French Reformation

“ This edict was prodigal of the most cruel penalties; but, at least, the foot of the inquisitor did not contaminate the soil of France.
XII.
This same year, 1560, so full of violence and blood, witnessed a new step of the French Reformation—the establishment of public worship. This was in the nature of things. When towns, and nearly entire provinces, had embraced the faith of the Reformers, secret meetings became impossible. A whole people does not shut itself up in forests and caverns to invoke its God. From whom, moreover, should it hide itself? From itself? ”

“ This close connexion between the Reformation and the revival of learning was, on the whole, a great gain to France. It was not as in Germany, where the stronger growth of the Reformation completely choked the other. In France they met on almost equal terms, and the result was that the whole movement was thereby strengthened and elevated both intellectually and morally. ... French humanism can boast of a long roll of names honourable not only for their high attainments, but also for their integrity and purity of life. ”

“ In all these countries the hope of sharing in the plunder of the Church had a much greater influence in determining the attitude of both rulers and nobles than their zeal for reform, as the leaders of the so-called Reformation had soon good reason to recognise and to deplore. ”

“ Before the first quarter of the sixteenth century closed, France had received a great gift from Italy, which profoundly modified, but by no means effaced, the characteristics of her national genius. The Reformation was a recovery of Christian antiquity and of Hebraism, and for a time the religious movement made common cause with the Renaissance; but the grave morals, the opposition of grace to nature, and the dogmatic spirit of theology after a time alienated the Reforming party from the mere humanism of literature and art. ”

“ France who saw through the whole matter at once: "You have your interests of the Reformation, as we have ours of the revolution."
It is a matter in which I have no interest but that of truth. I have given not as a polemic, but as a humble narrator, an account of my motives and reasons for adopting as truth that which has been believed as such by the bulk and great majority of the Christian world in all nations and in all ages, from the foundation of Christianity. ”

“ It is surely to be charged to the inadequate and wretched hands into which the work of reformation fell, and not to the impossibility of amending the civil and religious institutions of France, that all has succeeded so ill. ”

“ The Reformation of the sixteenth century is the greatest event of modern times. It has remodelled everything in Protestant countries; and has modified almost everything in Roman Catholic countries—religious and moral doctrines, ecclesiastical and civil institutions, the arts and sciences, in such sort that it is impossible to advance a step in the investigation of an idea, or a fact whatsoever, without meeting this immense work face to face. The Reformation marks the starting-point of a new world: God alone knows its development and its end. ”

“ It is absurd to say that the revolution of the sixteenth century was a reformation, if by that it is meant that it re-established the primitive doctrines of Christianity, purified the morals of the people, or gave birth to a better ecclesiastical government, it did no such thing. ”

“ As the great interest of the Middle Ages, in an historical point of view, centres around the throne of the popes, so the most prominent subject of historical interest in our modern times is the revolt from their almost unlimited domination. The Protestant Reformation, in its various relations, was a movement of transcendent importance. The history of Christendom, in a moral, a political, a religious, a literary, and a social point of view, for the last three hundred years, cannot be studied or comprehended without primary reference to that memorable revolution. ”

“ Such was not, however, destined to be the fate of the Reformation in France, and far from being the arbiters of the fortunes of their native land, and the regenerators of Italy and Spain, the Reformed people have been reduced to become humble suitors to the State for an eleemosynary pittance to support their pastors. We cannot doubt that their condition will ultimately improve ”

“ If, in the early part of this century, the Reformation was as yet without great leaders, it was not, nevertheless, amongst only the laborers, the humble and the poor, that it found confessors and martyrs. ”

“ With the single exception of the period which covers the introduction and first marvellous triumphs of Christianity, the Reformation of the sixteenth century must be owned as perhaps the greatest and most glorious revolution in the history of the human race. ”

“ In studying the history of the Reformation in England, nothing is more necessary than to keep its different stages distinct from one another. We are too apt to think of the Reformation as if it had been all one process, or at least as if some person or persons had deliberately set it going, with a distinct perception of the results to which it was to lead, and had consciously adapted the means employed to the production of those results. ”

“ Greater men than he deny that grace underlies the whole original movement of the reformers, and they talk of the Reformation as a mere revolt from Rome, as a war against papal corruption, as a protest against monkery and the dark ages, brought about by the spirit of a new age, the onward march of humanity, the necessary progress of society. ”

“ History, it is true, does repeat itself, but not on precisely identical lines, and the newer Reformation will be the disestablishment and disendowment of an unworthy Church, and free-trade in religion. ”

“ But if, instead of all this circumspection, the Reformation had advanced with courage, had wholly unveiled the Word of God, and had made an energetic appeal to the sympathies of reform then spread in men's hearts, would it not have taken a stronger and more honourable position, and would it not have secured more extensive conquests? ”

“ That the sixteenth century belongs wholly to the Protestant Reformation; that that Reformation is its centre, its heart, its vital principle; that everything of that period—theology, letters, science, art, the discoveries of human genius, political and military power—all came of the Reformation. ”

“ Involuntarily, unconsciously, unwillingly, every government found that the Reformation formed part of its scheme and policy. One nation, and one only, had the clear eye and firm hand to make it ostensibly, and of its deliberate choice, the guide and landmark in its dangerous and finally triumphant career. ”

“ If the spirit they obeyed, or the principle to which they yielded, led them or pushed them step by step in the way of destruction, to the total denial of the authority of the church, or to transfer it from the pope and hierarchy to Cæsar or the laity, which we know was universally the fact, it is clear proof that the spirit or principle of the Reformation was radical, revolutionary, destructive, not conservative. ”

