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HIS
LIFE,
WORKS,
AND
INFLUENCE
UPON THE
SPIRIT OF THE REFORMATION.
fuinrt
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
ON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 28th FEBRUARY, 1875.
A.
ELLEY FINCH.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. H THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD,
LONDON, S.E.
1875.
Price Threepence.
�LONDON :
PRINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET,
HAYMARKET, W.
�SYLLABUS.
Intellectual and Ecclesiastical condition of Europe about
the beginning of the sixteenth century. Characterised by
the awakening of the human mind from the long slumber of
the Middle Ages, stimulated mainly by three memorable
events :—
1. The invention of the Printing Press (1440).
2. The dispersion of Scholars on the fall of the Eastern
Empire of the Bomans (1453).
3. The actual discovery of the shape and smallness, of the
Earth through the voyages Of Columbus and Vasco
de Gama (1492-7), and Magellan’s Squadron (1522).
Sketch of the Life of Erasmus (1467-1536). His visits to
England and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. His
friendships with Colet, Linacre, Grocyn, More, Fisher, and
others of our learned -men. His zeal and travels for restoring
the culture of Classical Literature. His Works—‘Praise of
Folly,’ ‘ Adages,’ Edition of the Greek Testament, ‘ Familiar
Colloquies,’ ‘ Complaint of Peace,’ Editions of Classical Authors
and Christian Fathers, &c.
Bise of the Beformation, and its outbreak (1517) through
the intrepid preaching and conduct of Luther. His contro
versy with Erasmus. Divergence of their views.
Two aspects of the Beformation :—
1. Theological—A contest respecting the standard of
Beligious Truth. Ended in the substitution of an
assumed infallible Book for an alleged infallible
Church. (Luther.)
2. Historical-—The emancipation of the human reason
from the yoke of ecclesiastical authority through
the revival of learning. Still in progress by the
advance of culture and the freedom of discussion.
(Erasmus.)
�Syllabus.
Erasmus’s ‘Greek Testament’ (pditio princeps) 1516,followed
by Robert Stephens’s third (first critical) edition, 1550; Elzevir’s
(textus receptus), 1624; Mill’s, 1707 ; Wetstein’s, 1751; Matthsei’s, 1782-8 ; Griesbach’s, 1796 ; Scholz, 1830-6 ; Lachmann’s,
1831 ; Tischendorf’s, 1841, and other critical editions, embrac
ing the collation of upwards of six hundred manuscripts, and
the discovery of more than one hundred thousand various
readings, and no “ immaculate ” text, necessitates the science
of biblical criticism, i.e., the application of scientific truths
and tests, methods of inquiry and canons of evidence to the
investigation of the genuineness, authenticity, and true inter
pretation of the Christian Records.
Illustration of various readings—First Epistle General of
John, chap, v., verses 7, 8.
Concise account of the following ancient existing Scripture
Manuscripts :—
Language.
t----------------------------------
Source or
Text.
Date.
Latin.
Greek.
Codex Alexandrinus . 1 Codex Brixianus .... Byzantium (4th to
J 7th
(in the Gospels) J
„ Versio Vulgata . Palestine . j Cent.
„ Vaticanus ....
,, Vercellencis . . . Alexandria
A.D.
,, Cantabrigiensis.
The Spirit of the Reformation—the assertion of the principle
of private judgment arising from Reason and the Moral Sense,
in opposition to the practice of persecution resulting from the
spirit of dogmatism—is hostile to Priestcraft, but friendly to
Truth, by respecting the rights of conscience, and encouraging
the fearless advancement of Religious Knowledge through
Liberty of Inquiry, Freedom of Thought, and Honesty of
Expression.
�ERASMUS:
HIS LIFE, WORFS, AND INFLUENCE UPON THE SPIRIT OF
THE REFORMATION.
Throughout the greater part of the times historically
known, as the Middle Ages, down to so late a period as
the end of the 15th century, the Christian Countries of
Europe were ruled in reality by the Popes of Rome.
They were mapped out into Ecclesiastical Provinces,
each presided over by a Roman Archbishop ; Provinces’
were divided into Dioceses, and these into Parishes, each
with its Romish Priest, forming altogether an ecclesiasti
cal network, the strings of which were grasped at Rome
by the Pope and the College of Cardinals. In addition
to this clergy there were numerous orders of begging
Monks and Friars, Benedictines, Cistercians, Domini
cans, Franciscans, and Augustinians, whose numbers
swarmed everywhere; there being in most towns from
one to half-a-dozen Monasteries or Religious Houses.
The Power wielded through this ecclesiastical system
was enormous. Kings even were not secure of their
crowns till they had the sanction of the Church ; for, by
whatever jesuitical casuistry Vatican Decrees are now
sought to be explained away, in the days we are speak
ing of, Sovereigns were dethroned, their kingdoms laid
under interdicts, and their subjects were absolved from
their allegiance, by the usurped deposing power of the
Pope. The Roman Catholic Clergy alone baptized and
married, and buried, or refused Christian burial, they
alone disposed of dead men’s goods. No man’s Will
could take effect until proved in an Ecclesiastical Court.
If their claims were disputed remonstrants were handed
over to the secular arm or Civil Power, which acted in
abject submission to the arbitrary dictates of the
Church.
The Revenues of this Priesthood were immense.
�6
Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
Even the Monks, under their vows of poverty begging
alms for bread in return for prayers, obtaining bound
less wealth from the superstitious credulity of those who
thought that by giving them their property they could
save their souls.
But the ecclesiastical was not the only power in
Europe that was Roman. The whole learned world
was linked to Rome through the subtleties of the* scho
lastic system. All scholars talked and wrote in Latin,
the language of Rome. Learned people of all sorts were
looked upon as belonging to the Clergy. In England,
a man charged with crime, if he could only show such a
modicum of learning as being able to read and write,
could claim “benefit of clergy,” that is, be tried in an
ecclesiastical Court, which practically amounted to an
exemption from the punishments of the criminal law of
the Land. This tended to give all learning a clerical caste,
so that matters of real knowledge or science, which
could only be proved by observation of the facts of
Nature,—such, for instauce, as, whether the Sun moved
round the Earth, or the Earth round the Sun, were
settled by texts taken from the Bible I Whilst, as to
the Christian Religion itself, it had ceased to be what it
was in the days of Christ and the Apostles, an affair of
the heart; it had become a Theology, which is a thing of
the head.
