§ 153.4. The Huguenots in France (§ 139, 17).—Henry IV. faithfully fulfilled the promises which he made in the Edict of Nantes; but under Louis XIII., A.D. 1610-1643, the oppressions of the Huguenots were renewed, and led to fresh outbreaks. Richelieu withdrew their political privileges, but granted them religious toleration in the Edict of Nismes, A.D. 1629. Louis XIV., A.D. 1643-1715, at the instigation of his confessors, sought to atone for his sins by purging his land of heretics. When bribery and court favour had done all that they could do in the way of conversions, the fearful dragonnades began, A.D. 1681. The formal Revocation of the Edict of Nantes followed in A.D. 1685, and persecution raged with the utmost violence. Thousands of churches were torn down, vast numbers of confessors were tortured, burnt, or sent to the galleys. In spite of the terrible penal laws against emigrating, in spite of the watch kept over the frontiers, hundreds of thousands escaped, and were received with open arms as refugees in Brandenburg, Holland, England, Denmark, and Switzerland. Many fled into the wilds of the Cevennes, where under the name of Camisards they maintained a heroic conflict for years, until at last exterminated by an army at least ten times their strength. The struggle reached the utmost intensity of bitterness on both sides in A.D. 1702, when the fanatical and inhumanly cruel inquisitor, the Abbé du Chaila, was slain. At the head of the Camisard army was a young peasant, Jean Cavalier, who by his energetic and skilful conduct of the campaign astonished the world. At last the famous Marshal Villars, by promising a general amnesty, release of all prisoners, permission to emigrate with possessions, and religious toleration to those who remained, succeeded in persuading Cavalier to lay down his arms. The king ratified this bargain, only refusing the right of religious freedom. Many, however, submitted; while others emigrated, mostly to England. Cavalier entered the king’s service as colonel; but distrusting the arrangements fled to Holland, and afterwards to England, where in A.D. 1740 he died as governor of Jersey. In A.D. 1707 a new outbreak took place, accompanied by prophetic fanaticism, in consequence of repeated dragonnades, but it was put down by the stake, the gallows, the axe, and the wheel.France had lost half a million of her most pious, industrious, and capable inhabitants, and yet two millions of Huguenots deprived of all their rights remained in the land.[448]

§ 153.5. The Waldensians in Piedmont (§ 139, 25).—Although in A.D. 1654 the Duke of Savoy confirmed to the Waldensians their privileges, by Easter of the following year a bloody persecution broke out, in which a Piedmontese army, together with a horde of released prisoners and Irish refugees, driven from their native land by Cromwell’s severities, to whom the duke had given shelter in the valleys, perpetrated the most horrible cruelties. Yet in the desperate conflict the Waldensians held their ground. The intervention of the Protestant Swiss cantons won for them again a measure of toleration, and liberal gifts from abroad compensated them for their loss of property. Cromwell too sent to the relief of the sufferers the celebrated Lord Morland in A.D. 1658. While in the valleys he got possession of a number of MSS. (§ 108, 11), which he took home with him and deposited in the Cambridge Library. In A.D. 1685 the persecution and civil war were again renewed at the instigation of Louis XIV. The soldiers besieged the valleys, and more than 14,000 captives were consigned to fortresses and prisons. But the rest of the Waldensians plucked up courage, inflicted many defeats upon their enemy, and so moved the government in A.D. 1686 to release the prisoners and send them out of the country. Some found their way to Germany, others fled to Switzerland. These last, aided by Swiss troops, and led by their own pastor, Henry Arnaud, made an attack upon Piedmont in A.D. 1689, and conquered again their own country. They continued in possession, notwithstanding all attempts to dislodge them.

