secular princes were required, under of her authority. This undistinguishing pain of incurring the same penalties, with maintenance of all established evils, to- the forfeiture of all their dignities, to seize gether with the wrong done to himself and his person, that he might be punished as he his adherents, obliged him in self-defence to deserved.

examine the nature of ecclesiastical power; To follow Luther through the perils and the result of a wider inquiry warranted which he braved, and the sufferings which him in carrying the war into the enemy's he endured, would lead us too far from our country. No other means of effecting the proper province; but, in justice to him, the most temperate amendments were left in civil historian should never omit the benefits his possession; his option lay between an which accrued to the moral interests of soassault on Rome, and the destruction of ciety, from the principle on which, to the Protestantism. Fortunately for the success end, he founded his doctrine,-that all rites of his mission, the great reformer, pene- and ceremonies, all forms of worship, nay, trating, inventive, sagacious, and brave as all outward acts, however conformable to he was, had little of the temerity of those morality, are only of value in the judgment intellectual adventurers who, often at the of God, and in the estimate of conscience, expense of truth, and almost always at the when they flow from a pure heart, and cost of immediate usefulness, affect singu- manifest right dispositions of mind. Wherlarity in all things, and are more solicitous ever the outward acts are considered as in to appear original, than to make certain themselves meritorious, it is apparent that additions to the stock of knowledge and the performance of one outward act may well-being. In the gradual progress of be conceived to make amends for the disredissent which thus naturally arose, the va- gard or omission of other duties. Some riations in his words and deeds at different notion may be formed of the possibility that stages of it are no proof of levity, but the justice of a superior may be satisfied rather, by being gradual, afford evidence for a theft or a fraud, by a self-inflicted sufthat they were considerate; and they still fering, or by an outward act of unusual less justify a suspicion of insincerity against benefit to mankind. But it is evident that one of the frankest and boldest of men. no such substitute can be conceived for a Nothing can be a stronger proof of his grateful and affectionate heart, for piety or honesty than the language in which he benevolence, for a compassionate and conmany years after spoke of his own original scientious frame of mind. Where these theses: "I allow these propositions still to are wanting, outward acts can make no stand, that by them it may appear how compensation for their absence; because weak I was, and in how fluctuating a state the mental qualities themselves are the sole of mind I was when I began this business. objects of moral approbation. When the I was then a monk and a mad papist; ready whole moral value of outward acts is asto murder any person who denied obedience cribed to the dispositions and intentions, to the pope. For about three years after which, in the case of our fellows, we can the first publication of Luther's themes, understand only from the language of their the court of Rome did not proceed to ex- habitual conduct, it becomes impossible for tremities against him. Leo originally any reasonable being to harbor so vain a smiled at the little squabbles of Saxony, conceit, as that he can compromise with his and was wont to say, "Brother Martin has conscience for deficiency in one duty by a very fine genius; but these are only the practising more of another. From the proscuffles of friars!" He despised this con- mulgation of this principle, therefore, may troversy so long, that he was too late be dated the downfall of superstition, which either for timely concession, or for immedi- is founded on commutations, compromises, ately destroying the heresy, which perhaps exchanges, substitutes for a pure mind, fatal he might have strangled if he had seized it to morality; and upon the exaggerated esin the cradle. At last he was persuaded timate of practices, more or less useful, but by the divines, or probably by the poli- never beneficial otherwise than as means. ticians, of his court to crush a revolt, of It has been already observed, that Ulrich which the example might become dan- Zuinglius, a Swiss priest, preached against gerous. indulgences about the same time with LuOn the 15th of June, 1520, he issued the ther himself. He inculcated milder docdamnatory bull, in which forty-five proposi- trines, and was distinguished by a more tions, extracted from the writings of Luther, charitable spirit, than any other reformer; were condemned as heretical; and if he but though some of his opinions have been nimself did not recant within sixty days, heladopted by many Protestants, his premature

