"This is really too much to have been written after the battle of Pavia, the captivity of Francis, the sack of Rome, the imprisonment of the pope, &c. &c. It shows, however, how willing Melancthon was to be pleased, and how unwise princes and great men are, who do not purchase the esteem of mankind, when it may be often bought by them at so low a price as that of a little courtesy of manners and a few gracious words." p. 73. A whole class of modern divines is silenced thus briefly in their misstatements on the fundamental doctrine of justification. Having noticed the expression of the Apostle, Gal. v. 6, "faith that worketh by love," which the Papists rendered, "faith formed by love;" meaning that it owed its power to justify to the love by which it was accompanied; he subjoins the following note: "In this Bishop Bull thinks there is little or nothing objectionable. He evidently attributes all the efficacy of faith, and even its very 'life,' to the love and good fruits which are associated with it: and, remarking that the Apostle, in his illustration, does not say, 'as a man without a spirit is dead,' but, as a body without,' &c. he affirms, 'as a dead body is truly and properly a body, so a dead faith is truly and properly faith. With this compare our homily: It is not now faith, as a dead man is not a man. p. 280. service of God, not, as some would insinuate, from that service: the doctrine which, blessed by the Spirit of God in the sixteenth century, overthrew the gainful, but corrupt and oppressive system of austerities, indulgences, purgatory, and priestly domination, that had for ages been growing up, and supplanting true religion and righteousness in the world. It is the doctrine which persons unacquainted, or but imperfectly acquainted, with Christian experience, and the operation of the Holy Ghost on the hearts of men, are ever ready to think big with a thousand dangers, and which therefore is ever liable to be tampered with, and to fall into disuse; but which has always been recovered again, to the establishment of peace in men's consciences, and righteousness in their lives, in proportion as God has poured his Spirit from on high' upon his church." pp. 41, 42. We can only afford one illustration more of our author's practical reflections, which, however, are somewhat clumsily expressed. "Alas! how much has even that consulting of their ministers, which is here spoken of, fallen into disuse even among the more religious part of their flocks! The intercourse between ministers and their people has become, too frequently, of that trite, general, and unprofitable, kind, which is almost all that passes between themselves. They have little to learn, little to ask of us; and they want confidence and earnestness of mind to ask even that little: and we ourselves, alas! unduly taken up with literature, or with news, or with business, have too little to bring forth, 'from the fulness of the heart,' for the edification of those with whom we converse. And this is apt more especially to be the case where religion has be"This brief but striking statement tells im- come more familiar, and the 'fervour of spirit,' portant truths solely contrary to the writer's with which it was at first both delivered and wishes.....It furnishes an antidote to the misre-received, has gradually worn off. May God, presentation of the sentences immediately preceding. There these changes in religion were attributed to the caprice of princes, to which the fickleness of the people was ever ready to conform itself: but here we find that the popu Again, in his treatment of the misrepresentations of the Jesuit Maimbourg, we have such brief, but conclusive, rejoinders as the following. The popish historian had been giving his own account of the progress of the Reformation in Brandenburgh and Magdeburgh. Mr. Scott turns upon him, and says, lar torrent in favour of reformation was so strong, and that not only among the lower orders, but even in the assembled states' of the provinces, that the most powerful and most zealous Catholic princes, ecclesiastical as well as civil, were obliged to give way to it!" pp. 257,258. in his mercy, forbid that this growing lukewarmness' should after all become the bane of religion in our highly favoured country, and particularly in those places which have enjoyed the most abundant religious advantages! May we remember, in a truly impressive and efficacious manner, that 'many who are first shall be last! May we 'repent and do our first works,' that our 'candlestick' may never be 'removed out of its place.'" pp. 282, 283. On another point, on which a reader would probably wish to be informed, our author's sucIn urging suitable practical reflections on the cess in answering the general misrepresentascenes which he describes, which is an import- tions of popish or other historians, our impresant duty of a church historian, our continuatorsion is, that he has to a very considerable defollows closely in the steps of his predecessors. The mercy and power of God, and not the wisdom or the courage of man, are referred to as the source of every good thing. The progress of vital and sanctifying