decision might be. When an irrevocable step such as marriage was legal only during the pleasure of a capricious woman, whose assent was known to have been extorted from her, it is no wonder that it should be looked upon with disfavour by all prudent relatives of women inclined to venture on it.

Such a state of feeling could not but react most injuriously on the character of the great body of the clergy. It deprived them of the respect due to their sacred calling, and consequently reduced them to the level of such scant respect as was accorded to them. How long this lasted, and how materially it degraded the ministers of Christ as a body, cannot be questioned by any one who recalls the description of the rural clergy in the brilliant third chapter of Macaulay's History of England. In 1686 an author complains that the rector is an object of contempt and ridicule for all above the rank of the neighbouring peasants; that gentle blood would be held polluted by any connection with the Church, and that girls of good family were taught with equal earnestness not to marry clergymen, nor to sacrifice their reputation by amorous indiscretionstwo misfortunes which were commonly regarded as equal.1

Thus eagerly accepted and grudgingly bestowed, the privilege of marriage established itself in the Church of England by connivance rather than as a right; and the evil influences of the prejudices thus fostered were not extinguished for generations.

1 A causidico, medicastra, ipsaque artificum farragine, ecclesiæ rector aut vicarius contemnitur et fit ludibrio. Gentis et familiæ nitor sacris ordinibus pollutus censetur: fœminisque natalitio insignibus unicum inculcatur sæpius præceptum, ne modestiæ naufragium faciant, aut (quod idem auribus tam delicatulis sonat) ne clerico se nuptas dari patiantur.-T. Wood, Angliæ Notitia (Macaulay's Hist. Engl. Chap. III.).

Lord Macaulay attributes the degraded position of the clergy to their indigence and want of influence. These causes doubtless had their effect, but the peculiar repugnance towards clerical marriage ascribed to all respectable women had a deeper origin than simply the beggarly stipends attached to the majority of English livings.

CHAPTER XXVII

CALVINISM

In the easy toleration which preceded the Reformation, Luther's precursor, Jacques Lefèvre d'Etaples, in 1512 published his Commentaries on the Pauline Epistles. The work was a significant portent of the era about to open. For the first time the traditional scholastic exegesis was cast aside for a treatment in which tradition was rejected and independent judgment was exercised as a matter of right. As in so much else, the full import of this was not recognised until the Lutheran revolt showed the necessity of strict adherence to the ancient ways and of shackling human thought with additional rigour. It was not until after Luther's condemnation by the Sorbonne, in 1521, that the Commentaries were censured and twentyfive heretical errors were discovered in them; even then the favour of Francis I. protected their author from the prosecution commenced against him in 1523. Many a hardy thinker had been burnt for less. Lefèvre denied justification by either faith or works, for God alone justifies; religious Orders only awaken pride and imperil Christian love-it would be better that there were none, but, while they exist, monks should work with their hands, as did the apostles; confession and forgiveness of sins were originally mutual between brethren-the modern custom is due to the absence of faith, but Christ may accept it; celibacy in itself is better than marriage, but priests and deacons were permitted to marry until the time of Gregory VII.; the Greek Church has retained

the apostolic custom of marriage, while the other Churches adopted celibacy, whereby many, through incontinence, fall into the snares of the devil.1

The seed thus scattered fell into fruitful soil, and as early as 1525, Clement VII., in a brief addressed to the Regent Louise of Savoy, enumerates among the “Lutheran❞ errors spreading through France the stigmatising of the canons enjoining clerical celibacy as Satanic. By the time when Jean Calvin formulated the system of theology which bears his name, sacerdotal marriage had thus everywhere become recognised as one of the inevitable incidents of the revolt against Rome, and that the French Huguenots should accept it was therefore a matter of course.

3

Calvin himself manifested his contempt for all the ancient prejudices by marrying, in 1539, Idelette de Bure, the widow of the Anabaptist Jean Stordeur, whom he had converted. The Huguenot Confession of Faith was drawn up by him, and was adopted by the first national synod, held at Paris in 1559. Of course the Genevan views of justification swept away all the accumulated observances of sacerdotalism, and ascetic celibacy shared the fate of the rest.1 The discipline of the Calvinist

1 Karl Heinrich Graf, Jacobus Faber Stapulensis, pp. 37, 45, 46, 48, 165-7 (Strassburg, 1842).

2 Clement PP. VII. Breve Cum ad nihil (Isambert. Anciennes Loix Françaises, XII. 233).

3 Rahlenbeck, L'Eglise de Liége, p. 49. The stern and self-centred soul which won for Idelette the hand of Calvin was unshaken to the last, as may be seen by his curious account of her death-bed, in a letter to Farel (Calvini Epistolæ, p. 111. Geneva, 1617). His grief was doubtless sincere, but his friends were able to compliment him on his not allowing domestic affliction to interfere with his customary routine of labour (Ibid. p. 116).

