reforming the corruptions of the Church, and reclaiming its CHAP. II. members from a preposterous hierarchy; and the second under pretence of holding, by a lawful succession, the keys of St. Peter, as Christ's vicar upon earth.

17. The true and genuine Gospel of Jesus Christ was never preached with quarrelling and wrangling and animosity, nor protected in shedding blood with the sword; but with the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven; and the fruits of that Spirit are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, goodness, and such like; to the whole of which, every proceeding of the Reformation, stood in direct opposition from the beginning.

18. Nay more, the first reformers had sufficient reason for not pretending to be influenced by that Spirit of goodness, for otherwise their conduct would immediately have discovered to the eyes of every beholder, the falsity of their pretensions."

tory, vol.

53.

19. But Luther being now expelled from the good old mother Eccl. Hischurch, (as Mosheim calls her) instead of being intimidated by iv. 26. the laws which she enacted against him, "they led him to form 41, 52, and the project of founding a church upon principles entirely opposite to those of Rome." And this is not all, they led him to establish in it, a system of doctrines and ecclesiastical discipline, agreeable to the suggestions of his own natural sagacity.

20. For to urge that the first reformers had no divine commission, and were conducted only by the suggestions of their natural sagacity, as Protestant writers have done, and at the same time to pretend that they conducted agreeable to the spirit and precepts of the Gospel of truth, is a palpable contradiction, and only acting the hypocrite under the sacred names of God and Christ.

21. The true primitive Christians professed to have, and in truth had the Spirit of Christ, by which they were led; and love was the bond of their union. Whatever they suffered by cruel persecutions, and the most ignominious deaths, they sought for no civil powers to defend their cause, at the expense of the blood of their fellow creatures.

Every wise and candid person will feel it a matter of the first importance to examine, with the utmost care and attention, that foundation on which he is called to build his hope of happiness hereafter. Let such view the effects of that system produced by the first reformers; let bim carefully examine that foundation upon which all the protestant sectaries throughout the world have built their jarring edifices, from which they have drawn their clashing creeds, and let him judge the work by its effects. On a fair examination of their proceedings, there appears scarcely room for a plea of sincerity in their favor; but granting that they were even sincere, the best apology that can be made in their behalf is, that the dark power of antichrist had covered the earth, and gross darkness had blinded the eyes of the most sincere among them. While they were united to that kingdom whose works were contention and strife, they must have been grossly deceived to imagine that they were the subjects of the Prince of Peace. As the fruit is the best evidence of the nature of the tree which produced it; so the ungodly practices of the divided and contentious protestant sectaries are the true witnesses of the source from whence they sprung.

CHAP. II. 22. But after the Alexandrian priesthood had corrupted the truth and simplicity of the Gospel, and these dregs of Jewish and Pagan superstition were converted into the pretended oracles of God, and set up as a religious test of orthodoxy, then it became highly necessary that civil rulers should assume the supremacy in this ecclesiastical hierarchy, in order, by the power of the sword, to defend its test and preserve it from losing ground.

Eccl. History, vol. iv. p. 66.

Ibid. p. 67.

Ibid. p. 67.

23. The cause of Luther stood in evident need of such help to prevent it from falling; and the project which he formed of founding a church, upon principles opposite to those of Rome, was nothing less than to secure the aid of secular princes: particularly of JOHN, elector of Saxony, and successor to FREDERICK, the elector before mentioned.

24. The elector JOHN, "convinced of the truth of Luther's doctrine, and persuaded that it must lose ground and be soon suppressed, if the despotic authority of the Roman pontiff remained undisputed and entire, without hesitation or delay, assumed to himself that supremacy in ecclesiastical matters that is the natural right of every lawful sovereign." So says Mosheim.

25. That this sovereign had as good a right to be the supreme head of the Catholic church as Constantine or the pope, is not disputed, but a supremacy over the Church of Christ, or any part of it, was never given him. Like the kings of the Gentiles, he might exercise lordship, create churches and priesthoods, or reform part of the old church over again, and defend it by the sword, and when he had done all, he could only prove by so doing that Christ had never given him either precepts or example for his conduct.

26. The elector JOHN ordered a body of laws, relating to the form of ecclesiastical government, the method of public worship, the rank, offices, and revenues of the priesthood, to be drawn up by Luther and Melancthon, and promulgated by heralds throughout his dominions in the year 1527.

27. The example of this elector was followed by all the princes and states of Germany, who renounced the papal supremacy. Now they had a supremacy of their own, a secular prince to perform the functions of spiritual supremacy in the church.

28. And who now could tell the difference between setting up a religious test of supremacy at Constantinople, at Rome, or in Saxony? If there was any difference it was in quantity only, and not in nature; for all blended the spirit of violence and the sword, with the pretended Gospel of Jesus. Likewise this reformed supremacy and coalition of civil and ecclesiastical powers, like the decrees of Constantine, very soon discovered the fruits of that spirit by which Luther formed his projects.

29. Mosheim says, "From that time, the religious differences between the German princes, which had been hitherto kept with

in the bounds of moderation, broke out into a violent and lasting CHAP. II. flame."

Jas. iii. 5, 6.

30. Well, therefore, said the prophet Isaiah, Wickedness Isa ix. 18. burneth as the fire: and James; Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth! and setteth on fire the course of nature; and is set on fire of hell. Such was the fire of discord, which heated the spirits of the reforming party, and produced, at length, what they call the Blessed Reformation!

31. So Dr. Mosheim goes on, "The timorousness, of FREDERICK the Wise, who avoided every resolute measure that might be adapted to kindle the fire of discord, had preserved a sort of external union and concord among these princes. But as soon as his successor made it glaringly evident, that he designed to withdraw the churches in his dominions from the jurisdiction of Rome, and to reform the doctrine, discipline, and worship that had been hitherto established, then indeed the scene changed."

