[720] Bibl. Choisie, vol. xxii.

[721] Biogr. Univ.

Chronology. Usher. 23. It would, of course, not be difficult to fill these pages with brief notices of other books that fall within the extensive range of classical antiquity. But we have no space for more than a mere enumeration, which would give little satisfaction. Chronology has received some attention in former volumes. Our learned archbishop Usher might there have been named, since the first part of his Annals of the Old Testament, which goes down to the year of the world 3828, was published in 1650. The second part followed in 1654. This has been the chronology generally adopted by English historians, as well as by Bossuet, Calmet, and Rollin, so that for many years it might be called the orthodox scheme of Europe. No former annals of the world had been so exact in marking dates and collating sacred history with profane. It was, therefore, exceedingly convenient for those who, possessing no sufficient leisure or learning for these inquiries, might very reasonably confide in such authority.

Pezron. 24. Usher, like Scaliger and Petavius, had strictly conformed to the Hebrew chronology in all scriptural dates. But it is well known that the Septuagint version, and also the Samaritan Pentateuch, differ greatly from the Hebrew and from each other, so that the age of the world has nearly 2,000 years more antiquity in the Greek than in the original text. Jerome had followed the latter in the Vulgate; and in the seventeenth century it was usual to maintain the incorrupt purity of the Hebrew manuscripts, so that when Pezron, in his Antiquité des Temps Devoilée, 1687, attempted to establish the Septuagint chronology, it excited a clamour in some of his church, as derogatory to the Vulgate translation. Martianay defended the received chronology, and the system of Pezron gained little favour in that age.[722] It has since become more popular, chiefly, perhaps, on account of the greater latitude it gives to speculations on the origin of kingdoms and other events of the early world, which are certainly somewhat cramped in the common reckoning. But the Septuagint chronology is not free from its own difficulties, and the internal evidence seems rather against its having been the original. Where two must be wrong, it is possible that all three may be so; and the most judicious inquirers into ancient history have of late been coming to the opinion, that, with some few exceptions, there are no means of establishing accurate dates before the Olympiads. While the more ancient history itself, even in leading and important events, is so precarious as must be acknowledged, there can be little confidence in chronological schemes. They seem, however, to be very seducing, so that those who enter upon the subject as sceptics become believers in their own theory.

[722] Biogr. Univ. arts. Pezron and Martianay. Bibliothèque Univ., xxiv., 103.

Marsham. 25. Among those who addressed their attention to particular portions of chronology, Sir John Marsham ought to be mentioned. In his Canon Chronicus Ægyptiacus, he attempted, as the learned were still more prone than they are now, to reconcile conflicting authorities without rejecting any. He is said to have first started the ingenious idea that the Egyptian dynasties, stretching to such immense antiquity, were not successive but collateral.[723] Marsham fell, like many others after him, into the unfortunate mistake of confounding Sesostris with Sesac. But in times when discoveries that Marsham could not have anticipated, were yet at a distance, he is extolled by most of those who had laboured, by help of the Greek and Hebrew writers alone, to fix ancient history on a stable foundation, as the restorer of the Egyptian annals.

[723] Biograph. Britannica. I have some suspicion that this will be found in Lydiat.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Decline of papal influence. 1. It has been observed in the last volume that while little or no decline could be perceived in the general church of Rome at the conclusion of that period which we then had before us, yet the papal authority itself had lost a part of that formidable character, which, through the Jesuits, and especially Bellarmin, it had some years before assumed. This was now still more decidedly manifest; the temporal power over kings was not, certainly, renounced, for Rome never retracts anything; nor was it, perhaps, without Italian Jesuits to write in its behalf; but the common consent of nations rejected it so strenuously, that on no occasion has it been brought forward by any accredited or eminent advocate. There was also a growing disposition to control the court of Rome; the treaty of Westphalia was concluded in utter disregard of her protest. But such matters of history do not belong to us, when they do not bear a close relation to the warfare of the pen. Some events there were which have had a remarkable influence on the theological literature of France, and indirectly of the rest of Europe.

Dispute of Louis XIV. with Innocent XI. 2. Louis XIV., more arrogant, in his earlier life, than bigoted, became involved in a contest with Innocent XI., by a piece of his usual despotism and contempt of his subjects’ rights. He extended in 1673 the ancient prerogative, called the regale, by which the king enjoyed the revenues of vacant bishoprics, to all the kingdom, though many Sees had been legally exempt from it. Two bishops appealed to the pope, who interfered in their favour more peremptorily than the times would permit. Innocent, it is but just to say, was maintaining the fair rights of the church, rather than any claim of his own. But the dispute took at length a different form. France was rich in prelates of eminent worth, and among such, as is evident, the Cisalpine theories had never lain dormant since the councils of Constance and Basle. Louis convened the famous assembly of the Gallican clergy in 1682. Bossuet, who is said to have felt some apprehensions lest the spirit of resistance should become one of rebellion, was appointed to open this assembly; and his sermon on that occasion is among his most splendid works. His posture was, indeed, magnificent: he stands forward, not so much the minister of religion as her arbitrator; we see him poise in his hands earth and heaven, and draw that boundary line which neither was to transgress; he speaks the language of reverential love towards the mother church, that of St. Peter, and the fairest of her daughters to which he belongs, conciliating their transient feud; yet, in this majestic tone which he assumes, no arrogance betrays itself, no thought of himself as one endowed with transcendant influence; he speaks for the church, and yet we feel that he raises himself above those for whom he speaks.[724]

[724] This sermon will be found in Œuvres de Bossuet, vol. ix.