truth in the hearts and lives of men, is ever kept in view; and the application of different incidents in history to the events of the present times is not forgotten, as in the following remarks of the great doctrine of justification by faith. "This is the doctrine which, as Luther and his friends evermore so strikingly set forth, at once brings peace to the conscience, and holiness into the heart and life; gives liberty in the gree succeeded. Maimbourg is followed, and detected with a sagacious fidelity, as we have already in one instance noticed. The defective views, and occasional errors of Robertson are exposed, and with such effect that the success of the refutation goes far to reconcile us to those extended quotations from that distinguished writer, for which our author feels it necessary to make an apology, or rather to assign his reasons, in the preface. In several particulars, Mr. Scott's judicious observations will greatly aid the young reader in forming a just judgment of that popular historian. The prejudices of Beausobre, in his account of Lu ther, are also noticed; and the perversions of Bossuet meet with their due animadversion. The public formularies which were produced at the famous diet of Augsburg, or prepared for other occasions, in the course of the sixteen years comprised in this volume, are another branch of our author's subject in which he has laboured with considerable success. There is no part of the volume which required more care and delicacy, and which has been more judiciously managed, than the review of the several parts of the Confession of Augsburg, and the comparison of them with our own Thirty-nine Articles. We can only make room for the following extract. "The point, on which I should be inclined to judge the Confession most defective, is the work of the Holy Spirit; particularly that part of it which relates to the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will,' and not only working with us when we have' that good will. Of this I find no explicit mention: certainly, at least, it would seem to be of those things which are justo mollius prolata.' "I notice this especially for the purpose of remarking, that the fashionable way of speaking of the grace of God assisting our endeavours,' and of branding every thing beyond this as fanatical, is a mere cover for practically excluding the grace of God altogether. When we speak of assisting a man's endeavours,' it implies that he is already willing and active himself: but is this the state of fallen man with respect to the service of God, previously to the influence of divine grace upon his mind? Prevenient grace must go before, and 'work in us to will, or assisting grace will find nothing with which to co-operate.-The language now frequently in use also implies, that any thing beyond assisting grace must be a compulsory influence. But it has been justly observed, that there is much said in Scripture, and in all our best divines, of an influence inclining the heart, though not forcing it; all which is thus overlooked.-Nothing can be further from my intention than to admit, that the Confession of Augsburg countenances any such system as this: it has merely omitted to guard against it so clearly and distinctly as our Articles have done." pp. 46, 47. Such observations will convince our readers, that they may safely follow our historian. They enter into the essence of theological questions, and open the fruitful sources of error, and of declension from the vital truths of the Gospel. And we cannot here avoid offering a remark, which Mr. Scott's examination of the Augsburg Confession forces from us, that our own church so far from stopping short, in any respect, of the full measure of evangelical doctrine contained in the Lutheran formularies, unquestionably proceeds further than those documents. We have an express article, on preventing (or, as Mr. Scott well expresses it, prevenient) grace; and we have an article also on predestination; on neither of which topics is the Augsburg Confession explicit; to say nothing of the greater strength of our expositions of the doctrines of original sin and justification, and our more simple and scriptural view of the sacraments. Our church approaches by far nearer to the Helvetic formularies, than to the Lutheran, anxious as some divines have been to establish a contrary conclusion. In the decision of perplexing questions, and the firm guidance of his reader's mind to a sound judgment upon them, a farther experience in this species of writing may be expected to improve our author's powers. The Milners came to the history of the Reformation with all the reading and the habits of discrimination which the study of the fourteen centuries preceding had given them. They had thence acquired a promptness of decision and a weight of authority which no one could wish a writer in his first supplemental volume to affect. Such a talent must not be assumed; it must be acquired. We allude not here to differences, whatever they may be, in natural powers; but to that firm grasp of subjects, that bold and decisive exposure of plausible error, that uncompromising