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ground I am decidedly against capital punishment in such cases, and think it enough that mischievous teachers of religion should be removed from their places."The opinion of the Dean of Carlisle will not be deemed of slight value upon this question, and it is thus delivered. (Vol. V. p. 498, Hist. of Church.) "At the same time, he took occasion to reprobate the cruel sufferings inflicted on the poor wretches by the persecutions of the ecclesiastical rulers, insisting on that grand distinction, of which this reformer never lost sightthat errors in articles of faith were not to be suppressed or extirpated by fire or sword, but confuted by the word of God; and that recourse ought never to be had to capital punishment except in cases of sedition and tumult. The blindness and darkness in which men are often left are in themselves (said Luther) a sufficient punishment." (Com. de Luther, H. xl. 12.)

In endeavouring to ascertain the causes of enmity in a certain class of writers, we discover one point in his conduct, which may, perhaps, serve to irritate such of them as adhere to a peculiar school in polities, too much, to allow them impartially to survey his excellences; we mean, bis spirit of non resistance, except in the last extreme, to established anthorities. No fact of the history of this great man places him, in our judgment, on a higher pedestal of glory, than his conduct in this respect upon a particular occasion. When the vehemence of the Landgrave had nearly borne down the objections of John of Saxony to take arms against the head of the empire; when an army of twenty thousand men was raised to fight for the cause the reformer loved so dearly; when his affairs, without war, appeared to be almost desperate, and when many circumstances promised a' successful war; Luther sacrificed at once his hopes, his desires, his anxiety for the Protestant cause, his interests with the CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 182.

Landgrave-to his love of peace, and loyalty, and good order. After urging many reasons why the elector should not take arms against the emperor, he heroically says, "I must repeat the protestation which I lately made before your highness at Altenburg, that we must quit this part of the country rather than be partakers of the infamy which will infallibly attach to your highness in the prosecution of unlawful hostilities." Such language may be ungrateful to some ears; but it harmonizes with the voice of Scripture, and of true magnanimity. Luther disdained to be found, where no Christian was discovered in the first ages of the Gospel, in the ranks of rebellion against lawful authorities.

On the whole, we have no hesitation in commending to our readers the example of one of the professed and most active enemies of Luther, in preference to that of some of his avowed friends. It is well known, that when the imperial army took possession of Wittenberg, the soldiery rushed forward, with the most indecent ardour to tear up the grave of Luther and disperse his bones. The emperor checked them with these words, "I war not with the dead." Perhaps, at that period, that better light of religion had begun to communicate itself to the mind of this ambitious monarch, which at a later period mingled with the shades of his superstition, and shed a sort of milder lustre over the last days of his turbulent life. At all events, may our contemporaries also remember that men of candour and honour" war not with the dead." Let them reason from facts, and not on hypothesis-and where the act is good, impute no unworthy motive to the agent who is not himself in circumstances to repel the charge. But we must turn from this ample field, to notice a second transgression of many of the writers on the Reformation.

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The error to which we allude

is that of ascribing the effects manifestly wrought by the Reformation to other causes. Nothing, for instance, is more common than the assertion, that without the Reformation, or any change originating in religious motives, the "progress of knowledge" would "necessarily" have produced some such revolution in the opinions and habits of mankind. Nor are statements of this kind confined to the open or even the disguised enemies of religion. They are found in the mouths of its avowed friends. Not merely sciolists in philosophy, but distinguished philosophers, have fallen into this error. How surprising is it, for instance, to find in the pages of such a writer as Mr. Dugald Stewart, the following statement! "The Protestant Re formation, which followed immediately after, was itself one of the natural consequences of the revival of letters, and of the invention of printing."

Now although it is our intention, at no very distant period, to enter into an extended investigation of the highly important work from which this sentiment is quoted, we may, perhaps, be permitted to anticipate our future labours by asking, whether Mr. Stewart can really conceive that the Reformation is the natural offspring of the progress of human knowledge. These three propositions are perfectly obvious to ourselves;-that the Reformation was the work of religious principle-that nothing but religious principle was competent to effect a change as extensive as that accomplished by the Reformation-that the progress of the Reformation was not materially assisted by men of mere science or literature. Let us dwell for a moment on each of these points.