Four articles of 1682. 3. Bossuet was finally entrusted with drawing up the four articles, which the assembly, rather at the instigation, perhaps, of Colbert than of its own accord, promulgated as the Gallican creed on the limitations of papal authority. These declare: 1. That kings are subject to no ecclesiastical power in temporals, nor can be deposed directly or indirectly by the chiefs of the church; 2. That the decrees of the council of Constance as to the papal authority are in full force and ought to be observed; 3. That this authority can only be exerted in conformity with the canons received in the Gallican church; 4. That, though the pope has the principal share in determining controversies of faith, and his decrees extend to all churches, they are not absolutely final, unless the consent of the catholic church be superadded. It appears that some bishops would have willingly used stronger language, but Bossuet foresaw the risk of an absolute schism. Even thus the Gallican church approached so nearly to it that, the pope refusing the usual bulls to bishops nominated by the king, according to the concordat, between thirty and forty Sees, at last, were left vacant. No reconciliation was effected till 1693, in the pontificate of Innocent XII. It is to be observed, whether the French writers slur this over or not, that the pope gained the honours of war; the bishops who had sat in the assembly of 1682, writing separately letters which have the appearance of regretting, if not retracting, what they had done. These were, however, worded with intentional equivocation; and as the court of Rome yields to none in suspecting the subterfuges of words, it is plain that it contented itself with an exterior humiliation of its adversaries. The old question of the regale was tacitly abandoned; Louis enjoyed all he had desired, and Rome might justly think herself not bound to fight for the privileges of those who had made her so bad a return.[725]

[725] I have derived most of this account from Bausset’s life of Bossuet, ii. Both the bishop and his biographer shuffle a good deal about the letter of the Gallican prelates in 1693. But when the Roman legions had passed under the yoke at the Caudine forks, they were ready to take up arms again.

Dupin on the ancient discipline. 5. The doctrine of the four articles gained ground perhaps in the church of France through a work of great boldness, and deriving authority from the learning and judgment of its author, Dupin. In the height of the contest, while many were considering how far the Gallican church might dispense with the institution of bishops at Rome, that point in the established system which evidently secured the victory to their antagonist, in the year 1686, he published a treatise on the ancient discipline of the church. It is written in Latin, which he probably chose as less obnoxious than his own language. It may be true, which I cannot affirm or deny, that each position in this work had been advanced before; but the general tone seems undoubtedly more adverse to the papal supremacy than any book which could have come from a man of reputed orthodoxy. It tends, notwithstanding a few necessary admissions, to represent almost all that can be called power or jurisdiction in the see of Rome as acquired, if not abusive, and would leave, in a practical sense, no real pope at all; mere primacy being a trifle, and even the right of interfering by admonition being of no great value, when there was no definite obligation to obey. The principle of Dupin is that the church having reached her perfection in the fourth century, we should endeavour, as far as circumstances will admit, to restore the discipline of that age. But, even in the Gallican church, it has generally been held that he has urged his argument farther than is consistent with a necessary subordination to Rome.[726]

[726] Bibliothèque Universelle, vi., 109. The book is very clear, concise, and learned, so that it is worth reading through by those who would understand such matters. I have not observed that it is much quoted by English writers.

Dupin’s Ecclesiastical Library. 6. In the same year, Dupin published the first volume of a more celebrated work, his Nouvelle Bibliothèque des Auteurs Ecclesiastiques, a complete history of theological literature, at least within the limits of the church, which, in a long series of volumes, he finally brought down to the close of the seventeenth century. It is unquestionably the most standard work of that kind extant, whatever deficiencies may have been found in its execution. The immense erudition requisite for such an undertaking may have rendered it inevitable to take some things at second hand, or to fall into some errors; and we may add other causes less necessary, the youth of the writer in the first volumes, and the rapidity with which they appeared. Integrity, love of truth, and moderation, distinguish this ecclesiastical history, perhaps beyond any other. Dupin is often near the frontier of orthodoxy, but he is careful, even in the eyes of jealous catholics, not quite to overstep it. This work was soon translated into English, and furnished a large part of such knowledge on the subject as our own divines possessed. His free way of speaking, however, on the Roman supremacy and some other points, excited the animadversion of more rigid persons, and among others of Bossuet, who stood on his own vantage-ground, ready to strike on every side. The most impartial critics have been of Dupin’s mind; but Bossuet, like all dogmatic champions Of orthodoxy, never sought truth by an analytical process of investigation, assuming his own possession of it as an axiom in the controversy.[727]

[727] Bibliothèque Universelle, iii. 39, vii. 335, xxii. 120. Biogr. Universelle. Œuvres de Bossuet, vol. xxx. Dupin seems not to have held the superiority of bishops to priests jure divino, which nettles our man of Meaux. Ces grands critiques sont peu favorables aux supériorités ecclésiastiques, et n’aiment guère plus celles des evêques que celle du pape, p. 491.

Fleury’s Ecclesiastical History. 7. Dupin was followed a few years afterwards by one not his superior in learning and candour (though deficient in neither), but in skill of narration and beauty of style, Claude Fleury. The first volume of his Ecclesiastical History came forth in 1691; but a part only of the long series falls within this century. The learning of Fleury has been said to be frequently not original; and his prolixity to be too great for an elementary historian. The former is only blameable when he has concealed his immediate authorities; few works of great magnitude have been written wholly from the prime sources; with regard to his diffuseness, it is very convenient to those who want access to the original writers, or leisure to collate them. Fleury has been called by some credulous and uncritical; but he is esteemed faithful, moderate, and more respectful or cautious than Dupin. Yet many of his volumes are a continual protest against the vices and ambition of the mediæval popes, and his Ecclesiastical History must be reckoned among the causes of that estrangement, in spirit and affection, from the court of Rome which leavens the literature of France in the eighteenth century.

