our attention to those that are distinctive. "Substantial reality," says he, "no longer suffices us, we must have outward verisimilitude also; and we become apt to mistake the show for the substance;" and thus "history may become rather a gallery of portraits than a series of examples."

These remarks, it must be confessed, go far to justify those who attribute to an express provision of divine wisdom the absence of every thing like the picturesque and romantic in the narratives of the four evangelists, even when, as relating our Lord's temptation in the wilderness, his preaching on the mount, his feeding the multitudes, &c., there seemed ample scope for introducing it; and they certainly suggest an important lesson to the readers of the work before us. It cannot be said that in endeavouring to meet in some measure the present taste for minute local colouring and so forth, the author has lost sight of "the substantial realities" of his subject, or of the great lessons and bright examples of the period which he reviews. The reader, however, may be tempted to do so. Fascinated by what is adventitious and peculiar to an age, the fashion of which has in so many respects past away, he may gratify his curiosity and his imagination while his heart and conscience remain untouched, and thus he may make what is true, and was designed to be instructive, as utterly worthless in point of moral results, as if it really were a mere romance.

Two objections yet remain to be noticed.

The reader needs to be on his guard against an impression which the perusal of the first volume of the original work is likely to create, and which the author seems either not to have observed, or at least does not directly seek to rectify, until he has occasion to speak of Luther's return from the Wartburg to Wittemberg in his third volume. The substitution of forms for life, of superstitious ceremonies for the worship of the true God in spirit and in truth, and of domination on the one hand, and abject servility on the other, for the feelings of Christian love and brotherhood, by all which popery stands out in such decided contrast with primitive Christianity, together with the cold and sceptical formality which marks, alas! many of the nominally protestant churches of our day, has led the author to speak too slightly, in the opinion many excellent persons, of every thing like established ecclesiastical forms, constitution, and discipline. Indeed, one might suppose from some of his expressions, that he considered anything beyond a vague sympathy, loosely connecting persons of one faith and common feelings, as destructive of inward life and spirituality. But to those who give the whole work an attentive perusal, I am convinced it will appear that this in reality is as little the author's opinion as it is certainly far from being scripturally sound, or likely to promote vital godliness and true Christian liberty.

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The last objection is that to which I advert in a note at page 69, and it applies to the loose and dangerous employment which some have thought to be occasionally made by the author, of language borrowed from the infidel philosophy of the last century. My criticism having been quoted in a short notice of this translation by the London Record of 2d December last, it thus fell under the eye of M. Merle d'Aubigné himself, and drew from him an explanation to a correspondent, which was subsequently inserted in the same paper, and which in fairness at once to the author and myself I think it right to introduce here. As the expressions which have sounded strangely in the ears of some Christian readers, nearly all owe their suspicious aspect to their being supposed to attribute too much to the unaided powers of man, and to favour the idea, so popular with a certain school of philosophers, that mankind are in a progressive state, irrespective altogether of the action of Christianity on their individual and collective characters, this more elaborate development of the author's views will be found to apply to nearly all of them. "The Record of December the 2d announces the translation of the first volume of my History of the Reformation by Mr. D. D. Scott, and cites a remark of the translator's. I do not think the words the human mind was growing OLDER,' rightly interpret the French expression, 'L'esprit humain croissait.' It appears to me that Mr. Scott has rather translated the words as if I had written L'esprit humain vieillissait, which is not the same thing. A youth of eighteen increases in years, but we cannot say that he grows old (vieilless). From the ruins of ancient humanity God brought out a new one (une nouvelle)."

The English reader will at once perceive that M. M. d'A. fails to observe the wide difference between our use of the word old, and the French use of vieux-that to "increase in years," and "to grow older," in English mean precisely the same thing -and that had I translated croissait as if it had been vieillissait, and represented the human mind as growing old or aged, the point of my remark would have been entirely lost. What I objected to was the idea of the human mind advancing by virtue of its own energies; now old age implies, not advance, but decline.

In the following paragraph, however, the discussion ceases to be verbal, and brings fully out the view that has been objected to:

"It is youth which is referred to here rather than age. But as to the remark, I think Mr. Scott has not well understood that I distinguish between affranchissement and reformation. The work of enfranchisement was rather that of the fifteenth century; the revival of letters and the discovery of printing, and the magnetic compass, are its most marked features. The work of reformation is that of the sixteenth century. There Luther is the first and principal. The work of enfranchisement was negative; it concerned matters of which

PREFACE.

the human mind is capable. The work of the Reformation was positive; it was to create, and this is what the Spirit of the Lord can alone do. Opposition to Rome often existed among the humanists and men of letters as well as among the Reformers. But the fifteenth century substituted nothing for Rome; the sixteenth century substituted the primitive Church of Jesus Christ. This was the work of the Lord. I have also remarked, that with infidelity invading the Church it was all over with her, if the Reformation had not come to restore faith to her. Mr. Scott then is, I think, mistaken in his remark, and it appears to me that his is also the opinion of the Record. The Spirit of God, at the time of the Reformation, accomplished the work of enfranchisement much better than the human mind would ever have been able to do. But to deny, in the face of history, that it was begun in the fifteenth century, is a thing impossible."

There can be no doubt that the discoveries made in the fifteenth century, as well as the revival of letters, powerfully promoted the Reformation and the subsequent enfranchisement of the human mind. But I apprehend that the state of Italy and Spain down to the present day, not to speak of Turkey and other Mahometan and idolatrous countries which have long had the benefit of printing, the magnet, &c., fully establishes the point that, even with all these aids and appliances, the human mind is positively incapable of reaching any condition to which the word enfranchisement, or deliverance from bondage, can be justly applied. Take from philosophy what she owes to the Gospel, and even France will be found to owe little, indeed, to the natural powers of the mind. Vibrating between political bondage and anarchy as a state, and with a population divided between the slaves of Roman superstition or of selfish passions, she may fancy herself enfranchised because she has printing presses, schools of science and art, and a public press, but the enormous sums she pays to support a numerous priesthood whose tenets are vitally inimical to freedom, show that even she has not yet reached what can well be called a state of affranchisement, and when she does, I doubt not she will owe it to the Gospel not to "matters of which the human mind is capable.”

