in the ascendency in 1517, the date of Luther's thesis against indulgences, that heretics, as to this world, had little to fear from any source except the temporal prince-in his heart anti-papal, and supporting Catholicity, if at all, only from policy and the national sentiment, always, in so far as national in spiritual matters, anti-Catholic. They were then in most places free to throw off the mask, and to do openly what they had long been doing, not without success, in secret; and it is probable that the open position assumed by Luther really weakened their power, and served, instead of injuring, the cause of Catholicity.

The Protestant reformation, as we regard it, was not so much a falling away from the church of those who were really Catholics, as the coming forth from her communion of those who had previously been in it without being of it; and we must explain the rapid and almost marvellous diffusion of Protestantism as soon as publicly proclaimed, by the occult heresy, more or less developed, with which the population that voluntarily embraced it were already infected. Whether the secret organization of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries continued down to the sixteenth, we are unable to say; but that it did to some extent is probable, and hence, perhaps, the reason why the reform broke out on so many points of Europe almost simultaneously. But be this as it may, the enemies of the church certainly had not decreased in number during the wars and revolutions of the fifteenth century, and this much must be conceded, that Luther found a large part of Europe either totally ignorant of the Catholic religion, or but feebly attached to it. The intelligent Catholic of to-day can see nothing in the doctrines or the practices of the reformers calculated to make a favorable impression on a Catholic mind or heart, and he is unable to believe that they ever gained one real convert to the reform. Protestantism promised something to the licentious, to populations impatient of restraint, weary of fasts and vigils, of works of mortification and penance, and who wished to find an easier road to heaven than that of selfdenial and the crucifixion of the flesh, or that of inward purity and sanctity, sound faith and true charity; but its doctrines, together with the arguments by which the reformers sustained them, never could have produced any serious effect, or served any other purpose than that of shocking or disgusting the Catholic who understood and was attached to his religion. Indeed, sincere and intelligent Cath

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olics were shocked and disgusted, and in no tracted or captivated by the reformed religion. They could hardly believe the reformers to be serious, or be brought to put forth their full force in combating them. This is evident from the conciliatory policy pursued towards them by Pope Adrian, and which, if we were to judge the policy of the vicar of Jesus Christ after our human modes of judging, which we do not allow ourselves to do, proved so disastrous. It is therefore quite evident to us, that the mass of those who joined the reform movement of their own accord, without being forced to do so by the civil authority, were already heretics, or heretically inclined,-were already antipapal and anti-Catholic.

The remote causes of the Protestant reformation were of course in the general causes of all heresy, as well as of ancient gentilism; but its proximate and more special causes, regarded simply as an anti-Catholic outbreak, are, we think, to be found historically and philosophically in the growth and ascendency of royalism and nationalism from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, or, in one word, in what in more recent times is called Gallicanism. The Christian religion is catholic, cosmopolitan, and takes its stand on an elevation above all particularism and all nationalism. It has no distinctive nationality, and the believer, as a disciple of Jesus Christ and member of his mystical body, has no national character, and no country, no patria but heaven, from which he regards himself as an exile, and to which he longs to return. On this earth he has no home, no abiding-place. He is a pilgrim and a sojourner here, seeking a city whose builder and maker is God. Catholicity rising thus above all national distinctions, and thus condemning all nationalism whenever that nationalism would rise above the temporal order and interfere with things spiritual, has naturally for its enemies all in whom the spirit of nationality predominates. We see this in the Jews who appealed to the sentiment of Jewish nationality against our Lord, saying, "If you let this man go on, the Romans will come and take away our name and nation." Every nation is by its own national spirit exclusive and tyrannical. It seeks to render all that concerns it national, and labors incessantly to be a world in itself, to have a religion, as well as laws and institutions, manners and customs, of its own. We see this in the history of gentilism, in which each nation had its peculiar national religion, and every one was required to conform to the religion of his

nation. Nationalism, through the influence of the church, the kings and emperors of the Carlovingian race, during the centuries commonly called the "Dark Ages," so called because religion took precedence of politics, and Catholicity of nationalism,—was kept subordinate, and was unable to exert any controlling influence on politics or religion. But as the irruption of barbarians ceased, and the nationalities long held in abeyance began to declare themselves, and national governments were formed throughout most of Europe, it escaped from its subjection, and became in some sense, as it had not been before, the basis of the political order.

