his doctrine and conduct on the written word of God alone. In vain did Luther claim a superiority over them; in vain did he denounce hell-fire against them; (1) in vain did he threaten to return back to the Catholic Religion; (2) he had put the Bible into each man's hand to explain it for himself, and this his followers continued to do in open defiance of him; (3) till their mutual contradictions and discords became so numerous and scandalous, as to overwhelm the thinking part of them with grief and confusion. (4)

(1) He said to them: I can defend you against the Pope, -but when the devil shall urge against you (the authors of these changes) at your death, this passage of Scripture, they ran and I did not send them, how shall you withstand him? He will plunge you headlong into hell.'-Oper. tom. vii. fol. 274.

(2) If you continue in these measures of your common deliberations, I will recant whatever I have written or said, and leave you. Mind what I say.' Oper. tom. vii. fol. 276. edit. Wittemb.

(3) See the curious challenge of Luther to Carlostad to write a book against the Real Presence, when one wishes the other to break his neck, and the latter retorts: may I see thee broken on the wheel.-Variat. b. ii. n. 12.

(4) Capito, minister of Strasburgh, writing to Farel, pastor of Geneva, thus complains to him: God has given me to understand the mischief we have done by our precipitancy in breaking with the Pope, &c. The people say to us: I know enough of the Gospel. I can read it for myself. I have no need of you.' Inter Epist. Calvini. In the same tone Dudith writes to his friend Beza: Our people are carried away with every wind of doctrine. If you know what their religion is to-day, you cannot tell what it will be to-morrow. In what single point are those Churches which have declared war against the Pope agreed amongst themselves? There is not one point which is hot held by

To point out some few of the particular variations alluded to; for to enumerate them all would require a work ten times more voluminous than that of Bossuet on this subject: it is well known that Luther's fundamental principle was that of imputed justice, to the exclusion of all acts of virtue and good works performed by ourselves. His favourite disciple and bottle companion, Amsdorf, carried this principle so far as to maintain, that Good works are a hindrance to salvation. (1) In vindication of his fundamental tenet, Luther vaunts as follows:‹ This article shall remain in spite of all the world: it is I, Martin Luther, Evangelist, who say it: let no one therefore attempt to infringe it, neither the Emperor of the Romans, nor of the Turks, nor of the Tartars; neither the Pope, nor the Monks, nor the Nuns, nor the Kings, nor the Princes, nor all the Devils in hell. If they attempt it, may the infernal flames be their recompense. What I say here is to be taken for an inspiration of the Holy Ghost.' (2) Notwithstanding, however, these terrible threats and imprecations of their master, Melancthon, with the rest of the Lutherans, abandoned this article, immediately after his death, and went over to the opposite

some of them as an article of faith, and by others as an impiety.' In the same sentiment, Calvin, writing to Melancthon, says, 'It is of great importance that the divisions, which subsist among us, should not be known to future ages: for nothing can be more ridiculous than that we, who have broken off from the whole world, should have agreed so ill among ourselves from the very beginning of the Reformation.'

(1) Mosheim's Hist. by Maclaine, vol.iv. p. 528. ed. 1790. (2) Visit, Saxon,

extreme of Semipelagianism; not only admitting the necessity of good works, but also teaching that these are prior to God's grace. Still on this single subject Osiander, a Lutheran, says, there are twenty several opinions, all drawn from the Scripture, and. held by different members of the Augsburgh or Lutheran Confession.' (1)

Nor has the unbounded license of explaining Scripture, each one in his own way, which Protestants claim, been confined to mere errors and dissensions: it has also caused mutual persecution and bloodshed: (2) it has produced tumults, rebellions, and anarchy beyond recounting. Dr. Hey asserts, that The misinterpretation of Scripture brought on the miseries of the Civil War;' (3) and Lord Clarendon, (4) Madox, (5) and other writers show, that there was not a crime committed by the Puritan rebels, in the course of it, which they did not profess to justify by texts and instances drawn from the sacred volumes. Leland, Bergier, Barruel, Robison, and Kett, abundantly prove that the poisonous, plant of infidelity, which has produced such dreadful effects of late years on the Continent, was transplanted thither from this Protestant island, and that it was produced, nourished, and increased to its enormous growth, by that principle of private

(1) Archdeacon Blackburn's Confessional, p. 16.

(2) See Letters to a Prebendary, chapter Persecution. Numberless other proofs of Protestants persecuting, not only Catholics, but also their fellow Protestants to death, on account of their religious opinions, can be adduced.

(3) Dr. Hey's Theological Lectures, vol. i. p. 77, (4) Hist. of Civ. War.

(5) Examin. of Neal's Hist. of Puritans.

was

judgment in matters of religion, which is the very foundation of the Reformation. Let us hear the two last-mentioned authors, both of them Protestant Clergymen, on this important subject. The spirit of free inquiry,' says Kett, quoting Robison, the great boast of the Protestants, and their only support against the Catholics; securing them, both in their civil and religious rights. It was therefore encouraged by their governments, and sometimes indulged to excess. In the progress of this contest, their own Confessions did not escape censure; and it was asserted, that the Reformation, which these Confessions express, was not complete. Further Reformation was proposed. The Scriptures, the foundation of their faith, were examined by clergymen of very different capacities, dispositions, and views, till, by explaining, correcting, allegorizing, and otherwise twisting the Bible, men's minds had hardly any thing to rest on, as a doctrine of Revealed Religion. This encouraged others to go further, and to say that Revelation was a solecism, as plainly appears by the irreconcileable differences among the enlighteners of the public, so they were called; and that man had nothing to trust to, but the dictates of natural reason. Another set of writers, proceeding from this as from a point settled, proscribed all Religion whatever, and openly taught the doctrines of Materialism and Atheism. Most of these innovations were the work of Protestant Divines, from the causes that I have mentioned. But the progress of infidelity was much accelerated by the establishment of a Philanthropine, or Academy of general education, in the principality of Anhalt-Dessau. The professed object of this insti

tution was, to unite the three Christian communions of Germany, and to make it possible for the members of them all not only to live amicably, and to worship God in the same Church, but even to communicate together. This attempt gave rise to much speculation and refinement; and the proposal for the amendment of the Formulas, and the instructions from the pulpit, were prosecuted with so much keenness, that the ground-work of Christianity was refined and refined till it vanished altogether, leaving Deism, or natural, or, as it was called, Philosophical Religion in its place. The Lutherans and Calvinists, prepared by the causes before-mentioned, to become dupes to this masterpiece of art, were enticed by the specious liberality of the scheme, and the particular attention which it promised to the morals of youth: but not one Roman Catholic could Basedow allure to his seminary of practical Ethics.' (1)

IV. You have seen, dear Sir, to what endless errors and impieties the principle of private interpretation of Scripture, no less than that of private inspiration of faith, has conducted men, and of course is ever liable to conduct them. This circumstance, therefore, proves, according to the selfevident maxim stated above, that it cannot be the Rule which is to bring us to religious truths. Nor is it to be imagined that, previously to the formation of the different National Churches and other religious associations, which took place in the several parts of Europe, at what is called The Reformation,' the Scriptures were diligently consulted by the (1) Robison's Proofs of a Conspiracy against all Religions, &c. Kett's History, the Interpreter of Prophecy, vol. ii. p. 158.