A History of the Christian Church During the Reformation by Charles Hardwick Fifth Edition, Revised by W. Stubbs Macmillan, 1876. [Spelling selectively modernized. Notes moved and in square brackets for web reading. Bible citations converted to all Arabic numerals.] Preface The following Chapters are intended as the sequel and companion to “A History of the Christian Church during the Middle Age.” The author had indulged the hope of giving this new portion to the public at a less distant interval, but found his progress constantly retarded by other duties and engagements. In traversing ground which furnishes so many topics, always full of deep and sometimes melancholy interest to the student of Church history, he was actuated by the principles which guided him throughout the composition of the previous volume. His earnest wish has been to give the reader a trustworthy version of those stirring incidents which mark the Reformation period; without relinquishing his former claim to characterize particular systems, persons, and events, according to the shades and colours they assume, when contemplated from an English point of view, and by a member of the Church of England. Cambridge, February 5, 1856. This third edition is substantially a reprint of the second, which was published in 1865 under the editorship of the Rev. Francis Procter. A few passages have been rewritten and the whole carefully revised. William Stubbs, Kettel Hall, Oct. 1872. Contents Introduction Chapter I – The Saxon School of Church Reformers, And Its Propagation Germany, Prussia, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland, Sweden, Poland, Bohemia and Moravia, Hungary and Transylvania, Spain, Italy. Chapter II – The Swiss School of Church Reformers, And Its Propagation Switzerland, France, Scotland, The Netherlands. Chapter III – Conflicts Between the Saxon And the Swiss Reformers. Chapter IV – The English And Irish Reformation England, Ireland. Chapter V – Sects And Heresies Accompanying the New Movement Freethinkers, First Race of Anabaptists, Second Race of Anabaptists, or Mennonites, Socinians, Sohwenckfeldians, Family of Love, Brownists, or Independents. Chapter VI – The Counter-Reformation Mediating Party, Council of Trent, Inquisition, Jesuits. Chapter VII – Relations of Eastern and Western Churches. Chapter VIII – Constitution of the Church, And Its Relations To the Civil Power Boman Communion, English Communion, Saxon Communion, Swiss Communion. Chapter IX – State of Intelligence And Piety Chapter X – Growth of the Church A History of the Christian Church. Reformation Period. Introduction That Europe would ere long be shaken by some purifying tempest was the general expectation of farsighted men at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The scholar who was holding a familiar converse with past ages, or who noted from his cloister the portentous stillness which in spite of prevalent corruptions was pervading all the atmosphere of the Church, agreed in this foreboding with the politician who directed the affairs of nations, and mixed freely in the strifes and turmoils of the world. They could not, it is true, foresee the depth of the convulsion, nor the marvellous rapidity with which it would be propagated, nor the vast upheaving it would cause in every sphere of human thought. Much less could they divine the special nature of the instruments* whom GOD was shaping for the execution of His purpose. Yet their knowledge and experience told them that disorders such as they beheld in the administration of the Church had grown intolerable, and, unless a remedy were soon applied, might prove the ruin of the system which had fed them for so many years. *[The nearest guess, perhaps, was made in the following passage, written just before the birth of Luther: ‘Ecelesiam per concilium reformare non poterit omnis humana facultas: sed alium modum Altissimus procurabit nobis quidem pro nunc incognitum, licet heu! prae foribus existat, ut ad pristinum statum ecclesia redeat:’ see Hottinger, Hist. Ecc. sec. xv. p. 413, quoted in Middle Age, p. 371, n. 3.] A number of converging trains [Middle Age, pp. 415, 416.] of influence had been lately rousing and enlarging the mind of Western Christendom. It could no longer be subdued by motives, or repressed by fetters, which had once been all- constraining. New importance was attached to individual freedom, and a higher value set on individual souls. The hazy light which floated over the institutions of the Mediaeval period, adding to it much of its dignity, picturesqueness and romance, was giving way to fuller and more rational illumination: and as this increased the circle of its power, mankind grew more impatient of authority, and more inclined to question the traditions of their fathers. Every order of society was stirred: it silently drew up a catalogue of grievances,* and watched its opportunity to clamour for redress. The feelings of the many were exasperated by the scandalous lives of the ecclesiastics. Members of the higher class resented their encroachments, envied