30

various sects were discriminated by some fainter or darker shades of theology; but they generally agreed in the two principles, the contempt of the Old Testament and the denial of the body of Christ, either on the cross or in the eucharist. A confession of simple worship and blameless manners is extorted from their enemies; and so high was their standard of perfection, that the increasing congregations were divided into two classes of disciples, of those who practised, and of those who aspired. It was in the country of the Albigeois in the southern provinces of France, that the Paulicians were most deeply implanted; and the same vicissitudes of martyrdom and revenge which had been displayed in the neighborhood of the Euphrates, were repeated in the thirteenth century on the banks of the Rhone. The laws of the Eastern emperors were revived by Frederic the Second. The insurgents of Tephrice were represented by the barons and eities of Languedoc: Pope Innocent III. surpassed the sanguinary fame of Theodora. It was in cruelty alone that her soldiers could equal the heroes of the Crusades, and the cruelty of her priests was far excelled by the founders of the Inquisition; an office more adapted to confirm, than to refute, the belief of an evil principle. The visible assemblies of the Paulicians, or Albigeois, were extirpated by fire and sword; and the bleeding remnant escaped by flight, concealment, or Catholic conformity. But the invincible spirit which they had kindled still lived and breathed in the Western world. In the state, in the church, and even in the cloister, a latent succession was preserved of the disciples of St. Paul; who protested against the tyranny of Rome, embraced the Bible as the rule of faith, and purified their creed

31

30 Of the laws, crusade, and persecution against the Albigeois, a just, though general, idea is expressed by Mosheim, (p. 477–481.) The detail may be found in the ecclesiastical historians, ancient and modern, Catholics and Protestants; and amongst these Fleury is the most impartial and moderate.

31 The Acts (Liber Sententiarum) of the Inquisition of Tholouse (A D. 1307-1323) have been published by Limborch, (Amsteloda mi, 1692,) with a previous History of the Inquisition in general. They deserved a more learned and critical editor. As we must not calumniate even Satan, or the Holy Office, I will observe, that of a list of criminals which fills nineteen folio pages, only fifteen men and four women were delivered to the secular arm

'rom all the visions of the Gnostic theology.

The struggles of Wickliff in England, of Huss in Bohemia, were premature and ineffectual; but the names of Zuinglius, Luther, and Calvin, are pronounced with gratitude as the deliverers of nations.

A philosopher, who calculates the degree of their merit and the value of their reformation, will prudently ask from what articles of faith, above or against our reason, they have enfranchised the Christians; for such enfranchisement is doubtless a benefit so far as it may be compatible with truth and piety. After a fair discussion, we shall rather be surprised by the timidity, than scandalized by the freedom, of our first reformers.32 With the Jews, they adopted the belief and defence of all the Hebrew Scriptures, with all their prodigies, from the garden of Eden to the visions of the prophet Daniel; and they were bound, like the Catholics, to justify against the Jews the abolition of a divine law. In the great mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation the reformers were severely orthodox: they freely adopted the theology of the four, or the six first councils; and with the Athanasian creed, they pronounced the eternal damnation of all who did not believe the Catholic faith. Transubstantiation, the invisible change of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, is a tenet that may defy the power of argument and pleasantry; but instead of consulting the evidence of their senses, of their sight, their feeling, and their taste, the first Protestants were entangled in their own scruples, and awed by the words of Jesus in the institution of the sacrament. Luther maintained a corporeal, and Calvin a real, presence

3 The opinions and proceedings of the reformers are exposed in the second part of the general history of Mosheim; but the balance, which he has held with so clear an eye, and so steady a hand, begins to incline in favor of his Lutheran brethren.

The popularity of "Milner's History of the Church" with some readers, may make it proper to observe, that his attempt to exculpate the Paulicians from the charge of Gnosticism or Manicheism is in direct defiance, if not in ignorance, of all the original authorities. Gibbon himself, it appears, was not acquainted with the work of Photius, "Contra Manicheos Repuliulantes," the first book of which was edited by Montfauçon, Bibliotheca Coisliniana, pars ii. p. 349, 375, the whole by Wolf, in his Anecdota Græca. Hamburg, 1722. Compare a very sensible tract, Letter to Rev. S. R. Maitland, by J G. Dowling, M. A. London, 1835. — M.

of Christ in the eucharist; and the opinion of Zuinglius, tha it is no more than a spiritual communion, a simple memorial, has slowly prevailed in the reformed churches.33 But the loss of one mystery was amply compensated by the stupendous doctrines of original sin, redemption, faith, grace, and predestination, which have been strained from the epistles of St. Paul. These subtile questions had most assuredly been prepared by the fathers and schoolmen; but the final improvement and popular use may be attributed to the first reformers, who enforced them as the absolute and essential terms of salvation. Hitherto the weight of supernatural belief inclines against the Protestants; and many a sober Christian would rather admit that a wafer is God, than that God is a cruel and capricious tyrant.

Yet the services of Luther and his rivals are solid and important; and the philosopher must own his obligations to these fearless enthusiasts.34 I. By their hands the lofty fabric of superstition, from the abuse of indulgences to the intercession of the Virgin, has been levelled with the ground. Myriads of both sexes of the monastic profession were restored to the iberty and labors of social life. A hierarchy of saints and ingels, of imperfect and subordinate deities, were stripped of heir temporal power, and reduced to the enjoyment of celesial happiness; their images and relics were banished from the church; and the credulity of the people was no longer nourished with the daily repetition of miracles and visions. The imitation of Paganism was supplied by a pure and spiritual worship of prayer and thanksgiving, the most worthy of man, the least unworthy of the Deity. It only remains to observe, whether such sublime simplicity be consistent with popular devotion; whether the vulgar, in the absence of all visible objects, will not be inflamed by enthusiasm, or insensibly subside in languor and indifference. II. The chain of

33 Under Edward VI. our reformation was more bold and perfect; but in the fundamental articles of the church of England, a strong and explicit declaration against the real presence was obliterated in the original copy, to please the people, or the Lutherans, or Queen Elizabeth, (Burnet's History of the Reformation, vol. ii. p. 82, 128, 302.)

