CHAPTER XI.

ON SOME ADVANTAGES DERIVED FROM THE REFORMATION.

WHEN a person has been long in the possession of advantages of any kind, public or private, it is unfortunately too much in the nature of man to forget them, and to lose, or feel but in a faint degree, that sense of gratitude which they ought to inspire. The man that has enjoyed uninterrupted health, is too apt to forget the Being who bestows it, and from whom are the issues of life and death: he who is blessed with domestic felicity is too much inclined to look upon it as a thing of course, and to shut his eyes to the state of dreadful bereavement he would suffer, if a sudden breach were made by death in his home, and mourning and sorrow usurped the place of peace and joy. The advantages of civil liberty would be doubly estimated, if we reflected upon the state of slavery and thraldom from which, by slow degrees, inch by inch, we have been emancipated, till the name of the British constitution is nearly synonymous with that of manly, rational freedom: the benefits of peace derive tenfold value, when we think over the unnumbered horrors of war. Instances without end might be multiplied, in which we undervalue the blessings we enjoy, forgetting what we were before we received, and never considering what we would be, if deprived of them.

There is one great advantage which we enjoy at the present day, and which it is too much the fashion of the time to make little of that is, the Reformation; and I thought that if we glanced cursorily, and in a familiar way, at the state of the times which called it forth, and some of the effects of it, we would regard the Reformation in the light in which our forefathers held it—a

blessing; and not talk of it, as too many of us are used to do, as really an evil.

This was formerly called "The happy Reformation,” and was deemed the most beneficial event that ever befel the world, since the first promulgation of Christianity. Many causes, some of them very minute, and all seemingly fortuitous, but in which the overruling hand of God may easily be traced, contributed to this event. The state of the Pontificate had prepared the minds of thinking men for some great change. The long schism which gave so much scandal, and divided the Church in the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth centuries, had weakened the respect for the Papal power to a vast degree; and, besides, some of the Popes, about that time, were so surpassingly scandalous in their lives, that earth was weary of them. Alexander VI. was a fiend in human shape; unmitigated vice in every form seemed to possess him—

"Monstrum nullâ virtute redemptum."

Julius II. was insolent, overbearing, ambitious, overleaping without scruple every obstacle that stood in the way of his schemes. These two vile men had, by their extravagance, exhausted the Papal treasury; and when Leo X., who immediately followed, was elevated to the Pontificate, he found it necessary to replenish it by every device which the fertile ingenuity of priests could invent, and a superstitious and enslaved multitude be induced to swallow. A spark was all that was necessary to set fire to the combustible materials which were scattered everywhere about, and this was furnished by the well-known expedient of the Sale of Indulgences. A few words may be necessary to explain this to the common reader. In addition to their temporal treasury, the Popes have another, which has often been used to replenish the former-one of a spiritual nature. This, according to Romish doctrine, is composed of the su

perabundant merits of the saints, together with the infinite merits of Jesus Christ. The key of this treasury is committed to the safe-keeping of the Popes, who may open it at pleasure, and may sell a portion of its exhaustless contents to any individual, thereby either procuring the pardon of his own sins, or a release from purgatorial fire of any one, in whose welfare the purchaser is concerned. To this fund Leo, in his present difficulties, had recourse, and commissioned one Tetzel, a Dominican, an audacious and impudent fellow, of the most profligate and debauched character, to retail the indulgences. His zeal in executing his lucrative commission far outran his discretion: and we find him, in order to recommend his commodity, announcing its benefits in language too well known, as outrageous of decency as it was of truth. A copy of the form of the indulgence may amuse the reader who has not met with it before ::

May our Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon thee, and absolve thee, by the merits of his most holy passion. And I, by his authority, that of his blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul, and of the most holy Pope, granted and committed unto me in these parts, do absolve thee, first, from all ecclesiastical censures, in whatever manner they have been incurred, and then from all thy sins, transgressions, and excesses, how enormous soever they be, even from such as are reserved for the cognizance of the Holy See: and, as far as the keys of the Holy Church extend, I remit to you all punishment which you deserve in purgatory on their account; and I restore you to the holy sacraments of the church, to the unity of the faithful, and to that innocence and purity which you possessed at baptism, so that when you die, the gates of punishment shall be shut, and the gates of the paradise of delight shall be opened; and, if you shall not die at present, this grace shall remain in full force, when you are at the point of death. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." The

poor ignorant people, confiding, as usual, in their priests, were, as usual, deluded: they gave their money, as they believed, for the most pious purposes; and it was too often spent by the receivers in the lowest vices.

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The Popes had set the inferior clergy an example of immoral conduct, which, as might have been anticipated, was not left unimproved. It will be supposed that this is the account of their enemies: it is, however, no exaggeration, but the simple truth. Protestants assert it surely but if they do, it does not depend upon their testimony, because it is corroborated also by the friends of Roman Catholics. We have the unwilling testimony of one who would have been most glad to conceal the truth, if he could :-" For many years," says Bellarmine, "before the Lutheran and Calvinistic heresies were published, there was not (as contemporary authors testify) any severity in ecclesiastical judicatories, any discipline with regard to morals, any knowledge of sacred literature, any reverence for divine things: there was not almost any religion remaining." We read, besides, and it cannot be contradicted, that, "in many places, the people were pleased that the priest should consort with an abandoned character, in order that their wives might be safe from his seductions; that priests frequented the taverns, played dice, and finished their orgies by quarrels and blasphemy." We find it thus written in the records of those times: "In the Archbishopric of Mentz, they scaled the walls in the night, committed disturbances and disorders of all kinds in the inns and taverns, and broke open doors and locks.” "In several places the priest paid the bishop a regular tax for the woman with whom he lived, and for every child he had by her: a German bishop, who was present at a grand entertainment, publicly declared that, in one year, eleven thousand priests had presented themselves for that purpose."

And the ease with which their atrocious crimes were pardoned, is perhaps one of the worst features of the

case. It seems now scarcely credible that there came forth from the Pope's chancery, or consistorial court, a sanctioned register, containing a list of crimes, and the sums affixed, for which each might be compounded, as thus:-Murder in a deacon was absolved for twenty crowns; a bishop or abbot might kill, if they pleased, for 300 livres; every one of the three might violate his vows of chastity, even with the most revolting circumstances, for the third part of that sum. the most shocking crimes of rare occurrence, and which exist but in the impure imagination of some Peter Dens, or the like, were absolved, and fixed at a low rate. All these things cried aloud for reformation. Another

Even

cause, which led to this great event, was found in the enormous wealth of the church, which excited the jealously of the laity from whom it was derived; and which, acquired easily, was as easily squandered in the most vicious pursuits.

We find another cause in the personal immunities enjoyed by the clergy. The privilege of the order protected them from the civil power; the laity could not brook this, and complained, with justice, that "convicted malefactors," as they called them, should be saved, by virtue of their office and sacred character, from the sword of the civil power. And besides, not satisfied with securing their own persons, they were constantly encroaching upon the jurisdiction of the laity. All cases that could, by any force or strength of imagination, be interpreted, as connected with religion, were brought into ecclesiastical courts, so that, in process of time, the civil business was vastly curtailed, and became almost a nullity; as was very natural, this excited no small displeasure in the laity, who found themselves thus ousted out of almost all magisterial authority.

There was another mighty engine of power, which the priests wielded at that time to a dreaded extent, and which laymen rejoiced to shake off: this was, the censure of excommunication, which was originally in