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The centralisation movement, that began in the fifteenth century, and
that tended to increase the power of the sovereign at the expense of the
lesser nobles and of the people, was strengthened and developed by the
religious revolt. The Protestant reformers appealed to the civil
rulers for assistance against the ecclesiastical authorities, and in
return for the aid given to them so generously they were willing to
concede to the king all power in civil and ecclesiastical matters.
Thenceforth the princes were to be so supreme in spirituals as well as
in temporals that their right to determine the religion of their
subjects was recognised as a first principle of government. During the
days of the Counter-Reformation, when religious enthusiasm was
aroused to its highest pitch, the Catholic sovereigns of Europe
fought not so much for the aggrandisement of their own power as for the
unity of their kingdoms and the defence of the religion of their
fathers, threatened as it was with complete overthrow.
But once the first fervour had passed away, and once it was recognised
that religious harmony could not be secured by the sword, Catholic
sovereigns began to understand that the Protestant theory of state
supremacy meant an increase of power to the crown, and might be
utilised to reduce the only partially independent institution in their
kingdoms to a state of slavery. Hence they increased their demands,
interfered more and more in ecclesiastical matters, set themselves to
diminish the jurisdiction of the Pope by means of the "Royal
Placet" and other such legal contrivances, and asserted for
themselves as much authority as could be reconciled with Catholic
principles interpreted in their most liberal sense. They urged the
bishops to assert their independence against the Holy See, and the
bishops, forgetful of the fact that freedom from Rome meant
enslavement by the State, co-operated willingly in carrying out the
programme of their royal masters. Men like Bossuet, carried away by
the new theories of the divine right of kings, aimed at reducing the
power of Rome to a shadow. They were more anxious to be considered
national patriots than good Catholics. They understood only when it
was too late that in their close union with the Holy See lay their
only hope of resisting state aggression, and that by weakening the
authority of the Pope they were weakening the one power that could
defend their own rights and the rights of the Church. Their whole
policy tended to the realisation of the system of national churches,
and were it not for the divine protection guaranteed by Christ to the
society that He Himself had founded, their policy might have been
crowned with success.
The principle, too, of individual judgment introduced by the
Reformers was soon pushed to its logical conclusions. If by means of
this principle Luther and his disciples could reject certain doctrines
and practices that had been followed for centuries by the whole
Catholic Church, why could not others, imitating the example that
had been given to them, set aside many of the dogmas retained by
Luther as being only the inventions of men, and why could their
successors not go further still, and question the very foundation of
Christianity itself? The results of this unbridled liberty of thought
made themselves felt in religion, in philosophy, in politics, in
literature, and in art. Rationalism became fashionable in educated
circles, at the courts, and at the universities. Even Catholics who
still remained loyal to the Church were not uninfluenced by the spirit
of religious indifference. It seemed to them that many of the dogmas
and devotions of the Church were too old-fashioned, and required to
be modernised. The courts in many cases favoured the spread of these
anti-religious views because they meant the weakening of the power of
the Church. They joined with the apostles of rationalism in attacking
the Society of Jesus, because the rationalists realised that the
Jesuits were their strongest opponents, while the politicians believed
them to be the most strenuous supporters of the jurisdiction of Rome.
It was only when the storm of revolution was about to burst over
Europe that the civil rulers understood fully the dangerous tendency of
the movement which they had encouraged. They began to open their eyes
to the fact that war against Christianity meant war against established
authority, and that the unbridled liberty of thought and speech which
had been tolerated was likely to prove more dangerous to the cause of
monarchy than to the cause of religion.
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