Y^E°¥MI¥HIESflW- IUHBISAIKBr

From the estate of
PROFESSOR WILLISTON WALKER
1924

LEADERS

THE REFORMATION.

LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION

LUTHER, CALVIN, LATIMER, KNOX,

REPRESENTATIVE MEN

GERMANY, TRANCE, ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

JOHN TULLOCH, D.D.
PRINCIPAL, AITS PRIMARIUS PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY, BT. MART'S COLLEGE, BT. ANDREWS,
AUTHOR OP " THEISM " (BUBNET PRIZE TREATISE), ETC.

BOSTON:
GOULD AND LINCOLN
69 WASHINOTON STREET.
NEW YORK: SHELDON AND COMPANY.
CINCINNATI: GEOKGE S. BI/ANCHAKD.

PRINTED BV
W. V. DRAPER, ANDOVBR, MASS.

PREFATORY NOTE.

The substance of these ^ketches was delivered
in a series of Lectures at the Edinburgh Philo
sophical Institution during the past spring. I
mention this not to excuse their publication,
which I had designed from the first, but to
account for a rapidity and summariness of state
ment, and certain oral peculiarities of style,
which will be sufficiently obvious here and there.
I cannot expect that in their present shape, and
by the general public, they will be received with
the same indulgent interest as they were received
by the large audiences whose presence honored
their delivery ; but I trust they may be found
1#

6 PREFATORY NOTE.
useful and stimulating studies of a great period,
fruitful in great men, and in lessons of enduring
meaning. They are simply sketches, — as far as
I could make them, fair and accurate and living
sketches, — but nothing more.
I have been careful, and even minute, in my
references, where, from the character of the state
ments in the text, I judged it necessary to be so ;
and in some instances these references may be
found serviceable by the student.
St. Mary's College, St. Andrews,
23d May, 1859.

CONTENTS.

PAGE
LUTHER,  U

CALVIN,  95
LATIMER,  .185
KNOX,  249

I.

LUTHEE.

LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.

LUTHEE.

Luther is the most notable of all the Reformers. His
name at once starts the most stirring associations, and •
leads into the widest details and discussions. His work
was comparatively single and original in its energy ; and
his life was especially heroic in its proportions, and varied
and graphic and interesting in its incidents. There is a
grandeur in the whole subject, below which we are apt to
feel that we constantly fall, particularly within the limits
of a mere sketch.
Few characters have been more closely observed, or more
keenly scrutinized. There is a breadth and intensity and
power of human interest in the career of the German re
former, which have concentrated the attention both of
friend and foe upon it ; while the careless freedom and
humorous frankness with which he himself has lifted the
veil and shown us his inner life, have furnished abundant
materials for the one and the other to draw their portrait
and point their moral. I do not know that in all history
there is any one to whose true being, alike in its strength
and weaknesses, we get nearer than we get to that of Lu
ther. This is of the very greatness of the man, that from

12 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
first to last he is an open-hearted, honest German, — undis
guised by education, unweakened by ecclesiasticism, un-
softened by fame. Whatever faults he had lie upon the
surface : they appear in all the manifestations of his char
acter, and we have nowhere to search for any secret or
double motives in his conduct. No one has ever ventured
to accuse him of insincerity. He lives before us in all that
he did ; and neither dogmatic violence nor political neces
sity ever serve to hide from us the genuine human heart,
beating warm beneath all the strong armor of controversy,
or the thin folds of occasional diplomacy.
The life of Luther divides itself into two great periods,
which denote as well an important distinction in his work.
The first of these periods terminates with the Diet of
Worms (1521) and his imprisonment in the Wartburg,
and is marked by the striking series of events which sig
nalize his education and conversion, his conflict about in
dulgences, and then his general conflict and final breach
with Rome. The whole series falls naturally into three
main groups or stages sufficiently distinct, yet of dispro
portionate outline. The first may be said to extend to the
memorable year of 1517, and summons before our minds
a varied and graphic succession of pictures — the boy at
Mansfield, the scholar at Eisenach, the student and monk
at Erfurt, the pilgrim to Rome, the professor and preacher
at Wittenberg. The second stage, with all its peculiar
significance, is a very rapid one, lasting exactly a year, from
October 1517, when he posted the ninety-five theses on
the gates of the Church of All Saints, to October 1518,
when he fled by night from Augsburg, after his unsuccess
ful interview with the Legate1 Cajetan. The third is
1 Thomas de Vio, Cardinal of Cajetan.

LUTHER. 13
traced in its successive steps by the Leipzig Disputation,
July 1519; the burning of the Papal Bull, December 1520;
and, finally, the Diet of Worms, April 1521.
Between these several^ stages of the reformer's career
there is an intimate natural connection — a connection not
merely accidental, but, so to speak, logical, in the manner
in which they follow one another. They arise, the later
from the preceding, by a sure process of rational and spir
itual expansion, issuing in order like the evolving steps of
a great argument, or the unfolding scenes of a great drama,
or like both together, — presenting a marvellous combina
tion at once of logical consistency and dramatic effect. It
is of great importance, therefore, to understand the princi
ple and ground of the whole, as portrayed in the struggles
and experience of the first part of his fife. The convent
at Erfurt is the significant prologue to the whole drama.
Luther was born at Eisleben on the evening of the 10th
of December, 1483. His parents were poor — his father,
John Luther, being a miner ; his mother, Margaret, a peas
ant. Humble in their circumstances, they were both of
superior intelligence and character. The father was a
diligent reader of whatever books came within his reach,
and had his own somewhat immovable convictions as to
life and duty ; the mother was esteemed by all her honest
co-matrons as peculiarly exemplary in her conduct — ut in
exemplar virtutum, as Melancthon says. The story is, that
they had gone to Eisleben to attend a fair, when their son
was unexpectedly born on the eve of St. Martin. The
very next day he was carried to the Church of St. Peter,
and baptized by the name of the saint on whose day he
had seen the light. Shortly after Luther's birth, his parents
removed to Mansfield, where, by industry and perseverance,
his father's worldly circumstances improved. He became

14 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
the owner of two small furnaces, and was elevated to
some civic dignity in the town of the district. Here, in
the " Latin school," the young Martin first began to expe
rience the hardships of life. He appears to have been
a somewhat unruly boy, or the school discipline must have
been of a very savage description. He is said to have
been flogged by his master fifteen times in one day ; and
while the scholastic rod thus weighed heavily upon him,
the parental rod was not spared. Neither father nor
mother nursed the boy in softness. He himself gives us
rather an unpleasant glimpse of the domestic discipline.
" He was whipped for a mere trifle,'' he says, "'till the
blood came." But then, as a companion picture, serving
to relieve by its bright tenderness the severity of the other,
we are told of the father carrying the little Martin to
school in his arms, and bringing him back in the same
manner. Having got all the schooling he could get at Mansfield,
he went first to the school of the Franciscans at Magde
burg, and then nearer home to Eisenach. It was in the
latter place, while singing in the streets for bread, accord
ing to a common practice of the German schoolboys, that
his fair appearance and sweet voice attracted the notice
of a good lady of the name of Cotta, who provided him
henceforth, during his stay at school, with a comfortable
home. Luther, in after years, recalled his school days with
all the zest of his genial and affectionate nature, and used,
in his familiar house-sermons, to exhort his hearers " never
o despise the poor boys who sing at their doors, and asked
bread for the love of God." He would even illustrate the
advantage of prayer by a humorous story drawn from his
experience as a street-singer. "Importunity in prayer,"
he says, " will always bring down from heaven the blessing

LUTHER. 15
sought. How well do I remember singing once as a boy
before the house of a rich man, and entreating very hard
for some bread. At last the man of the house came
running out, crying aloud,' ' Where are you, you knaves ? '
We all took to our heels, for we thought we had angered
him by our importunity, and he was going to beat us ; but
he called us back and gave us two loaves." 1
On his reaching his eighteenth year, it became a ques
tion to what profession he should devote himself. His
father's ambition was excited by his talents, and the law
seemed the most likely avenue by which these talents
could cany him to distinction and emolument. He accord
ingly entered the university of Erfurt, then the most dis
tinguished in Germany, with the view of preparing himself
for the legal profession. There he studied philosophy in
the writings of the schoolmen, and perfected his classical
knowledge in the pages of Cicero and Virgil. Even thus
early the barren subtleties of the scholastic philosophy
rather repelled than interested him. They left, however,
a permanent influence on his intellectual character. He
took his degree of Doctor of Philosophy or Master of Arts
in 1505, when he was twenty-two years of age, and the
event, according to custom, was celebrated by a torchlight
procession and great rejoicing.
But, before this event, he had begun an education of a
far more real and profound character than any that the
university could impart to him. One day, as he was turn
ing over the books in the university library, he fell upon a
copy of the Vulgate. He beheld with astonishment that
there were more gospels and epistles than in the lection-
aries. A new world opened upon him ; he returned again
1 House-Postils Walck, xiii. 535; quoted by Worsley, Life of Luther, i. 41.

16 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
and again with avidity to the sacred page, and, as he read,
his heart burned within him. Several circumstances served
to deepen these feelings, — a dangerous sickness, which
brought him near to the point of death, and the decease
of a friend of the name of Alexis, accompanied, or at least
somehow deeply associated in his mind, with a dreadful
thunder storm, to which he was exposed on his return to
Erfurt, after a visit to his parents. This latter event
especially made a powerful impression upon him. The
common version of the story l is, that the lightning struck
his friend by his side as they journeyed together, and that
Luther was so appalled by the disaster that he fell upon
his knees in prayer, and resolved, if spared, to dedicate
himself to the service of God. The story is at least a fair
tribute to the child-like piety that now and always ani
mated him. He kept his resolve, silent and apparently
unmoved for some time, yet cherishing it in his heart.
His mode of carrying it out was characteristic. One even
ing he invites some of his fellow-students to supper, gives
them of his best cheer ; .music and jest enliven the com
pany, and the entertainment closes in a full burst of merri
ment. The same night there is a solitary knock at the door
of the Augustine convent, and the student who has just
gayly parted from his companions, two volumes alone of
all his books in his hand, — a Virgil and a Plautus, —
passes beneath its portal. He has separated from the
world, and devoted himself to God, as he and the world
then understood devotion.
The three years which Luther now spent in the con
vent at Erfurt are among the most signal and significant
of his life. During these years were laid deep in his
1 It is supposed to mingle together two events.

LUTHER. 17
heart those spiritual convictions out of which his whole
reforming work sprang and grew into shape. The sparks
which were afterwards to explode in the overthrow of the
Papacy, and to lighten up into the glory of a restored
gospel, were here kindled. The struggle for which Ger
many was preparing was here rehearsed in the single soul
of a solitary monk. It is a painful and somewhat sad
spectacle ; but it possesses not only the interest of an
earnest individual struggle, but the sublimity of a prelude
to the great national conflict which was impending.
It was Luther's duty, as a novice, to perform the meanest
offices in the convent. He had chosen his lot, and he was
not the man to shrink from its mere servile hardships ; so
he swept the floors, and wound the clock, and ministered
in various ways to the laziness of his brother monks. He
was even driven to his old trade of street-begging, as
they assailed him with their doggrel cry, " Sackum per
nackum " — " Go through the streets with the sack, and
get us what you can to eat." After a while, and by the
friendly interference of the university in his favor, he was
able to resume his studies. Augustine and the Bible on
the one hand, and Occam and Gerson on the other, shared
his attention, and we are left vaguely to guess what seeds
of divine truth from the one, and of papal disaffection from
the other, were sown in his mind. All was as yet chaos
in his spiritual condition. The darkness had been stirred
within him, and a profound uneasiness produced, but no
ray of light yet rested on it. By fasting and prayer, and
every species of monkish penance, he labored to satisfy
his conscience and secure his salvation. " If ever monk
c?ukjJiayjyrot_to Jheay£n,.by.rnonk§ry,'' he afterwards said,
" I might have done so. I wore out my body with watch
ing, fasting, praying, and other works." He was some-
2*

18 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
times for four days together without meat or drink. But
all his labors and mortifications brought him no peace.
The terrors of guilt haunted him as a bodily presence —
clung to him as a pursuing shadow; so that one day, at
mass, he cried out, as some dire aspect of wrath rose up
before him, " It is not I ! it is not I ! " On another occasion
he disappeared for certain days and nights; alarm was
excited, his cell door was broken open, and he was found
prostrate on the floor, in a state of helpless emaciation,
unconscious, and apparently dead, till roused by the chant
ing of the young choristers. The one human influence, to
which he was never insensible, moved him when every
thing else had failed. Now and always, music had a
charm for him only second to theology. "It is the only
other art," he says, "which, like theology, can calm the
agitations of the soul, and put the devil to flight."
At length light began to dawn upon him. The Vicar-
general of the Augustines came on a visit of inspection to
the convent at Erfurt. Staupitz is one of those characters
who, amid the prevailing unworthiness of the Romish
clergy of the time, stands out as a remarkable and most
honorable exception. Of clear intelligence, simple and
affectionate feelings, and most real and living piety, he
reflects, no doubt, the brightest side of the . system which
he represented ; but it is well for us to remember that it
had a bright side, and that, saving for this, Luther and his
work might never have been what they were. With char
acteristic frankness, the reformer never ceased to confess
his spiritual obligations to the head of his order. " Through
him," he said, " the light of the gospel first dawned out of
the darkness on my heart." Touched by the undisguised
zeal and grave and melancholy looks of the young monk,
Staupitz sought his confidence. Luther unbosomed him-

LUTHER. 19
self. " It is in vain," he said, " that I promise to God; sin
is always too strong for me." — - " I have myself," Staupitz
replied, " vowed more than a thousand times to lead a holy
life, and as often broken my vows. I now trust only in
the mercy and grace of God in Christ." The monk spoke
of his fears — of the terrors of guilt that haunted him,
and made him -wretched amidst all his mortifications.
" Look at the wounds of Christ," said the Vicar-general ;
" see the Saviour bleeding upon the cross, and believe in
the mercy of God." — Surely a brave and true gospel,
speaking from the bosom of the old and corrupting hie
rarchy to the heart of the nascent and reviving faith !
Luther further deplored the inefficacy of all his works of
repentance. " There is no true repentance," answered
Staupitz, " but that which begins in the love of God and
of righteousness. Conversion does not come from such
works as you have been practising. Love Him who has
first loved you." There was comfort in such words to the
heart of the weary monk. The darkness began to clear
away ; but again and again it returned, and the struggle
went on. " Oh my sins ! my sins ! " he exclaimed, in
writing to the Vicar-general. " It is just your sins that
make you an object of salvation," was the virtual reply.
"Would you be only the semblance of a sinner, and have
only the semblance of a Saviour? Jesus Christ is the
Saviour of those who are real and great sinners." To
these precious counsels Staupitz added the present of a
Bible; and Luther, rejoicing in its possession, devoted
himself more than ever to its study. Gradually the truth
dawned upon him as he nourished himself upon Scripture
and St. Augustine. Still he had not attained a clear and
firm footing. A renewed sickness, brought on by the
severity of his mortifications, brought back his old terrors.

20 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
God seemed an offended judge ready to condemn him, and
he lay miserable in his fears, when an aged monk, who
had come to see him, sought to console him by repeating
the words of the creed, " I believe in the forgiveness of
sins." Luther caught at the words. The monk pressed
the point by urging that it was necessary to believe not
only that David's or Peter's sins were forgiven, but that
his own sins were forgiven. From this time the doctrine
of grace was clearly seen by him. His soul passed into
its bright light. The confusions which had rested on the
language of Scripture cleared away. " I saw the Scripr
ture in an entirely new light," he says, " and straightway
I felt as if I were born anew; it was as if I. had found the
door of Paradise thrown wide open."
Thus Luther fought his way step by step to the freedom
of the gospel ; from hard and painful asceticism to des
pair of holiness by any such means, and then from the
very depths of this despair to the comfort and gladness of
a free salvation in Christ, as preached to him by Staupitz
and the aged monk. By the end of his stay at Erfurt his
Christian convictions were well matured, although he was
still far, and fof many years after this still far, from seeing
their full bearing, and the inevitable conclusions to which
they led.
In the year 1507 he was ordained a priest, and in the
following year he removed to Wittenberg, where the
Elector Frederick of Saxony had recently planted a uni
versity, destined to be memorably associated with the
reformer. If Erfurt be the cradle of the Reformation, Wit
tenberg was its seminary and the chief seat of its triumph ;
and the old Augustine convent there, even more than that
at Erfurt, gathers to itself a stirring and glprious, if some
what less solemn interest.

LUTHER. 21
, At first Luther lectured on dialectics and physics, but
with little good-will. His heart was already in theology —
that theology "which seeks out the kernel from the nut,
and the flour from the wheat, aud the marrow from the
bones." In 1509 he became a bachelor of theology, and
immediately began lecturing on the holy Scriptures. His
lectures produced a powerful impression by the novelty of
their views and the boldness of his advocacy of them.
" This monk," remarked the rector of the university,1 " will
puzzle all our doctors, and bring in a new doctrine, and re
form the whole Roman Church, for he takes his stand on
the writings of the apostles and prophets, and on the word
of Jesus Christ." On such truly Protestant ground he
.already stood, although he called himself after this, and
truly enough, so far as all practical recognition of his posi
tion was concerned, a " most insane Papist."
From lecturing he passed to preaching, although here, as
at every step, with a struggle. He had an awful feeling of
the responsibility of speaking to the people in God's stead,
and it required the urgent remonstrance of Staupitz to
make him ascend the pulpit. He began his career as a
preacher in the small chapel of the convent, a mean build
ing of wood, thirty feet long and twenty feet broad, de
cayed and falling to .pieces. There for the first time was
heard that mighty voice which at length shook the world.
His words, Melancthon said, were " born, not on his lips,
but in his soul ; "2 they sprang from a profoundly awakened
feeling of the truth of what he spake, and kindled a cor
responding feeling. They moved the hearts of all who
heard them, as they had never been moved before ; and

¦i Dr. Martin Pollich of Metrichstadt.
2 Non nasci in labris sed pectore.

22 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
very soon the creaking and mouldy timbers of the old edi
fice were altogether unable to contain the numbers who
thronged to hear him. He was invited by the town coun
cil to preach in the parish church, and there his burning
words reached a much more general and influential audi
ence. One important element in the education of the reformer
still remains to be mentioned. He was destined to see and
study the Papacy in the very centre of its power — in its
full-blown magnificence in Rome. In the year 1510 —
some say 1511 — he went on a mission to this city.1 What
he saw and heard there, made an ineffaceable impression
upon him, although it did not produce any immediate
result. " I would not take a hundred thousand florins,"
he afterwards said, " not to have seen Rome. I have said
many masses there, and heard many said, so that I shudder
when I think of it. There I heard, among other coarse
jests, courtiers laughing at table, and bragging that some
said mass and repeated these words over the bread and
wine : Panis es, Panis manebis ; Vinum es, Vinum manebis."
For the time, however, the fervor of his monastic devo
tion burned bright amid all this blasphemy. He ran the
round of all the churches, and believed all the lying le
gends repeated to him. It even passed through his mind
as a regret that his parents were still living, as otherwise he
might have wrought their deliverance from purgatory by his
masses and penances. He tried to mount the Scala Sancta
(Pilate's staircase, miraculously transported from Jerusa
lem) on his knees, and yet (strange evidence of the con
flict raging in his heart), as he essayed the painful task, a
l The nature of the mission is not exactly ascertained. It is supposed to
have been partly connected with the interests of his order, and partly'in ful
filment of a vow.

LUTHER. 23
voice of thunder kept shouting to him, " The just shall live
by faith ! "
A further and last step of academical honor awaited him
on his return. He was created a Doctor in the holy Scrip
tures in the year 1512, and the oath which, on this occasion,
he solemnly swore on the Bible, to study and preach it all
his life, and- maintain the Christian faith against all heretics,
is said to have been often afterwards a source of comfort to
him in the great crisis of his work.
And now our reformer's education was nearly complete,
while everything was preparing for the approaching strug
gle. Some visits of inspection, which he made in the place
of Staupitz, to the Augustine convents, served still more to
awaken his feeling of the need of reform, and to call forth
his activity and practical abilities. " The whole ground,"
he complained, " was covered, nay, heaped up, with the
rubbish of all manner of strange doctrines and superstitions,
so that the word of truth can barely shine through ; nay, in
many places not a ray of it is visible." The train of con
viction was thus fully laid ; the impulse and power of re
form were fully prepared. It only required a spark to
kindle the train — some special excitement to call forth the
eaergy still slumbering, but all ready and furnished for the
struggle. Could Rome only have penetrated beneath the
surface at this moment, and seen what a deep tremor and
current agitated the German mind, — how light had begun
to peer through unnumbered chinks of the old sacerdotal
edifice, revealing not only its -weak defences, but the vile
and unclean tiling within, — how warily would she have
acted! But the blindness of decay had struck her, —
falsehood had eaten away her judgment, as well as under
mined her strength, and foolishly, nay, madly, she went
staggering on to her overthrow.

24 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
The system of indulgences was a natural growth out of
the general system of penance," — it rested on the same
fundamental falsehood. So soon as the purely spiritual
character of repentance became obscured, and the idea of
sin as an outward accident within the control of the
church, rather than an inward and spiritual fact, began to
prevail, there was obviously no limit to the growth of
ecclesiastical corruption. If the church possessed the
power of freeing the sinner from the consequences of his
sins, it was a mere development of this principle that the
Pope, as the head and sum of the church, should possess
this power in an eminent degree ; and when attention was
once fixed on the mere externals of penance, it was only
a fair logical conclusion that these externals could be
appointed and regulated by the Pope at pleasure. The
steps of the degradation are plainly marked, from the
recognition of outward satisfaction as a condition of salva
tion, to the substitution of mortifications, pilgrimages, etc.,
as exhausting the demand of the church, and then, as the
moral feeling sank and the hierarchical spirit rose, to a
payment of money in place of actual service of any kind.
Once materialize the spiritual truth, and gradually the
material accident will become everything, and not only
substitute itself in place of that truth, but necessarily pass
from one degraded form to another, till it find its last aud
summary expression in money — money being always the
brief and convenient representative of all mere external
work. In so far as there was anything distinct in the
character of indulgences, they were worse than even the
general, system of which they formed a part. While pen
ance and priestly absolution, corrupted as they had become,
confessedly rested upon the merits of Christ, and were
held to imply contrition in the offender, indulgences were

LUTHER. 25
rested upon the, special doctrine of the treasure of the
church or the overflowing merits of the saints, and were,
in some of their forms, confessedly dispensed irrespective
of the moral condition of the recipient. Regular ordina
tion, moreover, was a requirement of the one system;
whereas indulgence was arrogated by the Pope, as his
pecuhar privilege, and could be exercised at will by any
one nominated by him.1
It may be easily imagined what a system this was in
the hands of an unscrupulous and low-minded agent; and
such an agent, of the worst description, it was the misfor
tune of Rome to send abroad at this time through Ger
many. At Jiiterbock, a few miles from Wittenberg and!
the borders of Saxony, which the Elector had refused hirm
permission to enter, John Tetzel, a Dominican friar, estab
lished himself for the sale of the papal indulgences. A
shameless traffic had fallen into the hands of a man con
spicuous for shamelessness of tongue, and who scrupled
not at any blasphemy to exalt the value of his wares. As
the dispenser of the treasure of the church, he claimed to
be on a level with St. Peter, and even to have saved more
souls than the apostle. Distinguished by an unblushing
countenance and stentorian voice, with the papal red cross
borne aloft, the papal brief prominently displayed to view,
arflJ the money-counter before him, hfe proclaimed aloud
the merits of his paper pardons ; while his companion,
1 The alleged object of the plenary indulgence was to contribute to the
completion of the Vatican Basilica, and its vaunted effect was to restore the
possessor to the grace of God, and completely exempt him from the punish
ment of purgatory. There were, however, lesser forms of the papal blessing
capable of procuring lesser favors. For the plenary indulgence, the neces
sity of confession and contrition was acknowledged ; " the others could be
obtained, without contrition or confession, by money alone." — Eanke,
vol. i. p. 335. 3

26 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
Friar Bartholomew, shouted always, as he closed, " Come
and buy ! come and buy ! " His mingled impudence and
impiety almost baffle belief. He even went the length of
saying, that " when one dropped a penny into the box for
a soul in purgatory, so soon as the money chinked in the
chest the soul flew up to heaven."
When Luther heard what was going on in his neighbor
hood, we can understand how his spirit was stirred in him.
At first, indeed, and before the full enormities of the
system became manifest, he seems to have taken it some
what quietly. " He began," he himself says, " to preach
with great moderation, that they might do something better
and more certain than buying pardons." But when he
saw the practical influence of the traffic on the members
of his own flock, and heard of Tetzel's blasphemies, his
whole soul was roused, and he exclaimed, " God willing, I
will beat a hole in his drum." He felt the necessity of
taking some decided step, as no one else seemed disposed
to interfere. He took counsel with God and his own heart,
with none besides ; and on the eve of All Saints, when
the relics, collected with great pains by Frederick for his
favorite church, were exposed to view, and multitudes
thronged to gaze on them, Luther appeared among the
crowd, and nailed on the gate of the church his ninety-five
theses on the doctrine of indulgences, which he offered to
maintain in the university, against all opponents, by word
of mouth or in writing. These famous propositions gen
erally asserted the necessity of spiritual repentance, and
limited the dispensing power of the Pope to those penal
ties imposed by himself. They did not absolutely deny
the doctrine of the treasure of the church, but only the
sole authority of the Pope over this treasure, and altogether
denied that this treasure had any power to absolve the

LUTHER. 2T
sinner, without contrition and amendment on his part.
" If the sinner had true contrition, he received complete
forgiveness ; if he had it not, no brief of indulgence could
avail him ; for the Pope's absolution had no value in and
for itself, but only in so far as it was a mark of divine
favor.'' The publication of these theses is commonly considered
the starting-point of the Reformation. The excitement
produced by them was intense and wide-spread. Luther's
diocesan, the Bishop of Brandenburg, a good, easy man,
expressed sympathy, but counselled silence for peace's
sake. Silence, however, was now no longer possible,
Everywhere the excited popular feeling caught up the
bold notes of defiance. It seemed, in the words of Myco-
nius, " as if the angels themselves had carried them to the
ears of all men." The excitement grew and strengthened,
and sympathetic voices were heard through all Germany.
Tetzel retreated to Frankfort-on-the-Oder, and with the
assistance of a Dr. Whimpina, drew out a set of counter-
theses, while he publicly committed those of Luther to the
flames. But this was a game easily played at; and the
students at Wittenberg retaliated, by seizing the messen
ger bearing the counter-theses, and burning them in the
marketplace. Frederick of Saxony refused to interfere.
He did not encourage, he did not even promise to protect ;
but, what was the very best thing he could do, he let
things take their course. Yet, if the story of his dream
be true, he must have had his own thoughts about the
matter. It is told that on the night of All Saints, just after
the theses were posted on the church doors, he lay at his
castle of Scheinitz, six leagues distant, and as he was
pondering how to keep the festival, he fell asleep, and
dreamed that he saw the monk writing certain propositions

28 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
on the chapel of the castle at Wittenberg, in so large a
hand that it could be read at Scheinitz ; the pen began to
expand as he looked, and gradually grew longer and
longer, till at last it reached to Rome, touched the Pope's
triple crown, and made it totter. He inquired of the monk
where he had got such a pen, and was answered that it
once belonged to the wing of a goose in Bohemia. Pres
ently other pens sprang out of the great pen, and seemed
all busy writing ; a loud noise was heard, and Frederick
awoke. The dream, mythical or not, foreshadowed the
great crisis at hand. The hundred years had revolved,
and Huss's saying had come true. " To-day you burn a
goose;1 a hundred years hence a swan shall arise whom
you will not be able to burn." The movement, long going
on beneath the surface, and breaking out here and there
ineffectually, had at length found a worthy champion ; and
all these forming impulses of the time gathered to Luther,
welcomed him and helped him. The Humanists, Reuch
lin, Erasmus, and others, expressed their sympathy; the
war-party, Hiitten and Seckingen, uttered their joy ; above
all, the great heart of the German people responded ; and
while the monk of Wittenberg seemed, as he said after*
wards, to stand solitary in the breach, he was in reality
encompassed by a cloud of witnesses, a great army of
truth-seekers, at whose head he was destined to win for
the world once more the triumph of truth and righteous
ness. When the reality of the excitement produced by the
theses became apparent, opposition as well as sympathy
was, of course, soon awakened. Tetzel continued to rave
at Frankfort-on-the-Oder; Hochstratten, professor at Co-
1 The meaning of the Bohemian name " Huss."

LUTHER. 29
logne (the great seat of the anti-humanist reaction), and
head inquisitor of Germany, clamored for the heretic to be
committed to the flames ; Sylvester Prierias, the general of
the Dominicans and censor of the press at Rome, pub
lished a reply, in dialogue, in which, after the manner of
dialogues, he complacently refuted the propositions of Lu
ther, and consigned him to the ministers of the Inquisition ;
and, last, and most formidable of all, Dr. Eck, a theological
professor at Ingolstadt, entered the lists against the re
former. Eck was an able man, well versed in the scholas
tic theology ; and a warm friendship, founded apparently
on genuine respect on either side, had hitherto existed be
tween him and Luther. Now, however, instigated partly
by a natural feeling of rivalry, partly by honest opposition
to the sentiments of Luther, and the call of his diocesan
the Bishop of Eichstadt, he attacked the ninety-five theses
in a style of violence which galled Luther, and made him
strongly feel the breach of friendship, especially as Eck
had given no warning of the attack.1 The reformer,
it may be imagined, did not spare his adversary in reply.
Strong language was a difficult game to play at with
Luther ; and the old friends, now rival disputants, were
destined, ere long, to meet face to face in a more memo
rable conflict.
At first the Pope, Leo X., took but little heed of the dis
turbance. He is reported, indeed, to have said, when the
attack of Prierias was submitted to him, that " Friar Mar
tin was a man of genius ; that he did not wish to have him
molested; the outcry against him was all monkish jeal
ousy." Busy with his own dilettante and ambitious
schemes, his buildings and his MSS., Leo had no percep-

1 " Neque monens, neque scribens, neque valedictens, ' as he complains.
3*

30 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
tion of the real state of things in Germany, and would fain
have kept aloof from interference. Some of the cardinals,
however, saw more distinctly the real character of the
movement ; the seriousness of the affair was made at
length apparent even to papal indifference, and a tribunal
was appointed to try Luther's doctrines. At the head of
this tribunal was placed Luther's declared opponent Prie
rias ; and the monk received a summons to appear, within
sixty days, at Rome, to answer for his theses. Compliance
with this summons would have been fatal to him. Once
in the hands of the cardinals, the fate of Huss, or a secret
and still more terrible one, awaited him. His university,
accordingly, interceded; and the Elector at length took active
steps, and claimed that, as a German, he should be heard
in Germany rather than in Rome. This was conceded, and
Luther was appointed to appear before the papal legate
Cajetan, then present at the Diet of Augsburg.
But, while thus seeming to yield to a fair investigation of
the case, the papal court, with true Roman perfidy, had
prejudged it, and despatched secret instructions to the
legate to deal with Luther as a notorious heretic, and forth
with excommunicate him, unless he recanted his opinions.
Unwitting of this judgment, Luther hastened to present
himself before the legate, under the protection of a safe-
conduct procured through the zealous intervention of his
friends. Cajetan met him with the most bland and smiling
kindness. The affair seemed to him only to require a little
smoothness and address. The idea of conscientious con
viction in a poor monk was unintelligible to him. He of-,
fered two propositions to Luther — the one as to the spirit
ual virtue of indulgences, and the other as to the necessity
of faith to the efficacy of the sacraments ; and he was
asked, in opposition to his supposed views, to admit the

LUTHER. 31
affirmative of the one, and the negative of the other. Sub
mit, and recant your errors, was all that, the legate had to
say to him. Submission without conviction, however, was
about the very last idea that had entered Luther's mind.
It is a grand and typical contrast between the moral ear
nestness of the Teuton and the diplomatic accommoda
tion of the Italian. " Most reverend father," said Luther,
." deign to point out to me in what I have erred." — " You
must revoke both these errors, and embrace the true doc
trine of the church," was all the answer. " I ask for
Scripture ; it is on Scripture my views are founded." — " Do
you not know that the Pope is above all ? "— - " Not above
Scripture." — " Yes, above Scripture, and above councils.
Retract, my son, retract ; it is hard for you to kick against
the pricks." It was of no use. They could not get near
to one another, and never could have done. Thrice the
conference was broken up, and thrice renewed. At length
irritated self-esteem broke through the fair courtesy of the
Italian. " Retract," he cried, " or never appear in my pres
ence again ! " Luther retired in silence, and set forth in
writing the grounds on which, while willing to acknowl
edge that he might have spoken unadvisedly and irrever
ently of the Pontiff, he could not retract his doctrines, for
that would be against his conscience. Cajetan made no re
ply. He felt that he had been foiled ; and his real feelings
betrayed themselves, in an unguarded moment, to Staupitz:
" I will not speak with the beast again ; he has deep eyes,
and his head is full of speculation." What his designs
were, remain unknown. Luther became convinced of his
danger — hastily drew up two letters, the one to the legate,
the other to the Pope, strongly repelling the imputation of
heresy, and appealing from " Leo ill-informed to Leo well-
informed ; '•' and, having procured horse and guide, he fled,

32 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
during the night, from Augsburg, and with all speed reached
Wittenberg. On his homeward way he was made ac
quainted with the secret instructions of the court of Rome,
and, with characteristic generosity, offered to the Elector to
retire into France till the storm had blown over. But this
was not to be : God had further and higher work for him to
do. The university resisted his proposal, and the Elector
refused to part with him.
Baffled so far, the papal court made a further attempt at
negotiation. Miltitz, himself a German, and the envoy of
the Pope to the Saxon court, undertook the office of me
diator. He understood the necessities of the case better
than Cajetan. He even recognized the justice of the
attack on the indulgence system, by bringing Tetzel to
task, dismissing and disgracing him. He was content to
impose silence on the offending monk, without demanding
retractation ; and Luther for a while consented to keep the
peace. The truce, however, was hollow ; it was not in the
nature of things : the current of change had set in too
strongly. Luther himself, while constantly reluctant to
advance, felt that he was driven onward, as if by a higher
power. " God hurries, drives, not to say leads me," he
wrote to Staupitz. " I am not master of myself. I wish
to be quiet, and am hurried into the midst of tumults."
And so the movement gathered force under apparent re
pression. The current only channelled for itself a deeper
and wider course, from being shut up and sealed from out
let for a time. The convictions of the reformer were as
suming a bolder scope. " Whatever I have hitherto done
against Rome," he said, " has been in jest; soon I shall be
in earnest. Let me whisper in your ear that I am not sure
whether the Pope is antichrist or his apostle." And this,
too, while he still kept appealing to the Pope, in language

LUTHER. 33
deprecatory, and even servile in its adulation.1 This incon
sistency, if not defensible, was very intelligible in Luther.
There was a violent conflict raging in him, between the
new ideas forcing themselves upon him from all sides, and
his old and natural feeling of monkish obedience. Bold as
he was, there were moments when he had dark and pain
ful misgivings, and would fain have rested quietly in the
bosom of the church. More and more, however, the new
ideas gathered force and shape, and took firm possession
of him. It was no longer merely the special abuse of in
dulgences, but the general pretensions of the hierarchical
Roman system, that actuated and impelled him forward.
The indulgence controversy had done its work. A glare
of light had been let in upon the hideous abuses of the
prevailing ecclesiasticism. A rent had been made in the
great sacerdotal fabric. Miltitz cunningly sought to patch
up the rent, and shut out the streaming light; but the time
had passed for such compromise. The spirit moved was
too earnest to be thus allayed : the arm which had rudely
given the shock was too brawny and restless in its youthful
power to be thus stroked into quietness. The work of de
struction went on ; and, through the tumbling timbers of the
crazy edifice, light came rushing in at all points. Luther
himself was amazed at the discoveries that crowded upon
him. The Leipzig disputation with Dr. Eck marks this great
advance in his views. It is no longer a question merely as
to indulgences and the power of the Pope on a special
point, but a question as to the general supremacy of the
Pope. So far as the doctrine of indulgences was concerned,
Luther's adversary gave in on almost every point ; but he
l Luther's letter to the Pope, 3d March 1519; Opera, vol. i. p. 184 — Jena!,
1612.

34 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
made a vigorous stand on general grounds in behalf of the
absolute supremacy of the Pope, arguing, among other rea
sons, from the basis of the well-known text, Matt. xvi. 18,
" Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my
church." Luther maintained the customary Protestant
version of the text, applying the rock to Christ, whom
Peter had just confessed to be the Son of the living God.
He claimed for Christ the sole absolute headship of the
church : although, at the same time, he did not deny the
primary ecclesiastical position of the Pope, nor his right to
that position as a mere constitutional arrangement. Eck
tried to frighten him, and cast discredit on his doctrines, by
raising the old cry of " Bohemian" against them ; but Luther
was not to be moved by such imputations, and did not hes
itate to defend some of the articles of Huss. The con
troversy lasted for days, and at length terminated with the
usual issue in such controversies — both sides claimed the
victory. A drawn battle with Rome, however, at this crisis,
was equivalent to a defeat. Luther was hailed more than
ever as the champion of the national indignation, rising
always more urgently against Rome. The question of in
dulgences was forgotten as the tide of national feeling
swelled higher, and it became more manifest every day
that the real question was Germany or Rome, — national
independence or hierarchical bondage; and still more
deeply, Scripture or church, — conscience or authority.
The popular sympathy showed itself eagerly, in numberless
satires and caricatures of Eck and his party. Even Eras
mus joined the affray, with his cold, glancing mockery;1 and
Hutten, after his peculiar fashion, aimed a trenchant blow
at the papal champion in the "Planed-off Corner" (der
1 " Don't call him Eck ; call him Jeck " (fool), was the pun of Erasmus.

LUTHER. 35
Abgehobelte Eck).1 Copies of the disputation, in thirty dif
ferent versions, were rapidly bought up. Luther was now
fairly engaged in a life-long struggle, and the fight went
bravely on.
Now, and on to the Diet of Worms, the life of Luther '
rises to its grandest pitch of heroism. No one ever stood
more fully in the light of a nation's hopes, or answered,,
upon the whole, more nobly to them. Recognizing his
great position, he stood to it like a true man ; and as the
battle was now joined, he spared not those " thunderbolts,"2
which no one knew better how to use in a moment of
need. Resting for a month or two to gather breath, after
his contest with Eck, in the course of the following June
(1520) he published his famous address to the " Christian
Nobles of Germany." It was only a few sheets ; but never
did words tell more powerfully. " The time for silence is
past," he said ; " the time to speak is come." He struck a
clear and loud note of national independence, and sum
moned the Christian powers of Germany to his aid. " Talk
of war against the Turk ! " he cried ; " the Roman Turk is
the fellest Turk in the world ! — Roman avarice the greatest
thief that ever walked the earth ! — all goes into the Roman
sack, which has no bottom, and all in the name of God,
too ! " He reiterated, in brief and emphatic language, the
great truth which had begun to dawn upon him at Leipzig,
— that all Christians are priests, and that, consequently, the
clerical office is a mere function or order. He maintained
the independence of all national churches, and the rights
of national and social life, against ecclesiastical usurpation.
1 "A satire," says Ranke, "which, for fantastic invention, striking and
crushing truth, and Aristophanio wit, far exceeded the Literce Olscurorum
Virorum, which it somewhat resembled."
2 " Fulmina erant lingua? singula verba tua3." — Melancthon.

36 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
He drew a strong picture of the miserable exactions and
oppressions of the Papal See, and cast back, with no
measure, its insolence in its very teeth. " Hearest thou, O
Pope ! not all-holy, but all- sinful, — who gave thee power to
lift thyself above God, and break his laws ? The wicked
Satan lies through thy throat. O my Lord Christ! hasten
thy last day, and destroy the devil's nest at Rome ! " The
impression produced by such language may be more easily
imagined than described. In the course of a fortnight,
four thousand copies of the address were sold ; and before
the end of the month, a new edition was in print, and
speedily bought up. This address was followed, in Octo
ber, by a treatise " On the Babylonish Captivity of the
Church," in which he attacked with vigor the abuses into
which its sacramental system had grown. He now looked
back, as it were, with pity on his former indulgence to the
Papacy. In the course of two years, and during his dis
putes with Eck, Emser, and others, his eyes had become
greatly opened. After hearing and reading the " artful
subtleties of these champions," x he was certain that the
Papacy was " the kingdom of Babylon, and the power of
Nimrod the mighty hunter." " I must now deny that there
are seven sacraments, and bind them to three — baptism,
the Lord's Supper, and penance ; and even these are led
by the Church of Rome into a wretched prison, and the
church is robbed of all her liberty." He defended, as he
never ceased to do, the literal reality of Christ's presence
in the Supper; but he warmly combated the Thomist
definitions of that presence, resting on a supposed Aris-
totelic distinction of subject and accident; and he zeal
ously maintained the right of the laity to the cup as well
1 " Subtilissimas subtilitates istorum Trossulorum. " — Opera, ii. 259.

LUTHER. 37
as the bread. These two works, with his sermon " On the
Liberty of a Christian Man," mark the very crisis of the
movement. Appealing, on the one hand, to the excited
national interests of Germany, and, on the other hand, to
its reviving spiritual life, they struck, with a happy success,
the two most powerful chords then vibrating in the nation.
" They contain," Ranke says, " the kernel of the whole
Reformation." They concentrate its spirit while they
signalize its triumph.
The publication of the papal bull just at this time con
summated the crisis. It had been obtained by the reckless
importunity of Eck nearly a year before ; but great diffi
culty had been felt in making it public, owing to the
enthusiasm now so widely spread on behalf of the re
former. At length Epk fixed upon Leipzig as the place
where he supposed thatThe could promulgate it most safely,
under the protection of Duke George ; but even here, now,
where so recently he had been hailed by the university as
the champion of the Papacy, the students seized and
insulted him, and he was glad to make his escape. He
fled for his life to Erfurt ; but here, too, the students attacked
him, laid hold of the bull, and threw it into the river, say
ing, "It is a bubble — let it swim." These demonstrations
were crowned by Luther's own daring act on the 10th of
December (1520). Assembling the doctors, students, and
citizens, at the Elster Gate of Wittenberg, on this mem
orable day, a fire of wood was kindled, and Luther, clad in
his cowl, and with the papal bull and decretals in his hand,
approached it, and cast them into the fire, saying, " As thou
hast vexed the saints of God, so mayest thou be consumed/
in eternal fire." This irrevocable act severed Luther forever
from the Papacy. There was no compromise — no truce
even henceforth possible. The battle must be fought put.
4

38 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
With such high-hearted courage and clear trust in God
on the part of the reformer, there was no doubt on whose
side the victory would declare.
The moment of Luther's proudest triumph was now at
hand. Charles V. had recently succeeded to the empire.
He was only twenty years of age, inexperienced, and
unconscious of all that was going on in Germany. " He
understood neither its language nor its thoughts."1 Nat
urally of a superstitious temper, his sacerdotal leanings
were already manifest, and the papal party, with Aleander
(the papal nuncio) at their head, failed in no efforts to
influence him against the Reformation. They urged him
to take some decided step — to cause the books of Luther
to be burned throughout the empire, and so to declare his
determination to uphold the cause of the church. The
inclinations of Charles admit of no doubt; but he was too
ignorant of the real meaning and magnitude of the move
ment, and hemmed in by too many practical difficulties, to
be able to adopt and carry out a clear and uncompromising
policy. Opposed to the zealots of the Papacy, the extreme
national party approached him with the boldest suggest
ions. He was pressed to call the free national party, led
by Hiitten and. Seckingen, to his aid. Hiitten himself
addressed him, offering to serve him day and night, with
out fee or reward, if only he would throw off the trammels
of a foreign ecclesiasticism, and place himself at the head
of the German people. Add to this that he was mainly
indebted for his imperial dignity to Luther's friend, the
Elector Frederick, and the complexities of his position
may be imagined.
After being crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle on the 28th
,,' Eanke, vol. i. p. 519.

LUTHER,

39

January 1521, Charles had proceeded to Worms, where he
assembled his first Diet of the sovereigns and states of
Germany. It was the great object of Aleander, Eck, and
the rest of the papal leaders, to have Luther condemned
unheard, and with this view Aleander made a lengthened
speech at the Diet. They succeeded so far as to induce
the emperor to issue an edict for the destruction of the
reformer's books; but the Estates refused to publish it,
unless Luther had first an opportunity of confronting his
accusers under a safe-conduct, and answering, before the
Diet, to the charges preferred against him. Nothing could
be more congenial to the present temper of Luther. It
was exactly what he most desired — to confess the truth
before the assembled powers of Germany. He made up
.his mind at once to obey the summons, and wrote bravely
to Spalatin (the Elector's secretary) : I will be carried
hither sick, if I cannot go sound  Expect everything
from me but flight or retraction."
Nothing can well be grander — more epical in its con
trasts, more scenic in its adjuncts, and more impressive in
its issues — than this passage in the history of the Refor
mation, — the journey of Luther, with its strange and
mixed incidents — his appearance in Worms — his appear
ance before the Diet — his prayer beforehand — his fears
— his triumph — the excitements that followed his tri
umph — his seizure on his return, and residence in the
Wartburg. It would be difficult to find anywhere a nobler
subject for a great poem.
He set out on his mission on the 2d of April, with the
sympathy and good wishes of all the Wittenbergers. He
travelled in a carriage provided for the occasion by 4he
town council ; and his friends of the university and others
assembled to witness his departure. The imperial herald,

40 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
clad in the insignia of his office, rode first, his servant fol
lowed ; Luther and his comrades brought up the rear. His
progress resembled a triumph. As he passed towns and
villages, the people came forth in numbers to greet him.
At the hotels where he rested, crowds thronged to see him,
and there were " drinking of healths, good cheer, and the
delights of music."1 As he left Nuremberg a priest sent
after him a portrait of the Italian reformer, Savonarola,
with a letter exhorting him " to be manful for the truth,
and to stand by God, and God would stand by him." At
Weimar the imperial messengers were seen posting on
the walls an edict summoning all who were" in possession
of his books to deliver them up to the magistrates. The
herald turned to inquire if he were moved by such a sign
of danger : " I will go on," he said, " although they should
kindle a fire between Wittenberg and Worms to reach to
heaven. I will confess Christ in Behemoth's mouth,
between his great teeth." At Erfurt he preached, and a
crowd of tender associations rushed upon his mind as he
gazed at the convent, the scene of his spiritual birth ; and
as he stood by the grave of one of his former companions,
a brother monk, " How calmly he sleeps ! and I " — was
his remark to Jonas, while he leaned upon the gravestone,
absorbed in thought, until warned of the lateness of the
hour. At Eisenach, amidst the scenes of his boyhood, he
was seized with a dangerous illness. His strength and
spirits forsook him ; but he went on in calm trust in God.
At Heidelberg he held a public discussion ; and, undeterred
by the remonstrances which were now poured upon him
even from his best friends — unseduced by the well-meant
intentions of Seckingen and others to retain him in safety
at his castle of Ehrenberg, he approached the imperial
1 Cochl.eus.

LUTHER. 41
city. Even Spalatin was alarmed, and sought to stay him.
" Carry back," was the answer, " that I am resolved to
enter Worms in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,
although as many devils should set at me as there are
tiles on the house-tops."
It has been supposed by Audin, Luther's modem Romanist
biographer, that it was on this occasion — as the old -towers
of Worms came in sight, and the full greatness of the crisis
rushed upon him — that, rising in his carriage, he chanted
his famous hymn, " Ein feste Burg ist, unser Gott," " the
Marseillaise," Audin significantly adds, " of the Reforma
tion." The story is not improbable, and adds a grandeur
to the event. It has been commonly believed, however,
that the hymn was not composed till nearly ten years later,
at Coburg.
He entered Worms on the 16th of April, escorted by his
friends and numbers of the Saxon noblemen, who had
gone out to meet him. As he passed through the city, so
great was the crowd that pressed to see him, that he had
to be conducted through back courts to his inn. More than
two thousand assembled at the Deutscher Hof, where he
took up his abode, and till late at night his room was
thronged by nobles and clergy who came to visit him.
After his room was cleared, a different picture presented
itself. The bold monk is seen prostrate in an agony of
prayer. His voice was heard in snatches by his friends as
it rose to heaven, and it is impossible to read anything more
touching and awe-inspiring than the fragments of this
prayer which have been preserved.1 On the following day
1 There seems to be some doubt as to whether it was on this evening or on
the succeeding one, after his first appearance before the Diet, that he appealed
so solemnly to Heaven. The following are parts of his prayer : — " My God, 0
thou my God ! stand by me against all the world's reason and wisdom : thou
4#

42 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
he received intimation to attend before the Diet the same
afternoon, and amidst the dark frowns of Spanish warriors
and ecclesiastics, and the whisperings of affectionate and
courageous sympathy, he was ushered into the imperial
presence. The scene which presented itself to the monk was one
well fitted to move him. The Emperor, elevated on his
throne, with the three ecclesiastical Electors on the right,
the three secular on the left, his brother Frederick on a
chair of state below the throne, the nobles, knights, and
delegates of free cities around, the papal nuncio in front.
" The sun, verging to its setting, streamed full on the scene
of worldly magnificence, strangely varied by every color
and form of dress : the Spanish cloak of yellow silk, the
velvet and ermine of the Electors, the red robes of cardi
nals, the violet robes of bishops, the plain sombre garb of
deputies of towns and priests."1 The solitary monk, with
his head uncovered, pale with recent illness and hard study,
with little or none as yet of the brave rotundity2 of his
must do it — thou alone, for it is not my cause, but thine. I have nothing to
do for mine own self ; nothing to do with these great lords of the world. I
would have good peaceable days, and be free from tumult. But it is thy
cause, Lord! the true eternal cause. Stand by me, thou true eternal God!
I trust in no man. It is vain and to no purpose all that is flesh, 0 God! my
God ! Hearest thou not, 0 my God ! Art thou dead ? No ; thou canst not
die. Thou only hidest thyself. Hast thou chosen me to this ? I ask of thee
that I may be assured thereof. I have not taken it upon myself, 0 God !
Stand by me in the name of thy dear Son Jesu Christ; for the cause is right,
and it is thine. I shall never be separated from thee. Be this determined
in thy name. The world must leave my conscience unconstrained ; and
though it be full of devils, and my body, thy handiwork and creation, go to
the ground and be rent to fragments and dust, it is but the body, for thy
word is sure to me ; and my soul is thine, and shall abide with thee to eter
nity. Amen. God help me. Amen.''
1 Woeslet: Life cf Luther, vol. i. p. 232.
2 "Cares and studies had made him so thin," says Cochlrcus (Luther's

LUTHER. 43
later age, a pale and slight figure " encircled by the dark
flashing fine of the mailed chivalry of Germany." Little
wonder that at first he seemed bewildered, and that his
voice sounded feeble and hesitating. His old adversary
Eck was the spokesman of his party, and loudly challenged
the monk — first, as to whether he acknowledged the
books before him as his writings ; and, secondly, as to
whether he would retract and recall them. To the first
question he replied in the affirmative; in answer to the
second, he demanded a day's delay to consider and frame
an answer. Many thought he was at length frightened,
and would temporize ; but on the following day they were
abundantly undeceived. All signs of timidity and hesita
tion had then vanished ; he had had time to meditate an
adequate reply ; and in a speech of two hours, first in Ger
man and then in Latin, he expressed his determination to
abide by what he had written, and called upon the Empe
ror and the States to take into consideration the evil con
dition of the church, lest God should visit the empire and
German nation with his judgments. Being pressed for a
direct answer, yea or nay, whether he would retract, he
answered finally in the memorable words : " Unless I be
convinced by Scripture and reason, I neither can nor dare
retract anything ; for my conscience is a captive to God's
word, and it is neither safe nor right to go against con
science. Here I take my stand : I can do no otherwise.
So help me God. Amen."
The picture is barely half sketched ; many strokes half
humorous, half sublime, with a touching quaintness stamp
ing them upon the memory, would be required to complete
contemporary Eomanist biographer), " that one might count all the bones in
his body."

44 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
it. Sympathy with his position, and with his grand and
simple daring, expressed itself in numerous incidents. The
old warrior Freundsberg, the most gallant and renowned
soldier of his day, greeted him as he entered the imperial
presence. " My good monk, you are going a path such as
I and our captains, in our hardest fight, have never trodden.
But if you are sure of your cause, go in God's name : fear
not ; He will not leave you." On his return to his hotel,
Eric, the aged Duke of Brunswick, sent him a silver can
of Einbech beer, in token of his admiration and sympathy;
and the weary monk, parched with thirst, raised it to his
lips and took a long draught, saying, as he set it down, "As
Duke Eric has remembered me this day, so may our Lord
Christ remember him in his last struggle." Again Philip,
the young Landgrave of Hesse, is seen riding into the
courtyard of the inn, leaping from his horse, and as he
rushed into Luther's room, greeting him with the words,
"My dear Doctor, how do matters go with you?" — "My
gracious lord, with God's help all will go well," was the
reply. " They tell me," the Landgrave added, " that you
teach that, if a woman be married to an old man, it is law
ful for her to quit him for a husband that is younger." — " No,
no ! Your highness must not say so." — " Well, Doctor, if
your cause is just, may God aid you." And seizing the re
former's hand, he shook it warmly, and disappeared as
abruptly as he had come.
Luther tarried some days in Worms, and various at
tempts were made to bring him to a more submissive frame
of mind, but all without success. Questioned at length as
to whether any remedy remained for the unhappy dissen
sions which had sprung up : " I know not of any," he replied,
" except the advice of Gamaliel ; ' If this counsel or this
work be of men, it will come to nought ; but if it be of

LUTHER. 45
God, ye cannot overthrow it.' Let the Emperor and the
States write to the Pope that they are fully assured that, if
the doctrines so much decried are not of God, they will per
ish by a natural death within two or three years." Strong
in the confidence of the truth he taught, he fearlessly
appealed to the future. He was at once courageous and
humble, — courageous in the face of man, and humble be
fore God, — the true spirit in which alone the world can
ever be reformed.
He received instructions to depart from Worms and re
turn home on the 25th of April. On the following day he
set out. He appears himself to have been in high spirits,
excited and braced by the conflict in which he had been
engaged. A letter which he wrote from Frankfort to his
friend Luke Cranach, gives a lively impression of his
cheerfulness in the caricature which it presents of the
proceedings of the Diet.1 " My service, dear gossip Luke.
I supposed that his imperial majesty would have assembled
some fifteen doctors or so, and have overcome the monk by
argument : but no, nothing of the sort. 'Are the books
yours?' — 'Yes.' 'Will you revoke or not?' — 'No.' 'Get you
gone then.' O, blind Germans ! what children we are, to let
the Roman apes scoff at and befool us in this way. Give
my gossip, your dear wife, my greeting ; and I trust she
will keep well till I have the pleasure of seeing her again.
.... For a short time we must be silent and endure. A
little time, and ye shall not see me ; and again a little time,
and ye shall see me. I hope it will prove so with us."
These last expressions, as well as others still more explicit
in the letter, show that he was cognizant of the design of
his friends to seize and conceal him in some place of safety
l Ldther's Briefe. De Wette, vol. i. p. 588.