His Dissertations. 8. The dissertations of Fleury, interspersed with his history, were more generally read and more conspicuously excellent. Concise, but neither dry nor superficial; luminous, yet appearing simple; philosophical without the affectation of profundity, seizing all that is most essential in their subject without the tediousness of detail or the pedantry of quotation; written, above all, with that clearness, that ease, that unaffected purity of taste, which belong to the French style of that best age, they present a contrast not only to the inferior writings on philosophical history with which our age abounds, but, in some respects, even to the best. It cannot be a crime that these dissertations contain a good deal which, after more than a century’s labour in historical inquiry, has become more familiar than it was.

Protestant Controversy in France. 9. The French protestants, notwithstanding their disarmed condition, were not, I apprehend, much oppressed under Richelieu and Mazarin. But soon afterwards an eagerness to accelerate what was taking place through natural causes, their return into the church, brought on a series of harassing edicts, which ended in the revocation of that of Nantes. During this time, they were assailed by less terrible weapons, yet such as required no ordinary strength to resist, the polemical writings of the three greatest men in the church of France, Nicole, Arnauld, and Bossuet. The two former were desirous to efface the reproaches of an approximation to Calvinism, and of a disobedience to the Catholic church, under which their Jansenist party was labouring. Nicole began with a small treatise, entitled La Perpétuité de la Foi de l’Eglise Catholique, touchant l’Eucharistie, in 1664. This aimed to prove that the tenet of transubstantiation had been constant in the church. Claude, the most able controvertist among the French protestants, replied in the next year. This led to a much more considerable work by Nicole and Arnauld conjointly, with the same title as the former; nor was Claude slow in combating his double-headed adversary. Nicole is said to have written the greater portion of this second treatise, though it commonly bears the name of his more illustrious colleague.[728]

[728] Biogr. Univ.

Bossuet’s exposition of Catholic faith. 10. Both Arnauld and Nicole were eclipsed by the most distinguished and successful advocate of the Catholic church, Bossuet. His Exposition de la Foi Catholique was written in 1668, for the use of two brothers of the Dangeau family; but having been communicated to Turenne, the most eminent protestant that remained in France, it contributed much to his conversion. It was published in 1671; and though enlarged from the first sketch, does not exceed eighty pages in octavo. Nothing can be more precise, more clear, or more free from all circuity and detail than this little book; everything is put in the most specious light; the authority of the ancient church, recognised by the majority of protestants, is alone kept in sight. Bossuet limits himself to doctrines established by the Council of Trent, leaving out of the discussion not only all questionable points, but, what is perhaps less fair, all rites and usages, however general, or sanctioned by the regular discipline of the church, except so far as formally approved by that council. Hence, he glides with a transient step over the invocation of saints and the worship of images, but presses with his usual dexterity on the inconsistencies and weak concessions of his antagonists. The Calvinists, or some of them, had employed a jargon of words about real presence, which he exposes with admirable brevity and vigour.[729] Nor does he gain less advantage in favour of tradition and church authority from the assumption of somewhat similar claims by the same party. It has often been alledged that the Exposition of Bossuet was not well received by many on his own side. And for this there seems to be some foundation, though the Protestant controvertists have made too much of the facts. It was published at Rome in 1678, and approved in the most formal manner by Innocent XI. the next year. But it must have been perceived to separate the faith of the church, as it rested on dry propositions, from the same faith living and embodied in the every-day worship of the people.[730]

[729] Bossuet observes that most other controversies are found to depend more on words than substance, and the difference becomes less the more they are examined; but in that of the eucharist the contrary is the case, since the Calvinists endeavour to accommodate their phraseology to the Catholics, while essentially they differ. Vol. xviii., p. 135.

[730] The writings of Bossuet against the Protestants occupy nine volumes, xviii.-xxvi., in the great edition of his works. Versailles, 1816. The Exposition de la Foi is in the eighteenth. Bausset, in his life of Bossuet, appears to have refuted the exaggerations of many Protestants as to the ill reception of this little book at Rome. Yet there was a certain foundation for it. See Bibliothèque Universelle, vol. xi., p. 455.

His conference with Claude. 11. Bossuet was now the acknowledged champion of the Roman church in France; Claude was in equal pre-eminence on the other side. These great adversaries had a regular conference in 1678. Mademoiselle de Duras, a protestant lady, like most others of her rank at that time, was wavering about religion, and in her presence the dispute was carried on. It entirely turned on church authority. The arguments of Bossuet differed only from those which have often been adduced by the spirit and conciseness with which he presses them. We have his own account which of course gives himself the victory. It was almost as much of course that the lady was converted; for it is seldom that a woman can withstand the popular argument on that side, when she has once gone far enough to admit the possibility of its truth by giving it a hearing. Yet Bossuet deals in sophisms which, though always in the mouths of those who call themselves orthodox, are contemptible to such as know facts as well as logic. “I urged,” he says, “in a few words what presumption it was to believe that we can better understand the word of God than all the rest of the church, and that nothing would thus prevent there being as many religions as persons.”[731] But there can be no presumption in supposing that we may understand anything better than one who has never examined it at all; and if this rest of the church, so magnificently brought forward, have commonly acted on Bossuet’s principle, and thought it presumptuous to judge for themselves; if out of many millions of persons a few only have deliberately reasoned on religion, and the rest have been, like true zeros, nothing in themselves, but much in sequence; if also, as is most frequently the case, this presumptuousness is not the assertion of a paradox or novelty, but the preference of one denomination of Christians, or of one tenet maintained by respectable authority to another, we can only scorn the emptiness, as well as resent the effrontery of this common-place that rings so often in our ears. Certainly, reason is so far from condemning a deference to the judgment of the wise and good, that nothing is more irrational than to neglect it; but when this is claimed for those whom we need not believe to have been wiser and better than ourselves, nay, sometimes whom without vain-glory we may esteem less, and that so as to set aside the real authority of the most philosophical, unbiassed, and judicious of mankind, it is not pride or presumption, but a sober use of our faculties that rejects the jurisdiction.