About the beginning of the 16th century the restless
ness of the human mind under this servile system
becomes very observable, and is distinctly traceable to
the influence of certain memorable events, which were
then of recent occurrence. One was the invention of
the Printing-press, which occurred in about the year
1440, and which operated in two ways—in the multi
plying and cheapening of books, thereby diffusing
knowledge, and in substituting reading or private study
for oral instruction. Previously to the invention of
Printing, books were in manuscripts, comparatively so
few in number, that teaching was of necessity chiefly
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
7
carried on by means of Lectures or Sermons. Now, the
oral teacher unavoidably exerts over his audience a sym
pathetic influence, imbuing them with the bias of his
own views, and the gain to Truth must have been con
siderable, when the solitary student, intent only on its
pursuit, could acquire knowledge through the mute
medium of the printed page, and exercise upon it his
own powers of reflection, unprejudiced by the presence of
a personal Instructor. Thus it was that the PrintingPress came to deprive the Pulpit of its supremacy, and
to subordinate the Sermon to the Newspaper.
Another event was the taking of Constantinople by
the Turks, in the year 1453. This celebrated city had
been the home, or the refuge, of learning since its founda
tion by the Emperor Constantine in the year 330. On
its fall, learned Greeks and Jews, driven from the East,
were dispersed over Europe, and mostly settled in Italy.
The Greek and Hebrew languages were again studied,
and thence there resulted a remarkable revival of
classical learning, and there arose an intelligent criti
cism of the Latin credentials of the Roman Catholic
Faith. What (said the faculty of theology in Paris),
what will become of our religion, if the study of Greek
and Hebrew be permitted ? Time has verified this
prophetic fear of the Romish Church, and has shown,
that the prevalence of the Latin tongue was an essential
condition of her power.
The third event I shall advert to was the discovery of
the rounded form, and relative smallness, of our Earth,
through the Voyages of Columbus and Vasco de Gama
in the years 1492-7, and of Magellan’s expedition in the
years 1519-1522. The effect on the human mind of this
physical discovery must have been very powerful, since
it shocked directly some of the most cherished religious
notions of those days. Fact had now falsified faith ;
for the infallible Church had transmuted a geographical
problem into a theological dogma, by committing her
self against the figure of the Earth being round. Her
�8
Erasmus; his Life, Works3 and Influence
teaching was now shown to be untrue, and the authority
of her fervid Fathers Lactantius and Augustin proved to
be worthless, by the astounding achievement of the
actual circumnavigation of the Globe !
It should be observed that the spread of knowledge
at the period we are referring to was remarkably rapid.
Schools of learning were numerous, many of them dating
from their foundation by Charlemagne in the ninth cen
tury ; and Europe was dotted over by Universities, all
of which were more or less in close connection with one
another. The one language, Latin, was common to them
all, and students passed freely from one to another,
flocking often in great numbers to an University where
there happened to be a famous Professor.
Such, shortly, was the ecclesiastical and intellectual
condition of Western Christendom about the time of
the advent of the illustrious scholar, whose career we
are going slightly to trace. It was a time, when:—
“ Much was believ’d, but little understood,
And to be dull was constru’d to be good;
A second deluge Learning had o’er-run,
And the Monks finish’d what the Goths begun.
At length Erasmus, that great injur’d name,
(The glory of the Priesthood, and the shame!)
Stem’d the wild torrent of a barb’rous age,
And drove those holy Vandals off the stage.”
Desiderius Erasmus was born at Rotterdam in about
the year 1467. His parents were, one Gerard, a native
of Tergouw, and Margaret, the daughter of a Physician
at Zevenbergen in Brabant. Gerard in the Dutch
language signifies “ beloved,” and the son, following a
quaint fashion of the times, called himself by its Latin
and Greek equivalents—that is “ Desiderius ” in Latin
and “Erasmus” (more accurately Erasmios) in Greek.
As a boy he was considered slow at learning, and was
early placed in the choir of the Cathedral of Utrecht,butat
the age of nine he was removed to a then distinguished
school at Deventer, a town on the Yssel, where he had as a
schoolfellow a future Pope, Adrian the VI., and where
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
9
he made astonishing progress, causing Zinthius, one of
the masters, to prophecy that Erasmus would eventually
reach the highest pinnacle of learning. On leaving
school he was, much against his will, induced by his
guardians (he was already an orphan, having lost both
his parents), to enter the Augustinian Monastery of
Steyn, and to become a Monk. Whilst an inmate, he
was allowed by way of solace, to occupy the greater
portion of his time in study, especially of such of the
Greek and Latin classics as could there be met with.
His deliverance from the monastery was owing to his
accomplished scholarship, and happened thus. In the
year 1491 the Bishop of Cambray, being about to set
out for Rome in the hope of becoming a Cardinal, was
in search of a scholar to be his secretary and companion,
and he selected Erasmus. Erom Cambray Erasmus
(leaving the service of the Bishop, who did not go to
Rome after all) proceeded to Paris, and mastered the
studies that were then taught to the students of its
University (chiefly the scholastic philosophy or science
of sophistry, a metaphysical jargon enabling doctors
of theology endlessly to confute one another), living
very poorly, and more or less in pecuniary difficulty,
supported partly by presents, that it was customary for
the rich and noble to make to students, and partly by
begging, which was a common practice of the Monks
of the Mendicant Orders. In 1498 Erasmus visited
this country, remaining here until the year 1500, em
ploying his time a good deal at the. University of
Oxford, and in making the acquaintance of the most
learned and noted Englishmen of that day, especially
Thomas Linacre, Physician to Henry the 8th, William
Grocyn who was engaged at Oxford in giving Lectures
on the Greek Language, Thomas Latimer the theologian,
Thomas More, afterwards Lord Chancellor, and Colet,
Dean of St Paul’s and founder of St Paul’s School.
Erasmus appears to have been greatly delighted with
this visit to England, and was much impressed with the
�io Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
number of our learned men, and they too were equally
taken with the varied scholarship of their visitor, almost
inducing him to’ settle at Oxford and give lectures
there. On leaving England, Erasmus was struck down
by fever at Orleans. He recovered, he says, through
the intercession of Saint Genevieve, though not without
the help of a good Physician. In the year 1506 Erasmus
paid a second visit to this country, staying about a year,
renewing his intercourse with his old friends, and visit
ing for the first time the University of Cambridge,
where he was made a Bachelor of Divinity. Leaving
England he again visited Paris, and afterwards crossed
the Alps to see the Cities of Italy, Turin, Venice, and
Rome, always pursuing his studies, and making the
acquaintance of great men and scholars, with whom he
carried on a voluminous and instructive correspondence.
