distinguished by those habits of peace and intelligent obedience, which, while they do honour to the subject, are the best and noblest safeguard of the government and the laws. But, above all, we rejoice in the progressively enlarging operations of those educational and other associations, which have a special bearing on religion. The knowledge of the Scriptures is, above all other things, of importance to man. By them his soul lives, and he is fitted for being the inhabitant of eternity, when the transactions of this fleeting scene shall be forgotten. But by them also his temporal comfort is advanced. By them, in proportion to the degree in which their blissful influence is shed over mankind, are men rendered virtuous and happy; and it will be when the knowledge of the word of God has been universally diffused; and when, in consequence of that diffusion, the spirit of christianity shall have been imbibed by mankind,—it will be then, and not till then, that the determined improvement of human society shall be reached, and we will behold" a world in principle as chaste as this.is gross and selfish ;" and the falsehood, and wrong and outrage, wherewith earth is filled, shall be swept away; and the period will be come, when "men shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; and nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn the art of war any more." In the way, and as the foe, of this most blessed consummation, stands the Church of Rome. She deprecates a period of light; and, at this moment, is she putting forth her efforts, with more determined energy in opposition to the progress of religious and other useful knowledge, than ever she has done since the days of Luther. Bible societies have been again and again denounced by her head as " pestilential abominations;" schools, in which the Scriptures are taught, have been, in like manner, anathematized; and the imploring voice of the poor degraded victims of her delusions-pleading to be permitted to give their children scriptural education--has been disregarded and condemned *. How long, and how fiercely Divine Providence may be pleased to permit this foe of the world's illumination to rage, we pretend not to determine ;-but we know who hath said, that, in the latter days," many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased ;” we know who hath assured us, that "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea;" and, confident that these cheering announcements shall be realised, we anticipate with delightful certainty the approach of a period, when, instead of beholding the stream of knowledge rolled back to its source, and the dreariness of intellectual and moral desolation covering the earth, men shall see the waters of truth pouring themselves in resistless tide among all lands, spreading health, and verdure, and beauty, over the moral scenery of our world, and causing "the wilderness and the solitary place" to rejoice and blossom as the rose ! * See Appendix, No. X1. CHAPTER V. ON THE EVIL CONSEQUENCES OF THE REFORMA TION. It was not to be expected that an event like the Reformation, which operated so extensively and so powerfully in changing the religious, the political, and the social condition of the states of Europe, would have been unattended by any consequences of an injurious description. This world is not the scene of unmingled good. The character and circumstances of man in his present state of existence are such, that every event which takes place in his history must, like the symbolical cloud in the desert of Sinai, have a dark, as well as a bright side,-must have a portion of evil mixed up with all the good of which it is productive. In the history, even of Christianity, we find the most striking illustration of the truth of this maxim that can possibly be conceived. Its introduction is, unquestionably, the most important and auspicious event that ever has been, or ever will be, recorded in the annals of the human race. Its motto is the song of angels, "Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, good will to men." In the history of Christianity are destined to be more than realized the brightest visions that ever prophet announced, or raptured poet sung; scenes of peace, and felicity, and joy, "such as earth saw never, such as heaven stoops down to see." Nevertheless, the introduction of Christianity was not unaccompanied with disastrous effects. Its nature and its tendency are good,-good without any mixture of evil. Yet did its divine author, our blessed Lord and Saviour, declare respecting it, "I come not to send peace on earth, but a sword; for I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man's foes shall be those of his own household." Wars, and persecutions, and outrage, and bloodshed to a most awful degree were, accordingly, its consequences,-consequences, however, of which it is innocent, and which are attributable solely to the depravity of those who, when the light shone among them, were unwilling to receive it. Now, if even the introduction of Christianity, the most memorable and blissful event that is recorded in the whole history of man, was the innocent occasion of many disastrous transactions, it is by no means wonderful, that the Reformation from Popery, which was just the restoration of genuine Christianity, should have been followed by some consequences of a similar nature. The opponents of Christianity, in the primitive ages of her history, eagerly laid hold of the fact, which has been just adverted to, and talked of it as a demonstration that Christianity had been a curse, and not a blessing, to mankind; and their example has been imitated by the enemies of the Reformation. They have told us of a multitude of evils, of which that revolution has been productive, and they have attempted to persuade us that these are of such magnitude as never to be atoned for by the benefits which it has conferred: but, than all this, nothing could be more illiberal, or more unjust. Many of the alleged evils which are attributed to the Reformation, are found, on inquiry, to be productive of good. Not a few of the injurious occurrences with which it is blamed, are unjustly laid to its charge; and, with respect to those real evils which it has occasioned, we hesitate not to assert that they are infinitely counterbalanced by the numberless substantial benefits with which it has been attended. One or two instances of the truth of these assertions, in reference to that great revolution, shall, in this place, be adduced. We are told, in the first place, that the Reformation has operated with mischievous effect on the tranquillity of civil and political society. It has been productive of many fierce and disastrous wars in all the countries of the western world. Germany, and France, and Britain, we are assured, have all been the scenes of the desperate and long continued struggles to which it gave birth. Now, in making our reply to this particular charge which the enemies of the Reformation have preferred against it, we answer, most unhesitatingly, that the guilt of these unhappy conflicts, can, with no justice, be charged on the Reformation; and that, even although the case were otherwise, although it were true that these hostile transactions were excited and encouraged by the Reformation, they bore |