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fashion to insist on the divine right of kings, as coming directly from God without the intervention of society. How far this theory was carried in Protestant England, we need not be told; the influence of it however was felt throughout Europe generally; and it is easy enough to see that it stood in close connection everywhere with the protest which was now made against the supremacy of the Church. We find the Catholic theologians accordingly vigorously opposing it as dangerous and false. "Political power," says Bellarmin, emanates from God alone; for being necessarily annexed to man's nature, it proceeds from Him who has made that nature. It resides primarily in the body of the people. The divine right has not given it to any man in particular. The people transfer it to one person or more by natural right. Particular forms of government accordingly are by the law of nations, and not by divine law, since it depends on the consent of the multitude to place over themselves a king, consuls, or other magistrates, as may seem best; and for a legitimate reason, they can change royalty into aristocracy, or into democracy, or vice versa, as it was done in Rome." To King James of England this doctrine sounded monstrous in the extreme. He said to his parliament: "that God had appointed him absolutely master; and that all privileges which co-legislative bodies enjoyed were pure concessions proceeding from the bounty of kings." Against Bellarmin's doctrine he showed himself all on fire, contending that kings hold their power not from the people, but immediately from God; for all which his supple courtiers proclaimed him a second Solomon. This called out the learned Spanish Jesuit Suarez, in his "Defence of the Catholic and Apostolic Faith against the Errors of the Anglican Sect," with special reference to the most serene James, King of England-addressed to the most serene Kings and Princes generally of the christian world. In this work the view of Bellarmin is ably supported as true and just, whilst the English doctrine is treated as new and singular, and as having been invented apparently to exalt the temporal over the spiritual power. The whole case furnishes a curious illustration of the political bearings of the Catholic and Protestant systems at the time in question, so different from what is often taken to be their respective necessary tendencies and affinities.

The separation of the temporal and spiritual powers, and the independence of the latter with respect to the former, have had much to do no doubt with the formation of that spirit of liberty which is characteristic of modern civilization. "Ever since the foundation of the Church, this principle of the independence of

the spiritual power has at all times served, by the mere fact of its existence, to remind men that the rights of civil power are limited, that there are things beyond its province, cases in which a man may say, and ought to say, I will not obey." Strange that the advocates of equilibrium and counterpoise, who make so much of the policy of dividing powers to prevent tyranny, should not have felt the profound wisdom of this old church doctrine even in a simply political view. But we find, on the contrary, that all modern revolutions have shown a decided tendency towards the amalgamation of the civil and ecclesiastical powers; "a convincing proof," as Balmes shrewdly observes, that these revolutions have proceeded from an origin contrary to the generative principle of European civilization, and that instead of guiding it towards perfection, they have rather served to lead it astray."

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It is historically certain, that European society as a whole, in the period before the Reformation, was steadily advancing in the direction of a rational safe liberty. The problem by which the several interests of the throne, the aristocracy, and the mass of the people, were to be rightly guarded and carried forward in the onward movement of civilization, so as by just harmony to serve and not hinder the true welfare of all, was one of vast difficulty, which however in the face of manifold disturbing forces we may see still approximating at least more and more towards its own full and proper solution. The simple position of these several elements relatively to each other, at the going out of the middle ages, is of itself enough to show how false it is to represent the old Catholicity as the enemy of popular liberty; for we see that European civilization at this time, after having been for so many centuries under the sole guardianship of that power, presented no one of these interests as exclusively predominant. "Survey the whole of Europe, and you will not find one country in which the same fact did not exist. In Spain, France, England, Germany, under the names of Cortes, States General, Parliaments, or Diets; the same thing everywhere, with the simple modifications which necessarily result from circumstances adapted to each people. And what is very remarkable in this case is, that if there be a single exception it is in favor of liberty; and strange to say, this exists precisely in Italy, where the influence of the Popes is immediately felt. The names of the Republics of Genoa, Pisa, Sienna, Florence, Venice, are familiar to all. It is well known that Italy is the country in which popular forms at that period gained most ground, and in which they were put in practice when in other countries

they had already abandoned the field.These forms of government were attended indeed with grave inconveniences; but since so much is said of spirit and tendencies, since the Catholic Church is reproached with her affinity to despotism, and the Popes with a taste for oppression, it is well to adduce these facts as suited to throw some doubt on the confident assertions oftentimes paraded as so many philosophico-historical dogmas on this subject."

We have no room to say more than a word on the other current topic of reproach, the alledged unfriendliness of the church before the Reformation to the cause of literature and science. No one who has any knowledge of history will deny that a very active interest had begun to be taken in the general cause of knowledge before this time. The movements of it enter largely into the whole culture of Europe as it now stands. But will it be imagined in any quarter, that this spirit came from the outside of the Church, and prevailed against her pleasure and in spite of her authority? To ask the question is to show its absurdity. The intellectual development of modern Europe started under an exclusively theological form. Religion formed the element, out of which it sprang and from which it drew all its activity and force. Whatever we find to be then its advancing history, it must be regarded as the product of this power, and the merit of it must be placed to its account. There were indeed tendencies almost from the beginning of the movement, that set themselves in more or less direct opposition to the Church, and on which accordingly she laid to some extent her restraining hand. But it is notorious that these were of no value comparatively for the cause of true learning. What was done for it by all the unchurchly sects of the middle ages? Who believes seriously that they had any power whatever in themselves to be helpers truly to such a cause, under any circumstances? Guizot quotes John Erigena, Roscelin, and Abelard, as the representatives of a reaction of the individual reason against the authority of the Church, which is supposed to have commenced in their time and to have reached forward to the age of Luther, as a sort of new and separate power exerted in favor of knowledge and free thought. But this comes to mere idle declamation in the end. What actual result of real lasting account for the progress of mind can be shown to have proceeded from any such quarter, as compared with what was accomplished by the action of the proper church life itself in favor of the same interest? The greatest scholars in these ages of waking intelligence, the men whose influence contributed most to the progress of all

