ROMA—THE MONKS AND THE BISHOP.
But, on their side, the friends of Rome had taken the alarm. Among those at Meaux was a Jacobin monk named Roma. One day, as Lefevre, Farel, and their friends were talking with him and some other of the papal partisans, Lefevre could not suppress his anticipations. "The Gospel is already gaining the hearts of the great and of the people," said he, "and in a short time, spreading all over France, it will everywhere throw down the inventions of men." The aged doctor was animated; his eyes sparkled; his worn-out voice grew sonorous; one might have compared him to the aged Simeon returning thanks to the Lord, because his eyes had seen His salvation. Lefevre's friends shared in his emotion: their amazed opponents were dumb. On a sudden Roma started up impetuously, and exclaimed in the tone of a popular tribune: "Then I and all the other religioners will preach a crusade; we will raise the people; and if the king permits the preaching of your Gospel, we will expel him from his kingdom by his own subjects."[827]
Thus did a monk venture to rise up against the knightly monarch. The Franciscans applauded this language. They must not allow the doctor's prophecy to be fulfilled. Already the friars were returning daily with diminished offerings. The Franciscans in alarm went about among private families. "These new teachers are heretics," said they; "they attack the holiest observances, and deny the most sacred mysteries." Then growing bolder, the most incensed among them issued from their cloister, and proceeded to the bishop's residence. On being admitted, they said to the prelate: "Crush this heresy, or else the pestilence, which is already desolating the city of Meaux, will spread over the whole kingdom."
Briçonnet was moved, and for an instant disturbed by this attack, but he did not give way; he felt too much contempt for these ignorant monks and their interested clamours. He went into the pulpit, justified Lefevre, and called the monks pharisees and hypocrites. Still this opposition had already excited trouble and conflict in his soul; he sought to encourage himself by the persuasion that such spiritual combats were necessary. "By this warfare," said he, in his somewhat mystical language, "we arrive at a vivifying death, and by continually mortifying life, we die living, and live dying."[828] The way would have been surer if, casting himself upon the Saviour, as the apostles when tossed by the winds and waves, he had exclaimed; "Lord, help me! or I perish."
THE MONKS AND THE PARLIAMENT.
The monks of Meaux, enraged at their unfavourable reception by the bishop, resolved to carry their complaints before a higher tribunal. An appeal lay open to them. If the bishop will not give way, he may be reduced to compliance. Their leaders set out for Paris, and concerted measures with Beda and Duchesne. They hastened before the parliament, and denounced the bishop and the heretical teachers. "The city and all the neighbourhood," said they, "are infected with heresy, and its polluted waters flow from the episcopal palace."
Thus did France begin to hear the cry of persecution raised against the Gospel. The sacerdotal and the civil power, the Sorbonne and the parliament, grasped their arms,—arms that were to be stained with blood. Christianity had taught mankind that there are duties and rights anterior to all civil associations; it had emancipated the religious mind, promoted liberty of conscience, and worked a great change in society; for antiquity, which contemplated the citizen everywhere and the man nowhere, had made religion a mere matter of state. But these ideas of liberty had scarcely been given to the world, ere the papacy corrupted them; for the despotism of the prince it had substituted the despotism of the priest; and not unfrequently it had raised both prince and priest against the christian people. A new emancipation was needed; it took place in the sixteenth century. Wherever the Reformation established itself, it broke the yoke of Rome, and the religious mind was again enfranchised. But so rooted in the nature of man is the disposition to tyrannize over truth, that among many protestant nations, the Church, liberated from the arbitrary power of the priest, has again in our days fallen under the yoke of the civil power; destined, like its founder, to be bandied from one despotism to another, to pass from Caiaphas to Pilate, and from Pilate to Caiaphas.
BRIÇONNET'S FALL.
Briçonnet had not the courage necessary for resistance. He would not yield everything, but what he did concede satisfied Rome. "We may well do without Luther's writings," he thought, "if we keep the Gospel; we may easily accede to a certain invocation of the Virgin, if we add that it is only by the mediation of Jesus Christ that she possesses any influence." If beside the truth we place the power of error, the papacy is satisfied. But the sacrifice which Briçonnet felt the deepest, and which yet was required of him, was the loss of his friends. If the bishop would escape, he must sacrifice his brethren. Of timid character, but little prepared to give up his riches and his station for Christ's sake, already alarmed, shaken, and cast down, he was still further led astray by treacherous advisers: if the evangelical doctors should quit Meaux (said some), they will carry the Reformation elsewhere. His heart was torn by a painful struggle. At last the wisdom of this world prevailed; he gave way, and, on the 15th of October 1523, published three mandates, the first of which enjoined prayers for the dead, and the invocation of the Virgin and of the saints; the second forbade any one to buy, borrow, read, possess, or carry about with him Luther's works, and ordered them to be torn in pieces, to be scattered to the winds, or to be burnt; and the last established in express terms the doctrine of purgatory. Then, on the 13th of November in the same year, Briçonnet forbade the parish priests and their curates to permit the "Lutherans" to preach.[829] This was not all. The first president of the Parliament of Paris, and Andrew Verjus, councillor in the same court, and before whom Briçonnet had shortly afterwards to appear, arrived at Meaux during Lent 1524, no doubt to satisfy themselves of the bishop's proceedings. The poor prelate did all he could to please them. Already on the 29th of January he had taken the images of the saints under his especial protection; he now began to visit his churches, to preach, and to struggle hard in the presence of the first president and of councillor Verjus to "weed out the heresies that were there shooting up."[830] The deputies of the Parliament returned to Paris fully satisfied. This was Briçonnet's first fall.
LEFEVRE AND FAREL—PERSECUTION.