though he differed considerably from Zuinglius and his friends on the nature of the sacrament, holding, as the reformed churches afterwards very generally did, a real presence," that the body and blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's supper,' ," "after a spiritual and a heavenly manner, but actually and really." This scheme was thought by some to bid fair to reconcile the two parties, and Bucer laboured ardently to that end, on more than one occasion, and apparently with some success1. But after Luther's death, notwithstanding the leaning of Melancthon towards this statement, the Lutherans became still more rigid and bigoted to the doctrine of consubstantiation.

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Luther's friend describes Bucer at the Marpurg conference, as being as cunning as a fox. In somewhat more courteous language, cardinal Contarene describes his abilities as a disputant. They," the German divines, "have, among others, Martin Bucer, endowed with that excellency of learning both in theology and philosophy, and besides, of that subtlety and happiness in disputation, that he alone may be set against all our learned men."

In his notions of church government, Bucer did not go the same lengths as some of the other divines of the reformed church,

'At one time, indeed, he seemed to have less difficulty in satisfying Luther of his soundness on this point, than some of the Zuinglian divines. He told Bucer and his brethren, on one occasion," that if they did believe, and would teach that the true body and blood of Christ were offered, given, and taken in the Lord's supper, and not mere bread and wine; and that this participation and exhibition were made really, and not after an imaginary manner; they were agreed among themselves, and he would acknowledge and embrace them as brethren in Jesus Christ." The doctrine of consubstantiation Bucer could not digest; but he thought the opinions of the Zuinglians were too narrow, and did not come up to the ideas which the Scripture and ancient tradition imprint upon our minds." Besides a power of signifying," Bucer acknowledged “a power of exhibiting or presenting Christ himself; and that the Lord, in the communion of his body and blood, is given and received, whereby we are members of him in part, and flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone; whereby we abide in him, and he in us; and that it is given and received when the Lord himself operates in his ministry, and when the words and symbols are received as the Lord's, and, as it were, from the Lord himself, by free dispensation through his ministers, which they call a union; not sensual, local, or natural,—but sacramental, and of the covenant, on account of those texts of Scripture, which speak of the mystery of the incorporation of the church, and of the communion and eating and drinking of the flesh and blood of Christ."

Correspondence with de Lasco.

in opposition to the Romanists. He approved of the ancient and original form of episcopacy, as it existed in the primitive church, which appears in the reformation he prescribed to Herman, archbishop of Cologne, who sent for him in the year 1542, and in his approbation of the episcopal reformed church in England. This plan of reformation was even stigmatised by the term Bucerism, by some of the reformers on the continent, of the Helvetic persuasion.

Martin Bucer continued at Strasburgh till the critical period of the INTERIM. Compelled to flee on that account, he was invited to England by Edward VI., at the instance of archbishop Cranmer, and was fixed in the chair of the divinity professor, at Cambridge.

About the same period, Peter Martyr, another eminent divine of the reformed church, had been invited into the same country, and appointed to the same office in the university of Oxford.

Peter Martyr, an Italian by birth, was a man of great learning, and, like Luther, belonged to the order of the Augustines. He was at first abbot of Spoletto, in the papal dominion, from which abbacy he was translated to St. Peter's ad Aram, in the city of Naples; and, finally, was elected prior of St. Fridian, in the city of Lucca, a place of great dignity, and possessed of an episcopal jurisdiction. During his residence at Naples, he met with the books of Bucer and Zuinglius, which opened his eyes to the true nature of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; and in which he was still further established by his acquaintance with Valdes, a Spanish lawyer, who had embraced the Protestant faith. Peter Martyr followed his example in 1542. Compelled to flee his country, he, in company with Ochinus, who, like himself, from being one of the most popular preachers in Italy, had been converted from the Romish superstitions, proceeded to Zurich, and thence to Strasburgh, where he taught divinity for five years. He was then invited into England, to assist in carrying on the reformation in that kingdom, and he arrived there in the year 1547, with his friend Ochinus, who had departed with him from Italy.

The Helvetic communion had also been enlarged by the accession of Geneva. Farel, a French refugee, and Viret, had preached the glad tidings of the Gospel there, soon after the year 1530. By the fury of the clergy they had been driven out of the city, but were recalled by the inhabitants in 1534, who were now disposed to throw off the Roman yoke, as they had revolted from the civil authority of their bishop, which he had exercised over them in the name of the duke of Savoy.

It was at this period that John Calvin, who, as Mr. Gibbon remarks, is, with Luther and Zuinglius, to be celebrated as a deliverer of nations, happened by chance, (as we say when the premeditated designs of men are not purposely employed to execute the counsels of God,) to be travelling through Geneva. By the earnest entreaties of Farel, Viret, and the inhabitants of that city, he was induced to stop there, in order to assist in settling the reformation; and, by the common suffrage, he was chosen both preacher and professor of divinity.

John Calvin was a minister of the reformed church in France. Our Hooker remarks concerning him, "For my part, I think Calvin incomparably the wisest man that ever the French church did enjoy since it enjoyed him." He was born at Noyon, a town of Picardy, in France, in the year 1509. His parents were in a situation to bestow upon him the first education of the times, an early residence in a nobleman's family, and after that, instructions in the university of Paris. It appears that he was at first designed for the church, and benefices were procured for him by his father. But both the father and the son changed their minds. The former saw a more profitable arena for his son's abilities in the study of the law, and John Calvin's own mind had been awakened to a true estimate of the Roman Catholic superstition, by Olivetan, a relation, who was a minister among the Waldenses.