I am happy, however, to find that any remark of mine has brought out so full a statement of the Author's views; for incorrect though I still may deem them, his explanation will show at least, that in none of the expressions which have been objected to in his work, as implying dangerous concessions to the philosophical spirit that would exalt the inherent capabilities of the human mind, has he really lost sight of its utter inability to do, what God alone can do, complete its own enfranchisement. In point of fact, both before and after the fifteenth century, we find attempts made by the human mind, unaided by the faith of the Gospel, to throw off both ecclesiastical and civil bondage. These, however, have generally proceeded from the rude energies of

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an uncultivated vulgar, not from men whose civilization had been promoted by such aids as the invention of printing and the revival of literature. The unsophisticated instincts of illiterate mobs have repeatedly produced a devoted and disinterested, though headlong and ill-directed revulsion against ecclesiastical and civil wrongs, whereas the literate and polite have generally preferred consulting their own ease to the risks attending a courageous opposition to established abuses, however clearly apprehended by them, in church or state. The brunt of the conflict has almost always been borne by the former, while the latter have meanly sheltered themselves by simulating conformity with rites which they despised, and acquiescing in a tyranny which they detested; and, instead of furnishing martyrs to the cause of religious and civil liberty, they have even passively promoted the persecution of those who were so. So much for what man is capable of doing in virtue of any "growth" of which the human mind is susceptible, or of any aids afforded by the discoveries and inventions of past times, irrespective of divine revelation and the grace of God.

Such are the censures and objections which this work, like every other of similar pretensions and notoriety, has called forth, in so far as they have reached me. Granting that these were more numerous and better founded than they are, the Author's "History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century" would still remain a magnificent monument to his piety, genius, and industry. May he long be preserved in health and strength for its progress and completion! The faithful in old times, as we learn from both Testaments, loved to review God's dealings with their fathers, and to retrace the great events that had marked the history of the Church. This was a divinely-commanded duty with which they rejoiced to comply. Far from isolating the generation to which they themselves might belong, or from forgetting the special responsibilities imposed by their relation to the past and future, they found powerful encouragements to duty in connecting themselves with both. The work before us has invested a peculiarly instructive portion of the past with a fresh interest in the minds of many. May it long both continue to do so and to stimulate them also to pray and labour that the rich inheritance of privileges secured to us by the instrumentality of the faithful who have gone before, may be transmitted, increased not diminished, confirmed not weakened, to those who are to follow!

D. D. S.

PREFACE

TO THE

NETHERLANDS EDITION.

IN these days of ours, it is to the sincere and truly Reformed Christian a phenomenon in every way lamentable, that the truth as it is in Christ, and as placed in a clearer light by the Reformers, has anew been unnerved and obscured by superstition and infidelity. The thought, nevertheless, of the Lord's enduring care for the Church which he hath bought with his own blood; the promise of the eternally Faithful One, that the gates of hell shall never prevail against it, animates his courage and confirms his hopes. It is refreshing to his soul to see men full of faith and godliness step forth from the bosom of Reformed Christendom, in defence of the godlike work of the Reformation, and boldly contend for discarded truth. The contest betwixt light and darkness, the mutual collision betwixt truth and falsehood, the religious revival which shows itself in all quarters, encourage him to expect something auspicious to the cause of Christ. In all this the finger of God is visible, and these words of the Most High enter his inmost soul with resistless force: "Thou, O man of God! hold fast what thou hast received:" "Follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness:" "Fight the good fight of faith:" "Lay hold on eternal life."

Thanks be to God, the Reformation which in the sixteenth century changed the Church's external form and restored the truth to its original purity, has all along, amid attacks from without and treachery within, been an object of profoundest interest to believing souls; and at this moment, while others are misrepresenting and disowning it, commands the veneration of many rightthinking men. The history of that blessed work has tried the powers and given scope to the talents of many writers of wide repute, so that, both in our own country and in foreign lands, masterly productions of that kind have from time to time been published. What a store of writings has the ChurchReformation produced! Yet how ample soever this store may be, most welcome to the faithful Christian is the work of the excellent Merle d'Aubigné, entituled Histoire de la Reformation du seizième siècle, which has appeared at Paris and Geneva-a work quite unique in its kind. The worthy writer relates facts as they occurred in a graceful and eloquent, yet simple and impartial manner, and places persons before us as they really were. But besides this, his pages breathe a spirit seldom to be found in works of that description. He contemplates the blessed Church-Reformation as a work of God; points in it to the adorable administration of the Ruler of the universe, and from the contemplation of man's fortunes and achievements, lifts his eye to heaven.

It is far from our purpose, by any weak lines of ours, to enhance our Author's reputation, which is much beyond our praise. The tree is known by its fruits. Who can think without gratitude of the noble efforts he has put forth, along with other excellent men, for the proclamation of the truth when disguised and repudiated;-efforts which from their very commencement have been crowned with the best results? Who can contemplate unmoved the Theological school at Geneva, where M. Merle occupies the post of preacher and professor? Thanks be to the Father of lights! through the instrumentality of that seminary of faith and godliness, the candle has again been put on the candlestick. In that Geneva, to which the Netherlands owe so much, where once on a time the truth, when all but lost, was