46 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
for a while ; but how the design was to be carried out, or
where he was to be placed, seems to have J)een but indis
tinctly communicated to him. He has himself narrated the
circumstances of his seizure. As he left Eisenach, where
he had preached and solaced himself for a single day in the
company of his relatives, and was passing a narrow defile
near the fortress of Altenstein, two armed horsemen, with
armed attendants, rushed upon him and his friends. The
wagoner was thrown to the ground. His brother, James
Luther, who was of the party, fled and escaped, and Ams-
dorf was held fast while Luther was hurried away, mounted
upon a horse ; and after various turnings with the view of
eluding all pursuit, he was safely lodged in the old castle
of the Wartburg. The affair was made to assume the ap
pearance of violence, for obvious reasons ; but in reality
Amsdorf was conscious of the intentions of Luther's
friends, and he and the wagoner, of course, were quietly
permitted to pursue their way after the horsemen had
departed with their prisoner.
Luther's residence in the Wartburg forms a quiet and
green resting-place in his life, which falls into two divisions
exactly on the one side and the other of it. From the fair
heights of the Wartburg and the pleasant repose of his
stay there, we look back with him upon a period of strug
gle which was now completed, and forward upon a period
scarcely less one of a struggle, but of a very different char
acter. Hitherto all the interest of the movement is con
centrated in his single figure. It is the monk at Erfurt,
and then the preacher at Wittenberg, and then the reformer
at Worms, that engage our view. In all these different
aspects we see the progress of a great spiritual conflict,
waged almost by a single arm against surrounding corrup
tions. There is scarcely a companion figure to distract our

LUTHER. 47
attention. The purely religious impulse communicated by
Staupitz is beheld strengthening into the earnest activity
of the opponent of indulgences, and finally assuming logi
cal consistency and expression against the whole hierarch
ical system which sought to extinguish it. The flame,
kindled at the light of Scripture quietly read in the convent
library, gradually burns into zeal, and at length blazes into
triumphant defiance, in the face of Pope and Emperor.
From this point of advance Luther now looked at once
backwards and forwards, and felt that he had done enough.
Never was man less of an iconoclast. He fought for cer
tain great religious principles as he apprehended them, but
he had little or no wish to destroy existing institutions.
Mockery, indeed, in all its shapes, had become hateful to
him, and he resolved to attack it still more definitely than
he had done ; but the old Catholic worship and system, so
far as it was national and not obviously Roman, he had no
intention of subverting. To such feelings we must trace,
in great part, the marked change in his subsequent career.
The principle of revolt had exhausted itself in him with
his great stand at Worms, and his naturally conservative
convictions began to reassert themselves. We find, ac
cordingly, that his life on from this point presents a far more
complex and inconsistent picture than that which we have
been contemplating. While many, whom the spirit of the
times had affected, were disposed to go forward in the path
on which he had entered, others had already before this
begun to turn back ; and he is seen occupying a position
of conflict both with the one and with the other. The
Papacy on one side and his single figure on the other no
longer fill up the scene ; but other figures, some reactionary,
and others of an impatient and violent character, crowd

48 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
round, and he is beheld as merely one among the crowd,
rather than any more controlling and guiding it.
His controversy with Carlstadt and then with Erasmus ;
the peasant war in 1525, and his marriage in the same
year ; the conference at Marburg with Zwingle in 1 529 ;
and the Diet at Augsburg and residence at Coburg in the
following year, mark the most important epochs in this
latter part of his life.
In the Wartburg he tarried for about a year, attired and
living, in all outward appearance, as a knight. He let his
beard grow, wore a sword, and went by the name of
Younker George. He rambled among the hills, and hunted,
notwithstanding that the ban of the empire was out against
him. In the hunting-field, however, he was still the theo
logian, and thought of Satan and the Pope, with their im
pious troops of bishops and divines, hunting simple souls
as he saw the hare pursued by the dogs. " I saved one
poor leveret alive," he says, " and tied it in the sleeve of
my coat, and" removed to a little distance ; but the dogs
scented out their victim, sprang up at it, broke its leg, and
throttled it. It is thus that Satan and the Pope rage."1
Although grieved to be absent from the scene of conflict,
he rejoiced to hear that it still went on ; and the old walls
rang with his laughter as some satirical pamplilet of Hiitten
or Luke Cranach reached him in his retreat. " I sit idle
and full of meat and drink the whole day," he writes to
Spalatin. " I read the Bible in Greek and Hebrew. I am
writing a sermon in German on the liberty of auricular con
fession ; and I shall proceed with my comments upon the
Psalms and with the Bible as soon as ever I have received
what I want from Wittenberg."2 He began now his
1 Briefe, vol. i. p. 44. s ibid., p. 6.

LUTHER. 49
greatest literary achievement — the translation of the Scrip
tures into his native language. He had few books with
him ; but, by the indefatigable zeal and interest with which
he worked, he completed his version of the whole of the
New Testament, during the period of his confinement
(nine months). Add to this three treatises, — on Private
Confession, on the Abuse of Private Masses, and on
Monastic Vows, — besides his commentaries and postils,
and his accusation against himself of idleness will appear
sufficiently strange.
In fact, sedentary habits and hard study began to tell
upon his health. He heard noises, and seemed to see the
devil in imaginary shapes, as he sat at night in his room, or
as he lay in bed. A bag of hazelnuts which had been
brought to him by two noble youths, who waited upon him
with his food, was violently agitated by satanic power one
night after he retired to rest.1 They rolled and struck
against one another with such force, that they made the
beams of the room to shake, and the bed on which he was
lying to rattle. The same night, although the steps leading
to his solitary apartment were barred fast with iron chains,
and an iron door, he was roused from his sleep by a tre
mendous rumbling up and down the steps, which he
describes as though threescore casks were rolling up and
down. Nothing doubting that it was the devil at work
trying to molest him, he got up and walked to the stair's
head, and called aloud, " Is it thou ? be it so, then ! I com
mend me to the Lord Christ, of whom it is written, in the
eighth Psalm, ' Thou hast put all things under His feet.' "
On another and still more memorable occasion, as he pored
keenly over the pages of his Greek Testament, the enemy
1 Wousley's Life, vol. i. p. 281.
5

50 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
assailed him in the shape of a moth, buzzing round his ears,
and disturbing him in his sacred task. His spirit was
kindled in him by the envious pertinacity of the evil one,
and, seizing his inkstand, he hurled it at the intruder. A
hole of singularly apocryphal dimensions in the wall of the
chamber which he inhabited, is pointed out to the traveller
who can spare a long summer's day to visit the Wartburg
and enjoy himself on its breezy slopes, as the mark made
by the reformer's inkstand in this great encounter.
It is well for us to smile at such incidents ; but Luther
lived all his days in the most real and pervading belief of a
personal and visible devil, haunting him in all his work,
and never ceasing to disturb and hinder him. Once, in his
monastery at Wittenberg, after he had celebrated matins
and begun his studies, " the devil," he says, " came into his
cell, and thrice made a noise behind the stove, just as
though he were dragging some wooden measure along the
floor" (a mouse, probably, as one has heard the little crea
ture in the quiet night, with no other noise in the room, save
the creaking of the ceaseless pen). "As I found he was
going to begin again," he adds, " I gathered together my
books, and got into bed." " Another time, in the night, I
heard him above my cell, walking in the cloister ; but, as I
knew it was the devil, I paid no attention to him, and went
to sleep." There is almost an affectionate familiarity in
some of his expressions, — a gentleness of chiding and
humorous badinage, mingling with the irony and insult,
which he thinks are among the weapons for encountering
his foe. " Early this morning, when I "awoke, the fiend
came and began disputing with me. ' Thou art a sinner,'
said he. I replied, ' Canst thou not tell me something
new, Satan ? ' " Again : " When the devil comes to me in
the night, I say to him, ' Devil, I must now sleep ; for it is

LUTHER. 51
the command and ordinance of God that we labor by day
and sleep by night.' If he goes on with the old story, ac
cusing me of sin, I say to him, to vex him, 'Holy Spirit
Satan, pray for me.' ' Go,' I say to him, ' Physician, cure
thyself " " The best way," he adds, " of getting rid of the
devil, if you cannot do it with the words of holy Scripture,
is to rail at him, and mock him ; he cannot bear scorn." A
very efficient plan, also, is " to turn your thoughts to some
pleasant subject; to tell or hear jests or merry stories out
of some facetious book. Music, too, is very good; for the
devil is a saturnine spirit, and music is hateful to him, and
drives him far away from it."
This sort of belief will appear superstitious in a different
degree to different minds ; but there are otHfer expressions
which the belief assumes not only to Luther, but to the
more severe and sober mind of Calvin, so absolutely cred
ulous and fanatical as to be matters of mere blind amaze
ment to us now.1 And yet, in truth, it is rather the form of
credulity that is changed, than the spirit of it that can be
said to be extinguished, after some things that we have
seen in our own day bearing upon this very subject.
As Luther pursued his literary labors in the Wartburg,
stimulating by his writings the spirit which his noble acts
had kindled, unpleasant news reached his ears as to the
progress of the Reformation in its home in Wittenberg.
Carlstadt and some others, uncontrolled by his master
spirit, began to carry out to its natural consequences the
mere spirit of negation involved in the Reformation.
1 Luther's notions, for example, of devil-children, " called in Latin Suppo-
sititii, and by the Saxons Kilkropff." — Michelet's Life, p. 325 (Bohn's
Translation); and Calvin's apparently firm belief of a sick person being
raised from his bed and transported across the Rhone by satanic agency. —
Dyek's Life, p. 205.

52 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
This was, to some extent, inevitable. It was impossible .
for the popular mind to be aroused to a sense of the decep
tions which had been practised upon it for centuries, with
out breaking out into extreme forms of hostility against the
old church system, in its forms, as well as its doctrines.
Iconoclasm was only a natural development of the reformed
movement. It is the gift of but few minds — and never
the gift of the mere popular and logical mind — to sepa
rate the form and the spirit, and to recognize that all refor
mation of any worth is in the latter, and not in the former,
which will by-and-by accommodate itself, without being
violently cast down, to the improved and higher spirit.
Carlstadt was merely a prominent expression of this pop
ular and logical spirit. He was a species of German Puritan
before that moral feeling had yet arisen, which, in its
strength and intensity, was to become Puritanism. His
projects were undoubtedly mistaken and out of place.
Germany was then wholly unfitted for Puritanism, and
never, in fact, has had any sympathy with it. Its higher
minds, like Luther himself, were already beyond it, in the
breadth and tenderness of sentiment, and the richness and
diversity of natural feeling which animated them. The
ignorant mind, again, was far below it, in the rudeness and
lawlessness of its moral desires. Carlstadt, therefore, as
the sequel sufficiently showed, could bring nothing but
social disorder to Germany, aud disgrace to the Reforma
tion ; and Luther knew this with his clear, upright, and
comprehensive appreciation of the national temper. After
he fairly saw, therefore, that the danger was real, he made
up his mind to quit his shelter in the Wartburg, come
what will, and resume the direction of affairs at his old
post. He reentered Wittenberg on the 7th of March, 1522. In

LUTHER. 53
the course of his journey thither, he tarried a night at /
Jena, and a very interesting account has been preserved
of his interview with two students, on their way to Wit
tenberg to see him. The little parlor in the Black Bear,
with the reformer, in his knightly disguise, — red mantle,
trunk hose, doublet, and riding- whip, — seated at table, his
right hand resting on the pommel of his sword, while his
eye was directed intently to a book, which turned out to
be the Hebrew Psalter ; the respectful demeanor of the
students before the supposed knight, and their gradually
opening familiarity as he offered them seats at the table
and a glass of beer ; their communication to him of their
intention to proceed to Wittenberg to see Martin Luther,
and his pleasant fence with them on the subject; the
entry of two merchants, and the free opinion which they
express of Luther; the landlord's hints, and the disclosure,
— all present a vivid sketch of the frank, manly bearing,
genuine heartiness, and humorous, kindly ease of the
great Augustine, that is worth a hundred descriptions.1
He mounted the pulpit on the first Sunday after his
return, and delivered his opinion on the principles which
should guide them in the great religious changes through
which they were passing ; the reality of sin and salvation,
the necessity of faith and love, — these were the main
things to be concerned about, and not mere novelties or
changes for then: own sake. " All things are lawful, but
all things are not expedient. Some tilings must be ; others
might or might not be. Faith must be ; but in such things
as might or might not be, regard must be paid to the profit
of others." 2 On Monday he again preached, particularly
on the subject of the Mass. " It was bad and detestable,
1 Woksley's Life, vol. i. pp. 341—345. 2 Ibid., p. 355.
5*

54 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
especially as it had claimed to be a sacrifice, and to stand
between the people and God. His wish was that all
private masses throughout the world were abolished, and
only the common -evangelical mass celebrated. But love
must reign in the matter. No one must draw or tear
another away by the hair, but leave God to do his own
work, for the plain reason that no man has in his hand the
hearts of others, and no man can make his words pass
deeper than the ear. The word of God must be freely
preached, and this word must be left to work in the heart.
Then, and not till then, should the work of abolition
begin."1 In a similar spirit he handled the monastic life,
and the subject of images, the sacrament in both kinds,
and confession. Earnestness of principle, moderation in
practice, was the key-note of all this remarkable series
of sermons, listened to by crowded audiences, day after
day. Carlstadt and his associates were awed for the
time ; such images as had not been destroyed were re
placed ; the Latin service continued to be used, with the
omission of the words which designated it a sacrifice;
and peace was restored. Luther himself earnestly desired
further changes, and especially that the communion ser
vice should be in the German tongue ; but he would not
yield, as yet, to Carlstadt's principle of this being essen
tial. " This is carrying the thing too far," he said ; " always
new laws — always laying down this as a necessity, and
that as a sin."2 Thus the strictly puritanical spirit was
wholly alien to him : he would have nothing of it.
We cannot trace the changing relations which hence
forth ensued between Luther and Carlstadt, now in fierce
: opposition, and the latter again returning to Wittenberg, to
1 Woesley's Life, vol. i. p. 356. 2 Michelet's Life, p. 137.

LUTHER. 55
shelter himself behind the good-nature and the really
tolerant temper of the reformer. The seeds of fanaticism,
which he and the Zwickau preachers had sown, soon
began to ripen, and to assume a serious expression. The
people, ignorant, oppressed, and unhappy, caught the free
doctrines of the new preachers, translated them into the
most crude and practical application to their own circum
stances, and then proceeded, by force of arms, to carry
them out and assert their rights. The armed peasantry,
with Munzer at their head, hold a definite relation to the
Zwickau fanaticism and Carlstadt ; and yet there were
distinct features, of a purely political kind, in the peasant
insurrection, which it would take a long time to unravel.
Nothing strikes one more remarkably, in reading over the
articles of complaint with which they began their move
ment, than the singularly moderate and sober spirit which
characterizes them.1 They move our sympathy now, and
they moved Luther's sympathy at the time, notwithstand
ing all his strong feelings of the duty of submission, and
of the horrors of insurrection. He is nowhere greater,
indeed, than at the great crises in the history of the Ref
ormation, in the manner in which he threw himself
between the opposing parties, and, on the one hand, set
before the nobles and princes of Germany the unchristian
cruelty of many of their actions ; and, on the other hand,
warned the peasantry of the disgrace and disaster that
would attend the armed assertion of their rights. No part
of Luther's conduct was less understood or appreciated at
the time. In England, by such men as Sir Thomas More,
he was identified with the disorders against which he was
struggling so nobly, and which, save for him, might have
1 Miciielet's Life, p. 161 — 165.

56 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
been tenfold more perilous to the national interests of
Germany. Words of higher wisdom than those by which
he sought to restrain the 'approaching violence, it is impos
sible to conceive ;"¦ and if, when he found them ineffectual,
and the day of sanguinary disaster which he had pre
dicted had come and gone, there is a harshness almost
unchristian in the tone with which he speaks of the mis
guided wretches, we must remember that he felt most
acutely the disgrace which their movement had brought
upon the Reformation. He could not see the fair work
of God so marred, — the religious revival, for which he
wrought, thrust back and discredited before the world, —
without being deeply moved and embittered.
While Luther was thus standing in the breach, in favor
of social order, against the peasants, and feeling, in the
odium he thereby incurred, that he was no longer the
popular chieftain he had been a few years before, he was
made, at the same time, somewhat painfully to feel that he
was no longer in unison with the mere literary or human
istic party in the Preformation. Erasmus, the recognized
head of this party, had long been showing signs of impa
tience at what he considered to be Luther's rudeness and
violence. He could not sympathize in the intense earnest
ness of the Wittenberg reformer ; the religious zeal, the
depth of persuasion, and especially the polemical shape
which the latter's convictions had assumed in his doctrine
of grace, were all unintelligible, or positively displeasing
to him. No two men could be more opposed at once in
intellectual aspiration and in moral temper ; — Luther, aim
ing at dogmatic certainty in ail matters of faith, and filled
with an overmastering feeling as to the importance of this
1 Michelet's Life, p. 165—180.

LUTHER. 57
certainty to the whole religious life ; with the most vivid
sense of the invisible world touching him at every point,
and exciting him, now with superstitious fear, and now
with the most hilarious confidence ; — Erasmus, latitudina-
rian and philosophical in religious opinion ; with a strong
perception of both sides of any question ; indifferent, or at
least hopeless, as to exact truth, and with a consequently
keen dislike of all dogmatic exaggerations, orthodox or
otherwise; well informed in theology, but without any
very living and powerful faith ; cool, cautious, subtle, and
refined; more anxious to expose a sophism, or point a
barb at some folly, than to fight manfully against error and
sin. It was impossible that any hearty harmony could
long subsist between two men of such a different spirit,
and having such different aims. To do Erasmus justice, it
must be remembered that his opposition to the Papacy had
never been dogmatic, but merely critical. He desired lit
erary freedom, and a certain measure of religious freedom.
He hated monkery ; but he had no new opinions or " truths"
for which to contend earnestly, as for life or death. He
was content to accept the Catholic tradition, if it would not
disturb him; and the Catholic system, with its historic
memories and proud associations, was dear to his culti
vated imagination and taste. It is needless to blame
Erasmus for his- moderation ; we might as well blame him
for not being Luther. He did his own work, just as Luther
did his ; and although we can never, compare his character,-
in depth, and power, and reality of moral greatness, with
that of the reformer's, neither do we see in it the same
exaggerations and intolerance that offend many in Luther.
Already, in 1524, Luther felt that there was a breach
impending between him and the literary patriarch of the
time. He was so far from courting it, however, that he

58 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
used careful means to avoid it. Nothing but a direct
attack of Erasmus would draw him into conflict. He was
disposed to overlook the sundry sharp side-blows and cuts
which had already come from the keen armory of Basle,
and to let alone sfor let alone, if the offence were not
repeated and aggravated. He acknowledged the services
of Erasmus in having contributed to the flourishing rise of
letters and the right understanding of Scripture, and he
did not expect any further assistance from him in the
work of reform ; for the Lord had meted out to him, in
this respect, but limited gifts (so Luther said), and had not
seen fit to bestow upon him the energy and direction of
mind requisite to attack the monsters of the Papacy
soundly and boldly. But if this was not the case, let him
be entreated to remain at least a silent spectator of the
tragedy. " Do not join your forces to our adversaries ;
publish no books against me, and I will publish none
against you."1 Such was the strain in which Luther
addressed Erasmus, in a remarkable letter of this year.
We cannot tell how he received the remonstrance. It
does not seem particularly calculated, as a whole, to
smooth his vanity or stay his hand. At the very moment
he was busy with his treatise De Libero Arbitrio, and the
complacent admonitions of the reformer were not likely to
deaden any of the glancing thrusts that he was aiming at
the Lutheran doctrine of grace. The treatise saw the
light in the following year, and Luther, although still dis
inclined, saw no alternative but to come forward in defence
of views which he considered to be identical with the
truth of Scripture. In the course of the same year (1525)
he published his counter-treatise, De Servo Arbitrio, on
J Briefe, De Wette, vol. ii. p. 500.

LUTHER. 59
which he bestowed great pains, and which, along with
his catechism, he afterwards regarded as among his greatest
works. It would be idle for us to enter into the merits of this
controversy, and in truth its merits are no longer to us
what they were to the combatants themselves. The course
of opinion has altered this as well as many other points
of dispute, so that under the same names we no longer
really discuss the same things. There are probably none,
with any competent knowledge of the subject, who would
care any longer to defend the exact position either of
Luther or of Erasmus. Both are right, and both are
wrong. Man is free, and yet grace is needful ; and the
philosophic refinements of_ Erasmus, and the wild exag-
gfirations_of Luther, have become mere historic dust,
which would only raise a cloud by being disturbed. Ex
tinct polemics on such subjects are the deadest of all
buried things of the past ; and while we look for a living
face in them, we find a mere empty skull — a hollow,
logical bone-work, from which the spirit has fled long
years ago. There is reason to think that the controversy
was far from being satisfying to Luther. He gave his
adversary, indeed, as good as he got; admitted his elo
quence, but ridiculed his arguments, — comparing them to
" pease-cods, or waste matter served up in vessels of gold
and silver." His heavy strokes would be felt beneath all
the light indifference of the scholar ; and he was strong in
the conscious possession of a deep moral conviction, that
lay nearer to the truth than any self-assertion of mere
Pelagian subtlety. But, then, the torturing dilemmas of his
dogmatic position, set in the clear light of common sense,
and expounded by his adversary with a far more philo
sophic comprehension than he himself possessed, drove

60 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
him into untenable and even unmoral assertions1 — asser
tions which could scarcely have been satisfactory to his
own mind at the time, and which, on cool reflection after
wards, must have appeared less and less so. He is said
to have, consequently, never recalled with pleasure the
results of the controversy, and never to have forgiven
Erasmus for having forced him into it. He spoke of him
afterwards as " that amphibolous being, sitting calmly and
unmoved on the throne of amphibology, while he cheats
and deludes us by his double meaning, covert phraseology,
and claps his hands when he sees us involved in his insid
ious figures of speech, as a spider rejoices over a captured
fly." This bitter feeling seems to have sprung up towards
Erasmus from the determination with which he pursued
the subject, and drew out, in his cool and sinuous way, the
moral perplexities involved in Luther's bold statements.
He replied in two treatises, under the name of Hyperas-
pistes, and sought to overwhelm the reformer by ingenious
criticism, and exposures of his prolixity and misrepre
sentations. " That venomous serpent, Erasmus," Luther
' As, for example, when speaking of free grace, he says, " It is not even
accorded to the ardent zeal of those seeking and following after righteous
ness." — De Servo Arbitrio, Opera, vol. iii. p. 225. The whole of this para
graph, and many other expressions of Luther, amply bear out the statement
of the text. He speaks, for example, of God by his own will making us
necessario damnabiles (p. 171); and again, he compares the human will to a
" pack-horse now mounted by God, and now mounted by the devil," driven
hither or tliither by divine or by satanic agency, irrespective of all moral bias
or character in itself (p. 172). This subject has been fully discussed in a
recent polemic between two distinguished* men, both, alas ! now gone  Sir
William Hamilton and Archdeacon Hare. Of the two, the Archdeacon shows
by far the most true and profound appreciation of Luther as a whole ; but in
particular instances (as, for example, his paraphrase of oue of the above pas
sages) he has failed to defend him successfully against the accusations of
Sir W. Hamilton.

LUTHER. 61
says, in a letter to Spalatin, " has been once more writing
against me." And again : " The treacherous Erasmus has
brought forth two books against me, as full 6f cunning
poison as a serpent." But perhaps the most remarkable
evidence of the dislike which he henceforth cherished for
his adversary is contained in a letter addressed to his son
John : " Erasmus is an enemy to all religion, and a decided
adversary to Christ — a counterpart to Epicurus and Lu-
cian. This I, Martin Luther, have written to you, my
dear son John, and through you to all my children and the
holy Christian Church."1
It was in the same year, and amidst these contentions,
that Luther took that step in his life which, more than any
other, except the affair of the Landgrave of Hesse, has
exposed him to animadversion. On Trinity Sunday, the
11th of June (1525), he was married to Catherine Von
Bora, one of nine nuns who had escaped two years pre
viously from the convent of Nimptsch, and taken refuge
in Wittenberg. His intention took his friends by surprise,
and even alarmed Melancthon to the point of urgent
remonstrance. But Luther had made up his mind, after
various delays ; and, although he was concerned at the
disapprobation of his old friend, he was not to be moved
from his purpose ; and Melancthon, when he saw this, had
the good sense to change his tone, and to write to Came-
rarius in apology of the step. Luther does not lead us to
suppose that he was moved to marriage at this time by
any strong affection for the object of his choice. " I am
not on fire with love," he said, " but I esteem my wife."
In point of fact, he had originally destined Catherine for
some one else, and it was only after this project fell
i Briefe, De Wette, vol. iv, p. 497. The letter is without date.
6

62 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
through that he thought of marrying her himself.1 It is
difficult, perhaps, to explain all the reasons which influ
enced him. He more than once, in his letters, pleads the
advice and desire of his father. He pleads also a sense
of duty and obedience to the Divine command. " I am
anxious," he writes to Amsdorf, " to be myself an example
of what I have taught. It is the will of God I follow in
this matter."2 Melancthon, in his letter to Camerarius, to
which we have alluded, says, somewhat vaguely, " It may
seem strange that Luther should marry at such an unpro-
pitious time, when Germany has especial need of his
great and noble mind. But I think the case was as fol
lows : You are aware that Luther is far from being one of
those who hate men and fly their society ; you know his
daily habits, and so you may conjecture the rest. It is not
to be wondered at that his generous and great soul was in
some way softened."
It was a sufficiently startling step, no doubt, for a monk
to marry a nun in the face of the world, — and this, too,
when the cause of the Reformation was undergoing its
first violent shock in connection with the outbreak of the
Zwickau fanatics and the peasants' insurrection. But
when we look at it apart from these incidents, which do
not essentially touch the character of the act, however
they may affect our judgment of its prudence, it seems as
if a very unnecessary noise had been made about the
1 The story represents Kate herself as rather a mover in the affair. She
is said to have sought an interview with Amsdorf, and stated that " she knew
Luther was intent on uniting her to Dr. Glatz of Orlamunde, but that she
would never consent to marry him; she did not like him.. She was quite
ready to marry Amsdorf, or Luther himself, but she would have nothing to
say to Dr. Glatz." — Woesley's Life, vol. ii. p. 76. Mr. Worsley gives no
authority for this story, and I have not met with it anywhere else.
2 Briefe, vol. iii. p. 13.

LUTHER. 63
marriage of the reformer. Even if it had been more
obviously imprudent than it can be fairly said to be, I do
not see how it should have invoked such harsh and invidi
ous judgments as even Protestant writers, like Sir James
Stephens, have passed upon it. If, in anything, a man is
entitled to please himself, it is surely in taking a wife at
such a mature age as that which Luther had now reached ;
and, while certain sacred conventionalisms were no doubt
outraged by the step, no true and natural feelings were
compromised. In so far as the act is to be judged by its
consequences, it is well known that it proved of the hap
piest character. It is impossible to conceive a more simple
and beautiful picture of domestic life than in the letters
and table-talk of Luther henceforth. There is a richer
charm and tenderness and pathos in his whole existence,
— rather enhanced than otherwise by the slight glimpses
we get of the fact that Catherine had a spirit and will of
her own, and that, while she greatly loved and reverenced
the doctor, she nevertheless took her own way in such
things as seemed good to her. Some of the names under
which he delights to address her seem to point to this little
element of imperiousness, though in such a frank and
merry way as to show that it was a well-understood sub
ject of banter between them, and nothing more. " My
Lord Kate," " My Emperor Kate," are some of his titles ;
and again, in a more circumlocutory humor, " for the hands
of the rich dame of Zuhlsdorf, Doctoress Catherine. Lu
ther;" sometimes simply and familiarly, "Kate my rib."
Nowhere does his genial nature overflow more than in
these letters, running riot in all sorts of freakish extrava
gance, yet everywhere touched with the deep mellow
light of a healthy and happy affection. What a pleasant
glimpse and sly humor in the following : " In the first year

64 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
of our marriage, my Catherine was wont to seat herself
beside me whilst I was studying; and once, not having
what else to say, she asked me, ' Sir Doctor ! in Russia, is
not the maitre d' hotel the brother of the Margrave?'"
And again, in the last year of his life, and when he is on
that journey of friendliness and benevolence from which
he is never to return to his dear household, the old spirit
of wild fun and tender affection survives. He writes to
his " heart-loved housewife, Catherine Lutherinn, Doc-
toress Zulsdorferess, Sow Marketress, and whatever more
she may be, grace and peace in Christ, and my old poor
love in the first place."
Catherine is said by Erasmus to have been very beauti
ful.1 Her portraits, taken by Luke Cranach, represent her
with a round, full face, straight nose, and full, tender eyes.
Luther himself was greatly taken by the likeness, and
threatened to send it to the Council of Mantua, to see if it
would not influence the holy fathers there assembled to
determine in favor of the marriage rather than the celibacy
of the clergy.
Of this marriage there were born six children to Luther,
and his relations to his children open up still deeper^ veins
of love and kindness than any we have contemplated.
Especially his eldest son Johnny and his daughter Mag
dalen seem to have been dear to his heart; and there is
nothing more pathetic in any life than his wild yet resigned
1 " Puellam mire venustam." If the engraving in Audin's Life of the
Reformer, vol. iii., is to be considered faithful, Catherine can scarcely le
said to have deserved the appellation of Erasmus. Her beauty must, at
least, have been of a very broad, blond, Teutonic cast — the beauty of round,
full, and child-like features, rather than of graceful and winning intelligence.
Likely enough, however, there is some caricature in the engraving,  so
perverse is the dramatic caricature of Mr. Audin's touch everywhere
throughout his interesting but singularly untruthful history.

LUTHER. 65
grief by the deathbed of the latter, who was taken from;
him in her fourteenth year. " I love her very dearly," he
cried ; " but, dear Lord, since it is thy will to take her from
me, I shall gladly know her to be with thee." And as he
saw her lying in her coffin, he said, " Thou darling Lena,
how happy art thou now ! Thou wilt arise again and shine
as a star. I am joyful in the spirit, yet after the flesh I am
very sad. How strange it is to know so surely that she is
at peace aud happy, and yet to be so sad." — " We have
ever before us," again he says, " her features, her words,
her gestures, her every action in life, and on her deathbed,
my darling, my all-beautiful, all-obedient daughter. Even
the death of Christ cannot tear her from my thoughts, as
it ought to do."
The birth of his eldest son was an event of immense
interest to the reformer. " I have received," he writes to
Spalatin, "from my most excellent and dearest wife, a
little Luther, by God's wonderful mercy. Pray for me,
that Christ will preserve my child from Satan, who, I
know, will try all that he can to harm me in him." "• And
then again, in answer to Spalatin's good wishes, and in
reference to his own hopes of the same character : " John,
my fawn, together with my doe, return their warm thanks
for your kind benediction ; and may your doe present you
with just such another fawn, on whom I may ask God's
blessing in turn. Amen."2 As the little fellow grows, and
is about a year old, he writes to Agricola : " My Johnny is
lively and strong, and a voracious, bibacious little fellow."3
It was to this son that he wrote, when stationed at
Coburg, during the Diet of Augsburg, that most beautiful
and touching of all child-letters that ever was written.
1 Briefe, vol. iii. p. 116. a Ibid., p. 119. 8 Ibid., p. 173.
6*

66 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
" Mercy and peace in Christ, my dear little son. I am
glad to hear that you learn your lessons well and pray
diligently. Go on doing so, my child. When I come
home I will bring you a pretty fairing. I know a very
pretty, pleasant garden, and in it there are a great many
children, all dressed in little golden coats, picking np nice
apples, and pears, and cherries, and plums, under the trees.
And they sing, and jump about, and are very merry; and
besides, they have got beautiful little horses, with golden
bridles and silver saddles. Then I asked the man to whom
the garden belonged, whose children they were, and he
said, ' These are children who love to pray and learn their
lessons, and do as they are bid ; ' then I said, ' Dear sir, I
have a little son called Johnny Luther ; may he come into
this garden too ? ' And the man said, ' If he loves to pray,
and learn his lessons, and is good, he may ; and Philip and
Joe, too.' " And so on, in the same tender and beautiful
strain, mixing the highest counsel and richest poetry with
the most child-like interest. Only a very sound and
healthy spirit could have preserved thus fresh and simple
the flow of natural feeling, amid the hardening contests
of the world, and the arid subtleties of theological contro
versy. In the year 1527, two years after his marriage, Luther
"fell into a dangerous sickness and general depression of
spirits, from the latter of which he was only fully aroused
by the dangers besetting the German nation, and the very
integrity of Christendom itself, by the threatened advance
of the Turks. This was in the year 1529, — the same year
in which, on the invitation of the Landgrave of Hesse, he
engaged in his famous conference with Zwingle, Bucer,
and CEcolampadius, at Marburg. The Landgrave, who,
whatever may have been his personal failings, was always

LUTHER. 67
one of the most warm and zealous, and withal energetic
and intelligent supporters of the Reformation, was hope
fully eager of estabHshing a union between the Swiss and
German reformers. Zwingle and his party shared in his
eagerness, and were willing to concede much to Luther, if
only he would heartily extend to them the right hand of
fellowship. In the matter of the sacrament of the Supper,
however, Luther was not to be moved. His mind here
remained shut against all argument; and althpugh he is
supposed to have admitted, under the name of Consub
stantiation, a modification of the Catholic tradition, he
adhered substantially to that tradition, in all its signifi
cance, to the last: he held to the literal reality of the
Divine presence in the Eucharist, and would recognize
nothing but rationalism, or, as he called it, mathematics, in
the reasonings of Zwingle and his companions. When
hard pressed by the latter, he exclaimed, " I will have
nothing to do with your mathematics ! — God is above
mathematics !" Luther appears to us nowhere less admir
able than in this famous conference ; not, indeed, for the
opinion which he defended, but for the spirit, at once irate
violent, aud dogmatic, in which he defended it. He kept
ever singing the same song, as Zwingle said, " This is my
body." Nothing could be more unreasoning and arbitrary
than his tone, and there is scarcely any absurdity that
might not be based on Scripture, in the manner in which
he used it, and considered it enough to use it, on this
occasion. There is something, moreover, painful and unworthy of
him in the terms in which he characterized the Swiss
divines, in his letters;1 and in the unbending, unkindly
1 Brief e, vol. iii. p. 216—513; vol. iv. pp. 28, 29.

68 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
*
temper in which he met the warmly-proffered friendship
of Zwingle. The character of the latter — frank, gallant,
fearless ; a soldier-reformer, with his Greek Testament,
and nothing else, in his hand — appears in a far higher
light throughout the debate. But he and Luther never
could understand one another ; and when, in the end of
this very year, the German heard of the death of the brave
Swiss, on the sanguinary field of Cappel, fighting for the
liberties of his country, there is no sympathy, but a grating
harshness, in the tone in which he received the sad news.
The Marburg Conference, however, was not without some
friendly and conciliatory results, even in matters of doc
trine, as the fourteen articles, which were at length signed
on both sides, testify. It did not serve to unite Luther
and the Swiss more cordially, for he continued to write
with an increasing vehemence against them ; 1 but it served
to show, in all things save that of the Eucharist, a sub
stantial unity of doctrine in the two great branches of the
Reformation, meeting locally together at so many points.
In the following year, we find Luther at Coburg, during
the memorable meeting of the Diet at Augsburg. As the
imperial sentence against him had never been recalled, it
was thought expedient that he should not make his appear
ance at the Diet, but leave the conduct of affairs in this
great crisis to Melancthon, whose more courtly manner
and cooler judgment were, in any case, supposed to be
more fit for bringing the pending negotiations to some
favorable termination. Luther, however, removed to Co
burg, to be conveniently at hand for consultation; and,
' His well-known and often-quoted saying sufficiently shows the intense
dislike with which he continued to regard them : " Happy is the man who
has not been of the Council of the Sacramentarians — who has not"walked in
the ways of the Zwinglians."

LUTHER. 69
secure in the strong fortress of the Elector there, he aban
doned himself to a most joyful interest in nature, and a
variety of hterary studies, while the news of the Diet
floated to his solitude ; and, in return, he counselled, en
couraged, and warned Melancthon. On the 22d of April,
he writes: "I have at length arrived at my Sinai, dear
Philip ; but of this Sinai I will make a Sion : I will raise
thereon three tabernacles — one to the Psalmist, one to
the prophets, and one to Esop. It is truly a pleasant place,
and most agreeable for study, unless your absence saddens
me. ... I reside in a vast abode which overlooks the
castle; I have the key of all its apartments. There are
about thirty persons together, of whom twelve are watch
ers by night, and two sentinels besides, who are constantly
posted on the castle heights." "• On the 29th of June,
while matters are proceeding, and Melancthon writes com
plaining of his difficulties, he replies : " To-day your last
news has reached me, in which you advise me of your
labors, your dangers, your tears, as if I were ignorant of
these things, or sat in a bed of roses, and bore no part of
your cares. Would to God my cause were such as ad
mitted of tears ! " 2 When he hears of the Confession
being read in open Diet, he is in great spirits ; but the fears
and anxieties of Melancthon, who desired not merely to
maintain the reformed doctrines, but to effect a reconcilia
tion with the Romanists, speedily brings disquiet to him.
He fell back upon that in which he was always stronger
than Melancthon — Faith. " Our cause is deposited," he
said, "in a commonplace not to be found in your book,
Philip ; that commonplace is Faith." And in the same
grand strain he wrote to the Chancellor Bruck : " I was
Briefe, vol. iv. pp. 2, 3. 2 Ibid., p. 52.

70 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
lately looking out of my window, when I beheld two
wonderful sights. First, I saw the stars, and God's fair,
bright firmament, but nowhere any pillars on which the
Master-builder had poised this lofty frame ; yet the heavens
did not fall in, and the firmament stood quite fast. But
there are some who search for such pillars, and would
anxiously grasp and feel them ; and because they cannot
do this, fear and tremble lest the heavens should fall. The
other spectacle I saw was a great dense cloud floating over
us, so charged and burdened that it might be likened to a
mighty sea, and yet I could perceive nothing on which it
rested, no coffer in which it was enclosed ; and yet it fell
not, but, greeting us with a black frown, passed on. When
it had passed, a rainbow appeared — a weak, thin, and
slight bow, which soon vanished into the clouds. Now,
there are some who think more of the dense cloud than
of the dim and slender bow, and are in terror lest the
clouds should pour down an eternal deluge. ... I write to
your worship in this familiar, yet serious style, because I
rejoice to hear that your courage has not failed. Our rain
bow, indeed, appears a frail hope on which to rest, and
their clouds are dark and lowering ; but in the end it will
be seen who will gain the victory."1 In this confident
manner Luther encouraged his friends, and feared for him
self no evil. It seems a grand and heroic spectacle — this
solitary man, in the old fortress of Coburg, looking out
upon nature and the world with such a calm, clear trust in
God, interested in the proceedings at Augsburg, yet feel
ing, with the fulness of a living faith, how much greater
was Providence than the negotiations of princes, — and
with what mysterious safety the wheels of the world's
i Briefe, vol. iv. pp. 128, 129.

LUTHER. 71
progress were revolving, whatever the poor pride of man
might counsel or devise. The jackdaws and rooks, as
they convened in circling crowds in front of his window,
seemed to him not an unfitting emblem of the " magnani
mous kings, dukes, and nobles," consulting over the affairs
of the realm at Augsburg. As he watched their move
ments, and saw them "flap their wings, and strut with
mimic majesty, not clad in royal attire, but glossy-black or
dark-gray, having eyes of ashy paleness, and singing the
same unvarying song, diversified only by the weaker tones
or more discordant notes of the young or inexperienced,"
he thought of the great princes and lords amusing them
selves with weak inconsequence over the movements of
the world, which they vainly imagined within their con
trol. What a fresh, living glance was that which looked
from these high and lonely windows upon the heavens
above and the joyous creatures of nature around, in com
parison with those worn and beclouded eyes of statecraft
and priestcraft, which sought to measure, from the limits
of their own weak vision, the interests and destinies of
man !
On from this point the life of Luther narrows greatly in
incident, and we cannot pause over any special features it
presents. The establishment of the Protestant Creed at
Augsburg, in 1530, may be said to constitute the highest
point of the German Reformation. The years after thisi
are years of reactionary sorrow, more than anything else,
with no abatem ent of activity, but with no further hearty
and favorable advance. Luther himself had for some
time ceased to entertain any further projects of reform;
and after this period, his f-.nn^rYn^yp.l|;grj|d_enpies^gathpred
always greater force. The wild excitements of the period,
and especially the terrifying invasion of the Turks, and the

72 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
dreadful excesses of the Anabaptists, which broke out
afresh in the north, in the year 1526, under the leadership
of John of Leyden, all tended to sadden and moderate
his spirit. The imminence of war between the Emperor
and the Protestant princes, bound together by the Smalkald
League, was a further source of grief and anxiety to him;
and, to crown the whole, the affair of the Landgrave of
Hesse, in 1536, proved a humiliating and dark trial, which,
though he bore it more cheerfully than Melancthon (whom
it nearly killed), left, as his letters plainly show, its -gloomy
shadow upon his temper and the prospects of the cause so
dear to him. " Who is not now ruffled by the folly of
Luther ? " he wrote, in bitterness of spirit, to a friend who
asked him to be present at his marriage, while excusing
his absence. Altogether, these last years were years of
sadness, so far as the public aspects of the reformer's life
were concerned. It was well for him that he had a dear
home, and happy wife and children, in whose society he
solaced himself, amidst all his troubles. " My little Mag
dalen, and my little John, too, pray forme," he says. " I
love my Catherine — I love her more than I do myself;
for I would die rather than any harm should happen to her
or to her children." The light of his cheerful German
hearth burned undimmed to the last, and rose only brighter
amid the darkness of his outer life.
The circumstances of his death were befitting his noble
life. On the 23d of January, 1546, he left his loved Wit
tenberg, on a mission of conciliation between the Counts
of Mansfield, the lords of his native soil, who had long
been at variance with one another, but had offered to sub
mit their dispute to the reformer's arbitration. For some
time previously, his mind had been filled with thoughts of
death ; and, on his journey, presentiments of his approach-

LUTHER. 73
ing end haunted him. " When I come back from Eisleben
I will lay me in my coffin; the world is weary of me, and
I of the world; pray God that he will mercifully grant
me a peaceful death." The prayer was granted. On the
14th of February, he wrote to his " dear Ketha" that his
work of peace was all but concluded. Two days after, he
was overheard in earnest prayer while standing, as he was
wont to do, in the window. The next day he was unwell,
and the idea of death again came vividly to his mind. ' I
was born and baptized here in Eisleben ; what if I am
likewise to die here ? " He was still able, however, the
same day to dine and sup wilh his friends, and somewhat
enjoy himself. During the night his illness increased. He
suffered from oppression of the chest and severe pains. He
was joined by his friends, in alarm ; a soothing draught was
administered to him, and he murmured, " If I could fall
asleep for half an hour, I think it would do me good."
Sleep came for a little, but did not bring him relief. Dur
ing the whole of the next day, his friends, and his two sons,
who were with him, watched by his bedside as he gradually
sank. " Do you die in the faith of Christ, and the doctrine
you have preached ?" he was asked, by Dr. Jones, as con
sciousness was departing. He answered " Yes," closed
his eyes, and fell asleep ; and at last, with one deep sigh,
slept his last. By the command of the Elector, his body
was brought in solemn procession from Eisleben to Witten
berg, and laid in the church whose walls had so often re
sounded with his eloquence. Melancthon pronounced an
oration over his tomb ; and sobs and tears from the con
gregated thousands, — men, women, and children, — who
had loved the great monk, mingled with the words of his
admiring and faithful friend. 7

74 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
The character of Luther, as presented in our rapid sur
vey, is especially distinguished for its broad and massive
manliness. Everywhere, and preeminently, Luther is a
man with a heart alive to all true human feeling, and burn
ing with the most earnest and passionate aspirations after
human good. When we remember that he was trained a
monk, and was in fact a monk till he was about forty-two
years of age, — that books rather then men were his chief
study during the most fresh and formative period of life, —
it is truly wonderful to recognize in him such a breadth and
intensity, such a variety and richness of human interest
and affection. Scholastic in the spirit of his theology, sa-
credotal to the last in many of his convictions, he was, of all
the reformers, the least technical and narrow and eccle
siastical in feeling. His genial and vivifying humanity
broke through all conventional bounds, brushed them aside,
and, more than anything else, except the spiritual truth
which he preached, brought him near to the heart of the
German people. Had he been less of a man and more of
a scholar, less animated by a common and popular sympa
thy, and more animated by mere intellectual impulse, he
could never have achieved the work that he did. It is but
a poor and one-sided criticism, therefore, which delights to
expose Luther's intellectual inconsistencies, unscholarly
temper, and unphilosophical spirit.1 The truth is, that
Luther was not characteristically a scholar, not even a
divine, least of all a philosopher. He was a hero with
work to do ; and he did it. His powers were exactly fitted
1 Hallam has perhaps given the tone- to this criticism in England; although,
in what he says of Luther, it is more the depreciatory spirit of his statements
than their substantial injustice that is remarkable. They are cold and un
sympathetic, and wholly inadequate to the subject; but, from his point of
view, less unfair than to some they may appear.

LUTHER. 75
to the task to which God called him. As it was of Titanic
magnitude, he required to be a Titan in human strength,
and in depth and power, and even violence of human pas
sion, in order to accomplish it. The mere breadth and
momentum of his humanity, by themselves, would not, in
deed, have sufficed; but, inspired and swayed by Divine
truth, they were irresistible. Both conditions were equally
necessary to his success — the energy, vehemence, and
pith of the man ; the animation, control, and sway of the
Divine Spirit. Had the instrument been less powerful and
varied, less full-toned and responsive to all the rich waver
ing breath of human emotion, the Spirit might have
breathed in vain, and the full chorus of resounding triumph
from many gathering voices never have been raised. To
initiate the reform movement, which was destined to renew
the face of Europe, and to give a higher impulse, and nobler
and more enduring life to all the Saxon nations, it required
a strong and gigantic will, like that of Luther, which, in
stead of being crushed by opposition or frightened by
hatred, only rose in the face of both into a prouder and
grander attitude of daring. As he himself said : " To clear
the air and to render the earth more fertile, it is not enough
that the rain should water and penetrate its surface ; there
needs also the thunder and lightning." 1 And he acknowl
edged himself to be the impersonation of the latter.
And yet, with all this manly energy and vehemence of
character, Luther, we have akeady seen, was no radical in
his reforms. His moderation was, at least, as conspicuous
as his energy; and we shall greatly misapprehend both him
and his work, if we do not perceive this. He was very
little of a theorist. He fought for the truth, as God had re-
1 Briefe, vol. iv. p. 149.

7b LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
vealed it to him. But of all the reformers, except Latimer,
none fought less for mere schemes or devices of his own
to supplant the old fabric of the church. He would rather
rebuild and purify it than supersede it. In his own lan
guage, " he was never for throwing away the old shoes till
he had got new ones." Of a certain preacher who was
flying high, and carrying things out in a violent spirit of
innovation, he writes : " What good can result from all this
precipitation ? I myself preached nearly three years before
I preached such questions, while these people think to
settle the whole business in half an hour. I beg you will
enjoin the preacher to observe more moderation in future,
and to begin with making his people thoroughly understand
Jesus Christ." "¦ It was this spirit of moderation that set
him resolutely against Carlstadt. Innovation for its own
sake, — innovation for the sake of uniformity in different
churches, — all that marks so intensely the later history
of Protestantism in Geneva and elsewhere, was unintel
ligible, and would have been thoroughly uncongenial to
him. So far, and as a mere practical spirit, his moderation
appears entirely commendable ; but it is impossible to deny
that he carried his moderation farther than this. He not
only did not like changes, but he naturally shrank from
new views. His mind as well as his practice was strongly
conservative ; the truth only reached him at first through a
struggle and wrench of his whole being, so violent that he
could not bear to repeat the process. After admitting one
streaming flood of light, he shut himself closely against its
farther ingress. He possessed none, of that calmly specu
lative and inquiring spirit, which is ever going out in search
1 Briefe, vol. ii. p. 423.

LUTHER. 77
of truth in all directions, and unfolding itself more and more
to the sunlight of discovery. He was both too logical and
too practical, too dogmatic and too immediate in his judg
ments, to permit of such a consistent intellectual progress.
His mind required to be girded by clear and strong convic
tions, within the sphere of which his activity knew no
bounds ; but no soaring aspirations after a higher truth than
that which had seized him, as it were, by divine violence,
haunted him ; and he would have thought it mere idle
vanity to dream of any such higher and. more comprehen
sive truth. It is this which constitutes at once the disap
pointment of his later years, and his weakness and defects
as a mere theologian. He would not advance with Carl
stadt; and so far he was right. He would have nothing
to do with Zwingle and the Sacramentarians ; and so far he
was honest. We respect his independence in both cases.
But he would not only not advance with others — he would
not advance at all. He would not open his mind to the
free air of heaven as it breathed in Scripture ; and he was
angry and violent with all who went beyond himself. He
spoke with contemptuous dogmatism of the Swiss divines,
and he had little patience even with Melancthon's cautious
and well-balanced progress, and his more subtle and com
prehensive insight into the dogmas of the Reformation. If
we regard Luther, therefore, as a mere theologian, it is fair
enough to object to his violence, his narrowness, his one-
sidedness ; but it is far from fair to regard him merely or
mainly in this point of view. As a theological thinker, he
takes no high rank, and has left little or no impress upon
human history. The very qualities, however, which made
his weakness as a thinker, were so far from retarding, that
they helped his work of reform. His impatience, his in
tensity, and crudeness of apprehension, and his coarseness
7#

78 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
of handling, are but poor arms of reason; but they are
manful and honest weapons in a struggle for life or death ;
and they carried him triumphantly through, when others of
a less robust and hardy texture would have yielded and
been overpowered.
If we add to this strong manliness the most simple and
pure affectionateness, a rich and powerful humor, an ex
quisite tenderness of feeling under all his occasional
coarseness of language, and the most vivid appreciation
of life and nature, the outline of his character is only
partially filled up. It is impossible to conceive any nature
more frank, open, and genial, than that which the domestic
history of the reformer discovers. He lays bare his heart,
with the most guileless and winning simplicity ; he has the
most gay and jovial relish of all that is pure and good,
however trivial, in life, — sharing in the amusements of
his children, counselling with his wife how to reward an
old servant, entering with the most earnest cordiality into
the joys of his friends, and sharing his warm ""tears with-
them in their sorrows. None but a man of the most gen
uine kindliness could have ever bound fast to him so many
friends as Luther did, — old schoolfellows, such as Nicolas
Emler and John Reinacke; brother monks, such as John
Lange, whom he made Prior of Erfurt; and all his more
immediate fellow-laborers in Wittenberg, — Amsdorf, Jus
tus Jonas, Bugenhagen, Luke Cranach, and Melancthon, —
not to speak of the Elector Frederick and his secretary,
Spalatin. It was no mere bond of interest or of accident
that bound these brave men together, but, above all, the
great heart and diffusive kindliness of Luther, as the
central figure around whom they gathered. How exquisite
the kindly hilarity and tender-heartedness with which he
wrote to Spalatin after his marriage ! " If you will come

LUTHER. 79
to me, you will see some monument of our old love and
friendship. I have planted a garden and built a fountain,
both with great success. Come, and you shall be crowned
with lilies and roses."
Intimately allied with, and springing out of, both his
affectionateness and manliness, was his humor, — the rich
emollient softening all his asperities, and dropping like a
pleasant balm in the midst of his harshest controversies.
The difference between Erasmus and him is somewhat the
difference between wit and humor, — not that the author
of the Colloquies can be said to want humor, in his sly
sallies at the follies of monkish superstition ; yet that
depth and richness of sympathy which is the most charac
teristic difference of humor from wit, is comparatively
wanting in Erasmus. No contrast can be more marked
than the covert and ingenious sarcasm, the subtle point
and pungent dilemmas of the one, and the riotous attack,
open-eyed gayety, and hilarious laughter of the other. In
Luther's humor, powerful as it is, there mixes no bitter
ness. He is blunt, but never cynical. He dislikes in
trusion, and laughs at ignorance, but never in a harsh Way.
A man once came from the Low Countries, to dispute with
him about all sorts of things. He remarks : " When I saw
what a poor ignorant creature he was, I said to him,
' Had n't we better dispute over a can or two of beer ? ' "
His heart is not pained and fretted by the contrasts which
touch his imagination. They sometimes weary, but sel
dom chafe or vex him ; more frequently they only kindle
in him a wild spirit of glee, which breaks forth in sparkles
of laughter or shouts of defiant jollity. But, beneath all
his uproarious fun, there lie depths of tenderness and sad
ness, a passionate unrest and " unnamable melancholy."
The pathos, and distance, and gentleness of many of his

80 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
allusions, show that he had a saddened and shadowed
heart, that felt unutterably the awful mystery of life and
death. The thoughts of his daring and strange career
would sometimes awaken this hidden chord of grief. As
he and Catherine were walking in the garden, one even
ing, the stars shone with unusual brilliancy. " What a
brilliant fight ! " said Luther, as he looked upward ; " but
it burns not for us." — "And why are we to be shut out
from the kingdom of heaven ? " asked Catherine. " Per
haps," said Luther, with a sigh, "because we left our
convents." — " Shall we return, then?" — "No," he replied,
" it is too late to do that."
The sights and sounds of nature all touch him, now
with joy, and now with pathetic aspiration. Of all the
reformers, we see in him alone this elevated susceptibility
to natural grandeur and. beauty. In the view of these, his
poetic depth and richness of feeling come strongly into
play. The flowers, the birds, the " bounteous thunder,
shaking the earth and rousing it,- that its fruits may come
forth and spread a perfume ; " the troubled sky, and the
dark and heaving clouds poised overhead, and guided by
the swift and invisible hand of God ; the quiet loveliness
of the harvest-fields, on his return home from Leipzig;
the little bird perched at sunset in his garden, and folding
its wings trustfully under the care of the Almighty Father ;
the first song of the nightingale, — all touch him with
emotion, and awaken his tender or solemn interest. The
sprouting branches of his garden trees, " strong and beau
tiful, and big with the fruit that they shall bring forth,"
make him think of the resurrection, and of the awakening
of the soul after the wintry sleep of death. Luther was,
in truth, a poet, gifted not only with the keen appreciation
and life of feeling that constitute poetic sensibility, but,

LUTHER. 81
moreover, with that mastery of melodious expression
which makes the fulness of the " gift and faculty divine."
His love of music, his love of nature and liberty, and,
above all, his heroic faith, inspire his hymns with a rap
ture of lyrical feeling and excellence rarely reached.
These beautiful and stirring utterances, escaping from
him, as Heine says, " like a flower making its way be
tween rough stones, or a moonbeam glittering amid dark
clouds,"1 appropriately grace the grand and rugged life of
this man, and shed a joy of harmony over all its battling
discords. Upon the whole, we have before us a tender as well as
energetic character — softness mingling with strength, sad
ness with humor, gentleness with power. History presents
many more complete or symmetrical characters, — few
greater, — none more rich in diverse elements of human
feeling and moral aspiration. No selfishness, nor vanity,
nor mere vulgar ambition, meet us, amid all his proud
consciousness of power or most high-handed dogmatism ;
but everywhere, even when we can least sympathize with
him, we see an honest and magnanimous nature, swayed
by a living faith and glowing earnestness — a great soul,
moved by passionate conviction and sublimed by a divine
thought.

It remains for us to inquire concerning the main thought
that moved Luther, and animated him in all his work. It
requires but little penetration to discover that he was pos
sessed by such a thought, — that a profound principle — a
single inspiring spiritual idea — ran through the whole of
1 Revue des Deux Mondes, March 1834.