The first position-that the Reformation was the work of religious principle-appears to us to need little proof. We know that the most mercenary and even impure motives have been imputed to the

chief authors of the Reformation. Mr. Hume, for instance, tells us, that the Austin friars had usually been employed in Saxony to preach indulgences, and, from this trust, had derived both profit and consideration; that Arcemboldi gave this occupation to the Dominicans; that Martin Luther, an Austin friar, resenting the affront put upon his order, began to preach against indulgences, &c.-But it is enough to reply, first, that the sale of indulgences had not been "usually" confined to the Austin friars, for, till the year 1229, the Dominicans had exclusively sold them; that for fifty years before Luther, only the name of one Austin friar occurs as a vender of them; that, moreover, the sale of them was become, at the opening of the 16th century, too odious and unpopular for Luther to covet such an employment for his order; that such motives were never imputed to Luther, even by his inveterate enemies, Cajetan, Emser, Hogstrat, and Tetzel. Even this reply, however, is superfluous. Let any one seriously canvass the writings of the early Reformers, and they will at once perceive, that with them every other object was subordinate to religion; that literature and politics were mainly regarded in their bearing upon the interests of the Gospel; and that especially the grand fundamental doctrine of "justification by faith alone" was that around which they rallied-their "articulum stantes aut cadentis ecclesiæ"-the truth, in whose cause they were prepared to live and to die. The Reformers were doubtless eminent scholars Luther especially (for Melancthon adhered to the Peripatetic school)

made the first formidable assault on the philosophy of the schools, and thus paved the way for the future triumphs of reason and truth in moral and metaphysical inquiries;-but it cannot be questioned that religion prompted them to aet, as well as guided them in action;

that they followed not the dim and perishable light of human science, but the star which conducted them to the presence of their Saviour. The counsel of Luther to Spalatinus, when the latter desired his advice as to the best method of study, agrees with this statement. "Read" (said he) "certain parts of Jerome, Ambrose, Augustin;" but "always begin with serious prayer, for there is no interpreter of the Divine word but its own Author. ...Read the Bible in order, from beginning to end."

But next let us turn to the second proposition-that nothing except religious principle could have accomplished the mighty changes effected by the Reformation. If any other principle would have been sufficiently strong, steady, and universal, what was that prin. ciple? Not the love of liberty, for the mere lovers of liberty sought it by a momentary burst of passion and tumult, and were heard of no more. Not the love of philosophy, for the self-called philosophers of those days were too busy with substances and accidents to think of reform. Not the love of letters, for the lovers of letters, with Erasmus at their head, preferred the repose or the laurels of the Vatican to the perils of the Protestant camp. And the fact is, that no other principle, but that which pursues its object in another state of being, could prepare men to sacrifice every thing in this. No principle, but that which is as intelligible and efficient with the low as the high, with the illiterate as the learned, was sufficiently vast, and vital, and energetic to quicken the whole mass of society, and to raise up, out of the dead stones of Popery, children of virtue and of truth. If historians and critics would, instead of speculating upon the character and views of the Reformers, study their spirit and genius in their own recorded sentiments, it would be seen, that religion, and religion alone, struck the rock, and poured

forth the streams of health and life upon the moral wilderness of European society.

But, once more, we have affirmed that men of mere science and literature cannot be considered as primary agents in this moral revolution. It cannot be questioned that the early works of Erasmus did much to expose the absurdities and corruptions of Popery. It was said, and justly said, that he laid the egg which Luther hatched, But let it be remembered, that no sooner had the incubation begun, than Erasmus repented of his te merity; and that his latter years were spent in cancelling his past benefits, in exposing the friends of the Reformation, in raking up every minute delinquency of his former associates, and displaying them to the world through the magnifying and distorting medium of satire and ridicule. Such was the nature of the service too commonly rendered by men of letters to the Reformation. They began by carrying a torch to detect the errors of Popery, and ended by thrusting it into the face of the Reformers. They loved reform while the reform was not to be extended to themselves. They proe moted it while it promised them the patronage of the mighty. Bat when kings and popes erected their hostile banners, mere learning, like the Grecian orator, took refuge among the baggage waggons of the contending forces. Erasmus frequently sums up his reasons for not joining the Reformers with a sentence of this kind—" above all, I fear for learning." That fear, it is to be apprehended, swallowed up every higher principle.

But it is time that we should close this already extended article, by making a very few observations on a third point to which we have adverted; namely, that there is much disposition in a certain class of writers to undervalue the actual benefits of the Reformation. They admit, perhaps, that the Reforma

tion originated mainly in religious principle; and that nothing except religion can work any great revolution in the minds of men;-but they seem disposed to deny any such extensive benefits, as its advocates pretend, to have resulted from Protestantism. Few works could be more interesting than one which should trace the Reformation into all its consequences. We shall not, however, attempt to condense that into a few obscure, pages which would easily occupy several volumes. At the same time, we cannot forbear to warn our readers against that limited view. of the benefits of this great revolution which many modern writers are pleased to take of it. Let them first, for instance, survey its influence upon religion—in ridding us of idolatry, of Ave Marias, of masses, of auricular confession, of holy water, of saints and saintesses, of racks, and screws, and faggots, and Jesuits, and inquisitions, and works of supererogation, and penances, and flagellations, and works which justify us, and angels who pray for us-and in presenting us, instead of these, with a simple ritual, with the doctrine of justification by faith alone, and with the fountain of all true doctrine, the library of Heaven, the grand depository of truth and wisdom, mercy and holiness, the charter of our hopes and joys, the Book which the Lamb died to unseal, the very mind of God himself, the pure, the unsophisticated, the uncommented word of God-and, in it, with all that teaches the ignorant, cheers the miserable, strengthens the weak, and saves the guilty. Let the examiner next survey the regions of philosophy, and behold the Reformation carrying to their funeral pile all the musty, foggy, immeasurable, innumerable folios of the schools, and substituting for them Bacon, and Locke, and their distinguished disciples. Let him next measure the influence of the Reformation in the depart

