Lecture XII.
Effects Of The Reformation.
In the course of our inquiry, we have had frequent occasion to lament the disorder and anarchy of European society, and to complain of the difficulty of analysing and depicting a society so scattered, incohesive, and discordant. We have longed for, and impatiently invoked, the era of general interests, of order, and of social unity. We have now reached it, and are entering upon the epoch in which everything is summed into general facts and general ideas, upon the very epoch of order and unity. We there, however, encounter a difficulty of another kind. It has hitherto required great pains to link facts together, to place them in their proper stations, to seize what they possessed in common, and unfold some appearance of a whole. In modern Europe, things are in an opposite vein. All the elements and incidents of the social state are modified by, and act and react upon, each other; the mutual relations of men are far more numerous and complicated; and the same multiplicity and entanglement occur in their relations with the government of the state, in the relations of states amongst themselves, and in the ideas and in all the workings of the human mind. In the periods we have passed through, a great number of facts appeared isolated, alien to each other, and without reciprocal influence. Now, we have no more isolation; all things meet, commingle, and vary as they meet. Can anything be conceived more difficult than to distinguish the veritable unity amid such a diversity, to determine the bent of a movement so extended and complex, to present so prodigious a throng of different elements, all closely linked together, in a general summary; in a word, to predicate the general predominant fact which sums up and expresses a long series of facts, which is the characteristic of an epoch, and the faithful expression of its influence and its action in the history of civilisation?
We shall quickly perceive the extent of this difficulty in the great event which has now to occupy our attention.
We encountered in the twelfth century an event, religious in its origin, if rather the reverse in its nature—I mean the Crusades. Notwithstanding the vastness of the event, its long duration, and the variety of circumstances it produced, it was an easy task to unravel its general character, and to determine with some precision its unity and influence. We have at present to consider the religious revolution of the sixteenth century, that which is commonly called the Reformation. Allow me here to premise, that I shall make use of the word reformation, as of a simple and settled term, synonymous with religious revolution, and without implying a judgment of its nature. Thus on the threshold we perceive how difficult it is to assign the veritable character of that great crisis—to state in a general form what it was, and what it effected.
We must seek for the Reformation between the beginning of the sixteenth and the middle of the seventeenth century, for it was within this interval that the life, so to speak, of the event was comprised, that it took birth and ended. All historical events have in some sort a limited career. Their consequences are prolonged to infinity, they are connected with all the past and all the future, but at the same time they have a peculiar and restricted existence, in which they arise, expand, and fill with their development a certain portion of space, then shrink and retire from the stage to give place to some new occurrence.
The precise date that we assign to the origin of the Reformation is of little importance. We may take the year 1520, in which Luther burnt publicly at Wittemburg the bull of Leo X. which condemned him, and thus severed himself officially from the Roman church. It is between this year and the middle of the seventeenth century, the year 1648, the date of the treaty of Westphalia, that the life of the Reformation is comprised. Here is the proof of it. The first and greatest effect of the religious revolution was to create two classes of states in Europe—the Catholic and the Protestant—to bring them in front of each other, and engage them in war. With a variety of vicissitudes, that war lasted from the commencement of the sixteenth to the middle of the seventeenth century. It was not until the treaty of Westphalia, in 1648, that the Catholic and Protestant states came finally to a reciprocal recognition, agreed upon a mutual existence, and undertook to live in society and in peace, in spite of the diversity in religion. Dating from 1648, diversity in religion ceased to be the predominant principle in the classification of states, or in their external policy, relations, and alliances. Up till that epoch, Europe, with certain modifications, was essentially divided into a Catholic league and a Protestant league. After the treaty of Westphalia, this distinction disappeared, and states became allied or divided from very different considerations than religious dogmas. At that point, therefore, the preponderance, or rather the career, of the Reformation was stopped, although its consequences did not cease their course of development.
Let us now go hastily over this career, and, without doing more than naming events and men, let us touch upon what it contains. By this mere indication, by this dry and partial nomenclature, we shall see what must be the difficulty of summing up a series of facts, so varied and complex, into one general fact, and of determining the veritable character of the religious revolution of the sixteenth century, and assigning its station in the history of our civilisation.
The Reformation broke out during the prevalence of a great political crisis—namely, the contest between Francis I. and Charles V., between France and Spain. This contest commenced for the possession of Italy, was continued for that of the German empire, and finally raged for preponderance in Europe. It was the period in which the House of Austria rose to predominance. It was likewise at the time that England, under Henry VIII., interfered in continental politics with more regularity, consistency, and effect, than it had previously done.