the authority of the government or the tranquillity of the public."

of the reforma

XIII. The reformation made a considerable progress in Spain and Italy soon after the rupture between The progress Luther and the Roman pontiff. In all the pro- tion in Spain vinces of Italy, but more especially in the terri- and Italy. tories of Venice, Tuscany, and Naples, the religion of Rome lost ground, and great numbers of persons, of all ranks and orders, expressed an aversion to the papal yoke. This gave rise to violent and dangerous commotions in the kingdom of Naples in the year 1546, of which the principal authors were Bernard Ochino and Peter Martyr, who, in their public discourses from the pulpit, exhausted all the force of their irresistible eloquence in exposing the enor mity of the reigning superstition. These tumults were appeased with much difficulty by the united efforts of Charles V. and his viceroy Don Pedro di Toledo. In several places the popes put a stop to the progress of the reformation, by letting loose, upon the pretended heretics, their bloody inquisitors, who spread the marks of their usual barbarity through the greatest part of Italy. These formidable ministers of superstition put so many to death, and perpetrated, on the friends of religious liberty, such horrid acts of cruelty and oppression, that most of the reformists consulted their safety by a voluntary exile, while others returned to the religion of Rome, at least in external appearance. But the terrors of the inquisition, which frightened back into the profession of popery several protestants in other parts of Italy, could not penetrate into the kingdom of Naples, nor could either the authority or entreaties of the Roman pontiffs engage the Neapolitans to admit within their territories either a court of inquisition, or even visiting inquisitors.'

enjoyed. They were all indiscriminately excluded from the civil employments of the states; but though they were equally allowed the exercise of their religion, the latter were permitted to enjoy their religious worship in a more open and public manner than the former, from whom the churches were taken, and whose religious assemblies were confined to private conventicles, which had no external resemblance of the edifices usually set apart for divine worship.

r See a further account of this matter in Gerard Brandt's History of the Reformation in the Netherlands, of which there was a French abridgment published at Amsterdam, in three volumes 12mo. in the year 1730. The original work was published in Dutch, ⚫ in four volumes 4to.

s See Giannone, Histoire Civile du Royaume de Naples, tom. iv. p. 108. Vita Galeacii in Museo Helvetico, tom. ii. p. 524.

It It was an attempt to introduce a Roman inquisitor into the city of Naples, that, properly speaking, produced the tumult and sedition which Dr. Mosheim attri

The eyes of several persons in Spain were opened upon the truth, not only by the spirit of inquiry, which the controversies between Luther and Rome had excited in Europe, but even by those very divines, which Charles V. had brought with him into Germany to combat the pretended heresy of the reformers. For these Spanish doctors imbibed this heresy instead of refuting it, and propagated it more or less, on their return home, as appears evidently from several circumstances." But the inquisition, which could not gain any footing in the kingdom of Naples, reigned triumphant in Spain; and by racks, gibbets, stakes, and other such formidable instruments of its method of persuading, soon terrified the people back into popery, and suppressed the vehement desire they had of changing a superstitious worship for a rational religion."

butes in this section to the pulpit discourses of Ochino and Martyr; for these famous preachers, and particularly the former, taught the doctrines of the reformation with great art, prudence, and caution, and converted many secretly, without giving public offence. The emperor himself, who heard him at Naples, declared, that "he preached with such spirit and devotion as was sufficient to make the very stones weep." After Ochino's departure from Naples, the disciples he had formed gave private instructions to others, among whom were some eminent ecclesiastics and persons of distinction, who began to form congregations and conventicles. This awakened the jealousy of the viceroy Toledo, who published a severe edict against heretical books, ordered some productions of Melancthon and Erasmus to be publicly burnt, looked with a suspicious eye on all kinds of literature, suppressed several academies, which had been erected about this time by the nobility for the advancement of learning; and, having received orders from the emperor to introduce the inquisition, desired pope Paul III. to send from Rome to Naples a deputy of that formidable tribunal. It was this that excited the people to take up arms in order to defend themselves against this branch of spiritual tyranny, which the Neapolitans never were patient enough to suffer, and which, on many occasions, they had opposed with vigour and success. Hostilities ensued, which were followed by an accommodation of matters and a general pardon; while the emperor and viceroy, by this resolute opposition, were deterred from their design of introducing this despotic tribunal into the kingdom of Naples. Several other attempts were afterward made, during the reign of Philip II. III. IV. and Charles II. to esta blish the inquisition in Naples; but, by the jealousy and vigilance of the people, they all proved ineffectual. At length the emperor Charles VI. in the beginning of this present century, published an edict, expressly prohibiting all causes, relating to the holy faith, to be tried by any persons, except the archbishops and bishops as ordinaries. See Giannone, Histoire de Naples, livr. xxii. sect. 2 and 3. Modern Univ. History, vol. xxviii. p. 273, &c. edit. octavo.

u This appears from the unhappy end of all the ecclesiastics that had attended Charles V. and followed him into his retirement. No sooner was the breath of that monarch out, than they were put into the inquisition, and were afterward committed to the flames, or sent to death in other forms equally terrible. Such was the fate of Augustin Casal, the emperor's preacher; of Constantine Pontius, his confessor; of the learned Egidius, whom he had nominated to the bishopric of Tortosa; of Bartholomew de Caranza, a Dominican, who had been confessor to king Philip and queen Mary, with above twenty more of less note. All this gave reason to presume that Charles V. died a protestant. Certain it is, that he knew well the corruptions and frauds of the church of Rome, and the grounds and reasons of the protestant faith; though business, ambition, interest, and the prejudices of education, may have blinded him for a while, until leisure, retirement, the absence of worldly temptations and the approach of death, removed the vail, and led him to wise and serious reflections. See Burnet's History of the Reformation, and the book cited in the following note.

