most all that is distinctively Christian is termed Calvinistic,-in which sense Arminius himself was a Calvinist. Oh, glorious purgation! which would give us an "improved version" of the Scriptures, graduated to the scale of irrational rationalism; a Prayer-book divested of the Popery of worshipping a triune God; articles cleansed from the Calvinistic "impiety" of the doctrine of original sin, the atonement, justification by faith, and the work of the Holy Spirit (which were held as firmly by Arminius, as election and final perseverance were by Calvin); and a species of clergy of whom the reforming bishop was himself a type, but of whom I trust there never were many specimens among us, and that now there are fewer than ever; Arminian in name, but, I fear, semi-Pelagian if not semiSocinian, in character.

I, for one, am not averse to a reformation of whatever may really

need reform among us; but when I look at the signs of the times, I confess that I tremble to see the instrument of amputation rashly wielded, lest it should fall into unskilful hands, which would not distinguish members from excrescences, and might wound the vitals of Christianity in removing a supposed blemish on the surface of our Established Church. It would give me no pleasure to see our church after such an algebraical reformation, with minus and plus as follows:minus what the world calls Calvinism, including several essentials of Christianity,-sacraments, as too Popish, our authorised version of the Scriptures, especially our Articles and Homilies; with plus a reformed Prayer book, an Unitarian Bible, and a race of Watsonian bishops and clergy as expounders of its doctrines, and setters forth of its discipline.

A REAL REFORMER.

The History of the Church of Christ, in Continuation of the Work of the two Milners. By the Rev. JOHN SCOTT, M.A. Vol. II. London. 1829.

THIS Continuation of Mr. Scott's valuable work comprises two por tions of ecclesiastical history, and was published in two parts, though now paged consecutively as one volume. The first part has been some time before the public; but whether from its offending our craniological organ of completeness to review half a volume, or from a multiplicity of new works dividing our attention, we have not hitherto noticed it. The publication of the second part has recalled to our minds Mr. Scott's claims upon our respectful regards, and we take the earliest opportunity of gratifying our readers with some account of his labours.

CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 336.

The first portion of the volume contains the story of the Reformation in its Lutheran branch, down to the Peace of Religion in 1555, with notices of Melancthon, and the proceedings of the Council of Trent, from its opening in 1515, to its close in 1563. The second portion is devoted to the rise and progress of the Reformation in Switzerland, to the year 1527. Our limits forbid our giving an adequate sketch .of both sections of the volume: we have therefore thought it better, on consulting the aforesaid phrenological organ, to confine our attention to the latter half, which comprises a complete subject. We need only add of the pretermitted portion, that its contents are highly interesting; but as it has been longer before the public, and is therefore better known than the other, we prefer selecting the latter. 5 F

In his preface, amongst other valuable matter, our author gives an account of some of the writers from whom he derives his information. The account of the historian Thuanus, or De Thou, is very interesting. He was born in 1553, and died in 1617. He was the president, as his father had been, of the parliament of Paris, during a period when that parliament was the only surviving bulwark of liberty in France. As an author, his name is distinguished by the history of his own times. His house was the resort of men of letters his library was one of the best in Europe. His integrity, courage, and talents, were such as to commend him to the general regard of his countrymen. Though he remained to the end a Roman Catholic, he treated of the Protestants, and the proceedings of the French government against them during the period, especially of the great massacres and the civil wars, with such moderation, as to gain him the title of a heretic at Rome, and to place his history among the number of prohibited works. The preface to his great work is as much celebrated in the annals of literature, as Calvin's dedication of his Institutes, and Causabon's introduction to Polybius. How rare, in any writer connected with the Church of Rome, is such language as the following! "Experience has taught us that fire and sword, exile and proscription, rather irritate than heal the distemper that has its seat in the mind. These affect only the body; but judicious and edifying doctrine, gently distilled, descends into the heart....Religion is not subject to command, but is infused into well prepared minds by a conviction of the truth, with the concurrence of Divine grace. Tortures have no influence over her; in fact, they rather tend to make men obstinate than to subdue or persuade them. Confiding in the support of God's grace, the religious man is content to suffer. Let the executioner stand before him; let him

prepare tortures, whet the knife, and kindle the pile; he will still persevere, and his mind will dwell, not on the tortures he is to endure, but on the part he is to act. Tortures, therefore, by no means repress the ardours of the innovators of religion. France has tried them for forty years, and the Netherlands nearly as long. Mild persuasion and amiable intercourse may still conciliate those whom force cannot subdue."