death prevented him from establishing an Luther only substituted one unintelligible ascendant even in his own country. The term, 'consubstantiation,' for the more ansceptre of the reformation in Switzerland cient but equally unintelligible term, 'tranfell into the powerful hands of John Calvin,* substantiation.' Even Calvin paid so much a native of Noyon in Picardy, who, in 1534, regard to ancient dogmas, as to maintain established the Protestant religion and a the real though not bodily presence of the democratical form of government in the body of Christ in the sacrament; and the city of Geneva. The second of the German church of England, in her solicitude to avoid reformers was Melancthon,† one of the re- extreme opinions, and to reject no language storers of ancient learning, who did much associated with devotion, has not altogether to recover Grecian philosophy from the avoided the same incomprehensible and mountainous masses under which it lay seemingly contradictory forms of speech. buried among the schoolmen, but who would Zuinglius, and some of the Lutherans, who have been of too gentle a spirit for an age openly declared their conviction that this of reformation, if that very gentleness had venerable rite was merely a commemoranot disposed him to seek steadiness in sub- tion of the death of Christ, were the only mission to the commanding and energetic reformers who made a substantial alteragenius of Luther. After the death of his tion in the old creed, and expressed themmaster, he, like Zuinglius, rejected the selves, on this subject at least, with perfect stern dogma of absolute predestination, in perspicuity.

which he has been followed by the Lutheran Erasmus, the prince of European scholbody, leaving it to become, in after ages, ars, was in the fiftieth year of his age, and the distinction of the followers of Calvin, in the full maturity of his fame, when Luand still more of his successor Beza.‡ ther began to preach the reformation at At a somewhat later moment, the whole Wittemberg. No man had more severely body of dissenters from the Roman Catholic lashed the superstitions which were mischurch received the name of Protestants, called acts of piety, or scourged the frauds from their common protest against an in- and debaucheries of the priesthood with a tolerant edict of the imperial diet holden at more vigorous arm. The ridicule which Spire. he so plentifully poured on the monks during The Lutherans called themselves evan- his residence in England doubtless congelical Christians, from their profession of tributed to their easy overthrow in this drawing their doctrines from the scriptures country. He was pleased with Luther as alone. They were called followers of the long as the reformer confined himself to Confession of Augsburg, from a confession the amendment of faults, without impugnof their faith delivered to the diet in that ing the authority, or assailing the constitucity by Melancthon. The followers of Cal- tion, of the church. Erasmus, however, as vin assumed the designation of the reformed early as 1520, informed Luther that he did church, perhaps with the intention of mark-not court martyrdom, for which he felt himing more strongly that they had made more self to be unfit; that he would rather be changes in church government than their mistaken in some points, than fight for truth Protestant brethren. A Calvinist and a Pres- at the expense of division and disturbance; byterian became in England synonymous that he should not separate from the church terms. The word Calvinist now denotes of Rome, though he was very desirous that all who, in any Protestant communion, em- her errors should be amended by her own brace the doctrine of absolute predestina- established authorities. Nor was the detion. It is synonymous with predestinarian. meanor of the Saxon reformer towards this Many Episcopalians are now Calvinists; illustrious scholar, in the beginning, worthy many Presbyterians are anti-Calvinists. of much censure. Erasmus was not reThe subject of fiercest controversy among quired to commit any absolute breach of Protestants was the nature of the sacrament the neutrality which his age and character of the Lord's supper. A rejection by all seemed to impose on him. But, when all Protestants of the ancient doctrine or lan- differences had been widened by the exguage, which represented the bread and cesses of the German boors and of the Dutch wine to be, in that sacred rite, transubstan- Anabaptists, Erasmus recoiled more viotiated into the body and blood of Christ, lently from approaches to the Lutherans. was, of all Protestant deviations, that which Though the monks abated naught of their most excited the dread and horror of pious hatred, the Roman politicians felt the neCatholics, who considered the heretics as cessity of courting the dictator of literature; thus cutting asunder the closest ties which they appealed to former good offices; they bound the devout heart to the Deity. Yet held out the hope of further favors. Their

*Jean Chauvin.
† Schwarzerde.
Théodore de Bezè, a Burgundian.