After having finished his education at Paris, he studied the civil law at Orleans and Bourges. Calvin's progress in his profession was great, but another study, that of the Scriptures, lay nearest to his heart. Those hours of the day which could be purloined from his legal pursuits, were devoted to this object; and the hours which nature demands for rest, were so much trespassed upon, that it is but too probable that at the same time he laid the foundation of his great theological knowledge, he imbibed the seeds of those disorders which brought him to an untimely grave. Wolmar, the Greek professor at Bourges, who was secretly a Lutheran, encouraged him in his scriptural studies. In his twenty-fourth year, Calvin returned to Paris, and formed an acquaintance with those who favoured the reformation in that city, among whom he ever remembered with particular regard, Stephen Forgeus, an eminent merchant, who afterwards suffered in the flames. From this period, Calvin, relinquishing all other studies, devoted himself entirely. to the work of the ministry in the French reformed church, which had, even then, (about 1532,) its secret meetings in the city of Paris.

As early indeed as the year 1523, the doctrines of Luther had penetrated into many parts of France, and had been encouraged by persons of great rank in that country, especially by Margaret, queen of Navarre, the sister of Francis I. The great encouragement which this monarch gave to the revived study of classical literature, tended at the same time to cherish the reforming principles in religion; but more particularly his political situation, as the rival of the emperor Charles V., led him into public measures conducive to the same end. This often made him anxious to strengthen the Protestant interest in Germany; and, in order to cultivate the friendship of its princes, he appeared, at times, to treat the reformers in his own country with lenity, and even with some degree of favour. All this honour was only the fruit of a subtle policy. As the seeds of the reformation took root in his dominions, he discovered himself to be a most abject slave to the Romish superstition, and a most cruel and unrelenting persecutor. He was heard to declare, when alarmed at the growth of protestantism, that "if he thought the blood in his arm was tainted with the Lutheran heresy, he would cut it off; and that he would not spare his own children, if they entertained sentiments contrary to those of the Catholic church." In this disposition of mind, he committed many to the flames, not only in Paris, but in all parts of his kingdom.

Calvin narrowly escaped the effects of his intolerant spirit during the first year of his ministry. In an annual speech, publicly read by the rector of the university, and which Calvin had assisted in preparing, were some statements respecting religion, which immediately excited the displeasure of the Sorbonne and the parliament, and gave occasion to a new persecution. The rector fled, and Calvin escaped from the hands of those who were sent to apprehend him in the college, only by means of sheets tied from his window. His papers, and a correspondence which implicated many persons, were seized. The queen of Navarre, however, had interest sufficient to avert this storm, Calvin retired from Paris, but continued to propagate his doctrines in various cities in the south of France, both by his preaching and his publications; and, as had been done in the early days of the Christian church, he administered the sacrament to his disciples in dens, and secret recesses of the rocks and mountains. In 1534, he returned secretly to Paris, in the midst of a very severe persecution which then raged there, in order to counteract the efforts of Servetus, who had begun to disperse his

books against the Trinity, and had challenged Calvin to a conference. Servetus did not keep his appointment, and Calvin found it necessary, on account of the persecution, to flee from his native country. Before his departure, he published, at Orleans, a tract against those who were reviving an ancient error, particularly discouraging in an age of martyrdom, respecting the sleep of the soul after its departure from the body, until the time of the resurrection.

Calvin made choice of Basil for the place of his retreat. Here he published his celebrated work, the "Christian Institutions," so justly esteemed one of the chief productions of the reformers of the sixteenth century, and long considered as a standard publication, especially for students in theology in our own church, and throughout the reformed world. The occasion of the publication of this work, was a gross calumny of the French king, who, to apologise to the German princes for the cruel executions of the Protestants in his own kingdom, when he sought their alliance, had asserted" that he had punished none but such as held the opinions of the Anabaptists, who substituted their enthusiastic fancy for the word of God, and contemned all magistracy." The Christian Institutions were designed to be a full statement of the principles of the reformation, as they stood opposed to the Romish corruptions on the one hand, and to the heresies of these mischievous fanatics on the other; and it is a remark of some importance to be remembered, that most of the public formularies of the Protestant churches in this age, were drawn up in similar circumstances, and stand equally opposed to popery and to the principles of the Anabaptists.

After publishing his book, Calvin undertook a journey into Italy, to wait on the duchess of Ferrara, a daughter of Louis XII., and one who favoured the reformation. Intending to return to Basil, he went to settle his affairs in France, and finding no way open but that through the duke of Savoy's dominions, on account of the war which then raged, he proceeded by that route, and was thus brought as an accidental traveller to Geneva, where, as has been observed, he was retained, and Geneva became the future scene of his labours and ministry, and to this circumstance owed its subsequent celebrity among the churches of the reformed.

In Geneva, however, Calvin found it more easy to bring the people to abjure popery, than to compose their differences among themselves, or to induce the mass of the population to submit to the discipline of a Christian church. Some of the customs, also, of the churches of Bern, which had been received at