He now obtained from the Pope a release from his
monastic vows. It seems to have long been his ambi
tion to pay a visit to Italy, then renowned through the
world for her antiquities, her arts, and her learning,
where the old classical memories had never died out, and
where, in the days of Erasmus, they were recovering their
influence.
In the year 1509 we find Erasmus again in London,
living with his friend Sir Thomas More, and it was
whilst with him that he produced one of his most bril
liant works—one, indeed, of the most famous satires of
world. Erasmus, reflecting on the name of his friend the
More, thinking how strange so wise a man should bear
the name of fool—(More being the Latin for folly)—
thinking too how many fools there were in the world,
and what various forms folly assumed, conceived the
idea of satirising and turning the weak side of all classes
of men into ridicule, under the pretence of eulogising
folly. Such was the origin of his book ‘Encomium
Morise,’ or ‘ Praise of Eolly.’ In this masterly per
formance, abounding in wit and eloquence, the super
stitions of the Monks of his time, the pride, avarice and
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
11
tyranny of the Nobles are exposed in a vein of scathing
satire. The Miracle-mongers, the traffickers in Pardons,
and the theologians generally are attacked with great
force of humour, and exhibited in lights that make them
appear really ridiculous ; the schoolmen, the Mendicant
Friars, even the Pope himself, being handled in a vein of
sarcastic pleasantry. The fame of this remarkable book
was immense. In a few months it went through seven
editions; Kings, Bishops, Cardinals appear to have
been delighted with it, the great Pope Leo the 10th
reading it through from beginning to end. Of course it
was attacked, though it was long before the Monks
broke silence. Their dull brains did not at first take in
the fact that they were being turned into ridicule, and
that, (to use the expression of Dorpius), their heads
were being fitted with asses’ ears.
The enlightening influence of this little book, in
rousing men to a consideration of the ecclesiastical state
of things around them, forcing them to ask themselves
whether all that they had been taught to believe could
be true, must have been very great.
Soon after this second arrival of Erasmus in England
he was invited to Cambridge University by Fisher the
then Chancellor, a very learned man and a warm patron
of letters, and who was labouring to improve the studies
of the University, which were scarcely so advanced as
those of Oxford in the culture of the great classical
authors and the Greek Language. At Cambridge
Erasmus gave the first Lectures ever given there on
Greek, and was appointed Lady Margaret’s Professor of
Divinity. His stay at Cambridge was, however, com
paratively short; he complained that the living and bad
wine did not agree with him, and we soon find him
again travelling about the world, particularly at Ghent,
at Strasburg, and at Basle.
In the year 1508 there appeared from the printing
press of Manutius Aldus in Venice, in a greatly im
proved edition, another very remarkable work of
�12 Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
Erasmus termed the 1 Adages,’ that is, proverbs, or
impressive sayings and maxims, which he had labori
ously culled from the whole compass of classical and
polite literature, for the most part derived with diffi
culty from hidden and defaced manuscripts, many of
them in the Greek language. A perfect cyclopaedia of
wit and wisdom, interspersed with reflections and disser
tations of his own, exposing, with admirable humour and
irony, the superstitions and follies of monks and kings.
The Proverbs collected in this vast magazine (one of the
most astonishing monuments of literary diligence exist
ing in the world) amount to upwards of four thousand.
An immense number of copies were sold, and distributed
amongst the thinking portion of the European Public.
In allusion to the Printing-press, as the unconscious
agent in this diffusion of book-knowledge, Erasmus
finely remarks, “ whilst the vast Alexandrian library of
the great Ptolemy was confined to the walls of a single
building, Aldus our printer is constructing a library
which will have no limits but those of the literary
world! ”
Bearing in mind that these brilliant and attractive
Works of Erasmus, diffusing a knowledge of classical
literature, assailing (under the mask of playful wit) the
conduct of Popes, Monarchs, and Ecclesiastics, and
satirising the vices, impostures, and scandals of the
Church and Court of Rome, were being published
during the years immediately preceding the rise of the
Reformation, we cannot doubt how much they effected
in preparing the world for coming events.
But the prodigious learning and resources of Erasmus
were far from being exhausted, and, in the year 1516, he
gave to the learned world, through the printing press of
Froben at Basle, the entire New Testament in Greek,
with a Latin translation and annotations. The work
was dedicated to the Pope, with an account of the ancient
manuscripts that had been used in its production. They
were indeed few in number compared with those that
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
13
have since been discovered and collated, and, with refer
ence to the Apocalypse, there was but one Greek manu
script, and that so defective that Erasmus had to make
up the Greek version by translations of his own from the
Latin. The book was not indeed, in several particulars,
faultless, yet, having regard to the time when it was
composed, to the existing means of accomplishing so
great a work, to the fact that it was the “ editio princeps,” or first edition, of the Greek Testament that had
ever been printed (for, at the time when Erasmus pro
duced his Greek Testament, as well as for centuries
before, the Church Bible was a Latin version of the
Scriptures), and, judging it even by all that has been
effected by the research and accomplishments of the
numerous subsequent critical editors, it is impossible to
deny, that it was a very marvel of ability and industry.
The sale of it was very rapid; upwards of 3,300 folio
copies were disposed of almost immediately. At length
Scholars and Divines, and Princes and Nobility, were
enabled to possess an actual copy of the Christian Scrip
tures in their original tongue. Of course curiosity led
to translations into the vernacular languages which soon
followed, and, it is hardly possible to exaggerate the
debt which we, living now, owe to Erasmus for this
splendid monument of his scholarship, of which, as I
shall have occasion again to refer to it, I will only now
remark, that the annotations are distinguished by that
boldness of criticism which in our day is denounced as
rationalistic. As usual, the book provoked enmity and
censure, again the malevolence of the Monks was
aroused. In reference to his emendations of the vulgate
or Latin text they accused him of impiety in presuming
to correct the Holy Ghost. “Is every fool then,” he
retorted, “to be permitted to corrupt the manuscripts
of the gospels, and a scholar to be declared impious for
restoring what has been corrupted ?” It was also
bitterly attacked by rival scholars, but, when his Greek
was charged with want of elegance, Erasmus simply
�14 Erasmus; his Life, Works} and Influence
replied, “ The apostles did not learn their Greek from
the orations of Demosthenes.”
The next work of importance that engaged the pen of
Erasmus was an edition of the ‘Life and Works of St.
Jerome.’ This was published in July, 1516, in nine
splendid folio volumes. As in former works, so in this,
Erasmus accompanied the text with learned scholia,
that is, brief critical and explanatory notes, in which
all the resources of his vast erudition were called into
requisition to elucidate obscure and doubtful points.
