but God by your means, rescued me from the snare of the fowler. But why do I say me? for I trust you have saved others along with me?' The meaning of Egidio is, that, having been enlightened by the writings of the Swiss reformer, which Providence had thrown in his way, he had imparted the knowledge of the truth to some of his brethren of the same convent. In another letter he adjures Zuingle to write him a letter which might be useful for opening the eyes of others belonging to his religious order. But let it be cautiously written (continues he), for they are full of pride and self-conceit. Place some passages of Scripture before them, by which they may perceive how much God is pleased at having his word preached purely and without mixture, and how highly he is offended with those who adulterate it and bring forward their own opinions as Divine. The same spirit breathes in a letter addressed by Balthasor Fontana, a Carmelite monk of Locarno, to the Evangelical Churches of Switzerland. Hail, ye faithful in Christ. Think, O think, of Lazarus in the Gospels, and of the lowly woman of Canaan, who was willing to be satisfied with the crumbs which fell from the table of the Lord. As David came to the priest in a servile dress and unarmed, so do I fly to you for the shew-bread and the armour laid up in the sanctuary. Parched with thirst I seek to the fountains of living water: sitting like a blind man by the way side, I cry to Him that gives sight. With tears and sighs we who sit here in darkness humbly entreat you, who are acquainted with the titles and authors of the books of knowledge, (for to you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God) to send us the writings of such elect teachers as you possess, and particularly the works of the divine Zuinglius, the far-celebrated Luther, the acute Melancthon, the accurate Ecolampade. The prices will be paid to you through his excellency, Werdmyller. Do your endeavour, that a city of Lombardy, enslaved by Babylon, and a stranger to the Gospel of Christ, may be set free.'" pp. 36-39. Having thus treated the subject more generally, our author proceeds in his third chapter to trace the progress of the Reformed doctrine distinctly, in the principal states of Italy. The very list may excite some surprise. It comprehends Ferrara, Modena, Florence, Bologna, Faenza and Imola, Venice, the Milanese, Naples and Sicily, Lucca, the Siennese, the Pisano and Mantua, Locarno, and Istria; to which are to be added, as noticed only more slightly, Genoa, Verona, Citadella, Cremona, Brescia, Civiti di Friuli, Ancona, the Roman territories, and Rome itself. For particulars the reader must be referred to the volume; but a few interesting points shall be selected. One of the most remarkable circumstances in this history is, the high character for rank, talent, and elegant literature of the principal patrons, both male and female, of the Reformathe celebrated runara, stanus eminently Amana thoon ners, speaking the French and Italian languages with equal purity, and deeply versed in the Greek and Roman classics, she attracted the love and admiration of all who knew her. Before leaving her native country, she had become acquainted with the Reformed doctrine, by means of some of those learned persons who frequented the court of the celebrated Margaret, queen of Navarre; and she was anxious to facilitate its introduction into the country to I which her residence was now transferred. For some time she could only do this under the covert of entertaining its friends as men of letters, which the duke, her husband, was ready to encourage, or at least to wink at. The first persons to whom she extended her protection and hospitality, on this principle, were her own countrymen, whom the violence of persecution had driven out of France."-[Among these were the poet Clement Marot, and John Calvin.]-"But the Reformed doctrine was propagated chiefly by means of those learned men whom the duchess retained in her family for the education of her children. This was conducted on an extensive scale, suited to the liberality of her own views and the munificence of her husband.-Chilian and John Sinapi, two brothers from Germany, instructed them in Greek, and, being Protestants, imbued their minds with sound views of religion. Fulvio Peregrino Morata, a native of Mantua, and a successful teacher of youth in various parts of Italy, had been tutor to the two younger brothers of duke Hercules, and, having returned finally to Ferrara in 1539, was re-admitted to his professorship in the university. Like most of his learned countrymen, Morata's mind had been engrossed with secular studies during the first part of his life; but having met with Celio Secundo Curio, a refugee from Piedmont, he imbibed from him the knowledge of evangelical truth, and a deep sense of religion. Esteemed as he was for his learning and integrity, he became still more celebrated as the father of Olympia Morata, one of the most learned females of the age, whom he educated with a zeal prompted by parental fondness and professional enthusiasm."—pp. 68–74. Curio and the admirable Olympia Morata will demand our notice hereafter.