§ 153.6. The Catholics in England and Ireland.—When James I., A.D. 1603-1625, the son of Mary Stuart, ascended the English throne (§ 139, 11), the Catholics expected from him nothing short of the complete restoration of the old religion. But great as James’ inclination towards Catholicism may have been, his love of despotic authority was still greater. He therefore rigorously suppressed the Jesuits, who disputed the royal supremacy over the church; and the bitterness of the Catholics now reached its height. They organized the so-called Gunpowder Plot, with the intention of blowing up the royal family and the whole Parliament at the first meeting of the house. At the head of the conspiracy stood Rob. Catesby, Thomas Percy of Northumberland, and Guy Fawkes, an English officer in the Spanish service. The plan was discovered shortly before the day appointed for its execution. On November 5th, A.D. 1605, Fawkes, with lantern and matches, was seized in the cellar. The rest of the conspirators fled, but, after a desperate struggle, in which Catesby and Percy fell, were arrested, and, together with two Jesuit accomplices, executed as traitors. Great severities were then exercised toward the Catholics, not only in England, but also in Ireland, where the bulk of the population was attached to the Romish faith. James I. completed the transference of ecclesiastical property to the Anglican church, and robbed the Irish nobles of almost all their estates, and gifted them over to Scottish and English favourites. All Catholics, because they refused to take the oath of supremacy, i.e. to recognise the king as head of the church, were declared ineligible for any civil office. These oppressions at last led to the fearful Irish massacre. In October, A.D. 1641, a desperate outbreak of the Catholics took place throughout the country. It aimed at the destruction of all Protestants in Ireland. The conspirators rushed from all sides into the houses of the Protestants, murdered the inhabitants, and drove them naked and helpless from their homes. Many thousands died on the roadside of hunger and cold. In other places they were driven in crowds into the rivers and drowned, or into empty houses, which were burnt over them. The number of those who suffered is variously estimated from 40,000 to 400,000. Charles I., A.D. 1625-1649, was suspected as instigator of this terrible deed, and it may be regarded as his first step toward the scaffold (§ [155, 1]). After the execution of Charles, Oliver Cromwell, in A.D. 1649, at the call of Parliament, took fearful revenge for the Irish crime. In the two cities which he took by storm he had all the citizens cut down without distinction. Panic-stricken, the inhabitants of the other cities fled to the bogs. Within nine months the whole island was reconquered. Hundreds of thousands, driven from their native soil, wandered as homeless fugitives, and their lands were divided among English soldiers and settlers. During the time of the English Commonwealth, A.D. 1649-1660, all moderate men, even those who had formerly demanded religious toleration, not only for all Christian sects, but also for Jews and Mohammedans, and even atheists, were now at one in excluding Catholics from its benefit, because they all saw in the Catholics a party ready at any moment to prove traitors to their country at the bidding of a foreign sovereign.—The Restoration under Charles II. could not greatly ameliorate the calamities of the Irish. Religious persecution indeed ceased, but the property taken from the Catholic church and native owners still remained in the hands of the Anglican church and the Protestant occupiers. To counterbalance the Catholic proclivities of Charles II. (§ [155, 3]), the English Parliament of A.D. 1673 passed the Test Act, which required every civil and military officer to take the test oaths, condemning transubstantiation and the worship of the saints, and to receive the communion according to the Anglican rite as members of the State church. The statements of a certain Titus Oates, that the Jesuits had organized a plot for murdering the king and restoring the papacy, led to fearful riots in A.D. 1678 and many executions. But the reports were seemingly unfounded, and were probably the fruit of an intrigue to deprive the king’s Catholic brother, James II., of the right of succession. When James ascended the throne, in A.D. 1685, he immediately entered into negotiations with Rome, and filled almost all offices with Catholics. At the invitation of the Protestants, the king’s son-in-law, William III. of Orange, landed in England in A.D. 1688, and on James’ flight was declared king by the Parliament.The Act of Toleration, issued by him in A.D. 1689, still withheld from Papists the privileges now extended to Protestant dissenters (§ [155, 3]).[449]

§ 153.7. Union Efforts.

