MR. FROUDE AND CALVINISM.
The Robert-Houdin of modern English writers, and author of that popular serial novel grimly entitled The History of England, appears to be only at home in an element of paradox, and in the clever accomplishment of some literary tour de force. Calvinism: An Address delivered at St. Andrews, March 17, 1871, by James Anthony Froude, M.A.,[138] is his latest performance.
Always liberal in his assumption of premises, no one need be surprised that the author should claim Calvinism to have been "accepted for two centuries in all Protestant countries as the final account of the relations between man and his Maker," and should represent that "the Catholics whom it overthrew" assail it, etc. It will be news to most Protestants, Lutherans and Anglicans in particular, that Calvinism was thus accepted, and the 'overthrown Catholics' will be not less surprised. Throughout the address, Mr. Froude industriously insists upon the false idea that Luther was a Calvinist. The statement refutes itself in its terms. No argument is needed to show that Luther's free-will doctrine and Calvin's predestination were simply irreconcilable. It was not skilful in Mr. Froude to smother in its very birth his labored vindication of Calvinistic doctrine by such a presentation as this (p. 4):
"It has come to be regarded by liberal thinkers as a system of belief incredible in itself, dishonoring to its object, and as intolerable as it has been itself intolerant. To represent man as sent into the world under a curse, as incurably wicked—wicked by the constitution of his flesh, and wicked by eternal decree—as doomed, unless exempted by special grace which he cannot merit or by any effort of his own obtain, to live in sin while he remains on earth, and to be eternally miserable when he leaves it—to represent him as born unable to keep the commandments, yet as justly liable to everlasting punishment for breaking them, is alike repugnant to reason and to conscience, and turns existence into a hideous nightmare. To tell men that they cannot help themselves is to fling them into recklessness and despair. To what purpose the effort to be virtuous, when it is an effort which is foredoomed to fail—when those that are saved are saved by no effort of their own, and confess themselves the worst of sinners, even when rescued from the penalties of sin; and those that are lost are lost by an everlasting sentence decreed against them before they were born? How are we to call the Ruler who laid us under this iron code by the name of Wise, or Just, or Merciful, when we ascribe principles of action to him which in a human father we should call preposterous and monstrous?"
As types of Calvinism and almost perfect human beings, as men of grandeur and nobility of character, upright life, commanding intellect, untainted selfishness, unalterably just, frank, true, cheerful, humorous, and as unlike sour fanatics as it is possible to imagine any one, Mr. Froude names William the Silent, Luther, John Knox, Andrew Melville, the Regent Murray, Coligny, Cromwell, Milton, and John Bunyan. The Calvinism of all the members of this remarkably assorted group is at least open to serious question. As to their supereminent goodness and almost angelic purity, it would be an easy but not a pleasant task to point out the refutation in their fatal shortcomings. It may be that Cromwell had "the tenderness of a woman" in his heart, but no testimony to support that assertion could possibly be procured in Ireland. It may be that Knox was not a sour fanatic, that William was all unselfishness, that Coligny was blameless, and that Milton's wife was mistaken in her estimate of her husband.
As to the Regent Murray, who was told to his face by John Knox that his religion was "for his own commoditie," and whom Aytoun[139] has incarcerated in the immortal amber of his verse as "the falsest villain ever Scotland bred"—
"False to his faith, a wedded priest:
Still falser to the Crown;
False to the blood, that in his veins
Made bastardy renown;
False to his sister, whom he swore
To guard and shield from harm;
The head of many a felon plot,
But never once the arm!
A verier knave ne'er stepped the earth
Since this wide world began;
And yet—he bandies texts with Knox,
And walks a pious man!"—
we are perfectly satisfied that Robespierre is an accomplished Christian gentleman beside him, for Robespierre at least never stole his sister's jewels nor took bribes from his country's enemies.
Then we are treated by the author to a promenade down the path of ages, amid the wrecks of empires and of systems, and to rhetorically embroidered sketches, with mention more or less extended of Olympus, Valhalla, Egyptian idolatry, Buddhism, in which "Zoroaster, like Moses, saw behind the physical forces into the deeper laws of right and wrong," Greek theology, the Stoics, "the Galilean fishermen and the tentmaker of Tarsus," and—Islamism. Of all these, the last most decidedly brings out Mr. Froude's warmest enthusiasm, and we find ourselves querying if it is Mohammed's fatalism he so much admires, for the monotheism of the prophet could hardly be called Calvinistic, thus making the burning of Servetus a gratuitous waste of cord-wood. Here we feel bound in justice to say that, although the men of Galilee and of Tarsus do not appear to excite any very strong admiration in our author, he nevertheless makes the handsome concession that he is not "upholding Mohammed as if he had been a perfect man, or the Koran as a second Bible," and that "the detailed conception of man's duties was inferior, far inferior, to what St. Martin and St. Patrick, St. Columba and St. Augustine, were teaching or had taught in Western Europe."
The early Christian church being essentially Catholic, it does not draw very heavily on either Mr. Froude's enthusiasm or his admiration, and, in speaking of "the mystery called transubstantiation" in the twelfth century, he makes an attempt to sum up Catholicity in a vein partaking of the brutality with which, in his History of England, he has the cool insolence to speak of the Catholic religion—the religion of Copernicus, Sir Thomas More, Fénelon, and Dr. Newman—as "a Paphian idolatry."
