diers forthwith gave weight and authority to the imperial mandate wherever they had power; for, whatever the Romish priests and monks claimed 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 it 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 amidst 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 princes 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 age, whom even envy could celebrate after his death, came forward and 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 in a short time, by his victories, destroyed in a great measure the very confident expectations, indulged by the emperor and the pope, of shortly triumphing over our religion. Their extinguished hopes seemed to revive again when this great asserter of Germanic liberty fell victorious in the battle of Lützen. But time in some measure repaired this immense loss. The war therefore was protracted, to the great misfortune of Germany, amidst various vicissitudes, through many years; until the exhausted resources of the parties in it, and the inclinations of Christina, the daughter of Gustavus and queen of Sweden, who desired a peace, put an end to these evils and sufferings.

§ 7. After a violent conflict of thirty years, the celebrated peace, called the peace of Westphalia, because it was concluded at Munster and Osnaburgh, cities of Westphalia, in the year 1648, gave repose to exhausted Europe. It did not, indeed, procure for the protestants all the advantages and privileges which they wished for; because the emperor could not be induced, by any considerations, to reinstate perfectly the Bohe

2 Mémoires de la Reine Christine, tom. i. p. 7-20, where much is said of Gustavus, his achievements, and his death.

The author of this book also illustrates, in various respects, the history of the peace.

mians and the Austrians in their former privileges, nor to restore the Upper Palatinate to its former sovereign; not to mention other difficulties of less moment, which it was necessary to leave untouched: still the peace procured much greater advantages to the adversaries of the Romish see than its patrons could well brook; and it established firmly the great interests of the Lutheran and Reformed churches. In the first place, the peace of Augsburg, which the Lutherans had obtained of Charles V. in the preceding century, was put in a position to defy machinations and stratagems of any sort and moreover, the edict which required them to restore the ecclesiastical property of which they had gained possession since that peace, was annulled; and 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.3 The Roman pontiff, in the mean time, clamoured loudly, and left no means untried 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 in Westphalia, were ratified and executed at Nuremberg in the year 1650.4

§ 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.

"Whoever wishes for circumstantial information on this whole subject, will find abundant satisfaction, in the Acta Pacis Westphalia, et executionis ejus Norimbergensis; an immortal work of immense labour, compiled by Jo. Godf. Meyern. As a shorter history, instead of all others, may be consulted, the work of Adam Adami, bishop of Hierapolis, entitled, Relatio Historica de Pacificatione Osnabrugo-Monasteriensi; which, improved and rendered more accurate than before, the illustrious author republished, Leips. 1737, 4to. Very elegant also, and composed for the most part from the documents of the French envoys, is the

very eloquent Jesuit, Bougeant's Histoire de la Paix de Westphalie, Paris, 1746, 6 vols. 8vo. Nor is this Jesuit's history only neat and beautiful; it is also, in general, true and impartial.

Innocent X. assailed this peace in a warm epistle or bull, A. D. 1651. On this epistle there is extant a long and learned commentary of Jo. Hornbeck, entitled, Examen Bulle Papalis, qua P. Innocentius X. abrogare nititur pacem Germania, Utrecht, 1652, 4to. Perhaps the pontff's epistle would have found the emperor and his associates ready to listen to it, if it had been backed by gold, to give it weight.

But wherever it could be done without fear of the consequences, they exerted themselves to the utmost to abridge the protestants exceedingly of their rights, advantages, and privileges, though confirmed by oaths and the most sacred enactments. In Hungary, for instance, the citizens, who were protestants, both Lutheran and Reformed, were tormented with innumerable vexations, for ten years together, from 1671 to 1681.5 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 measure nor end. In Poland, all that dissented from the Roman pontiff, experienced, to their very great sorrow and distress, nearly throughout the century, that no compact, limiting the church's power, was accounted sacred and inviolable at Rome. For they were deprived of their schools, and of very many of their churches; dispossessed of their property by various artifices; and often visited, though innocent, with the severest punishments. The posterity of the Waldenses, living shut up in the valleys of Piedmont, were sometimes exposed to the severest sufferings, on account of their perseverance in maintaining the religion of their fathers; and especially in the years 1632, 1655, and 1685, when the Savoyards cruelly attacked that unhappy

5 See the Historia Diplomatica de Statu Religionis Evangelicæ in Hungaria, p. 69, &c. Paul Debrezenus, Historia Ecclesia Reformata in Hungaria, lib. ii. p. 447, &c. Schelhorn, in the Museum Helveticum, tom. viii. p. 46-90. [After some previous events, which occurred in the year 1670, a conspiracy of some Hungarian nobles against the emperor, in 1671, gave the catholics a favourable opportunity to gratify their thirst for persecution. The noblemen were put to death, as we learn from civil history; but at the same time, for three successive years, nearly all the evangelical churches were taken from them by force, and the Lutheran and Reformed ministers and schoolmasters, as participators in the conspiracy and insurrection, were summoned, a part of them to Tirnau and others to Presburg. When they appeared, a paper was presented to them to sign, which was very injurious to their ecclesiastical rights. And as they refused to sign it, they were thrown into noisome prisons, where they fared hard enough. From these, in 1675, many of

people with fire and sword."

them were condemned to the galleys, and were sent to Naples; where, however, the intercession of the Dutch admiral, Ruyter, procured them freedom. The other prisoners, at the intercession of the republic of Holland, were also set at liberty. Schl.]

