Origin and Doctrine of the Paulicians— Their Persecution by the Greek Emperors— Revolt in Armenia, etc. Transplantation into Thrace— Propagation in the West— The Seeds, Character, and Consequences of the Reformation
Supine superstition of the Greek church
In the profession of Christianity, the variety of national
characters may be clearly distinguished. The natives of
Syria and Egypt abandoned their lives to lazy and
contemplative devotion: Rome again aspired to the dominion
of the world; and the wit of the lively and loquacious
Greeks was consumed in the disputes of metaphysical
theology. The incomprehensible mysteries of the Trinity and
Incarnation, instead of commanding their silent submission,
were agitated in vehement and subtle controversies, which
enlarged their faith at the expense, perhaps, of their
charity and reason. From the council of Nice to the end of
the seventh century, the peace and unity of the church was
invaded by these spiritual wars; and so deeply did they
affect the decline and fall of the empire, that the
historian has too often been compelled to attend the synods,
to explore the creeds, and to enumerate the sects, of this
busy period of ecclesiastical annals. From the beginning of
the eighth century to the last ages of the Byzantine empire,
the sound of controversy was seldom heard: curiosity was
exhausted, zeal was fatigued, and, in the decrees of six
councils, the articles of the Catholic faith had been
irrevocably defined. The spirit of dispute, however vain and
pernicious, requires some energy and exercise of the mental
faculties; and the prostrate Greeks were content to fast, to
pray, and to believe in blind obedience to the patriarch and
his clergy. During a long dream of superstition, the Virgin
and the Saints, their visions and miracles, their relics and
images, were preached by the monks, and worshipped by the
people; and the appellation of people might be extended,
without injustice, to the first ranks of civil society. At
an unseasonable moment, the Isaurian emperors attempted
somewhat rudely to awaken their subjects: under their
influence reason might obtain some proselytes, a far greater
number was swayed by interest or fear; but the Eastern world
embraced or deplored their visible deities, and the
restoration of images was celebrated as the feast of
orthodoxy. In this passive and unanimous state the
ecclesiastical rulers were relieved from the toil, or
deprived of the pleasure, of persecution. The Pagans had
disappeared; the Jews were silent and obscure; the disputes
with the Latins were rare and remote hostilities against a
national enemy; and the sects of Egypt and Syria enjoyed a
free toleration under the shadow of the Arabian caliphs.
About the middle of the seventh century, a branch of
Manichaeans was selected as the victims of spiritual
tyranny; their patience was at length exasperated to despair
and rebellion; and their exile has scattered over the West
the seeds of reformation. These important events will
justify some inquiry into the doctrine and story of the
PAULICIANS; (1) and, as they cannot plead for themselves, our candid criticism will magnify the good, and abate or suspect
the evil, that is reported by their adversaries.
Origins of the Paulicans, or disciples of St. Paul, A.D. 660, etc
The Gnostics, who had distracted the infancy, were oppressed
by the greatness and authority, of the church. Instead of
emulating or surpassing the wealth, learning, and numbers of
the Catholics, their obscure remnant was driven from the
capitals of the East and West, and confined to the villages
and mountains along the borders of the Euphrates. Some
vestige of the Marcionites may be detected in the fifth
century; (2) but the numerous sects were finally lost in the
odious name of the Manichaeans; and these heretics, who
presumed to reconcile the doctrines of Zoroaster and Christ,
were pursued by the two religions with equal and unrelenting
hatred. Under the grandson of Heraclius, in the
neighbourhood of Samosata, more famous for the birth of
Lucian than for the title of a Syrian kingdom, a reformer
arose, esteemed by the Paulicians as the chosen messenger of
truth. In his humble dwelling of Mananalis, Constantine
entertained a deacon, who returned from Syrian captivity,
and received the inestimable gift of the New Testament,
which was already concealed from the vulgar by the prudence
of the Greek, and perhaps of the Gnostic, clergy. (3) These
books became the measure of his studies and the rule of his
faith; and the Catholics, who dispute his interpretation,
acknowledge that his text was genuine and sincere. But he
attached himself with peculiar devotion to the writings and
character of St. Paul: the name of the Paulicians is derived
by their enemies from some unknown and domestic teacher; but
I am confident that they gloried in their affinity to the
apostle of the Gentiles. His disciples, Titus, Timothy,
Sylvanus, Tychicus, were represented by Constantine and his
fellow-labourers: the names of the apostolic churches were
applied to the congregations which they assembled in Armenia
and Cappadocia; and this innocent allegory revived the
