had taken place in the midst of Europe; the dissolution of the decrepit and corrupt empire of Rome; the irruption and inundation of northern barbarians; their fluctuations, their wars, sometimes with each other, and sometimes with the conquered nations, and that for so many ages; the establishment and absolute reign of feudalism, with all its inconveniences, its evils, its troubles, and disasters; the invasion of the Saracens, and their dominion over a large portion of Europe; now, let any reflecting man ask himself whether such revolutions must not of necessity produce ignorance, corruption of morals, and the relaxation of all discipline. How could the ecclesiastical society escape being deeply affected by this dissolution, this destruction of the civil society? Could she help participating in the evils of the horrible state of chaos into which Europe was then plunged?
But were the spirit and ardent desire of reforming abuses ever wanting in the Church? It can be shown that they were not. I will not mention the saints whom she did not cease to produce during these unhappy periods; history proves their number and their virtues, which, so vividly contrasting with the corruption of the age, show that the divine flames which descended on the Apostles had not been extinguished in the bosom of the Catholic Church. This fact proves much; but there is another still more remarkable, a fact less subject to dispute, and which we cannot be accused of exaggerating; a fact which is not limited to individuals, but which is, on the contrary, the most complete expression of the spirit by which the whole body of the Church was animated; I mean, the constant meeting of councils, in which abuses were reproved and condemned, and in which sanctity of morals and the observance of discipline were continually inculcated. Happily this consoling fact is indisputable; it is open to every eye; and to be aware of it, one only needs to consult a volume of ecclesiastical history, or the proceedings of councils. There is no fact more worth our attention; and I will add, that perhaps all its importance has not been observed.
Let us remark what passes in other societies: we see that in proportion to the change of ideas and manners, laws everywhere undergo a rapid modification; and if manners and ideas come to be directly opposed to laws, the latter, reduced to silence, are soon either abolished or trodden under foot. Nothing of this sort has happened in the Church. Corruption has extended itself everywhere to a lamentable degree; the ministers of religion have allowed themselves to be carried away by the stream, and have forgotten the sanctity of their vocation; but the sacred fire did not cease to burn in the sanctuary; the law was there constantly proclaimed and inculcated; and, wonderful spectacle! the men who themselves violated it frequently assembled to condemn themselves, to censure their own conduct, and thus to render more public and more palpable the contrast which existed between their instructions and their actions. Simony and incontinence were the prevailing vices; if you open the canons of councils, you will find them everywhere anathematized. Nowhere do you find a struggle so prolonged, so constant, so persevering, of right against wrong; you always see, throughout so many ages, the law, opposed face to face to the irregular passions, maintain itself firm and immovable, without yielding a single step, without allowing them a moment of repose or peace until they were subjugated. And this constancy and tenacity of the Church were not useless. At the commencement of the sixteenth century, at the time when Protestantism appeared, we find abuses comparatively less numerous, morals perceptibly improved, discipline become more strict, and observed with sufficient regularity. The time when Luther declaimed was not like that when St. Peter Damien and St. Bernard deplored the evils of the Church. The chaos was reduced to form; order, light, and regularity had made rapid progress; and an incontestable proof that the Church was not then plunged in such ignorance and corruption as is alleged, is, that she produced the great assemblage of saints who shed so much lustre on the age, and the men who displayed their eminent wisdom at the Council of Trent. Let us remember that great reforms require much time; that they met with much resistance both from the clergy and laity; that for having undertaken them with firmness, and urged them with vigour, Gregory VII. has been charged with rashness. Let us not judge of men without regard to times and places; and let us not pretend to measure every thing according to our own limited ideas; ages move in an immense orbit, and the variety of circumstances produces situations so strange and complicated that we can hardly form an idea of them.
Bossuet, in his History of the Variations, after having differently classed the spirit which guided certain men, before the thirteenth century, in their attempts at reform, and having cited the threatening words of Cardinal Julian on the subject of abuses, adds: "It is thus that, in the fifteenth century, this cardinal, the greatest man of his times, deplored these evils, and foresaw their fatal effects; by which he seems to have predicted those that Luther was about to bring on all Christianity, and in the first place on Germany; and he was not deceived when he thought that the neglect of reformation, and the increased hatred against the clergy, was about to produce a sect more dangerous to the Church than the Bohemians." (Hist. des Variat. liv. i.) It is inferred from these words that the illustrious Bishop of Meaux found one of the principal causes of Protestantism in the omission of a legitimate reform made in time. Nevertheless, we must not suppose from this that Bossuet meant, in any degree, to excuse the promoters of it, or that he had any idea of sanctioning their intentions; on the contrary, he ranked them as turbulent innovators, who, far from promoting the real reform which was desired by wise and prudent men, only served to render it more difficult, by introducing, by the means of their erroneous doctrines, the spirit of disobedience, schism, and heresy.
In spite of the authority of Bossuet, I cannot persuade myself to look upon abuses as one of the principal causes of Protestantism; but it is not necessary to repeat what I have said in support of this opinion. It may not, however, be useless to repeat, that the authority of Bossuet is misapplied when used to justify the intentions of the reformers, since the illustrious prelate is the first to declare them highly culpable, and to observe, that if abuses were in existence, their intention was not to correct them, but rather to make them a pretext for abandoning the faith of the Church, throwing off the yoke of lawful authority, breaking the bands of discipline, and introducing thereby disorder and licentiousness.
How, indeed, can we attribute to the reformers the real spirit of reform, when almost all of them proved the contrary by the ignominy of their own conduct? If they had condemned, by the austerity of their morals, or by devoting themselves to a severe asceticism, the relaxations of which they complained, there might be a question whether their extravagances were not the effects of exaggerated zeal, and if some excess in the love of virtue had not drawn them into error. But they did nothing of the kind. Let us hear on this point an eye-witness, a man who certainly cannot be accused of fanaticism, since the connection which he had with the leaders of Protestantism has rendered him culpable in the eyes of many. Behold what Erasmus said, with his usual wit and bitterness: "The reform, as far as it has gone, has been limited to the secularization of a few nuns and the marriage of a few priests; and this great tragedy finishes with an event altogether comic, since every thing is wound up, as in comedies, by a marriage."
This shows to conviction the true spirit of the innovators of the sixteenth century. It is clear that, far from wishing the reformation of abuses, they wished rather to increase them. This bare consideration of facts has led M. Guizot, on this point, into the path of truth, when he rejects the opinion of those who pretend, that the Reformation was "an attempt conceived and executed simply with the intention of reconstructing a pure and primitive Church. The Reformation," he said, "was not a mere attempt at religious amelioration, or the fruit of a Utopian humanity and virtue." (Histoire Générale de la Civilisation en Europe, douzième leçon.)
We shall have now no difficulty in appreciating at its just value the explanation which the same writer gives of this phenomenon. "The Reformation," says M. Guizot, "was a great attempt at the liberation of human thought – an uprising of the mind of man." This attempt, according to M. Guizot, arose out of the energetic movement given to the human mind, and the state of inaction into which the Roman Church had fallen; it arose from this, that the human mind advanced rapidly and impetuously, while the Church remained stationary. Explanations of this kind, and this one in particular, are very apt to draw admirers and proselytes; these ideas are high, and placed on a level so lofty and extended, that they cannot be looked at closely by the generality of readers; and, moreover, they appear in brilliant imagery, which blinds the sight and prejudices the judgment.
