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The Protector [O. Cromwell] a Vindication. Revised
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
322 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1992
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About the author
Jean-Henri Merle d'Aubigné
522 books16 followersJean-Henri Merle d'Aubigné (16 August 1794 – 21 October 1872) was a Swiss Protestant minister and historian of the Reformation.
D'Aubigné was born at Eaux Vives, a neighbourhood of Geneva. A street in the area is named after him. The ancestors of his father, Robert Merle d'Aubigné (1755–1799), were French Protestant refugees. The life Jean-Henri's parents chose for him was in commerce; but in college at the Académie de Genève, he instead decided on Christian ministry. He was profoundly influenced by Robert Haldane, the Scottish missionary and preacher who visited Geneva and became a leading light in Le Réveil, a conservative Protestant evangelical movement of spiritual revival.
When d'Aubigné went abroad to further his education in 1817, Germany was about to celebrate the tercentenary of the Reformation; and thus early he conceived the ambition to write the history of that great epoch. Studying at Berlin University for eight months 1817–1818, d'Aubigne received inspiration from teachers as diverse as J. A. W. Neander and W. M. L. de Wette.
In 1818, d'Aubigné took the post of pastor of the French Protestant church at Hamburg, where he served for five years. In 1823, he was called to become pastor of the Franco-German Brussels Protestant Church and preacher to the court of King William I of the Netherlands of the House of Orange-Nassau.
During the Belgian revolution of 1830, d'Aubigné thought it advisable to undertake pastoral work at home in Switzerland rather than accept an educational post in the family of the Dutch king. The Evangelical Society had been founded with the idea of promoting evangelical Christianity in Geneva and elsewhere, but a need arose for a theological seminary to train pastors. On his return to Switzerland, d'Aubigné was invited to become professor of church history in such a seminary, and he also continued to labor in the cause of evangelical Protestantism. In him the Evangelical Alliance found a hearty promoter. He frequently visited England, was made a D.C.L. v Oxford University, and received civic honours from the city of Edinburgh. He died suddenly in 1872.
The first portion of d'Aubigne's Histoire de la Reformation – History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century – which was devoted to the earlier period of the movement in Germany, i.e., Martin Luther's time, at once earned a foremost place among modern French ecclesiastical historians, and was translated into most European languages. The second portion, The History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin, dealing with reform in the French Reformer's sphere, exhaustively treats the subject with the same scholarship as the earlier work, but the second volume did not meet with the same success.
Among minor treatises authored by d'Aubigné, the most important are his vindication of the character and the aims of Oliver Cromwell, and his sketch of the trends of the Church of Scotland.
(From Wikipedia)
D'Aubigné was born at Eaux Vives, a neighbourhood of Geneva. A street in the area is named after him. The ancestors of his father, Robert Merle d'Aubigné (1755–1799), were French Protestant refugees. The life Jean-Henri's parents chose for him was in commerce; but in college at the Académie de Genève, he instead decided on Christian ministry. He was profoundly influenced by Robert Haldane, the Scottish missionary and preacher who visited Geneva and became a leading light in Le Réveil, a conservative Protestant evangelical movement of spiritual revival.
When d'Aubigné went abroad to further his education in 1817, Germany was about to celebrate the tercentenary of the Reformation; and thus early he conceived the ambition to write the history of that great epoch. Studying at Berlin University for eight months 1817–1818, d'Aubigne received inspiration from teachers as diverse as J. A. W. Neander and W. M. L. de Wette.
In 1818, d'Aubigné took the post of pastor of the French Protestant church at Hamburg, where he served for five years. In 1823, he was called to become pastor of the Franco-German Brussels Protestant Church and preacher to the court of King William I of the Netherlands of the House of Orange-Nassau.
During the Belgian revolution of 1830, d'Aubigné thought it advisable to undertake pastoral work at home in Switzerland rather than accept an educational post in the family of the Dutch king. The Evangelical Society had been founded with the idea of promoting evangelical Christianity in Geneva and elsewhere, but a need arose for a theological seminary to train pastors. On his return to Switzerland, d'Aubigné was invited to become professor of church history in such a seminary, and he also continued to labor in the cause of evangelical Protestantism. In him the Evangelical Alliance found a hearty promoter. He frequently visited England, was made a D.C.L. v Oxford University, and received civic honours from the city of Edinburgh. He died suddenly in 1872.
The first portion of d'Aubigne's Histoire de la Reformation – History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century – which was devoted to the earlier period of the movement in Germany, i.e., Martin Luther's time, at once earned a foremost place among modern French ecclesiastical historians, and was translated into most European languages. The second portion, The History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin, dealing with reform in the French Reformer's sphere, exhaustively treats the subject with the same scholarship as the earlier work, but the second volume did not meet with the same success.