“ The strenuous endeavours put forth by the Roman Catholic church to restrict within the narrowest limits possible the victorious course of the Reformation, and so far as might be to reconquer lost ground, bulk so largely in its sixteenth century movement, that we may review that entire era in its history from the standpoint of the counter-reformation. ”

“ The great ideas of the Reformation began now to agitate the mind of England,—not so much the logical doctrines of Calvin as the emancipating ideas of Luther. The Renaissance had begun, and the two movements were incorporated,—the religious one of Germany and the Pagan one of Italy, both favoring liberality of mind, a freer style of literature, restless inquiries, enterprise, the revival of learning and art, an intense spirit of progress, and disgust for the Dark Ages and all the dogmas of scholasticism. ”

“ Again, some readers may be ready to accuse us of placing the Roman Catholics of those times in too favourable a light. We can only reply that the same undoubted authorities have guided our pen. We will yield to no man in our attachment to Protestant principles, nor in our estimation of their paramount truth and value. We regard the liberation of mind effected by the Reformation as the source of all our present blessings, and our national preeminence. ”

“ From Romish night to the light of justification by faith, possessed among Protestant sects generally since the sixteenth century reformation, had been a great step upward. Also the Wesleyan reformation, bringing in the light of perfect holiness as a Christian attainment subsequent to regeneration, marked an advance for the truth in its progress by stages unto the end of time. There needed to be yet another step, another reformation, which should bring the church to her fulness of glory, and visualize her unity and solidarity. ”

“ The teachings, claims, and crimes native to Rome, nay, even the imported refinements of the arts and letters and elegancies of Paganism did what legions of full-blown Luthers could not have done.
The Reformation, with its complex causes, its complex methods, its complex products, is, more than other great movements, brimful of matter for observation, thought, and inference. ”

“ When the Protestant Reformation came, it brought with it a manly Theology. It put the Bible into all men's hands, and asserted for each the right of private judgment and liberty of conscience. Therefore the Reformation was the cause of a great forward movement in human affairs. ”

“ The breaking of the old Catholic synthesis, narrow but admirable within its limits, took place at what we call the Renascence and Reformation; the linking up of a new one is the task of our own and many later generations. ”

“ It is clear that the movement of the Reformation in the sixteenth century was one of those spontaneous and powerful movements which have their source and derive their strength from the condition of men’s souls and of whole communities, and not merely from the personal ambitions and interests which soon come and mingle with them, whether it be to promote or to retard them. ”

“ If, during the last century, more than one philosopher gave intimation of the revolution with which it was to close, can we be astonished, that, at the end of the fifteenth century, several doctors foresaw the impending Reformation which was to renovate the Church? ”

“ The act which commenced with the Protestant Reformation is nearly played out, and a wider and a deeper change than that effected three centuries ago—a reformation, or rather a revolution of thought, the extremes of which are represented by the intellectual heirs of John of Leyden, and of Ignatius Loyola, rather than by those of Luther and of Leo—is waiting to come on, nay, visible behind the scenes to those who have good eyes. ”

“ The Reformers were reinstated in the possession of their places of worship, their cemeteries, and the exercise of their religion in the places they had before used, pending their return to the bosom of the (Roman) Catholic church, “in which,” adds Louis XIII., “for more than eleven hundred successive years, the kings, our predecessors, have lived without interruption or change; there being no possible way of so well testifying to the affection we bear them, than by desiring to find them in the same road of salvation that we keep and follow ourselves.” ”

“ When we remember the century and a half of wars, so largely excited by ecclesiastical motives, which desolated Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, few can withhold their sympathy from the Christian Humanist idea that the path of reformation lay through a great readjustment of the existing conditions of the religious life, rather than through ecclesiastical revolution to a thorough-going reconstruction ”

“ The abuses in the old church, the absurdity of many of its doctrines, the extravagance of its inquisition, necessarily revolted the tempers of men already half-won with the promise of a better light, and favorably disposed them towards the new doctrines. The charm of independence, the rich plunder of monastic institutions, made the Reformation attractive to the eyes of princes, and tended not a little to strengthen their inward convictions. ”

“ The Relation of the Reformation to the Renaissance.—The series of revolts from the Catholic Church, generally known collectively as the ‘Reformation,’ may be regarded as closely connected with the Renaissance. As shown in the last chapter, humanism in the North led to a renewed study of the Scriptures and a reform of ecclesiastical doctrines and abuses, and took on a moral and religious color. Reformers arose, like Wimpfeling and Erasmus, who, while remaining within the Church, sought to purify it of corruption and obscurantism. ”

“ The more we read of the history of past ages, the more we observe the signs of our own times, the more do we feel our hearts filled and swelled up by a good hope for the future destinies of the human race.
The history of the Reformation in England is full of strange problems. The most prominent and extraordinary phenomenon which it presents to us is the gigantic strength of the government contrasted with the feebleness of the religious parties. ”

“ The crisis of the Reformation is not less remarkable for its results than for its causes. The throwing off of the Roman supremacy, in doctrine and ecclesiastical government, was, in those countries in which it was permanently effected, a most complex proceeding. ”

“ Even the Reformation, that other great movement of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, had far less unity, far less of combined action, than is at first sight supposed; and the Renaissance was infinitely less united, less conscious of combined action, than the Reformation. ”