ment stopped. Let, then, all Christians watch sedulously against imitating so fatal an example. While they contend zealously for whatever is great and fundamental, (for a spurious liberality may prove as fatal as a false and fiery zeal,) let them hail as brethren "all them that love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity," treat gently and kindly all minor differences with such persons, and earnestly strive together with them for the faith of the Gospel. Thus shall the church be internally happy and prosperous, "as a city at unity within itself;" and externally, towards the kingdom of sin and Satan, formidable "as an army with banners." We proceed to the suppression of the Reformation in Italy. And here scenes and tales of wo unfold themselves. The details, indeed, of the proceedings of the Roman Inquisition have never come to light, in the manner that those of the Inquisition in Spain have done. It was the policy of the court of Rome to affect to condemn the severity with which "the holy office" was conducted in the latter country, and to hold out that the system sought to be introduced into Italy was to be of a much milder and more forbearing kind: and, through the influence of these fallacious professions, combined with an ignorance of the exact circumstances of the case, many have been led to suppose that the Inquisition in Italy and the Inquisition in Spain were very different in their character. The very reason of the case, however, might have led us to distrust such representations: and from what is known, Dr. M'Crie finds ground to conclude, that the chief difference between the Italian and Spanish Inquisitions, in the sixteenth century, lay in their policy respecting their mode of punishment. The latter sought to inspire terror by the solemn spectacle of a public act of justice, in which the scaffold was crowded with criminals. Except in the case of the remote and friendless Calabrians, it was the object of the former to avoid all unnecessary publicity. The report of the autos da fé of Seville and Valladolid blazed at once over Europe: the executions at Rome made less noise in the city, because they were less splendid, as well as more frequent; and the rumour of them died away before it could reach the ear of foreigners. It was in the year 1542 that the court of Rome first became seriously alarmed at the progress of the Reformed opinions in Italy; and on the first of April, 1543, Paul III. founded at Rome the Congregation of the Holy Office. Individual inquisitors, acting in subordination to the bishops of the several dioceses, had long existed in Italy, as well as in France; but now first the title and rights of "Inquisitors-General of the Faith" were granted to six cardinals, and authority was given them "on both sides of the Alps, to try all causes of heresy; with the power of apprehending and incarcerating suspected persons, and their abettors, of whatsoever state, rank, or order; of nominating officers under them; and appointing inferior tribunals in all places, with the same or limited powers." It was the great object of the Popes, during the remainder of the century, to extend the power of the Inquisition over Italy. And with such effect did it pursue the objects of its institution, that popish historians, Dr. M'Crie says, "do more homage to truth than their cause, when they say that the er the Inquisition was the salvation of th lic religion in Italy." pp. 200-205. "A horde of commissioned spies w over the country, who, by means of th mendations with which they were f got admission into families, insinuat selves into the confidence of individ conveyed the secret information wh obtained in this way to the inquisitors. "No sooner was this engine of tyr torture erected, than those who had themselves obnoxious to it by the avowal of their sentiments, fled in gr bers from a country in which they longer look for protection from injus cruelty. The prisons of the inquisit every where filled with those who behind, and who, according to the that court, were retained for years and dark durance, with the view of their friends with dread, and of subdu own minds to a recantation of their se With the exception of a few places, t profession which had been made of th tant religion was suppressed. Its frie ever, were still numerous; many of th animated by the most ardent attachme cause; they continued to encourage one another in their private meeting required all the exertions and violen inquisitors during twenty years to disc exterminate them." pp. 205, 206. Next to the dominions of the duk rara, the Papal court felt most anxiou suppression of the Reformed doctrin the territories of the Venetian repu the senate issued orders in conform their wishes. The following accour who has been already mentioned as pondent of Luther, leaves his fate in gree of obscurity which only deepens rest attached to his history. "In the year 1548, an edict was Į commanding all who had books oppos Catholic faith to deliver them up wit days, at the risk of being proceeded heretics; and offering a reward to i This was followed by great severitie the Protestants in Venice, and in all tories of that republic. The persect increases every day,' writes Altieri are seized, of whom some have been galleys, others condemned to perpet sonment, and some, alas! have beer by fear of punishment, to recant. have been banished, along with their children; while still greater numbers for their lives. Matters are come to that I begin to fear for myself; for, have frequently been able to protect this storm, there is