-Under the protection of Renée, there is no doubt that Reformed principles made considerable progress in the duchy of Ferrara, though the politics of the duke were fluctuating, and influenced by the Pope. Subsequently the duchess herself suffered much for her religion. At the suggestion of the Pope, and with the concurrence of Hercules, Henry II. of France, sent Oritz, his inquisitor, to the court of Ferrara. "His instructions bore, that he was to acquaint himself accurately with the extent to which the mind of the duchess was infected with error; he was then to request a personal interview with her, at which he was to inform her of the great grief which his Most Christian Majesty had annooiwod his only aunt, whom ne nau always loveu ana He had entered in his youth into the ord Minorites; but, instead of wasting his like the most of his brethren, in idleness perstition, he had devoted himself to the of polite letters and theology. By the c perusal of the Scriptures, and certain bo the Reformers, he attained to clear vie evangelical truth; which his talents, an reputation for learning and piety, enable to recommend, both as a preacher and a demical professor. After acquiring gre cia, Milan, and Pavia, he came, about th 1533, to Bologna. Certain propositions, he advanced in his lectures, relating to cation by faith, and other points then ag were opposed by Cornelio, a professor of physics; who, being foiled in a public which ensued between them, lodged a of heresy against his opponent, and pr his citation to Rome. Mollio defende self with such ability and address, th judges, appointed by Paul III. to try the were forced to acquit him, declaring t sentiments which he had maintained we although they were such as could not licly taught at that time without preju the apostolical see. He was therefo back to Bologna, with an admonition to for the future from explaining the Epi St. Paul: but, continuing to teach th doctrine as formerly, and with still grea plause from his hearers, Cardinal Can procured an order from the Pope to him from the university. the duke, to endeavour to bring her to reason by rigour and severity he was, in her presence, to entreat the duke, in his majesty's name, to 'sequester her from all society and conversation,' that she might not have it in her power to taint the minds of others; to remove her children from her; and not to allow any of the family, of whatever nation they might be, who were accused or strongly suspected of heretical sentiments, to approach her; in fine, he was to bring them to trial, and to pronounce a sentence of exemplary punish-lebrity as a teacher in the universities of ment on such as were found guilty, only leaving it to the duke to give such directions as to the mode of process and the infliction of the punishment, as that the affair might terminate, so far as justice permitted, without scandal, or bringing any public stigma on the duchess and her dependents. The daughter of Louis XII., whose spirit was equal to her piety, spurned these conditions, and, refusing to violate her conscience, her children were taken from under her management, her confidential servants proceeded against as heretics, and she herself detained as prisoner in the palace.———— The duchess continued for some time to bear with great fortitude the harsh treatment which she received, aggravated as it was by various acts of unkindness from her husband; but on the accession of that truculent Pontiff, Paul IV., in the year 1555, the persecution began to rage with greater violence; and it would seem that the threats with which she was anew assailed, together with the desire which she felt to be restored to the society of her children, induced her to relent and make concessions. On the death of the duke, in 1559, she returned to France, and took up her residence in the castle of Montargis, where she made open profession of the Reformed religion, and extended her protection to the persecuted Protestants. The Duke of Guise, her son-inlaw, having one day come to the castle with an armed force, sent a messenger to inform her, that if she did not dismiss the rebels whom she harboured, he would batter the walls with his cannon: she boldly replied, Tell your master, that I will myself mount the battle-tember, 1553, a public assembly of the ments, and see if he dare kill a king's daugh ter.' Her eldest daughter, Anne of Este, whose integrity of understanding and sensibility of heart were worthy of a better age, was married to the first Francis, duke of Guise, and afterwards to James of Savoy, duke of Nemours; two of the most determined supporters of the Roman Catholic religion in France; and if she did not, like her mother, avow her friendship to the reformed cause, she exerted herself in moderating the violence of both her husbands against its friends."-pp. 215-218. We had occasion, in a former part of our present volume (p. 36,) to lay before our readers the substance of a remarkable letter from some principal citizens of Bologna to Planitz, the Elector of Saxony's ambassador to the Imperial court, then held in that city, entreating his good offices in favour of the Reformation. From the present work it appears that John Mollio, a native of Montalcino, in At a subsequent period he was not to escape with so light a penalty. "After the flight of his brethren, and Martyr, in 1542, Mollio was frequ great danger, and more than once in ment, from which he had always provi escaped. But after the accession of lius III. he was sought for with grea ness, and, being seized at Ravenna, ducted under a strong guard to Ro lodged in a strait prison. On the 5th tion was held with great pomp, wh attended by the six cardinals (inquisi their episcopal assessors, before whon ber of prisoners were brought with t their hands. All of them recanted penances imposed on them, except M a native of Perugia, named Tisserano the articles of accusation against Mc read, permission was given him to sp defended the different doctrines whic taught, respecting justification, the good works, auricular confession, ar craments; pronounced the power cl the Pope and his clergy to be usurped tichristian; and addressed his jud strain of bold and fervid invective, lenced and chained them to their se same time that it cut them to the qui ed, and gnashing upon him with th like the persecutors of the first Chris tyr, the cardinals ordered Mollio and panion, who approved of the testimo where they died with the most pious fortitude."