example and memory of the first ages. Their bible In the Gospel, and the Epistles of St. Paul, his faithful follower investigated the Creed of primitive Christianity; and, whatever might be the success, a Protestant reader will applaud the spirit, of the inquiry. But if the Scriptures of the Paulicians were pure, they were not perfect. Their founders rejected the two Epistles of St. Peter, (4) the apostle of the circumcision, whose dispute with their favourite for the observance of the law could not easily be forgiven. (5) They agreed with their Gnostic brethren in the universal contempt for the Old Testament, the books of Moses and the prophets, which have been consecrated by the decrees of the Catholic church. With equal boldness, and doubtless with more reason, Constantine, the new Sylvanus, disclaimed the visions, which, in so many bulky and splendid volumes, had been published by the Oriental sects; (6) the fabulous productions of the Hebrew patriarchs and the sages of the East; the spurious gospels, epistles, and acts, which in the first age had overwhelmed the orthodox code; the theology of Manes, and the authors of the kindred heresies; and the thirty generations, or aeons,
which had been created by the fruitful fancy of Valentine. The Paulicians sincerely condemned the memory and opinions of the Manichaean sect, and complained of the injustice which impressed that invidious name on the simple votaries of St. Paul and of Christ.
The simplicity of their belief and worship.
Of the ecclesiastical chain, many links had been broken by
the Paulician reformers; and their liberty was enlarged, as
they reduced the number of masters, at whose voice profane
reason must bow to mystery and miracle. The early
separation of the Gnostics had preceded the establishment of
the Catholic worship; and against the gradual innovations of
discipline and doctrine they were as strongly guarded by
habit and aversion, as by the silence of St. Paul and the
evangelists. The objects which had been transformed by the
magic of superstition, appeared to the eyes of the
Paulicians in their genuine and naked colours. An image made
without hands was the common workmanship of a mortal artist,
to whose skill alone the wood and canvas must be indebted
for their merit or value. The miraculous relics were a heap
of bones and ashes, destitute of life or virtue, or of any
relation, perhaps, with the person to whom they were
ascribed. The true and vivifying cross was a piece of sound
or rotten timber, the body and blood of Christ, a loaf of
bread and a cup of wine, the gifts of nature and the symbols
of grace. The mother of God was degraded from her celestial
honours and immaculate virginity; and the saints and angels
were no longer solicited to exercise the laborious office of
meditation in heaven, and ministry upon earth. In the
practice, or at least in the theory, of the sacraments, the
Paulicians were inclined to abolish all visible objects of
worship, and the words of the gospel were, in their
judgment, the baptism and communion of the faithful. They
indulged a convenient latitude for the interpretation of
Scripture: and as often as they were pressed by the literal
sense, they could escape to the intricate mazes of figure
and allegory. Their utmost diligence must have been
employed to dissolve the connection between the Old and the
New Testament; since they adored the latter as the oracles
of God, and abhorred the former as the fabulous and absurd
invention of men or daemons. We cannot be surprised, that
they should have found in the Gospel the orthodox mystery of
the Trinity: but, instead of confessing the human nature and
substantial sufferings of Christ, they amused their fancy
with a celestial body that passed through the virgin like
water through a pipe; with a fantastic crucifixion, that
eluded the vain and important malice of the Jews. They hold the two principles of the Magians and Manichaens A creed
thus simple and spiritual was not adapted to the genius of
the times; (7) and the rational Christian, who might have been contented with the light yoke and easy burden of Jesus and his apostles, was justly offended, that the Paulicians
should dare to violate the unity of God, the first article
of natural and revealed religion. Their belief and their
trust was in the Father, of Christ, of the human soul, and
of the invisible world. But they likewise held the eternity
of matter; a stubborn and rebellious substance, the origin
of a second principle of an active being, who has created
this visible world, and exercises his temporal reign till
the final consummation of death and sin. (8) The appearances
of moral and physical evil had established the two
principles in the ancient philosophy and religion of the
East; from whence this doctrine was transfused to the
various swarms of the Gnostics. A thousand shades may be
devised in the nature and character of Ahriman, from a rival
god to a subordinate daemon, from passion and frailty to
pure and perfect malevolence: but, in spite of our efforts,
the goodness, and the power, of Ormusd are placed at the
opposite extremities of the line; and every step that
approaches the one must recede in equal proportion from the
other. (9)
The establishment of the Paulicans in Armenia, Pontus, etc .
