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of truth. At a conference held at Baden under the interest of the Papacy, Dr. Eck presented himself as the champion of the Church. The threats and curses which were uttered against Zwingle induced the town council at Zurich to forbid his risking his life by going to the conference. Ecolampadius, with characteristic mildness, maintained the reformed doctrine against Eck. Though the decision, as might be expected, was made in favor of Rome, yet the effect upon the minds of the assembled multitude was of an opposite tendency. The Reformation was rapidly extending itself in the more level and cultivated regions of Switzerland, but the Forest Cantons, the more ancient members of the confederacy, the first and foremost in the struggle for political liberty, dwelling in their retired mountain enclosures, adhered, as they to this day adhere, to the faith of their fathers. These Forest Cantons invoked the aid of Austria against their brethren, but the balance was already inclining in favor of Reform.

D'Aubigné devotes the latter part, nearly a third of his volume, to the history of the Reformation in France. He is the first historian who has distinctly claimed and proved for France the honor of having the priority in point of time over all other nations, in advancing doctrines at war with the Papal system. In France, religion had to contend with superstition, incredulity, and gross immorality. There was profligacy in the Church, and debauchery upon the throne. In the lofty Piedmontese valleys Christian truth had always been sheltered from the corruptions of Rome. Innocent VIII. had issued a Bull and commissioned an army to hunt out from rocks and caverns the poor heretics. Its task, though pursued with the fury and the scent of bloodhounds, was not thoroughly completed; the heretics took refuge in retreats inaccessible save to themselves, and there the seed of truth was protected for a more propitious season. In one of these Alpine solitudes in Dauphiny, and at a hamlet bearing his name, William Farel was born in the year 1489, of one of the noble families of the region. His parents were strict Catholics, and he was heartily devoted to their faith, till the dawning of truth on his mind prepared him for his great work as a herald of the Reformation. Choosing to devote himself to learning, he proceeded to the University of Paris. Dr. Lefevre of Etaples in Picardy, one of the most eminent men who then adorned the French metropolis, thoroughly dissatisfied with the existing faith, was fearlessly

pursuing his study of the Scriptures. Under his guidance, and after severe mental struggles, Farel wrought out his spiritual deliverance. Margaret of Valois, sister of Francis, leaned toward the new opinions. They found converts notwithstanding the opposition and the maledictions of the Sorbonne. Persecution soon marked the Reformers as obnoxious, and drove them from the capital; but new allies were rising up to them in the provinces. A comb-weaver, named Le Clerc, the first Protestant martyr in France, was burnt at Metz, with most horrible tortures. Farel returned to his native village and preached to his countrymen; driven thence, he took refuge in Switzerland, and boldly declared his testimony. He found a temporary home at Basle, and a devoted friend in Ecolampadius. Both of them united their energies in their work. But Farel kept aloof from the great Erasmus, not caring for the friendship of so lukewarm an opponent of corruption. The proud scholar took offence at the boldness of the refugee Frenchman, and while he was absent on a visit to Zurich, procured his exclusion from Basle on his return. Farel was still a layman; but moved by the urgent solicitations of the people of Montbeliard, in France, to become their pastor, he returned covertly to Basle, and was here ordained by Ecolampadius, in whose house he found concealment.

The entire New Testament, in a French translation, was published in 1524. The French Parliament, with the countenance rather than the advice of the Pope, established the Inquisition in that country. Briçonnet, Bishop of Meaux, who had twice filled the post of ambassador at Rome, a noble, the intimate friend of Louis XII. and Francis I., had engaged in the Reformation with a kind of half-hearted zeal, prophesying glory to the cause. The death of some of the most courageous innovators and some political reverses brought discouragement on the cause of reform, and gave new hope to its enemies, that with resolute resistance they might quench the flame forever. Briçonnet was made the first victim of inquisitorial severity, or rather intrigue; for the shameful recantation, which he was induced to offer, was wrung from him by specious pretences and artful appeals. The Inquisitors thought to strike a bold blow by impugning next the great Erasmus ; but he found means to elude them. John Calvin is first brought to our notice as a student sixteen years of age, in Paris. He was a native of Noyon in Picardy. When a mere child he

had been solemnly dedicated to the Church, and he was reared under all the influences which its piety or its superstition, could bind around a youthful heart. It was at the darkest hour of the Reformation in France, that this stripling, already marked by that severe and austere character which characterized his life and his theology, occupied the form of a scholar. His career will fill a large part of the volume that is to complete the history before us.

G. E. E.

ART. III. THE TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS.

