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CHAPTER XI. – THE HERESIES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
THE DISCIPLES OF LUTHER
32. Melancthon and his Character.
33. His Faith, and the Augsburg Confession composed by him.
34. Matthias Flaccus, Author of the Centuries,
35. John Agricola, Chief of the Antinomians; Atheists. 30.-Andrew Osiander, Francis Stancar, and Andrew Musculus.
37. John Brenzius, Chief of the Ubiquists.
38. Gaspar Sneckenfield abhorred even by Luther for his impiety.
39. Martin Chemnitz, the Prince of Protestant Theologians, and opponent of the Council of Trent.
32. Philip Melancthon, Luther’s chief and best beloved disciple, was a German, born in Brettan, in the Palatinate, of a very poor family, in the year 1497. He was a man of profound learning, and, at the age of twenty-four, was appointed one of the professors of Wittemberg by the Duke of Saxony. There he became imbued with Lutheran opinions, but as he was a man of the greatest mildness of manner, and so opposed to strife that he never spoke a harsh word against any one, he was anxious to bring about a union between all the Religions of Germany; and on that account in many points smoothened down the harsh doctrines of Luther, and frequently, in writing to his friends, as Bossuet, in his History of the Variations, tells us, he complained that Luther was going too far. He was a man of great genius, but undecided in his opinions, and so fond of indifference that his disciples formed themselves into a sect called Indifferentists, or Adiaphorists. The famous Confession of Augsburg was drawn up by him at the Diet, and his followers were on that account sometimes called Confessionists (1).
33. He divided his Confession into twenty-one articles, and stated his opinions with such moderation, that Luther afterwards complained that Philip, in endeavouring to smoothen down his doctrine, destroyed it (2). He admitted the liberty of human will, rejected the opinion of Luther, that God is the author of sin, and approved of the Mass. All these points were opposed to Luther’s system.
He was at length so tired with the way matters went on among the Reformers, that he intended to leave them altogether, and retire into Poland, there to wait the decision of the Council, whatever it should be (3). His opinions were very unsteady regarding matters of Faith : thus, he says, man can be justified by Faith alone; and his rival, Osiander, says he changed his mind fourteen times on this one subject. He was selected to arrange a treaty of peace with the Sacramentarians, but notwithstanding all his endeavours he never could succeed (4). Gotti, quoting Cochleus (5), says, that with all his anxiety to smoothen down any harsh points in the system, he only threw oil and not water on the flames. He died in Wittemberg in 1556, according to Van Ranst, or in 1560, according to Gotti, at the age of sixty-one. Many authors relate that, being at the point of death, his mother said to him : ” My son, I was a Catholic; you have caused me to forsake that Faith : you are now about to appear before God, and tell me truly, I charge you, which is the better Faith, the Catholic or the Lutheran ?” He answered : ” The Lutheran is an easier religion, but the Catholic is more secure for salvation” (6). Berti relates (7) that he himself composed his own epitaph, as follows : ” Iste brevis tumulus miseri tenit ossa Philippi, Qui quails fuerit nescio, tails erat.” These are not the words of Faith, and would imply that he much doubted of his eternal salvation.
34. Matthias Flaccus Illiricus, born in Albona, in Istria, had the misfortune to study in Wittemberg, under Luther, and became afterwards the Chief of the Rigid Lutherans. He was the principal of the compilers of the Centuries of Magdeburg, an Ecclesiastical History, published in 1560, and to refute which Cardinal Baronius published his celebrated Annals. Flaccus died in Frankfort, in 1575, at the age of fifty-five. He disagreed in many things with Luther. Striger(8) sustained an erroneous opinion, bordering on Pelagianism, that Original Sin was but a slight accident, which did not substantially corrupt the whole human race; and Flaccus, on the contrary, renewing the blasphemous errors of the Manicheans, said that Original Sin was the substance itself of man, which deprived him of free will, and of every good movement, and drove him necessarily on to evil, from which Faith in Jesus Christ alone could save him. On that account, he denied the necessity of good works for salvation, and his followers were called Substantialists (9).
35. John Agricola was a townsman of Luther, and was for a time his disciple, but became afterwards the founder of a sect, called Antinomians, or Law Opposers, for he rejected all authority of law, and taught that you may become a sensualist, a thief, a robber, but if you believe you will be saved (10). Varillas says that Luther brought the errors of Agricola before the University of Wittemberg, as subversive of all the value of good works, and, on their condemnation, he retracted them; but after Luther’s death he went to Berlin, and again commenced teaching his blasphemies, where he died without any sign of repentance, at the age of seventy-four (11). Florinundus calls the Antinomians Atheists, who believe in neither God nor the devil.
36. Andrew Osiander was the son of a smith in the Mark of Branderburg. He taught that Christ was the justifier of mankind, not according to the human, but according to the Divine Nature (12); and opposed to him was Francis Stancaro, of Mantua, who taught that Christ saved man by the human nature, not by the Divine Nature (13). Thus Osiander taught the errors of Eutyches, and Stancaro those of Nestorius (14). In answer to the first, we have to remark that, although it is God that justifies, still he wishes to avail himself of the humanity of Christ (which was alone capable of suffering, and making atonement), as of an instrument for the salvation of mankind.
The Passion of Christ, says St. Thomas (15), is the cause of our justification, not, indeed, as a principal agent, but as an instrument, inasmuch as the humanity is the instrument of his Divinity, and hence the Council of Trent has declared (Sess. 6, Cap. 7) the efficient cause of this justification is God the meritorious cause is Jesus Christ, who, on the wood of the Cross, merited for us justification (16), and satisfied for us to God the Father. In answer to Stancaro, who teaches that Christ saved mankind, as man alone, but not as God, we have but to consider what is already said, because if Christ, according to the flesh, deserved for man the grace of salvation, nevertheless it was the Divinity, and not the humanity, which granted this grace to man. Andrew Musculus of Lorraine opposed both Osiander and Stancaro, but with just as great a heresy, for he taught that the Divine Nature of Christ, as well as the human nature, died on the Cross. This was nothing else but the blasphemy of Eutyches, that the Divinity suffered for the salvation of mankind (17). Remond (18) tells us, that at that period new churches were every day forming in every corner of Germany, and changing as quickly as the moon, and that two hundred sects existed at one time among the Reformers. No wonder that Duke George of Saxony said that the people of Wittemberg could not tell to-day what their faith would be tomorrow.
37. John Brenzius, a Suabian, and Canon of Wittemberg, was already a priest, when he became the disciple of Luther, and imitated his master in taking a wife. He taught that the concupiscence which remains in the soul after Baptism is a sin, contrary to the Council of Trent, which declares that the Catholic Church never understood that concupiscence should be called a sin, but that it is from sin, and inclines to sin. He also said that the body of Christ, by the personal union with the Word, is everywhere, and, consequently, that Jesus Christ is in the Host before consecration; and, explaining the words, ” This is my body,” he says, that denotes that the body of Christ is already present. Hence the sect who acknowledged him as their chief was called Ubiquists (19), and even Luther was one of his adherents (20).
38. Gaspar Schwenkfeldt, a noble Silesian, and a man of learning, while Luther was attacking the Church, took up arms also against her, and attacked the Lutherans as well. We should not mind the Scriptures, he says, as they are not the word of God, only a dead letter, and, therefore, should only obey the private inspirations of the Holy Ghost; he condemns sermons and spiritual lectures, for, in the Gospel of St. Matthew, we are told that we have but one Master, and he is in heaven. He taught, at the same time, the errors of the Manicheans, of Sabellius, of Photius, and also of Zuinglius, denying the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Osius says the devil’s gospel commenced with Luther, but was brought to perfection by this monster of hell, who had more followers in many parts of Germany and Switzerland than the arch-heretic himself (21). Gotti informs us, that he sent a messenger to Luther, with his writings, begging of him to correct them; but he, seeing them filled with abominable heresies, returned him the following answer : “May your spirit, and all those who participate with Sacramentarians and Eutychians, fall into perdition.” After Luther’s death, this sect increased somewhat; but in a Synod, held at Naumburg, in 1554, by Bucer, Melancthon, and some others, all the author’s works were condemned (22).
39. Martin Chemnitz was a poor woolcomber’s son, in the Mark of Branderburg. He was born in 1522, and followed his father’s business until the age of fourteen, when he commenced his studies in Wittemberg. His Theological Professor was Melancthon, who was so well satisfied with the progress he made, that he called him the Prince of Protestant Theologians. He taught Theology in Brunswick, for thirty years, and died in 1586, the sixty-fourth year of his age. Chemnitz laboured strenuously, along with Bucer, to bring about an agreement between the Lutherans and Sacramentarians, but without effect. He published many works, but his principal one is the ” Examen Con. Tridentini,” in which he endeavours to upset the decisions of the Council. He does not admit, as Canonical, any books of Scripture, only those approved of by all the Churches, not those approved of by Councils alone; he praises the Greek and Hebrew text, and rejects the Vulgate wherever it disagrees with them; he rejects tradition, but believes in free will, and thinks that, with the assistance of grace, it can accomplish something good.
He says that man is justified by Faith alone, through medium of which the merits of Christ are applied to him, and that good works are necessary to salvation, but still have no merit. Baptism and the Eucharist, he says, are properly the only Sacraments the rest are but pious rites; and in the Eucharist he rejects both the Transubstantiation of the Catholics, and the Impanation of the Lutherans, but does not decide whether the body of Christ is really present in the bread and wine; he merely says it is not a carnal presence, that Christ is there alone in the actual use of the Communion, and that it must always be taken under both kinds. He admits that the Mass may be called a sacrifice, but not a true sacrifice, only under the general denomination of a good work. It is not necessary, he says, speaking of the sacrament of Penance, to confess all our sins, but he allows the absolution of the Minister, though not as coming from the Minister himself, but from Christ, through his promise. Purgatory, according to him, cannot be proved from Scripture. We should honour the Saints, their images, and relics, but not have recourse to their intercession, and we should observe the Sundays, but no other festival (23).
(1) Nat. Alex. t. 19, a. 11; s. 3, n. 4; Gotti, Ver. Rel. s. 109, sec. 3; Van Ranst, p. 308; Hermant, c. 241.
(2) Hermant, loc. cit.
(3) Varillas Hist. 20, 2, l. 24, p. 363.
(4) Varillas, s. 1, l. 8, p. 364.
(5) Gotti, loc. cit. n. 2.
(6) Floremund, l. 2, c. 9; Van Ranst, & Gotti, loc. cit.; & Nat. Alex. loc. cit. n. 10.
(7) Berti, His. sec. 16, c. 3.
(8) Ap. Spondara. ad. an. 1560, n. 32.
(9) Gotti, c. 109, sec. 7, n. 1, 2; Van Ranst , p. 310; Varillas, t. 1, l 17, p. 122, & t. 2, L 24, p. 363; Nat. Alex. t. 19, a. 11, sec. 3, n. 10.
(10) Nat Alex. t. 19, a. 11, sec. 3, n. 7; Gotti, c. 109, sec. 5, n. 7; Van Ranst, p. 310.
(11) Varillas, t. 1, l. 11, p. 512.
(12) Remund. in Synopsi, l. 2, c. 16.
(13) Gotti, loc. cit. sec. 6, n. 1 ad 6; N. Alex, loc. cit. n. 8; Van Ranst, cit. p. 310.
(14) Gotti, sec. 7, n. 8; Van Ranst, loc. cit.; Nat. Alex. loc. cit. n. 11.
(15) St. Thomas, p. 3, q. 64, ar. 1.
(16) Gotti, sec. 7, n.S; Van Ranst, p. 310.
(17) Gotti, loc. cit. sec. 6.
(18) Remuncl. in Synopsi, l. 2, c. 14, n. 2.
(19) Nat. Alex. t. 1, sec. 3, n. 8, 9; Gotti, sec. 6, n. 8 ad 10; Van Ranst, p. 293.
(20) Bossuet, Istor. 1. 2, n. 41.
(21) Gotti, c. 109, sec. 5; Nat. Alex. t. 19, sec. 3, n. 6; Van Ranst, p. 311.
(22) Gotti, loc. cit.
(23). Apud, Gotti, c. 109, sec. 7, n. I ad 7.
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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CHAPTER XI. – THE HERESIES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
V. THE ANABAPTISTS
40. The Anabaptists; they refuse Baptism to Children.
41. Their Leaders Seditions and Defeat.
42. Are again defeated under their Chief, Munzer, who is converted at his death.
43. They rebel again under John of Leyden, who causes himself to be crowned King, is condemned to a cruel death, and dies penitent.
44. Errors of the Anabaptists.
45. They are split into various sects.
40. The Anabaptists were likewise the spawn of Lutheranism. The chief doctrine of those heretics was, that children should not be baptized in infancy, as, not having come to the use of reason, they were incapable of real belief and salvation, according to the words of the Gospel : ” He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be condemned” (Mark, xvi, 16); hence they were called Anabaptists, as they taught that those who were baptized in infancy should be rebaptized. Now this error sprung from Luther himself, who asserted it was better to leave infants without Baptism, than to baptize them when they had no Faith of their own (1). These unfortunate persons, however, should remember, that in the text of the Gospel quoted it is adults are meant, who are capable of actual Faith, for infants, who are incapable of it, receive the grace of the Sacrament through the Faith of the Church in which they are baptized, and as, without any actual fault of theirs, they contract original sin, it is but just that they should receive the grace of Jesus Christ without actual Faith, for, as St. Augustine writes (2), as they are sick with the weight of another sin, they are healed by another’s confession, and are saved. Our Lord says, in St. Matthew, xix, 14 : ” Suffer little children to come to me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” As, therefore, little children can acquire the kingdom of heaven, so can they receive Baptism, without which no one can enter into heaven. The Church has received it as a tradition from the Apostles so says Origen (3) to give Baptism to infants, and St. Irenæus, Tertullian, St. Gregory of Nazianzen, St. Ambrose, St. Cyprian, and St. Augustine, all bear witness to the same practice. Hence, the Council of Trent, anathematizing those who asserted that persons baptized before they came to the use of reason should be re-baptized, uses the following words: “If any one should say that children having received Baptism should not be numbered among the faithful, because they have not actual faith, and, therefore, when they come to the years of discretion, that they should be re-baptized, or that it is better to omit Baptism, than to baptize in the faith of the Church alone those who have not actual faith, let him be anathema.” This Canon condemns most clearly both the Anabaptist and Lutheran heresies.
41. The chief of the Anabaptists was Nicholas Stork, or Storchius, sometimes also called Pelargus. He was at first a disciple of Luther, but soon the head of a new heresy, which he preached in 1522, saying it was revealed to him from heaven. Being banished from Wittemberg, he went to Thuringia, where, together with his first error, he preached many others, such as that all men enjoy universal freedom from restraint, that all property is common, and should be equally divided, and that all Bishops, Magistrates, and Princes, who opposed his true Church should be put to death (4). Here he was joined by Thomas Munzer, a Priest, a follower of Luther, also, who pretended to lead a most mortified life, and boasted of having frequent ecstacies and extraordinary communications from the Deity. He abused the Pope for teaching too severe a doctrine, and Luther for promulgating too lax a one. He everywhere censured Luther’s morals and conduct, accused him of debauchery and lasciviousness, and said it was impossible to believe God would make use of so wicked a man to reform his Church. Through Luther’s influence, he and all his followers were banished from Saxony (5). He then went to Thuringia, and preached the same errors as Storchius, especially in Munster, teaching the country people that they should not obey either Prelates or Princes.
In a short time he rallied round him the great body of the Anabaptists, and led forth three hundred thousand ignorant peasants (6), causing them to forsake their spades for the sword, and promising them the assistance of God in their battles. These poor deluded creatures at first did a great deal of harm, but when regular troops were brought against them, they were soon, notwithstanding their immense numbers, completely routed, not being trained to the use of arms. Those who escaped the slaughter marched towards Lorrain, with the intention of devastating that province; but the Count Claude of Guise, brother to the Duke of Lorrain, slaughtered twenty thousand of them in three victories which he gained (7). Sleidan (8) says that these poor peasants, when they were attacked by the troops, appeared quite demented, and neither defended themselves nor fled, but began to sing a popular hymn, imploring the assistance of the Holy Ghost, whose protection, according to Munzer’s promises, they expected.
44. In the meantime, while Munzer, with his Anabaptist followers, were ravaging Thuringia, they were encountered by an army commanded by Duke George of Saxony, who promised them peace if they laid down their arms; but Munzer, thinking himself lost if the conditions were accepted, encouraged them, to refuse all accommodation, and to kill the officer who bore a flag of truce to them. This treachery infuriated the soldiers, who immediately attacked them; they made a stout resistance at first, encouraged by Munzer, who told them he would catch the balls of the enemy in his sleeve, and such was the effect this promise had on them, that many of them stood firm before the cannon of the enemy. This did not, however, last long; the greater part fled, and the rest were taken prisoners. Munzer fled with the rest, and, without being recognized, hid himself in Franchausen, pretending to be sick; he was there discovered, taken and condemned, along with Pfeiffer, an apostate Premonstratensian Canon, to have his head cut off in Mulhausen. This war lasted five months, and it is said cost the lives of a hundred and thirty-five thousand peasants (9). Pfeiffer died an obstinate heretic. Munzer’s death is related in different ways some say he died with the greatest boldness, and challenged the Judges and Princes, telling them to read the Bible, the word of God; and these were his last words. But the more general opinion is, and Noel Alexander says it can be relied on as fact, that previous to his death he retracted his errors, confessed to a Priest, received the Viaticum, and after offering up some devout prayers, bared his neck to the executioner’s sword (10).
45. Munzer’s death, and the slaughter of so many of the peasantry, did not put an end to this sect. In the year 1534, nearly nine years after his death, a number of people in West phalia rebelled against their Princes, and seized the city of Munster, when they elected, as their chief, John of Leyden, the son of a Dutch tailor. His first act was to banish the Bishop and all the Catholics of the city, and then pretending to have a revelation from heaven, he caused his followers to crown him King, saying he was elected to that dignity by God himself, and he called himself Rex Justitiæ hujus Mundi; he preached polygamy, and put it in practice by marrying sixteen wives, at the same time; he rejected the Eucharist, but, sitting at a table, distributed bits of bread to his followers, saying : ” Take, and eat, and ye shall announce the death of the Lord ;” and at the same time the Queen, that is, one of his wives, dispensed the chalice, saying : ” Drink, and you shall announce the death of the Lord.” He next selected twenty disciples, and sent them as Apostles of God, to preach his doctrine, but all these unfortunates were taken and condemned to death, along with himself, in the year 1535 (11). The mercy of the Lord be praised for ever, since he extended it to John of Leyden; he shewed himself a sincere penitent, and bore, with the most admirable patience, the cruel death and torments inflicted on him; he was three times tortured with pincers by two executioners for two hours, and he bore it all without a murmur, saying he deserved it for his sins, and imploring the Divine Mercy; his companions died in their obstinacy (12), and Hermant says, that his sect has spread its roots into many Christian kingdoms (13).
