CHAPTER XIII.
BEATOUN IS LIBERATED AND RECOVERS HIS POWER.—BREACH OF THE TREATY.—FRESH PERSECUTION.
(March, 1543.–Summer of 1544.)
At present everything was getting on well in Scotland, and the continuance of this well-being was all that was desired. The severest eye could find nothing to censure in the court of the regent; and he acted with so much moderation in the government that not a single complaint was heard of his administration. Arran was as much respected and obeyed as any king could have been. All men were promising themselves a quiet life, when a sudden gust upset everything.
There was one party which was full of wrath at the recent changes. The alliance of Scotland with England, the imprisonment of the cardinal, the regency of Arran, the freedom conferred on the Holy Scriptures,—all these things filled the friends of the papacy with excitement and horror, whether at Rome, in France, or in Scotland. The earl of Lennox had arrived from Paris for the purpose of giving his support to the French party in Scotland; and he flattered himself that he should be appointed regent, and even that he should marry the queen dowager. The pope had sent the legate Marco Grimani into Scotland, with orders to join the cardinal, the earl of Lennox, and all the other adversaries of Arran; to fulminate anathemas, and to use all other means which he could devise for effecting the fall of the regent and the elevation of the cardinal.[288] Grimani and Lennox expected to find the material all ready, so that it would be an easy task for them to set fire to it. They were not entirely mistaken. The ultramontanes of Scotland were in a rage with the regent and with the lords who were on his side.[289] Their scheme was to liberate the cardinal, who should then go with his adherents to Linlithgow, get possession of the young queen and depose the regent.
THE ABBOT OF PAISLEY.
Lennox and Grimani had not come from the continent alone. Two Scottish priests, who had lived for a long time in France and had there become imbued with Roman Catholicism of the deepest dye, landed in Scotland in the month of April. These men were likely to do, perhaps, more than all others towards the restoration of ultramontanism. They were John Hamilton, abbot of Paisley, a natural brother of the regent, and Master David Panter,[290] who was afterwards bishop of Ross. Their learning, their lowliness, and their religion were much talked of, and people thought that their coming would prove a great comfort to the Church of God.[291] ‘They will soon,’ it was said, ‘go into the pulpit and truly preach Jesus Christ.’
The abbot of Paisley was admitted to intimacy with the regent. He might converse with him at any time, and he undertook to break down bit by bit the evangelical views of Arran and to sunder his connexion with England. First of all, it was necessary to get rid of the two evangelical chaplains. The two priests therefore began, immediately after their arrival, to disparage the preaching of Williams and Rough. The abbot of Paisley had always some fault to find. ‘Their sermons,’ said he to his brother, ‘are heretical and scandalous.’ The latter, naturally weakminded,let himself be caught. Williams was ordered to put an end to his preaching, and he set out for England. Rough was sent to preach in Kyle, where for some time there had been lovers of the Bible. This was not enough. The men of sound judgment and genuine piety who were about the regent, and who had contributed to the general prosperity and peace, must also be removed out of the way. What terrors, what promises, ‘what boxes full of enchantments,’ says Knox, these two priests had brought with them from France, no one could tell. Be it as it may, some were got rid of by crafty expedients, others by false insinuations. ‘If you remain, your life is at stake,’ they said to them. At the same time the partisans of the clergy, who had till then held themselves aloof from the court, winged their way thither like ravens to the carrion.[292] One day when there was a great gathering at Holyrood, and the regent saw around him at the same moment both the faithful attendants who had deserved well of their country and the fanatical supporters of the cardinal, one of the latter cried out in a voice loud enough for Arran and all present to hear him, ‘My lord governor and his friends will never be at ease nor quietness till that a dozen of these knaves that abuse his grace be hanged.’[293] After that, people saw the men whose labors had been so useful to Scotland,—Durham, Borthwick, Bothwell, the laird of Grange, Balnaves, Ballanden[294] and Sir David Lyndsay,—withdraw from the court, while he who had threatened them with the gallows received a pension for his insolent speech.
The liberation of the cardinal could be no longer deferred. He was imprisoned at Dalkeith on January 26, was removed thence to Seaton, next to Blackness castle on the Forth, and finally to St. Andrews, the seat of his archbishopric. There he was set at liberty at the request, especially, of the queen-mother, who had never ceased her intercession for him.[295] Once free, this arrogant man, exasperated by the affront which had been offered him, thought only of recovering his own power and of reëstablishing the cause of the papacy.
INTRIGUES OF BEATOUN.
He now had frequent communication with Mary of Guise, and shared her indignation at the favors granted to the Scottish nobles just returned from England, who had passed from exile to the most influential positions. They resolved to do their utmost to reëstablish the alliance with Francis I. and the pope. The cardinal completely won over the earl of Bothwell, and the Lords Home, Buccleugh, and others. He induced such of them as were on the frontier to make inroads on the English territory. He assembled at St. Andrews, on July 6, the earls of Lennox, Argyle, Huntley, and Bothwell, Lord Home, and the other noblemen and gentlemen who were favorable to the pope; and at this conference they determined to oppose the regent, who instead of executing their designs was only bent on promoting heretical opinions.[296]
Meanwhile Beatoun found opportunities for secret interviews with the regent’s brother, who had everything in his own hands; for this bastard was as remarkable for force of character as his legitimate brother was for the want of it. The cardinal did not confine himself to intrigues in high places, but he had it at heart to win the multitude, and he tried all imaginable schemes in order to succeed.[297] When he thought that he had at last secured his position, both above and below, he convoked the clergy at St. Andrews. The bishop, abbot, and primate unfolded before this assembly all the dangers which were then impending over Scotland. ‘In order to avert them,’ said he, ‘contribute generously from your purses, and urge all your friends to do the same. Tell them that their property and their lives are at stake. Nay, more than that,’ he exclaimed, ‘our task is to prevent the ruin which is threatening the universal church of the pope.’[298] The clergy declared that they would place all their resources at his disposal, and determined to set on foot a general subscription. ‘The cardinal,’ wrote the ambassador Sadler to Lord Parr, brother of the Queen of England, ‘the cardinal here hath not only stirred almost this whole realm against the governor, but also hath procured the earl Bothwell [and others] to stir all the mischief and trouble they can on the Borders, and to make roads and incursions into England, only of intent to break the peace and to breed contention and breach between both realms.’[299] At the same time the monks were preaching passionately against the union with England; and the population, excited by them, was in agitation and ready to revolt, threatening those who were opposed to the Church of Rome, and even insulting the English ambassador. Jesters used to assail both him and his suite with insolent speeches. But the envoy of Henry VIII., knowing that the one matter of moment for his master was to succeed, took these indignities patiently, through fear of hastening a rupture.
THE HOSTAGES REFUSED.
As Scotland was under obligation to give hostages to England as security for the execution of the treaties, the cardinal set himself strenuously against the measure, not only with those of his own faction, but also with those of the other side. He was prodigal of promises to the relations and the friends of the intended hostages, in the hope of inducing them to oppose their delivery to England. The same influences were brought to bear on the regent. On the day fixed for giving up the lords to the English ambassador, the latter went to the regent, and after making complaint of the insults to which he was exposed, demanded the hostages. The regent promised that the perpetrators of the outrages of which Sadler complained should be punished. ‘As for the hostages,’ he added, ‘the authority with which I am invested is of such a nature that, while I have rights as against the queen’s subjects, they also have their rights as against me. You are yourself a witness of the immense agitation stirred up by the cardinal.[300] All my plans are upset, and, carried away by the force of popular passion, I can no longer answer for anything.’[301] Arran was indeed wanting in the strength to stand against such a storm as was conjured up by the cardinal. Weakminded himself, he bent before the violence of those who had powerful convictions. Sadler, indignant at his refusal, called upon the Scots who had been captives in England to return to their confinement, as they had pledged themselves to do in case the treaty should be violated. Kennedy, earl of Cassilis, was the only one who kept his word. He set out for London, in spite of the pressing entreaties of his own circle.[302] Henry, touched by this act of good faith, generously sent him back to Scotland with his two brothers who had remained as hostages.
The clerical reaction was steadily gathering fresh force. In pursuance of the colloquy of July 6, the nobles hostile to the regent assembled some troops; and on July 21 they arrived, at the head of ten thousand men, at Leith, the port of Edinburgh. At the same moment Arran, the earl of Angus, Lord Maxwell, and their friends were at Edinburgh, at the head of their armed force. There was equal animation on both sides. They might have been likened to two electric clouds, whose lightning was ready to burst forth with violence. However, the two opposed bodies of troops remained motionless for five or six days. ‘What will be the end of this,’ wrote Sadler to Lord Parr, ‘I cannot tell; but my opinion is that they will not fight for all their bragges.’[303] In fact, they did not fight.
IRRESOLUTION OF ARRAN.
The two queens were at Linlithgow palace, in which the young Mary was born. The regent and the cardinal each gave out that the queens were on his side, but all the sympathies of the queen-mother were with the cardinal. The latter, accompanied by the earls of Argyle, Huntley, and Bothwell, and by many bishops, went to Linlithgow. Supposing that the princesses were not safe there, he persuaded them to go with him to Stirling, which they did. These lords talked without reserve among themselves, and with the queen, of deposing the regent, on the ground of disobedience to their holy mother the Church. This greatly alarmed Arran, who at that same time was persecuted by the abbot of Paisley, his natural brother. ‘Consider,’ said the latter, ‘the danger to which you expose yourself by allowing the authority of the pope to be impaired. It is the authority on which your own rests.’ As Arran was in dread of the anger of Henry VIII., the abbot exalted to the utmost the power of the King of France, and the great advantages of an alliance with him. But above everything else he insisted on the obligation of making peace with the Church, ‘out of whose pale,’ he repeated, ‘there is no salvation.’ The poor regent, weak, inconstant, and not at all grounded in the faith of the Gospel, halted between the wish to follow the advice of his brother and the shame involved in abandoning his party and giving the precedence to the cardinal. He wavered between the pope and the Gospel, between France and England. His irresolution was torture to him; he endured bitter pangs. The abbot never wearied of repeating the question, ‘What will ye do? will you then destroy yourself and your house for ever?’[304] He hesitated no longer. Beaten on all sides by contending waves; conscious that his forces were inferior to those of his adversaries; hemmed in by the snares of the cardinal, who chose rather to gain him by terror than to subdue him by arms; abandoned by many of the nobles; no longer in favor with the people, who were offended by his weakness; lowered in the esteem of his own friends, and disgraced in the eyes of the English, the unhappy man at last took the fatal leap. Nine days after the ratification of the alliance with England, and only six days after he had published a proclamation against the cardinal, Arran secretly stole away from Holyrood palace, betook himself to Stirling on September 3, and threw himself into the arms of his cousin Beatoun.
This was not all. He was resolved also to throw himself into the arms of the pope; desirous only of doing so without too much ostentation, and fancying, says Buchanan, that he could thus lessen the infamy of this base deed. For this purpose the convent of the Franciscans was chosen.[305] The queen-mother attended. For a Guise the scene was one of exquisite enjoyment such as Mary would not willingly lose. Some of the courtiers who were devoted to Rome were also present. There, in the dim light of the chapel, that weak man, to whom people had been looking for the triumph of the Reformation in Scotland, fondly fancying that he was performing a secret action, knelt down before the altar, humbly confessed his errors, trampled under foot the oaths which he had taken to his own country and to England, renounced the evangelical profession of Jesus Christ, submitted to the pope, and received absolution of the cardinal.[306] The spectators exulted in Arran’s humiliation. The wretched man continued indeed to be regent in name, but from that hour he possessed nothing more than the phantom of authority, having for his own governor the lord cardinal. He therefore fell into contempt, and those even for whom he had sacrificed everything had no respect for him. ‘He who will save his life shall lose it.’
The report of his perjury spread rapidly abroad. Few were surprised to hear it, but a great many were angry. The English ambassador wrote to him as follows: ‘Forasmuch as I do hear sundry reports of your sudden departure to Stirling, which if they were true in part ... might highly touch your honor: ... I cannot well satisfy myself without the address of these my letters unto your lordship, only to require of your goodness to signify unto me how you do remain towards the king’s majesty and the accomplishment of your oath and promise afore expressed. I beseech your lordship to let me know the truth by your own advertisement, to the intent that I may undelayedly write the same to the king’s majesty before he shall receive any sinister or wrong informations in that behalf, which might percase alter his highness’ affection and good opinion conceived towards you. Whereof for my part I would be right loath.’[307]
CORONATION OF MARY STUART.
Another ceremony followed that of the abjuration. It was the coronation of the little queen, which took place on September 9, with great pomp. The alliance between Scotland and France was renewed, and fresh promises were made to Francis I. The cardinal thus brilliantly opened his reign, and by placing the crown on the head of a little girl, he said to himself that at least he had no need to fear that the child would take it into her head to thwart his schemes.[308]
Henry VIII. was in consternation. The abjuration of the regent and the political revolution which accompanied it upset his most cherished plans. But the ratification of the treaty with him was so recent that the question might be raised whether the whole of this Stirling business was anything more than a transient mistake, the fruit of Arran’s weakness. He therefore enjoined his ambassador to use his utmost endeavors to recall the regent to his first intentions. It appeared to Henry impossible that Arran should act in a manner so foolish, so dishonorable, so cruel, so pitiless for Scotland, as not only to throw away all the advantages offered to himself, but still more to give up his country to fire and sword and to all the calamities of a terrible war. All these considerations urged by Sadler were fruitless. At length, indignant at the perjury and the insult, Henry recalled his ambassador, declared war on Scotland, ordered the seizure of the numerous Scottish ships which lay in his ports, threw into prison the seamen and the merchants, and sent a herald to announce to the Scots ‘that they had covenanted with a prince of honor that would not suffer their disloyalty unpunished and unrevenged, whose power and puissance, by God’s grace, is and shall be sufficient against them to make them know and feel their own faults and offences. Fear,’ said he, ‘the hand of God over you.’ It was war, war with all its horrors of fire and sword, that Henry in his wrath had determined to wage with Scotland. ‘You shall beat down and overthrow the castle of Edinburgh, burn and sack the capital, with Holyrood and Leith and the villages around, putting man, woman, and child to the sword without exception. To overthrow St. Andrews so as the upper stone may be the nether, and not one stick stand by another.’[309] The wrath of Henry was terrible; but nothing could alarm the presumptuous cardinal. When he heard of the imprisonment of the Scottish merchants and seamen, he smiled and said jestingly, ‘When we have conquered England we will make compensation to the merchants.’
THE EARL OF LENNOX.
When the cardinal came out of prison, his eyes had fallen on two men who stood in his way. One of these was the regent, and he had got rid of him by becoming his master. The other was the earl of Lennox, a man formidable by his rank and his pretensions, who had even supposed it possible that he might marry the queen-mother. But Mary of Guise, like all her kindred, was a fanatical devotee of Rome, and at the instance of the cardinal she prayed the King of France to recall Lennox on any specious pretext, adding that his residence in Scotland might lead to a disturbance of peace. Lennox saw that they were trifling with him. He was quite as versatile as Arran but more capable, and seeing that he had lost the favor of France, he offered his services to the King of England, who eagerly accepted them. Lennox was then looked upon as the head of Scottish Protestantism. The two foremost lords of Scotland had performed a feat of what is vulgarly called chassé-croisée. The leader of the Protestants had become a papist, and the man of the court of Francis I. had turned Protestant. Instead of the daughter of the Guises, he married Lady Margaret Douglas, a niece of Henry VIII. That is how men of the world manage matters. Evangelical religion had not lost much in losing Arran. Neither had it gained more by acquiring Lennox. These men were only moved by political interests, and Scottish Protestantism more than any other was to reject these shameful combinations of Christ and Baal, and was to have one king alone, Jesus Christ.
The cardinal, victorious along the whole line, set himself immediately to the work which he had most at heart,—to crush the Reformation. The law which authorized the reading of Holy Scripture had borne its fruit, and ‘in sundry parts of Scotland,’ says the chronicler, ‘thereby were opened the eyes of the elect of God to see the truth and abhor the papistical abominations.’[310] This abhorrence might possibly drive them to deplorable excesses, an instance of which we are soon to see.
There were at Perth, on the left bank of the pleasant river Tay, some friends of the Reformation. Endowed for the most part with genuine piety, they held meetings, read the Holy Scriptures together, searched out their meaning, and gave or listened to the exposition of them.[311]
They had also at times simple social meals together. Certain priests of the town, with whom they were connected, and whose character they esteemed without sharing their opinions, were invited to these gatherings. The churchmen ate, drank, and talked with them, and thought themselves fortunate to be invited to these honest men’s houses.[312] This circumstance shows a large-heartedness among these Christian folk of Perth, which could see and appreciate whatever good qualities their adversaries possessed. They did not, however, tie themselves down to the Roman rules about meat-days and fish-days, rules from which exemption may be had for a little money: and one Friday it happened that a goose appeared on their table.
Three of these people, Robert Lamb, William Anderson, and James Raveleson, daring characters and given to raillery, were among those who were taken up with Reform on its negative side. They were disgusted at the abuses of the monastic life, and the Franciscans most of all offended them. The sight of one of these mendicant friars in the street, with his brown frock, his girdle of cord, his cowl, and his bare feet, excited in them the keenest aversion. ‘These monks,’ as has been said by a very distinguished Catholic priest, ‘feign chastity, but they know what voluptuousness is, and they often outdo men of the world in luxurious indulgence.’[313] And yet these monks pretend that all that is needed for salvation is to put on a frock of their order at the moment of death. In the judgment of Anderson and of his two friends, the founder of that order, who was nevertheless a better man than most of his successors, must have been the devil himself. They took therefore an image of Francis of Assisi, nailed rams’ horns on the head and hung a cow’s tail behind, and having thus given to it the semblance of a demon, they hung it. The Scots are not jesters by nature. They are on the contrary earnest and energetic towards those whom they oppose; and this blameworthy execution was carried out by these three men with imperturbable gravity.[314]
RAVELESON AND LAMB.
Among these reformed Christians of Perth there were some manifestations of opinion characterized by simplicity and decision, which however occasionally took a strange shape. One of the women who frequented the evangelical meetings, Hellen Stirke, was near her confinement, and in her hour of travail, when surrounded by female friends and neighbors, all of them fervent worshippers of the Virgin Mary, she called upon God and upon God alone in the name of Jesus Christ. The women said to her—‘You ought to call upon the Virgin. Is not Mary immaculate as Christ is, and even above him as first source of redemption? Is she not the queen of heaven, the head of the church?’ The Franciscan friars were continually impressing on the minds of these good women the notion that no one could obtain a blessing from God ‘except by the dispensation of his pious mother.’[315] Hellen revered Mary as a holy and blessed woman, but she held her to be of the same nature as other women, and she told her neighbors so. It was of his mercy, as Mary herself said, that God had looked upon the low estate of his servant. That her friends might better understand her meaning, she boldly added, ‘If I had lived in the days of the Virgin, God might have looked likewise to my humility and base estate, as he did to the Virgin’s, and might have made me the mother of Christ.’[316] The women about her could not believe their own ears, and her words, reported in the town by her neighbors, were counted execrable in the judgment of the clergy and of the multitude.
If St. Francis was Anderson’s nightmare, the pope was Raveleson’s. But the latter gave expression to his sentiments in a less insulting fashion. When he had built a house of four stories, he placed at the top of his staircase, by way of ornament, over the last baluster and the supporting tablet which masked it, the triple diadem of the pope, carved in wood. This was not a very criminal act: a good papist might have done the like. But Raveleson, doubtless, meant to show thereby that in his house the pope was consigned to the top story. Be that as it may, he paid dear for it.