See Adrian Regenvolscius, Historia Eccles. Slavonia, lib. ii. cap. xv. p. 216. 235.253. What was undertaken against the Polish dissidents, (as they were called,) after the times of Regenvolscius, [after A. D. 1652,] may be learned from various writings published in our times. [See Jo. Erskine's Sketches of Church Hist. vol. ii. p. 147, &c. Tr.]

7 See Peter Gilles' Histoire Ecclésiastique des Eglises Vaudoises, cap. xlviii. &c. p. 339, Geneva, 1656, 4to, [also Jo. Leger's Histoire des Eglises Vaudoises, pt. ii. cap. 6-20, and P. Boyer's Abrégé de l'Histoire des Vaudois, cap. x-xxvi. p. 64-235, of the English translation, Lond. 1693. The dukes of Savoy and the kings of France made open war upon the unfortunate protestants, and actually expelled them the country, in 1686.

8

The infractions of the treaty of Westphalia, in many parts of Germany, and of the Germanic liberties secured by that treaty, in consequence of this preposterous zeal for the welfare and extension of the Romish church, were so many and so great, as to supply matter enough for large volumes. And so long as it shall remain the established belief at Rome, that God has given to the Romish church and to its head dominion over the whole Christian world, there never will be reason for expecting that those can live in security and safety who renounce subjection to it; for they will always be looked upon as rebellious citizens, whom their legitimate sovereign has a right to punish according to his pleasure.

§ 9. The faithful servants of the Roman pontiff, at length, in this century, completely purged both Spain and France of the last remains of heresy. In Spain, the descendants of the Moors or Saracens, who once held the sovereignty over a considerable part of that country, had long lived intermingled with the other citizens, and were considerably numerous. They were indeed Christians, at least in profession and outward behaviour, and industrious, useful to the country, and injurious to no one; but were not a little suspected of a secret inclination towards Mahumedism, the religion of their fathers. The clergy therefore did not cease to importune the king, till he had delivered the country from this pest, and expelled from his territories the whole multitude of Saracens, whose numbers were prodigious. By this measure the Spanish commonwealth, indeed suffered a great loss, the sad effects of which are felt to the present time; but the church, which is far more important and excellent than the civil state, deemed herself so much the more benefited by it." The Reformed in France, commonly called Huguenots, having been long borne down by various oppressions, and well nigh destroyed, sometimes by crafty and concealed plots, and at other times by open and violent onsets, were at last most cruelly compelled, either secretly to flee their country, or to embrace, most reluctantly, and against

Three years after, most of them returned; but whole congregations remained permanently in foreign lands, and particularly in the territory of Würtemberg. Tr.]

• The Histories of religious grievances, by the learned Burch. Gotth. Struve

and Christ. Godfr. Hoffmann, composed in German, are in every body's hands.

9 Michael Geddes, History of the Expulsion of the Moriscoes out of Spain; in his Miscellaneous Tracts, vol. i. p. 59, &c.

their consciences, the Romish religion. This long persecution, than which a greater or more cruel has not occurred in modern times, will more suitably be explained in the history of the Reformed church.

§ 10. All the efforts, devices, and plans, which the boldest and most versatile geniuses could give birth to, were employed to bring Great Britain and Ireland again under the Romish yoke. But all these attempts failed of success. In the beginning of the century, some nefarious miscreants, burning with hatred of a religion which they regarded as new and false, having received encouragement from three Jesuits, of whom Henry Garnet was the chief, determined to destroy at a stroke the king, James I., with his son and the whole British parliament, by means of gunpowder, which they had concealed under the house in which the parliament usually met. For they had no doubts, if these could be destroyed, that means would be found for reinstating the old religion, and giving it its former ascendancy. The English call this horrid plot the gunpowder conspiracy. But Divine Providence caused it to be wonderfully discovered, and frustrated, when it was ripe for execution.2 More gently and cautiously were things done during the reign of Charles I., the son of James. For the king being of a mild and effeminate character, and apparently not far removed from Romish sentiments, having also a French wife who was devoted to the Romish worship, and being guided chiefly by the counsels of William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, an honest man undoubtedly, and not unlearned, but heated with an immoderate love of Christian antiquity; a reconciliation between England and the Roman pontiff seemed likely to take place, but rather by means of caresses and promises, than through commotions and bloodshed. But this expectation was frustrated by that

[The three Jesuits were Garnet, Gerard, and Greenway. The first was provincial of the order. He was executed the other two escaped. Probably, no one of the three could be fairly said to have advised this nefarious plot. They asserted themselves to have strongly dissuaded from it: but they became cognisant of it, while it was in preparation, and did not reveal it. Ed.]

Rapin Thoyras, Histoire d'Angleterre, livr. xviii. tom. vii. p. 40, &c. John Henry Heidegger, Historia Papatus, period vii. p. 211. 291, &c. [Hume's

Hist. of England, ch. xlvi. vol. v. p. 60, &c. Tr.]

3 See Urban Cerri's Etat présent de l'Eglise Romaine, p. 315, &c. Dan. Neal's Hist. of the Puritans, vol. iii. p. 194, &c. [Those who would really study Abp. Laud's character, must not confine themselves to writers with a strong dissenting or republican bias. They must consult Heylin and Wharton, among elder authorities, or Lawson and Le Bas among moderns. From such sources they will find the archbishop to have resembled very imperfectly the portraits of him