46. The errors of the Anabaptists were : First That children should not be baptized, but only adults capable of reason. Second That no Christian could be a civil magistrate. Third It is in no case lawful for Christians to swear. Fourth War is unlawful to Christians.
47. The Anabaptists soon split into several sects some say fourteen, some, even seventy. Some were called Munzerites, after Thomas Munzer; some who preferred voluntary poverty, Huttites, from John Hut; others, Augustines, from Augustine Boehem, who taught that heaven would not be opened till after the day of judgment; others, Buholdians. from John (Buhold) of Ley den, whose history we have just given these preached polygamy, and wished to destroy all the wicked; some Melchiorists, from Melchior Hoffman, who taught that Christ had but one Nature, that he was not born of Mary, and various other errors; some were called Mennonites, from Mennon these held heretical opinions regarding the Trinity; some Davidians, the followers of one George, who called himself the Third David, the true Messiah, the beloved Son of God, born of the Spirit, not of the flesh, the pardoner of sins; he died in 1556, and promised to rise again in three years. This vain prophecy had some truth in it, for three years afterwards, the Senate of Basle caused him to be disinterred, and his remains burned along with his writings. The Clancularists, when asked if they were Anabaptists, denied it; they had no churches, but preached in private houses and gardens. The Demonists, following the errors of Origen, said the devils would be saved in the end of the world. The Adamites appeared naked in public, having, as they asserted, recovered the pristine innocence of Adam. The Servetians, followers of Michael Servetus, joined to the errors of the Anabaptists, blasphemies against the Trinity and Jesus Christ. The Condormientes slept together without distinction of sex, and called this indecency the new Christian Charity. The Ejulants, or Weepers, said there was no devotion so pleasing to God as weeping and wailing. Noel Alexander and Van Ranst enumerate many other classes of these fanatics (14).
(1) Gotti, Ver. Ed. t. 2, c.110, sec. 1, n. 1.
(2) August. Serm. 176, alias 10, de Verb Apost.
(3) Orig. t. 2, p. 35, St. Iren. p 147, n. 4; Tertul. p. 231; St. Greg. Naz. t. 1, p. 658; St. Amb. t. 1, o. 349; St. Cypr. Epist. adFidum, n. 59; St. Aug. Serm. 10, de Verb. Apost. alias 177.
(4) Nat. Alex. t. 18, art. 11, sec. 12; Gotti, loc. cit. n. 2.
(5) Varillas, t. 1, l. 6, p. 266.
(6) Varillas, p. 270; Hermant Hist. t. 2, c. 239.
(7) Hermant, loc. cit.; Varill. p. 267.
(8) Ap.Gottiibid,n.7, ex Sleidan, l. 5.
(9) Nat. Alex. t. 29, cit. sec. 12, Gotti, cit, cap. 110, sec. 1, n. 1.
(10) Nat. Alex. loc. cit.; Gotti, n. 8; Varill. p. 288; Van Eanst, sec. 16, p. 313; Hermant, c. 239.
(11) N. Alex. cit. a. 12, n. 2; Varill.p. 427; V. Ranst. p. 315; Her. c. 241.
(12) Varill. p. 436.
(13) Her. loc. cit.; V. Ranst, p. 314.
(14) Nat. Alex. t. 19, art. 11, n. 4; Van Ranst,p. 315, & sec.
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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CHAPTER XI. – THE HERESIES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
ARTICLE II. – THE SACRAMENTARIANS. I. CARLOSTAD
48. Carlostad, father of the Sacramentarians.
49. He is reduced to live by his labour in the field; he gets married, and composed a Mass on that subject.
50. He dies suddenly.
48. The father of the Sacramentarians was, as Van Ranst informs us, Andrew Carlostad; he was born in the village from which he took his name, in Franconia, and was Archdeacon of the church of Wittemberg. He was, it is said, the most learned man in Saxony, and was, on that account, a great favourite with the Elector Frederick; he it was who admitted Luther to the Doctorship, and afterwards became his follower in heresy. His pride, however, would not allow him to remain a disciple of Luther, and thus he became chief of the Sacramentarians, teaching, in opposition to Luther, that Christ was not really present in the Eucharist, and, therefore, that the word this (this is my body) did not refer to the bread, but to Christ himself, who was about to sacrifice his body for us, as if he were to say : ” This is my body which I am about to deliver up for you.” Another error he taught in opposition to Luther was the doctrine of the Iconoclasts, that all crucifixes and images of the Saints should be destroyed, and he carried his infidelity to such a pitch in Wittemberg that he abolished the Mass, trampled on the Consecrated Host, and broke the Altars and Images (1). When this came to Luther’s ears, who was then concealed in his Patmos of Watzburg, he could restrain himself no longer, and even against the will of the Elector, went to Wittemberg, and caused the Altars and Images to be restored; and not being able to convince Carlostad of his errors, he deprived him of his benefice and dignities by authority of the Elector, who had him seized, and banished from his territories along with the woman he married.
Carlostad went to Orlemond in Thuringia, and there wrote that wicked treatise, De Coena Domini (2), which contains in full his heretical opinions. It happened one day, as Berti tells us (3), that Luther came to this town, and Carlostad, in revenge for the treatment he received from him caused him to be pelted with stones, and to fly from the place. It may be as well here to give Bossuet’s account of the war between Luther and Carlostad : In the year 1524 Luther preached in Jena, in presence of Carlostad, who went to visit him after the sermon, and blamed him for the opinion he held regarding the Real Presence. Luther, in a tone of mockery, told him he would give him a gold florin if he would write against him, and took out a florin and handed it to Carlostad, who pocketed it, and they then drank together, to cement the bargain; thus the war commenced. Carlostad’s parting benediction to Luther was : ” May I see you broken on the wheel !” ” And may you break your neck before you quit the town !” rejoined Luther. Behold, says Bossuet, the acts of the new apostles of the Gospel (4).
49. Notwithstanding all that had passed, Carlostad’s friends interfered, and finally induced Luther to permit him to return to Wittemberg, but he agreed to this only on condition that he would not oppose his doctrine for the future. Carlostad, how ever, ashamed to appear in Wittemberg in the poor state he was reduced to, chose rather to live in another town, where he was reduced to such poverty, that he was obliged to become a porter, and afterwards to turn to field labour along with his wife for subsistence (5). We may here remark that Carlostad was the first of all the priests of the new Gospel who married. In the year 1525, he married a young lady of good family, and he composed a sacrilegious service of Mass, on the occasion of his abominable nuptials. Octavius Lavert and Raynaldus have preserved some parts of it*(6).
* Deus qui post tarn longam et impiam Sacerdotum tuorum cæcitatem Beatum Andream Carlostadium ea gratia donare dignatus es, ut primus, nulla habita Papistici Juris ratione, uxorem ducere ausus fuerit, da quEesumus ut omnes Sacerdotes recepta sanamente, ej us vestigia sequentes ejectis concubinis aut eisdem ductis ad legitiinum consortium thori convertantur. Oremus Nos ergo concubinis nostris gravati, te Deus poscimus, ut illius, qui Patres nostros sectatus antiques tibi placet, nos imitatione guadeamus in æternum.
50. The just chastisement of God, however, always pursues the impious, and thus we see him and his wife, who, being a lady, was ashamed to beg, obliged to earn a scanty subsistence, which they could not always obtain, by working as common field labourers (7). Some time afterwards he went to Switzerland, hoping to get a kind reception from the heretics of that country, whose doctrine regarding the Sacrament of the Altar coincided with his own. But Zuinglius, or Zuingle, wishing to have no competitor, gave him a very cool reception; he then went to Basle, where he was appointed preacher, and where a sudden death overtook him in the midst of his sins (8). Yarillas says, that he was seized with apoplexy, coming down from the pulpit, after declaiming against the Real Presence, and dropped dead (9). It was also told at the time, that whilst he was preaching a man of fearful mien appeared to him, and that immediately one of his children ran to him telling him that he had seen the same vision, and that it said to him: ” Tell your father that in three days I will deprive him of life, breaking his head.” All that is known for certain is that he died suddenly, and died, as he had lived, without any signs of repentance.
(1) Nat. Alex. t. 19, s. 3; Gotti, Ver. Rel. c. 109, s. I; Van Ranst, s. 16, P , 217; Hermant, t. 1, c. 231; Varillas, t. 1, l. 3, p. 148.
(2) Hermant, c. 234; Gotti, s. 1, n. 2; Varillas, t. 1, I 3, p. 211.
(3) Berti. Brev. Hist. s. 3.
(4) Bos. Stor. del. Variaz. I. 2, n. 12.
(5) Gotti, c. 109, n. 3, ex cochleo, ad an. 15, 25; V Ranst, p. 217; Var. 242
(6) Octavius Lavert. P. 117.
(7) Rinal. an. 1523, n. 74.
(8) Varillas, l 8, p. 359.
(9) Lancis, t. 4, 1st. s. 16, c. 3; Var. loc. cit.
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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CHAPTER XI. – THE HERESIES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
II. ZUINGLIUS
51. Zuinglius, and the beginning of his heresy.
52. His errors.
53. Congress held before the Senate of Zurich; the decree of the Senate rejected by the other Cantons.
54. Zuinglius sells his Canonry, and gets married; Victory of the Catholics; and his death.
51. Ulric Zuinglius was born of an obscure family in a poor village of Switzerland, called Mildenhausen, some say in Moggi; he was at first Parish Priest of two rural parishes, and was after wards promoted to a parish in Zurich (1). In his early days he was a soldier, but hoping to better his condition, he changed the sword for the gown, and being a man of talent, became a most eloquent preacher. Hearing, in 1519, that Indulgences were to be published in Switzerland, as had been done in Germany, he hoped that would be a favourable occasion for him to acquire notoriety, and advance himself in the estimation of the Court of Rome. But in this he was disappointed; a Franciscan, Father Sampson, was sent by the Pope, to publish the Swiss Indulgences, and with power to prohibit any one else from doing so, unless with his permission. Zuinglius, seeing his hopes frustrated, imitated the example of Luther in Saxony, and began to preach, first, against Indulgences then against the power of the Pope and from that passed on to other errors against the Faith (2).
52. The following were his principal tenets : First The Mass is not a Sacrifice, but only a commemoration of the Sacrifice once offered on the Cross. Second We have no necessity of any intercessor but Christ. Third Christ is our justificator; and here he deduced, that our works are no good as ours, but only as the works of Christ. Fourth Marriage is fitted for all. Fifth Those who make a vow of chastity are held by presumption. Sixth The power which the Pope and Bishops arrogate to themselves, has no foundation in Holy Writ. Seventh The confession made to a Priest is not for remission of sin, but should be made solely to obtain advice. Eighth The Holy Scripture recognizes no Purgatory. Ninth The Scripture knows no other Priests but those who announce the Word of God. He preached other errors regarding free will.
Luther attributed every thing to grace, for salvation; Zuinglius, on the contrary, following the Pelagians, to free will and the force of nature. He broached many other errors regarding the Sacraments, Original Sin, and other points, but his chief blasphemies were against the Holy Eucharist, which turned even Luther against him, who at first called him the strong champion of Christendom, but ended by calling him a heretic. He first said that the Eucharist was a remembrance of the Passion of Christ, but, as Varillas remarks, then came the difficulty, that the Apostle says the Eucharist is to be eaten, but not the remembrance, and he five times changed his mode of explaining the communion; he rejected the Transubstantiation of the Catholics, the Impanation of the Lutherans, and the explanation given by Carlostad (N. 48). He then began to teach, that in the words, “This is my body,” the word is has the same meaning as signifies, that is, this bread signifies the body of Christ; but still the difficulty was not solved, for he could no where find that the word est was used for significat (3), when one morning, at break of day, a spirit, whether a black or white one, he does not remember, spoke to him, and said : ” Ignorant man, read the twelfth chapter of Exodus, where it is said, For it is the phase, that is the passage, of the Lord.” Behold, said he, here the word is stands for the word signifies; and thus he began to teach, that as the Pasch of the Jews was but a mere figure of the passing of the Lord, so the Eucharist was the figure of Christ sacrificed on the Cross. To authenticate this discovery of his, he got the translation of the New Testament printed, and where the text says, ” This is my body,” he inserted, this ” signifies my body” (4). Nothing, however, can be more foolish than this argument, for in Exodus, the explanation is annexed This is the Phase, that is the passage, of the Lord; but surely the text of the Gospel does not give any explanation, that the words ” this is my body,” refers not to the body, but to the figure of Jesus Christ (5). This error we refute at length in the Confutation X., No. 11.
53. Zuinglius printed sixty-seven propositions, by way of doubt, and placarded them in all the towns of the Diocese of Constance. The Dominicans preached against them as heretical, and offered to convince Zuinglius of his errors in a public disputation. Zuinglius accepted the challenge, but the Dominicans understood that it was to take place in the presence of the judges appointed by the Bishop of Constance, while he, on the other hand, insisted it should be held in presence of the Senate of Zurich, composed of two hundred laymen, the majority of whom knew not how to read or write; in this move he was successful, for the Senate thought themselves competent judges in religious matters, and would not yield their pretended right to any one; in effect, the Congress took place in their presence, and the Bishop not being able to prevent it, sent his Vicar-General to try and bring matters to some rational arrangement. This took place, according to Varillas, in 1524, and the Senate commanded all the Ecclesiastics of Zurich to attend. Zuinglius first read his Theses, and explained them without meeting with any interruption; he then asked if any one had any reply to make; the Vicar-General answered, that a great deal of what he set forth was an absurdity. Zuinglius replied in his defence. The Vicar-General answered, that he was sent by his Bishop, neither to dispute nor give decisions, that it was a Council alone should decide, and then was silent; the other Ecclesiastics were asked if they had anything to say; they followed the Vicar-General’s example, and were silent also; the Senate, therefore, gave the palm of victory to Zuinglius, and made a Decree, that thence forward the pure Gospel (according to Zuinglius) should be preached in all Zurich, that no more notice should be taken of traditions, and that the Mass and the adoration of the Eucharist should be abolished (6).
This decree was opposed by the other Cantons, and in the year 1526, another public disputation was held in Swiss Baden (7), between Zuinglius and Ecolampadius, on the one side, and Ecchius and some others, on the Catholic side, in which the arguments of Ecchius were so convincing, that by a formal Decree, the Swiss recognized the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the Invocation of Saints, and veneration of Sacred Images, and Purgatory, and condemned the doctrine of Luther and Zuingluis.
54. In the year 1528, Zuinglius sold his Prebend, and married, shamelessly asserting that he had not sufficient confidence in himself, to resist the vice of incontinence (8), and in the same year, the Canton of Berne united with Zurich in embracing his doctrine. Basle, Schafhausen, St. Gall, and three others, soon followed this example; Lucerne, Switz, Zug, Uri, and Underwalden, remained Catholic, and were soon after obliged to go to war with the heretical Cantons, for the following reason (9). The Catholic party deposed two officers who embraced the Zuinglian doctrines; they were received by the Zuinglians, who provided them with places, and through revenge, prevented the merchants who supplied the Catholic Cantons with corn, as they do not produce enough for their own consumption, from passing through their territories. The Catholics complained of this, as an infraction of the Confederation League, but were told, they were only treated as they deserved, for insulting the new religion. Eight thousand Catholics took the field in October, 1532; fifteen hundred of the Zurich troops were entrenched outside the city; the Catholics assaulted them in that position and put them to flight. Twenty thousand of the Zurich troops then marched out to attack the Catholics, and Zuinglius, against the advice of his friends, insisted on marching at their head. The Catholics with their small number, would have no chance against this army in the open field, so they posted themselves in a narrow pass; they were here assaulted by the Zuinglians, and victory was for some time doubtful, till Zuinglius, while valiantly leading on his troops, was struck to the earth; his followers, thinking he was killed, immediately took to flight, and were pursued by the Catholics with great slaughter, who are said to have killed five thousand Zuinglians, with only the loss of fifteen on their own side (10).
Zuinglius was found by two Catholics, who did not know him, among a heap of the slain, prostrate on his face, but still breathing; they asked him if he wished for a Confessor, but got no answer; another now came up, who immediately killed him, and told their commanders; by their orders he was quartered and burned, and some of his followers collected his ashes, and kept it as a relic (11). He was killed on the 11th of October, 1532, in the forty-fourth year of his age, according to Hermant, but Natalis, Gotti, and Van Ranst, say he was forty years old. The war was not yet ended; five other battles were fought, and the Catholics were always victorious; peace was at length concluded, on condition that each Canton should freely profess its own Religion, and thus, with few interruptions, it has continued to the present day (12). Before I dismiss this subject, I will mention a few words of a sermon, or letter, of his, to Francis I. of France, in which he speaks of the glory that Kings are to expect in heaven : ” There,” he says, ” you will see the Redeemer and the redeemed; there you will behold Abel, Noe, Abraham, Isaac; there you will see Hercules, Theseus, Numa, the Catos, the Scipios, &c.” This was the language of this new Church Reformer after his apostacy; he places, along with Christ and the Holy Patriarchs, in heaven, the idolaters, and the Pagan gods. Bossuet, in his History of the Variations (13), gives a large extract from this letter.
(1) Nat. Alex. t. 19, sec. 16, art. 11, c. 3, n. 2; Gotti, Ver. Rel. c. 100, s. 2, n. 1; Varillas, t. 1, l. 4, . 155.
(2) Apud. Nat. Alex. s. 3, n. 2; Gotti, loc. cit. n. 1.
(3) Zuinglius, l. de Subsid. Euch.
(4) Hermant, t.1,c. 237.
(5) Gotti, loc. cit. n. 4; Varill. I 7, p. 304; Nat. Alex. loc. cit
(6) Varill. t. 1, 1. 5, p. 214.
(7) Gotti, c. 109, s. 2, n. 11.
(8) Varill. 1. 7, p, 304; Hermant, c. 237; Nat. Alex. c. 19, art. 12, s. 3, n. 2.
(9) Varill. L 8, p. 354; Gotti,loc. cit. n. 13.
(10) Varill. t. 1, 1. 4, p, 355.
(11) Nat. Alex.loc. cit.; Gotti, n. 13, & Van Ranst, p. 318
(12) Varill. loc. cit. p. 358, & seq.
(13) Bossuet, Hist, de Variat. l. 2, . n. 19.
