PREFACE.
This volume narrates the events of an important epoch in the Reformation of England, Switzerland, France, Germany, and Italy. From the first the author purposed to write a History of the Reformation in Europe, which he indicated in the title of his work. Some persons, misled by the last words of that title, have supposed that he intended to give a mere biography of Calvin: such was not his idea. That great divine must have his place in this history, but, however interesting the life of a man may be, and especially the life of so great a servant of God, the history of the work of God in the various parts of Christendom possesses in our opinion a greater and more permanent interest.
Deo soli gloria. Omnia hominum idola pereant!
In the year 1853, in the fifth volume of his History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, the author described the commencement of the reform in England. He now resumes the subject where he had left off, namely, after the fall and death of Wolsey. The following pages were written thirteen years ago, immediately subsequent to the publication of the fifth volume; they have since then been revised and extended.
The most important fact of that epoch in Great Britain is the act by which the English Church resumed its independence. It was attended by a peculiar circumstance. When Henry VIII. emancipated his people from the papal supremacy, he proclaimed himself head of the Church. And hence, of all Protestant countries, England is the one in which Church and State are most closely united. The legislators of the Anglican Church understood afterwards the danger presented by this union, and consequently declared, in the Thirty-seventh Article (Of the Civil Magistrates), that, ‘where they attributed to the King’s Majesty the chief government, they gave not to their princes the ministering of God’s word.’ This did not mean that the king should not preach; such an idea did not occur to any one; but that the civil power should not take upon itself to determine the doctrines of the divine Word.
Unhappily this precaution has not proved sufficient. Not long since a question of doctrine was raised with regard to the Essays and Reviews, and the case having been carried on appeal before the supreme court, the latter gave its decision with regard to important dogmas. The Privy Council decided that the denial of the plenary inspiration of Scripture, of the substitution of Christ for the sinner in the sacrifice of the cross, and of the irrevocable consequences of the last judgment, was not contrary to the profession of faith of the Church of England. When they heard of this judgment, the rationalists triumphed; but an immense number of protests were made in all parts of Great Britain. While we feel the greatest respect for the persons and intentions of the members of the judicial committee of the Privy Council, we venture to ask whether this judgment be not subversive of the fundamental principles of the Anglican Church; nay more (though in this we may be wrong), is it not a violation of the English Constitution, of which the articles of Religion form part? The fact is the more serious as it was accomplished notwithstanding the opposition (which certainly deserved to be taken into consideration) of the two chief spiritual conductors of the Church—the Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of all England, and the Archbishop of York, both members of the council. Having to describe in this volume the historical fact in which the evil originated, the author is of opinion that he ought to point out respectfully but frankly the evil itself. He does so with the more freedom because he believes that he is in harmony on this point with the majority of the bishops, clergy, and pious laymen of the English Church, for whom he has long felt sincere respect and affection.
But let us not fear. The ills of the Church must not prevent our acknowledging that at no time has evangelical Christianity been more widely extended than in our days. We know that the Christians of Great Britain will not only hold firm the standard of faith, but will redouble their efforts to win souls to the Gospel both at home and in the most distant countries. And if at any time they should be compelled to make a choice—and either renounce their union with the civil power, or sacrifice the holy doctrines of the Word of God—there is not (in our opinion) one evangelical minister or layman in England who would hesitate a moment on the course he should adopt.
England requires now more than ever to study the Fathers of the Reformation in their writings, and to be animated by their spirit. There are men in our days who are led astray by strange imaginations, and who, unless precautions be taken against their errors, would overturn the glorious chariot of Christian truth, and plunge it into the abyss of superstitious Romanism or over the abrupt precipice of incredulity. On one side, scholastic doctrines (as transubstantiation for instance) are boldly professed in certain Protestant churches; monastic orders, popish rites, candles, vestments of the fourteenth century, and all the mummeries of the Middle Ages are revived. On the other side, a rationalism, which, though it still keeps within bounds, is not the less dangerous on that account, is attacking the inspiration of Scripture, the atonement, and other essential doctrines. May we be permitted to conjure all who have God’s glory, the safety of the Church, and the prosperity of their country at heart, to preserve in its integrity the precious treasure of God’s Word, and to learn from the men of the Reformation to repel foolish errors and a slavish yoke with one hand, and with the other the empty theorems of an incredulous philosophy.