The apostolic labours of Constantine Sylvanus soon multiplied
the number of his disciples, the secret recompense of
spiritual ambition. The remnant of the Gnostic sects, and
especially the Manichaeans of Armenia, were united under his
standard; many Catholics were converted or seduced by his
arguments; and he preached with success in the regions of
Pontus (10) and Cappadocia, which had long since imbibed the
religion of Zoroaster. The Paulician teachers were
distinguished only by their Scriptural names, by the modest
title of Fellow-pilgrims, by the austerity of their lives,
their zeal or knowledge, and the credit of some
extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit. But they were
incapable of desiring, or at least of obtaining, the wealth
and honours of the Catholic prelacy; such anti- Christian
pride they bitterly censured; and even the rank of elders or
presbyters was condemned as an institution of the Jewish
synagogue. The new sect was loosely spread over the
provinces of Asia Minor to the westward of the Euphrates;
six of their principal congregations represented the
churches to which St. Paul had addressed his epistles; and
their founder chose his residence in the neighbourhood of
Colonia, (11) in the same district of Pontus which had been
celebrated by the altars of Bellona (12) and the miracles of
Gregory. (13) Persecution of the Greek emperors. After a mission of twenty-seven years,
Sylvanus, who had retired from the tolerating government of
the Arabs, fell a sacrifice to Roman persecution. The laws
of the pious emperors, which seldom touched the lives of
less odious heretics, proscribed without mercy or disguise
the tenets, the books, and the persons of the Montanists and
Manichaeans: the books were delivered to the flames; and all
who should presume to secrete such writings, or to profess
such opinions, were devoted to an ignominious death. (14) A
Greek minister, armed with legal and military powers,
appeared at Colonia to strike the shepherd, and to reclaim,
if possible, the lost sheep. By a refinement of cruelty,
Simeon placed the unfortunate Sylvanus before a line of his
disciples, who were commanded, as the price of their pardon
and the proof of their repentance, to massacre their
spiritual father. They turned aside from the impious
office; the stones dropped from their filial hands, and of
the whole number, only one executioner could be found, a new
David, as he is styled by the Catholics, who boldly
overthrew the giant of heresy. This apostate (Justin was
his name) again deceived and betrayed his unsuspecting
brethren, and a new conformity to the acts of St. Paul may
be found in the conversion of Simeon: like the apostle, he
embraced the doctrine which he had been sent to persecute,
renounced his honours and fortunes, and required among the
Paulicians the fame of a missionary and a martyr. They were
not ambitious of martyrdom, (15) but in a calamitous period
of one hundred and fifty years, their patience sustained
whatever zeal could inflict; and power was insufficient to
eradicate the obstinate vegetation of fanaticism and reason.
From the blood and ashes of the first victims, a succession
of teachers and congregations repeatedly arose: amidst their
foreign hostilities, they found leisure for domestic
quarrels: they preached, they disputed, they suffered; and
the virtues, the apparent virtues, of Sergius, in a
pilgrimage of thirty-three years, are reluctantly confessed
by the orthodox historians. (16) The native cruelty of
Justinian the Second was stimulated by a pious cause; and he
vainly hoped to extinguish, in a single conflagration, the
name and memory of the Paulicians. By their primitive
simplicity, their abhorrence of popular superstition, the
Iconoclast princes might have been reconciled to some
erroneous doctrines; but they themselves were exposed to the
calumnies of the monks, and they chose to be the tyrants,
lest they should be accused as the accomplices, of the
Manichaeans. Such a reproach has sullied the clemency of
Nicephorus, who relaxed in their favour the severity of the
penal statutes, nor will his character sustain the honour of
a more liberal motive. The feeble Michael the First, the
rigid Leo the Armenian, were foremost in the race of
persecution; but the prize must doubtless be adjudged to the
sanguinary devotion of Theodora, who restored the images to
the Oriental church. Her inquisitors explored the cities
and mountains of the Lesser Asia, and the flatterers of the
empress have affirmed that, in a short reign, one hundred
thousand Paulicians were extirpated by the sword, the
gibbet, or the flames. Her guilt or merit has perhaps been
stretched beyond the measure of truth: but if the account be
allowed, it must be presumed that many simple Iconoclasts
were punished under a more odious name; and that some who
were driven from the church, unwillingly took refuge in the
bosom of heresy.