displeasure was still formidable, and Eras mus, it must be owned with regret, made too large sacrifices to his poverty and his

fears. On the other hand, every concession and the revived activity of principles of reor approach to the ancient church was formation in the nineteenth, are all of them treated as an act not only of insincerity, unintelligible without reference to the opinbut an example of apostasy and desertion; ions and disputes of religious parties. charges which, as he never enlisted in the A revolt of the boors of Suabia in the Lutheran army, he did not strictly deserve. year 1525, spread alarm through Germany, He was incensed at their invectives; yet and was triumphantly appealed to by the even then he deplored the dreadful blood- antagonists of the reformation as a decisive shed which attended the suppression of the proof of the fatal tendency of its anarchiboors' revolt, in which a hundred thousand cal principles. These unhappy peasants persons were put to death. In his latter were in a state of villanage; the grievances years, a cardinal's hat was offered to him: from which they prayed for deliverance he declined it; but it is not to be denied were real and great. Among the most conthat, if the convulsions of the age did not spicuous of their demands were, emancipamake him a true papist, at least they ren- tion from personal bondage, the right of dered him a member of the papal faction. electing their religious teachers, that of Perhaps he did not dare to form decisive killing untamed animals without the reopinions concerning fiercely controverted straint of game-laws, and a participation' dogmas in theology. He was accused, but of the people with the clergy in tithes, without proof, of unbelief in the Trinity, which they desired to limit to corn alone.* The creed which he had brought his mind These demands were in themselves not unto embrace distinctly seems to have been reasonable, though urged by armed revoltshort and simple; and that of which he ers. The conduct of Luther at this trying would have desired a profession from others moment was unexceptionable; he condemnwould probably have comprehended the ed altogether the insurgents, and earnestly greater part of Christian communities. He exhorted their lords to humanity and fordied in 1536 in the sixty-ninth year of his bearance. If he departed somewhat from age-certainly not reconciled to Luther by "fair equality, fraternal law," it was in fathe cruel murder of his illustrious friend vor of the hard masters; to which extreme Sir Thomas More, the last and most mourn- he was driven by his solicitude to rescue ful event of which he lived to be a witness. the reformation from the charge of fomentIt may be said of him, without the suspi- ing rebellion. His policy, however, was cions of exaggeration, that his learning, his vain; his antagonists were not to be conpowers of reason, imagination, and wit, ciliated. If he was silent or cool, he was were in his own age unmatched, that his said to connive at the rebellion; if it conattainments were stupendous, and that, if tinued to rage in spite of his warmest cenhis lot had fallen on happier times, his faults sures, he was said to show that the princiand infirmities would have been lost in the ples of anarchy inherent in revolt against mild lustre of the neighboring and kindred virtues.

religion rendered the Protestant boors ungovernable by their own favorite leaders. The lords subdued the rebellion; and, according to usage in like cases, disregarded the grievances, while they drowned the revolt in a deluge of blood.

The Calvinists adopted a democratic constitution for their church, in which all the ministers were of equal rank and power. The Lutherans retained bishops, but very limited in jurisdiction, and much lowered Such disorders are incident to the greatin revenue. The church of England, gen- est and most beneficial movements of the erally but prudently and moderately inclin- human mind; because such movements ing to an agreement with Calvin in doc- awaken the strongest interests and excite trine, retained the same ranks of secular the deepest passions of multitudes; and are clergy, and much of the same forms of pub- often as much perverted by the expectations lic worship, which prevailed in the ancient and the violences of ignorant and impatient church; while she, in some respects, en- supporters as they are by the systematical larged episcopal authority by releasing it resistance of avowed enemies. It somefrom the supreme jurisdiction of the see of Rome.

times happens, that the very grievousness of the evils unfits the sufferers for the perIt is unfit to continue these sketches of ilous remedies which are alone efficacious; ecclesiastical history, brief as they must because, as in the case of the German boors, needs be. It will, however, be necessary it disables them from applying these ambigto return to them when their influence on uous agents with the moderation and cauthe affairs of England becomes more con- tion which are seldom joined to the spirit spicuous. The civil history of Europe in of political enterprise. Poisons are often the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,

the prevalent opinions of the eighteenth,

*Sleidan, i. 285.

