Defective in many parts as Luther’s character really was, he appears to have been, nevertheless, one of the best among the original and leading reformers. There seemed to be a frankness or unreservedness about him that was somewhat pleasing, and which it is not easy to discover in many of his coadjutors. He was also apparently not so bloodyminded as some of them were, at whose head, it is presumed, we may venture to place the apostle of Geneva, Calvin. This man (as is evinced by the tragical case of Servetus,) when his favourite dogmas were opposed, and his wisdom, learning, and infallibility set at naught, nothing would satisfy but the obstruction of his opponent: but Luther, (as appears from the affair of Carlostadius,) would be pretty well satisfied with the banishment only of those who happened so to offend him. The spirit of Luther, however, though less vindictive and diabolical than that of Calvin, was yet very dissimilar to that of Jesus Christ, whose followers they both professed themselves to be.
It seems to have been then the case, that those reformers who had gone the furthest from the church of Rome in doctrine, such as Calvin and the Swiss divines, who denied the real presence, were yet the nighest to that church in spirit: for they seemed more addicted to the practice of consigning to destruction those whom they deemed heretics than the Lutherans, though the latter did not depart near so far as the former from the grand popish doctrine of transubstantiation. Odd as this may be considered, it appears to be a fact; though to account for it may, perhaps, be attended with considerable difficulty. It cannot however, be supposed, that the denial of the real presence could have any tendency to make people more bloodthirsty, vindictive, or intolerant.
The reformers, in retaining the bigotry and intolerance, or the spirit of popery, retained in fact its very worst part, and what may be called its marrow and substance; which the world had most need to get rid of. All therefore that they did, or could do, in such a case, was only like giving a new edition, or an abridgment of an old and bad work, which still contained the essence of the former, and must, of course, have the same defective and evil tendency. They appeared like people undertaking the cure of a demoniac without casting out the demon, or pretending that the evil or scrophula may be healed and eradicated by the royal touch. In short, they began the work at the wrong end, and never meddled with that part at which they ought to have begun.
Their first work ought to have been to exhibit to the religious world the meekness and gentleness of Christ, and endeavour to bring those who professed to be his servants back to the spirit of his religion. Had they done so, and succeeded, their work would have beep more than half done. The rest would have followed of course, or, at least, with little comparative difficulty. For when men have once imbibed the spirit of the New Testament, it will not be very hard to persuade them to renounce such doctrines or practices as are not enjoined or countenanced in that sacred volume: and if any errors or misconceptions happen still to remain, they will become in a great measure harmless, through the influence of that divine spirit by which they are now led and governed.
The reformers in foisting into their system the impious and horrid principle of intolerance and persecution, gave it a most monstrous and shocking aspect, even more so than that of the centaurs, or minotaurs of ancient fable; for it was like joining God with the devil, or Christ with Belial. But nothing better, perhaps, could be expected from men who knew so little of the temper which christianity produces; and who never discerned the difference between the wisdom that is from above and that which is from beneath; or considered that Jesus Christ came not to destroy men’s lives, but to save them. For men who knew so little of the genius of christianity to take it upon them, as they did, to lord it over the faith of professing christians, was certainly a most gross and iniquitous piece of presumption.
The power which the reformers acquired was very great and formidable, and the authority which they sometimes assumed and exercised was not a little remarkable and extraordinary, as appears not only from the permission of concubinage, &c. already mentioned, but also from the Dispensation granted by Luther, Melancthon, Bucer, and five others, to the prince of Hesse Cassel to have two wives at a time, and which was afterwards published by a descendant of that prince. This was certainly taking a great deal upon them, and placing themselves, not indeed upon a level with the apostles, as was before observed, but much above them, even with the pope himself. Yet they seemed very angry with his holiness, calling him antichrist, and many other bad names. They appeared very desirous to pull him down, but had no manner of objection to do his work, or act the pope themselves when it suited them, and that was not unfrequently.
It is curious enough to hear these men inveigh against the intolerant and persecuting spirit of the church of Rome, at the very time when they themselves were manifesting the selfsame spirit, and pursuing the same tyrannical and murderous course which they so much condemned in the papists. In our own country, John Fox, the martyrologist, was employed in writing huge folios to describe the horrors of popish persecution, while his own protestant sovereign and her bishops and clergy were persecuting the poor puritans with unfeeling and relentless rigour. Protestants can see the hatefulness of persecution in the papists, but very often are quite blind to it in themselves, or those of their own party. [642] They can discern what is bad in their opponents, but overlook what is equally so in themselves.
Christianity, in its first aspect and fundamental principles, is a religion of peace and good will towards men, which forbids any to domineer over their brethren, or exercise authority over their consciences, and requires, in all things whatsoever, to do to others as we would they should do to us. But the reformers overlooked all this, and discovered either an entire ignorance of, or a fixed aversion to these godlike principles. In either case they must have been wretchedly qualified to reform and christianize the world, or form a religion worthy the reception of mankind. A religion, however, they would and did form, and never rested till they got it established by the civil power, and enforced by penal sanctions; and this rendered its native intolerance doubly pernicious and detestable.
“No religion” (says an excellent writer) “can be established without penal sanctions, and all penal sanctions in cases of religion are persecutions. Before a man can persecute he must renounce the generous tolerant dispositions of a christian. No religion can be established without human creeds; and subscription to all human creeds implies two dispositions contrary to true religion, and both expressly forbidden by the author of it. These two dispositions are, love of dominion over conscience in the imposer, and an abject preference of slavery in the subscriber. The first usurps the rights of Christ; the last swears allegiance to a pretender. The first domineers, and gives laws like a tyrant; the last truckles like a vassal. The first assumes a dominion incompatible with his frailty, impossible even to his dignity, yea even denied to the dignity of angels; the last yields a low submission, inconsistent with his own dignity, and ruinous to that very religion, which he pretends by this mean to support.” [644]
It is very remarkable, and no less true and disgusting, that protestantism was ushered into the world in the very spirit of the religion it strove to supplant. Yet its authors expected to be thought commissioned by heaven to do what they did, and clearly entitled to the gratitude and reverence of mankind, as well as their ready submission to their dictates and authority. But to one who has carefully examined the New Testament, they appear so very different from the first disseminators or propagators of christianity, that they can hardly be supposed to belong to the same cause or family. When Luther is seen banishing conscientious people who differed from him, and Calvin, and the Swiss reformers, burning or hanging them, and the French protestants, or Calvinists of France solemnly soliciting their popish sovereign to inflict severe punishment on those whom they were pleased to deem heretics: [645]—when one recollects these acts, and that they were all done in the name of the Lord, one is ready to sicken at the thought of the pretensions of the actors, to reform the world and restore christianity to its original state. Nor is it less disgusting to hear our flaming advocates for modern orthodoxy extolling these men, as models of christian sanctity, and unexceptionable or safe guides to pure, undefiled, and evangelical religion.