temptation, at the close of the seventeenth century, to the religious constancy of its head, and he forsook the reformed faith, which, in former days, his family had taken the lead in protecting and nurturing. But a defection, so little to be expected from such a quarter, and rendered so suspicious by the secular ends that it secured, merely excited general regrets. It was almost powerless upon the religious aspect of Saxony, which, in spite of the Romish example still set at court, continues in the principles that Luther's own teaching rooted.

When the seventeenth century opened, Romish influence had revived, in some degree, almost every where; hence its friends fully reckoned upon the recovery of their lost ground. At the same time, they saw this occupied by their adversaries so firmly as to leave no hope of regaining it, without overstrained and unscrupulous exertions. From such arose the thirty years' war that desolated Germany, and the religious troubles which long filled France with dissension and misery. In countries where the government was protestant, Romish efforts for a re-conquest were only felt from domestic intrigues and interference with foreign politics. These things were, however, quite enough to sharpen religious animosity. Men were exasperated by the probable suspicion and occasional discovery of treacherous movements among themselves to re-establish a creed which they detested as a national crime and pollution. England especially drew from Romish continental struggles the most unhesitating conviction that a sanguinary intolerance was the inherent vice of papal principles. Hence Protestant vied with Romanist in devising cruel schemes of mutual extermination. The only advantage that the former's intolerance could claim over the latter's, was its operation within a narrower and less disputable field. Protestant persecution was limited by Scripture and primitive antiquity. Romish, on the contrary, raged most frequently and fiercely in defence of principles that can bring no proof either from the written word, or from the most venerable among uninspired records. Its ordinary object was, in fact, a denial of transubstantiation, one of the papal peculi

arities which labours most under the disadvantage of late authentication. But with such a mitigation of her guilt and folly in entering upon the race of intolerance, protestantism must rest contented. History here can do no more for her than detail the alarms felt, difficulties undergone, provocations received, and poisonous lessons learnt, from her elder and rival sister.

When the peace of Westphalia, in 1648, secured the rights of German protestantism, the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685 crushed those of French, and the expulsion of James II. in 1688 made British allegiance conditional on the sovereign's alienation from Rome, a foundation was laid for those principles which gradually sprang up in Europe during the following century. Men could not, indeed, at first, lay aside inveterate habits, or forget recent dangers. Hence they entered upon a new age with all the prejudices, animosities, apprehensions, and oppressive maxims, that had prevailed in the last. But a few able writers taught a different lesson, and every day made additions to the number of its learners. It owed not, however, its popularity only to the intellectual progress of the times. The dangers and consequent apprehensions of former days were gone. Both Romish and Protestant communities were organized upon a footing of apparent permanence that offered hardly a hope of encroachment upon each other. Hence there was very rarely any hostile movement on either side. Men looked upon themselves no longer as a body that had recently been one, and might soon be one again, if proper energy were used; they rather thought of themselves as parted by a broad line of demarcation, strongly drawn by those who went before them, and utterly beyond any power of their own to obliterate. Hence much of the intolerant legislation of their fathers rapidly fell into desuetude. The minority liable to its lash gave no provocation; therefore it was deemed uncalled-for by the times, and its harshest provisions slumbered in the statute book. Men who thought it unsafe to surrender any of its provisions, would loudly join a public outcry whenever they saw

one of much severity likely to be carried into practice. It was impossible that such a state of public feeling should long continue without leading to that general admission of an inherent right to liberty of conscience, which ultimately distinguished the eighteenth century from any that preceded it.