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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CHAPTER XI. – THE HERESIES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
III. – ECOLAMPADIUS; BUCER; PETER MARTYR
55. Ecolampadius.
56. Bucer.
57. Peter Martyr.
55. John Ecolampadius, a faithful follower of Zuinglius, was a Greek linguist, and held the situation of tutor to the Prince Palatine’s children; his friends injudiciously importuned him to become a Monk, so he entered into the Order of St. Brigit, and made his profession (1); but we may judge of his intentions, when we are told that he said: “If I make six hundred vows, I will not observe one of them, unless I like it.” “Why,” says Florimund (2), ” should we wonder at his leaving the cloister, when such were his sentiments on entering it. In a few years he laid aside the cowl, and married, as he said, by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and became a follower of Zuinglius, who appointed him Superintendent of Basle (3). He followed Zuinglius’s doctrine, regarding the Real Presence, but not his explanation of est by significant (see N. 48), as he explained the text, “this is my body,” by “this is the figure of my body” (4). How strange that not one of the new Apostles of the Gospel could agree with another. He died in the year 1532, at the age of fortynine, only a Month after Zuinglius’s death, to him a source of the most poignant grief. Luther said he was found dead in his bed, strangled by the devil, a generally received opinion at that time, according to Noel Alexander; others say he died of an ulcer in the os sacrum; the general opinion, however, is, that he was found dead in his bed. Many writers, Varillas says (5), tell us that he several times attempted to take away his own life, and that he poisoned himself. Cardinal Gotti quotes others (6), who assert, that a short time previous to his death, he was heard to exclaim : ” Alas, I shall soon be in hell ;” and also that, just before his death, he said : ” I, uncertain and fluctuating in the Faith, have to give an account before the Tribunal of God, and see whether my doctrine is true or false”(7). Foolish man, he had the Church, the pillar and the ground of truth, which condemned his doctrine, and he wished to have it tried at that Tribunal, where, if he found it false (as it was), there would be no remedy to ward off eternal perdition.
56. Martin Bucer was the son of a poor Jew in Strasbourg, who left him at his death on the world, without any one to look to him, and only seven years of age. He was taken in by the Dominicans to serve Mass and assist the servants of the Convent; but finding him endowed with great talents, they gave him the habit of the Order, and put him to study (8). He soon became a great proficient in sacred and profane literature, and received Holy Orders, Cardinal Gotti says (9), without being baptized. He was so taken with Luther’s doctrine on Celibacy, that he apostatized, and not only married once, but three times successively, saying, that as a divorce was allowed to the Jews, on account of the hardness of their hearts, it was also permitted to Christians of an extraordinary temperament (10). To the errors of Luther he added others: First That Baptism is necessary as a positive precept, but that it is not necessary for salvation. Second That there is no Church which does not err in morals and faith. Third That before we are justified by God we sin in every good work we do, but that after our justification the good we perform we do through necessity. Fourth That some are so formed by God for the marriage state, that they cannot be forbidden to marry. Fifth That usury is not contrary to the Divine command. Sixth He admitted the Presence of Christ in the Holy Sacrament, but said it was not real, but took place solely by faith. On this account he passed over to the sect of the Sacramentarians, and quarrelled with Luther, and it was in defence of that sect he wrote his Dialogue, ” Arbogastus” (11). He was selected by the Landgrave as the most likely person to unite the Zuinglians and Lutherans; but though he held manyconferences, he never could succeed, for Luther never would give up the Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament. He left Strasbourg, where he lived and taught a long time, and in 1549, in the reign of Edward VI., he went to England to join Peter Vermigli, commonly called Peter Martyr, who two years reviously was appointed Professor of Theology in Oxford. He had not been three years in England when he died, at the age of sixty-one, in Cambridge, in 1551; and Cardinal Gotti says (12), he was tormented with remorse of conscience in his last moments. His bones were exhumed and burned, by order of Queen Mary, in 1556.
57. The other celebrated disciple of Zuinglius who, especially in England, endeavoured to disseminate his errors, was Peter Vermigli, a Florentine, commonly called Peter Martyr. He was born in Florence, in 1500, of a noble, but reduced family. His mother, who was acquainted with the Latin language, taught him till he was eighteen years of age, when, according to some authors, he took the Carthusian habit, but the general opinion is, that he became a Canon Regular (13) of St Augustine, in the Monastery of Fiesole. In his noviciate he gave indications of great talent, and was, after his profession, sent to Padua, where he was taught Greek, Hebrew, and Philosophy. He thence went to Bologna to study Theology, and returned with a great stock of learning (14). He next turned his attention to the pulpit, and preached several Lents in the principal cities of Italy. While preaching in the Cathedral of Naples, he had the misfortune to become acquainted with a Spanish lawyer of the name of Valdes, who, by reading Luther’s and Calvin’s works, became infected with their heresies, and fearing to be discovered in Spain, where the stake awaited him, went to Germany, but the climate not agreeing with him, he came to Naples, and contracted a friendship with Peter Martyr, and then made him a Sacramentarian. As soon as he tasted the poison himself, he began to communicate it to others who used to meet him in a church. This had not gone on long when he was charged with his errors before the Nuncio, and immediately called to Rome. His brethren in religion, with whom he always lived on the best terms, and who certainly believed him innocent, took up his defence most warmly, and he was most fully acquitted and dismissed.
From Home he went to Lucca, where he thought he could establish a Zuinglian congregation, with less risk to himself than in Naples, and he succeeded so far, that among others he made four proselytes among the Professors of the University. They were in a little while discovered, and obliged to fly to the Protestant Cantons of Switzerland, where they soon became Ministers. Peter being discovered also, and not knowing where to fly, turned his steps likewise to Switzerland, hoping that his disciples there would procure a Professorship for him. He went first to Zurich, and afterwards to Basle; but as he wished to make himself the master of all, he met but a cool reception in either place. He then went to Bucer, in Strasbourg, who received every heretic, and procured him immediately a Professorship of Theology. He remained there till called to England, where he went with a nun he married, and was received with great honour in London, and was appointed to a Chair in Oxford, with double the salary that was promised to him. He returned to Strasbourg, in 1553, and finally went to teach his blasphemies in Zurich, where he died in 1562, loaded with fruits of perdition, for besides the many years he taught his errors in all these places, he composed and left after him also a number of works to sustain them (15).
(1) Nat. Alex. t. 19, s. 3, n. 3.
(2) Floremund in Synopsi. l. 2, c. 8, n. 9.
(3) Gotti, loc. cit. n. 15.
(4) Gotti, n. 1C, & Nat. Alex. loc. cit.
(5) Varill. L 8, p. 356.
(6) Gotti, n. 17,
(7) Gotti, c. 109, s. 2, in fine.
(8) Gotti, t. 2, c. 109, see. 4; Varil. t, 1 l. 8, p. 363.
(9) Gotti, loc. cit. n. 1.
(10) Varil. loc. cit.
(11) Gotti, loc. cit. n. 2, 3; Varil. t. 1, l. 8, p. 364.
(12) Varil. l. 11, p. 297.
(13) Gotti, loc. cit. n. 5.
(14) Varillas, t. 2, l. 17, p. 106; Dizion. Port, alia parola Vermigli.
(15) Varillas, I. 17, p. 106; Berti Hist. sec. 16, c. 3; Van Ranst, sec. 16, p. 391; Dizion. Portat. loc. cit.
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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CHAPTER XI. – THE HERESIES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
ARTICLE III. – THE HERESIES OF CALVIN. – I -THE BEGINNING AND PROGRESS OF THE HERESY OF CALVIN.
58. Birth and Studies of Calvin.
59. He begins to broach his heresy; they seek to imprison him, and he makes his escape through a window.
60. He commences to disseminate his impieties in Angouleme.
61. He goes to Germany to see Bucer, and meets Erasmus.
62. He returns to France, makes some followers, and introduces the “Supper;” he afterwards goes to Basle, and finishes his “Instructions.”
63. He goes to Italy, but is obliged to fly; arrives in Geneva, and is made Master of Theology.
64. He is embarrassed there.
65. He flies from Geneva, and returns to Germany, where he marries a widow.
66. He returns to Geneva, and is put at the head of the Republic; the impious Works he publishes there; his dispute with Bolsec.
67. He causes Michael Servetus to be burned alive.
68. Unhappy end of the Calvinistic Mission to Brazil.
69. Seditions and disturbances in France on Calvin’s account; Conference of Poissy.
70. Melancholy death of Calvin.
71. His personal qualities and depraved manners.
58. John Calvin was born on the 10th of July, 1509, in Noyon, in the ancient province of Picardy some say he was born in Bourg de Pont; but the almost universal opinion is, that he was born in the city itself, and Varillas (1) says, that the house in which he first saw the light was afterwards razed to the ground by the people, and that a person who subsequently rebuilt it was hanged at the door. He was the third son of Gerard Caudin (he afterwards changed his name to Calvin), the son of a Flemish saddler, and Fiscal Procurator to the Bishop of Noyon, and Receiver to the Chapter. He obtained a Chaplaincy for his son when he was twelve years old, and afterwards a country Curacy in the village of Martville, which he some time after exchanged for the living of Pont l’Elveque (2). Endowed with those benefices, he at an early age applied himself with the greatest diligence to study, and was soon distinguished for talents, which God gave him for his service, but which he perverted to his own ruin, and to the ruin of many nations infected with his heresy, when he had gone through his preliminary studies, his father sent him to Bourges to study law under Andrew Alciati; but wishing to learn Greek, he commenced the study of that language under Melchior Walmar, a concealed Lutheran, and a native of Germany, who, perceiving the acute genius of his scholar, by degrees instilled the poison of heresy into his mind, and induced him to give up the study of law, and apply himself to Theology (3); but Beza confesses that he never studied Theology deeply, and that he could not be called a Theologian.
59. In the meantime, Calvin’s father died, and he returned home, and without scruple sold his benefices, and went to Paris, where, at the age of twenty-eight, he first began to disseminate his heresy (4). He then published a little treatise on ” Constancy,” in which he advised all to suffer for the truth, as he called his errors. This little work was highly lauded by his friends; but it is only worthy of contempt, as it contains nothing but scraps of learning badly digested, injurious invectives against the Catholic Church, great praises of those heretics condemned by the Church, whom he calls Martyrs of the truth, and numberless errors besides, The publication of this work, and the many indications Calvin had given of using his talents against the Church, aroused the attention of the Criminal Lieutenant, John Morin, who gave orders to arrest him in the College of Cardinal de Moyne, where he then lodged. Calvin, however, suspected what was intended, and while the officers of justice were knocking at the door, he let himself down from the window (5), by the bed-clothes, and took refuge in the house of a vine- dresser, as Varillas informs us (6), with whom he changed clothes, and left his house with a spade on his shoulder.
In this disguise he was met by a Canon of Noyon, who recognized him, and inquired the meaning of this masquerade. Calvin told him everything, and when his friend advised him to return, and retract his errors, and not cast himself away, he, it is said, answered: ” If I had to begin again, I would not forsake the Faith of my fathers; but now I am pledged to my doctrines, and I will defend them till death ;” and an awful and terrible death awaited him, as we shall see hereafter. Varillas adds, that while he resided afterwards in Geneva, a nephew of his asked him if salvation could be obtained in the Catholic Church, and that Calvin could not find it in his heart to deny it, but told him he might be saved in that Church.
60. He escaped into Angouleme, and for three years taught Greek, as well as he could from the little he learned from Waimar, and his friends procured him lodgings in the house of the Parish Priest of Claix, Louis de Tillet, a very studious person, and possessor of a library of 4,000 volumes, mostly manuscripts. It was here he composed almost the entire of the Four Books of his pestilent Instructions, the greater part of which he took from the works of Melancthon, Ecolampadius, and other sectaries, but he adopted a more lucid arrangement, and a more elegant style of Latinity (7). As he finished each chapter he used to read it for Tillet, who at first refused his assent to such wicked doctrine; but by degrees his faith was undermined, and he became a disciple of Calvin, who offered to accompany him to Germany, where a Conference with the Reforming doctors, he assured him, would confirm him in the course he was adopting. They, accordingly, left for Germany, but had not gone further than Geneva when Tillet’s brother, a good Catholic, and Chief Registrar of the Parliament of Paris, joined them, and prevailed on his brother to retrace his steps and renounce his Calviriistic errors. In this he happily succeeded; the Priest returned, and was afterwards the first in his district to raise his voice publicly against Calvinism (8).
61. Calvin continued his rout to Germany, and arrived at Strasbourg, where Bucer was labouring to unite the Lutherans and Zuinglians in doctrine, but never could succeed, as neither would consent to give up their peculiar tenets on the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Calvin, seeing the difficulties he was in, suggested to him a middle way to reconcile both parties that is, to propose as a doctrine that in the reception of the Eucharist it is not the flesh, but the substance or power, of Jesus Christ that is received; this, he imagined, would reconcile both parties. Bucer, however, either because he thought Luther never would give up his own particular views, or, perhaps, jealous that the idea did not originate with himself, refused to adopt it. Calvin next visited Erasmus with a letter of recommendation from Bucer, in which he told Erasmus to pay particular attention to what would drop from him; he did so, and after some conversation with him, told his friends that he saw in that young man one who would be a great plague to the Church (9).
62. Calvin, finding it difficult to make many proselytes to his Sacramentarian doctrines -in Germany, returned to France in 1535, and went to Poietiers, where at first, in the privacy of a garden, he began to expound his tenets to a few, but his followers increasing, he transferred his Chair to a hall of the University, called Ministerium, and here the Calvanistic teachers took the name of ministers, as the Lutherans called themselves preachers. Calvin sent out from this several ministers to the neighbouring towns and villages, and, by this means, made a great many proselytes (10). It was there he first published the forty articles of his heresy, and it was there also he introduced the Supper, or Manducation, as he called it, which was privately celebrated in the following manner : First, some part of the Testament relative to the Last Supper was read, then the minister made a few observations on it, but in general the burthen of these discourses was the abuse of the Pope and of the Mass, Calvin always saying that in the New Testament no mention is made of any other sacrifice than that of the Cross. Bread and wine were then set on the table, and the minister, instead of the words of consecration, said : ” My brethren, let us eat of the bread and drink of the wine of the Lord, in memory of his passion and death.”
The congregation were seated round a table, and the minister, breaking off a small portion of bread, gave it to each, and they eat it in silence; the wine was dispensed in like manner. The Supper was finished by a prayer, thanking God for enlightening them, and freeing them from Papistical errors; the Our Father and the Creed was said, and they swore not to betray anything that was there done. It was, however, impossible to conceal the existence of this new Church of Poietiers, and as the Royal Ordinances were very rigorous against innovators, and Calvin felt that he could not be safe in Pictou, he went to Nerac in Aquitaine, the residence of Margaret, Queen of Navarre, a patroness of the new doctrine. Even here he was not in safety, as Royal edicts were every day published against heretics, so he went to Basle, where he employed himself in preparing his four books of the Institutes for the press. He was twenty-six years of age when he published this work, with the motto, ” I came not to send peace, but a sword ;” showing, like a true prophet, the great evils this work would bring on France, and every other country where its pestilential doctrines would be embraced (11).
63. While Calvin was at Basle he felt a great desire to propagate his doctrine in Italy, where Luther could make no way; and understanding that Renee, daughter of Louis XII. of France, and wife of Hercules of Este, Duke of Ferrara, was a woman fond of novelties, and a proficient not only in Philosophy and Mathematics, but also fond of dabbling in Theology, he went to visit her, and, after some time, succeeded in making her one of his followers, so that he held privately in her chamber several conferences with her and others of the party. When this came to the Duke’s ears, he was very angry, and bitterly reproved the Duchess, obliging her to give up the practice of the new religion, and all the favour Calvin could obtain was leave to quit his States. He then at once fled from Ferrara to France, for fear of the Inquisition, which was very active just then, on account of the disturbed state of Religious opinions in Europe (12).
In the year 1536 he went to Geneva, which the year before rebelled against the Duke of Turin, and cast off, along with its allegiance, the Catholic Religion, at the instigation of William Farrell; and the Genevese, to commence their infamy, placed a public inscription on a bronze tablet, as follows : ” Quum anno Domini MDXXXV. profligata Romani Antichristi tyrannide, abrogatisque ejus superstitionibus, sacrosancta Christi Religio hie in suam puritatem, Ecclesia in meliorem ordinem singulari beneficio reposita, et simul pulsis fugatisque hostibus, Urbs ipsa in suam libertatem non sine insigni miraculo restituta fuerit; S. P. Q. G. Monumentum hoc perpetuæ memoriæ causa fieri, atque hoc loco erigi curavit, quo suam erga Deum gratitudinem testatem faceret.” Farrell, perceiving that Calvin would be of great assistance to him in maintaining the new doctrines he had introduced into Geneva, used every means in his power to induce him to stay, and got the magistrates to appoint him Preacher and Professor of Theology (13). One of his first acts after his appointment was to burn the Images of the Saints which adorned the Cathedral, and to break the Altars. The table of the high Altar was formed of a slab of very precious marble, which a wretch called Perrin caused to be fitted up in the place of public execution, to serve as a table for cutting off the heads of the criminals; but by the just judgment of God, and at Calvin’s instigation, though the cause is not known, it so happened that in a short time he was beheaded on the same stone himself (14).
64. Calvin fixed his residence in Geneva, but he and Farrell were accused, in 1537, of holding erroneous opinions concerning the Trinity and the Divinity of Jesus Christ. Their accuser was Peter de Charles, a Doctor of Sorbonne, who had been a Sacramentarian, and Minister of Geneva; he charged Calvin, who said the word Trinity was a barbarism, with denying the Unity of God in three Persons; besides, he had stated in his Catechism, that the Saviour on the cross was abandoned by his Father, and driven into despair, and that he was condemned to suffer the pains of hell, but his detention, unlike that of the reprobate, which endures for eternity, only lasted for a short time; from this Charles argued that Calvin denied the Divinity of Christ.
Calvin cleared himself and Farrell from these charges, and his accuser was banished from Geneva, a most fortunate circumstance for him, as it opened his eyes to Divine grace. He went to Rome, and obtained absolution for his errors, and died in the Catholic Church. This affair concluded, Calvin had a serious dispute with his confrere Farrell, who, following the custom of Berne, used unleavened bread for the Supper, while Calvin insisted on using leavened bread, saying it was an abuse introduced by the Scholastic Papists, to use the other. The magistrates, however, were in favour of the use of unleavened bread. Calvin, anxious to differ as much as possible from Zuinglius (16), preached to the people, and got them to declare in his favour, so much so that Easter being now nigh they said they would not communicate unless with leavened bread (17). The magistrates, jealous of their authority, appointed a minister called Mare to administer the Sacrament, with unleavened bread, in St. Peter’s Church; but Calvin frightened him so much that he hid himself, and the magistrates then commanded that there should be no communion that day, and banished both Calvin and Farrell from the city (18).