[731] Œuvres de Bossuet, xxiii., 290.

Correspondence with Molanus and Leibnitz. 12. Bossuet once more engaged in a similar discussion about 1691. Among the German Lutherans there seems to have been for a long time a lurking notion that on some terms or other a reconciliation with the church of Rome could be effected; and this was most countenanced in the dominions of Brunswick, and above all in the university of Helmstadt. Leibnitz himself and Molanus, a Lutheran divine, were the negotiators on that side with Bossuet. Their treaty, for such it was apparently understood to be, was conducted by writing; and when we read their papers on both sides, nothing is more remarkable than the tone of superiority which the catholic plenipotentiary, if such he could be deemed without powers from anyone but himself, has thought fit to assume. No concession is offered, no tenet explained away; the sacramental cup to the laity, and a permission to the Lutheran clergy already married to retain their wives after their re-ordination, is all that he holds forth; and in this, doubtless, he could have had no authority from Rome. Bossuet could not veil his haughty countenance, and his language is that of asperity and contemptuousness instead of moderation. He dictates terms of surrender as to a besieged city when the breach is already practicable, and hardly deigns to show his clemency by granting the smallest favour to the garrison. It is curious to see the strained constructions, the artifices of silence, to which Molanus has recourse in order to make out some pretence for his ignominious surrender. Leibnitz, with whom the correspondence broke off in 1693, and was renewed again in 1699, seems not quite so yielding as the other; and the last biographer of Bossuet suspects that the German philosopher was insincere or tortuous in the negotiation. If this were so, he must have entered upon it less of his own accord, than to satisfy the princess Sophia, who, like many of her family, had been a little wavering, till our act of settlement became a true settlement to their faith. This bias of the court of Hanover is intimated in several passages. The success of this treaty of union, or rather of subjection, was as little to be expected as it was desirable; the old spirit of Lutheranism was much worn out, yet there must surely have been a determination to resist so unequal a compromise. Rome negotiated as a conqueror with these beaten Carthaginians; yet no one had beaten them but themselves.[732]

[732] Œuvres de Bossuet, vols. xxv. and xxvi.

His Variations of Protestant Churches. 13. The warfare of the Roman church may be carried on either in a series of conflicts on the various doctrines wherein the reformers separated from her, or by one pitched battle on the main question of a conclusive authority somewhere in the church. Bossuet’s temper, as well as his inferiority in original learning, led him in preference to the latter scheme of theological strategy. It was also manifestly that course of argument which was most likely to persuade the unlearned. He followed up the blow which he had already struck against Claude in his famous work on the Variations of Protestant Churches. Never did his genius find a subject more fit to display its characteristic impetuosity, its arrogance, or its cutting and merciless spirit of sarcasm. The weaknesses, the inconsistent evasions, the extravagances of Luther, Zuingle, Calvin, and Beza pass, one after another, before us, till these great reformers seem like victim prisoners to be hewn down by the indignant prophet. That Bossuet is candid in statement, or even faithful in quotation, I should much doubt; he gives the words of his adversaries in his own French, and the references are not made to any specified edition of their voluminous writings. The main point, as he contends it to be, that the protestant churches (for he does not confine this to persons), fluctuated much in the sixteenth century, is sufficiently proved; but it remained to show that this was a reproach. Those who have taken a different view from Bossuet may perhaps think that a little more of this censure would have been well incurred; that they have varied too little rather than too much; and that it is far more difficult, even in controversy with the church of Rome, to withstand the inference which their long creeds and confessions, as well as the language too common with their theologians, have furnished to her more ancient and catholic claim of infallibility, than to vindicate those successive variations which are analogous to the necessary course of human reason on all other subjects. The essential fallacy of Romanism, that truth must ever exist visibly on earth, is implied in the whole strain of Bossuet’s attack on the variances of protestantism: it is evident that variance of opinion proves error somewhere; but unless it can be shown that we have any certain method of excluding it, this should only lead us to be more indulgent towards the judgment of others, and less confident of our own. The notion of an intrinsic moral criminality in religious error is at the root of the whole argument; and till protestants are well rid of this, there seems no secure mode of withstanding the effect which the vast weight of authority asserted by the Latin church, even where it has not the aid of the Eastern, must produce on timid and scrupulous minds.

Taylor’s Dissuasive. 15. Taylor’s Dissuasive from Popery was published in 1664; and in this, his latest work, we find the same general strain of protestant reasoning, the same rejection of all but scriptural authority, the same free exposure of the inconsistencies and fallacies of tradition, the same tendency to excite a sceptical feeling as to all except the primary doctrines of religion, which had characterised the Liberty of Prophesying. These are mixed, indeed, in Taylor’s manner, with a few passages (they are, I think, but few), which singly taken might seem to breathe not quite this spirit; but the tide flows for the most part the same way, and it is evident that his mind had undergone no change. The learning, in all his writings is profuse; but Taylor never leaves me with the impression that he is exact and scrupulous in its application. In one part of this Dissuasive from Popery, having been reproached with some inconsistency, he has no scruple to avow that in a former work he had employed weak arguments for a laudable purpose.[733]

[733] Taylor’s Works, x., 304. This is not surprising, as in his Ductor Dubitantium, xi., 484, he maintains the right of using arguments and authorities in controversy, which we do not believe to be valid.