De Thou speaks as follows of himself in the third person, in a memoir which he has left of his life. We quote the passage for the benefit of statesmen, lawyers, and authors of the present day,-men who have not more pressing occupations to detach them from devotional employments than the president of the parliament of France. "Besides," he says, "the daily prayers which every Christian ought to offer at his rising, he has told me that he made one applicable to his work, and never sat down to composition without first beseeching God to enlighten him with the knowledge of the truth, and then enable him to follow its dictates without flattery or detraction."

But we must no longer detain our readers, even to contemplate this Sir Matthew Hale of Popery, from the subject of the work be

fore us.

It is unnecessary to dilate upon the general circumstances and character of the Swiss as a nation. From the times of Julius Cæsar to those of our modern tourists, all their annalists and voyagers have concurred in representing them as a hardy, vigorous, independent race, carrying into their daily transactions much of the ruggedness, loftiness, and immoveableness of their native mountains. It is natural also, that liberty should find an asylum in a country where from the loftiness of surrounding barriers, each state found it comparatively easy to maintain its independence of every other.

The following account of the

Cantons will make some of the succeeding statements more intelligible. "Switzerland comprises thirteen cantons, with a number of other states dependent upon them or in alliance with them. The cantons are, by a common treaty, formed into one general body, of which each member, though sovereign within its own territory, is bound to sup port the rest against every foreign enemy. Certain members of the confederacy appear also to be more intimately bound to one another, by treaties of confraternity and co-burghership. The cantons are divided into eight ancient, Zuric, Berne, Lucerne, Uri, Schweitz, Underwalden, Zug, and Glaris, which were associated during the former half of the fourteenth century, and five new cantons, Basle, Friburg, Soleure, Schaffhausen, and Appenzel, admitted into the league in the latter part of the fifteenth, and the beginning of the sixteenth century. Five of the cantons we shall find distinguished, both in modern times, and in the times of which we have to treat, as the RomanCatholic cantons, namely, Lucerne, Uri, Schweitz, Underwalden, and Zug; and four as the Reformed cantons, Zuric, Berne, Basle, and Schaffhausen. Friburg and Soleure, also are Roman-Catholic, but apparently with a less bigoted zeal than the five: Glaris and Appenzel are A mixed in their religion. The five new cantons are also termed neutral; because, in case of a rupture between the eight ancient cantons, they are bound not to espouse either party. Of the dependencies of the cantons, several are called Common Bailliages; the sovereignty of them belonging to several cantons in common, which alternately send a bailiff to preside over them for a limited term. The greatest part of the country was anciently under the protection of the empire, till protec. tion being extended to dominion, and dominion converted into oppression, several of the cantons united, and asserted their independence, in the early part of the fourteenth century. Their example was followed by their neighbours, and, after a

series of heroic conflicts, the liberty of the whole Helvetic Confederation was established." pp. 326–328.

The state of Switzerland, at the period of the Reformation, may be judged of by the general circumstances of Christendom. The Church of Rome had reached the zenith of its power. And as that power had been uniformly exerted to enlarge its own authority, and, by so perpetuating and deepening the ignorance of the people, to secure their unconditional obedience, nothing, humanly speaking, could be

more hopeless than the moral emancipation of the nations. however, in these circumstances, as Ruchat (a highly respectable histo rian, to whom Mr. Scott frequently refers,) says, "God is pleased to work, that all the glory may be given to him. His holiness could not longer permit him to endure the frightful excesses of profligacy which prevailed." "But God," the same writer adds, "must have his true worshippers, who worship in spirit and in truth; and hence he raised up at this period, in almost all the states of Europe, pious, learned, and illustrious men, animated with a noble zeal for the glory of God, and the good of his church."

It has been often observed that, in the history of religion, as in that of arts and science, the recognised authors of great changes and discoveries have had precursors, to whom a great part of the praise is fairly due. It was then in the case of the Swiss Reformation. Zuinglius was preceded by Geiler and Wyttenbach; the former, a native of Schaffhausen, who faithfully sowed the seeds of Divine truth at Strasburgh, from 1477 to 1510; the latter, the tutor, at Basle, of Zuinglius himself, and from whom the Reformer may be conceived to have derived much of his own light on the subject of religion.

Zuinglius was born, probably in 1481, at Tockenburgh, a dependency of the abbey of St. Gallen, was the son of the chief magistrate of the district, and studied successively at Basle, Berne, Vienne, and then again at Basle. He was first called to his pastoral office at Glaris in 1506. At Glaris he spent ten years, and there probably his eyes began to open to the errors and evils of the church to which he belonged. Here also, it appears, that the Spirit of God first made known to him the wants and corruptions of his own heart, and the necessity and all sufficiency of a Redeemer. manuscript is still found in the library of Zurich, of the Epistles of

A

St. Paul, which Zuinglius first copied out with his own hand, in their original language, and then committed

to memory.

If modern Protestants thus studied the Scriptures, we hazard nothing in saying it would greatly improve the quality of reformers at home; and if Papists thus studied them, it would as largely multiply the number of reformers abroad. Zuinglius afterwards pursued the same course as to the other books of the New Testament. Myconius thus describes the devout pursuit of his studies at this time: "After he had learned from Peter that Scripture is not of private interpretation,' he directed his eyes to Heaven, seeking the Spirit for his teacher." Referring to the close of this period, Zuinglius himself says, I began to preach the Gospel in the year 1516, where the name of Luther had never been heard of in these parts;" "thus counting for nothing," says Ruchat, "the labours of the preceding years, because, during these, he had preached human traditions, and not the word of God."

Mr. Scott, at this point of his history, enters upon some discussion of the not uninteresting question of the precedency of Luther and Zuinglius in the work of reform. The following quotation gives us Zuinglius's own testimony on the subject. "I began to preach the Gospel before I ever heard the name of Luther. And, in order that I might do so, I ten years before applied myself to the study of Greek, that I might draw the doctrine of Christ from the original source. What success I have had, I leave it to others to judge but certainly Luther gave me no assistance, for I was ignorant of his very name when I learned to place all my reliance exclusively on the Sacred Scriptures. Luther, as far as I can judge, is a most gallant soldier of Jesus Christ, who studies the word of God with a zeal and diligence which have had no parallel for this thousand years. I care not if the court of Rome now pronounce me a heretic along with him. I say there has been no one (though I would not depreciate others,) who has attacked the pope with such a determined and undaunted spirit, since the popedom had an existence. But to whom is this noble proceeding of his to be ascribed? Is it from

Luther or from God? Ask Luther him, self. I know he will say it is from God. doctrines to Luther, when Luther himWhy then do you ascribe other men's

self ascribes his doctrine to God? Luther introduces no novelty: he only brings forth freely what is treasured up in the pointing out and displaying the heavenly immutable and eternal word of God;

treasures to Christians who have been led

to seek it from wrong sources." p. 335.

"All then, I think, may now understand why I am unwilling to be called a Lutheran, though no man esteems Luther more highly than I do. I will say also, that I never wrote a line to Luther, directly or indirectly; nor he to me. the fear of any man: but that it might And why have I not? Certainly not for appear to all men how consistent and uniform is the Spirit of God, when we two, placed at such a distance from each other, and teach the doctrine of Christ in such and holding no intercourse together, write perfect harmony. I compare not myself to Luther: every one has what the Lord gives him: each one achieves that to which God leads him on." p. 337.

We entirely acquiesce in the view taken by Mr. Scott himself of this controverted point.

"Dr. Milner has introduced part of the above-cited passage in discussing the question of the priority of Luther or Zwingle, as a reformer. Their independence one of the other it must be allowed to establish; which is the point of much the greatest importance, not only as it may concern their honour, (for which we ought not to indulge too much jealousy,) but especially for the purpose insisted upon by Zwingle himself at the close of the passage,-leading us to admire the wonderful works of God in raising such mighty instruments of his grace to cooperate with

out mutual communication; and the consistency and uniformity of his Spirit,' in leading them to teach the doctrine of Christ in perfect harmony,' the one with the other. With respect to the question of priority between them, it appears to me that those, who would deprive Luther of the honour of taking the lead in the great work of Reformation, do not properly distinguish between knowing, and even teaching the truth in a comparatively quiet way, and publicly raising the standard against reigning error, so as to draw general attention, and commence a revolution. In the former way Zwingle might perhaps precede Luther; in the latter Luther certainly took the lead of Zwingle. Both of them had the knowledge of Divine truth-of the doctrine of justification, in particular--before the year 1517: in 1516 Zwingle preached the Gospel at Glaris, and Luther, I apprehend, unquestionably taught it in his lectures at Wittemberg: for some time, I conceive,