82 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
this great movement, and, more than anything else, gave
direction and strength and triumph to it.
Many other influences were no doubt at work. With
the commencement of the sixteenth centuiy, there was a
dawning life of national feeling and of literary culture all
through the southern and western nations of Europe.
Germany was in a special manner moved and agitated by
such influences ; but none of these, nor all of them con
currently, can be held as adequately accounting for the
Reformation. They prepared the soil, but nothing more.
Erasmus turned the ploughshare of his sharp intelligence
into it, and cast it up, and left it receptive ; but he did not
enrich it with any living germs of truth. Reuchlin and
his Humanist coadjutors, in their famous conflict with the
monks of Cologne, not only strengthened the labors of
Erasmus, but, in a very clear and decisive manner, proved
the hopeless ignorance and incapacity of their monkish
opponents ; and then the free secular, or war party, headed
by Franz von Seckingen and Hiitten, and afterwards by
the Landgrave of Hesse, rallied to them a strong political
feeling, bursting forth on all sides against the ecclesiastical
reactions and nnnational bigotries of Rome. These lit
erary and political powers may be all distinctly traced,
working, at the time, in Germany, toward the same end.
A satirical pen was the chosen weapon of the one, a
sword the preferred weapon of the other ; and the fearless
and hapless Ulrick von Hiitten is found equally ready with
his pen or with his sword. He is a strange, restless, and
gallant figure, this knight of the Reformation, the coop-
erator both of Humanists and Secularists, and, more than
any one else, the bond of connection between both and,
Luther. Luther could not approve of his projects, but
he liked his independence and courage; and he mourned

LUTHER. 83
his early death, while the cold sarcasms of Erasmus cast
bitter ashes over his grave.1
Starting from the midst of these movements, stimulated
and, no doubt, greatly aided by them, the Reformation had
yet its real origin deeper below the surface than either
Humanism or Nationalism. It was characteristically a
spiritual revolt — an awakening of the individual con
science in the light of the old Gospel, for centuries impris
oned and obscured in the dim chambers of men's traditions,
but now at length breaking forth with renewed radiance.
This was the life and essence of Luther's own personal
struggle, and this it was which formed the spring of all\
his labors, and gave them such a pervading and mighty
energy. The principle of moral individualism, — of the
free, responsible relation of every soul to God, — this it is
which stamps the movement of Luther with its character
istic impress, and, more than any other thing, enables us to
understand its power and success. It is nothing else than
what we call, in theological language, justification ly faith
alone ; but we prefer to apprehend it in this more general
and ethical form of expression.
It was this element of individualism that had become
especially corrupted, during many centuries of ecclesias
tical bondage. Scholasticism on the one hand, and monk
ery on the other, had crushed it out of sight. A vast
system of traditionalism, covering with its ample and pene
trating folds every sphere of thought and every phase of

1 Hiitten was the chief author of the famous Literce Obscurorum Virorum,
which have been recently reedited, and attracted renewed notice. His life,
also, has been recently written, with great fulness and skill, by Straus, He
died in 1523. In the same year appeared Erasmus's attack upon him, under
the title of Spongia, &c. — provoked, no doubt, by Hiitten's own virulence in
his Exposlulaiio cum Erasmo Rotterdamo.

84 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
society, left no room for any fresh and healthy individual
life. The shadow of an encompassing authority rested on
all, and restrained all within its monotonous and rigid
sway. Both scholasticism and monkery, indeed, on from
the twelfth century, remain among the most marvellous
monuments of human energy that the world has ever wit
nessed, — the one a gigantic structure of logical enthusi
asm, and the other a picturesque and stirring drama of
missionary adventure, of which we can scarcely be said to
have any modern parallels. And yet there was, withal, no
freedom of mental or spiritual movement. The vast
energies of these centuries circulated entirely within arti
ficial and prescribed limits. They operated with a power
and results at which we wonder, but still only beneath an
incubus of priestly tradition, which left the soul confined,
and at a distance from God. The individual was nothing ;
the school, or the church, was everything; and during the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries this moral stagnation
had deadened into absolute corruption. Farther and farther
the scholastic doctrine had separated itself from Scripture,
and the monastic piety from the life of faith. The one, in
such representatives as Eck and Emser, had degenerated
into a dogmatism at once fierce and frivolous ; the other,
as in Luther's brother monks at Erfurt, into an asceticism
at once pretentious and ridiculous. In various forms, the
smouldering life of these centuries had continued to show
itself; it had burst forth in the magnanimous intrepidity
of Jerome and Huss, and the beautiful mysticism of Tauler
and the Theologia Germanica; but now, at length, the
fire of a strong individual conviction was kindled in the
convent at Erfurt, which was destined to break forth into
shining, and cover with its glory the face of Europe.
Luther had tried scholasticism and tried monkery, and

LUTHER. . 85
found both to be wanting. So far from bringing him near
to God, they had hid God from him, and left him miserable
in his weakness and sinfulness. The poor priest, thirsting
for righteousness, found himself fed on " sentences." The
great human heart of Luther, full of spiritual depths and
sensibilities, could not nourish itself on the writings of the
schoolmen ; and his frequently expressed bitterness against
Scotists and Thomists is not to be regarded as mere vehe
mence of temper, but as the strong reaction of his intel
lectual and spiritual character against tlie useless subtle
ties in which he had once sought satisfaction. Monkery,
again, had failed even more signally in his experience.
He had sought spiritual peace, through its most painfil
observances, with a single-hearted earnestness. Its distant
heaven, spanned by a bridge of painful and sore travel, he
had spared no toil or weariness to reach. His body and
soul were reduced to the last extremity by fastings and
penances, and the heaven of his desire seemed as far off"
as ever. Cherishing the most profound faith in the sup
posed spiritual guardianship of the church, he had passed
within its pale an abject worshipper, craving salvation
by the most humiliating submissions and earnest prayers,
and yet he' had not found it. " Sin was always too strong
for him," as he said : he could not expel it by the most'
untiring vigils, or the most unrelenting mortifications. He
was actually driven, therefore, to seek light and comfort
elsewhere ; and the words of Staupitz and of the aged
monk came to him as a new truth. Gradually the words
of Scripture revealed to him a new righteousness, and
it became the one pervading and triumphant joy of his
heart. He felt that the divine way of salvation was not as
that of man. Works of the church, works even of piety,
sunk out of sight before the overmastering and glad con-

86 . LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
viction of God's free grace to the soul — to the indi
vidual. It is remarkable" how completely Luther apprehended
his new creed in this polemical form — how it shaped
itself in his mind, doctrinally, as an opposing tenet to the
" Aristotelic" principle with which he had been working,
- — which had expressed itself dominantly, at once in his
scholastic training and his ascetic discipline, — the princi
ple, viz., " that a man becomes just by doing just acts."
" We must first ' be just," he said, in one of his earliest
vindications of his favorite doctrine, " and then we shall
do just actions." The heart must be changed — the result
will follow. " Without faith in Christ, men may become
Fabricii or Reguli, but can no more become holy than a
crab-apple can become a fig." Righteousness^iri short, is
from within, not from^w^ithout;;^^ divinely implanted life
of 'faith, "and not a formal life of works. It springs di
rectly out of the relation of the soul to God, and not out
of any outward mortifications, or even tentative moral
habits. This bare assertion of individualism does not indeed
exhaust the doctrine of Ltrther. It was poor comfort to
him, — rather the most gloomy misery, — so long as he
merely felt that all his penances were worthless, and that
God could alone save him. He only got peace when at
length he recognized, moreover, how God is in Christ a
Saviour — when the forgiveness of sins became to him a
living, divine fact, once for all expressed in Christ. Then
he realized that righteousness not only could not begin
from without, but not even from within, in any partial or
selfish sense, but from Christ within — from the union of
the divine and human, from the heart apprehended by
Christ, and apprehending him as the source of all strength

LUTHER. 87
and salvation. And this is the full doctrine of justification
by faith, when the immediate responsibilities of the soul
to God are met and consummated in Christ. Then only
does the bondage of sin fall away from it, and the joy of a
divine righteousness becomes its portion.
It was this reality of moral freedom in Christ — this
undoing of the heavy burdens that had lain on the human
conscience — that, more than all else, gave impulse and
triumph to the Reformation. The hearts of men were
weary with seeking salvation, in the way of the priests ;
and as the voice of the monk of Wittenberg was heard
crying, " No priest can save you ! — no masses or indul
gences can help you ! But God has saved you ! He him
self, and no mediatory saints, no holy mother of God even,
but God himself, the divine Son, has redeemed you ! " —
this, which in its fresh and living utterance was no mere
dogma, — no dry didactic, which it so soon became, — but
an articulate voice of " Help from Heaven," seized the
great heart of the German people, and mightily swayed it.
Brushing by the faltering and unsteady steps of Human
ism, this faith in a divine righteousness near to every soul,
made for itself a living way among the nations, and carried
with it, wherever it went, liberty and strength. It was
this, and no mere destructive zeal, nor yet polemical logic,
that " shook the ancient cathedrals to their inmost shrines,"*
and spread a moral renovation throughout Europe.
The spiritual principle is eternally divine and powerful.
It is a very different thing when we turn to contemplate
the dogmatic statements of Luther. So soon as Luther
began to evolve his principle, and coin its living heart once
more into dogma, he showed that he had not risen above
the scholastic spirit which he aimed to destroy. It was
truly impossible that he could do so. Not even the mas-

88 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
sive energy of Luther could pierce through those intel
lectual influences which had descended as a hoary heritage
of ages to the sixteenth century. Like the mists cleared
away by the morning sun, they had retired before the fresh
outburst of the Sun of Righteousness, as the preaching of
Luther kindled by its stirring words many lowly hearts
looking upwards ; but when the first glow of the warming
sun had spent itself, the mists, which had only retreated, and
not disappeared, were seen creeping backward, and although
no longer obscuring, yet spreading confusion and dimness
over the illumined scene. It was not enough for Luther
to proclaim a free righteousness in Christ for all, but he
must, as a theologian, lay down his distinctions, and enter
into minute and^arbitrary definitions of the divine fact of
righteousness. Faith is not enough, but he further inclines
to the assurance of faith, with its tendency to a rapid
translation into mere barren self-confidence. Undeniably,
there grew up in his mind a reaction against the popish
tenet of works, so extreme as frequently to leave him, in
his doctrinal statements, on the verge of Antinomianism.
The harmony of spiritual truth is broken up, and one side
of it — the opposite to that in which, as a monk, he had
been educated — seized with such force and crudeness as
seems to turn a free salvation scarcely less into a mechan
ism than the old doctrine of works. It is in vain for the
most ardent admirers of Luther to deny this tendency to
an unmoral view of the doctrine of grace in many of his
expressions, although it is easy enough for them to prove
against calumnious criticism, that this was not the sub
stance, but the mere reactionary shadow of his doctrine
thrown over it by those very mists of scholasticism in
which his intellectual life had been nursed.
The Reformation, in its theology, did not and could not

LUTHER. 89
escape the deteriorating influences of the scholastic spirit;
for that spirit survived it, and lived on in strength, although
in a modified form, throughout the seventeenth century.
In one important particular, indeed, the Scholastic and
Protestant systems of theology entirely differed, — the
latter began their systematizing from the very opposite
extreme to that of the former — from the divine, and not
from the human side of redemption — from God, and not
from man. And this is a difference on the side of truth
by no means to be overlooked. Still the spirit is the
same, — the spirit which does not hesitate to break up the
divine unity of the truth in Scripture into its own logical
shreds and patches; which tries to discriminate what in
its moral essence is inscrutable, and to trace in distinct
dogmatic moulds the operation of the divine and human
wills in salvation, — while the very condition of all salva
tion is the eternal mystery of their union in an act of
mutual and inexpressible love. This spirit of ultra-defini
tion — of essential rationalism — was the corrupting inher
itance of the new from the old theology ; and it is difficult
to say, all things considered, as we trace the melancholy
history of Protestant dogmas, whether its fruits have been
worse in the latter or in the former instance. The mists,
it is true, have never again so utterly obscured the truth ;
but their dimness, covering *i fairer fight, almost inspires
the religious heart with a deeper sadness.
But there is a further principle which claims our consid
eration in connection with the Lutheran Reformation — a
principle, indeed, which was by no means consistently
expressed, but which still had its imperfect birth then.
It was very far from Luther's intention, even after he had
entered on his contest with the Church of Rome, to assert
what has been called the right of private judgment in mat-

90 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
ters of religion. Even in the end he did not fully under
stand or admit the validity of this principle ; and yet, so
far, there was no other resting-ground for him. He was
driven to claim for himself freedom of opinion in the hght
of Scripture, as the only position on which, with any con
sistency, he could stand. Accordingly, when pressed to
retract his views at Worms, when it was clearly made
manifest that authority — Catholic and Imperial — was
against him, he boldly took his ground here, in magnani
mous and always memorable words. For himself, he said,
" Unless I be convinced by Scripture or by reason, I can
and will retract nothing; for to act against my conscience
is neither safe nor honest. Here I stand." On Scripture
and on reason he based his convictions, and would recog
nize the right of no mere external authority to control him.
Not what the Emperor said, not what the Doctors said,
not what the Church said, — but only what his own con
science owned to be true in the light of the Scripture,
would he acknowledge to be the truth. Nothing else
could move him — so help him God! It is impossible to
conceive a more unqualified assertion of the right of pri
vate judgment — of the indefeasible privilege of the indi
vidual reason and conscience to know and judge the truth
for itself; and the Reformation would have had no rational
or consistent basis if it had not taken up this — if, for
himself at least, Luther had not felt the force and sole
conclusiveness of such a position.
It is too well known, however, that neither he nor any of
his fellow-reformers recognized the full meaning and bear
ing of this position. They knew what their own neces
sities demanded ; but that was all. They raised the ensign
of a free Bible in the face of Rome, but they speedily
refused to allow others to fight under this banner as well

LUTHER. 91
as themselves. What Luther claimed for himself against
Catholic authority, he refused to Carlstadt, and refused to
Zwingle, in favor of their more liberal doctrinal views.
He failed to see that their position was exactly his own,
with a difference of result, — which, indeed, was all the
difference in the world to him. Against them he appealed,
not merely to Scripture, but to his own obstinate views of
certain texts of Scripture ; and gradually he erected a new
authority, which to him, and still more' to his followers,
became absolute as Scripture itself. Scripture, as a wit
ness, disappeared behind the Augsburg Confession as a
standard ; and so it happened, more or less, with all the
reformers. They were consistent in displacing the Church
of Rome from its position of assumed authority over the
conscience, but they were equally consistent, all of them,
in raising a dogmatic authority in its stead. In favor of
their own views, they asserted the right of the private
judgment to interpret and decide the meaning of Scripture,
but they had nevertheless no idea of a really free interpre
tation of Scripture. Their orthodoxy everywhere appealed
to Scripture, but it rested, in reality, upon an Augustinian
commentary of Scripture. They displaced the medieval
schoolmen, but only to elevate Augustine ; and, having
done this, they had no conception of any limits attaching
to this new tribunal of heresy. Freedom of opinion, in
the modern sense, was utterly unknown to them. There
was not merely an absolute truth in Scripture, but they
had settled, by the help of Augustine, what this truth
was ; and any variations from this standard were not to
be tolerated. The idea of a free faith holding to very
different dogmatic views, and yet equally Christian, — the
idea of spiritual life and goodness apart from theoretical
orthodoxy, — had not dawned in the sixteenth century,

<Z LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
or long afterwards. Heresy was not a mere divergence
f intellectual apprehension, but a moral obliquity, — a
tatutory offence, — to be punished by the magistrate, to
e expiated by death. It is the strangest and most sadden-
ig of all spectacles to contemplate the slow and painful
recess by which the human mind has emancipated itself
rom the dark delusion that intellectual error is a subject
f moral offence and punishment, — as if even the highest
xpressions of the most enlightened dogmatism were or
ould be anything more than the mere gropings after God's
mmeasurable truth, the mere pebbles by the shore of
he unnavigable sea, the mere star-dust in the boundless
Leaven, pointing to a light inaccessible and full of glory,
irtiich no man hath seen, neither indeed can see. It
equired the lapse of many years to make men begin to
eel — and it may still require the lapse of many more to
aake them fully feel — that they cannot absolutely fix in
heir feeble symbols the truth of God, — that it is ever
mrsting with its own free might the old bottles in which
hey would contain it; and that, consequently, according
o that very law of progress by which all things live, it is
mpossible to bind the conscience by any bonds but those
if God's own wisdom (Word) in Scripture, — a spiritual
LUthority addressing a spiritual subject, — a teacher, not of
the letter which killeth, but of the Spirit which giveth
ife."

II.
CALYIN

CALVIN.

There were almost from the beginning two very differ
ent classes of men engaged in the Reformation, — the men
of movement and of action, and the men of organization
and of policy. The former were, in the most radical sense,
reformers, — those who broke through the old bonds of
superstition, and, by a process of disturbance and disinte
gration, prepared the way for a new creative epoch in the
relations of human society and the forms of religious life ;
the latter were characteristically theologians and ecclesi
astics, as well as reformers, — those who, having accepted
the principles of the reformed movement, sought to mould
them into new expressions of Christian thought and life.
The one were heroes heading a great insurrection in human
history, which had not yet taken to itself a well-defined
shape, but was moving onwards, rather under the sway of
an irresistible spiritual impulse than of a clear regulative
idea ; the latter were thinkers and legislators, whose aim it
was to impress again a dogmatic and constitutional char
acter upon the disturbing elements that had been set in
motion. As Luther is the greatest of the first class, so
Calvin is, beyond all comparison, the greatest of the second
class. In each case, however, there is a group of con
trasted characters around the central figure — Melancthon,
Camerarius, an.d others, around Luther; and Lefevre and
Farel around Calvin.

96 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
When we turn our gaze from Germany to France, in
the beginning of the sixteenth century, we find both of
these last men actively at work in the cause of religious
reform. Farel, particularly, is^.jseen laboring with fiery
zeal, and a self-sacrificing and heroic temper. Like the
German reformer, the enthusiastic priest of Dauphiny only
reached the truth after severe spiritual struggles, in the
course of which he, too, had exhausted almost Bvery
device of sacerdotalism, with a determined self-devotion.
With a powerful and restless energy, he gave himself, so
soon as his own heart was quickened, to the kindling of a
new religious spirit wherever he travelled — in Dauphiny,
in Basle, in Geneva. He is beyond doubt the most notable
of the early reformers of France ; and even before Luther,
in his famous theses, had sounded that note of war which
soon awakened all Germany, and propagated itself to
France and England, Farel had in Paris raised his voice
against the jiapal authority, and entered upon his reforming
mission. He wins our sympathy, too, from something of
the same frank, bold, and careless character which distin
guishes the great German, bearing on his front, like him,
the impress \ of an eyer-fresh_ enthusiasm, and the scars of
many a hard conflict — all, however, at a great distance
from the hero of Worms. There was in all Farel's fiery
earnestness too little comprehension and firm persistence
to have enabled him to carry out, in any great and endur
ing shape, the impulse which he himself communicated.
It was necessary that some master-mind should arise
within the sphere of the Gallic reform movement, in order
to consolidate it into a distinctive spiritual power, and to
impart to it a lasting social result.
Such a master-mind was Calvin, who represents to us
most strikingly the converging influences of the Swiss and

• CALVIN. 97
the French Reformations. Both may be fairly regarded as
summed up in him, in so far as they enunciated principles
and entered as a controlling influence into the history of
the world. In this sense, he is the most comprehensive
representative of each and of both together; although he
must yield the palm of priority and of active heroism, in
the one case to Zwingle, and in the other case to Farel.
Into their labors he entered in a somewhat similar way as
Melancthon entered into the labors of Luther ; and so far
he takes his place beside Melancthon in the second class
of reformers. His theological and didactic qualities and
personal sympathies, moreover, ally him with the friend
and supporter of Luther, rather than with Luther himself.
But there are other and most important respects in which,
as we shall see, he occupies a position not only above
Melancthon, but above Luther — a position singular in
moral grandeur, and in the vigorous and widely-extending
influence which spread around from it.
The life of Calvin, in contrast with that of the German
reformer, presents but a few dramatic aspects. In merely
biographic interest, it is not nearly so rich, although there
is a great consistency and purpose in its several parts,
which invest it with a powerful charm to some minds.1 It
1 Calvin has been hitherto unfortunate in biographers, — there not being
a single life of him, with which we are acquainted, at once adequate in its
comprehension of the man and his work, fair and critical in its estimate, and
interesting in its composition. The work of Dyer, published in this country
some years ago, is sufficiently readable and well composed, but without the
pretension of grasping the whole subject, and judging it from any compre
hensive point of view. The work of Henry, in three massive German vol
umes, and translated, without the appendices, into two large English octavos
by Dr. Stebbing, is, either in German or in English, a somewhat unreadable
book, with certain glimpses of critical insight here and there, but without
coherence or biographical finish. It is, however, the most adequate, as a
whole, — being animated by a higher, although, in an opposite direction,
9

98 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
may be conveniently divided, for our purpose, into three
periods of unequal duration: first, from his birth, in 1509,
to his completion of the Institutes in their first known
shape, in 1536. This, as with the corresponding period in
Luther's life, may be called the period of his education ;
second, from his first appearance in Geneva, in the same
year, 1536, on through his expulsion and residence at
Strasburg, to September 1541, when he reentered and
finally settled in Geneva ; third, from this latter date to
his death in 1564. We can only insert, in each of these
epochs, as we rapidly glance through them, such facts as
are absolutely necessary to start before us some picture of
the man, and to enable us to comprehend the meaning of
the great aims for which he lived, and towards which he
wrought. Calvin was born at Noyon, in Picardy, on the 10th of
July, 1509 ; he was thus twenty-six years the junior of
Luther. His father, Gerard Cauvin, or Calvin, was Pro-
cureur-Fiscal of the district of Noyon, and Secretary of
the Diocese. He was a man of ability, distinguished by
success in his profession, and the favor and friendship of
the influential families in his neighborhood.1 His mother,
Jane Lefranc, was a native of Cambray, and is reported
scarcely a fairer spirit than that of Dyer, and embodying, as it does, the
main contents of the reformer's correspondence, — which happily remain to
the student, the most instructive and complete sources of his history. Two
volumes of Bonnet's complete edition of the correspondence, containing the
French letters, have already appeared. Two volumes, containing a selec
tion both from the French and Latin letters, translated into English, have
been published by Mr. Constable, of Edinburgh. Besides a full edition of the
letters, Bonnet has promised Une etude sur Calvin, formant une histoire du
Reformateur d'apres les documents originaux et authentiques, which, it is to be
hoped, may at length form an adequate historical portrait of the reformer.
i " Erat is Gerardus," says Beza, " non pauci judicii et consilii homo,
ideoque nobilibus ejus plerisque carus." — Cab). Vita, Hanovia?, 1597.

CALVIN. 99
to have been beautiful, and of a strongly religious spirit.
Calvin was one of six children, four sons and two daugh
ters. One of his sisters, Mary, followed his faith and
fortunes, and is occasionally mentioned in his letters. Of
his brothers, the eldest was an ecclesiastic, the fourth died
young, and the third, also bred an ecclesiastic, ultimately
joined the reformer in Geneva. The position of the
father is the natural explanation of so many of his sons
entering into the church. While our reformer was still
only twelve years of age, his father procured for him a
chaplaincy in the cathedral church of Noyon, as a means
of support during his education, — a practice not uncommon
in the Gallican, as in all the other churches of the time.
Of Calvin's youth and earlier education we have but
few particulars. We get no hearty glimpses of his home
and school-days, as in the case of Luther. We only know
that, in contrast with the rough and picturesque boyhood
of the German, he was nurtured tenderly, and even in an
aristocratic atmosphere. The noble family of Mommor,
in the neighborhood, to some extent adopted the boy, and
his studies were pursued in conjunction with those of the
young members of this family. Beza narrates his pre
cocity of mental power, and the grave severity of his
manners, even at this early age. His companions, it is
said, surnamed him the " Accusative." l Having received
the rudiments of his education in his native town, he
went, in his fourteenth year, to Paris, still in the company
of the children of the Mommor family. There he was
entered as a pupil in the College de la Marche, under the-
regency of Mathurin Cordier, — a name still familiar to
boys entering upon their Latin studies, under its classical
i This is mentioned by d'Aubigne, vol. iii. p. 631, upon the evidence of
Levasseur, a canon of Noyon.

100 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
form of Corderius. It was under this distinguished master
that Calvin laid the foundation of his own wonderful
mastery of the Latin language. From the College de la
Marche he passed to the College Montagu, where he was
initiated into the scholastic philosophy, under the guidance
of a learned Spaniard. In his eighteenth year he was
appointed to the living of Marteville, and this, too, while
he had only as yet received the tonsure, and was not
admitted to holy orders.1
About this time his professional views underwent a
change. The law appeared to his father, somewhat as to
Luther's, to offer a more tempting worldly prospect than
the church ; "" and he resolved, accordingly, to turn the
studies of his son in the direction of the former profession.
He sent him, with this view, to the university of Orleans,
then adorned by Pierre de 1'Etoile, one of the most famous
jurists of his day, and afterwards President of the Parlia
ment of Paris. In taking this step, however, Calvin did
not resign his church living; and it appears to have been
even after this, that, by the kind patronage of a member
of the same family who had hitherto so befriended him,
he effected the exchange of the living of Marteville for
that of Pont l'Eveque, where he is said occasionally to
have preached. It is a singular enough picture of the
times, which is presented to us by this conduct, both of
Calvin and his father. His justification in the case, if any
such be needed, considering his youth, is the prevalence
of the practice in an age in which the ecclesiastical office
had become, too frequently, a mere material convenience,
or transmitted guild.
1 He never seems to have been ordained in the Romish Church, notwith
standing the several ecclesiastical positions he held. — Beza, Calv. Vita.
2 Beza.

CALVIN. 101
Of his life at Orleans, we know something more than
of his previous life at Noyon or Paris, although it is still
only very vague glimpses we get. Beza has told us, on
the authority of some of Calvin's fellow-students, that his
life was here marked by a rigorous temperance and devo
tion to study; that, after supping moderately, he would
spend half the night in study, and devote the morning to
meditation on what he had acquired, — thus laying the
foundation of his solid learning, but, at the same time, of
his future ill health. His talents were already so generally
recognized, that, in the absence of some of the professors,
he was called upon to do their duty. It was here that, for
the first time, he became acquainted with the Scriptures,
in the translation of a relative ofET'own, Pierre Robert
Olivetah. Here, also, he formed the friendship of two
young men, Francis Daniel, an advocate, and Nicholas du
Chemin, a schoolmaster, who seem already to have im
bibed the reformed opinions. His earliest extant letter, in
which he details the illness and approaching death of his
father, and which bears the date of 14th May, 1528, is
addressed to. the latter of these friends ; and a brief series
of letters, on to the year 1536, is addressed to the former.
We cannot sky, as yet, that Calvin's traditionary opinions
were uufixed, still less that he had embraced, with any
decision, the Protestant views which were spreading
everywhere. Beyond doubt, however, the first impulse
to the new faith, which was soon to seize him, and mould
his whole sentiments, was imparted at Orleans, under
the influences and amid the companionships we have
mentioned. From Orleans he went, still in prosecution of his legal
studies, to Bourges, where, for the first time, he acquired
the knowledge of Greek, under the tuition of a learned
9*

102 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
German, Melchior Wolmar, to whom he has recorded his
obligations.1 The spiritual impulse received at Orleans
seems to have been confirmed and promoted by this dis
tinguished teacher, to whose piety and admirable abilities
BgzaJ„also one of his pupils, bears tribute. His convic
tions became deepened and settled to such a degree that
he now began openly to jweaeh- the -reformed-docttyies.
Slowly, but surely, he passed over to the Protestant ranks,-
in a manner entirely contrasted with that of Luther, even
as his mind and character were so wholly different. We
trace no struggling steps of dogmatic conviction — no
profound spiritual agitations — -no crisis, as in the case of
the German reformer. We only learn that, from being an
apparently satisfied and devoted adherent of popery, he
adopted, with a quiet, but steady and zealous faithfulness,
the new opinions. He himself, indeed, in his preface,
when commenting on the Psalms, speaks of his conversion
being a sudden one ; and, to his own reflection afterwards,
it may have seemed that the clear light began to dawn
upon him all at once ; but the facts of his life seem rather
to show it in the light in which we have presented it, as
a gradual and consistent growth under the influences
which surrounded him, first at Orleans, and then at
Bourges.
^Sln accordance with this new growth of spiritual con
viction, he returned to the study of theology, or rather
took it np, for the first time, with real earnestness. Not
only so, but he soon became an instructor and authority
in the reformed doctrine. " Not a year had passed over,"
he says, in the same preface to the Psalms, "when all
those who had any desire for pure learning came to me,
1 Preface to Commentary on Second Epistle to Corinthians.

CALVIN. 103
inexperienced as. I was, to gain information. I was natu
rally bashful, and loved leisure and privacy; hence I
sought retirement; but even my solitary place became
like a public school."
He proceeded to Paris (1533), which already, under the
teachings of Lefevre and Farel, and the influence of the
Queen of Navarre, the sister of Francis I., had become a
centre of the reformed faith. The university had. become
strongly infected with the "pure learning." There was
great excitement and rising discontent with the old reli
gion, at once, in the court, among the bishops,1 and even
in the Sorbonne. The presence of Calvin, whose great
powers had already made him extensively known,2 oper
ated vigorously to increase this excitement. One Nicolas
Cop, a physician, happened to be rector, and in this
capacity had to deliver a discourse on the festival of All
Saints, for the composition of which he is said to have
been indebted to Calvin. Instead of the usual traditionary
orthodoxy on such an occasion, the discourse boldly en
tered upon the subject of religion, and advocated the
doctrine of justification by faith. The attack was too
obvious to pass unnoticed ; the ancient spirit of the Sor
bonne revived, and Cop was summoned to answer for the
heresy. Aware of his peril, he fled to Basle, and Calvin,
whose share in the offence became speedily known, also
fled. There are various stories as to his flight — as, for
example, that he was let down from his window by means
of his sheets, and escaped in the habit of a vine-dresser,

1 See D'Aubigne"'s interesting narrative of the struggles, aims, and fall of
Briconnet, bishop of Meaux, vol. iii.
2 As an evidence of the fame for abilities and learning he had already dis
covered, it deserves to be mentioned that he was one of the Continental
divines consulted about Henry VHI.'s divorce.

101 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
•a
an acquaintance, to whose house he had repaired. Beza
simply states that when the officers went to seize him, he
was not to be found,1 and that the Queen of Navarre
subsequently interposed in his behalf.
Repairing to Noyon after this event, he is now said to
have resigned his ecclesiastical offices ; and henceforth,
for a year or two, he seems to have led a wandering life.
We find him first at Saintonge, then at Nerac, the resi
dence of the Queen of Navarre, where, for the first time,
he made the personal acquaintance of Lefevre, who is
said to have recognized in the pale young student the
future apostle of the Reformation in France. Subse
quently, he spent some time in retirement, at Angou'eme,
with his friend, Louis Tillet; his letters to whom, after
wards, when Tillet felt himself impelled to rejoin the
Roman Church, are among the most interesting of his
early correspondence, marked as they are by an unusual
freedom and affectionateness of feeling. It was during
this retirement that he is supposed to have made the first
sketch of his Institutes of the Christian Religion. Again,
in 1533, we find him, for a brief while, at Paris, expecting
strangely a meeting with Servetus, who had expressed a
desire to see and confer with him. He did not, however,
keep his appointment. Not yet were they destined to
meet — the stern reformer and the enthusiastic speculator !
Had they done so now, in the warmth of comparative
youth, and while the dogmatism of the one and the other
was as yet unhardened, we may please ourselves with the
imagination that their later and darker meeting might
have been avoided, and a great crime have been spared to
the progress of the Reformation.
1 " Quo forte domi non reperto."— Calv. Vita, etc.

CALVIN. 105
Persecution now raged fiercely against the adherents of
the Reformation in France. The agitation of the Ana
baptist insurrection in Germany had spread across the
Rhine, and even into England. There was alarm and
excitement everywhere. All reformers were confounded
as disturbers of social order. Calvin felt that he was no
longer safe in Paris, nor even in France, and he prepared
to take refuge at Basle. Previously, however, he pub
lished, at Orleans, a treatise against one of the peculiar
tenets of the Anabaptists, as to the sleep of the soul,
under the title of Psychopannychia. This was his second
literary labor. Two years before, he had first appeared
as an author, in a commentary on Seneca's treatise De
Clementia. What is chiefly remarkable about these works,
is their scholarly and intellectual character. They are —
even the treatise against the Anabaptists — more like the_
exercitations of a student, than the productions of a mind
strongly moved by religious, reforming zeal.
Arrived at Basle in 1535, the spirit of the reformer may
be said to have awakened in him, for the first time, in full
strength. The famous preface to the Institutes, it is
certain, was written here in this year. It bears the date
of Basle, August 1, 1535. The concentrated vigor of this
address — its intensity of feeling, rising into indignant
remonstrance, and, at times, a pathetic and powerful elo
quence — make it one of the most memorable documents
in connection with the Reformation. It shows the vehe
ment struggle that there was in Calvin's mind, no less
than in Luther's, to exonerate the religious movement
from the social excesses that had sprung up in its progress
— to prove that the latter had, in reality, no connection
with the former, whose legitimate tendency was every
where to strengthen the moral stability of society, and to

106 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
increase dutifulness and loyalty in subjects. It is, through
out, a noble defence of the righteous character of the
reformed doctrines, and their support alike in Scripture
and in history. The energetic decisiveness and moral
zeal of the future teacher and legislator of Geneva, speak
in every page of it.
A dispute exists as to whether there was any cor
responding edition of the Institutes in 1535. On the one
hand, the presumption is strong that there must have been
such an edition, and Beza distinctly states that they first
appeared in that year ; but, on the other hand, all research
has failed to discover any edition before 1536. Dr. Henry's
conjecture is, that the edition of both the work and pref
ace, in the earlier year, was in French ; but this, again, is
contradicted by certain expressions, in a letter of Calvin
to Francis Daniel, of date 15th October, 1536, which lead
us to suppose that he was then busy, for the first time,
with the French version of his work. The dispute is not
really important, save in a bibliographical point of view.
At this period — whether in 1535, or the beginning of 1536
— Calvin completed, at Basle, the first sketch of his great
dogmatic scheme — a mere sketch, indeed, of the future
complete work. Now, before he had entered at all upon
his special career as a reformer, the great lines of thought
were laid down, and the principles, both dogmatical and
ecclesiastical, enunciated, which were to guide and stamp
all his labors. He now put forth, as it were, the charter
of the great movement, to which he was destined to give
theological consistency and moral triumph. He showed
himself, already, the master-spirit who was chiefly capable
of guiding and consolidating the agitated elements of
religious thought and life around him.
After his residence at Basle, and completion of the

CALVIN. 107
Institutes, Calvin made a short visit to Italy, to Renee,
the Duchess of Ferrara, of which we know very little.
He then once more is found at Noyon, settling the pater
nal estate, which had fallen to him on the death of his
eldest brother ; and, finally, bidding it adieu, in company
with his younger brother Anthony and his sister Mary.
His intention appears to have been to proceed to Stras-
burg ; but, the direct way being rendered dangerous by
the armies of Charles V., which had penetrated into
France, he sought a circuitous route, through Savoy and
Geneva. He arrived at Geneva late in.the summer of 1536. He
meant merely to sojourn a single night in the city, and
then advance on his journey. He had no thoughts of any
thing but of some quiet refuge, in which to pursue his
studies. " I was wholly given up to my own intense
thoughts and private studies," he afterwards said. But
his old friend, Tillet, now in Geneva, discovered him, and
apprised Farel of his discovery. Situated as Farel then
was, almost alone, with the Reformation but partially
accomplished, and the elements of disturbance smoulder
ing around him, the advent of Calvin seemed to him an
interposition of Divine Providence. He hastened to see
him, and set before him his claims for assistance, and the
work of God so obviously awaiting him. But Calvin was
slow to move. He urged his desire to study, and be
serviceable to all churches, rather than to attach himself
to any one church in particular. He would fain have
yielded to the intellectual bias so strong in him, and did
not yet acknowledge to himself the still stronger instinct
for practical government that lay behind his intellectual
devotion. By some strange insight, however, Farel pene
trated to the higher fitness of the young stranger who

108 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
stood before him, and he ventured, in the spirit of that
daring enthusiasm which characterized him, to lay the
curse of God upon him and his studies, if he refused his
aid to the church in her time of need. This, which
seemed to Calvin a divine menace, had the desired
effect. " It was," he said, " as if God had seized me by
his awful hand from heaven." He abandoned his inten
tion of pursuing his journey, and joined eagerly with Farel
in the work of reformation.
In order to understand this work, it is necessary to
understand something of the previous history of Geneva.
Without this knowledge, .it is impossible to apprehend,
and still more impossible to estimate, the part which
Calvin now acted. Geneva was nominally a free city of
the empire, but had, in reality, been governed, for some
centuries, by its own bishop, associated with a committee
of lay assessors, and controlled by the general body of the
citizens, in whose hands the ultimate power of taxation,
and of election of the magistrates, and regulation of the
police, rested. The prince-bishop did not exercise his
temporal jurisdiction directly, but through an officer called
the Vidomme (vice-dominus), whose rights had, in the
fifteenth century, become hereditary in the dukes of
Savoy. These rights appear to have been exercised
without any considerable attempt at encroachment, till the
beginning of the following century, when Charles III.
(1504) succeeded to the ducal crown. To his ambition,
the bishop, John, a weak and willing tool of the Savoy
family, to which he was nearly allied, ceded everything ;
and the result was a tyrannical attempt to destroy the
liberties of the Genevese. The Assembly of the citizens
rose in arms ; a bitter and sanguinary contest ensued
between the Eidgenossen, or Patriot party, on the one side,

CALVIN. 109
and the Mamelukes, or Monarchical party, on the other
side. By the help of the free Helvetian states, par
ticularly Berne and Friburg, the Patriots triumphed, the
friends of Savoy were banished, the Vidommate abohshed,
and its power transferred to a board of magistrates.
The conduct of the bishops in this conflict — -not only
of John, but of his successor, Peter de la Baume, who to
his misgovernment added gross personal profligacy —
helped greatly, as may be imagined, to shake the old
hierarchical authority in Geneva; and when, in 1532, Farel
first made his appearance in the city, he found a party not
indisposed to join him in his eager and zealous projects of
reform. He had a hard fisrht for it, however, and was at
first obliged to yield, and leave the city for a time ; and it
was not till August, 1 535, that he and Viret and Froment
succeeded in abolishing the mass, and establishing the
Protestant faith. During the year's interval, he had pros
ecuted his work without ceasing, amidst many difficulties,
and Calvin's arrival found him still struggling with the
popish priests in the neighboring villages, and aiming to
lay a broader foundation for the Reformed Church.
Calvin was immediately elected Teacher of Theology.
In the following year he assumed the office of preacher, —
which at first, apparently, he had declined, — and produced
such an impression by his first sermon, that, it is said, mul
titudes followed him home, to testify their enthusiasm. In
conjunction with Farel, he drew up a Confession of Faith,
in twenty-one articles, which was submitted to the Coun
cil of Two Hundred, — the lowest of the representative
governing boards of the city,1 — and by them ordered to
i Political power rested ultimately, as we have stated in the text, in the
whole body of the citizens, who were e/ititled to meet in general assembly.
A representative body of this council, however, composed of sixty members,
10

110 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
be printed, and proclaimed in the cathedral church of St.
Peter's, as binding on the whole body 'of the citizens
One of the articles related to the right of excommunica
tion claimed by the ministers ; and this, along with the
general conduct of Farel and Calvin, and the severity
with which they reproved the vices of all classes of the
community, soon awoke a storm of opposition. Calvin,
however, was firm ; he threatened to leave the city,
unless the powers which he supposed necessary to his
work were yielded to him ; and for the present he pre-
¦ larvellous change, in the course of a short time, was
; . "at upon the outward aspect of Geneva. A gay and
pleasure-loving people, devoted to music and dancing, the
evening wine-shop, and card-playing, found themselves
suddenly arrested in their usual pastimes. Not only were
the darker vices of debauchery, which greatly prevailed,
punished by severe penalties, but the fighter follies and
amusements of society were laid under imperious ban. All
holidays were abolished, except Sunday; the innocent
gayeties of weddings, and the fashionable caprices of
dress, were made subjects of legislation ; a bride was not
to adorn herself with floating tresses,1 and her welcome
home was not to be noisy with feasting and revelry. The
convent bells, which had rung their sweet chimes for ages
across the blue waters of the Rhone, and become associ-
was constituted in 1457, in order to avoid the turbulence arising out of too
frequent meetings of all the burgesses, or citizens. In 1526, after the alliance
of Friburg and Berne, a more extended representative council of Two Hun
dred was appointed, in imitation of the constitution of these cities. ¦ There
was, besides, an ordinary executive council, who, in conjunction with the
four magistrates, or syndics of the year, practically administered the govern
ment of the city.
1 Registres de la Re'pub., 20 Mai 153T — quoted by Henry, Dyer, &c.

CALVIN. Ill
ated with many evening memories of love and song, had
been previously*destroyed, and cast into cannon.1 It was
impossible that a change so sudden and severe as this
could be lasting, all at once. A strong opposition, partly
composed of political malcontents, and of the lovers of a
more free and social life, was gradually formed ; and, after
various struggles, they succeeded in their resistance to the
clergy, and banished them the city.
It is difficult to characterize the party which now tem
porarily prevailed against the Calvinistic discipline in
Geneva, and finally, in a later and memorable struggle,
was thwarted and crushed by the influence of the great
reformer. It has descended to us under the name of the
Libertines ; but this was in reality its nickname, given to
it by its enemies, and, beyond doubt, it serves greatly to
misrepresent it. The Libertines, rightly so called, were a
spiritual sect which sprang up in the course of the Refor
mation — a kind of offshoot of Anabaptism. It is not
pretended by any that the anti-Calvinist party in Geneva
were mainly, or even to any considerable extent, composed
of the adherents of this spiritual libertinism, although
some of its leaders may have shared in certain tenets of
the sect, and even been in alliance with it. This was
probably the position of some of the Favre family, after
wards so signally associated with the anti-Calvinist
reaction. There seems good reason to believe, however,
that the main nucleus of the party was the Eidgenossen, or
band of really liberal patriots, who had formerly rescued
their native city from a foreign yoke, and who now, and
afterwards, were animated, as we shall find, by very strong

1 This event in reality took place before the arrival of Calvin in 1534.
Registres, 11 Juillet 1534.

112 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
feelings, but by veiy mixed and indefinite views, in the
part which they acted.
On his expulsion from Geneva, Calvin proceeded with
Farel to Berne, where a series of negotiations were set on
foot, with a view to the conciliation of the Genevese, and
the return of the reformers. Previously, while the dis
putes were still going on, the Bernese had taken a friendly
part in them, and it was hoped that, by their present medi
ation, they might be still accommodated. But their efforts,
thwarted by the bitter dislike of some of the Bernese
ministers to Calvin, and by the obstinacy of the Genevese,
were fruitless. The decree of banishment was confirmed,
and the reformers driven to seek some other sphere for
their labors. Calvin repaired first to Basle, his old place
of refuge, and then to Strasburg, by the invitation of
Bucer. Here he settled, in the end of 1538, and became
the pastor of a congregation of French refugees, who
were exiles, like himself, from his native country, on
account of their faith.
Here Calvin spent the next three years, amongst the
happiest, or at least the quietest and most honorable, of
his life. At no time does he appear more admirable than
during those years of exile. His" magnanimity and single-
minded earnestness come out strongly tempered by a
certain patience, moderation, and sadness, that we seem
to miss elsewhere. Relieved from power, he was also
relieved from its wounding irritations, which were apt to
chafe his keen spirit ; and we see only the simple grandeur,
wonderful capacity, and truthful feeling of the man. They
were years of busy interest and activity, political, domestic,
and theological.
We find him engaged in the three great conferences
at Frankfort, Worms, and Ratisbon, — cooperating with

CALVIN. 113
Bucer, and counselling with Melancthon. Not less anxious
than either for a comprehensive peace which should em
brace all the churches, he yet saw, with a clearer eye than
they did, the difficulties in the way of union. His various
letters on the subject to Farel are full of sound wisdom
and sense — moderate and conciliatory, yet clear-sighted
and earnest for the truth. We see him farther the centre
of a private series of negotiations, in connection with
Caroli, a singular impostor of the time, who is strangely
mixed up with the history of the Reformation. This per
son had previously rendered himself notorious for his
enmity to Calvin and Farel, both of whom he had accused
of Arianism ; and afterwards, when he failed to establish
his reputation at their expense, he had rejoined the church
of Rome. He now sought a reconciliation with the
reformers, and seems to have imposed upon the good
nature of Farel. Calvin, however, was not so easily
moved ; and his letters to Farel, in which he takes him to
task for his softness in the matter, especially one of 8th
October, 1539, gives a curious, self-unveiled glimpse of
the reformer's vehemence of temper.1
1 " They appointed a meeting with me together at the house of Mathias,
when I might explain fully what it was that distressed me. There I sinned
grievously in not having been able to keep within bounds; for so had the
bile taken entire possession of my mind, that I poured out bitterness on all
sides. There was certainly some cause for indignation, if moderation had
only been observed in the expression of it. ... In the conclusion of
my speech, I stated my resolution rather to die than to subscribe this.
Thereupon there was so much fervor on both sides, that I could not have
been more rude to Caroli himself, had he been present. At length I forced
myself out of the supper-room, Bucer following, who, after he had soothed
me by his fair speeches, brought me back to the test. I said that I wished
to consider the matter more fully before making any further reply. When
I got home I was seized with an extraordinary paroxysm, nor did I find any
other solace than in sighs and tears." — Letters, vol. i. p. 136.
10*

114 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
In the midst of these negotiations, public and private,
he was induced to think of marriage. " I am so much at
my ease," he says, in a spirit approaching to jocularity, " as
to have the audacity to think of taking a wife."1 He had,
in fact, a year before, written to Farel on the subject, and
various projects of union were, "in the meantime, set on
foot by his friends ; which, however, came to nothing.
The truth is, that he was himself but a reluctant suitor,
and if it had not been for the urgency of Bucer particu
larly, he would probably never have taken any -step in the
matter. '.' I am none of those insane lovers," he says,
"who embrace also the vices of those they are in love
with, when they are smitten at first sight with a fine
figure. This only is the beauty that allures me, — if she
is chaste, if not too nice or fastidious, if economical, if
patient, if there is hope that she will be interested about
my health."2 There is a naivete amusing, if it were not
so cold, in the manner in which he narrates to Farel how
one matrimonial project failed, and another was vigor
ously taken up by him. " A certain damsel, of noble rank,
has been proposed to me, and with a fortune above my
condition. Two considerations deterred me from that con
nection — because she did not understand our language,
and because I feared she might be too mindful of her
family and education. Her brother, a very devout person,
urged the connection ; his wife also, with a like partiality ;
so that I would have been prevailed to submit, with a
good grace, unless the Lord had otherwise appointed.
When I replied that I could not engage myself, unless the
maiden would undertake to apply her mind to the learning
of our language, she requested time for deliberation.
» i Letter to Farel, Sept. 1540, vol. i. p. 149. a lb., p. 117.

CALVIN. 115
Thereupon, without further parley, I sent my brother to
escort here another, who, if she answers her repute, will
bring a dowry large enough, without any money at all."1
The person here referred to — undowried, save in char
acter and reputation — was Idelette de Bures, the widow
of an Anabaptist whom he had converted ; and to her he
was married on the following August (1540). We learn
but little of her. Calvin never unveils his domestic life
as Luther does. We never catch the warm firelight of
his family hearth kindling in any of his letters ; no touches
of playful portraiture relieve their gravity ; and Idelette de
Bures remains, consequently, but a dim personality beside
Catherine "Von Bora. AU that we know of Calvin's wife,
however, points to a somewhat elevated, if not very inter
esting character. He himself speaks of her as " a woman
of rare qualities ; " and the account which he has given
of her death-bed (their union only lasted nine years), is
deeply touching in the picture of simple affection, and
absorbed, if somewhat unmoved, piety, which it pre
sents.2 No breath of unhappiness seems to have rested
on a union which, if uninspired by passion, was, at the
same time, free from all sordidness. She was mother of
several children by her previous husband ; to Calvin she
had only one child, whose early loss was a profound grief
to the reformer. " My wife," he writes to Farel, " sends
her best thanks for your friendly and holy consolations.
The Lord has indeed inflicted a grievous and a bitter
wound in the death of our little son."3
The most remarkable of his theological labors, at this
time, was his elaboration of the Institutes into the ex-

i Letter to Farel, Sept. 1540, vol. i. p. 150. 5 Ibid., vol. i. p. 320.
s Letters, vol. ii. pp. 203, 204.

116 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
tended edition which is familiar to us, and which appeared
at Strasburg in 1539. There were improvements and
further extensions in subsequent editions, even to the last,
issued from the press of Robert Stephens, at Geneva, in
1559 ; but the work remained substantially the same after
this. Among the most marked additions of the Strasburg
edition, was the detailed exhibition of his ecclesiastical
system. His thoughts had been naturally turned to this
subject by his experience in Geneva; and, consistently
with the bent of his intellectual character, he was led not
to modify his views, but to work them out into a more
thorough and consistent shape. A scarcely less important
contribution to theological literature was furnished by him,
in the same year, in his Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle
to the Romans, — the first of that noble series of exegeti-
cal works which, apart from all other claims to distinction,
would have placed his name in the highest rank of Christian
authors. Iu the meantime, during these years, the state of things"
at Geneva had greatly altered. After the first outburst of
their triumph, and the most riotous manifestation of their
hostility to the expelled reformers, the party of the Liber
tines soon began to feel the inherent weakness springing
out of the want of any fixity or determination in their
principles and aims. Some had sought political, some only
personal liberty, and not a few had joined in the move
ment from mere negative motives — dislike of Calvin and
of the French, and of all effective moral or civil restraints.
In such a party, there were no elements of a .continued
constructive opposition to the ecclesiastical rule and disci
pline which they had overthrown. The hand of authority
was relaxed, and license worse than that of the old Cath
olic times returned. Two of the syndics who had taken a

CALVIN. 117
lead in the expulsion of the ministers, perished by a
violent death, and two were exiled for the miscarriage of
so ne embassy in which they engaged. The new re
forming clergy were destitute of any ability or energy
of character to meet the disorders that sprang up on all
sides, and left the city a prey to the weakness at once of
faction and of immorality. In these circumstances, it is
not to be wondered at that the friends of the reformers
should have gradually gathered something of their former
influence, and that, in the course of two years' experience
of an unsettled and disorderly civic condition, a very
different~spirit should, have begun to manifest itself towards
the exiled clergy. The conduct of Calvin, moreover,
helped greatly to quicken this returning feeling. Although
the Genevese had -driven him with ignominy from their
city, he did not cease to cherish a warm interest in its
welfare; and when Sadolet, bishop of Dauphiny, — a man
gf acknowledged merits, who had recently received a' car
dinal's hat from Rome, — turned his attention to Geneva,
and thought to improve the opportunity of its. dissensions
to the advantage of his church, by addressing a letter to
the Council and burgesses, inviting them to return within
its bosom, Calvin took up the pen against him, and power
fully vindicated the religious interests of his former fellow-
citizens. The result of all was, that before the end of
1540, the Council and new syndics sent a letter to the
reformer, imploring him to return, and reassume his old
position of authority. The letter is very interesting, as
showing the complete revulsion of feeling that had oc
curred in the city, and how naturally all eyes turned to
Calvin in the circumstances. "On the part," it bears,
" of our lesser great and general (which hereupon have
strongly admonished us), we pray you earnestly that you

118 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
would transfer yourself hitherward to us, and return to
your old place and former ministry; and we hope, with the
help of God, that this shall be a great benefit, and fruitful
for the increase of the holy evangel, seeing that our people
greatly desire you among us, and will conduct themselves
towards you in such sort that you shall have occasion to
rest content."1
Calvin, however, did not return to Geneva till the 13th
of September, 1541. He was in no hurry to respond to
the call made to him, not from any motives of pique or
affectation, but from the double reason that he could not
all at once quit his pastoral engagements at Straskurg, and
that he needed some evidence of the sincere willingness
of the Genevese to submit to the reestablishment of the
reformed discipline. Convinced at length, he embraced
their invitation, and reentered upon his old duties. With
a steadier comprehension and increased vigor, he began
again the great work of practical reformation which had
been rudely interrupted three years before, and never
henceforth swerved or yielded in it.
We shall afterwards consider at length the merits of
Calvin's ecclesiastical discipline ; but we must here sketch
the machinery by which he established and worked it,
and, to some extent, the character of the results which
followed it.
Calvin's general views of church government, as ex
pounded in the fourth book of the Institutes, are suffi
ciently well known. In no respect, perhaps, are they more
remarkable than in a certain comprehensiveness and catho
licity of tone, which to many will appear strangely asso
ciated with his name. But Calvin was far too enlightened
1 Letters, vol. i. p. 190.

CALVIN. 119
not to recognize the grandeur of the Catholic idea, which
had descended through so many ages ; this idea had, in
truth, for such a mind as his, special attractions, and his
own system, we shall find, mainly sought to give to the
same idea a new and higher form. The narrowness and
intolerance of his ecclesiastical rule did not so much spring
out of the general principles laid down in the Institutes, as
from his special interpretation and application of these.
principles. The Calvinistic plan of church government is repre
sented by doctors and pastors, and certain assessors, under
the name of Elders. These are merely office-bearers for
the general Christian community or church, which is com
posed alike of laity and clergy, with no radical or heredi
tary distinction of priesthood. The doctor is the learned
interpreter of Scripture and teacher of theology. The
function of the pastor is not merely to preach, but, by the
practical administration of discipline, in conjunction with
the elders, to reprove, warn, and punish. The civil power
is recognized as distinct from the ecclesiastical, but as
bound to support the latter, in carrying out its authority, in
the repression of vice and offences against religion, such
as idolatry and blasphemy. There is some conception of
the right general principle here, as elsewhere ; but in
practice, it was utterly confused and misapplied, and could
not help being so, in conjunction with the notions which
then universally prevailed, as to the moral jurisdiction of
the magistrate.
This mode of church government expressed itself in
two main courts in Geneva, as follows :
1. There was a college of pastors and doctors, under the
name of " The Venerable Company." This college was
composed of all the clergy of the state, both those of the

120 LF/ADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
city and of the rural parishes, with the teachers of the
ology, and to it belonged the general supervision of church
affairs, especially of all connected with the education,
qualification, and appointment of persons to the ministry.
It selected and determined, in the first place, as to all can
didates, and the fitness of their ordination to special
charges, and the people were finally invited to sanction
the nomination, or " if there be any one who is aware of
aught to object to in the life or doctrine of the person
nominated, to come and declare it to one of the syndics,
before the next following Sunday, on which day, also, it
may be presented, to the end that no one be inducted to
the ministry, except with the common consent of the
whole church." A sufficiently fair and seemly order! —
the rights of authority, on the one hand, asserted, and the
rights of the people, on the other hand, recognized ; but
there seems to have been no adequate provision for a
conciliating adjustment of the conflicting rights so soon
as actual collision should arise. The future difficulties of
presbytery were thus implied in its very origin.
2. There was a consistorial court of discipline, of far
more practical and living authority than the general college
of pastors and doctors. This court was constituted by the
five pastors of the city parishes, and twelve elders. These
elders were selected from the two representative councils
of the city, — two from the Council of Sixty, and the
remainder from the Council of Two Hundred. Their
nomination lay with the ordinary council, in conjunction
with the Company. The consistory was thus chiefly com
posed of lay members ; but the influence of the clergy,
although, numerically reckoned, it appears small, was, in
reality, strongly secured in the mode of appointment of
the elders, which was annual, besides being so far under

CALVIN. 121
the direct control of the clergy. The clerical element was
comparatively fixed, the lay constituency varied from year
to year.
This consistorial court became the great engine of Cal
vin's power. He is supposed by-and-by to have assumed
the permanent presidency of it,1 although this constitu
tionally belonged to one of the syndics. It extended its
jurisdiction over all social usages, as well as offences
against morality and religion. It was a court of practical
ethics, in the widest sense — the church in that repressive,
disciplinary aspect, which had such a charm for, Calvin's
mind, and in which it alone seemed to him to rise to its
right character and use. Its only direct weapon of au
thority was excommunication ; but where this proved
unavailing or inadequate, the culprit was transferred to
the council, which inflicted on him any measure of civil
punishment, even to death.
The great code2 of ecclesiastical and moral legislation,
which guided both the consistory and council, was the
production of Calvin. It was sworn to by the whole of
the people, in a great assembly in St. Peter's, on the 20th
of November, 1541. It not only laid down general rules,
but entered, with the most rigorous control, into all the
affairs of private life. " From his cradle to his grave,"
"the Genevese citizen was pursued by its inquisitorial
eye."3 Ornaments for the person, the shape and length
of the hair, the modes of dress, the very number of dishes

1 The evidence is an entry in the Eegisters of Geneva, sixteen years after
his death, which the reader may consult in Henry's Life, vol. i. p. 469. 
Geneva. a Ordinances Ecclesiastiques de VEglese — Geneva, 1577.
3 See an admirable article, " Calvin in Geneva," West. Rev., July 1858.
11

122 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
for dinner,1 were subjected to special regulation. Wed
ding presents are only permitted within limits ; and at
betrothals, marriages, or baptisms, bouquets must not be
encircled with gold or jewelled with pearls, or other
precious stones. " Est defend li de dormer ans dites fian-
cailles, nopces, ou baptisailles des bouquets lies d'or on
canetilles, ou garnis de grenats, perles, et autres picke
ries." The registers of Geneva remain to show with what
abundant rigor these regulations were carried out. It is a
strange and mournful record, with ludicrous lights crossing
it here and there. A man, hearing an ass bray, and say
ing, jestingly, " B chante un beau psaume," is sentenced
to temporary banishment from the city. A young girl, in
church, singing the words of a song to a psalm-tune, is
ordered to be whipped by her parents. Three children are
punished because, during the s'ermon, instead of going to
church, they remained outside to eat cakes. A man, for
swearing by the " body and blood of Christ," is condemned
to be fined, and to sit in the public square, in the stocks.
Light reading, in the shape of Amadis de Gaul, - — • as dear
to the lovers of romance then as the treasures of the cir
culating library are to the modern reader, — is peremp-

1 " Item, que nul faisant nopces, banquets ou festins n'ait a faire au ser
vice d'iceux plus haut d'une venue ou mise de chairs ou de poisson et de
cinq plats au plus, honnestes et raissonables en ce non compenrises les mes-
mes entrees, et huiet plats de tout dessert et q'au dit dessert q'uait pastisse-
rie, ou piece de four, sinon une tourt seulement, et cela en chacune table de
dix personnes." It is a singular and instructive fact, that, amid the long-
continued decay of religious Protestantism in Geneva, the memory of the
rigor of Calvin's sumptuary laws remains a kind of popular tradition, at once
ludicrous and melancholy. An old man, who pointed out to the writer the
supposed resting-place of the reformer, seemed to have little other idea of
Calvin than as the man who limited the number of dishes at dinner !