reason to appre the same hard terms will be propos but it is the will of God that his peop by such afflictions.' Altieri exert with the most laudable and unwear behalf of his brethren......After ment discouragements he had met with 1 → Scott's Continuation of Milne M'Crie, 143 now of whom he had hoped better things, he exclaims: Thus do the minds of men 6 cleave to the world! If the Spirit of the Lord had not long ago taken possession of my heart, I would [should] have followed the common example, and, hiding myself in some corner, would [should] have attended to my private affairs, instead of taking an active part in the cause of Christ. But God forbid that I should entertain the blasphemous thought of desisting to labour for him, who never ceased labouring in my cause, until he had endured the reproach of the cross. Therefore I return to Italy, as ready as before to encounter whatever may befal me, and willing to be bound for the name of Christ. Before leaving the Grisons, he received intelligence that the persecution was daily waxing hotter at Venice. It is not, therefore, without danger that I return,' says he, for you know how much I am hated by the papists and wicked. I do not undertake the journey rashly: God will preserve me from all evil: do you pray for me.' On his arrival at Venice, he found that his enemies had incensed the magistrates against him; and on refusing to renounce his religion, he was ordered instantly to quit the territories of the republic. Without hesitation he chose the latter; but, being unwilling to despair of the reformation of his native country, and anxious to be at hand to lend succour to his suffering brethren, he lingered in Italy, wandered from one city to another; and when he durst no longer appear in public, sought an asylum in a retired place for himself, his wife, and an only child. Soon after his banishment from Venice, he wrote to Bullinger: Take the following particulars concerning my return to Italy. I am well, with my wife and little child. As to other things, all the effect of my commendatory letters was an offer on the part of the senate, that I should be allowed to remain in safety among them, provided I would yield conformity to their religion, that is, the Roman; otherwise it behoved me to withdraw without delay from all their dominions. Having given myself to Christ, I chose exile rather than to enjoy pleasant Venice, with its execrable religion. I departed accordingly, and went first to Ferrara, and afterwards to Florence. In another letter, written from his place of hiding somewhere in the territory of Brescia, he says, 'Know that I am in great trouble, and danger of my life; nor is there a place in Italy where I can be safe with my wife and boy. My fears for myself increase daily, for I know the wicked will never rest till they have swallowed me up alive. Give me a share in your prayers.' These are the last accounts we have of this excellent person. It is probable that he never escaped from Italy, and that his fate will remain a secret until the horrid mysteries of the Roman Inquisition shall be disclosed." pp. 220-224. less barbarous than those of Spain, the solitude and silence with which they were accompanied was calculated to excite the deeper horror. At the dead hour of midnight the prisoner was taken from his cell, and put into a gondola, or Venetian boat, attended only, besides the sailors by a single priest, to act as confessor. He was rowed out into the sea beyond the Two Castles, where another boat was in waiting. A plank was then laid across the two gondolas, upon which the prisoner, having his body chained, and a heavy stone affixed to his feet, was placed; and on a signal given, the gondolas retiring from one another, he was precipitated into the deep." p. 232. The most distinguished of those who thus suffered death at Venice, was the venerable Fra Baldo Lupetino. The following account is given of him by his nephew, in a book now become very rare. "The reverend Baldus Lupetinus, sprung from a noble and ancient family, a learned monk, and provincial of the order to which he belonged, after having long preached the word of God in both the vulgar languages (the Italian and Sclavonian) in many cities, and defended it by public disputation in several places of celebrity, with great applause, was at last thrown into close prison at Venice, by the inquisitor and papal legate. In this condition he continued, during nearly twenty years, to bear an undaunted testimony to the Gospel of Christ: so that his bonds and doctrine were made known, not only to that city, but almost the whole of Italy, and by it to Europe at large, by which means evangelical truth was more widely spread. Two things, among many others, may be mentioned as marks of the singular providence of God towards this person during his imprisonment. In the first place, the princes of Germany often interceded for his liberation, but without success. And secondly, on the other hand, the papal legate, the inquisitor, and even the pope himself, laboured with all their might, and by repeated applications, to have him from the very first committed to the flames, as a noted heresiarch. This was refused by the doge and senate, who, when he was at last condemned, freed him from the punishment of the fire by an express decree. It was the will of God that he should bear his testimony to the truth for so long a time: and that, like a person affixed to a cross, he should, as from an eminence, proclaim to all the world the restoration of Christianity, and the revelation of Antichrist. At