Divine Providence, which enabled this small state to struggle into liberty, from the thraldom of Friburg and the court of Savoy, that it might become the strong hold of truth and the centre of the Pro

testant cause.

We come now to our notices of Calvin, whose history occupies nearly three hundred pages of this volume a space, long as it may appear, not in the least too extended. We question if, in the whole eight volumes of ecclesiastical annals of the Milners and Mr. Scott, there is any portion more important, more impartially conducted, more remarkably opportune to the circumstances of the present times than this. We cannot spare a single page, and scarcely a quotation. Nor can we sufficiently admire the calmness, the independence of mind, the clear and penetrating judgment which our author exhibits, and which make us look forward with strong anticipation to his intended account of the English Reformation.

John Cauvin, Chauvin, or, according to the Latin and usual form, Calvin, was born at Noyon, in Picardy, July 10, 1509. He received his early education with the children of a family of rank, and accompanied them to Paris where the celebrated grammarian Cordery was his teacher. From bis youth he was remarkable for gravity, and rather stern rebukes of vice. In 1521, at the age of twelve, he obtained a benefice in the Church of Rome at Noyon; and afterwards, in 1527 and 1529, the parochial cures of Marteville and Pont l'Evêque, where he is related to have delivered discourses to the people even before his admission into full orders. He afterwards changed his pursuits from theology to the civil law, at the instance of his father, though he still continued to study the Sacred Scriptures with intense eagerness. He published his first work in 1532, at the age of twenty-three-a commentary on Seneca's De Clementia, Soon after this, his father being

now dead, he determined to dedicate himself wholly to the service of God, his mind having been gradually more and more directed to this object by his study of the Scriptures, and the acquaintance of several pious men. Accordingly he came to Paris, and began to propagate his sentiments, but was soon compelled to retire from it by the persecution which his zeal excited. This was in November 1533. He ventured there again the following year; but was again forced to fly by the violence of Francis the First, who was persecuting the Protestants of his own country, whilst for political purposes he was seeking to support those in Germany. Calvin, after visiting Strasburg, fixed himself at Basle, and here published in 1535, at the age of twenty-seven, his most celebrated work, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, without his name, and merely to defend the Protestants against the calumny which would confound them with the wildness and fanaticism of the Anabaptists. The work had then only six chapters; but though it was the labour of his life to revise, enlarge, and re-arrange it, the last edition in 1559 containing eighty, all the main positions and doctrines continue precisely the same: the views of predestination, for instance, in the first and last edition are identical; so little truth is there in the insinuation that he did not begin to publish his sentiments on that solemn subject till the year 1557.

In 1536 he visited Italy, and afterwards, for the last time, France. His design, on his return, was to fix himself at Basle or Strasburg; but the war which then raged compelling him to pass through Dauphiny and Savoy, he was obliged, contrary to his inclination, to pass through Geneva. Farel here met him, and urged him to remain: he felt for a considerable time little inclination to comply, but at last he yielded to importunity, and in August 1536 accepted the office of a Professor of Divinity. The state of public morals,

however, amongst the population the ignorance and vice and superstition which remained-the relaxation of civil order, which their long struggle for independence had occasioned the party spirit and family feuds, not appeased at once by the reception of the Reformation which prevailed the free constitution of the state, which allowed almost every man a voice the large number of individuals who had no real religious principle-the tumults excited by the Anabaptists-the chicanery and perseverance of the surrounding Papal states, rendered the situation of Calvin no easy post. A strict discipline in religious concerns, and especially on admission to the Lord's Supper, formed a part of his plan of conduct, and was carried forward in a manner not, perhaps, altogether well adapted to the circumstances of the case. In two years from his arrival at Geneva he was banished from the republic. His remark on being informed of the decree corresponded with the humility and simplicity of mind with which he undertook his charge: "Had I been the servant of man," he observed, "I must have complained of being ill requited" (he had received no stipend); "but it is well for me that I have served One who never deserts those who devote themselves to him." He was recalled, however, in 1542, in a manner the most honourable to his character; not by any steps taken by himself, but in consequence of confusion prevailing at Geneva, the death or removal of the principal persons concerned in opposing him, and the general conviction of his piety, talents, and integrity. It was a penitent people entreating their injured pastor to return. From 1542 till the period of his death in 1564, Calvin devoted his almost unrivalled powers to the establishment and diffusion of the principles of the Gospel. His published works extended to nine closely printed folios, seven of which are occupied with his invaluable commentaries on most parts of the Old Testament, and the

whole of the New, with the exception of the Apocalypse. The last of these commentaries, that on the Book of Joshua, was finished only just before his death. He married in 1540, but left no children. In 1548, and again in 1551, he wrote his letters to the protector Somerset, and Bishops Hooper and Cranmer, and, after the accession of Elizabeth, those to Cecil and Grindal. The case of Servetus, to which we shall soon refer more at length, occurred in 1553. His health began sensibly to decline in 1557; and it was in 1564, in the fifty-fifth year of his age, that he was gathered to his fathers, and to that heavenly rest in the mansions prepared for him by his Redeemer, which he had so long earnestly desired and pressed forward to, amidst the sins and sorrows of an evil and jarring world. His habitual labours, contrasted with the weakness of his health and his habitual infirmities, shews the power of his conscientious conviction of his responsibility for the use of his time and talents, the strength of the grace of God supporting him, and those mighty endowments of mind with which he was blessed.