These Protestants of Perth were certainly originals, of which not many copies were to be found. There were some of them, however, who were free from these eccentricities while displaying no less courage. On one occasion, when a monk named Spence very loudly asserted in the church that ‘prayer made to saints is so necessary that without it there could be no hope of salvation to man,’ Robert Lamb rose and accused him before the whole assembly of teaching false doctrines. ‘In the name of God,’ said he, ‘I adjure you to speak the truth.’ The friar, stricken with fear, promised to do so; but there was so much excitement and tumult in the church that the monk could not make himself heard, and Robert, at the peril of his life, barely escaped the violence of the people. The women, above all, uttered piercing screams, and urged on the multitude to the most cruel actions.[317]
THE PERTH PROTESTANTS.
The cardinal, in January, 1544, seeing that his authority was firmly established, thought that the time was come for suppressing the Reformation and glorifying the pope. Having heard of what was going on at Perth, he set out for that place, taking with him the regent, some of the chief lords, bishops, and judges. When he reached Perth on St. Paul’s day, January 19, he ordered the seizure of Robert Lamb, William Anderson, James Hunter, James Raveleson, James Finlason, and Hellen Stirke his wife,[318] and had them imprisoned the same evening in the Spay Tower.
On the following morning the prisoners appeared before their judge. They were accused on several grounds, and particularly of having met together to hear the Holy Scriptures read. A special charge was made against Lamb of having interrupted a friar. ‘It is the duty of no man,’ he answered, ‘who understands and knows the truth to hear the same impugned without contradiction. There are sundry here present in judgment who, while they know what is true, are consenting to what is false; but they will have to bear the burden in God’s presence.’[319] The six prisoners were condemned to death, and were cruelly treated. Many of the inhabitants of Perth were deeply interested in their case, and appealed to the regent to save their lives. But when Arran spoke a word to the cardinal in their behalf, the latter replied, ‘If you refuse to take part in the execution of this sentence, I will depose you.’ Arran trembled, and held his peace.
The friends of the victims, then, remembering that certain priests in the town had frequently sat at the tables of the accused, entreated them to bear in mind their old friends who were then in misfortune, and to intercede with the cardinal in their behalf. But these poor priests were terrified at the thought that the cardinal might hear of their former relations with the condemned, and they answered that they would much rather see them dead than living. That was their way of showing their gratitude. So the chronicler, whose phrase is not always elegant, adds, ‘So cruel are these beasts, from the lowest to the highest.’
Agitation was increasing in the town. The cardinal had ready a great band of armed men, who were charged to conduct the victims to the place of execution. Robert Lamb, standing at the foot of the gallows, said to the people, ‘Fear God, and forsake the pope.’ Then he announced that calamity and ruin would not be slow to light upon the cardinal.[320] The five Christians comforted one another with the hope ‘that they should sup together in the kingdom of heaven that night.’
Hellen desired earnestly to die with her husband, but this was not permitted her. At the moment of their parting she gave him a kiss and said, ‘Husband, rejoice, for we have lived together many joyful days; but this day in which we must die ought to be most joyful unto us both, because we must have joy forever. Therefore I will not bid you good-night, for we shall suddenly meet with joy in the kingdom of heaven.’ She was then taken to a pond to be drowned. She was holding her infant in her arms and giving it suck for the last time. But this pathetic incident did not touch the pitiless hearts of her executioners. She had entreated her neighbors to take care of her children. She took the ‘sucking bairn’ from her breast and gave it to the nurse, and was then flung into the water. The cardinal was satisfied.[321]
From Perth the cardinal passed into Forfarshire, always dragging along with him the unhappy regent. Many inhabitants of that region appeared before him for having committed the hateful crime of reading the New Testament. Among them was a Dominican named John Rogers, a man of piety and learning, who, by preaching Christ in Forfarshire, had led many souls into peace. He was confined with others in the castle of St. Andrews, and a few days later his dead body was found at the foot of the walls. It was very generally believed that the cardinal had ordered him to be put to death in his dungeon, and to be thrown over the walls. A report was then circulated that the prisoner, in attempting to escape, had fallen on the rocks and been killed. A considerable number of Scots, among them Sir Henry Elder, John Elder, Walter Piper, Lawrence Pullar, and others were banished, merely on suspicion of having read the Gospel.[322]
THE ENGLISH FLEET AT LEITH.
The cardinal now returned to Edinburgh, and took the regent with him. He was perfectly satisfied with his campaign, and was meditating fresh exploits of the same kind, when, at the very moment of his saying ‘Peace and security,’ a fleet appeared at sea. Messengers came suddenly to announce to the regent and the cardinal that a multitude of vessels were entering the Firth of Forth, and were making for Leith and Edinburgh. ‘It is the English,’ said most people, ‘and it is greatly to be feared that they will land.’ The cardinal dissembled his anxiety, affected to smile and to jest, and said, with a contemptuous air, ‘It is but the island fleet; they are come to make us a show and to put us in fear. I shall lodge the men-of-war in my eye that shall land in Scotland.’[323] Then he went to his dinner-table, and talked with every one as though no danger were threatening. All Edinburgh was eager to gaze on the wonderful vessels, and great crowds assembled for that purpose on the castle hill and on the heights near the town. ‘But what then can it all mean?’ people said to one another. By a little after six o’clock in the evening more than two hundred ships had cast anchor in Leith roads. The admiral had a ship’s boat launched, which began carefully to take soundings from Granton craigs to East Leith. All sensible men understood what it meant, but if any one of them uttered what he thought, the clerics shrugged their shoulders. All men went to bed, just as if those ships had brought their broadsides to bear for the defence of the sleepers.
At daybreak on Sunday, May 4, Lord Lisle, who was in command of the fleet, ordered the disembarkation. The pinnaces and other small vessels approached as near as they could to the shore, while the larger vessels discharged their men into the long-boats, and so they got to land. By ten o’clock the operation was completed, and the spectators from Edinburgh beheld, to their great astonishment, more than ten thousand men under arms. The cardinal and the regent, dropping their false show of calmness, appeared now very much alarmed, and, forgetting their ridiculous bluster and bragging, jumped into a carriage and fled as fast as their horses could carry them. They did not halt till they had put twenty miles of country between them and the danger which frightened them. Before starting they had given orders, for the purpose of pacifying the English, that the earl of Angus, Sir George Douglas, and two other lords, advocates of the English alliance, who had been cast into prison at Blackness, should be set at liberty. This was done that night, and Sir George said, merrily, ‘I thank King Henry and my gentle masters of England.’[324]
The troops which had landed entered Leith, under the command of the earl of Hertford, between twelve and one o’clock, after having dispersed a small body of men which resisted them. As they found dinner ready in all the houses, and the tables loaded with wines and victuals, they sat down and refreshed themselves. On Monday, May 5, two thousand English horsemen came from Berwick to reinforce the infantry, and the whole army, after taking one day’s rest, forced the gates of Edinburgh on Wednesday and entered the town. People called to mind the terrible threats of Henry VIII. The town was first pillaged and then burnt. The palace of Holyrood, Leith and the environs shared the same fate. The English were not able to take the castle, and after having satiated themselves with pillage, burning, and eating, they carried off their plunder to the ships. The English army returned to their own country by way of Berwick, sacking and burning Haddington and Dunbar, castles, country seats, and all the districts through which they passed. The army had lost only forty men.[325]
Henry VIII. had entertained the vastest projects. His aims were that Scotland should renounce the French alliance; that the queen should be placed in his own household; that the title of elector of the kingdom should be given to him; that Lennox should be named regent in the place of Arran; and that the Word of God should be preached, of course in his own way. This appears from the instructions given by himself to the governors of the marches.[326] But he felt it necessary to postpone his scheme, and to content himself with the chastisement inflicted on the capital. We have to encounter facts such as these in the history of every people and of all ages. It is impossible to narrate or to read them without horror. Happily, Scotland at this epoch offers to our notice facts of a quite different kind, which are within the province of Christian civilization.
CHAPTER XIV.
WISHART: HIS MINISTRY AND HIS MARTYRDOM.
(Summer of 1544-March, 1546.)
GEORGE WISHART.
In the summer of 1544, shortly after the events of which we have just spoken, a pious man, George Wishart, returned from England to Scotland. He was a brother of the laird of Pittarow, in the county of Mearns. While at Montrose, in 1538, he had read the Greek New Testament with several youths whom he was educating, and had been cited by the bishop of Brechin to appear before him. Wishart had then retired to Cambridge, and there he devoted himself to study for six years. In 1544, the Scottish commissioners who came into England respecting the treaty with Henry VIII. took him back with them, to Scotland. He went first to Montrose, his old abode, and thence to Dundee, where he wished to preach the Word of God. His personal appearance was entirely prepossessing. He was amiable, unassuming, polite. His chief delight was to learn and to teach. He was tall; his black hair was cut short, his beard was long. His physiognomy was indicative of a somewhat melancholy temperament. He wore a French cap of the best material, a gown which fell to his heels, and a black doublet. There was about his whole person an air of decorum and grace. He spoke with modesty and with great seriousness. He slept on straw, and his charity had no end, night nor day. He loved all men. He gave gifts, consolation, assistance: he was studious of all means of doing good to all and hurt to none. He distributed periodically among the poor various articles of clothing, always ‘saving his French cap, which he kept the whole year of my being with him,’ says the Cambridge student who drew this portrait of Wishart just before the latter set out for Scotland.[327]
Wishart’s reputation having preceded him, a multitude of hearers gathered about him at Dundee. He expounded in a connected series of discourses the doctrine of salvation, according to the Epistle to the Romans, and his knowledge and eloquence excited general admiration. But the priests declared everywhere that if he were allowed to go on, the Roman system must inevitably fall to the ground. They therefore sought the assistance of an influential layman, Robert Mill, who had once professed the truth, but had since forsaken it. One day, just as Wishart was finishing his discourse, Mill rose in the church and forbade him in the queen’s name and the regent’s to trouble them any more. Wishart was silent for awhile, with his eyes turned heavenward, and then looking sorrowfully on the assembly he said—‘God is witness that I never minded [intended] your trouble, but your comfort. But I am assured that to refuse God’s Word and to chase from you his messenger shall not preserve you from trouble, but shall bring you into it. I have offered unto you the word of salvation, and with the hazard of my life I have remained among you. But and [if] trouble unlooked for apprehend you, turn to God, for He is merciful. But if ye turn not at the first he will visit you with fire and sword.’ When he had thus spoken, he came down from the pulpit and went away at once into the western part of Scotland.[328]
HIS PREACHING.
Having arrived at Ayr, he preached there to large numbers of people who gladly received his words. Dunbar, bishop of Glasgow, as soon as he was informed of it, hastened to the town with a body of men and took possession of the church in order to prevent Wishart from preaching. The reformer’s friends were indignant at this step. The earl of Glencairn, the laird of Loch Norris,[329] and several gentlemen of Kyle went to Wishart and offered to get possession of the church and to place him in the pulpit. ‘No,’ said the evangelist, wisely, ‘the bishop’s sermon will not much hurt: let us go to the market-cross.’ They did so, and he there preached with so much energy and animation that some of his hearers, who were enemies of the truth till that day, received it gladly. Meanwhile the bishop was in the church with a very small audience. There was hardly anyone to hear him but some vestry attendants and some poor dependents. They were expecting a sermon, but he had forgotten to put one in his pocket. He made them the best excuse he could. ‘Hold us still for your bishop,’ he said, ‘and we shall provide better the next time.’ He then with haste departed from the town, not a little ashamed of his enterprise.[330]
Wishart persevered in his work, and his reputation spread all around. The men of Mauchlin came and asked him to preach the Gospel to them on the following Sunday. But the sheriff of Ayr heard of it, and sent a body of men in the night to post themselves about the church. ‘We will enter by force,’ said Hugh Campbell to Wishart. ‘Brother,’ replied the evangelist, ‘it is the word of peace which God sends by me; the blood of no man shall be shed this day for the preaching of it. I find that Christ Jesus oftener preached in the desert, at the seaside, and other places judged profane, than he did in the temple of Jerusalem.’ He then withdrew to the country, saying to the people who followed him that the Saviour was ‘as potent upon the fields as in the kirk.’ He climbed up a dike raised on the edge of the moorland, and there, in the fair warm day, preached for more than three hours. One man present, Lawrence Ranken, laird of Shield, who had previously led a wicked life, was impressed by what he heard. ‘The tears ran from his eyes in such abundance that all men wondered.’[331] Converted by that discourse, the laird of Shield gave evidence in his whole after-life that his conversion was genuine. Wishart preached with like success in the whole district. The harvest was great, says one historian.
The reformer heard on a sudden that the plague had broken out at Dundee four days after he left the town, and that it was raging cruelly. He resolved instantly to go there. ‘They are now in trouble and they need comfort,’ he said to those who would fain hold him back: ‘perchance this hand of God will make them now to magnify and reverence that word which before, for the fear of men, they set at light part.’
He reached Dundee in August, 1544, and announced the same morning that he would preach. It was necessary to keep apart the plague-stricken from those who were in health, and for that purpose he took his station at the east gate of the town. Those who were in health had their place within the city, and those who were sick remained without. Such a distribution of an audience was surely never seen before! Wishart opened the Bible and read these words—‘He sent his word and healed them.’ (Ps. cvii. 20.) ‘The mercy of God,’ said he, ‘is prompt to fall on all such as truly turn to Him, and the malice of men can neither eik nor pair [add to nor diminish] his gentle visitation.’[332]—‘We do not fear death,’ said some of his hearers; ‘nay, we judge them more happy that should depart, than such as should remain behind.’ That east gate of Dundee (Cowgate) was left standing in memory of Wishart when the town walls were taken down at the close of the eighteenth century, and it is still carefully preserved.
Wishart was not satisfied with speech alone, he personally visited the sick, fearlessly exposing himself to infection in the most extreme cases. He took care that the sick should have what they needed, and the poor were as well provided for as the rich.
The town was in great distress lest the mouth from which so much sweetness flowed should be closed.
ATTEMPT TO MURDER WISHART.
Nevertheless, at the cardinal’s instigation, says Knox, a priest named Wighton took a sword, and concealing it under his gown mixed with the crowd as if he were a mere hearer, and stood waiting at the foot of the steps by which Wishart must come down. The discourse was finished, the people dispersed. Wishart, whose glance was keen and whose judgment was swift, noticed as he came down the steps a priest who kept his hand under his gown, and as soon as he came near him he said, ‘My friend, what would ye do?’ At the same moment he laid hold of the priest’s hand and snatched the weapon from him. The assassin fell at his feet and confessed his fault. Swiftly ran the report that a priest had attempted to kill the reformer, and the sick who heard it turned back and cried, ‘Deliver the traitor to us, or else we will take him by force.’ And so indeed they rushed on him. But Wishart put his arms round the assassin. ‘Whosoever troubles him,’ said he, ‘shall trouble me, for he has hurt me in nothing.’ His friends however insisted that for the future one of them, in arms, should accompany him whithersoever he went.[333]
When the plague had ceased at Dundee, Wishart thought that, as God had put an end to that battle, he called him to another. It was indeed proposed that he should hold a public disputation. He inquired of the bishops where he should be heard. But first he went to Montrose ‘to salute the kirk there,’ and although sometimes preaching the Gospel, he was ‘most part in secret meditation, in the which he was so earnest that night and day he would continue in it.’[334]
HIS NIGHT OF PRAYER.
While there he received a letter purporting to be written by his friend the laird of Kynneir, who being sick desired him to come to him.[335] It was a trick of the cardinal. Sixty armed horsemen were lying in wait behind a hill to take him prisoner. He set out unsuspecting, but when he had gone some distance, he suddenly stopped in the midst of the friends who were accompanying him and seemed absorbed in deep musing. Then he turned and went back. What mean you?’ said his friends, wondering. ‘I will go no further,’ he replied: ‘I am forbidden of God. I am assured there is treason.’ Pointing to the hill he added, ‘Let some of you go to yon place, and tell me what they find.’ These brave men reported with all speed what they saw. ‘I know,’ said he, ‘that I shall end my life in that bloodthirsty man’s hands, but it will not be of this manner.’ Shortly after, he set out for Edinburgh in spite of the entreaties of the laird of Dundee, and went to lodge at Innergowrie at the house of a Christian man named James Watson. A little after midnight two men of good credit who were in the house, William Spalding and John Watson, heard him open his door and go down stairs. They followed him secretly, and saw him go into the garden and walk for some time up and down an alley. Wishart, persuaded that he was drawing near to his end, and thinking of the horrors of martyrdom and of his own weakness, was greatly agitated and felt the need of calling upon God that he might not fail in the midst of the conflict. He was heard sighing and groaning, and just as day began to dawn, he was seen to fall on his knees and afterwards on his face. For a whole hour his two friends heard confused sounds of his prayer, interrupted now and then by his tears. At length he seemed to grow quiet and to have found rest for his soul. He rose and went quietly back to his chamber. In the morning his anxious friends began to ask him where he had been. He evaded the question. ‘Be plain with us,’ they said, ‘for we heard your groans, yea, we heard your mourning, and saw you both upon your knees and upon your face.’—‘I had rather ye had been in your beds,’ said he, ‘for I was scarce well occupied.’ And as they urged him, he spoke to them of his approaching death and of his need of God’s help. They were much saddened and wept. Wishart said to them—‘God shall send you comfort after me. This realm shall be illuminated with the light of Christ’s Evangel as clearly as ever was any realm since the days of the apostles. The house of God shall be built into it: yea, it shall not want, whatsoever the enemy imagine to the contrary, the very cape-stone’ [top-stone].[336] Meaning, adds Knox, that the house of God should there be brought to full perfection. Wishart went on—‘Neither shall this be long to; there shall not many suffer after me, till that the glory of God shall evidently appear and shall once triumph in despite of Satan. But alas! if the people shall be afterwards unthankful, then fearful and terrible shall the plagues be that after shall follow.’ Wishart soon after went into the Lothians, i. e. into the shires of Linlithgow, Edinburgh, and Haddington.
A man like Wishart assuredly belongs to the history of the Reformation. But there is another motive leading us to narrate these circumstances. The great reformer of Scotland was trained in the school of Wishart. Among those who followed the latter from place to place as he preached the Gospel was John Knox. He had left St. Andrews because he could not endure either the superstition of the Romish system or the cardinal’s despotism, and having betaken himself to the south of Scotland he had been for some time tutor in the family of Douglas of Langniddrie. He had openly professed the evangelical doctrine, and the clergy in their wrath had declared him a heretic and deprived him of the priesthood. Knox, attracted by the preaching and the life of Wishart, attached himself to him and became his beloved disciple. In addition to his public discourses, to which he listened with eager attention, he received also instructions in private. He undertook for Wishart a duty which was full of danger, but which he discharged joyfully. During Wishart’s evangelical excursions he kept watch for the safety of his person, and bore the sword which his friends had provided after the attempt of the Dundee priest to assassinate him. Knox was soon to bear another sword, the sword of the Spirit, like his master.
HIS PREACHING.
The earl of Cassilis and some other friends of Wishart had appointed to meet him at Leith, and as that town is very near Edinburgh, they had advised him not to show himself until their arrival. After awaiting them for a day or two he fell into a deep melancholy. ‘What differ I from a dead man,’ said he, ‘except that I eat and drink? To this time God has used my labors to the disclosing of darkness, and now I lurk as a man that was ashamed and durst not show himself before men.’—‘You know,’ said his friends, ‘the danger wherein ye stand.’ ‘Let my God,’ he replied, ‘provide for me as best pleases him.’ On the following Sunday, fifteen days before Christmas, he preached on the parable of the sower.[337] From Leith he went to Brownston, Langniddrie and Ormiston, and preached on the Sunday both morning and afternoon at Inveresk to a large concourse of people. Two Franciscan friars came and stood by the church door, and whispered something to those who were going in to turn them back. Wishart observing this said to some who were near the pulpit, ‘I heartily pray you to make room to these two men; it may be that they be come to learn.’ Then addressing the monks he said, ‘Come near, for I assure you ye shall hear the word of verity, which shall either seal unto you this same day your salvation or your condemnation.’ He continued his discourse, but the two friars, who had taken up their places, did not cease whispering right and left, and troubling all that stood near them. Wishart turned sharply to them and said—‘O sergeants of Satan, and deceivers of the souls of men, will ye neither hear God’s truth nor suffer others to hear it? Depart, and take this for your portion; God shall shortly confound and disclose your hypocrisy within this realm; ye shall be abominable unto men, and your places and habitations shall be desolate.’ He then resumed his sermon, and preached with so much power that Sir George Douglas, brother of the earl of Angus, who was present at the meeting, said publicly after the sermon, ‘I know that my lord governor and my lord cardinal shall hear that I have been at this preaching (for they were then in Edinburgh). Say unto them that I will avow it, and will not only maintain the doctrine that I have heard, but also the person of the teacher to the uttermost of my power.’ Those who were present greatly rejoiced at these words, spoken by so influential a man. As for Wishart, it was enough for him to know that God keeps his own people for the end to which he calls them.[338] He preached in other places to large numbers, and with all the more fervor for his persuasion and assertion that the day of his death was at hand.