The work was dedicated to Warham, Archbishop of
Canterbury, and speedily passed through three editions.
During all this time Erasmus was continually travelling
about, making ceaseless journeys to Churches, Monas
teries, and Universities containing rare or noted manu
scripts, thereby rescuing for the Printing Press those
immortal works of the wise ancients that were hourly
perishing with the worm-eaten parchments on which
they were traced. He had left England for Basle in
1515, but we find him back here again in 1517. Still
however he declined to remain amongst us, partly, he
states in a letter to the Physician of the Cardinal of
• York, on account of the sweating sicknesses, plagues,
and contagious fevers that were of so frequent occur
rence here in the 16th century, arising chiefly, accord
ing to Erasmus (whose observations exhibit consider
able sanitary knowledge), from our disregard of the
laws of health, in the filthy and stifling state, and
defective ventilation, of the ordinary residences of the
people.
This year 1517 signalised the outbreak of the Refor
mation in Germany, and Erasmus was at once involved
in correspondence with Luther, Cardinal Wolsey, Albert
Prince Elector and Cardinal Archbishop of Maintz, and
with the Pope himself. He appears to have been inde
cisive in his theological opinions, and desirous to bring
about some middle course between the antagonistic
views of the Church and the Reformers; but the quarrel
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
i$
soon became too embittered for mediators, and Erasmus,
though clinging to the Roman Church, incurred severe
censure from both sides. As I shall presently more
particularly discuss his position in relation to Luther,
I pass on to the consideration of his principal remaining
literary productions.
There is a work of Erasmus I must mention, for it
shows clearly his humane nature and correct moral prin
ciples. This was his book called ‘ The Complaint of
Peace.’ No man ever detested war more cordially than
he did, and, even in that warlike age, he lifted up his
voice loudly against it. Nothing, he shows, can be more
utterly at variance with war than Christianity, whose
founder is emphatically called “The Prince of Peace.”
He is powerfully severe on the Clergy of his time for
the way in which they foment the warlike passions of
princes and people. “ Priests and Bishops,” he ob
serves, “ leave their churches and follow armies to the
field, waving above the contending hosts the holy Cross,
thus made the symbol of war by those whose mission it
is, before all things, to preserve peace. Their prayers
must indeed be a mere mockery to God, when their very
cannon are named after the Apostles, and engraved with
the images of the Saints !”
In 1524 Erasmus published a paraphrase of the New
Testament, which was esteemed so highly that a copy
of it, translated into English by Nicholas Udal, Master
of Eton College, was, by an order in Council, directed
to be placed in every Parish Church in this Country
beside the Bible.
The last work of the great Scholar I shall mention
was that which is the best known of all—viz., ‘ The
Familiar Colloquies,’ published in 1526, professedly
designed for the instruction of youth, and long de
servedly much read in our schools. It consists of a
large number of conversations on a great variety of
subjects, conducted in the most natural manner, full of
delicate humour, keen irony, and subtle wit. In it the
�16 Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
clergy are everywhere represented as idle and corrupt.
Indulgences, auricular confession, and eating fish on
fast days, are satirically laughed at. Again and again
the coarse, overfed, ignorant monks are lashed with
ridicule, and their lives and conduct exposed. The
indignation of the clerical world was now really roused
to resentment, but the success of the work was splendid.
It is related that a publisher in Paris, Colineus, hearing
that it was about to be condemned by the University,
printed no less than 24,000 copies, and sold them all.
However, in the end, the reading of the book was pro
hibited by the Faculty of Theology, on the grounds,
amongst others, that Christians are discouraged by it
from becoming monks, that grammatical is preferred to
theological erudition, and that it contained “ erroneous,
scandalous, and impious propositions, in which the
author, as though he were a heathen, ridicules, satirises,
and sneers at the holy ceremonies and observances of
the Christian Religion.”
From this time Erasmus became the object of attack
by theologians on all sides, and had to defend himself
from the censures of the Sorbonne in Paris. There can
be no doubt that these controversies, and the works from
which they proceeded, had much effect in undermining
the power of the monkish party, in laughing down their
superstitions, and bringing their whole system into con
tempt. But it was not only the monks that were to
blame. Erasmus saw, he says, a new set of fanatics
arising on the reformed side, as ignorant, as presump
tuous, as hostile to liberal culture as the fanatics of the
Church. He dreaded lest the world, instead of being
freed from the yoke of superstition, should merely expe
rience a change of masters. This new Gospel (he writes
of the views of the ignorant adherents of Luther) is pro
ducing a new set of men, so impudent, hypocritical, and
abusive, such liars and sycophants and ranters, agreeing
neither with one another nor with any one else, so uni
versally offensive and seditious, in short, so distasteful
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
17
to me, that if I knew any city in which I should be free
from them I would go there at once.
The enemies of Erasmus of course increased with the
bitterness of his scornful attacks upon their miser
able superstitions, and their gross illiterate ignorance.
“ Every goose now hisses at Erasmus ” (he writes). But,
in his retreat at Basle, on the banks of the Rhine, the
great champion of literary culture still carried on the
theological feud. One of his most characteristic pieces
is the letter of farewell to his assailants that he pub
lished in 1525, in which they are contemptuously styled
“ certain impudent jackdaws, young men, whose igno
rance is matched only by their arrogance.”
In the year 1529 the progress of the reformed faith,
and the violence of the mob, in attacking and defacing
the members and Churches of the Roman Catholic Reli
gion, compelled Erasmus to remove to Friburg. His
account of his flight, given in a letter to a friend, is
extremely graphic and sarcastic. “ The rabble,” he says,
“ heaped such insults on the images of the Saints and
the Crucifix itself, that it was astonishing there was no
miracle, considering how many there always used to be
whenever the saints were even but slightly offended.”
In the year 1534 affairs were sufficiently quiet to
enable Erasmus to return to Basle, where,—whilst re
posing in the hospitable home of his friend Jerome
Froben, the famous printer, and engaged in revising,
“ segra manu ” (he tells us), his latest works, and shortly
after hearing of the tyrannical murder of his eminent
friend Sir Thomas More,—Erasmus was summoned to
meet his last enemy, and on the 12th of February, 1536,
being in the 69th year of his age, he there succumbed to
the attack of death.