CALVIN. 123
torily forbidden, and the book ordered to be destroyed.1
And there are darker colors far in the picture, at which we
shrink, as their shadow still falls across three centuries
upon us. A child, for having struck her parents, was
beheaded in 1568. Another lad of sixteen, for having
only threatened jto strike his mother, was condemned to
death.2 If we think of what even mothers, alas ! some
times are, and how temporary and trivial are often the
worst of such domestic collisions, — momentary bursts of
childish passion, without moral instinct of any kind, — it
makes one's blood run chill to think of an arbitrary death,
inflcted for such offences.
A system of such a character could only maintain itself
on an absolute divine right, — a right nowhere, indeed,
formally set forth by Calvin, yet distinctly asserted in all
the spirit and practice of his ecclesiastical legislation.
The consistorial discipline, for example, when the Favres
began to rebel against it, is declared to be " the yoke of
Christ."3 The ordinances and laws of Geneva, and the
whole system of polity of which Calvin himself remained
the centre, is carried back to Scripture, and presumed to
rest upon express divine command. , This was the only
valid plea and jristificatiorT of a system which applied
itself in so direct and authoritative manner to the regula-
tionof human life. It could only stand as a special
embodiment of the Divine willj— as a, declared Theocracy.
Henceforth Calvin's life in Geneva does not present
1 Registres, Mars 1559.
2 Henry, vol. i. p. 361 ; English. Henry seems only to see in these exam
ples " great beauty in the earnestness with which parental authority was de
fended." They strongly show the judicial spirit of Calvin, and his confusion
of the temporary legalism of the Old Economy with the spirit and require
ments of the New.
3 Letters, vol. ii. p. 49.

124 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
any very varied course of incident. It is mainly a suc
cession of earnest labors in defence of the truth, and of
earnest struggles against its enemies. His activity was
indefatigable, and his keen spirit knew scarcely what it
was to rest day by day. His ordinary duties are thus
described by Beza : " During the week, he preached every
alternate, and lectured every third day ; on Thursday he
met with the presbytery, and on Friday attended the ordi
nary Scripture meeting called ' the congregation,' where he
had his full share of the duty." His Commentaries, on
which he now continued to work regularly, and his unceas
ing correspondence, filled up a measure of industry which
we contemplate with astonishment. No man certainly
was ever less self-indulgent, and if he was severe in his
exactions from others, he was no less unsparing with him
self. Viret continued temporarily associated with him at
Geneva; but he was soon left to bear the main burden of
ecclesiastical rule himself, as his permanent colleagues
enjoyed comparatively little esteem.
More than anything else, the subsequent tenor of the
reformer's life is marked by the successive controversies
in which he was engaged. Caroli again appears for a
brief space upon the scene, but disappears finally in
deserved obscurity and disgrace — closing a life of scan
dalous imposture by a death of infamy in a Boman hos
pital. Then in succession the names of Pighius, Castellio,
Bolsec, and, farther on, Westphal and Heshusius, besides
the well-known names of Servetus and Amy Perrin at
the head of the Libertines, are among the most prominent
that mark the controversial epochs into which his history
now runs. We shall advance by a slight glance at the
successive points of interest and conflict which these
names suggest, in one or two instances touching only in

CALVIN. 125
the most cursory way what by itself might lead into wide
discussion. Pighius was a zealous Papist of the Cologne school, a
pupil of Adrian, and tutor of Charles V. He published,
about the time Calvin returned to Geneva, an elaborate
treatise on the old subject of Free Will and Predestina-
. tion, in opposition to the views of the reformers. Calvin,
so soon as the first press of his labors permitted, replied, in
a volume which he dedicated to Melancthon. He dis
cusses the arguments of Pighius in detail, and vindicates
the reasoning^of Luther, while he admits the hyperbolical
character of his language in certain cases. What is
particularly remarkable,, is his" generous , appreciation of
Luther's character and talents, as indeed this appears
elsewhere in his Letters.1 So far as the merits of the
controversy are concerned, it cannot be said that he is any
more successful than the German reformer. He is here
and everywhere more simple and cautious in his state
ments ; but his cold reiterations and evasions really no
more touch the obvious difficulties than Luther's heated
paradoxes. A point of interest connected with the dispute
is the tradition that Calvin's work was successful in con
verting Pighius to predestinarian views. This seems to
rest on so slender a foundation, however, that it is con
tended, on the other hand, that Pighius was dead before
Calvin's work appeared. He is said to have died in
December, 1542, while the reply of the reformer was not
published till the following year. Calvin himself says,
somewhat summarily, that " Pighius died a little after my
book was published ; wherefore, not to insult a dead dog,
I applied myself to other lucubrations."
1 Letters (to Bullinger especially), vol. i. p. 409.
11*

126 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
The dispute with Sebastian Castellio was of a more
painful and prolonged character. Calvin had become
acquainted with Castellio at Strasburg. They seem at
first to have warmly attracted one another, and Calvin
was, beyond all doubt, for some time very zealous in his
friendliness to the poor scholar, whose ingenious spirit and
classical acquirements had won his regard. On his return
to Geneva, he invited him thither, and procured for him
the appointment of regent, or tutor, in the gymnasium of
the city. In reality, however, there were but few points
of sympathy between the two men. Castellio's learning
was intensely humanistic ; his classical tastes and some
what arbitrary criticism moulded all that he did; and,
especially as he aspired to be a theologian, and to carry
this spirit into Ms Scriptural studies, he soon came into
conflict with Calvin. The first indications of disagreement
between them are to be found in a letter of Calvin's to
Farel, in September, 1542, in which he speaks of the
freaks of "our friend Sebastian, which may both raise
your bile and your laughter at the same time." ' These
freaks relate to Castellio's notions of Scriptural transla
tion, and his refusal of Calvin's offer to revise his version,
while offering to come and read it to him. Then, subse
quently, in February, 1544, there appears, in a further
letter to Farel, and in the Council Registers, evidence that
Castellio had desired to enter into the ministry, but that
Calvin had advised the Council that this was not expe
dient, on account of some peculiar opinions ivhich he held.
These were certain rationalistic views as to the authen
ticity and character of the Song of Solomon, the descent
of Christ into hell, and also about election. Still, at this
1 Letters, vol. i. p. 326.

CALVIN. 127
date Calvin speaks kindly of him, and recommends him
strongly to the patronage of Farel. He seems to have
left Geneva, at this time, for Lausanne, but to have re
turned shortly ; and, irritated probably by disappointment,
he now vehemently attacked Calvin. After a violent
scene in church, which is painted, perhaps, with some
exaggeration by the reformer,1 he was forced to leave the
city. The two old friends, now declared enemies, did not
spare each other henceforth. Castellio retired to Basle,
and, among his other employments, busied himself with
the free criticism of the Calvinistic doctrines ; and par
ticularly, nearly ten years after this, a tract appeared on
the death of Servetus, and the subject of toleration, which
was at once imputed to him by Calvin and Beza. Both
replied in no measured terms. Later still, an anonymous
publication, attacking with keen Togic and covert and
ingemous sarcasm the Genevan theology, was supposed
to proceed from his pen ; and the reformers, in their
answer in the preface to their version of the New Testa
ment, stigmatize him as a " deceiver and vessel of Satan."
It is but a melancholy spectacle of polemical hatred on
both sides ; but the truculence of the theologians, it must
be confessed, bears off the palm. Castellio was no match
for them in strength of argument or firm consistency of
purpose. He lived on in great poverty at Basle, cultivating
his garden with his own hand, and without the means of
fuel, as he sat up at night to finish his translation of the
Scriptures. He died in want, in 1563, the same year as
Calvin ; and Montaigne2 has given vent to_his_expressions
oX-fihanie fox.his age, thatone so distinguished should
have been leijt.to die so miserably. A regretful memory
1 Letter to Farel, vol. i. p. 396. 2 Essais, lib. i. c. 34.

128 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
lingers around his blameless scholarly life, pinching pov
erty, and sad death, and especially the incident, so touch
ing in its simplicity, of his going, during the night, to the
banks of the Rhine, to pick up pieces of drift-wood for his
scanty fire, — a story which was only elicited from him in
answer to Calvin's charge of his having stolen the wood,
— a fact sufficient to prove the disgraceful spirit in which
these controversies were conducted, and how deservedly
they are consigned to oblivion.
The controversy with Bolsec carries us ou to 1551, and,
both in its special subject, and in the character of the man,
presents a marked contrast to the preceding. Bolsec was
originally a Carmelite monk, but he had thrown aside the
habit, and betaken himself to the practice of medicine.
He came to Geneva in the above year, and settled as a
physician. There is no reason to doubt the integrity of
his character, although Beza has thrown out insinuations
against it. What were his previous relations to Calvin,
we are not informed ; but he began to question his great
doctrine of predestination. He made it the subject of
discussion and attack among his friends. This no sooner
reached Calvin's ears than he called him to account, —
summoned him first to a private interview, then before the
consistory, and made him understand that he was not at
liberty to question the Genevan doctrine. In a letter to
Christopher Libertet, Calvin has given a description of the
manner in which Bolsec sought to vindicate himself, and
how he was dealt with by himself and the other clergy.
The picture is not a very amiable one, and the poor her
etic excites our sympathy, even in the narrative of his
great adversary. " He was called before our Assembly,
when, in spite of his cavils, I dragged him from his hiding-
place into the light. Besides the fifteen ministers, other

CALVIN. 129
competent witnesses were present ; and all know that, if
he had had a single drop of modesty, he would have been
immediately convicted. At first he used trifling and pue
rile cavils ; but, being more closely pressed, he threw aside
all shame. Sometimes he denied what he had twice or
thrice conceded, and then admitted what he had ques
tioned ; he not only vacillated, but entirely abandoned his
principles, and kept working in the same circle, without
measure or aid." ' No wonder ! — to be baited by fifteen
ministers, with Calvin at their head, must have been more
than enough to disturb the consistency and weaken the
resolution even of the boldest heretic. The matter did not
end here. On the occasion of a sermon in St. Peter's, on
the subject of predestination, Bolsec was so foolish as to
step forth, and take up the argument against the preacher,
a certain John de St. Andre. Calvin had entered the
church unobserved, during Bolsec's address, and suddenly
presenting himself before the heretic, overwhelmed him
with quotations from Scripture and Augustine. Farel
joined in trie" d!scussT6*n7"and the police terminated it by
apprehending Bolsec for abuse of the clergy and disturb
ance of the public peace. It became a somewhat serious
question, how to deal with so daring an offender. Nego
tiations were entered into with the Bernese and French
ministers on the subject, the moderation of whose coun
cils do not seem to have been particularly pleasing to the
reformer. It has been insinuated, but on a very slender
foundation, that he would not have been disinclined to
proceed to the last extremity against one so hardened.
There was no warrant, however, for any extreme proced
ure. The churches all advised moderation in the view of
1 Epis. Beza, ed. Hanov., 1597, p. 166.

130 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
the abstruseness and darkness of the subject of contro
versy; and Bolsec was merely sentenced to banishment
from the city whose doctrinal quietude he had disturbed.
He afterwards revenged himself, in a somewhat dastardly
way, by writing a life of Calvin, in a spirit of slanderous
detraction which effectually destroys all sympathy with
him, or interest in his sufferings.
The Sacramentarian controversies with Westphal and
Heshusius, extend to the very close of Calvin's life. No
feature in the internal history of the Reformation is at
once more painful and perplexing than that which is
unfolded in these controversies ; the subtlety, and, in truth,
unintelligibility, of the distinctions contended for, the
sacredness of the topic, and the fierce violence of the
contention — all make a picture which even the polemic
theologian of modern times can scarcely delight to con
template, and which is apt to inspire the historical student
with mere weariness and disgust. We have already, in
our former sketch, seen with what vehemence Luther
maintained- his ground on this subject, against the Swiss
divines at Marburg. He never got reconciled to them,
and to the last his language was that of uncompromising
and disrespectful opposition to their supposed doctrine.
Melancthon, on the other hand, so soon as he was brought
into personal contact with Calvin, especially at the Diet
of Ratisbon, began to incline to his opinion of the Eucha
rist, which, denying the reality of a local presence, as
asserted by the Lutherans, maintained the reality of a
spiritual presence in the elements, and a true participation
of the very body and blood of Christ by the faithful.
Through the influence of Calvin, mainly, an agreement or
" consensus" of sacramental doctrine was established at
Zurich, in the close of 1549. It was fondly hoped that

CALVIN. 131
the result of this might be to promote a general harmony
on the subject, not only in all the reformed churches, but,
moreover, between them and the Lutheran Church, or at
least to open up the way for such a comprehensive union.
Never was hope more utterly disappointed. The abated
zeal of Luther, as the sadness of those last years was fast
bearing him to the grave, was taken up with increased
bitterness and a yet more narrow intolerance by some of
his followers. Without the excuse of those traditionary
associations which clung to his great mind, and from which
he could never set himself free, the men — such as Flac-
cius and Osiander, on the one hand, and Westphal and
Heshusius, on the other — who embraced what they sup
posed to be the strict type of Lutheran doctrine, carried
into controversy a spirit equally violent and mean, which
at once hardened the excesses of the reformer's dogmatism,
and covered it with the contempt of their own weakness.
There is not anywhere in theological history a set of men
more factious in spirit, less amiable in character, or even
less respectable in strength, than the Lutheran divines
who now occupy the field, and darken and confuse it with
their polemic din. Well might Melancthon say that " he
lived as in a wasp's nest," and pray to be delivered from
the " rabies theologorum." They embittered his last mo
ments by their furious and unmeaning contests, and made
him sigh for a rest above, undisturbed by controversial
clamor. Well might Calvin say, "Ah, would that Luther
were still alive ! These people have none of his virtues ;
but they think to prove themselves his disciples by their
cries." Westphal, a pastor at Hamburg, takes his rank among
the most violent of these Lutheran divines. In the hands
of this man, the sacramental "concordat" of Zurich be-

132 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
came a nucleus of more embittered controversy than ever.
Instead of "being softened to concord"1 "by that temper
ate simplicity of doctrine, he seized upou the very name
of agreement as a kind of furies' torch to rekindle the
flame," — aflame which continued to burn in the Lutheran
Church till it ate all the heart of Christian life out of it,
and which, by the antagonistic spirit it provoked, became
a source of weakness and disgrace to the Protestant cause
in general.-' Calvin, first of all, replied with some mild
ness to this " foolish fellow," refusing to name him, or to
enter into personal conflict with him. But when, instead
of being silenced, " he flamed forth with much greater
impetuosity," it became necessary, he says, "to repress his
insolence ; " and he wrote and published, with iucredible
haste, in 1556, his " Second Defence of the Sacraments,
in Answer to the Calumnies of Westphal." The heat and
rapidity with which he composed this treatise maybe held
in some degree to excuse the vehemence of its expres
sions, as he himself urges to Bullinger. Moreover, the
conduct of Westphal, in his cruel treatment of John
A'Lasco and a 'company of reformed brethren, who, having
been driven from England, on the accession of Maiy,
sought refuge in Denmark, had justly kindled the keen
sensitiveness and warm feelings which Calvin ever showed
towards the oppressed. Yet, making every allowance,
it must be admitted that here, as too often, Calvin " an
swered a fool according to his folly." Invective, con
tempt, and scorn he pours upon him as from a full vial,
overwhelming him at once with logic and abuse. " If
1 Preface to Second Defence of the Sacraments.
2 As Calvin himself said, "The enemies of Jesus Christ are delighted at
seeing us fighting together, as if it were a kind of cock-fight."— Preface to
"Exposition of Zurich Consensus," 1544.

CALVIN. 133
I have used, in some cases, too strong expressions," he
says, in the preface addressed to " all honest ministers of
Christ," "you must consider, according to your wisdom,
how he has goaded me to this. His book appears written
with no other object than that of casting us down to hell,
and overwhelming us with curses. What could I do
otherwise than act according to the proverb, ' The bad ass
must have a bad driver,' to prevent him indulging too
complacently in his savage temper ? " Westphal retorted,
complaining that Calvin had treated him worse than the
Anabaptists, Libertines, and Papists ; and Calvin replied,
in a " last admonition to Joachim Westphal."
In the meantime, many still smaller names had entered
the field — "petulant, dishonest, and rabid men, as if they
had conspired together" to make the reformer " the special
object of their virulence" — "a foul apostate of the name
of Staphylus," one named Nicolas le Coq, and lastly,
Teleman Heshusius ; and finally, in one more publication,1
on the " True Partaking of the Flesh and Blood of Christ,"
the reformer made a rejoinder to these attacks. His old
strength is not abated, but there is mingling with traces of
the former violence a nobler spirit of aspiration for peace
from the weary contentions which now, in 1560, were fast
¦wearing him out. This gathers around the name of Me
lancthon, just departed, in an affectionate and touching
appeal, wherein we can read a depth of tender warmth
amid all his proud and flaming zeal. " O Philip Melanc
thon, for I appeal to thee who art now living in the bosom
of God, where thou waitest for us, till we be gathered
together with thee to a holy rest ! A hundred times hast

1 Beza, accustomed to service of this kind, took up the cause when his
friend dropped it. 12

134 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
thou said, when, wearied with labor and oppressed with
sadness, thou didst lay thyself familiarly on my breast,
Would that I could die on this breast ! ' Since then I
have a thousand times wished that it had been our lot to
be together."
Well might Calvin be weary of controversy ! And yet
we have still to notice the two most memorable struggles
in which he was engaged, viz., his final contest with the
Libertines, with Amy Perrin at their head, and the sad
affair of Servetus.
The renewed contest with the Libertines was protracted
during a long period, and was, beyond doubt, the central
contest of Calvin's existence — waged hand to hand, and
for life or death, through many strange turns and changes.
It did not terminate till about two years after the death of
Servetus — and the latter event is in some degree mixed
lip with it ; but it will be more convenient to complete our
view of it, before passing to consider the circumstances
connected with the trial and execution of Servetus. It
is only its most general outline that we can trace ; and,
indeed, amid the confusion in which, to some extent, the
subject has been left by all the historians of Geneva, as
well as the biographers of Calvin, it is not easy to describe
the various influences under which it was so long pro
longed, now in Calvin's favor, and now in favor of his
opponents, while yet terminating in what appears a con
temptible emeute, leaving Calvin victor of the field.
Amy Perrin had at first been a friend of Calvin, — one
of those who solicited his return, and to whom, in conjunc
tion with the reformer, had been committed the prepa
ration of the ecclesiastical ordinances. Ambitious himself,
however, and united to a family both the male aud female
members of which seem to have cherished a natural

CALVIN. 135
dislike to the reformer, he soon began to chafe under the
pride and rigor of the Calvinistic rule, and gradually
attached himself to the mixed liberal party, whose prin
ciple of fusion was mainly hostility to Calvin. Personal
causes served to embitter the animosity — scandals too
dark and wretched for us to rake from their forgotten
hiding-places. The picture which the Reformer has drawn
of the whole Favre family in his letters is colored with a
grim harshness, and vivid with touches of the most biting
sarcasm. The intensity of his temper — sparing no folly,
and exposing, with a kind of zest, all the details of their.
disgrace — comes out strongly. He fixes their several
features by some ludicrous or opprobrious epithet, concen
trating at once his scorn and their absurdity or baseness.
Speaking, for example, of a marriage in the family, which
had been conducted, in his view, with a flagrant mockery
of religion, and the consequences of which ¦were deserv
edly humiliating, he writes to Viret:1 "Proserpine (sup
posed to be wife of Francis Favre, the head of the family),
the day before they received the spouse with such honors,
beat the mother-in-law in such a manner that she bled
profusely; her whole countenance was disfigured with
wounds, and her head covered with dirt. You know the
old woman's -temper ; she was heard through the whole
street calling on God and man to assist her. We cited her
before the consistory, but she escaped to her sisters. Pen-
theselea (Perrin's wife) will certainly have to be repri
manded stoutly ; she patronizes the worst causes, and
defends herself furiously ; in short, her very word and
deed betray her utter want of modesty." Another marriage
at the house of a widow was celebrated with dancing, at
1 Ep. Beza, Es. 69.

136 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
which the same Pentheselea had distinguished herself, and
the opportunity of reprimanding her could not be passed
over. She. seems, however, to have been almost a match
for Calvin ; for, according to his own confession, she
" abused him roundly," while he answered her as she
deserved. " I inquired," he continues, " whether their
house was inviolably sacred, — whether it owed no sub
jection to the laws ? We already detained her father in
prison, being convicted of one act of adultery ; the proof of
a second was close at hand ; there was a strong report of a
third ; her brother had openly contemned and derided the
Senate and us. Finally," I added, " that if they were not
content to submit to us here under the yoke of Christ, they
must build another city for themselves ; for that so long as
they remained at Geneva, they would strive in vain to
elude the laws, and that if each person's head in the house
of Favre wore a diadem, it should not prevent the Lord
from being superior." 1
All this occurred at an early period of the struggle in
15-16. The execution, in the year following, of Gruet, a
leader, among the spiritual Libertines, whose opinions are
represented as of an impious and flagrant character, in
creased the bitterness of the factions. Calvin stretched
his power to the utmost. Slashed breeches, in which the
young Libertines had delighted as a symbol of their party,
were prohibited, " not that we cared about the thing itself,"
he says, "but because we saw that, througli the chinks of
those breeches, a door would be opened to all sorts of pro
fusion and luxury." The Libertines, in their turn, carried
their license to the extent of publicly insulting Calvin, and
threatening to cast him into the Rhone. He professed to
1 Letters, vol. ii. p. 39,

CALVIN.

137

laugh at their threats as only " the froth of the pride of
Moab, whose ferocity must at length fall with a crash."
Things continued in this state through various alternations,
Perrin being now imprisoned, with his wife and father-in-
law, and now again, through a change of fortune, not only
elevated to the magistracy, but made chief syndic. This
took place in 1549, and Calvin ridicules unsparingly his at
tempts at statesmanship, calling, him now the "Comic
Csesar," and the " Tragic Csesar."
The execution of Servetus in 1553', gradually drew the
contest on to a denouement. The deep feeling which in
various quarters was excited by this event, and the vehe
mence with which it was directed against Calvin, seemed
to encourage the Libertine party to action. One Berthelier
tried to wrest from the consistory its right of excommuni
cation, and to force admission to the Lord's Supper, from
which he had been excluded. But Calvin's firmness baf
fled him, and even awed Perrin. In the beginning of 1554,
there was a sudden truce, and things assumed a quieter
look. But there was no sincerity of reconciliation on either
side, and the contention soon broke out more fiercely than
ever. Calvin's power seemed to totter in his hands. He
wrote to an old friend, whose name is not given, " If you
knew but a tenth part of the abuse with which I am
wounded, feelings of humanity would make you groan at
sufferings to which I am myself grown callous. Dogs bark
at me on all sides." At length, in 1555, the crisis came —
a confused and disorderly affair, the account of which reads
more like a street riot than anything else. Perrin with his
fellow-leaders Berthelier and Peter Vandel, had probably
planned a regular rising of the populace, which was to be
directed against the French in the city, for the cries heard
in the tumult took something of this shape. Their own
12*

138 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
confusion, however, or the apathy of the citizens, con
verted it into a ridiculous failure. They then tried to
make light of the affair ; but the Council of Two Hundred
assembled, and took a veiy different view of it ; and, ap
prehensive for their safety, the agitators fled from the city.
Sentence was pronounced against them in absence. They
were condemned to lose their heads and be quartered, and
special tortures were to be inflicted on Perrin. The sen
tence was executed in effigy; and the city permanently
delivered from commotion.
Thus terminated the long struggle with the Libertines,
in which, whatever be our judgment of particular points of
Calvin's conduct, we must admire his heroism, and more
over rejoice in his triumph. For it was undoubtedly the
triumph of moral order against a liberalism which, resting
on no basis of principle, and conserved by no bonds of
moral feeling, must have speedily dissolved in its own suc
cess, and left Geneva a sure prey to internal factions and
weakness. As it was, Geneva became, strange as it may
seem, the stern cradle of liberty, an asylum of Protestant
independence against the gathering storms of despotism.
on all sides. Freedom of thought and action were indeed
crushed, for the time, under an iron sway ; but in behalf of
a moral spirit which, nursed by such rough discipline, was
to grow into potency till it became more than a match for
Jesuitical state-craft in many lands, and — from the very
limitations of its infancy — only expanded into higher and
healthier forms of development.
In the meantime, it must be confessed, as we turn to
gaze upon the picture presented to us in the trial and death
of Servetus, it is difficult to trace the germs of liberty in
the Genevan theocracy. We shall not attempt to enter
into the endless polemic that surrounds this affair. The

CALVIN. 139
main facts are palpable, and not only not denied, but
gloried in by Calvin and the other reformers ; for they all
share almost equally with him the undying disgrace which,
under all explanations, must forever attach to the event.
The wise Bullinger defends it,1 and even the gentle
Melancthon could only see cause for gratitude in the hide
ous tragedy. The special blame of Calvin in the whole
matter is very much dependent upon the view we take of
his previous relation to the accusation and trial of Servetus
by the Inquisition at Vienne. If the evidence, of which
Dyer has made the most, were perfectly conclusive, that
the reformer, through a creature of his own of the name
of Trie, was really the instigator from the beginning of
the proceedings against Servetus, — that from Geneva, in
short, he schemed with deep-laid purpose the ruin of the
latter, who was then quietly prosecuting his profession at
Vienne, — and, from MSS. that had privately come into
his possession, furnished the Inquisition with evidence of
the heretic's opinions ; — if we are compelled to believe all
this, then the atrocity of Calvin's conduct would stand un
relieved by the sympathy of his fellow-reformers, and
would not only not admit of defence, but would present
one of the blackest pictures of treachery that even the his
tory of religion discloses. The evidence does not seem
satisfactory, although it is not without certain features of
suspicion. There can be no doubt, however, that Calvin
was so far privy, through Trie, to the proceedings of the In
quisition, and that he heartily approved of them. Nor is
there further any reason to doubt that he contemplated
from the first the death of Servetus as a stern necessity,
should he ever come to Geneva, as he had offered to do.
1 Original Letters, Parkes Society, part ii. p. 742.

140 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
In the well-known letter on the subject, which is not
printed in Beza's collection, but has since been published,
he tells Farel that he was unwilling that Servetus should
trust to him; for, he- adds, "If he should come, and my
authority be of any avail, I will never suffer him to depart
alive." "¦
Having escaped from Vienne,2 before the completion of
i " Sed nolo fidem meam interponere. Nam si venerit, modo valeat mea
authoritas, vivum exire nunquam patiar." — Letters, vol. ii. p. 19.
2 Servetus had led a wandering kind of life. Born in 1509, the same year
as Calvin, at Villeneuve in Arragon, he had passed into France; and in this
respect too, like his great adversary, had first devoted himself to the study
of the civil law at Toulouse. He appears to have here taken to the study of
the Scriptures, and imbibed his peculiar notions of the Trinity. Excited by
the movement of the Reformation, he set out for Germany, and sought inter
views with CEcolampadius at Basle, and Bucer and Capito at Strasburg.
About this time, viz. in 1531, he prepared and published his first book, enti
tled De Tnnitalis Erroribus libri septem. In the following year he published
a further volume on the same subject, Dialogorum de Triniiate libri duo, in
which he reviews, and to some extent retracts, his previous opinions — not as
false, but as imperfect. It was not till more than twenty years after this
that his more elaborate work, which formed the ostensible ground of his con
demnation, appeared at Vienne anonymously, under the title of Chrislianismi
Restitutio. In the interval, he had corresponded with Calvin, and furnished
him with various statements of his views, and even offered to come to
Geneva. It is difficult to give any intelligible account of his peculiar views. While
an anti-Trinitarian, he cannot be regarded in any modern sense as a mere
Humanitarian or Unitarian. The following exposition by Emile Saisset (Re
vue des Deux Mondes, Mars 1848) may interest, but can scarcely enlighten
the reader. "God, indivisible in Himself, divides Himself in ideas; ideas
divide themselves in things. God is the absolute unity which creates all —
the pure essence which essentiates all. Essence and unity descend from
God to ideas, and from ideas to everything else. He is an eternal ocean of
existence, of which ideas are the currents and things the waves. Ideas
regarded in their entire essence, are the uncreated light, or the Word of God.
So they all emanate from one general and superior type, which is the type
of human nature, the primitive model of all beings. This central idea in
which all ideas unite, this sun of the world of ideas, this superior and primi-

CALVIN. 141
his trial, about the 7th of April, Servetus is found in Ge
neva about four months later. His intention appears to
have been to proceed to Italy, although Calvin represents
him as having come from Italy, — a fact, which he himself
denied in the course of his examination. In any case, it
seems to have been something like infatuation on the part
of the heretic to put himself in the way of Calvin, of
whose disposition towards him he could scarcely be igno
rant. The reformer seemed to recognize a sort of judicial
blindness in his conduct. " I know not what to say of
him," he remarked, " except that he was seized by a fatal
madness to precipitate himself on destruction."
It is a deeply pathetic picture, as we look back and try
to realize it, — that of the homeless and persecuted man
entering the theocratic city on foot and alone, in the middle
summer of 1553, taking up his residence in a small inn by
the side of the lake, and entering into frank and humorous
talk with his host, more like a man of the world than a
speculative enthusiast ; and finally, after he had dined,
wandering into the church where his great adversary was
preaching, — a fatal audacity, which led to his discovery.
Some one recognized and immediately reported the fact to
Calvin ; and just as the wanderer had made his arrange
ments to leave for Zurich, and hired a boat to carry him
across the lake, he was arrested, and conveyed to prison.1
tive type, this eternal model of human nature, is Christ ;" — a kind of German
transcendentalism born out of time, rather than any mere phase of Trinita
rian heresy.
1 These are the undoubted features of the story. The particular circum
stances and dates are involved in some obscurity. The common statement,
given both by Henry and Dyer, is that he arrived in Geneva in the middle
of July, and remained nearly a month incognito. Mr. Gordon, in his inge
nious, and, upon the whole, very fair pamphlet, on " Calvin and Channing,"
London, 1854, shows that there is good reason to doubt this. The point is

142 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
Calvin takes to himself all the merit of this step, and the
character and circumstances of the trial were mainly
arranged by him.
The particulars are full of interest. At first a young
man,1 Calvin's secretary, undertook the office of accuser,
and prepared an indictment against him of thirty-eight
articles, enumerating various forms of heresy and of in
sulting offences against the reformers, and especially Cal
vin. It was found that the young champion of orthodoxy
was no match for the veteran polemic who had vexed his
brain so long with every species of theological subtlety;
and Calvin himself, and the other clergy, then entered the
lists personally against him. Encouraged, probably, by
some feeling that there was a party in Geneva prepared to
back him, Servetus gave way at first to great insolence of
manner, and dared his adversaries in a very contemptuous
way. In reference to some charge about contradicting
Moses' account of the Holy Land, in his notes on Ptolemy,
which he considered very paltry, he wiped his mouth and
said, " Let us go on," — a proceeding which deeply offended
Calvin. The most violent and abusive language was used
on both sides. Servetus addressed the reformer as a " piti-
not of much consequence, but the single contemporary statement quoted by
Mr. Gordon, and to which we have already referred, is quite decisive ("Pos-
tea se vinculis clam elapsus esset venit Genevam, et eodem die, videlicet
Dominico, audivifc concionem post prandium"), while neither Henry nor
Dyer furnish any evidence for the story of the incognito during a month.
As to Calvin's statement of his wanderings in Italy for four months (per Ital-
iam erravit fere quatuor menses), which would, of course, carry on his arrival
in Geneva from July to Angust, I do not think that much can be made of
this, as Calvin appears to have been in error about his visit to Italy altogether.
Upon the whole, the probability is against the story of the incognito for a
month, or for any considerable time. The fact whether he went to church,
has also been disputed. — See Impartial Hist, of Servetus, p. 82.
1 Nicolas de la Fontaine.

CALVIN. 143
ful wretch," a " disciple of Simon Magus," a " liar," and
even a " murderer." Calvin retorted on him as an " ob
scene dog," and "perfidious villain," and publicly devoted
him to eternal fire. The trial, nevertheless, proceeded in a
regular and formal manner, on through August and Sep
tember. The advice of the churches of Zurich and Berne
was asked, while the unhappy prisoner, complaining bit
terly of the hardships of his confinement,1 begged to have
his case appealed from the ordinary Council to that of the
Two Hundred. In this Amy Perrin supported him, with
the view more of turning the event to his own advantage,
against Calvin, than from any pity to the heretic. There
is no evidence that the reformer urged the Council to any
summary violence, or that his influence swayed with them,
especially in the judgment to which they came. They
seem to have taken the course of proceedings very much
into their own hands. But there is just as little doubt of
the conclusion to which Calvin's advir-e and movements
pointed all along, and — confirmed in their own feelings by
his authority, and that of Bullinger, Farel, and others — •
they passed sentence on Servetus on the 26th of October,
condemning him to death by fire. To do Calvin justice, he
appears to have used his exertions to have the mode of the
heretic's death alleviated, but without success.
On the very next morning after the sentence was pro
nounced, Servetus ¦was led out of the city to his dreadful
doom. The spot where he suffered is an extended eminence
of the name of Chaupel, — about two miles off — from
which the eye can trace the encircling ridges of the Jura,
1 His language on this subject is very pitiable, and, if entirely to be cred
ited, reflects infinite disgrace on his persecutors. " les poulx me manqent
tout vif, mes chauses sont descire'es, et nay de quoy changer, ni perpoint ni
chamise, que une mechante." — Impartial History of Servetus, p. 120.

141 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
as they rise like frowning battlements around the scene,
and the clear windings of the Arve as it pours its " snow-
gray " waters into the bright azure stream of the Rhone.
There the wretched man was fastened to a stake, sur
rounded by heaps of oak wood and leaves, with his con
demned book and the MS. he had sent to Calvin attached
to his girdle ; and, while with choked utterance he could
only say, " O God ! O God ! " the fire was kindled. The
wood was green, and did not burn readily. Some persons
ran and fetched dry faggots, while his piercing shrieks rent
the air ; and, exclaiming finally (in words which, with a
strange perversity, have been supposed to indicate his per
sistence in heresy to the last), " Jesus, thou Son of the
eternal God, have mercy upon me !" — he passed from the
doom of earth to a higher and fairer tribunal.
It is needless to indulge in reflective commonplace on
this memorable crime. To the reformers, on the principles
they avowed and advocated, it scarcely needed any apol
ogy. To us, looking back upon it from this point of time,
it can receive no palliation, and they are but poor and un
faithful sons of Protestantism, who have sought for a mo
ment to defend it. Whatever apology it may admit of
from the spirit of the age, and the supposed (blasphemous)
character of the charge, it can admit of no apology on any
intelligibly Protestant ground. In so far as the reformers
were concerned in it, they were simply untrue to their own
position, and ignorant of their own only rational weapon of
defence. To the benefit of this inconsistency and igno
rance they are entitled, but to nothing more. The act must
bear its own doom and disgrace forever ; and if it stirs the
heart more with pity for the long darkness of human mis
take than with indignation for the harshness of human
cruelty, this may be a less scandalous, but it is scarcely a
less mournful view of the matter.

CALVIN. 145
After the expulsion of the Libertines in 1555, Calvin's
power in Geneva was thoroughly consolidated. He had
still his controversies, indeed, with Westphal and others,
but the life-and-death struggle at his door had ceased, and
none any more sought to question his supremacy as the
master-spirit and governor of the city. Beza — a lively,
meddlesome, serviceable, but by no means a great man —
became his active coadjutor in the last years of his life,
and in his faithful reverence for his master's traditions, and
ardent and affectionate admiration of his genius, was a
man after Calvin's own heart. The great struggle that
was proceeding in France during these years, between the
hierarchical party, with the Guises at their head, and the
Protestants led by Conde and Coligny, deeply interested
both. In the somewhat unintelligible conspiracy of Am-
boise, in 1560, the aim of which was to wrest the power
from the hands of the Guises and bring them to trial, Cal
vin was supposed to have been implicated. He has him
self confessed that he knew about it, but that he disap
proved of it, and did all he could to hinder its execution.
This is a more likely version of the fact, for Calvin's polit
ical opinions were never of an active and violent character.
He had no love for political revolution of any kind, and
was not likely to have advised it.
About 1561, Calvin's long-continued bad health greatly
increased. Abstemious to an unnatural degree, and over
wrought by his many labors, he was, towards the close of
this year, seized with gout. Unable to walk, he was trans
ported tp church in a chair to continue his preaching, from
which he would not desist. His sufferings became aggra
vated during the next three years. Not one but numerous
disorders, bred by his unhealthy habits of study, laid waste
his frame. On the 6th of February, 1564, he preached his
13

146 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
last sermon. He was henceforth only able, when carried
occasionally to church, to say a few words to the people.
He is said to have been very uncomplaining, — only the
cry would sometimes come from him, " How long, O Lord?"
On the 2d April, Easter-day, he was for the last time car
ried to church, and received the sacrament from the hands
of Beza; but after this was still able to address a long
discourse to the members of the council who came to his
house. On the 28th he received the clergy, and boldly en
couraged them to persevere in the great work which he
had begun. Farel, himself tottering to the grave, came
from Neufchatel to visit him,1 and the old fellow-laborers,
after one more conference, parted to meet only in a less
disturbed state of existence. He lingered on during May,
and had even another meeting of the clergy in his house.
Then, on the 27th of the month, as summer was flushing
over those bright scenes amidst which he had lived un
touched by their beauty, he peacefully fell asleep. Beza
had quitted him only for a moment, and on his return the
reformer lay calm in death. " At the same time with the
setting sun," says his admiring friend, " was this great
luminary withdrawn."
He was buried without ostentation, but amidst the pro-

1 Farel was now in his eightieth year, and^in very feeble health. He sent
beforehand intimation of his visit ; and the brief letter in which Calvin sought
to dissuade him from his intention, the last probably he ever wrote, is very
touching : — "Farewell, my best and most right-hearted brother, and since
God is pleased that you should survive me in this world, live mindful of our
friendship, of which, as it was useful to the church of God, the* fruit still
awaits us in heaven. I would not have you fatigue yourself on my account.
I draw my breath with difficulty, and am daily waiting till I altogether cease
to breathe. It is enough that to Christ I live and die; to His people He is
gain in life and death. Farewell again, not forgetting the brethren. At Ge
neva, 11th May, 1564."— Beza, Vita Calv.

CALVIN. 147
found regret of the citizens, in the common cemetery of
Plein Palais outside of the city, on the banks of the Rhone.
He had especially enjoined that no nonument should mark
his resting-place. His severe simplicity turned away from
all such honors. His biographer1 accordingly says that his
grave continues unknown. In point of fact, however, a
plain stone, with the letters " J. C." upon it, is now pointed
out to the stranger as marking it, although, on what author
ity we do not know. Whether his remains lie in that par
ticular spot, or elsewhere, the simple and rude stone, as
the meditative visitant stands beside it and looks round
upon many imposing tablets raised over comparatively un-
memorable dust, seems no unfitting memorial of the man
— starting by its very nakedness associations all the more
sublime. Thus lived and died Calvin — a great, intense, and ener
getic character, who, more than any other even of that
great age, has left his impress upon the history of Protest
antism. Nothing, perhaps, more strikes us than the con
trast between the single naked energy which his character
presents, and of which his name has become symbolical,
and the grand issues which have gone forth from it.
Scarcely anywhere else can we trace such an imperious
potency of intellectual and moral influence emanating from
so narrow a centre.
There is in almost every respect a singular dissimilarity
between the Genevan and the Wittenberg reformer. In
personal^moral, and intellectual features, they stand con
trasted, — Luther with his massive frame and full, big face,
and deep melancholy eyes ; Calvin, of moderate stature,
1 Henry.

148 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
pale and dark complexion, and sparkling eyes, that burned
nearly to the moment of his death.1 Luther, fond and
jovial, relishing his beer and hearty family repasts with his
wife and children ; Calvin, spare and frugal, for many
years only taking one meal a day, and scarcely needing
sleep.2 In the one, we see a rich and complex and buoy
ant and affectionate nature, touching humanity at every
point; in the other, a stern and grave unity of moral
feature. Both were naturally of a somewhat proud and
imperious temper, but the violence of Luther is warm and
boisterous, that of Calvin is keen and zealous. It might
have been a very uncomfortable thing, as Melancthon
felt,3 to be exposed to Luther's occasional storms ; but, after
the storm was over, it was pleasant to be folded once more
to the great heart that was sorry for its excesses. To be
the object of Calvin's dislike and anger, was something to
fill one with dread, not only for the moment, but long after
wards, and at a distance, as poor Castellio felt when he
gathered the pieces of drift-wood on the banks of the
Rhine at Basle.
In intellect, as in personal features, the one was grand,
massive, and powerful, through depth and comprehension
of feeling, a profound but exaggerated insight, and a soar
ing eloquence ; the other was no less grand and powerful,
through clearness and correctness of judgment, rigor and
consistency of reasoning, and " weightiness " of expression.
Both are alike memorable in the service which they ren
dered to their native tongue, in the increased compass and
more flexible and felicitous mastery which they imparted
l Beza, Calo. Vita. 2 Ibid.
J See note, Calvin's Letters, vol. i. p. 409, and the expression quoted by
Hallam from Epis. Melancthon, p. 21 — of the harshness of which, however,
too much must not be made. — Lit. of Europe, vol. i. p. 492.

CALVIN. 149
to it. The Latin works of Calvin are greatly superior in
elegance of style, symmetry of method, and proportionate
vigor of argument ; he maintains an academic elevation of
tone even amidst the vehement impulses which animate
him, while Luther, as Mr. Hallam has it, sometimes de
scends to mere "bellowing in bad Latin." Yet there is a
coldness in the elevation of Calvin, and in his correct and
well-balanced sentences, for which we should.fike ill to
exchange jthe kindling though rugged paradoxes of Luther.
The German had the more rich and teeming, the Genevan
the harder, more serviceable, and enduring mind. When
interrupted in dictating for several hours, Beza tells us that
he could return and commence at once where he had left
off; and that, amidst all the multiplicity of his engagements,
he never forgot what he required to know for the perform
ance of any duty.
As preachers, Calvin seems to have commanded a
scarcely less powerful success than Luther, although of
a different character, — the one stimulating and rousing,
"boiling over in every direction ;" the other, instructive and
enlightening, filling the minds of his hearers with weighty
sentiments.1 Luther flashed forth his feelings at the mo
ment, never being able to compose what might be called a
regular sermon, but seizing the principal subject, and turn
ing all his attention to that alone. Calvin was elaborate
and careful in his sermons, as in everything else. The one
thundered and lightened, filling the souls of his hearers
now with shadowy awe, and now with an intense glow of
spiritual excitement;2 the other, like the broad daylight,
' Beza, Vita Calv.
2 The description which Beza bas given of Farel's preaching seems to indi
cate a resemblance in this as in other respects between the fiery Dauphinese
and the great German. " Farel," he says, " excelled in a certain sublimity
13*

150 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
filled them with a more diffusive though less exhilarating
clearness. Altogether, it is sufficiently easy to fix the varying char
acteristics, however difficult it may be to measure the
relative greatness of the two chief reformers : moral and
intellectual power assumes in the one an intense, concen
trated, and severe outline ; in the other, a broad, irregular,
and massive, yet child-like expression. The one may sug
gest a Doric column, chaste, grand, and sublime in the very
simplicity and inflexibility of its mouldings ; the other, a
Gothic dome, with its fertile contrasts and ample space,
here shadowy in lurking gloom, and there riant in spots of
sunshine, filled through all its amplitude with a dim, relig
ious awe, and yet, as we leisurely pause and survey it,
traced here and there with grotesque etnd capricious im
agery, — the riotous freaks, as it were, of a strength which
could be at once lofty and low, spiritually grand, yet with
marks of its earth-birth everywhere.
Siniolicity is, beyond doubt, the main feature of Calvin's
character; yet it is not the simplicity of nature, but of an
even and orderly spiritual development. Earnest from the
first, looking upon life as a great and stern reality, a hard
yet noble discipline, his moral..purpose..is„eKeiySdwre clear
and definite — to live a life of duty, to shape circum
stances to such, .divine ends as he apprehended^ jajid in
whatever sphere he might be placed to work out the glory
o£ God. Protestantism changed the' direction of his efforts,
of mind, so that nobody could either hear his thunders without trembling,
or listen to his most fervent prayers without feeling as it were almo?t carried
up to heaven." He adds, " Viret possessed such winning eloquence that his
-entranced audience hung upon his lips. Calvin never spoke without filling
the mind of the hearer with most weighty sentiments. I have often thought
that a preacher compounded of the three would have been absolutely per-
fjct." — Vila Calo.

CALVIN. 151
but probably very little the principle of them. As Roman
ist or Protestant, he must have equally led a life of intense
devotion and spiritual work. For there were no elements
of lawless affection in him, no excesses of youthful passion,
and, moreover, no impulses of mere selfish desire that
could have ever drawn him aside to the service of .the
flesh or the world. He was naturally fitted as well as
divinely trained for the special work which he had to do.
He found his career, or rather it found him, with a singular
felicity, amid the exciting strifes into which he was born.
Before his arrival in Geneva, he appeared very much the
mere scholar and theologian. Intellectual study seemed
not unlikely to divert and absorb his energies. But so soon
as he settled there, his great practical and administrative
qualities were drawn forth, and intellectual interest became
henceforth subservient to that which he felt to be his pecu
liar mission, — the reorganization of the divine kingdom in
the world, as he saw and believed in it.
Combined with this strict simplicity of aim in Calvin
there is a wonderful grandeur of endurance and power.
Nowhere lovely, he is everywhere strong. Strength looks
upon us with a naked glance from every feature of his fife
and work. He is stern and arbitrary and cruel, when it
suits him, but never weak. He seldom mistakes, and as
seldom fails. Confident in his own conclusions, and inflex
ible in his resolutions, he never goes back upon his practi
cal policy, nor upon his theological views,1 for revisal or
modification, but always forward in expansive and consist
ent development. There is no wavering and no scruples
in him. In all his pained and worn countenance you can-
i Beza has noticed this, Vita Cah. "In the doctrine which he delivered
at the first, he persisted steadily to the last, scarcely making any change."

152 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
not trace a quivering of feebleness, scarce a spark of sen
sitiveness, only the forward and steady gaze of resolved
and imperious duty, whatever it might cost him..
As to the" more social aspects of his character, it becomes
a very difficult task to be at once just and critical. On the
one hand, even in the face of his acknowledged harshness
in many cases, it is impossible to adopt the representations
of some, and regard him as destitute of all warmth of af
fection. Many of his letters, on the contrary, are marked
by an affectionate interest, which, if not very warm or
tender, is yet considerate and kindly. Then his relations
with Farel, and Viret, and Bucer, and still more Melanc
thon, from whom in many points he differed, sufficiently
show that there was something in him lovable and capable
of love, fitted both to engage sincere and deep regard, and
to respond with an affectionate faithfulness to the friendly
emotions which he excited. We have seen how his1 weary
spirit clung to that of Melancthon, removed beyond the con
tentions of theological strife ; and there is something pecu
liarly affecting in his long and sometimes very trying and
delicate relations with Farel, consummated by that last
kind and tender memorial which he sent him from his
death-bed. On the other hand, it appears to us a misinter
pretation of character altogether to read these tokens of
friendly sympathy as being what have been called " the
overflowings of a heart filled with the deepest and most
acute sensibility."1 Overflowing of any kind is exactly
what you never find in Calvin, even in his most familiar
letters. His strongest expressions of affection are always
calm and measured. When he condoles with "Viret and
Knox, for example, on the death of their wives, there is no
1 Preface to Letters — Constable.

CALVIN. 153
impulsive trembling or sensitive fulness in his tones, but
only a becoming and regulated expression of grief.1 Then
it cannot be forgotten that there are some of his letters
full of fierce expressions of hatred and auger, which one
can only read now with pity and sorrow.2 Affectionate and
even hearty to his friends, let us admit him to have been,
and capable of unbending so far as to play with the syndics
at tite game of the key (whatever that may have been), on
a quiet evening ; but Calvin was certainly not in the least
a man of genial and overflowing sensibility. His temper
was repressive and not expansive, concentrated and not
sympathetic, and his heart burned more keenly with the
fires of polemic indignation, than it ever glowed with the
warmth of kindly or tender emotion. *
There are nowhere in all his letters any joyous or
pathetic exaggerations of sentiment — any of that play of
feeling or of language which in Luther's letters make us
so love the man. All this he would have thought mere
waste of breath — mere idleness, for which he had no
time. The intensity of his purpose, the solemnity of his
work, prevented him from ever looking around or relaxing
himself in a free, happy, and outgoing communion with
nature or hfe. Living as he did amid the most divine
aspects of nature, you could not tell from his correspond
ence that they ever touched him — that morning with its
golden glories, or evening with its softened splendors, as
clay rose and set amid such transporting scenes, ever in
spired him. The murmuring rush of the Rhone, the frown-
1 His words to Knox, quoted by M'Crie, are : " Viduitas tua mihi ut debet,
tristis et acerba est. Uxorem nactus eras cui non reperiuntur passim simi
les." His letters to Viret indicate perhaps more warmth of feeling (vol. ii.
p. 22—24).
2 See especially a brief letter to Madame de Cany, vol. ii. p. 323.

154 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
ing outlines of the Jura, the snowy grandeur of Mont
Blanc, might as well not have been, for all that they
seemed to have affected him. No vestige of poetical feel
ing, no touch of descriptive color, ever rewards the patient
reader. All that exquisitely conscious sympathy with na
ture, and wavering responsiveness to its unuttered lessons,
which brighten with an ever-recurring" freshness the long
pages of Luther's letters, and which have wrought them
selves as a very common-place into modern literature, is
unknown, and would have been unintelligible to him. And
no less all that fertile interest in life merely for its own
sake — its own joys and sorrows — brightness and sadness ;
the mystery, pathos, tenderness, and exuberance of mere
human affection, which enrich the character of the great
German — there is nothing of all this in Calvin; no such
yearning or sentimental aspirations ever touched him.
Luther, in all things greater as a man, is infinitely greater
here. And in truth this element of modern feeling and
culture is Teutonic rather than Celtic in its growth. It
springs out of the comparatively rich and genial soil of the
Saxon mind, — deeper in its sensibilities, and more exuber
ant in its products.
On the whole, simplicity, grandeur, and consistency of
purpose mark out Calvin from his felTows7and constitute
the main elements of his greatness and influence. The
same kind of consistency which we shall meet with in his
system appears in his character — a consistency not of
manifold adaptation, but of stern comprehension. As the
complexities of Christian doctrine in his theology are not
merely evolved and laid side by side, but crushed into a
unity, so his life is unique and symmetrical at the expense
of richness and interest, and a whole and hearty humanity.
Both can alone be truly judged in reference to the exigen-

CALVIN. 155
cies amidst which they were prepared and the work that
they accomplished. Human progress needed both of them
assuredly, although it is a melancholy and saddening re
flection that it did so. It was a hard and bad world that
needed Calvin as a reformer. And when we think of the
Institutes in comparison with the Gospels, we cannot help
acknowledging how far man was then, alas ! is still, below
his blessings — how infinitely higher is the reach of divine
truth than the response of human desire, or any capacity of
human understanding.
An impression of majesty, and yet of sadness, must ever
linger around the name of Calvin. He was great, and we
admire him. The world needed him, and we honor him ;
but we cannot love him. He repels our affections while
he extorts our admiration ; and while we recognize the
worth, and the divine necessity, of his life and work, we
are thankful to survey them at a distance, and to believe
that there are also other modes of divinity governing the
world, and advancing the kingdom of righteousness and
truth. According to what we have already said, the great dis
tinction of- Calvin, as we see him appearing within the
sphere of the Reformation, is that in him the movement
found its genms_ofjorder. He is from the outset of his
career not at all, like Luther, the head of an onward strug
gle, but the representatiyejofa new organisation of the
disturbing forces, spiritual and social, that .were spreading
all around in France and Switzerland. While, therefore,
Luther is characteristically the hero, he is^haraetejistically
the legislator. He feels that the insurrectionary move
ment, which has been proceeding vigorously and fiercely
for a quarter of a century, needs a guide — some one, not

156 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
indeed to beat back and check it, but to rein it in,1 to im
press upon it a definite constitution, and to bring it under
discipline. Unless some such one should arise, the move
ment seemed likely to spend itself, on the one hand, in
the most extravagant forms of social disturbance, through
the spread of Anabaptism and other forms of pseudo-
Christian Communism; or, on the other hand, in intellect
ual unbelief, like that of Servetus and others. With a
view to what seemed the probable development of such
tendencies, Calvin was just as much the master of the
occasion as Luther was of a very different occasion : or,
to speak in other language, the instrumentality of Divine
Providence was manifested equally in the rise of the Gen
evan as in that of the German reformer. The elements
of religious thought and social liberty let loose by Luther,
and within more limited spheres by Zwingle and Farel, and
which required, as eminently in the case of Luther they
found, an heroic impulsion of character and a strength of
popular and enthusiastic zeal to represent and carry them
forward to triumph, — now in 1536 demanded the influence
of a quite different character, and a strength of intellectual
and moral, rather than of popular earnestness — an aristo
cratic, in short, rather than a democratic power, to direct
and control them.
Calvin was the impersonation of this spirit of order in
the surging movement of the sixteenth century. He was
so in two distinct and important respects, closely connected
with one another, but separately so important that it is dif
ficult to say in which point of view he appears most aa a
genius and master. He was so, first, as the great theologian
1 This is the very light in which, Beza tells us, he himself saw his work.
" He saw how needful bridles were to be put in the jaws of the Genevese."