Revolt of the Paulicans, A.D. 845-880
The most furious and desperate of rebels are the sectaries of a religion long persecuted, and at length provoked. In a holy cause they are no longer susceptible of fear or remorse: the justice of their arms hardens them against the feelings of humanity; and they revenge their fathers' wrongs
on the children of their tyrants. Such have been the Hussites of Bohemia and the Calvinists of France, and such, in the ninth century, were the Paulicians of Armenia and the adjacent provinces. (17) They were first awakened to the massacre of a governor and bishop, who exercised the Imperial mandate of converting or destroying the heretics; and the deepest recesses of Mount Argaeus protected their independence and revenge. A more dangerous and consuming flame was kindled by the persecution of Theodora, and the revolt of Carbeas, a valiant Paulician, who commanded the guards of the general of the East. His father had been impaled by the Catholic inquisitors; and religion, or at least nature, might justify his desertion and revenge. Five thousand of his brethren were united by the same motives; they renounced the allegiance of anti-Christian Rome; a Saracen emir introduced Carbeas to the caliph; and the
commander of the faithful extended his sceptre to the implacable enemy of the Greeks. They fortify Tephrice, In the mountains between Siwas and Trebizond he founded or fortified the city of
Tephrice, (18) which is still occupied by a fierce or licentious people, and the neighbouring hills were covered
with the Paulician fugitives, who now reconciled the use of
the Bible and the sword. During more than thirty years,
Asia was afflicted by the calamities of foreign and domestic
war; in their hostile inroads, the disciples of St. Paul
were joined with those of Mahomet; and the peaceful
Christians, the aged parent and tender virgin, who were
delivered into barbarous servitude, might justly accuse the
intolerant spirit of their sovereign. So urgent was the
mischief, so intolerable the shame, that even the dissolute
Michael, the son of Theodora, was compelled to march in
person against the Paulicians: he was defeated under the
walls of Samosata; and the Roman emperor fled before the
heretics whom his mother had condemned to the flames. The
Saracens fought under the same banners, but the victory was
ascribed to Carbeas; and the captive generals, with more
than a hundred tribunes, were either released by his
avarice, or tortured by his fanaticism. The valour and
ambition of Chrysocheir, (19) his successor, embraced a wider
circle of rapine and revenge. In alliance with his faithful
Moslems, he boldly penetrated into the heart of Asia; the
troops of the frontier and the palace were repeatedly
overthrown; and pillage Asia Minor. the edicts of persecution were answered by the pillage of Nice and Nicomedia, of Ancyra and Ephesus; nor
could the apostle St. John protect from violation his city
and sepulchre. The cathedral of Ephesus was turned into a
stable for mules and horses; and the Paulicians vied with
the Saracens in their contempt and abhorrence of images and
relics. It is not unpleasing to observe the triumph of
rebellion over the same despotism which had disdained the
prayers of an injured people. The emperor Basil, the
Macedonian, was reduced to sue for peace, to offer a ransom
for the captives, and to request, in the language of
moderation and charity, that Chrysocheir would spare his
fellow-Christians, and content himself with a royal donative
of gold and silver and silk garments.
"If the emperor," replied the insolent fanatic, "be desirous of peace, let him abdicate the East, and reign without molestation in the West. If he refuse, the servants of the Lord will precipitate him from the throne."
The reluctant Basil suspended the treaty, accepted the defiance, and led his army into the land of heresy, which he wasted with fire and sword. The open country of the Paulicians was exposed to the same calamities which they had inflicted; but when he had explored the strength of Tephrice, the ultitude of the Barbarians, and the ample magazines of arms and provisions, he desisted with a sigh from the hopeless siege. On his return to Constantinople, he laboured, by the foundation of convents and churches, to secure the aid of his celestial patrons, of Michael the archangel and the prophet Elijah; and it was his daily prayer that he might live to transpierce, with three arrows, the head of his impious adversary. Beyond his expectations, the wish was accomplished: after a successful inroad, Chrysocheir was surprised and slain in his retreat; and the rebel's head was triumphantly presented at the foot of the throne. On the reception of this welcome trophy, Basil instantly called for his bow, discharged three arrows with unerring aim, and accepted the applause of the court, who hailed the victory of the royal archer. Their decline. With Chrysocheir, the glory of the Paulicians faded and withered: (20) on the second expedition of the emperor, the impregnable Tephrice, was deserted by the heretics, who sued for mercy or escaped to the borders. The city was ruined, but the spirit of independence survived in the mountains: the Paulicians defended, above a century, their religion and liberty, infested the Roman limits, and maintained their perpetual alliance with the enemies of the empire and the gospel.
