truly persuaded that "a Reformation" was required, as that the latter are fully convinced that the doctrines they have been taught from their infancy are alone those that can secure to them salvation. Paying respect to the opinions of such persons, we desire to avoid every thing that may bear the semblance of the asperity of religious controversy. We wish, therefore, alone to dwell on the political and social consequences of the Reformation; and we desire to do so the more, from this additional consideration, that though the Liberal party may be considered as fairly chargeable with all the crimes of the Reformation, it would be unjust to charge Protestants with all the crimes of the Liberal party. The difference between the two is, the difference not merely between a Lord Shaftesbury who employs a Titus Oates, knowing him to be a villain, a perjurer, and a wilful murderer, and the sanguinary bigotry of a Lord William Russell, who in his besotted hatred of Popery, is willing to believe that the best men are ready to commit the worst crimes, because they are Papists, and therefore cries out against the slightest mitigation in the cruel sentence passed upon an innocent Catholic peer the difference between "a Liberal" and a sincere, honest, generous Protestant, is far greater; for whilst the former is fomenting the worst passions of our nature, the latter guiding his conduct by the gospel, will sanction no cruelty, practise no oppression, and do no wrong to those from

*

See LORD JOHN RUSSELL, Life of Lord William Russell, vol. i. pp. 235, 236, 237, (London, 1820.) where a feeble attempt is first made to deny, and then to palliate this instance of brutal cruelty, towards a brother peer, who with his last breath thus spoke of the persecution, even unto death, to which he had been subjected.

"Since my long imprisonment, I have considered often what could be the original cause of my being thus accused, since I knew myself not culpable so much as in thought, and I cannot believe it to be upon any other account, than my being of the Church of Rome." Speech of Viscount Stafford at the place of execution. State Trials, vol. v. p. 1564.

Perhaps the strongest condemnation of the inhuman persecution against the Roman Catholics, by Lord William Russell and others, is to be found in the following sentence of a Spanish writer, when commenting upon the Titus Oates plot, and its "noble" and "honourable" abettors.

"Como es possible, que gente tan entendida, tan politica, tan estudiosa, deje de conocer la verdad? Atiendase à los Acusadores, a los Testigos; i, sin atender a otros meritos de Processo, ni admiter descargos, se daran los Catolicos por justamente sentenciados."Manifesto de la injusta persecution que padecen los Catolicos Romanos en Inglaterra. (Madrid 1680.)

whom he differs in faith, and that he believes to be in error, but whose conscientious convictions he respects.

Let us see then what were the social and political results of the Reformation. We have pointed to "the peasant war in Germany " as first springing from it; and now shall quote two Protestant writers, whose works alone are sufficient to prove what have been the permanent, social, and political consequences of that great event.

"In no place," says the first of the writers we refer to, "do we find that the condition of the peasants was in any respects improved; forced labour, inordinate taxation, all these old grievances remained in full force ;-where it was possible, they were then increased. The success of the Reformation had done little for the common people: no voice was raised in their favour; but as we have seen the great heralds of Evangelical freedom, Luther and Melancthon, had done their best to rivet the fetters of the unfortunate peasants; everywhere the social fabric seemed held together only by the iron bands of force or fear.”*

"Even during the life-time of Luther and Melancthon, we hear bitter complaints from them of the decay of morals and religion amongst all classes in the next age the new Church fell under the rule of a little knot of selfsufficient court-preachers; Lutheran-Popes, who ruled their flocks with rods of iron, and disturbed and confused all religious feelings with their perpetual wrangling, on what they called points of doctrine. These preachers also, so imperious towards the people, were humble and passive enough to their masters, the princes, who had, in most cases, appropriated to themselves the power and the revenues formerly belonging to the Church, so that THE PEOPLE GAINED NOTHING BY THE CHANGE. Of the character of many of these sovereigns who had thus gained supreme spiritual, as well as temporal, authority, though it was, at that time, kept hushed up as much as possible, the world has since gained a pretty clear idea, and from the period subsequent to the 'religious peace of Augsburg,' German writers date the springing up of the many-headed Hydra of Bureaucracy, which has been ever since the curse of their country, and tended more, perhaps, to deteriorate national character,

* MRS. SINNETT, Byways of History, vol. ii. pp. 289, 290.

than all the oppressions and grindings of the feudal lords of old.'*

We turn from the writings of one well read in German history, to an author of established reputation in Germany, Dr. Gfroerer, not less remarkable for his ultra-Protestantism than for his great research. In a work written by him, entitled, "Gustav Adolph Konig von Schweden," we find many facts respecting the working of the Reformation, upon the liberties of mankind, from which we make a few

extracts.

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"This new right," remarks Dr. Gfroerer, alluding to the notion that subjects were bound to adhere to the religion. of their sovereign, was laid down in the formula, cujus regio, ejus religio; a most wrong principle, which struck out with one stroke of the pen the religious freedom of the German nation, and degraded it to the rank of Helots. But it is not at all surprising that things should have taken this turn. Instead of religion, write down the word Church lands, and the sense becomes clear enough. It will then run thus the Church lands shall belong to him who is the master of thern. The more serious question, concerning the faith of the subjects, becomes then a secondary one, such as it really was; and must be answered by the decision of the first. If a prince be desirous of usurping the lands lying within his own possession, it stands to reason that he must needs unfurl the standard of the new doctrines to justify his robbery.