After Christmas he passed into Haddingtonshire. The cardinal, hearing of his purpose, had informed the earl of Bothwell, who immediately let it be known, both in the town and in the country, that no one was to go and hear that heretic under pain of his displeasure. The prohibition of this powerful lord had its effect. The first day there was a large gathering to hear Wishart, but the next day his audience was very small. A new trial now came to afflict him. His friends in western Scotland had promised to come to Edinburgh to discuss with him the means of advancing the cause of the Gospel. Now on the third day after his arrival in Haddingtonshire, when he had already entered the church and was about to go into the pulpit, a messenger approached and handed him a letter. He opened it. His friends at Ayr and other places wrote to tell him that certain obstacles prevented them from fulfilling their promises. Struck with sorrow, ‘he called for John Knox, who had waited upon him carefully from the time he came to Lothian.’[339] ‘I am wearied of the world,’ said he, ‘for I perceive that men begin to be weary of God.’ Knox wondered that Wishart should enter into conversation with him before sermon, which he was never accustomed to do, and said to him, ‘Sir, the time of sermon approaches, I will leave you for the present to your meditations.’ He then took the letter and withdrew.
HIS LAST SERMON.
Wishart, left to himself, began to walk about slowly at the back of the high altar. He paced to and fro, sadness depicted on his countenance, and everything about him revealing the deep grief that was in his soul. This lasted about half an hour. At length he passed into the pulpit. The audience was small, as it had been the day before. He had not power to treat the subject which he had proposed: his heart was too full, and he must needs unburden it before God. ‘O Lord,’ said he, ‘how long shall it be that thy holy Word shall be despised and men shall not regard their own salvation? I have heard of thee, Haddington, that in thee would have been at a vain clerk-play two or three thousand people, and now to hear the messenger of the eternal God, of all the town or parish cannot be numbered one hundred persons. Sore and fearful shall the plagues be that shall ensue this thy contempt, with fire and sword shalt thou be plagued. And that because ye have not known nor will not know the time of God’s merciful visitation.’ After saying these words he made a short paraphrase of the second table of the law. He exhorted to patience, to the fear of God, and to works of mercy; and impressed by the presentiment that this was the last time he should publicly preach, he made (so to speak) his last testament, declaring that the spirit of truth and judgment were both in his heart and on his lips.[340]
He quitted the church, bade farewell to his friends, and then prepared to leave the town. ‘I will not leave you alone,’ said Knox to him. But Wishart, who had his approaching end constantly before his eyes, said—‘Nay, return to your bairns [his pupils], and God bless you. One is sufficient for a sacrifice.’ He then compelled Knox to give up the sword, and parted with him. The laird of Ormiston, who was at the time with Wishart, had invited him to his house in the country. They set out on their journey with several gentlemen of the neighborhood. The cold was severe, and they therefore travelled on foot. While at supper Wishart spoke of the death of God’s children. Then he said with a cheerful smile—‘Methinks that I desire earnestly to sleep. We’ll sing a psalm.’ He chose Psalm li., and struck up the tune himself:—‘Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness.’ As soon as the psalm was ended, he went to his chamber and to bed.
ARREST OF WISHART.
A little before midnight a troop of armed men silently approached, surrounded the house that no one might escape, and demanded Wishart. But neither promises nor threats could induce Ormiston to deliver up his guest. They then went for the earl of Bothwell, the most powerful lord of that region. Bothwell came, and said to the laird—‘It is but vain to make him to hold his house, for the governor and the cardinal with all their power are coming. But and if you will deliver the man unto me, I will promise upon my honor that he shall be safe and sound, and that it shall pass the power of the cardinal to do him any harm or scathe.’ Ormiston, confiding in this promise, told Wishart what had occurred. ‘Open the gates,’ replied he, immediately; ‘the blessed will of my God be done.’ Bothwell entered, with several gentlemen who accompanied him. Wishart said to him, ‘I praise my God that so honorable a man as you, my lord, receives me this night in the presence of these noblemen; for now I am assured that, for your honor’s sake, ye will suffer nothing to be done unto me besides the order of law.’ The earl replied—‘I shall preserve your body from all violence, neither shall the governor nor cardinal have their will over you: but I shall retain you in my own hands till that either I shall make you free or else restore you in the same place where I receive you.’ Immediately after giving this promise, the earl set out with Wishart for Elphinston. The cardinal, bent on getting possession of Wishart’s friends, sent five hundred horsemen to Ormiston to seize the laird, together with the lairds of Brownston and Calder. Brownston fled through the woods, but the other two were carried off to Edinburgh castle. Wishart was removed to the strong castle of Hailes on the banks of the Tyne, the principal mansion of Bothwell in the Lothians.[341]
That did not satisfy the cardinal, who wanted Wishart more than all. The queen-mother, Mary of Guise, who was not on friendly terms with Bothwell, promised him her support if he would give up the evangelist. The cardinal, on his part, ‘gave gold, and that largely.’ ‘Gold and women have corrupted all worldly and fleshly men from the beginning,’ says Knox.[342] The earl raised some objections: ‘but an effeminate man,’adds Knox, ‘cannot long withstand the assaults of a gracious queen.’ Wishart was first taken to Edinburgh castle, and at the end of January, 1546, the regent gave him up to the cardinal, who confined him at St. Andrews, in the sea tower. The assistance of a civil judge was, it seems, necessary to give validity to the judgment. The cardinal requested one of Arran, but one of the regent’s councillors, Hamilton of Preston, said to him—‘What, will you deliver up to wicked men those whose uprightness is acknowledged even by their enemies? Will you put to death those who are guilty of no more crime than that of preaching the Gospel of Christ? What ingratitude towards God!’
The regent consequently wrote to the cardinal that he would not consent that any hurt should be done to that man without a careful investigation of his cause. The cardinal, on receiving this letter, flew into a violent passion. ‘It was only for civility’s sake,’ said he, ‘that I made the request. I and my clergy have the power in ourselves to inflict on Wishart the chastisement which he deserves.’ He invited the archbishop of Glasgow, and all bishops and other dignitaries of the Church, to assemble at St. Andrews on February 27 to consult on the matter, although it was already decided in his own mind.’[343]
The next day the dean of St. Andrews went to the prison where Wishart was confined, and summoned him in the cardinal’s name to appear before the judges on the morrow. ‘What needed,’ replied the prisoner, ‘my lord cardinal to summon me to answer for my doctrine openly before him, under whose power and dominion I am thus straitly bound in irons? May not my lord compel me to answer to his extorted power?’ On March 1 the cardinal ordered all the household servants of his palace to put themselves under arms. The civil power, it is remembered, had refused to take part in the proceedings, and therefore Beatoun took its place. His men at once equipped themselves with lances, swords, axes, knapsacks, and other warlike array. It might have been thought that some military action was in hand, rather than a gathering of priests who assumed to busy themselves about God’s Church. These armed champions, putting themselves in marching order, first escorted the bishops with great ceremony to the abbey church, and then went for Wishart. The governor of the castle put himself at the head of the band, and so they led the prisoner ‘like a lamb to sacrifice.’ As he entered the door of the abbey church he threw his purse to a poor infirm man lying there, and at length he stood in the presence of the numerous and brilliant assembly. To invest the proceedings with due formality, Beatoun had caused two platforms to be erected, facing each other. Wishart was set on one of them, and the accuser, Lauder, took his place on the other. The dean, Winryme,[344] then appeared in the pulpit. This worthy churchman, who was charged to deliver the customary sermon, was secretly a friend to the Gospel. He read the parable of the ‘good seed’ and the tares (Matt. xiii. 24-30), and set forth various pious considerations which told more against the judges than against the accused, and which the latter heard with pleasure. Winryme concluded, however, by saying that the tares were heresy, and that heretics ought to be put down in this life by the civil magistrate; yet in the passage he was treating stood the words, ‘Let both grow together until the harvest.’ It remained to ascertain which were heretics, the judges or the accused.[345]
PREPARATIONS FOR HIS TRIAL.
When the sermon was ended, the bishops ordered Wishart to stand up on his platform to hear the accusation. Then rose the accuser, John Lauder, a priest whom the chronicler calls a monster, and, facing Wishart, unrolled a long paper full of threatenings and devilish maledictions, and, addressing the guiltless evangelist in cruel words, hurled pitilessly at him all the thunders of the papacy. The ignorant crowd who heard him, expected to see the earth open and swallow the unhappy reformer; but he remained quiet, and listened with great patience and without a change of countenance to the violent accusations of his adversary. When Lauder had finished reading at the top of his voice the threatening indictment, he turned to Wishart, his face ‘all running down with sweat,’ says the chronicler, ‘and frothing at the mouth like a boar, he spat at Mr. George’s face, saying, What answerest thou to these sayings, thou renegade, traitor, and thief, which we have duly proved by sufficient witness against thee?’[346]
Wishart knelt down and prayed for the help of God. Then rising, he made answer with all sweetness—‘My lords, I pray you quietly to hear me, so that instead of condemning me unjustly, to the great peril of your souls, you may know that I have taught the pure Word of God, and that you may receive it yourselves as the source from which health and life shall spring forth for you. In Dundee I taught the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, and shall show your discretions faithfully what fashion and manner I used when I taught, without any human dread....’
At these words the accuser interrupted him, and cried with all his might, ‘Thou heretic, renegade, traitor, and thief, it was not lawful for thee to preach, ... and we forethink that thou hast been a preacher too long.’ Then all the prelates, terrified at the thought that he was going to set before that vast audience the very substance and pith of his teaching, said one to another, ‘He is so crafty, and in Holy Scriptures so exercised, that he will persuade the people to his own opinion and raise them against us.’ Wishart, perceiving that he had no chance of a fair hearing before that ecclesiastical court, said, ‘I appeal from my lord cardinal to my lord the governor.’ ‘What,’ replied Lauder, ‘is not my lord cardinal the second person within this realm, chancellor of Scotland, archbishop of St. Andrews, bishop of Mirepoix [in Languedoc], commendator of Arbroath, legatus natus, legatus a latere ...?’ He recited so many titles, says the chronicler, that you might have laden a ship with them, much sooner an ass.[347] ‘Whom desirest thou to be thy judge?’ cried Lauder.
THE TRIAL.
Wishart replied with meekness, ‘I refuse not my lord cardinal, but I desire the Word of God to be my judge, and the temporal estate, with some of your lordships mine auditory; because I am here my lord governor’s prisoner.’ But the priests mocked him, saying, ‘Such man, such judge!’ According to them, the laymen who might have been appointed his judges were heretics also, like him.
The cardinal, without further delay, was going to have sentence of condemnation passed; but some who stood by counselled him to read the articles of accusation, and to permit Wishart to answer to them, in order that the people might not be able to say that he was condemned without a hearing.
Lauder therefore began—‘Thou, false heretic, renegade, traitor, and thief, deceiver of the people, despisest the holy Church’s, and in like case contemnest my lord governor’s authority; for when thou preachedst in Dundee, and wert charged by my lord governor’s authority to desist, thou wouldst not obey, but perseveredst in the same. Therefore the bishop of Brechin cursed thee, and delivered thee into the hands of the devil, and gave thee in commandment that thou shouldst preach no more; yet notwithstanding thou didst continue obstinately.’
Wishart: ‘My lords, I have read in the Acts of the Apostles that it is not lawful for the threatenings and menaces of men to desist from the preaching of the Evangel.’
Lauder: ‘Thou, false heretic, didst say that a priest standing at the altar saying mass was like a fox wagging his tail in July.’[348]
Wishart: ‘My lords, I said not so. These were my sayings: the moving of the body outward, without the inward moving of the heart, is nought else but the playing of an ape, and not the true serving of God.’
Lauder: ‘Thou false heretic, traitor, and thief, thou saidst that the sacrament of the altar was but a piece of bread baken upon the ashes.’
Wishart: ‘I once chanced to meet with a Jew when I was sailing upon the water of the Rhine. By prophecies and many other testimonies of the Scriptures I approved that the Messiah was come, the which they called Jesus of Nazareth. He answered, You adore and worship a piece of bread baken upon the ashes, and say that is your God. I have rehearsed here but the sayings of the Jew, which I never affirmed to be true.’ At these words the bishops shook their heads, spitting on the ground and crying out, and showed in all ways that they would not hear him.
Lauder: ‘Thou, false heretic and renegade, hast said that every layman is a priest, and that the pope hath no more power than another man.’
Wishart: ‘I have read in some places of St. John and St. Peter, of the which one sayeth, He hath made us kings and priests; the other sayeth, He hath made us the kingly priesthood. Wherefore I have affirmed any man, being cunning and perfect in the Word of God and the true faith of Jesus Christ, to have his power given him of God. And again I say, any unlearned man, and not exercised in the Word of God, nor yet constant in his faith, whatsoever estate or order he be of, hath no power to bind nor to loose.’[349]
These words greatly amused the assembly; the reverends and the most reverends burst out laughing, mocking Wishart, and calling him an imbecile. The notion that a layman should have a power which the holy father had not seemed to them the very height of madness. ‘Laugh ye, my lords?’ said the messenger of Christ. ‘Though that these my sayings appear scornful and worthy of derision to your lordships, nevertheless they are very weighty unto me and of great value, because they stand not only upon my life but also the honor and glory of God.’
Some pious men who were in the assembly were indignant at the madness of the prelates and affected by the invincible patience of Wishart. But others cried aloud, ‘Wherefore let we him speak any further?’ A man named John Scot, who stood behind Lauder, said to him. ‘Tarry not upon his witty and godly answers, for we may not abide them, no more nor the devil may abide the sign of the cross when it is named.’[350] There was no due form of trial, nor any freedom of discussion, says Buchanan, but a great din of voices, shouts of disapprobation, and hateful speeches. The accuser thundered from his platform, but that was all.[351] The bishops unanimously pronounced that the pious Wishart must be burnt. Falling on his knees, Wishart prayed and said—‘O immortal God, how long shalt thou suffer the wodness [madness] and great cruelty of the ungodly to exercise their fury upon thy servants which do further thy Word in this world. O Lord, we know surely that thy true servants must needs suffer persecution for thy name’s sake, affliction and troubles in this present life which is but a shadow; but yet we desire thee, merciful Father, that thou defend thy congregation which thou hast chosen before the beginning of the world.’
THE SENTENCE.
The sentence must be pronounced, but the bishops were afraid to pronounce it before the people. They therefore gave orders to have the church cleared, and this could only be done slowly, as many of the people who had a wish to hear Wishart were removed with difficulty. At length, when the prelates and their colleagues found themselves almost alone, sentence of death was passed on Wishart, and the cardinal ordered his guards to take him back to the castle. Confined in the governor’s room, he spent the greater part of the night in prayer. The next morning the bishops sent to him two friars who asked him if he did not want a confessor. ‘I will make no confession unto you,’ he answered; ‘go and fetch me yonder man that preached yesterday, and I will make my confession unto him.’ When Winryme was come, they talked together for some time. Then the dean said, ‘Have you a wish to receive the sacrament of the supper?’ ‘Assuredly,’ replied Wishart, ‘if it be administered according to the institution of the Lord, with the bread and the wine.’ Winryme then went to the cardinal and declared to him that the man was innocent. Beatoun, inflamed with anger, said, ‘And you, we have long known what you are!’ Winryme having inquired if he might give the sacrament to the prisoner. ‘No,’ replied the cardinal, ‘it is not fitting to grant any of the benefits of the Church to a heretic.’[352]
The next morning at nine o’clock the governor of the castle informed Wishart that the communion was refused him. Then, as he was going to breakfast with his dependents and servants, he invited Wishart to join them at the meal. ‘Right willingly,’ he answered, ‘especially because I know that you and yours are good men and are united with me in the same body of Christ.’[353]
When the table was spread and the members of the household had taken their places, Wishart said to the governor, ‘Give me leave, for the Saviour’s sake, to make a brief exhortation.’ It was to him an opportunity of celebrating the true Supper. He reminded his hearers of the institution of the sacred feast, and of the Lord’s death. He exhorted those who sat at table with him to lay aside all hatred, to love one another and to lead a holy life. After this he gave thanks, and then took the bread and brake it, and gave of it to such as he knew were willing to communicate, and bade them feed spiritually on Christ. Taking a cup, he spoke of the blood shed for the remission of sins, drank of it and gave them to drink. ‘I shall no more drink of this cup,’ said he, ‘no more eat of this bread in this life; a bitterer draught is reserved for me, because I have preached Christ. Pray that I may take that cup with patience, as the Lord’s appointment.’ He concluded with further giving of thanks and then retired to his chamber.
FINAL PREPARATIONS.
On a plot of ground to the west of the castle and not far from the priory, men were already busily engaged, some in preparing the pile, others erecting the gallows. The place of execution was surrounded by soldiers, and the gunners had their cannon in position and stood beside them ready to fire. One would have thought that preparations were making for a siege. The cardinal had ordered these measures fearing lest Wishart’s many friends should take him away, and perhaps still more for the sake of making a display of his own power. Meanwhile the windows in the castle-yard were adorned with hangings, silken draperies, and velvet cushions, that the cardinal and the prelates might enjoy at their ease the spectacle of the pile and of the tortures which they were going to inflict on that righteous man.[354]
When all was ready, two of the deathsmen entered Wishart’s prison. One of them brought and put on him a coat of black cloth, the other tied small bags of powder to various parts of his body. Next they bound his hands firmly behind him, put a rope round his neck and a chain about his waist, and led him forth in the midst of a party of soldiers. When he came to the pile he knelt down and prayed. Then he rose and said to the people—‘Christian brethren and sisters, be not offended in the Word of God for the affliction and torments which ye see already prepared for me; but I exhort you that you love the Word of God, and suffer patiently and with a comfortable heart, for the Word’s sake which is your undoubted salvation and everlasting comfort. My doctrine was no old wives’ fable after the constitutions made by men. But for the true evangely, which was given to me by the grace of God, I suffer this day by men, not sorrowfully, but with a glad heart and mind. For this cause I was sent: that I should suffer this fire, for Christ’s sake. This grim fire I fear not. Some have said of me that I taught that the soul of man should sleep until the last day. But I know surely and my faith is such that my soul shall sup with my Saviour Christ this night (ere it be six hours), for whom I suffer this.’[355] Then he prayed—‘I beseech thee, Father of heaven! to forgive them that have of any ignorance or else have of any evil mind forged any lies upon me: I forgive them with all my heart. I beseech Christ to forgive them that have condemned me to death this day ignorantly.’ The hangman fell on his knees before him and said, ‘I pray you forgive me.’ ‘Come hither to me,’ replied Wishart; and he kissed him, and added, ‘Lo, here is a token that I forgive thee. My heart, do thine office.’ He was then bound with ropes to the stake, and said, ‘Saviour of the world, have mercy on me! Father of heaven, into thy hands I commit my spirit.’ The executioner lighted the fire. The cardinal and his accomplices beheld from the windows the martyr and the fire which was consuming him. The governor of the castle watching the flames exclaimed, ‘Take courage.’ Wishart answered, ‘This fire torments my body, but noways abates my spirit.’ Then catching sight of the cardinal at the window with his courtiers, he added, ‘He who in such state, from that high place, feedeth his eyes with my torments, within few days shall be hanged out at the same window to be seen with as much ignominy as he now leaneth there in pride.’[356] Some authors consider these words, reported by Buchanan, to be an instance of that second sight with which they allege the Scots to be endowed. Wishart, however, did not need an extraordinary revelation to teach him that ‘the wicked goeth away in his wickedness.’ He had hardly uttered those words when the rope was tightened about his neck, so that he lost the power of speaking. The fire reduced his body to ashes; and the bishops, full of steadfast hatred of this servant of God, caused an order to be published that same evening through all the town, that no one should pray for their victim under the severest penalties. They knew what respect was felt for him by many even of the Catholics themselves.