Their transplantation from Armenia to Thrace.
About the middle of the eight century, Constantine, surnamed
Copronymus by the worshippers of images, had made an
expedition into Armenia, and found, in the cities of
Melitene and Theodosiopolis, a great number of Paulicians,
his kindred heretics. As a favour, or punishment, he
transplanted them from the banks of the Euphrates to
Constantinople and Thrace; and by this emigration their
doctrine was introduced and diffused in Europe. (21) If the
sectaries of the metropolis were soon mingled with the
promiscuous mass, those of the country struck a deep root in
a foreign soil. The Paulicians of Thrace resisted the
storms of persecution, maintained a secret correspondence
with their Armenian brethren, and gave aid and comfort to
their preachers, who solicited, not without success, the
infant faith of the Bulgarians. (22) In the tenth century,
they were restored and multiplied by a more powerful colony,
which John Zimisces (23) transported from the Chalybian hills
to the valleys of Mount Haemus. The Oriental clergy who
would have preferred the destruction, impatiently sighed for
the absence, of the Manichaeans: the warlike emperor had
felt and esteemed their valour: their attachment to the
Saracens was pregnant with mischief; but, on the side of the
Danube, against the Barbarians of Scythia, their service
might be useful, and their loss would be desirable. Their
exile in a distant land was softened by a free toleration:
the Paulicians held the city of Philippopolis and the keys
of Thrace; the Catholics were their subjects; the Jacobite
emigrants their associates: they occupied a line of villages
and castles in Macedonia and Epirus; and many native
Bulgarians were associated to the communion of arms and
heresy. As long as they were awed by power and treated with
moderation, their voluntary bands were distinguished in the
armies of the empire; and the courage of these dogs, ever
greedy of war, ever thirsty of human blood, is noticed with
astonishment, and almost with reproach, by the pusillanimous
Greeks. The same spirit rendered them arrogant and
contumacious: they were easily provoked by caprice or
injury; and their privileges were often violated by the
faithless bigotry of the government and clergy. In the midst
of the Norman war, two thousand five hundred Manichaeans
deserted the standard of Alexius Comnenus, (24) and retired
to their native homes. He dissembled till the moment of
revenge; invited the chiefs to a friendly conference; and
punished the innocent and guilty by imprisonment,
confiscation, and baptism. In an interval of peace, the
emperor undertook the pious office of reconciling them to
the church and state: his winter quarters were fixed at
Philippopolis; and the thirteenth apostle, as he is styled
by his pious daughter, consumed whole days and nights in
theological controversy. His arguments were fortified,
their obstinacy was melted, by the honours and rewards which
he bestowed on the most eminent proselytes; and a new city,
surrounded with gardens, enriched with immunities, and
dignified with his own name, was founded by Alexius for the
residence of his vulgar converts. The important station of
Philippopolis was wrested from their hands; the contumacious
leaders were secured in a dungeon, or banished from their
country; and their lives were spared by the prudence, rather
than the mercy, of an emperor, at whose command a poor and
solitary heretic was burnt alive before the church of St.
Sophia. (25) But the proud hope of eradicating the prejudices
of a nation was speedily overturned by the invincible zeal
of the Paulicians, who ceased to dissemble or refused to
obey. After the departure and death of Alexius, they soon
resumed their civil and religious laws. In the beginning of
the thirteenth century, their pope or primate (a manifest
corruption) resided on the confines of Bulgaria, Croatia,
and Dalmatia, and governed, by his vicars, the filial
congregations of Italy and France. (26) From that aera, a
minute scrutiny might prolong and perpetuate the chain of
tradition. At the end of the last age, the sect or colony
still inhabited the valleys of Mount Haemus, where their
ignorance and poverty were more frequently tormented by the
Greek clergy than by the Turkish government. The modern
Paulicians have lost all memory of their origin; and their
religion is disgraced by the worship of the cross, and the
practice of bloody sacrifice, which some captives have
imported from the wilds of Tartary. (27)
Their introduction into Italy and France.