34" Had it not been for such men as Luther and myself,' said the fanatic Whiston to Halley the philosopher, "you would now be knee' ing before an image of St. Winifred."

authority was broken, which restrains the bigot from thinking as he pleases, and the slave from speaking as he thinks: the popes, fathers, and councils, were no longer the supreme and infallible judges of the world; and each Christian was taught to acknowledge no law but the Scriptures, no interpreter but his own conscience. This freedom, however, was the consequence, rather than the design, of the Reformation. The patriot reformers were ambitious of succeeding the tyrants whom they had dethroned. They imposed with equal rigor their creeds and confessions; they asserted the right of the magistrate to punish heretics with death. The pious or personal animosity of Calvin proscribed in Servetus 35 the guilt of his own rebellion; 36 and the flames of Smithfield, in which he was afterwards consumed, had been kindled for the Anabaptists by the zeal of Cranmer.37 The nature of the tiger was the same, but he was gradually deprived of his teeth and fangs A spiritual and temporal kingdom was possessed by the Roman pontiff: the Protestant doctors were subjects of

35 The article of Servet in the Dictionnaire Critique of Chauffepie is the best account which I have seen of this shameful transaction. See likewise the Abbé d'Artigny, Nouveaux Mémoires d'Histoire, &c., tom. ii. p. 55—154.

36 I am more deeply scandalized at the single execution of Servetus, than at the hecatombs which have blazed in the Auto da Fès of Spain and Portugal. 1. The zeal of Calvin seems to have been envenomed by personal malice, and perhaps envy. He accused his adversary before their common enemies, the judges of Vienna, and betrayed, for his destruction, the sacred trust of a private correspondence. 2. The deed of cruelty was not varnished by the pretence of danger to the church or state. In his passage through Geneva, Servetus was a harmless stranger, who neither preached, nor printed, nor made proselytes. 3. A Catholic inquisitor yields the same obedience which he requires, but Calvin violated the golden rule of doing as he would be done by; a rule which I read in a moral treatise of Isocrates (in Nicocle, tom. i. p. 93, edit. Battie) four hundred years before the publication of the Gospel.* “Α πάσχοντες ὑφ ̓ ἑτέρων ὀργίζεσθε, ταῦτα τοῖς ἄλλοις μὴ ποιεῖτε.

ત

37 See Burnet, vol. ii. p. 84-86. The sense and humanity of the young king were oppressed by the authority of the primate.

* Gibbon has not accurately rendered the sense of this passage, which does not contain the maxim of charity, Do unto others as you would they should do unto you, but simply the maxim of justice, Do not to others that which would offend you if they should do it to yor. -- G.

în humble rank, without revenue or judisdiction. Ilis decrees were consecrated by the antiquity of the Catholic church: their arguments and disputes were submitted to the people; and their appeal to private judgment was accepted beyond their wishes, by curiosity and enthusiasm. Since the days of Luther and Calvin, a secret reformation has been silently working in the bosom of the reformed churches; many weeds of prejudice were eradicated; and the disciples of Erasmus 3o diffused a spirit of freedom and moderation. The liberty of conscience has been claimed as a common benefit, an inalienable right: 39 the free governments of Holland 40 and England 41 introduced the practice of toleration; and the narrow allowance of the laws has been enlarged by the prudence and humanity of the times. In the exercise, the mind has understood the limits of its powers, and the words and shadows that might amuse the child can no longer satisfy his manly reason. The volumes of controversy are overspread with cobwebs : the doctrine of a Protestant church is far removed from the knowledge or belief of its private members; and the forms of orthodoxy, the articles of faith, are subscribed with a sigh, or a smile, by the modern clergy. Yet the friends of Christianity are alarmed at the boundless impulse of inquiry and scepticism. The predictions of the Catholics are accomplished: the web of mystery is unravelled by the Arminians, Arians, and Socinians, whose number must not be computed

38 Erasmus may be considered as the father of rational theology. After a slumber of a hundred years, it was revived by the Arminians of Holland, Grotius, Limborch, and Le Clerc; in England by Chillingworth, the latitudinarians of Cambridge, (Burnet, Hist. of Own Times, vol. i. p. 261-268, octavo edition,) Tillotson, Clarke, Hoadley, &c.

39 I am sorry to observe, that the three writers of the last age, by whom the rights of toleration have been so nobly defended, Bayle, Leibnitz, and Locke, are all laymen and philosophers.

40 See the excellent chapter of Sir William Temple on the Religion of the United Provinces. I am not satisfied with Grotius, (de Rebus Belgicis, Annal. 1. i. p. 13, 14, edit. in 12mo.,) who approves the Imperial laws of persecution, and only condemns the bloody tribunal of Che inquisition.

41 Sir William Blackstone (Commentaries, vol. iv. p. 53, 54) explains the law of England as it was fixed at the Revolution. The exceptions of Papists, and of those who deny the Trinity, would still leave a tolerable scope for persecution, if the national spirit were not more effectual than a hundred statutes.