Its chief difficulties. 25. The greatest difficulties which embarrassed the council of Trent, appear to have arisen from the clashing doctrines of scholastic divines, especially the respective followers of Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, embattled as rival hosts of Dominicans and Franciscans.[704] The fathers endeavoured, as far as possible, to avoid any decision which might give too unequivocal a victory to either; though it has generally been thought, that the former, having the authority of Augustin, as well as their own great champion, on their side, have come off, on the whole, superior in the decisions of the council.[705] But we must avoid these subtilties, into which it is difficult not to slide when we touch on such topics.
[704] Fleury, xxix., 154, et alibi. F. Paul, lib. ii. and iii. passim.
[705] It is usual for protestant writers to inveigh against the Tridentine fathers. I do not assent to their decision, which is not to the purpose, nor vindicate the intrigues of the papal party. But I must presume to say, that, reading their proceedings in the pages of that very able and not very lenient historian, to whom we have generally recourse, an adversary as decided as any that could have come from the reformed churches, I find proofs of much ability, considering the embarrassments with which they had to struggle, and of an honest desire of reformation, among a large body, as to those matters which, in their judgment, ought to be reformed. The notes of Courayer on Sarpi’s history, though he is not much less of a protestant than his original, are more candid, and generally very judicious. Pallavicini I have not read: but what is valuable in him will doubtless be found in the continuation of Fleury, vol. xxix. et alibi.
Character of Luther. 26. In the History of the Reformation, Luther is incomparably the greatest man. We see him, in the skilful composition of Robertson, the chief figure of a group of gownsmen, standing in contrast on the canvas with the crowned rivals of France and Austria, and their attendant warriors, but blended in the unity of that historic picture. This amazing influence on the revolutions of his own age, and on the opinions of mankind, seems to have produced, as is not unnatural, an exaggerated notion of his intellectual greatness. It is admitted on all sides, that he wrote his own language with force and purity; and he is reckoned one of its best models. The hymns in use with the Lutheran church, many of which are his own, possess a simple dignity and devoutness, never, probably, excelled in that class of poetry, and alike distinguished from the poverty of Sternhold or Brady, and from the meretricious ornament of later writers. But, from the Latin works of Luther, few readers, I believe, will rise without disappointment. Their intemperance, their coarseness, their inelegance, their scurrility, their wild paradoxes, that menace the foundations of religious morality, are not compensated, so far at least as my slight acquaintance with them extends, by much strength or acuteness, and still less by any impressive eloquence. Some of his treatises, and we may instance his reply to Henry VIII., or the book “against the falsely-named order of bishops,” can be described as little else than bellowing in bad Latin. Neither of these books display, as far as I can judge, any striking ability. It is not to be imagined, that a man of his vivid parts fails to perceive an advantage in that close grappling, sentence by sentence, with an adversary, which fills most of his controversial writings; and in scornful irony he had no superior. His epistle to Erasmus, prefixed to the treatise De servo Arbitrio, is bitterly insolent in terms as civil as he could use. But the clear and comprehensive line of argument, which enlightens the reader’s understanding, and resolves his difficulties, is always wanting. An unbounded dogmatism, resting on an absolute confidence in the infallibility, practically speaking, of his own judgment, pervades his writings; no indulgence is shown, no pause allowed, to the hesitating; whatever stands in the way of his decisions, the fathers of the church, the schoolmen and philosophers, the canons and councils, are swept away in a current of impetuous declamation; and as everything contained in Scripture, according to Luther, is easy to be understood, and can only be understood in his sense, every deviation from his doctrine incurs the anathema of perdition. Jerome, he says, far from being rightly canonised, must, but for some special grace, have been damned for his interpretation of St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans.[706] That the Zwinglians, as well as the whole church of Rome, and the Anabaptists, were shut out by their tenets from salvation, is more than insinuated in numerous passages of Luther’s writings. Yet he had passed himself through several changes of opinion. In 1518, he rejected auricular confession; in 1520, it was both useful and necessary; not long afterwards, it was again laid aside. I have found it impossible to reconcile, or to understand, his tenets concerning faith and works; and can only perceive, that, if there be any reservation in favour of the latter, not merely sophistical, of which I am hardly well convinced, it consists in distinctions too subtle for the people to apprehend. These are not the oscillations of the balance in a calm understanding, conscious of the difficulty which so often attends the estimate of opposite presumptions, but alternate gusts of dogmatism, during which, for the time, he was as tenacious of his judgment as if it had been uniform.
[706] Infernum potius quam cœlum Hieronymus meruit; tantum abest ut ipsum canonizare aut sanctum esse audeam dicere. Vol. ii. fol. 478. (Witt. 1554.)
27. It is not impossible, that some offence will be taken at this character of his works by those who have thought only of the man; extraordinary as he doubtless was in himself, and far more so as the instrument of mighty changes on the earth. Many of late years, especially in Germany, without holding a single one of Luther’s more peculiar tenets, have thought it necessary to magnify his intellectual gifts. Frederic Schlegel is among these; but in his panegyric there seems a little wish to insinuate, that the reformer’s powerful understanding had a taint of insanity. This has not unnaturally occurred to others, from the strange tales of diabolical visions Luther very seriously recounts, and from the inconsistencies as well as the extravagance of some passages. But the total absence of self-restraint, with the intoxicating effects of presumptuousness, is sufficient to account for aberrations, which men of regular minds construe into actual madness. Whether Luther were perfectly in earnest as to his personal interviews with the devil, may be doubtful; one of them he seems to represent as internal.
Theological writings. Erasmus. 28. Very little of theological literature, published between 1520 and 1550, except such as bore immediately on the great controversies of the age, has obtained sufficient reputation to come within our researches, which, upon this most extensive portion of ancient libraries, do not extend to disturb the slumbers of forgotten folios. The paraphrase of Erasmus was the most distinguished work in scriptural interpretation. Though not satisfactory to the violent of either party, it obtained the remarkable honour of being adopted in the infancy of our own protestantism. Every parish church in England, by an order of council in 1547, was obliged to have a copy of this paraphrase. It is probable, or rather obviously certain, that this order was not complied with.[707]
[707] Jortin says that, “taking the Annotations and the Paraphrase of Erasmus together, we have an interpretation of the New Testament as judicious and exact as could be made in his time, and to which very few deserve to be preferred of those which have since been published.” ii. 91.
Melanchthon. Romish writers. 29. The Loci Communes of Melanchthon have already been mentioned. The writings of Zwingle, collectively published in 1544, did not attain equal reputation; with more of natural ability than erudition, he was left behind in the general advance of learning. Calvin stands on higher ground. His Institutes are still in the hands of that numerous body who are usually denominated from him. The works of less conspicuous advocates of the Reformation, which may fall within this earlier period of controversy, will not detain us; nor is it worth while to do more on this occasion than mention the names of a few once celebrated men in the communion of Rome, Vives, Cajetan, Melchior Cano, Soto, and Catharin.[708] The two latter were prominent in the council of Trent, the first being of the Dominican party, or that of Thomas Aquinas, which was virtually that of Augustin; the second a Scotist, and in some points deviating a little from what passed for the more orthodox tenets either in the catholic or protestant churches.[709]
[708] Eichhorn,vi. 210-226. Andrès, xviii. 236.