ARREST OF THE PROGRESS OF PROTESTANTISM. 417

3. The counter-reformation in the Catholic Church, by removing the gross abuses which had been the object of righteous complaint, took a formidable weapon from the hands of the Protestants. At the same time, the apathy of the old Church was broken up, the attention of its rulers was no longer absorbed in ambitious schemes of politics, or in the gratification of a literary taste, which made the Papal court a rendezvous of authors and artists; but a profound zeal for the doctrines and forms of the Roman Catholic religion pervaded and united all ranks of its disciples.

4. While this concentration of forces was taking place on the Catholic side, Protestants more and more wasted their strength in contests with one another. Their mutual intolerance facilitated the advance of their common enemy. Moreover, the warm, religious feeling that animated the early Reformers and the princes who defended their cause, passed away to a considerable degree, and was succeeded by a theological rigidness, or a selfish, political spirit. The appearance of such a character as Maurice of Saxony, in so marked contrast with the Electors who listened to the voice of Luther, and even with the Landgrave Philip of Hesse, indicates the advent of an era when a more politic and selfish temper displaces the simplicity of religious principle. Queen Elizabeth, with her lukewarm attachment to the Reformation, and her mendacious, crooked policy, is a poor representative of the religious character of Protestantism. How much more intense and consistent was the religious zeal of the secular leader of the Catholic restoration, Philip II. The ardor of Protestants spent itself in domestic discord, at the very time when the ardor of Catholicism was exerted, with undivided energy, against them.

5. The better organization of the Catholic Church was a signal advantage in the battle with Protestantism,

which was divided into as many churches as there were political communities that embraced the new doctrine. On the Catholic side there could be a plan of operations, having respect not to a single country alone, a separate portion of the field of combat, but formed upon a survey of the whole situation, and carried out with sole reference to a united success.

6. Another source of power in the Catholic Church grew out of the habit of availing itself of all varieties. of religious temperament, of turning to the best account the wide diversity of talents and character which is developed within its fold. The dispassionate and astute politician, the laborious scholar, the subtle and skillful polemic, the fiery enthusiast, are none of them rejected, but all of them assigned to a work suited to their respective capacities. Men as dissimilar as Bellarmine and Ignatius were engaged in a common cause, and were even within the same fraternity. This custom of the Catholic Church is often attributed to a profound policy. But whatever sagacity it may indicate, it is probably due less to the calculations of a far-sighted policy, than to an habitual principle, or way of thinking in religion, which is inherent in the genius of Catholicism. It has been justly observed that men of the type of Wesley, who, among Protestants, have been forced to become the founders of distinct religious bodies, would have found within the Catholic Church, had they been born there, hospitable treatment and congenial employment. The host that was marshalled under the command of the Pope, for the defense of Catholicism, was like an army that includes light-armed skirmishers and heavyarmed artillerymen, swift cavalry, and spies who can penetrate the camp and pry into the counsels of the enemy.

7. It cannot be denied that in Southern Europe there was manifested a more rooted attachment to the Roman Catholic system, than existed among the nations which

THE CATHOLIC REACTION.

419

adopted the Reformation. In Germany, the common people gladly heard the teaching of Luther. Protestantism there had much of the character of a national movement. In Italy and Spain, it was mainly the lettered class that received the new doctrine. Below a certain grade of culture, few were affected by it. Even in France, which had something like a middle position between the two currents of opinion, it was the intelligent middle class, together with scholars and nobles, that furnished to Protestantism its adherents. In Italy and Spain, the new doctrine did not reach down to the springs of national life. Moreover, it is remarkable that in these nations which remained Catholic, so many who went so far as to receive the evangelical doctrine substantially as it was held by the Protestants, were not impelled to cast off the polity or worship of the old Church. This circumstance is far from being wholly due to timidity. The outward forms of Protestantism were less necessary, less congenial to them; the outward forms of Catholicism were less obnoxious. Even in France, this same phenomenon appeared in the circle that early gathered about Lefèvre and Briçonnet, and especially in Margaret of Navarre and her followers. The doctrine of gratuitous salvation through the merits of Christ, the inwardness of piety, as fostered by the evangelical doctrine, were grateful to them; but they were not moved to renounce the government or the sacraments of the Church, or to affiliate themselves with the Protestant body.

When all these circumstances are contemplated, it will cease to be a matter of wonder that Protestantism, after its first great victories were won, halted in its course and was at length shut up within fixed boundaries.

But the Catholic party were destined to suffer from internal discord. Before the close of the century, the followers of Ignatius, who were semi-Pelagian in their the

ology, became involved in a hot strife with the Dominicans, who in common with their master, Aquinas, were nearer to Augustine in their view of the relation of grace to freewill. The theological conflict that was thus kindled, was of long continuance, and brought serious disasters upon the Catholic Church, and, in its ultimate effect, upon the Jesuit order. This was one of a number of adverse influences which conspired finally to paralyze the Catholic Reaction, and to stop the progress of the counter-reformation.

f

CHAPTER XII.

THE STRUGGLE OF PROTESTANTISM IN THE SEVEN

TEENTH CENTURY.

THE Catholic Reaction, of which the Pope was the spiritual, and Philip II. the secular chief, experienced a terrible reverse in the ruin of the Spanish Armada, and the failure of that gigantic project for the conquest of England. The establishment of Henry IV. on the throne of France was a still more discouraging blow. France, the Netherlands, and Great Britain were the principal theatre of the efforts which had for their end the political predominance of the Spanish monarchy and the spiritual supremacy of Rome. The struggle of Protestantism continues through the greater part of the seventeenth century. Gradually the Catholic Reaction expended its force, and political motives and ideas subordinated the impulses of fanaticism.

The principal topics to be considered are the thirty years' war; the English revolutions; the domestic and foreign policy of Richelieu and of Louis XIV. The reign of Louis XIV. falls principally in the latter half of the seventeenth century, or the period following the great European settlement, the Peace of Westphalia. Yet some notice of this reign is requisite for a full view of the conflict of Protestantism and Catholicism.1

Charles V. had found himself deceived in his political

1 Häusser, Geschichte des Zeitalters d. Reformation (1868). Von Raumer, Geschichte Europas seit d. Ende d. 15. Jahr., vol. iii. Laurent, Les Nationalates, l. 1. ch. iv. Ranke, Geschichte Wallensteins (3d ed., 1872). Carlyle, History of Frederic II., vol. i., b. iii., chaps. xiv., xvi.