There are people who say that religion is a fable. A life and a death such as those of Wishart show that it is a great reality.
CHAPTER XV.
CONSPIRACY AGAINST BEATOUN.—HIS DEATH.
(March To May 1546.)
FEELING CONCERNING WISHART’S DEATH.
The death of Wishart excited in Scotland feelings of very diverse character. The bishops and their adherents extolled to the skies the cardinal who, without troubling himself about the regent’s authority, and suppressing the insolence of the people, had constituted himself the defender of Rome and of the priesthood. ‘Ah,’ said they, ‘if the Church had formerly had such champions, she would keep all things under her dominion by the very force and weight of her majesty.’
Simple-hearted Christians lamented the martyrdom without a thought of revenge. But one part of the people, and with them several of the most eminent men, condemned aloud at table and everywhere the cardinal’s cruelty, and declared that the blood which had been shed called for vengeance. Even those who, without sharing Wishart’s views, were actuated by just and generous sentiments, asked themselves what hope they could have of preserving their liberties under the most cruel of tyrants; under a prelate who made war alike on men and on God; who pursued with his enmity every one that possessed wealth or was animated by piety, and sacrificed them to his caprice like beasts taken from the stall;[357] who gave his sanction to connections with worthless mistresses, and dissolved lawful marriages at his pleasure; who in his own house wallowed in debauchery with prostitutes, and out of doors, in his wrath, revelled in the slaughter of innocent men and in the blood of heretics.[358] Such is the portrait of Beatoun drawn by Buchanan.
The cardinal, who could not remain ignorant of these speeches, was desirous of strengthening his power by means of new alliances. He therefore gave one of his daughters, Margaret Beatoun—whose mother was Mary, daughter of Sir James Ogilvy—in marriage to David Lindsay, son of the earl of Crawford, with a portion of four thousand marks. The nuptials were celebrated with a magnificence almost royal. That a priest could celebrate with so much parade the nuptials of his daughter showed that he was destitute even of that honorable shame which is excited by the dread of anything that violates decency. He believed himself to be stronger than all Scotland, and by his despotic measures he was constantly adding to the number of his enemies.
CONSPIRACY AGAINST BEATOUN.
Among those who had served him with the utmost devotion was Norman Lesley, brother of the earl of Rothes. On occasion of Lesley’s reminding the cardinal of certain promises which he had made to him, they got to high words and parted bitter foes.[359] Thenceforth Lesley was head of the disaffected, and by setting before his friends the intolerable pride of the cardinal he induced them to join in a conspiracy against his life.[360] His uncle, John Lesley, did not shrink from saying before them all, clapping his right hand at the same time on his sword, ‘This hand shall draw this old sword, and they two shall be the cardinal’s confessors,’ meaning thereby that they should dismiss him into the other world. The saying was reported to Beatoun, but he made light of it, fancying himself perfectly safe in the blockhouse—a kind of fortress—which he had built. ‘I laugh at all that noise,’ said he, ‘and I would not give a button for such bragging. Is not my lord governor mine? Witness his eldest son their pledge at my table. Have I not the queen at my own devotion? Is not France my friend, and am not I friend to France? What danger should I fear?’ Nevertheless Beatoun, for the purpose of cutting off those who troubled him, ordered all his creatures, gentlemen of Fifeshire, to meet him at Falkland on Monday, May 31. The Lesleys and a certain number of their friends were to be taken prisoners and put to death. On the other side, Lesley and his accomplices had no embarrassing scruples at all. The right of the strongest was still frequently appealed to in that half barbarian age. A coup d’état, with deeds of violence, was a quite familiar occurrence. These nobles looked on Wishart’s death, without the concurrence of the civil judges, which the lawful government had refused, as a murder; and they considered that as Beatoun was a murderer he ought to be himself put to death. They did not reflect that they were making themselves guilty of the very crime which Beatoun had committed, that of putting themselves in the place of the regular judges. The right of war between feudal lords, which had not yet ceased to be recognized, sufficed to justify them in their own eyes. It was arranged that Norman Lesley, with his brother and four of his friends, should go to St. Andrews, where the cardinal was residing, and that they should take up their lodging in the hostelry at which they were accustomed to stay, so as not to awaken any suspicion. They entered the town accordingly, and without fear, although the place swarmed with the friends, dependents, and creatures of the mighty primate. Some of the inhabitants who shared their views held themselves in readiness at the first signal to give them assistance. They agreed to seize the castle at early morning, before the household were up.
SEIZURE OF THE CASTLE.
On Friday, May 28, in the evening, Norman Lesley arrived at St. Andrews, where he found William Kirkaldy of Grange awaiting him. John Lesley, on whom the cardinal’s suspicions chiefly fell, came last. The conspirators took counsel in the night, and on Saturday, May 29, at three o’clock in the morning, started on their enterprise, the capture of a strong castle which was held by more than a hundred men prepared for resistance. They came by various ways, and met in the churchyard of the abbey, not far from the castle. Beatoun, well knowing the feelings of indignation which his proceedings had aroused in the country, even amongst his own flatterers, had determined to turn his place of abode into a citadel fit to stand a siege.[361] The works were in progress, and this circumstance facilitated the daring attempt now to be made by his enemies. The primate pressed the work on so urgently that it hardly ceased by day or by night. Consequently the gates were open early in the morning, and the drawbridge was let down for the workmen to bring in stone, mortar, and other necessary building materials. The Lesleys, who with some of their companions were concealed in a small house near the gates, had sent thence William Kirkaldy and six others. These having passed the gates hailed the porter, and said to him, ‘Is my lord cardinal waking?’ ‘No,’ replied he. Mary Ogilvy, the mother of Margaret and of two sons, David and Alexander Beatoun, had spent the night at the castle. She was seen going away early in the morning by the private postern.[362] The cardinal, at the moment of the arrival of the Lesleys and their friends, was in a sound sleep. While William Kirkaldy was talking to the porter, and the latter was about to show him the way, Norman and John Lesley came up one after the other with arms. The porter, in alarm, would have put himself on the defensive; but one of the conspirators broke his head, got possession of his keys, and threw his body into the fosse. At that moment the workmen, numbering more than a hundred, fled through the wicket-gate at full speed, and William Kirkaldy took possession of the private postern, ‘fearing that the fox should have escaped.’ As the assailants were only sixteen, they felt the need of proceeding with great caution. The leaders sent four of their company, among whom were Peter Carmichael, a tall, stout-hearted gentleman, and James Melville of Cumbec, to guard the cardinal’s door and see that no one gave him warning of his danger. Others of the company, who had some acquaintance with the place and the people, were set to watch the bedrooms of the officers and servants of the cardinal. Distributing themselves in small groups, they entered the rooms successively, found the occupants half asleep, and said to them, ‘If you utter the faintest cry you are dead men!’[363] Those men therefore, in their fright, dressed themselves hastily and were led out of the castle, no violence being done to any of them and no noise made. The only person whom they left in the castle was the regent’s eldest son. John Lesley, alone in this vast abode, knocked loudly at the cardinal’s door. ‘What means that noise?’ said he. ‘That Norman Lesley has taken the castle,’ was the reply; ‘open.’ At these words Beatoun ran towards the postern, but seeing that it was guarded, he returned straightway into his room, seized his two-handed sword, and bade his valet barricade the door. ‘Open,’ they cried again. The cardinal answered, ‘Who calls?’—‘My name is Lesley.’—‘Is that Norman?’—‘Nay, my name is John.’ The cardinal, remembering John’s words, cried, ‘I will have Norman, for he is my friend.’—‘Content yourself with such as are here, for other shall ye get none,’ replied John. While the knocks at the door grew louder, the cardinal seized a box of gold and hid it in a corner. Then he said, ‘Will ye save my life?’—‘It may be that we will,’—said John.—‘Nay,’ replied Beatoun, ‘swear unto me by God’s wounds, and I shall open to you.’
Then John Lesley cried out, ‘Fire! fire!’ The door was too strong to burst open, and they brought a grate full of burning coals. Just as it was ready the cardinal ordered the door to be opened. Lesley and his companions rushed into the chamber and found Beatoun seated on a chair. Lesley threw himself violently upon him. ‘I am a priest! I am a priest!’ exclaimed the cardinal. ‘Ye will not slay me!’
But Lesley struck him with his sword, and Carmichael, full of wrath, did the same. Melville, a man of gentle and serious character, says Knox,[364] seeing his comrades in so great a rage, checked them. He said, ‘This work and judgment of God, although it be secret, yet ought to be done with greater gravity.’ Melville and others, by reason of the ignorance and the prejudices of the age, sincerely believed in the legal virtue of the Mosaic system, abolished by the Gospel, which conferred on certain persons the right of killing a murderer, but which founded at the same time the cities of refuge in which the guilty man should be safe from the vengeance of the pursuer.[365]
MURDER OF BEATOUN.
Melville forgot that there was no city of refuge for Beatoun. Regarding him as a murderer, and not supposing that by killing him he did himself incur the guilt of murder, he presented to him the point of his sword, and said gravely to him, ‘Repent thee of thine former wicked life, but especially of the shedding of the blood of that notable instrument of God, Mr. George Wishart; which albeit the flame of fire consumed before men, yet cries it a vengeance upon thee, and we from God are sent to revenge it. Here before my God I protest that neither the hatred of thy person, the love of thy riches, or the fear of any trouble thou couldst have done to me in particular, moved or moveth me to strike thee.’ And he struck him with his sword.
The cardinal fell under repeated blows, without a word heard out of his mouth except these, ‘I am a priest! I am a Priest! Fie, fie! All is gone!’[366]
It was very soon known all over the city that the castle had been taken. The friends and the creatures of the cardinal rose very quietly from their beds, says Buchanan, armed themselves, and presently appeared in a crowd about the fosse. They shouted with all their might, uttered threats and insults, and demanded shells and all the necessary means for making the assault. ‘You are making much noise to little purpose,’ said those in the castle to them; ‘the best it were to you to return to your own houses.’
The crowd answered, ‘What have ye done with my lord cardinal? Let us see my lord cardinal!’—‘The man that you call the cardinal,’ it was replied, ‘has received his reward, and in his own person will trouble the world no more.’ But his partisans only cried the louder, ‘We shall never depart till we see him,’ still persuaded that he was alive. Then one or two men took up the body, and bearing it to the very window at which a little while before Beatoun had sat to contemplate with gladness, and as if in triumph, the execution of the pious Wishart, exposed it there to the gaze of all.[367] Beatoun’s friends and the populace, struck with amazement and terror by the unexpected sight, and remembering Wishart’s prediction, dispersed in gloom and consternation.
The tidings of this murder were speedily spread over all the land, and, while some angrily denounced it, others welcomed it as an event which restored their country to liberty. There were indeed some who, like James Melville, reckoned it a lawful act. But even among the enemies of the cardinal there were men wise and moderate, who looked on the murder with horror. It is remarked by one historian that of those who took part in it few escaped the judgment of God, who punishes transgressors by smiting them with the same stroke with which they have smitten others.[368]
The Lesleys and their friends remained masters of the castle, and they kept with them James, Lord Hamilton, afterwards earl of Arran, the regent’s eldest son, whom Beatoun had detained as his hostage, and who now became theirs. One of the conspirators, who believed that in delivering Scotland from the tyrant they had done a praiseworthy deed, William Kirkaldy, went to London. He obtained from Henry VIII., who considered the taking of the castle and the events which had accompanied it to be a lawful revolution, a declaration that he was prepared to take the party under his protection, on condition, however, that the marriage contract between Edward and Mary should be carried out. As communication by sea was easy between the castle and London, English ships conveyed thither all supplies that were needful.
OPINIONS ON THE MURDER.
Hamilton, a bastard brother of the regent, was named by him archbishop of St. Andrews, and was confirmed by Pope Paul III. This energetic prelate immediately pressed on his brother the duty of besieging the castle and of punishing all those who had taken it. He was strongly supported by others. On August 23, 1546, the main body of the army set out from Edinburgh to form the siege; but at the end of July, 1547,[369] the capture of the fortress being evidently hopeless, terms were made with the besieged advantageous to them, but which neither side had any intention of observing. This period forms an important epoch, and we must suspend for a while the course of our narrative.
We have now traced the history of the ministry and the martyrdom of Patrick Hamilton and George Wishart. We shall have by-and-by to trace, Deo adjuvante, the mighty action of the third and greatest of the Scottish reformers, John Knox.
The period, the history of which we have just gone over, was one of active persecution. It remains for us to recount the events of the contest with the papacy, into which the Scottish nobility energetically entered, and the victory of the Reformation. Without entering at present upon the narrative of facts, we shall cast a glance forward in order to point out what was to give the victory to evangelical Christianity. Assuredly it was not such actions as the capture of the castle and the violent death of the persecutor. Such things are more likely to ruin a cause than to save it. The Christian life and death of Wishart contributed far more powerfully than the death of Beatoun to the advancement of the kingdom of God. The history of the Scottish Reformation serves to show the untruth of one assertion frequently made by the enemies of the Reform.
According to them, the Reform could triumph only in those countries in which it had the protection of princes. This is a serious error. It was not the bloodthirsty Philip II. who established the Reformation in the United Provinces of the Netherlands. It was neither the feeble James V. nor the popish Mary Stuart who secured its triumph in Scotland. That worthy niece of the Guises sought only to crush it. A stronger arm than theirs fought against those mighty ones and gave the victory to the weak. The enemies of the Reformation made use in Scotland of the very weapons which in Italy, in Spain, and elsewhere arrested the movement of regeneration. The reformers were burnt also in Scotland, but the Reform arose out of their ashes. It was neither to their character nor to their strength that the Scots attributed the triumph. They knew that Jesus is the king of the Church, and that it is he who saves it. This is the feature which more than any other, as we shall see, characterized the Scottish Reformation. Andrew Melville said to James VI., ‘Sire, there are two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland. There is King James, the head of the state, and there is Jesus Christ who is head of the Church.’[370] To the king enthroned at Rome, the Scottish Reformation opposed the king enthroned in heaven, and to him it attributed the victory.
PRIEST AND PASTOR.
But in proclaiming this supreme authority, the reformation in Scotland also established the duties and the rights of Christians. The charge of leading the Church in conformity with the law of God was there intrusted to general assemblies elected by the free choice of a Christian people.[371] The clergy had ruled in Scotland throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and during the first part of the sixteenth. The Reformation rescued the country from that clerical domination, and gave to it the first of all liberties, the freedom of faith. For centuries three powers had existed there,—the king, the nobles, and the priests, and the last had kept the upper hand. After the Reformation, two of these still remained, the king and the nobles; but the people took the place of the clergy. It was under a popular form, that of Presbyterianism, that the Church of Scotland constituted itself. The feudal castles had for some time still a marked influence on the destinies of the country; but the tide of national and Christian life was steadily rising all round their walls and soon overflowed the ancient battlements which crowned the summits of those old fortresses. Laymen, the deputies of the people, obtained a voice in the presbytery, in the synod, and in the general assembly. Thus, by successive steps, the voice of the people became, through the influence of Reform, the expression of the main force of the country.
It is a grave error to attribute, as some have done, to the Protestant pastors of Scotland an incomprehensible domination, ‘an authority nowise inferior to that which they had exercised as Catholic priests,’ and to represent them as ‘the most effectual obstacle to popular progress.’[372] Nothing has in fact been less like the haughty Catholic prelates of St. Andrews, Glasgow, and other dioceses, than a Scottish minister. The Reformation gave to Scotland not only Christian truth, but religious and political liberty besides. There, as everywhere, it took from the priesthood its magic and its supremacy, which had been its two main attributes in the Middle Ages. The ministers, whom it substituted for the priests, having no longer the marvellous power of transforming a bit of bread into God the Creator,—these disciples of Jesus, no longer seated on the despotic throne of the confessional to give pardon for sins, became simple heralds of the divine Word. This holy Word has its place in every family and reigns supreme in the Church. Thus, ministers have ceased to be masters and have become servants. The real offence of these Scottish pastors, in the sight of their detractors, is that they have always been a great obstacle, not to the progress of the people and of civilization, as some have said, but to the progress of unbelief and materialism. Now these mischievous doctrines are mortal enemies to the freedom and prosperity of nations.
BOOK XI.
CALVIN, AND THE PRINCIPLES OF HIS REFORM.
CHAPTER I.
CALVIN AT GENEVA AND IN THE PAYS DE VAUD.
(1536.)
For years, and even for centuries, persistent and perilous endeavors had been made at Geneva for a firm establishment of freedom. We have already described some of the impressive scenes which marked the successful close of these efforts at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the noble principles and the mighty words of the energetic laborers in this great enterprise.[373] It would certainly be going too far to consider their labors and the truths which they announced as the source whence our modern liberties have sprung. But it is impossible to study the events of that epoch without emotion, or without recognizing aspirations, principles, sacrifices, and actions worthy of admiration, which were in fact the first great burst of light, the first noteworthy manifestation of the politics and the virtues which must determine the existence and make the prosperity of nations.[374]
That small town was, however, to give to the world a higher lesson still. It was to do for religion what it had first done for politics, and to render to faith the service which it had rendered to freedom. These two achievements are closely related to each other; and it is one of the characteristics of this history, that while it attributes transcendent importance to Christian truth and life, it recognizes at the same time all that is great and salutary in freedom. If the author, as some have thought, had erred in assigning too high a place to the heroic struggles to which Geneva owed her independence, he would assuredly regret that he had not more skilfully handled the pen of the historian for the purpose of immortalizing the great men and the heroic actions of which the smallest and humblest of states afforded the spectacle. But he would count himself fortunate if he should, nevertheless, have contributed to bring into clear light the great maxim, that political freedom and Christian truth must advance hand in hand for the salvation of nations and the salvation of souls. Of course, a blind demagogy, the formidable rock of our age, is at once contrary to freedom and hostile to religion.
Geneva was fitted by various concurring conditions to play a part from which the small extent of her territory seemed inevitably to shut her out. Situated as this town was between Italy, France, and Germany, its position formed the central point of the three great nations who were distinguished in the first half of the sixteenth century for their new or newly awakened love of letters, philosophy, and the arts. On several occasions Frenchmen, Italians, and Germans came in large numbers to settle at Geneva. By the reception of these three diverse elements into her bosom she seemed to be called to blend them with each other and to harmonize their opposing qualities. If any spark from the evangelical fire which was then kindled should chance to escape from either of those countries and to fall on the materials thus prepared at the foot of the Alps, it might kindle a great fire, and might make Geneva a hearth from which light, radiating far and wide, should contribute to scatter the humiliating darkness which Rome and those princes whose power was at her service then made to weigh heavily on the nations.
JOHN CALVIN.
This is what actually came to pass. To convert the spark into a pure, vivid, dazzling light, there was need of an intellect of vast depth, a will of vast energy, and a faith of vast power.
God sent the man that was needed.