CALVIN. 157
of the Reformation ; and secondly, as the founder_of_ a new
religion and social organization,— a new order of church
polity, — which did more than anything else to consolidate
the dissipating forces of Protestantism, and to oppose, if
not a triumphant, yet an effectual front to the old Catholic
organization, now beginning to gather life again after its
first rude shocks. His influence in both tliese respects not
only survived himself, but from the small centre of Geneva
was propagated through France and Holland and Scotland,
and to a large extent England, in a manner which, as we
look back upon it, exalts him to the highest rank of great
minds, who, by the concentration and intensity of their
thought and will, have ever swayed the destinies of their
race. Limited, as compared with Luther, in his personal
influence, apparently less the man of the hour in a great
crisis of human progress, he towers far above Luther in
the general influence over the world of thought and the
course of history, which a mighty intellect, inflexible in its
convictions and constructive in its genius, never fails to
exercise. In briefly speaking of Calvin as a theologian, we shall
not attempt to enter into any details of his religious opin
ions. This would be altogether foreign to the purpose of
these sketches. We shall only try to seize the spirit and
general character of his dogmatic system, as they serve to
explain his historical position, and as they came in contact
with the spiritual tendencies then most active, not only in
France, but in other countries.
When Calvin turned his keen glance upon the spiritual
atmosphere around him, which he was born into at its full
stir rather than produced, he saw at once the necessity, not
so much of charging it with any new impulses, as of in
troducing clearness, intelligibility, and arrangement into
14 "'

158 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
those already in operation. _ This was the task that he
essayed; and he brought to _ this /task no new spirit or
principles, but simply learning, faith, and vigor of mental
conception. Novelty of purpose. or. of jdoctrine-was-as far
as possible "from his thought. The famous jtefage..of^he
Institutes is mainly a. powerful,. -protest against -any such
view. What he really contemplated, and what he accom
plished in the Institutes, first in a comparatively slight, and
then in a more elaborate and definite form, was to recon-
struct, on a professed biblical basis, those doctrmaLideas
which7dlsengaged from the old Catholic traditionjby the
powerful preaching of the earlier reformers, had not yet
assumed, at least to the Gallic mind, any consistent ex
pression. The primitive Christian character of these ideas
is the great point which he tries to force upon the attention
of Francis I., in view of the calumnies which the enemies
of the Reformation had widely spread abroad. Novelty, or
even originality in doctrinal conception, would have been
repelled by him as a shameful accusation, and in fact was
so, when, under the misrepresentation of Caroli and others,
he was accused of Arianism. Nothing in his early career
moved him more, or gave him more pain. In the very face
of all such views, it was his single aim to set anew in
a Scriptural framework the old truth — to rebuild in its
purity and completeness the old dogmatic edifice which
had been overlaid and disfigured by the corruptions of
Popery. It arose from the veiy nature of the case, that this could
only be done in the abstract and systematic spirit in which
he attempted it. It was necessary to meet system with
system, theory by theory. The old Catholic tradition, not
withstanding all that happened, and the vigorous rents that
had been made in it by the attacks of the reformers, had a

CALVIN. 159
power not merely of resistance, but of successful reaction
to the "new" opinions, in the mere coherence and appa
rent unity which it seemed to present in contrast with the
latter, so long as these could at all be regarded as the mere
opinions of individual teachers. To show, in a systematic
method, that they could not rightly be so regarded, but that
they were in reality the revival of the primitive Christian
teaching, — to raise thus a coherent front of Scriptural dog
matism in opposition to the old ecclesiastical dogmatism,
and thereby at once save the principles of the Reforma
tion from license, and strengthen and consolidate them
against Popery, — such was Calvin's great work as a theo
logian.1 In an historical point of view we cannot think that any
will deny the distinguished success with which he accom
plished this work. Never did man, perhaps, more truly
measure his powers to the exact task for which they were
fitted, and then bring them to bear with a more steady and
adequate energy upon the achievement of that task. Seiz
ing with a powerful and comprehensive grasp the whole
scheme of Christiandoctrine, h^ analyzed, and exhibited
it, sten by step, in all its parts, and set it forth in an order
most imposing and effective. Melancthon had previously
systematized the reformed tenets, but without the same
confident grasp and mastery of logic. The German theo
logian possessed a more delicate perception, and a more
subtle insight into many points ; but this very fineness of
spiritual texture unfitted him for the more bold and compact
dogmatic handiwork that was then required: it gave in
decision and apparent feebleness to many of his views.
Calvin did not even know the meaning of dogmatic inde-
1 See his own description of his design, in his address to the reader from
the edition of 1559 — Tholuck's edit., p. 24.

1G0 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
cision. His intellectual penetration and directness over
matched all scruples and doubts, and enabled him at almost
every point to maintain a firm footing — to show his read
ers, as he himself says, " how to pursue and hold without
wandering the good and right way." And this mere
strength of intellectual consistency, traversing the whole
ground of Christian truth, — mapping it out, and arranging
it territory to territory, so as to present a great whole, — was
the primary, as it was among the most powerful, means of
giving to his work the influence which it secured ; it met so
exactly one of the most urgent wants of the Reformation.
When we bring into view the prominent Scriptural
ground on which this consistency was made to rest, we
recognize a further important element of Calvin's success.
It was not merely the coherence of a great logical method
which was presented in "the Institutes, but the method
seemed to identify itself at every point with Scripture, "and
appropriately express its truth. " He who makes himself
master of the method which I have pursued," he says,
" will surely understand what he should seek for in Scrip
ture." The logical framework, in all its well-ordered parts,
was clothed with the living garment of the Divine Word.
Even now it is difficult to disentangle the two ; for Calvin,
with all the theologians of his century, and of the succeed
ing century as well, does not quote Scripture merely in
support of his view, so that you can see the view distinctly,
and then the Scriptural warrant for it, but he everywhere
blends undistinguishably his own reasoning and Scripture,
so that it is often very difficult indeed to say where you
have the human reasoner, and where the Divine Teacher.
He applies biblical language, moreover, as all his compeers
did, with comparatively little regard to its historical con
nection, taking a statement at random from any book of

CALVIN. 161
the Old, or from any book of the New Testament, as bear
ing with equally conclusive force upon his argument. The
result of this is to exhibit the outline of his system as rep
resenting, in all its successive evolutions, a strikingly
Scriptural aspect. The argument at every point, even in
the first book, " De Recognitione Dei Creatoris," takes up
Scriptural phrase, and drapes itself in it as a sure vesture
fitted to it closely, and with great skill. This prominence
of biblical statement, worked into every phase of his dog
matic scheme, and disguising its mere abstract propositions,
constituted, and constitutes to this day with many minds,
the greatest success of Calvin's work. The philosopher
seems hidden in the divine, the dogmatist in the scripturist.
But it was a still farther characteristic of Calvin's system
that may be said to have completed its triumph. He not
merely apprehended the Christian, scheme as a whole, and
set it forth with the rare logrcaLancl_Scriptural consistency
we have described, butji^apprehended it with clear and
firm vision, in the view of a great central .truth, which shed
light, darkened indeed, but intense in its very darkness, upon
alHts_relations. The great moving-spring of the Reforma
tion, we formerly saw, was the principle of individual relig
ion — the assertion of the immediate relation of the soul to
God expressed in the doctrine of justification by. faith alone.
Calvin seized this great truth with the same clearness, if not
with the same intensity, as Luther. He saw with an equal
force that God is the only source of all good in man, — that
human righteousness can only spring out of the free act and
communication of the Divine grace, and that therefore the
supposed merit of any human work, even of the noblest
piety, as recognized by the Catholic tradition, was a mere
delusion, ensnaring to the soul. He laid down this as a
distinctive article of faith with his usual lucidity and coher-
14*

162 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
ence, bringing out the Scriptural proportions of his own
view against what he considered to be the perversion of an
eminent Lutheran teacher, Osiander.1 But beyond this
special aspect of the principle of the free and immediate
relation of the soul to God in the doctrine of Justification,
Calvin saw a still higher and more comprehensive aspect
of it in the doctrine of Predestination. If there be no veil
between the soul and God, so that the former finds all its
life and righteousness only in the latter, — the human in
the Divine Personality, — it is but a mere step from this to
apprehend the Divine Being as not only freely but sover
eignly, " of his mere good pleasure," bestowing life and
righteousness. Not only is justification of God alone, but
an act of the Divine sovereignty, definite, immutable,
irrefragable, has determined from all eternity the objects
of justification. Only then do we fully recognize free
grace in all its grandeur, when we recognize it in this
shape as the eternal election of God — when we acknowl
edge the Divine act of clemency : and not merely so, but,
moreover, the Divine act of reprobation, as eternally con
summated in certain persons without any reference to their
conduct. The whole of human life and of human history,
the good and evil that are in them, are gathered up by
Calvin into, a single point in the abyss of eternity, from
which all their complicated threads go forth in a double
series of undeviating demarcation. The Divine is appre
hended not only on its positive but on its negative side, as
working out not only a progressive kingdom of righteous
ness, but also a retrogressive kingdom of evil, and in each
base equally for its own glory. And this moral dualism is
Applied with a fearless and untrembling hand. It is in no
Third Book, chap. xi.

CALVIN. 163
sense a mere theory, the mere blank category of a tran
scendental philosophy, but a living principle, which he
brings to bear without flinching upon all the mysteries of
human existence. He confesses, indeed, that it is a " hor
rible decree;"1 but its clear and undeniable proof seems
to him to lie in the simple statement which follows up this
"confession : " God must have foreseen the special destiny
of each individual before he created him, and he only
foresaw this as having ordained it."2 This was the highest
triumph of his system. Even a logic such as Calvin's
could go no farther than this.
In what degree this confident audacity in carrying out
the great principle of the Reformation helped to give per-
mance to its general doctrines, and to make them dominant
not only over the learned but over the popular minds that
came within its "sway, is a question far too wide and im
portant to take up here. But none can doubt, looking
merely at the most obvious facts, that it had a very power
ful influence, not only in virtue of its own logical vigor,
and the craving there then was, in all minds astir upon
religious truth, for some great theory or absolute idea into
which to fit and harmonize their floating conceptions ; but
especially in virtue of the profound spiritual instinct out of
which the theory sprang, and which it long continued and
even continues to express to many deeply religious minds.
The feeling of direct and devout dependence upon God, —
of tracing all to him, and finding all in him, — of emptying
the creaturely will wholly in the Creative will, — of bend
ing low before the Majesty of heaven, and rejoicing that
1 " Decretum quidem horribile fateor." — Third Book, chap, xxiii.
2 Infeciari tamen nemo poterit quia prasciveret Deus, quern exitum esset
habiturus homo, antiquam esse conderit et ideo prresciverit, quia decreto suo
sic ordonavit.

164 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
our very weakness and misery are its strength and glory,
— this deep instinct of humility appeared to many merely
sublimed in the doctrine of Predestination, and apart from
its own argumentative consistency and hardihood, it thus
carried with it the energy and triumph of a lofty spirit
uality. As we look back, therefore, upon this great system in*
conjunction with the spirit not only of the century which
produced it, but of that which followed, we can well un
derstand the success with which it maintained its ground,
and the conquest which it won against rival systems.
Viewed as systems, as exhaustive logical generalizations
of Christian truth, Calvinism is the natural victor of Ar-"
minianism in this very thoroughness and higher consistency
of system which it presents ; in its greater Scriptural ear
nestness, and in the superior boldness and directness with
which it carried out the great fundamental principle of the
Reformation. Arminianism — no less infected than Cal
vinism by a mere logical zeal, having no more than the
latter any apprehension of a higher method than that of
argumentative definition even in the highest region of
spiritual truth — yet paltered and sophisticated in its logic
everywhere. It had neither the courage to lay aside logic
and confess its weakness, nor yet the vigor to carry it out.
And so it patched at every point, and covered the last
mystery, into which Calvinism rushed with daring footing,
with its thin glosses, — glosses so feebly transparent now
when we examine them, that it seems strange they should
have ever satisfied any minds, and least of all minds of
such acuteness as some of those that professed to rest on
them. The higher Scriptural congruity of Calvinism was espe
cially apparent on the merely dogmatical principle of inter-

CALVIN. 165
pretation then common. It mirrored far more profoundly
the spiritual depths of the epistles, and took up more
naturally and directly the great key-notes of their language.
It was more true, in short, as a whole, to the vast and
shadowy outlines of tliought which meet us everywhere
on the surface of Scripture, and especially concentrate
themselves in certain deep utterances of the letters of St.
Paul, over which criticism has long hung with a puzzled
stare. While thus claiming for Calvinism a higher Scriptural
character, it would yet be too much to say that Calvinism,
any more than Lutheranism, or latterly Arminianism, was
Primarily the result of a fresh and living study of Scrip-
.ure. Calvin, no doubt, went to Scripture. He is the
greatest biblical commentator, as he is the greatest biblical
dogmatist, of his age ; but his dogmas, for the most part,
were not primarily suggested by Scripture ; and as to his
distinguishing dogma, this is eminently the case. Like
Luther, he had been trained in the scholastic philosophy,
and been fed on Augustine ; and it was no more possible
for the one than for the other to get beyond the scholastic
spirit or the Augustinian doctrine. An attentive study of
the Institutes ¦ reveals the presence of Augustine every-
where ; and great even as Calvin is in exegesis, his exe
gesis is mainly controlled by Augustinian dogmatic theory.
As to the question of predestination, — so apt to be origin
ally identified with his name in theology, — Calvin is not
merely indebted to Augustine, but he verbally reproduces
him at great length ; and it is a favorite plan with him,
when hard pushed by the dilemmas which his own acute-
ness or the representations of opponents suggest, to retreat
behind the arguments of his great prototype, and to sup
pose himself strong within the cover of assertions not less

166 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION. *
startling and inadmissible, though more venerable than his
own. In fixing anew, therefore, this keystone in the
Christian arch, he was merely repeating, even more prom-
in entlylFan"elsewhere, an old work ; and strangely-enough,
as is so often the case in all such reactions,, the chief
weapon which he employed against the degraded scholas
ticism of his day, was tempered in the very forge which it
was meant to extinguish.
This appeal to an earlier Catholicity on the part of the
Reformed theologies — this support in Augustine — beyond
doubt greatly contributed to their success in their day. For
few then ventured to doubt the authority of Augustinian-
ism, and the theological spirit of the sixteenth century
hardly at any point got beyond it. It was a natural source
of triumph to the great Protestant confessions against the
unsettled unbelief or more superficial theologies which
they encountered, that they wielded so bold and consistent
a weapon of logic, and appealed so largely to an authorita
tive Scriptural interpretation. Calvinism could not but
triumph on any such modes of reasoning or of biblical ex
egesis as then prevailed ; and so long as it continued to be
merely a question of systems, and logic had it all its way,
this triumph was secure. But, now that the question is
changed, and logic is no longer mistress of the field ; now,
when a spirit of interpreting Scripture, v.Thich could have
hardly been intelligible to Calvin, generally asserts itself,
— *L.spiiit which recognizes a progress in Scripture itself —
a diverse literature and moral growth in its component ele
ments, — and which, at once looking backward with rever
ence, and forward with faith, has learned a new audacity,
or anew modesty, as we shall call it, according to our pre-
-¦dile&t-ions ; and while it accepts with awe the mysteries of
life and of death, refuses to submit them arbitrarily to the

CALVIN. 167
dictation of any mere logical principle ; now that the
whole sphere of religious credence is differently appre
hended, and the provinces of faith and of logical deduction
are recognized as not merely incommensurate, but as radi
cally distinguished, — the whole case as to the triumphant
position of Calvinism, or, indeed, any other theological sys
tem, is altered. An able writer in our day,1 has shown
with convincing power what are the inevitably contradic
tory results of carrying the reasoning faculty with deter
mining sway into the department of religious truth. The
conclusions of that writer, sufficiently crushing as directed
by him against all rationalistic systems, are to the full as
conclusive against the competency of all theological sys
tems whatever. The weapon of logical destructiveness
which he has used with such energy, is "a~weapon of
offence really against all religions dogmatism. What ¦
between the torture of criticism, and the slow but sure ad
vance of moral idea, this dogmatism is losing all hold of
the most living and earnest intelligence everywhere. And
it seems no longer possible, under any new polemic form,
to revive it. Men are weary of heterodoxy and of ortho
doxy alike, and of the former in any arbitrary and dogmatic
shape, still more intolerably than the latter. The old In-
stilutio Christianas Religionis no longer satisfies, and a new
Institutio can never replace it. A second Calvin in theology
is impossible. Men thirst not less for spiritual truth, but
they no longer believe in the^ capacity of system to em
brace and contain that truth, as in a reservoir, for succes
sive gerieration.s._ They must seek for it themselves afresh
in the pages of Scripture and the ever-dawning hght of
spiritual life, or they will simply neglect and put it pas* as
1 Mausel in his Bampton Lectures.

168 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
an old story. It may be a melancholy condition to have
come to ; but to deny that it is an existent and continually
more prevailing condition, is simply to shut our eyes, and
then, because we cannot see, to fancy that the world is
blind. In the endless conflict of systems, and the mutual
destructiveness of their opposing principles, there is a
lesson to be learned, but it does not seem to be exactly the
lesson which the Bampton lecturer draws. The uncer
tainty of reason in all religious matters, and the contradic-
toriness of its vaulting theories, should teach us a greater
trust in revelation, but a trust in it in its simplicity and the
gathered unity of its sacred spirit, rather than in any com
placently assumed traditionary meaning. If the intellect
, be a helpless arbiter in religious questions, and everywhere
starts more difficulties than it suggests solutions, our appeal
must be to Scripture, and we thank God for it; but to
Scripture not according to any arbitrarily asserted idea and
meaning, but in its variety and fulness, in its historical re
lations and critical and literary conditions,- — to the Divine
Spirit, in short, that speaks in Scripture under the neces
sary limitations of human language, and a progressive
development of moral thought.1
i It appears to me singular, I confess, that a wiiter of the acuteness and
power of Mr. Mansel, should find any satisfaction in the positions which lie
has laid down in his last Lecture. The views there propounded of the over
bearing authority of what he calls moral miracles, and of the absolute dog
matic virtue of all parts of Scripture alike, supposing the student to have
satisfied himself on the subject of the external evidences, seem alike unten
able and destructive, — ignoring, as they do, the most obvious conditions of
historical criticism, and by leaving the individual judgment helpless before
confessed difficulties, simply casting it into the arms of the first authority,
dogmatic or Catholic, to which it may incline. The very idea of a moral
miracle is a preconception of the worst kind, and could only be reluctantly

CALVIN. 169
We have still to consider Calvin in what appears to us
his most creative capacity, as an ecclesiastical legislator ;
and in order to do this, we must understand yet more fully
the historical necessities of his position, and of the Prefor
mation as represented by him.
After the first spiritual impulse of the Reformation had
spent itself, great difficulties and dangers arose on all sides.
Not only did the unsettled elements of Christian doctrine
require a master-mind to mould and reconstruct them into
an authoritative shape, but the same process of recon
struction was still more urgently demanded in the sphere
of social life. With the overthrow of the old Catholic
polity and discipline, there was left a great opening for
moral laxity, and the dissolution of the bonds of society.
Corrupt as that polity was in its deeper springs, it had yet
remained a highly conservative machinery of social and
national existence. Intolerable in its unspiritnality and.
oppressiveness, it operated as a vast social and political
agency, touching life everywhere, and binding it together
in all its relations. Gradually it had grown to this. Augus
tine's grand idea of a civitas Dei — of a Divine common
wealth — had developed itself till it covered the whole of
the western world, and not merely placed itself in contact

admitted after the application of every fair principle of interpretation still
left a demand for it; and Mr. Mansel cannot be ignorant that there are many
Christian critics who would not allow that any such demand is left. Accord
ing to any adequate historical idea of Scripture, it is about the last thing one
would wish to be obliged to do, to defend the Bible on any grounds or pre
sumptions of moral miracle.
Mr. Mansel's notions of regulative moral, as well as regulative speculative
ideas, seem an excess of the Kantian principle, neither likely to be fruitful in
ethics nor useful in exegetics. The ability and eloquence of the Bampton
Lectures I admire, with many others; but I heartily wish that they had been
sometimes less clever, and more helpful to the student.
15

170 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
with human activity at every point, but directly held -within
its embrace all the intricacies of personal, family, and na
tional relation. Starting as the most individual of all
religions, and seizing, by its primary influence, not on
man's outward condition, but on his deepest inward sensi
bilities, Christianity had, with the decay of the old Roman
Empire, taken its place, and become a religion in the
strictest sense — a great system of political as well as moral
government. Slowly pushing its way in conflict with the
immoralities of paganism, and the spurious ethics alike of
Gnostical and Epicurean philosophy, it at length permeated
and overflowed all aspects of human feeling and interest
throughout the western nations, mastered and moved
them, and ultimately, by a sure process of development,
took them all under its definite and careful protection.
Thus Christianity grew into the church, spiritual individ
ualism into Catholic traditionalism. Augustine stood on
the verge of this great change, recognized it, gloried in it,
and by his great work helped to forward it.
This second phase of Christianity had now worked itself
out. The radical Christian spirit was not and could not be
extinguished under all the compression of the Catholic
system ; and it had now, after many partial and ineffectual
efforts, risen up against it in might. For a thousand years
had the system dominated over all expressions of indi
vidual energy, fitting itself into human history, and in truth
mainly constituting that histoiy in its successive manifes
tations. Now, however, it was broken up. The warm
breath of a living gospel had dissolved it, and men were
cast loose from the bonds which had so long controlled
them. The old spirit of individualism, which in primitive
Christianity had gone forth with triumphant success into
pagan society, had, once more awakened as from a long

CALVIN. 171
slumber, and rent with sundering force the repressive
machiuery which had bound without destroying it.
Such an awakening as this, in the very nature of the
case, soon began to run into many extravagant issues. In
the first feeling of liberty men did not know how to use it
temperately; and Anabaptism in Germany, and Libertinism
in France, testified to the moral confusion and social license
that everywhere sprang up in the wake of the Reformation.
We can now but faintly realize how ominous all this
seemed to the prospects of Protestantism. It appeared
to many minds as if it would terminate in mere anarchy.
The religious revival seemed likely to become mere social
disorder. At the very best, this revival was everywhere
apt to be obscured and confounded by the disorder
spreading alongside of it, and pursuing it as its baneful
shadow.1 Then to add to the exigency thus arising out of the cir
cumstances of the Reformation itself, there were signs now
at length (1536) showing themselves in all directions of a
reviving strength in Romanism. With that singular vitality
which it had so often previously, and has so often since dis
played, it now, after the first shattering shock of the Refor
mation, took a new and more powerful start than in any of
its preceding developments. Jesuitism arose as the formid
able and well-matched opponent of Protestantism ; the
highest craft, subtlety, and energy, the most consummate

i Sir William Hamilton, in his notes about Luther (Discussions, p. 499 et
seq.), has indicated a very strong opinion as to the dissolution of manners
following the Reformation in Germany. There is, however, considerable
arbitrariness in his assertions, without any clear and definite background of
evidence exhibited. It were well if his notes about Luther and the history
of Lutheranism, of which he is understood to have had a large collection,
were in some shape given to the public.

172 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
immorality and persistent cruelty of the system, received
in this marvellous agency a fresh and vigorous birth ; and
it is only when we apprehend and bring clearly into view
its peculiar working and influence, that the later centuiy
of the Reformation becomes intelligible.
This, then, was the historical position which Calvin oc
cupied. He surveyed and realized it as no other mind of
his time did. He naturally hated every species of disor
der. His whole character and mind were constructive and
legislative. Protestant by religious conviction, he was con
servative and Catholic by natural instinct ; and accordingly
he was Tib sooner within the reformed movement, than he
aimed to fix it. Especially did the great idea, which had
been originally expressed in the Catholic Church, but had
become degraded into an unspiritual hierarchy — the idea
of a Divine state — hold possession of his mind. There
was a completeness in it, a unity and consistency, which in
all things charmed Calvin. He felt, moreover, that it was
only by the resurrection of this idea in some new form that
the reactionary strength of the Catholic polity could be met
and withstood. He saw clearly that unless the moral in-
intensity which had broken forth in the Reformation, and
separated itself from the old ecclesiastical forms, should be
turned into some new disciplinary institution, it would
spend itself aud disappear. It was not in the nature of
things that it should propagate itself merely by its own force.
It was obvious already in Germany that it was not doing so.
A controversial interest was there fast beginning to swal
low up the spiritual life out of which the Reformation had
sprung ; and with all his own strong polemic tendencies,
Calvin sufficiently discerned the evil that would come from
such a spirit — the mere negation and deadness to which
it would give rise. He was himself too practically earnest,

CALVIN. 173
and he had far too deep a feeling of the wants of human
nature and the divine education through which alone it can
be trained to strength and goodness, not to aim at some
thing higher than the mere settlement of controversial
dogma. Argumentative as he is, he is yet everywhere
more the legislator than the dialectician ; and it is an insti
tutional instinct and capacity, still more than any dogmatic
or polemic interest, that prompts and directs all his activity.
His mind, therefore, could not rest short of a new church
organization and polity, — of a new order of moral disci
pline, which, planting itself in the heart of Protestantism,
should at once conserve its life, and enable it to confront
the re-collecting forces and still powerfully repressive en
ergy of the Roman hierarchy. Strongly impressed by its
necessity, he aimed to impart to Protestantism a new social,
as well as doctrinal expression — to reconstitute, in short,
the divine commonwealth, the civitas Dei.
There are two distinct views that may be taken of this
part of Calvin's work. It presents itself, on the one hand,
as a moral influence, — a conservative, spiritual discipline
suited to the time, as it was called forth by it ; and, on the
other hand, as a new theory, or definite reconstitution of
the church. In the first point of view, it is almost wholly
adfnirable ; in the second, it will be found unable to main
tain itself any more than the Catholic theory which it so
far displaced, .j
The general principle of Calvin's polity was simply the
reiissertion of a divine order amid the confused activities
of the time — of the majesty, right, and only peacefulness
of divine law. That there is a kingdom of God in the
world ; that man is God's creature and subject, and that
there is only life for human society, and happiness for the
human race, in recognizing and acting upon this idea ; the
15*

174 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
consequent obligation of self-sacrifice, and the duty of sub
ordination and combination among all the members of a
common State, — these were the old truths applied by
Calvin to the reconstruction of the Christian community.
Any one who reads the opening chapter of the fourth book
of the Institutes will at once see how deeply he was struck
and penetrated with the idea oTthejjhurch visible, as well
as in-visible, and with the necessity of axlua-and becoming
relaliQn._of_.authority among its various constituents. His
consistorial scheme of government was to him the appro
priate expression of this authority ; and whatever may be
our critical judgment of this scheme, we are not to forget,
in reference even to some of most extreme and misdi
rected efforts, the absolute lawlessness with which it came
in contact. Such an order, even of the most stern and re
pressive kind, was better than no order ; and, in truth, we
may well believe, that it was only through such a system
of iron repression — a system which, in the nature of the
case, and in all the circumstances of the period, sometimes
confounded mere liberty with wrong, and mere folly with
crime, and cast its restraining presence into the very heart
of the family as well as the bosom of the church — that
the moral life of the Preformation could have been saved,
or, at any rate, strengthened and hardened as it was, for the
fearful contest that was before it. The more any one
studies the facts of this great crisis, the more will he be
forced to see that no more sesthetic spirit of freedom could
have then maintained its ground against the dark perjuries
and malice of the reactionary interest. It required a moral
spirit nurtured in hardness, and made strong-limbed by
strenuous and daring exercise, to encounter the supple
deceit and Satanic persistence of the Jesuit faction, spread
into eveiy land, and working by the most dexterous and
disguised communications.

CALVIN. 175
And when we contemplate for a moment the actaal
results of Calvin's discipline, all this most strongly appears.
It was the spirit bred by this discipline which, spreading
into France and Holland and Scotland, maintained by its
single strength the cause of a free Protestantism in all
these lands. It was the same spirit which inspired the
early, and lived on in the later Puritans, — which animated
such men as Owen and Baxter and Milton, — which armed
the Parliament of England with might against Charles I,
and stirred the great soul of Cromwell, in its proudest tri
umphs, — which made the solitary Knox, as he stood in the
antechamber of Mary, a' greater power than the queen
that he withstood, — which thus fed every source of political
liberty in the Old World, and burned undimmed in the gal
lant crew of the " Mayflower" — the Pilgrim Fathers — who
first planted the seed of civilization in the great continent
of the West. A stern and unyielding reverence for law
and duty, combined with a high resistance to the encroach
ments of mere selfish tyranny; an intense love of the
Bible, and an undoubting and indiscriminating application
of its examples to the business of life and the affairs of
state, — all that moral heroism in Puritanism which awes us
by its grandeur, though it may fail to win our sympathy or
enlist our love, — had its well-spring in Geneva, and reflects
a lineal glory on the name of Calvin. Linked not only
spiritually but formally with th& Genevan polity, it was
from thence it received the great theocratic idea which it
prominently embodied, and launched forth once more with
such triumph into the history of the world. That man, as
the creature of God, is near to God, and under the control
and sanctity of the divine influence, not only in some, but
in all expressions of his manifold activity; that he is
bound in all by a relation to the divine will ; that as there

176 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
is no individual goodness, so there can be no social bless
ing, and no real civil grandeur apart from God ; that the
civitas Dei, therefore, is no dream of mere enthusiasm or
of sacerdotal ambition, but a true idea resting on the ever
lasting relations of things, and all other ideas of the nation
or society rather the dreams and shows of which this is tlie
reality, — all this, of which Puritanism was conspicuously
the renewed powerful expression, was germinated in
the small state of Geneva, and from this narrow centre
went forth to mingle in the increase, and to add moral sta
bility to the ambition, of the highest form of human civili
zation that the world has yet seen. Saving from this new
and grand development given to Protestantism, in which
Germany had no share, it would have fared ill with it in
the great crisis through which it had to pass ; for it was
only this profound belief in a divine society and state, of a
kingdom of truth and righteousness in the world, that was
able to encounter the falsehoods of state-craft and the im
moralities of mere arbitrary power. It was only Puritanism
that proved a match for Jesuitism, and held it in check ;
and while other phases of Protestantism were shrinking
into mere formahty, or dying out in weakness, this was not
merely holding its own in a stern struggle with Romish
intrigue, but through many strange aberrations and internal
contradictions was working out in a higher form the princi
ples both of religious and of civil liberty.
It is a very different subject that is before us when we
turn to contemplate the theocracy of Calvin, in its formal
expression and basis as a new and definite outline of
church government. In this respect he made more an ap
parent than a real advance upon the old Catholic theocracy.
He took up the old principle from a different and higher
basis, but in a scarcely less arbitrary and external manner.

CALVIN. 177
There is a kingdom of divine truth and righteousness, he
said, and Scripture, not the priesthood, is its basis. The
Divine Word, and not Roman tradition, is the foundation
of the spiritual commonwealth. So far, all right ; so far,
Calvin had got hold of a powerful truth against the corrupt
historical pretensions of Popery. But he at once went
much farther than this, and said, not tentatively, or in a
spirit of rational freedom, but dogmatically, and in a spirit
of arbitrariness tainted with the .very falsehood from whose
thraldom he sought to deliver men, " This is the form of the
Divine kingdom presented in Scripture." Not the presence
of certain spiritual qualities, but the presence of certain
external conditions, which I have fixed and determined,
constitute the church. Scripture absolutely demands this,
and forbids that, in reference to the organization and order
of the Christian society. This idea of going back to Scrip
ture not merely as an historical starting-point, but de novo
and entirely, for all the elements of an ecclesiastical polity,
was one peculiar to Calvin'* and all who more or less em
braced or were influenced by his principles. It was not
only unacknowledged by Luther, but strongly distasteful to
his concrete and historical sympathies. He sought rather
to preserve the inherited Catholic machinery in eveiy
respect so far as it _was_ nqt.jjlainly opposed. to Scripture.
He wished merely to amend_ andrecttfy^s^obymusly un
christian, abuses.  AboliJiQn_andj^insJlLutioji.beyQnd this,
on any pretence of Scriptural simplicity, he strenuously
resisted against the pseudo-Puritamsm_of Carlstadt. The
old Catholic usages were not to be wantonly touched, but
under all their corruptions, and when stripped*from these,
remained at once dear to his affection and beautiful to his
imagination. But Calvin felt no such ties to the past, and
could never understand the influence of them on others. It

178 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
was his constant complaint against the Lutherans that they
preserved so many ceremonies, and his contempt for the
tolerabiles ineptias1 of English Protestantism is well known.
With no imagination, and but cold feelings, and a meagre
sympathy with traditional associations, — with a sphere,
moreover, singularly cleared for his activity in the small
state of Geneva, — he was led to indulge to the full his
legislative bias, and to plan and rearrange, according to his
own arbitrary convictions, a " religious constitution."
The vigor of this religious constitution sufficiently
showed itself in the approbation which it commanded, and
the manner in which it spread itself wherever the popular
will had scope in moulding the progress of the Reforma
tion. Presbyterianism became the peculiar church order
of a free Protestantism, carrying with it everywhere, singu
larly enough, as one of the veiy agencies of its free moral
influence, an inquisitorial authority resembling that of the
Calvinistic consistory. It rested, beyond doubt, on a true
divine order, else it never could have attained this histori
cal success. But it also involved from the beginning a
corrupting stain in the very way in \vhich it put forth its
divine warrant. It not merely asserted itself to be wise
and conformable to Scripture, and therefore divine, but it
claimed the direct impress of a divine right for all its de
tails and applications. This gave it strength and influence
in a rude and uncritical age, but it planted in it from the
first an element of corruption. The great conception which
it embodied was impaired at the root by being fixed in a
stagnant and inflexible system, which became identified
with the conception as not only equally, but specially
divine. The ritual thus once more preceded the moral ;
] Letters, vol. ii. pp. 341, 342.

CALVIN. 179
the accidental, the essential; external uniformity, moral
unity : and Calvin himself, seduced by this radical mistake,
sought by the mere rigor of the consistory, and the most
trivial details of over-legislation, to touch the heart of life,
and mould it to a holy and peaceful order. Never was
there a greater mistake. All the richest qualities and most
genuine aspirations of life forbid the attempt. However
temporarily strengthened, they cannot healthily grow under
such a system. The kingdom of righteousness can alone
flourish in an atmosphere of perfect freedom ; it is never
helped, but only injured, by any species of external com
pulsion. Divine society is only held together by inner
bonds ; it lives along lines of spiritual communication, and
not of legal enactment ; in its essence, in short, it is not
" of this world," while yet necessarily taking to itself, ac
cording to circumstances, some definite outward shape. In
so far as Presbyterian Puritanism came short of all this, —
nay, in many respects contradicted it, — it failed to realize
the only divine principle of moral government ; and the
theocratic idea accordingly, in its renewed assertion, fell
back once more into its old mistake and confusion. The
garments of Judaism still clung to it ; the idea had not yet
worked itself clear from the beggarly elements that haunt
it as its shadow, and are everywhere ready to supplant and
degrade it.
But were not these " elements," some will say, really bib
lical? — did not Calvin establish his church polity and church
discipline upon Scripture ? — and is not this a warrantable
course ? Assuredly not, in the spirit in which he did it.
The fundamental source of the mistake is., here : The
Christian Scriptures are a revelation of divine truth, and
not a revelation of church polity. They not only do not
lay down the outline of such a polity, but they do not even

180 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
give the adequate and conclusive hints of one. And for
the best of all reasons, that it would thave been entirely
contrary to the spirit of Christianity to have done so ; and
because, in point of fact, the conditions of human progress
do not admit of the imposition of any unvarying'system of
government, ecclesiastical or civil. The system adapts itself
to the life, everywhere expands with it, or narrows with
it, but is nowhere in any particular form the absolute con
dition of life. A definite outline of church polity, therefore,
or a definite code of social ethics, is nowhere given in the
New Testament; and the spirit of it is entirely hostile to
the absolute assertion of either the one or the other,
Calvin, in truth, must have felt this sufficiently in his con
stant appeal to the spirit and details of the Old Testament
legislation. The historical confusion, in this respect, in
which he and all his age shared, was a source of fruitful
error, here or elsewhere.
But what of the church, then, and church authority ?
4^_^X-£?t.jiis-^in,.§a'-!.altogether in such a view as we
liav£_suggested ?,...No ; not in the least. They appear, on
the contrary, in their only true and divine light, as resting
on Scripture, but not as absolutely contained and defined
in it. There is, and ought to be in both, a rightful conform
ity with Scripture, as with the growth of the Christian
reason in history. The church is everywhere a positive
divine institution resting on these two bases, — on the latter
not less than the former, as constituting no less, really and
practically, a jus divinum. For the renewed assertion of
the positive character and educational necessity of the
church, and for the fresh element of strength thus imparted
to Protestantism, we are indebted to Calvin ; but his special
theory of the church is no more exclusive than any other
theory. Neither his church, nor any church, is necessarily

CALVIN. 181
and absolutely the divine institution. Turn some arbitrary
ritual element in front, whether Romanistic or Calvinistic,
and make it the divine, and you invert the truly divine
method. This always turns the moral elements in front, —
the rights of faith, the rights of reason and of charity ; and
the ritual follows as a fitting and shifting vestment. The
spirit, in short, dominates, the form serves ; and it was
Calvin's great error — and is, alas ! by no means an ex
tinct error of Protestantism — to forget this fundamental
law of the divine, which we can ever only alter at our
peril. While claiming this divine freedom, without which truth
can nowhere live, it becomes us at the same time to re
member that the highest freedom is always bound fast in
moral law. This, the essential spirit of Puritanism, is
eternal, whatever may be the temporary character of its
dogmatical or ecclesiastical machinery. These may perish,
as they seem in many of their forms decaying ; but the
earnestness, righteousness, purity, and resoluteness, which
were the highest meaning of Puritanism, and the really
valuable growth of Calvinism, can never decay without
moral and social ruin. Amid all the expansions and re
finements of modern thought and life, let us hope, there
fore, that we shall never lose these genuine elements of
the Calvinistic spirit ; but while we open our minds to the
higher and more comprehending expressions of divine truth
that meet us everywhere, and learn a nobler wisdom and
tolerance amid all our differences, let us, at the same time,
always remember that there is no strength of good save in
the gospel of old, and no real dignity or beauty for human
life, save in Him " who did no sin."
16

Ill,

LATIMER.

L A T I M E E.

In the English Reformation we contemplate a state of
things peculiar and unexampled ; we do not see, as in
Germany, a mighty spiritual movement sweeping for the
moment all before it, and headed by one who gives voice
and direction and triumph to it ; nor yet, as in the Calvin
istic Reformation, a great reconstructive organization of the
doctrinal and social elements which had been disturbed
and set in motion ; but a complicated action of distinctly
political as well as religious forces,— the former frequently
crossing and impeding the latter, rather than contributing
with them to one grand result. This characteristic of
double action, of the working of political as well as religi
ous influences against the Papacy, goes far back into
English history ; and the political opposition is, in truth,
the earlier, and in some respects, the more powerful influ
ence. All along from the Conquest, such an opposition
marks like a line of light the proud history of England, the
grandest, because the richest in diverse historical elements,
that the world has ever seen. On from the memorable
struggles of the reign of Henry IL, when the political and
ecclesiastical interests stamped the impress of their fierce
contention so strongly on the English character, Rome ap
pears as an alien and antagonistic power in the country, —
as the threatening shadow of a concealed enemy, against
which the higher and healthier national fife is continually
16*

186 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
directing itself. With 'the reign of Edward III, and the
rise of Wickliffe, the religious clement rises, for the first
time, into clear and impressive prominence, working along
side of, and even outbalancing, the political action.
Wickliffe himself, in the earlier and later phases of his
career, represents both sides of the national movement
against the Papacy, — his primary position as the friend of
John of Gaunt being mainly political, and his final position
as the Theologian of the Scriptures and Rector of Lutter
worth being mainly religious. We find in his words the
powerful echo of the feelings then stirring the heart of
England ; the protesting vehemence of both nobles and
people as they raised the cry, " No ! England belongs not
to the Pope; the Pope is but a man, subject to sin;" the
awakening breath of an earnest Christian activity as he
bade his followers " Go and preach ; it is the sublimest
work ; but imitate not the priests, whom we see after the
sermon sitting in the ale-houses, or at the gaming-table, or
wasting their time in hunting. After your sermon is ended,
do you visit the sick, the aged, the poor, the blind, and the
lame, and succor them according to your ability." The
same principles which afterwards triumphed in the six
teenth centuiy were now everywhere operating. It is sin
gular, indeed, how even to its extravagances this earlier
reform movement in England mirrored the various features
of the later and more powerful movement, — the royal
moderation, the parliamentary indignation, the spiritual re
vival among the lower classes, the communistic exaggera
tions, into which the plain truth of the gospel, crudely
apprehended, so fastly ran. This latter result, in the com
parative swiftness with which it came in the fourteenth
century, was a sufficient indication that the time was not
yet ripe for a successful insurrection against Popery. The

LATIMER. 187
national mind was still too unenlightened, the popular feel
ing too unsteady, as thaarmed tumult of Wat Tyler with
his hundred thousand followers proved. The hierarchy,
moreover, was still too powerful ; its intelligence, and even
its moral strength, survived too strongly to permit the rise
of any consistent or extensive opposition.
With the death of Wickliffe in ]^b4, the moving energy
of his principles and teaching very much died out. Their
unfortunate association with the anarchy which character
ized the earlier years of Richard II.'s.weak and disgrace
ful reign, contributed to lesson and deteriorate their influ
ence, and to provoke against them severe parliamentary
penalties.1 The spirit, however, which the great proto-
reformer had kindled, lived on through the fifteenth cen
tury in Lollardism, and various obscure forms of religious
life. It penetrated, as a secret and quiet influence, whole
districts, binding poor families together by a spiritual bond
such as they could no longer find in the corrupt formalism
of the church, and cherished by the private reading and
transmission from hand to hand of portions of Wickliffe's
translation of the Scriptures. We can trace in the lan
guage of the" parliamentary acts directed against " divers
false and perverse people of a certain new sect, damnably
thinking of the faith of the sacraments of the church, and
of the authority of the same," how widely religious disaf
fection had spread, and with what unceasing and secret
acting — " by holding and exercising schools, by making
and writing books" — the Wickliffites sought to keep alive
a pure faith hidden in many hearts, long after they had
ceased to be a formidable power in the country. They
even spread into Scotland, carrying with them then: prc-
1 See Burnett, vol. i. p. 50; and Feoude, vol. ii. p. 20 — Act de Hereiico
comburendo.

188 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
cious books, and kindling wherever they went a divine
light in the darkness, — a peaceful and holy gleam amid
the wild contentions and miseries of that unhappy time.
With the dawn of the sixteenth century, and especially
as we near the great crisis of 1517, we are met by an
awakening religious life in England as elsewhere ; and
what mainly strikes us is the varied character which it
presents. It proceeds from diverse sources, and shows
itself in very different classes. There is a comparative
complexity in the Anglican Reformation, even on its purely
religious side, and altogether apart from the great pohtical
agencies at work, which are out of the sphere of our
present consideration.
There is, first of all, a marked Christian revival among
the poorer classes, alike among the tradesmen of the me
tropolis and the peasantry on the banks of the Humber, the
" Christian brethren" of London, and the "just men" of
Lincolnshire. It seems most natural to connect this revival
with the still unextinguished spirit of Lollardism, and to
recognize in it accordingly a fresh outburst from the long
choked-up source of Wickliffe's influence. This influence
had perished in any definite national expression, but there
seems no reason to question that it lived on as a hidden
life ; that persecution did not absolutely destroy it, but only
drove it underground into obscure channels no longer
traceable, from which it now again, under fresh excitement,
began to emerge.1 In any case, we discern at this time
abundant manifestations of a fresh religious interest among
the poor, and it appears very much to be characterized by
1 This seems a more likely explanation than any unexplained " second
birth of Protestantism," as conceived by Mr. Froude, who represents the
influence of Wickliffe as entirely extinguished in the course of the fifteenth
century.

LATIMER. 189
the old Wickliffite spirit of contempt and derision of the
clergy. Some of the stories preserved by Foxe show a
proud and bitter cynicism, naturally bred by the circum
stances of these humble people, and the stern repression
of all the earnest feeling awakened in them. As a man of
the name of John Brown was descending the Thames in a
passage-boat to Gravesend, he fell into conversation with a
priest, who insolently admonished him that he stood too
near to his sacred person. " Do you know who I am ? "
demanded the priest. " No, sir," said Brown. " Well, then,
you must know that I am a priest." — " Indeed, sir ! " said
Brown ; " and pray, are you a parson, or vicar, or lady's
chaplain ? " — " No ; I am a soul priest ; I sing masses for
souls," he pompously replied. "Do you, sir?" remarked
Brown ; " that is well done : and can you tell me where
you find the soul when you begin mass, and where you
leave it when the mass is ended ? " — " Go thy way," said
the priest ; " thou art a heretic, and I will be even with
you." And" straightway, on reaching their destination, he
communicated his suspicions of Brown to two of his com
panions ; and together they set off to Canterbury, to de
nounce the poor man to the archbishop. The result was,
that after many sufferings Brown expiated his free speech
at the stake. The story is minutely told by Foxe, and
repeated by d'Aubigne ; l and the contrasts of the happy
English home, with its quiet, cheerful domesticities, and
the rude seizure, torture, and death of the poor man, make
a deeply touching picture. Then, again, amid the fens of
Lincolnshire, we are introduced to a peasant threshing his
corn in his barn as a neighbor passes by and salutes him
cheerfully. " Good morrow ! you are hard at work." —
1 Foxe, Acts, ii. 7, 8; D'Aubigne, v. 191—194.

190 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
" Yes," replied the man, in allusion to the priestly doctrine
of transubstantiation, " I am threshing God Almighty out
of the straw."1 A very deep and intense feeling expresses
itself in these as in many other incidents of the time.
The Catholic authority might seem scarcely weakened in
outward appearance, but with such a spirit slumbering
amongst the people, and now constantly gathering strength,
that authority was really impaired in its very foundation,
and no longer presented its old capacity of resistance.
In the meantime a new and more vigorous reforming in
fluence was beginning in the universities. The publication
of Erasmus's Greek Testament, and the news from Ger
many, started a spirit of inquiry in both universities almost
simultaneously. Students, wearied with the subtleties of
the schools, felt a fresh world opened to them in the original
pages of the gospels and epistles. They read; and, as
they read, a new impulse came to them, as the result of
their own quiet study. It was impossible that, amid the
religious excitement everywhere astir, young and earnest
and aspiring minds could be brought into contact with the
Divine Word without catching the life that in every page
appealed to them, and being drawn under its stimulating
power. Foreign influences were no doubt also at work.
Luther's opinions, propagated to the very centres of the old
Catholicism of England, produced a great impression. His
writings passed from hand to hand under every attempt
to suppress them, and the enthusiasm of his grand exam
ple was not without its effect. Yet there was an eminently
original character about the reform movement which now
sprang up in the English universities, and which was des
tined, in its larger and more powerful course, to swallow
l Foxe, Acts, ii. 7, 8 , D'Aubigne, p. 272.

LATIMER. 191
up, or at least to invigorate and unite, the other more ob
scure channels of popular religious feeling. There was an
earnestness and yet moderation in it, — an intensity practi
cal rather than doctrinal, a simplicity and purity of Chris
tian apprehension, which, without lacking vigor, shrank
sensitively from all violence, — eminently characteristic,
and corresponding to its origin in the ancient seats of learn
ing, and in the original soil of Scripture, rather than in the
cloister, and in the solitary struggles of any one great and
vehement soul.
Latimer's claims to represent this movement, and the
general cause of the Reformation in England, does not
arise from any primary or even paramount connection with
the one or the other. No single name in England pos
sesses this glory. We do not find here, as in Germany,
and in France and Switzerland, any single prominent figure
towering above all the others in mental and moral great
ness, but a group of figures, each with their own claims to
distinction and influence, — Cranmer alongside of Lati
mer, and more conspicuous in the light of history ; and
Tyndale and Bilney and Barnes, equally associated with
him in the religious excitement in the universities. Tyn
dale and Bilney both precede Latimer ; and the former
especially, in the elevation of his character, in the influence
which he exerted, first at Oxford and then at Cambridge,
and subsequently in Gloucestershire as tutor in the family
of Sir John Walsh, and above all in the noble work in
which he wore out his life, and earned his crown of mar
tyrdom, — the translation of the Scriptures, — is a very
beautiful and interesting character, which would well repay
special study. Then there is a peculiar significance in the
course of events at Oxford in 1528 ; the search for Master
Garret, who had come down to the university loaded with

192 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
New Testaments and heretical tracts, and the seizure of
Anthony Delaber, his friend, who had concerted his escape,
and whose simple and affecting narrative of the whole
transaction has been preserved, and may be found at length
in the very graphic chapter which opens Mr. Froude's sec
ond volume. These and other sketches would be neces
sary to give any complete view of the complex movement
which presents itself before us in the English Reformation.
We must turn aside, however, from all such companion
sketches, and fix our attention mainly upon one selected
figure, not indeed as the first or most prominent, but as that
which appears to us upon the whole the most typical in
combined display of character, and of representative con
nection at once with the university and the popular religious
feeling. The life of Latimer remains unwritten, and there are
probably no longer materials for any adequate biography.
We shall endeavor, however, in the light of such facts as
exist in Foxe's Acts1 and Strype's Memorials, and particu
larly in the light of the vivid picture-work of his own ser
mons, to furnish as complete a sketch as we can of his
career and labors. There are in these many graphic and
not a few grotesque etchings, giving us the very life of the
man ; but it is difficult to catch throughout a clear view and
any continuous thread of narrative, tracing the whole and
binding it in order.
Latimer was born at Thurcaston in Leicestershire in the
year 1490, some say 1491. His father was an honest yeo
man, and it is his own hand, in the first sermon which he
preached before King Edward VI, that has drawn for us
1 The reader will find Foxe's narrative of Latimer's Life and Acts in vol.
vii. of Townsend's edit., beginning at p. 437. Our references are not in all
cases given to the page.

LATIMER. 193
the paternal character and homestead. " My father," he
says, " was a yeoman, and had no lands of his own, only
he had a farm of three or four pounds by the year at the
uttermost, and hereupon he tilled so much as kept half a
dozen men. He had walk for a hundred sheep, and my
mother milked thirty kine. He was able and did find the
king in harness, with himself and his horse, while he came
to the place that he should receive the. king's wages. . . .
He kept me to school, else I had not been able to preach
before the king's majesty now. He married my sisters with
five pounds or twenty nobles a piece ; so that he brought
them upjn godliness and the fear of the Lord. He kept
hospitality for his poor neighbors, and some alms he gave
to the poor. All this he did of the said farm ; ""¦ — evidently
a worthy, solid, and able man, fit to do his work in this
world, and leave the memory of his worth, if not much
more, to his children.
Latimer grew up in his old English household a vigorous
and happy boy ; health, and manly life, and a joyous feeling
of home, breathe in all the hints he has given us of h's
youth. When only six or seven years old, he tells us that
he helped to buckle ou his father's armor when he went to
the field of Blackheath, where the king's forces were en
camped against the Cornish rebels. It was a time of stir.
Henry VII. had been at this period about ten years upon
the throne, but the embers of a century's internecine strife
were still only dying out. Latimer's father was staunch in
his devotion to the new government, as this event shows ;
¦ he had all a yeoman's devotion to fighting, and to the grand
old art of cross-shooting, — " God's gift to the English na
tion above all other nations, and the instrument whereby
1 Sermons, Camb edit., p. 101.
17

194 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
he had given them many victories against their enemies." "¦
He was careful to train his children in the love of the same
soldierly arts ; and the reformer afterwards recalled these
exercises of his youth with pride, in contrast with the de
generate and vicious recreations of his own age. " My
father," he says,2 " was as diligent to teach me to shoot as
to learn any other thing ; he taught me how to draw, how
to lay my body in my bow, and not to draw with strength
of arms as other nations do, but with strength of the body.
I had my bows bought me according to my age and
strength : as I increased in them, so my bows were made
bigger and bigger ; for," he adds, in a quaint didactic vein
not uncommon with him, as to the affairs of the present life
as well as of that to come, "men shall never shoot well
except they be brought up in it: it is a goodly art, a
wholesome kind of exercise, and much commended in
physic." So Latimer grew up, hardily trained in body as well as in
mind. An atmosphere of reality surrounded his boyhood ;
he looked at life and nature in the fresh and rough, yet
beautiful forms, in which they surrounded him in the old
Leicestershire farmhouse, and the impressions then gathered
never left him, and long afterwards helped to deliver him
from the falsehoods of his scholastic training, when the
higher quickening came to stir the true heart in him.
About fourteen years of age he^was sent to Cambridge ;
and d'Aubigne has noticed that the year 1505, when he
entered the university, was the same year in which Luther
entered the Augustine convent at Erfurt. He is said to ¦
have been a veiy diligent and industrious student. In
1509, whilst yet an under-graduate, he was chosen fellow
l Sermons, Camb. edit., p. 197. 2 Ibid.

LATIMER. 195
of Clare Hall. In the following January he took his de
gree of Bachelor.of Arts, and proceeded to that of Master
of Arts in July, 1514. Up to this period, when he had at
tained his twenty-fourth year, we do not learn anything of
his religious views, — for the best of all reasons, probably,
that there was nothing to learn. He fell into the habits of
the place in this as in other things, and probably had as
yet few serious thoughts about the matter. He seems to
have carried into his college fife the heartiness and cheer
fulness of the yeoman's son ; for it is to this earlier period,
most likely, that the following description and story apply :
" There was a merry monk in Cambridge in the college
that I was in, and it chanced a great company of us to be
together, intending to make good cheer and to be merry, as
scholars will be merry when they are disposed. One of the
company brought out this sentence — ' Nil melius quam
Imtari et facere bene', — there is nothing better than to be
merry and to do well. ' A vengeance of that bene! quoth
the monk ; ' -I would that bene had been banished beyond
the sea; and that bene were out it were well, for I could be
merry, but I love not to do well.' " "¦
From 1514, Latimer betook himself to the study of
divinity, — "of such school divinity' as the ignorance of
that age did suffer," — -and became exceedingly zealous in
support of the established doctrines and services. As Lu
ther said of himself, that he was a "most insane Papist,"
so he says, " I was as obstinate a Papist as any in Eng
land." He was haunted with scrupulous and tormenting
fears as to whether he had sufficiently mingled water with
the wine in performing mass, as the missal directs ; and on
the occasion of his taking his degree of Bachelor in Divin-
1 Sermons, p. 153.

ISO LEADERS OF TnE REFORMATION.
ity, the date of which is not preserved, he directed his
" whole oration" against Melancthon and his opinions. He
appears about the same time to have distinguished himself
by his hostility to Master George Stafford, "reader of the
divinity lectures at Cambridge," who had become imbued
with the "new learning," and succeeded in turning many
of the youth who attended him to the study of the holy
Scriptures, from those " tedious authors," as Foxe calls
them, in which Latimer still found his delight. He is rep
resented as entering Stafford's lecture-room, and "most
spitefully railing against him,"1 while he eloquently sought
to persuade the youth against his teaching.2
Here, therefore, we have the old picture of youthful
sacerdotal zeal. It is the very highest qualities of the an
cient system that the new spirit seizes upon and conse
crates to its service. Young Latimer, hailed by the clergy
as a rising champion of the papal cause, and for his talents
and the excelling sanctimony of his life, preferred to be
the keeper of the university cross,3 is destined to become
the sharp reprover of the clergy, and the great agent in
carrying out the religious changes then threatening them.
There was in Cambridge then a young doctor of the
name of Bilney, probably some years the senior of Lati
mer. He had, after much struggle, found the truth for
himself in the study of the Greek Testament. At first
shrinking from the forbidden volume, he had been gradually
attracted by it; and, weary with fasting and vigils, and
buying of masses and indulgences, in which he could get
no rest to his soul, he at length found peace in the precious
i Foxe, xi.
2 Ralph Morice's Account of his Conversion, printed by Strypc — Mem.
III. i. 308; and in liemains, Camb.
3 Stktpe, as above.

