History of the Rise of the Huguenots, Vol. 1

by Henry Martyn Baird

"And, inasmuch as it pleaseth Thee this day so far to exhibit Thy favor to Thy poor and unprofitable servants, as to enable them with freedom, and in the presence of the king whom Thou hast set over them, and of the most noble and illustrious company on earth, to declare that which Thou hast given them to know of Thy holy Truth, may it please Thee to continue the course of Thy goodness and loving kindness, O God and Father of lights, and so to illumine our understandings, guide our affections, and form them to all teachableness, and so to order our words, that in all simplicity and truth, after having conceived, according to the measure which it shall please Thee to grant unto us, the secrets Thou hast revealed to men for their salvation, we may be able, both with heart and voice to propose that which may conduce to the honor and glory of Thy holy name, and the prosperity and greatness of our king and of all those who belong to him, with the rest and comfort of all Christendom, and especially of this kingdom. O Almighty Lord and Father, we ask Thee all these things in the name and for the sake of Jesus Christ, Thy Son our Saviour, as He Himself hath taught us to seek them, saying: 'Our Father, which art in heaven, etc.'"[1120]

His conciliatory remarks.

Having concluded his petitions, Beza arose from his knees, and addressed the king. His speech was graceful and conciliatory.[1121] It was a great privilege, he said, for a faithful and affectionate subject to be permitted to see his prince, and thus to be more clearly impressed with the fealty and submission which is his due. Still happier was he if permitted to be seen by his prince, and, what was more important, to be heard, and finally accepted and approved by him. To these great advantages a part of Charles's very humble and obedient subjects, much to their regret, had long been strangers. It were sufficient ground for gratitude to God to the end of their days that now at length they were granted an audience before the king and so noble and illustrious a company. But, when the same day that admitted them into the royal presence also invited, or rather kindly and gently constrained them with common voice to confess the name of their God, and declare the obedience they owed Him, their minds were so incompetent to conceive, their tongues so inadequate to utter the promptings of their hearts, that they preferred to confess their impotence by modest silence rather than to disparage so great a benefit by the defect of their words. Yet one of the points they had so long desired was still unfulfilled, and that the most important, namely the acceptance of their service as agreeable. Would to God that so happy a termination might by their coming be put, not so much to their past sufferings—of which the memory was well-nigh extinguished by this joyful day—as to the troubles that had afflicted the kingdom in consequence of religious dissensions, and to the attending ruin of so great a number of the king's poor subjects.

The Huguenots victims of calumny.

Their creed.

Points of agreement.

His declaration as to the body of Christ.

What, then, had hitherto prevented the Huguenots from obtaining a boon so long and ardently desired? It was the belief entertained by some that they were, through ambition or restless love of innovation, the enemies of all concord, and the impression in the minds of others that their arrogance demanded impossible conditions of peace. The prejudice arising from this and other sources to which he avoided an allusion, lest he might seem to be reopening old wounds, was so strong, that the reformed would have good reason to give way to despair, were they not sustained by a good conscience, by their assurance of the gentleness and equity of Charles and the illustrious princes of the blood, and by a charitable presumption that the prelates with whom they had come to confer were disposed to exert themselves with them in the common endeavor rather to make the truth clear than to obscure it. Respecting the extent of the differences between the prelatic and the reformed beliefs, those who represented them as of insignificant importance, and those who made them as great as between the creed of Christians and the creed of Jews or Moslems, were equally mistaken. If in some of the principal articles of the Christian faith there was full agreement, on others, alas! there was an opposition between their tenets. The orator here enumerated in considerable detail the articles of the ancient creeds in which the Huguenot, not less than the Roman Catholic, professed his concurrence. What then, some one would say, are not these the terms of our belief? In what are we at variance? To which inquiry the true answer was, that the two sides differed not only because they gave some of these articles divergent interpretations, but because the Church had built upon this foundation a structure that comported little with it, "as if the Christian religion were an edifice which was never finished." To speak with greater detail, the reformed maintained, in opposition to the Romish theory, that there could be no satisfaction for sin save in Christ, and that to suppose the blessed Saviour to pay but a part of the price of man's salvation, would be to rob him of his perfect mercy, and of his offices of prophet, priest, and king. They agreed with the Romanists neither in their definition of justifying faith, nor in their account of its origin and effects. The same might be said respecting good works. And, again, as to the Holy Scriptures, they received the Old and New Testaments as the word of God and the complete revelation of all that is necessary for salvation, and consequently, as the touchstone for testing the Fathers, the councils, and the traditions of the Church. Two points remained for consideration: the sacraments and the government of the Church. "We are agreed, in our opinion," said Beza, "regarding the meaning of the word sacrament. The sacraments are visible signs by means of which our union with our Lord Jesus Christ is not merely signified or set forth, but is truly offered to us on the Lord's side, and therefore confirmed, sealed, and, as it were, engraved by the Holy Spirit's efficiency in those who by a true faith apprehend Him who is thus signified and presented to them. We, consequently, agree that in the sacraments there must necessarily supervene a heavenly, a supernatural change. For we do not assert that the water of holy baptism is simply water, but that it is a true sacrament of our regeneration, and of the washing of our souls in the blood of Jesus Christ. So also we do not say that the bread is simply bread, but the sacrament of the precious body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was offered up for us. Yet we do not say that this change takes place in the substance of the signs, but in the use and end for which they are ordained." The reformer then touched upon the doctrines of transubstantiation and consubstantiation; both of which he rejected. "If then," he continued, "some one asks us, whether we make Jesus Christ absent from His Holy Supper, we answer that we do not. But, if we regard the local distance (as we must do, when His corporeal presence and His humanity distinctly considered are in question), we say that His body is as far removed from the bread and wine as the highest heaven is from the earth; since, as to ourselves, we are on the earth, and the sacraments also; while, as to Him, His flesh is in heaven, so glorified that his glory, as says St. Augustine, has not taken away from Him the nature, but only the infirmity of a true body."

Outcry of the theologians of the Sorbonne.

The last words of the sentence were inaudible, except to those who were close to the speaker. The words, "We say that His body is as far removed from the bread and wine as the highest heaven is from the earth," had fired the train to the magazine of concealed impatience and anger underlying the studied external calmness of the prelatical body. An explosion instantly ensued. The cry, "Blasphemavit! Blasphemavit Deum!" resounded from every quarter.[1122] Beza's voice was drowned in the noisy expressions of disapproval by which the theologians of the Sorbonne sought to testify their own unimpeachable orthodoxy.[1123] It seemed for the moment as if the ecclesiastics would continue their repetition of the words and actions of the Jewish high-priest in the ancient Sanhedrim, and break up the conference with the exclamation: "What further need have we of witnesses? Behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy." Some of the prelates arose as if to leave, and Cardinal Tournon went so far as to address himself to Charles and beg him either to impose silence upon Beza, or to permit him and his brother ecclesiastics to retire. But no notice was taken of his request.[1124] On the contrary, the queen and the Cardinal of Lorraine felt constrained to express their displeasure at this outburst of passion on the part of the prelates, and their desire that the conference should proceed.[1125]