The restoration of Popery immediately commenced in Switzerland, and Rome showed herself everywhere proud, exacting, and ambitious.
After the battle of Cappel, the Romish minority at Glaris had resumed the upperhand. It marched with Schwytz against Wesen and the district of the Gaster. On the eve of the invasion, at midnight, twelve deputies came and threw themselves at the feet of the Schwytzer chiefs, who were satisfied with confiscating the national banners of these two districts, with suppressing their tribunals, annulling their ancient liberties, and condemning some to banishment, and others to pay a heavy fine. Next the mass, the altars, and images were everywhere re-established, and exist until the present day. Such was the pardon of Schwytz!
It was especially on Bremgarten, Mellingen, and the free bailiwicks that the cantons proposed to inflict a terrible vengeance. Berne having recalled its army, Mutschli, the avoyer of Bremgarten, followed Diesbach as far as Arau. In vain did the former remind the Bernese that it was only according to the orders of Berne and Zurich that Bremgarten had blockaded the Five Cantons. “Bend to circumstances,” replied the general. On this the wretched Mutschli, turning away from the pitiless Bernese, exclaimed, “The prophet Jeremiah has well said, -- Cursed be he that trusteth in man!” The Swiss and Italian bands entered furiously into these flourishing districts brandishing their weapons, inflicting heavy fines on all the inhabitants, compelling the Gospel ministers to flee, and restoring everywhere at the point of the sword, mass, idols, and altars.
On the other side of the lake the misfortune was still greater. On the 18th November, while the Reformed of Rapperschwyl were sleeping peacefully in reliance on the treaties, an army from Schwytz silently passed the wooden bridge nearly 2000 feet long which crosses the lake, and was admitted into the city by the Romish party. On a sudden the Reformed awoke at the loud pealing of the bells, and the tumultuous voices of the Catholics: the greater part quitted the city. One of them, however, by name Michael Wohlgemuth, barricaded his house, placed arquebuses at every window, and repelled the attack. The exasperated enemy brought up some heavy pieces of artillery, besieged this extemporaneous citadel in regular form, and Wohlgemuth was soon taken and put to death in the midst of horrible tortures.
Nowhere had the struggle been more violent than at Soleure; the two parties were drawn up in battlearray on each side of the Aar, and the Romanists had already discharged one ball against the opposite bank, another was about to follow, when the avoyer Wenge, throwing himself on the mouth of the cannon, cried out earnestly: “Fellow-citizens, let there be no bloodshed, or else let me be your first victim!” The astonished multitude dropped their arms; but seventy evangelical families were obliged to emigrate, and Soleure returned under the papal yoke.
The deserted cells of St. Gall, Muri, Einsidlen, Wettingen, Rheinau, St. Catherine, Hermetschwyll and Guadenthall witnessed the triumphant return of Benedictines, Franciscans, Dominicans, and all the Romish militia; priests and monks, intoxicated with their victory, overran country and town, and prepared for new conquests.
The wind of adversity was blowing with fury: the evangelical churches fell one after another, like the pines in the forest whose fall before the battle of the Goubel had raised such gloomy presentiments. The Five Cantons, full of gratitude to the Virgin, made a solemn pilgrimage to her temple at Einsidlen. The chaplains celebrated anew their mysteries in this desolated sanctuary; the abbot, who had no monks, sent a number of youths into Swabia to be trained up in the rules of the order, and this famous chapel, which Zwingle’s voice had converted into a sanctuary for the Word, became for Switzerland, what it has remained until this day, the center of the power and of the intrigues of the Papacy.
