faith. These writers add, that Ctegi was
confirmed in his religion by his elevation
to the cardinalship. See Bayh, Nouvclles
de la Repub. des Lettres, Octob., 1688."
Mad.]
(4) Memoires de la Reinc Christine, tome
ii. p. 126, 131. . [Clement IX. was a ruler
fond of peace and splendour, a foe to nepo-
iism, and a beneficent friend to his subjects.
Clement X. was no less fond of peace than
his predecessor ; but he introduced a pecu-
.iar kind of nepotism, by adopting as his son
the cardinal Paolncd. Yet his six years
teign exhibited nothing remarkable. Schl.]
(5) See the Journal Universel, tomei., p.
441, &c., tome vi., p. 306. The present
pontiff, Benedict XIV., attempted in the year
1743, to enrol Innocent XL among the
saints. But Louis XV. king of France, in
fluenced it is said, by the Jesuits, resisted
the measure ; because Louis XIV. had had
much controversy with this pontiff; as we
shall state hereafter. [It is a noticeable cir
cumstance in his life, that in the thirty years
war he served in Germany as a soldier ; and
there is still shown at Wolfenbuttle, the
house in which as an officer he is said to
have resided. This circumstance indeed,
the count Turrezonico has called in question,
in his work de supposititiis stipendiis milita-
ribus Bened. Odeschalchi, Como, 1742, fol.
But Heumann has placed the fact beyond all
doubt ; in the Hannb verisch. m izlichen
Sammlungen, 1755, p. 1185 ; and in tho
Beytrage von alten u. neuen theologischer.
Sachen, 1755, p. 882. He however after
wards assumed the sacred office ; and even
on the papal throne, exhibited the virtues of
a military commander, courage, strictness,
and inflexibility of purpose. He sought to
diminish the voluptuousness and splendid
extravagance of his court, to correct all abu
ses among the clergy, and to extirpate ne
potism. But he often went too far, and his
reforming zeal frequently extended to things
indifferent. For instance, he wished to pro
hibit the clergy from taking snuff, and tho
ladies from learning music ; and the like.
And in this way, he would have hindered
the good effects of his zeal for reformation,
if he had met with no obstructions to be
HISTORY OF THE ROMISH CHURCH. 25
merits of Innocent, fell to the ground and were overthrown, by the indo
lence and the yielding temper of Alexander VIII. of the Ottoboni family,
who was created pope in the year 1689, [A.D. 16S9-1G91]. (6) Innocent
XII. , of the family of Pigniatclli> a good man and possessed of fine talents,
who succeeded Alexander in the year 1691, [A.D. 1691-1700], wished to
restore the regulations of Innocent XL to their authority ; and he did par
tially restore them. But he too, had to learn, that the wisest and most vig
orous pon tills arc inadequate to cure the maladies of the court and church of
Rome ; nor did posterity long enjoy the benefits he had provided for them. (7)
Quite at the end of the century, 1699, [A.D. 1700-1721], Clement XL, oi
the family of Albani, was placed at the head of the Romish church. He
was clearly the most learned of the cardinals, and not inferior to any of
the preceding pontiffs in wisdom, mildness, and desire to reign well. Yet
he was so far from strenuously opposing the inveterate maladies and the
unseemly regulations of the Romish church, that indiscreetly, and as he
supposed for the glory and security of the church, i. e., of the head of it.
he rather admitted many things, which conduce to its dishonour, and which
show that even the better sort of pontiffs, through their zeal to preserve or
to augment their dignity and honour, may easily fall into the greatest er
rors and faults. (8)
2. The great pains taken by the Romish church to extend their pow
er among the barbarous nations that were ignorant of Christianity, have
been already noticed. We have therefore now, only to describe their
care and efforts to recover their lost possessions, or to bring the Protestants
under subjection. And for this, their efforts were astonishingly great and
various. In the struggle they resorted to the powers of genius, to arms
and violence, to promises, to flatteries, to disputations, and to wiles and
fallacies ; but for the most part with little success. In the first place, in
overcome. To canonization, and to the requiring the monks to live according to their
reading of the bull in Co3na Domini, he was rules. He was so little disposed to burn
no friend. He actually canonized no one ; heretics, that the Inquisition began to doubt
and on Maunday Thursdays, on which this his orthodoxy ; and when he wished to pro-
bull was to be read, he always gave out that tect Mohnos, they by commissioners put this
he was sick. His Life was written by Phil- question to him, What did Aloysitis Pigni
ip Bonamici, the papal secretary of the Latin atelli believe 1 Scht.]