w See Geddes, his Spanish Martyrology, in his Miscellaneous Tracts, tom. i. p. 445.

ment we are

cerning the

and the means

XIV. I shall not pretend to dispute with those writers, whatever their secret intentions may be, who ob- What judg serve, that many unjustifiable proceedings may for con be charged upon some of the most eminent pro- reformation moters of this great change in the state of religion. by which it For every impartial and attentive observer of the was produced. rise and progress of the reformation will ingenuously acknowledge, that wisdom and prudence did not always attend the transactions of those that were concerned in this glorious cause; that many things were done with violence, temerity, and precipitation; and what is still worse, that several of the principal agents in this great revolution were actuated more by the impulse of passions, and views of interest, than by a zeal for the advancement of true religion. But on the other hand, the wise and candid observer of things will own, as a most evident and incontestable truth, that many things, which, when stripped of the circumstances and motives that attended them, appear to us at this time as real crimes, will be deprived of their enormity, and even acquire the aspect of noble deeds, if they be considered in one point of view with the times and places in which they were transacted, and with the frauds and crimes of the Roman pontiffs and their creatures, by which they were occasioned. But after all, in defending the cause of the reformation, we are under no obligation to defend, in all things, the moral characters of its promoters and instruments. These two objects are entirely distinct. The most just and excellent cause may be promoted with low views and from sinister motives, without losing its nature, or ceasing to be just and excellent. The true state. of the question here is, whether the opposition made, by Luther and the other reformers, to the Roman pontiff, was founded on just and solid reasons; and this question is entirely independent of the virtues or vices of particular persons. Let many of these persons be supposed as odious, nay, still more detestable, than they are pleased to represent them, provided the cause in which they were embarked be allowed to have been just and good.

x The translator has added here some paragraphs, to render more palpable the important observation of the learned author.

APPENDIX I.

CONCERNING THE SPIRIT AND CONDUCT OF THE FIRST REFORMERS, AND THE CHARGE OF ENTHUSIASM, i. e. FANATICISM, THAT HAS BEEN BROUGHT

AGAINST THEM BY A CELEBRATED AUTHOR.

I. THE candour and impartiality with which Dr. Mosheim represents the transactions of those who were agents and instruments in bringing about the reformation, are highly laudable. He acknowledges that imprudence, passion, and even a low self-interest, mingled sometimes their rash proceedings and ignoble motives in this excellent cause and in the very nature of things it could not be otherwise. It is one of the most inevitable consequences of the subordination and connexions of civil society, that many improper instruments and agents are set to work in all great and important revolutions, whether of a religious or political nature. When great men appear in these revolutions, they draw after them their dependents; and the unhappy effects of a party spirit are unavoidably displayed in the best cause. The subjects follow their prince; the multitude adopt the system of their leaders, without entering into its true spirit, or being judiciously attentive to the proper methods of promoting it; and thus irregular proceedings are employed in the maintenance of the truth. Thus it happened in the important revolution that delivered a great part of Europe from the ignominious yoke of the Roman pontiff. The sovereigns, the ecclesiastics, the men of weight, piety, and learning, who arose to assert the rights of human nature, the cause of genuine Christianity, and the exercise of religious liberty, came forth into the field of controversy with a multitude of admirers, dependents, and friends, whose motives and conduct cannot be entirely justified. Beside, when the eyes of whole nations were opened upon the iniquitous absurdities of popery, and upon the tyranny and insolence of the Roman pontiffs, it was scarcely possible to set bounds to the indignation of an incensed and tumultuous multitude, who are naturally prone to ex

tremes, generally pass from blind submission to lawless ferocity, and too rarely distinguish between the use and abuse of their undoubted rights. In a word, many things which appear to us extremely irregular in the conduct and measures of some of the instruments of our happy refor mation, will be entitled to a certain degree of indulgence, if the spirit of the times, the situation of the contending parties, the barbarous provocations of popery, and the infirmities of human nature, be duly and attentively consi

dered.

The question here is, what was the spirit which animated the first and principal reformers, who arose in times of darkness and despair to deliver oppressed kingdoms from the dominion of Rome, and upon what principles a Luther, a Zuingle, a Calvin, a Melancthon, a Bucer, &c. embarked in the arduous cause of the reformation? This question indeed is not at all necessary to the defence of the reformation, which rests upon the strong foundations of Scripture and reason, and whose excellence is absolutely independent of the virtues of those who took the lead in promoting it. Bad men may be, and often are, embarked in the best causes; as such causes afford the most specious mask to cover mercenary views, or to disguise ambitious purposes. But, until the more than Jesuitical and disingenuous Philips resumed the trumpet of calumny," even the voice of popery had ceased to attack the moral characters of the leading reformers.

These eminent men were indeed attacked from another quarter, and by a much more respectable writer. The truly ingenious Mr. Hume, so justly celebrated as one of the first favourites of the historical muse, has, in his History of England, and more especially in the History of the houses of Tudor and Stuart, represented the character and temper of the first reformers in a point of view, which undoubtedly shows, that he had not considered them with that close and impartial attention that ought always to precede personal reflections. He has laid it down as a principle, that superstition and enthusiasm are two species of religion that stand in diametrical opposition to each other; and seems to establish it as a fact, that the former is the genius of popery, and the latter the characteristic of the

a See the various answers that were made to this biographer by the ingenious Mr. Pye, the learned Dr. Neve, and other commendable writers, who have appeared in this controversy.