Unhappily, this disposition to a liberal judgment of other men degenerated in many minds into latitudinarian indifference, and in not a few into open infidelity. These perversions, accordingly, are among the distinguishing features of modern ecclesiastical history. The student sees with pain, that as intolerance declined, a reckless appetite for speculation advanced. It must be owned, that England rushed first upon this licentious course. The re-action under Charles II., which thrust aside puritanical austerity, was aided by subtle and scoffing wits, anxious to supersede religion by a philosophy of their own, or to laugh religious restraints altogether out of countenance. But the English character is naturally serious, and the national religion is established upon foundations of more than usual solidity. Hence it was quickly seen that nothing was more unlikely than any great success from infidel assaults, whether grave or gay. The enemies of revelation did little more in England than earn contempt for themselves, and give occasion for a succession of masterly refutations of their principles. Among the people generally the belief of scriptural truth was never perceptibly shaken. It has ever stood as firmly in public opinion, amidst all the experiments of argument or ridicule, as the island itself amidst the rolling waves. This is an instructive fact. It may surely be taken as a proof, that sound principles, protected, as in England, by the jealous care of a well-ordered establishment, are the only real securities against pernicious errors perseveringly disseminated under favourable circumstances. To such evils, accordingly, France fell a prey. Her mercurial people do not reason with the cautious discrimination of their insular neighbours, and were, therefore, easily led by wit and sophistry to confound the excrescences of their national religion with Christianity itself. These needless or hurtful additions, it

must be owned, were enormous, and the whole system was supported by an undue share of the country's wealth. Inquiring spirits, hostile to the religious establishment, easily saw a close connexion, in its more popular features, with the principles, impostures, and outward appliances of exploded paganism. Hence there was no difficulty in leading public opinion, swayed as it was by levity, conceit, envy, democratic cravings, and insufficient information, into rash prejudice against Christianity altogether. It was branded as nothing else than an offshoot of ancient heathenism, and this was not viewed in its true light as a perversion of patriarchal religion. It passed for the mere creature of priest craft in dark ages, and final ruin was confidently predicted for every system that had such an origin, whenever men should become sufficiently enlightened. Nobody took the trouble to inquire whether priestcraft and superstition had any solid foundation in the Bible. The established religion bore obvious indications of them, and this was enough to condemn all religions. The release which this condemnation gave from those restraints which fears for the future lay upon mankind, made way for the horrors and impieties of the French revolution. Had, however, the system overthrown been better able to bear strict examination, experience of the past will justify a belief, that although the national voice might have called for improvement in religious institutions, it would not madly and impiously have insisted upon their extirpation.

But whatever may be thought of this hypothesis, one point seems to have been established by the French revolution, which is, that social advantages cannot be secured without religion. No sooner had something like a stable government been again established in France, than it saw the necessity of a provision for the spiritual wants of the people. Even leading men, too vain and hardened for the abandonment of their own unbelief, became fully aware that it could not be rendered universal, and that its extensive prevalence was injurious to the public tranquillity. Hence they were quite willing to forget the impious triumphs of which pretended reason had lately boasted, and to

try again the operation of Christianity upon a demoralized and unmanageable people. The scale, however, upon which their spiritual arrangements was made, should be a warning to posterity. It might have been impossible, as it probably was, to obtain, at such a time, more liberal terms for religion. The funds which former ages had gradually accumulated for its diffusion over the country, and for its command of respectful notice from every class, were absorbed among the multiform mass of private property. To reclaim them in any considerable degree was impracticable. Nothing better, therefore, could be done, than to render the private properties, which had so extensively been augmented by their means, liable to an impost for supplying their place, and an impost of any perceptible weight for such a purpose was unlikely to be borne by a people which had scornfully shaken off religion altogether. Still, in spite of this last peculiarity, it may well be doubted from the case of France, whether under any circumstances a nation called upon for a new religious establishment would answer the call in a spirit of becoming and adequate liberality. The truth is, that men, unless under the strong influence of religious convictions, (which is the case with few during most of their lives, and with some never at all,) are seldom disposed for dealing liberally with religion. They would commonly sink its ministers to an inferior station, and provide very insufficiently for its extension over a whole people. Hence it is of the utmost importance to preserve those endowments uncurtailed which have descended from the religious cares of a long succession of men in their best moments. This principle may not be applicable with equal strictness to monastic possessions. Most monasteries comparatively recent have been founded for purposes in which religion degenerates into superstition; and such degeneracy has, undoubtedly, during many centuries, been largely owing to conventual establishments. Hence any services that monastic bodies may have rendered to the religion of a people have long been made very questionable by the base alloy with which monks and friars adulterate religious truth. The day for monastic