Though of the Roman Catholic Faith, no priestly
mummeries were enacted round his death-bed. “He
has died,” exclaimed the illiterate monks in their dogLatin, “ sine Lux, sine Crux.” But the liberal and
beneficent city of Basle knew better how to celebrate the
B
�18 Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
event of a great man, whatever his creed, having closed
his career in their midst. The Magistrates, with the
Professors and Students of the University, shared among
them the envied honour of carrying to their last restingplace in Basle Cathedral (a sanctuary for the literary
dead) the remains of the great luminary of the age, the
greatest scholar perhaps of any age, lamented by all
lovers of learning, respected by every crowned head in
Europe, hated only by ecclesiastics incapable, through
ignorance, of appreciating his merits—merits, which, on
any candid review, must ever appear most remarkable.
His attainments were indeed stupendous, and, in his own
age, his powers of reason, imagination, and caustic wit
were unmatched. Though neither physically nor men
tally cast in the heroic mould of Luther ; quite unable,
like him, to have stood alone against the united power
of Church and State, yet, with pen in hand, and sur
rounded by his books, the whole learned world in ex
pectation of what he should utter, Erasmus reigned
supreme I His sarcasms were hurled against vice, igno
rance, and error, with crushing effect. At a time when
literary ignorance was the besetting sin, his variety of
erudition, and unrivalled powers of diffusing knowledge
and inspiring the love of literary culture, were invalu
able. The faculty of humour appears to have been his
most original mental quality. That civil irony, by
whose unsparing use he succeeded in making the super
stitions of his day supremely ridiculous, has never been
surpassed. The dogmas of theology were his aversion.
The sum of our religion, he avers, is Peace, which is to
be preserved by defining only primary points, leaving
the rest to every one’s own judgment. That a man’s
Faith should be looked for in the life he led, not in the
creed he professed. His desire was to correct the
abuses of the Church without rebelling from her autho
rity, to reform her discipline, and recall religion from
ritualistic rites and ceremonies to the simplicity of the
Gospels. His great weapon for effecting such reform
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
19
was knowledge combined with common sense and the
use of reason. Far before his own age, he embodied in
himself what we now term the modern spirit—the spirit,
of doubt and free enquiry. Like the Broad Churchmen
of our day, he had outgrown the narrow orthodoxy of
his Church, and, like them, he conscientiously refused
to separate himself from her communion. He broke off
from Luther, as we shall presently see, .when Luther’s
dogmatic theology and impetuous conduct threatened
rebellion rather than reform, and when reason, literary
culture, and freedom of speech were becoming stifled by
the violent conduct of the Reformers. The sagacious
mind of Erasmus was rather sceptical and critical than
affirmative and dogmatic. In religious strife, the arena
of argument and discussion was his vantage-ground, and
to aid in educating the mind to the skilful use of these
intellectual weapons by means of his well-reasoned
writings was no insignificant contribution to the reli
gious crisis of his age, the great contest with the fana
ticism of the 16th century.
Of the person and manners of Erasmus his friend
Beatus Rhenanus has told us that he had a cheerful
countenance and an agreeable utterance, was a pleasant
companion, a constant friend, generous and charitable.
Leaving the grave of our incomparable scholar, we
must now revert to events which my narrative has some
what outstripped.
In the year 1517 the magnificent taste of John de
Medici, Pope Leo the 10th, was engaged in, ^amongst
other splendid works, the erection of the Church of
St. Peter’s at Rome, and he was pressed for supplies of
money. To replenish his exhausted exchequer he com
missioned Tetzel, a Dominican Friar, to preach through
out Germany a sale of Indulgences, that is, a remittance
from the pains of purgatory and all other punishments
of sin, in consideration of money payments made to the
Pope. A sale of Indulgences for the perpetration of sin,
however nefarious, was nothing novel. It was a recog-
�20 Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
nised practice of the Roman Catholic Church ; but the
proceedings of Tetzel, who had been created an Inquisitor
to. give more influence to his mission, were conducted
with unusual indecency and audacity. Travelling
through towns and villages, hawking them about at
fairs, market places, and taverns, his conduct respmhlnd
that of a mountebank or quack doctor, and the temper
of the times was foreboding some intellectual explosion.
Tetzel’s profanity appears to have excited deep disgust
and indignation in the mind of an Augustinian Monk,
Martin Luther, who first remonstrated and then publicly
denounced Tetzel’s whole proceedings as a gigantic
scandal. Drawing up propositions denying the right of
the Pope to pardon sin, denying that Indulgences could
possibly be more than a release from the censures of the
Church, he reduced these to the form of scholastic theses
for discussion, and, on the 31st Oct., 1517, nailed them
publicly to the door of the Church at Wittenberg, with a
challenge to Tetzel and all others whom it might concern
to come forward and publicly confute them. This
slight, but significant, act of an almost obscure Monk
was the outbreak of the Protestant Reformation .’ Almost
all Germany, who had no idea of allowing their money
to be drained to Rome, took up the cause of Luther, who
proceeded to denounce numerous other religious rites
and ceremonies as errors and superstitions of the
Romish Church.
The Pope, failing methods of conciliation, on the
15th of June, 1520, issued a Bull, in which Luther’s
opinions were condemned as heresies, and his books
ordered to be publicly burnt. This proceeding of the
Pope was instantly met by Luther, in a manner and
with a spirit, that at once showed the intrepid and impe
rious character of the man. Causing a huge bonfire to
be lit within the walls of Wittenberg he, on the
20th Dec., 1520, committed the Pope’s Bull to the
flames, together with the Canons and Decretals that set
forth the Pope’s supremacy.
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
21
All communion with the Church of Rome was thus for
ever renounced, and the reformed churches date their
origin from this transaction.
Now, for many years previously to this outbreak, long
before Luther was heard of, Erasmus had been working
for the reformation of the Church ; but a reform, not a
revolution, had been his cherished idea, to be brought
about by the advancement of learning, and the diffusion
of a knowledge of the Scriptures, but to be so effected as
not to create schism, and so that the unity of Chris
tendom under one head should remain unimpaired. The
reckless impulse of the dauntless Luther, who had
sought to shatter the fabric of the Papacy at a single
blow, simply shocked the nervous Erasmus, causing him
to conclude that the advance of knowledge, through
peaceful discussion, and the consequent reform of abuses,
the improvement of morals, and extinction of supersti
tions, would be retarded, rather than aided, by Luther’s
defiant acts.
These illustrious characters were undoubtedly actuated
originally by like motives, and were, at the outset, sin
cerely desirous of acting in concert, mutually discussing
their respective views in a serious written correspondence;
but Erasmus, unable to agree with the Augustinian
theology of Luther, and terrified by his extreme course
of action, had broken off from him, and now indeed
stood aghast at the conflagration, moral and material, that
was spreading from the burning of the Pope’s Bull.