Briefs, with design probably, to favour his (8) There were published the last year,
canonization, in which business he was the [A.D. 1752], in French, two biographies oi
Postulator ; and it was entitled Commentar. Clement XL, the one composed by the cele-
de vita et rebus gestis venerab. servi Dei, brated Lafitau, bishop of Sisteron in France ;
Innocentii XL Pont. Max., Rome, 1776, 8vo. Vie de Clement XI., Padua, 1752, 2 vols.
Schl.~\ 8vo ; the other composed by Reboulct, chan-
(6) [Alexander VIII. restored nepotism, cellorof Avignon ; Histoire de Clement XL,
condemned the Jesuitical error of philosoph- Avenione, 1752, 2 vols. 4to. Both, (but
ical sin, and benefited the Vatican library, especially the latter), are written with cle-
by purchasing the library of queen Christina, garice : both contain many historical errors ;
SchL] which French historians are commonly net
(7) Cardinal Henry Noris says much re- duly careful, to avoid : both are not so much
specting Innocent XII., his election, charac- histories as panegyrics; yet are such, that
ter and morals, in his Epistles ; published in discerning readers can easily discover, that
his Works, tome v., p. 362, 365, 370, 373, though very discreet, Clement from a desiia
380. [His hostility to nepotism and his in- to confirm and exalt the pontifical majesty,
flexibility, his strictness and his frugality, did many things very imprudently, and by
were as great as those of Innocent XI. His his own fault brought much vexation on him
strictness he manifested in particular, by self.
forbidding the clergy to wear wigs, and by
S6 BOOK IV. CENT. XVII. SEC. II. PART I. CHAP. I.
order to demonstrate the justice of that war which they had long been
preparing to carry on by means of the house of Austria against the follow,
ers of the purer faith, they in part suffered, and in part caused, the peace
settled with the Protestants by Charles V. to be assailed by Casper Sciop-
pius, a perfidious but learned man, by the Jesuits, Adam Tanner, Anthony
Possevin, Balthazar Hager, Thomas Hederick, and Lawrence Forer, the
jurists of Dillingen and others. For they wished to have it believed, that
this treaty of peace was unjust, that it had no legitimate force, and that it
was violated and rendered null by the Protestants themselves, because they
had either corrupted or forsaken the Augsburg Confession. (9) This ma-
[icious charge was repelled, privately by many Lutheran divines, and pub
licly in 1628 and 1631, by order of John George, elector of Saxony, in two
rolumcs accurately drawn up by Matthias Hoe; which were called the
Lutherans 1 defence of the apple of their eye (Defensio pupil/ce Lutherana),
to indicate the importance of the subject. The assailants however, did
not retreat, but continued to dress up their bad cause, in numerous books
written for the most part in an uncouth and sarcastic style. And on the
other hand, many of the Lutherans exposed their sophisms and invectives.
3. The religious war, which the pontiffs had for a long time been
projecting to be carried on by the Austrians and Spaniards, commenced
near the beginning of the century, in the Austrian territories ; where those
citizens who had renounced the Romish religion, were oppressed in num.
berless ways with impunity by their adversaries, and were divested of all
their rights. (10) Most of them had neither resolution nor ability to de
fend their cause, though guarantied by the most solemn treaties and laws.
The Bohemians alone, when they perceived it to be the fixed purpose of
the adherents of the pope, by gradual encroachment, to deprive Uiem of all
liberty of worshipping God according to the dictates of their consciences,
though purchased with immense expense of blood by their fathers, and but
recently confirmed to them by royal charter ; resolved to resist the ene
mies of their souls, with force and arms. Therefore having entered into
a league, they ventured courageously to avenge the wrongs done to them
and to their religion. And that they sometimes went farther than either
discretion or the precepts of that religion which they defended would jus
tify, no one will deny. This boldness terrified their adversaries, but it did
mot entirely dismay them. The Bohemians therefore, in order to pluck up
the very roots of the evil, when the emperor Matthias died in 1619, thought
it their duty to elect for their sovereign, one who was not a Roman Cath
olic. This they supposed they had a right to do, by the ancient privileges
of the nation, which had been accustomed to elect their sovereigns by a
free suffrage, and not to receive them by any natural or hereditary right.