I would crave permission to draw attention to a fact of importance. A former volume has shown that the spiritual reformation of England proceeded from the Word of God, first read at Oxford and Cambridge, and then by the people. The only part which the king took in it was an opposition, which he followed out even to the stake. The present volume shows that the official reformation, the reform of abuses, proceeded from the Commons, from the most notable laymen of England. The king took only a passive part in this work. Thus neither the internal nor the external reform proceeded from Henry VIII. Of all the acts of the Reformation only one belongs to him: he broke with the pope. That was a great benefit, and it is a great honor to the king. But could it have lasted without the two other reforms? We much doubt it. The Reformation of England primarily came from God; but if we look at secondary causes, it proceeded from the people, and not from the sovereign. The noble vessel of the political constitution, which had remained almost motionless for centuries, began to advance at the first breath of the Gospel. Rationalists and papists, notwithstanding all their hopes, will never deprive Great Britain of the Reformation accomplished by the Word of God; but if England were to lose the Gospel, she would at the same time lose her liberty. Coercion under the reign of popery or excesses under the reign of infidelity, would be equally fatal to it.
A distinguished writer published in 1858 an important work in which he treated of the history of England from the fall of Wolsey.[[1]] We have great pleasure in acknowledging the value of Mr. Froude’s volumes; but we do not agree with his opinions with respect to the character of Henry VIII. While we believe that he rendered great services to England as a king, we are not inclined, so far as his private character is concerned, to consider him a model prince, and his victims as criminals. We differ also from the learned historian in certain matters of detail, which have been partly indicated in our notes. But every one must bear testimony to the good use Mr. Froude has made of the original documents which he had before him, and to the talent with which the history is written, and we could not forbear rejoicing as we noticed the favorable point of view under which, in this last work of his, he considers the Reformation.
After speaking of England, the author returns to the history of Geneva; and readers may perhaps complain that he has dwelt longer upon it than is consistent with a general history of the Reformation. He acknowledges that there may be some truth in the objection, and accepts his condemnation in advance. But he might reply that according to the principles which determine the characteristics of the Beautiful, the liveliest interest is often excited by what takes place on the narrowest stage. He might add that the special character of the Genevese Reform, where political liberty and evangelical faith are seen triumphing together, is of particular importance to our age. He might say that if he has spoken too much of Geneva, it is because he knows and loves her; and that while everybody thinks it natural for a botanist, even when taking note of the plants of the whole world, to apply himself specially to a description of such as grow immediately around him; a Genevese ought to be permitted to make known the flowers which adorn the shores upon which he dwells, and whose perfume has extended far over the world.
For this part of our work we have continued to consult the most authentic documents of the sixteenth century, at the head of which are the Registers of the Council of State of Geneva. Among the new sources that we have explored we may mention an important manuscript in the Archives of Berne which was placed at our disposal by M. de Stürler, Chancellor of State. This folio of four hundred and thirty pages contains the minutes of the sittings of the Inquisitional Court of Lyons, assembled to try Baudichon de la Maisonneuve for heresy. To avoid swelling out this volume, it was necessary to omit many interesting circumstances contained in that document; we should have curtailed them even more had we not considered that the facts of that trial did not yet belong to history, and had remained for more than three centuries hidden among the state papers of Berne.[[2]] De la Maisonneuve was the chief layman of the Genevese Reformation,—the captain of the Lutherans, as he is frequently called by the witnesses in their depositions. The part he played in the Reformation of Geneva has not been duly appreciated. No doubt the excess of his qualities, particularly of his energy, sometimes carried him too far; but his love of truth, indomitable courage, and indefatigable activity make him one of the most prominent characters of the Reform. The name of Maisonneuve no longer exists in that city; but a great number of the most ancient and most respected families descend from him, either in a direct or collateral line.[[3]]
Another manuscript has brought to our knowledge the chief mission of the embassy which solicited Francis I. to set Baudichon de la Maisonneuve at liberty. The head of that embassy was Rodolph of Diesbach: M. Ferdinand de Diesbach, of Berne, has had the kindness to place the manuscript records of his family at our disposal; and the circumstance that we have learnt from them does not give a very exalted idea of that king’s generosity.
The project of Francis I. and of Melancthon described in the portion of the volume devoted to France and Germany, and the important letters hitherto unknown in our language, which are given there, appear worthy of the attention of enlightened and serious minds.
