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production beyond the reach of criticism or cen- C EN T. sure. It was easy to foresee that such a declaration ser. III. was every way adapted to keep the people in igno- PART 4. rance, and to veil from their understandings the true meaning of the sacred writings. In the same council, farther steps were taken to execute, with success, the designs of Rome. A severe and intolerable law was enacted, with respect to all interpreters and expositors of the scriptures, by which they were forbidden to explain the sense of these divine books, in matters relating to faith and practice, in such a manner as to make them speak a different language from that of the church and the ancient doctors [m]. The same law farther declared, that the church alone (i e. its ruler, the Roman pontif) had the right of determining the true meaning and signification of scripture. To fill up the measure of these tyrannical and ini quitous proceedings, the church of Rome persisted obstinately in affirming, though not always with the same impudence and plainness of speech, that the holy scriptures were not composed for the use of the multitude, but only for that of their spiritual teachers; and, of consequence, ordered these divine records to be taken from the people in all places where it was allowed to execute its imperious com. mands [n].

positors of

XXVI. These circumstances had a visible in- Commenta. fluence upon the spirit and productions of the tors and excommentators and expositors of scripture, which the holy the example of Luther and his followers had scriptures. rendered

P 4

[m] It is remarkable, that this prohibition extends even to such interpretations as were not designed for public view. "Etiamsi hujusmodi interpretationes nullo unquam tempore "in lucem edendæ forent." Sessio, 4to, tit. cap: ii.

[n] The pontifs were not allowed to execute this despotic order in all countries that acknowledged the jurisdiction of the church of Rome, The French and some other nations have the Bible in their mother-tongue, in which they peruse it though much against the will of the creatures of the pope.

XVI.'

CENT rendered, through emulation, extremely numeSECT. III. rous. The popish doctors, who vied with the PART 1. protestants in this branch of sacred erudition,

were insipid, timorous, servilely attached to the glory and interests of the court of Rome, and discovered, in their explications, all the marks of slavish dependence and constraint. They seem to have been in constant terror lest any expression should escape from their pen that savoured of opinions different from what were commonly received; they appeal, every moment, to the declarations and authority of the holy fathers, as they usually stile them; nor do they appear to have so much consulted the real doctrines taught by the sacred writers, as the language and sentiments which the church of Rome has taken the liberty to put into their mouths. Several of these commentators rack their imaginations in order to force out of each passage of scripture the four kinds of significations, called Literal, Allegorical, Tropological and Anagogical, which ignorance and superstition had first invented, and afterwards held so sacred, in the explication of the inspired writings. Nor was their attachment to this manner of interpretation so ill-managed, since it enabled them to make the sacred writers speak the language that was favourable to the views of the church, and to draw out of the Bible, with the help of a little subtilty, whatever doctrine they had a mind to impose upon the credulity of the multitude.

It must, however, be acknowledged, that, besides these miserable commentators that dishonour the church of Rome, there were some in its communion, who had wisdom enough to despise these senseless methods of interpretation, and who, avoiding all mysterious significations and fancies, followed the plain, natural, and literal sense of the expression used in the holy scriptures. In this

class

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SECT.

class the most eminent were Erasmus of Rotterdam, CENT who translated into Latin, with an elegant and szer. III. faithful simplicity, the books of the New Testa-PART I ment, and explained them with judgement in a pharaphrase which is deservedly esteemed; Cardinal Cajetan, who disputed with Luther at Augsburg, and who gave a brief, but judicious exposition of almost all the books of the Old and New Testament; Francis Titelman, Isidorus Clarius, John Maldonat, Benedict Justinian, who acquired no mean reputation by their commentaries on the Epistles of St Paul. To these may be added Gaigny, De'Espence, and other Expositors [9]. But these eminent men, whose example was so adapted to excite emulation, had almost no followers; and, in a short space of time, their influence was gone, and their labours were forgot. For, towards the conclusion of this century, Edmund Richer, that strenuous opposer of the encroach ments made by the pontifs on the liberties of the Gallican church, was the only doctor in the university of Paris who followed the literal sense and the plain and natural significatiou of the words of scripture; while all the other commentators and interpreters, imitating the pernicious example of several ancient expositors, were always racking their brains for mysterious and sublime significations, where none such were, nor could be, designed by the sacred writers [p].

