Catharin. 48. Catharin, one of the theologians most prominent in the council of Trent, though he seems not to have incurred the charge of heresy, went farther from the doctrine of Augustin and Aquinas than was deemed strictly orthodox in the Catholic church. He framed a theory to reconcile predestination with the universality of grace, which has since been known in this country by the name of Baxterianism, and is, I believe, adopted by many divines at this day. Dupin, however, calls it a new invention, unknown to the ancient fathers, and never received in the schools. It has been followed, he adds, by nobody.
Critical and expository writings. 49. In the critical and expository department of theological literature, much was written during this period, forming no small proportion of the great collection called Critici Sacri. In the Romish church, we may distinguish the Jesuit Maldonat, whose commentaries on the evangelists have been highly praised by theologians of the Protestant side; and among these, we may name Calvin and Beza, who occupy the highest place,[1021] while below them are ranked Bullinger, Zanchius, Musculus, Chemnitz, and several more. But I believe that, even in the reviving appetite for obsolete theology, few of these writers have yet attracted much attention. A polemical spirit, it is observed by Eichhorn, penetrated all theological science, not only in dogmatical writings, but in those of mere interpretation; in catechisms, in sermons, in ecclesiastical history, we find the author armed for combat, and always standing in imagination before an enemy.
[1021] Literas sacras, says Scaliger of Calvin, tractavit ut tractandæ sunt, vere inquam et pure ac simpliciter sine ullis argutationibus scholasticis, et divino vir præditus ingenio multa divinavit quæ non nisi a linguæ Hebraicæ peritissimis (cujusmodi tamen ipse non erat), divinari possunt. Scaligerana Prima. A more detailed, and apparently a not uncandid statement of Calvin’s character as a commentator on Scripture, will be found in Simon, Hist. Critique du Vieux Testament. He sets him, in this respect, much above Luther. See also Blount, art. Calvin. Scaliger does not esteem much the learning of Beza, and blames him for affecting to despise Erasmus as a commentator. I have named Beza in the text as superior to Zanchius and others, in deference to common reputation, for I am wholly ignorant of the writings of all.
Ecclesiastical historians. 50. A regular and copious history of the church, from the primitive ages to the Reformation itself, was first given by the Lutherans under the title, Centuriæ Magdeburgenses, from the name of the city where it was compiled. The principal among several authors concerned, usually called Centuriators, was Flacius Illyricus, a most inveterate enemy of Melanchthon. This work has been more than once reprinted, and is still, in point of truth and original research, the most considerable ecclesiastical history on the Protestant side. Mosheim, or his translator, calls this an immortal work;[1022] and Eichhorn speaks of it in strong terms of admiration for the boldness of the enterprise, the laboriousness of the execution, the spirit with which it cleared away a mass of fable, and placed ecclesiastical history on an authentic basis. The faults, both those springing from the imperfect knowledge, and from the prejudices of the compilers, are equally conspicuous.[1023] Nearly forty years afterwards, between the years 1588 and 1609, the celebrated Annals of Cardinal Baronius, in twelve volumes, appeared. These were brought down by him only to the end of the twelfth century; their continuation by Rainaldus, published from 1646 to 1663, goes down to 1566. It was the object of protestant learning in the seventeenth century, to repel the authority and impugn the allegations of Baronius. Those of his own communion, in a more advanced stage of criticism, have confessed his mistakes; many of them arising from a want of acquaintance with the Greek language, indispensable, as we should now justly think, for one who undertook a general history of the church, but not sufficiently universal in Italy, at the end of the sixteenth century, to deprive those who did not possess it of a high character for erudition. Eichhorn speaks far less favourably of Baronius than of the Centuriators.[1024] But of these two voluminous histories, written with equal prejudice on opposite sides, an impartial and judicious scholar has thus given his opinion.
[1022] Cent. 16, sect. 3, part ii. c. 9. This expression is probably in the original; but it is difficult to quote Maclaine’s translation with confidence, on account of the liberties which he took with the text.
[1023] Vol. vi. part ii. p. 149.
[1024] Id. p. 180.
Le Clerc’s character of them. 51. “An ecclesiastical historian,” Le Clerc satirically observes, “ought to adhere inviolably to this maxim, that whatever can be favourable to heretics is false, and whatever can be said against them is true; while, on the other hand, all that does honour to the orthodox is unquestionable, and everything that can do them discredit is surely a lie. He must suppress too with care, or at least extenuate, as far as possible, the errors and vices of those whom the orthodox are accustomed to respect, whether they know anything about them or no; and must exaggerate, on the contrary, the mistakes and faults of the heterodox to the utmost of his power. He must remember that any orthodox writer is a competent witness against a heretic, and is to be trusted implicitly on his word; while a heretic is never to be believed against the orthodox, and has honour enough done him, in allowing him to speak against his own side, or in favour of our own. It is thus that the Centuriators of Magdeburg, and thus that Cardinal Baronius have written; each of their works having by this means acquired an immortal glory with its own party. But it must be owned that they are not the earliest, and that they have only imitated most of their predecessors in this plan of writing. For many ages, men had only sought in ecclesiastical antiquity, not what was really to be found there, but what they conceived ought to be there for the good of their own party.”[1025]
[1025] Parrhasiana, vol. i. p. 168.
Deistical writers. 52. But in the midst of so many dissentients from each other, some resting on the tranquil bosom of the church, some fighting the long battle of argument, some catching at gleams of supernatural light, the very truths of natural and revealed religion were called in question by a different party. The proofs of this before the middle of the sixteenth century are chiefly to be derived from Italy. Pomponatius has already been mentioned, and some other Aristotelian philosophers might be added. But these, whose scepticism extended to natural theology, belong to the class of metaphysical writers, whose place is in the next chapter. If we limit ourselves to those who directed their attacks against Christianity, it must be presumed that, in an age when the tribunals of justice visited, even with the punishment of death, the denial of any fundamental doctrine, few books of an openly irreligious tendency could appear.[1026] A short pamphlet by one Vallée, cost him his life in 1574. Some others were clandestinely circulated in France before the end of the century; and the list of men suspected of infidelity, if we could trust all private anecdotes of the time, would be by no means short. Bodin, Montaigne, Charron, have been reckoned among the rejecters of Christianity. The first I conceive to have acknowledged no revelation but the Jewish; the second is free, in my opinion, from all reasonable suspicion of infidelity; the principal work of the third was not published till 1601. His former treatise, “Des Trois Vérités,” is an elaborate vindication of the Christian and Catholic religion.[1027]