ment of politics-and he will see. the people, who, till now, had ranked with the beasts around them, raised,wherever pure Protestantism prevails, to the rank of immortal creatures; of creatures who can judge, and have a right to judge, of their rights and of their interests. Let him survey them not as once enlisted under the secret banner of a foreign potentate to thwart the designs of their lawful sovereign, or as exposed to the combined eruelty and extortion of both their own monarch and the pope-but as confederated with their sovereign for their common interest, and for the national good. Let the examiner remember, moreover, that these political benefits have not been confined to a change of priuciples, but to a change of political circumstances, in the nations of Europe, inferior in importance only to the former change. It was the Reformation, for instance, that reduced the enormous power of Austria, and created, and to a certain extent perpetuated, a balance of power amongst the various kingdoms of Europe. Since that period also, through every Protestant nation, sound principles of legislation, of commerce, of government, have begun rapidly to diffuse themselves; and a guarantee is obtained, under the blessing of God, for the future happiness of theworld, by the wider extension of those principles on which its happiness depends. Let our examiner, after this, trace the effects of the Reformation on knowledge. Let him listen at one period, to the faculty of theology at Paris, declaring that religion was undone if the study of Greek and Latin were permitted," to Conrad of Heresbach recording the declaration of a monk, "that the new language called Greek' is the mother of all heresy-and that all who learn Hebrew instantly become Jews"-and contrast with this the many splendid gifts laid on the altars of literature by our English divines. Let him contrast with

Galileo in prison, our Newton and Barrow and Cotes and Maclaurin and Kepler and Haller and Milper. Let him call to mind that even the Jesuits, in their splendid edition of Newton, dared not assert the truth of propositions, the truth of which they themselves had un answerably demonstrated, because the Pope denied them, and could only maintain that such would be the demonstrations if the Pope could possibly be mistaken; and compare, with this, the tolerant, generous, and most free spirit of Protestantism, the full and glorious immunities enjoyed by the meanest subject in the empire of science. Let him consider the almost universal proscription of the best books by papal interdicts-that Leo X. for example, prohibited all books translated from the Greek, Hebrew, or Arabic, whilst he threatened any one who should impugn the blasphemous poems of Ariosto; that even within a short time, and possibly up to the present moment, "Robertson's Charles the Vth," and Smith's Wealth of Nations," have been interdicted in Spainand contrast with this the freedom of the press in our own country. These, and to these a thousand such instances might be added, may serve to convince a candid inquirer that it is difficult to exceed the proper limits in displaying the benefits of the Reformation.

But we feel ourselves compelled to stop, and will only venture to state, in addition, our anxious hope and prayer, that the Reformation may not exist in name only among ourselves-that the great master principles of this mighty revolution may be steadily kept in view-that whilst we regard the Papists them selves with the eye of tolerance and charity, we may preserve the most unabated detestation of many of their tenets-that the spirit of religion may more and more animate and vivify our otherwise dead and useless forms-that no vagrant Papist, no hooded nuncio from the

Vatican, may be found among ourselves to dig up from its grave and restore to its lost honours a single papistical error-and that, if such should be found, there never may be wanting Luthers and Melancthons, to huddle these ghosts of Popery into their graves again, to exalt the standard of the Reformation, which is the banner of the Cross; and to perpetuate by their courage, and faith, and love, and zeal, those principles for which our ancestors burnt on the funeral pile, or bled under the axe of the executioner. To all this what true Protestant will not say-Amen?

An Essay on the Existence of a Supreme Creator, possessed of infinite Power, Wisdom, and Goodness, containing also the Refutation, from Reason and Revelation, of the Objections urged against his Wisdom and Goodness, and deducing from the whole Subject the most important practical Inferences. By WILLIAM LAURENCE BROWN, D. D. Principal of Marischal College and University of Aberdeen, &c. &c. 2 vols. 8vo. Aberdeen: Chalmers and Co. London: Hamilton, 1816. pp. iv. xvii. 342 and 383.

A Treatise on the Records of the

Creation, and on the Moral Attributes of the Creator, with particular Reference to the Jewish History, and to the Consistency of the Principle of Population with the Wisdom and Goodness of the Deity. By JOHN BIRD SUMNER, M. A. 2 vols. 8vo. London: Hatchard. 1816. pp. xxvi. 326 and 392. THERE are two opposite errors, into which the world is prone to fall, in regard to the evidences of religion. Some persons are apt to rest upon them, as though they constituted the religion, which they only prove; while others, who know more of religion, who have been educated in its principles and feel its practical importance, are liable

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