LATIMER. 197
words of St. Paul,1 " This is a faithful saying, and worthy
.of all acceptation, That Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners." The truth dawned to him out of the
sacred page, and he was won to the new cause. Soon
after Tyndale arrived in Cambridge, having taken flight
from Oxford, and the two students of the Greek Testament,
with another young man of the name of Frith, encouraged
one another in the work of reform on which they had
entered. Bilney had watched with interest the progress of Lati
mer. He appreciated his high qualities, and saw how
much could be made of his zeal, if only it could be turned
in the right direction. He had been one of his auditors
when, as Bachelor of Divinity, he lectured against Melanc
thon, and the thought was forced upon him of trying what
he could do to convert the youthful enthusiast. His device
was a strange one, and will be best narrated, with the re
sults that followed, in Latimer's own brief words. " Bilney
heard me at that time, and perceived that I was zealous
without knowledge ; and he. came to me afterwards in my
study, and desired me, for God's sake, to hear his confes
sion. I did so ; and, to say the truth, by his confession I
learned more than I did before for many years. So from
that time forward I began to smell the word of God, and
forsook the school doctors and such fooleries." 2
Such was the turning-point in Latimer's spiritual history.
We do not impart more meaning to his simple statement
by dwelling upon it, and trying to point out more particu
larly the influences which moved him. One earnest heart
in communion with another regarding their deepest secrets
before God, is all that we are permitted to see. The effect
l " Suavissimam Pauli senientiam.'' 2 Sermons, p. 334.
17*

198 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
produced on Latimer was decided. " Whereas before he
was an enemy, and almost a persecutor of Christ, he was
now a zealous seeker after him." ' He was frequently in
conference with Bilney ; and he sought out Stafford to beg
his forgiveness for his former rudeness to him. His change
of religious feeling immediately began to assume a practi
cal form. He accompanied Bilney in visiting the sick, aud
the prisoners in the tower of Cambridge ; and by-and-by
he felt he was called even to a nobler work than his friend.
His energy and enthusiasm began to find their natural out
let in the pulpit. Recognizing this as above all his voca
tion, "he preached mightily in the university day by day,
both in English and ad clerum, to the great admiration of
all men who aforetime had known him of a contrary severe
opinion." 2
Cambridge was greatly excited by Latimer's discourses.
The spirit which had been working secretly in it for some
time now became manifest. The fruit of Bilney's prayers,
and of Stafford's divinity lectures, showed itself in the en
thusiasm which welcomed the earnest preacher, and the
eagerness especially with which the students gathered
round him and drank in his clear and powerful words. To
one of these students, Thomas Becon, who afterwards be
came chaplain to Cranmer, we are indebted for some brief
hints of the character and effect of these early sermons of
Latimer. "I was present," Becon says,3 "when, with man
ifest authorities of God's word, and arguments invincible,
besides the allegations of doctors, he proved in his sermons
that the holy Scriptures ought to be read in the English
tongue of all Christian people, whether they were priests or

1 Foxe. - Account of Morice.
3 Jewel of Joy, Becon's Works (Parker Society), pp. 424, 423.

LATIMER. 199
'i
laymen, as they be called. . . . Neither was I absent
when he inveighed against temple-works, good intents,
blind zeal, superstitious devotion, as the painting of taber
nacles, gilding of images, setting up of candles, running on
pilgrimage, and such other idle inventions of men, whereby
the glory of God was obscured, and the works of mercy the .
less regarded. I remember also how he was wont to re
buke the beneficed men, with the authority of God's word,
for neglecting and not teaching their flock, and for being
absent from their cures, — they themselves being idle, and
masting themselves like hogs of Epicurus' s flock, taking
no thought though their poor parishioners miserably pine
away, starve, perish, and die for hunger. Neither have I
forgotten how at that time he condemned foolish, ungodly,
and impossible vows to be fulfilled, as the vow of chastity,
etc. Oh, how vehement was he in rebuking all sins, and
how sweet aud pleasant were his words in exhorting unto
virtue ! "
The practical, earnest, undoctrinal character of Latimer's
earlier as of his later preaching, is clearly shown in this
description. He aimed, in the same spirit as Tyndale, to
bring the minds of men in contact with the living truth of
Scripture, — to divert them from all mere pretences of re
ligion, the mockery and uselessness of which he had him
self been brought to feel, to the real interests and duties of
the Christian life. He spoke from the heart of his own
fresh experience, swayed by an enthusiasm not stormy,
like Luther's, but direct, vehement, and caustic; and the
effect was irresistible on all who heard him. " He spake
nothing," continues Becon, " but it left, as it were, certain
pricks or stings in the hearts of his hearers, which moved
them" to consent to his doctriift. None but the stiff-necked
and uncircumcised in heart went away from his sermons

200 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
without being affected with high detestation of sin, and
moved to all godliness and virtue. I did know certain men
which, through the persuasion of their friends, went unto
his sermons swelling blown full, and puffed up, like unto
Esop's frog, with envy and malice against him ; but when
they returned, the sermon being done, and demanded how
they liked him and his doctrine, they answered, with the
bishops' and Pharisees' servants, ' There was never man
that spake like unto this man ! ' " According to another
testimony,1 the practical results of these sermons were
equally decided. " Numbers were brought from their will-
works, as pilgrimage and setting up of candles, unto the
work that God commanded expressedly in his holy Scrip
ture, and to the reading and study of God's word." To his
preaching Latimer added works of charity and piety, not
less impressive in their influence. "He watered," continues
the admiring Becon, " with good deeds whatsoever he had
before planted with godly words."
A time not merely of excitement but of blessing had
come to Cambridge ; a new life was spreading in the uni
versity and the city ; hearts were awakened and disciples
multiplying, and the memory of this happy period of evan
gelical revival was long preserved in the popular doggerel —
" When Master Stafford read, and Master Latimer preached,
then was Cambridge blessed."
Such a state of things could not last long without oppo
sition. It was not to be supposed that the clergy could
quietly contemplate the daring operations of their former
champions, now turned against them. It was not in hu
man nature, and certainly not in clerical nature, to do this.
A feeling of amazement and humiliation may at first have
•
' Tukkkk's Preservative against the Poison of Pelagias.

LATIMER. 201
kept them silent ; but soon they began to realize the peril
of their position and the necessity of action ; or, to use the
words of old Foxe, "Belike Satan began to feel himself
and his kingdom to be touched too near, and therefore
thought it time to look about him, and to make out his men
of arms." The devil's men of arms accordingly appear in
"whole swarms of friars and doctors, who flocked against
Master Latimer on every side."
It is not easy to trace the chronological succession of the
difficulties and controversies into which Latimer was now
plunged. Already, to some extent, the guidance of dates
has forsaken us. Our last date was 1514, when he had
taken his Master's degree, and between this and 1529, or
during a period of fifteen years, we have no very distinct
thread of chronological arrangement. A general statement
of his own, that he "walked in darkness and the shadow
of death," until he was thirty years of age, enables us to
fix his entrance upon his new career about 1521. The
subsequent eight years, representing his first activity as a
preacher, and now described as so memorable in their re
sults, remain in great confusion. According to Foxe, the
famous sermons "on the Card," would seem to have been
among the first causes of excitement and disturbance
against him. But we learn from Foxe's own statement
that these sermons were not preached till about Christmas,
1529, and there is every reason to conclude, therefore, that
the interference of the Bishop of Ely, and the reformer's
citation before Wolsey at the instance of " divers Papists
in the university," who made a "grievous complaint"
against him, occurred, in the interval between this and
1521. The story of his encounter with Bishop West is very
characteristic. He was preaching one day ad clerum in

202 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
the university, when the bishop, attended by a troop of
priests, entered the church. Latimer paused until they had
taken their seats, and then remarking that a new audience
demanded a new theme, said that he would alter his in
tended topic of discourse, and preach from Heb. ix. 11;
" Christus existens Pontifex futurorum bonorum," — " Christ
a high priest of good things to come." From this text he
took occasion to represent Christ as " the true and perfect
pattern unto all other priests ; " and in his usual pithy
manner drew out the contrasts between this pattern and
the English prelates of the day. It may be imagined that
the bishop was not particularly pleased. He sent for Lat
imer, and held some parley with him, commending his tal
ents, and urging him to display them in a sermon against
Luther from the same pulpit. Latimer, however, was not
to be ensnared, and boldly replied, " If Luther preaches
the word of God, he needs no confutation; but if he
teaches the contrary, I will be ready -with all my heart to
confound his doctrine as much as lies in me." The bishop
cautioned him that " he smelled somewhat of the pan," and
that he would one day or another repent his conduct. He
forthwith issued an edict forbidding him to preach any
more within the churches of the university; but Latimer
found refuge in the church of the Augustine Friars,1 which
was exempt from episcopal jurisdiction, and there continued
his stirring sermons. The bishop, along with others, com
plained to Wolsey, who sent for the bold preacher, and
after hearing from him an account of the matter, not only
dismissed him with merely a gentle admonition, but granted
him a license to preach in any church throughout England.

l Barnes was Prior of the Augustines, 1525. This appears about the date
of Latimer's encounter with West.

LATIMER. 203
" If the Bishop of Ely cannot abide such doctrine as you
have repeated," he said, " you shall preach it to his beard,
let him say what he will."
His two sermons "on the Card," are the earliest of his
printed sermons that we possess. These discourses, so re
markable in their quaintness, and the keen and plain tone
of their practical exhortation, renewed the monkish com
motion against him in the university. The prior of the
Black Friars, one Buckenham, tried to rival him as a
preacher, and to outdo him even in his peculiar line of
homely popular allusion. "About the same time of Christ
mas,"1 Foxe says,2 "when Mr. Latimer brought forth his
cards (to deface belike the doings of the other), the prior
brought out his Christmas dice, casting them to his audience
cinque, and quator ;" and in some unintelligible manner
aiming, through this poor counter-device to Latimer's sym
bolic cards, to prove the inexpediency of intrusting the
Scriptures in English to the vulgar. The prior's sense and
eloquence seem alike to have been at fault. He brought
forward the most miserable arguments against the use of
the Scriptures ; as, for example, that the ploughman, when
hearing that " no man that layeth his hand to the plough,
and looketh back, is worthy of the kingdom of God," might
peradventure cease from his plough ; and that the baker, in
a similar manner, might be induced to leave his bread un
leavened on hearing that " a little leaven corrupteth a
whole lump." It was a dangerous line of argument to
enter upon with an opponent like Latimer, who had so
1 This statement of Foxe, if we can rely at all upon his chronological state
ments, would seem to fix Buckenhara's encounter with Latimer to this date
of 1529. D'Aubigne, however, has advanced it to the very beginning of his
career as a Protestant preacher (vol. v. chap. vii.).
2 Book XI.

204 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
keen an eye for the comic aspect of stupidity. He had
been an auditor of the friar's, and taken note of such points
for future use. Scon after, he is the preacher and the friar
a listener among "a great multitude, as well of the univer
sity as of the town, met with great expectation to hear
what he would say." The arguments of the friar were
dallied with in a manner that must have touched the quick
even beneath his thick conceit ; such figures of speech,
the preacher said, were no worse to be understood than
the most common representation of painters, such as they
paint en walls and on houses. " As, for example," he con
tinued, casting a meaning glance at the friar, who sat op
posite him, " when they paint a fox preaching out of a
friar's cowl, none is so mad to take this to be a fox that
preacheth, but know well enough the meaning of the mat
ter, which is to point out unto us what hypocrisy, craft, and
subtle dissimulation lieth hid many times in these friars'
cowls, willing us thereby to beware of them." " Friar
Buckenham," the chronicler adds, was so " dashed with
this sermon, that he never after durst peep out of the pulpit
against Master Latimer."
This year of 1529, which presents to us Latimer in hot
conflict with his popish adversaries in the university of
Cambridge, was a memorable one in English history.
Wolsey had fallen in the beginning of the year ; Sir
Thomas More had been installed as his successor. The
country was strongly excited on the subject of the nego
tiations with Rome as to the king's divorce, which had
been procrastinated from time to time under the most
wearying pretences. The extortions of the clergy, more
over, in the consistory courts, and the manifold abuses long
complained of, but still maintained by them, and now grown
to an i ltolerable height, had produced a widespread feel-

LATIMER. 205
ing of indignation, which only waited for a fitting oppor
tunity to burst forth. Writs were issued for a new parlia
ment in the September of this year, and no sooner had it
met in November, than the feelings of the country found
voice in the famous petition against the bishops and clergy.
The main abuses detailed in the petition were afterwards
the subject of special legislation ; and the bench of bishops
beheld with amazement bill after bill pass the Commons,
"all to the destruction of the church," as Fisher, Bishop
of Rochester, said. There was no help for it, however;
and the "Probate and Mortuary Act," "the " Clergy Disci
pline Act," and the " Residence and Pluralities Act," rap
idly carried through both houses in defiance of episcopal
opposition, sufficiently showed the temper of the times, and
signalized the legislative activity of a brief session of six
weeks. It deserves to be noticed that, with all this opposition to
the clergy, the Parliament of 1529 was so far from having
any sympathy with the awakened spiritual Ufe represented
by such men as Tyndale and Latimer, and out of which
Protestantism was growing, that it was especially anxious
to clear itself from all suspicion of countenancing heresy,
and, in fact, encouraged the more active prosecution of
heretics which was about that time commenced.
In the course of the following year, the differences be
tween Latimer and his accusers were the subject of official
investigation before the vice-chancellor. The latter seems
to have shrunk from the challenge to lay a regular charge
against the reformer; and the affair terminated in both
parties being bound to keep the peace, and to abstain from
using offensive expressions against each other in the pulpit,
on pain of excommunication. The virulence of his ene-
18

206 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
mies, rather than the impudent speech of the daring
preacher, seems to have called forth this judgment.
In the same year Latimer was employed in the matter
of the king's divorce, being one of those appointed by the
university to examine into the lawfulness of his n.airiage
with Catherine. He declared on the side of the king, and
the decision of the university in favor of the divorce was
given on the 9th of March, 1530. On the following Sun
day he preached before the king, who "greatly praised his
sermon." Henry, who, whatever may have been his faults,
had certainly a rare appreciation of character, and a gen
uine respect for a true and able man when he came in his
way, and was likely to be useful to him, appears to have
been strongly taken with the honest and unsparing preacher.
He appointed him one of his chaplains the same year.
And although he did not take his advice any more now
than afterwards, unless when it suited him, he extended
his friendship to the man who had the courage to coun
sel him in words dictated by no courtly interest, but by
a manly and unshaken conviction of their truth. Henry
had, ¦with the sanction of a convention of learned men,
issued an inhibition against Tyndale's Scripture, as well as
all English books either containing or tending to any mat
ters of Scripture. Latimer was one of this convention on
the part of the university of Cambridge, and one of an
excepting minority L to the advice tendered to Henry, and
upon which he acted. Unsuccessful in his previous resist-
i There can be no doubt of this. He himself clearly implies so much in
his letter to Henry — (Foxe); and there is no possible room for the conjec
ture of his having changed his mind between the date of the advice to the
king and the issuing of the proclamation in December of the same year.
The statement of the proclamation, that all gave their free " assent," cannot
be held as valid against such evidence, and every presumption to the con
trary.

LATIMER. 207
ance to the course of persecution, he addressed an ener
getic letter to the king on his own behalf. It is printed at
length by Foxe, and in its spirit, power, and eloquence,
heroic yet modest, courageous yet respectful, is one of the
most remarkable of his writings. The king did not yield
to the remonstrance. " It did not prevail, through the
iniquity of the time," says Foxe in his usual way ; but
so far from displeasing Henry, it seems only to have
excited in him a more cordial good-will towards the re
former. In the year 1531, Latimer received from the king, at the
instance of Cromwell, and Dr. Butts, the king's physician,
the living of West Kington in Wiltshire, and, weary of
court, he gladly retired to the more congenial and earnest
labors of his parish. He was not destined, however, to
enjoy quiet. His unresting spirit would not suffer him to
confine his preaching to a single congregation ; and being
one of the twelve preachers yearly licensed by the uni
versity to preach, with the express sanction of the sover
eign, throughout the realm, he extended his diligence to all
the country about. He travelled to Bristol, to London, to
Kent, everywhere preaching the truth. Opportune, impor
tune, tempestive, to use the language ironically applied by
him to the Bishop of London,1 and this, too, with his health
greatly weakened and impaired. His zeal and activity
could not long pass without notice. Complaints were made
against him by the country priests ; the bishops were on
the watch to entrap him ; there was no safety for them,-
and no peace, they felt, so long as he was at large, moving
the country by his marvellous eloquence. They were tri
umphantly busy just now, besides, in the destruction of
1 Letter to Sir. Ed. Baynton — Foxe, vol. vii. p. 485.

208 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
heretics. Poor Bilney, having wiped out the disgrace of
his fall l in a few months of faithful preaching and self-
denial, expiated at the stake, in August this year, his Chris
tian heroism, not the less grand, certainly, that it was the
heroism of a trembling and sensitive nature. Bayfield and
Tewkesbury followed before the expiry of the year ; and
Bainham, whose affecting interview with Latimer is pre
served in Strype's Memorials, crowned the list on the 5th
of May, 1532. These were the closing months of the
chancellorship of Sir Thomas More, around whose memory
still lingers the dark stain of these dreadful tragedies. But
the appetite of the bishops was not yet satisfied ; they still
hungered for victims; and Latimer now became the special
object of their vengeance. Fortunately they were so far
destined to a disappointment.
In the beginning of 1532 he was summoned to appear
before Stokesley, the Bishop of London, on the ground of
his having preached in St. Abb's Church in the city with
out the bishop's permission, and, moreover, for his alleged
defence of Bilney, and his cause. His friends expressed
anxiety for him, and he himself was not without concern,
as he knew very well that the real aim of the bishop was
to get him into the hands of the Convocation, and to deal
with him summarily for his free speech as to the corrupt
ness of the clergy. He pleaded in excuse the length of
the journey, the deep winter, and the miserable condition
of his health.2 He appealed, at the same time, to his own
ordinary, Sir Ed. Baynton, the chancellor of the diocese of
Sarum, and it is from this long and interesting letter on this
subject that we gather these facts, and the state of his
1 He had been induced to recant.
•2 " Not only exercised with my old disease in my head and side, but also
with new — both the colic and the stone." — Foxe, p. 485.

LATIMER. 209
feelings at this time. After some delay, the citation was
formally issued, and Latimer "was had up to London,
where he was greatly molested, and detained a long time
from his cure at home."
The circumstances of his present persecution, and espe
cially the extent to which he yielded after being repeatedly
examined and remanded, and even excommunicated and
imprisoned, are involved in some obscurity. His trial lasted
on through January, February, March, and April, and was
prosecuted not only before the bishop and the archbishop
(Warham), and bishops collectively, but also before the
Convocation. The bishops devised a series of articles,1
which he was called upon to subscribe, and which he at
first refused to do, especially objecting to two of them, one
of which concerned the power of the Pope. For this re
fusal he was pronounced contumacious, excommunicated,
and delivered -up to the custody of Warham. This appears
to have occurred in Convocation on the 1 lth of March. On
the 21st it was resolved, after a long debate, " to absolve
him from the sentence of excommunication if he should
subscribe the two articles in question," and he is repre
sented, on the same authority, as making his appearance at
the next sitting, and kneeling down and humbly craving
forgiveness, confessing that he " misordered himself very
far, in that he had so presumptuously and boldly preached,
reproving certain things by which the people that were in
firm hath taken occasion of ill." It was not till a subse
quent day, however, the 10th of April, that he is stated to
have subscribed the eleventh and fourteenth articles, to
which he had taken exception ; and even then he appears
to have been in difficulty, owing to some further matter
1 Foxe, vol. vii. p. 458.
18*

210 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
having been presented against him, arising out of a letter
he had written to a graduate at Cambridge. It was then
that he appealed to the king ; and the Convocation was
given to understand by a message conveyed through Gard
iner, Bishop of Winchester, that it was not desirable to
proceed to further extremities although the disposal of the
case was still left in their hands. The end of the affair
was, that, after a further and more special submission, he
was relieved of all penalties, and " taken into favor again
nt the special request of the king," although with grudging
and protest on the part of certain of the bishops who did
not think that his submission implied any "renunciation of
his errors," as was usual in such cases.1
Latimer returned to his parish, but still not to rest. Ene
mies rose up on all sides against him, as he tells us in a
letter to his friend Morice ; for it is to this period that the
letter seems to refer. Certain priests, who at first had de
sired and welcomed him, now actively sought to stay his
preaching because .he was not in. possession of the bishop's
license. They procured certain preachers "to blatter
against him," and especially one Hubberdin, who distin
guished himself by his empty violence and ridiculous zeal

i This account is founded upon Wilkins' Concilia, as quoted in the Notes
in Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biography, vol. iii. pp. 98, 99. It seems to
present the most minute and faithful account of the matter, directly founded
on the proceedings of Convocation; and Foxe's belief evidently is, that Lati
mer submitted and subscribed the articles, although he is reluctant to admit
the idea of his retractation. Mr. Froude (vol. ii. p. 106) apparently does not
understand that Latimer's submission went so far, but calls in the interposi
tion of the king at a previous stage. Latimer's own account of his exami
nation before the bishops is found in a sermon preached by him at Stamford
many years after, in 1550. It is very characteristic, and proves the uuscru-
pulousness of his enemies, but it does not throw any light on the course of
his trial. — Sermons, p. 294, quoted by Mr. Froude, vol. ii. pp. 105, 106.

LATIMER. 211
against the reformer. Foxe has given so comical an ac
count of this man and his preaching, that we cannot refrain
from quoting it ; it may serve to give us a glimpse of the
ludicrous features that mingled themselves with the tragi
cal shadows of the great struggle that was now proceeding
in England. Every cause, for the most part, has its buf
foon, — a man of " no great learning, nor yet of stable wit"
(as Latimer characterized Hubberdin), but who makes up
for better qualities by uproarious zeal, and stands forward
in virtue of his simple absurdity and grotesque officious-
ness. In neither Germany nor England does Popery seem
at this crisis to have lacked such supporters.
"Forasmuch as mention has been made," says Foxe,1 "of
Hubberdin, an old divine of Oxford, a right painted Phari
see, and a great strayer abroad in all quarters of the realm,
to deface and impeach the springing of God's holy gospel,
something should be added more touching that man, whose
doings and pageants, if they might be described at large, it
were as good as any interlude for the reader to behold.
. . . But because the man is now gone, to spare therefore
the dead, this shall be enough for example's sake for all
Christian men necessarily to observe, — how the said Hub
berdin, after his long railing in all places against Luther,
Melancthon, Zwinglius, John Frith, Tyndale, Latimer, and
other like professors, — riding in his long gown down to the
horse's heels, like a pharisee, or rather like a sloven, dirted
up to the horse's belly — after his forged tales and fables,
dialogues, dreams, dancings, hoppings, and leapings, with
other like histrionical toys and gestures used in the pulpit,
at last riding by a church side where the youth of the
1 Vol. vii. p. 477. — Steype's Account, vol. i. p. 245, is of the same char
acter, only with the ludicrous features less prominent.

212 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
parish were dancing in the churchyard, suddenly lighting
from his horse, he came into the church, and there causing
the bell to toll in the people, thought, instead of a fit of
mirth, to give them a sermon of dancing : in the which
sermon, after he had patched up certain common texts out
of the Scripture, and then coming to the doctors, first to
Augustine, then to Ambrose, so to Jerome, and Gregory,
Chrysostome, and other doctors, had made every one of
them (after his dialogue manner) by name, to answer to
his call, and to sing after his tune against Luther, Tyudale,
Latimer, and other heretics, as he called them ; at last, to
show a perfect harmony of all these doctors together, as he
made them before to sing after his tune, so now to make
them dance after his pipe, first he called out Christ and his
apostles, then the doctors and seniors of the church, as in a
round ring, all to dance together, with pipe of Hubberdin.
Now dance Peter, Paul ; now dance Augustine, Ambrose,
Jerome ; and then old Hubberdin, as he was dancing with
his doctors lustily in the pulpit, how he sfampt and took
on I cannot tell, but crash quoth the pulpit, down cometh
the dancer, and there lay Hubberdin, not dancing, but
sprawling in the midst of his audience, where altogether
he brake not his neck, yet he so brake his leg and bruised
his old bones that he never came in pulpit more."
More prosperous days, however, were about to dawn
on Latimer. Old Warham, the Archbishop of Canterbury,
died this year; and in the following year (1533) Cranmer
was elevated to the primacy. This distinguished prelate,
destined to take so active a lead in the progress of the Re
formation, to carry it on with his own advance of opinion
to a higher and more Scriptural expression, and finally to
crown the labors of his life by martyrdom along with Lati
mer and Ridley, had been a Cambridge student of about

LATIMER. 213
the same standing as our reformer.1 Whether during their
residence at Cambridge they had been friends, does not
appear. Cranmer, at any rate, knew well Latimer's worth.
His honesty, energy, and eloquence were such as at once
drew forth his appreciation and honorable regard in his new
position. It was now no longer, therefore, a time of per
secution with the unresting rector of West Kington ; the
frown of episcopal authority lay on him no more, and friars
and priests, Hubberdin and Dr. Powel of Salisbury, and all
his other enemies, were forced to retreat, or even to yield
to the powers now intrusted to him. At the instance and
request of Latimer, we are told that " Cranmer was in the
habit of licensing divers to preach within his province;"
and in his own district the reformer was empowered to deal
with preachers, and even to withdraw their licenses if he
saw fit to do so.2 Latimer, moreover, was recalled to the
discharge of his previous duties at the court, and admitted
to preach before the king on all the Wednesdays of Lent,
1534. This renewed intercourse ¦with his sovereign probably
served to strengthen Henry's liking for him, and to bring
about the important result which followed in the subse
quent year. Cromwell is mentioned by Foxe as partic
ularly concerned in Latimer's promotion to a bishopric, and
we may well believe so. The astute secretary and vicar-
general, the enemy of monks, and the intrepid friend of the
new movement in all its directions, must have recognized
a congenial spirit and fellow-laborer in the great preacher.
1 Cranmer was born at Aslacton, in Nottinghamshire, in 1489, and entered
Jesus College, Cambridge, at the age of fourteen, only a year in advance of
Latimer in each case. He took his degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1523, just
in the heat of Latimer's first reforming zeal as a university preacher.
8 Cranmer's Remains, edit. Jenkyns, vol. i. p. 121.

214 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
They were worthy allies, and trode with equal courage,
although swayed by somewhat different impulses, the same
perilous path terminating in death, as all noble work alike
did in that strange and unhappy reign.
Latimer was consecrated Bishop of Worcester in the
autumn of 1535, and in the June of the following year we
behold him in a position perhaps, save the last of all, the
grandest and most trying in his whole life-. The Convoca
tion assembled on the 9th of June, 1536, the nation heav
ing with the excitement of coming change ; the clergy
sullen with feelings of affront and injury ; the great ques
tion of reform in all its branches staring them in the face.
The fabric of ecclesiastical abuse had been already rudely
shaken, but it was obvious that things could not remain as
they were, and that further and more extensive invasions
of clerical privilege must come. It was at the request of
Cranmer that Latimer, in these circumstances, undertook
the office of opening the Convocation with two sermons,
which have been preserved ; and which, viewed in the light
of the situation in which they were uttered, are among the
boldest sermons ever preached. They ring fresh and pow
erful in our hearts as we read them now and think of the
scowling faces that must have looked upon the preacher
from priest's hood and abbot's mitre. Mr. Froude has pic
tured the scene with such rare spirit and grouping of im
pressive effects, that we cannot venture to touch it save in
his words.
" There were assembled in St. Paul's on this occasion,
besides the bishops," he says, " mitred abbots, meditating
the .treason for which, before many months were past, their
quartered limbs would be rotting by the highways ; earnest'
sacramentarians making ready for the stake ; the spirits of
the two ages, the past and the future, in fierce collision ;

LATIMER. 215
and above them all, in his vicar-general's chair, sat Crom
well, the angry waters lashing round him, but, proud and
powerful, lording over the storm. The present hour was
his. The enemies' turn in due time would come also. . . .
The mass had been sung ; the roll of the organ had died
away. It was the time for the sermon, and Hugh Latimer,
Bishop of Worcester, rose into the pulpit. Nine-tenths of
all those eyes which were then fixed on him, would have
glistened with delight could they have looked instead upon
his burning. The whole crowd of passionate men were
compelled by a changed world to listen quietly while he
shot his bitter arrows at them. His object on the present
occasion was to tell the clergy what especially he thought
of themselves ; and Latimer was a plain speaker. They
had no good opinion of him. His opinion of them was
very bad. His text was from the 16th chapter of St. Luke's
Gospel : ' The children of this world are wiser in their gen
eration than the children of light' " He then presents his
readers with a summary of the sermons, which, however,
we shall not attempt to do. Latimer's words, when they
, are telling, do not bear to be summarized, however they
may be extracted. One must read them in their natural
quaintness and color in order to feel their just force, — the
vivid and rapid impress which they make upon the mind, —
like a rain of rattling hail upon the ground.
The conclusion of the second and longer sermon, rising
into a strain of sweeping ironical urgency that must at once
have awed and galled the hearts of many who heard him,
will afford a good specimen of their boldness and power.
" If there be nothing to be amended and redressed, my
lords, be of good cheer — be merry — and at the least, be
cause we have nothing else to do. Let us reason the mat
ter how we may be richer ; let us fall to some jileasant

216 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
communication. After, let us go home even as good as we
came hither, — that is, right-begotten children of the world,
and utterly worldlings. And while we live here, let us all
make bone cheer {bonne chere) ; for after this life there is
small pleasure, little mirth for us to hope for, if now there
be nothing to be changed in our fashions. Let us not say,
as St. Peter did, 'Our end approacheth nigh:' this is an
heavy hearing ; but let us say as the evil servant said, ' It
will be long ere my master come.' This is pleasant. Let
us beat our fellows ; let us eat and drink with drunkards.
Surely as oft as we do not take away the abuse of things,
so oft we beat our fellows. As oft as we give not the peo
ple their true food, so oft we beat our fellows. As oft as
we let them die in superstition, so oft we beat them. To
be short, as oft as we blind lead them blind, so oft we beat,
and grievously beat, our fellows. When we welter in pleas
ure and idleness, then we eat and drink with drunkards.
But God will come, God will come ; he will not tarry long
away. He will come upon such a day as we nothing look
for him, and at such hour as we know not. He will come
and cut us to pieces ; he will reward us as he doth the
hypocrites. He will set us where wailing shall be, my
brethren ; where gnashing of teeth shall be, my brethren.
And let here be the end of our tragedy, if ye will 
But if ye will not thus be vexed, be ye not the children of
the world. If we will not die eternally, live not worldly.
Come, go to, leave the love of your profit, study for the
glory and profit of Christ: seek in your consultations such
things as pertain to Christ, and bring forth at the last some
what that may please Christ. Feed ye tenderly, with all
diligence, the flock of Christ. Preach truly the word of
God. Love the light, walk in the light, and so be ye the
children of the light while ye are in the world, that ye may

LATIMER. 217
shine in the world that is to come, bright as the Son with
the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, to whom be all
honor, praise, and glory. — Amen."
The work of the Convocation thus opened, was in many
respects memorable. In this year of 1536, the same year
in which Calvin entered Geneva, the English Reformation
touched its highest point under Henry VIII. Cranmer and
the king were now united hand in hand, and, notwithstand
ing the gloomy displeasure of many of the clergy, a great
advance was made. The opening sermons were indeed
followed up by a memorial to the king on the subject of
prevailing heresies, containing several thrusts at Latimer's
supposed opinions. This sufficiently showed the temper
of the Convocation ; but it met in Henry, for the moment,
a temper equally excited, and far more authoritative. He
addressed to them, in reply, a series of articles of religion,
imposed with a view to the settlement of differences.
These articles (the king's own composition, according to Mr.
Froude1) mark a decided progress of opinion. They still
retain the cherished doctrine of the corporeal presence in
the Eucharist, to which Henry's mind clung with a faithful
tenacity, and in which both Cranmer aud Latimer were as
1 The evidence seems very slight (except on his ground of believing im
plicitly in state documents) on which Mr. Froude comes to this conclusion
(vol. iii. p. 67). Cranmer, I should think, was the more likely author of the
" Fourteen Articles," although the king may well have had a share in them,
and even " put his own pen to the book " on the subject. But, supposing the
Articles were the production of the king himself, the inference Mr. Froude
would found upon this fact as to the moral position of the king at the
moment in relation to Ann Boleyu's death (he had been married only three
weeks to Jane Seymour), is, to say the least, of a very uncertain character.
That a man is to be held less guilty of a great crime because he can busy
himself, some few weeks after, with the dictation of a series of theological
articles, is certainly neither warranted by the facts of evidence nor the
workings of human nature. 19

218 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
yet contented to rest; but the great Protestant doctrine of
justification by faith is plainly and comprehensively as
serted ; purgatory, in any special sense, and as the basis of
the gross papal corruption which had so widely prevailed,
denied; while prayer for souls departed is merely com
mended as a good and charitable deed. " The Articles
were debated in Convocation, and passed, because it was
the king's will. No party was pleased. The Protestants.
exclaimed against the countenance given to superstition ;
the Anglo- Catholics lamented the visible taint of heresy,
the reduced number of the sacraments, the doubtful lan
guage upon purgatory, and the silence, dangerously sig
nificant, on the nature of the priesthood."1 They were
signed, however, by all sides, and remain of great interest
to this day, as the " first authoritative statement of doctrine
in the Anglican Church."
Besides the articles^ thus passed, the power of the Pope
to call general councils was expressly denied ; directions
were issued for the instruction of the people in the Pater
noster, the Apostles' Creed, and the Commandments, lately
published in England ; and as the crowning and most im
portant act of all, the English Bible was authorized in
every parish. Every church was " to provide a book of
the whole Bible in Latin and English, and lay the same
in the quire for every man that will to read and look
thereon." 2
On from the point that we have now reached, where 'we
see Latimer in a distinct attitude of authority, as it were,
heading the Anglican reform movement, it might be sup
posed that we would be able to trace his career in a clear
1 Feoude's History, vol. iii. p. 74. r — .-^
2 The Bible thus authorized for popular perusal was Coverdale's edition
of Tyndale, sanctioned by Cranmer. — See Froude, vol. iii. pp. 78, 83.!

LATIMER. 219
light. This, however, is not the case. After his appear
ance in the Convocation of 1536, he withdraws again from
public view, and his activity is mainly traceable in quiet
works of reform within his own diocese. It is characteristic
of him, in comparison with all the other reformers, that he
nowhere takes an active part in the political changes which
attended the course of the Reformation. There is reason,
indeed, to think that, not only now, but afterwards, he was
a chief friend and counsellor of Cranmer, as he was a fre
quent resident of Lambeth ; and his letters to Cromwell
show what a lively interest he cherished in all that was
going on, and what constant and ready service he con
tinued to render to the secretary. Still he does not, even
during the time that he continued to hold his bishopric,
stand out in any sense as a political leader. His influence
seems everywhere present, but it does not obtrude itself,
save at isolated points, upon public notice. We are the
less reluctant, therefore, to be obliged to sum up in a very
brief space the main facts of his future life, and to charac
terize them in very general terms.
First of all, we see him devoting himself with great zeal
and diligence to his special duty as Bishop of Worcester.
This is mainly the view we get of him in the vague and des
ultory notices of Foxe. His life is represented as a constant
round of " study, readiness, and continual carefulness in
teaching, preaching, exhorting, writing, correcting, and re
forming, either as his ability would serve, or else the time
would bear." This was his true nature ; he was eminently
practical, wise, and prudent — doing what he could, although
"the days then were so dangerous and variable that he
could not in all things do that he would." His zeal he re
served for the pulpit. All his episcopal acts were charac
terized by a cautious wisdom and moderation. Where he

220 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
could not remove corruptions altogether, he did his best to
amend them : he so wrought that they should be used with
as little hurt and as much profit as might be. Holy water
and holy bread, for example, must still be dispensed.
Neither the priestly nor the popular feeling could under
stand or tolerate their disuse. But he prepared a few plain
verses, embodying a significant Christian lesson in each
case, which he instructed the clergy of his diocese to repeat
to the people on delivering the old symbols.1
In such sort of work we see the genuine spirit of the
English Reformation, — proceeding not from any dogmatic
or comprehensive principle of an ideal right or good in the
church, but simply working onwards under a practical
Christian impulse. The " sparkling relics " of the old su
perstition are got rid of, for the most part, gradually ; and
where, as in the case of some of the most flagrant eccle
siastical impostures,2 we see them fall violently, even the
violence is legalized, — there is an order preserved even in
it ; and the popular feeling, where it comes into play, is
stimulated by a just indignation at the grossness of the
delusion practised upon it, rather than by any polemic and
anti -idolatre us excitement.
Latimer's cheerful labors in his diocese were no doubt
most to his heart. A shadow falls upon him so soon as we
begin to contemplate him in any other capacity. He is in
trouble, but ill satisfied with his work ; and, worse than all,
he is a sharer — we gather from his own letter on the
subject — a reluctant sharer in one, at least, of the most
tragic and pathetic of the miserable and contradictoiy
martyrdoms which signalize the period.
Foxe, vol. vii. p. 461.
2 As, for example, the blood of Hailes (with the investigation into the
nature of which Latimer was connected, Remains, 407), and the Rood of
Boxley. — See Froude, vol. iii. pp. 286, 287.

LATIMER. 221
In 1537 he was engaged, along with his brethren of the
Episcopal bench and other divines, in the publication of
the book known as The Institution of a Christian Mam, — a
book designed as a religious manual for the times. It con
sisted of an exposition of the Creed, the Sacraments, the
Ten Commandments, and the Lord's Prayer,1 and was
characterized by a mild and temperate spirit of devotion,
and great beauty of composition. Latimer, however, was
but indifferently pleased with its doctrines, which formed
a reaction rather than an advance upon the articles of the
previous year. The bishops were obviously, from the man
ner in which he writes on the subject to Cromwell,2 greatly
divided about it. " It is a troublous thing," he says, " to
agree upon a doctrine in things of such controversy with
judgment of such diversity, every man (I trust) meaning
well, and yet not all meaning one way. ... If there be
anything either uncertain or impure, I have good hope that
the king's highness will separare quicquid est veteris fer-
menti; at least, may give it some note that it may appear
he perceiveth, though he do tolerate it for a time, — so
giving place for a season to the frailty and gross capacity
of his subjects."
It is in the following year (1538) that we find him asso
ciated with the martyrdom of Friar Forrest. Forrest had
been prior of the Observants' Convent, at Greenwich. His
main offence, like that of Sir Thomas More and others,
was resistance to the Royal Supremacy Act. He appears
to have submitted, and been pardoned, and then again to
have recanted his submission. The peculiarity in his case,
1 I have not examined the book ; but the descriptions given of it, very much
suggest a corresponding book connected with the Scottish Reformation —
viz., Archbishop Hamilton's Catechism.
2 Remains, p. 380. 19*

222 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
as Mr. Froude has very well explained, is, that he was
finally condemned, not under the treason law, which might
have been done with some show of justice, but under the
law of heresy. Certain monstrous articles, by which his
conduct was sought to be brought under this latter law,
were devised against him by Cranmer, and he was sen
tenced to the fate of heretics in its most aggravated form.
He "was literally roasted alive in an iron cage. One shud
ders to read the account of it, and to think that the names
of both Cranmer and Latimer remain associated with so
foul an atrocity. For Cranmer's share in it there can be
found no excuse, save the usual one of the spirit of the
times. Latimer's connection with it appears to have been
more accidental. He was appointed by Cromwell to preach
the sermon on the occasion ; and there is a strange sad
ness in the way he writes about it, — his unrelenting hu
mor playing, like a wintry gleam, round the tragic story
" And, sir, if it be your pleasure, as it is, that I shall play
the fool after my customable manner when Forrest shall
suffer, I would wish that my stage stood near unto Forrest;
for I would endeavor myself so to content the people that
therewith I might also convert Forrest, God so helping, or
rather altogether working. Wherefore I would that he
should hear what I shall say, si forte, etc. If he could yet
with heart return to his abjuration, I would wish his par
don : such is my foolishness."1 He is moved obviously for
the unhappy wretch, and the work is painful to him ; but
he cannot help himself, and the utterance of pity almost
dies on his lips, as if it were something to be ashamed of.2
" Hard times," indeed ! (as Foxe complains), which could
so lock up the warm impulses in Latimer's honest heart.
1 Remains, p. 391.
2 Froude, vol. iii. p. 295. — See his vivid description of the martyrdom

LATIMER. 223
An ecclesiastical system which sought to prop itself by
such means, was plainly in a very fluctuating and unstable
condition. It was moved to and fro, in fact, by every
changing impulse of the royal temper ; and this temper re
flected the agitated spirit of the times. To regard Henry's
chapges as mere brutal caprice, according to the long-pre
vailing traditionary views of his character, is probably what
few would now do ; but to. try and find in them, with Mr.
Froude, any clear principle of conviction or intelligent
guidance throughout, is equally absurd and incredible.
Henry was true to one thing, and one thing alone, — his
own supposed interest. This, in conjunction with his
strong national feeling, was in many cases a sufficiently
equitable rule of statecraft ; but to identify the royal at all
points with the national interest, and to presume that
Henry acted from the higher principle, involves an amaz
ing stretch of credulity. The king of Mr. Froude's history
is not the monster of the old and uncritical tradition ; but
he is not, even on his own evidence, in the least the hero
that he supposes him to be.
On the present occasion it is easy to understand how a
reaction sets in. The northern insurrections had proved
how strong was the hold which the old superstitions still
had upon the hearts of the people. The king himself, hav
ing secured his object against Rome, was disposed to cling
to the Catholic doctrine in its completeness. It was very
natural, therefore, that a party should spring up, attaching
itself, on the one hand, to the Royal Supremacy Act, and,
on the other hand, very strongly to the old ecclesiastical
tradition, — a party which has received the distinctive title
of Anglo- Catholics, and who may be briefly characterized
as doctrinally Romanist, but ecclesiastically Anglican. This
party evidently represented a strong national feeling. The

224 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
" pilgrimage of grace," the insurrections of Yorkshire and
Lancashire, testified to the strength of this feeling ; it was
such even as seriously to affect the stability of the throne '
and Henry, true to the instinct of serving himself by a
proper balance of parties, saw fit at this crisis to throw the
weight of his influence into the rising party, headed in the
church by the well-known names of Gardiner and Bonner.
The result of this was the six articles of 1539,1 which undid,
as far as possible, the work of the fourteen articles pre
viously passed, and sought to check the reforming impulse
communicated by them. Cranmer labored with all his
might to defeat them, but in vain ; and so soon as they
were confirmed, Latimer resigned his bishopric.
During the remainder of Henry's reign, Latimer lived in
great privacy. At first, indeed, he suffered a mild impris
onment in the house of Dr. Sampson, the Bishop of Chi
chester ; he then appears to have been permitted to retire
to the country, where he received an injury from the fall of
a tree, and coming up to London for medical advice, " he
was molested and troubled by the bishops ; " and finally, in
1546, just before the close of Henry's reign, he was brought
before the Privy Council, and cast into the Tower, where
he remained prisoner till the time that "blessed King Ed
ward entered his crown."2 Such is the brief sum of all
we know of this period of his fife. Whether, during the
time he was at liberty, he continued to preach, is not indi
cated ; probably he did not. His imprisonment, his grow
ing infirmities, and the dangers around him, may have
damped his old ardor, and kept him quiet. That he con-
' They rendered it penal to deny, or in any way to impugn, transubstan
tiation, communion in one kind, celibacy, lawfulness of monastic vows, pri
vate masses, auricular confession.
2 Foxe, vol. vii. p. 463.

LATIMER. 225
sidered his own life in danger during his confinement, he
himself tells us. He had a great interest, he says, to hear
of the executions in the city, while he was in ward with
the Bishop of Chichester, "because I looked that my part
should have been herein. I looked every day to be called
to it myself." l
With the accession of Edward VI. he again emerges into
public view. He remains, however, true to his old charac
ter, and not only does not mix himself up with politi
cal affairs, but declines to receive back his bishopric, which
was offered to him in the second year of Edward's reign
The fact that this offer was made at the instance of the
House of Commons, in consequence of an address from its
members, gives us a touching glimpse of the popularity of
the great preacher. His honest character and eloquence
had made a deep impression on the mind of the country,
and it finds a voice in this notable manner. We can only
guess at his reasons for declining an offer so honorable to
him. The state of his health, and the conscientious feel
ing of inadequacy to the multiplied duties that would de
volve upon him,2 probably form the explanation. He re
cognized beyond doubt, also, that preaching was his pecu
liar vocation, and that he could do more good to the cause
of the Reformation in this way than in any other. He de
voted himself, therefore, to the pulpit, and to practical
works of benevolence on behalf of the poor and the op
pressed. Leaving the public ordering of the affairs of the
1 Sermons, p. 164.
2 He had, as everything shows, a strong feeling of the responsibility of the
episcopal office, and of the oppression of the multiplied duties connected with
it. Foxe relates in reference to his previous resignation of his bishopric —
" At what time he first put off sih rochet in his chamber among his friends,
suddenly he gave a skSp on the floor for joy, feeling his shoulder so light,
and being discharged (as he said) of such a heavy burden." — Vol. vii. p. 463.

226 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
Reformation to others, he made it his aim to arouse in all
classes a practical spirit of reform. He found his most
natural and powerful source of influence in the eloquence
which moved congregated thousands, and it is in connec
tion with this eloquence that we remember him, and that
his name has become historically associated with the reign
of Edward VI. It is as a preacher above all that he lives
before us among the other great actors of the time. The
old picture represents him with uplifted arm preaching in
Whitehall Gardens, in front of the young monarch, who is
seated at a window, while a dense crowd in various atti
tudes testifies to the lively interest ¦which greeted his ser
mons. " In the same place of the inward garden," says
Foxe, "which was before applied to lascivious and courtly
pastimes, there he dispensed the fruitful word of the glori
ous gospel of Jesus Christ, preaching there before the king
and his whole court, to the edification of many."1 We
trace him besides at Stamford, preaching a series of ser
mons on the Lord's Prayer, before the Duchess of Suffolk;
and again in Lincolnshire, and at Grimsthorpe. " In this
his painful travail he occupied himself all King Edward's
days, preaching for the most part every Sunday twice, to
no small shame of all other loitering and unpreaching pre
lates, wh ich occupy great rooms and do little good ; and
that so much more to their shame, because he being a sore
bruised man, and above sixty-seven years of age [this is
an exaggeration], took so little care and sparing of him
self to do the people good. Not to speak of here his inde
fatigable travail, and diligence in his own private studies ;
who, notwithstanding both his years, and other pains in
preaching, every morning ordinarily, winter and summer,
1 Foxe, vol. vii. p. 463.

LATIMER. 227
about two of the clock in the morning, was at his book most
diligently. So careful was his heart of the preservation of
the church, and the good success of the gospel."
Thus Latimer spent those years of blessing to England
ere the evil days came, whose approach he seems to have
foreseen ; for, according to Foxe, he did " most evidently
prophecy all these kinds of plagues which afterwards
ensued." With the lamented death of Edward he felt that his
work was done, and that he had only to prepare himself
for the fate to which he had long looked forward. So soon
as Mary was settled upon the throne, and the reactionary
party, headed by their old leaders, had once more tri
umphed, he and the other chief agents of the Reformation
were sought out, summoned to London before the Privy
Council, and committed to the Tower. Latimer appears
to have been in Worcestershire when a " pursuivant," in
the language of the chronicler, was sent down into the
country to call him up. He was duly appraised of his
danger ; and, to do the government justice, they seem to
have afforded him the fair means of escape, if he had been
disposed to flee out of the country, like so many others.
But flight was far from his thoughts. The one strength
that remained to him was to bear the crown of martyrdom;
and passing through Smithfield on his way to the council,
he was heard, in his usual cheerful manner, to say that it
" had long groaned for him." His health, already greatly
weakened, was further injured by the hardships of his con
finement in the Tower. He was kept " without fire in the
frosty winter," and the picture is a bitterly touching one of
the suffering old man, "well-nigh starved with cold," and
jesting with his keeper on his chances of cheating his per-
secutors, " if they did not look better to him."

228 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
In the April of the following year (1554) he was con
veyed to Oxford, along with Cranmer and Ridley, for the
purpose of holding disputations on the subject of the mass
before certain commissioners appointed to examine them.
We find him, on the 18th of April, in the presence of these
commissioners, declining to dispute. He pleaded that he
was an old man, and that he had not, during tliese twenty
years, much used the Latin tongue. " Then replied to
him Master Smith of Oriel College ; Doctor Cartwright,
Master Harpsfield, and divers others, had snatches at him,
and gave him bitter taunts. He did not escape hisses and
scornful laughing. He was very faint, and desired that he
might not long tarry." "- It is a miserable spectacle : inso
lence and brutality on the one side, and weakness and old
age on the other. If we could wonder at any disgrace
perpetrated in the name of religion, we might wonder at
the singular debasement which could prompt such conduct
on the part of learned men towards one who, amidst the
widest differences of opinion, had such claims upon their
sympathy and respect. The disputation, as in all such
cases, lead to nothing. Latimer was permitted to give in a
lengthened protestation of his faith, upon which there fol
lowed some discussion, terminating in a curiously emphatic
denunciation of the Protestants by Dr. Weston, who took
the lead in the argument on behalf of the commissioners :
"A sort of fling-brains and light-heads," he said they were,
" which were never constant in any one thing ; as it was to
be seen in the turning of the table, where, like a sort of
apes, they could not tell which way to turn their tails, look
ing one day west, and another day east — one that way,
and another this way." 2
1 Foxe, Remains, p. 250. 2 Remains, p. 277.

LATIMER. 229
After this examination Latimer was transferred to
Bocardo, the common jail in Oxford, and there he lay,
with his companions, imprisoned for more than a year.
During this long imprisonment " they were most godly oc
cupied either with brotherly conference, or with fervent
prayer, or with fruitful writing, albeit Master Latimer, by
reason of the feebleness of his age, wrote least of them all
ill this last time. But in prayer he was fervently occupied,
wherein oftentimes so long he continued kneeling, that he
was not able to rise without help." 1 At length, on the 30th
of September, 1558, he again appears before the commis
sioners. Ridley had preceded him in examination, and in
the meantime he had been kept waiting, as he complains,
" gazing upon the cold walls." Suffering and poverty were
depicted in his appearance as he bowed before them,
" holding his hat in his hand, with a kerchief bound round
his head, and upon it a nightcap or two, and a great cap,
such as horsemen used in those days, with two broad flaps
to button under the chin. He wore an old threadbare
Bristol frieze gown, girded to his body with a penny
leather girdle ; his Testament was suspended from this
girdle by a leather sling, and his spectacles, without a case,
hung from his neck upon his breast."2 He was exhorted
to consider his estate, to remember his age and infirmity,
and to spare his body by admitting the claims of the
Papacy. He replied with something of his old spirit, tak
ing up the special arguments urged by the Bishop of Lin
coln, who had addressed him. Especially he exposed the
unfairness of a book recently published by the Bishop of
Gloucester, in which it was argued that the clergy possessed
the same authority as the Levites ; and whereas the Bible
1 Foxe. 2 Ibid., p. 529.
20

230 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
said that the Levites, if there arose any controversy among
the people, should decide the matter according to the law of
God, these words were left out in the book in question, and
the text quoted as saying, that as the priests should decide
the matter, so it ought to be taken of the people, — " A large
authority, I assure you," he exclaimed. " What gelding of
Scripture is this ? what clipping of God's coin ? " ' The
Bishop of Gloucester, who happened to be one of the
commissioners, came forward to defend his book; and Lat
imer acknowledged that he did not know him, and was not
aware of his presence. A scene of laughter ensues in the
old brutal fashion.2 The bishop reproaches him for his want
of learning. "Lo!" he exclaimed, in just indignation at
the unworthy taunt, " you look for learning at my hand,
which have gone so long to the school of oblivion, making
the bare walls my library ; keeping me so long in prison
without book, or pen, or ink ; and now you let me loose to
come and answer to articles. You deal with me as though
two were appointed to fight for life and death ; and over
night the one, through friends and favor, is cherished, and
hath good counsel given him how to encounter with his
enemy ; the other, for envy or lack of friends, all the whole
night is set in the stocks. In the morning, when they shall
meet, the one is in strength and lively, the other is stark
of his limbs, and almost dead for feebleness. Think you
that to run through this man with a spear is not a goodly
victory ? " 3
The end of all was, that he and Ridley were condemned
to suffer; and on the 16th of October, 1555, they were led
forth to martyrdom " without Bocardo gate," opposite Bahol
College (where the splendid martyrs' monument now
1 Foxe, vol. vii. p. 531. 2 Ibid. " ibid., p. 532.