The consequence was, that Frederic V. the electoral prince Palatine, who
(9) Respecting these writings, see, besides arts by which they were utterly suppressed,
others, Christ. Aug. SaUg s Historic der the same diligent and pious writer intended
Augs u. Confession, vol. i., b. iv., ch. iii., to have described from published and un-
p. 768, &c. [See also ScJdegr.Cs notes to published documents ; but death prevented
this paragraph. 7V.] him. [Something on the subject, as far down
(10) What occurred in Austria itself, is as the year 1564, to which date Raiipach had
laboriously narrated by Bern. Raitpach, in arrived when death overtook him, Dr. Win/:
his Austria Evangelica, written in German, hr has left us, in his Anecdota Histor. EC-
The sufferings of the friends of a purer faith, cles., pt. viii., p. 23?, &c. ^
B\ Stiiia, Morv/ia, and Carinthia, and the
HISTORY OF THE ROMISH CHURCH.
387
professed the Reformed religion, was chosen and solemnly crowned, this
very year at Prague.(ll)
4. But this step, from which the Bohemians anticipated security to theiy
sause, brought ruin upon their new king ; and upon themselves various ca.
lamities, including that which they most dreaded, the loss of a religion pur
ged of Romish corruptions. Frederic, being vanquished by the imperial for-
ces at Prague in the year 1620, lost not only the kingdom he had occupied,
but also his hereditary dominions ; and now an exile, he had to give up his
very flourishing territories together with his treasures, to be depopulated
and plundered by the Bavarians. Many of the Bohemians were punished
with imprisonment, exile, confiscation of their property, and death : and
the whole nation from that time onward, was compelled to follow the reli
gion of the conqueror, and to obey the decrees of the Roman pontiff. The
Austrians would have obtained a much less easy victory, or would have at
least been obliged to give better terms to the Bohemians, if they had not
been aided and assisted by John George I. the elector of Saxony ; who was
influenced both by his hatred of the Reformed religion, and by other motives
of a political nature. (12) This overthrow of the prince Palatine, was the
commencement of the thirty years war, which was so disastrous to Ger
many. For some of the German princes entering into a league with the
(11) Here, in addition to the writers of
the ecclesiastical history of this century, An
drew Carolus, and Jo. Wolfg. Jagcrus, see
Burch. Gotth. Struve s Syntagma Histor.
German., p. 1487, 1510, 1523, 1538, &c.,
and the authors he cites. Add the accurate
Mich, le Vassor s Histoire de Louis XII L,
tome iii., p. 223, &c.
(12) Here may be consulted, the Com-
mentarii de bello Bohemico Germanico ab
anno Chr. 1617, ad ann. Chr. 1630, 4to. Le
Vassor s Histoire de Louis XIII., tome iii.,
p. 444, &c. Compare also, on many points
in these affairs, Abraham Scultetus Narratio
Apologetica de curriculo vitae suae, p. 86,
&c. It is a matter of notoriety, that the
Roman Catholics, and particularly the Jesu
it Martin Becan, induced Matthias Hoe, who
was an Austrian by birth and chaplain to the
elector of Saxony, to make it appear to his
master, that the cause of the Palatinate, as
being that of the Reformed religion, was
both unrighteous and injurious to the Lu
theran religion ; and to persuade him to es
pouse the cause of Austria. See the Un-
schuldige Nachrichten, A.D. 1747, p. 858.
[This Scultctus was the known court preach
er to the unfortunate king of Bohemia ; and
he is said to have contributed much to his
resolving to accept the Bohemian crown.
Yet this last fact Sculletus denied ; though
he admitted that he subsequently commend
ed the king for having taken that resolution,
SD.d that in one of his sermons he exhort
ed him to manly courage. Matthias Hoe
nf Hoeneg, of noble Austrian birth, burn
ed with the most terrible religious hatred
against the Preformed, and actually abhor
red them more than he did the Catholics.
To be convinced of this, we need only to
read his Manifest Proofs that the Calvinists
harmonize wiih the Arians and the Turks ;
or his Thoughts respecting the Heilbron
League of the Protestant states with Swe
den ; which last piece is in the Unschuldigo
Nachrichten, vol. xxxiv., p. 570-53 I. These
traits in his character were known ; and per
haps also, the susceptibility of his heart in
respect to gold. And hence the Jesuitical
emissaries, and particularly Bc.can, were
able, (by their unassuming and flattering let
ters, in which they represented the misfor
tune it would be, to have the Bohemians fall
under the dominion of a Reformed prince),
to give such a direction to his mind that he
exerted himself against the Reformed, and
hindered his master from entering into a
league with them. His master was attached
to the Evangelical Lutheran faith, was very
conscientious, and believed simply whatever
his confessor said ; by whom (as it is ex
pressed in the above cited Thoughts, &c.)
he inquired of the Lord. The Austrian gold,
at the same time, may also have had consid
erable influence on the court preacher s elo
quence. At least it is openly stated, that
the court preacher afterwards received 10,000
dollars from the imperial court, to divest tha
elector of those scruples of conscience,
which might cause him [to oppose] the peace
of Prague so injurious to the common cause.