  1. Although Hugo Grotius distinctly took the side of the Remonstrants (§ [160, 2]), his whole disposition was essentially irenical. He attempted, but in vain, not only the reconciliation of the Arminians and Calvinists, but also the union of all Protestant sects on a common basis. Toward Catholicism he long maintained a decidedly hostile attitude. But through intimate intercourse with distinguished Catholics, especially during his exile in France, his feelings were completely changed. He now invariably expressed himself more favourably in regard to the faith and the institutions of the Catholic church. Its semi-Pelagianism was acceptable to him as a decided Arminian. In his “Votum pro Pace” he recommended as the only possible way to restore ecclesiastical union, a return to Catholicism, on the understanding that a thorough reform should be made.But that he was himself ready to pass over, and was hindered only by his sudden death in A.D. 1645, is merely an illusion of Romish imagination.[450]
  2. King Wladislaus [Wladislaw] IV. of Poland thought a union of Protestants and Catholics in his dominions not impossible, and with this end in view arranged the Religious Conference of Thorn in A.D. 1645. Prussia and Brandenburg were also invited to take part in it. The elector sent his court preacher, John Berg, and asked from the Duke of Brunswick the assistance of the Helmstadt theologian, George Calixt. The chief representatives of the Lutheran side were Abraham Calov, of Danzig, and John Hülsemann, of Wittenberg. That Calixt, a Lutheran, took the part of the Reformed, intensified the bitterness of the Lutherans at the outset. The result was to increase the split on all sides. The Reformed set forth their opinions in the “Declaratio Thorunensis,” which in Brandenburg obtained symbolical rank.
  3. J. B. Bossuet, who died in A.D. 1704, Bishop of Meaux, used all his eloquence to prepare a way for the return of Protestants to the church in which alone is salvation.In several treatises he gave an idealized exposition of the Catholic doctrine, glossed over what was most offensive to Protestants, and sought by subtlety and sophistry to represent the Protestant system as contradictory and untenable.[451] During the same period the Spaniard Spinola, Bishop of Neustadt, who had come into the country as father confessor of the empress, proposed a scheme of union at the imperial court. The controverted points were to be decided at a free council, but the primacy of the pope and the hierarchical system, as founded jure humano, were to be retained. In prosecuting his scheme, with the secret support of Leopold I., Spinola, between A.D. 1676 and 1691, travelled through all Protestant Germany. He found most success, out of respect for the emperor, in Hanover, where the Abbot of Loccum, Molanus, zealously advocated the proposed union, in which on the Catholic side Bossuet, on the Protestant side the great philosopher Leibnitz, took part. But the negotiations ended in no practical result. That Leibnitz had himself been already secretly inclined to Catholicism, some think to have proved by a manuscript, found after his death, entitled in another’s hand, “Systema Theologicum Leibnitii.” Favourably disposed as Leibnitz was to investigate and recognise what was profound and true even in Catholicism, so that he reached the conviction that neither of the two churches had given perfect and adequate expression to Christian truth, he has apparently sought in this work to make clear to himself what and how much of specifically Catholic doctrines were justifiable, and to sketch out a system of doctrine occupying a place superior to both confessions. In this treatise many doctrines are expressed in a manner quite divergent from that of the Tridentine creed, while several expressions show how clearly he perceived the contradiction between his own Protestant faith and the Romish system, amid all his attempts to effect a reconciliation.

§ 153.8. The Lehnin Prophecy.—The hope entertained, about the end of the seventeenth century, by Catholics throughout Germany of the speedy restoration of the mother church was expressed in the so called Vaticinium Lehninense. Professedly composed in the thirteenth century by a monk called Hermann, of the cloister of Lehnin in Brandenburg, it characterized with historical accuracy in 100 Leonine verses the Brandenburg princes down to Frederick III., of whose coronation in A.D. 1701 it is ignorant, and after this proceeds in a purely fanciful and arbitrary manner. From Joachim II., who openly joined the Reformation, it enumerates eleven members, so that the history is just brought down to Frederick William III. With the eleventh the Hohenzollern dynasty ends, Germany is united, the Catholic church restored, and Lehnin raised again to its ancient glory. Under Frederick William IV., the Catholics diligently sought to prove the genuineness of the prophecy, and by arbitrary methods to extend it so as to include this prince. Lately “the deadly sin of Israel” spoken of in it has been pointed to as a prophecy of the Kultur-kampf of our own day (§ [197]). The first certain trace of the poem is in A.D. 1693. Hilgenfeld thinks that its author was a fanatical pervert, Andr. Fromm, who was previously a Protestant pastor in Berlin, and died in A.D. 1685 as canon of Leitmeritz, in Bohemia.

§ 154. Lutheranism and Calvinism.

The Reformed church made its way into the heart of Lutheran Germany (§ 144) by the Calvinizing of Hesse-Cassel and Lippe, and by the adherence of the electoral house of Brandenburg. Renewed attempts to unite the two churches were equally fruitless with the endeavours after a Catholic-Protestant union.

