the Netherlands with the management of a college he had SWEDEN. lately founded in Stockholm. In 1578 an able and accomplished member of that order, Anthony Possevin®, arrived in Sweden for the purpose of completing what he hoped would prove the 'reconciliation' of the whole country. Lawrence Peterson, the venerable archbishop of Upsala, had died five years before this crisis (Oct. 1573), and had been succeeded by a man of very different principles, Lawrence Peterson Gothus, the son-in-law of John, and no less willing to surrender the distinctive dogmas of the Lutherans for the sake of outward unity with Christendom at large. But exactly when all things favoured the belief that Sweden would ere long be subjected afresh to the dominion of the Roman pontiff, the capricious monarch suddenly changed his course and persecuted those whom he had recently caressed. Owing either to the efforts of the Protestants of other countries, or the stiffness of the pope himself in holding back concessions without which there was no prospect of conciliating the acquiescence of the Swedes, a second mission of the Jesuit Possevin resulted in his absolute discomfitures. His colleagues were compelled to leave the country; and on the death of queen Catharine (1583) scarcely any vestige of the late reaction could be traced except in the perverse determination of putations, where the adversary of the pope was generally worsted. 'Progreditur tamen pater,' says the narrative, 'quotquot auditores veniant, insinuat se in familiaritatem aliquorum, nunc hunc, nunc illum, dante Deo, ad fidem occulte reducit:' p. 168, n. 4. Ranke, pp. 84, 85. 7 After his nomination he subscribed seventeen articles, in which the restoration of the convents, the veneration of saints, prayers for the dead, and the reception of the Mediæval ceremonies, were approved. He was then consecrated (1575) with great pomp: Geijer, pp. 167, 168. 8 Ranke, p. 86. It is not improbable that the failure of some political schemes in which he had calculated on the papal co-operation may have tended to produce this sudden estrangement. This much is certain, that he issued a proclamation threatening to banish every Romanizer, and that some of the converts were very roughly handled: Geijer, p. 169. See Geijer, p. 170. 'Priests who refused to follow it were deposed, incarcerated, and driven into exile.' SWEDEN. the king to force his own Romanizing liturgy on his unwilling subjects. It was formally revoked1, however, in the famous Kirk-mote' held at Upsala in 1593 under the auspices of his brother Charles, duke of Südermanland; at which period also the Augsburg Confession was solemnly adopted as the standard of Swedish orthodoxy, to the absolute exclusion of all other symbols. POLAND. ATTENTION has been drawn already to the progress of the Lutheran tenets in the western provinces of Poland. Their reception in those provinces had been facilitated by the influence of the Hussites, who, as we have seen1, existed in considerable force, at least until the middle of the fifteenth century. The fermentation they produced was afterwards revived by the migration of a host of refugees whom Ferdinand extruded from Bohemia in 1548. Owing to their close relationship and cognate language, these Bohemians were enabled to disperse 'reforming' tenets far more widely than their German fellow-workers. Still a party tinctured with the Lutheran principles had formed 1 The service-book introduced by Lawrence Peterson was now stamped with synodical authority, and Luther's short catechism became again the recognised manual of instruction: Geijer, p. 184. 2 Ibid. Notwithstanding the bias of the duke himself in favour of Calvinism, the bishops and others who were present on this occasion, proved their orthodoxy' by denouncing the followers of Zwingli and Calvin by name (Ibid. p. 185). When Charles afterwards ascended the throne(1599), he continued to labour hard in his study with the hope of reconciling the Lutheran and Calvinistic Formularies (Ibid. pp. 201 sq.), but was ultimately driven to confirm the themselves into a secret society at Cracow long before the POLAND. death of Sigismund I. (1548). The members of it were distinguished by their rank and learning; but the licence of their speculations very soon divided them from each other and propelled the more adventurous into wild and deadly errors. It was only after the accession of Sigismund Augustus (1548) that Protestantism according to its genuine form obtained a wider circulation among the Poles. This monarch was himself at least a fautor of the new opinions, and during his reign of four and twenty years they penetrated into all orders of society in spite of the most resolute opposition. Their progress was, however, somewhat checked when at the death of Sigismund, the crown of Poland became simply elective, and her sovereigns, mostly drawn from other countries, threw their weight into the Romish scale. At first indeed this change was scarcely sensible, the Transylvanian prince, Stephen the greatest freedom, a priest of Belgium, named Pastoris, to the horror of some others, attacked the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, which had already been impugned elsewhere by Servetus. Hence the origin in Poland of the sect misnamed SociDians (Ibid. p. 140). 7 In 1549 Calvin dedicated to him the Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, urging him to proceed with the work of the reformation: Agedum ergo, magnanime Rex, faustis Christi auspiciis, curam cum regia tua celsitudine, tum heroica virtute dignam suscipe; ut æterna Dei veritas, qua et ejus gloria, et hominum salus continetur, quacunque imperium tuum patet, jus suum Antichristi latrocinio ereptum recuperet.' Laski, the Polish ecclesiastic (see above, p. 77, n. 7), on his return to his native country (Dec. 1556) repeated these exhortations, and strengthened them by letters from Melancthon, and by presenting (a modified form of the Augsburg Confession. The king, however, seemed unwilling to act 8 This evinced its power especially POLAND. 