65. Calvin went to Berne to plead his cause, but met with another adventure there. A Flemish Catholic, of the name of Zachary, was at that time before the Council of Berne; he held a disputation about matters of Faith with Calvin; in the midst of it he took out a letter, and asked him if he knew the writing. Calvin acknowledged it was written with his own hand; the letter was then read, and found to contain a great deal of abuse of Zuinglius (19). The meeting immediately broke up, and he, seeing Berne was no longer a place for him, went to Strasbourg, where be was again received by his friend, Bucer, and appointed Professor of Theology, and minister of a new church, in which he collected together all the French and Flemings who embraced his doctrine; here also, in the year 1538, he married one Ideletta, the widow of an Anabaptist, with whom he lived fourteen years, but had no children, though Varillas says he had one, but it only lived two days (20).
66. Calvin sighed to return to Geneva, and in 1541 was recalled. He was received with every demonstration of joy and respect, and was appointed Chief of the Republic. He then established the discipline of his sect, and the Senate decreed that thenceforward the ministers or citizens could never change the statutes promulgated by him. He then also published his great French Catechism, which his followers afterwards translated into various languages, German, English, Flemish, Erse, Spanish, and even Hebrew. He then also published his pestilent books, entitled Defensio Sacræ Doctrinæ, De Disciplina, De Necessi tate Reformandæ, Ecclesiæ, one against the Interim of Charles V., and another against the Council of Trent, called Antidotum adversus Conc. Tridentinum (21). In the year 1542, the Faculty of Sorbonne, by way of checking the errors then published almost daily, put forth twenty-five Chapters on the Dogmas of Faith we are bound to believe; and Calvin seeing all his impious novelties condemned by these Chapters, attacked the venerable University in the grossest manner, so as to call the Professors a herd of swine (22). In the year 1453, he procured a union between his sect and the Zuinglians, and being thus safe in Geneva, which he was cautious not to leave, he encouraged his followers in France to lay down their lives for the Faith, as he called his doctrines; and these deluded creatures, while Francis I. and Henry II. were lighting fires to burn heretics, deceived by Calvin and his ministers, set at nought all punishments, even death itself nay, some of them cast themselves into the flames, and Calvin called their ashes the ashes of Martyrs (23). In the year 1551, he had a great dispute in Geneva with Jerome Bolsec, who, though an apostate Carmelite, nevertheless could not tolerate the opinions of Luther and Calvin concerning free will, who denied it altogether, and said, that as God predestined some to grace and Paradise, so he predestined others to sin and hell. He could not agree with Calvin in this, and he accordingly induced the magistrates to banish Bolsec from Geneva and its territories as a Pelagian, and with a threat of having him flogged, if he made his appearance there again. Happily for Bolsec, this sentence was put in execution : he then began to reflect on the evil step he had taken, again returned to the Catholic Church, and wrote a great deal against Calvin’s doctrine, who answered him in his impious work De Æterna Dei Prædestinatione (24).
67. About the year 1553, Calvin caused Michael Servetus to be burned, and thus he who, in the dedication of his work to Francis I., called the magistrates who burned heretics, Diocletians, became, in the case of Servetus, a Diocletian himself. These are the facts of the case (25) : Calvin procured from the Fair of Frankfort the Dialogues of Servetus, in which he denied the Trinity, and published several other errors we shall see here after. When he read this, he immediately marked his prey, as he had an old grudge against him, since once he proved him in a disputation to have made a false quotation. Servetus was passing through Geneva, on his way to Italy, and as it was Sunday, Calvin was to preach that evening after dinner. Servetus was curious to hear him, and expected to escape observation. He was betrayed, however, to Calvin, who was just going into the pulpit, and he immediately ran to the house of one of the Consuls to get an order for his arrest, on a charge of heresy. By the laws of Geneva it was ordered, that no one should be imprisoned unless his accuser would consent to go to prison also. Calvin, accordingly, got a servant of his to make the charge, and go to prison, and in the servant’s name forty charges were brought against Servetus. Undergoing an examination, he asserted that the Divine Word was not a person subsisting, and hence it followed, that Jesus Christ was but a mere man. Calvin was then summoned, and seeing that Servetus was condemned by that avowal of his opinions, he proposed that his condemnation should be sanctioned, not by the Church of Geneva alone, but by the Churches of Zurich, Basle, and Berne, likewise. They all agreed in condemning him to be burned to death by a slow fire, and the sentence was carried into execution on the 17th of October, 1553 (26).
Varillas quotes a writer who asserts, that when Servetus was led to punishment he cried out : “0 God, save my soul; Jesus, Son of the Eternal God, have pity on me.” It is worthy of remark, that he did not say Eternal Son of God, and hence it appears that he died obstinately in his errors, by a most horrible death, for being fastened to the stake by an iron chain, when the pile was lighted, a violent wind blew the flames on one side, so that the unhappy wretch was burning for two or three hours before death put an end to his torment, and he was heard to cry out : ” Woe is me, I can neither live nor die.” Thus he perished at the age of thirty-six (27). In the following year Calvin, to defend himself from the charge of being called a Diocletian, published a treatise to prove that by Scripture and Tradition, and the custom of the first ages, it was lawful to put obstinate heretics to death. This was answered by Martin Bellius; but Theodore Beza wrote a long rejoinder in defence of Calvin, and thus we see how inconsistently heretics act in blaming the Catholic Church at that time, for making use of the secular arm to punish heresy, when in theory and practice they did the same themselves.
68. In the year 1555, the Calvinists had the vanity to send a mission to America, to endeavour to introduce their poisonous doctrines among these simple people. For this purpose, Nicholas Durant, a zealous French Calvinist, equipped three vessels, with consent of the King, in which he and many other Calvinists, some of them noblemen, embarked for Brazil, under the pretext of a commercial speculation; but their primary object was to introduce Calvinism. When Calvin heard of this, he sent two Ministers to accompany them one of the name of Peter Richer, an apostate Carmelite; the other a young aspirant of the name of William Carter. In the month of November this impious Mission arrived in Brazil, but turned out a total failure, as the two ministers could not agree on the doctrine of the Eucharist, for Richer said that the Word made flesh should not be adored. According to the words of St. John, ” the spirit quickeneth, the flesh availeth nothing,” and hence he deduced, that the Eucharist was of no use to those who received it. This dispute put an end to the Mission, and Durant himself, in the year 1558, publicly abjured Calvinism, and returned to the Church, which he afterwards defended by his writings (28).
69. In the year 1557, a number of Calvinists were discovered in Paris clandestinely celebrating the Supper by night in a private house, contrary to the Royal Ordinances. One hundred and twenty were taken and imprisoned, and a rumour was abroad, that many enormities were committed in these nocturnal meetings. They were all punished, and even some of them were burned alive (29). In the year 1560, the Calvinistic heresy having now become strong in France, the conspiracy of Amboise was discovered. This was principally directed against the Princes of the House of Guise, and Francis II., King of France, and Louis, Prince of Conde, and brother of the King of Navarre, was at the head of it. Calvin mentioned this conspiracy in a letter to his friends, Bullinger and Blauret, in which he admits that he was acquainted with it, but says he endeavoured to prevent it. It is easy to see, however, his disappointment at its failure. It is said by some authors that this was the time when the French Calvinists first adopted the name of Huguenots (30). The Conference of Poissy was also held at this time. Calvin expected that his party would have the victory; in this he was disappointed; but the heretics, thus beaten, remained as obstinate as ever, and began to put on such a bold face that they preached publicly in the streets of Paris. A scandalous transaction took place on this account : A Minister named Malois was preaching near the church of St. Medard; when the bell rang for Vespers, the heretics sent to have it stopped, as it prevented them from hearing the preacher. The people in the church continued to ring on, when the Calvinists, leaving the sermon, rushed furiously into the church, broke the images, cast down the altars, trampled on the Most Holy Sacrament, wounded several Ecclesiastics, and then dragged thirty-six of them, tied with ropes, and covered with blood, through the streets of the city to prison. Beza wrote a flaming account of this victory of the Faith, as he called it, to Calvin.
70. At length the day of Divine vengeance for the wretched Calvin drew nigh; he died in Geneva, in 1564, on the 26th day of May, in the 54th year of his age. Beza says he died calmly; but William Bolsec, the writer of his life, and others, quoted by Noel Alexander and Gotti (31), assert that he died calling on the devil, and cursing his life, his studies, his writings, and, at the same time, exhaling a horrible stench from his ulcers, and thus he appeared before Christ, the Judge, to answer for all the souls lost, or to be lost, through his means.
71. Varillas, in his account of Calvin’s character and personal qualities, says (32), he was endowed by God with a prodigious memory, so that he never forgot what he once read, and that his intellect was so acute, especially in logical and theological subtleties, that he at once discovered the point on which everything hinged in the doubts proposed to him. He was indefatigable in studying, in preaching, in writing, and in teaching, and it is wonderful how any man could write so many works during the time he lived, and besides, he preached almost every day, gave a theological lecture every week, on every Friday held a long conference with his followers on doubts of faith, and almost all his remaining time was taken up in clearing up and answering the knotty questions of his friends. He was very temperate both in eating and drinking, not so much through any love of the virtue of abstinence, as from a weakness of stomach, so that he was some times two days without eating. He suffered also from hypochondria, and frequent headaches, and hence his delicate health made him melancholy. He was very emaciated, and his colour was so bad, that he appeared as if bronzed all over. He was fond of solitude, and spoke but little. He was graceless in his delivery, and frequently, in his sermons, used to break out in invectives against the Catholic Church and people. He was prompt in giving advice or answers, but proud and rash, and so rude and intractable, that he easily fell out with all who were obliged to have any communication with him (33). He was very vain of himself, and on that account affected extreme gravity. He was the slave of almost every vice, but especially hatred, anger, and vindictiveness, and on that account Bucer, though his friend, in a letter of admonition to him, says he is a mad dog, and as a writer inclined to speak badly of every one.
He was addicted to immorality, at all events, in his youth, and Spondanus says (34), he was charged even with an unnameable offence, and Bolsec even says in his life of him, that he was condemned to death for it in Noyon, but that, through the intercession of the Bishop, the punishment was changed to branding with a red-hot iron. Varillas says (35), that in the registry of Noyon a leaf is marked with this condemnation, but without mentioning the offence; but Noel Alexander says (36) positively, that both the certificate of the condemnation and the offence was preserved in Noyon, and that it was shown to, and read by, Berteler, Secretary of the Republic of Geneva, sent on purpose to verify the fact. Cardinal Gotti says (37), that when he taught Greek in Angouleme the same charge was brought against him by his scholars, and that he was condemned there likewise. Such are the virtues attributed to the pretended Reformers of the Church (38).
(1) Varillas, Istor. della Rel. t. 1, L 12, p. 450.
(2) Varillas, al. loc. cit.; Nat. Alex. l, 19, a. 13, sec. l,n. 1; Gotti Ver Rel. t. 2, c. Ill, sec. I, n. 1; Hermant Hist, de Cone. t. 2, c. 271; Van Ranst Hist. Hær. p. 119; Berti Hist. sec. 16, c. 3, p. 161; Lancist Hist. t. 4, sec. 16, c. 5.
(3) Nat. loc. cit. n. 1; Gotti, ibid, n, 3; Hermant, cit. c. 271; Varil. al loc. cit. p. 431.
(4) Gotti, cit. c. Ill, n. 5; Van Ranst, p. 320; Varill. t. 1, l. 10, p. 452.
(5) Van Ranst, p. 330; Gotti, loc. cit. n. 5; N. Alex. loc. cit. s. l,n. 1.
(6) Varillas,. 10, p. 345.
(7) Nat. Alex t. 19, a. 13, s. 1; Gotti, c. 3, s. 1, n. 3; Van Ranst, p. 330; Varil. l. 30, p. 454.
(8) Varill. cit. p. 454; Gotti, loc. cit. n. 6.
(9) Van Ranst, s. 16, p. 323; Nat. Alex. loc. cit. n. 1; Varill. p. 459.
(10) Varill. l. 10, p. 457; Hermant, t. 2, c. 271; Nat. Alex. s. 1, n. 1; Gotti, c. Ill, s. 2, n. 1.
(11) Nat. Alex. t. 19, a. 13, w.2; Van Ranst,p. 321; Goti, c.lll,s.2, n.4.
(12) Varill. t. 1, l. 10, p. 465; Van Ranst, p. 321.
(13) Apud Berti. Brev. Hist. t. 2 s. 16, c. 3, p. 162. ,
(14) Nat. Alex. loc. cit. n. 2; Van Ranst, p. 221; Gotti. c.lll, s.l, n.6.
(15) Gotti. ibid.
(16) Varill. l. 12, p. 512, & Nat. Alex. a. 13; s. I, n. I
(17) Nat. cit. n. in fin; Gotti, s. 2, n. 7.
(18) Nat. Alex. loc. cit. n. 3; Varill. . p. 513; Van Ranst, p. 121; Gotti, c. Ill, s. 2, n. 8.
(19) Varill. l. 11, p. 514.
(20) Gotti, s. 2, n. 9; Varill. loc. cit. Nat. Alex. ibid.
(21) Nat. Alex. t. 19, ar. 13, sec. 1, n. 4, & seq. Gotti, c. Ill, sec. 2, n. 10.
(22) Gotti, n. 11.
(23) Gotti, n. 1114.
(24) Nat. Alex. cit. sec. 1, re. 8; Gotti, loc. cit. n. 14.
(25) Varillas, t. 2, l. 20.
(26) Varillas, t. 2, l. 20, p. 219; Gotti, c. Ill, sec. 3, n. 1; Nat. Alex. loc. cit. sec. 1, n. 9.
(27) Varillas, l. 20, p 221.
(28) Nat. Alex. t. 19, ar. 13, sec. 1, n. 10; Varillas, l.21 p 256; Gotti, c, 111, sec. 3, n. 5.
(29) Gotti, loc. cit, n, 6.
(30) Varillas, l. 23, n. 331; Gotti, loc. cit. n. 8
(31) Nat. Alex. sec. 1, n. 16; Gotti, ibid, n. 9.
(32) Varillas, t. 1, l. 10, p. 459
(33) Spondan. ad an. 1564; Nat. Alex. err. 13, sec. n. 16; Gotti, . loc. cit. sec. 3, n. 10; Varillas. l. 12, t. 1, l. 10, p. 450.
(34) Spondan. ad an. 1534.
(35) Varillas, loc. cit.
(36) Nat. Alex. cit. n. 16, in fin.
(37) Gotti, sec. 1, n. 6.
(38) Remundus, l. 1, c. 9, n. 3.
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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CHAPTER XI. – THE HERESIES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
II -THEODORE BEZA, THE HUGUENOTS, AND OTHER CALVINISTS,
WHO DISTURBED FRANCE, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND
72. Theodore Beza; his character and vices.
73. His learning, employments, and death.
74. Conference of St. Francis de Sales with Beza.
75. Continuation of the same subject.
76, 77. Disorders of the Huguenots in France.
78. Horrors committed by them; they are proscribed in France.
79.-Their disorders in Flanders.
80. And in Scotland.
81. Mary Stuart is married to Francis II.
82. She returns to Scotland, and marries Darnley; next Bothwell; is driven by violence to make a fatal renunciation of her Crown in favour of her son.
83. She takes refuge in England, and is imprisoned by Elizabeth, and afterwards condemned to death by her. 84. Edifying death of Mary Stuart.
85. James I., the son of Mary, succeeds Elizabeth; he is succeeded by his son, Charles I., who was beheaded. 86. He is succeeded by his son, Charles II., who is succeeded by his brother, James II., a Catholic, who died in France.
72. At Calvin’s death, he left the direction of the unfortunate city of Geneva to Theodore Beza, a worthy successor of his, both in life and doctrines. He was born on the 24th of June. 1519, in Vezelais, in Burgundy, of a noble family, and was educated his uncle, who sent him to Paris, to study his Humanity, and afterwards to Orleans, to learn Greek, under Melchior Wolmar, Calvin’s master, first in Greek, and next in heresy. His appearance was agreeable, his manners polished, and he was a great favourite with all his acquaintance. He led, when young, an immoral life, and wrote several amatory poems; he had an intrigue with a tailor’s wife in Paris, of the name of Claudia, and he has been charged with even more abominable crimes. His uncle resigned a Priorate, which he held, in his favour, and, likewise, made him his heir; but he spent not only that and his paternal property, but even stole the chalices and ornaments of a church belonging to the natives of Burgundy, in Orleans, of which he was Procurator. For this he was imprisoned, but soon liberated; and soon after he published in Paris a shocking epigram, regarding a person named Audabcrt, which induced the Court of Paris to order his imprisonment. This terrified him, for, if convicted of the crime he was charged with, the penalty was burning alive. He was reduced to the greatest poverty, for he not only ran through his property, but also sold his Priorate for twelve hundred crowns; and even in this transaction, he was guilty of dishonesty, for he prevailed on the agents of his benefice to pay him the revenue of it before it came due. Covered with infamy, he changed his name to Theobald May, and fled to Geneva, taking Claudia with him, whom he then married, though her husband was still living. He presented himself to Calvin, who, finding he studied under Wolmar, received him, and procured him a Professorship of Greek, and from that he was promoted to a Professorship of Theology in Lausanne. The Ministers of that city, though apostates, yet having a knowledge of the crimes already committed by Beza, and seeing the debauched life he led, refused to admit him to the Ministry; but he was sustained by Calvin, whom he venerated almost to adoration, so that he was called Calvinolator, the adorer of Calvin (1).
73. In his teaching he surpassed even Calvin in impiety, for the one admitted, though obscurely, the body of Christ in the Eucharist, but the other said, in the Conference of Poissy, that the body of Christ was as far from the Eucharist as heaven is from the earth; and although he was obliged to retract, nevertheless, in a letter of his, he again repeats the same sentiment (2); and one of his companions, as Spondanus tells us, said, what wonder is it, that Beza does not believe that, when he scarcely believes in the existence of God (3). On the occasion of the outbreak of the Calvinists against the Priests of the Church of St. Medard (N. 69), he boasted not only of the insult to the Church and the Priests, but especially of the horrible profanation of the Holy Eucharist. He wrote a letter of congratulation to the Queen of England, praising her for assisting to plant the Faith in France by blood and slaughter; and when he went to the Congress of Worms, where Calvin sent him, to try and gain friends for his sect, and Melancthon asked him, “Why the French caused so many disasters in France ?” He said, “They only did what the Apostles had done before them.” ” Why, then,” said Melancthon, do you not suffer stripes, as the Apostles did.” Beza made him no answer, but turned his back on him.
