Page images
PDF
EPUB

became less frequent; and in 1600, he entirely desisted from attempting to impart oral instruction.In the year 1597, the Jesuits promulged a report of his death, and also that he had discarded Protestantism, and professed Popery. To those falsehoods Beza replied in a satirical poem which excited deep interest among the Reformed, and mortified the Jesuits extremely by the disclosure of their mendacity and corruption. He continued gradually to decay during the last eight years of his earthly sojourn, and finally rested from his work on the thirteenth of October 1605. Beza is one of those righteous men who will be held in everlasting remembrance.

THEODORE BEZA,

A French Theologian;
Pastor of the Church at Geneva.

He died at Geneva,

In the year 1605,

Aged 86.

EFFECTS OF THE REFORMATION.

THAT "shaking of the nations," the "bright and blissfu Reformation" is the most remarkable epoch in modern annals; and it produced results interesting and eventful beyond our utmost conceptions. Combining a stupendous moral concussion, it obviously excites deep inquiry, respecting the effects of so vast a revolution in worldly affairs, which is the ostensible source of all those inprovements in individual character, domestic and social manners and comforts, municipal laws and international intercourse, that are so evident, when contrasted with the ferocity of the ages anterior to the sixteenth century. It may therefore profitably be asked, what blessings have followed the Reformation? The reply admits of three general applications.

1. As individuals, the tribes of mankind have been be nefited by that splendid event. The degradation and barbarism which are portrayed in the annals of the middle ages, are in a great measure excluded from those countries where the benignity of the christian religion has effused its delights. Gross darkness covered the people; verily they sat in darkness, and groped in "the valley of the shadow of death." Nothing could be more inhuman in principle, ferocious in sensibility, and depraved in conduct, than the multitudes who were directed by a Papal mandate, and menaced with a Friar's excommunication. Before that tremendous jurisdiction, every energy both corporeal and mental vanished, and were

equally vapid and feeble; and man became a mere tool, to perpetrate atrocities too monstrous to be detailed, and to promulge absurdities too contemptible even for ridicule. Of his rights and duties he was profoundly ignorant; all genuine concern for his destiny was absorbed in the sentence of pardon proclaimed by his Father Confessor; and iniquity rolled throughout the nations in an unintermitted overwhelming flood. By the Reformation, an impetus was given to all the moral machinery of the world. The immunities with which God has inalienably invested the rational creatures which he has formed, then were developed in all their freshness and value; and the nations who before had submitted to have the remuneration of their labours unnecessarily filched from them, by the exactions of their spiritual task-masters, now began to learn and to experience the superior advantages of active life, untrammelled by a Jesuit's craft, and not subject to ceaseless robbery by the myrmidons of the Inquisition. But it is not solely as a member of civil society, that the blessings of the Reformation are developed; it is more illustrated in the spiritual improvement of men. Freedom has engendered activity, and fostered improvement; and in religion and morals it has furnished the most splendid evidence of its sway and success.

By the accelerating progress of divine truth, men have become more intimately acquainted with Jehovah, and with his requisitions upon the human family. The distinctions between good and evil are much more obvious. Idolatry has bowed before the spirituality of "pure and undefiled religion," like "Dagon fallen upon his face to the ground, before the ark of the Lord."Practical irreligion in all its diversified forms, as sanctified by priestly absolution and papal indulgences, has in some measure subsided. That grand doctrine, that man is a responsible creature at the bar of God, has been lumin

ously exhibited in all its application and force. "The nations which sat in darkness have seen the great light."

2. The principles of government among the nations have been extensively reformed. Centuries elapsed, and the same abominable dogma remained as infallible, that the members of the human family should be transferred with the soil. One example will elucidate the operation of the whole malignant system. William the Norman claimed a right to the kingdom of England. His demand was denied and resisted. He transported an army from France to England, and having been permitted by God to murder the staff of the nation, he forcibly ruled over the people whom he had thus enslaved. One of the conditions stipulated between him and his principal marauders, was this, that the whole land with all its inhabitants should be subdivided into districts, according to the proportionate aid which each brought to complete the general conquest and devastation. Accordingly, the land and its appendages were allotted to each Chieftain according to compact, and all the residents upon the soil were also doomed as slaves to toil for their invaders. That period in Europe has passed away; the glorious effulgence of the sacred oracles has diffused a lustre with regard to personal privileges, which can never more be obscured.

The other social advantage that has resulted from the renovation of Europe, which commenced in the sixteenth century, is discernible in the increased industry of the inhabitants, and the consequent multiplication of their comforts. Ignorance of the arts and sciences, and of all me. chanical philosophy, was universal and apparently incurable; for all the reigning customs and principles of society were prejudicial to the melioration and enjoyment of the people. Could any greater restraint be laid upon industry, or any obstacle more insurmountable be opposed to it, than the idle monastic life, by which a large propar

tion of the most potent and vigorous inhabitants was withdrawn from the activity of useful labour; who also consumed in the utmost prodigality the proceeds of the others' employment? Wherever the Reformation has been adopted, the superfluous festivals, costly pilgrimages, and all those institutions which encouraged indolence, have been abolished. The activity of the inhabitants has been indefinitely increased. The impoverishment of the nation by the importation of indulgences from Rome ceased, and prosperity has attended every species of business. Thus, even in our secular national relations, the change effected by the instrumentality of the primitive Reformers involves all that is dignifying to individuals, prosperous to the community, and beneficial to the world.

3. But within the boundaries of the church of Christ, the nobler and sublime privileges of the Reformation have been exhibited and enjoyed. At the commencement of the sixteenth century, the temporal authorities posssessed but a small degree of power in their respective dominions: the highest potentates were subject to the mandates of the clergy, their own inferiors. In general, the ecclesiastics displayed no obedience to the civil authorities; and if the princes complied not with their insolent demands, and did not profusely enrich them with magnificence and wealth, every attempt was made to excite rebellion. Religion always furnished them with a pretext for disaffection to the government, and for their impositions upon the people. Exempt from taxes and payments towards the necessities of the state, they engrossed, almost in every country, more than one half of the national revenues; and for a King to oppose the hierarchy thus apparently impregnable, was assuming the danger of banishment from his territories, and death, besides the indiscriminate slaughter of all those who adhered to him. Their commands were irresistible; and through auricular confession, the secrets of all hearts

« EelmineJätka »