Barrow.—Stillingfleet. 16. Barrow, not so extensively learned as Taylor, who had read rather too much, but inferior, perhaps, even in that respect to hardly any one else, and above him in closeness and strength of reasoning, combated against Rome in many of his sermons, and especially in a long treatise on the papal supremacy. Stillingfleet followed, a man deeply versed in ecclesiastical antiquity, of an argumentative mind, excellently fitted for polemical dispute, but perhaps by those habits of his life rendered too much of an advocate to satisfy an impartial reader. In the critical reign of James II., he may be considered as the leader on the protestant side; but Wake, Tillotson, and several more would deserve mention in a fuller history of ecclesiastical literature.

Jansenius. 17. The controversies always smouldering in the Church of Rome, sometimes breaking into flame, to which the Anti-Pelagian writings of Augustin had originally given birth, have been slightly touched in our former volumes. It has been seen that the rigidly predestinarian theories had been condemned by the court of Rome in Baius, that the opposite doctrine of Molina had narrowly escaped censure, that it was safest to abstain from any language not verbally that of the church, or of Augustin whom the church held incontrovertible. But now a more serious and celebrated controversy, that of the Jansenists, pierced, as it were, to the heart of the church. It arose before the middle of the century. Jansenius, bishop of Ypres, in his Augustinus, published, after his death, in 1640, gave, as he professed, a faithful statement of the tenets of that father. “We do not inquire,” he says, “what men ought to believe on the powers of human nature, or on the grace and predestination of God, but what Augustin once preached with the approbation of the church, and has consigned to writing in many of his works.” This book is in three parts: the first containing a history of the Pelagian controversy, the second and third an exposition of the tenets of Augustin. Jansenius does not, however, confine himself so much to mere analysis, but that he attacks the Jesuits Lessius and Molina, and even reflects on the bull of Pius V. condemning Baius, which he cannot wholly approve.[734]

[734] A very copious history of Jansenism, taking it up from the council of Trent, will be found in the fourteenth volume of the Bibliothèque Universelle, p. 139-398, from which Mosheim has derived most of what we read in his Ecclesiastical History. And the History of Port-Royal was written by Racine, in so perspicuous and neat a style, that, though we may hardly think with Olivet that it places him as high in prose writing as his tragedies do in verse, it entitles him to rank in the list, not a very long one, of those who have succeeded in both. Is it not probable, that in some scenes of Athalie he had Port-Royal before his eyes? The history and the tragedy were written about the same time. Racine, it is rather remarkable, had entered the field against Nicole in 1666, chiefly indeed to defend theatrical representations, but not without many sarcasms against Jansenism.

Condemnation of his Augustinus in France. 18. Richelieu, who is said to have retained some animosity against Jansenius on account of a book called Mars Gallicus, which he had written on the side of his sovereign the king of Spain, designed to obtain the condemnation of the Augustinus by the French clergy. The Jesuits, therefore, had gained ground so far that the doctrines of Augustin were out of fashion, though few besides themselves ventured to reject his nominal authority. It is certainly clear that Jansenius offended the greater part of the church. But he had some powerful advocates, and especially Antony Arnauld, the most renowned of a family long conspicuous for eloquence, for piety, and for opposition to the Jesuits. In 1649, after several years of obscure dispute, Cornet, syndic of the faculty of Theology in the University of Paris, brought forward for censure seven propositions, five of which became afterwards so famous, without saying that they were found in the work of Jansenius. The faculty condemned them, though it had never been reckoned favourable to the Jesuits; a presumption that they were at least expressed in a manner repugnant to the prevalent doctrine. Yet Le Clerc, to whose excellent account of this controversy in the fourteenth volume of the Bibliothèque Universelle we are chiefly indebted, declares his own opinion that there may be some ambiguity in the style of the first, but that the other four are decidedly conformable to the theology of Augustin.

And at Rome. 19. The Jesuits now took the course of calling in the authority of Rome. They pressed Innocent X. to condemn the five propositions, which were maintained by some doctors in France. It is not the policy of that court to compromise so delicate a possession as infallibility by bringing it to the test of that personal judgment, which is of necessity the arbiter of each man’s own obedience. The popes have in fact rarely taken a part, independently of councils, in these school debates. The bull of Pius V., a man too zealous by character to regard prudence, in which he condemned many tenets of Baius, had not, nor could it, give satisfaction to those who saw with their own eyes that it swerved from the Augustinian theory. Innocent was, at first, unwilling to meddle with a subject which, as he owned to a friend, he did not understand. But after hearing some discussions, he grew more confident of his knowledge, which he ascribed, as in duty bound, to the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and went so heartily along with the Anti-Jansenists, that he refused to hear the deputies of the other party. On the 31st of May, 1653, he condemned the five propositions, four as erroneous, and the fifth in stronger language; declaring, however, not in the bull, but orally, that he did not condemn the tenet of efficacious grace (which all the Dominicans held), nor the doctrine of Saint Augustin, which was, and ever would be that of the church.