Although nearly seventy years old when his wife Claudia died, he married a very young widow, of whom we shall have occasion to speak hereafter. Florimund (4) says, that a nobleman of Guienne returning from Home, in the year 1600, called on Beza,. and found him a venerable old man, with a long white beard, and in his hand a beautifully bound little volume. When the gentle man asked him what it contained, he showed him that it was a book of sonnets, and said : ” Sic tempus fallo” ” I thus cheat time.” ” Oh,” said the gentleman to a friend of his, ” is it thus this holy man, with one foot already in Charon’s bark, passes his time.” Beza continued for forty-one years after Calvin’s death to govern the Church of Geneva, or, rather, to poison it by his bad example and doctrine; he was, however, called to account for all before God, in the year 1605, the eighty-fifth of his age (5). Let not the reader wonder that I have said so much about the vices of Luther, Calvin, and Beza. 1 have done so on purpose, that every one may understand that God did not send such men to reform his Church, but, rather, the devil, to destroy it. In this, however, no heresiarch ever can or ever has succeeded, for our Lord has promised to protect it to the end of the world, ” and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
74. I will here relate a Conference St. Francis de Sales had with Beza, about the year 1597, as we find it in the Saint’s life (6). Clement VIII. desired St. Francis to see Beza, and try could he convert him.
The Saint made his way into Geneva, at the risk of his life, and called on Beza, whom he found alone. He commenced, by begging Beza not to believe all he heard of him from his enemies. Beza answered, that he always considered St. Francis a man of learning and merit, but that he regretted seeing him devote his energies to prop up anything so weak as the Catholic religion. St. Francis then asked him, if it was his opinion, that a man could be saved in the Catholic Church ? Beza demanded a little time, before he would give his answer; he went into his study, remained walking about for a quarter of an hour, and then coming out said : ” Yes; I believe that a man may be saved in the Catholic Church.” ” Why, then,” said St. Francis, ” have you established your Reformation with so much bloodshed and destruction, since, without any danger a man may be saved, and never leave the Catholic Church.” ” You have put obstacles in the way of salvation,” said Beza, “in the Catholic Church, by inculcating the necessity of good works; but we, by teaching salvation by Faith alone, have smoothened the way to heaven.” ” But you,” said St. Francis, ” by denying the necessity of good works, destroy all human and divine laws, which threaten punishment to the wicked, and promise rewards to the good; and Christ says, in the Gospel, that not only those who do evil, but, likewise, those who omit to do the good commanded to be done, shall suffer eternal punishment. It is necessary, also,” said he, ” in order to know the true Faith, that there should be some judge from whom there is no appeal, and to whose judgment all should submit; for otherwise disputes never would have an end, and the truth never could be found.” Beza then began talking about the Council of Trent, and said that the only rule of Faith was the Scriptures, and that the Council did not follow them. St. Francis answered, that the Scriptures had different meanings, and that it was necessary that their true sense should be decided by the Church. ” But,” said Beza, ” the Scriptures are clear, and the Holy Ghost gives to every one the internal understanding of their true sense.” ” How, then, does it happen,” said St. Francis, ” if the Scripture be clear, and the Holy Ghost inspires the true sense of it to every one, that Luther and Calvin, both, in the opinion of the Reformers, inspired by God, held the most opposite opinions in the most important questions of Religion. Luther says, that the real body of Christ is in the Eucharist; Calvin, on the other hand, that it is only the virtue of Christ. How, then, can we know, when so great a difference exists, to which of the two, Luther or Calvin, the Holy Ghost has revealed the truth ? Besides, Luther denies the Canonicity of the Epistle of St. James, and of some other books of the Holy Scriptures; Calvin admits it. Whom are we to believe ?” They had now been disputing for three hours, and when Beza saw himself thus hemmed up in a corner, he lost his temper, and only answered the Saint’s arguments by abuse. St. Francis, then, with his accustomed meekness, said he did not come to give him any annoyance, and took his leave.
75. Sometime after, again at the request of the Pope, St. Francis paid him a second visit, and, among many things then discussed, they argued especially concerning Free Will, for Calvin blasphemously asserted, that whatever man does, he does through necessity that if he is predestined he does what is good if he is not, he does what is evil. The Saint proved the doctrine of Free Will so clearly, both from the Old and the New Testament, that Beza was convinced of its truth, and, cordially taking St. Francis by the hand, said that he daily prayed to God, that if he was not in the right way, he might lead him to it. This shows the doubts he entertained of his new faith; for those who are certain that they profess the true faith, never pray to God, to enlighten them to adopt another, but to confirm and preserve them in the Faith they profess. Finally, St. Francis thinking him now better disposed after this acknowledgment, spoke to him plainly, and told him, that now his years should lead him to reflect whether he was not letting the time of mercy pass by, and preparing himself for the day of justice that, as he was now near the close of life, he should defer his conversion no longer, but return immediately to the Church he had forsaken that if he feared the persecution he would suffer from the Calvinists, he should remember he ought to suffer everything for his eternal salvation; but as Luther himself remarked, it is hard to expect that the head of any sect will forsake the doctrines he has taught others, and become a convert. Beza said that he did not despair of salvation in his own Church. The Saint then seeing that his heart was made of stone, left him under a promise of returning soon again to visit him; but this was not in his power, for the Genevese put guards to watch their Minister, and determined to put St. Francis to death if he ever came again. Some say that Beza was anxious to see him again, and that he retracted his errors, and that on that account his friends gave out that the violence of his sickness deranged his mind; but we know nothing of this for certain, and it is most probable that he died as he lived. The writer of St. Francis’s life says, also, that Des Hayes, Governor of Montargis, being in Geneva., and conversing familiarly one day with Beza, asked him, why he remained in his new sect? He pointed out to him a young woman in his house, and said, this is what retains me; and it is supposed that this was his second wife, whom he married when he was seventy years old.
76. We have now to speak of the French Calvinists, or Huguenots, as they are generally called, as is supposed, from the castle of Hugon, near Toulouse, close by which they had their first conventicle, and of the desolation they caused in France. Volumes would not suffice to relate all the destruction caused by Calvin and his followers, not only in France, but in many other countries. I will only then give a sketch of them, to show how much harm one perverse heresiarch may occasion. During the reigns of Francis I. and his son, Henry II., though both zealous Catholics, and ever prosecuting the Calvinists with the utmost rigour, even condemning many of them to the stake, still this heresy was so spread through every province of the kingdom, that there was not a city or town but had its temple and ministers of the new sect. In the year 1559, however, when Henry was succeeded by his son, Francis II., only sixteen years of age, it broke forth like a torrent, and overwhelmed the whole kingdom with errors, sacrileges, sedition, and bloodshed (7). Jeane, Queen of Navarre, was the chief promoter of all this; she used all her endeavours to extinguish the Faith; she encouraged the heretics to take up arms, and when they were worsted, she was always ready to assist them. She encouraged Louis Bourbon, Prince of Conde, too, at his first presentation to her, to take up arms in the cause of the Reformation, and she was the head of the conspiracy of Amboise, which, however, did not succeed according to her wishes (8). The Huguenots, how ever, are blamed for the death of the young King, Francis II., who, it is said, was poisoned by a Huguenot surgeon, at the age of seventeen, by putting poison into his ear while treating him for an abscess (9).
77. A royal decree was published in the reign of Charles IX., granting leave to the Calvinists to hold meetings, and preach outside the cities, and on this occasion, nothing could equal the disturbances they caused. The first outbreak took place in Vassay, in Champagne, where seventy Calvinists were killed; the Prince of Conde immediately put himself at the head of the Calvinistic party, and they declared war against their King and country. They took several cities, and destroyed the churches, broke open the tombs of Saints, and burned their relics. Many battles were subsequently fought, in which the rebels were beaten, though not conquered.
The first was fought in Dreux, in the Vennassain, in which Conde was taken prisoner by Francis of Guise, who commanded the Catholics, and Anthony, King of Navarre, who commanded the royal army, was so severely wounded, that he died shortly after, leaving an only son Henry, who was afterward the famous Henry IV., King of France. In the following year, 1563, while the Duke of Guise, commander of the royal troops, was besieging Orleans, he was treacherously wounded by one John Poltroze, employed by Beza; the wound proved mortal, and the Queen-Mother made a treaty of peace with the heretics, most hurtful to the Catholic interests, but which was subsequently modified by another edict (10).
78. The Calvinists went to war again in 1567, and were again beaten, and in the year 1569, the Catholics gained the battle of Jarnac, in which the Prince of Conde, leader of the Calvinists, was killed (11). In the year 1572, a great number of Calvinists were killed on St. Bartholomew’s day, and it is thought that not less than a hundred thousand Calvinists perished in this war; such were the hellish fruits of the doctrines Calvin taught. It is terrifying to read the details of the excesses committed by the Calvinists against the Churches, the Priests, the Sacred Images, and especially the Holy Eucharist. It is related in the Annals of France, in the year 1563 (12), that a Huguenot went into the church of St. Genevieve, and possessed by a diabolical spirit, snatched the Sacred Host out of the hands of the officiating Priest; he paid dearly, however, for the sacrilege, as he was immediately taken, his hand was cut off, he was then hanged, and his body burned. As an atonement for this irreverence, the same month, the King, his mother, the Princes of the blood, and the Parliament, went in procession from the chapel royal to the church of St. Genievieve, bearing lighted torches in their hands.
About this time, also, the Huguenots, burned the body of St. Francis a Paula, which was preserved incorrupt for fifty years, in the church of St. Gregory of Tours, in the suburbs of Tours. Louis XIV. Used every means, by sending preachers among these sectaries, to convert them, and finally adopted such rigorous measures against them, that a great many returned to the Faith, and those who refused compliance, left the kingdom. Innocent XI., in the year 1685, wrote him a letter, praising his zeal (13).
79. Would to God, however, that the plague never spread further than France, and never tainted any other kingdom. The Low Countries were likewise infected by it, and the chief reason of its spreading there, was on account of the Lutheran and Calvinistic troops, maintained by the house of Austria to oppose France; both sects rivalled each other in making proselytes there, but Calvin sent many of his disciples to Flanders, and the Calvinists, therefore, remained the most numerous. The Flemings, also, felt themselves aggrieved by the Spanish Governors, and succeeded with Philip II., in obtaining the recal of Cardinal Granville, who had been sent as Counsellor of Mary, Queen of Hungary, and sister of Charles V., Regent of the Low Countries. This was a most fatal blow to the Catholic cause, for this great prelate, by his vigorous measures, and his zealous administration of his Inquisitorial powers, kept the heretics in check, but after his departure, in 1556, they broke out into open insurrection, wrecked the churches of Antwerp, broke the altars and images, and left the monasteries heaps of ruins, and this sedition spread through Brabant and other provinces, already infected with heresy, so that the Regent felt herself obliged to grant them a provisional licence for the exercise of their false Religion. King Philip refused to ratify this concession, and the heretics again took up arms; the King then sent the Duke of Alva with a powerful army to chastise them, but the Prince of Orange, though under many obligaions to the King of Spain, proclaimed himself chief of the rebels and Calvinists, and led an army of thirty thousand Germans into the Low Countries (14).
The scale of victory inclined sometimes to one side, sometimes to another, but the whole province was in rebellion against the King of Spain and the authority of the Catholic Church. The best authority to consult regarding this war of the Netherlands is Cardinal Bentivoglio. Although the Calvinists were most numerous in Holland, it is now divided between a thousand sects Calvinists, Lutherans, Anabaptists, Socinians, Arians, and the like. There are, likewise, a great number of Catholics; and, although they do not enjoy the free exercise of their Religion, still they are tolerated, and allowed to have private chapels in the cities, and in the country towns and villages they enjoy greater freedom* (15).
80. Calvinism spread itself also into Scotland, and totally infected that kingdom. Varillas (16) gives the whole history of its introduction there; we will give a sketch of it. The perversion of this kingdom commenced with John Knox, an apostate Priest, of dissolute morals, who was at first a Lutheran, but after wards residing some time in Geneva, and being intimate with Calvin, became one of his followers, and so ardent was he in his new Religion, that he promised Calvin that he would risk everything to plant it in Scotland; soon after, he quitted Geneva, and came to Scotland, to put his design into execution. The opportunity was not long wanting. Henry VIII., King of England, strove to induce his nephew, James V., King of Scotland, to follow his example, and establish a schism, and separate himself from the Roman Church, and invited him to meet him in some place where they could hold a conference, and discuss the matter. King James excused himself under various pretexts, and the upshot of the matter was, that Henry went to war with him. James gave the command of his army to a favourite of his, Oliver Sinclair, whom the nobility obeyed with the greatest reluctance, as he was not of noble birth, and the consequence was, that the Scots were beaten, and James died of grief (17), leaving an infant only eight days old, to inherit his throne, Mary Stuart. Now this was exactly what Knox wanted; a long regency was just the thing to give him an opportunity to establish his opinions, and he unfortunately succeeded so well, that he substituted Calvinism for Catholicity.
* N.B This was written in 1770.
The infant Mary, being now Queen of Scotland, Henry VIII, asked her in marriage for his son Edward, afterwards the sixth of that name, and then only five years old* This demand raised two parties in the kingdom. James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, then all-powerful in Scotland, and Governor of the kingdom, favoured Henry’s wishes, gained over by Knox, who had already instilled heretical opinions into his mind; and one great reason he alledged was, that it would establish a perpetual peace between the two kingdoms. On the contrary, the Archbishop of St. Andrews, David Beatoun (18), afterwards Cardinal, and the Catholics, gave it all the opposition in their power, as tending to make Scotland a province of England; but the chief cause of their opposition to it, was the injury to Religion, for this marriage would draw Scotland into schism.
81. Meanwhile, the Regent, who was a friend of the heretics, permitted the Calvinists to disseminate their doctrines, and gave liberty to every one in private or in public to pray as he liked, or, in other words, to choose whatever religion he pleased. The Archbishop opposed this concession, but the Calvinists rose in arms against him, and imprisoned him, and made him promise to favour the English alliance. In this, however, they did not succeed, for previous to her departure for England, the Cardinal, with consent of the Queen-Mother, Mary of Lorrain, sister to the Prince of Guise, proposed to Francis I., King of France, to marry Mary to the Dauphin, son of Henry II. The King of France was very well pleased with the proposal, and sent a large body of troops into Scotland, which kept the Calvinists in check,, and enabled the Queen Regent to send her daughter to France, and so Mary was sent, before she completed her seventh year, to be brought up in the family of Henry II., and in time to be married to his son, Francis II. On the death of Francis I. and Henry II., Mary was married to Francis II., but was soon left a widow, and the marriage was not blessed with children. Queen Mary then returned to Scotland, where she found religious affairs in the greatest confusion. The Calvinists assassinated the Archbishop in his very chamber, and afterwards hanged his body out of the window (19).
82. The rebels, likewise, in this sedition, destroyed the churches, and obliged the Queen-Mother to grant them the free exercise of Calvinism. Such was the miserable state of the kingdom when the Queen returned to it from France; and she immediately set about remedying these religious disorders. About the year 1568 she married Henry Darnley (20), who was afterwards assassinated in the King’s house by Earl Bothwell, leaving one son, afterwards James VI (21). Bothwell, blinded with love of the Queen, engaged a body of conspirators, seized her as she was returning from visiting her son at Stirling, brought her to a castle, and obliged her to marry him. On hearing this the Calvinists immediately broke out into rebellion against her, and accused her of being privy to the murder of her former husband, since she married his murderer, but the principal cause of their hatred to her was her religion. Bothwell himself, however, who had to fly to Denmark from this outbreak, declared before his death that the Queen was perfectly innocent of Henry Darnley’s murder. The Calvinists, however, glad of a pretext to persecute the Queen, became so bold at last, that they took her prisoner and confined her in a castle, and the perfidious Knox advised that she should be put to death. The rebels did not go so far as that, but they told her that she should consent to be banished either into France or England, and should renounce the crown in favour of her son, and on her refusal they threatened to throw her into the lake, and one of them had the cowardice to hold a dagger to her breast. Under fear of death she then took the pen and signed the deed making over the kingdom to her son, then thirteen months old (22).
83. The poor Queen was still detained in prison, notwith standing her renunciation, so some of her friends planned and accomplished her liberation, but not knowing where to seek a place of security, she unfortunately sought it in England from Queen Elizabeth, who promised to aid and assist her as a sister Sovereign. Thus she threw herself into the power of the very woman of all others most anxious to deprive her of life and kingdom, for Mary was her only rival, and the greatest difficulty the Pope had in recognizing Elizabeth was, that while Mary lived she was the lawful inheritor of the English throne.
When Mary arrived in England, Elizabeth pretended to receive (23) her; but she imprisoned her first, at Carlisle, and afterwards in Bolton under pretence that her enemies wished to make away with her. The national pride of the Scotch was raised when they learned their Queen was a prisoner, and they invaded England with six thousand men. Elizabeth, then unprepared for war, had recourse to craft to avert the blow, and she therefore promised Mary that if she used her authority to make the Scotch retire from England, she would assist her to recover her king dom, but otherwise that there would be no chance of her liberation till the war was at an end. Mary yielded, and ordered the Scotch to disband themselves, under pain of high treason; the chiefs of the party were thus constrained to obey, but she was still kept in prison, and Elizabeth, to have another pretext for detaining her, induced Murray, a natural brother of Mary, and the Countess of Lennox, mother of the murdered Darnley, to accuse her of procuring her husband’s murder. Elizabeth appointed a commission to try her, and though many persons of the greatest weight took up her defence, still after being imprisoned nineteen years, and having changed from prison to prison, sixteen times in England alone, she was condemned to be beheaded. She received the news of her sentence with the greatest courage, and an entire resignation to the divine will. She asked for a pen, and wrote three requests to Elizabeth: First That after her death her servants might be at liberty to go where they pleased. Second To allow her to be buried in consecrated ground; and, Third Not to prosecute any one who wished to follow the Catholic faith.
84. The execution of the sentence was deferred for two months, but on the day appointed, the 18th of February, 1587, at the dawn of day the officers of justice came to conduct her to the place of execution. The Queen asked for a confessor to prepare her for death, but was refused, and a minister was sent to her whom she refused to receive. It is said that she received the holy Communion herself, having, by permission of the Pope, St. Pius V., retained a consecrated particle for that purpose (24).