"We once more repeat, what we asserted before: Lutheranism threatened the futurity of Europe with the most serious dangers, not only because, within its own pále, it laid at the feet of princes all civil and ecclesiastical power, but likewise it obliged its opponents, the Catholic clergy, to purchase the assistance of kings at the price of a blind submission unknown to the middle ages. Had Lutheranism remained with the old Church, according to all probabilities, the western world would have witnessed a system of servitude, paralleled only in the Byzantine empire and the Levant.

MRS. SINNETT's Byways of History, vol. ii. pp. 292, 293. For a proof of the Anti-Catholic prejudices of this truly able writer, see vol. ii. p. 15.

See his work, "Geschicte der Ost-und- Westfrankischen Carlinger vom Tode Ludwigs des Frommen bis zum Ende Conrads I. Freiburg, 1848.

"The Reformed" (Calvinistic) "preachers showed themselves no less zealous courtiers than their Lutheran contemporaries, whom they, however, pretended to look upon as creatures of an inferior caste. Ever breaking forth into revilings against the Romish Anti-christ and the Pope; into the most odious accusations against the German emperor, and the constitution of the state which they were impudent enough to call a miracle of the devil; they nevertheless found all the encroachments which their gracious lords, the pelty Calvinist princes, made on the clergy and people, dispensations of a most equitable and national character.

66

In fact, the political heads of German Calvinism dreamt of nothing else but Church robbery and destruction."*

We refer not to facts so well known as the social consequences of the Reformation in these countries, to the sufferings and starvation of the poor, and the merciless executions of them in the reigns of Henry, Edward, and Elizabeth, and coincident with these the enforcement of the same despotic principles which found such favour amongst the petty princes of Germany.† It is sufficient to say, that as the monasteries were closed against the poor, gibbets were erected for vagrants; and to secure "the patrimony of the poor" in the possession of private individuals, Penal laws against the profession of the Roman Catholic faith, began to crowd the statute book.

"in

And thus closed the labours of the Liberal party in the working of the Reformation. Its purpose was the spolia. tion of the Church in that purpose it succeeded: its pretence was the extension of " religious liberty;" and in place of religious liberty, it gave to the people Penal laws, laws that punished alike Roman Catholics and Protestant

*The passages here quoted are adopted from the translations of portions of Dr. Gfrærer's work, in the Dublin Review, No. lix., pp. 91, 92, 93. April, 1851. For a specification of the monstrous political doctrines of despotism enforced by Luther, Melancthon, and Bucer, see AUDIN, Histoire de Luther, vol. iii. pp. 105, 106, 107.

+"She (the Established Church) continued to be, for more than a hundred and fifty years, the servile handmaid of monarchy, the steady enemy of public liberty. The divine right of kings, and the duty of passively obeying all their commands, were her favourite tenets. She held them firmly through times of oppression, persecution, and licentiousness, while law was trampled down, while judgment was perverted, while the people were eaten as though they were bread." MACAULAY, Historical Essays in Edinburgh Review, xlviii. p. 110.

Dissenters for their conscientious convictions.* The pretence was abandoned as soon as the purpose had been accomplished.

CHAPTER II.

We pass from the Reformation to the next great event in modern history, the French Revolution and again we find "the Liberal party," in their desire to have Church property confiscated, marring the wishes of a reforming king, and blighting the hopes of a long suffering people. Never was any thing more true in the midst of the libraries of books, that have been written upon the French Revolution, than that which the late Charles Buller has affirmed respecting it, when he remarked :—

We repeat, and we insist upon the truth, that the movement had only to abstain from violence, in order to have carried reform to the highest point which the liberty and enlightenment of the age could have desired: the moment that movement passed into revolution; the moment law, instead of being corrected, was resisted; the moment the populace were permitted to indulge passion, and to taste blood; the moment, in fact, Force beganReform ceased. * * * * What hopes would such a king (as Louis XVI.) have afforded to a people, wise to ask, and patient to abide? What better chief has been gained for liberty-in Robespierre, in Napoleon, in Louis XVIII., in Charles X., in Louis Philippe? Without a Revolution unless the mere assembling of the Tiers-Etat is so to be called, without, in short, (and to avoid misconception), violence and convulsion; France, under Louis XVI., and his noble son (tortured to death by the cobbler, Simon), would have had a Representative Assembly on the broadest basis, a government managed with the severest economy, a press carried on by the finest regulations,-and, more than all, the hearty sympathy and love of every land, where civilization can free the limbs, or elevate the mind. Has she ever had them since ?-has she got them now ?"†

See that valuable and accurate work, MADDEN's History of the Penal Laws on Roman Catholics in England. London, 1847.

Foreign Quarterly Review, No. viii. p. 304. (July, 1842.) See Quarterly Review, vol. lxxiii. p. 376.