And are persecuted. 21. The Jansenists were now driven to the wall: the Sorbonne in 1655, in consequence of some propositions of Arnauld, expelled him from the theological faculty; a formulary was drawn up to be signed by the clergy, condemning the propositions of Jansenius, which was finally established in 1661; and those who refused, even nuns, underwent a harassing persecution. The most striking instance of this, which still retains an historical character, was the dissolution of the famous convent of Port-Royal, over which Angelica Arnauld, sister of the great advocate of Jansenism, had long presided with signal reputation. This nunnery was at Paris, having been removed in 1644 from an ancient Cistertian convent of the same name, about six leagues distant, and called for distinction Port-Royal des Champs. To this now unfrequented building some of the most eminent men repaired for study, whose writings being anonymously published, have been usually known by the name of their residence. Arnauld, Pascal, Nicole, Lancelot, De Sacy, are among the Messieurs de Port-Royal, an appellation so glorious in the seventeenth century. The Jansenists now took a distinction, very reasonable, as it seems, in its nature, between the authority which asserts or denies a proposition, and that which does the like as to a fact. They refused to the pope, that is, in this instance, to the church, the latter infallibility. We cannot prosecute this part of ecclesiastical history farther; if writings of any literary importance had been produced by the controversy, they would demand our attention; but this does not appear to have been the case. The controversy between Arnauld and Malebranche may perhaps be an exception. The latter, carried forward by his original genius, attempted to deal with the doctrines of theology as with metaphysical problems, in his Traité de la Nature et de la Grace. Arnauld animadverted on this in his Réflexions Philosophiques et Théologiques. Malebranche replied in Lettres du Père Malebranche à un de ses Amis. This was published in 1686, and the controversy between such eminent masters of abstruse reasoning began to excite attention. Malebranche seems to have retired first from the field. His antagonist had great advantages in the dispute, according to received systems of theology, with which he was much more conversant, and perhaps on the whole in the philosophical part of the question. This however cannot be reckoned entirely a Jansenistic controversy, though it involved those perilous difficulties which had raised that flame.[735]

[735] An account of this controversy will be found at length in the second volume of the Bibliothèque Universelle.

Progress of Arminianism. 22. The credit of Augustin was now as much shaken in the protestant, as in the catholic regions of Europe. Episcopius had given to the Remonstrant party a reputation which no sect so inconsiderable in its separate character has ever possessed. The Dutch Arminians were at no time numerous; they took no hold of the people; they had few churches, and though not persecuted by the lenient policy of Holland, were still under the ban of an orthodox clergy, as exclusive and bigoted as before. But their writings circulated over Europe, and made a silent impression on the adverse party. It became less usual to bring forward the Augustinian hypothesis in prominent or unequivocal language. |Courcelles.| Courcelles, born at Geneva, and the successor of Episcopius in the Remonstrant congregation at Amsterdam, with less genius than his predecessor, had, perhaps, a more extensive knowledge of ecclesiastical antiquity. His works were much in esteem with the theologians of that way of thinking; but they have not fallen in my way.

Le Clerc. 24. John Le Clerc, in the same relationship to Courcelles that Limborch was to Episcopius, and like him transplanted from Geneva to the more liberal air, at that time, of the United Provinces, claims a high place among the Dutch Arminians; for though he did not maintain their cause either in systematic or polemical writings, his commentary on the Old Testament, and still more his excellent and celebrated reviews, the Bibliothèques Universelle, Choisie, and Ancienne et Moderne, must be reckoned a perpetual combat on that side. These journals enjoyed an extraordinary influence over Europe, and deserved to enjoy it. Le Clerc is generally temperate, judicious, appeals to no passion, displays a very extensive, though not perhaps a very deep erudition, lies in wait for the weakness and temerity of those he reviews, thus sometimes gaining the advantage over more learned men than himself. He would have been a perfect master of that sort of criticism, then newly current in literature, if he could have repressed an irritability in matters personal to himself, and a degree of prejudice against the Romish writers, or perhaps those styled orthodox in general, which sometimes disturbs the phlegmatic steadiness with which a good reviewer, like a practised sportsman, brings down his game.[736]

[736] Bishop Monk observes that Le Clerc “seems to have been the first person who understood the power which may be exercised over literature by a reviewer.” Life of Bentley, p. 209. This may be true, especially as he was nearly the first reviewer, and certainly better than his predecessors. But this remark is followed by a sarcastic animadversion upon Le Clerc’s ignorance of Greek metres, and by the severe assertion, that “by an absolute system of terror, he made himself a despot in the republic of letters.” The former is so far true, that he neither understood the Greek metres as well as Bentley and Porson, or those who have trod in their steps, nor supposed that all learning was concentred in that knowledge, as we seemed in danger of supposing within my memory. The latter is not warranted by the general character of Le Clerc’s criticisms, which, where he has no personal quarrel, is temperate and moderate, neither traducing men, nor imputing motives; and consequently unlike certain periodical criticism of a later date.

Sancroft’s Fur Prædestinatus. 25. The most remarkable progress made by the Arminian theology was in England. This had begun under James and Charles; but it was then taken up in conjunction with that patristic learning, which adopted the fourth and fifth centuries as the standard of orthodox faith. Perhaps the first very bold and unambiguous attack on the Calvinistic system which we shall mention came from this quarter. This was an anonymous Latin pamphlet, entitled Fur Prædestinatus, published in 1651, and generally ascribed to Sancroft, at that time a young man. It is a dialogue between a thief under sentence of death and his attendant minister, wherein the former insists upon his assurance of being predestinated to salvation. In this idea there is nothing but what is sufficiently obvious; but the dialogue is conducted with some spirit and vivacity. Every position in the thief’s mouth is taken from eminent Calvinistic writers, and what is chiefly worth notice, is that Sancroft, for the first time, has ventured to arraign the greatest heroes of the Reformation; not only Calvin, Beza, and Zanchius, but who had been hitherto spared, Luther and Zuingle. It was in the nature of a manifesto from the Arminian party, that they would not defer in future to any modern authority.[737]

[737] The Fur Prædestinatus is reprinted in D’Oyly’s Life of Sancroft. It is much the best proof of ability that the worthy archbishop ever gave.