-pp. 277–279. Of all the states of Italy, Dr. M'Crie remarks, Venice afforded the greatest facilities for the propagation of the new opinions, and the safest asylum to those who suffered for their adherence to them. This republic was then among Popish, what Holland became among Protestant states. Among those who contributed most to propagate the Reformed opinions there, were Pietro Carnesecchi, Baldo Lupetino, and Baldassare Altieri, a correspondent of Luther's; of whom the two former, and probably the last also, died martyrs in the cause. They will again call for our attention. The evangelical doctrine had made such progress in the city of Venice between the years 1530 and 1542, that its friends, who had hitherto met in private for mutual instruction and religious exercises, held deliberations on the propriety of organizing themselves into regular congregations, and assembling in public. In Naples, Juan Valdez deserves attention, as having, according to the testimony of a contemporary Popish historian, "caused a far greater slaughter of souls than all the thousands of heretical soldiery" who had lately overrun the country. He was a Spanish gentleman, who went to Germany with Charles V., by whom he was knighted and sent to Naples, where he acted as secretary to Don Pedro de Toledo. "I wish we were again at Naples," says Bonfadio, in a letter to Carnesecchi. "But when I consider the matter in another point of view, to what purpose should we go there now, when Valdez is dead? His death, truly, is a great loss to us and to the world; for Valdez was one of the rarest men in Europe, as the writings left by him on the Epistles of St. Paul and the Psalms of David abundantly demonstrate. He was, beyond all doubt, a most accomplished man in all his words, actions, and counsels. Life scarcely supported his infirm and spare body; but his nobler part and pure intellect, as if it had been placed without the body, was wholly occupied with the contemplation of truth and Divine things."-p. 121. Lucca, says our author, the capital of a small but flourishing republic situated on the Lake of Genoa, had the honour to reckon among its inhabitants a greater number of converts to the Reformed faith than perhaps any other city in Italy. This was chiefly owing to the labours of Martyr. But this favoured church afterwards furnished occasion of grief to the faithful pastor, and warning to all professed Christians "not to be high-minded, but fear." sup Ac "Scarcely had Paul IV. mounted the Papal throne, when orders were issued for the pression of the Lucchese conventicle. cording to a preconcerted plan, its principal members were in one day thrown into the dungeons of the Inquisition; and at the sight of the instruments of torture the stoutest of them lost their courage, and were fain to make their peace with Rome on the easiest terms which they could purchase. Peter Martyr, whose apology for his flight they had with difficulty sustained, and whose example they had refused to follow when it was in their power, felt deeply afflicted at the dissipation of a church in which he took a tender interest, and at the sudden defection of so many persons in whose praises he had often been so warm. In a letter "Possessed of considerable learning and superior address, fervent in piety, gentle in disposition, polite in manners, and eloquent in conversation, he soon became a favourite with the principal nobility, and with all the enlightened men, who, at certain seasons, resorted in great numbers to the Neapolitan metropolis. Valdez did not take on him the office of a preacher, and he is an example of the extensive good which may be done by one who keeps himself strictly within the sphere of a private station. By his private instructions, he not only embued the minds of many distinguished laymen with the knowledge of evangelical truth, but contributed materially to advance the illumination and to stimulate the zeal of others, whose station gave them an op- former cultivation? Those who did not know portunity of preaching the Gospel to the peoyou might entertain fears that you would not ple, or of instilling its doctrines into the minds be able to resist the storm; it never could have of the ingenuous youth whose studies they entered into my mind that you would fall so superintended. Among these were Ochino and foully. After the knowledge you had of the Martyr, two individuals- -who produced a fury of Antichrist, and the danger which hung strong sensation in their native country, and over your heads,-when you did not choose to distinguished themselves afterwards in the Re-retire, by availing yourselves of what some formed churches on this side the Alps."