CHAP. 'out of court as most men try to get into it,' had accepted office on the noble understanding that he was 'first to look unto God, and after God to the King,' A.D. 1519. and who under the most difficult circumstances, and in times most perilous, whatever may havebeen his faults and errors, still Reverenced his conscience as his King, and died at last upon the scaffold, a martyr to integrity! IX. THE DEATH OF COLET (1519). Colet. Erasmus was working hard at his Paraphrases at Death of Louvain, when the news reached him that Colet was dead! On the 11th September Pace had written to Wolsey that the Dean of Paul's had lain continually 'since Thursday in extremis, but was not yet dead.'1 He had died on the 16th of September 1519. 6 of Eras mus on When Erasmus heard of it, he could not refrain from The grief weeping. For thirty years I have not felt the death of a friend so bitterly,'' he wrote to Lupset, a young dis- hearing ciple of Colet's. I seem,' he wrote to Pace, as though 6 of it. only half of me were alive, Colet being dead. What His of Colet's a man has England and what a friend have I lost!' estimate To another Englishman he wrote, 'What avail these character, 'sobs and lamentations? They cannot bring him back again. In a little while we shall follow him. 'meantime we should rejoice for Colet. 6 In the He now is safely enjoying Christ, whom he always had upon his lips and at his heart.'3 To Tunstal, I should be inconsolable for the death of Colet did I not know 1 Ellis, Original Letters, 3rd series, letter lxxx. 2 Epist. cccclxvii. 3 Ibid. cccclxx. СНАР. A.D. 1519. More's est mate of Colet's character. 6 6 that my tears would avail nothing for him and for me;' and to Bishop Fisher, 'I have written this weeping for Colet's death. . . . I know it is all right with him who, escaped from this evil and wretched 'world, is in present enjoyment of that Christ whom he so loved when alive. I cannot help mourning in the public name the loss of so rare an example of Christian piety, so remarkable a preacher of Christian 'truth!'2 And, in again writing to Lupset, a month or two afterwards, a long letter, pouring his troubles, on account of a bitter controversy which Edward Lee had raised up against him, into the ears of Lupset, instead of, as had hitherto been his wont, into the ears of Colet, he exclaimed in conclusion, 'O true 'theologian! O wonderful preacher of evangelical doctrine! With what earnest zeal did he drink in the 'philosophy of Christ! How eagerly did he imbibe the spirit and feelings of St. Paul! How did the purity of his whole life correspond to his heavenly 'doctrine! How many years following the example of 'St. Paul, did he teach the people without reward ! ' 3 'You would not hesitate,' finally wrote Erasmus to Jus'tus Jonas, to inscribe the name of this man in the 'roll of the saints although uncanonised by the Pope.' 'For generations,' wrote More, we have not had amongst us any one man more learned or holy !' 4 The inscription on the leaden plate laid on the coffin of Dean Colet bore witness that he died to the great quo uno viro neque doctior neque 'sanctior apud nos aliquot retro se" culis quisque fuit.' 5 Ashmolean MSS. Oxford 77141 a. I have to thank Mr. Coxe Coletum nomino, for the following copy of the grief of the whole people, by whom, for his integrity ' of life and divine gift of preaching, he was the most CHAP. XVI. ' beloved of all his time;' and his remains were laid in A.D. 1519. the tomb prepared by himself in St. Paul's Cathedral. X. CONCLUSION. fellow the Oxford plished. With the death of Colet this history of the Oxford The Reformers may fitly end. Erasmus and More, it is work of true, lived on sixteen years after this, and retained their Reformers love for one another to the last. But even their future accomhistory was no longer, to the same extent as it had been, a joint history. Erasmus never again visited England, and if they did meet during those long years, it was a chance meeting only, on some occasion when More was sent on an embassy, and their intercourse could not be intimate. The fellow-work of the Oxford Reformers was to a great extent accomplished when Colet died. From its small beginnings during their college intercourse at Oxford it had risen into prominence and made its power felt throughout Europe. But now for three hundred years it was to stop and, as it were, to be submerged under a new wave of the great tide of human progress. For, as has been said, the Protestant The Reformation was in many respects a new movement, Reformaand not altogether a continuation of that of the Oxford Reformers. Coletus, Protestant tion a new movement under which theirs was sub inscription: 'Joannes Coletus, omnium sui temporis fuit chariss., merged. 'decanus, magno totius populi morore, cui, ob vitæ integritatem et ' divinum concionandi munus, mense September 16. Is in cœme'terio Scholam condidit ac magistris 'perpetua stipendia contulit.' СНАР. XVI. As yet the tragedy of Luther' had appeared only like the little cloud no bigger than a man's hand rising A.D. 1519. above the horizon. But scarcely had a year passed from Colet's death before the whole heavens were overcast by it, and Christendom was suddenly involved, by the madness of her rulers, in all the terrors of a religious convulsion, which threatened to shake social and civil, as well as ecclesiastical, institutions to their foundations. The future course of the could not How Erasmus and More met the storm-how far they stood their ground, or were carried away by natural fears survivors and disappointment from their former standing-pointis well worthy of careful inquiry; but it must not be attempted here. In the meantime, the subsequent course of the two survivors could not alter the spirit and aim of the fellow-work to which for so many years past the three friends had been devoting their lives. alter the fellowwork of the past. Nature of the Reform the Oxford Their fellow-work had been to urge, at a critical period in the history of Christendom, the necessity of that thorough aud comprehensive reform which the carrying out of Christianity into practice in the affairs of nations and of men would involve. Believing Christianity to be true, they had faith that it would work. Deeply imbued with the spirit of urged by Christianity as the true religion of the heart, they had Reformers. demanded, not so much the reform of particular ecclesiastical abuses, as that the whole Church and the lives of Christians should be reanimated by the Christian Religious spirit. Instead of contenting themselves with urging the correction of particular theological errors, and so tinkering the scholastic creed, they had sought to let in the light, and to draw men's attention from dogmas to the facts which lay at their root. Having faith in Reform. free inquiry, they had demanded freedom of thought, CHAP. tolerance, education. XVI. Political Believing that Christianity had to do with secular A.D. 1519. as well as with religious affairs, they had urged the Reform. necessity, not only of religious but also of political reform. And here again, instead of attacking particular abuses, they had gone to the root of the matter, and laid down the golden rule as the true basis of political society. They not only had censured the tyranny, vices, and selfishness of princes, but denied the divine right of kings, assuming the principle that they reign by the consent and for the good of the nations whom they govern. Instead of simply asserting the rights of the people against their rulers in particular acts of oppression, they had advocated, on Christian and natural grounds, the equal rights of rich and poor, and insisted that the good of the whole people as one community should be the object of all legislation. national Believing lastly in the Christian as well as in the Internatural brotherhood of nations, they had not only con- Reform. demned the selfish wars of Princes, but also claimed that the golden rule, instead of the Machiavellian code, should be regarded as the true basis of international politics. Such was the broad and distinctively Christian Reform urged by the Oxford Reformers during the years of their fellow-work. mand for though And if ever any reformers had a fair chance of Their dea hearing in influential quarters, surely it was they. Reform, They had direct access to the ears of Leo X., of Henry listened to, VIII., of Charles V., of Francis I.; not to mention mul- refused. titudes of minor potentates, lay and ecclesiastical, as |