clergy of any other catholic country. In all
the disputes which their sovereign has had
with the pope, they have almost constantly
taken part with the former. This independency
of the clergy of France upon the court
of Rome seems to be principally founded upon
the pragmatic sanction and the concordat.
In the earlier periods of the monarchy,
the clergy of France appear to have been as
much devoted to the pope as those of any
other country. When Robert, the second
prince of the Capetian race, was most unjustly
excommunicated by the court of Rome,
his own servants, it is said, threw the victuals
which came from his table to the dogs, and
refused to taste any thing themselves which
had been polluted by the contact of a person
in his situation. They were taught to do so,
it may very safely be presumed, by the clergy
of his own dominions.
The claim of collating to the great benefices
of the church, a claim in defence of
which the court of Rome had frequently shaken,
and sometimes overturned, the thrones
of some of the greatest sovereigns in Christendom,
was in this manner either restrained
or modified, or given up altogether, in
many different parts of Europe, even before
the time of the reformation. As the clergy
had now less influence over the people, so the
state had more influence over the clergy.
The clergy, therefore, had both less power,
and less inclination, to disturb the state.
The authority of the church of Rome was
in this state of declension, when the disputes
which gave birth to the reformation began in
Germany, and soon spread themselves through
every part of Europe. The new doctrines
were everywhere received with a high degree
of popular favour. They were propagated
with all that enthusiastic zeal which commonly
animates the spirit of party, when it attacks
established authority. The teachers of those
doctrines, though perhaps, in other respects,
not more learned than many of the divines
who defended the established church, seem in
general to have been better acquainted with
ecclesiastical history, and with the origin and
progress of that system of opinions upon
which the authority of the church was established;
and they had thereby the advantage
in almost every dispute. The austerity of
their manners gave them authority with the
common people, who contrasted the strict
regularity of their conduct with the disorderly
lives of the greater part of their own clergy.
They possessed, too, in a much higher degree
than their adversaries, all the arts of popularity
and of gaining proselytes; arts which the
lofty and dignified sons of the church had
long neglected, as being to them in a great
measure useless. The reason of the new
doctrines recommended them to some, their
novelty to many; the hatred and contempt of
the established clergy to a still greater number:
but the zealous, passionate, and fanatical,
though frequently coarse and rustic eloquence,
with which they were almost everywhere
inculcated, recommended them to by
far the greatest number.
The success of the new doctrines was almost
everywhere so great, that the princes, who at
that time happened to be on bad terms with
the court of Rome, were, by means of them,
easily enabled, in their own dominions, to
overturn the church, which having lost the
respect and veneration of the inferior ranks
of people, could make scarce any resistance.
The court of Rome had disobliged some of
the smaller princes in the northern parts of
Germany, whom it had probably considered
as too insignificant to be worth the managing.
They universally, therefore, established
the reformation in their own dominions.
The tyranny of Christiern II., and of Troll
archbishop of Upsal, enabled Gustavus Vasa
to expel them both from Sweden. The pope
favoured the tyrant and the archbishop, and
Gustavus Vasa found no difficulty in establishing
the reformation in Sweden. Christiern II.
was afterwards deposed from the
throne of Denmark, where his conduct had
rendered him as odious as in Sweden. The
pope, however, was still disposed to favour
him; and Frederic of Holstein, who had
mounted the throne in his stead, revenged
himself, by following the example of Gustavus
Vasa. The magistrates of Berne and
Zurich, who had no particular quarrel with
the pope, established with great ease the
reformation in their respective cantons, where
just before some of the clergy had, by an
imposture somewhat grosser than ordinary, rendered
the whole order both odious and contemptible.
In this critical situation of its affairs the
papal court was at sufficient pains to cultivate
the friendship of the powerful sovereigns of
France and Spain, of whom the latter was at that
time emperor of Germany. With their assistance,
it was enabled, though not without great
difficulty, and much bloodshed, either to suppress
altogether, or obstruct very much, the
progress of the reformation in their dominions.
It was well enough inclined, too, to be complaisant
to the king of England. But from the
circumstances of the times, it could not be so
without giving offense to a still greater sovereign,
Charles V., king of Spain and emperor
of Germany. Henry VIII., accordingly,
though he did not embrace himself the greater
part of the doctrines of the reformation was
yet enabled, by their general prevalence, to
suppress all the monasteries, and to abolish
the authority of the church of Rome in his
dominions. That he should go so far,
though he went no further, gave some satisfaction
to the patrons of the reformation,
who, having got possession of the government
in the reign of his son and successor, completed,