independence of mind, which lead an author to estimate every thing by the word of God, and to perceive and denounce the first deviations from that unerring standard. This is a faculty which, we doubt not, will be more and more acquired by our author as he proceeds in his investigations. Further exercise will doubtless facilitate his task, and enable him to guide his readers, with less of hesitation, through the perplexing mazes of controverted occurrences, disputed motives, and dubious opinions. In adopting the mild and cautious tone of the present volume, we think Mr. Scott has erred, if he has erred at all, on the right side; and assuredly any appearance of assumption would have been quite misplaced. This first volume, if it fails, fails rather by defect than excess: it therefore allows of the author's assuming with advantage, in his future labours, a firmer voice of decision, both on controverted points, and on cases of practical conduct, as well as a more mellow tone of evangelical sentiment. These the writer will naturally acquire, and the reader as naturally be disposed to admit, in the succeeding volumes. To this end perhaps it might be desirable to limit more the mere citations from the original historians, and rather to incorporate their statements into his own mind, as the materials from which to weave his own narrative. Seckendorf and Sleiden and Father Paul have been possibly rather too much brought forward in their own persons, instead of being used generally as the elements of a new and independent composition. Nothing indeed can be more important than perpetual references in the margin to such authorities; occasional quotations also are far from being inappropriate. But, in the prosecution of his work, we should be inclined to think that its value would be greatly enhanced by first studying these writers attentively, and then pouring out from a well stored mind his own narration of events. Materials thus incorporated with a writer's reflections, and reproduced after their thorough appropriation, produce a very different effect from mere abridgment. The first rises to the dignity and importance of history; the second partakes of the character of mere annals. The first leaves the author at liberty to give a just impression of the whole of a given portion of events; the second shackles him with the opinions of others. The one is an original effort, the other a mere copy. By this more unfettered course, we conceive that Mr. Scott would insensibly acquire greater freedom and purity of style. The Milners were far from attaining to excellence in this respect. Still, in the portions of the work written by the Dean, there is a nervousness, a vivacity, and a clearness, which bear strongly the stamp of original thought, and frequently carry away the reader by the force of the author's own conceptions. The style is indeed far too diffuse; but the reader never mistakes the writer's meaning, or fails to receive a powerful impression of the subject which he urges; a point of prime importance in historical composition. We recommend it to Mr. Scott to keep this hint full in view. There are parts of his volume exceedingly well written, and the defects of those sentences which are so obscure as to require to be read a second time before their meaning is clearly perceived, probably arise from the haste and interruptions to which the composition of a long work, by an active parochial clergyman, must be exposed. It is a point not wholly unimportant, to pay some regard to the selection and just use of words: there are several scattered in this volume which, though admitted into common colloquial use, are misplaced in the more elevated style which becomes history. We make these remarks, both on the independence of the composition and the character of the style, with the more freedom, because the volume demands, and will bear any suggestions which may conduce to the improvement of those that are to follow. And yet, after all, we feel that the course pursued by our author is infinitely better than that style of philosophical speculation in writing history, which, idly contenting itself with a few prominent facts, proceeds to construct theories, and to assign motives at pleasure, almost converting history into romance; and where the writer, instead of reporting with faithfulness and impartiality the testimony of contemporary annals and authentic records, frames à narrative chiefly with a view to effect, or to some preconceived theory of his own; or, under the influence either of prejudice or of party feeling, enlarges, contracts, or distorts, as suits his purpose, the transactions he has undertaken to record. With such an author as Mr. Scott, we feel that we are at least on safe ground. We learn from him the true history of the events we are solicitous to become acquainted with; and though desirous that more of that purity and elevation of style, and that originality of composition, which distinguish the writings of some of our more secular historians, might be infused into the subsequent volumes, we should nevertheless strongly press upon him the duty of prosecuting, to its consummation, the work which he has so ereditably commenced. We have adverted to the manner, in which Mr. Scott succeeds in the development of perplexed and difficult topics. The first which occurs, the grave question respecting the lawfulness of resistance to the emperor, is well argued, and we think safely determined. On the shameful event of the bigamy of the Landgrave of Hesse, we think it would have been better at once to have admitted that the re formers acted erroneously in giving any sanc tion, under any limitations, to so grossly criminal a proceeding.