Page:Supplement to the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica - with preliminary dissertations on the history of the sciences - illustrated by engravings (IA gri 33125011196181).pdf/85

Rh tempts were to be made to trace, with analytical accuracy, the moral phenomena of human life to their first principles in the constitution and condition of man; or even to disentangle the plain and practical lessions of ethics from the speculative and controverted articles of theological systems. “The theological system (says the learned and judicious Mosheim) that now prevails in the Lutheran academies, is not of the same tenor or spirit with that which was adopted in the infancy of the Reformation. The glorious defenders of religious liberty, to whom we owe the various blessings of the Reformation, could not, at once, behold the truth in all its lustre, and in all its extent; but, as usually happens to persons that have been long accustomed to the darkness of ignorance, their approaches towards knowledge were but slow, and their views of things but imperfect.” (Maclaine’s Transl. of Mosheim. London, 2d Ed. Vol. IV. p. 19.) He afterwards mentions one of Luther’s early disciples, (Amsdorff,) “who was so far transported and infatuated by his excessive zeal for the supposed doctrine of his master, as to maintain, that good works are an impediment to salvation. Ibid. p. 39.

Mosheim, after remarking that “there are more excellent rules of conduct in the few practical productions of Luther and Melanchthon, than are to be found in the innumerable volumes of all the ancient casuists and moralisers,” candidly acknowledges, “that the notions of these great men concerning the important science of morality were far from being sufficiently accurate or extensive. Melanchthon himself, whose exquisite judgment rendered him peculiarly capable of reducing into a compendious system the elements of every science, never seems to have thought of treating morals in this manner; but has inserted, on the contrary, all his practical rules and instructions, under the theological articles that relate to the law, sin, free-will, faith, hope, and charity.” Mosheim’s ''Eccles. Hist.'' Vol. IV. pp. 23, 24.

The same author elsewhere observes, that “the progress of morality among the reformed was obstructed by the very same means that retarded its improvement among the Lutherans; and that it was left in a rude and imperfect state by Calvin and his associates. It was neglected amidst the tumult of controversy; and, while every pen was drawn to maintain certain systems of doctrine, few were employed in cultivating that master-science which has virtue, life, and manners for its objects.” Ibid. pp. 120, 121.

that “it crept up afterward in the scholastic ages; Occam being among the first that maintained, that there is no act evil, but as it is prohibited by God, and which cannot be made good, if it be commanded by him. In this doctrine he was quickly followed by Petrus Alliacus, Andreas de Novo Castro, and others.” See Treatise of Immutable Morality.

It is pleasing te remark, how very generally the heresy here ascribed to Occam is now reprobated by good men of all persuasions. The Catholics have even begun to recriminate on the Reformers as the first broachers of it; and it is to be regretted, that in some of the writings of the latter, too near approaches to it are to be found. The truth is (as Burnet long ago observed), that the effects of the reformation have not been confined to the reformed churches;-—to which it may be added, that both Catholics and Protestants have, since that era, profited very largely by the general progress of the sciences and of human reason.

I quote the following sentence from a highly respectable Catholic writer on the law of nature and nations:—“Qui rationem exsulare jubent a moralibus præceptis quæ in sacris literis traduntur, et in absurdam enormemque sententiam imprudentes incidunt (quam egregie et elegantissime refutavit Melchior Canus Loc. Theolog. Lib. ix. and x.) et ea docent, quæ si sectatores inveniant moralia omnia susque deque miscere, et revelationem ipsam inutilem omnino et ineflicacem reddere possent.” (Lampredi Florentini Juris Naturæ et Gentium Theoremata, Tom. II. p. 195. Pisis, 1782.) For the continuation of the passage, which would do credit to the most liberal protestant, I must refer to the original work. The zeal of Luther for the doctrine of the Nominalists had probably prepossessed him, in his early years, in favour of some of the theological tenets of Occam; and afterwards prevented him from testifying his disapprobation of them so explicitly and decidedly as Melanchthon and other reformers have done.