Arminianism in England. 26. The loyal Anglican clergy, suffering persecution at the hands of Calvinistic sectaries, might be naturally expected to cherish the opposite principles. These are manifest in the sermons of Barrow, rather perhaps by his silence than his tone, and more explicitly in those of South. But many exceptions might be found among leading men, such as Sanderson; while in an opposite quarter, among the younger generation who had conformed to the times, arose a more formidable spirit of Arminianism, which changed the face of the English church. This was displayed among those who, just about the epoch of the Restoration, were denominated Latitude-men, or more commonly Latitudinarians, trained in the principles of Episcopius and Chillingworth, strongly averse to every compromise with popery, and thus distinguished from the high church party, learned rather in profane philosophy than in the fathers, more full of Plato and Plotinus than Jerome or Chrysostom, great maintainers of natural religion and of the eternal laws of morality, not very solicitous about systems of orthodoxy, and limiting very considerably beyond the notions of former ages, the fundamental tenets of Christianity. This is given as a general character, but varying in the degree of its application to particular persons. Burnet enumerates as the chief of this body of men, More, Cudworth, Whichcot, Tillotson, Stillingfleet; some, especially the last, more tenacious of the authority of the fathers and of the church than others, but all concurring in the adoption of an Arminian theology.[738] This became so predominant before the revolution, that few English divines of eminence remained, who so much as endeavoured to steer a middle course, or to dissemble their renunciation of the doctrines which had been sanctioned at the synod of Dort by the delegates of their church. “The Theological Institutions of Episcopius,” says a contemporary writer, “were at that time (1685) generally in the hands of our students of divinity in both universities, as the best system of divinity that had appeared.”[739] And he proceeds afterwards: “The Remonstrant writers, among whom there were men of excellent learning and parts, had now acquired a considerable reputation in our universities by the means of some great men among us.” This testimony seems irresistible; and as one hundred years before the Institutes of Calvin were read in the same academical studies, we must own, unless Calvin and Episcopius shall be maintained to have held the same tenets, that Bossuet might have added a chapter to the Variations of Protestant Churches.

[738] Burnet’s History of His Own Times, i., 187. Account of the new sect called Latitudinarians, in the collection of tracts, entitled Phœnix, vol. ii., p. 499.

[739] Nelson’s Life of Bull, in Bull’s Works, vol. viii., p. 257.

Bull’s Harmonia Apostolica. 27. The methods adopted in order to subvert the Augustinian theology were sometimes direct, by explicit controversy, or by an opposite train of scriptural interpretation in regular commentaries; more frequently perhaps indirect, by inculcating moral duties, and especially by magnifying the law of nature. Among the first class, the Harmonia Apostolica of Bull seems to be reckoned the principal work of this period. It was published in 1669, and was fiercely encountered at first, not merely by the presbyterian party, but by many of the church, the Lutheran tenets as to justification by faith being still deemed orthodox. Bull establishes as the groundwork of his harmony between the apostles Paul and James, on a subject where their language apparently clashes in terms, that we are to interpret St. Paul by St. James, and not St. James by St. Paul, because the latest authority, and that which may be presumed to have explained what was obscure in the former, ought to prevail;[740] a rule doubtless applicable in many cases, whatever it may be in this. It, at least, turned to his advantage; but it was not so easy for him to reconcile his opinions with those of the reformers, or with the Anglican articles.

[740] Nelson’s Life of Bull.

Hammond—Locke—Wilkins. 28. The Paraphrase and Annotations of Hammond on the New Testament, give a different colour to the Epistles of St. Paul, from that which they display in the hands of Beza and the other theologians of the sixteenth century. And the name of Hammond stood so high with the Anglican clergy, that he naturally turned the tide of interpretation his own way. The writings of Fowler, Wilkins, and Whichcot are chiefly intended to exhibit the moral lustre of Christianity, and to magnify the importance of virtuous life. The first of these ventured on an express defence of Latitudinarianism; but in general those to whom their adversaries gave that name declined the invidious prejudices which they knew to be associated with it. Wilkins left an unfinished work on the Principles and Duties of Natural Religion. Twelve chapters only, about half the volume, were ready for the press at his death; the rest was compiled by Tillotson as well as the materials left by the author would allow; and the expressions employed lead us to believe that much was due to the editor. The latter’s preface strongly presses the separate obligation of natural religion, upon which both the disciples of Hobbes, and many of the less learned sectaries, were at issue with him.

Not satisfactory to all. 32. Notwithstanding the popularity of this defence of the Nicene faith, and the learning it displays, the author was far from ending the controversy, or from satisfying all his readers. It was alledged that he does not meet the question with which he deals; that the word ὁμοουσιος, being almost new at the time of the council, and being obscure and metaphysical in itself, required a precise definition to make the reader see his way before him, or, at least, one better than Bull has given, which the adversary might probably adopt without much scruple; that the passages adduced from the fathers are often insufficient for his purpose; that he confounds the eternal essence with the eternal personality or distinctness of the Logos, though well aware, of course, that many of the early writers employed different names (ενδιαθετος and προφορικος) for these; and that he does not repel some of the passages which can hardly bear an orthodox interpretation. It was urged, moreover, that his own hypothesis, taken altogether, is but a palliated Arianism; that by insisting, for more than one hundred pages, on the subordination of the Son to the Father, he came close to what since has borne that name, though it might not be precisely what had been condemned at Nice, and could not be reconciled with the Athanasian creed, except by such an interpretation of the latter as is neither probable, nor has been reputed orthodox.