A young stranger, a native of Picardie, had lately arrived at Geneva. It had not occurred to him nor to his friends that he could be the organ by whose agency and means God would bring about such great ends. After his arrival Farel still continued to hold the first place in the city. This young man, John Calvin, was naturally timid, and was possessed by a dread of publicity which had already shown itself at Basel and which led him to shun every occasion that would draw public attention to himself. He was fond of study and of writing: and in that path he believed that it was appointed for him to contribute to the diffusion in the world of a truth which was already dearer to him than life. He purposed to turn to account that one talent in retirement, without quitting his study. That is what he was then doing at Geneva. He was steadily engaged in translating into French his ‘little book,’ the Institution Chrétienne, which he hoped ere long to send to his friends in France.[375] The letter mentioned in the note shows clearly that the Institution Chrétienne was first written in Latin.
Farel wished for more: he desired Calvin to become, at Geneva, pastor, preacher, and doctor. The young man refused this threefold function. The office of pastor would have required him to take part in the government of the Church, and he was not willing to do so. As to the office of preacher, we have the most positive testimony of his contemporaries and of his most intimate friends that, in the fresh glow of his faith, he had simply undertaken the task of an evangelist in some districts of France. But the post which was offered to him at Geneva would have compelled him to mix more or less in public affairs and in the debates of the councils. He trembled at the thought, and wished rather to confine himself strictly within the bounds of that literary and theological life which he loved so well. He consented therefore to dwell in the city, not for the purpose of preaching, but to read in theology.[376] He went even further. ‘I would not,’ he said, ‘bind myself to undertake an official charge.’[377] He consented to make trial of teaching, but without any title or any engagement, and thus reserved to himself perfect liberty. Probably no one ever entered as he did on a career at once painful and brilliant without suspecting its results, and even rejecting it with his utmost energy.
CHURCH DISCIPLINE.
Calvin commenced his work as Reader in the Holy Scriptures at Geneva, or, as he styles himself, Professor of Sacred Literature in the Genevese Church. His lectures were delivered not in any house or in any academic hall, but in the cathedral itself, a circumstance which invested his teaching with an importance of which Calvin had certainly not dreamed. The doors were opened for this novel service in the afternoon, and the Genevese, who felt the need of substantial teaching, crowded to hear the young doctor. He expounded several books of the New Testament, particularly the Epistles. One characteristic of his manner of teaching at Geneva from the first was the combination of simplicity and solidity. A new light was then rising. It was not, to be sure, the sun in its brightness. The timidity and the shyness which Calvin attributes to himself may well have shown themselves in his first attempts. The Commentaries on the New Testament, which he published at a later period, have a completeness which his earliest expositions could not attain. But they are a sufficiently faithful representation of the kind of teaching which he adopted at St. Peter’s church. It was not grammatical and etymological explanation of the text; nor was it, on the other hand, a pathetic discourse. Calvin set forth in clear light everything in the Scriptures which characterizes the Christian doctrine and life. He first meditated on his subject, then delivered his lectures extempore; and the animated and powerful individuality of the master imparted to them an influence which carried away and multiplied his hearers. It was not in his nature to do a merely intellectual task. He consoled, he exhorted, he censured. But his chief aim was to illustrate the labor of love which Jesus Christ had accomplished, and to make known its necessity and grandeur. Two points in the Christian doctrine especially struck him, the one dark and mournful, the other bright like sunshine. ‘Our souls,’ said he, ‘are an abyss of iniquity, so that we are compelled to have recourse to the fountain of all good, which is Jesus Christ.’[378]
CHURCH DISCIPLINE.
The exposition, defence, and application of the great facts of Christianity formed the substance of Calvin’s work at Geneva and in Christendom. It is a mistake to suppose that his principal business was the introduction and the maintenance of discipline in the Church. It is not to be doubted that he wished for order: that he wished absolutely for a Christian way of life; but it was not he who, as some believe, first introduced measures of discipline, nor was the maintenance of those measures the task of his life. Speaking of them,[379] he defends himself from the charge of being their author. ‘I observe and do whatsoever I have found,’ said he, ‘as one who takes no pleasure in making any innovation.’ It was the magistrate, who, being in Geneva head both of the Church and of the state, prescribed and enforced the laws of discipline. Before Calvin’s arrival at Geneva, we have seen how De la Rive was sentenced to banishment for having his child baptized by a priest. The year before some men, women, and magistrates had been condemned to the crotton (black hole) for immorality. At the moment at which this stranger, whose name even was hardly known, had just crossed the threshold of the city—on the eve of the day on which Farel was to introduce him to the magistrate (Monday, September 4, 1536)—a remarkable scene was taking place in the Council of the Two Hundred, which seems placed at that epoch as if on purpose to resolve distinctly the question which engages our attention. ‘Gentlemen,’ said the syndics, ‘we have all pledged ourselves in public council to live according to the Gospel, and nevertheless there are some here who do not go to preaching.’ At these words the councillor and former syndic Richardet, a fine, tall, and powerful man, but very passionate, rose in wrath and exclaimed with loud voice, ‘Nobody shall lord it over my conscience; and I will not go to sermon at the bidding of a Syndic Porral.’[380] Porral, a man of highly cultivated mind and a very active magistrate, had declared himself decisively for the Reform, and he was even charged to prosecute certain classes of delinquents. It had been enacted, on July 24, that those who refused to go to the preaching must quit the city in ten days. Richardet was not alone in his resolution. The question having been put to J. Philippe and two other councillors whether they would attend the preaching of the Word of God, ‘We will not be compelled,’ they said, ‘but will live in our liberty.’ These citizens were right in maintaining their liberty, and the magistrates were in the wrong. Calvin was far away from Geneva on July 24; and, generally speaking, he was not of so peremptory a temper as some imagine. There was a certain sphere in which he maintained liberty, and maintained it even against powerful adversaries. ‘Touching ceremonies,’ thus he wrote to the formidable lords of Berne, ‘they are things indifferent, and the churches are free to adopt a diversity of them.’[381] Still, we cannot deny it, Calvin thought—and these are his own words—that since there is no house, however small it be, which can be maintained in its proper state without discipline, it is much more requisite in the Church, which ought to be better ordered than any house. He went further. He asserted that the state has the right and is bound to take notice of matters of discipline, and to punish transgressors. It is to be regretted that the fine genius of Calvin did not make an exception in this case to the rule adopted ten centuries earlier by all Christendom, and that he did not convince the state that its heavy hand must not intervene in matters of religion. It is however fair to ask ourselves whether, in the sixteenth century, such an effort would not have been a superhuman task.
Calvin himself made known to us his own thought when he said, ‘The doctrine of our Lord Jesus Christ is the soul of the Church.’[382] He set forth that doctrine in the church of St. Peter just as it is found in Scripture, and so diffused it in the world. Certainly it was not by discipline that he made his conquests. He bore the torch of truth. Devoid of ambition, having no designs reaching beyond Geneva, without any secret policy such as the Jesuits are skilled in, and armed with one weapon only, the truth, he triumphed over the greatest difficulties. Farel, Viret, Beza would not have sufficed. In this man of feeble constitution and humble aspect there were an unquenchable resolution, an energetic will. He held fast, as seeing him who is invisible. Established in this small town, he became God’s instrument, first for the spread of the Reformation in the West, then for defending it against the attacks of Rome and Loyola and Philip II. A new time was born for the world.
Nevertheless it was not Calvin alone, as some appear to believe, who effected this great revolution. Had he come into the midst of a people indolent and effeminate, such victories would not have been won. But the Genevese had been preparing for centuries, by means of the struggles which they had gone through, for the maintenance of their liberty. A life of toil, incessant industry, and rude combats had inured them to blows. Their souls had been elevated. They were naturally keen and decisive; but that iron, already brilliant, had acquired by tempering an inflexible hardness. The heroism of the Huguenots of Geneva became one of the elements which contributed to the triumph of the Reformation. The character of those strong men was as essential to the work as coal is for the conversion of iron into steel. It was not Calvin the individual, it was Geneva in its entirety, that vanquished Rome. The energy of the Bertheliers, the Lévriers, and of many others, was one of the ingredients of the moral energy of which Geneva became the hearth, and which had almost disappeared from history. The most earnest of the Genevese Huguenots joined the reformer; the masses supported him; and some Frenchmen who had passed through the sieve of persecution, worthy also to be called Huguenots, gave the hand to the sons of Geneva. And when, after achieving its triumph, the Reformation found itself attacked by a numerous and powerful army, assembled under the banners of kings, of Ignatius Loyola, and the pope, Geneva and the men of her school, who were found in all parts of Christendom, were able to resist the hostile force, and to say to it, ‘No further shalt thou go!’
CALVIN RETAINED AT GENEVA.
There was, indeed, in the struggle for the renewal of Christendom, one will which conceived, one personality which acted, one voice which resounded with a force till then almost unknown, and in a thousand directions: it was, next to Luther’s, that of Calvin. But while a great general is indispensable in the day of battle, so also is an army trained by him for energetic conflict. The part which Geneva played in the sixteenth century is not explained by the character of one man alone, but by many concurrent circumstances both moral and political. That army, created by a vivifying breath from on high, was soon in action wherever a struggle became necessary. Those soldiers went forth into the world, braved danger, displayed their colors, and proclaimed salvation, until at length Rome gave them the martyr’s death, and God gave them the crown of immortality. Calvin and the Huguenots, that is the great motto of the sixteenth century.
Farel, as we have seen, had taken on himself the responsibility of enrolling the young doctor and of opening to him the church of St. Peter. Charmed with Calvin’s method of exposition of the Holy Scriptures, that veteran champion of the Reformation expressed his opinion on the subject to the magistrates. On Tuesday, September 5, 1536, the day after the famous altercation respecting religious liberty had taken place in the Council of the Two Hundred, William Farel appeared before the council and gave an account of the teaching of the young foreigner, which some of the members of that body had probably attended, and added—‘The lectures which this Frenchman[383] has begun at St. Peter’s are very necessary. I therefore entreat you to retain him and to make provision for his maintenance.’ The council determined to advise that the stranger, whose name was not even uttered, should be retained. Many had seen him. The pale countenance, the spare form, the modest bearing, the timorous air of this refugee of twenty-seven, had not given the impression of his being a person of note. The council did not even make him a present of a dress or anything of the kind, as it was customary to do. It waited, no doubt, to see whether it was worth while. The man whose name was shortly to fill the city and the whole Christian world, entered almost incognito into Geneva. Every one was at that time thinking of Farel. On September 8 that reformer, ‘having addressed a remonstrance to the council,’ it was resolved ‘that since the writings of the aforesaid Guillaume are so divine, he should preach at six o’clock in the morning in the church of St. Germain, and that the councillors should be bound to attend there, and pass thence, at seven, into the council.’[384]
Calvin’s lectures were soon interrupted. At the end of September, Farel with his young friend as his assistant quitted Geneva to go to Lausanne, whither an urgent duty called them. An important assembly was going to be held in the chief city of the Pays de Vaud.
Farel, Viret, and other evangelists, as already related, had introduced the Reformation into such parts of that country as were subject to the Swiss cantons; but the other parishes of that fair land had still remained subject to the pope. Meanwhile Luther’s writings were everywhere circulated, the eyes of the people began to be opened, and several evangelists, particularly Jean Lecomte, a gentleman of Picardie, had preached the Gospel in various places. The occupation of the country by the Bernese, on occasion of the expedition which delivered Geneva in 1536, hastened the fall of Roman Catholicism. When the Bernese had taken Yverdon with the sword, they transformed the church of that town in a somewhat soldierly fashion. They bluntly put an end to the exercise of the Romish religion; appointed Malingre to be minister; on March 15 had their religious ordinances published; burnt, March 17, the images out of the churches in the market-place, and ordered the ministers to preach in temples cleared of those abominations. Lecomte, Tissot, Meige, and other evangelists introduced the Reform, but by the spiritual means of preaching, at Cossonay, Montagny, Yvonand, Sainte-Croix, and other places. Avenches and Lutry showed themselves decidedly Catholic, and they determined that if by any chance a minister should go there, they would not go to hear him.
THE GOSPEL IN THE PAYS DE VAUD.
In March 1536, as Viret and Fabry were passing near Yverdon during the siege of that town by the Bernese army, some Lausannese officers who were serving in it and who were acquainted with Viret, stopped him and said, ‘When Yverdon is taken, we shall go to Lausanne: come with us and preach the Gospel there in spite of the bishop.’ They did so. The amiable and discreet Viret would have been ill pleased to see Lausanne reformed by the military method, like Yverdon. He preferred the sword of the Spirit to that of the Bernese soldiery. He would choose that, in the sloping streets of that city and within its beautiful cathedral, the still small voice should be heard, and not the hissing of the tempest and the crash of thunder. He preached therefore the ‘glad tidings of great joy,’ and preached them with success, in the church of the convent of St. Francis. The Canons complained bitterly to the council. ‘A strange thing this,’ they said, ‘to see in Lausanne two preachers at a time! A whole multitude of do-nothing monks, well and good! But two preachers of Jesus Christ, what useless waste!’ ‘The less preaching there is the better,’ said the friends of Rome. ‘The more preaching the better,’ said the friends of the Gospel. If the Canons did their duty, remarked some one, instead of two preachers we should have thirty.[385] The burgesses, as usual, took a middle course which must fail to satisfy either one party or the other. They resolved that the evangelists should preach in the church of Mary Magdalene, but without removing the altars, the fonts, the organs, the images, and other decorations, ‘which did no harm to anybody,’ said the burgesses; and that the friars of the Dominican order should also celebrate in the same church the Roman Catholic service in the usual way.[386] That is what the great Saxon reformer called ‘trying to bring together Luther and the pope.’
IMAGE WORSHIP.
Viret therefore preached in that church. But when Lent was come, the Dominican Monbouson began to discourse in the cathedral, and maintained their Romish traditions with violence and plenty of lying. Viret was informed of it, and as he thought that the best way to refute the papal doctrine was to make it distinctly known, he put in writing the assertions of the friar and called upon him publicly to defend them, announcing that he was prepared to reply to him. Monbouson felt strong enough to maintain his thesis when he stood surrounded by a whole phalanx of scholastic doctors and had nobody to contradict him, but he grew pale in the presence of the young Viret. ‘Ah,’ said he, ‘I would gladly do what you propose at Avignon, at Paris, or at Dôle; but at Lausanne there is nobody capable of judging of the matter.’—‘You ought then to preach only at Dôle, Paris, or Avignon,’ replied Viret; ‘but since you have lied at Lausanne, it is at Lausanne that satisfaction is due.’ Then the friar, anxious to get out of his embarrassment, withdrew in the quietest manner and disappeared.[387] The reformed Christians did not think, with those gentlemen of Lausanne, that images, altars, etc., did nobody any harm. They believed that the paintings did harm. They believed that the people, thanks to the images, made for themselves many minor gods before which they bent their knees in order to obtain this or that favor, or the healing of this or that malady: that the visible made them forget the invisible: that it was frightful to think that, every time some simple soul came to worship God in his temple, those figures of saints became occasions of falling or of scandal. ‘Alas!’ they said, ‘how many poor creatures called to be children of God have been made by those images children of the devil!’ Those, therefore, of the reformed of Lausanne, in whose judgment the pictures of saints and angels seduced and almost inevitably led astray the weak, began to stir in the matter. Commencing with the church of the Magdalene, they removed the images and the altars and broke or burnt them. Then betaking themselves to the church of St. Francis, they did the same there, and counted themselves happy in thus keeping the commandment, Thou shalt have no other gods before me. The old folk of Lausanne, who were already disconsolate at being left without a bishop, were still more distressed when they found themselves deprived of their images and their masses; and they sent deputies to Berne to complain of it. The Bernese council listened to them with all politeness, and dismissed them with good words. Lausanne then sent another deputation, consisting of twelve persons of distinction. At Berne they were asked, ‘What is it that you want?’ ‘Two masses weekly,’ they replied, according to a Lausannese manuscript.[388] If the statement is true, the request was certainly very moderate for zealous Catholics. The concession was made to them, but it was coupled with the condition that they should provide ministers for all the churches that asked for them. At the same time they gave them to understand that it would be well to hold at Lausanne a great disputation on religion, in order to decide between Rome and Reform. That was a good deal to ask for the two masses which were granted them.
The Bernese, indeed, were anxious that the Vaudois, whose country they had recently conquered, should attach themselves to the Reformation. It was no doubt partly from a regard to political interests that they wished this, but they did not overlook the interest of religion. Be that as it may, the reformation of religion in that country was a source of great prosperity both temporal and spiritual. The Pays de Vaud was to offer the stranger, at a later time, not only those beauties of nature which excite our admiration, but still more, numerous examples of sincere and vital piety, which is far sweeter and pleasanter than its lakes, and more sublime than its peaks and glaciers. The seed which was scattered at the epoch of the Reformation, in its valleys and on its mountains, was truly the Word of God; and one cannot but see there the fulfilment of that ancient oracle, He that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap everlasting life.
The conversion of Yverdon had been somewhat checked by the siege which the town had sustained. The lords of Berne wished in general to employ, like Viret, evangelical means; to reveal to their new subjects the grosser superstitions under whose yoke they had been held, and to give them the knowledge of the truth. For that end they resolved to appoint first a public disputation such as had been held at Zurich, Berne, and Geneva. As soon as the report was circulated in the country that a great assembly for discussion on matters of faith was to be held at Lausanne, the priests and their friends were alarmed. The excitement extended to all the villages. The friends of the papacy expected to see black clouds gathering on the horizon, and a violent storm presently burst on the old ship which had carried their fathers, and make it founder, thus engulfing in the depths of the sea all the traditions of their doctrine and all the pomps of their worship. They determined to do everything in their power to oppose such an assembly, and they wrote to the bishop and to the council at Friburg, to the pope and to the emperor.
A DISPUTATION APPOINTED.
The cry of distress which they uttered was heard. The council of Friburg sent a deputation to Berne to oppose the projected meeting. Charles V., who was then in Italy, addressed a letter to the council of his imperial city, requiring it ‘to prevent that disputation as well as any change in matters of faith, to restore everything to its former state, to allow nothing contrary to the tenor of his edicts, and to await quietly the council.’ This missive was dated from Savigliano, July 3, 1536.[389]
It was evident that the country had arrived at a critical pass, and that it was necessary to find some way of escape. The remedy proposed by the priests and the monks was,—to draw back. They assailed the Reformation from the pulpit, and they hurried from house to house and circulated in the streets the most outrageous reports against the reformed and the Reformation. Some of them opposed the disputation by asserting that ‘the ministers are magicians who have in their service a multitude of demons by means of which they bewitch their hearers.’ Other priests made up their mind to put a good face on the matter. They blustered a good deal; they bragged of having already won many a victory over their adversaries. ‘Let them only give us permission to contend with them in a regular discussion,’ they said, ‘and we are strong enough to beat them.’[390]
The council of Berne no longer hesitated. Without awaiting the possible decision of the emperor, they issued, July 16, an edict in opposition to the orders of Charles. ‘We desire,’ the edict ran, ‘that the people of our territories, (which by the grace of God we have justly acquired by conquest,) should walk with all their hearts in the way which our Lord has commanded. Nevertheless that has not been done, and even gross insults have been offered to the preachers and to those who wished to follow the Gospel. Desirous of putting in order all these confused affairs, we enjoin all priests and monks, as well as the preachers, to present themselves at Lausanne, on October 1 next, for the purpose of proving what they believe, freely and frankly, by argument on the grounds of Holy Scripture. We address this appeal not only to those of our own territories, but to all comers and goers, of whatsoever nation they be, and we promise them safe-keeping. We further order that our priests and preachers attend the assembly from its opening to its close, without default, and under pain of our indignation.’[391]
A few days after the edict of Berne, some Savoyard ambassadors, on their way to the diet of Berne, delivered the emperor’s letter to the council of Lausanne. That body having laid on the table side by side the epistle of his Catholic majesty and the edict of the lords of Berne, found themselves, to their great dismay, placed between the anvil and the hammer. Pressed thus by the two conflicting parties, they foresaw nothing but calamity whether they resisted the one or the other. The imperial document was read to the general council July 23. Its members, the majority of whom were attached to the Romish Church, thought that the wisest plan was to obey the most powerful, and therefore, sheltering themselves under the order of the great potentate, they enacted that the parties should live peaceably together, but that no innovation should be made until after the decision of the council. At the same time a deputation set out for Berne in order to prevent the disputation. But all was useless. Berne was stronger than the Emperor Charles V. That prince was in Italy, and the absent are in the wrong.