In the governments organized under the auspices of the church after the downfall of the Roman empire of the West, monarchy indeed had a place; but not monarchy in its modern sense. In them all, it was tempered by estates and corporations. It was in all cases elective, and restricted in its powers by the rights of the municipalities, and by the nobles or vassals of the crown, often in wealth and power hardly inferior to the suzerain himself. We pretend not that this constitution was perfect; no political constitution ever yet existed without its imperfections. The barons often, no doubt, oppressed the people, often were turbulent and abused their power, while the monarch was too weak to restrain or to punish their violence. But if it did not guard against the evils of weakness in the crown, it did avoid those of a centralized royalism. In no instance under that constitution could any sovereign say, with Louis XIV., "I am the state." But in the thirteenth century we see a movement on the part of the sovereigns to get rid of this constitution, and to centralize the power in the crown. This movement in France begins with the reign of Philip Augustus, the real founder of the French monarchy. A similar movement is made by the German emperors, which only partially succeeds, and by the English kings, which succeeds only under the Tudors in the fifteenth century. The aim was to centralize and consolidate the monarchy, and to render the monarch absolute, after the model of the Byzantine or eastern emperors.

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The chief obstacle the monarchs, as well as nationalism, had to overcome in this enterprise, was in the papal constitution of the church. To attain to their end, they must trainple on vested rights, rights of the church herself, rights of their vassals, and rights of the municipalities, and the church always and everywhere insists on the inviolability of all

rights, whether natural or acquired. The first thing to be done was therefore to break the power of the church, which could be done only by destroying or abasing the papacy. Hence the sovereigns, for centuries, with varying success, but with little relaxation, carried on a war against the papacy, the divinely instituted guardian of all rights, and thus gave to royalism an anti-papal character, and made the temporal sovereign the antagonist of the pope. In this sacrilegious war they appealed to national pride, national jealousies, prejudices, ambition, and intolerance, to sustain them. They placed the nation before the church, and studied to make themselves national. They appealed to the sentiment of national independence, national power, and national glory, and made of royalism, as representing the nation, a species of popular idolatry. Courtly prelates held their peace, or smiled assent, and courtly lawyers searched the Institutes, Pandects, and Codes, and turned over Ulpian and Papinian to find, which was not difficult, maxims favorable to the royal power. Whoever refused to bow down and worship the new idol that was set up was declared disloyal, an enemy to the king, and worthy of exile or death. Quod placuit principi, id legis habet vigorem, became the fundamental maxim of the new cæsarism, as it had been of the old, and the pleasure of the prince was to be done, let the church say what she might to the contrary. The church was in the royal and popular mind subordinated to the nation, and the pope to the temporal monarch. The head of the church must give way to the pleasure of the head of the state, and the good citizen or subject, in case of conflict, must obey the king in preference to the vicar of Jesus Christ. The lawyers and courtly prelates and doctors even found out that a Catholic, at the command of the king, might lawfully bear arms against the visible head of his church! The person of the king was sacred and inviolable, but not that of the pope, at least in the estimation of the degenerate grandson of St. Louis and his courtiers, as was proved in his treatment of Boniface VIII.

The monarch, in carrying on his war against the papacy, used both the lords and the commons. The feudal lords, being in their own feudal territories petty sovereigns, imagined that their interests and those of the monarch were the same, and they sustained him, till he felt himself strong enough to attack them in their privileges, and then they found that they were too weak to resist him. The people,

finding often a protector in the king against their more immediate masters, and being the depositaries of all that is exclusive in nationality, supported him with right good will, -their time to set up for themselves, and to treat him as he treated the pope, not having yet come. Thus aided, royalism emancipated itself from all spiritual direction, and supplanted in the national mind and heart the papacy. Those who adhered to the party of the pope against the party of the king were, as a term of reproach, called Papista or Papists. Royalism encroached everywhere on the spiritual power. The king obtained the nomination of bishops, and filled the sees with his creatures; he passed statutes of promunire and against provisors, and dictated the terms on which he would tolerate the church in his dominions. He denied the authority of the church over her own temporalities, and, as far as was possible without open schism, deprived her of all external authority. He made her all but national in his kingdom, and himself her external head, very nearly her pontifex maximus. It would seem that in all, save mere form, the bishops depended on the sovereign, and in no case were they to obey the pope without the royal permission. Hence the church in each nation seems to hold from the temporal lord, and to be bound to consult the royal pleasure. It is royal, not papal, and it is only by the royal condescension that the pope is permitted to interfere in its affairs. The people look no longer to Rome for direction; they look only to their sovereign, and care little what they do or believe, if sure of his approbation or conni

vance.

Such was the state of things throughout no small part of Europe at the epoch of the reformation. Luther hesitates not through fear of the pope, or dread of spiritual censures, at which he mocks, but only through fear of his temporal sovereign; and he speaks out boldly as soon as he has made sure of the protection of the powerful elector of Saxony.

The great majority of European sovereigns for three centuries had been anti-papal. By the centralization and consolidation of royalism, and the control they usurped in spiritual matters, they had succeeded in making large numbers of the people virtually Protestant, and formally Gallican. It is to be remarked, that, though the very soul of Luther's movement was hostility to the papacy, his Catholic opponents hardly attempt its defence. They seem willing to let