-The admission or approbation of a direct sin, under the plausible ground of a comparative case only being submitted for judgment, is dangerous and unwarrantable. The questions connected with the life of Erasmus, a name so great among the revivers of learning, and so little in the far more elevated rank of religious reformers, are judiciously settled: his dubious movements are well exposed, the tendency of his proposals of reconciliation detected, and his real character fairly estimated. Indeed, the views presented generally throughout the volume on the subject of the numerous conferences and attempts at concord between the Roman Catholic and Protestant bodies, which uniformly failed of success, are amongst the best decisions of our author. We would willingly quote a specimen or two on this topic, if we were not reminded, by our contracting limits, that we must now confine ourselves to one or two citations, with which we shall conclude this second division of our subject. The two following are striking passages. The calm, acute, and conclusive reasoning of the first, and the unambitious elevation of the second, are both equally excellent. After several pages of remarks on Beausobre's letter of Melancthon, and on the use made of that supposed letter by a modern Roman Catholic writer, Mr. Scott proceeds to refute a misrepresentation of Bossuet relating to Luther's imputed intercourse with the devil, and then advances some general observations full of sound sense on the drift of Bossuet's celebrated, but most unfair, work, directed against the Reformation, under the title of "The History of the Varieties, &c." He concludes with the following able passage: "It has struck me, in reading the Bishop of Meaux's work, that a writer equally able, equally unflinching, and, in particular, acting under the influence of a misguided conscience, would find little difficulty in composing much such a book, drawn from the New Testament itself, and directed against Christianity, as he has composed professedly from the writings of the reformers, against the Reformation. The 23d chapter of St. Matthew would be made to furnish specimens of the violent and unmeasured language in which the Founder of the system indulged, even against characters the most venerable for rank and station. The answers, 'It is not meet to take the children's bread, and cast it to dogs,' and 'Let the dead bury the dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God,' would be converted into proofs of insolence and imperiousness: while the sentences, I am not come to send peace upon the earth, but a sword;' 'I am come to send fire on the earth, and what will I if it be already kindled;' would be considered as avowals, that the Author of the doctrine cared not what consequences followed from his attempts to establish it. The Epistles to the Galatians and the Corinthians would be eminently serviceable to the composer of such a work. They would detect the same disagreements occurring among some principal agents in the cause (Gal. ii. 11-14), as are objected to the Protestants; the same divisions and contentions among their converts; and abuses of sacred ordinances not less gross. Nay, the foulest charge of all, that men became more immoral and vile after embracing the Reformed doctrine than ever before, would not be without its parallel from the very words of an apostle-such fornication among you as is not so much as named among the gentiles. Yet who does not see that all would be perversion and misrepresentation, and of no real weight? As it would be in the one case, so is it in the other." pp. 554, 555. The other passage is of a different order: it is simple and natural, but elevated. It refers to the death of Luther. "Thus died in peace the man, who, bearing no higher office than that of an Augustinian monk, and afterwards of a Protestant professor of divinity, had shaken to its centre one of the most firmly-seated systems of despotism and delusion that the world ever beheld; who had provoked, and for nearly thirty years together defied, the utmost malice of those mighty powers, which had a little time before made the proudest monarchs to tremble on their thrones; while, for the suppression of his principles, diet after diet of the German empire, aided by the representatives of the papal authority, met in vain. His hand had been against every man that was engaged on the side of reigning error, and every such man's hand was against him; yet not one of them could touch a hair of his head to his hurt: he lived and died unharmed, not only in the presence of all his brethren,' but in despite