CHAPTER II.
THE DISPUTATION AT LAUSANNE.
(October, 1536.)
THE DISPUTATION AT LAUSANNE.
The disputation of Lausanne inaugurates with a certain grandeur the Reformation of the Vaudois. Some look upon it as merely a Bernese project. But that imposing assembly, among whose speakers were all or nearly all the reformers of western Switzerland; at which the great evangelical questions were discussed; and by means of which some of those who were present were converted; is evidence that the Reform was truly the work of God. The Reformation had begun in that country, obscurely and modestly, in some districts on the banks of the Rhone, on the shores of the lake of Neuchâtel, and in others besides. It now announced itself with power, and the mass of the people were going to embrace it. Men discourse much in books about the beautiful. We find true beauty, Christian beauty, evangelical, inward, more veiled perhaps than that of the world, but more pure and more solid, in the doctrine then proclaimed at Lausanne, and often in the manner in which it was set forth, although we have to make allowance for the time. We find it in the Farels, the Calvins, the Virets and other heroic men of that epoch, who lived with God, who were unwearied in their work, and were always ready to give their lives for the truth which they proclaimed. That synod was a beautiful portico erected to lead men into a temple of divine beauty.
PREPARATIONS AT LAUSANNE.
Farel was preparing for the disputation; and on the Roman Catholic side there was much ado to find valiant champions. At Lausanne there was no canon, no priest, no monk who came forward to defend the doctrine by which till that day they had lived. It was necessary to beat to arms elsewhere. They did so; and at the end of September the Dominican Monbouson, Michod dean of Vevey, the vicars Drogy and Berrilly, and others besides, arrived, in the town. Two laymen alone represented Lausanne, the captain of the youth,[392] Fernand de Loys, and the French physician Blancherose. The latter was ‘un homme tenant de la lune’ (something of a lunatic), said the Catholic Pierrefleur, ‘who blends in his discussions medicine and theology, and excites boundless merriment.’ Viret, Marcourt, and Lecomte appeared for the reformed. From Geneva came Chapuis, a former Dominican, then pastor at Compesières, and Jacques Bernard, formerly superior of the Cordeliers. But the man who chiefly attracted attention was Farel, who was accompanied by a young man pale and modest, unknown by sight to most, and who appeared to be his assistant. It was John Calvin. Farel had urged him to come to Lausanne, but Calvin shrank from the thought of speaking in that great assembly. Still he was deeply interested in its proceedings. ‘The Senate of Berne,’ said he, ‘has declared that everyone is at liberty to state his objections freely, without need to fear being disturbed in consequence of it. That is the fittest means of exposing the ignorance of those who set themselves against the Gospel.’[393] These two men had set out in company with the Syndic Porral, and they arrived with many others at the cathedral, in which the disputation was to be held. An amphitheatre had been constructed. The altars, pictures, statues, and rich ornaments of the Romish worship still displayed their magnificence; and even the canons, who were determined to keep silence, but nevertheless wished to do something, had brought out of their hiding-places the image of the holy Virgin and all those of the saints, trusting more, it would seem, to the eloquence of those dumb figures than to their own.
On the side of the Reformation there was no other preparation but some simple evangelical theses drawn up by Farel, and affixed to the doors of all the churches. They were entitled, ‘Conclusions which are to be discussed at Lausanne, a new province of Berne.’ In the form of ten articles it was declared,—that Holy Scripture teaches no other justification than that which is by faith in Jesus Christ, once for all offered in sacrifice—that it acknowledges no other head, priest, saviour, or mediator of the Church than Jesus Christ, seated at the right hand of God;—that it gives the name ‘Church of God’ only to the assembly of those who believe in their redemption by Jesus Christ alone. The other seven articles established the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s supper—the ministry of the Word of God—confession made to God—absolution coming from God—spiritual service rendered to God, such as is ordained by the Word, and without the infinite mockeries which pervert religion—the civil magistrate ordained of God to maintain the peace of the Republic—marriage a divine institution for any class whatsoever—and the free use, so it be with charity, of things indifferent.[394]
On Sunday, October 1, all the bells were set a-going, and a great crowd filled the cathedral. But the lords of Berne, in whose presence the disputation was to take place, had not yet arrived. It was a great disappointment. However, the opening took place on Sunday, although the discussion only began on Monday. It was Farel, the senior of the French reformers, the great champion of the Gospel in the district of Geneva, Vaud, and Neuchâtel, that Christian man, at once so learned and so pious, so devout and so active, who made the first speech, in which his design was to prepare the minds of those present for a becoming and Christian conference.[395] He said,—‘While Satan leads the sheep astray in order to destroy them, our Lord seeks to bring them back to his holy flock in order to save them. We shall never attain real unity except by means of the truth. A safe-conduct has therefore been given to all, to go and come, to speak and to hear, as shall seem good to them, for the truth must not be hidden. May it be the truth that wins the day! If I myself were wholly vanquished and put to confusion, while the truth had its triumph, I should count that the greatest gain and the best possible victory. Let all therefore, whether priests or preachers, have respect to the great shepherd Jesus Christ, who gave his body and his blood for the poor people. Let us prefer to be nothing, if only the poor sheep, gone so far astray, may find the right way, may come to Jesus and give themselves to God. That will be better than if we should gain all the world and lose those for whom Jesus died. If any man will exalt himself against Jesus, if any man will light against the faith, it would be better for him if he had never been born. Let us not despise our neighbor. Let us not mock him. Let us not shut the door of the kingdom of heaven and take away the key of knowledge. Let us be free from all hatred and rancor. Let us love all men, pray for all men, do good to all men. Let us visit the poor and the afflicted, that is the true pilgrimage. Those little ones are the images of God, and it is to those images that we ought to resort, to them that we should carry food and candles.... My dear brethren, when you hear the bell ring, present yourselves here in God’s name, in peace and unity, without disturbance or murmuring.’ This was indeed a good and Christian address, and after hearing it the assembly dispersed.
FAREL’S DISCOURSE.
On Monday, October 2, at seven o’clock in the morning, the cathedral was again filled, and ‘as soon as the shrill sound of the bell had ceased, there appeared on the platform the ambassadors of Berne,’ J. J. de Watteville, formerly avoyer,[396] J. de Diesbach, and the baillifs of Yverdon and Lausanne. They were easily recognized by their red and black doublets, skirts, and hose. The council of Geneva had sent as its representative the Syndic A. Porral, a warm friend of Reform. Presidents were chosen from among the men of Berne and Lausanne. Then Farel rose and read his first thesis, which treated of man’s justification before God, developed and proved it.
When he had finished, the vice-bailiff of Lausanne said aloud, ‘If any man has aught to say against these first conclusions, let him come forward and we shall willingly listen to him.’ The canons of the cathedral then rose, who were determined not to carry on but to prevent the discussion, and one of them, Perrini, said, ‘When doubts arise respecting the faith, they must be resolved according to the true sense of the Scriptures. Now, that is lawful only to the Church universal, which is not liable to error. Therefore, we, the provost and canons of this church, do solemnly protest against this controversy, and refer it to the next council.’[397]
This proposal not to proceed was inadmissible. The courageous Farel opposed it. ‘It is nowhere asserted in the Scripture,’ said he, ‘that any particular Church is liable to error and that the universal Church is exempt from it. On the contrary, it is to a particular Church that Jesus Christ addresses the words, Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. This promise cannot fail. The Canons refrained from accusing by their protest all the early doctors and the holy fathers, for whom they make pretence of so much reverence. We find in fact, in the writings of those ancients, only particular disputations, held for the purpose of examining articles at that time controverted. There are ten such articles in Cyprian, and twenty or thereabouts, in Augustine. If they accuse us, who are now assembled here, how shall they defend their own provincial councils, their monks’ chapters, all their schools and Sorbonnes, in which they hold conferences for the research of truth? Most of those whom they have condemned as heretics were not condemned in a general council, but in some particular assembly. Paul, speaking with reference to churches as they were, scattered in towns or villages, said, Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other judge. (1 Cor. xiv. 29.)
‘And how do these reverend gentlemen prove that the Church general cannot err? This is their pretty assertion, invented too by them, according to their excellent custom. They say that our Lord prayed for St. Peter that his faith might not fail. Who then has revealed to them the fact, either asleep or awake, that Peter is the Church universal? If it were indeed represented by St. Peter, then it would follow that the Church universal may, in one single day, three times deny Jesus Christ, as Peter did so after that word had been spoken to him. If an assembly of the Church universal were the only body capable of resolving doubts, then all the martyrs of Jesus Christ, who in the first three centuries set the seal with their blood to the truth of the Gospel, would have suffered death for things doubtful, for the Church universal had not yet been assembled in general council.
THE DISPUTATION.
‘If there be now a universal council which pretends to infallibility, let it then show us that it assembles in the name of Jesus! A holy company indeed is that of the pope and his cardinals! Fair pillars of the church are bishops and prelates! Great zealots for the faith are the monks! It is greatly to be doubted whether, if all that multitude were thoroughly sifted, one man among them would be found deserving to be called a true member of the Church of Christ! It is of men who are all trying to get the benefices and the dignities of the Church that a general council consists, and this calls itself the Church universal. Ah! to secure their wealth, their honor, and their gain, they would be ready not only to trample in the dust the word of Jesus Christ, but they would go further and put himself to death, if he were present in his own person. Such is the fine band with whom, if we take their word, the Holy Spirit dwells! If any man offer to contend with them on reasonable grounds, proceedings will be taken against him to punish him for his audacity, and, as was the case at the council of Constance, he will be condemned and burnt.’[398]
Thus spake Farel. We may perhaps think some of his remarks severe, but if we take into account the time, the form of his speech is certainly not amiss, and the substance of it is unanswerable. After that discourse, the Dominican Monbouson and the reformer Viret argued on the same subject till eleven o’clock. Then the call was heard, ‘Retire for dinner,’ and the meeting broke up. In the afternoon the old priests and monks of Thonon, who had bragged that they would put the ministers to confusion, were in the assembly. Fabry, who was well acquainted with Thonon and its clergy, invited them to speak. Not one of them did so. Two of them declared that they believed the theses to be true, and most of the others contented themselves with giving their adhesion to the protest of the canons.
On Tuesday, October 3, Dr. Blancherose (of whom it was said il tenait de la lune) addressed the assembly. Even if the clergy were silent he thought himself quite competent to maintain his cause. ‘Magnificent and mighty lords,’ he began, ‘I am a physician; my profession is that of medicine, not that of theology.’ To which Farel politely answered, ‘To be a physician does not at all clash with true theology. St. Luke was a physician likewise.’—‘I have taught,’ said Blancherose, ‘in many cities and universities of France; moreover, I was once physician to the king, and afterwards to the princess of Orange.’ He then began to set forth strange theories on what he called the monarchies of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Caroli was present. It is known that this inconsistent and whimsical man was sometimes a Papist and sometimes a Protestant. For the moment he was Protestant. So he raised the cry, just as if he were with a hunting party, ‘A hare started out of the Donatist warren!’ The priests themselves were not particularly pleased with their lay companion in arms. Mimard, therefore, schoolmaster of Vevey, and Jacques Drogy, vicar of Morges, hastened to the rescue, hoping to retake from the enemy what he had carried off. But their attempt had no great success.
Drogy renewed his speech on Wednesday, October 4. He must have known well what kind of life was led by many priests, monks, and laymen, who at the same time that they were doing everything to save themselves by legal works, found therein a support, and, so to say, an indulgence, for giving themselves up unscrupulously to an impure life. Nevertheless, he showed that he was greatly alarmed, and no doubt sincerely, at the dangers to which the doctrine of justification by faith alone would expose the work of sanctification. He therefore said, ‘If you say that a man is justified by faith and not by works, people will not take the trouble to live well.’ Drogy was seeking light. The sayings of the reformers had disturbed him, and all that he desired was to see the truth clearly.
THE CHURCH AND THE SCRIPTURES.
Caroli, once Romanist and now Protestant, whose inconsistencies we have seen and shall again see, spoke on this occasion with fairness. As doctor of the Sorbonne and a man of intelligence, he was well acquainted with the doctrine; only he did not walk according to its teaching. He rose and said, ‘To allege that works must be partners in justification is to enervate Jesus Christ; that is, to say that he alone is not sufficient to justify us. If a man be absolved through faith, it is certainly not in order that he may again begin doing evil. Just as when a king grants a pardon, it is not that the man may repeat his offence. God forgives all my offences only in order that I may do good works. Are you not yourselves in the habit of saying to a dying man, God is a greater pardoner than man is an offender? The death of Jesus is more effectual in the punishment of sin than the death of all mankind.’[399]
The laity were ashamed to see their cause so ill defended by their priests. The captain of the youth of Lausanne, Fernand de Loys, therefore entered the lists. He was a clear-headed man; he had learnt carefully some theses of the Romish theology, and had a little of that presumption which is frequently seen in the young men of whom he was one of the chiefs. He came forward, with his baton raised, speaking bluntly and without palliation. ‘The Church is before the Scripture, worthier than the Scripture, and invested with higher authority. Now the Church teaches justification by works.’ Farel, roused by hearing such assertions, exclaimed, ‘Which is first, the Church or the Scripture?... Certainly, the Scripture is before the Church. The Church has its existence through the Word of God; and Jesus himself proved what he said by reference to the Scriptures.’ Upon this the physician Blancherose thought he must come to the aid of the captain of the young men, and said to Farel, ‘In saying so much of faith, and in making it the cause of all good, you are very much like the sorcerers and enchanters, who, through the faith which they have in certain words, pretend to do so many great and wonderful things.’ Farel, taking little heed to these jests, said, ‘Jesus was beaten and wounded; he bore the discipline for our sakes; for us he died.’ The master of the Catholic school of Vevey, who was present, seems to have had a truer Christian feeling than his colleagues, and, profiting by Farel’s words, he said, ‘Precisely so; it is Jesus who justifies us, and not faith.’ This was more serious. Farel therefore supported the first part of the proposition. In opposing the second part, he said—‘Yes, it is Jesus alone who justifies; but he justifies only those who receive him by faith, and he dwells in those who believe. But as for those who do not believe in him, he is for them only a stone of stumbling and of ruin.’
The truth began to be pursued more closely. The reverend Jean Michod, of Vevey, who had studied at Paris and was acquainted with the interpretations of Romish theology, rose and said—‘St. Peter tells us that there are unlearned persons who pervert the Holy Scriptures to their own destruction. I have often listened to wise doctors at Paris, and they all declared that that passage of the Epistle to the Romans—A man is justified by faith without the works of the law—had reference exclusively to the Jewish ceremonies, such as circumcision.’ Then turning to Caroli, ‘You, sir, our master,’ said he, ‘I have heard you at Paris, at the College of Cambrai, expound that passage in the same way.’ That was an argumentum ad hominem, and Michod believed that the circumstances peculiar to the person himself to whom he addressed it rendered it unanswerable. But Caroli, who was not deficient in presence of mind, replied, ‘The fact is that I was at that time one of those unlearned persons of whom St. Peter speaks in the passage which you have just cited, who pervert the Holy Scriptures. But God has now given me the true understanding of the matter. I have changed, and it will be well for you to do the same.’[400]
THE REAL PRESENCE.
In the afternoon of the third day they passed to the second thesis, affirming that Jesus is the only pontiff. As no one raised an objection, even in favor of the pope, which was a very significant fact, they went on to the third proposition, respecting the true Church. That Church, it was said, Christ, who in his corporal presence has been taken away from us, fills, governs, and vivifies by his Holy Spirit. The Roman Catholics took advantage of the thesis to turn the discussion on the corporal presence. Blancherose, who was always confident that he could answer everything, rose first, and began to speak of the sun and of all sorts of things. He undertook to prove the doctrine of transubstantiation by the example of an egg, which is converted into a chick, which chick is afterwards eaten by a man. Viret did not think that strange argument deserving of a very grave answer. ‘That proof,’ he said, ‘reverses the order of things. To make it applicable, it would be necessary for the priests to sit on the object transformed, as hens sit on their eggs.’ Blancherose, having offered other instances of the same kind, was invited to carry on the discussion by the Scripture, and not by proofs taken from the sun, which is everywhere at once, from hens, from their eggs changed into chicks, and from chickens which are eaten, and from other natural transformations.
On Thursday, October 5, in the morning, the presidents, offended by the extravagances of the doctors, and perceiving that the method till then pursued would entail digressions and interminable prolixity, announced that, instead of resuming the debate, and with the hope of shortening the proceedings, the following alternative would be offered to all canons, abbots, priors, monks, curés, and vicars in the whole country, as well as to the ministers: ‘Argue, get some one to argue for you, or subscribe the theses.’ All were then called by name, and those who declared themselves willing to subscribe passed into the choir. Megander, a minister of Berne, exhorted them to preach nothing but the pure Word of God, and after that they were allowed to withdraw if they wished. But those who declined to adhere to the theses were ordered to remain to the close of the disputation.
In the afternoon, Mimard appeared with a long manuscript of his own composition, intended to vindicate the mass. The subject was treated under thirteen heads, which did not seem to promise much for shortening the business. Mimard was, at any rate, a serious speaker, although a little dull and rather prolix. ‘Do you pretend,’ he said, ‘to be wiser and more enlightened by the Holy Spirit than the holy doctors, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, and St. Gregory, who all believed in the real presence? If you reject them as unlearned, it is merely because they are opposed to you.’ Farel replied on the thirteen heads, without omitting one of them. What was said by each of the two champions may easily be imagined. The subject has already been so frequently brought forward that it is needless to spend more time over it now. But there was present in the assembly one young theologian, who rejoiced to hear his friends defending the true doctrine, and who by reason of his youth and his modesty had been kept silent till that time. It was Calvin. For four days he had sat there without speaking, contenting himself with the part of a hearer. But he had a brave heart. That Ambrose, that Augustine, those other doctors, he was well acquainted with them. He knew their words by heart. They were his friends, and he could not stand by and see them insulted by being ranked with the pope’s army. He could not be silent any longer; his heart burnt within him, and he felt impelled to defend the principles which were brought to light by the Reformation. But he wished also to restore to those great men of Christian antiquity, and above all to his beloved Augustine, the honor which was due to them. This was the first occasion on which Calvin took part in any of the great discussions of the time, and it is worth while to listen to him.
SPEECH OF CALVIN.
‘I have abstained from speaking till this moment,’ he said, ‘and it was my intention to abstain to the end, perceiving that any speech of mine was unnecessary, because my brethren Farel and Viret have made sufficient reply. But the reproach which you have uttered against us with regard to the ancient doctors compels me to show again briefly how grievously you err in accusing us on this point.
‘We despise them and reject them altogether, you say, and that because we find them opposed to our cause. Verily, all the world, we own, might esteem us not only rash men, but arrogant beyond measure, if we held in derision such servants of God, and considered them asses, as you say we do. Those who make pretence of holding them in great reverence, frequently honor them less than we do, and would not deign to employ in reading their works the time which we gladly devote to it. But we do not exalt their authority to such a height as to allow it to lessen the dignity of the Word of the Lord, to which, exclusively, entire obedience ought to be given in the Church of Christ. We should fear being found rebels against that Word of the Lord which asks whether his people ought not to be content with his voice, and which adds, without hearing either the living or the dead. Yes, we do rest in his sacred Word, and we fasten on it our hearts, our understandings, our eyes, our ears, without turning aside to the right hand or to the left. If any one speak, says Peter, let him speak as the oracles of God; we therefore teach the people of Jesus not human doctrines, but heavenly wisdom. With the ancient doctors, we seek for God’s truth, with them we listen to it and keep it with all reverence, reserving to the Lord this glory, that his mouth alone be opened in the Church, to speak with authority. Let every ear then hear him, and let every soul be ready to obey him!