But this was not enough. At the very time that these flourishing churches were falling to the ground, the Reform witnessed the extinction of its brightest lights. A blow from a stone had slain the energetic Zwingle on the field of battle, and the rebound reached the pacific Oecolampadius at Basle, in the midst of a life that was wholly evangelical. The death of his friend, the severe judgments with which they pursued his memory, the terror that had suddenly taken the place of the hopes he had entertained of the future -- all these sorrows rent the heart of Oecolampadius, and soon his head and his life inclined sadly to the tomb. “Alas!” cried he, “that Zwingle, whom I have so long regarded as my right arm, has fallen under the blows of cruel enemies!” He recovered, however, sufficient energy to defend the memory of his brother. “It was not,” said he, “on the heads of the most guilty that the wrath of Pilate and the tower of Siloam fell. The judgment began in the house of God; our presumption has been punished; let our trust be placed now on the Lord alone, and this will be an inestimable gain.” Oecolampadius declined the call of Zurich to take the place of Zwingle. “My post is here,” said he, as he looked upon Basle, He was not destined to hold it long. Illness fell upon him in addition to so many afflictions; the plague was in the city; a violent inflammation attacked him, and erelong a tranquil scene succeeded the tumult of Cappel. A peaceful death calmed the agitated hearts of the faithful, and replaced by sweet and heavenly emotions the terror and distress with which a horrible disaster had filled them.
On hearing of the danger of Oecolampadius, all the city was plunged into mourning; a crowd of men of every age and of every rank rushed to his house. “Rejoice,” said the reformer with a meek look, “I am going to a place of everlasting joy.” He then commemorated the death of our Lord with his wife, his relations, and domestics, who shed floods of tears. “This supper,” said the dying man, “is a sign of my real faith in Jesus Christ my Redeemer.” On the morrow he sent for his colleagues: “My brethren,” said he, “the Lord is there; he calls me away. Oh! my brethren, what a black cloud is appearing on the horizon -- what a tempest is approaching! Be steadfast: the Lord will preserve his own.” He then held out his hand, and all these faithful ministers clasped it with veneration.
On the 23rd November, he called his children around him, the eldest of whom was barely three years old. “Eusebius, Irene, Alethea,” said he to them, as he took their little hands, “love God who is your Father.” Their mother having promised for them, the children retired with the blessing of the dying Lord. The night that followed this scene was his last. All the pastors were around his bed: “What is the news?” asked Oecolampadius of a friend who came in. “Nothing,” was the reply. “Well,” said the faithful disciple of Jesus, “I will tell you something new.” His friends awaited in astonishment. “In a short time I shall be with the Lord Jesus.” One of his friends now asking him if he was incommoded by the light, he replied, putting his hand on his heart: “There is light enough here.” The day began to break; he repeated in a feeble voice the 51st Psalm: Have mercy upon me, O Lord, according to they loving kindness. Then remaining silent, as if he wished to recover strength, he said, “Lord Jesus, help me!” The ten pastors fell on their knees around his bed with uplifted hands; at this moment the sun rose, and darted his earliest rays on a scene of sorrow so great and so afflicting with which the Church of God was again stricken.
The death of this servant of the Lord was like his life, full of light and peace. Oecolampadius was in an especial degree the christian spiritualist and biblical divine. The importance he attached to the study of the books of the Old Testament imprinted one of its most essential characters on the reformed theology. Considered as a man of action, his moderation and meekness placed him in the second rank. Had he been able to exert more of this peaceful spirit over Zwingle, great misfortunes might perhaps have been avoided. But like all men of meek disposition, his peaceful character yielded too much to the energetic will of the minister of Zurich; and he thus renounced, in part at least, the legitimate influence that he might have exercised over the Reformer of Switzerland and of the Church.
Zwingle and Oecolampadius had fallen. There was a great void and great sorrow in the Church of Christ. Dissensions vanished before these two graves, and nothing could be seen but tears. Luther himself was moved. On receiving the news of these two deaths, he called to mind the days he had passed with Zwingle and Oecolampadius at Marburg; and the blow inflicted on him by their sudden decease was such, that many years after he said to Bullinger: “Their death filled me with such intense sorrow, that I was near dying myself.” The youthful Henry Bullinger, threatened with the scaffold, had been compelled to flee from Bremgarten, his native town, with his aged father, his colleagues, and sixty of the principal inhabitants, who abandoned their houses to be pillaged by the Waldstettes. Three days after this, he was preaching in the cathedral of Zurich: “No! Zwingle is not dead!” exclaimed Myconius; “or, like the phoenix, he has risen again from his ashes.” Bullinger was unanimously chosen to succeed the great Reformer. He adopted Zwingle’s orphan children, Wilhelm, Regula, and Ulrich, and endeavored to supply the place of their father. This young man, scarcely twenty-eight years of age, and who presided forty years with wisdom and blessing over this church, was everywhere greeted as the apostle of Switzerland. Yet as the sea roars long after the violent tempest has subsided, so the people of Zurich were still in commotion. Many were agitated from on high. They came to themselves; they acknowledged their error; the weapons of their warfare had been carnal; they were now of a contrite and humble spirit; they arose and went to their Father and confessed their sin.
