Erasmus was deficient in courage. Now, courage is indispensable, whether it be to effect a Reformation, or to storm a town. There was much timidity in his character. From a boy the very name of death made him tremble. He was excessively anxious about his health, and would grudge no sacrifice in order to escape from a place where some contagious malady prevailed. His love of the comforts of life was greater even than his vanity, and hence his rejection, on more than one occasion, of the most brilliant offers.
Accordingly, he made no pretensions to the character of a Reformer. "If the corruptions of the Court of Rome demand some great and prompt remedy," said he, "it is no affair of mine, or of those like me."[110] He had not the strong faith which animated Luther. While the latter was always prepared to yield up his life for the truth, Erasmus candidly declared, "Others may aspire to martyrdom; as for me, I deem not myself worthy of the honour. Were some tumult to arise, I fear I would play the part of Peter."[111]
Erasmus, by his writings and his sayings, had done more than any other man to prepare the Reformation; but, when he saw the tempest, which he himself had raised, actually come, he trembled. He would have given anything to bring back the calm of other days, even though accompanied with its dense fogs. It was no longer time. The embankment had burst, and it was impossible to arrest the flood which was destined at once to purify and fertilise the world. Erasmus was powerful as an instrument of God, but when he ceased to be so, he was nothing.
Ultimately, Erasmus knew not for which party to declare. He was not pleased with any, and he had his fears of all. "It is dangerous to speak," said he, "and it is dangerous to be silent." In all great religious movements we meet with those irresolute characters, which, though respectable in some points of view, do injury to the truth, and, in wishing not to displease any, displease all.
What would become of the truth did not God raise up bolder champions to defend it? The following is the advice which Erasmus gave to Viglius Zuichem, (afterwards President of the Supreme Court at Brussels,) as to the manner in which he ought to conduct himself towards the sectaries—(this was the name by which he had already begun to designate the Reformers)—"My friendship for you makes me desirous that you should keep far aloof from the contagion of the sects, and not furnish them with any pretext for saying, 'Zuichem is ours.' If you approve their doctrine, at least disguise it, and, above all, do not enter into discussion with them. A lawyer should finesse with these people as a dying man once did with the devil. The devil asked him, 'What believest thou?' The dying man, afraid that if he made a confession of his faith, he might be surprised into some heresy, replied, 'What the Church believes.' The devil rejoined, 'What does the Church believe?' The man again replied, 'What I believe.' The devil, once more, 'And what dost thou believe?'—'What the Church believes.'"[112] Duke George of Saxony, a mortal enemy of Luther, receiving an equivocal answer from Erasmus to a question which he had put to him, said, "My dear Erasmus, wash the fur for me, and do not merely wet it." Secundus Curio, in one of his works, describes two heavens—the Papistical and the Christian heaven. He does not find Erasmus in either, but discovers him moving constantly between them in endless circles.
Such was Erasmus. He wanted that internal liberty which makes a man truly free. How different he would have been if he had abandoned himself, and sacrificed all for truth! But after trying to effect some reforms with the approbation of the Church, and for Rome deserting the Reformation when he saw the two to be incompatible, he lost himself with all parties. On the one hand, his palinodes could not suppress the rage of the fanatical partisans of the Papacy. They felt the mischief which he had done them, and they did not forgive it. Impetuous monks poured out reproaches on him from the pulpit,—calling him a second Lucian,—a fox, which had laid waste the vineyard of the Lord. A doctor of Constance had the portrait of Erasmus hung up in his study, that he might have it in his power at any moment to spit in his face. On the other hand, Erasmus, by deserting the standard of the gospel, deprived himself of the affection and esteem of the noblest men of the period in which he lived, and must, doubtless, have forfeited those heavenly consolations which God sheds in the hearts of those who conduct themselves as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. At least we have some indication of this in his bitter tears—his painful vigils, and troubled sleep—his disrelish for his food—his disgust with the study of the muses, once his only solace—his wrinkled brow—his pallid cheek—his sad and sunken eye—his hatred of a life to which he applies the epithet of cruel—and those longings for death which he unbosoms to his friends.[113] Poor Erasmus!
The enemies of Erasmus went, we think, somewhat beyond the truth when they exclaimed, on Luther's appearance, "Erasmus laid the egg, and Luther has hatched it."[114]