The Reformation is, of course, introduced with flourish of trumpets. But the Reformation was essentially Lutheran, and not Calvinistic. Luther himself, who was, so Mr. Froude assures us, "one of the grandest men that ever lived on earth," than whom "none more loyal to the light that was in him—braver, truer, or wider-minded, in the noblest sense of the word"—this Luther, we say, was as sincere a believer as Saint Augustine in the real presence—in transubstantiation, as Mr. Froude has it—a doctrine which, on all occasions and as far as in him lies, our English writer seeks to drag in the mud. And yet this Luther, so believing, was, Mr. Froude seeks to persuade us, a Calvinist.
Calvinism, in practice, was a lovely thing, and Mr. Froude proves that it was by—John Knox, whom he thus cites: "Elsewhere," says Knox, speaking of Geneva, "the word of God is taught as purely; but never anywhere have I seen God obeyed as faithfully."
Mr. Froude is, moreover, surprised that Calvinism should have been called intolerant,[140] and sums up its vindication thus: "Intolerance of an enemy who is trying to kill you seems to me a pardonable state of mind."
In the face of this citation, it is almost unnecessary to state that the name of Servetus does not once occur in the forty-seven pages of the Address, nor is the slightest allusion made to him. And if the curious reader, unacquainted with the practical working of Calvinism in Geneva, where God was "obeyed so faithfully," should inquire how it was that this perfect Christian man, Calvin, wrote his laws in blood and enforced them with the aid of executioners and torturers; how it was that he persecuted some men and, under color of law, assassinated others, he may be referred to these witnesses: First. Jerome Bolsec, exiled for proposing "an opinion false and contrary to the evangelical religion." Second. Peter Arneaux, who, for saying that Calvin was "a wicked man announcing false doctrine," was condemned to walk the streets of Geneva in his shirt, a lighted torch in his hand, bare-headed and bare-footed. Third. Henri de la Marc, exiled for saying that Peter Arneaux was a worthy man, and that, if Calvin had a spite against any one, he gratified it. Fourth. Jacques Gruet, who was beheaded and his head afterward nailed to a post, for the crime of being the author of placards accusing the Calvinists of persecution, and for proofs of impiety found in his private writings when his house was searched. Finally. Servetus, who, for being "a sower of heresies," was, by Calvin's authority, imprisoned, left there for two months to suffer by hunger and nakedness, and then brought out and, at the age of forty-four years, burned alive.
We cannot be certain that Mr. Froude has ever heard of any of these Protestants martyred for their opinions. If he has heard of them, we presume he means to vindicate Calvin, and to cover their cases by the crushing statement at page 43: "It is no easy matter to tolerate lies clearly convicted of being lies under any circumstances; specially it is not easy to tolerate lies which strut about in the name of religion."
The passage is characteristic of Mr. Froude's capacity for ambiguity and indirection, but he neglects to indicate the tribunal of truth at which these lies are "clearly convicted." It is a serious matter for a gentleman of no particular religious principle to say that this or the other theological conviction is a lie which struts about in the name of religion; for, in the eye of the theologically convicted, the most offensively disgusting of all struts is the strut of "no religion to speak of." Moreover, the author had better have left unpublished the last member of the sentence we have quoted, because, in his case, it irresistibly suggests this other phrase: "It is not easy to tolerate novels which strut about in the name of history."
Thus we know, as matter of record, that Norman Leslie proposed to Henry VIII. the assassination of Cardinal Beaton for a sum of money, that the negotiation, at first delayed, was finally closed and carried out. Leslie got his money, and the cardinal was murdered, because, as Mr. Froude touchingly relates it, Henry's position "obliged him to look at facts as they were rather than through conventional forms."
Mr. Froude presents the hired bravo of Henry VIII. thus: "Norman Leslie did not kill Cardinal Beaton down in the castle yonder because he was a Catholic, but because he was a murderer."
Mr. Froude does not appear by his writings to have an unvarying standard of morality. Apparently incapable of judging actions as they are, he measures them by his personal like or dislike of the actors. Always the advocate, never the philosophical historian, he presents but one side of a case. Certain personages in history are with him always right, certain others are always wrong. Even the crimes of the former are meritorious, or, at worse, indifferent, while the indifferent sayings and doings of the latter are sins of deepest die. We may see this tendency exemplified in the address before us which seeks to make Calvinism lovely.
The author says, in plain terms, that it was not more criminal in a Calvinist to burn a witch than for any other person to invite a spirit-rapper to dinner.
Of course he expresses the opinion euphuistically and in mellifluous phrase, but, nevertheless, he does express it. And that our readers may fully understand that we do not even unintentionally misrepresent him, we give his words. At page 43, we read:
"In burning witches, the Calvinists followed their model too exactly; but it is to be remembered that they really believed those poor creatures to have made a compact with Satan. And, as regards morality, it may be doubted whether inviting spirit-rappers to dinner, and allowing them to pretend to consult our dead relations, is very much more innocent. The first method is but excess of indignation with evil; the second is complacent toying with it."
It is worth while to notice how deftly Mr. Froude handles his positive and comparative.
For Calvinists to burn people alive is innocent, and intercourse with spirit-rappers is not very much more innocent.
With such juggling as this of facts and phrases, the author of Calvinism has written his History of England, the delight of circulating library subscribers because it is "as interesting as a novel."
And so it is, for the best of reasons.