In those days there was great mourning in Zurich. Some, however, stood up with pride, protested by the mouth of their ministers against the work of the diplomatists, and boldly stigmatized the shameful compact. “If the shepherds sleep, the dogs must bark,” exclaimed Leo Juda in the cathedral of Zurich. “My duty is to give warning of the evil they are about to do to my Master’s house.” Nothing could equal the sorrow of this city, except the exultation of the Waldstettes. The noise of drums and fifes, the firing of guns, the ringing of bells, had long resounded on the banks of their lakes, and even to their highest valleys. Now the noise was less, but the effect greater. The Five Cantons, in close alliance with Friburg and Soleure, formed a perpetual league for the defense of the ancient christian faith with the Bishop of Sion and the tithings of the Valais; and henceforward carried their measures in the federal affairs with boldness. But a deep conviction was formed at that period in the hearts of the Swiss Reformed. “Faith comes from God,” said they; “its success does not depend on the life or death of a man. Let our adversaries boast of our ruin, we will boast only in the Cross.” -- “God reigns,” wrote Berne to Zurich, “and he will not permit the bark to founder.” This conviction was of more avail than the victory of Cappel.
Thus the Reformation, that had deviated from the right path, was driven back by the very violence of the assault into its primitive course, having no other power than the Word of God. An inconceivable infatuation had taken possession of the friends of the Bible. They had forgotten that our warfare is not carnal; and had appealed to arms and to battle. But God reigns; he punishes the churches and the people who turn aside from his ways. We have taken a few stones, and piled them as a monument on the battle-field of Cappel, in order to remind the Church of the great lesson which this terrible catastrophe teaches. As we bid farewell to this sad scene, we inscribe on these monumental stones, on the one side, these words from God’s Book: “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the Lord our God. They are brought down and fallen: but we are risen and stand upright.” And on the other, this declaration of the Head of the Church: “My kingdom is not of this world.” If, from the ashes of the martyrs at Cappel, a voice could be heard, it would be in these very words of the Bible that these noble confessors would address, after three centuries, the Christians of our days. That the Church has no other king than Jesus Christ; that she ought not to meddle with the policy of the world, derive from it her inspiration, and call for its swords, its prisons, its treasures; that she will conquer by the spiritual powers which God has deposited in her bosom, and, above all, by the reign of her adorable Head; that she must not expect upon earth thrones and mortal triumphs; but that her march resembles that of her King, from the manger to the cross, and from the cross to the crown: -- such is the lesson to be read on the blood-stained page that has crept into our simple and evangelical narrative. But if God teaches his people great lessons, he also gives them great deliverances. The bolt had fallen from heaven. The Reformation seemed to be little better than a lifeless body cumbering the ground, and whose dissevered limbs were about to be reduced to ashes. But God raises up the dead. New and more glorious destinies were awaiting the Gospel of Jesus Christ at the foot of the Alps. At the south-western extremity of Switzerland, in a great valley which the white giant of the mountains points out from afar; on the banks of the Leman lake, at the spot where the Rhone, clear and blue as the sky above it, rolls its majestic waters; on a small hill that the foot of Caesar had once trod, and on which the steps of another conqueror, of a Gaul, of a Picardine, were destined erelong to leave their ineffaceable and glorious traces, stood an ancient city, as yet covered with the dense shadows of Popery; but which God was about to raise to be a beacon to the Church, and a bulwark to Christendom.
PREFACE TO VOLUME FIVE In the four previous volumes the author has described the origin and essential development of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century on the Continent; he has now to relate the history of the Reformation in England.