The religious questions at issue between Rome and the
Reformers were thenceforth discussed in Diets or Poli
tical assemblies. The Reformers and their tenets were
condemned by an edict of the Diet of Worms in 1521,
which excommunicated Luther and all his adherents.
At the first Diet of Spires in 1526 it was resolved that
the cruel and persecuting Edict of Worms should not be
carried out, but, at the Second Diet of Spires in 1529
the decision of its First Diet was ruthlessly reversed.
The iniquitous decree of this Second Diet of Spires was
�22 Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
solemnly protested against by the Elector of Saxony, the
Landgrave of Hesse, the Prince of Anhalt, and other
political powers and great men, whence, as you may
remember, the Reformers derived their designation of
Protestants, by which term all Christian sects that differ
from Rome have ever since been styled.
The religious dissensions still continued, followed, as
always has been the case, by holy wars! in which the
excesses of German peasants and Dutch Anabaptists
were extinguished in the blood of 80,000 victims; but
they were ultimately brought to an end in the year
1555 in an imperial Diet, which decreed that Protestants
who embraced the theological propositions known as
“ The Confession of Augsburg ” should be entirely
exempted from the jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff.
And thus at last was reached the first stage of what
religious rulers have termed Toleration, which is, the
insolent permission of men in power, granted to other
men to think and believe on religious questions, and to
worship the Deity, as their reason and conscience may
dictate.
The grand Protestant Reformation, whose historical
outline I have so barely sketched, in order to be under
stood must be considered under two aspects, the Theo
logical and the Historical.
Theologically regarded, the Reformation was the
result of a contest respecting the standard of Religious
Truth, that is to say, whether it was to be found in the
Church or in the Bible, and it has hitherto been, prac
tically, very little more than a change of theological
dogmas ; for, though it effected the abolition of Saint
Worship, and the ceremony of the Mass, the destruction
of images, the eradication of Monkery and the free cir
culation of the Scriptures, it ended in imposing upon
the human mind theological propositions stereotyped in
ecclesiastical creeds, confessions of faith, and articles of
Religion dialectically deduced from the language of an
assumed infallible book, but substituted as bonds, in the
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
23
place of other theological propositions that had been
dogmatically decreed by an alleged infallible church.
Yet, to this extent, it was an immense step in advance,
and even now, notwithstanding all our scientific and
moral progress, a large majority of protestant Christians
firmly adhere to the religious conclusions that were then
arrived at, the basis of which, as the ultimate standard
of theological faith, is thus forcibly described by Chil
lingworth writing in the year 1637 :—
“ The Bible I say, the Bible only, is the Religion of
Protestants. Propose me anything out of this book, and
require whether I believe it or no, and, seem it never so
incomprehensible to human reason, I will subscribe it
with hand and heart, as knowing no demonstration can
be stronger than this—God hath said so—therefore it is
true.”
Regarded historically, the essential principle of the
great Reformation appears to be of a more profound and
general nature. In the struggle that is ever progressing
between the efforts of the human reason, on the one
hand, to assert its own freedom, and, on the other hand,
the coercion exercised over it by ecclesiastical power, a
struggle that, in our day, is rapidly attaining the pro
portions of an impending conflict between Superstition
and Science, the Reformation may be described as the
sudden expansion of the human mind, invigorated
through the revival of learning, to burst asunder the
bonds of priestly tyranny; to assert the right of every
man to exercise his own judgment in matters of the
highest importance to him ; to inquire into and discuss
them, and to seek for Truth, unfettered by any dogmatic
authority whatsoever, and in the freedom of his indi
vidual reason and conscience.
Seen from this historical point of view, it is not the
dogmatic and unlettered Luther, “bellowing in bad Latin,”
but rather, the cultured and rationalising Erasmus—
“ Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer,
The lord of irony, that master spell— ”
�24 Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
who appears as the chief apostle of the Reformation, and
the principles abounding in his writings to be those to
which we now owe our present liberty of religious
thought. He, though but the precursor of bolder
prophets than himself, was the first distinguished enemy
to ignorance and superstition, the first restorer of morality
on the Gospel precepts. If, as was said at the time by
the monks, “ Erasmus laid the egg, but Luther hatched
it,” we may now add, that the continued and still soaring
flight of its vigorous offspring is owing to the prolific
power of the parent, and to those principles of nurture
which the prophetic genius of Erasmus descried. It is
to the development of that culture of the understanding
which he had at heart, and to the freedom of intellectual
discussion which is its natural fruit, that the enlightened
religious opinions of our own day are chiefly owing, and
their resistless advance in this country, since the days
of Chilling worth, is remarkably conspicuous, when read
in the light of the judgment of the judicial Committee
of the Privy Council delivered, in Wilson v. Fendall, the
case of Essays and Reviews, on the 8th of February.,
1864. By virtue of that well-advised and authoritative
declaration of the law, all, both cleric and lay, are
secured in their liberty, as respects the interpretation of
the Bible, to accept “ as parable, or poetry, or legend, the
story of a serpent tempter, of an ass speaking with man’s
voice, of an arresting of the earth’s motion, of water
standing in a solid heap, of an universal deluge dried up
by the wind, of the personality of Satan, together with
many other alleged miraculous events.” All are by that
judgment legally entitled advisedly to maintain and affirm,
that “ the Scriptures are not entirely God’s Word, though
the Word of God is contained in Scripture, and that
the dark patches of human passion and error that
form a partial crust upon it, are to be separated and
distinguished from the bright centre of spiritual truth
within.”
Now our present more accurate knowledge of the nature
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
2$
and contents of the Bible has resulted from the progress
of Biblical Criticism, a secular science, for which, in its
origin, we are very much indebted to the great learning
and labours of Erasmus. Almost the very first general
demand that was created by the revival of letters was to
obtain a sight of the Christian Scriptures, but at that
time they positively had no existence for the people at
large, for they were to be found only in manuscripts
in the Greek, Syriac, Latin, and other ancient or
oriental tongues, few in number, and buried in the
sacristies of Churches, and the libraries of Monasteries
and Universities scattered over Europe. It was the work
of Erasmus, by means of unwearied travel and inces
sant toil, to copy and collate some of the more important
of these, and to publish the first printed edition of the
New Testament in its original tongue. This gigantic
task accomplished, the rest has been comparatively easy.
