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CHAPTER III.

FROM THE PACIFICATION OF NUREMBERG TO
THE CONVENTION OF FRANCFORT.

respecting a

THE whole period assigned to this chapter, Proceedings with several years that followed, was in great council. measure occupied in negotiations and intrigues respecting a general council. The particulars are detailed at great length by Sleidan and Seckendorf, as well as by Father Paul; but they are wearisome, and yield no satisfaction to a mind in quest of the interior history of the church of Christ, and of true religion. They may therefore be almost wholly passed over in this work. Clement VII., while he professed his willingness to call a council, persevered to the end of his life in the artifices which he knew would delay, if not finally prevent, its convocation. His death took place in the year 1534. His successor, Paul III., (of the house of Farnese,) though, having witnessed "the universal censure which Clement had incurred by his obstinacy, he hoped to avoid the same reproach by the seeming alacrity with which he proposed a council, yet flattered himself that such difficulties would arise concerning the time and place of meeting, the persons who had a right to be present, and the order of their proceedings, as would effectually defeat the intention of those who demanded it."1

1 Robertson, iii. 61, 68.

CHAP.

III.

Soon after the pacification of Nuremberg, while public expectation was pretty strongly Erasmus's directed to the holding of a council, Erasmus, who has for a considerable time disappeared Religion. from our view, again rendered himself con

Work on

Concord in

A. D. 1533.

spicuous in the affairs of the church. In a commentary on the eighty-fourth Psalm,' he published his thoughts on concord in religion. The object proposed, important as it is, was one to which Erasmus, in great measure from a natural love of ease, had always been disposed to make too large sacrifices, even those of truth and principle.2 The present performance appears to be precisely one of those works, which from time to time come forth in periods of conflict, and to which our own age has been no stranger: works which, assuming to occupy the high ground of impartial decision between contending parties, really do great injustice to one or the other of them, and commonly to that which is esteemed the weaker and more obnoxious. Such works often proceed either from men of ambitious policy, who seek to commend themselves to such as are able to advance them, and are at the same time persons of professed, perhaps of real, moderation; or from men who, attempting little themselves, affect the praise of superior wisdom by censuring those who are doing great practical good, though not without that mixture of error and infirmity which is incident to human nature. Such men often avail themselves of the important truths, which the very objects of their censure have brought into public notice, propound them as their own, and are severe on the extravagances with which, as they pretend, the others have deformed and

1 Opera, Basil. 1540. v. 394. Jortin's Life of Erasmus.

oppressed them. From no one of these charges, it is probable, taking into account what we already know of Erasmus,' shall we be able to acquit him on this occasion.

In the part of his work with which we are concerned,2 after some general advice, very good indeed, but very little likely to be followed-such as, that all orders of men, popes, princes, magistrates, monks, priests, people, should aim to become what they ought to be, and to discharge their several duties in an exemplary manner, he comes to some particular points of doctrine. The question of free will, he observes, is spinosa verius quam frugifera, "productive of more thorns than fruit." "It is enough," he says, "for us to agree, that man can effect nothing of himself: that, if he can do any thing, it is entirely of divine grace: that very much indeed is to be ascribed to faith, which is the peculiar gift of the Holy Spirit, and is of much wider extent than is commonly supposed,3 and is not possessed by all who say, 'I believe that Christ died for me.' Let it be allowed, that the hearts of believers are justified, that is purified, by

'Milner, v. 315-354. (904-945.) It has been really painful to me to see, how fully Dr. Milner's representations of this eminent scholar are borne out even by Dr. Jortin's biography of him. Jortin, though naturally partial to the subject of his work, from time to time pronounces an honest and just censure of him.

2 Page 419, &c.

3" Conveniat inter nos, fidei plurimum esse tribuendum, modo fateamur et hoc, peculiare esse Spiritus Sancti donum, idque multo latius patere quam vulgus hominum credit." It might seem doubtful whether his meaning is, that the gift of faith is conferred on more persons than is commonly supposed, or that the faith given has a wider range of objects (see Heb. xi. throughout,) than is usually assigned to it.

♦ A notable instance of the manner in which justification

A. D. 1533.

III.

CHAP. faith only let us confess, that the works of charity (or love) are necessary to the attainment of (final) salvation; for true faith cannot be idle, being the fountain and source of all good works. God is not properly any man's debtor, except he have made himself such by free promise; and even then our performing the condition of the promise is itself the fruit of his bounty. Yet the word reward or merit is not to be rejected, since God of his goodness is pleased to accept and reward what he himself works in us or by us. Let there be no contending about words, if only we are agreed about the thing itself. Nor let the ears of the ignorant multitude be filled with such speeches as these, It matters not what our works are; only believe, and you shall be saved:' and again, Whatever a man does, he does nothing but sin.' Though there may be a sense in which these things are true, yet they are drawn by the unskilful to an unsound meaning."

Almost all this, no doubt, is truly excellent: but, then, was it contrary to the doctrine of Luther? was it what his opponents had taught?

was confounded with sanctification: in opposition to which. the reformers contended, that the true sense of justification was the forensic sense: not that it could in all points correspond with the acquittal of an accused person in a court of justice, (for, in that case, so far from including purdon, it must be incompatible with it ;) but that it stood properly opposed to condemnation, not to corrupt disposition, and denoted a change of state, not of character; restoration to favour, not restoration to holiness. The latter is sanctification, not justification;-essentially distinct, though inseparable blessings. On the forensic sense of justification, compare Milner iv. 510. (494.)

1 It has been seen that in this sense Luther allowed, and the confession of Augsburg retained, the objectionable term merit-which, however, is less strong in the Latin than in the English. See above, c. i.

was it even, as it would perhaps purport to be, intermediate between the two? Rather its being propounded in this manner by Erasmus is a proof of the extent to which Luther had prevailed in his attacks upon long-established error. Erasmus himself, it is probable, would never have written or thought as he here does, had it not been for Luther. Seckendorf justly observes, that most of the positions, which he thus lays down, "might be expressed, and nearly in the same words, from Luther himself; though Erasmus was accustomed so to temper his language, that it might not directly offend against the formularies of a party which he dared not desert. His doctrine of free will, for example, here proposed, avoiding all thorny disputations, as he calls them, is substantially that which Luther maintained. Only adhere to what is thus taught concerning human impotency and imperfection, and what becomes of the sort of merit for which Eccius, Faber, and all that class of men contended?-The sentences, to which Erasmus objects, were not Luther's, but were calumniously imputed to him." So far the learned historical commentator on Lutheranism.1

The reader, indeed, may justly remark, that no sufficient proof has yet appeared, that Luther and his more judicious friends are here at all alluded to as objects of censure. But let us proceed with our review of the work.

Passing to another class of topics, Erasmus thinks it "pious to believe, that the prayers

1 Seck. iii. 50. "If the sentence, Man does nothing else but sin,' is in any sense true, (which Erasmus seems to say it is,) it is only in the sense which Erasmus thus expresses, We ought in all things to acknowledge our own frailty.' Seckendorf.

M

A. D.

1533.

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