See Pujfcndorf, Rerum Suecicar. lib vii.,
p. 193. Schl.]
288 BOOK IV. CENT. XVII. SEC. II. PART I. CHAP. I.
king of Denmark, took up arms against the emperor in support of the prince
Palatine ; who, they maintained, was unjustly deprived of his hereditary
dominions. For they contended that this prince, by invading Bohemiaj
had not injured the German emperor but only the house of Austria; and
that the emperor had no right to avenge the wrongs of that house, by in
flicting the penalties decreed against princes that should rebel against the
Roman empire. But this war was not attended with success. (13)
5. The papists therefore, being elated with the success of the emperor,
were confident that the period most earnestly longed for had now arrived,
when they could either destroy the whole mass of heretics, or bring them
again under subjection to the church. The emperor, giving way too much to
this impression, fearlessly caried his arms through a great part of Germany ;
and he not only suffered his generals to harass with impunity those prin
ces and states which manifested less docility than was agreeable to the
Romish court, but also showed by no doubtful indications, that the destruc
tion of all Germanic liberty, civil and religious, was determined upon. And
the fidelity of the elector of Saxony to the emperor, which he had abun
dantly evinced by his conduct towards the elector Palatine, and the disunion
among the princes of Germany, encouraged the belief that the apparent
obstructions to the accomplishment of this great object, might be overcome
with but moderate efforts. Hence in the year 1629, the emperor Ferdi
nand II to give some colour of justice to this religious war, issued tha>
terrible decree called from its object, the Restitution Edict ; by which the
Protestants were commanded to deliver up and restore to the Romish
church, all ecclesiastical property which had fallen into their hands
since the religious peace established in the preceding century.(14) The
Jesuits especially are said to have procured from the emperor this decree :
and it is indeed ascertained, that this sect had purposed to claim a great
part of the property demanded, as due to them in reward of their great
services to the cause of religion ; and hence arose a violent contest be
tween them and the ancient possessors of that property.(15) The soldiers
forthwith gave weight and authority to the imperial mandate, wherever
they had power; for whatever the Romish priests and monks claim-
ed as theirs, and they set up false claims to many things which by no
right belonged to them, the soldiers without any investigation being had,
wrested at once from the possessors, often with intolerable ferocity ; nor
did they hesitate to treat innocent persons with various and most exquisite
cruelty.
6. Unhappy Germany amid these commotions was in trepidation;
nor did she see among her sons, any one sufficiently powerful to resist the
enemy now rushing upon her on every side ; for the councils of her prin
ces were exceedingly distracted, partly by religious considerations, partly
by eagerness for personal aggrandizement, and partly by fear. But very
opportunely Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, the great hero of his
V 13) [The principal historians of this war, by the anthois mentioned in Strnve s Syn-
are Khevenhuller, Annales Ferdinand! : Von tagma Histor. German., p. 1553, &c., and
Chemnitz, Swedish War : Pvffendorf, de by the others mentioned above. [See note
rebus Suecicis : and the Histories of the (7), p. 66, above. Tr.]
toir ,; years war, by Bougcant, Krause, Schil- (15) See Christ. Aug. Salig s Historic
ter, "&c. See Hcnke s Kirchengesch., vol. dcr Angsb. Confession, vol. i., book iv., cu
. 321, note. Tr.] iii., $ 25, p. 810, &o.
his subject will be found illustrated,
HISTORY OF THE ROMISH CHURCH, 289
age, whom even envy could celebrate after his death, came forward ana
opposed himself to the Austrian forces. At the instigation especially of
the French, who were jealous of the growing power of Austria, he landed
in Germany in 1629, with a few forces ; and his victories in a short time
destroyed in a great measure, the very confident expectations of soon
triumphing over our religion, indulged by the emperor and the pope. But
their extinguished hopes seemed to revive again in 1632, when this great
asscrtor of Germanic liberty fell victorious in the battle of Lutzen.(lG)
Time, however, in some measure repaired this immense loss : and the
war was protracted to the great misfortune of Germany, amid various
vicissitudes, through many years ; until the exhausted resources of the
parties in it, and the purpose of Christina the daughter of Gustavus and
queen of Sweden, who desired a peace, put an end to these evils and suf
ferings.