Thousands of copies of this first edition of the printed
Christian Scriptures were issued and disseminated, and
translations into the vernacular languages were imme
diately made, and then, to some extent, the people at
large obtained the opportunity of reading them, and
comparing with their simple spiritual and moral teach
ing the pompous ceremonial, and ritualistic apparatus, of
the Romish Church. Other editions also rapidly fol
lowed. Industrious scholars vied with one another in
a critical examination of ancient manuscripts, and in
publishing the results. In 1550 the renowned printer
Robert Stephens published his 3rd edition of the Greek
Testament, which contained in the margin notes of the
various readings of the manuscripts he had consulted.
This, the first critical edition, was succeeded by others
on a similar plan, the chief of which you will find speci
fied in the syllabus in your hands, and a conclusion has
been thereby arrived at, which, stated in its simplest
form, you will probably think sufficiently striking, viz.,
That the careful collation of upwards of 600 ancient
manuscripts of New Testament Writings exhibits a total
�26 Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
of more than 100,000. various readings, and the discovery
of no single text that can be selected as immaculate.
Such was the condition of things which brought into
existence that most important branch of modern scholar
ship, the secular science of Biblical Criticism, which may
be defined as an intellectual method or discipline, based
on reason and evidence, for applying the truths, the
tests, the logic and canons of proof, of the more exact
sciences to the investigation of the genuineness, the
authenticity, and the true interpretation of the Christian
Records. The light which is now flowing in upon us
from the free, but conscientious, pursuit of this important
study, especially in Germany, Holland, Erance, and
England can hardly be exceeded. It has made its way
in this country where, a generation or so ago, it would
have been thought incredible. It has shown that our
authorised version of the Bible, in many respects
indeed most admirable, is nevertheless so imperfect, that
two companies of translators appointed by authority are
now engaged in revising and correcting it.
Of the various readings in the ancient manuscripts I
will call your attention to one, as the discussion of it
chiefly dates from the publication of Erasmus’s Edition
of the Greek Testament. It is the passage contained
in the 7th and 8th verses of the 5th chapter of the
first General Epistle of St John, known controversially
as “ The Text of the three heavenly witnesses.” It is
commonly found in the Latin, but not in the Greek
Manuscripts.
In your Bibles you will find it in these words—“w
heaven the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and
these three are one. 8. And there are three that bear
witness in earth.” These words you observe are wanting
in the original Greek. It is a text almost crucial with
reference to the theological dogma of the Trinity, and
the controversy respecting it has been, whether the
Trinitarians interpolated it, or the Arians expunged it.
The passage in question was omitted by Erasmus from
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
27
his first and second editions, but was inserted by him in
his third edition, on the presumed authority of a single
Greek manuscript, which was pressed upon him by
Edward Lee, Chaplain to King Henry the 8th and after
wards Archbishop of York. This manuscript, the Codex
Montfortianus, now in the library of Trinity College,
Dublin, was not, apparently, ever seen by Erasmus him
self, and is believed to have been forged between the
years 1519 and 1522 for the express purpose of betray
ing Erasmus into making the desired alteration in his
printed text. At any rate, since the decisive controversy between Professor Porson and Archdeacon Travis
in the year 1790, respecting the genuineness of this
text, the ablest critics are unanimous in rejecting it as
spurious, all the Greek manuscripts of undoubted anti
quity and integrity alike omitting it. As, notwithstand
ing such rejection, our authorised English version,
though professing to be translated from the original
Greek, at present retains it, it is a matter of expectant
curiosity to see what our “ New Testament Company of
Translators ” will do with it.
A concise account of some of the most ancient exist
ing manuscripts of the New Testament will place in
perhaps yet stronger light the source of, and necessity
for, the science of biblical criticism.
,
The autographs or manuscripts that were written
by the Apostles or their amanuenses have long since
perished, and we have no information whatever con
cerning their history. No manuscript of the Scriptures
now extant can be traced higher than .the fourth century
after Christ.
At the commencement of the Christian era the Latin,
as a general language, was gradually supplanting the
Greek, and it appears from the testimony of Augustin
that the Latin Church possessed numerous versions of
the Scriptures in the Latin language made at the first
introduction of Christianity. Hence, of the most ancient
now existing manuscripts of the New Testament Scrip-
�2 8 Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
tures, some are in Latin, and some are in Greek ; and it
has not been possible to ascertain with certainty which
of these are the oldest.
The interesting subject of the date, integrity, and
authenticity of the numerous manuscripts of the Chris
tian Scriptures is involved in so wide a controversy and
variety of critical opinion, that even the few facts I
shall allege in such observations as I can now venture
to make must be accepted partly as probabilities only,
in which very eminent scholars concur.
Of the most ancient and important existing Greek
manuscripts, there are three, respectively known as the
Codex Alexandrinus, the Codex Vaticanus, and the
Codex Cantabrigiensis or Bezse; and there are three,
- equally in some respects, important Latin manuscripts,
probably as ancient, or perhaps more so, than the three
Greek ones—viz., the Codex Brixianus, the Versio
Vulgata, and the Codex Vercellencis. None of these
manuscripts are perfect, and all differ more or less from
one another. They exhibit, however, three distinct
classes of text, respectively traceable to the territories
whence they were originally derived—viz., Constan
tinople or Byzantium, Palestine, and Egypt or Alex
andria. Viewed under this threefold distribution, the
ancient Latin manuscripts coincide so remarkably, in
style and arrangement of language, with the ancient
Greek ones, that I can conveniently group them together
in the following remarks.
The Greek Codex Alexandrinus is a manuscript pre
served in our British Museum, where part of it may be
seen open in a glass case. It consists of four volumes,
three of which contain the Old, and the fourth the New
Testament and other writings. Its Pedigree has been
traced with singular success. It was a present to King
Charles the First from Cyrillus Lucaris, Patriarch of
Constantinople in the year 1628. Cyrillus found it in a
monastery on Mount Athos, and took it with him to
Alexandria, whence he brought it to this country. It
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
29
was written, according to tradition, by Thecla the martyress, a noble Egyptian lady, shortly after the Council
of Nice, which assembled in the year 325. Its delicate
penmanship is characteristic of a female hand. It is
written on vellum in uncial or capital letters, an acknow
ledged mark of high antiquity. A fac-simile of so much
of this manuscript as contains the New Testament was
published in London in 1786 by the late Dr. Woide,
with types that were cast for the purpose.
The ancient Latin manuscript that corresponds with
the Codex Alexandrinus in the Gospels is the Codex
Brixianus, a manuscript of great beauty and of the most
expensive character, being written on purple vellum in
silver characters. It is attributed to the learned Philastrius Brixiensis, who was Bishop of Brescia in Italy in
the year 381, and it is preserved at Brescia in the church
there of his name. It has often been inspected by
scholars. The text represents the ancient Italic version
of the Scriptures previously to its revision by St. Jerome,
in the latter part of the 4th century.