sound science, were at the same time the most faithful sons of the Church, and such as owned the most dutiful allegiance to her authority and power.

It is a most childish fancy certainly, to suppose that the revival of learning began properly with the sixteenth century. It dates at least from the eleventh; and there is abundance of evidence that the progress made between that and the age of the Refor mation, was quite as real and important as any that has taken place since. All sorts of learning were in active exercise before Protestantism came in, to share their credit with the Roman Church. So in the case of criticism, controversy, and the learned languages, Latin, Greek and Hebrew. "Anthony de Nebrija, Erasmus, Ludovicus Vives, Laurence Villa, Leonardus Aretinus, Bembo, Sadolet, Poggio, Melchior Cano, and many others too numerous to mention; were they trained in Protestantism? Did not the Popes, moreover, take the lead in this literary movement? Who patronized the learned with greater liberality? Who supplied them with more abundant resources? Who incurred greater expenses in the purchase of the best manuscripts?"—" In Italy the study of Greek was first seriously commenced; from Italy it spread to France, and to the other European States." Reuchlin and Picus de Mirandula, the great promoters of a taste for Greek and Hebrew, were Catholics. As early as the beginning of the fourteenth century indeed, Pope Clement V., had ordained that Greek and Hebrew, and even Arabic and Chaldee, should be publicly taught, for the benefit of foreigners, at Rome, at Paris, at Oxford, at Bologna, and at Salamanca.'

"One of the causes which contributed the most to the development of the human mind was the creation of great centres of instruction, collecting the most illustrious talents and learning, and diffusing rays of light in all directions. I know not how men could forget that this idea was not due to the pretended Reformation, seeing that most of the universities of Europe were established long before the birth of Luther. That of Oxford was founded in 895; Cambridge in 1280; that of Prague, in Bohemia, in 1358; that of Louvain, in Belgium, in 1425; that of Vienna, in Austria, in 1365; that of Ingolstadt, in Germany, in 1372; that of Leipsic, in 1408; that of Basle, in Switzerland, in 1469; that of Salamanca, in 1200; that of Alcala, in 1517. It would be superfluous to notice the antiquity of the universities of Paris, of Bologna, of Ferrara, and of a great many others, which obtained the highest renown long before the advent of Protestantism. The Popes, it is well known, took an active part in the establishment of universities, granting them privileges, and bestowing upon them the highest honors and distinctions. How can any one then venture to assert, that Rome has opposed the progress of learning and the sciences, in order to keep the people in darkness and ignorance."-Balmes, p. 415.

The whole object of our Spanish author, as we have before said, is to bring out an argument against Protestantism, from a comparison of its influence with that of Catholicism, as both have been felt in the work of modern civilization. In this comparison however the book is extremely onesided and incomplete; not by the exaggeration of the merits of Catholicism as this stood before the age of the Reformation, but by the want of a correspondingly full and thorough analysis of the actual results of Protestantism. It seems to be assumed throughout, that whatever tells positively in favor of the course of things before Protestantism appeared, must be taken to tell negatively for this cause since; as though both orders of life might not contribute, in different periods, to the progress of one and the same movement. Then the eye of the writer is ever on the excesses into which the protest against authority is running, particularly in Europe at this time, in the form of rationalism and political radicalism; which are indeed just now sufficiently alarming, but still do not at once amount to a philosophical solution of the whole meaning and value of the general movement from which they incidentally spring. They may be, (God grant it), a crisis only, opening the way into a brighter era beyond. And might it not have been necessary to meet and overcome the same, in some other form, even if the progress of modern culture could have gone forward without the church rupture of the 16th century? Our American society, and so of course also the new "American Epoch" which is dawning on the history of Protestantism by means of it, Balmes may be said entirely to overlook. His vision is altogether engrossed with the social difficulties and dangers of Europe.

It is easy enough, of course, to place the comparative influence of the two systems in question, on the progress of civilization, under a very different historical view, that shall be felt to tell powerfully in favor of Protestantism and against Rome. This does not require us to vilify and disparage the Church of previous ages. We allow it rather all the merit here claimed for it, as the founder and builder of modern society on to the sixteenth century. The question regards the continuation of the work since. Protestantism, in its true form, proclaims itself, not the destroyer of the older work, but its proper finisher, or at least its necessary helper towards completion. It is to be taken as itself, in such view, the greatest birth of the Latin Church, (such as the dead Greek communion never could produce,) and so the truest and best succession also of its old life; by the power of which palpably the main stream of history has gone for