§ 154.1. Calvinizing of Hesse-Cassel, A.D. 1605-1646.—Philip the Magnanimous, died 1567, left to his eldest son, William IV., one half of his territories, comprising Lower Hesse and Schmalcald, with residence at Cassel; to Louis IV. a fourth part, viz. Upper Hesse, with residence at Marburg; while his two youngest sons, Philip and George, were made counts, with their residence at Darmstadt. Philip died in 1583 and Louis in 1604, both childless; in consequence of which the greater part of Philip’s territory and the northern half of Upper Hesse with Marburg fell to Hesse-Cassel, and the southern half with Giessen to Hesse-Darmstadt.—Landgrave William IV. of Hesse-Cassel sympathised with his father’s union and levelling tendencies, and by means of general synods wrought eagerly to secure acceptance for them throughout Hesse by setting aside the ubiquitous Christology (§ 141, 9) and the Formula of Concord, while firmly maintaining the Corpus Doctrinæ Philippicum (§ 141, 10). The fourth and last of those general synods was held in 1582. Further procedure was meanwhile rendered impossible by the increase of opposition. For, on the one hand, Louis IV., under the influence of the acute and learned but contentious Ægidius Hunnius, professor of theology at Marburg, 1576-1592, became more and more decidedly a representative of exclusive Lutheranism; and, on the other hand, William’s Calvinizing schemes became from day to day more reckless. His son and successor Maurice went forward more energetically along the same lines as his father, especially after the death of his uncle Louis in 1604, who bequeathed to him the Marburg part of his territories. These had been given him on condition that he should hold by the confession and its apology as guaranteed by Charles V. in 1530. But in 1605 he forbad the Marburg theologians to set forth the ubiquity theology; and when they protested, issued a formal prohibition of the dogma with its presuppositions and consequences, and insisted on the introduction of the Reformed numbering of the commandments of the decalogue, and the breaking of bread at the communion, and the removal of the remaining images from the churches (§ 144, 2). The theologians again protested, and were deprived of their offices. The result was the outbreak of a popular tumult at Marburg, which Maurice suppressed by calling in the military. When in several places in Upper and even in Lower Hesse opposition was persisted in, and the resisting clergy could not be won over either by persuasion and threatening or by persecution, Maurice in 1607 convened consultative diocesan synods at Cassel, Eschwege, Marburg, St. Goar, and soon after a general synod at Cassel, which, giving expression on all points to the will of the landgrave, drew up, besides a new hymnbook and catechism, a new “Christian and correct confession of faith,” by which they openly and decidedly declared their attachment to the Reformed church. Soon Hesse accepted these conclusions, but not the rest of the state, where the opposition of the nobles, clergy, and people, in spite of all attempts to enforce this acceptance by military power, imprisonment, and deposition, could not be altogether overcome.—Meanwhile George’s son and successor, Louis V., 1596-1626, had been eagerly seeking to make capital of those troubles in his cousin’s domains in favour of the Darmstadt dynasty. He gave his protection to the professors expelled from Marburg in 1605, founded in 1607 a Lutheran university at Giessen, and made accusations against his cousin before the imperial supreme court, which in 1623, on the basis of the will of Louis IV. and the Religious Peace of Augsburg (§ 137, 5), declared the inheritance forfeited, and entrusted the electors of Cologne and Saxony with the execution of the sentence. These in conjunction with the troops of the league under Tilly attacked Upper and Lower Hesse; the Lutheran University of Giessen was transferred to Marburg, and Upper Hesse, after the banishment of the Reformed pastors, went over wholly to the Lutheran confession. Maurice, completely broken down, resigned in favour of his son William V., who was obliged to make an agreement, according to which he made over Upper Hesse, Schmalcald, and Katzenelnbogen to George II. of Hesse-Darmstadt, the successor of Louis V. In consequence of his attachment to Gustavus Adolphus in the Thirty Years’ War the ban of the empire was pronounced upon William. He died in 1637. His widow, Amalie Elizabeth, undertook the government on behalf of her young son William VI., and in 1646, after repeated victories over George’s troops, made a new agreement with him, by which the territories taken away in 1627 were restored to Hesse-Cassel, under a guarantee, however, that the status quo in matters of religion should be preserved, and that they should continue predominantly Lutheran. The university property was divided; Giessen obtained a Lutheran, Marburg a Reformed institution, and Lower Hesse received a moderately but yet essentially Reformed ecclesiastical constitution.

§ 154.2. Calvinizing of Lippe, A.D. 1602.—Count Simon VI. of Lippe, in his eventful life, was brought into close relations with the Reformed Netherlands and with Maurice of Hesse. His dominions were thoroughly Lutheran, but from A.D. 1602 Calvinism was gradually introduced under the patronage of the prince. The chief promoter of this innovation was Dreckmeyer, chosen general superintendent in A.D. 1599. At a visitation of churches in A.D. 1602, the festivals of Mary and the apostles, exorcism, the sign of the cross, the host, burning candles, and Luther’s catechism were rejected. Opposing pastors were deposed, and Calvinists put in their place. The city Lemgo stood out longest, and persevered in its adherence to the Lutheran confession during an eleven years’ struggle with its prince, from A.D. 1606 to 1617. After the death of Simon VI., his successor, Simon VII., allowed the city the free exercise of its Lutheran religion.