"An extraordinary account is given of Calvin's labours from the time of his return to Geneva. In every fortnight he preached one entire week whether daily or not, does not appear. Thrice in every week he delivered divinity lectures: on the Thursdays he presided in the concalled the congregation, a meeting for sistory, and on the Fridays in what was the collation and exposition of Scripture. Frequently he was called to assist the the science of law, combined with his gecouncil with his advice, which his skill in neral wisdom and talent, made him very competent to do. His correspondence also was very extensive, the fame of his learning and piety causing him to be consulted from all quarters: and he himself complains of the continual interruptions which, as might naturally have been expected, he encountered from the visits of strangers, and from other avocations. Yet tures, and other writings, chiefly in a pohis copious commentaries on the Scriplished Latin style, are known to be very elaborate and accurate.-Such were the performances of a man, whose constitution was delicate, and his health bad, and who never completed his fifty-fifth year." p. 370.

"He was naturally of a spare and feeble frame, of a sallow complexion and bilious habit, tending to consumption. He was subject to severe headachs, from which strict abstinence alone afforded him relief. Hence for more than ten years together he took only one meal in the day, generally in the evening; and frequently he fasted for thirty-six hours together. His digestion was bad: and his sleep scarcely deserved the name. Five years before his death he was attacked by a spitting of blood: and, when his long-continued intermitting fever left him, that host' of disorders to which we have alluded, and which he himself enumerates-asthma, gout, (ascending from his feet to his knees,) stone, gravel, cholic, and a severe hemorrhoidal affection began to shew themselves: and, as he observed in writing to the physicians, the inaction to which the pains in his legs and feet, together with the complaint which rendered him unable to ride, reduced him, left him no hope of recruiting his strength. He strictly observed the directions of his medical attendants, but otherwise, and when not under their care, he suffered nothing to

interrupt his work: preaching often under a headach which would have confined most men to their couch.'" pp. 472, 473.

that

We pass on to the case of Servetus, of which every one has heard exaggerated statements, and which the infidel rejoices to appeal to. Gibbon hesitates not to declare, "I am more deeply scandalized at the single execution of Servetus, than at the hecatombs which have blazed in the auto-da-fés of Spain and Portugal." He then says, that "Calvin's zeal was summoned by personal malice, and perhaps envy; he "accused his adversary before their common enemies, the judges of Vienne; and betrayed, for his destruction, the sacred trust of private correspondence." Mr. Roscoe also, in his Leo X., gravely pronounces that "the annals of persecution cannot furnish a more atrocious instance of bigotry and cruelty, than the burning of Servetus in a Protestant city, and by Protestant priests." The plain fact is, that the subject of toleration was not understood at the period when this mournful event occurred. Men falsely supposed that the Mosaical enactments against the blasphemer bound Christian countries. The judgment as to particular instances of imprisonment, banish

ment, or death, rested on the nature of the laws in each state, the truth and supposed enormity of the facts alleged, and the impartiality of the trial. Cranmer in England went far greater lengths in this false road, than Calvin. The ministers at Berne and Constance acted upon it with respect to the fanatical Anabaptists. Fourteen years after the execution of Servetus, a public proposition was made at Geneva by Gentiles, an Antitrinitarian, to hold a disputation with the orthodox, on the condition that "the party who could not prove their doctrine from the word of God, should be put to death as impostors."

The whole of this spirit we need not say how unequivocally we condemn; we are decided and warm advocates for the most unfettered toleration; but we do not the less distinguish between an action performed under a false principle, from obedience to the existing laws, in compliance with what was uniformly considered as a duty of the civil magistrate, at the period when it took place, and which proceeded from no private malice; and the same action if it had been committed three centuries later, when the extent and obligation of toleration were known, and nothing but personal revenge and a strained interpretation of the laws could dictate the crime.

We boldly affirm, then, with our author, that most, if not all, the peculiar indignation excited in modern times against the individual reformer whose life we are reviewing, is a calumny, an infliction of false punishment for an offence which did not exist in the sense in which it is alleged. For this Servetus was, by the confession of all, a monster of blasphemy; not only venting the most fearful insults against the Saviour, but relying on the seditious libertine faction in Geneva for protection. In this course he persevered from the year 1532 to 1553. Calvin first offered to meet him in Paris in 1534, in order to reclaim