last, this pious and excellent man, whom neither threatenings nor promises could move, sealed his doctrine by an undaunted martyrdom, and exchanged the filth and protracted tortures of a prison for a watery grave." pp. 235, 236. Dr. M'Crie gives us a deeply affecting account of the expulsion and banishment, amid the severities of an Alpine winter, of the whole the Waldenses of Calabria; in which, besides thousands destroyed by military execution, numbers perished under the tortures inflicted on them by the Inquisitors; and eighty-eight men, whose death was to be followed by that of at least an equal number of women, are particularly described as led out one by one, and having their throats cut by a single executioner. "I shudder," says a Roman Catholic narrator of the atrocious deed, "while I think of the executioner, with the bloody knife in his teeth, the dripping napkin in his hand," to throw over the faces of his successive victims, "and his arms besmeared with gore, going to the house and taking out one after another, just as a butcher does the sheep which he means to kill." "According to orders," he adds, "waggons are already come to carry away the dead bodies, which are appointed to be quartered, and hung upon the public roads from one end of Calabria to the other......The heretics taken in Calabria amount to sixteen hundred, all of whom are condemned; but only eighty-eight have as yet been put to death Even to-day a decree has passed, that a hundred grown-up women shall be put to the question, and afterwards executed......It is now eight o'clock, and I shall presently hear accounts of what was said by these obstinate people as they were led to execution."--Yet the writer styles all this nothing but " a dreadful act of justice!" And to the behaviour of the martyrs he thus bears testimony: "The meekness and patience with which they went to martyrdom and death, was incredible. Some of them at their death professed themselves of the same faith with us, but the greater part died in their cursed obstinacy. All the old men met their death with cheerfulness, but the young exhibited symptoms of fear."-This took place in the year 1560, under the government of the Marquis di Buccianici, "to whose brother, it is said, the Pope had promised a cardinal's hat, provided the province of Calabria was cleared of heresy." Well may we say of the Church of Rome, Thou that art "drunk with the blood of the saints and the martyrs of Jesus!" such have been thy methods of extirpating what thou hast falsely called "heresy!" such the means by which thou hast pretended to uphold and to propagate the faith of "the Lamb of God," which was hailed as bringing, along with "glory to God in the highest," "peace on earth, good will to men!" Assuredly the day of thy recompense is coming! "Great Babylon shall come in remembrance before God." And, oh! what shall thy account be, "when the earth shall disclose her blood, and no more cover her slain!" Dr. M'Crie closes this chapter with accounts of several distinguished individual martyrs. We select one or two. "Pomponio Algieri, a native of Nola, in the kingdom of Naples, was seized when attending the university of Padua, and, after being examined in the presence of the Podesta, was sent bound to Venice. His answers, on the different examinations which he underwent, contain a luminous view of the truth, and form one of the most succinct and nervous refutations of the principal articles of Popery, from Scripture and the decretals, which is any where to be found. They had the effect of sprea fame through Italy. The senators of from regard to his learning and you anxious to set him at liberty; but as he to abandon his sentiments, they co him to the galleys. Yet, yielding to th tunities of the nuncio, they afterwards to Rome, as an acceptable present to t elected pope, Paul IV., by whom he was to be burned alive, in the twenty-fou of his age. The Christian magnanim which the youthful martyr bore th death, terrified the cardinals who att grace the spectacle. A letter writter gieri, in his prison at Venice, describes solations by which he was refreshed an under his sufferings, in language to scarcely know a parallel. It appears interesting document, that the friends gelical truth were still numerous in Pa "Ludovico Paschali was a native of Piedmont, and having acquired a taste gelical doctrine at Nice, left the army," he had been bred, and went to study sanne. When the Waldenses of Cala plied to the Italian church at Ger preachers, Paschali was fixed upon nently qualified for that station. Ha tained the consent of Camilla Guerina, woman to whom he had previously b anced, he set out, along with Stefano On their arrival in Calabria, they fo country in that state of agitation w have already described; and, after la for some time to quiet the minds of the and comfort them under persecution, th both apprehended at the instance of th sitor. Negrino was allowed to perish of in prison. Paschali, after being ke months in confinement, at Cosenza, v ducted to Naples, from which he wa ferred to Rome. His sufferings were g he bore them with the most uncomm tude and patience, as appears from the equally remarkable for their sentiment a unction, which he wrote from his prise persecuted flock in Calabria, to his spouse, and to the church of Geneva. state is this,' says he, in a letter to hi hearers; I feel my joy increase every approach nearer to the hour in which be offered as a sweet-smelling sacrific Lord Jesus Christ, my faithful Savic so inexpressible is my joy, that I seer self to be free from captivity, and am to die, not only once, but many thousa for Christ, if it were possible; nevert persevere in imploring the Divine a by prayer, for I am convinced that 1 miserable creature, when left to him not upheld and directed by God.'