-p. 107. Peter Martyr is well known: of Ochino we shall speak hereafter. By the blessing of God the labours of these individuals assisted bu which he addressed to them on the occasion, he says, 'How can I refrain from lamentations, when I think that such a pleasant garden as the Reformed church at Lucca presented to the view, has been so laid waste by the cruel tempest as scarcely to retain a vestige of its call the common remedy' of the weak, but which, in certain circumstances, I deem a prudent precaution,-those who had a good opinion of you said, These tried and brave soldiers of Christ will not fly, because they are deter 170 We will notice only one other individual, as connected with this part of the history. trigues of his adversaries. He was, how "The person to whom the inhabitants of (says he, in one of his letters,) 'that, if I am al- his object all along to prepare his thought Dr. M Crie's fourth chapter records The Trinitarian controversy is the next noticed by Dr. M'Crie, who is of that Servetus first introduced anti-Tri baneful influence to a considerable opinions into Italy; where they diffus though other writers have thought Spaniard acquired his notions by int with Italian heretics. "Illustrious females who favoured opinions, although their names are no ated with any public transaction in gress of the Reformation," and "lear who never left the communion of the of Rome, but were favourable, in a great degree, to the views and sentiments of Reformers," form the remaining head chapter. Under the latter division, the read surprised at the statements made co our countryman, Cardinal Pole; and t to which he, with Cardinal Contarini an went, in their convictions, and at time avowals, in favour of Protestant doctr we will confine ourselves here to a si tation relative to Marco Antonio Flam is said, as a poct, to discover "the and tenderness of Catullus without tiousness, and to melt the heart wi ness." "His writings prove, beyond all r doubt, that he entertained sentimen principal points of controversy, coinci the Protestant creed, and at variance decisions of the Council of Trent. be easy to establish this by a mult following may suff fall of Adam, that its corruption is propagated 168-170. We conclude our notice of the history of the progress of the Reformation, with a passage which, considered as written in Italy about the year 1540, and compared with what we may hear in London, and many other places, in the present day, cannot fail forcibly to impress the mind. "No wonder that the ardent friends of the Reformation should at this period have cherished the sanguine hope that Italy would throw off the Papal yoke. See' (says one) 'how the Gospel, even in Italy, where it is so much borne down, exults in the near prospect of bursting forth, like the sun from a cloud, in spite of all opposition.' Whole libraries' (writes Melancthon to George Prince of Anhalt) 'have been carried from the late fair into Italy, though the Pope has published fresh edicts against us. But the truth cannot be wholly oppressed: our Captain, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, will vanquish and trample on the dragon, the enemy of God; and will liberate and govern us.' This issue of the religious movement in his native country was hailed with still more enthusiastic feelings by Celio Secundo Curio, in a dialogue composed by him at the period now referred to, and intended to prove that the kingdom of God, or of and charity: so that with our own eyes we may yet see the kingdom of God of much larger extent than that which the enemy of mankind has acquired, not by his own power, but by the providence of God.'-O blessed day! O that I might live to see the ravishing prospect realized!' exclaims Curio. You shall live, Celio, be not afraid; you shall live to see it. The joyful sound of the Gospel has within our own day reached the Scythians, Thracians, Indians, and Africans. Christ, the King of kings, has has taken possession of Rhotia and Helvetia: Germany is under his protection: he has reigned, and will again reign in England: he sways his sceptre over Denmark and the Cymbrian nations: Prussia is his : Poland and the whole of Sarmatia are on the point of yielding to hin: he is pressing forward to Pannonia: Muscovy is in his eye: he beckons France to him: ITALY, OUR NATIVE COUNTRY, IS TRAVAIL ING IN BIRTH; and Spain will speedily follow. Even the Jews, as you perceive, have abated their former aversion to Christianity. Since they saw that we acknowledge one God, the Creator of heaven and earth, and Jesus Christ whom he sent; that we worship neither images, nor symbols, nor pictures; that we no longer adore mystical bread or a wafer as God; that they are not despised by us as formerly; that we acknowledge we received Christ from them; and that there is access for them to enter into that kingdom from which they are secluded, as we once were-their minds have undergone a great change, and now at last they are provoked to emulation.'" pp. 186-188. "The striking contrast," remarks Dr. M'Crie, "between this pleasing picture and the event which soon after took place, admonishes us not to allow our minds to be dazzled by flattering appearances, or to build theories of faith on prospects which fancy may have sketched on the deceitful horizon of public opinion; and we should recollect, that, though persecution is one means, it is not the only one, by which the march of Christianity has been, and may yet again be, checked and arrested."-The passage thus commented upon may well, indeed, teach us caution, especially in attempting to assign "the times and the seasons, which God hath put in his own power:" but it must not be suffered to shake our faith in the assurance divinely given us, that "the kingdoms of this world shall" eventually "become the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ." Anticipations not followed up by corresponding exertions and prayers, have failed, but it does not follow that all anticipations will do so. Only let us be "steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord," and we are assured that "our labour shall not be in vain in the Lord." —The admonition, also, that other means than |