XXVII. The seminaries of learning were filled, The state of before the reformation, with that subtile kind of didactic theology. theological doctors, commonly known under the denomination of schoolmen; so that even at Paris, which was considered as the principal seat of sacred erudition, no doctors were to be found who were capable of disputing with the protestant divines in

the

[o] See Simon, Hist. Critique du Vieux et de Nouv. Testa

ment.

[] See Baillet, Vie d'Edmund Richer, p. 9, 10.

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CEN T. the method they generally pursued, which was that SECT. III. of proving the doctrines they maintained by arguPARTIments drawn from the Holy Scriptures and the

writings of the fathers. This uncommon scarcity of didactic and scriptural divines produced, much confusion and perplexity, on many occasions, even in the council of Trent; where the scholastic doctors fatigued some, and almost turned the heads of others, by examining and explaining the doctrines that were there proposed, according to the intricate and ambiguous rules of their captious philosophy. Hence it became absolutely necessary to reform the methods of proceeding in theological disquisitions, and to restore to its former credit that which drew the truths of religion more from the dictates of the sacred writings, and from the sentiments of the ancient doctors. than from the uncertain suggestions of human reason, and the ingenious conjectures of philosophy [9]. It was, however,

[9] See Du Boulay's account of the Reformation of the Theological Faculty, or College at Paris, in his Hist. Acad. Paris. tom. vi. p. 790. In this reform, the Batchelors of Di vinity, called Sententiarii and Biblici, are particularly distinguished; and (what is extremely remarkable) the Augustine monks, who were Luther's fraternity, are ordered to furnish the college of divinity once a year with a scriptural Batchelor (Baccalaureum Biblicum præsentare); from whence we may conclude, that the monks of the Augustine order, to which Luther belonged, were much more conversant in the study of the Holy Scriptures than the other Monastic societies. But this academical law deserves to be quoted here at length, and that so much the more, as du Boulay's History is in few hands It is as follows: "Augustinenses quolibet anno Biblicum præsentabunt, secundum statuum fol. 21. quod sequitur: Quilibet ordo Mendicantium et Collegium S. Bernardi habeat quolibet anno Biblicum qui legat ordinarie, alioqui priventur Baccalaureo sententiario." It appears by this law, that each of the Mendicant orders was, by a decree of the Theological Faculty, obliged to furnish, yearly, a scriptural Batchelor (such was Luther); and yet we see, that in the Reformation already mentioned, this obligation is imposed upon none but the Augustine monks; from which it is natural to conclude,

that

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however, impossible to deprive entirely the scho-CEN T. lastic divines of the ascendant they had acquired sc T. III. in the seminaries of learning, and had so long PARTI. maintained almost without opposition. Nay, after having been threatened with a diminution of their authority, they seemed to resume new vigour from the time that the Jesuits adopted their philosophy, and made use of their subtile dialectic, as a more effectual armour against the attacks of the heretics, than either the language of scripture, or the authority of the fathers. And, indeed, this intricate jargon of the schools was every way proper to answer the purposes of a set of men, who found it necessary to puzzle and perplex, where they could neither refute with perspicuity, nor prove with evidence. Thus they artfully concealed their defeat, and retreated, in the dazzled eyes of the multitude, with the appearance of victory [r].

The Mystics lost almost all their credit in the church of Rome after the Reformation; and that, partly on account of the favourable reception they found among the Protestants, and partly in consequence of their pacific system, which, giving them an aversion to controversy in general, rendered them little disposed to defend the papal cause against its numerous and formidable adversaries. These enthusiasts however were, in some measure, tolerated in the church of Rome, and allowed to indulge themselves in their philosophical speculations, on certain conditions, which obliged them to abstain from censuring either the laws or the corruptions of the church, and from declaiming, with

that the Dominicans, Franciscans, and the other Mendicants, had entirely neglected the study of the Scriptures, and consequently had among them no scriptural Batchelors; and that the Augustine monks alone were in a condition to satisfy the demands of the Theological Faculty.

[r] The translator has added the two last sentence of this paragraph, to illustrate more fully the sense of the author.