The notes will direct the reader to the principal sources whence the author has derived his information. Most of them are well known; some, however, had not been previously explored, among which are the later volumes of the State Papers published by order of Government, by a Commission of which the illustrious Sir Robert Peel was the first president. Three successive Home Secretaries, Sir James Graham, Sir George Grey, and the Honorable Mr. S. H. Walpole, have presented the author with copies of the several volumes of this great and important collection: in some instances they were communicated to him as soon as printed, which was the case in particular with the seventh volume, of which he has made much use. He takes this opportunity of expressing his sincere gratitude to these noble friends of literature.
The History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century was received with cordiality on the Continent, but it has had a far greater number of readers in the British dominions and in the United States. The author looks upon the relations which this work had established between him and many distant Christians, as a precious reward for his labors. Will the present volume be received in those countries as favorably as the others? A foreigner relating to the Anglo-Saxon race the history of their Reformation is at a certain disadvantage; and although the author would rather have referred his readers to works, whether of old or recent date, by native writers, all of them more competent than himself to accomplish this task, he did not think it becoming him to shrink from the undertaking.
At no period is it possible to omit the history of the Reformation in England from a general history of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century; at the present crisis it is less possible than ever.
In the first place, the English Reformation has been, and still is, calumniated by writers of different parties, who look upon it as nothing more than an external political transformation, and who thus ignore its spiritual nature. History has taught the author that it was essentially a religious transformation, and that we must seek for it in men of faith, and not, as is usually done, solely in the caprices of the prince, the ambition of the nobility, and the servility of the prelates. A faithful recital of this great renovation will perhaps show us that beyond and without the measure of Henry VIII there was something -- everything, so to speak -- for therein was the essence of the Reformation, that which makes it a divine and imperishable work.
A second motive forced the author to acknowledge the necessity of a true History of the English Reformation. An active party in the Episcopalian Church is reviving with zeal, perseverance, and talent, the principles of Roman-catholicism, and striving to impose them on the Reformed Church of England, and incessantly attacking the foundations of evangelical Christianity. A number of young men in the universities, seduced by that deceitful mirage which some of their teachers have placed before their eyes, are launching out into clerical and superstitious theories, and running the risk of falling, sooner or later, as so many have done already, into the everyawning gulf of Popery. We must therefore call to mind the reforming principles which were proclaimed from the very commencement of this great transformation.
The new position which the Romish court is taking in England, and its insolent aggressions, are a third consideration which seems to demonstrate to us the present importance of this history. It is good to call to mind that the primitive Christianity of Great Britain perseveringly repelled the invasion of the popedom, and that after the definitive victory of this foreign power, the noblest voices among kings, lords, priests, and people, boldly protested against it. It is good to show that, while the word of God recovered its inalienable rights in Britain, in the sixteenth century, the popedom, agitated by wholly political interests, broke of itself the chain with which it had so long bound England. -- We shall see in this volume the English government fortifying itself, for instance under Edward III, against the invasions of Rome. It has been pretended in our days, and by others besides ultra-montanists, that the papacy is a purely spiritual power, and ought to be opposed by spiritual arms only. If the first part of this argument were true, no one would be readier than ourselves to adopt the conclusion. God forbid that any protestant state should ever refuse the completest liberty to the Roman-catholic doctrines. We certainly wish for reciprocity; we desire that ultra-montanism should no longer throw into prison the humble believers who seek consolation for themselves, and for their friends, in Holy Scripture. But though a deplorable fanaticism should still continue to transplant into the nineteenth century the mournful tragedies of the Middle Ages, we should persist in demanding the fullest liberty, not only of conscience, but of worship, for Roman-catholics in protestant states. We should ask it in the name of justice, whose immutable laws the injustice of our adversaries can never make us forget; we should ask it on behalf of the final triumph of truth; for if our demands proved unavailing, perhaps with God’s help it might be otherwise with our example. When two worlds meet face to face, in one of which light abounds, and in the other darkness, it is the darkness that should disappear before the light, and not the light fly from before the darkness. We might go farther than this: far from constraining the English catholics in anything, we would rather desire to help them to be freer than they are, and to aid them in recovering the rights of which the Roman bishop robbed them in times posterior to the establishment of the papacy; for instance, the election of bishops and pastors, which belongs to the clergy and the people. Indeed, Cyprian, writing to a bishop of Rome (Cornelius), demanded three elements to secure the legitimacy of episcopal election: “The call of God, the voice of the people, and the consent of the cobishops.” And the council of Rome, in 1080, said: “Let the clergy and the people, with the consent of the apostolic see or of their metropolitan, elect their bishop.” In our days, -- days distinguished by great liberty, -- shall the church be less free than it was in the Middle Ages?
