II.] HARBINGERS OF THE REFORMATION. 101 the theological scholars of the next generation, such as Erasmus and Vivés, who were so influential in directing their contemporaries to patristical studies, more immediately contributed to the same object. But it was their business to clear the ground, and collect materials, for their successors. The effect of their editorial and critical labours was soon apparent. They laid the axe to the root of the corruptions of the Church, and prepared the way for an unbounded liberty of discussion. The study of the materials of Church-history, which had been so greatly facilitated by the exertions of these eminent men, essentially contributed to break the spell which the see of Rome had laid upon the public mind. The usurped power of the Popes had indeed been greatly impaired by a century and a half of intrigue, disorder, and schism. The time when an Ecclesiastical monarchy could exercise a salutary influence had passed away. The Romish system had exchanged ambition and the love of rule, the vices of the age of maturity, for avarice and jealousy, the passions characteristic of decay. Its tyranny had made it terrible, its exactions made it hateful', its corruptions, which were rudely exposed by the 'The spirit which prevailed so remarkably in the great councils of the beginning of the fifteenth century, was never extinguished. Germany was from the first conspicuous in its opposition to the Papal exactions. Appendix, Note JJ. buoyant spirit of youthful literature, made it contemptible. And it now required only a well-directed effort to lay in ruins the mighty fabric which had been reared and maintained by the incessant labour of a thousand years. CHAPTER III. FROM THE REFORMATION TO THE PRESENT TIME. SECTION I. FROM 1517 TO 1667. EFFECTS OF THE REFORMATION-M. F. ILLYRICUS-CATALOGUS BZOVIUS -HOTTINGER. THE agencies which had been long in operation at length produced the great catastrophe, and the illustrious Saxon, in a voice of thunder, denounced the corruptions of the Church. The revolutions which had hitherto affected the condition of Christianity, however important, appear positively insignificant, when compared with the wonderful convulsion which rent half Europe from the ancient system, and gave birth to a new style of thought and feeling in the civilized world. The Reforma tion-the most memorable event in the fortunes of the Church since the conversion of Constantine, which is never mentioned even now without awakening feelings of deep regret or lively congratulation-soon gave a new aspect and character to Church-history. The disputants on both sides at once felt its importance. The whole question between them was one of history. The reformers maintained that the abettors of the papacy had during a long season of ignorance grievously corrupted the simplicity of the Gospel by false doctrine and superstition. It was their business, therefore, to show that the notions and practices which they denounced as innovations, were unsanctioned by the New Testament, and unknown to the early Church. The friends of the prevailing system, on the other hand, charged their opponents with holding strange and monstrous opinions, and were, therefore, bound to prove, that what they themselves taught was taught in Scripture, and had been inculcated by the doctors of antiquity. But though both parties immediately betook themselves to this department of the argument, it was some time before the Reformation can be said to have produced any systematic work on the history of the Church. The Romanists, ever anxious to argue the questions in dispute on scholastic principles, did not feel the want of a new work on the subject; and the first champions on the side of the reformers were too much engaged in propagating and defending their opinions, and in building up new systems, to have leisure for a large and difficult undertaking. It was not, therefore, for nearly forty years after Luther's first efforts, that we discover the existence of a new school of Churchhistory. MATTHIAS FLACIUS ILLYRICUS', the founder of this school, was one of the most conspicuous members of the second generation of Protestant divines, and distinguished himself among his contemporaries 1 His real name was Matthias Francowitz. He was born in 1520 at Albona, a town in Istria, in the ancient Illyricum, from which circumstance he was called Illyricus. He first distinguished himself by his violent opposition to his patron, Melancthon, in the Adiaphoristic controversy in 1549. But his characteristic obstinacy was most fully exhibited by the tenet which he advanced in his controversy with Strigelius in 1560, that original sin is the very substance of human nature, which he could never be prevailed upon to abandon. He died at Frankfort in 1575. He is characterised by Mosheim as "Vir turbulenti ingenii et ad rixas seminandas et propagandas natura factus." Instit. Hist. Eccles. Sæc. xvi. sect. iii. Pars ii. cap. i. § xxxi. p. 657. edit. 1764. Bp. Montague calls him "Furiosum Theologum et insanum, prodigiosarum quarundam et monstrosarum opinionum inventorem, et acerrimum propugnatorem." Apparat. ad Orig. Eccles. Præfat. § 52. And Bayle says of him, "C'étoit un homme qui avoit d'excellens dons, l'esprit vaste, beaucoup de savoir, un grand zéle contre le Papisme; mais son humeur turbulente, impétueuse, querelleuse, gâtoit toutes ses bonnes qualitez, et causoit mille desordres dans l'Eglise Protestante. Il ne faisoit pas difficulté de déclarer qu'il faloit tenir en respect les princes, par la crainte des séditions." Dictionnaire Historique et Critique, tom. ii. p. 839. edit. 1740. |