LATIMER. 231
stands). They embraced each other, knelt in prayer, and
at last, when they were about to kindle the pile, he first
thanked God audibly for his faithfulness to him, and then,
turning to his companion, said, " Be of good comfort, Mas
ter Ridley, and play the man : we shall this day light such
a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never
be put out."
Thus perished the great preacher reformer of England,
closing his honest, laborious, and intrepid life by an heroic
death, shedding its radiance back upon all his previous
work, and transfiguring it into a higher glory.
The character of Latimer presents a combination of
noble and disinterested qualities, scarcely rising to great
ness, but highly significant and interesting. The natural
healthiness of his earlier years at the Leicestershire farm,
of " three or four pounds by the year at the uttermost,"
reappears in all his future career as a student, a preacher, a
bishop, a martyr. There is the same simple spirit, and
honest temper, and cheery humor, and unresting faithful
ness in him in every capacity. The man is never lost sight
of, in whatever special attitude he shows himself; nay, the
rustic boy, who was the " father of the man," is scarcely
ever forgotten. There is in him everywhere a rural fresh
ness and rough fragrance of nature, that we feel as a
rare and happy charm impregnating and purifying all his
work. A simplicity everywhere verging on originality is perhaps
his most prominent characteristic, — a simplicity as far as
possible from that which we noted in Calvin : the one, the
naked energy of intellect ; the other, a guileless evenness
of heart. The single way in which Latimer looks at life,
with his eyes unblinded by conventional drapery of any
kind, and his heart responsive to all its broadest and most

232 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
common interests, — of which he speaks in language never
nice and circumlocutory, but straight, plain, and forcible, —
gives to his sermons their singular air of reality, and to his
character that sort of piquancy which we at once recognize
as a direct birth of nature. He is a kind of Goldsmith in
theology ; the same artless and winning earnestness, — the
sunny temper in the midst of all difficulties, — the same
disregard of his own comforts, and warm and kindly indi
vidualism of benevolence, — the same bright and playful
humor, like a roving and gleeful presence, meeting you at
every turn, and flashing laughter in your face. It would be
absurd, of course, to push this comparison further. There
is beneath all the oddities of Latimer's character a deep
and even stern consistency of purpose, and a spirit of
righteous indignation against wrong, which, apart from all
dissimilarities of work, destroys any more.essential analogy
between the great humorist of the Reformation in England
and the later humorist of its literature. Yet the same
childlike transparency of character is beheld in both, and
the same fresh stamp of nature, which, in its simple origin
ality, is found to outlast far more brilliant and imposing, but
artificially cultured qualities.
Li mere intellectual strength, Latimer can take no place
beside either Luther or Calvin. His mind has neither the
rich compass of the one, nor the symmetrical vigor of the
other. He is no master in any department of intellectual
interest, or even of theological inquiry. We read his ser
mons, not for any light or reach of truth which they unfold,
nor because they exhibit any peculiar depth of spiritual
apprehension, but simply because they are interesting, —
and interesting mainly from the very absence of all dog
matic or intellectual pretensions. Yet, without any men
tal greatness, there is a pleasant and wholesome harmony

LATIMER. 233
of mental powers displayed in his writings,1 which gives to
them a wonderful vitality. There is a proportion and vigor,
not of logic, but of sense and feeling in them, eminently
English, and showing everywhere a high and well-toned
capacity. He is coarse and low at times ; his familiarity
occasionally descends to meanness ; but the living hold
which he takes of reality at every point, often carries him
also to the height of an indignant and burning eloquence.
Of his private social life we learn comparatively little.
His nature was one keenly susceptible of friendship, and
must have everywhere drawn to itself objects of affection.
We can mark in the dim traces of his life the surrounding
footsteps of his friends, — Bilney, and Cranmer, and Crom
well, and Dr. Butts, and, at the last, Ridley. There is no
glimmering, however, of any dearer and more intimate
affection, — no light of love, flushing with its soft, warm
presence the hard and darkening course of his energetic
and unwearied labors. The singleness of his aim as a
reformer; his untiring spirit of self-sacrifice, "minding
not his own things, but the things of others ; " his self-
sustaining vigor in his work, and equable delight in it, —
may sufficiently account for this absence. It takes an in
terest from his life, but at the same time simplifies our view
of it. The impression remains deepened of a simple and
earnest, rather than of a broad and powerful character.
•
In turning to estimate Latimer's work as a reformer, we
are at first struck very much with the same peculiarity;
that is to say, with its comparative simplicity and narrow
ness of meaning. It possesses neither the national gran-
' Besides his sermons, his letters — not merely his comparatively short
business letters to Cromwell, but those to Sir Ed. Baynton, Archbishop War
ham, and King Henry — should be read by the student.
20*

234 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
deur of the work of Luther, nor the theological and spirit
ual influence of that of Calvin. It is practical rather than
doctrinal ; and deep and powerful and abiding as have
been its traces, it never attains to that comprehensive
sweep and issue which at once impress us in the work of
each of our other reformers. And yet Latimer was a true
leader in the great movement of the sixteenth century. He
did not, indeed, and could not, take up and express the va
rious and complex impulses that were then bearing the na
tional life of England onwards in the direction of reform.
There was no single teacher capable of doing this. There
were far too great diversity and richness in the impulses then
moving England to permit of their finding united expres
sion in any one man. But while Latimer did not, like
Luther or Calvin, sum up in himself the great principles
of the movement of which he was a leader, he expressed,
beyond doubt, the most characteristic features of that move
ment. He represented those qualities of earnestness, and
yet of moderation, of scriptural faithfulness, and yet tra
ditionary respect, — at once reforming and conservative, —
which peculiarly distinguished the English character, and
have stamped their impress more than any other upon the
spirit of the Church of England.
The spirit of this church is not, and never has been,
definite and consistent. From the beginning it repudiated
the distinct guidance of any theoretical. principles, however
exalted, and apparently scriptural. It held fast to its his
torical position, as a great institute still living and powerful
under all the corruptions which had overlaid it ; and while
submitting to the irresistible iufluence of reform which
swept over it, as over other churches in the sixteenth cen
tury, it refused to be refashioned according to any new
model. It broke away from the medieval bondage, under

LATIMER. 235
which it had always been restless, and destroyed the gross
abuses which had sprung out of it ; it rose in an attitude
of proud and successful resistance to Rome : but in doing
all this, it did not go to Scripture, as if it had once more,
and entirely anew, to find there the principles either of
doctrinal truth or of practical government and discipline.
Scripture, indeed, was eminently the condition of its re
vival ; but Scripture was not made anew the foundation of
its existence. There was too much of old historical fife in
it to seek any new foundation ; the new must grow out of
the old, and fit itself into the old. The Church of Eng
land was to be reformed, but not reconstituted. Its life
was too vast, its influence too varied, its relations too com
plicated, — ¦ touching the national existence in all its multi
plied expressions at too many points, — to be capable of
being reduced to any new and definite form in more sup
posed uniformity with the model of Scripture, or the sim
plicity of the primitive church. Its extensive and manifold
organism was to be reanimated by a new life, but not
remoulded according to any arbitrary or novel theory.
Tnis spirit, at once progressive and conservative, com
prehensive rather than intensive, historical, and not dog
matical, is one eminently characteristic of the English
mind, and, as it appears to us, in the highest degree char
acteristic of the English Reformation. It is far, indeed,
from being an exhaustive characteristic of it. Two distinct
tendencies of a quite different character, expressly dogmatic
in opposite extremes, are found running alongside this main
and central tendency : on the one hand, a medieval dog
matism ; on the other hand, a puritanical dogmatism. The
current of religious life in England, as it moved forward
and took shape in the sixteenth century, is marked by this
threefold bias, which has perpetuated itself to the present

236 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
time. There was then, as there remains to this day, an
upper, middle, and lower tendency, — a theory of High-
churchism, and a theory of Low-churchism ; and between
these contending dogmatic movements the great confluence
of what was and is the peculiar type of English Christian
ity, — ¦ a Christianity diffusive and practical, rather than
direct and theoretical ; elevated and sympathetic, rather
than zealous and energetic ; scriptural and earnest in its
spirit, but undogmatic and adaptive in its form.
In the sixteenth century Latimer appears, along with
Cranmer, — although in a more natural manner than the
latter, as being comparatively free from the complications
of political interest, — to be the great representative of
this middle movement in the Church of England ; while
Gardiner and Bonner on one side, and Hooper and his fol
lowers on the other side, represent respectively the medi
eval and puritanical tendencies. It may be doubtful to
some, whether there is not much in Latimer that seems to
ally him with the latter school, — whether his principles, in
their natural development, would not have led him to join
them, had he lived on till they came into more distinct
prominence as opposed to the ecclesiastical despotisms of
Elizabeth.1 Such a question cannot be absolutely deter
mined, and is, in fact, irrelevant. For it is idle to speculate
what Latimer or any man might have become in very dif
ferent circumstances from those in which we find him. It
appears to us with sufficient clearness that Latimer never
would, and never could, have become a Puritan, without
an entire change of the peculiar spirit of natural sense, of
moderation, and of conciliatory doctrinism which distin
guishes him. In the early dogmatic puritanism of the
1 This is apparently Mr. Froude's view of both Latimer and Cranmer —
vol. iii. p. 362.

LATIMER. 237
Church of England, ¦ — of Hooper, for example, and subse
quently of Travers and Cartwright, — there was a distinct
foreign element, which Latimer, with his genuine English
feeling, would have strongly repudiated ; and there was,
moreover, a dogmatic narrowness, and an exaggerated im
portance attached to form and externality, which were
entirely alien to his cast of mind, and the spirit of reform
which animated him.
This spirit was throughout preeminently practical. He
had no special reforming schemes of any kind in view ; he
had no special doctrines- even to urge once more into prom
inence. The gospel did not come to him as it came to
Luther, in the shape of a new truth ; nor yet as it came to
Calvin, in the shape of a new system. It came to him
simply as a new spirit of life, and earnestness, and Chris
tian activity. As he studied the Bible, and as Bilney and
he prayed over it, it was the fire neither of dogmatic zeal
nor of disciplinal urgency that was kindled in him, but the
glow of simple evangelical earnestness. He awoke as
from a dream, in which the* forms of superstition had
haunted him as the only realities, to find that they were
no realities at all, but the mere inv#ntions and fancies of
men, draping and concealing the great truths of God. The
meaning of life and of duty, of real service to God in holy
obedience and works of mercy, in comparison with mere
religious observances and will-works — this was what
dawned upon him. And this was, above all, the kind of
reformation after which he sought, and for which he labored
— a reformation of life — the Church of England once
more animated by a Christian spirit, destroying by its very
presence and power the gross medieval abuses which had
fastened upon it till they seemed a part of its very exist
ence, whereas, in truth, they were only corrupting excres-

238 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
cences. The Catholic faith seemed to him, scarcely less
than to Sir Thomas More, to survive in England, and in
the old Church of England, if it were only purified from
such traditions and corruptions. His own preaching pre
sented to himself nothing new, nor even contrary to the
decrees of the Fathers. In his letter to the Archbishop of
Canterbury, in 1533, we find such a reforming position
exactly described as the one on which he considered him
self to stand. " If any man has any fault to object against
my preaching, as being obscure or uncautiously uttered, I
am ready to explain my doctrine by further discourse ; for
I have never preached anything contrary to the truth, or
contrary to the decrees of the Fathers, nor, as far as I
know, contrary to the Catholic faith. I have desired, I
own, and do desire, a reformation in the judgment of the
vulgar. I have desired, and still desire, that they should
make a distinction between duties, and regard and main
tain each according to its proper value, its place and time,
its rank and degree, in order that all men should know that
there is a very great difference between those works which
God hath prepared for each of us, zealously discharging
the duties of our respective callings, to walk in, and those
that are voluntary, which we undertake by our own strength
and pleasure. It is lawful, I own, to make use of images,
to go upon pilgrimages, to invoke the saints to be mindful
of souls in purgatory; but those things which are voluntary
are so to be moderated that God's commandments of neces
sary obligation, which bring eternal life to those who keep
them, and eternal death to those who neglect them, be not
deprived of their just value. . . I therefore, hitherto,
stand fixed on the side of the commandments of God, so
aiming, not at my own gain, but that of Christ ; so seeking
not my own glory, but that of God ; and as long as life

LATIMER. 239
shall be permitted to me, I will not cease thus to continue
imitating herein all true preachers of the word that have
hitherto lived in the world." "¦
The same supremely practical tendency manifests itself
more or less in all his sermons ; and in none more than in
those preached before Edward VI., which may be supposed
to contain his mature views of reform. He is vigilant and
urgent against all abuses alike in church and state, in
society and in private fife. He exposes them with homely
and crushing invective, sparing no class, passing by no op
pression, whether that of the poor vicar having an exten
sive cure in a market-town, on " but twelve or fourteen
marks by the year," so " that he is not able to buy him
books, nor give his neighbor drink ; " 2 or that of the gen
tle-woman from whom a great man kept certain lands of
hers, and who in a whole twelvemonth could not get one
day for the hearing of her matter ; or that of the poor
widow lying in the Fleet.3 He has a sound English heart,
hating all evil, and especially all proud and lying evil, all
dastardly mockeries of truth, all mere pretences in the
church or out of it, all disorders, all indifference and dead-
ness. His spirit kindles, and his language rises into more
concentrated pith and vigor when he catches sight of some
great wrong, or some social folly or immorality, and wishes
that it lay in his poor tongue to explicate it " with such
light of words that he might seem rather to paint it before
their eyes than to speak it." It is this characteristic of
Latimer's sermons that makes them still so fresh and living
to us while we read them. Had they been more doctrinal,
we should have examined them perhaps with equal or
even greater curiosity, as serving to illustrate the state of
1 See Latin original— Foxe, vol. vii. pp. 4—7.
2 Sermons, p. 101. 3 Ibid., p. 127.

240 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
Christian thought in his age, but we certainly should not
have found in them that vivifying power with which they
still touch us ; for nothing becomes more dead in the course
of transmission than the popular forms of doctrinal teach
ing, so that one generation finds mere barrenness and waste
paper in what greatly interested and delighted its prede
cessor. Even the doctrinal sermons of Luther are no
exception to this.
It is therefore just because Latimer was no dogmatist
that he remains so interesting to us, and his words still re
tain such a zest, and flavor, and power. He contends for
no particular theory of the truth ; his newborn life does not
need any new doctrinal vehicle of expression ; it is slow
even to cast off the least worthy additions that have gath
ered round the Catholic faith, and out of which have
sprung, by a sure process, the worst abuses which he
deplores. He nowhere takes up an attitude of doctrinal
hostility to the old church, nor aims to set forth any specific
doctrinal principles to which the whole line of the reform
movement should be attached, and from which it ought to
proceed. And yet it would be a total misapprehension of
his spirit and position to suppose him latitudinarian, or in
different to dogmatic truth ; he simply does not realize its
separate importance. Trained in the scholastic philosophy,
he of all our reformers retains no trace of its rationalizing
and controversial spirit. He had obviously little or no faith
in controversy — a wonderful point of advance for that
age. He is no theologian ; dogmas in and by themselves
have no interest for his homely, healthy mind. He appre
hends all, and cares for all, only in the concrete. Truth for
him is not this or that view or theory, but the life of faith
ful obedience towards God, and of active charity towards
man. This is the highest truth, and the only worthy

LATIMER. 241
reality for him in all the world, — " To fear God, and keep
his commandments." And it is his great mission as a re
former to awaken men everywhere to the need of this
living truth, to recall them from shadows and superstitions,
from "inventions and fancies," from will-works and phan
tasies of their own, to the reality of true Christian work,
and the glory of this only divine service.
It was as a preacher, above all, that he discharged this
great mission; and his sermons remain, as a whole, its
most interesting and graphic expression. Their highest
qualities are exactly those that characterize his general
work — life, reality, and earnestness. He uses the pulpit
not so much as a vehicle of instruction, but as a means of
impulse and movement. He never uses it as a mere
theatre of eloquence. He is eloquent not because he
thinks of being eloquent, and tries to be so, but simply
because there is in him a living and honest meaning which
he desires to communicate to others. The fire burned
within him, and he spake as it moved him. His sermons,
accordingly, while frequently deficient in all method, and
sometimes — where they aim to be explanatory or argu
mentative — vague and unimpressive, are yet, in the main,
instinct with a vigorous and fresh and happy interest. To
interest, and so move and reform, was the great aim of all
of them ; and so everything is sacrificed to the necessity
of making those whom he is addressing feel the truth and
force of what he is saying. The most homely illustrations,
and most startling and ludicrous conjunctions, headlong and
unsparing invective, and wayward and joyous humor, are
all given full play to, — each impulse yielded to as it
comes, — in order that the hearers may be touched by his
own obvious and irresistible inspiration. The result is
what sometimes appears to us, reading them with the cold
21

242 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
eye of criticism, coarseness rather than power, meanness
of language rather than impressiveness of idea, and cari
cature rather than humor ; but the manly and genial critic
will acknowledge the natural healthiness and vigor even of
many illustrations which have incurred the censure of
more fastidious tastes, while there is a relish as of good
old wine, sound and ripe after three centuries, in many
more ; and the intellectual appetite, jaded with the weak
mixtures of modern religious sentiment, grows keen and
glad over the numerous passages of vigorous and racy
sense, homely and joyous picturesqueness, and pungent,
earnest, and happy humor. It is difficult to give any speci
men at all satisfactory in detail. All such good things
appear poor when extracted, and apart from their setting.
The reader, therefore, must study the sermons themselves,
if he care to appreciate them. The following single pas
sage, in which irony mingles with earnestness, and the
picture, if somewhat low and audacious, is graphic and
powerful in the highest degree, may stand by itself perhaps
as well as any other: " But now for the fault of unpreach-
ing prelates, methinks I could guess what might be said
for excusing of them. They are so troubled with lordly
living, they be so placed in palaces, couched in courts,
ruffling in their rents, dancing in their dominions, burdened
with embassages, pampering of their paunches, like a
monk that maketh his jubilee, munching in their mangers,
and moiling in their gay manors and mansions, and so
troubled with looking on their lordships, that they cannot
attend it. They are otherwise occupied, some in the king's
matters, some are ambassadors, some of the Privy Council,
some to furnish the court, some are lords of the Parliament,
some are presidents and comptrollers of mints 
Should we have ministers of the church to be comptrollers

LATIMER. .. 243
of the mints ? Is this a meet office for a priest that hath
cure of souls ? Is this his charge ? I would here ask one
question — I would fain know who controlleth the devil at
home in his parish while he controlleth the mint ? . . .
Who is the most diligentest bishop and prelate in all Eng
land, that passeth all the rest in doing his office ? I can
tell, for I know him who it is — I know him well. But now
I think I see you listing and hearkening that I should name
him. There is one that passeth all the other, and is the
most diligent prelate and preacher in all England. And
will you know who it is ? I will tell you ; it is the devil.
He is the most diligent preacher of all others. He is never
out of his diocese, he is never from his cure ; ye shall
never find him unoccupied ; he is ever in his parish ; he
keepeth residence at all times ; ye shall never find him out
of the way ; call for him ¦when you will, he is ever at
home ; he is ever at his plough, no lording nor loitering can
hinder him — you shall never find him idle, I warrant you.
And his office is to hinder religion, to maintain superstition,
to set up idolatry. When the devil is resident and hath
his plough going, then away with books, and up with can
dles ; away with bibles, and up with beads ; away with the
light of the gospel, and up with the light of candles, yea,
at noonday. . . . Down with Christ's cross, and up
with purgatory pick-purse, up with him — the Popish pur
gatory I mean. Away with clothiug the naked, the poor
and the impotent, up with the decking of images and gay
garnishing of stocks and stones ; up with man's traditions
and his laws, down with God's traditions and his holy word;
down with the old honor due to God, and up with the new
god's honor."1 l " Sermon of the Plough." — Sermons, pp. 68—70.

244 ^LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
There is no feature in Latimer's sermons more pervading
than their invective. He is ever on the watch for'wrong
and abuses, and he pours out upon them the most free and
startling rebukes. He spares no class, and he spurns no
Q
weapon of ridicule or denunciation against the powers of
misrule, indolence, superstition, and bigotry, that he would
strike down. It is now the bishops, and now the lawyers,
among whom he sends his swift and piercing arrows ; now
the increasing licentiousness of the age, and now the ex
travagances of ladies' attire, especially the laying out of the
hair in " tussocks and tufts ; " and, again, the indolent
effeminacy of the rich and noble, which he paints with a
breadth of brush and a strong fight of piquant satire, that
enable us at once to understand his popularity. It was as a
denouncer of flagrant and widely-felt abuses, and as an
unceasing preacher of righteousness and benevolence
against wrong and hardness of heart, that the people above
all looked upon him and loved him ; and the strength and
prevalency of the popular feeling is sufficiently .shown in
the cry with which the boys used to follow him in the
streets — " Have at them, Master Latimer ! " In every
such time of extensive change, when old oppressions are
relaxing and new responsibilities dawning, honest and
hearty denunciation is sure to be popular ; and we may
well imagine, therefore, the enthusiasm which greeted the
great preacher who had the courage, in that age, to utter
manful and unsparing words in the ears of the wealthy and
powerful, the corrupt and tyrannical.
The humor of the sermons is eminently notable, — a
pungent, nipping, pursuing humor, lacking the richness and
depth and boisterous freedom of Luther's, but singularly
funny, seizing one in the oddest ways and at the most un
expected turns. You are never sure, even in the most

LATIMER. 245
solemn passages, that it will not peep out with its wayward
and 'comic glance, and start a reactionary smile as the
shadow of thought is beginning to steal over the counte-
nanije. Explosive and striking in its effect, it is gentle in
its spirit. There is not a touch of ill-nature in it. It cuts
to the quick, not because the preacher delights in giving
offence, but because his keen eye and pure heart cannot
help seeing through the mockeries and vanities and wrongs
which he exposes. He sees always their absurdity as well
as their iniquity, and he cannot help saying so. If stupidity
is offended, and superstition alarmed, and oppression indig
nant, so much the worse for all of them. The preacher is
not to blame who lights them up as he paints them with
the lambent glances of a humorous scorn, which has
merely searched them through and through. As with all
other preaching humorists, his fun is no doubt sometimes
out of place. A chill taste will shudder over some of its
displays ; but the truth is, that there are certain tastes, and
especially religious tastes, to which humor in any hearti
ness of manifestation is a dire offence. Identifying religion
not only with gloom but with stupidity, such tastes find
harm where there is merely amusement, and wrong where
there is merely the free play of innocent strength. A
hearty religious feeling, though sometimes startled, will
never be shocked by Latimer's oddest sallies, but will re
cognize in them only the radiant sparks from an ever-
bright and warm heart, looking out upon life with an in
tense gaze of reality, and apprehending its marvellous
contrasts in the sunlight of an ever-cheerful temper.
Nothing is more remarkable in him than this cheerful
ness. Ill in body, tried and persecuted and cast down by
many troubles, he is always cheerful, — cheerful at Cam
bridge, amidst the scowls of friars, — cheerful in his parish,
21*

246 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
under Episcopal frowns, and in his diocese, amidst an
obtuse and opposing clergy, — cheerful in the Tower, ^hen
nearly starved to death with cold, — cheerful at the stake,
in the thought of the illumining blaze that he and Ridley
would make for the glory of the gospel and the happiness
of England. An earnest, hopeful, and happy man, honest,
fearless, open-hearted, hating nothing but baseness, and
fearing none but God, — -'not throwing away his life, yet
not counting it dear when the great crisis came — calmly
yielding it up as the crown of his long sacrifice and strug
gle. There may be other reformers that more engage our
admiration ; there is no one that more excites our love.

IV

JOHN KNOX.

JOHN KNOX.

The Scottish Reformation, and the great central figure
which it presents, remain for our consideration. The field
opened to our view is comparatively limited, but it is
singular in the completeness and intensity of its interest.
The area over which the reforming movement is seen
sweeping, is but a narrow one in contrast with that of Ger
many or France or England, but it is more deeply moved ;
and the gathering impulses of the religious excitement
swell into a more highly expressed and definite nationality
than in any of the other cases.
As we cast our glance upon Scotland towards the end of
the first quarter of the sixteenth century, we behold a veiy
disturbed picture, — the king, the great nobles, and the
clergy sharing between them an authority which has not
worked itself into any consistent and beneficent form of
national order. In comparison with the well-developed,
massive, aud richly-pictured life of England at the same
period, there is great rudeness and disorder, and, in a word,
barbarism, in Scotland. This is obviously true of all ele
ments of political strength and stability ; while in regard to
the church it is no less really true. Poor and corrupt as
the clergy were in England in the earlier reign of Henry
VIII., they yet retained, in some instances, a moral spirit
and influence of which we can detect no trace in the sister
country.

250 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
The Reformation in each country is found strongly con
trasted, according to these very different circumstances of
the two nations. While in England there were powerful
forces both of political and moral resistance to it, in Scot
land, when the front of rude authority with which it was
at first violently encountered was once broken down, there
was no power left to stay nor even to guide it. The
kingly influence was entirely prostrated in the untimely
death of James V., after the disaster of Solway Moss ; the
nobles, in their savage enmities and factions, possessed no
intelligent or steady power of control. The hierarchy was
the single authority that remained to encounter a move
ment against which it was no more capable of effective
resistance, than would be the palsied form of a corrupt old
age against the active strength of a young and vigorous
life. While in England, accordingly, we see a balanced move
ment proceeding gradually and under royal sanction, in
Scotland we behold an insurrectionary impulse long re
pressed, but at length gathering force till it breaks down
and sweeps away all barriers before it. It might seem, on
the mere first glance we got of the hierarchy of Scotland,
that it constituted a formidable power ; externally it bears
the marks of such a power, — • the craft, subtlety, and swift,
unrelenting vengeance which master its enemies easily,
and crush them before its fierce anger. But these are in
reality the mere fangs of a brute strength surviving the
decay of all true national life and strength in the system.
The apparent influence and barbaric splendor of such men
as the Beatouns cover a rottenness at the heart more
feeble, and smitten with more complete decay, than could
be found in any other country of the Reformation. No
where else had the clergy reached such a pitch of flagrant

JOHN KNOX. 251
and disgraceful .immorality, and the Roman Catholic re
ligion become such an utter corruption and mockery of all
that is good and holy. The bishops and archbishops lived
in open concubinage, and gave their daughters in marriage
to the sons of the best families in the kingdom ; livings
were transmitted from father to son in the most shameless
manner; the monasteries were, in popular belief and in
reahty, to a degree beyond what we can indicate, sinks of
profligacy. A darker and more hideous picture, when we
think of it as the formal representative of religion to a
people, we cannot conceive than that which is suggested
in the scattered but sufficiently broad hints of Knox.1
And while such were the moral features of the system,
scarcely even the pretence of religious service was pre
served; the churches, save on festival days, were aban
doned, the priests unable to understand a single word of
the prayers which they mumbled over, and preaching en
tirely unknown. Every element of religion was material
ized to the last degree ; and blessings sold for so much, and
cursings for so much. The clergy were the traffickers —
they seem really to have been little more — in such sup
posed spiritual charms ; the people were the victims, in
some cases honestly so, but in others obviously with a suf
ficiently clear view of the absurdity, if not impiety, of the
whole affair. Knox gives- a ludicrous picture of what went
on in this way, drawn from the preaching of William
Airth, a friar of Dundee, who distinguished himself tem
porarily by his keen exposure of the papistical system
1 Historic. Whatever undue severity there may be here and there in
Knox's descriptions, there is no reason to doubt their general accuracy.
The immoralities of such men as the Beatouns, and the clerical caste in Scot
land of which they stood at the head, are unhappily as well established as
any such facts can be.

252 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
" The priest," said he, "whose duty and office it is to pray
for the people, stands up on Sunday and cries, ' Ane has
tint a spurtill ; there is a flail stoun beyond the burn ; the
gudewife of the other side of the gait has tint a horn-
spoon : God's malison and mine I give to those who know
of this gear and restores it not.' " And the appreciation
the people often had of this preaching is also well shown.
" After sermon that he had at Dunfermline," Knox says,
" he came to a house whare gossips were drinkane their
Sunday pennie ; and he, being dry, askit drink. ' Yes,
father,' said ane of the gossips, 'ye sail have drink, but ye
must first resolve ane doubt whilk has risen among us, —
to wit, what servant will serve a man best on least ex
pense.' — ' The gnde angel,' said I, 'who is man's keeper, —
who makes grit service without expense.' — ' Tusche ! ' said
the gossip, 'we mean no such high matters; we mean,
what honest man will do greatest service for least ex
pense ? ' And while I was musing, said the friar, what
that should mean, she said, ' I see, father, that the greatest
clerks are not the wisest men. Know ye not how the
bishops and their officials seive us husbandmen ? Will
they not give us a letter of cursing for a plack to last for a
year, to curse all that look over our dyke ? and that keeps
our corn better nor the sleepy boy that will have three
shillings of fee, a sark, and a pair of shoon in the year." "¦
A system whose most familiar and popular expressions
had sunk into such absolute dotage, whose dishonesty and
immorality were so widespread and prominent, might seem
powerful; but, in point of fact, it had no permanent ele
ments of strength. It was a mere repressive machinery
lying on the heart of the nation, so far as there was in it
1 Historic, p. 14; foi. ed., 1732.

JOHN KNOX. 253
any true heart and living growth of moral intelligence.
And not only so ; not only had the Catholic hierarchy in
Scotland become a mere incubus, but an incubus in no
small degree of foreign character and pretensions. Many
of the higher clergy received their education in France;1
they had engrafted on their natural rudeness and fierceness
of character the polish of a culture formed in the most
licentious and perfidious court in Europe, — a polish which
not only left their native and essential savageness un
tamed, but sharpened it into some of its worst features of
cruelty and baseness. This may serve to explain the
striking alienation between the hierarchy in Scotland and
the genuine and growing national feeling. There axe no
points of attraction, not even of tolerance, between them ;
only the hardest attitude of unreasoning authority on the
one hand, and of utter contempt and hatred on the other.
Among the poorer classes there may have been a kind of
sympathy with the clergy, and certain relations of good
will on the one side and the other. The monasteries, cor
rupt as they were, must, in the very worst point of view,
have been centres of beneficence, stretching towards many
humble cottages ; and the bishops had each their numer
ous dependants, with their friends and relatives, mingled
among the people. Bad as the system was, it must have
possessed such points of support, and might have strength
ened itself in some degree on them, had any wisdom been
left to it ; but ignorance and mere selfish instinct were,
after all, but a poor stay for profligacy, while all the
intellectual and moral interests of the country were uniting
against it.
Standing between the clergy and the lowest orders, there
1 Keith's Scottish Bishops, pp. 21 — 24.
22

254 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
had grown up during the preceding century or more, in
Scotland, a class of traders in the towns and of gentry in
the country, bound to each other by intimate ties ; and it
was in the growing enlightenment of this class that the
future fate of Scotland lay. These burghers and gentry
constituted young Scotland in the sixteenth century. They
had the intelligence to understand to the full the corrup
tions of the Papacy ; they had gathered to themselves such
spiritual life as remained in the country, and this rose in
horror at the immoralities which it embodied. They were
a rising and vigorous class, proud of their sharp-wittedness
and the influence which their position and resources gave
them ; they were well informed, through their connection
with the Continent, with regard to the progress of the re
formed doctrines ; they had character, strong feelings, and
political as well as religious aims ; and thus they ranged
themselves against the hierarchy as its natural and avowed
enemies. Between these two powers the conflict of the Scottish
Reformation was really waged. It was a conflict not
merely in the interest of religion, although this it was
eminently, but moreover, and in a higher and more remark
able degree than elsewhere, a conflict on behalf of the
independence and integrity of national life. The spiritual
impulse was strongly present, but inseparably bound up
with a political feeling, which gave a characteristic impress
to the general movement. Amid the decay of the old
political influences in the country, and the corruption of its
social and ecclesiastical bonds, there was a fresh and com
pact vigor in the middle orders that rendered them alone
more capable in moral strength than any party opposed to
them ; and not only did the reforming activity mainly pro
ceed from them, but, in virtue of their self-consistency and

JOHN KNOX. 255
hardihood of character, they retained the main guidance of
it in their hands. They impressed their own character
upon it ; they gave to it, both as a doctrine and a discipline,
a shape removed as far as possible from the hated hierarch
ical system which they subverted. Altogether unlike the
growth of the English Church, the Scottish Reformed Kirk
became an entirely new expression of religious life in
Scotland. The old had passed away, — all things had be
come new, — when the reforming tide settled down, and
the face of religious order reappeared. Scotland was not
merely reformed, it was revolutionized. Catholicism had
vanished into obscure corners, from which no royal nursing
could ever again evoke it, save as a poor bastard ghost of
its former self, destined to vanish again before every fresh
outburst of the national feeling.
This complete change, wrought by the Reformation in
Scotland, can only be explained in the light of the peculiar
crisis which the national history had then reached. A new
pohtical and social influence was at the time waiting to
start into vigorous development ; it met the Reformation,
embraced it, moulded it to its own inspirations and aims,
and carried itself triumphantly forward in its advance. It
is very true that some of the greater nobles soon saw rea
son to join themselves to the reformed cause; and in various
ways to aid or hinder it ; but in the beginning, and at the
end, the Scottish Reformation continued essentially a mid
dle-class movement, with all the hardy virtue belonging to
its parentage, yet also with the parental defects — sturdy
and uncompromising in its faith, and free in its instincts,
but with no sacred inheritance of traditionary story binding
it by beautiful links to the great Catholic past ; and further,
as has been long too sadly apparent, with no sympathetic
expansiveness for moulding into religious unity classes

256 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
widely separated in material rank and in intellectual and
artistic culture.
It is sufficiently singular, and so far in corroboration of
the view now presented, that the Scottish reformers, one
and all of them of any note, sprung from the class of
gentry to which we have referred. Patrick Hamilton, in
deed, was immediately connected with the higher nobility,
and, through his mother, with the royal family;1 but the
fact of his being a younger son, and the illegitimacy that
attached to the descent of both his parents, rendered his
own social position certainly not higher than that of the
lairds or gentry. George Wishart, again, was brother to
the Laird of Pittarow, and Knox was the son of a younger
brother of the house of Ranferly.
Patrick Hamilton is the first prominent name that meets
us in the Scottish Reformation. His brief and sad, yet
beautiful story, has been told anew in our day in a veiy
elegant and well-informed volume,2 where we read for the
first time, in a clear and consistent light, the narrative of
his education, first in Paris, then in St. Andrews, and lastly'
Germany, in the very heart of the reforming influences ;
his return to his native country, and marriage (a fact not
previously known); and then his preaching, and seizure
and trial by the. elder Beatoun, — a narrative which serves
to deepen the affecting story of his martyrdom in front of
the gate of the old college of St. Andrews, on the 29th of
February, 1528. Hamilton, no doubt, caught his first re-
l He was the son of Sir Patrick Hamilton of Kincavil, an illegitimate son
of the first Lord Hamilton, and of Catherine Stewart, (illegitimate ?) daughter
of Alexander Duke of Albany, second son of King James II. On the mother's
side the illegitimacy merely followed an act of ecclesiastical divorce. His
father perished in the conflict between the Hamiltons and Douglases, known
as Cleanse the Causeway, which took place in Edinburgh in 1520.
2 By Mr. Lorimer, of the English Presbyterian College, London.

JOHN KNOX. 257
forming impulse during the years that he studied in Paris
(1519-20), when the university was all astir on the subject
of Luther's doctrines. His subsequent studies in Germany
confirmed the early impulse thus communicated ; and the
proto-reformer of Scotland was thus substantially Lutheran
in the origin and character of his teaching.
This foreign element in the rise of the Reformation in
Scotland deserves to be noticed. There are also traces,
however, of a native religious life. An awakening, half-
literary, half-spiritual, had begun during the preceding ten
years in St. Leonard's College, St. Andrews, and Hamilton
was in the very midst of this spirit of new inquiry and ex
citement while pursuing his studies there. We get, more
over, in Knox's History, one clear glimpse of an earnest
Lollardism towards the end of the preceding century, in
the reign of James IV.1 The spirit which he describes,
and the articles which he gives in detail, recall strongly the
spirit and doctrines which we .have seen to characterize
the surviving Wickliffite influence in England, — the same
broad and somewhat crude apprehension of scriptural truth
¦ — the same scornful humor — the same strong, yet retiring
piety, — with the remarkable difference, however, that the
"thirty persons," called " Lollards of Kylle," seem to have be
longed, not to the peasantry, as in England, but to the better
classes of society. At this single point, a line of antece
dent religious life iii Scotland rises into brief and impres
sive prominency. And it no doubt lived on to some extent
during the next thirty years, and helped in the advance of
the Reformation ; but in what degree, or through what con
nections it did this, we cannot distinctly trace, either in the
case of Hamilton or of any of the chief reformers.
l Hislorie, p. 2.

2o8 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
The zeal of Patrick Hamilton, although quenched in
cruel flames, lived after him. His teaching, enhanced by
the noble and pathetic courage of his death, made a deep
impression on the national mind. The reforming spirit
spread on all sides. "Men began," says Knox, "very lib
erally to speak." The bishops had only one weapon with
which to encounter the rising spirit. They bethought
themselves of burning some more heretics. ' New con
sultation was taken that some should be burned;' but a
'merrie gentleman,' a familiar of the bishop, was heard to
say, ' Gif if ye burn more, let them be burnt in how sellars ;
for the reik of Mr. Patrick Hamilton has infected as many
as it did blow upon.' "
Such was the state of affairs while Knox was rising into
full manhood, and beginning with that steady and long-
piercing glance of his to look forth upon the world, and
note the circumstances and signs of the times amidst which
he found himself. At the time of Hamilton's death he was
twenty-three years of age, and about terminating his studies
in the university of Glasgow. He was born in 1505, in the
neighborhood of Haddington, of parents whose ancestry
and social position have been subjects of dispute, although
the evidence seems perfectly conclusive that his father be
longed to the Knoxes of Ranferly, an old and respectable
family of R-enfrewshire.1 His own statement, that " his
great-grandfather, gudeschir, and father, served under the
Earls of Bothwell, and some of them have died under
their standards,"2 is perfectly consistent with this. He re
ceived his preliminary education at the grammar school of
Haddington, and in the year 1521 was sent to the uni
versity of Glasgow, where he had, therefore, been a con-
i See M'Ckie's Life of Knox, p. 2. 2 Ibid.

JOHN KNOX. 259
siderable number of years at the time that the reforming
opinions began to spread rapidly throughout the country.
It is not very clear when or under what special influ
ences Knox first began to incline towards these opinions.
He had gone to Glasgow university with the view of being
trained for the church, and there, under Major, he soon
proved himself an apt and distinguished pupil of the
scholastic theology. He was considered as equalling if
not excelling his master in the subtleties of the dialectic
art. To this teacher also he probably owed the first im
pulse to that remarkable freedom of political opinion which
afterwards characterized him. He is said to have been
ordained before the year 1530 ; but at this time, and for
twelve years onward, there is a great gap in his life, which
his biographer has been wholly unable to fill up. We only
know that some time after taking his degree, he removed
to St. Andrews, and taught there, although in what college
does not clearly appear; and then that about 1535, espe
cially by the study of the Fathers, his traditionary opinions
had become thoroughly shaken. Not till eight years later,
however, or in 1543, did he become an avowed and marked
reformer. This year is in every way memorable in the history of
the Scottish Reformation. The death of the king after the
disastrous defeat of Solway Moss in the end of the pre
vious year, and the consequent accession of the Earl of
Arran to the regency, produced at first a change favorable
to the views of the reformers. Negotiations were renewed
with England ; Protestant preachers were taken under spe
cial protection by the regent, and a measure passed the
committee of Parliament known by the name of the Lords
of the Articles, and received his sanction, authorizing the
reading of the Scriptures in the common tongue. Every-

2C0 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
thing seemed for the moment to indicate the good-will of
the regent, and to tend to the advance of the Reformation.
The favor of Arran, however, was but short-lived. The
French and papal party, with Cardinal Beatoun at their
head, soon regained their ascendency. Just as under the
previous interregnum, fifteen years before, all the efforts of
Henry VIII. — defeated to some extent by his own injus
tice and violence — were unsuccessful to bind any section
of the Scottish nobles permanently to his interest; and the
renewed connection with France laid the foundation for
confusion and misery to the country for more than another
half-century. So soon as Beatoun attained his object, and once more
held the substantial power of the kingdom in his grasp, he
resolved to crush his enemies with no sparing hand. His
bloodthirsty vengeance had been baffled by the reluctant
pity of the late king, who had shrunk with horror from the
atrocity, suggested to him by the clergy, of exterminating
by a single stroke two or three hundred of the most influ
ential of the reformers, whose names they had presented
to him in a list.1 There seemed no obstacle now, however,
to the full gratification of his vengeance, while the instinct
of self-preservation probably combined with that of his
natural imperiousness and cruelty to direct him to the
special object of his attack. Whatever be the credit due
to Tytler's special insinuations against Wishart, — • which
appear to rest on very slender evidence, — Beatoun, no
doubt, identified this courageous preacher with his political
as well as religious enemies. He was the intimate asso
ciate, and, by his eloquence and activity, the most power-
' Kxox, pp. 27, 28 ; Pitscottie, p. 164. The numbers vary.; Knox
speaks of "ane huudreth landit men, besides otheris of meaner degree •" '
Pitscottie says " seventeen score."

JOHN KNOX. 261
fui support* of the anti-papal or English party. The car
dinal knew this well, and aimed accordingly, by his appre
hension and death, to stiike the most fatal blow he could
at the party.
George Wishart, as he stands depicted in the pages of
Knox and Calderwood, is a singularly interesting character;
of gentle, winning, and unassuming disposition, with a
strange wild tinge of enthusiasm, an intense spirit of de
votion, and a commanding eloquence; "a man of sic graces
as before him were never heard in this realm, yea, and rare
to be found yet in ony man." 'Obliged to seek refuge, some
time before, in England, from the persecution of the Bishop
of Brechin, he returned to Scotland in 1543,1 with the com
missioners who had been sent to negotiate a treaty with
Henry VIII. He had been dwelling for some time in the
very centre of the Anglican reform movement at Cam
bridge, where the influence of Bilney and Latimer still
lived ; and he seems to have caught some share of the
spirit of both — the mild rapture of the one, and the stern
denunciatory zeal of the other. On his return to Scotland
he travelled from town to town, and county to county,
preaching the truth which had become precious to his own
soul. He made a deep impression wherever he went ; his
words wrought with a marvellous persuasiveness on some
even of the most hardened and wicked in the land — such
men, for example, as the Laird of Scheill, described by
Knox, who, as the preacher on a " hette and pleasant
day " of summer, addressed the crowd from a " dyke on a
muir edge, upon the south-west side of Mauchlin," was so
affected that " the tears rane fra his eyne in sic abundance
that all men wondered," aud who by his future life, more-
1 Knox says 1544.

282 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
over, showed that " his conversion then wrought was with
out hypocrisy." l
In his preaching excursions, Wishart gathered around
him devoted followers, and was the inspiring mind of the
Protestant party, now adding rapidly to its numbers. It is
as one of tliese followers that Knox first clearly appears
upon the scene of the Reformation, and in a very charac
teristic attitude. He tells us himself, that from the time
that the zealous preacher came to Lothian, he waited care
fully upon him, bearing " a twa-handed sword." This pre
caution had been used since an attempt had been made to
assassinate the preacher ; and the bold spirit of Knox, now
kindling into its full ardor, rejoiced in the attendant post of
danger. At this very time, however, the machinations of
the cardinal against Wishart had reached then: completion;
and while he rested at Ormiston, after his last remarkable
sermon at Haddington, he was made a prisoner by the Earl
of Bothwell ; while Beatoun himself lay within a mile, at
the head of 500 men, in case any attempt should be made
to rescue him. There is a stransre iveird interest in Knox's
description of his last interview with the preacher, and his
final sermon. Disappointed at not meeting with the
friends he expected, — the Earl of Cassillis and others, —
and disheartened by the apparent decline of the popular
interest in the reformed cause, he spoke to his intrepid
sword-bearer of his weariness with the world, and " as he
spacit up and doun behind the hie altar, mair than half an
hour before sermon, his verie countenance and visage
declarit the grief and alteration of his mind." The shadow
of his approaching doom had crept upon him ; and when
Knox wished to share his fate, and accompany him to
i Historic, p. 44.

JOHN KNOX. 263
Ormiston, he said, '< Nay, return to your bairnes, and God
bless you ; ane is sufficient for a sacrifice."1
Knox's "bairnes" were his pupils, the sons of the lairds
of Niddrie and Ormiston. In default of any more definite
occupation, he had settled as a quiet tutor to the sons of
these families. From the time of his quitting St Andrews,
up to this time, when in his fortieth year he first publicly
appears in connection with Wishart, we can scarcely be
said to know anything further of him. As Mr. Carlyle first
pointed out, there is considerable significance in this long
period of silence in Knox's history. It speaks strongly of
his naturally peaceful disposition, of the patient maturity
with which he formed his opinions, and of the consequent
absurdity of the notion that would fix him down at once as
a mere ambitious and turbulent partisan. It may serve
also to explain the singular decision and completeness of
his views when the outburst of his reforming zeal at length
came. Now, after the apprehension of Wishart, he seems to
have remained cautiously in his retirement, mourning the
dreadful fate of his friend, till the great event, perpetrated
at the old castle of St. Andrews, on the morning of the
29th May, 1546, summoned him from his privacy, and im
parted a new direction and a nobler interest to his life.
This event lives nowhere so vividly and powerfully as in
his own wonderful narrative,2 in which the horror of the
circumstances is wildly relieved by a stern glee, kindling in
the writer as he tells them in careful outline. It is equally
needless to condemn the spirit of the historian, or to find
excuses for it If the horror of the transaction obscures in
our minds all feeling of pleasantry as we look back upon
1 Historie, p. 48. • " Ibid., pp. 64, 65.

264 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
it, we have to thank Knox, and such men as Knox, that
there is left to us no occasion of any other feeling. To
him, and to all honest and patriot hearts in Scotland in the
middle of the sixteenth centuiy, the death of Cardinal
Beatoun, under whatever circumstances of atrocity, could
not, unfortunately, be anything else but a circumstance of
gratulation. It is the divine doom of tyranny, in whatever
shape, that men should rejoice at its murder, even if that
murder be "foully done." The joy is not in fault, but the
cause of it. The former is a pure manifestation of human
feeling, the latter an eternal blasphemy and violation of
human right. Knox is gleeful, therefore, with a scornful
laughter, over the assassination of Beatoun, simply because
he reahzed all the meaning of the event for his country,
and could not see the downfall of a power so hatefid with
out a natural impulse of jubilee. As we look back into the
dim gray of that May morning, we only see the solitary
and helpless man raised from his bed and in the murderous
grip of his assassin. Knox remembered, as if it had hap
pened yesterday, the proud and impious tyrant who re
clined on velvet cushions at the castle window, to feast his
eyes on the torments of his martyred friend. A life of such
dazzling strength as Beatoun's terminating so swiftly in an
abject and miserable death, may well move us to pity — it
could only move Knox to irony ; and if the event be not
one for irony, we may say with Mr. Froude, " we do not
know what irony is for."
Nearly a year subsequent to the death of Beatoun (April
1547), Knox took refuge with his pupils in the castle of St. .
Andrews, which continued to be held against the regent,
notwithstanding his efforts to reduce it. It became the
temporary stronghold of the reforming interest, and many
resorted to it for protection. Here Knox -began, he tells us,

JOHN KNOX. 265
" to exercise his pupils after his accustomed manner. Be
sides their grammar and other human authors, he red unto
them ane Catechism accompt whereof he causit them to
give publicklie in the paroche kirk of St. Andrews. He
red, moreover, unto them the evangell of John, proceeding
where he had left at his departing from Langniddrie, and
that lecture he red in the chapell within the castle at a
certain hour." In this modest way Knox introduces us to
the great epoch of his life which was approaching. Now
in his forty-second year, with his convictions fully formed,
and with obvious powers of expressing and defending them
beyond those of any other man of his time, he had yet re
mained, as we have seen, silent. The awe and responsi
bility of speaking to the people in God's stead weighed
heavily on his mind as on Luther's, and the arguments of
his friends failed to move him. Struck with the "manner
of his doctrine," they "began earnestly to travell with him
that he would take the preaching place upon him." John
Rough, who was preacher in the castle, and who seems
honestly to have felt his own weakness in comparison with
the gifts of the reformer, and Henry Balnaves, a Lord of
Session, and one of the most influential of the early re
formers, joined in urging this request. But he tells us, "he
utterlie refuset, alledging that he would not rin where God
had not callit him." This refusal, however, only sharpened
the desire of his friends to see him in his natural vocation,
and they devised, in company with Sir David Lindsay of
the Mount, equally eager with themselves, a plan by which
they hoped to surprise him into compliance with their de
signs. The story is one of the most singular and charac
teristic in all the reformer's life, and can only be told in his
own language : " Upon a certain day a sermon was had of
the election of ministers, what power the congregation, how,
23

266 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
small so ever it was, passing the number of two or three,
had above any man in whom they supposed and espied the
gifts of God to be, and how dangerous it was to refuse, and
not to hear the voice of such as desire to be instructed.
These and other heads declared, the said John Rough,
preacher, directed his words to the said John Knox, saying,
' Brother, ye sail not be offendit, albeit that I speak unto
you that which I have in charge even from all those that
are here present, which is this : In the name of God and
of His Son Jesus Christ, and in the name of those that pre-
sentlie calls you by my mouthe, I carge you that you refuse
not this holie vocation, but as ye tender the glorie of God,
the increase of Christ's kingdom, the edification of your
brethren, and the comfort of one whom ye understand well
aneuch to be oppressed by the multitude of labours, that ye
take upon you the publick office and charge of preaching,
even as ye look to avoid God's heavy displeasure, and de
sire that he shall multiply his graces with you.' And in
the end he said to those who were present, ' Was not this
your charge to me, and do you not approve the vocation ?'
They answeret, ' It was, and we approve it' Whereat the
said John, abashed, burst forth in maist abundant tears, and
withdrew himself to his chalmer ; his countenance and be
havior from that day till the day that he was compellet to
present himself to the public place of preaching, did suf
ficiently declare the grief and trubile of his heart ; for no
man saw ony sign of mirth of him, neither yet had he
pleasure to accompany ony man monye days together."
A special necessity soon occurred to him to enter upon
his vocation. Dean John Arran, " a rotten papist, had long
trablit John Rough in his preaching," and Knox was roused
to vindicate the doctrine of his friend " in oppin audience
in the parish church of St. Andrews." The people heard

JOHN KNOX. 267
him gladly, and called upon him with one consent to give
them by his preaching " probation of what he had affirmed ;
for if it was true, they had been miserably deceived." And
so the next Sunday Knox preached in the parish church,
and expounded at length his views of the Papacy. He at
once urged the most decided opinions, and supported his
assertions under the different heads of life, doctrine, laws,
and subjects. The sermon made a great noise, as may be
imagined; and on the remonstrance of Hamilton, the
bishop-elect (not yet "execrated" — "consecrated," they
call it, bitterly remarks Knox),, with Winram, the sub-prior
and vicar-general during the vacancy of the see, Knox and
Rough were summoned to give an account of their doc
trine in a convention of gray-friars and black-friars ap
pointed in St. Leonard's Yards. Certain articles were read
to them, and are admitted by Knox to contain a fair repre
sentation of his views. They are preserved in his history,
and enable us to understand very clearly, in connection
with the dispute which followed, the position which he now
occupied. The Pope is asserted to be Antichrist, the mass
abominable idolatry, purgatory a falsehood, and bishops,
except as ordinary preachers, to have no function. When
we contrast such views with those of Luther or Latimer at
the outset, we perceive at once what comparatively clear
and determinate ground, as opposed to the old Catholic sys
tem, was taken up by our reformer. There are no points
of mere advance and improvement upon that system, — no
regretful dealing, no sympathetic connection with it, — but
a complete and decisive reaction against it. It is not
merely corrupt, but absolutely abandoned to evil — the
church not of God, but of the devil. " Ye will leave us no
kirk," said the gray-friar (Arbugkill) who rashly entered
the lists with the reformer on the occasion, and, driven to

268 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
shifts by his arguments, had nothing .to reply but that " the
apostles had not receaved the Holy Ghost when they did
write their epistles," — " Ye will leave us no kirk," urged
the friar. "Indeed," said Knox, "in David I read that there
is a church of the malignants ; for he says, ' Odi Ecclesiam
Malignantium.' " It was clear that there was no room for
compromise here. Knox could recognize no authority, no
sanctity, no respectability in the Papacy of his country.
The very order of bishops, as identified with it, had already
become undivine to his mind. He is a Presbyterian all at
once, by the mere force of antipathy to Catholicism as it
presented itself to his view. The absence of positive
doctrinal sentiments in these articles is observable; but too
much is not to be made of this. The points of definite
negation to the papal system were necessarily those which
came into most prominence ; and in the sermon which was
the occasion of them, he tells us that he spoke also of the
" doctrines of justification expressed in Scripture, which
teach that man is justified by faith alone — that the blood
of Jesus Christ purges us from all our sins."1
Knox's activity at this period was but shortlived. A
French squadron appeared before the castle of St. Andrews
in the end of June of the same year ; and the brave gar
rison who had held out so long, being now pressed both by
sea and land, were forced to capitulate. The honorable
terms on which they had surrendered were speedily vio
lated; and Knox, who had shared the fate of his comrades,
was transported along with them to France, and then con
fined as a prisoner on board the French galleys.
This may be said to close the first great period in Knox's
life — the period of his preparation for, and commencement
of, his reforming work. The second period, which em-
1 Page 69.

JOHN KNOX. 269
braces his more or less complete exile from Scotland for a
space of twelve years, or on to 1559, possesses, in many
ways, great interest and significance ; but we can only in
the most general way indicate its main incidents.
His imprisonment in the French galleys for two years,
and the sufferings he there endured, served to deepen, and
render still more dear to him, his religious convictions, and
perhaps also to give some tinge of sadness and asperity to
his character. Then his residence in England for five
years, from 1549 to 1554, was a time fruitful to him in work
and experience. He was brought, as one of Edward VI.'s
chaplains, into immediate contact with the great agents of
the Anglical Reformation — -with Cranmer — probably (nay
certainly, we may say) with Latimer, who during this period
was a regular inmate of Cranmer's house at Lambeth. If
they did meet, the two bold preachers, they must have
talked, and talked with a heartiness, and a vehemence that
doubtless did the archbishop, among his court movements,
some good to hear. It is understood that Knox had con
siderable influence in producing the liberal changes in the
service and prayer-book of the Church of England which
characterized the last years of Edward's reign. "Unques
tionably, any influence he did exert must have been in this
direction, and indeed in a still more radical direction; for
he leaves us in no doubt as to his views of the partial and
imperfect character of the English Reformation. Both he
himself and Beza lead us to suppose that he was offered a
bishopric ; but his conscientious scruples as to the divine
authority of the Episcopal order, and his general dissatis
faction with the state of ecclesiastical affairs in England,
led him to reject this as well as any other promotion in the
sister church. His activity in England was mainly con
fined to the north, where he was appointed to preach, first
23*

270 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
at Berwick, and then at Newcastle ; and long afterwards
he congratulated himself on the review of his labors there,
and the success which attended his efforts to maintain
order among the lawless garrisons of the Border.1
At Berwick our reformer fell in love, and entered into an
engagement which, some years after, notwithstanding the
strong opposition of certain relatives of the lady, termin
ated in marriage. The lady was a Miss Marjory Bowes,
daughter of Richard Bowes, the youngest son of Sir Ralph
Bowes of Streatlam. Her mother was the daughter and
one of the co-heirs of Sir Richard Aske of Aske, and Knox's
connection with the family seems to have arisen through
this lady. It is to Mrs. Bowes that his letters, which have
been recently published in full in the edition of Mr. Laing,2
are chiefly written. She is addressed as his mother, and
in the most confidential and intimate terms. The letters
as a whole are remarkable. They prove the deep sincerity
of Knox's piety, his intense absorption in the realities of
the spiritual life while yet mingling with so busy and ap
parently combative an activity in the affairs of the world
around him. They are, in truth, rather the communings of
one earnest and strongly- moved soul with another, than
letters in any ordinary sense. We certainly miss in them
some mixture of mere human interest with .the uniform and
intense cast of the religious phraseology in which they
abound. The world is out of sight altogether, save as the
stern battle-ground of certain shadowy forms of good and
evil ; or at least the forms have become shadowy to us,
although no doubt they were more real and living than
anything else to Knox. In vain we try to catch any sun-
1 Hislorie, p. 2S9. In an interview which he held with the queen in 1501.
He says, on the same occasion, " In Berwick I abode two years, so long in
Newcastle, and a yoir in London."
2 Vol. iii.

JOHN KNOX. 271
light of happy feeling — any lively trace of the affection
associated with them, if not originating them — any glimpse
of her to whom his heart was bound. The mother appears
in a sufficiently distinct aspect, a timid, self-conscious, and
despairing soul, ever seeking strength and counsel from the
more assured spirit of the reformer. The unyielding inso
lence of the uncle also comes into light ;"¦ but the daughter
does not move even in shadow across the scene ; and we
nowhere learn anything of her. There are no surviving
traits in his letters, or elsewhere, that enable us to start any
picture of her. Calvin, indeed, talks of her as " suavis-
sima " in a letter to Cristopher Goodman, after her death ;
and the manner in which he deplores to Knox himself her
loss, indicates his very high opinion of her worth and
amiability; but still we do not get any living likeness of
her anywhere. Their marriage is supposed to have taken
place in 15^3, just before he was driven abroad by the
Marian persecution.2
On the accession of Queen Mary, Knox was of course
driven from England, and we find him al various places on
the Continent, — now at Dieppe addressing letters to the
faithful in England, and now at Frankfort in connection
with the memorable "troubles" there, and finally at Ge-

1 Sir Robert Bowes, vol. iii. p. 37S, Laing's edition.
" It is a singular enough fact that both Knox's sons, by this his first mar
riage, went to England, were educated at Cambridge, and entered the English
Church. They both died comparatively young, without issue. Knox mar
ried as his second wife Margaret Stewart, daughter of Lord Ochiltree, so
that both his wives were of superior rank; and indeed the superiority of
rank in the latter~case gave rise to the most ridiculous rumors. (See Nicol
Bnrue's "Disputation," quoted in Chambers's Domestic Annals of Scotland.)
This second marriage took place in 1564, when the reformer was in his fifty-
eighth year, and Mrs. Welch (whose heroic answer to King James is well
known) and two other daughters were the fruit of this marriage.