of all his enemies. So marvellous is the providence of God; so inexhaustible is his store of means for accomplishing all his pleasure;' and so secure, under all circumstances, is the man over whom the shield of his protection is extended." p. 478. We proposed, as the last general division of this article, to make such practical deductions with regard to the duty of Protestant Christians in the present day, as may naturally be drawn from the whole subject. ring provinces of Italy? Where the evangelical aspirations of Spain? And even if we compare our church with those which still retain the Protestant name, how superior our grounds for praising God! For what has been, and is, the state of the Swiss reformed churches; of the Genevese, the German, the Swedish, the Danish, the Norwegian, the Dutch? Where is there so pure and scriptural a national creed in effective operation as in our own country? Where so bright an effulgence of evangelical light? Where, notwithstanding any remaining civil disabilities, is toleration granted so amply to the varying modes of Christian worship, or of religious effort resorted to by tender or misinformed consciences? Where, with many deplorable exceptions, especially in our cities, is education more widely diffused? Where is there a system of doctrine and discipline more freely admitting the practical revival of pure and undefiled religion? Where are the Scriptures more studied, or more purely expounded? We are aware, that large, very large, deductions, must be made from these statements; but still our present point, the duty of gratitude to God, is not weakened by the consideration of our failing to make a due use of the vast advantages we enjoy. Let the reader consider only the position of this country in the present day with respect to the conversion of the heathen nations, our civil and religious freedom, our wealth and resources, our extended commerce opening to us an intercourse with every part of the world, our influence, the principles of improvement which are fermenting on all sides, the re-awakened spirit of religious inquiry, the establishment and progress of so many great societies for the diffusion of the Gospel, and the attention which is fixed upon us by other nations, and he will discover abundant testimonies of the Divine mercy, and corresponding reasons for grateful acknowledgment. There are two points however, relative to our own country, which occur to us as peculiarly demanding our thanksgivings, when we 1. Thankfulness to Almighty God for the look forward to the conversion of mankindBlessings of the Reformation, is the first prac- OUR LIBERTY, RELIGIOUS AND CIVIL; and the tical duty suggested by the volume before us. EXTENT OF OUR EMPIRE. Let the considerate What do we not owe, as Englishmen, as Pro- reader reflect how, three centuries back, every testants, as Christians, to the heroic constancy such attempt at good by individuals would have and evangelical labours of the reformers! But been crushed by the rude hand of power; let for their efforts, who knows but some scourge him remember the tyranny by which the popesimilar to that of the Mahommedan imposture dom secured its usurpation over the undermight have been sent into the West, as it was standings and consciences of mankind; let him into the East, unless, indeed, which is more pro- recollect that, for the first half of his career, bable considering the development of European Luther could only gain a connivance limited intellect, scepticism or deism had preoccupied by great hesitation and indecision; and then its place? The anti-christian corruptions of let him compare this state of things with the the one division of Christendom in the six- almost unlimited range for every Christian teenth century were as gross, and nearly as and benevolent effort which our national freefundamental, as those of the other division of dom presents to us. Let him consider also the it in the seventh. But the mercy of God raised actual resources and extent of the British emup Luther and his fellow-labourers to reform, pire; let him cast his eye on the States of instruct, and illuminate the European churches, North America, planted by the hand of Britons, instead of permitting some second Moham- speaking their language, and propagating their med (or, shall we rather say, some apostle of religion; then let him turn his view to the infidelity?) to enslave and to destroy them: and crowded population of the Eastern world, and amongst all the nations of Europe there is not behold half a continent brought under the one which has such peculiar reasons for grati- sceptre, or open to the predominant influence tude to God as our own. Where are now the of this country; next, let him enumerate, as churches of France? Where the awakened he passes over the map of the world, the colocities and states of Austria? Where the inqui-nies and possessions of the British crown scatRel. Mag.