4 I have not access to the original, but quote the following from Quick's "Synodicon in Gallia Reformata," London, 1692-" Art. XXIV. . . . We do also reject those means which men presumed they had, whereby they might be redeemed before God; for they derogate from the satisfaction of the Death and Passion of Jesus Christ.' Finally, We hold Purgatory to be none other than a cheat, which came out of the same shop: from which also proceeded monastical vows, pilgrimages, prohibition of marriage and the use of meats a ceremonious observation of days

2

1

Church with regard to the morality of its ministers was necessarily severe. The peculiar purity expected of a pastor's household was shown by the rule which enjoined any Church officer whose wife was convicted of adultery to dismiss her absolutely, under pain of deposition, while laymen, under such circumstances, were exhorted to be reconciled to their guilty partners. Any lapse from virtue on the part of a minister was visited with peremptory deposition; nor was this a mere idle threat, such as were too many of the innumerable decrees of the Catholic councils quoted above, for the proceedings of various synods show that it was carried sternly into execution. A list of such vagrant and deposed ministers was even kept and published to the churches, with personal descriptions of the individuals, that they might not be able to impose on the unwary. Indeed, the national synod of Lyons, in 1563, went so far as to punish those ministers who brought contempt upon the Church by unfitting marriages; and, though this was omitted from the final code of discipline, it shows the exceeding strictness with which the internal economy of the ecclesiastical establishment of the Huguenots was regulated.

3

The relations of the Catholic Church with its apostates were somewhat confused, and they varied with the political exigencies of the situation. Ecclesiastics who left the Catholic communion did not hesitate to enter into matrimony; 4 and when the desolation of civil war rendered

auricular confession, indulgences, and all other such matters, by which Grace and Salvation may be supposed to be deserved. Which things we reject, not only for the false opinion of merit which was affixed to them, but also because they are the inventions of men, and are a yoke laid by their sole authority upon conscience" (Quick, I. xi.).-See also the Confession written by Calvin in 1562, to be laid before the Emperor Ferdinand (Calvini Epist. pp. 564-66).

1 Discip. Chap. XIII. can. xxviii. (Quick, I. iii.)

2 Ibid. Chap. I. can. xlvii.

3 Chap. IV. Art. xii., Chap. XVI. Art. xiv. (Quick, I. 32, 38.)

4 Prelates of high position were not wanting to the list of married men. Carracioli, Bishop of Troyes, and Spifame, Bishop of Nevers, were of the number. Jean de Monluc, Bishop of Valence (brother of the celebrated Marshal Blaise de

a forced tolerance of the new religion necessary, their position was a source of considerable debate, varying with the fluctuations of the tangled politics of the time. The Edict of Pacification of Amboise, in March 1562, was held by the Huguenots to legalise the marriages of these apostates, but the explanatory declaration of August 1563 ordered their reclamation by the Church under pain of exile. When the Spanish alliance gave fresh assurances of triumph to the Catholics this was enforced with increased severity. The Edict of Roussillon, in 1564, commands that all priests, monks, and nuns who had abandoned their profession and entered into matrimony shall sunder their unhallowed bonds and return to their duties. Recalcitrants were required to leave the kingdom within two months, under pain, in the case of men, of condemnation to the galleys for life, and in that of women, of perpetual imprisonment. As most of the Calvinist ministers necessarily belonged to the class thus assailed, the effect of this legislation in stimulating the troubles of the kingdom can readily be perceived.

1

The dismal strife of the succeeding ten years at length showed that, in spite of the Tridentine canons, the toleration of this iniquity was a necessity. Thus in the Edicts of Pacification issued by Henry III. in 1576 and 1577 there is a provision which admits as valid the marriages theretofore contracted by all priests or religious persons of either sex. The issue of such unions was declared competent to inherit the personalty of the parents and such

Monluc, whose cruelties to the Huguenots were so notorious), married without openly apostatising, and died in the Catholic faith. Cardinal Odet de Châtillon, Bishop of Beauvais, and brother of the Admiral, became a declared Calvinist, married Mlle. de Hauteville, and called himself Comte de Beauvais. He seems to have retained his benefices, and was still called by the Catholics M. le Cardinal “Car il nous estoit fort à cœur," says Brantôme (Discours 48), “de luy changer le nom qui luy avoit esté si bien seant."

1 Edit de Roussillon, Art. 7 (Isambert XV. 172). This edict was cited in the proceedings of the case of Dumonteil, about the year 1830, of which more

hereafter.