Mystics. 33. Among the theological writers of the Roman church, and in a less degree among protestants, there has always been a class not inconsiderable for numbers or for influence, generally denominated mystics, or, when their language has been more unmeasured, enthusiasts and fanatics. These may be distinguished into two kinds, though it must readily be understood that they may often run much into one another; the first believing that the soul, by immediate communion with the Deity, receives a peculiar illumination and knowledge of truths, not cognisable by the understanding; the second less solicitous about intellectual than moral light, and aiming at such pure contemplation of the attributes of God, and such an intimate perception of spiritual life as may end in a sort of absorption into the divine essence. |Fenelon.| But I should not probably have alluded to any writings of this description, if the two most conspicuous luminaries of the French church, Bossuet and Fenelon, had not clashed with each other in that famous controversy of Quietism, to which the enthusiastic writings of Madame Guyon gave birth. The “Maximes des Saints” of Fenelon I have never seen: the editions of his entire works as they affect to be, do not include what the church has condemned; and the original book has probably become scarce. Fenelon appears to have been treated by his friend, shall we call him? or rival, with remarkable harshness. Bossuet might have felt some jealousy at the rapid elevation of the archbishop of Cambray: but we need not have recourse to this; the rigour of orthodoxy in a temper like his will account for all. There could be little doubt but that many saints honoured by the church had uttered things quite as strong as any that Fenelon’s work contained. Bossuet however succeeded in obtaining its condemnation at Rome. Fenelon was of the second class above-mentioned among the mystics, and seems to have been absolutely free from such pretences to illumination as we find in Behmen or Barclay. The pure disinterested love of God was the main spring of his religious theory. The Divine Œconomy of Poiret, 1686, and the writings of a German quietist, Spener, do not require any particular mention.[741]

[741] Bibl. Universelle, v., 412; xvi., 224.

Change in the character of theological literature. 34. This later period of the seventeenth century was marked by an increasing boldness in religious inquiry; we find more disregard of authority, more disposition to question received tenets, a more suspicious criticism, both as to the genuineness and the credibility of ancient writings, a more ardent love of truth, that is, of perceiving and understanding what is true, instead of presuming that we possess it without any understanding at all. Much of this was associated, no doubt, with the other revolutions in literary opinion; with the philosophy of Bacon, Descartes, Gassendi, Hobbes, Bayle, and Locke, with the spirit which a slightly learned, yet acute generation of men rather conversant with the world than with libraries, to whom the appeal in modern languages must be made, was sure to breathe, with that incessant reference to proof which the physical sciences taught mankind to demand. Hence, quotations are comparatively rare in the theological writings of this age; they are better reduced to their due office of testimony as to fact, sometimes of illustration or better statement of an argument, but not so much alledged as argument or authority in themselves. Even those who combated on the side of established doctrines were compelled to argue more from themselves, lest the public, their umpire, should reject, with an opposite prejudice, what had enslaved the prejudices of their fathers.

Freedom of many writings. 35. It is well known that a disbelief in Christianity became very frequent about this time. Several books more or less appear to indicate this spirit, but the charge has often been made with no sufficient reason. Of Hobbes, enough has been already said, and Spinosa’s place as a metaphysician will be in the next chapter. His Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, published anonymously at Amsterdam, with the false date of Hamburg, in 1670, contains many observations on the Old Testament, which, though they do not really affect its general authenticity and truth, clashed with the commonly received opinion of its absolute inspiration. Some of these remarks were, if not borrowed, at least repeated in a book of more celebrity, Sentimens de quelques Theologiens d’Hollande sur l’Histoire Critique du Père Simon. This work is written by Le Clerc, but it has been doubted whether he is the author of some acute, but hardy, remarks on the inspiration of scripture which it contains. These, however, must be presumed to coincide for the most part with his own opinion; but he has afterwards declared his dissent from the hypothesis contained in these volumes, that Moses was not the author of the Pentateuch. The Archæologia Philosophica of Thomas Burnet is intended to question the literal history of the creation and fall. But few will pretend that either Le Clerc or Burnet were disbelievers in revelation.

40. But the leading principle of Pascal’s theology, that from which he deduces the necessary truth of revelation, is the fallen nature of mankind; dwelling less upon scriptural proofs, which he takes for granted, than on the evidence which he supposes man himself to supply. Nothing, however, can be more dissimilar than his beautiful visions to the vulgar Calvinism of the pulpit. It is not the sordid, groveling, degraded, Caliban of that school, but the ruined archangel that he delights to paint. Man is so great, that his greatness is manifest, even in his knowledge of his own misery. A tree does not know itself to be miserable. It is true that to know we are miserable is misery; but still it is greatness to know it. All his misery proves his greatness; it is the misery of a great lord, of a king, dispossessed of their own. Man is the feeblest branch of nature, but it is a branch that thinks. He requires not the universe to crush him. He may be killed by a vapour, by a drop of water. But if the whole universe should crush him, he would be nobler than that which causes his death, because he knows that he is dying, and the universe would not know its power over him. This is very evidently sophistical and declamatory; but it is the sophistry of a fine imagination. It would be easy, however, to find better passages. The dominant idea recurs in almost every page of Pascal. His melancholy genius plays in wild and rapid flashes, like lightning round the scathed oak, about the fallen greatness of man. He perceives every characteristic quality of his nature under these conditions. They are the solution of every problem, the clearing up of every inconsistency that perplexes us. “Man,” he says very finely, “has a secret instinct that leads him to seek diversion and employment from without; which springs from the sense of his continual misery. And he has another secret instinct, remaining from the greatness of his original nature, which teaches him that happiness can only exist in repose. And from these two contrary instincts there arises in him an obscure propensity, concealed in his soul, which prompts him to seek repose through agitation, and even to fancy that the contentment he does not enjoy will be found, if by struggling yet a little longer he can open a door to rest.”[742]