No! There is in Christianity what there was not in any of those popular religions. It does not, like them, present certain abstract ideas, interwoven with traditions and fables, destined to fall, sooner or later, under the attacks of human reason. It contains pure truth, founded on facts capable of standing the scrutiny of every upright and enlightened mind. Christianity does not aim merely at exciting certain vague religious sentiments, which, when they have once lost their charm, cannot be again revived. Its end is to satisfy, and it, in fact, does satisfy, all the religious wants of human nature, whatever the degree of refinement to which it may have attained. It is not the work of man, whose labours fade and are effaced; it is the work of God, who sustains what he creates; and the pledge of its duration is the promise of its divine Head.
It is impossible that human nature can ever rise so high as to look down on Christianity, or if, for a time, human nature do think herself able to dispense with it, it soon appears with renewed youth and life, as alone fit for curing souls. Degenerate nations then return with new ardour to those ancient, simple, and powerful truths, which, in the hour of their infatuation, they had turned from with disdain.
Christianity, in fact, displayed in the sixteenth century the same regenerating power which it had exerted in the first. After fifteen centuries the same truths produced the same results. In the days of the Reformation, as in those of Paul and Peter, the Gospel, with invincible force, overthrew the mightiest obstacles. Its sovereign power was manifested from north to south among nations differing most widely from each other in manners, character, and intellectual development. Then, as in the days of Stephen and James, it lighted up the fire of enthusiasm and devotedness in nations which seemed almost extinguished, and exalted them even to the height of martyrdom.
How was this revival of the Church and of the world accomplished?
The observer might then have seen the operation of two laws by which God governs the world at all times.
First, as He has ages to act in, he begins his preparations leisurely, and long before the event which He designs to accomplish.
Then, when the time is come, he produces the greatest results by the smallest means. It is thus he acts in nature and in history. When he wishes an immense tree to grow, he deposits a little grain in the earth; and, when he wishes to renew his Church, he employs the humblest instrument to accomplish what emperors and all the learned and eminent in the Church were unable to perform. By and by we will search for and we will discover this little seed which a Divine hand deposited in the earth in the days of the Reformation; but at present, let us endeavour to ascertain the various means by which God prepared this great event.
At the period when the Reformation was ready to burst forth, Rome appeared to be in peace and safety. One would even have said that nothing could disturb her triumph after the great victories which she had gained. General Councils—those Upper and Lower Houses of Catholicity—had been subdued. The Vaudois and the Hussites had been suppressed. No University, with the exception, perhaps, of that of Paris, which sometimes raised its voice when its kings gave the signal, doubted the infallibility of the oracles of Rome. Each seemed to have accepted his alloted share in her power. The higher clergy deemed it better to give a distant chief the tenth part of their revenues, and quietly consume the other nine, than to hazard all for an independence which would cost much and yield little. The lower clergy, decoyed by the perspective of rich benefices, which ambition made them fancy and discover in the distance, were willing, by a little slavery, to realise the flattering hopes which they entertained. Besides, they were almost everywhere so oppressed by the chiefs of the hierarchy, that they could scarcely struggle under their powerful grasp, far less rise boldly and hold up their heads. The people knelt before the Roman altar, and kings themselves, though they began in secret to despise the Bishop of Rome, durst not venture to attack his power with a hand which the age would have deemed sacrilegious.
But opposition, if it seemed externally to have slackened, or even ceased, when the Reformation burst forth, had more inward strength. A nearer view of the edifice will disclose to us more than one symptom which presaged its downfall. General Councils, though vanquished, had diffused their principles throughout the Church, and carried division into the enemy's camp. The defenders of the hierarchy were divided into two parties, viz., those who maintained the system of absolute Papal domination, on the principles of Hildebrand, and those who were desirous of a constitutional Papal government, offering guarantees and giving liberty to the churches.
Nor was this the whole. Faith in the infallibility of the Roman bishop was greatly shaken among all parties; and, if no voice was raised in opposition to it, it was because every one rather desired anxiously to retain the little faith in it which he still had. The least shock was dreaded, because it might overturn the edifice. Christendom held in its breath; but it was to prevent a disaster by which its own existence might have been endangered. From the moment when man trembles at the thought of abandoning a long venerated belief, it has lost its influence over him, and even the appearance of respect which he may be desirous to keep up will not be long maintained. The Reformation had been gradually prepared in three different worlds—the political, the ecclesiastical, and the literary. Political bodies, private Christians, and theologians, the literary and the learned, all contributed to the revolution of the sixteenth century. Let us take a survey of this triple opposition, concluding with the literary class, though, at the period immediately preceding the revolution, it was perhaps the most powerful of all.
First, among political bodies, Rome had lost much of its ancient credit. Of this the Church herself was the primary cause; for, properly speaking, it was not the errors and superstitions which she had introduced into Christianity that gave the fatal blow. Before Christendom could have been able to condemn her on this account, it must have stood higher than the Church, in respect of intellectual and religious development. But there was a class of things which the laity well understood, and it was by these they judged the Church. She had become of the "earth, earthy." The sacerdotal empire, which tyrannised over the nations, existed solely by the illusions of its subjects; and having a halo for its crown, had forgotten its nature, and left heaven, with his spheres of light and glory, to plunge into the vulgar interests of burghers and princes. Though representing those who are born of the Spirit, the priests had exchanged the Spirit for the flesh. They had abandoned the treasures of knowledge, and the spiritual power of the Word, for the brute force and tinkling of the age.
The thing happened naturally enough. At first the Church pretended that her object was to defend spiritual order. But in order to protect it from the opposition and assaults of the people, she had resorted to earthly means, to vulgar weapons, which a false prudence had induced her to take up. When the Church had once begun to handle such weapons, her spirituality was at an end. Her arm could not become temporal without rendering her heart temporal also. The appearance presented soon became the reverse of what it had been at the outset. At first she had thought proper to employ the earth in defending heaven; now she employed heaven to defend the earth. Theocratic forms became in her hands merely a mean of accomplishing worldly interests. The offerings which the people laid at the feet of the sovereign pontiff of Christendom were expended in maintaining the luxury of his court and the soldiers of his armies. His spiritual power served him as a ladder on which to climb, and then put the kings and nations of the earth under his feet. The charm broke, and the power of the Church was lost as soon as the men of the world could say, "She is become as one of us."
The great were the first to examine the titles of this imaginary power.47 This examination might, perhaps, have been sufficient to overthrow Rome; but, happily for her, the education of princes was everywhere in the hands of her adepts. These inspired their august pupils with sentiments of veneration for the Roman pontiff. The rulers of the people grew up within the sanctuary, and princes of ordinary capacity could never entirely quit it. Several even had no other ambition than to be found in it at the hour of death.