Outlines of Ecclesiastical History

by B. H. Roberts

26. Common dangers, however, taught these colonists toleration. They were surrounded by hordes of savages, against whom they were compelled frequently to combine. The wars between the French and the English extended to their respective settlements in America, and this circumstance drove the English colonists together and taught them toleration. They were driven into a still closer union by the oppression of England, and forgot their religious differences in the presence of the great danger of losing all their freedom, civil as well as religious. When they had achieved their independence, and necessity and experience taught them that a national government—an indissoluble union of the colonies—must be formed, wisdom clearly suggested that the chief cornerstone of the new temple of liberty must be religious freedom. Hence in the constitution which they adopted, freedom to worship God according to the dictates of conscience is guaranteed. [See note 12, end of section.]

27. The Hand of God Manifested.—If in the rise of the great Roman Empire we see the hand of God preparing the way for the introduction of the gospel under the personal administration of the Son of God, that under the protection of that great government the apostles of Messiah might visit every land and deliver the glad tidings of great joy—if in this the hand of God is visible, it is equally clear that the meaning of this sixteenth century revolution which we have been considering, together with the subsequent founding of a great republic in the New World, pledged to the maintenance of religious liberty—it is clearly the meaning of all this that God was preparing the day for a restoration of the gospel—the ushering in of the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times. [See note 13, end of section.] That revolution of the sixteenth century was the first glimmerings of the dawn which heralded the approaching day; the light became clearer in America on the establishment of religious liberty under the Constitution of the United States; the sun rose when the Lord introduced the DISPENSATION OF THE FULLNESS OF TIMES by revealing himself and his Son Jesus Christ to the Prophet Joseph Smith.

NOTES.

1. Zwingle.—Zwingle discovered the corruptions of the church of Rome, at an earlier period than Luther. Both opened their eyes gradually, and altogether without any concert; and without aid from each other. But Zwingle was always in advance of Luther in his views and opinions; and he finally carried the reformation somewhat farther than what Luther did. But he proceeded with more gentleness and caution, not to run before the prejudices of the people; and the circumstances in which he was placed did not call him so early to open combat with the powers of the hierarchy; Luther, therefore, has the honor of being the first to declare open war with the pope, and to be exposed to persecution. He also acted in a much wider sphere. All Germany, and even all Europe, was the theatre of his operations. Zwingle moved only in the narrow circle of a single canton of Switzerland. He also died young, and when but just commencing his career of usefulness. And these circumstances have raised Luther's fame so high that Zwingle has almost been overlooked.—Murdock.

2. Calvin.—John Calvin was born in the year 1509; and in his studies connected law with theology, studying the former at the command of his father, and the latter from his own choice; and from Melchoir Valmar, a German and professor of Greek at Bourges, he acquired a knowledge of the evangelican [reformed] doctrines. After the death of his father, he devoted himself wholly to theology, and publicly professed the reformed doctrine, which he spread in France with all diligence. His name soon became known in Switzerland as well as in France; and Farell and Viret [two Swiss reformers] besought him, as he was traveling through Geneva, to remain there and aid them in setting up the new church. But in the year 1538, great dissension arose in Geneva; and Calvin and his assistant, Farell, severely inveighed from the pulpit against the conduct of the council, which resolved to introduce the ceremonies agreed on at Bern, in the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's supper, and to reject those which these ministers wished to have adopted: and the consequence was, that Calvin and Farell were banished from the republic. * * * But in the year 1541, at the pressing and repeated invitation of the Genevans, he returned to them again, and there officiated with great perseverance, zeal, prudence and disinterestedness, till his death in 1564. His great talents and virtues were shaded by the love of control, by a want of tenderness, and by a passionate vigor against the erring.—Schlegel.

3. The Reformation In France.—France was the first country where the reformation that commenced in Germany and Switzerland, very soon and under the severest oppressions, found many adherents. No country seems to have been so long and so well prepared for it as this; and yet here it met the most violent opposition; and nowhere was it later, before it obtained legal toleration. Nowhere did it occasion such streams of blood to flow; nowhere give birth to such dreadful and deadly civil wars. And nowhere have state policy, court intrigue, political parties and the ambition of greatness had so powerful an influence on the progress and fortunes of the reformation, as in France.—Schroeckh.

4. Massacre on St. Bartholomew's Eve.—During the civil wars which desolated France from the year 1560 up to the edict of Nantes—which secured religious toleration from the Protestants, 1598—occurred the massacre of St. Bartholomew's eve. A peace was concluded in 1570, by which toleration was granted the Protestants. The terms of the treaty were enforced with much apparent zeal by the French court, for the purpose, as Protestant writers claim, of lulling the Protestants into security preparatory to their assassination by order of the king. The bloody scene began at midnight of the 22nd of August, 1572. The signal for the beginning of the massacre was the tolling of the great bell of the palace. The scene of blood and murder continued for three days. During which time five hundred noblemen and about six thousand other Protestants were butchered in Paris alone. Orders were dispatched to all parts of the empire for a similar massacre everywhere. More than thirty thousand—some say seventy thousand—perished by the hands of the royal assassins; and the pope ordered a jubilee throughout Christendom.—Murdock.

5. The Decision to Introduce the "Reformed" Religion into Sweden.—This decision was the effect specially of the firmness and resolution of the king [Gustavus Vasa], who declared publicly that he would rather resign his crown and retire from the kingdom, than rule over a people subjected to the laws and authority of the Roman pontiff, and more obedient to their bishops than to their king.—Mosheim.

6. The Danish and Swedish Bishops Stripped of Power.—Violent measures were adopted, and the bishops, against their wills and their efforts to the contrary, were deprived of their honors, their prerogatives and their possessions. Yet this reformation (?) of the clergy in both those northern kingdoms, was not a religious, but a mere civil and secular transaction; and it was so necessary that it must have been undertaken if no Luther had arisen. For the bishops had by corrupt artifices got possession of so much wealth, so many cattle, such revenues and so great authority, that they were far more powerful than the kings, and were able to govern the whole realm at their pleasure; indeed they had appropriated to themselves a large portion of the patrimony of the kings and of the public revenues. Such therefore was the state both of the Danish and the Swedish commonwealths in the time of Luther, that either the bishops who shamefully abused their riches, their prerogatives and their honors must be divested of the high rank they held in the state, and be deprived of their ill-gotten wealth, or the ruin of those kingdoms, the irreparable detriment of the public safety and tranquility, and the sinking of their kings into contempt, with an utter inability to protect the people, must be anticipated.—Mosheim.

7. Wycliffe.—John Wycliffe, the greatest of all the "Reformers before the Reformation," was born in 1324, and is supposed to have been a native of the parish of Wycliffe, near the town of Richmond, Yorkshire. He studied at Oxford, but little is known of his university career. Wycliffe appears to have been a man of simple faith and of earnest and manly courage. He made a strong impression upon his age; an impression that was not effaced at the time of the Reformation. The Lollards, as his disciples were called, were to be found, not only among the poor, but in the church, the castle and even the throne. Wycliffe died in the year 1384.