their predominance, and thirsted for a part of their superfluous wealth. Those bishops even who were desirous to promote the better organization of their dioceses, felt themselves restrained by the corrupt examples and the arbitrary intermeddling of the popes: while in addition to this general want of confidence in the existing state of things, a party of doctrinal reformers was emerging, almost simultaneously, in very different quarters. It consisted of friars, clerics, monks and laymen, all perceiving more distinctly every day, that most of the practical corruptions on the surface of society had sprung from deeper causes than was commonly supposed, and therefore, that a reformation to be really efficacious must commence with acts of daring, not to say of violence, – with rooting up the numerous aftergrowths of error, that had smothered, or at least obscured, the genuine dogmas of the Church. *[A specimen is found in the well-known Centum Gravamina adversus sedem Romanam totumque ecclesiasticum ordinem arrayed before the diet of Nuremberg in 1522. Erasmus writing (Dec. 12, 1524) to Duke George of Saxony, who was adverse to the Lutherans, did not hesitate to make this declaration: “Cum Lutheus aggrederetur hanc fabulam [i.e. of indulgences], totus mundus illi magno consensu applausit. ... Susceperat enim optimam causam adversus corruptissimos Scholarum at Ecclesiae mores, qui eo progressi fuerant ut res jam nulli bono viro tolerabilis videretur.” Epist. lib. XXI. ep. 7. Lond. 1642. To the same effect writes Surius a contemporary, and one of Luther’s greatest enemies (in Gieseler, ‘Vierte Periode,’ p: 30, n. 17. Bonn, 1840, vol. v. p.231. ed. Edinb.): “In ipsis hujus tragoediae initiis visus est Lutherus etiam plerisque viris gravibus et eruditis non pessimo zelo moveri, planeque nihil spectare aliud quam Ecclesiae reformationem, cujus quidam deformes abusus non parum male habebant bonos omnes.”] As these convictions gradually became more definite and urgent, it was necessary to inquire respecting the machinery by which a reformation might be carried into effect. Two plans seemed possible: the one involving the cooperation of the pope and hierarchy, and through them extending to the whole of western Christendom; the other starting from the civil and ecclesiastical authorities of each particular state or nation, and removing the abuses which especially affected it. According to the first idea, the Roman pontiff, wielding as of old a spiritual supremacy, might constitute himself the head and leader of the rising movement. Foremost to acknowledge that “many abominations had for a long time existed even in the holy see, yea, that all things had been grievously altered and perverted,”* he might call together the most able representatives of the Church, inquire more narrowly into the growth of prevailing evils, disinter the ancient canons, above all, give new publicity to the neglected oracles of God, and ascertaining, by the help of sounder scholarship now happily revived, how far the faith and practices of Christendom had swerved from early standards, might exert the remnant of his power in every court of Europe to replace religion on a firmer basis, and to restore it to its pristine purity. *[This was actually the admission of Adrian VI in 1522. See his instructions to Francisco Chieregati, in Raynald. Annal. Eccl. ad an. 1522. § 66. The abbé Rohrbacher in his Hist. Univ. de l’Eglise Catholigue is unwilling to recognize the least corruption in the Mediaeval Church, and professes to rectify the blunders of such men as Boseuet, who could not shut their eyes to the most patent facts of history. The language of Adrian is, however, a great stnmblingblock in the way of M. Rohrbacher, owing to his exalted views of pontifical infallibility. See the opening of Liv. LXXXIV.] (1) If such a project may have fairly been considered within the bounds of possibility when Pius III ascended the pontifical throne in 1503, the hope of realizing it expired with his brief reign of six and twenty days. [Döllinger, Ch. Hist. IV. 229. Engl. Transl.] It was agitated, for a while indeed, when Adrian occupied the place of Leo in 1522; yet the “reforming” pontiff (so he has been styled) had scarcely cherished the magnificent idea when he also was carried prematurely to his grave. [Serpi, Hist. du Concile de Trent, Liv. I. c. 27. (I. 59 ed. Conrayer.)] With these two slight exceptions, we shall find the Roman curia, throughout the first quarter of the sixteenth century, persisting in its resolution to discountenance all change whatever. Conscious though it afterwards became that reformation of some kind or other was inevitable, it manifested no activity until the slumbers of the Vatican were broken by the prospect of a general revolt. And as the pontiff would not himself institute reformatory measures, so would he not tolerate the schemes of other church authorities. The “constitutional” reformers, who inherited the feelings that found expression at Constance and Basel, were no less hateful in his eyes than Hussites or Waldenses.