But if we do not fear to claim for Roman-catholics the rights of the church of the first ages, and a greater liberty than what they now possess, even in the very seat of the popedom, are we therefore to say that the state, whether under Edward III or in later times, should oppose no barrier against Romish aggressions? If it is the very life and soul of popery to pass beyond the boundaries of religion, and enter into the field of policy, why should it be thought strange for the state to defend itself, when attacked upon its own ground? Can the state have no need of precautions against a power which has pretended to be paramount over England, which gave its crown to a French monarch, which obtained an oath of vassalage from an English king, and which lays down as its first dogma its infallibility and immutability?
And it was not only under Edward III and throughout the Middle Ages that Rome encroached on royalty; it has happened in modern times also.
M. Mignet has recently brought to light some remarkable facts. On the 28th of June, a letter from Saint Pius V was presented to the catholic king Philip II by an agent just arrived from Rome. “Our dear son, Robert Ridolfi,” says the writer, “will explain (God willing) to your majesty certain matters which concern not a little the honor of Almighty God......We conjure your majesty to take into your serious consideration the matter which he will lay before you, and to furnish him with all the means your majesty may judge most proper for its execution.” The pope’s “dear son,” accordingly, explained to the duke of Feria, who was commissioned by Philip to receive his communication, “that it was proposed to kill queen Elizabeth; that the attempt would not be made in London, because it was the seat of heresy, but during one of her journeys; and that a certain James G -- -- -- would undertake it.” The same day the council met and deliberated on Elizabeth’s assassination. Philip declared his willingness to undertake the foul deed recommended by his holiness; but as it would be an expensive business, his ministers hinted to the nuncio that the pope ought to furnish the money. This horrible but instructive recital will be found with all its details in the Histoire de Marie Stuart, by M. Mignet, vol. 2:p. 159, etc. It is true that these things took place in the sixteenth century; but the Romish church has canonized this priestly murderer, an honor conferred on a very small number of popes, and the canonization took place in the eighteenth century. This is not a very distant date.
And these theories, so calculated to trouble nations, are still to be met with in the nineteenth century. At this very moment there are writers asserting principles under cover of which the pope may interfere in affairs of state.
The kings of Europe, terrified by the deplorable outbreaks of 1848, appear almost everywhere ready to support the court of Rome by arms; and ultramontanism takes advantage of this to proclaim once more, “that the popedom is above the monarchy; that it is the duty of the inferior (the king) to obey the superior; that it is the duty of the superior (the pope) to depose the sovereigns who abuse their power, and to condemn the subjects who resist it; and, finally, that this public law of Christian Europe, abolished by the ambition of sovereigns or the insubordination of peoples, should be revived.” Such are the theories now professed not only by priests but by influential laymen. To this opinion belong, at the present hour, all the zeal and enthusiasm of Romanism, and this alone we are bound to acknowledge is consistent with the principles of popery. And accordingly it is to be feared that this party will triumph, unless we oppose it with all the forces of the human understanding, of religious and political liberty, and above all, of the word of God. The most distinguished organ of public opinion in France, alarmed by the progress of these ultramontane doctrines, said not long ago of this party: “In its eyes there exists but one real authority in the world, that of the pope. All questions, not only religious but moral and political, are amenable to one tribunal, supreme and infallible, the pope’s. The pope has the right to absolve subjects of their oath of fidelity; subjects have the right to take up arms against their prince when he rebels against the decisions of the holy see.
