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The ecclesiastical history of the sixteenth century likewise demands attentive consideration from those who would understand the causes that gave to modern protestant churches the forms that they respectively bear. It is naturally most agreeable to their several members to place existing religious polities upon the footing exclusively of a deep and scholarly conviction. And it would be gross injustice to deny that the learned and excellent men who laid the foundations of particular churches, and elaborately defended their several works, were not profoundly impressed with the soundness of their principles. But it is perfectly obvious that external circumstances were very largely, if not principally concerned in giving to protestantism its actual diversity of appearance. The careful student of ecclesiastical history will clearly see, that where executives adopted reform, unless they were petty town republics, innovation was guided, not by theory, but necessity. Men were not left at liberty to regulate every thing connected with religion, by narrow views of their own as to the sense of Scripture, and hence to treat all the ecclesiastical wealth unrequired by such views as the lawful prize of laical selfishness. They were taught a degree of respect, varying according to circumstances, for all those religious principles and usages which came recommended by the undoubted stamp of catholic antiquity. Little fell, accordingly, in these instances, under the axe of innovation, that could plead a sufficient title to continuance. The reforming leaders felt obliged to repudiate alien interference in their national affairs, and all such additions to recorded revelation as were satisfactorily sanctioned neither by itself, nor by unquestionable monuments of an antiquity nearly approaching its own. They by no means felt themselves at liberty to proscribe existing forms of ecclesiastical polity, and the great bulk of those religious usages, unobnoxious to scriptural objections, which christians had immemorially practised. It is true, indeed, that such as took an opposite view of these ques

tions, maintained their opinions by reference to Scripture. But then the texts to which they pointed did no more than prescribe a regard to expediency and edification; leaving room, therefore, to each of the contending parties for maintaining that its own line of policy was really the one that Scripture prescribed. The party that assumed from recorded revelation the wider measure of discretion justified its conduct by the policy and propriety of respecting prejudices that did not bear upon the vitals of religion, and of continuing an ecclesiastical constitution that confessedly mounts upwards to the most venerable antiquity, and has many other obvious claims upon the confidence of mankind. The adverse party laboured to bring every thing under the ban of Scripture that had served the cause, and undergone the defilement of popery. It is interesting, no less than useful, to watch the progress of this strife, however lamentable it was in itself, and candid observation will extort an avowal, even where partialities lie the other way, that the moderate party took the more long-sighted view. A narrow reference to Scripture, however intrinsically popular, has engendered a system boundlessly prolific in divisions, and incapable either of grappling successfully with Romanism, or of maintaining permanently an equal competition with such forms of protestantism as seek assistance from antiquity.

Another advantage to be gained from studying the characters of those divines who carried through the Reformation, is a due knowledge of their pretensions to direct a great religious movement. Could immorality, or ignorance, or fanaticism be securely fixed upon them, their principles would obviously labour under a considerable disadvantage. It will be found, however, that the leading reformers were universally such men as their great work required. A superiority to human infirmity there is no occasion to claim for them; but in reality their morals were unblemished, their scholarship was deep, and their judgments were cool. With Luther and our own Cranmer,

indeed, the process of conviction was extremely slow, so far was either of these great men from the delusions of a heated imagination. Luther, too, even to the end of life, never overcame that superstitious reverence for the eucharistic elements, in which his religious mind had grown to maturity. That some or all of the reformers might be, to considerable extent, interested in the success of their labours, need not be disputed. The same may be said of their opponents. Popes and cardinals, with all the other members of those opulent Romish establishments who trembled for their preferments when Luther sounded the trumpet of revolt, were deeply interested in putting him down. The politics and private in

council of Trent have been

terests which acted upon the elaborately exposed from the first, and the exposure is undoubtedly founded in justice. If decisions, therefore, on one side are to be impugned, as attributable to interested motives, impartial justice must make the same objection to those on the other side. It is an objection, too, which attaches much more obviously and completely to the Romanists than to the protestants. Romish dignitaries had a great stake, inferior beneficiaries one of some account. Their opponents could rarely gain any end from the Reformation merely personal, beyond a release from certain canonical restraints, and such of them as had attained any eminence, but were without a desire for this release, could easily have made advantageous bargains by deserting the protestant party.

The religious transactions of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries also bear importantly upon the civil history of modern Europe. The disputes, amid which the former century opened, upon the limits between conciliar and papal authority, some of the dangerous speculations upon establishments current among the followers of Wickliffe, and the dawn of a general intellectual activity awakened by the invention of printing, were all favourable to the growth of political discussion. In the next

age, this was much farther developed by popular tendencies towards protestantism in countries which had a Romish executive, and by democratic forms of religious polity, fitted to the civic prejudices of petty town republics, or, as in Scotland, forced upon a reluctant government. Thus the crown no sooner gained a decided advantage over the peerage, than it became provided with a new rival, only requiring maturity to make its mortifications greater than ever. This maturity was

undoubtedly much hastened by the Reformation. In England Henry's defection from Rome prepared the way for that puritanism which embarrassed Elizabeth, and this latter sowed the seed which ripened in the civil wars under Charles the First. In continental Europe the process of political fermentation consequent upon the religious movements of the sixteenth century was much less rapid. In many of them were established arbitrary governments resolute in maintaining Romanism, and aided, on this account, by an artful, able, and unscrupulous confederacy of Jesuits. But the Reformation really let loose an appetite for change, and faculties to accomplish it, in every European country. By canvassing religion men learnt to canvass politics, and a spirit of independence got abroad, which has shown itself an over-match for any arts of statesmanship, or stretch of power.

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