Among minor treatises authored by d'Aubigné, the most important are his vindication of the character and the aims of Oliver Cromwell, and his sketch of the trends of the Church of Scotland.
(From Wikipedia)
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August 11, 2019
“This faith, of which Oliver constituted himself the defender, cannot perish. It may be covered and hidden, at one time by the arid sands of infidelity, and at another by the tumultuous waves of human passions, or by the images, surplices, and relics of superstition;-but it always revives, lifts up its head, and reappears.
The revelations of God are for all times, and they have in all ages the same eternal truth, the same eternal beauty. They are like those rocks in the midst of the ocean, which the flood-tide covers, and which seem swallowed up forever, but which always raise their tops again above the waters. In vain does one generation imagine it has hidden the everlasting rock of God's truth; it will become visible in the next. There is a continual alternation, a constant struggle between light and darkness; but the light prevails at last. And even should there come an age which fancies it has forever buried God's truth,-should any volcanic eruption of society overwhelm it with the ashes of another Vesuvius,... Pompeii after seventeen centuries has again restored to the light of day its houses and its tombs, its palaces and its temples, its circus and its amphitheaters.
Can it be thought that the truth and the life, which God has given in His Gospel, will be less perennial than the frail tenements of man? There are perhaps now subterranean fires threatening the truth of God. A daring pantheistic and socialist philosophy imagines that it has done with the crucified One. And should it even so far succeed as to throw a little dust and lava on the eternal doctrine, the Lord of Heaven will blow upon it, and the dust shall be scattered and the lava be melted. Cromwell, as a Christian, is the representative of one of those epochs in which the light reappears after darkness, according to the device of a city which shone forth with a new and great brightness in the days of the Reformation. It was not to England alone that he wished to restore the doctrine of the Gospel; he put his candle on a candlestick, and the house which he desired by this means to illumine was Europe,-nay, the whole world.
He has been compared to Bonaparte, and there are, indeed, striking features of resemblance between them. Neither was satisfied with confining himself to his own country alone, and both exerted their activity abroad. But while Napoleon bore to other nations French tyranny and indifference, Cromwell would have given them religious liberty and the Gospel. The everlasting revelations having reappeared in England and received the homage of a whole people, it was Cromwell's ambition to present them to the entire world.
He did not succeed, and to the majority of European countries the Bible is a book hidden in the bowels of the earth. But this noble design, which Oliver could not accomplish, has again been undertaken in our own days on the banks of the Thames. The revelations of God are printed in the language of every people. The time will come when the thick veil, which still hides these sacred characters from so many nations, shall be rent at last. The massive walls, the proud courts, the magnificent porches of Nineveh are now rising from beneath the sands of the desert. Its inscriptions, numbering two, three, and four thousand years, are reappearing to the eyes of the civilized and astonished children of the distant and barbarous Europe, and the light of day once more falls upon the antique characters traced by Ninus, Sardanapalus, or Nabopolassar! ... The books which Moses began, not as ancient than these Assyrian inscriptions, possess, we may be sure, more vitality than they; and future ages, by giving to Europe religious liberty, will realize the mighty plan which Cromwell could not accomplish.”(3120. Kindle edition.)
The revelations of God are for all times, and they have in all ages the same eternal truth, the same eternal beauty. They are like those rocks in the midst of the ocean, which the flood-tide covers, and which seem swallowed up forever, but which always raise their tops again above the waters. In vain does one generation imagine it has hidden the everlasting rock of God's truth; it will become visible in the next. There is a continual alternation, a constant struggle between light and darkness; but the light prevails at last. And even should there come an age which fancies it has forever buried God's truth,-should any volcanic eruption of society overwhelm it with the ashes of another Vesuvius,... Pompeii after seventeen centuries has again restored to the light of day its houses and its tombs, its palaces and its temples, its circus and its amphitheaters.
Can it be thought that the truth and the life, which God has given in His Gospel, will be less perennial than the frail tenements of man? There are perhaps now subterranean fires threatening the truth of God. A daring pantheistic and socialist philosophy imagines that it has done with the crucified One. And should it even so far succeed as to throw a little dust and lava on the eternal doctrine, the Lord of Heaven will blow upon it, and the dust shall be scattered and the lava be melted. Cromwell, as a Christian, is the representative of one of those epochs in which the light reappears after darkness, according to the device of a city which shone forth with a new and great brightness in the days of the Reformation. It was not to England alone that he wished to restore the doctrine of the Gospel; he put his candle on a candlestick, and the house which he desired by this means to illumine was Europe,-nay, the whole world.