This is the social and political theory of the Middle Ages.” Since the popedom asserts claims both spiritual and temporal, the church and the state ought to resist it, each in its own sphere, and with its peculiar arms: the church (by which I mean the believers), solely with Holy Scripture; the state with such institutions as are calculated to secure its independence. What! the church is bound to defend what belongs to the church, and the state is not to defend what belongs to the state? If robbers should endeavor to plunder two houses, would it be just and charitable for one neighbor to say to the other, “I must defend my house, but you must let yours be stripped?” If the pope desires to have the immaculate conception of the Virgin, or any other religious doctrine, preached, let the fullest liberty be granted him, and let him build as many churches as he pleases to do it in: we claim this in the plainest language. But if the pope, like Saint Pius, desires to kill the Queen of England, or at least (for no pope in our days, were he even saint enough to be canonized, would conceive such and idea), if the pope desires to infringe in any way on the rights of the state, then let the state resist him with tried wisdom and unshaken firmness. Let us beware of an ultra-spiritualism which forgets the lessons of history, and overlooks the rights of kings and peoples.
When it is found among theologians, it is an error; in statesmen, it is a danger.
Finally, and this consideration revives our hopes, there is a fourth motive which gives at this time a particular importance to the history we are about to relate. The Reformation is now entering upon a new phasis. The movement of the sixteenth century had died away during the seventeenth and eighteenth, and it was often to churches which had lost every spark of life that the historian had then to recount the narrative of this great revival.
This is the case no longer. After three centuries, a new and a greater movement is succeeding that which we describe in these volumes. The principles of the religious regeneration, which God accomplished three hundred years ago, are now carried to the end of the world with the greatest energy. The task of the sixteenth century lives again in the nineteenth, but more emancipated from the temporal power, more spiritual, more general; and it is the Anglo-Saxon race that God chiefly employs for the accomplishment of this universal work. The English Reformation acquires therefore, in our days, a special importance. If the Reformation of Germany was the foundation of the building, that of England was its crowning stone.
The work begun in the age of the apostles, renewed in the times of the reformers, should be resumed in our days with a holy enthusiasm; and this work is very simple and very beautiful, for it consists in establishing the throne of Jesus Christ both in the church and on earth.
Evangelical faith does not place on the throne of the church either human reason or religious conscientiousness, as some would have it; but it sets thereon Jesus Christ, who is both the knowledge taught and the doctor who teaches it; who explains his word by the word, and by the light of his Holy Spirit; who by it bears witness to the truth, that is to say, to his redemption, and teaches the essential laws which should regulate the inner life of his disciples. Evangelical faith appeals to the understanding, to the heart, and to the will of every Christian, only to impose on them the duty to submit to the divine authority of Christ, to listen, believe, love, comprehend, and act, as God requires.
Evangelical faith does not place on the throne of the church the civil power, or the secular magistrate; but it sets thereon Jesus Christ, who has said, I am King: who imparts to his subjects the principle of life, who establishes his kingdom here on earth, and preserves and develops it; and who, directing all mortal events, is now making the progressive conquest of the world, until he shall exercise in person his divine authority in the kingdom of his glory.
Finally, evangelical faith does not place on the throne of the church priests, councils, doctors, or their traditions, -- or that vice-God (veri Dei vicem gerit in terris, as the Romish gloss has it), that infallible pontiff, who, reviving the errors of the pagans, ascribes salvation to the forms of worship and to the meritorious works of men. It sets thereon Jesus Christ, the great High-priest of his people, the Godman, who, by an act of his free love, bore in our stead, in his atoning sacrifice, the penalty of sin; -- who has taken away the curse from our heads, and thus become the creator of a new race.
Such is the essential work of that Christianity, which the apostolic age transmitted to the reformers, and which it now transmits to the Christians of the nineteenth century.
While the thoughts of great numbers are led astray in the midst of ceremonies, priests, human lucubrations, pontifical fables, and philosophic reveries, and are driven to and fro in the dust of this world, evangelical faith rises even to heaven, and falls prostrate before Him who sitteth on the throne.
The Reformation is Jesus Christ.
“Lord, to whom shall we go, if not unto thee?” Let others follow the devices of their imaginations, or prostrate themselves before traditional superstitions, or kiss the feet of a sinful man......O King of glory, we desire but Thee alone!
Eaux-Vives, Geneva, March 1853.