....A the eighth of September, 1560, he was out to the conventual church of Mi hear his process publicly read; and ne appeared, without any diminution of rage, in the court adjoining the cast Angelo, where he was strangled and the view of the pope and a party of assembled to witness the spectacle.” 280, 283, 284, 286, 287. Pietro Carnesecchi makes a disti figure in this history. He was a Flor good birth, and liberally educated. From his youth, says our author, it appeared that he was destined to stand before kings, and not before mean men. Possessing a fine person, and a quick and penetrating judgment, he united affability with dignity in his manners, and was at once discreet and generous. Dr. M'Crie's sixth and last chapter relates to Foreign Italian Churches, with Illustrations of the Reformation in the Grisons-a district amidst the Rhetian or eastern range of the Alps, which was made, by most of the Italian emigrants, their first refuge on quitting their native country, and by many of them their permanent abode. In the districts dependent and Italy, including the Valteline, Chiavenna, and Bormio, were more than twenty Protestant of the sixteenth century, of exiles from Italy. But the same fate eventually befel the Protestants here as in Italy; and in the year 1620 the Protestants of the Valteline were indiscriminately massacred; the southern dependencies of the republic revolted; and the Grisons suffered a temporary subjugation by the combined arms of Austria and Spain. In this connexion we meet with a far less favourable account of the celebrated Cardinal Borromeo than we have received from some other quarters. "It was the great object of his ambition, from an early period of life, to oppose an effectual barrier to the progress of heresy, and to repair and prop the fabric of Popery, which he saw tottering on its base." For this end he pursued the same course as in early times Julian had done with respect to Paganism: he aimed to remove abuses, and to reform the clergy; and he erected seminaries, in which young persons of talent might be trained, and qualified to encounter the Protestants' with their own weapons. "Sadolet praises him as a young man of distinguished virtue and liberal accomplish-upon the Grisons, and lying between the Alps ments; and Bembo speaks of him in terms of the highest respect and affection. He was made secretary, and afterwards apostolical prothono-churches, under the pastoral care, till the end tary, to Clement VII., who bestowed on him two abbacies, one in Naples, and the other in France; and so great was his influence with that pope, that it was commonly said, 'that the church was governed by Carnesecchi rather than Clement.' Yet he conducted himself with so much modesty and propriety in his delicate situation, as not to incur envy during the life of his patron, and to escape disgrace at his death. But the advancement of Carnesecchi in the career of worldly honour, which he had commenced so auspiciously, was arrested by a different cause. At Naples he formed an intimacy with Valdez, from whom he imbibed the Reformed doctrines, and, as he possessed great candour and love of truth, his attachment to these doctrines daily acquired strength from reading, meditation, and conference with learned men. During the better days of Cardinal Pole, he made one of the select party which met in that prelate's house at Viterbo, and spent the time in religious exercises. When his friend Flaminio, startling at the thought of leaving the Church of Rome, stopped short in his inquiries, Carnesecchi displayed that mental courage which welcomes truth when she tramples on received prejudices, and follows her in spite of the hazards which environ her path." He was repeatedly screened by the favour of successive pontiffs, but compelled to fly his country. At length, however, Cosmo, the grand duke of Tuscany, under whose protection he was then living, was required by Pius V. to deliver him up, as " a dangerous heretic, who had long laboured in various ways to destroy the Catholic faith, and been the instrument of corrupting the minds of multitudes;" and that prince complied with the demand. "We have the testimony of a popish historian, who consulted the records of the Inquisition, to the constancy with which Carnesecchi adhered to his sentiments. 'With hardened heart,' says he, and uncircumcised ears, he refused to yield to the necessity of his circumstances, and rendered the admonitions, and the often-repeated delays granted him for deliberation, useless; so that he could not by any neans be induced to abjure his errors, and return to the bosom of the true religion, as Pius wished, who had resolved, if he repented, to visit his past crimes with a milder punishment than they merited.' We will [shall] not run great risk of transgressing the law of charity, by supposing that the inquisitors detained him fifteen months in prison with the view of having the credit of proclaiming him a penitent· "All the celebrated champions of the Catholic faith, from Bellarmine to Bossuet, proceeded from the school of Borromeo. It would have been well if the cardinal had confined himself to methods of this kind; but, beside abetting the most violent measures for suppressing the Reformed opinions within his own diocese, he industriously fomented dissentions in