He has been compared to Bonaparte, and there are, indeed, striking features of resemblance between them. Neither was satisfied with confining himself to his own country alone, and both exerted their activity abroad. But while Napoleon bore to other nations French tyranny and indifference, Cromwell would have given them religious liberty and the Gospel. The everlasting revelations having reappeared in England and received the homage of a whole people, it was Cromwell's ambition to present them to the entire world.
He did not succeed, and to the majority of European countries the Bible is a book hidden in the bowels of the earth. But this noble design, which Oliver could not accomplish, has again been undertaken in our own days on the banks of the Thames. The revelations of God are printed in the language of every people. The time will come when the thick veil, which still hides these sacred characters from so many nations, shall be rent at last. The massive walls, the proud courts, the magnificent porches of Nineveh are now rising from beneath the sands of the desert. Its inscriptions, numbering two, three, and four thousand years, are reappearing to the eyes of the civilized and astonished children of the distant and barbarous Europe, and the light of day once more falls upon the antique characters traced by Ninus, Sardanapalus, or Nabopolassar! ... The books which Moses began, not as ancient than these Assyrian inscriptions, possess, we may be sure, more vitality than they; and future ages, by giving to Europe religious liberty, will realize the mighty plan which Cromwell could not accomplish.”(3120. Kindle edition.)
October 26, 2013
I’ve gone back and forth in my appraisal of Cromwell for over a decade. His military genius cannot be denied, nor his spirituality. While one can make a sound case for the execution of Charles I, it still feels “off.” Many Cromwell supporters have praised D’Aubigne’s biography on Cromwell. I critically differ. It is worth reading. It is pastorally warm and soul-stirring, but D’Aubigne woefully misreads some key details. Further, I think D’Aubigne’s own analysis is blatantly self-contradictory, as I will demonstrate below.
While D’Aubigne does a fine job with Cromwell’s spirituality and family life, he is very critical of Cromwell’s military life. Without any argumentation beyond a simplistic appeal to the Sermon on the Mount, D’Aubigne says Cromwell was wrong to resist the king because that is not what Jesus would have done, or something like that. (D’Aubigne makes the same criticism of Zwingli; cf William Cunningham for a rebuttal).
I was critical of D’Aubigne’s approach to Cromwell when I first began the biography. I still think my criticisms of MD are justified. But here are some wonderful snippets from his biography that are worthy of reflection (and imitation!).
Speaking of Cromwell’s opposition to Turkish Islamism:
He sailed right into the harbor, and though the shore was planted with heavy guns, he burnt nine of the Turkish vessels, and brought the tyrant to reason. But he did not confine himself to this mission: he spread the terror of the English name over all of Italy, even to Rome itself (211).
Cromwell himself reflects on his army,
I raised such men as had the fear of God before them, as made some conscience of what they did; and from that day forward, I must say to you, they were never beaten, and wherever they engaged the enemy, they beat continually (240-241).
D’Aubigne concludes:
Without Cromwell, humanly speaking, liberty would have been lost not only to England, but to Europe (278).
Contradictions:
It is logically impossible for D’Aubigne to say (1) Cromwell was wrong as a Christian for going to war but (2) Cromwell is right for bringing liberty to Europe. Precisely, one may ask, how did Cromwell bring liberty to Europe? Further, D’Aubigne’s gloss on Matthew 5 effectively guts the whole Christian just-war tradition.
While D’Aubigne does a fine job with Cromwell’s spirituality and family life, he is very critical of Cromwell’s military life. Without any argumentation beyond a simplistic appeal to the Sermon on the Mount, D’Aubigne says Cromwell was wrong to resist the king because that is not what Jesus would have done, or something like that. (D’Aubigne makes the same criticism of Zwingli; cf William Cunningham for a rebuttal).
I was critical of D’Aubigne’s approach to Cromwell when I first began the biography. I still think my criticisms of MD are justified. But here are some wonderful snippets from his biography that are worthy of reflection (and imitation!).
Speaking of Cromwell’s opposition to Turkish Islamism:
He sailed right into the harbor, and though the shore was planted with heavy guns, he burnt nine of the Turkish vessels, and brought the tyrant to reason. But he did not confine himself to this mission: he spread the terror of the English name over all of Italy, even to Rome itself (211).
Cromwell himself reflects on his army,
I raised such men as had the fear of God before them, as made some conscience of what they did; and from that day forward, I must say to you, they were never beaten, and wherever they engaged the enemy, they beat continually (240-241).
D’Aubigne concludes:
Without Cromwell, humanly speaking, liberty would have been lost not only to England, but to Europe (278).
Contradictions:
It is logically impossible for D’Aubigne to say (1) Cromwell was wrong as a Christian for going to war but (2) Cromwell is right for bringing liberty to Europe. Precisely, one may ask, how did Cromwell bring liberty to Europe? Further, D’Aubigne’s gloss on Matthew 5 effectively guts the whole Christian just-war tradition.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews