that country is an exception to every thing the Marat of the reformation. A curious section traces the secret societies of free-masons, Rosycrucians, and illuminati, to the necessity which persecuted sectarians were driven to, of secret meeting and signs of recognition. It is added, that there will soon appear a work in Germany, by M. Buble, which will certainly establish what is thus advanced, and exhibit all the proofs. Some very curious remarks upon this subject may be found in the Monthly Review (xxv. p. 50.) in the reviewal of Barruel, one of the ablest articles that ever appeared in a work of periodical criticism. The Jesuits furnish the subject of another section, for this association of religious antijacobins is certainly to be placed among the effects of the reformation. Their system of education is thus admirably developed. "Their directing principle was to cultivate and carry to the highest possible degree of perfection all those kinds of knowledge from which no immediate danger could result to the system of hierarchical power, and to acquire by this means the character and renown of the most able and learned personages in the christian world. By means of this command of the opinions of men, it became easy for them either to prevent the growth of those . branches of knowledge which might bear fruit dangerous to the papal power, or to bend, direct, and graft upon them at their plea sure. Thus by inspiring a taste for classical learning, profane history, and mathematics, they contrived dexterously to extinguish the taste for enquiry into matters of religion and state, the spirit of philosophy and investiga tion. The philosophy taught in their schools was calculated to excite aversion and disgust, It was no other than the scholastic system, reviewed and corrected by them, applied to present circumstances, and the controversy with the reformers, whose arguments, it may well be supposed, were always there presented in a manner to fall before the artillery of the schools. With regard to the study of religion, it was confined to the books of theology composed for that purpose by the members of the society, to the casuists, and the Jesuitical moralists. The study of the original charters of religion was prevented; or if the gospels and other pieces appeared sometimes in the books of devotion, (and this it was impossible to avoid, when the transla tions given by the protestants were public,) they were accompanied with interpretations, and even alterations suitable to the main views of the society. Their great watchword was the utility of the sciences, and the beauty of the belles-lettres. All that relates to the moral improvement, to the ennobling of human nature, all that relates to the philosophi cal and theological sciences, the Jesuits endeavoured, and in reality were enabled, to retain in oblivion; to render theology as well as philosophy a barbarous system of subtleties, and even ridiculous to men of the world. How can it be determined to what a degree this jesuitical mode of instruction, which betries, and differs so prodigiously from the came the prevailing mode in catholic counmode of instruction among the Protestants, modified the species of culture, and the particular turn of mind in Catholic countries, so different in general from what is discovered in the Protestant From all this however it follows (and this consideration appears to me the key of the very contradictory judgments passed on the plans of the Jesuits in the culti vation of the sciences) that this society perliterature, which it improved; but that on the formed immense services to certain parts of other hand, it retained, designedly, certain other important parts in the dark, or so obstructed the avenues to them with thorns, that nobody was tempted to enter. Thus, considered generally, the instruction given in their schools, very brilliant in one respect, continued very dark in another, was a system partial, incomplete, and which set the mind in a wrong direction. But, as on the one side all was clearness, and illumination, and on the other all mystery and obscurity, the eyes of men were naturally directed to the illuminated side, and disdained to dwell upon the other, which they acquired the habit of considering as altogether insignificant. "To model science according to the interests of the pontifical power, and render even science ignorant in all things in which it was requisite that she should be ignorant; to produce some things in the clearest light, and to retain others in the thickest darkness; to fertilize the kingdoms of the memory and the imagination, by rendering that of thought and reason barren; to form minds submissive without being ignorant of any thing but what could effect their submission; like those highly valued slaves of the great men of antiquity who were grammarians, rhetoricians, poets, fine dancers, and musicians, and knew every thing except how to become free; I cannot fear that I shall be contradicted by any inpartial man, in stating that such was the system of instruction adopted by the Jesuits. It was ingenious, and inimitably adapted to the end they had in view. It was calculated to form illustrious, and elegant authors, learned men, orators, good Roman Catholics, Jesuits, if you please, but not men in the full acceptation of that term. He who became a man under their management, became so independently of that management, and in spite of it." As the Jesuits opposed the reformers, and the Jansenists opposed the Jesuits, M. Villers ascribes all the fruits of this latter rivalry to Martin Luther. Without the reforination, he says, there would have been no Jesuits, and without the Jesuits no Port Royal; thus the works of Arnauld, Tillemont, Pascal, &c. are among the fruits of this prolific seed. This is something like the connection between the priest all shaven and shorn, and the rat that eat the malt that lay in the house that Jack built. There is no end of these remote consequences; the price of nutmegs is one, and the archbishop of Canterbury's wig is another. Reflection concerning the uses made of the wealth of the church. M. Villers regrets the little good use that has been made of this treasury, and yet he supposes the distribution in our own country to be more judicious than it really is; thus much however we may fairly boast, that in no country has it been better applied. The Essay terminates with a brief recapitulation, in which the author ends as he began, by shewing that the reformation, so active a cause to succeeding ages, was itself an effect of the spirit of its own age. What Dante and Petrarca were to poetry; Michael Angelo and Raffaello to the arts of design; Bacon and Descartes to philosophy; Copernicus and Galileo to astro nomy; Columbus and Gama to geography; the same was Luther in regard to religion. All were the first characters of their respective ages, but their age was ready for them. A sketch of the history of the church down to the reformation is appended, it might with more propriety have been prefixed. We shall transcribe from this the character of the great founder of christianity, as perfectly explanatory of the author's system of belief. "He preached with the tranquil majesty of which had no other business on the earth, but a mind invested with a superior mission, and that of establishing truth, piety, and love among mortals. Serious and circumspect in his discourses, his mind appeared calm, transhis actions, ingenuous, simple, and subline in parent, and profound as the ether of heaven. Supremely mild and benevolent, a holy zeal affect him with passion for an instant. Thus against impiety and vice could alone move or is Jesus described to us by his four historians. If he was not such, undoubtedly we must admire the genius of those who imagined so fine which the same picture presented itself exactly a picture, and still more the happy chance by to four evangelists, who, in all probability, he was such, as it is impossible to doubt, what could not each copy from the other. But if then was the nature of this extraordinary being, who resembles none of the great personages represented to us in history, and whose life, without blemish and without affectation, exhibits not one of the weaknesses of human nature? 66 Jesus, during the few years of his public ministry, sowed the imperishable seeds of a doctrine of pure adoration, of love and justice; or rather he only sanctioned and vivified those seeds naturally sown in every heart. And what is not less wonderful and extraordinary than his whole mission and character is, that a Jew, a member apparently of a nation unparalleled for its selfishness, its exclusive spirit, and its enmity to the rest of mankind, first presented the notion of an universal religion, of a church for the human race, of a fraternity of all men under the authority of a common father. One father, one family, one service, one love; this idea was miraculous in that age; it was so in a much greater degree produced and established in Judea. Jesus offered it as his only precept; explained, and applied it to every case. He gave charge to his apos tles, plain, unlettered men, to go and diffuse it among all nations, declaring to them that every where its effects would be great. They go, they speak, and the world becomes christian. Jesus meanwhile, pursued by the ianaticism of the priests of the ancient law, was the same amid executioners and torments which he had been in the midst of his disciples, a pattern more than human of patience ther," said he, praying for his executioners, and firmness, of mildness and sublimity. " Fa Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." This last proof was wanting to enable him to offer a practical example of the most difficult virtues. After this nothing more remained for him to do: all was finished to use his own expression; and he died the noble death of a mirtyr to truth and virtue." The whole of this sketch displays a thorough knowledge of ecclesiastical his tory. M. Villers has touched lightly upon the evils which the reformation has oc casioned; he specifies its injurious effect upon the fine arts, and nothing more. A worse evil is the total stop which it has hitherto put to the progress of christianity; the Danish and Moravian missions are too unimportant to be considered as exceptions. Protestantism wants all the implements for conversion. The Jesuits trained up men for the purpose, always either the most enthusiastic or the most able of their body, and not unfrequently both qualities were found united. Celis bacy enabled these adventurers to carry their lives loose about them, they looked on to martyrdom as to the highest blessing, and to canonization as the highest summit of earthly glory-thrones in heaven and altars upon earth were to be their reward. But the Protestant church militant would find but few of its soldiers ready to volunteer upon the forlorn hope. The missionary from a reformed country, sets out with only his own stock of zeal, there are no cooler heads at home to direct him; he has no order to share in the glory of his success, or sing triumphant hymns for his martyrdom; he sees no charms in the stake and the foss, and worst of all, he has no tools to work with, no idols which he can offer to the idolator in exchange for his old gods. It is the state which must convert Hindostan and Polynesia, not the church, The reformed churches may also envy the admirable skill with which Rome enlisted into its own service all such fanatics as create sects in protestant countries. The Wesleys and Whitfields of catholicism have been the founders of new orders, or the reformers of old ones, and proved its most useful labourers. In that wonder ful system of imposition every thing was made useful. The church of Rome sent enthusiasts abroad to extend its empire and be made its martyrs; and those who were too mad for any thing else, it kept at home to feed upon bread and water, flog themselves, wear hair-cloth, see visions, receive revelations, and become saints. Our Bridgets and Gertrudes go to Bedlam, and our Junipers to the parish, workhouses. It has been said, that the reformation was premature, and would have been more effectual had it been delayed; but the example of France does not prove that any great changes in the state of the church are conducted in these times more moderately, more wisely, or to better end, than they were in the sixteenth century. Popery never could have fallen without violence. As for its reforming itself, have we yet to learn that reforms are never to be expected from within; that for goitres and cancers there is but one cure? That the reformation has not been complete we may acknowledge. What however may be farther wanting in our own country is in the body, not the spirit of the church. Our clergy have kept pace with their countrymen in improvement. Consubstantiation may be in the articles, and transubstantiation in the catechism; but neither do the men who subscribe to the articles think of the one, nor the children who repeat the catechism of the other; they are not insisted upon as points of faith, and they form no part of the national belief. Were the church of England to improve the condition of its inferior clergy, and to make its articles correspond with its actual belief, its friends would have little to wish, and its enemies nothing to hope. Mr. Lambert's translation has a life of Luther prefixed, which, if not more necessary than Mr. Mill's notes, is not quite so worthless. It is from a later edition, and contains a preface of M. Villers, which shews that his book has excited, as might be expected, some controversy. ART. XLIX.—An Attempt to illustrate those Articles of the Church of England which the Calvinists improperly consider as Calvinistical. In Eight Sermons, preached before the University of Oxford, in the Year 1804, at the Lecture founded by J. BAMPTON, M. A. Canon of Salisbury. By RICHARD LAWRENCE, LL. D. of University College. 8vo. pp. 460. IT has been justly remarked by an eminent theological professor of one of our nniversities, that in order to ascertain, or to approach to the primitive sense of our articles, we must put ourselves in the indeed the first, as he acknowledges, by whom this mode of illustration has been adopted; but he has been much more diligent, and much more successful, than those who have preceded him. We will endeavour to give in a brief but faithful sketch, the result of the dry and laborious investigations through which he has been necessarily led in determining the state of religious opinion at the beginning of the reformation in England. The nature and extent of his design will be evident from the following passage in the first sermon. "On one hand it has been contended, that our articles are consonant with the creed of Calvin; on the other with that of Arminus. It is not my intention to follow this controverted question into particulars. Yet perhaps it should be cursorily remarked, that even the Calvinist has proved in the most convincing mode, that they are not in their necessary construction completely calvinistical; that something is wanting in them to produce entire satisfaction; for repeatedly has he laboured, although constantly laboured in vain, first to render them explicit on this head, and afterwards to get his favourite emendations approved and established by public authority. But with these points the elucidation, which 1 propose, is by no means connected. It will be confined to a comparison of our articles with the prevailing opinions of the times when they were composed, at least with those in which they immediately originated, or from which they were collaterally derived. "If we contemplate them in this view, or rather such of them as will become the subject of investigation, we find, that far from being framed according to the system of Calvin in preference to all others, they were modelled after the Lutheran in opposition to the Roinish tenets of the day. The whole scope, therefore, of my design will be, instead of considering them abstractedly, to survey them relatively, with reference to the particular tenets alluded to; and the principal part of my observations will consist in developing these, if not minutely and in full detail, yet sufficiently for the purpose of illustration. But before I proceed to explain the selected doctrines, it will be requisite more at large to point out the real basis upon which the structure of our church was raised; and then to give the evidence which the articles themselves exhibit of having been erected upon the same foundation." super The English reformation, which, as is well known, commenced under Henry VIII. was completed, according to Dr. L. in all its essential parts under Edward VI. No subsequent alteration of any importance took place. The original, after which it was moulded, was the Protestant 66 establishment in Germany. The " men of the new learning," as the English Protestants were called, were all Lutherans ; and many attempts were made, both by Henry and Edward, to gain the personal assistance of Melanchon. The two most important publications of Henry's reign, the Bishop's Book and the King's Book, with the exception of a few points breathed the spirit of Lutheranism. Upon the accession of Edward the offices of the church, observes Dr. L. were immediately reformed (which before had been but partially attempted) after the temperate of subversion, rather than of reformation, systern of Luther, and not after the plan which Calvin had recently exhibited at Geneva. Nor were any alterations of importance, one point alone excepted, made at their subsequent revision. At the same period also the first book of Homilies was composed which, although equally Lutheran, yet containing nothing upon the subject of the sacramental presence, has remained without the slightest emendation to the present day." p. 15. Soon after this Cranmer translated a Lutheran catechism, which he edited in his own name, dedicated to the king, and strongly recommended as a treatise admirably adapted to improve the principles as well as the morals of the rising generation. : "On the whole, therefore, the principles, upon which our reformation was conducted, ought not to remain in doubt: they were ma nifestly Lutheran. With these the mind of him, to whom we are chiefly indebted for the salutary measure, was deeply impressed, and in conformity with them was our Liturgy drawn up, and the first book of our Homilies, all that were at the time composed." The articles, Dr. L. asserts, were drawn up by Cranmer, after the model of " that boast of Germany and pride of the refor mation, the confession of Augsburgh." Upon one point only, the doctrine of consubstantiation, a deviation from it was made ; and upon this point the author of the confession was himself suspected. Of their subsequent history Dr. L. observes, "When a permanent system of faith was settled by the clergy assembled in convocation under Elizabeth, the see of Canterbury was filled by Archbishop Parker, who as an antiquarian and Saxon scholar still ranks high storer of our church did he acquire a less soin the republic of letters. Nor as the relid, if less brilliant, reputation. Called by the providence of God to rebuild the walls of our Zion, rudely subverted by papal bigotry, he neglected not the revered materials of the former fabric. After the revival of our liturgy, his attention was directed to the consideration of speculative questions: and here the temperate proceedings of the assembly, which discussed them, seemed perfectly to correspond with his most sanguine wishes. Instead of entering upon the task of innovation, instead of bringing forward a new code of doc, trines, which some might have thought more adapted to the improved state of religious taste and sentiment, the convocation was satisfied to tread in a beaten path; t not only made the articles of Cranmer the basis of the proposed system, but adopted them in general word for word. Of what was the intention in this respect no testimony can be more conclusive, than the evidence of the original document itself, which is still preserved with the signatures of the clergy annexed to it, and which is nothing more than an interlined and amended copy of the formulary, which had been adopted in the preceding reign. "Whatsoever then might have been the dispositions of a few overzealous men, the members of this important convention displayed a remarkable proof of their moderation and judgment, by generally reviving what had been before established, rather than, in order to gratify the restless spirit of innovation, by inculcating novel doctrines. Instead of increasing the number of the articles, they dimiuished them; instead of extending their sense, so as to make them embrace a greater proportion of speculative tenets, they con tracted them, and appeared in every case more disposed to extinguish difference of opinion, than to augment it by adding fuel to a flame, already rising above controul. In one or two instances indeed additions, or rather additional elucidations, were admitted. Of the tendency however of these we cannot doubt, when we learn that, with the exception of one obvious topic alone, they were not original; that they were neither the productions of Parker nor the convocation; and that they were not borrowed from any calvinistical or Zuinglian, but from a Lutheran creed. The creed to which I allude is the confession of Wirtemberg, which was exhibited in the council of Treat the very year, when our own articles were completely arranged by Cranmer. That their resemblance to this composition should have been hitherto overlooked is the more remarkable, because it seems too visible, one would conceive, to have escaped the notice of the most superficial observer. For it was not confined to a mere affinity of idea, or the occasional adoption of an individual expression; but in some cases entire extracts were copied, without the slightest omission or minutest variation. "If then we duly weigh the facts, which have been stated, and the consequences which seem to result from them, we shall not perhaps be at a loss to determine, from what quarter we are likely to collect the best materials for illustrating the articles of our church. We perceive, that in the first compilation many prominent passages were taken from the Augsbourgh, and in the second from the Wirtemberg confession; the latter not being considered as a retractation of the former, but rather, what only it professed to be, as a repetition and compendium of it. The.. were the creeds of Lutherans." Dr. Lawrence further remarks: "To the writings of Calvin it will be in ya'n to apply, as some have done, from any conception, that our clergy in the last revision were eager to propagate the new principles, which they may be supposed to have imbibed during the sanguinary persecution under Mary. For, as if distrustful upon this head, the prudent restorers of our church, unless on an individual question, where the interests of truth forbad a compromise, kept the creed of a different communion in view; the creed likewise of an æra prior to that event, which, by compelling many of our proscribed countrymen to take refuge on the continent, particularly at Geneva, laid the foundation of a controversy respecting discipline and the forms of divine worship, which long disturbed the tranquillity of our ecclesiastical establishment, often threatened its existence, and once actually subverted it. But to the name of Calvin, whose talents even prejudice must confess to have been not inferior to his piety, but whose love of hypothesis was perhaps superior to both, from the celebrity which it afterwards acquired, too much importance has been sometimes annexed. It has been forgotten, that at the time under contemplation, the errors of the church of Rome were almost the sole objects of religious altercation, no public dissension of consequence having occurred among protestants, although thinking variously on various topics, except upon the single point of the eucharist: and that Calvin's system upon this had not obtained its full reputation, his controversies upon the subject not being then in existence; controversies, which first began to perpetuate his name, and to render Calvinisin a characteristical appellation. Nor has it been sufficiently observed, that his title to fame on this occasion arose not so much from his opinions themselves, which differed but little, except in terms, from what had been before advanced by Bucer and other mediators between the two extremes of a coporeal and a spiritual presence, as from the perspi cuity, with which he explained, and the abi lity, with which he defended them, when attacked by the Lutherans, who had not yet entered the field of combat against him. But no more convincing evidence, perhaps, can be alledged, that the incense of flattery, which was afterwards abundantly offered up, hasi not then been received, than the total silence respecting him preserved by a contemporary writer, who seemed pertinaciously attached to all his opinions; I mean the well known au thor of an Ecclesiastical History, containing the acts and monuinents of martyrs. From |