Eccl. His

v. p. 67-69.

tory, vol.

32. Their specious union was dissolved of a sudden, the spirits Ibid. p. 60, heated and divided, and an open rupture formed between the 61. princes, of whom one party adhered to the superstitions of their forefathers, and the other embraced the project of reforming their mother. But the fruits of this Reformation continued to be such as to reduce the state of things to violence and trouble, the natural consequence of civil and ecclesiastical combinations.

138.

33. "Thousands of volumes, (says Robinson,) ancient and Eccl. Remodern, have been written to assort and conciliate this kind of searches, p. government; but it never can be exonerated of the charge of inconvenience to two parties, and injustice to a third, whose interests are unnaturally separated from those of the other two."

34. "There is not an evil that can blast society, which is not Ibid. p. 139. contained in this fatal coalition. Out of these two absolute powers in one kingdom, rise new crimes, new claims, new disputes, a new order of men to investigate them, new canons of law, new officers, new courts, new taxes, new punishments, a new world all in arms, animated with a fury that never slept, and never cooled till one party subdued the other into silence. There was no peace in any kingdom where this system was adopted till either the prince disarmed the priest, or the priest dethroned the prince."

35. Such were the blessings to mankind for which the Alexandrian priesthood had paved the way when Constantine assumed the supremacy in the church; and the diabolical farce would seem to have been completed when the popes assumed the reins of civil and ecclesiastical government, had not Luther appeared to act the same tragedy over again by his projects with the princes.

36. By a diet or assembly of princes, held at Spire, in 1526, under the emperor CHARLES V, who was a Roman Catholic,

Ecel. His

tory, vol.

iv. p. 69.

CHAP. II. after long debates the reforming party gained the majority for a general council to settle their controversies. It was unanimously agreed to present a solemn address to the emperor, beseeching him to assemble, without delay, this general council; and it was also agreed, that, in the mean time, the princes and states of the empire should, in their respective dominions, be at liberty to manage ecclesiastical matters as they should think proper; yet so as to be able to give to God and to the emperor an account of their administration.

Eccl. History, vol.

iv. p. 71, 72.

Ibid. p. 91.

37. But in another diet held at Spire, in 1529, the liberty of the reforming party was interrupted; for by a majority of votes the former agreement was revoked, and every change declared unlawful, that should be introduced into the established religion, until the determination of a general council was known.

38. The elector of Saxony, who had assumed the supremacy in the church, considered this decree as iniquitous and intolerable; as did also the landgrave of Hesse, and the other members of the diet, who were persuaded of the necessity of a reformation in the church. Therefore they entered a protest against this decree, and still appealed to the emperor and to a general council. Hence arose the denomination of Protestants. Therefore, from this period, the church must be considered as divided between the Papists and Protestants.

39. In the year 1530, a diet was held at Augsburg, and a confession of faith drawn up by Luther and Melancthon, called the Augsburg Confession, was read and presented to the emperor.

40. The creatures of the Roman pontiff, (says Mosheim,) who were present at this diet, employed John Faber, Eckius, and another doctor named Cochlaus, to draw up a refutation of this famous confession. The emperor demanded of the Protestant members that they would acquiesce in it, and put an end to their religious debates."

41. The Protestants, or creatures of Luther, declared, on the contrary, that they were by no means satisfied with the reply of their adversaries, and desired a copy of it to demonstrate its weakness. "This reasonable request (says Mosheim) was refused by the emperor."

42. Yet this was the emperor to whom they had appealed; and all their appeals to princes and councils were of a like kind, and produced the like fruits of more violent contentions and discord as opposite to the nature and effects of the true Gospel, as midnight darkness is opposite to the meridian sun.

CHAPTER III.

FRUITS AND EFFECTS OF THE PROTESTANT GOSPEL.

ACCORDING to Mosheim, the votaries of Rome, had recourse to measures suited to the iniquity of the times, though they were equally disavowed by the dictates of reason and the precepts of the Gospel. These measures were, the force of the secular arm, and the authority of imperial edicts.

2. The Protestants, to show that they were evidently actuated by the self-same spirit of iniquity, left no means unemployed, however contrary to the precepts of the Gospel, that might corroborate to form a league for the purpose of repelling force by force.

3. An alliance with papists against other papists, nay, with the wickedest of popish princes, was not deemed too base, provided it was likely to answer their purposes. And instead of imperial edicts, Luther supplied this place, by exhorting the princes, not to abandon those truths which they had lately asserted with such boldness.

4. After the diet of Augsburg, in 1530, the Protestant princes assembled at Smalcald. "There they concluded a league against all aggressors, by which they formed the Protestant states of the empire into one regular body, and beginning already to consider themselves as such, they resolved to apply to the kings of France and England, and implore them to patronize and assist their new confederacy." So says Robertson.

5. The king of England was HENRY VIII, the most licentious and wretched character of that age. And the king of France was FRANCIS I, a professed papist, a blood-thirsty and cruel tyrant, who, as his own private and personal views required, in order to foment sedition and rebellion, could enter into a league with the Protestants, and at other times, when he had no more occasion for their services, could commit them daily to the flames.* The Protestant historians have themselves given these two princes this character.

6. This confirms what has been just now stated, that a confederacy would be entered into by Protestants with any, however base or wicked, provided by it, they had a prospect of answering their own purposes against their former brethren.

He was indeed, the most inhuman, implacable and cruel tyrant, who could declare, "that if he thought the blood in his arm was tainted with the Lutheran heresy, he would have it cut off; and that he would not spare even his own children, if they entertained sentiments contrary to those of the Catholic church." Mosheim's Eccl. Hist. Vol. IV, p. 87, Note [z.]