She then dressed herself with all the elegance of a bride, prayed for a short time in her oratory, and went to the scaffold which was prepared in the hall of Fotheringay Castle, the last prison she inhabited. Everything was covered with black, the hall, the scaffold, and the pulpit from which the sentence was read. Mary entered, covered with a long veil, which reached to her feet, a golden cross on her breast, a Rosary pendant at her girdle, and a crucifix in one hand, the Office of the Blessed Virgin in the other. She went forward with a majestic gait, and calling Melvin, her Major-domo, she saluted him with a serene countenance, and said : ” My dear Melvin, when I am dead go to my son, and tell him that I die in the Catholic Religion, and tell him if he loves me or himself to follow no other; let him put his trust in God, and He will help him, and tell him to pardon Elizabeth for my death, which I voluntarily embrace for the Faith.” She then requested the Governor to allow the persons composing her suite to be present at her death, that they might certify that she died in the Catholic Faith. She knelt down on a cushion covered with black, and heard the sentence signed by Elizabeth’s own hand read, she then laid her head on the block, and the executioner cut it off at the second stroke. Her body was buried near Queen Catherines, the wife of Henry VIII., and it is said this inscription was put on her tomb, but immediately after removed by order of Elizabeth : ” Maria Scotorum Regina virtutibus Regiis et animo Regio ornata, tyrannica crudelitate ornamentum nostri seculi extinguiter.” Mary’s death filled all Europe with horror and compassion for her fate, and even Elizabeth, when she heard it, could not conceal the effect it had on her, and said it was too precipitate, but for all that she continued to persecute the Catholics more and more, and added many martyrs to the Church (25).
85. James VI., King of Scotland, and the son of Queen Mary, took little heed of his mother’s advice or example, for, after Elizabeth’s death, being then King of Scotland, he succeeded her, and took the title of James I., King of Great Britain, and the year after his coronation, which took place in 1603, he ordered, under pain of death, that all Catholic Priests should quit the kingdom. In the year 1606 he brought out that famous declaration that the King of England was independent of the Roman Church, called the Oath of Supremacy. He died in 1625, the fifty-ninth year of his age, and the twenty-second of his English reign. He was the first King who governed the three kingdoms of England, Ireland and Scotland, but he lived and died a heretic, while his mother lived forty-two years in almost continual sorrow and persecution, but died the death of the just. This unhappy Monarch was succeeded by his son, Charles I, born in the year 1600, and like his father, the Sovereign of three kingdoms; he followed his father’s errors in religion, and sent succours to the Calvinists in France, to enable them to retain Rochelle, then in their possession. He was unfortunate; for both the Scotch and English Parliamentarians took up arms against him, and after several battles he lost the kingdom. He took refuge with the Scotch, but they delivered him up to the English, and they, at Cromwell’s instigation, who was then aiming at sovereign power, condemned him to be beheaded, and he died on the scaffold on the 30th of July, 1648, the twenty- fifth of his reign and forty-eighth of his age.
86. He was succeeded by his son, Charles II., born in 1630; at his father’s death he went to Scotland, and was proclaimed King of that country and of England and Ireland likewise. Cromwell, who then governed the kingdom, under title of Protector of England, took the field against him, and put his forces to flight, so that Charles had to make his escape in disguise, first to France and afterwards to Cologne and Holland. He was recalled after Cromwell’s death, which took place in 1658, and was crowned King of England in 1661, and died in 1685, at the age of sixty-five. He was succeeded by his second brother, James II., born in 1633. James was proclaimed King on the day of his brother’s death, the 16th of February, 1685, and was soon after proclaimed King of Scotland, though he openly declared himself a Roman Catholic, and forsook the communion of the English Church. Ardently attached to the Faith, he promulgated, in 1687, an Edict of Toleration, granting to the Catholics the free exercise of Religion, but this lost him his crown, for the English called in William, Prince of Orange, who, though James’s son-in-law, took possession of the kingdom, and, in 1689, James had to fly to France. He soon after went over to Ireland, to keep possession of that kingdom at all events, but being again beaten he fled back again to France, and died in St. Germains, in 1701, the sixty-eighth year of his age. As this sovereign did not hesitate to sacrifice his temporal kingdom for the Faith, we have every reason to believe that he received an eternal crown from the Almighty. James II. left one son, James III., who died in the Catholic Faith in Rome.
(1) Gotti, c. 114, sec. 4, n, I, 6; Varillas, t. 2, l. 18, 137.
(2) Berti, Brev. Hist. t. 2, sec. 16, c. 1.
(3) Spondan, ad An. 1501, . 19.
(4) Floremund, Remund. I. 8, c. 17 n. 6.
(5) Gotti, loc. cit. n.7, 10.
(6) Vita di St. Francesco di Sales, da Pietro Gallo, l. 2, c. 21, 22.
(7) Van Ranst, Hist. sec. 16, p. 322.
(8) Van Ranst, loc. cit. vide Her. t, 2, c. 272.
(9) Spondan, ad an, 1560, n, 7.
(10) Nat. Alex. t. 19, c. 11, art. 9, n. 3, & 4.
(11) Nat. Alex. n. 5; Hermant, t. 2, c. 306.
(12) Apud Gotti, c. Ill, s. 4, n. 15.
(13) Gotti, loc. cit. n. 16, c. 17.
(14) Varillas, t. 2, I. 27, dalla p;. 441, Jovet Storia della Relia. t. 1, p 95.
(15) Jovet loc. cit, p. 105.
(16) Varillas Hist. Her. t. 2, I 28, dalla p. 471; Hermant Histor. de Concil. t. 2, c. 265.
(17) Varillas, p. 475.
(18) Varillas, loc, cit.
(19) Varill. t. 2, l. 28, p. 426.
(20) Varill. p. 479.
(21) Varill. p. 500.
(22) Varill. p. 502, 503.
(23) Varill. p. 50 e. seg.
(24) Vide P. Suar. l. 3, in St. Thom. c. 72, ar. 8, in fin.
(25) Varillas, sopra, t. 2, l. 28; Bern, t. 4, s. 16, c. 11; Joves Istoria della Rel. t. 2, p. 84; Dizion. Port.
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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CHAPTER XI. – THE HERESIES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
THE DIFFERENT SECTS OF CALVINISTS
99. The Sects into which Calvinism was divided.
100. The Puritans.
101. The Independents and Presbyterians.
102. The difference between these Sects.
103. The Quakers and Tremblers.
104. The Anglo-Calvinists.
105. The Piscatorians.
106. The Arminians and Gomarists.
99. The sect of Calvin was soon divided into numerous other sects in fact, we may say that from every sect a thousand others sprung, and that is the case, especially in England, where you can scarcely find the members of the same family believing the same thing. We shall speak of the principal sects described by Noel Alexander and Cardinal Gotti (1). These are the Reformed, who are found in France, in the Palatinate, in Switzerland, and Flanders, and these, in general, follow the doctrine of Calvin to the letter. In England and Scotland they are called Puritans, and, besides, we find among his followers, others called Independents, Presbyterians, Anglo-Calvinists, Piscatorians, Arminians, and Gomorists.
100. The most rigid of all the Calvinists are the Puritans, who hate all who do not follow their own way of thinking, but abhor the Catholics especially, and do not even like to pray in the churches consecrated by them. They rejected Episcopacy the rites, and ceremonies, and Liturgy, both of the Catholic and Anglican Churches, not even keeping the Lord’s Prayer. They are as exact in the observance of the Sunday as the Jews are of the Sabbath. They are no friends to royalty, and it was through their means that Charles I. was brought to the block (as we have seen above, N. 85), in 1649.
101. The Independents and Presbyterians believe much the same as the Puritans, but their system of church government is different. When Oliver Cromwell became Protector of England (N. 86), he was an independent. They believe just what they like, and recognize no superior as invested with the power of teaching them. According to them, that supreme power resides in each sect which they would not allow to the Councils of the Universal Church. They allow no one to preach who does not follow their doctrine. They celebrated the ” Supper” on Sundays; but they do not admit to the ” Supper,” nor to Baptism, only those of their own sect. They celebrated the Supper, with their hats on, without Catechism, sermon, or singing; and they were the progenitors of all the other sects that overran England, as the Anabaptists, the Antinomians (who rejected all law, N. 35), disciples of John Agricola, and the Anti-Scripturists, who totally rejected the Scriptures, boasting that they had the spirit of the Prophets and Apostles.
102. The Presbyterians are a powerful body in the British islands. They separated themselves from the Independents. Their Churches are formed into classes; the classes are subject to Provincial Synods; and these to a National Synod, whose decisions must be obeyed, as if almost of Divine authority. They are called Presbyterians, because they adopt a form of Church government by lay elders, and they say that Bishops have no more authority than Presbyters. Their Elders are generally men of years, unless in the case of some specially gifted young person; the name is derived from the Greek word, Presbuteroi, which means our Elders.
103. There are also Quakers, or, as they were sometimes called, Tremblers, who considered themselves perfect in this life. They imagined they were frequently moved by the Spirit to such a pitch, that they trembled all over, not being able to endure the abundance of the Divine light they enjoyed. They reject not only all Ecclesiastical, but even civil ceremonies, for they never uncover for any one. They say no prayers in their meeting-houses; they even look on prayer as useless, for they are justified by their own justice itself. They did believe, though it is supposed they hold those opinions no longer, that Jesus Christ despaired on the cross, and that he had other human defects. They held erroneous opinions even on the first dogmas of Faith, not believing in the Trinity, or the second coming of Christ, or in hell or heaven after this life; many of these opinions, which were held by the first Quakers, are now changed or modified, and it is difficult at present to know exactly what their creed is. Their founder was an Englishman, John Fox, a tailor. There is another sect, called Ranters, who believe that nothing is vile or unlawful which nature desires. Another sect was called Levellers, enemies of all political order; they wished that all men should dress exactly alike, and that no one should be honoured more than another, and they frequently had to be punished for seditious conduct by the magistrates.
104. The Anglo-Calvinists are different from the Puritans, Independents, and Presbyterians, both in Church discipline and doctrine. Unlike all these sects, they have preserved the Episcopal Order, not alone as distinct from other offices, but as superior by Divine right; they retain a sort of form of consecration for Bishops; they ordain Priests, and confirm those who have received Baptism, and show some honour to the Sign of the Cross, which their cognate sects reject totally. Besides Bishops, there are Chancellors, Archdeacons, Deans, and Rectors of Parishes; they have preserved the Cathedrals, and have Canons and Prebends, who say morning and evening prayers, and the surplice is used as a vestment. They recognize both the orders of Priesthood and Deaconship. The King, according to the laws of Henry and Elizabeth, is head of the Church, and the fountain of all ecclesiastical authority. The Sovereign, they say, has the power of making new laws, and establishing new rites, with consent of the Metropolitan and Convocation; and his royal tribunal decides all judgments brought before it. He can, with his Council, decide on matters of Faith, publish ordinances and censures. Such are the powers granted to the Sovereign, in the work entitled, ” The Policy of the Church of England,” published in London, in the year 1683.
105. The Piscatorians were so called, from John Piscator, a Professor of Theology, and Pastor, at Herborne, a proud and vain man. He differed in several points with the Calvinists. He divided the justification of Christ into active and passive; the active he acquired by the holiness of his life the passive, by his sufferings; the active justification was profitable to himself alone the passive to us, and it is by this we are justified. It is, on the contrary, our doctrine, that Christ, by his labours and sufferings, gained merit both for himself and us; as the Apostle says: ” He humbled himself, being made obedient unto death… For which God exalted him, &c.” (Philip, ii, 8, 9). Hence God exalted him, both for the sanctity of his life, and for his passion. He, likewise, taught that the breaking of the bread in the ” Supper” was essential; and the academy of Marpurg embraced this opinion, but the other Calvinists did not. The Mosaic Law, he said, should be observed, as far as the judicial precepts go. He differed almost entirely with Calvin, regarding Predestination, the Atonement, Penance, and other points, and composed a new Catechism. He likewise published a new version of the Bible, filled with a thousand errors. Both himself and his doctrines were unanimously condemned by the Reformers.
106. Two other Calvinistic sects had their origin in Holland, the Arminians and Gomarists. Arminius or Harmensen, and Gomar, were Professors of Theology in the University of Leyden. In 1619, Arminius published a Remonstrance, and, on that account, his followers were called Remonstrants. In this writing, or Catechism, which in several articles comes near to the Catholic doctrine, he rejects eight errors of Calvin. The first error he attacks is, that God gives to the predestined alone, faith, justification, and glory; God, he says, wishes the salvation of all men, and gives all sufficient means of salvation, if they wish to avail themselves of them. He rejects the second error, that God, by an absolute decree, has destined many to hell before he created them; he says, that such reprobation is because of the sins they commit, and die without repenting of. Of the third error, that Christ has redeemed the elect alone, he says that no one is excluded from the fruit of Redemption, if he is disposed to receive it as he ought. The fourth error he reproves, is that no one can resist grace; this, he says, is false, for man by malice can, if he likes, reject it. The fifth error is, that he who has once received grace cannot again lose it; but he teaches that in this life we may both lose the grace received, and recover it again by repentance. Gomar (2), on the other hand, though a Professor in the same University, adopted all the dogmas of Calvin, and opposed Arminius and his Remonstrants with the greatest violence, and his disciples were called Anti- Remonstrants, and they accused the Arminians of Pelagianism. The dispute, at length, became so violent, that the States-General convoked a Synod, at Dort, to terminate it, and invited deputies from England, Scotland, Geneva, and other kingdoms. The Synod was held; but as almost all the deputies who attended were Calvinists, or differed but slightly from the Calvinistic doctrines, the Arminians were condemned, and the Gomarists got the upper hand. The States Chancellor, Barneveldt, and Hugo Grotius, took the part of Arminius, for which Barneveldt perished on the scaffold, and Grotius was condemned to perpetual imprisonment, but was saved by a stratagem of his wife, who obtained leave to send him a chest of books, to amuse him in his solitude; after a time, the chest was sent back, and, instead of the books, Grotius was concealed in it, and he thus escaped (3).
(1) Nat. Alex. t. 19, art. 13, sec. 3; Gotti, Ver. Rel. c. 312, sec. 1, 2.
(2) Nat. Alex. t. 19, c. 3, art. 11, sec. 13, n. 6.
(3) Nat. Alex. loc. cit.; Gotti, Ver. Rel. c. 12, sec. 2, n. 40; Dizion. Port, alia parola Grozio.
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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CHAPTER XII. THE HERESIES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY-(CONTINUED)
ARTICLE I. -THE SCHISM OF ENGLAND
l. THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII
1. Religion of England previous to the Reformation.
2. Henry VIII. marries Catherine of Arragon, but becomes enamoured of Anna Boleyn.
3. The wicked Wolsey suggests the invalidity of the marriage Incontinence of Anna Boleyn; suspicion that she was the daughter of Henry.
4. Calvin refuses to have his cause tried by English Judges; “Wolsey is made prisoner, and dies at Leicester. 5.Henry seizes on the property of the Church, and marries Anna Boleyn.
6. He obliges the Clergy to swear obedience to him, and Cranmer declares the marriage of Catherine invalid.
7. The Pope declares Anna Boleyn’s marriage invalid, and excommunicates Henry, who declares himself Head of the Church.
8. He persecutes Pole, and puts More and Fisher to death.
9. The Pope declares Henry unworthy of the kingdom; the King puts Anna Boleyn to death, and marries Jane Seymour.
10. The Parliament decides on six Articles of Faith; the bones of St. Thomas of Canterbury are burned; Jane Seymour dies in giving birth to Edward VI.
11. The Pope endeavours to bring Henry to a sense of his duty, but does not succeed.
12. He marries Anne of Cleves; Cromwell is put to death.
13. Henry marries Catherine Howard, whom he afterwards put to death, and then marries Catherine Parr.
14. His remorse in his last sickness.
15. He makes his will, and dies.
1. The history of England cannot be read without tears, when we see that nation, formerly the most zealous in Europe for Catholicity, now become its persecuting enemy. Who will not be touched with sorrow to see a kingdom, so attached to the Faith, that it was called the Land of Saints, now buried in heresy? Fifteen English Kings, and eleven Queens, renounced the world and became religious in different Convents. Twelve Kings were Martyrs, and ten have been placed in the catalogue of the Saints. It is said that previous to the schism there was not a village in England which had not a Patron Saint born on the spot. How dreadful it is to behold this land the abode of schism and heresy (1). England, it is said, received the Faith of Christ in the time of Tiberius Caesar. Joseph of Arimethea (2), Sanders says, with twelve of his disciples, were the first to introduce Christianity into the country which, in the time of Pope Eleutherius had spread so much, that at the request of King Lucius he sent them Fugacius and Damian, who baptized the King and many of his subjects, and, having cast down the idols, consecrated many churches, and established several Bishoprics. England remained firm in the Faith in the time of Diocletian, and there were many martyrs there during his reign. Christianity increased very much during the reign of Constantine, and though many fell away into the errors of Arius and Pelagius, they were converted again to the true Faith by the preaching of St. Germain and St. Lupus, who came from France for that purpose. About the year 596, Religion was almost lost by the Saxon conquest, but St. Gregory sent over St. Austin and forty Benedictine Monks, who converted the whole Anglo-Saxon nation, and they were remarkable, for nearly a thousand years after, for their zeal for the Faith and their veneration for the Holy See. During all this long period there were no Sovereigns in Christendom more obedient to the See of Eome than those of England. In the year 1212, King John and the Barons of the kingdom made England feudatory to the Holy See, holding the kingdoms of England and Ireland as fiefs from the Pope, and paying a thousand marks every year on the feast of St. Michael, and Peter’s Pence, according to the number of hearths in these kingdoms, which was first promised by King Ina, in the year 740, augmented by King Etholf, and paid up to the twenty-fifth year of Henry’s reign, when he separated himself from the obedience of the Holy See.
Many Provincial Councils were held in England during these centuries likewise, for the establishment of Ecclesiastical discipline, which was always observed till Henry’s reign, when, to satisfy a debasing passion for a wicked woman, he plunged himself into a whirlpool of crimes, and involved the nation inhis ruin, and thus this unfortunate country, the glory of the Church, became a sink of wickedness and impiety.
2. You shall now hear the cause of England’s ruin. In the year 1501, Henry VII. married his eldest son, Arthur, to Catherine of Arragon (3), daughter of his Catholic Majesty Ferdinand, but the Prince died before the consummation of the matrimony; she was then married to his second son, Henry VIII., by a dispensation of Julius II., with the intention of preserving the peace with Spain, and had five children by him. Before we proceed, however, it will be right to learn that Henry was so much attached to the Catholic Religion that when it was attacked by Luther he persecuted his followers to death, and caused all his books to be burned one day in his presence by the public executioner, and had a sermon preached on the occasion by John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester. He then published a work defending the doctrines of Faith in the seven Sacraments, in opposition to Luther, though some say the book was composed by Fisher of Rochester, and dedicated it to Leo X., who honoured him on the occasion with the title of Defender of the Faith (4). Blind to every thing, however, but his love for Anna Boleyn, he began to hold his wife, Queen Catherine, in the greatest aversion, though she was twenty-five years married to him (5). She was five or six years older than Henry, but Anna Boleyn was considered the most beautiful woman in England, and when she saw the impression she made on the King’s heart, she refused to see him any more unless he married her. Henry was of that disposition that the more he was thwarted in any wish the more obstinate he became in gratifying it, though having once obtained his object despised it; and seeing that he never could enjoy Anna Boleyn’s favour unless by marrying her, he resolved on the step, let it cost what it may. It was this determination that involved England in ruin.