-No. 1. E 34 tered on the borders of the chief Pagan and Mohammedan nations; and when he has compared all this with the diminutive power and circumscribed limits of our empire, three, or two, or even one century back, he will be able to ascertain what causes we have for exuberant praise to Him who thus has singularly enlarged our opportunities of good beyond those of other nations. We admit most fully that this liberty and this power are not, after all, the leading blessings of the Reformation itself: nor do we present them in this view. We admit, and expressly maintain, that the main benefits of that signal revolution were the emancipation of the human mind, the spiritual illumination and instruction of man, the overthrow of religious ignorance and idolatry, and the development of the peculiar and vital doctrines of the grace and satisfaction of Christ; and we strongly approve of Mr. Scott's remonstrances on this subject: we agree with him in protesting against those statements which would represent the chief blessings of the Reformation to be the mere principles of Christian liberty and toleration. Unquestionably, its chief blessings consisted in the assertion of the exclusive and paramount authority of Scripture, and in the tradition. Popery had closed, and still closes, the Scriptures to the mass of mankind; Protestantism has spread them wide as the sun. Popery appeals to fathers and councils, and decrees of the church; Protestantism appeals to the one supreme rule of faith and duty." Popery works by the arts of the schoolmen, and the concealment or perversion of Holy Scripture; Protestantism by the simple exposition of the unadulterated word of God. We have but to look through the volume we have been reviewing, to see that the Scriptures were the chart of the reformers. The book of God was ever in their hands. Their submission to it was unconditional. They daily read it, and meditated upon its contents. It was wrought into their whole system. A sacred awe filled their minds, God had revealed for the salvation of mankind. when treating of the matters which the eternal They did not indeed reject the testimony of tradition, the opinion of the fathers, the dictates of experience, or the aids of sound sense, and learned criticism when humbly applied to aid, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, the just interpretation of the sacred volume. But they assigned to none of these an authority over the book which they were intended to illustrate. They gave to none of them equal or similar force to the inspired text; much less did they, in practice, reject that text, and preach the decrees of fathers and councils. It is almost impossible to conceive, now that the impression of the past has so nearly spent itself, how generally the holy writings were unknown, first arose. If we cast a view at the Romish neglected, perverted, almost lost, when Luther preachers of the last century, or even at their discourses in the present, what ignorance of the Scriptures, what distortion of facts, what mere follies do we see imposed upon their hearers; the great argument of each portion of the sermon is not the word of Christ, but the word of Tertullian, Augustine, Jerome, or Bernard. All intelligent use of the oracles of God seems neglected, as if by common consent. And here we cannot but observe, that the Protestants have not been free from this defect, though in a different manner; that is to say, from at times perverting, as well as neglecting, the blessed Scriptures. The Church of Rome may be said, in practice, virtually to have denied them all authority; the Protestant Church has occasionally weakened the simplicity of their testimony, by over-straining particular passages, by carrying its simple practical theology to metaphysical refinement, by magnifying the doctrine of a few texts to the disparagement of the fair bearing of the whole record, by neglecting the proportion, the scope, the spirit of the different parts of Divine truth. Probably no class of Protestants is wholly free from this error. We speak not now of the Socinians in our own country, or of those who are termed Rationalists, or Neologists, in Germany; (we shall advert to this last fatal corruption present 2. But, to this end, it will be essential that a right direction should be given to our endeavours and our prayers; and therefore we proceed to deduce, as a second practical conclusion from the history before us, the importance of keeping ever alive in our minds, the great principle of all the Reformed communities. The experience of the whole church of Christ for eighteen centuries loudly proclaims, that all essential error, leading to the ruin of the souls of men, and of the prosperity and even existence of Christian communities, has had its risely :) but we are speaking of the vast body of in the neglect of the Holy Scriptures. Here then the reformers took their ground. Their grand principle was, that the Scriptures contain all things necessary to eternal salvation; whilst the Papists rested on human authority, the commandments of men, the dictates of fallible Protestants who build on the great foundation of the sacrifice of Christ, and who yet, for want of a more adequate submission of the whole heart to every part of the holy volume, are at times guilty of taking away from its genuine efficacy. Let Protestants, then, return more |