efficacious remedies; but their powers of connexion, and in the end detached Henry destruction are quickly restored by a slight from communion with the Roman church. excess in their use. Whether he really felt any scruples respectWhile the enemies of the reformation ing the validity of his marriage during the were exulting over the violence of the op- first eighteen years of his reign may be pressed boors, the better and more natural reasonably doubted. No trace of such doubts fruits of it sprung up in all those situations can be discovered in his public conduct till where the soil was well prepared to receive the year 1527. Catharine had then passed it. The greatest of the imperial cities, the middle age: personal infirmities are which, from Strasburgh and Cologne to mentioned which might have widened the Hamburgh, preserved a republican constitu- alienation.. About the same time, Anne tion, adopted the Lutheran protest against Boleyn, a damsel of the court, at the age the papacy. The Low Countries, contain-of twenty-two, in the flower of youthful ing the most industrious and opulent com- beauty, and full of graces and accomplishmunities to the northward of the Alps, ments, touched the fierce but not unsuscepshowed, like the German towns, that the tible heart of the king. One of her ancesdisposition to religious liberty, which began tors had been lord mayor of London in the to steal unperceived on the partisans of the reign of Henry VI.; her family had since reformation, was best received, and most been connected with the noblest houses of heartily welcomed, by the commercial in- the kingdom; her mother was the sister of terest; that new and rising portion of the the duke of Norfolk. At the age of eight, community, the mere fact of whose growth she attended the princess Mary into France indicated the advances of civilization. Of as a maid of honor, during that lady's shortthe two monarchies of the North, then lived union with Louis XII. On the death among the most free governments of Eu- of that monarch, she was taken into the rope, Denmark was the first to embrace the household of Claude, queen of France, for Lutheran doctrine ;* and in Sweden,† Gus- her girlish or childish attractions: and on tavus Vasa, who delivered his country from the approach of the rupture between the a foreign yoke, and bestowed on it the two countries in 1522, Henry required her blessings of civil liberty, paved the way being returned to England before he defor religious freedom by the introduction clared war; because, being a lady of the of the Protestant religion.

CHAP. X.

HENRY VIII.-CONTINUED.

1527-1535.

royal household, she could not with propriety quit France without the king's permission. That her eldest sister, and even her mother, preceded her in the favor of her royal lover, are assertions made by her enemies with a boldness equal to the total absence of every proof of their truth.‡ There is nothing in the known conduct of Henry himself which warrants the imputaTO THE EXECUTION OF SIR THOMAS MORE. tion of so ostentatious a dissolution of manTHERE is no doubt, from succeeding ners, even to him. Anne appears to have events, that the seed sown by Wickliffe in entered into a precontract, or given some England was never destroyed. Wolsey paid promise of marriage to one of the sons of his court to Rome by burning some obscure the earl of Northumberland; but whether Lollards, who were lured from their dark- serious or frivolous, and how far binding in ness by Luther's light. Sir Thomas More, honor or in law, are questions which we though a reformer of criminal law, deviated are unable to answer. The terms used in so far from his principles, when he entered that age to describe such engagements are the world of ambition and compliance, as to so loose, that it is unsafe to make any imbe present at the torture of heretics. Henry, portant inference from them; but as this as a disciple of Aquinas, took up the pen supposed precontract was afterwards conagainst the Lutheran heresy, and on that sidered as a sufficient ground for the senaccount received from Rome the title of tence which declared the marriage of Henry Defender of the Faith, which has been re- and Anne to be null, it may be regarded as tained for three centuries by sovereigns of some presumption that a family, with whom whom some might be more fitly called the one of the noblest houses in England negochiefs of Protestant Europe. There was tiated a matrimonial union, was at least exno country on whose fidelity the papal see might seem entitled to rely with more confidence than on that of England. A single circumstance shook the apparently solid

The angry addresses of cardinal Pole to Henry

have been lately quoted in evidence against the Bo leyn family;-as if a cruelly-proscribed man, exiled in a distant land, and glowing with just resentment, were not likely or sure to believe any evil of his barbarous enemy. The virtues of cardinal Pole destroy on this occasion the weight of his testimony.