foreign countries, leagued with men who were capable of any desperate attempt, and busied himself in providing arms for subjects who were ready to rebel against their lawful rulers, and to shed the blood of their peaceable fellow-creatures." pp. 358, 359. "A new species of outrage, unheard of among civilized nations, was resorted to. Bands of armed men haunted the roads of the Valteline, seized the Protestants unawares, and carried them into Italy," where they were delivered to the Inquisition, and dealt with according to the usages of that detestable tribunal. "The practice of man-stealing now became a constant traffic in the Valteline; and at every meeting of the diet, for a course of years, complaints were made that some persons had been carried off, including not only exiles from Italy, but native citizens of the Grison republic." pp. 359-361. But we must forbear to follow our author into the details of this part of his history; and we shall draw our account of this interesting volume to a conclusion. by collecting into one 176 which occasion he made one of those es sylvania to Weissemburg, and from t at Turin in 1503, and was the youngest of twenty-three children. When only nine years of age he was left an orphan, but, being allied to several noble families of Piedmont, received a liberal education at the university of his native city. In his youth he was induced to read the Bible with more than ordinary attention, in consequence of his father having bequeathed him a copy of that book beautifully written; and when he reached his twentieth year, he had the writings of the Reformers put into his hands, by means of Jerome Niger Fossianeus, and other individuals in the Augustinian monastery of Turin. This inflamed him with a desire of visiting Germany, to which he set out, accompanied by James Cornello and Francis Guerino, who afterwards became distinguished ministers of the Reformed church. Having on their journey incautiously entered into dispute on the controverted heads of religion, they were informed against and seized by the spies of the cardinal-bishop of Ivrée, and thrown into separate prisons. Curio was released through the intercession of his relations, and the cardinal, pleased with his talents, endeavoured to attach him to himself, by offers of money to assist him in his studies, and by placing him in the neighbouring priory of St. Benigno, the administration of which had been conferred on him by Leo X. In this situation, Curio exerted himself in enlightening the monks, and freeing their minds from the in-versity of Vienna, from Vaivod king fluence of superstition...... Being persuaded to visit his native country, with the view of recohe was apprehendvering his patrimony,. ed, and carried prisoner to his native city. As his friends were known to possess great influence, the administrator of the bishopric of Turin went to Rome to secure his condemna-inculcating his religious opinions. B tion, leaving him under the charge of a brother of Cardinal Cibo; who, to prevent any attempt at rescue, removed him to an inner room of the prison, and ordered his feet to be made fast in the stocks. In this situation, a person of less fortitude and ingenuity would have given himself up for lost; but Curio, having in his youth lived in the neighbourhood of the jail, devised a method of escape, which, through the favour His feet being of Providence, succeeded. swollen by confinement, he prevailed on his keeper to allow him to have his right foot loosed for a day or two. By means of his shoe, toge-lished by his friend Pantaleon. The ther with a reed and a quantity of rags, which lay within his reach, he formed an artificial leg, which he fastened to his right knee, in such a manner as that he could move it with ease. He then requested permission to have his other foot relieved; upon which the artificial foot was introduced by him into the stocks, and his left foot was set free. Being thus at liberty, he, during the night, opened the door of his apartment, felt his way through the passages in the dark, dropt from a window, and, having scaled the walls of his prison with some difficulty, made his escape into Italy......In the year 1543 he retired to Ferrara, whence, by the advice of the dutchess Renée, who furnished him with letters of recommendation to the magistrates of Zurich and Berne, he quitted Italy, and took up his residence at Lausanne. In the course of the same year he returned for his wife and children, whom he had left behind him: on his death in 1569...... Of all the refus jected these offers, and remained at loss of none has been more regretted writers than that of Curio. The te which they have borne to him des more attention on this ground, amon that some of the most important facts ing the progress and suppression of t mation in Italy have been attested by the greater part of the narratives martyrs proceeded from his pen, or mitted to his revision before they y of Curio, female as well as male, w guished for their talents and lear among his descendants we find so most eminent persons in the Protestan pp. 101–105, 199, 398–400. With the history of Curio was friend Olympia Morata. connected that of his amiable and acc "In consequence of her early pro letters, Olympia Morata was chos dutchess (Renée) of Ferrara to be t nion of her eldest daughter, Anne, she improved in every elegant and complishment; and although she acknowledged that her personal pie from the bustle and blandishments yet it was during her residence in palace that she acquired that knowl Gospel which supported her mind |