No theory concerning the temptation of our Saviour has been found so satisfactory by students of the Christian Scriptures, as to prevent the wish for a more probable solution of the difficulties it presents. There are those, doubtless, at the present day, who maintain still a literal interpretation of the language in which it is written. Satan, a sort of second God, the rival of the Supreme, whose opposition God cannot destroy, or whose wicked designs God for some wise purpose of his own permits, fears on the coming of Jesus into the world that the empire of evil, and he, its sovereign, with it, is to be overthrown. To avert an end so dreadful to himself, he conceives the design of tempting Jesus away from his allegiance to God, and inducing him or compelling him to become a supporter of the great enemy of God. He therefore comes on earth. Jesus is driven into the wilderness, where, in order to render the importance of Satan more conspicuous, every circumstance is made more favorable for the purposes of the tempter; but the tempter is known through every disguise, if he assumed any; Jesus shows no fear of him, but an unchangeable purpose still to overcome him and his works. Satan, disappointed, departs in order to circumvent the plans of God and his Son, by some other means, or to tremble and fall before their power.

Some, at the present day, have thought that they had reason to deny altogether the existence of such a being, as the one called Satan is supposed to be. God, they maintain, rules sovereign and unrivalled over the world. He fears no opposition; he finds no difficulty in putting an end to any opposi

tion with which his designs may meet.

The common idea of

Satan, they maintain, impugns too seriously the power and the goodness of the Divine Being. It represents Satan as possessing unbounded power, as omnipresent, or present at all places on the earth at the same time, as able to know the thoughts of men, and to suggest thoughts and inspire feelings. It represents him as having power to subdue the minds of men to his purposes, to triumph over those whom Christ died to save, and to plunge in the unutterable torments of unending Hell persons, towards whom the single will of God was, that they should come to the knowledge of the truth and be saved.

A theory so vast, which yet we have not sketched in those terrors, in which it is sometimes presented to the imaginations of men, is built upon a small foundation. That there are evil spirits we do not undertake to deny; for we see no reason why the same evil passions may not govern men's minds after passing through death, as before. But to say that any spirits, which were created by the goodness of God, will ever be given into the power of a malignant being, to be tormented at his will, without the hope, without the possibility of redemption, is what we do not believe. God's love pervades all worlds; he never can view with indifference the wants, the trials, the sufferings of any soul. Even when the sufferings, which any endure, are such as spring from passions never controlled, from a heart empty of goodness, and from the visitations of remorse, God, we believe, will view them with compassion, and will afford every possible means for the redemption of the spirit which endures them. Whether it is within the means of the Divine Being to redeem all, or any, who in another world, as in this, choose evil for their good, whether it is consistent with the existence of the soul, as a moral, free agent, that it should be redeemed, except through its own consent, and its own choice, are questions which cannot now be discussed.

But it is not necessary to suppose that Satan exists, a divinity, a rival to God, in order to account for the retributions which the soul endures. It certainly is not necessary to suppose that any part of creation is made over to him as his empire. Nay, if a soul be wholly given up to evil, if any soul be given up to the Devil to worship him, to be ruled by him, to be utterly subject to his will, it would not, unless we mistake, endure the unhappiness, which

arises from a conflict of good and evil in the mind. It is only while conscience lives, while the spirit of God suggests truth, and prompts to good, that the soul can suffer. If it is possible for the spirit of God to be withdrawn entirely from the soul, the soul would descend in the scale of being; but, its capacities being full, it would enjoy all the good, which it could know to be good. The soul suffers, while it subjects itself to a divided empire. It must see the good, it must approve the good, it must feel that it does not wish to attain it, and must determine not to attain it, before the sufferings of the soul in their fulness can commence. Whether the sufferings of the soul in another world arise only from the conflict between the knowledge of good and the preference of evil, is more than we know. But we can conceive of the sufferings of " Hell," we can conceive that "these shall go away into everlasting punishment," without supposing them beyond the love of the Almighty, and given over to a rival Divinity.

Like many others, then, we do not agree with those views, which we suppose to be the common views concerning the Devil; we do not suppose that any such personage came to our Saviour, in the wilderness, and endeavored to seduce him away from his devotion to God. Such, indeed, would be the most natural interpretation of the words of the Evangelists; at least, it would be a natural interpretation to those, who hold the common views concerning the existence and attributes of Satan.

It is possible, that the Evangelists themselves may have entertained a belief in such a being as Satan is supposed to be. Such a belief would not have impaired, in the least degree, their ability to remain faithful witnesses "of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach." They misunderstood, until the day of the ascension, the nature of the kingdom which he was about to restore to Israel; they had been preachers of the Gospel before they arrived at the discovery, that Christ had sheep which were not of their fold. Yet as they might have faithfully narrated to their several families and friends, before they learned what the kingdom was which Jesus came to bring, all those things which they heard Jesus teach and saw him do, so they might transmit to coming generations their testimonies concerning Jesus, even if they had not understood the full purport of his words, or known all that God might impart to men at a later day concerning the present or a future world.

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