‘As to your assertion that we despise the fathers because they are not on our side, it would be easy for me to show that whatever matters are in controversy between us, that assertion is no more true than your reproach. But, to confine myself to the subject before us, I will lay before you only a small number of passages of such a character that there will be nothing left for you to reply to.’
Calvin had not with him the voluminous works of the fathers; but his memory was a library abridged. Tertullian, Chrysostom, and the writers of his time, especially Augustine, came immediately to his aid. ‘Tertullian,’ said he, ‘when refuting Marcion, speaks thus, “Christ in the supper has left us the figure of his body.” The author of the commentary on St. Matthew, contained in the works of Chrysostom, says, “It is a far greater offence to defile ourselves, who are the true vessels in which God dwells, than to profane the vessels in which the supper is administered, since that the real body of Jesus Christ is not contained in them, but only the mystery of his body.” St. Augustine, in his twenty-third Epistle,[401] says, “The bread and the wine, which are sacraments of the body and blood of Christ, we call them in a certain sense (quodammodo) his body and his blood.” And in his book against Adimantus, he adds, “The Lord did not hesitate to say, This is my body, when he gave the sign of his body.” Weigh all these words, every syllable of them if you will, and see whether these declarations in any way favor your error. When you taunt us with the charge that the ancients are against us, everybody sees your rashness. Assuredly, if you had read only a few pages you would not have been so bold; but you have not even seen the covering of the book. The foregoing testimonies, which may easily be pointed out, prove it.’
DOCTRINE OF THE FATHERS.
At this point, Calvin, wishing to show fully how chimerical the Romish opinion is, offered one or two considerations which, while they display his fine intelligence, are not lacking in solidity. ‘It is not without reason,’ he said, ‘that we reject the foolish opinion which the craft of Satan introduced into the world. In the supper we certainly eat the same body of Christ as the apostles ate at its institution, and it must be either his mortal body or his glorified body. If it be his mortal body, Jesus is then at this hour mortal and passible, while the Scripture declares to us that he has laid aside all infirmity. If it be his immortal and glorified body, Jesus, at the first supper, was in a certain place (seated at the table) in his mortal and passible body, and he was in another place (in the hands and mouths of his disciples) in his immortal and glorified body. The dreams of Marcion were never so fantastic!...’
Calvin, however, went further and, knowing the importance which Rome attached to the letter, felt bound to show to what that method leads. He has explained his own doctrine elsewhere in a more complete manner, but we must not suppress what he said on this solemn occasion. ‘If you tie yourselves to words,’ said he, ‘if you so rigorously insist on these words, Hoc est corpus meum, you are compelled by such verbal strictness to separate the body of the Lord from his blood. For he said, This is my body, pointing to the bread, and when pointing to the wine, This is my blood. Now, to imagine that the body of Christ was separated from his blood is an abominable thing. I know that you evade this by what you call the concomitance. But do not allege it, for it is mere mockery. If the real body is in the cup, as you affirm it to be, the Lord of truth then spoke falsely when he said, This is my blood.
‘No, it is neither the natural body nor the natural blood of our Lord Jesus which is given to us in the holy supper. But there is a spiritual communication, by virtue of which he gives to us all the grace that we can receive from his body and his blood. Christ makes us truly participants, but altogether in a spiritual way, by the bond of his Holy Spirit. St. Luke and St. Paul write that Jesus said, This is the new testament in my blood; that is to say, the new alliance which the Father has made with us, blotting out our iniquities by his mercy, receiving us into his favor that we may be his children, and writing his law in our hearts by his Spirit; an alliance really new, and ratified and confirmed by the body and the blood of Jesus Christ.
‘Constrained by reasons so forcible, we interpret the Scripture according to the true analogy of faith. We do not put glosses on it out of our own heads, and we give no explanation which is not expressed in itself.’
CONVERSION OF JEAN TANDY.
Calvin was silent. The young man, whose face was unknown but full of expression, had been listened to with astonishment, and people recognized in him a master. Everyone felt the force of his words, and no one raised an objection. ‘At this point,’ say the Acts of the Disputation, ‘both the Mimards and the Blancheroses remained without making any attempt to reply.’ The minds of the hearers seemed to be enlightened by fresh knowledge. This was soon evident.
A monk of the order of Cordeliers, the Franciscan Jean Tandy,[402] who had been present at the disputation from its opening, listened with eager interest to Calvin’s speech, and felt that its truth reached him. His heart was affected, his understanding was satisfied. He embraced by faith the sacrifice of the Saviour; and, according to the expression of the Evangelist, he ate of his flesh and drank his blood. For awhile he sat silent, awaiting the objections which might be offered. But ‘when he saw that those who had taken part in discussion till that hour had their lips closed,’ he took courage, rose and said, the assembly listening to him attentively—‘Holy Scripture teaches that there is no remission for the sin against the Holy Ghost. Now this sin is that of men who, through unbelief, willing to contend against the clearest truth, choose rather to exalt themselves against God and his Word than to humble themselves and obey him. As I desire now not to resist the truth, but to receive it and confess it openly, I acknowledge before you all that I have long been mistaken. While I thought that I was living in a state of perfection, as they had given me to understand, I have been, on the contrary, only the servant of men, submitting myself to their traditions and commandments. Nothing is good but that which God commands. I have heard the truth. I see that I must hold fast to Jesus alone, must stand to his Word, and must have no other head, leader, or Saviour, but him who by his sacrifice has made us acceptable to the Father. I will henceforth live and die according to his Gospel. I ask forgiveness of God for all that I have done and said against his honor. I ask pardon of you and of all the people, so far as by my preaching or by my life I have taught you amiss, or have given you a bad example. And since, by following the rule of the Cordeliers and assuming this garb of dissimulation, I have been led out of the right way, at this moment in which I renounce all superstition, I abandon also this garb full of all hypocrisy and trumpery.’ As he uttered these words, Jean Tandy cast off his monastic dress, and then added—
‘Let no one be offended, but let each examine himself and confess that if the state in which he has lived be contrary to the will of God, he ought not to persevere in it, nor to reënter after quitting it. I will live as a Christian, and not as a Cordelier; according to the Gospel of Jesus, and not according to the rule of the monks; in true and living faith in Christ, and united with all true Christians. To this God calls us all, to the intent that, instead of being divided into so many rules, we may be all one in Jesus Christ.’
This frank, noble, and affecting conversion gave great joy to those who loved the Gospel, and Farel, as their spokesman, said, ‘How great God is! how good and how wise! How he smites and heals, how he casts down to hell and brings up again to heaven, we see with our own eyes. What superstition is there equal to that of the Cordeliers, in which the enemy has with so much skill colored his work that even the elect are deceived! Let us rejoice, therefore, that the poor sheep which was straying on the mountains and in the deserts, in the midst of wolves and wild beasts, now, by the grace of the Lord, abandoning the barren deserts, the vexatious thorns of human traditions, is entering into his fold, and finds now his pasture in God’s holy Word.’
‘This done,’ add the Acts, ‘because it was late, everyone retired.’[403]
The last theses were discussed during the remaining two or three days, and for the most part by the same combatants, each of the champions expressing himself well or ill, according to his character and the spirit which actuated him. ‘The Lord,’ said the intelligent and spiritual Viret, ‘commands Peter to feed his sheep, but according to the well-known by-word, the Romish court want no sheep without wool.[404] The true key of the kingdom of heaven is the Gospel of the Lord, but the pope and his priests have devised others which close the door instead of opening it. If the pope be willing to imitate Jesus and Peter, let him then go about hither and thither in every place, seeking and saving souls. The apostles had no holy see like the Romish pontiff. They were not often even seated, except, indeed, it were in a prison. And instead of a triple crown and a chain of gold, they had chains of iron on their hands and their feet.’[405]
THE TRINITY OF BLANCHEROSE.
Dr. Blancherose, who unhesitatingly considered himself the most valiant of the defenders of Rome, began now to lose heart. His only consolation was in the thought that if he were beaten it was not for want of talent, but because he stood alone; and quoting a word of the ancients, he said, ‘The opponents (reformers) are too strong, and as some one said, Hercules himself could do nothing against two.’[406] The two, in his case, were doubtless Farel and Calvin.
He continued to complain of his comrades in the fight. ‘Instead of aiding me,’ he said, ‘the priests have begged me to begone. There are six score of us, they added, who will be compelled, if the disputation is to last much longer, to sell our gowns and hoods to pay our hosts.’ Then, after this trifling, returning to his grand theses, the fantastical doctor said, ‘The holy Trinity represents three monarchies. The father represents the emperor; the Son represents the pope; and the third monarchy, which is only now beginning, is that of the Holy Spirit, and belongs to physicians.’ Thus he claimed a great part for himself. This recalled him to his duty, and he applied himself to matters within his grasp. ‘The time of Lent, in which people fast,’ he said, ‘has been well regulated, because in the spring nature is awakening, the blood is warm and impels to pleasure, and, moreover, people have eaten a good deal during the winter.’ The energetic Farel, who knew as well as the doctor how to be popular and sarcastic, met him on his own ground, and replied in his medical language, ‘that, on the contrary, the least fitting season had been fixed for Lent; for in the spring the poor people work in the fields and the vineyards, and after having crammed themselves with flesh in the winter, they give them well-salted, fish, hot spices, etc. This method gives origin to legions of maladies, so that the priests make their harvest of them and the doctors their vintage. The sicknesses put money into the purses of these two classes of men, especially into those of the Romish priests, according to the anagram of Roma. If each letter of that word be taken as the initial of another word, we get the sentence, Radix Omnium Malorum Avaritia: Rome is avarice, the root of all evil. She shows this in all kinds of ways, but above all in granting for a money payment the liberty to eat flesh, which otherwise she prohibits and declares to be a sin.’[407] It is clear that Farel knew how to profit by that precept, Answer a fool according to his folly.
The vicar of Morges, Drogy, a man more enlightened than the others, and who saw clearly the weakness of the Romish teaching, apologized in the best way he could for his comrades, and made excuse for their defeat. ‘The poor priests are ignorant,’ he said, ‘and they deserve to be pitied. It is no great glory for the ministers to have beaten them. What they want is time given them for study, and a long time too; but instead of that they have been pitilessly bantered.’ ‘Do not take as insults,’ said the amiable Viret, ‘the charitable admonitions which we have given them. So far from wishing them any harm, we are ready to shed our blood for their salvation.’ ‘No doubt,’ added the reformer Marcourt, who had not hitherto spoken, a man of much good sense, but somewhat more severe than Viret, ‘no doubt the poor priests deserve to be pitied, but still more the poor people. No man would intrust a flock of sheep to a shepherd who was blind and dumb; why then are the churches placed under leaders who are blind and unable to explain the Word of God?’[408]
CALVIN AND HILDEBRAND.
Calvin then rose to speak again, and without stopping to argue with the feeble apologists of Rome, who were sufficiently refuted, he selected for his adversary the most illustrious and the most valiant of the champions of the papacy, the man who was indeed its chief founder, Hildebrand, made pope under the name of Gregory VII. These two men were well fitted to contend with equal strength in the lists. It is a pity that five centuries stood in the way of their measuring their forces hand to hand. It was Hildebrand who had launched over Christendom these stupendous assertions, ‘that the name of the pope is sole in the world,—that the Romish Church never did err and never will err,—that the pope may depose the emperor, and that all princes must kiss his feet.’[409] Calvin frequently contended against these presumptuous lies,[410] and he had done so before this time, at least to some extent. On this occasion he made use of a document written by a cardinal, a contemporary of Hildebrand, which relates, among other things, that that pope, wanting for once to get through his incantations, took the bread which he affirmed to be God, and threw it into the fire.[411] An occasion for the natural exclamation, ‘Say now that the bread is your God!’ This story, told by a cardinal at the expense of a pope, appears to us to be apocryphal. But it is quite true, as we know from the relations which existed between Gregory VII. and Berenger, that the famous pontiff had doubts about the doctrine of transubstantiation, and that he did not pronounce himself in support of it until he perceived that his enemies would take advantage of his doubts on the subject to strike a blow at his hierarchical rights and supreme authority.
When the debate on the ten theses had been brought to a close, Farel entered the pulpit, in the afternoon of Sunday, October 8, and delivered the closing discourse. We shall allow the orator to speak his own language, although it be not always that of our age, for it is essential that the Reformation should be set before us just as it actually appeared. Farel was struck with the fact that a band of ministers, feeble men and few in number, had been capable, in that conflict of eight days, of filling mighty Catholicism with alarm and vanquishing it. He remembered, too, how when he arrived at Aigle, at Neuchâtel, at Geneva, poor, weak, and contemptible in the eyes of many, he had seen the papacy reel and fall down before the Word of God. ‘What is it then,’ said he, ‘which makes you tremble, you who are a great multitude covering the whole land? What! a poor prophet makes his appearance, alone in the face of so many rich men; unknown and friendless before so many people who have powerful allies; he knows not whither to go, has no one to speak to, while you are all comfortably lodged, you all know one another, and fill the whole world with terror. Of what then are you afraid? The prophet will not strike you, for he is unarmed. When, for one reason or another, a whole city or even a whole people revolts against you, you have no fear at all, and you act even worse than usual.... Whence is this difference? Is one then more than a multitude? The fact is this: With that poor prophet comes the truth, the wonderful truth of God, which is mightier than all men, and which, whenever it encounters enemies, pursues them, confounds them and puts them to flight, while they are unable to make any resistance.’[412]
FAREL’S CLOSING DISCOURSE.
Farel did not confine himself to giving the solution of the enigma. He desired above all to teach consciences and to lead souls to Jesus Christ, while he rescued them from the pope. This was the great aim of his long life. That is the reason why, in addressing a vast audience, he cried out, ‘Come then to Jesus, to Jesus who hath borne our sorrows, and trust wholly in him that you may be saved. Abandon the perverse doctrines which the pope and his servants teach, the masses and the confessions, the absolutions, indulgences, and pardons for life. Run no more hither and thither to the broken cisterns. Trust no longer in persons so impotent and so cruel; receive neither the pope nor Mohammed, nor anyone who assumes to govern you by his own ordinances. Hold fast to the sole head, Jesus, who when he entered into the great sanctuary, offered to his Father his own blood, thus making peace between God and us, so that Christians are made immortal. If you trust in the pope you will be put to shame when you hear from the mouth of God these words: Who commanded what you have done? You have had the popes for your gods.... Go then, and let them save you if they can. Then will come upon you great desolation. It is greatly to deceive yourselves to seek Jesus Christ in the wafers of the priests, in bread, in wine, in flesh, in tears, thorns, nails, wood, shrouds, cloths, and all the other mockeries which Rome offers you, which lay low everything that is of God. It is in another way, it is in his Spirit, it is by faith, that you must seek the Saviour. A church of Jesus, governed by its spouse, does not receive all these papal errors; it directs poor sinners to God, that he may open their hearts, and that they may implore his mercy.
‘Then do not send your wives nor your daughters to those whom you know so well. Do not give your souls up to the guidance of men to whom you would hardly like to intrust your sheep. Let all go to God, go to him with the heart, for it is the heart he asks for and not our money. To sing a mass, to mutter prayers and Ave Marias before a piece of wood, to make so many journeys hither and thither; these are not what he wants of us. He wants us to cling wholly to him alone, and he will save us.’
Farel then turning to the priests, of whom there was a large number present, said to them, ‘Leave off then, you poor priests, who till now have been deceived, and have deceived others, leave off teaching that without your confessions, your penances, your satisfactions and absolutions, whether made in this world or in the world to come, it is not possible to enter into paradise. Lead your sheep to the shepherd who gave his life for them. The church of Jesus gets nothing out of all your trash. God does not care how you muffle yourselves up, what sort of shirts you wear under your gowns, whether your cloaks are bordered in the proper way, or whether you keep in good condition the ornaments and furnishings of your chapels and altars. To place salvation in these outward things is to reverse the doctrine of Jesus, for the kingdom of God is within you.’
HIS APPEAL TO THE PRIESTS.
Farel, as he closed his discourse, raised a song of triumph, and pointed out that the Reformation did not adopt the weapons of its adversaries, but that its method formed the most striking contrast to theirs. ‘Many,’ said he, ‘have tried to assail my propositions, but the truth has been the strongest. Yet the priests and the monks have been subjected to no secret interrogatories; they have not been forbidden to speak; they have not been threatened with prison or with death; no deathsmen have appeared on the scene to settle the questions before us by fire or sword. All have been kindly invited. All those who wished to dispute have been listened to, and no one has taken offence even at their frequent repetitions. Receive then the holy doctrine of Jesus which has been set before you, and let him alone suffice you. One better, wiser, or more powerful, we cannot find. Be Christians; be no longer papists.
‘O priests, canons, and monks, if henceforth you have no more the honors which you have previously enjoyed, if you should not be so well treated and fed, do not on that account destroy yourselves and the poor people. Better is it to enter into life eternal with the poor Lazarus than go with the rich bad man to hell. Leave, then, your songs and your masses, and follow Jesus. Instead of chanting Latin before the people, preach to them the sacred Gospel. When some came like brigands to kill us, we did not demand vengeance, but grace and forgiveness for them. And now we ask that you may be joyfully and tenderly received, as wandering sheep returning to the fold.
‘And you, my lords,’ said Farel, addressing the delegates from Berne, ‘since God has led you to the conquest of this country, and has committed its people to you as a child is committed to its father, see to it that God be holily honored in the lands which are intrusted to your rule. Let not Jesus be to you of less estimation than the poorest man in the land. May God touch the hearts of all kings and lords, to the end that the poor people may live according to God’s will, without war and in peace; that human blood may not be shed; that a man who is made in God’s image may not kill his fellow who is made in the same image; but that each may love and aid his neighbor as he would that his neighbor should aid him. And may all those who have suffered for the faith in Jesus be strengthened to persevere even to the end, and declare the goodness and the power of God, so that all the earth may worship him.’[413]
CHAPTER III.
EXTENSION OF THE REFORM IN THE PAYS DE VAUD.
(End of 1536.)
The assembly of Lausanne was a great event for the Vaudois; it was talked of in every village. Berne, by her ordinance, ‘that all priests, monks, and other people of the Church, whatever they might be, should appear,’ had awakened universal attention. While there was one great disputation at Lausanne, there were many little ones in the towns and villages. They discussed the pros and the cons, and they wondered whether the priests on their return would be converted to the new faith or not. At Lausanne itself, hardly had a session closed, and the crowd passed out of the doors of the beautiful cathedral, than the debates were renewed in the streets and in private houses.
RESULTS OF THE CONFERENCE.
The results of the conference were not long in showing themselves. Some, like the Cordelier Tandy, owned themselves convinced, took the side of the Reformation, and became in their turn its missionaries. Ministers and laymen were seen traversing all the land, reporting the discussions, showing that the evangelical religion is indeed the true, and intensifying the universal excitement. The two deputies sent by the parish of Villette, Sordet and Clavel, were so much impressed by the truths expounded by Farel and his friends, that they took Viret back with them to Cully, that he might preach there. The whole country, indeed, was not converted, but the light was penetrating from place to place, even into the remotest corners. Not only was there the bright flame in those fair regions, but there was also the warmth, which was further diffused than the light, quickening and transforming hearts.