272 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
neva, where, after a temporary visit to Scotland in 1555, he
settled as pastor of a small English congregation. The
years he now spent at Geneva were probably among the
happiest of his life. Calvin had just then attained to the
summit of his power, after the expulsion of the Libertines.
He and Beza exercised virtual rule in all things civil and
eccKsiastical ; and the city, under their control, had as
sumed an order and apparent purity of manner that rejoiced
the heart of Knox. He wrote to a friend that it was " the
most perfect school of Christ that ever was on earth since
the days of the apostles. In other places I confess Christ
to be truly preached; but manners and religion, to be so
sincerely reformed, I have not yet seen in any other place
beside." In Calvin and Beza, and his colleague Christopher
Goodman, Knox found a thoroughly congenial society, and
they found in him an earnest and devoted fellow-laborer.
It would be interesting to contemplate their relation more
narrowly, and to speculate on the influence they may have
exerted on one another. Especially it would be important,
as well as interesting, to trace the connection between the
two great reformers — to what extent the Scottish reformer
may have been influenced by the Genevan, and a Calvin
istic impress stamped upon him in the home of Calvinism.
It cannot be said that we have any adequate means of
reaching clear and definite conclusions on this subject.
We have already seen that Knox's Presbyterianism was, in
some degree at least, of native growth. He did not need
to go to Geneva to learn to doubt the divine authority of
Episcopacy. A certain hostility to the episcopal office
mingled itself with his very first views of reform, and, so
far from being moderated, seems rather to have been in
creased by his English experience. Probably, however, he

JOHN KNOX. 273
had formed no definite and well-conceived plan of church
polity, as opposed to Episcopacy, before his residence in
Geneva; and there is every reason to believe that the sys
tem he beheld in operation there with so much admiration,
served to give consistency and plan to his own previously
vague conceptions. As to the doctrinal influence of Cal
vinism upon him, we can appreciate this, perhaps, still less
accurately. It met in him a kindred soil — the same bent
of religious thought, and especially that deep feeling of sin,
out of which its most distinctive doctrines grow ; and here
too, therefore, we may suppose a certain clearness and co
herence to have been given to his views. Yet Knox's
mind was not characteristically doctrinal. Theological con
troversy could never absorb him as it did Calvin. Subtle
as he may have once been as a scholastic teacher, dialectic
was a play in which he had little delight, and his writings
discover few traces of it. A healthy reality and honest
sense, and living practical interest, are everywhere conspic
uous, and banish out of view the mere controversialist and
logician. It is to be remembered, too, in estimating the relation
between Knox and Calvin, that Knox was really the older
man of the two (a fact somehow apt to be forgotten), and
that he had at this time reached an age — upwards of fifty
— when men are not easily moulded by influences that may
be even akin to them. We must certainly hold, therefore,
that there is no sense in which Geneva can be said to have
made Knox, although it found him of kindred material, and
fashioned him more completely into its own likeness. Es
pecially, we are inclined to think, it strengthened in him a
certain sternness of moral spirit, and its own strong theo
cratic confidence, so that he went forth from it more fully
equipped for the great work before him in Scotland. Calvin

274 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
and Knox suggest not so much the relation of disciple and
master as of brother disciples in the same school, with the
same severe type of character, and many of the same re
ligious tendencies — but the one more intellectual, the other
more practical ; the one more vehement and powerful in
argument,1 the other more passionate and masterly in ac
tion ; the one the greater mind, the other the larger heart.
Knox returned to Scotland in the beginning of May, 1559.
During his absence, the Reformation had been making
silent but sure progress. The war with England required
the queen-regent to temporize with its leaders, and to
allow a certain liberty of opinion and worship. A letter
which Knox had addressed to the Protestant Lords in 1557,
from Dieppe (whither he had proceeded so far with the in
tention of returning to his native country), had exercised a
happy influence in uniting them more firmly, and inspiring
them with a more courageous resolution in defence of the
truth. At a meeting which they held in Edinburgh, in
December 1557, they mutually bound themselves to up
hold the common cause,2 and at the same time renewed the
invitation which they had formerly given to the reformer to
return to his native country. It was in compliance with
this invitation, which did not reach Geneva till the follow
ing year, that Knox now reappeared finally in Scotland.
Nothing could be more opportune than his arrival. The
course of events seemed prepared as if to give to it the
l Although Knox certainly also could be vehement enough in argument,
— as in the First Blast against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, where mere
vehemence often obscures all sense and reason in the argument,  still his
vehemence is even there not concentrated and intellectual, like Calvin's; it
is the vehemence of feeling, more than of logic.
2 The beginning of those covenants which make, for more than a century,
such a marked feature in the history of Scottish Protestantism.

JOHN KNOX. 275
greatest importance. A crisis was at hand — a leader was
needed. It was the very turning-point in the balance of
parties which had been swaying to and fro during the last
four years, and Knox's strong hand was the only one
which could have carried aloft the cause of reform, and
given to it the triumph which, amid all temporary reverses,
it has ever since maintained.
The queen-regent, relieved from the political pressure
which had induced her to temporize, had at length thrown
off all disguise. United cordially with the Hamiltons, she-
appeared in her true colors as a determined opponent of
the Reformation, and at this very moment had, with the
well -dissembled craft of her race, laid her plans for its for
cible overthrow. Certain preachers who, during the pre
vious year, had become objects of marked hostility to the
clergy, were summoned to take their trial at Stirling for
usurping the ministerial office, and seducing the people by
erroneous doctrines. A convention of the nobility and
clergy was held in Edinburgh, where the very moderate
demands of the Protestants were not only refused, but all
the main abuses of the Popish system were confirmed, and
an inquisition appointed to be made of all who absented
themselves from mass, or were in any way privy to the
new worship. It was obvious that a struggle could no
longer be delayed. Parties were taking their sides, and
resolutely awaiting its outbreak. " Knox congratulated him
self that he had come at the very hour of need. " I see
the battle shall be great," he wrote to his wife, who re
mained behind at Geneva, " but I am come, I thank my God,
even in the brunt of the battle."
He resolved to appear at Stirling on the 10th of May,
along with the reforming preachers. He hastened to Dun
dee, where the chiefs of the party were assembled in great

276 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
numbers, Erskine of Dun at their head, a wise and mod
erate, as well as intrepid counsellor in this great exigency.
From Dundee the reformers proceeded to Perth, and in
stead of advancing directly to Stirling, paused here, appar
ently at the suggestion of Erskine, who went forward by
himself to intimate to the queeii-regent the peaceable
intentions of the party, formidable as they might seem in
numbers and combination. Alarmed at the prospect of
such an invasion, she had recourse to her usual tactics of
dissimulation, persuaded Erskine to write to his friends in
Perth to check their advance, and promised to put a stop to
the trial. On the day of trial, however, the accused minis
ters were summoned, and outlawed for not appearing, and
all who should harbor them denounced as rebels. The na
tional excitement, which had continued to gather force, was
greatly strengthened by this flagrant act of perfidy ; and
an event which now occurred in Perth served to kindle it
into a flame.
On the very day on which the news of the regent's
conduct came, Knox preached a sermon on the idolatry of
the mass, and of image-worship. At the close of the ser
mon, and while the people still lingered under the warm
emotion of the preacher's words, an encounter took place
between a boy and a priest, who, with a singular deadness
to the signs around him, had uncovered a rich altar-piece,
and was making preparations to celebrate mass. The boy
threw a stone, which overturned and destroyed one of the
images. The act operated like a spark laid to a train. The
suppressed indignation of the multitude burst forth beyond
all control, — the consecrated imagery was broken in pieces,
the holy recesses invaded, the pictures and ornaments torn
from the walls and trampled in the dust ; and, rising with
the agitation, the spirit of disorder spread, and the " rascal

JOHN KNOX. 277
multitude," as Knox afterwards called them, having com
pleted their work of destruction in the church, proceeded
to the houses of the Gray and Black Friars, and the Char
ter-house, or Carthusian Monastery, and violently ransacked
them and laid them in ruins.
This iconoclasm is a notable feature in the Scottish Re
formation. Something of the same sort, indeed, is to be
found in Germany, and even in England ; but in Scotland
this destructive aspect of the Reformation was more gen
eral, prominent, and lawless than elsewhere; and nothing
connected with it has given rise to more invidious and
severe animadversion. To our educated feelings and ar
tistic sympathies, it can only appear as a very ugly and sad
blot in a great cause. We mourn, and cannot but mourn,
a mere violence of demolition, in which God was not
served, while the fair work of man was dishonored and
destroyed. There is no friend of the Reformation called
upon to defend such excesses, even on Knox's plea, that
the " best way to keep the rooks from returning, was to
pull down their nests ;" for, on the one hand, we know that
the rooks will return even if you pull down their nests ; and
on the other hand, it is a poor revenge against a living evil
to attack its mere dead shelter. The spirit of the highest
reform is everywhere the reverse of this. It attacks the
corrupt life, and seeks to breathe health into it. It busies
itself with essentials, and lets alone accidents. The forms
will by-and-by adapt themselves to the altered and higher
spirit. It was not merely a misfortune, therefore ; it was a
mistake, this iconoclasm of the Reformation. There is
nothing to say for it on general grounds, or on any grounds
of reason.
But the explanation of it, and so far the defence of it, as
a mere historical adjunct of the Reformation, is its very
9.4

278 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
irrationality. Who were to blame for such a state of irra
tional and violent feeling among the people ? Surely not
Knox. Even if it be allowed that he did not discounte
nance, but rather approved of the iconoclastic excitement,
this merely shows that he did riot so far rise above the rude
social spirit of his country. He can in no way be held re
sponsible for the existence and outbreak of this spirit. In
point of fact, the blame of this, if it lie anywhere save
with the general barbarism of the people, must lie with the
very system against which it was directed. It was this
system which, after centuries of unlimited rule, had left the
people so untrained in social instinct — so coarse and un
disciplined in moral feeling. This was all that its elaborate
training and service, its conventual education and benefi
cence, had come to. It had inspired the people so little
with any spirit of order, or respect even to the usages of
worship, that when for the first time they heard of a living
God and Saviour, and a divine righteousness and truth in
the world, they could do nothing but rise up against the
churches and demolish them. If this be not one of the
worst condemnations of the old Catholicism of Scotland,
condemnation certainly ceases to have any meaning. It is
hard, certainly, to blame the Reformation for an odious in
heritance of social disorder transmitted to it by the corrupt
system which it displaced. A system which not only left
a people unblessed with truth, but failed even to animate
them with any instincts of self-control, is twice condemned,
and was well hurled from its place of pride and power with
an indignation not more than it merited, and a lawlessness
which had grown up under its own shadow.
The same scenes which had occurred at Perth, followed
at Stirling, Lindores, Cupar, St. Andrews, and elsewhere.
Knox almost immediately repaired to St. Andrews, rejoicing

JOHN KNOX. 279
to verify his own prediction, uttered twelve years before,
when carried off from the castle by the French fleet, that
"he would yet again glorify the name of God in that
place." Here, in the very centre of the old ecclesiastical
influence, and tinder the very eyes of Hamilton, the Ref
ormation proceeded with an equal vehemence and com
pleteness. The magistracy took the lead in it. The cathe
dral was devastated, the monasteries pulled down, and the
reformed discipline began to be established.
In the meantime, and as the consequence of these
movements, a civil war raged throughout the kingdom; the
regent on the one hand, assisted by French troops, and
the Lords of the Congregation (as the heads of the Pro
testant party were called) on the other, imploring the succor
of Elizabeth. The details of this conflict are beyond our
scope. Knox not only joined in it, but was the great ani
mating spirit of the reformed army — counselling its leaders,
writing letters to Cecil, maintaining his dignity in the midst
of entreaty, and, upon the whole, his fairness and upright
ness in the midst of intrigue. Some unfortunate expres
sions, indeed, escaped him, in a letter to Sir James Croft,
about the mode of sending English troops into Scotland,
without incurring a breach of treaty with France ; but the
necessities of his position must excuse, if not altogether
justify, any "political casuistry" to which he was driven
At length, after not a few reverses, sustained by the Pro
testant party, the vigorous assistance rendered by Eliza
beth, and the death of the queen-regent at the very time
that the English troops had invested Edinburgh, led to a
truce, and the summons of a Free Parliament to settle dif
ferences. All the triumph remained in the hands of the
reformers. So soon as the withdrawal of the French troops,
according to the conditions of the treaty, took place, the

280 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
ecclesiastical interests which they had upheld fell prostrate.
A tyranny, unnational in spirit and disreputable in charac
ter, collapsed before the free breath of the country, like an
old and mouldy garment upon which the air has been let
in. Scarcely anywhere else is there an instance of a
national revolution at once so summary and complete ; and
instead of wondering that blood was shed while a corrupt
system sought to maintain itself by foreign interference,
the wonder really is, that so soon as this interference was
withdrawn, so great a change should have taken place,
upon the whole, so peacefully and well.
The Reformation, which had now triumphed in Scotland,
immediately sought to establish itself by a series of im
portant acts. At the command of Parliament, which met
in August (1560), "certain barons and ministers" drew up,
in the course of four days, a Confession of Faith, which
having been submitted to Parliament, and "read every
article by itself over again,"1 was, with the exception of
one or two dissentient voices, universally accepted as a
dogmatic basis of the Reformed Church. Three measures
of a negative character were also forthwith passed; one
for the abolition of the power and jurisdiction of the Pope ;
a second, for the repeal of all former statutes in favor of the
Roman Catholic Church ; and a third, for the infliction of
severe penalties, even to the extent of death, upon all
who should either say mass, or be present at its celebra
tion. The intolerance of this last enactment may fill us
with pain, but can scarcely surprise us. In the Scottish
Reformation, still more than in the Lutheran or Genevan,
1 Knox, p. 253. Knox's statement is, " of the temporal estate, only voted
in the contrair the Earl of Atholl, the Lords Somerville and Borthwick; and
yet for their dissenting they produced no better reason, but we will beleve as
our fathers belevit. The-bischopis (papisticall we mean) spake nothing."

JOHN KNOX. 281
the struggle was not between mere freedom on the one
hand, and ecclesiastical oppression on the other, but be
tween two positive systems of religious opinion, equally
dogmatic in their presumed possession of the truth. We
have seen how, from the beginning, Knox had identified
the mass with idolatry, and in now interdicting its celebra
tion under such stringent penalties, he and others con
ceived themselves to be merely carrying out the denuncia
tion of the divine word against idolatry. Any suspicions
that these denunciations — whatever their original validity
— could be no fair weapons in their fallible hands, and in
wholly dissimilar circumstances, never crossed them. The
Bible was to Knox, as it was to Calvin, and perhaps even
more strongly, a modern statute-book, of which he and his
brethren were the authorized interpreters. They had no
perception of the hopeless confusion and difficulty involved
in such a notion. They had no idea of any religious dis
sent from their opinions ; they-knew (and this is their only
justification) that the reestablishment of the mass would
prove ruinous both to the political and religious welfare of
their country; and so they denounced against it confiscation,
banishment, and finally death.
These measures, conclusive as they were so far, by no
means satisfied the ministers and more zealous reformers.
It was not enough merely to destroy the old ecclesiastical
fabric, and lay the dogmatic foundation of a new one ; but
they desired, moreover, to define and confirm the plan of
the new Reformed Kirk. They urged upon Parliament,
accordingly, the necessity of establishing a new rule of
worship and discipline, and with this view prepared the
well-known " Book of Policy," or " First Book of Disci
pline." The greedy barons of Scotland, however, were by
no means disposed to relax their hold of ""the church reve-
24*

282 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
nues to the extent which would have been necessary in
carrying out some of the most wise and enlightened pro
visions of this scheme of church polity ;T and notwithstand
ing the urgency of the clergy.it never received the sanction
of Parliament. The great designs of the reformer in the
arrangement of church offices, in the maintenance of dis
cipline, and, above all, in the reform and reendowment of
the universities and the institution of parish schools, were
termed, in the " mockage " of such members of Parliament
as young Maitland of Lethington,2 " Devout imaginations."
And so Knox was made to feel thus early the difficulties
which from such men were soon to spring up around the
progress of Protestantism in Scotland, and plunge him
anew into contention. Disappointed in his hopes so far,
however, he had the satisfaction of seeing the Book of
Discipline approved of by the General Assembly,3 and rati
fied by a considerable proportion of the members of the
Privy Council.
We cannot pause to criticize at length the special fea
tures of the Scottish Reformation as exhibited in the Con
fession of Faith and Book of Discipline, whose origin has
been now described. Doctrinally and ecclesiastically, it
bears an analogy to the Genevan Reformation, although by
no means a close and servile analogy. It presents, upon
1 " Some were licentious," says Knox, " some had greedily grippit the
possessions of the Kirk, and others thocht they would not lack their parts of
Christ's cote."
2 Wnen Knox first proposed his schemes of Church reform, Maitland is
reported to have said, " Heh, then, we must forget ourselves now; we mun
«.' bear the barrow, and build the house of God."
3 The five ministers engaged in the composition of the Book of Discipline
are said by Knox (p. 256) to have been John Winram, John Spottiswoode,
John Douglas, John Row, and himself. It is supposed to have been first
approved by the General Assembly which met 5th January 1561.

JOHN KNOX. 283
the whole, a milder type of doctrine, of which every stu
dent may satisfy himself by the study of the different
articles of the " Confession," as contained in Knox's his
tory. The eighth article on Election is itself decisive upon
this point. Not only is the rigor of the Calvinistic tenet
modified, but it can scarcely be said to come into promi
nence. The language has a biblical softness and simplic
ity, not in the least recalling the stern, logical phraseology
6T Geneva. The sacramental doctrine, however, and the
views as to the duties of the "civil magistrate," are closely
allied to those of Calvin ; — there is the same strong asser
tion of the reality of a spiritual presence of Christ in the
Eucharist, and the same confusion as to the relation of
the political power to the purgation and chastisement of
religious error.
In the system of church government presented in the
Book of Discipline, there is at least equal evidence of a
free and independent spirit. Instead of the mere pastors,
a
doctors, and elders of the Genevan polity, there are super
intendents and pastors and readers, and then elders and
deacons. The superintendents were certainly not bishops
in the old and Catholic sense of the word. Knox, we have
already seen, was hostile to the pretensions of the episco
pal order from the beginning, and neither now nor at any
time did he regard with the slightest feelings of compla
cency its institution in the Protestant Church of Scotland.
Still, apart from such priestly usurpations as had become
strongly identified with the episcopal office in his mind, he
evidently recognized, in the appointment of superintend
ents, the right of a semi-episcopal function of supervision
and arrangement throughout the church. If no believer in
the divine right of episcopacy, he was no more a believer
in the divine right of Presbyterian parity; but he, and

284 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
those who a; ted with him, " thought it a thing most expe
dient at this time, that from the whole number of godly
and learned men, now presently in this realme, should be
selected ten or twelve (for in so many provinces we have
divided the whole), to whom charge and commandment
should be given to plant and erect kirks, to set order, and
appoint ministers as the former order prescribes, to the
countries that shall be appointed to their care where none
are now."1 Against the recognition of this semi-episcopal
function in the early Reformed Kirk of Scotland, it is not
of the least importance to urge, as Dr. M'Crie has done,
that it was a mere temporary expedient; for, in point of
fact, the ground of Christian expediency is distinctly laid
down in the twentieth article of the Confession of Faith,
as the main guide of church order and policy. " In the
church, as in the house of God," it bears, " it becometh all
things to be done decently and in order — not that we think
that one policy and one order in ceremonies can be ap
pointed for all ages, times, and places, for as ceremonies
such as men have devised are but temporal, so may and
ought they to be changed when they rather foster super
stition than edify the church using the same." 2
In the more special arrangements of public worship
there is the same flexible and adaptive freedom within cer
tain limits. Certain things are stated to be utterly ne
cessary, " as that the word be truly preached, the sacra
ments rightly administered, common prayers publickly made,
that children and rude persons be instracted in the chief
points of religion, and that offences be corrected and pun
ished." Without these things, " there is no face of a visi-_
ble kirk." But as to further details of service, the singing
1 First Book of Discipline, chap. vi. " Knox, p. 249.

JOHN KNOX. 285
of psalms, the reading of certain places of Scripture when
there was no sermon " this day or that, or how many days
in the week the kirk should assemble," there is no certain
order laid down, except that " in every notable town it is
required that one day beside Sunday be appointed to the
sermon, which, during the time of sermon and prayer, must
be kept free from all exercise of labour." Baptism was
allowed to be ministered " wheresover the word was
preached." The administration of the Lord's Supper was
to take place four times in the year ; the Scriptures were
to be read in order ; and both in public and private worship
the "common prayers" were to be used.
It becomes a question what was meant by the expression
" the common prayers," so frequently used in the Book of
Discipline. Does it refer to the service-book of Edward
VI., the Book of Common Prayer? This appears to be
the prevalent view of its meaning, interpreted in the light
of the language used in the resolution of the heads of the
congregation in 1557, that " the common prayer be read
weekly on Sunday, and on other festival days, in the
churches, with the lessons of the Old and New Testament,
conform to the order of the Book of Common Prayer." Ac
cording to this view, the English service-book is supposed
to have been used by the Scottish Protestants during a
period of seven years, viz., from 1557 to 1564, when it was
superseded by the " Order of Geneva,"1 or what is called
John Knox's Liturgy, which he had prepared for the use of
1 This view is maintained by Dr. Cumming, in his preface to the edition
of John Knox's Liturgy, and by the writer of an interesting article in the
Edinburgh Review on the same subject (April 1852); but I have been unable
to ascertain on what clear evidence it rests. As to the same point, Tytler
has the following singularly unsatisfactory note:— "This important fact,
which is now set at rest, has been much disputed, and some able writers
have come to a contrary conclusion." — Vol. vi. p. 119.

286 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
the church at Frankfort, and subsequently employed in his
congregation in Geneva. In any case, there can be no
doubt that the early Presbyterian service of Scotland, as in
the case of every other reformed church, was in the main
liturgical, that certain " common prayers," carefully prepared
and stamped with the sanction of the reformers, were gen
erally used throughout the church. The idea of extempo
raneous prayer as an appropriate vehicle of public devo
tion, was one quite unknown to the Reformation. In the
reformed discipline which sprang from Geneva, a certain
latitude was permitted to the minister ; but in no church
of the Reformation was public religious service entirely lib
erated from certain authorized forms of devotional expres
sion. Freedom carried to this extent was a growth of
later Puritanism, already beginning to corrupt in its indi
vidualistic excesses ; aud in Scotland the general tendency
was hardened into a fierce and defiant negativism by the
insane prelatical despotism of Laud and his associates.
But we must now hasten onwards in our sketch. We
cannot attempt to draw into any full light the remaining
events of Knox's life ; but there are still two points of
view in which we must carefully consider him, before we
can venture, in conclusion, to give any picture of the man
and his work — viz., his relations to Mary, and the closing
years of his life during the regencies of Lennox and Mar.
From nothing, perhaps, has the character of the reformer
suffered more than from the somewhat singular relations
which he held to Mary during her brief and unhappy reign
— relations which modern partisanship and modern gossip
have more than ever confused. A beautiful and accom
plished woman, and that woman a queen, confronted in her
hereditary palace by a gloomy and frowning preacher, is an
interesting and exciting picture for the imagination ; but it

JOHN KNOX. 287
is in reality nothing more. The mind that cannot see
.deeper below the surface than the mere grace and beauty
and ideal majesty of Mary on the one hand, and the rigor
and supposed rudeness of Knox on the other, proves itself
so little capable of historical penetration, that it must be
allowed simply to please itself with its own delusions.
The slightest glimpse below the surface reveals to us, in
Mary and in Knox respectively, the impersonation of two
great principles then fighting for mastery not only in Scot
land, but throughout Europe. Mary was not merely herself
a Romanist by education, by sympathy, by that intense and
unreasoning instinct with which a certain kind of nature
always clings to traditionary beliefs and associations — she
might have been all this, and been, if not a happy and
beneficent, yet a tolerated governor of Scotland ; and
Knox's molestation of her for her own opinions, and private
observances of her own religion, might have excited at
once our indignation and our sympathy. But Mary was
far more than this, and no man knew it better than John
Knox. She was the niece of the Guises, and the daugh
ter-in-law of Catherine de Medicis; and she was not merely
sympathetic with their aims, but it is impossible to doubt
she was privy to their most deeply-laid schemes. She
knew the great and crafty game they were then playing,
and she was prepared, with profound skill and persevering
energy, to aid it.
It requires us, in order rightly to appreciate the position
of either, thus to look below their more immediate circum
stances, and bring into view the character of that Catholic
reaction which had now set in so strongly against the Ref
ormation. There is nothing more certain, and few things
more terrible in history, than this movement, in the. delib
erate villany with which it was planned, and the secret,

288 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
powerful, and elaborate perfidy and cold-blooded massacre
with which it was so far prosecuted. Its centre was in
Paris, although its inspiration was from Rome ; and Italian
craft and subtlety in the Guises were its leaders. Scotland
possessed a peculiar and unexampled interest to it, not
only or chiefly from its old relations to France, but espe
cially as a basis and means of operation against England.
The stock of Henry VIII. seemed likely to die out; Eliza
beth alone, in her solitary majesty, stood between Mary
and the throne of England ; and with Maiy as sovereign
head of England and Scotland, the triumph of Bome was
again secure over all the West Mary's position, then, Was
in reality the key to the whole movement, — the full com
bination, treachery, and strength of which Knox saw and
Calvin saw, as but few men of their time did.1 It is no
great wonder, then, that the reformer was suspicious from
the first, and that he tried to animate the milder Moray
with a persuasion of the danger which he himself un
derstood and felt. He knew that the only security of
Scotland was in its complete exemption from papal influ
ence, and that the mass, once reestablished by the court,
would certainly prove an opening for the reascendency of
this influence. This was the secret of his strong protesta
tions to Moray, and of his saying, in the clear knowledge
of all that it meant, and towards which it pointed, that
"one mass was more fearful to him than ten thousand
armed enemies."
It must be observed that it is not here a question of tol
eration between man and man, or party and party, but a
question of urgent national expediency. Scotland could
i Knox "had then great intelligence both with the Kirk and some of the
court of France." — Historie, p. 260.

JOHN KNOX. 289
then be only peaceably governed as a Protestant country,
and Mary of Guise had virtually admitted this as with her
last breath. She deplored the fatal advice of her brothers
which she had followed, and counselled the removal of the
French troops from the kingdom. A free and lawful Par
liament had since then established the new religion, and
interdicted the old ; and whatever may be the intolerance
of this interdiction in our modern point of view, — and
neither this nor any intolerance is to be defended, however
it may be explained, — yet practically, so far as the head of
the government was concerned, it was impossible to set it
aside, or even infringe or show disrespect to it, without
utter confusion and disorder, as the events proved, and
everything showed at the time to those who had any eyes
to see. Apart from all ideas of modern constitutionalism,
which are of course inapplicable to the question, it was yet
possible to be a sovereign even in Mary's time, only at the
expense of some personal liberty, and as representing a
predominant national feeling. War was the only alterna
tive of the disturbance of the practical representative rela
tions of sovereign and people. But Mary had no percep
tion of this ; and, notwithstanding her pretences, showed no
honest desire to govern the country in the spirit of its own
will declared through Parliament, and set before her in the
counsel of her brother. How could she, when her move
ments were secretly dictated from Paris, and her whole
aim was to advance Catholicism through the subversion of
the existing ecclesiastical order of the country ? Had she
been less crafty, and more wise, — had she recognized her
position, and accepted it with its restraints, and sought to
rule according to them, — Knox's interferences might have
continued to annoy, but could not have imperilled her.
No Stuart, however, was capable of this ; and that Mary
25

290 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
acted as she did, and embroiled the country in worse con
fusion than before her mother's death, simply proved that
there was no possible, not to say no rightful, place for her
at the time in Scotland. A "divine power to govern ill"
had become, even then, intolerable to the Scottish people ;
and surely we are not to blame, but to commend Knox and
others, that they saw thus early through so false and* mis
erable a fiction as the divine right of kings. " Think you,"
said Mary, in their first interview, " that subjects, having the
power, may resist their princes?" — "If princes exceed
their bounds, madam, no doubt they may be resisted even
by power." In these words appears the essential contrast
between the two, and the principles which they repre
sented. " Power is mine," said Mary. " God has given it
to me, and I can use it as I will. It is divine simply ac
cording to my best judgment and opinion of its mode of
exercise." — " Not in the least," said Knox ;"" first right, and
then might ; national interest, and then royal pleasure : and
there is no other way of governing the world."
In all we have six interviews, recorded by Knox himself,
as occurring between the queen and him. And in all his
own accounts of these interviews, or of Randolph the
English ambassador's allusions, there is no evidence of in
civility or rudeness on the part of the reformer. There is,'
indeed, a harsh tone in his reflections upon her afterwards,
and in the way in which he speaks of her " owling," but —
in so far as his own speech and action in her presence are
concerned — there appears rather a dignified courtesy in
the manners of the reformer, and a sincere aud respectful
regard to her lawful authority.1 The violence of debate
i It is clear, however, that Randolph interpreted her weeping in the same
way as Knox : " Knox hath spoken to the queen, and he made her weep,
as well you know there be of that sex that will do that for anger or for grief."

JOHN KNOX. 291
and passion of speech are more on her side than on his, as
she tried in vain to move his calm resoluteness. " But
what have you- to do with my marriage?" she angrily urged,
on then- fifth interview, after he had preached a sermon re
flecting on her proposed marriage, " or what are you in this
commonwealth?" — "A subject born within the same,
madam," calmly replied the reformer; "and albeit I be
neither earl, lord, nor baron in it, yet has God made me
(how abject that ever I be in your eyes) a profitable mem
ber within the same." If this be not courtesy combined
with dignity under all the circumstances, we are at a loss to
understand what the qualities mean.
In order to understand the full dignity of the reformer's
conduct at this time, we must remember that he stood
almost alone in the position which he now, in 1563, sought
to vindicate. Moray and all the Protestant nobles were
combined in the meantime with the queen ; and it is a
mere imaginative dream which supposes her bearded in
her palace, in the midst of all her beautiful weakness, by
the savage head of a powerful party in the country. The
very reverse at this moment is the fact. Mary was now,
and for some time still, the object of an affectionate
enthusiasm to the nobles and others that surrounded her,1
while Knox stood alone in his discontent and indignation.
Afterwards, indeed, when Mary had fallen from her pride
of power, — when she became a prisoner, and then a fugi
tive, and her fair name lay sullied in the dust, and her
beauty was no more a charm to steal men's hearts away, —
then, in the dark and miserable time of her misfortunes,
i At the opening of Parliament in this very year, the enthusiasm found
vent in a somewhat profane manner. " There might have been heard,"
Knox says, " vox Dianae, the voice of a goddess, and not of a woman : God
save that sweet face." — p. 330.

292 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
Knox was unpityingly severe and harsh in his judgments.
The Genevan spirit of rigor then showed itself in a man
ner which altogether repels sympathy. He and all of his
class were incapable of that elevation of view which could
separate between the woman and the queen, and feel
compassion for the former when the latter was no longer
dangerous. It must also be frankly admitted that there was
much in the mere gay festivities of Mary's fife, the charms
of her queenly womanhood, and the social elegance of her
court, that were unintelligible to Knox, and misinterpreted
by him.1 He could see nothing in the gay gear, the gar
nishing, targetting, and pearls of the court ladies, as he
stood in Mary's ante-chamber, but the fleshly vanity des
tined to be consumed by " that knave death, that will come
whether we will or not." It was the same narrow spirit
that kept him from pitying her fallen beauty and forlorn
helplessness when her day of adversity came. But to
condemn him for this harsh sternness, and to forget all the
genuine feeling and heartiness and patriotism of the man,
is to be guilty at once of a crying injustice, and a weak,
unhistorical judgment. Knox was not, indeed, a man in
gay clothing, to be found in kings' palaces, nor fitted for
them ; but he was a true man; he saw the reality of life,
although not all that reality. Mary saw something in it
that he did not see ; but she missed the living fact, which
was clear and open to the honest vision. With her higher
tastes, she was false, — false to herself and her position ;
with his narrower sympathies, he was faithful to his country,
to his God, to his own dignity and self-respect.
The closing years of the reformer's life are full of pathos.
After the brief regency of Moray, when his great work
l " Such stinking pride of women as was seen at that Parliament, was
never seen before in Scotland." — Historie, p. 330.

JOHN KNOX. 293
seemed ended, and, in the fulness of his feeling that he
could do no more, he thought of retiring to Geneva to ter
minate his days in peace, — after this bright interval, came
new days of darkness, with Moray's assassination. Things
returned to their old confusion under the regency of Len
nox (who, too, was soon murdered), and then of Mar.
Friends who had been dear to him — Kirkaldy of Grange,
and others — forsook the cause of the Reformation, and
sought to reestablish a Marian party in Edinburgh. He
had the misfortune, also, to differ from his brethren in the
Assembly about praying for the queen. Maitland tried to
improve this difference to his own advantage : dark charges
were uttered against the reformer, as to his having wished
to betray his country to the English ; an attempt was even
made to assassinate him, by firing a ball in at the window
of the room where he usually sat. The heart of the old
man, weakened as he was by paralysis, was deeply
wounded. He felt bitterly the cowardice of the accusa
tions made against him, and answered in the proud and
noble words — "What I have been to my country, albeit
this unthankful age will not know, yet the age to come
will be compelled to bear witness to the truth ; and thus I
cease, requiring all men that have anything to oppose
against me, that they will do it so plainly as I make myself
and all my doings so manifest to the world; for to me it
seems a thing most unreasonable, that in this my decrepit
age, I shall be compelled to fight against shadows and
Hoichttes that dare not abide the light."
In May (5th) 15TJ1 he left Edinburgh for St. Andrews
reluctantly, urged by his friends to take some means for his
safety. James Melville was then a student in St. Leonard's
College, and we are indebted to his gossipy pen for a very
graphic and interesting account of Knox's appearance and
25*

294 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
preaching. The picture — of the old man in the College
Yard of St. Leonard's, calling the students about him, and
blessing them ; his weakness, needing the support of his
servant on his way to preach ; his vigor and warmth when
once in the pulpit and kindled with his theme — is very
striking and memorable. " He ludgit down in the Abbey
beside our college," says Melville, " and would some time
come in and repose him in our college yard, and call us
scholars unto him, and bless us, and exhort us to know God
and his work in our country, and stand by the glide cause.
Our haill college was sound and zealous for the glide
cause ; the other twa colleges not sae  I heard
him teach the prophecies of Daniel that summer and the
winter following. I had my pen and my little buik, and took
away sic things as I could comprehend. In the opening of
the text he was moderate the space of half an hour ; but
when he enterit to application, he made me so to grew and
tremble that I could not hold a pen to write  He
was very weak. I saw him every day of his doctrine go
hulie and fear (slowly and warily), with a furring of mar-
ticks about his neck, a staff in the ane hand, and gude
godly Richard Ballandene, his servant, holding up the
other oxter, from the Abbey to the parish kirk, and by the
said B,ichard and another servant lifted up to the pulpit,
whare he behoved to lean at his first entrie ; but ere he has
done with his sermon he was sae active and vigorous that
he was tyke to ding the pulpit in blads and flie out of it."
Such is the living glimpse we get of the reformer in
these last days. Weak and ill, his last energies were ex
pended in the cause so dear to him. He flinched not then
from the battle that he had waged so long; and yet at
heart he was sick, and " wearie of the world." He sub
scribed himself to a book which he now published against

JOHN KNOX. 295
a Scottish Jesuit of the name of Tyrie, " John Knox, the
servant of Jesus Christ, now wearie of the world, and
daily looking for the resolution of this my earthly taberna
cle," and asked his brethren to pray for him, " that God
would put an end to his long and painful battel ; for now
being unable to fight as God sometime gave strength, I
thirst an end."
In August 1572, he was enabled, by a truce between the
contending parties, to return to Edinburgh. He was no
longer able to preach in his old church, and the Tolbooth
was fitted up for him. Here, in the course of September,
he thundered his dying denunciations against the perpe
trators of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. This crown
ing stroke of the great reactionary party in France touched
him to the quick, verifying all his predictions, and plunging
him in the deepest sadness for his many martyred friends.
He imprecated, with his last breath, the vengeance of
Heaven upon the accursed murderers; and his cry, with that
of others, went up before the throne with an " Avenge, O
Lord, thy slaughtered saints ! "
In the second week of November he was seized with a
severe cough, and his end visibly drew near. He arranged
his affairs ; paid his servants' wages, with twenty shillings
over, as the last they would ever receive from him ; and so
set his house in order. There was no darkness in these
last moments. Although the sadness of the time touched
him, his own spirit was cheerful, as the eternal day began
to break, and the shadows to flee away. Two friends, not
knowing of his illness, came to dine with him, and he in
sisted upon being present at table, and piercing for them a
hogshead of wine which was in the cellar, and which might
as well be drunk by his friends, now that he was going the
way when he would no more need it. " He willed them

298 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
to send for the same so Long as it lasted, for that he would
not tarry till it was drunken;" — as beautiful a picture of
generous friendliness .and "cheery social" disposition, as
one can anywhere contemplate. On the 17th, and some of
the following days, he received his friends, his colleague,
his brethren in the ministry, and, among others, the Earl of
Morton, whom he charged to be faithful to God and the
Evangel in the elevation to the regency which he saw was
awaiting him. On the evening before his death he was
tempted to think of himself, and of what he had done. But
he repelled the temptation with the sentence, Quid hales,
quod non accepisli ? The next day, the 24th, he got up and
partially dressed himself — put on his hose and doublet ;
but the effort was too much ; weakness overcame him, and
he was forced to lie down again. His wife and faithful
servant sat beside him reading the Bible. He asked his
wife to read the 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians, and said
when it was finished, "Is not that a beautiful chapter?
What sweet consolation the Lord hath given me ! " Later,
he said, " Go, read where I first cast anchor;" and she read
the 17th chapter of St. John's Gospel. He fell into a trance
at the time of evening prayer, and when the physician in
quired if he had heard their prayers, he replied, " Would
God that you and all men had heard them as I have heard
them. I praise God for that heavenly sound." About
eleven o'clock he gave a deep sigh, and said, " Now it is
come." Then Richard Bannatyne, sitting down before him,
said, " Now, sir, the time that you have long called for — to
wit, an end of your battle — is come ; and seeing all natural
power now fails, remember the comfortable promise which
ofttime ye have shown to us of our Saviour Christ : and
that we may understand and know that ye hear us, make
us some sign, and so he lifted up his hand, and incontinent

JOHN KNOX. 297
thereafter rendered up the spirit, and sleepit away without
ony pain."
A stern reality, a vivid and strong and somewhat harsh
sense lies at the basis of Knox's character. He saw life
equally in its individual and national aspects as a great
fact before God — a fact which could only be falsified or
trifled away and abused in blasphemy of him who gave it,
and who would require an account of it. It was this feel
ing of the awful reality and responsibility of life as a
divine trust and discipline, which, growing up in that long
time of quietness and obscurity from about his twentieth to
his fortieth year, served more than anything else to kindle
undying zeal against the Papacy of his country: Strong
religious convictions no doubt animated him in his reform
ing career. It is impossible to read the account he himself
has given of his early sermons in St. Andrews, as well as
his subsequent letters to his mother-in-law, and not see
that the fresh and living study of Scripture had led him to
very definite conclusions as to the unchristian character of
Romanism, and the perversion of doctrinal truth that its
teaching and practices presented. Still he did not, like
Luther, primarily attack Romanism from a dogmatic point
of view, nor perhaps were its doctrinal perversions ever
the main cause of his intense and growing hatred to it. It
was rather its utter immorality and godlessness as a practi
cal governing institution — its contradictions to the truth of
life and the plainest instincts of duty at every point — that
provoked his indignation and nerved his destructive energy.
He felt that in his own time and country it had become a
great embodied lie, dead in trespasses and sin, out of which
no good could come, and that therefore it could only be
trodden down and buried out of sight.

298 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
This was, no doubt, a stern view of life, and of the world
around him. It is a view with which we may have some
difficulty in sympathizing, as we look back upon it from the
free and tolerant atmosphere of this nineteenth century. It
covers an element of iconoclasm which could only justify
itself in the face of the most obvious and unquestionable
facts. But the facts are beyond question. The view was
one sternly demanded by the necessities of Scotland in
the sixteenth century. Nothing but its absolute truthful
ness forced it upon Knox. Other men, of less power and
penetration than he was, — of a less open and piercing
glance, searching not only the manifest but the hidden
things of dishonesty amidst which he stood, — might have
been deceived by certain fair appearances in the aspect of
Scottish Romanism ; but no varnishings and no artifices
could beguile him. No special pretensions, no conventional
dignities, could impose upon him, or blind his strong, clear
vision. He had learned plainly and boldly, as he himself
says, to " call wickedness by its own terms, a fig a fig, and
a spade a spade." The Roman hierarchy, therefore, was
Antichrist, and the mass idolatry, simply because, in Scot
land at least, they had in his time become absolutely un
moral. All divine good they had ever possessed had gone
out of them, and left only a noxious carcass — a mere
tyranny in the one case, a mere falsehood in the other.
This spirit of severe reality animated him alike in his
political as in his religious views. It gave a hardness, some
will say a harshness, to his personal demeanor. No form
of civil polity was anything to him, save in so far as it con
served the true dignity and earnest and pious uses of life.
Mary was only queen in so far as her government was
good for the country. He recognized no divine right in her
or any one to govern, save in so far as they were fit for it.

JOHN KNOX. 299
The mere trappings of rule, its artificial splendors, its proud
adornments, had no interest, and certainly no awe for him.
He stood unmoved before them, and his stern simplicity re
mained imperturbable alike under the blandishments and
the tears of royalty. As on one occasion he left the room
where he had been holding interview with the queen, he
passed ont with a " reasonable merry countenance," some
of them whispered, " He is not afraid." " What ! should
the pleasing face of a gentilwoman affray me ? " was his
reply. " I have looked in the face of many angry men, and
yet have not been afraid above measure." He did not
know, indeed, what fear meant, and his heart leapt up at
the sound of danger. Never were truer words than those
of the Earl of Morton, as they laid him in the old church
yard of St. Giles, " He never feared the face of man."
Even Luther was not more courageous in the midst of ac
tual conflict; and in the boldness of consistent self-respect,
and of undeviating adhesion to what he considered princi
ple, Knox was the superior of Luther. Knox would never
have written such letters as Luther did, both to the Pope
and Henry VIII. ; and he never would have acted as the
German reformer did in the affair of the Landgrave of
Hesse. No consideration ever moved him to servility, and
no power on earth would have extorted from him unchristian
submission. Out of this fundamental feature of strong truthfulness
sprang alike his humor and his bitterness, — different man
ifestations of the same spirit. That Knox possessed a
thoroughly hearty humor, it is impossible for any one to
doubt who has ever read his history. Its narrative is
touched everywhere by a humorous presence, giving life
and color and movement to it, — lighting up, in picturesque
and vivid gleams, the very image of the times. It is not,

300 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
indeed, a simple humor, whose expressions you can detach,
and look at, and feel their laughing charm by themselves,
as are the manifold utterances of Luther's rare and fertile
power, or of Latimer's narrower sympathy. It is rather, as
we have said, a presence — a way in general of looking at
things and telling about them, which shows you the deep
nature of the man, and how keenly all the real aspects. of
life, its comedy as well as its tragedy, its familiarities as
well as its grandeurs, touched him. There is but little
geniality, and scarcely any tenderness in it. It is grotesque
and scornful, rather than smiling and kindly, — passing, by
an easy transition; into frequent bursts of bitter, and what
we would now call violent and abusive attacks. Still, even
the bitterness is hearty, and not cold and merely mocking.
It springs from the same full fountain of sympathy with all
that is real in life ; and where he scorns, and is wild with a
kind of savage glee, it is, in the main, only against things
that really deserved scorn, and were dead to all milder or
more tolerant treatment. His soul was wearied with false
hoods ; and if the sacred association was not spared in the
fierce denunciation, it was simply because it had lost utterly
for him all truth or beauty of holiness. Mr. Carlyle's ver
sion of his throwing an image of the Virgin into the Loire
exactly illustrates this. " Mother ! mother of God, did you
say? This is no mother of God, but a painted bredd — a
piece of wood, I tell you, with paint on it ! " And, suiting the
action to the language, he dashed the consecrated symbol
into the water.
It must at once be admitted that there are aspects of life
beautiful and really good that had little or no interest for
Knox. The sweetness and grace and cultured refinement
and charm of social politeness, that so mingle in our mod
ern existence, and which, from the polished capital where

JOHN KNOX. 301
she had spent her youth, Mary sought to transplant into
the harsher clime of her native land, — those festive exu
berances and "unconfined joys" and decorated gayetics,
that, amid all their frivolity, speak of a right-hearted human
gladness, and of which Mary, in her mere womanly per
fections, may be said to remain the ideal and type, — were
unfelt and unacknowledged by him. Mere beauty in na
ture or in life had no attractions for him. Calvin is scarcely
more insensible to such attractions, although Knox has a
wider sympathy with the varied interests of humanity, and
a far deeper and more appreciative feeling. There is a
comparatively keen though rugged sensibility in the heart
of the Scottish reformer, as passages in his sermons, and
many facts of his life show ; and if he could be stern and
even cruel as Calvin, he is yet never so cold and self-sus
tained in his polemical rigor. His harshness and narrow
ness were as much the misfortune of his time as his fault
as a man ; and while they cast a shade into his portrait,
they yet ought not to destroy the noble and impressive
lines that mark it.
His eloquence partook of the same stern, powerful, and
scornful character; it must have been a grand thing to hear
in those days, when great national interests hung upon his
single utterances. His preaching, the English ambassador
said, "put more fife into him than six hundred trumpets,"
— a headlong, vehement, swelling energy, ringing like a
slogan-cry, bursting in explosive shouts, and moving with
passionate convictions thousands of hearts. There is one
passage particularly in his sermon before the dissolution of
the Parliament of 1563, when the arts of Mary were so
successful in deluding the Protestant nobles, and making
them pass from their demands to have all the proceedings
of the previous Parliament of 1560 ratified, that rises to a
26

302 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
height of impassioned sublimity, with a certain wild touch
of pathos mingling in and softening it. He is appealing to
his old associations with them, and how in past times he
had shared their risks and danger. " I have been with you,"
he says, " in your most desperate temptations, in your most
extreme dangers I have been with you. St. Johnstone,
Cupar Moor, and the Crags of Edinburgh are yet recent in
my heart — yea, and that dark and dolorous night, wherein
all ye, my lords, with shame and fear, left this town, is yet
in my mind, and God forbid that I ever forget it. What
was, I say, my exhortation to you, and what has fallen in
vain of all that ever God promised unto you by my mouth,
ye yourselves live to testify  Shall this be the
thankfulness that ye shall render unto God, to betray his
cause, when ye have it in your hands to establish it?" His
prayer, also, after the assassination of the regent Moray, is
sublime in its wild wrestlings, and deploring, yet resigned,
cries over the hapless fate of his country.1
Altogether, if we estimate him, as we are alone entitled
to do, in his historical position and circumstances, Knox
appears a very great and heroic man, — no violent dema
gogue, or even stern dogmatist, — although violence and
sternness and dogmatism were all parts of his character.
These coarser elements mingled with but did not obscure
the fresh, living, and keenly sympathetic humanity beneath.
Far inferior to Luther in tenderness and breadth and lova-
bleness, he is greatly superior to Calvin in the same quali
ties. You feel that he had a strong and loving heart under
all his harshness, and that you can get near to it, and could
have spent a cheery social evening with him in his house at
the head of the Canongate, over that good old wine that he
1 M'Crie's Life, p. 269.

JOHN KNOX. 303
had stored in his cellar, and which he was glad and proud to
dispense to his friends. It might not have been a very
pleasant thing to differ with him even in such circurn-.
stances ; but, upon the whole, it would have been a pleas-
anter and safer audacity than to have disputed some favor
ite tenet with Calvin. There was in Knox far more of
mere human feeling and of shrewd worldly sense, always
tolerant of differences ; and you could have fallen back
upon these, and felt yourself comparatively safe in the
utterance of some daring sentiment. And in this point of
view it deserves to be noticed, that Knox alone, of the re
formers, along with Luther, is free from all stain of violent
persecution. Intolerant he was towards the mass, towards
Mary, and towards the old Catholic clergy ; yet he was no
persecutor. He was never cruel in act, cruel as his lan
guage sometimes is, and severe as were some of his judg
ments. Modern enlightenment and scientific indifference
we have no right to look for in him. His superstitions
about the weather and witches, were common to him with
all men of his time. Nature was not to these men an ele
vated and beneficent idea, but a capricious manifestation
of arbitrary supernatural forces. This was part of the in
tellectual furniture of the time, of which they could no
more get rid than they could get rid of their social dresses
or usages. And Knox was so far, as in other things, only
a man of his time.
As a mere thinker, save perhaps on political subjects, he
takes no rank ; and his pohtical views, wise and enlight
ened as they were, seem rather the growth of his manly
instinctive sense than reasoned from any fundamental
principles. Earnest, intense, and powerful in every prac
tical direction, he *was not in the least characteristically
reflective or speculative. Everywhere the hero, he is no-

304 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
where the- philosopher or sage. He was, in sliort, a man
for his work and time, — knowing what was good for his
country there and then, when the old Catholic bonds had
rotted to the very heart. A man of God, yet with sinful
weaknesses like us all. There is something in him we can
no longer love, — a harshness and severity by no means
beautiful or attractive ; but there is little in him that we
cannot in the retrospect heartily respect, and even admir
ingly cherish.
Of his special work we have already so far spoken. It
was a truly great and noble work, though with harsh fea
tures in it, like the man himself. Characteristically it was,
according to our previous statement, a comprehending ex
pression of revived Christian interest, and of a new and
healthy national feeling. Nowhere does the spiritual prin
ciple appear more prominently as the spring of the Refor
mation than in Scotland. The reawakened idea of indi
vidual relation and responsibility to God, and of the only
possible realization of both in Christ, is everywhere the
living impulse, originating and carrying forward the move
ment. But there is also more than this. Alongside of the
spiritual influence, and bound up with it in a very notable,
expressive, and more complete form than elsewhere, is the
principle of Nationalism. The Scottish Reformation was
not merely a spiritual insurrection ; it was a national revo
lution — the expression of a new social life, which now in
the sixteenth centuiy had become the most educated and
intelligent in the country. The two influences, civil and
religious, intersected and moulded one another in a marked
degree, though in what degree exactly it is difficult to say.
In no other way can we explain the tedical change that
then passed upon the face of Scotland, than by the fact

JOHN KNOX. 305
that new social forces, which had been for some time
working in the country, came now to the surface, and
stamped themselves definitely upon its expanding civiliza
tion. Knox was at once the preacher of a free gospel, and
the representative of this broader and freer nationality.
And correspondently with this character, the movement
which he headed, and which practically he carried forward
to triumph, assumed from the beginning a marked political
aspect, and sought to guarantee itself in new modes of
political as well as spiritual action. The General Assem
bly of the Church was in reality a Commons' House of
Parliament, discussing the most varied interests of the
country, and giving effect to the popular, or at least the
middle-class feeling, on all the urgent questions of the day.
It was the substantial national power which the Assem
blies thus enjoyed, which made them so prized on the one
hand, and so feared and hated on the other. The clergy,
and barons united with them, felt that with the right of
free assembly they were powerful against any combination
of their enemies. The sovereign and great nobles knew
that in the face of these Assemblies they could never hold
the country by the old feudal bonds of government. It was
a life-and-death contention on either side; and Scottish
Presbytery became thus, in the very circumstances of its
origin, and still more in the progress of its history, intensely
political, and could not help becoming so.
A Calvinistic creed, and a Presbyterian ritual, were the
shapes into which the Scottish Reformation, not at once,
but very soon, and from the growing necessities of its
position, hardened itself. At first, we have seen, it did not
bear any strong impress of Calvinism ; the affinity was
apparent, but the likeness was far from rigorous ; and had
it been left to its own free national development, undis-
26*

306 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
turbed by royal despotism, and its tool, ecclesiastical arbi
trariness, it might have matured, both doctrinally and rit-
ually, into a form comparatively expansive and catholic. It
might have gradually penetrated the old historical families
of the kingdom which had hitherto stood aloof from it, and
moulded the nation — people, barons, and nobles — into a
great religious unity. This, however, was not to be its
fate. It was not destined to a quiet career of diffusion and
growth, but to a career of tragic storm and struggle, in the
course of which, while it kept its own with a brave tenac
ity and a grand heroism, which shed an undying glory amid
the stormy gloom of its eventful history, it yet never fused
itself more deeply than at first into the outlaying sections
of the national life. The original oppositions, after the
lapse of a hundred and twenty years, reappear, only more
intensified and defined than ever; and to this day they
remain uneffaced, and probably uneffaceable. Scotland
presents in this respect, accordingly, a singular and original
spectacle. While Presbyterianism, in its scarcely differing
shades, keeps the same vigorous and immovable hold of
the great heart of the nation, there are yet certain traces
of sentiment in the country, transmitted by clear lines of
descent from the sixteenth century, that not merely lie out
side of it, but apparently have no capacity of appreciating
the meaning of the main current of the national religious
feeling. In .the course o£ the opposition which it encountered,
Calvinism, in its most rigorous form, naturally became the
dogmatic stronghold of the Scottish Reformation. Clear
ness, defiuiteness, and a bold and ready audacity of doc
trinal opinion, became necessary elements of strength ; as
the struggle went on, and when the Protestant influence in
Scotland allied itself with English Puritanism, and, in fact,

JOHN KNOX. 307
became one of the most prominent phases of the great
Puritanic movement, it took up, of course, the doctrinal as
well as the anti-ritual peculiarities of this movement, and
the " Confession of Faith" and " Directory of Public Wor
ship " remain the marked monuments of this second stage
of its history. Beyond doubt, also, the more rigorous Cal
vinism of the Confession was a natural expression of the
Scottish mind applied to religious subjects, sharing, as this
mind strongly does, with the French, in the "logical direct
ness " which delights in great constructive systems, and in
the exliibition of coherency and theoretical order, rising
from some single principle, rather than in an adaptive
earnestness and manifoldness of opinion.
The Calvinism in Scotland seems at first sight to have
enjoyed a more consistent and vigorous life than that either
of Geneva or of Holland ; but a nearer inspection proves
that the difference is more apparent than real. Scottish
theology, such as it is, has, in truth, undergone a series of
most singular modifications during the last two hundred
years, from the polemical hardness and spiritual sentimen-
talisms of Rutherford on through the devotional and apolo
getic mildness of Halyburton, the fervid but untempered
earnestness of Boston, the polite moralisms of Blair, and
the conciliatory doctrinism of Hill and Campbell, to the
genial but inconsistent theories of Chalmers. And of all
these modifications none is more singular, and certainly
none less understood, than that which sprang from the ad
mission of Jonathan Edwards's doctrine of philosophical
necessity as constituting a renewed basis and point of
defence for Calvinism. A meagre rationalism, under the
name of moderatism, had in the last century eaten away
the heart of the old Calvinistic religious spirit, when the
cold breath of this new doctrine came as a bracing resto-

308 LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.
rative to the logical mind of Scotland, and it was eagerly
seized upon and embraced as a supposed mediatrix be
tween philosophy and faith. It had an inherited charm to
such a mind as Chalmers's, and more than anything seemed
to strengthen him in the old dogmatic pathways ; but a
union so unnatural could not even be blessed by his strong
genius, and this theological necessitarianism is already
giving place before the progress of a more spiritual phi
losophy. Whether the Scottish mind is at length really about to
free itself from its intense logical tendencies, and to ex
pand into a broader, more learned, and comprehensive
theological literature, it is somewhat difficult to say. Un
doubtedly there is in Scotland, as elsewhere, great spiritual
restlessness under the old dogmatic bonds. A disintegrat
ing process is at work in the forms of its religious life ; and
many, where their fathers found living wells, look, and, be
hold, there are but empty cisterns. The danger of this
temper is, that it may become impatient and destructive,
rather than inquiring and freely conservative, and thus, as
in the last century, that dogmatism may pass into rational
ism, and spiritual earnestness into moderate indifferentism.
The best, indeed the only safeguard against this, is the
growth of a critical and historical spirit, -which, while look
ing back with reverence to the past, and appreciating all
that is good and holy and great in it, is not yet absolutely
wedded to it as a formula beyond which, or apart from
which, there can be no life. There is some hopeful evi
dence of the rise of such a spirit spreading from the richer
soil of the English theological mind, and quickened by the
fertile light which recent German research has cast upon
the history of the church. It were well that this spirit
should ripen free from German arbitrariness or audacious
self-confidence of any kind.

JOHN KNOX. 309
Perhaps the living study of such men as these pages
have feebly endeavored to sketch, may be helpful in this
direction, — men whose example of Christian energy, and
patriotism, and piety, is so much greater than their mere
dogmatisms. The world may outlive the latter, — nay, in
so far as they were merely personal or intellectual, it has
already outlived them; but the former are the needful salt
of its ever-freshening life. We have entered into the
labors of these men, and fruits have sprung from them in
some respects of a richer and more enduring strength than
they themselves dreamed of. Ours is the inheritance,
theirs was the labor. While we rejoice in our higher heri
tage, let us not forget those who first broke the bonds of
spiritual tyranny. Let the march of thought go on : in vain
shall we try to check it. But, while we move forward, let
us revere the past ; and as we sweep within the gates of a
New era, let us look back with admiration and, so far as
we can, with love, if not with regret, to the great figures
that stand at the illuminated portals of the Old.

THE END.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 09863 1683