7. After a violent conflict of thirty years, the celebrated peace called
the peace of Westphalia, because it was concluded at Munster and Osna-
burg cities of Westphalia, in the year 1648, gave repose to exhausted Eu
rope. It did not indeed procure for the Protestants all the advantages and
privileges which they wished for, because the emperor would not be in
duced by any consideration, to reinstate perfectly the Bohemians and the
Austrians in their former privileges, nor restore the Upper Palatinate to
its former sovereign ; not to mention other difficulties of less moment,
which i vva i?pr"V>svy te .eav^ untouched : yet the peace procured much
_ iaier tid vantages to the a varies of the Romish see, than its patrons
could weU rook v and it oiished firmly the great interests of the Lu
theran ctiul Retormed cnaiches. In the first place, the peace of Augs
burg which the Lutherans obtained of Charles V. in the preceding century,
was placed beyond the reach of all machinations and stratagems ; and
moreover the edict, which required them to restore the ecclesiastical prop
erty of which they had obtained possession since that peace, was annulled ;
Rnd it was determined, that each party should for ever possess all that was
in its hands at the commencement of the year 1624. The advantages
acquired by each of the Protestant princes, (and to many of them they were
not inconsiderable), it would detain us too long to enumerate. (17) The
Roman pontiff in the mean time clamoured loudly, and left no means un
tried to interrupt the pacification : but neither the emperor nor any one
who favoured his cause, was daring enough to venture again upon that
perfidious sea on which they had with difficulty escaped shipwreck. The
compact was therefore signed without delay ; and all the stipulations made
(16) Memoires de la Reine Christine, torn, op of Hierapolis, entitled : Relatio Historica
i., p. 7-20, where much is said of Gustavus, de pacificatione Osnabrugo-Monasteriensi j
his achievements, and his death. The au- which the illustrious author republished, inv
thor of this book also illustrates in various proved and rendered more accurate than be-
respects the history of the peace. fore, Leips., 1737, 4to. Veiy elegant also,
(17) Whoever wishes for circumstantial and composed for the most part from the doc-
information on this whole subject, will find uments of the French envoys, is the very elo-
abundant satisfaction, in the Acta pacis quent Jesuit BovgeanCs Histoire de la rmix
"Westphalicae et executionis ejus Norimber- de Westphalie, Paris, 1746, 6 volumes Hvo.
gensis ; an inamortal work of immense la- Nor is this Jesuit s history only noat and
hour, compiled by Jo. Godfr. von Meyern. beautiful ; it is likewise in general t.rn*> <mj
Asa shorter history, instead of all others may impartial.
be consulted, the work of Adam Adami, bisb-
VOL. III. Oo
2f,0 BOOK IV. CENT. XVII. SEC. II. PART I. CHAP. I.
in Westphalia, were ratified and executed at Nuremberg in the yea!
1650.(18)
8. After this period, the Roman pontiffs and their confederates did not
venture to attack the professors of the reformed religion by public war ;
for they found no opportunity to attempt so perilous a measure, with any good
prospects. But wherever it could be done without fear of the consequences,
they exerted themselves to the utmost, to abridge the Protestants very
much of their rights, advantages, and privileges, though confirmed by
oaths and the most sacred enactments. In Hungary for instance, the Prot
estant citizens both Lutheran and Reformed, were tormented with innumer
able vexations for ten years together, from 1671 to 1681. (19) Of the
lesser evils, which they suffered both before and after this storm, from men
of various classes but especially from the Jesuits, there was neither meas
ure nor end. In Poland, all that dissented from the Roman pontiff, expe
rienced nearly throughout the century, to their very great sorrow and dis
tress, that no compact limiting the power of the [Catholic] church was ac
counted sacred and inviolable at Rome. For they were deprived of their
schools, and of very many of their churches ; dispossessed of their prop
erty, by various artifices ; and often visited, though innocent, with the se
verest punishments. (20) The posterity of the Waldenses living enclosed in
the valleys of Piedmont, were sometimes exposed to the most exquisite suffer
ings on account of their perseverance in Tamtaining the r^iig .on of tlrdr
fathers; and especially in the years 10?* 655, and 1685, when tht Sa
voyards cruelly attacked that unhapp} *. < ; f ,vith fin 3 , nui sword.jiil)
The infractions of the treaty of Westphu * *.:i.i of the Germanic liberties
(18) Innocent X. assailed this peace in a siastict*/ J. rhts. And as they refused to
warm epistle or lull, A.D. 1651. On this sign it, tney were thrown into noisome pris-
epistle there is extant a long and learned ons, where they fared hard enough. From