In the West, the first teachers of the Manichaean theology
had been repulsed by the people, or suppressed by the
prince. The favour and success of the Paulicians in the
eleventh and twelfth centuries must be imputed to the
strong, though secret, discontent which armed the most pious
Christians against the church of Rome. Her avarice was
oppressive, her despotism odious; less degenerate perhaps
than the Greeks in the worship of saints and images, her
innovations were more rapid and scandalous: she had
rigorously defined and imposed the doctrine of
transubstantiation: the lives of the Latin clergy were more
corrupt, and the Eastern bishops might pass for the
successors of the apostles, if they were compared with the
lordly prelates, who wielded by turns the crosier, the
sceptre, and the sword. Three different roads might
introduce the Paulicians into the heart of Europe. After
the conversion of Hungary, the pilgrims who visited
Jerusalem might safely follow the course of the Danube: in
their journey and return they passed through Philippopolis;
and the sectaries, disguising their name and heresy, might
accompany the French or German caravans to their respective
countries. The trade and dominion of Venice pervaded the
coast of the Adriatic, and the hospitable republic opened
her bosom to foreigners of every climate and religion.
Under the Byzantine standard, the Paulicians were often
transported to the Greek provinces of Italy and Sicily: in
peace and war, they freely conversed with strangers and
natives, and their opinions were silently propagated in
Rome, Milan, and the kingdoms beyond the Alps. (28) It was soon discovered, that many thousand Catholics of every rank,
and of either sex, had embraced the Manichaean heresy; and
the flames which consumed twelve canons of Orleans was the
first act and signal of persecution. The Bulgarians, (29) a
name so innocent in its origin, so odious in its
application, spread their branches over the face of Europe.
United in common hatred of idolatry and Rome, they were
connected by a form of episcopal and presbyterian
government; their various sects were discriminated by some
fainter or darker shades of theology; but they generally
agreed in the two principles, the contempt of the Old
Testament and the denial of the body of Christ, either on
the cross or in the eucharist. A confession of simple
worship and blameless manners is extorted from their
enemies; and so high was their standard of perfection, that
the increasing congregations were divided into two classes
of disciples, of those who practised, and of those who
aspired.Persecution of the Albigeois, A.D. 1200, etc. It was in the country of the Albigeois, (30) in the
southern provinces of France, that the Paulicians were most
deeply implanted; and the same vicissitudes of martyrdom and
revenge which had been displayed in the neighbourhood of the
Euphrates, were repeated in the thirteenth century on the
banks of the Rhone. The laws of the Eastern emperors were
revived by Frederic the Second. The insurgents of Tephrice
were represented by the barons and cities of Languedoc: Pope
Innocent III. surpassed the sanguinary fame of Theodora. It
was in cruelty alone that her soldiers could equal the
heroes of the Crusades, and the cruelty of her priests was
far excelled by the founders of the Inquisition; (31) an
office more adapted to confirm, than to refute, the belief
of an evil principle. The visible assemblies of the
Paulicians, or Albigeois, were extirpated by fire and sword;
and the bleeding remnant escaped by flight, concealment, or
Catholic conformity. But the invincible spirit which they
had kindled still lived and breathed in the Western world.
In the state, in the church, and even in the cloister, a
latent succession was preserved of the disciples of St. Paul; who protested against the tyranny of Rome, embraced the Bible as the rule of faith, and purified their creed from all the visions of the Gnostic theology. The struggles of Wickliff in England, of Huss in Bohemia, were premature and ineffectual; but the names of Zuinglius, Luther, and Calvin, are pronounced with gratitude as the
deliverers of nations.
Chracter and consequences of the reformation.