3. It was England’s misfortune at that period to be almost governed by Thomas Wolsey, a man of low birth, but whose intriguing disposition made him such a favourite with Henry that he was elevated not only to the Archbishopric of York, but was made Lord Chancellor of the kingdom, and Cardinal (6). This unprincipled flatterer, seeing the King disgusted with Catherine, his Queen, advised him to apply for a divorce, and encouraged his scruples (if he had any), telling him his marriage never could be legalised, as Catherine was his brother’s wife. This objection, however, never could stand, for Henry had the Pope’s dispensation to marry Catherine (7); the case was maturely examined at Rome, and the impediment that existed was not imposed by the Divine Law, but was merely a Canonical one. That is proved by the Scripture, for we learn from Genesis, xxxviii, that the Patriarch Juda made his second son, Onan, marry Thamar, the wife of his elder brother, who died without children; and in the Mosaic Law there was a precept obliging the younger brother to take his elder brother’s widow to wife if he had died without leaving children : ” When brethren dwell together, and one of them died without children, the wife of the deceased shall not marry to another, but his brother shall take her, and raise up seed for his brother” (Deut. xxv, 5). What, therefore, was not only permitted but commanded by the Old Law, never could be contrary to the Law of nature. Neither is the prohibition of Leviticus, xviii, 16, to be taken into account, for that applies only to the case that the deceased brother has left children, and not, as in the former case, where he died childless, for then the brother is commanded to marry the widow, that his dead brother’s name should not be lost in Israel. There is, then, not the least doubt but the dispensation of the Pope and the marriage of Henry were both valid. Bossuet, in his History of the Variations (8), tells, us that Henry having asked the opinion of the Sorbonne as to the validity of his marriage, forty-five doctors gave their opinion that it was valid, and fifty-three were of the contrary opinion, but Molineaux says that all these votes were purchased on the occasion. Henry even wrote to the Lutheran Doctors in Germany, but Melancthon, having consulted others, answered him that the law prohibiting a man to marry his brother’s wife could be dispensed with, and that his marriage with Catherine was, therefore, valid.
This answer was far from being agreeable to Henry, so he held on to Wolsey’s opinion, and determined to marry Anna Boleyn. It has been said that this lady was even Henry’s own daughter, and it is said that her father, who was ambassador in France at the time, came post to England (9) when he heard of the affair, and told Henry that his wife confessed to him that Anna was Henry’s daughter, but Henry made him, it is said, a rude answer, told him to go back to his place, and hold his tongue, and that he was determined to marry her. It is also said, that, from the age of fifteen, Anna was of bad character, and that, during her residence in France her conduct was so depraved that she was called usually by an improper name (10).
4. Henry was fully determined to marry this unfortunate woman (11), so he sent to Rome to demand of the Pope to appoint Cardinal Campeggio and Cardinal Wolsey to try the case of the divorce. The Pope consented, but the Queen appealed against these Prelates as judges, one of them being the King’s subject, and the other under obligations to him. Not withstanding the appeal, the cause was tried in England, and Henry was in the greatest hurry to have it decided, being certain of a favourable issue for himself, as one of the judges was Wolsey, the prime mover of the case. Wolsey, however, was now afraid of the tempest he raised, which portended the ruin of religion, so he and Campeggio tried every means to avoid coming to a decision, seeing the dreadful scandal it would cause if they gave a decision in the King’s favour, and dreading his displeasure if they decided against him. The Pope admitted the justice of the Queen’s appeal (12), and prohibited the Cardinal Legates from proceeding with the cause, which he transferred to his own tribunal. Henry then sent Cranmer to Rome to look after his interests.
This man was a Priest, but of immoral life, and had privately embraced the Lutheran doctrines, and he was indebted to Anna Boleyn for the King’s favour. Henry likewise endeavoured to draw to his party Reginald Pole and Thomas More; but these were men of too much religion to yield to him. To frighten the Pope into compliance with his wishes, he prohibited, under the severest penalties, any of his subjects from applying for any favour or grace to Rome, without first obtaining his consent. God made use of Henry as an instrument to punish Wolsey now for his crimes. The King was furious with him, because he did not expedite the sentence in his favours so he deprived him of the Bishopric of Winchester (though this is doubtful), and the Chancellorship, and banished him to his Sec of York. He lived some time at Cawood, in Yorkshire, and made himself very popular in the neighbourhood by his splendid hospitality. Henry gave an order for his arrest, and commanded that he should be brought to London, but he suffered so much on the journey, both in mind and body, that, before he could arrive, he died at Leicester, in the month of December, 1530. A report was sent abroad that he poisoned himself, but the fact is, that, when he found he was accused of high treason, his heart broke. ” Had I served God, * said he, ” as faithfully as I served the King, he would not have given me over in my grey hairs” (13).
5. In the meantime, Cranmer wrote from Rome that he found it impossible to get the Pope to consent to the divorce, so he was recalled by Henry (14), and went to Germany, where he married Osiander’s sister or niece (15); and on the death of William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, was appointed to that See, but with the express condition of doing what the Pope refused pronouncing a sentence of divorce between Henry and Catherine (16). When Henry found that the Ecclesiastics of the kingdom took up Catherine’s side, he determined to punish some of them, and prosecuted them on a præmunire, for preferring the Legatine to the Royal authority. The Clergy, terrified at this proceeding, and having now no one to recur to, offered the king 400,000 crowns to compromise the matter, and admitted his sovereign power in the realm, both over the Clergy and laity.
Thomas More (17), seeing the ruin of England at hand, resigned the Chancellorship to the King, who accepted his resignation, and appointed Thomas Audley, a man of little means, in his place. Pope Clement VII. , seeing what imminent danger the kingdom ran, from the blind admiration the King professed for Anna Boleyn, endeavoured to save it, by prohibiting him, under pain of excommunication, from contracting a new marriage till the question of divorce was settled (18). This prohibition only exasperated Henry the more, so, despising both the admonitions and censures of the Pope, he was privately married to Anna Boleyn, before the break of day, in the month of December, 1532, having previously created her Countess of Pembroke (19). Roland Lee was the officiating Priest, and it is believed by some that Henry deceived him, telling him he had the Pope’s leave for marrying again.
6. Thomas Cromwell (20), under favour of Queen Anna, was now advanced to the highest honours. He was a man of the greatest cunning, and the most unbounded ambition, and a follower of the Lutheran doctrine. Henry made him Knight of the Garter, Grand Chamberlain of the Kingdom, Keeper of the Privy Seal, and made him also his Vicar- General for Ecclesiastical affairs (21), which he entirely managed as he pleased, in conjunction with Archbishop Cranmer and the Chancellor Audley. He obliged Ecclesiastics to take an oath of obedience in spirituals to the King, paying him the same obedience as they previously did the Pope. Every means was used to induce John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester, to take this oath, which he at first refused to do, but at last consented, adding, as a condition, ” inasmuch as it was not opposed to the Divine Word.” When this pillar of the Church fell, it was not difficult to induce the rest of the Clergy to take the oath. Cranmer was now ready to fulfil his part of the agreement made with Henry; he accordingly pronounced his marriage with Catherine opposed to the Divine law, and declared him at liberty to marry any other woman, and, on the strength of this declaration, Henry was solemnly married to Anne on the 13th of April, 1533 (22).
7. Pope Clement VII. now saw that there was no longer any use in mild measures, and was determined to act with extreme severity. He, accordingly, declared the marriage with Anna invalid; the issue, either present or future, illegitimate; and restored Queen Catherine to her conjugal and royal rights (23). He likewise declared Henry excommunicated for his disobedience to the Holy See, but this sentence was not to be enforced for a month, to give him time for repentance. So far from showing any signs of change, Henry prohibited, under the severest penalties, any one from giving the title of Queen to Catherine, or styling Mary heiress to the kingdom, though she had been already proclaimed as such by the estates of the Realm. He declared her illegitimate, and sent her to live with her mother Catherine, appointing a certain fixed place for their residence, and employing about them a set of spies, or guards, rather than servants (24). In the meantime, Anna Boleyn had a daughter, Elizabeth, born on the 7th of September, five months after her solemn marriage, and Henry continued his persecution of the Catholics, by sending to prison Bishop Fisher, Sir Thomas More, and two hundred Observantine Friars of the Order of St. Francis; and in the parliament convoked on the 3rd of November, 1534, a bill was passed in both houses, declaring Mary, the daughter of Catherine, excluded from the succession, and recognizing Elizabeth, Anna’s daughter, as heiress to the throne. The power of the Pope in England and Ireland was rejected at the same time, and whoever professed to believe in the primacy of the Holy See was declared a rebel. He assumed an authority over the Bishops of the kingdom greater than the Pope ever possessed, for he granted them their powers as if they were secular magistrates, only till he wished to revoke them, and it was only by his authority they were allowed to ordain Priests or publish censures. Finally, it was decreed that the King was the supreme head of the Church of England; that to him alone it belonged to extirpate heresies and correct abuses, and that to him, by right, belonged all tithes and first-fruits.
The name of the Pope was expunged from the Liturgy, and among the petitions of the Litany the following was sacrilegiously inserted: “From the tyranny and detestable enormities of the Bishop of Rome deliver us, O Lord” (25).
8. Henry knew that his assumption of the primacy was condemned, not alone by Catholics, but even by Luther and Calvin, so he gave orders that it should be defended by theologians in their writings, and many complied with this command, some willingly, and others were forced to it. He was desirous that his relative, Reginald Pole, should publish something in favour of it, but he not alone most firmly refused to prostitute his pen to such a purpose, but wrote four books, ” De Unione Ecclesiastica,” in opposition to the pretended right, which so provoked the tyrant, that he declared him guilty of high treason, and a traitor to his country, and tried to get him into his power, to put him to death, and when he could not accomplish his wish, he had his mother, his brother, and his uncle executed, and this noble family was almost destroyed and brought to ruin. He, for the same reason, commenced a most dreadful persecution of the Friars, especially the Franciscans, Carthusians, and Brigittines, many of whom he put to death (26), besides Bishop Fisher and Thomas More, whom he sent to execution in the year 1534(27). While Bishop Fisher was in prison, he was appointed Cardinal by Paul III., which, when Henry heard, he at once had him condemned to death. It is related of this holy Bishop, that when he was about to be brought to the place of execution, he dressed himself in the best clothes he could procure, as that was, he said, the day of his marriage, and as, on account of his age and his sufferings in prison, he was so weak, that he was obliged to lean on a staff, when he came in sight of the scaffold he cast it away, and cried out : ” Now, my feet, do your duty, you have now but a little way to carry me.” When he mounted the scaffold he entoned the Te Deum, and thanked the Almighty for permitting him to die for the Faith; he then laid his head on the block.
His head was exposed on London Bridge, and it is said appeared quite florid, and more like the head of a living than a dead person, so that it was ordered to be taken down again (28). Sir Thomas More also died a glorious death. When he heard that the Bishop of Rochester was condemned to death, he exclaimed: “Lord, I am unworthy of such glory, but I hope thou wilt render me worthy.” His wife came to the prison to induce him to yield to the King’s wishes, but he refused, and after fourteen months confinement he was brought to trial, but never swerved, and was condemned to lose his head. When about to mount the scaffold, he called to a man near him to assist him to climb the steps; ” But when I am to come down, my friend,” said he, ” I will want no one to assist me.” On the scaffold he protested before the people that he died for the Catholic Faith. He then most devotedly recited the Miserere, and laid his head on the block. His execution spread general grief all over England (29).
9. When Paul III., the successor of Clement, was informed of the turn affairs had taken, he summoned Henry and all his accomplices to his tribunal, and in case of contumacy, fulminated the sentence of excommunication against him, but this was not published at the time, as there appeared still some hope that he would change his conduct; but all was in vain, he only every day involved himself more and more in crime. He now, as head of the Church, issued a commission to Cromwell, a layman, to visit the Convents, both male and female, in his dominions, to dismiss all Religious who were not twenty-four years of age, and to leave the others at liberty to go or stay, as they wished; this, it is said, though I believe not on sufficient foundation, threw ten thousand Religious back again into the world (30). About this time Queen Catherine died; she always bore her affliction with the greatest patience, and just before her death, wrote to the King- in terms which would melt the hardest heart (31). The vengeance of the Almighty was now impending over Anna Boleyn, the first cause of so much misery and woe. Henry’s affection was now very much cooled towards her, especially as he became enamoured of one of her maids of honour, Jane Seymour. Anna still had some hopes of regaining his affection, by presenting him with a male heir, but in this she was disappointed, the child was still-born; then her misfortunes commenced; she was accused of incest with her brother, George Boleyn, and of criminal conversation with four other gentlemen of the Court.
Henry refused at first to believe the charge, but his jealousy was raised, and his love for Jane Seymour contributing, likewise, to her ruin, she was committed to the Tower at once. Bossuet informs, us that Henry called on Cranmer to declare now, that his marriage with Anna was invalid from the beginning, and Elizabeth, his daughter, illegitimate, since Anna was married to him during the lifetime of Lord Percy, then Earl of Northumberland, between whom and Anna, it was asserted there was a contract of marriage. But this charge was unfounded; there was not even a promise between them; the only foundation for the assertion was, that Percy was at one time anxious to marry her; for all, she was condemned to death for adultery, and the sentence was, that she should be burned or beheaded, at the King’s pleasure. She begged to be allowed to speak to the King, but was refused; all the favour she could obtain was, that she should be beheaded; this sentence was carried into execution, and her brother, likewise, and the four gentlemen accused of being her paramours, underwent the same fate. On the day of her execution, the lieutenant of the Tower remarked to her, by way of consolation, that she would not suffer much, as the executioner was very expert; she smilingly answered : ” My neck is very slender.” The day after, Henry married Jane Seymour (32).
10. He again convoked Parliament on the 7th of June, 1536, and had the law passed in favour of Elizabeth, to the exclusion of Mary, daughter of Queen Catherine, repealed, and the six Articles were passed for the regulation of religious affairs in the kingdom. The First was, that the Transubstantiation of the bread into the body of Christ in the Eucharist, was an article of Faith. Second That communion should be given under one kind. Third That the Celibacy of the Clergy should be observed. Fourth That the vow of chastity was binding. Fifth That the celebration of the Mass was in conformity with the Divine Law, and that private Masses were not only useful, but necessary. Sixth That auricular confession should be strictly practised.
All these articles were confirmed by the ing, and both houses, and the penalties imposed on heretics applied to all who would either believe or teach doctrines in opposition to them (33). The primacy of the King, however, was left intact, so Henry, using his new power, appointed Cromwell, though a mere layman, his Vicar-General in Spirituals for the entire kingdom, and ordained that he should preside at all the Synods of the Bishops (34). When Paul III. was informed of all these sacrilegious attempts on the integrity of Faith, and especially of the affair of St. Thomas of Canterbury, who was tried and condemned as a traitor to his country (35), and his sacred body disinterred, burned, and the ashes thrown into the Thames, he published a brief on the 1st of January, 1538, ordering that the sentence before passed against Henry should be published (36). It was, however, delayed on account of the melancholy death of Queen Jane, who died in childbirth, leaving Henry an heir, afterwards Edward VI., under whom the ruin of England was completed, as in his time, heresy was firmly rooted in the country. It is said (but the report does not rest, I believe, on a good foundation), that when Henry found that there was danger of the child being lost, he ordered an operation to be performed on the mother, saying he could get wives enough, but not heirs (37).
11. On the death of Jane Seymour, Henry immediately began to look about for his fourth wife, and Paul III., hoping to bring him to a sense of his duty, wrote him a letter in which he told him of the sentence of excommunication hanging over him, which he did not promulgate, having still hopes that he would be reconciled with the Church; at the same time, he created Reginald Pole a Cardinal, and sent him to France as his Legate, that he might endeavour to arrange a marriage between Henry and Margaret, the daughter of Francis I. of France. Cardinal Pole accordingly went to France, and arranged the matter with Francis, but Henry would not agree to it, and he wrote to Francis, telling him that Pole was a rebel, and requiring Francis to deliver him up to him. This Francis refused to do, but he told the Cardinal the danger he was in, and by his advice he quitted France. Henry, disappointed in his vengeance, laid a price of fifty thousand crowns on his head (38).
12. Cromwell (not Oliver the President) now thought it a good opportunity to induce the King to take a wife on his recommendation, and bring him over to his own Religion, which was Lutheran (39). He then proposed as a wife to him Anne, daughter of the Duke of Cleves, head of one of the noblest families in Germany, sister of the Electress of Saxony. Anne had a great many good qualities which would fit her for a crown, but she was, unfortunately, a Lutheran, and her relations were the chiefs of the League of Smalcald. Of this League Henry was anxious to be admitted a member, but the Lutherans had not confidence in him, and he then imagined that by marrying a Lutheran Princess he would remove any difficulties which previously existed to his admission. The marriage was celebrated, to Henry’s great joy, on the 3rd of January, 1540, and Cromwell was made High Chancellor on the occasion, and Earl of Essex. Henry was only seven months married when, as usual, he publicly declared himself discontented with his Queen, especially as she was a heretic, as if he could be called a Catholic. He now became enamoured of Catherine Howard, niece of the Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal of England, and one of the maids of honour to Queen Anne, and seeing no hopes of obtaining her favour unless he married her, he called on Cromwell to assist him now again to get divorced from Anne of Cleves. Cromwell had embarked his fortunes in the same boat with the Queen; he dreaded that her divorce would be the cause of his fall, and he refused most determinedly to have any hand in it. Henry, displeased with his obstinacy, eagerly sought an occasion to ruin him, and was not long in finding it. The chiefs of the Protestant League sent their agents to London to conclude with Henry the alliance he was before so desirous of, but as he was now determined to repudiate Anne, he had no longer any wish to league himself with the Lutherans, so he refused to treat with the agents; but Cromwell, confiding in his favour, took on himself to sign the treaty.