At Lausanne itself the first effect of the disputation was remarkable, and showed clearly that morals were quite as much as doctrine the business of the Reformation, and that they were possibly its most distinctive characteristic. Only two days after the close of the disputation, on October 10, the council, very much engrossed by the great event which had just taken place, resolved ‘to destroy once for all the houses of ill-fame which existed in the town,’ to drive away the foul women who lived in them, as well as all others who were known to be leading an evil life. On Thursday, October 12, the order given to those ‘unfortunates’ to quit the city and the bailiwick was published with sound of trumpet in all the streets.[414] It has been said that morals are the science of man.[415] The Lausannese edileship thought that they were especially the science of the magistrate. Those discussions, in which justification by faith had been the chief subject in question, had for their first consequence works of Christian morality. This proceeding of the magistrates gave great joy to those who had taken part in the disputation. They saw in it the apology for their doctrine. ‘When justification by faith is spoken of,’ remarks one of them,[416] ‘the mind of man takes the matter the wrong way, and is shocked, like a ship which, instead of keeping to the right course marked out for it, drives on to strike first on one rock then on another. The death of Christ is efficacious for extinguishing the evil of our flesh, and his resurrection for originating in us a new condition of better nature.’
The people drew from the disputation another consequence. The most ardent even of the reformers had, while the debates lasted, tolerated the images in the cathedral. Viret had shown that God prohibited them, and that they turn men away from the true service of God. ‘The priests,’ he had said, ‘for their convenience set in their own place preachers of wood and of stone, the images, arraying them in rich garments at the cost of the poor. And as for themselves, they sleep, they make good cheer, and are free from care. These images are their vicars, they do their work, and they cost nothing to feed. And the poor people are stupefied and kiss the wood and the stone.’[417] No one had answered Viret. It was in vain that the defenders of images had been invited to come forward; not one appeared. For the reformed it seemed therefore a legitimate course to remove them from the cathedral. A sinister rumor of this project alarmed the canons, and they resolved to do their utmost to resist the impious proceeding. They took the keys of the cathedral and, running to the sacred edifice, closed the doors that no one might be able to carry off the objects of their veneration. In spite of all their precautions one of the images was removed. The fact was immediately noised over the town. The most grievous blow had just fallen on our great Lady of Lausanne! The reformed honored the mother of the Saviour as a blessed woman, but they refused to make a goddess of her. The clamor and threats of the priests recalled to mind the cries of the worshippers of Diana at Ephesus, spoken of in the Acts of the Apostles, who said, ‘The temple of the great goddess Diana is in danger of being despised and her magnificence of being destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worshippeth.’[418] The canons not feeling themselves strong enough for the occasion, betook themselves to the council, gave up to them the keys of the cathedral, and implored them to protect the building and what it contained.[419] But the reformed, who earnestly longed to see worship given to God alone, turned their back on those figures of wood and stone:
Dès maintenant, trompeuse idole,
D’un culte honteux et frivole,
Nous n’entourons plus tes autels.
BERNESE ORDINANCES.
It was the intention of the authorities to oppose the arbitrary removal of images by private persons. But these same authorities lost no time in suppressing them by their own act throughout the country. A few days later, Thursday, October 19, the chief magistrate and the councillors of Berne addressed all their trusty subjects of Vaud, and announced to them by proclamation that being bound to govern them not only by means of ‘corporal and outward ordinances, but also by exercising all diligence to see that they walked according to the will of God, in the true and living faith which brings forth good works; considering that the ten conclusions which had been discussed at Lausanne were based on Holy Scripture, they enjoined everyone to abstain from all papistical ceremonies, sacrifices, and institutions; to cast down all images and idols, as well as the altars, and this in an orderly manner without disturbance; to hear the Word of God, to receive the preachers with kindness, and not to molest and worry them, so that all may dwell together in true peace, brotherly love and union.’[420] These ordinances in the matter of religion and worship would seem strange in our day; and we might wonder whether such would be tolerated even in Japan. But they were in accordance with the spirit of that time, and the rulers of Berne were doing their best.
The Reformation achieved greater triumphs still than the abolition of images. It could count souls won to the Gospel, not only among the general population of the country, but also among the very champions of Rome who had encountered Farel. The amiable captain of the youth, Ferdinand de Loys, embraced the glorious promises of the Gospel, and subsequently exerted himself with great earnestness to maintain Protestantism in France. Moreover, a brilliant testimony to his zeal was given him. Soubise sent him grateful acknowledgment, as well on his own behalf as on behalf of the prince of Condé, the Admiral (Coligny) and other princes and lords.[421] By arrangement with the lords of Berne, Valais, and Neuchâtel, he had sent to him some men; these men (gens), however, we must add, appear to have been not evangelists but soldiers. A priest who had taken part in the defence of the papacy, but who had been convinced by the powerful words of the reformers, Dom Jean Drogy, also embraced the evangelical faith. He became afterwards pastor at Bevay in the territory of Neuchâtel. Megander, too, wrote on October 19, to the ministers of Zurich, ‘The disputation of Lausanne has had the happiest results.’
CAROLI AND VIRET.
These successes encouraged the friends of the Reform, and the Bernese government demanded of the authorities of Lausanne the definitive establishment of the evangelical faith and worship. The canons opposed the measure with all their energy, alleging that reverence is due to all old customs and religions; they conjured the rulers of Lausanne not to allow their city to be faithless to Rome. At the same time they sent deputies to Berne. But the council was already treating with the lords of Berne, partly swayed by conviction and partly by prudence. The Bernese were disposed to grant various rights, advantages, and privileges to their new subjects, on condition of their renouncing the foreign authority of the pope, with which they well knew that it was impossible to be on good terms, and of their receiving the Gospel, which enlightens the mind, gives peace to the soul, and promotes the prosperity of nations. They knew also that in order to persuade men, it is necessary to act kindly towards them. Consequently, on November 1, a contract was concluded at Berne, by virtue of which their excellencies conceded to the burgesses of Lausanne the higher, middle, and lower jurisdiction in civil and criminal causes, various convents and abbeys, the châlet and the mill of Gobet, and certain vineyards. With these gifts the Bernese coupled the promise that, as soon as ‘popery and its mummery should be abolished,’ their excellencies would exercise generosity towards the priests. This grande largition was read on the 5th of the same month in grand council at Lausanne, and was solemnly ratified. Meanwhile the chiefs of Berne presented, November 5, to the chiefs of Lausanne, as first pastor, Caroli, who was a doctor of the Sorbonne, and whose fluent talk and engaging manners prepossessed men in his favor. At this choice the friends of the Gospel were indignant. Viret, who had for so many years labored for the diffusion of the light in his own country, and had done so with perfect earnestness, wisdom, and self-renunciation, at the risk of his life—Viret, the true Vaudois reformer—saw this new man, unfit as he was for the work to be done, preferred to himself. The pastors of Geneva wrote to Lausanne—‘Everyone knows the labors, the faith, the zeal of Viret, and we are astonished to learn that they are treating him in that way. We cannot endure it without complaining. If ever it becomes us to be indignant, surely it is on this occasion.’[422] The Bernese lords settled Caroli comfortably in the house of the canon Benoît de Pontareuse, which had beautiful gardens in which he might philosophize and entertain himself as Epicurus did of old. They assigned him, besides, an annual salary of five hundred florins. His wife displayed a degree of luxury which was offensive. Viret was joined with him as second pastor, but no tithe was assigned to him, nor any means of living. De Watteville contented himself with requesting him to show respect for the great merit of his colleague. The Bernese, however, very soon discovered that they had been mistaken in this matter. They therefore wrote to Viret, December 1, that since he was already well acquainted with the country, and Caroli was a sort of novice, they advised him to give Caroli a gratuity, ‘advancement and service, and this by way of charity.’[423] This was not giving Viret a sort of guardianship of Caroli, as has been said. On the contrary, Farel complained a few days later that it was difficult to say whether the Bernese or the Lausannese cared least for Viret.[424] The Bernese merely admitted that the Vaudois reformer, being a native of the country, had more experience of its customs, ‘of the popular way of doing things.’ Viret subsequently received a lodging in the Franciscan convent, with a salary of thirty florins and a certain allowance of wine and wheat. It was not one-third of the pay of Caroli. Some of the reformed lent furniture to the humble minister for his room, because he had no means of buying any.[425]
REFORM AT VEVEY.
Of all the districts of the Pays de Vaud, Vevey, a town situated in that lovely region which, at the extremity of the lake of Geneva, is so rich both in grace and in brilliancy, appears to have been the most inclined to embrace the Reform. For eight years past Aigle and the surrounding villages had heard the Gospel by the ministry of Farel. The ministers who came and went from Berne to Aigle, and from Aigle to Berne, passed through Vevey, and left light behind them in their passage. Moreover, there was frequent intercourse between the people of the government of Aigle and the people of Vevey. One historian worthy of credit is even led to believe that the dean Michod and the regent J. Mimard returned from Lausanne to their own town convinced of the truth of the theses which they had at first attacked.[426] Even if they were not themselves much troubled, they might by their narrations awaken in the people the desire to become acquainted with the Gospel which had been proclaimed with so much life by Farel, Viret, and Calvin. At that epoch of the Reformation there was no other public disputation at which so large a number of the champions of papal dogmas passed over to the banner of the Gospel. The men of Vevey spontaneously asked for a pastor; and one was sent them, November 24, whose name was Daillé. This name became distinguished in the seventeenth century as that of one of the most learned ministers of the Reformed Churches.
The Gospel met with opposition in the district of La Vaux, which lies between Vevey and Lausanne. At a consultative meeting, held October 15, the deputies of La Vaux had demanded a general assembly, and had declared that they would oppose ‘any innovation in the churches.’ Those of Lutry, a small town bordering on Lausanne, were of the same mind. But when the bailiff of Lausanne came three days after to dine there, the wind began to change. The magistrates, flattered with this visit, offered him with high compliments the wine of honor (vin d’honneur); and all their zeal was limited to getting the papacy buried in the most decorous manner possible. When the bailiff presented himself, November 2, to burn the images and destroy the altars, the municipal officers demanded permission to remove them themselves, desiring to do it with more delicacy. They caused the Corpus Domini to be carried into the Grotto, where they gave it an honorable position, and lighted lamps just as if it were in the church. They also put there the vessel of holy water, covering it up carefully. Some weeks later, January 16, 1537, there appeared, on the part of Berne, one Matthieu de la Croix, a converted monk, a man of discretion and benevolence. He said to the council, ‘I offer to preach, if you approve it, and even to preach every day if you will assent to it; and further, when any one dies I will deliver a sermon for the consolation of the family.’ Anxious still more powerfully to work upon their hearts, he added, ‘I propose that a request be addressed to the lords of Berne in favor of the poor.’ One might fancy that De la Croix did nothing more than put in practice the proverb, More flies are to be caught with honey than with vinegar. But there is nothing to show that his gracious way did not proceed from a sincere charity. This zeal for their commune touched the hearts of the Lutry people, and they accepted the ministry of this man of goodwill, and at the same time added to their acceptance the express request to Berne to maintain the poor. On February 8, 1537, the church was cleansed, and the stones of the altar were removed to a place apart.[427]
SEARCH FOR MINISTERS.
The great transformation was being effected in the whole country. The lords of Berne, understanding, doubtless, that their hands were not the right ones for the task, had wisely intrusted to Farel the care of providing for the spiritual wants of the people. Unfortunately it was not a very easy matter. ‘He looked round on all sides for faithful ministers, but could hardly find any.’ The nomination of Caroli by the Bernese magistrates had annoyed him. He was afraid that men who preached in its purity the cross of Christ would not be accepted. ‘They do not care much for those who preach Jesus Christ purely, and they praise to the skies braggarts and hypocrites.’ However, he was not disheartened. ‘Write,’ said he to his friend Fabri, ‘beseech, come to our aid; send us competent men.’ One circumstance, unhappy in itself, facilitated Farel’s work. Persecution was driving many evangelical Christians out of France; and these men, full of love for the faith which they had confessed in their native land, rejoiced in the opportunity of preaching it in the beautiful valley of the Leman. Farel, who was at that time the real bishop of these churches, was indefatigable in his inquiries. As soon as he had found any pious ministers, he recommended them to the lords of Berne, and the bailiffs settled them in the various parishes. But as there were not ministers enough for all, the same pastor had frequently to preach in three different churches. A few priests were called to the ministry, who did not seem to be mere deserters, with Christ on the lips only. These were, in addition to those already mentioned, Tissot, Gredat, Goudot, Meige, Malingre de la Molière, Motin, and Jacques d’Yverdon. Some others also took charge of souls. Dubois was sent to Payerne, Du Rivier to Moudon, Le Coq to Morges, J. Vallier to Aubonne, Melchior d’Yvonant to Rolle, Morand to Nyon, Furet to Coppet, Colomb to Concise, Masuyer to Cossonay, Epilon to Yvonant, and Eustache André (also named Fortunat), to Cully.[428] For the most part they were foreigners. Some of them had attended the disputation, and had been gained over by the Christian eloquence of Farel, Viret, and Calvin. But whether they came from the battle of Lausanne or from the ruder battles of France, they all desired to publish the good news of the Gospel; and some of them were inflamed with a zeal so ardent that ‘that one passion swallowed up all others.’ They were well aware that they would have to face a keen opposition; but ‘they were going willingly to offer their heads, to receive all the obloquy which evil-minded men cast on God.’ The following is the formula, somewhat free in character, which the lords of Berne usually employed in their letters to these evangelists:—‘Have ordered that thou, forthwith on receiving these presents, go to our bailiff of——, who will present thee to our subjects of ——, and then thou wilt exercise the office of minister of the Gospel, according to the grace which God has given thee.’ The bailiffs, for the purpose of preparing people’s minds, went frequently beforehand with Viret and other ministers into parishes that were to be provided for. They preached and endeavored to make evident the great benefits of the Reformation. But there was many a village in which the curé endeavored to keep the people away from the sermon, excited his friends, who threw stones at those who were hearers, and did the worst they could.[429]
TRIALS OF FABRI.
Farel persevered in his exertions, exhorting and consoling. Fabri, pastor at Thonon, in the Chablais, had to pass through trials of special severity. He wrote to Farel, ‘I cannot tell you how cruel are the crosses which so violent an opposition lays upon me.’ Farel was prompt to offer him consolation, and he shows in his answer how well he had himself learnt to profit by the blows struck at him by the enemies of the Gospel. ‘There is no ground for dejection,’ said he, ‘although so many distresses weigh on you. It is in this way that the Lord teaches us to depend entirely on him, and to call down by our sighing the favor of our heavenly Father, which we are so backward to do.’ At the same time Farel communicated to his friend his own experiences, and made fresh allusion to the case of Caroli and Viret, which appears to have greatly troubled him. ‘I am bidden,’ he said, ‘to call ministers from all quarters, but where to find them I cannot tell. People slight those who are the fittest, and who always breathe Jesus Christ; but they exalt to the skies those who are mere masks, and breathe nothing but arrogance. Some ministers, of too fastidious taste, are unwilling to come into this country; they would rather bury themselves in the tombs of Egypt than eat manna in the desert and be led by the pillar of fire.’[430] At the same time that Farel wrote to Fabri at the foot of the Alps, he wrote also to Hugues, pastor of Gex, at the foot of the Jura. ‘Act with firmness,’ he said to him, ‘but with wisdom and without passion. Put forward weighty proofs drawn from Scripture, and let your words always be accompanied with the moderation of Christ.’[431] He wrote likewise to many others. Calvin began at this time to exercise the functions pertaining to the government of the Church. A minister, Denis Lambert, formerly a monk, but who having been since 1534 pastor in the country of Neuchâtel, had been chosen almoner to the little army which marched in 1534 to the aid of Geneva, and fought the battle of Gingins, had been settled by the Bernese as pastor in the neighborhood of that town. He had remained full of monkery (moinerie), and he had a wife of sorry reputation; so that their life and their manners might ruin, but could not build up the Church. Some better ministers, particularly Henry de la Mare, having been preferred to him, he flew into a great rage at a colloquy held at the beginning of December, 1536. ‘Everybody persecutes me,’ he exclaimed; ‘it is not on the part of men that I am sent!’ And he loaded his colleagues with insults, threats, and innumerable calumnies. ‘Truly,’ said Farel, ‘the man speaks like a Mars or a Bacchus.’[432] ‘It is not I,’ Farel said to him, ‘that made you a preacher; I always suspected you too much.’ ‘No,’ replied Denis, ‘I was sent by the Bernese, and we shall see whether you dare resist them.’ Calvin then rose to speak, and we must notice it as the first occasion of his taking part in the government of the Church. He entreated Denis in the name of them all to resign the holy ministry, promised that he should be provided for. Denis cared nothing for this young doctor, and refused to comply with his request. Farel desired to separate him from the population to which his life was a scandal. The Bernese bailiff of Thonon thought that Denis was monk from head to foot, and that he ought to be relegated to the convent of the Augustinians of that town.
Although they were influenced quite as much by political as by religious motives, and made some mistakes, as in the case of Caroli, the lords of Berne neglected no means of enlightening the Vaudois, and of leading them to accept with their heart the evangelical doctrines. They enjoined on all fathers and mothers, all pastors and bailiffs, the duty of seeing that children were well instructed according to the Gospel. Without going so far as to say, as some have alleged, that education is everything, the Bernese did believe that if a child be trained up in the way he should go, he will not depart from it.[433]
BERNESE EDICT OF REFORMATION.
To crown its work, the council of Berne made, on Christmas eve, December 24, 1536, a complete edict of reformation for its new territories; and at the beginning of 1537 it caused proclamation to be made in all the country that the ministers were to preach purely the Word of God; that they were to celebrate only two sacraments, baptism and the supper; that it was lawful to eat flesh at any time; that ecclesiastics were not forbidden to marry; that all popish ceremonies, masses, processions, lustrations, pilgrimages, and ringing of bells for the dead and for bad weather, were abolished. These were followed by many ordinances against gluttony, drunkenness, impurity, adultery, blasphemy, gaming, military service abroad, and dancing. Three modest dances for marriage festivals were, however, conceded.[434] Priests and monks were at liberty to remain in the country, where they received fitting allowances, or if they preferred it, to withdraw into a Catholic country. The canons of Lausanne having no wish to be witnesses of such a reform, took the latter course. They crossed the lake and settled at Evian. The sisters of Sainte-Claire of Vevey did the same.[435]
Calvin and the other ministers of Geneva and its neighborhood watched with interest the changes which were taking place in the Pays de Vaud. But they did not conceal from themselves how much there still remained to do. On October 13, Calvin, before he started for Berne, whither he was summoned, wrote from Lausanne to one of his friends—‘Already in many places the idols and the altars of the papacy have begun to totter, and I hope that ere long all the superstitions that still prevail will be abolished. The Lord grant that idolatry may be altogether uprooted in all hearts.’[436] These words characterize the condition of the Pays de Vaud at that epoch.
On November 21, 1536, a conference was held at Geneva, at which the pastors of the surrounding districts appear to have been present. Those of the Pays de Gex and of the Chablais undoubtedly attended.[437] A letter addressed by the conference to their brethren of Lausanne and of Vaud sufficiently refutes the calumnies cast upon the Reformation, and shows to what extent the reformers took heed of the purity of the Church. ‘The pontifical tyranny has been overthrown,’ they said; ‘silence has been imposed upon the monks, because of their doctrines and their unchaste lives. Brethren, take heed lest another tyranny erect itself in place of the former. See that order and discipline be maintained among you, and everything that becomes a holy assembly. To that end seek your directions, not from any pontiff, nor in the rites of the pope, but from Jesus Christ and in his Word.... Examine with the utmost care the brethren whom you accept as pastors; see that their doctrine be pure and their lives spotless. Inform yourselves even of their family and the family of their wives, as St. Paul enjoins. Without such care you will prepare your own ruin and that of your people. As for ceremonies, let them be wholesome. Exercise your Christian liberty, but in such a way as to cause offence to no one.’ The pastors of Geneva, they said, had received two letters in which they found no Christian charity or moderation at all, but which savored of pontifical authority. This passage doubtless refers to Caroli.