A philosopher, who calculates the degree of their merit and
the value of their reformation, will prudently ask from what
articles of faith, above or against our reason, they have
enfranchised the Christians; for such enfranchisement is
doubtless a benefit so far as it may be compatible with
truth and piety. After a fair discussion, we shall rather
be surprised by the timidity, than scandalized by the
freedom, of our first reformers. (32) With the Jews, they
adopted the belief and defence of all the Hebrew Scriptures,
with all their prodigies, from the garden of Eden to the
visions of the prophet Daniel; and they were bound, like the
Catholics, to justify against the Jews the abolition of a
divine law. In the great mysteries of the Trinity and
Incarnation the reformers were severely orthodox: they
freely adopted the theology of the four, or the six first
councils; and with the Athanasian creed, they pronounced the
eternal damnation of all who did not believe the Catholic
faith. Transubstantiation, the invisible change of the bread
and wine into the body and blood of Christ, is a tenet that
may defy the power of argument and pleasantry; but instead
of consulting the evidence of their senses, of their sight,
their feeling, and their taste, the first Protestants were
entangled in their own scruples, and awed by the words of
Jesus in the institution of the sacrament. Luther
maintained a corporeal, and Calvin a real, presence of
Christ in the eucharist; and the opinion of Zuinglius, that
it is no more than a spiritual communion, a simple memorial,
has slowly prevailed in the reformed churches. (33) But the
loss of one mystery was amply compensated by the stupendous
doctrines of original sin, redemption, faith, grace, and
predestination, which have been strained from the epistles
of St. Paul. These subtile questions had most assuredly
been prepared by the fathers and schoolmen; but the final
improvement and popular use may be attributed to the first
reformers, who enforced them as the absolute and essential
terms of salvation. Hitherto the weight of supernatural
belief inclines against the Protestants; and many a sober
Christian would rather admit that a wafer is God, than that
God is a cruel and capricious tyrant.
Yet the services of Luther and his rivals are solid and important; and the philosopher must own his obligations to these fearless enthusiasts. (34) I. By their hands the lofty fabric of superstition, from the abuse of indulgences to the intercession of the Virgin, has been levelled with the ground. Myriads of both sexes of the monastic profession were restored to the liberty and labours of social life. A hierarchy of saints and angels, of imperfect and subordinate deities, were stripped of their temporal power, and reduced to the enjoyment of celestial happiness; their images and relics were banished from the church; and the credulity of the people was no longer nourished with the daily repetition of miracles and visions. The imitation of Paganism was supplied by a pure and spiritual worship of prayer and thanksgiving, the most worthy of man, the least unworthy of the Deity. It only remains to observe, whether such sublime simplicity be consistent with popular devotion; whether the vulgar, in the absence of all visible objects, will not be inflamed by enthusiasm, or insensibly subside in languor and indifference. II. The chain of authority was broken, which restrains the bigot from thinking as he pleases, and the slave from speaking as he thinks: the popes, fathers, and councils, were no longer the supreme and infallible judges of the world; and each Christian was taught to acknowledge no law but the Scriptures, no interpreter but his own conscience. This freedom, however, was the consequence, rather than the design, of the Reformation. The patriot reformers were ambitious of succeeding the tyrants whom they had dethroned. They imposed with equal rigour their creeds and confessions; they asserted the right of the magistrate to punish heretics with death. The pious or personal animosity of Calvin proscribed in Servetus (35) the guilt of his own rebellion; (36) and the flames of Smithfield, in which he was afterwards consumed, had been kindled for the Anabaptists by the zeal of Cranmer. (37) The nature of the tiger was the same, but he was gradually deprived of his teeth and fangs. A spiritual and temporal kingdom was possessed by the Roman pontiff; the Protestant doctors were subjects of an humble rank, without revenue or jurisdiction. His decrees were consecrated by the antiquity of the Catholic church: their arguments and disputes were submitted to the people; and their appeal to private judgment was accepted beyond their wishes, by curiosity and enthusiasm. Since the days of Luther and Calvin, a secret reformation has been silently working in the bosom of the reformed churches; many weeds of prejudice were eradicated; and the disciples of Erasmus (38) diffused a spirit of freedom and moderation. The liberty of conscience has been claimed as a common benefit, an inalienable right: (39) the free governments of Holland (40) and England (41) introduced the practice of toleration; and the narrow allowance of the laws has been enlarged by the prudence and humanity of the times. In the exercise, the mind has understood the limits of its powers, and the words and shadows that might amuse the child can no longer satisfy his manly reason. The volumes of controversy are overspread with cobwebs: the doctrine of a Protestant church is far removed from the knowledge or belief of its private members; and the forms of orthodoxy, the articles of faith, are subscribed with a sigh, or a smile, by the modern clergy. Yet the friends of Christianity are alarmed at the boundless impulse of inquiry and scepticism. The predictions of the Catholics are accomplished: the web of mystery is unravelled by the Arminians, Arians, and Socinians, whose number must not be computed from their separate congregations; and the pillars of Revelation are shaken by those men who preserve the name without the substance of religion, who indulge the license without the temper of philosophy. (42)
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