We conclude with Italy. We could have wished to describe in this volume Calvin’s journey to Ferrara, and even his arrival at Geneva; but the great space given to other countries did not permit us to carry on the Genevese Reformation to that period. Two distinguished men, whose talents and labors we respect, M. Albert Rilliet, of Geneva, and M. Jules Bonnet, of Paris, have had a discussion about Calvin’s transalpine expedition. M. Rilliet’s essay (Deux points obscurs de la vie de Calvin) was published as a pamphlet, and M. Bonnet’s answer (Calvin en Italie) appeared in the Revue Chrétienne for 1864, p. 461 sqq., and in the Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire du Protestantisme Français for 1864, p. 183 sqq. M. Rilliet denies that Calvin ever visited the city of Aosta, and M. Bonnet maintains that he did. Data are unfortunately wanting to decide a small number of secondary points; but the important fact of Calvin’s journey through Aosta, seems beyond a doubt, and when we come to this epoch in the Reformer’s life, we will give such proofs—in our opinion incontestable proofs—as ought to convince every impartial mind.
Before describing Calvin’s residence at Ferrara, the author had to narrate the movements which had been going on in Italy from the beginning of the Reformation. Being obliged to limit himself, considering the extent of his task, he had wished at first to exclude those countries in which the Reformation was crushed out, as Italy and Spain. On studying more closely the work there achieved, he could not make up his mind to pass it over in silence. Among the oldest editions of the books of that period which he has made use of is a copy of the works of Aonio Paleario (1552), recently presented by the Marquis Cresi, of Naples, to the library of the School of Evangelical Theology at Geneva. This volume wants thirty-two leaves (pp. 311 to 344), and at the foot of p. 310 is the following manuscript note: Quæ desunt pagellæ sublatæ fuerunt de mandato Rev. Vicarii Neap.; ‘the missing pages were torn out by order of the Reverend Vicar of Naples.’ This was an annoyance to the author, who wished to read those pages all the more because the inquisition had cut them out. Happily he found them in a Dutch edition belonging to Professor André Cherbuliez.
Some persons have thought that political liberty occupied too great a space in the first volume of this history; we imagined, however, that we were doing a service to the time in which we live, by showing the coexistence in Geneva of civil emancipation and evangelical reform. On the continent, there are men of education and elevated character, but strangers to the Gospel, who labor under a mistake as to the causes which separate them from Christianity. In their opinion it arises from the circumstance that the Church whose head is at Rome is hostile to the rights of the people. Many of them have said that religion might be strengthened and perpetuated by uniting with liberty. But is it not united with liberty in Switzerland, England, and the United States of America? Why should we not see everywhere, and in France particularly, as well as in the countries we have just named, religion which respects the rights of God uniting with policy which respects the rights of the people? It is not the Encyclic of Pius IX. that the Gospel claims as a companion, it is liberty. The Gospel has need of liberty, and liberty has need of the Gospel. The people who have only one or other of these two essential elements of life are sick; the people who have neither are dead.
‘The greatest imaginable absurdity,’ says one of the eminent philosophers and noble minds of our epoch, M. Jouffroy, ‘would be the assertion that this present life is everything, and that there is nothing after it. I know of no greater in any branch of science.’ Might there not, however, be another absurdity worthy of being placed by its side? The same philosopher says that, so far as regards our state after this life, ‘science and philosophy have not, after two thousand years, arrived at a single accepted result.’[[4]] Consequently, by the side of the absurdity which M. Jouffroy has pointed out, we confidently place another, as the second of ‘the greatest imaginable absurdities,’ namely, that which consists in believing, after two thousand years of barren labors, that there is another way besides Christianity to know and possess the life invisible and eternal. The essential fact of the history of religion and the history of the world: God manifest in the flesh, is the ray from heaven which reveals that life to us, and procures it for us. We know what a wind of incredulity has scattered over barren sands many noble souls who aspire to something better, and for whom Christ has opened the gates of eternity; but let us hope that their fall will be only temporary, and that many, enlightened from on high, turning their eyes away from the desert which surrounds them, and lifting them towards heaven, will exclaim: I will arise and go to my Father.
We must, as Jouffroy says, ‘recommence our investigations;’ but ‘first of all,’ he adds, ‘we must confess the secret vice which has hitherto rendered all our exertions powerless.’ That secret vice consists in considering the question in an intellectual and theoretical point of view only, while it is absolutely necessary to grapple with it in a practical way, and to make it an individual fact. The matter under discussion belongs to the domain of humanity, not of philosophy. It does not regard the understanding alone, but the conscience, the will, the heart, and the life. The real vice consists in our not recognizing, within us, the evil that separates us from God, and, without us, the Saviour who leads us to Him. The royal road to learn and possess life invisible and eternal is the knowledge and possession of that Son of Man, of that Son of God, who said with authority: I AM THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE: NO MAN COMETH UNTO THE FATHER BUT BY ME.
MERLE D’AUBIGNÉ.
La Graveline, Eaux Vives, Geneva:
May, 1866.