These Codices Alexandrinus in the Gospels, and
Brixianus entirely, are exemplars of what is termed the
Constantinopolitan recension, or Byzantine Text.
The Greek Codex Vaticanus is a manuscript preserved
in the Library of the Vatican at Rome. It is written on
vellum in uncial letters, in three columns in each page,
but without any division of chapters or verses. The
uniform shape of the letters and colour of the ink seem
to show that it was written throughout by the same
hand. This manuscript contains, with some exceptions,
the entire Bible, and is thought to contest the palm of
antiquity with the Codex Alexandrinus already referred
to. It has been repeatedly collated. Fac-similes of parts
of it have, from time to time, been published, and an
entire printed edition of it appeared a few years ago at
Rome under the auspices of the Cardinal Angelo Mai—
a version that has been received with a not unnatural
shyness on the part of Protestant Divines.
�30 Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
The ancient Latin manuscript that corresponds with
the Greek Codex Vaticanus is the Versio Vulgata, which
is a manuscript representing the Latin text as it was
corrected by St. Jerome at the instance of Pope Damusus,
who flourished about the year 366. It is also preserved
in the library of the Vatican, and forms the foundation
of the Roman Catholic authorised Bible, declared to be
authentic by the Council of Trent, and which, as many
of you know, is still, as it has always been, a book in the
Latin language styled ‘ Biblia Sacra.’
These Codices Vaticanus and Versio Vulgata are
archetypes of the Palestine Text.
The Greek Codex Cantabrigiensis or Bezaa is a manu
script preserved in the Library of Cambridge University
(where it can be seen under a glass case), to which it
was presented in the year 1581 by Theodore Beza, a
French Protestant and refugee. In his letter of pre
sentation Beza states that it was found in the monastery
of St. Irenaeus, at Lyons, where it had evidently lain for a
long time. It contains only the Gospels and the Acts of
the Apostles. It has, of course, been often collated, and
an exact facsimile of it was published under the patronage
of the University in the year 1793. It is also written in
uncial letters, and is confessedly of a very high antiquity,
written probably between the fifth and seventh centuries.
The ancient Latin manuscript that corresponds with
the Codex Cantabrigiensis is the Codex Vercellencis, a
manuscript that has been immemorially ascribed to
Eusebius, Bishop of Verceli, as being the result of a
revision of the then existing text, undertaken by him at
the desire of his friend Pope Julius, who flourished about
the year 331. It is deposited among the relics which
are reverently preserved and shown in St. Eusebius’s
Church at Verceli in Piedmont. There is no reason to
doubt its extreme antiquity, or its originality.
These Codices Cantabrigiensis and Vercellencis, and
parts of the Codex Alexandrinus are now the most ancient
existing source of the Egyptian or Alexandrine Text.
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
31
These several manuscripts, with the Codex Sinaiticus
(discovered by Tischendorf in a monastery on Mount
Sinai in 1859, probably the oldest MS. extant), and
one of the ancient Syriac version (of which time does
not permit further mention), carry the critical inquirer
as near to the source of the sacred writings as it is now
possible to ascend. Not one of them can be accepted as
exhibiting an immaculate text. The utmost that an
orthodox critic of the highest authority, the late eminent
scholar Dr. Bentley, could say with reference to the
textual veracity of Scripture is, that the real text of the
sacred writers does not now (since the originals have
been so long lost) lie in any single manuscript or edi
tion, but is dispersed in them all. Whilst another
accomplished critic, Dr. Nolan, in his learned work
on the integrity of the Greek Vulgate, has declared,
that “ the notion of a literary identity between the
present manuscripts of the inspired text and the originals
which were published by the sacred writers is a vulgar
error, with as little foundation in reason as justification
in fact.”
The truth seems to be that the Scriptures, in common
with all other ancient writings, have been preserved and
diffused by human transcription; hence the admission of
mistakes has been unavoidable. These, increasing with
the multitude of copies, necessarily produced a great
variety of different readings, the majority of which, it
should however be observed, are very minute, and, did
they not relate to a book of which, though it be but a
modern version of the lost original, it has again and
again, and still continues to be, solemnly asserted by
our evangelical theologians that every word of it is
inspired, would be regarded as of a trifling and insigni
ficant character.
Returning to the argument of the Lecture, I conclude
by affirming that the essential Spirit of the Protestant
Reformation, and its cardinal principle, are to be sought
for under that which I have characterised as its his-
�32
Erasmus; his Life, Works, &c.
torical aspect, with which are associated the name and
labours of Erasmus, and that they are manifested in the
irrepressible aspirations of the human mind, enlightened
by advancing Science, to establish the right of every
individual to judge for himself, that is, to follow, in
matters most deeply affecting his welfare and peace of
mind, the decisions of his reason, and the dictates of his
moral sense, thereby to emancipate himself from the
yoke of ecclesiastical systems, and the thraldom of
theological creeds, which superstition has invented, and
sacerdotalism has transmitted, and which, all history
assures us, have ever been enforced by the pestilent
practice of Religious Persecution. This Spirit of the
Reformation, however hostile to priestcraft, is friendly
to Truth, by respecting the rights of conscience, and by
encouraging the fearless advance of religious knowledge,
through liberty of inquiry, freedom of thought, and out
spoken honesty of expression.
And, whilst we have amongst us men like Darwin,
Huxley, Tyndall, Carpenter, to keep alive the lamp of
Science ; others, like Dean Stanley, and Bishop Colenso,
to rival the illustrious Erasmus in sacred scholarship
and in critical acumen; others again, like the singleminded and unselfish Voysey, who, however much
resenting the tyranny of the letter, are moved by the
spirit of Truth to proclaim for all the loving Father
hood of God, we may rest assured that the sceptre of
knowledge must, eventually, be wholly wrested from the
grasp of superstition, and that, meanwhile, the Progress
of the Reformation cannot be stayed.
PRINTED BY C W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET, LONDON, W.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Erasmus : his life, works, and influence upon the spirit of the Reformation.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Finch, A. Elley
Description
An account of the resource
London
Collation: 32 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: A lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society on Sunday afternoon, 28th February 1875. Printed by C.W. Reynell. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway and part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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Sunday Lecture Society
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1875
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N217
CT134
Subject
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Desiderius Erasmus
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Erasmus : his life, works, and influence upon the spirit of the Reformation.), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Conway Tracts
Desiderius Erasmus
NSS
Reformation