HISTORY

OF

THE REFORMATION

OF THE

SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

BY J. H. MERLE D'AUBIGNÉ, D. D.,

PRESIDENT OF THE THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL OF GENEVA, AND VICE-PRESIDENT
OF THE SOCIETE EVANGELIQUE.


TRANSLATED
BY H. WHITE,
B.A. TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE; M.A. AND PH. DR. HEIDELBERG.


THE TRANSLATION CAREFULLY REVISED BY DR. D'AUBIGNÉ, WHO HAS ALSO
MADE VARIOUS ADDITIONS NOT HITHERTO PUBLISHED.

VOL. III.

PUBLISHED BY THE
AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY,
150 NASSAU-STREET, NEW YORK.
1848.

PREFACE TO VOLUME THIRD.

A spirit of examination and inquiry is in our days continually urging the literary men of France, Switzerland, Germany, and England to search after the original documents which form the basis of Modern History. I desire to add my mite to the accomplishment of the important task which our age appears to have undertaken. Hitherto I have not been content simply with reading the works of contemporary historians: I have examined eye-witnesses, letters, and original narratives; and have made use of some manuscripts, particularly that of Bullinger, which has been printed since the appearance of the Second Volume of this Work in France.[1]

But the necessity of having recourse to unpublished documents became more urgent when I approached (as I do in the Twelfth Book) the history of the Reformation in France. On this subject we possess but few printed memoirs, in consequence of the perpetual trials in which the Reformed Church of that country has existed. In the spring of 1838 I examined, as far as was in my power, the manuscripts preserved in the public libraries of Paris, and it will be seen that a manuscript in the Royal Library, hitherto I believe unknown, throws much light on the early stages of the Reformation; and in the autumn of 1839 I consulted the manuscripts in the library belonging to the consistory of the pastors of Neufchatel, a collection exceedingly rich with regard to this period, as having inherited the manuscripts of Farel's library; and through the kindness of the Chatelain of Meuron I obtained the use of a manuscript life of Farel written by Choupard, into which most of these documents have been copied. These materials have enabled me to reconstruct an entire phasis of the Reformation in France. In addition to these aids, and those supplied by the Library of Geneva, I made an appeal, in the columns of the Archives du Christianisme, to all friends of history and the Reformation who might have any manuscripts at their disposal; and I here gratefully acknowledge the different communications that have been made to me, in particular by M. Ladevèze, pastor at Meaux. But although religious wars and persecutions have destroyed many precious documents, a number still exist, no doubt, in various parts of France, which would be of vast importance for the history of the Reformation; and I earnestly call upon all those who may possess or have any knowledge of them, kindly to communicate with me on the subject. It is felt now-a-days that these documents are common property; and on this account I hope my appeal will not be made in vain.

It may be thought that in writing a general History of the Reformation, I have entered into an unnecessary detail of its first dawnings in France. But these particulars are almost unknown, the events that form the subject of my Twelfth Book, occupying only four pages in the Histoire Ecclesiastique des Eglises réformées au Royaume de France, by Theodore Beza; and other historians have confined themselves almost entirely to the political progress of the nation. Unquestionably the scenes that I have discovered, and which I am now about to relate, are not so imposing as the Diet of Worms. Nevertheless, independently of the christian interest that is attached to them, the humble but heaven-descended movement that I have endeavoured to describe, has probably exerted a greater influence over the destinies of France than the celebrated wars of Francis I. and Charles V. In a large machine, not that which makes the greatest show is always the most essential part, but the most hidden springs.

Complaints have been made of the delay that has taken place in the publication of this third volume; and some persons would have had me keep back the first until the whole was completed. There are, possibly, certain superior intellects to which conditions may be prescribed; but there are others whose weakness must give them, and to this number the author belongs. To publish a volume at one time, and then a second whenever I was able, and after that a third, is the course that my important duties and my poor ability allow me to take. Other circumstances, moreover, have interposed; severe afflictions have on two occasions interrupted the composition of this third volume, and gathered all my affections and all my thoughts over the graves of beloved children. The reflection that it was my duty to glorify that adorable Master who addressed me in such powerful appeals, and who vouchsafed me such Divine consolation, could alone have given me the courage required for the completion of my task.

I thought these explanations were due to the kindness with which this Work has been received both in France and England, and especially in the latter country. The approbation of the Protestant Christians of Great Britain, the representatives of evangelical principles and doctrines in the most distant parts of the world, is most highly valued by me; and I feel a pleasure in telling them that it is a most precious encouragement to my labours.

The cause of truth recompenses those who embrace and defend it, and such has been the result with the nations who received the Reformation. In the eighteenth century, at the very moment when Rome thought to triumph by the Jesuits and the scaffold, the victory slipped from her grasp. Rome fell, like Naples, Portugal, and Spain, into inextricable difficulties; and at the same time two Protestant nations arose and began to exercise an influence over Europe that had hitherto belonged to the Roman-catholic powers. England came forth victorious from those attacks of the French and Spaniards which the pope had so long been stirring up against her, and the Elector of Brandenburg, in spite of the wrath of Clement XI., encircled his head with a kingly crown. Since that time England has extended her dominion in every quarter of the globe, and Prussia has taken a new rank among the continental states, while a third power, Russia, also separated from Rome, has been growing up in her immense deserts. In this manner have evangelical principles exerted their influence over the countries that have embraced them, and righteousness hath exalted the nations (Prov. xiv. 34). Let the evangelical nations be well assured that to Protestantism they are indebted for their greatness. From the moment they abandon the position that God has given them, and incline again towards Rome, they will lose their glory and their power. Rome is now endeavouring to win them over, employing flattery and threats by turns; she would, like Delilah, lull them to sleep upon her knees,......but it would be to cut off their locks, that their adversaries might put out their eyes and bind them with fetters of brass.

Here, too, is a great lesson for that France with which the author feels himself so intimately connected by the ties of ancestry. Should France, imitating her different governments, turn again towards the papacy, it will be, in our belief,