Some say that Henry was privy to this act, but this is denied by others; however it was, the upshot of the affair was the disgrace of Cromwell, for when the Emperor loudly complained of the alliance, Henry swore that he had no cognizance of it. He sent for Cromwell one day, and in presence of many of the nobility, charged him publicly with signing a treaty for which, he had no authority, and ordered him immediately to be conducted to the Tower. Cromwell begged hard for a public trial, to give him an opportunity of justifying his conduct in the affair, but as, independently of that charge, he was convicted of other crimes heresy, peculation, and illegal impositions he, who was the cause of so many Catholics being condemned without a hearing, was, by the just judgment of the Almighty, condemned himself, and was decapitated, quartered, and his property confiscated (40). Henry now had the Queen informed that unless she consented to a divorce he would have the laws against heretics put in force against her, she being a Lutheran. Dreading the fate that awaited her, from his known cruelty, and wishing to avoid also the shame of a public repudiation, she confessed, it is said, that previous to her marriage with the King she was promised to .another; so Thomas Cranmer, who gave the sentence of divorce in the cases of Catherine and of Anna Boleyn, now for the third time pronounced a similar sentence. The decision was based on the greatest injustice, for the contract of marriage between Anne and the Duke of Lorraine, on which it was founded, took place while they were both children, and was never ratified. How, then, could Henry’s solemn marriage be affected by this ? But Cranmer, whom Burnet compares to St. Athanasius and St. Cyril, decided that it was null and void, merely to please Henry, who immediately married another. Queen Anne accepted a pension of 3,000 a-year, but never returned to Germany again (41).
13. Within a week Henry was married to Catherine Howard, who soon met the same fate as Anna Boleyn. She was charged before Parliament with dissolute conduct with two individuals, before her marriage, and with adultery since, and was condemned to be beheaded (42). Henry then got a law passed, the like of which was never before heard of, enacting it high treason for any lady to marry the King, if previously she had ever offended against chastity (43). He then married Catherine Parr, sister to the Earl of Essex (44); she survived him, but having married the brother of the Regent Somerset, Thomas Seymour, Lord High Admiral of England, who suffered death by the sentence of his own brother, she died of a broken heart.
14. Death, at last, was about to put an end to Henry’s crimes; he was now fifty-seven years of age, and had grown to such an enormous size that he could not almost pass through the doorway of his palace, and was obliged to be carried by servants up and down stairs (45). A deep-rooted sadness and remorse now seized him; all his crimes, sacrileges, and scandals stared him in the face. To establish the sacrilegious doctrine of his primacy over the English Church he had put to death two Cardinals, three Archbishops, eighteen Bishops and Archdeacons, five hundred priests, sixty Superiors of religious houses, fifty Canons, twenty-nine peers, three hundred and sixty-six knights, and an immense number both of the gentry and people. Ulcers in one of his legs, together with fever, now plainly told him that his end was nigh, and some writers assert that he then spoke to some of the Bishops of his intention of being again reconciled to the Church, but not one among them had the courage to tell him plainly the course he should take. All dreaded his anger; and none were willing to brave the danger of death, by plainly telling him that his only chance of salvation was to repent of his evil deeds to repair the scandal he had given and humbly return to the Church he had abandoned. No one was courageous enough to tell him this; one alone suggested to him that he ought to convoke parliament, as he had done when about to make the changes, to set things again to rights. He ordered, it is said, the Secretaries of State to convoke it, but they feared they should be obliged to disgorge the plunder of the Church, and put off the convocation, and thus he left the Church in the greatest confusion; and soon, as we shall see, irreparable ruin overtook it (46).
15. Just before Henry’s death he opened a church belonging to the Franciscans, and had Mass again said in it (now Christ Church Hospital), but this was but little reparation for so much mischief. He then made his will, leaving his only son, Edward, heir to the throne, then only nine years of age, appointing sixteen guardians to him, ordering that he should be brought up in the Catholic Faith, but never resign the primacy of the English Church, so that he was unchanged even in death. In case that Edward died without issue, he left the crown to Mary, daughter of Queen Catherine, and should she likewise die without issue, to Elizabeth, daughter of Anna Boleyn (47). He caused Mass to be celebrated several times in his chamber, and wished that the Viaticum should be administered to him in the one kind alone. When the Viaticum was brought in he received it kneeling, and when it was told him, that, considering the state he was in, that was unnecessary, he said : ” If I could bury myself under the earth, I could not show sufficient respect to the God I am about to receive” (48). How could he, however, expect to please the Almighty by such acts of reverence, after trampling on his Church, and dying out of her communion? He endeavoured, by these external acts, to quiet that remorse of conscience he felt, but, withal, he could not recover the Divine grace, nor the peace he sought. He called for some Religious to attend him at his last moments, after banishing them out of the kingdom (49); he next called for something to drink, and having tasted it he said to those around him, in a loud tone, ” So this is the end of it, and all is lost for me,” and immediately expired. He died on the 1st of February, 1547, at the age of fifty-six, according to Noel Alexander, or in his fifty-seventh year, according to others, and in the thirty-eighth year of his reign (50).
(1) Jovet. Storia della Relig. t. 2, dal. prin. i Gotti, Ver. Re. c. 113, s. 1.
(2) Sand, de Schism, Anglic, in Pro.
(3) Gotti, c. 113, 8 . 2, n. 1, 2; Herm. Hist. Conc. c. 166.
(4) Gotti, loc. cit. n. 2.
(5) Bossuet, His. des Variat. t. 2, 1. 7, n. 1.
(6) Nat. Alex. Hist, t. 19, c. 13, a. 3, n. 1; Gotti, c. 213, s. 2, n. 6.
(7) Gotti, . 2, n. 3.
(8) Boss. al. cit. l. 7, n. 61.
(9) Floremund, l. 6, Synop. c. 2, n. 2; Gotti, c. 113, s. 2, n. 8, 9, 10; Nat. Alex. loc. cit. n. 1
(10) Gotti, n. 9.
(11) Nat. Alex. cit. n. 1, Varillas 1st. t. 1, l. 9, p. 412.
(12) Nat. Alex. t. 19, art. r, n. 2.
(13) Gotti, c. 113, sec. 2, n. 13, in fin. & Nat. Alex. loc. cit. n. 2.
(14) Jovet, t. 2, p. 29; Gotti, sec. 2, n. 14.
(15) Bossuet l. 7, n, 9.
(16) Nat. Alex.. t. 19, c. 13, a. 3, n. 2; Gotti, loc. cit.
(17) Gotti, c. 113, sec. 2, n. 15.
(18) Nat. Alex. t. 19, c. 13, a. 3, n. 3.
(19) Gotti, sec. 2, n 16; Varillas, t. 1, l. 9, n. 420.
(20) Gotti, sec. 2, n. 17.
(21) Nat. Alex. loc. cit, n. 3; Gotti, loc. cit.
(22) Nat. Alex. Loc. cit.; Gotti, c. 113, sec. 2, n. 18; Bossuet, Variat. l . 7, n. 21.
(23) Nat. Alex. art. 3, n. 4; Gotti, sec. 2, n. 20.
(24) Gotti, loc. cit.
(25 ) Nat. Alex, t, 19, c. 13, n. 3, n. 5; Gotti, c. 113, sec. 2, n. 21.
(26) Gotti, n. 22; Nat. Alex. loc. cit. n. 5.
(27) Bossuet His. l. 7, n. 11.
(28) Sand. l. 1, dc Schis. Ang.p. 135; Gotti, sec. 2, n. 22.
(29) Sand. & Gotti, loc. cit. n. 23.
(30) Gotti, c. 113, s. 2, n. 24; Nat, Alex. t. 19, r. 13, art, 3, n. 6.
(31) Sander, l. 1, p. 107, 112; Gotti, s. 3, n. 25; Nat. Alex. loc. cit.
(32)Varill. l. 9, p. 423; Gotti, s. 2, n. 26; Hermant, c. 200; Nat. Alex. cit. n. 6; Bossuet, Hist. l. 7, n. 21, 22, 23.
(33) Bossuet Hist. L 7, n. 33; Nat. Alex. t. 19, art. 3, n. 7; Gotti, s. 2, art. 27
(34) Varill. t. 1, I. 12, p. 544.
(35) Varil. t. 1, c. 11, p. 515; Nat. Alex. loc. cit. n. 8.
(36) Gotti, s. 2, n. 23.
(37) Varil. p. 306; Nat. Alex. loc. cit;Gotti, s. 2, n. 2.
(38) Varill. t. 11, p, 507, et scq.
(39) Varill. t. 1, l. 12, p. 551
(40) Varillas, t. 1, l. 12, p. 53; Nat, Alex. c. 23, a. 3, n. 7; Bossuet, l. 7, n, 34.
(41) Varill loc. cit. ;>. 675; Bossuet, loc. cit.
(42) Gotti, s. 2, n. 29; Hermant, t. 2, c. 266; Nat. Alex. loc. cit. n. 7.
(43) Varill. loc. cit. p. 575.
(44) Varill. t. 2,I 13, . 575; Nat. Alex. a. 3, n. 7.
(45) Varill. t. 2,1. 16 p.98
(46) Varillas, loc. cit. p. 99.
(47) Gotti, s. 2, n. 31; Varillas, t. 2, p. 99.
(48) Nat. Alex. a. 3, n. 9; Gotti, s. 2,n. 30; Varillas, loc. cit.
(49) Bart. 1st d’Inghil. l. 1, c. 1, p 4.
(50) Natal, loc. cit.; Varill. p. 100; Bartol. p. 3.
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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CHAPTER XII. THE HERESIES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY-(CONTINUED)
II.- REIGN OF EDWARD VI
16. The Duke of Somerset, as Guardian of Edward VI, governs the kingdom.
17. He declares himself a heretic, and gives leave to the heretics to preach; invites Bucer, Vermigli, and Ochino to England, and abolishes the Roman Catholic Religion.
18. He beheads his brother, the Lord High Admiral.
19. He is beheaded himself.
20. Death of Edward; the Earl of Warwick makes an attempt to get possession of the kingdom, and is beheaded, but is converted, and dies an edifying death.
16. Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, was one of the guardians appointed by Henry to his son; he was maternal uncle to the young King, being brother to Jane Seymour, his mother. Although he passed all along as a Catholic, he was a Zuinglian, and as the majority of Edward’s guardians were Catholics, he intrigued with some of the principal nobility of the kingdom, and pointed out how dangerous it would be to their interests that the young King should be left in the hands of those gentlemen; that the consequence would be that they should have, sooner or later, to surrender again the Ecclesiastic property given them by Henry; that the suppressed and ruined churches should be again repaired and rebuilt, to the great impoverishing of the Royal treasury; and that the only way to avoid such evils was that he should be made Governor of the kingdom. He craftily suppressed Henry’s will, and substituted another, in which Edward was declared head of the Church of England, and he was appointed Regent; he then got himself created Duke of Somerset, and took the title of Protector of the Kingdom (1).
17. No sooner had he got the supreme power into his hands, as Protector, than he at once took off the mask, proclaimed himself a Protestant, and appointed preachers to disseminate the heresy. He prohibited the Bishops from preaching, or ordaining, without the King’s permission, and he then refused permission to any one to preach, unless to the Zuinglian Ministers.
Among the rest the impious Cranmer, pseudo Archbishop of Canterbury, now began publicly to preach against the Catholic Church, and published a Catechism filled with the most wicked doctrines against the Faith, and was not ashamed to marry publicly, with the approbation of the Regent, a woman who lived with him as concubine before he was made Bishop (2). Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Winchester but deposed from his See for preaching, in London, against the Real Presence was now appointed, by Somerset, principal preacher of the Zuinglian errors. He invited, at the same time, from Strasbourg, three famous ministers of Satan, apostate Religious, well known through all Europe Martin Bucer, now seventy years of age, and three times married; Peter Martyr, and Bernard Ochin and appointed them to Professors Chairs in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, to poison the minds of the poor youths studying there, and he banished every Catholic Professor out of these Colleges.
To complete the work of iniquity, he appointed, as tutors to the young King, Richard Crock, a priest, who violated his vows, by marrying, and John Check, a layman of debauched life fit instructors for a young Prince in vice and heresy (3). He tried, by sending Bucer, Peter Martyr, and Ochino, to Mary, to induce her to forsake the Church, like wise (4); but she showed such determined opposition, that he never tried it again. His next step was to abolish the six Articles of Henry VIII., and on the 5th of November, 1547, he obtained the sanction of Parliament, for abolishing the Roman Catholic Religion, the Mass, the veneration of Sacred Images, and for the confiscation of the sacred vessels and ornaments of the altar (5); and thus, under him, the whole plan of Religion established by Henry and the Parliament (N. 10), six Articles, and all, were done away with. Here we naturally wonder how so many Bishops and Theologians could establish, in Henry’s reign, a form of worship of such little value, as to be abolished almost immediately on his death. Burnet says, that these Theologians were ignorant of the truth. Behold, then, the reformed Faith, called by him ” The Work of Light.” They sanctioned articles of Faith without having a knowledge of the truth.
The Reformation may, indeed, be called a work of darkness, since it upset Faith, Religion, and all Divine and human laws, in England (6). Somerset next ordained, that Communion should be administered under both kinds that the Scriptures should be generally read in the vulgar tongue and that all Bishops, or other Ecclesiastics, refusing obedience to this order, should be sent to prison, and deprived of their benefices, and Reformers installed in their places (7). In this he followed the advice of Calvin, who wrote him a long letter from Geneva on the subject, advising him to abolish the Catholic Religion by persecution; and the prisons of London were, accordingly, filled with suspected Catholics. At this period, three-fourths of the clergy had shaken off the law of celibacy (8).
18. Such were the crimes of the Duke of Somerset against the Church; but the Divine vengeance soon overtook him, in a most unexpected manner (9). He had raised his brother, Thomas Seymour, to the dignity of Lord High Admiral of the Kingdom, and this nobleman had gained the affection of Henry’s last Queen, Catherine Parr, and had his consent to the marriage. This was highly displeasing, however, to the Duchess of Somerset, as, in case of his marriage with Catherine, she should resign to her the precedence which she enjoyed, as wife of the Protector, and, though she yielded to the Queen Dowager, she was unwilling to take rank beneath her sister-in-law; and thus a quarrel was commenced between the ladies, in which their husbands were soon engaged. John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, was an enemy to both parties, and bent on their destruction; and, to accomplish it with greater certainly, he pretended to be a mediator, while he dexterously encouraged the strife between them, and succeeded so well, that Somerset engaged Sharington to accuse his brother of high treason. He appeared to be highly displeased when the accusation was first made; but then he alleged that the King’s life and honour were more dear to him than his brother’s life, and he gave orders to proceed with his trial.
The Admiral was condemned, and executed on the 20th of March, 1549. His lady, Queen Catherine, according to some, died of a broken heart; but we believe that she had previously died in childbirth (10).
19. On the death of the Admiral, Earl Warwick was entire master of Somerset’s mind; he wound him round as he pleased, and had sufficient interest to appoint friends of his own to several important places, by which he laid the foundation of the Duke’s ruin. He strengthened his party, besides, by the adhesion of the Catholic lords very numerous still who were persuaded by him, that there was no hope of reestablishing the Catholic Religion while Somerset was in power. About the same time, the English lost Boulogne, in the ancient province of Picardy, and the Regent was severely censured, for not having sent reinforcements in time, to save it from the French. Several of the barons and nobility, likewise, had enclosed commonages, in different parts of the kingdom, to the great grievance of the people, who looked to the Regent for redress, and not obtaining it, broke out into rebellion, and Warwick got the Parliament convoked. He had a very strong party in both houses, so the Regent was attainted, and sent to the Tower, and was executed on the 22nd of January, 1552, and both Catholics and Protestants rejoiced at his death (11).
20. The Earl of Warwick having now disposed of all his rivals, took the administration of affairs even during Edward’s lifetime into his own hands, and got another step in the Peerage, being created Duke of Northumberland; and not satisfied with all this, prevailed on the King to leave his crown, by will, to his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey, daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, excluding Mary, daughter of Queen Catherine, as she was declared illegitimate in the reign of Henry VIII, and Elizabeth, as daughter of the adultress, Anna Boleyn.
Edward died soon after, in the sixteenth year of his age, on the 7th of July, 1553, and Northumberland, it is said, immediately gave orders that Mary should be secured; but his secretary, a Catholic, thought it too bad that the heiress of the crown should be thus deprived of her right, and he escaped from his master, and arrived in Mary’s presence two hours sooner than the person the Duke sent to arrest her (12). Mary immediately fled to Norfolk, where the people showed their attachment to her cause, by taking up arms in her defense. She collected an army of fifteen thousand men, and though Northumberland marched against her with thirty thousand, he was deserted by most of them (some say he never had more than six thousand in the beginning), and returned to London; but the citizens would not now admit him, and the fleet, likewise, declared for Mary. When Queen Mary was settled in the government, Northumber land was indicted for high treason, and, as there was no doubt of his guilt, he was condemned and executed. His sons suffered, likewise, and his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey, Henry’s niece, who wore the crown for ten days against her will, paid the penalty of her treason on the scaffold. Elizabeth was, likewise, kept in custody on suspicion. Northumberland had embraced Protestantism merely from political motives, but now he returned again to the Faith, confessed to a Priest, and declared on the scaffold, that it was merely the ambition of obtaining the crown for his family that caused him to dissemble his Faith, and that he looked on his punishment now a grace of God to procure his salvation. His sons and others, executed for the same crime, made a similar declaration. It is melancholy to see in this history so many persons condemned to death for trying to elevate themselves above their sphere, and England become immediately on her loss of the Faith a field of slaughter for her children (13).
(1) Varillas, Istor. t. 2, p. 100; Nat. Alex. t. 19, c. 13, a. 4; Hermant, 1st. t. 2, c. 267; Gotti, Ver. Rel. c. 114, s. 1, n. 1.
(2) Varillas, loc. cit. p. 101; Gotti, loc. cit. n. 2; Hermant, c. 267
(3) Varillas, t. 2, I. 17, p. 105, & seq.; Nat. Alex. art. 4.
(4) Varillas, l. 17, p. 116. .
(5) Bossuet, n. 90.
(6) Bossuet, t. -2, l. 7, n. 96.
(7) Gotti, loc. cit. sec. 1, n. 3; Nat. Alex. loc. cit.; Bossuet Hist. l. 7, n. 86.
(8) Varillas, I 17, p. 126.
(9) Varillas, loc. cit. . 126, coll. 2.
(10) Varillas, l. 17, p. 120.
(11) Varillas, t. 2, l. 17, p;. 131, & l. 20, p . 1.
(12) Varillas, t. 2, l. 20, p. 208.
(13) Varillas, l. 20, p;. 209, a. 211; Nat. Alex. t. 19, c. 13, art. 5; Gotti, c. 114, sec. 1, n. 4; Hermant, c. 208.
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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