2 Bathori1, who was elevated to the throne in 1575, proclaiming himself the friend of religious toleration: yet in the following reign of Sigismund III. crown-prince of Sweden (1587-1632), his devotion to the Mediæval principles, inherited from a Polish mother and his Romanizing father John, had strengthened the reactionary movement, which by gaining over the nobility and educational establishments, resulted in the overthrow of Protestantism. Sigismund was materially assisted in this work by the untiring efforts of the Jesuits. But their triumph is perhaps still more attributable to the conflicts which distracted and disabled their opponents. During the brief interregnum that followed the death of Sigismund Augustus, the Polish diet resolved (Jan. 6, 1573) to maintain a reciprocal indulgence of all religious factions in the state, uniting, in a spirit of complete impartiality, to treat them all as 'Dissidents, not because they had departed from some authorized doctrines, but merely as an indication that they disagreed among themselves. These 'Dissidents,' however, included not only the Romish party, and the three phases of orthodox' Protestantism, the Saxon, Swiss, and Bohemian (vulgarly called 'Waldensian'), but also a large body of 'Socinians,' many of them being Poles by nation, and 1 The brief reign of Henry of Valois had intervened, extending only to four months of 1574. On the reign of Stephen, see Krasinski, II. 43 sq. Miller (Phil. Hist. III. 108) quotes him as saying that 'the Deity had reserved three things to himself, the power of creating, the knowledge of futurity, and the governinent of the consciences of men.' He was, notwithstanding, a patron of the Jesuits, and founded, chiefly for them and their disciples, the university of Vilna (Krasinski, II. 53), besides winking at their persecution of the Protestants, pp. 58 sq. 2 See Geijer, Hist. of the Swedes, p. 165 Krasinski, II. 91, 92. The reaction is again visible in the proceedings of the Romish synod held at Gniesno in 1589, where the most ultra-montane principles are re-affirmed, with the sanction of pope Sixtus V. (Ibid. 11. 96, 97). 3 See Jura et Libertates Dissidentium in Religione Christiana in Regno Polonia etc. pp. 7 sq. Berol. 1708, and Krasinski, II. 11 sq. The name 'Dissidents' subsequently meant 'Dissenters,' or sectaries distinct from the religious body authorized by the state. 4 Cf. above, p. 90, n. 6, and below, Chap. v. Lælius Socinus (the elder Socinus) visited Poland in 1551, and appears to have determined Lisma the remnant refugees whose errors were not tolerated in POLAND. the other parts of Europe. When the anti-Trinitarians began to celebrate their worship in several of the principal districts, Rakow serving them as a metropolis, the indignation of all other Christian bodies turned against them; and it may have been the general feeling of alarm excited by their progress that induced the jarring confraternities of the reformers to neglect their minor quarrels and negotiate a peace. This object had in truth been gained already by two of the contending parties, the Swiss and the Bohemians; and after some anxious correspondence with the school of Wittenberg,' the Polish Lutherans yielded to the representations of the rest and were included in their union by the Consensus of Sandomir (April 14, 1570). But notwithstanding the pacification thus effected nini in favour of anti-Trinitarianism (Krasinski, I. 279). Soon afterwards (1556), Peter Goniondzki (Gonesius) openly asserted this heresy, combining it with a denial of infant baptism, which he also treated as a 'development' (p. 347). Others (many of them foreigners) followed in his steps (pp. 350 sq.) The Swiss' school of reformers solemnly condemned these errors in 1563 (p. 359), but still their authors (called Pinczovians from the town of Pinczow where they flourished) were able to keep their ground. A few years later they divided among themselves, one party advocating Arianism,' the other naked 'Socinianism.' Faustus Socinus, nephew of Lælius, settled in Cracow (1579). His errors were embodied in the Rakovian Catechism composed by Smalcius and Moskorzewski, and published first in Polish (1605): Ibid. 11. 357 8q. On its great importance as a school, see, as before, pp. 380 sq. It was, however, abolished in 1638, and in 1658 the Socinians were expelled from Poland by an edict of the diet. At the synod of Kozminek (1555): Ibid. 1. 342, 343. 7 Ibid. pp. 368 sq. 8 See the document, as confirmed by a subsequent meeting held at Vlodislav in 1583 (Niemeyer, Confess. Eccl. Reform. pp. 551 sq. and the editor's Pref. pp. lxix. sq.) On the doctrine of the Eucharist, which was a turning-point in their disputes, the following is their definition : 'Deinde vero quantum ad infelix illud dissidium de Coena Domini attinet, convenimus in sententia verborum Domini nostri Jesu Christi, ut illa orthodoxe intellecta sunt a Patribus, ac inprimis Irenæo, qui duabus rebus, scilicet terrena et cœlesti, hoc mysterium constare dixit: Neque elementa signave nuda et vacua illa esse asserimus, sed simul reipsa credentibus exhibere et præstare fide, quod significant: Denique ut expressius clariusque loquamur, convenimus, ut credamus et confiteamur substantialem præsentiam Christi, non significari duntaxat, sed vere in Cœna eo vescentibus repræsentari, distribui et exhiberi corpus et sanguinem Domini symbolis adjectis ipsi rei, minime nudis, secundum Sacramentorum naturam.' Cf. Krasinski, I. 381 sq. |