ings, as illustrate his own views of the practical nature of his divinity; in order to demonstrate equally to the patrons and oppoments of his doctrinal hypothesis, that whether his theory of Christianity be correct or erroneous, the deductions thence obtained by the theorist himself, together with the general strain of his hortatory theology, uniformly require from his disciples the denial of ungodliness and worldly lusts, and a life of sobriety, righteousness, and godliness. Nothing can be more remote from our plan than an endeavour either to establish or disprove abstractedly the relation between his doctrinal and preceptive modes of instruction. Our inquiry, defined by the boundary line of practical utility, will leave the grand controversy precisely where it was found; and will thus, we trust, consist with the neutrality professed in our publication.

We proceed then to remind the students of ecclesiastical history, that it was in the year 1536, that Calvin published at Basle, his Institutes of the Christian Religion". He addressed them to his sovereign, Francis the First of France, in a Preliminary Dedication which has been ever since pronounced by the oracles of criticism, throughout all divisions of Christendom, to be one of the most happy efforts in its own department of literature. A recent perusal of this apology, in Mr. Allen's translation, impels us to add,

It may be necessary, once for all, to apologize to our literary readers for having introduced from Mr. Mackenzie's digest of the various Memoirs of Calvin, details which must have been long familiarized to them in original works; but they will perceive that the review, as far as those works are concerned, was

prepared for readers professing to derive their knowledge of the topics examined in the text, exclusively from Eng

Hish literature. Mr. Mackenzie's per

formance may be recommended as a narrative compiled with moderation, skill, and a competent acquaintance with his subject.

in addition to the applauses which have been so generally lavished upon it, that it contains a fine illustration of the union of independence of mind in the writer, with the respect due from a subject. to his king; that it exhibits vivid illustrations of the irreconcileableness of scriptural religion with the world in every age, and of the intolerance of mankind towards Christianity itself; (for whatever Calvinism may be found in the Institutes, there is not a trace of it in the Dedication;) and that although, it discovers evident marks of a period. when all parties out-reasoned their opponents by contumelious logic, such blemishes shew themselves only as blemishes, and are far from disturbing the general effect of a performance which deserved to meet the eye of a monarch fully. able to appreciate the labours of learning, however disposed to blame their connection with the reformed faith. Had Francis perused the dedication with an independence of thinking commensurate with even the political importance of its topics, he would surely without hesitation have signed the preliminaries of peace with his Protestant subjects; and had he pursued a similar course with regard to the Institutes, a definitive treaty might have resulted, containing articles of infinite utility to the interests both of the sovereign and of the non-Catholic class of his people. It appears, however, either that his majesty never read the work at all, or that he too availed himself of the selecting process; and if the latter were the case, he certainly might have deciphered the threat ening characters of rebellion and anarchy, in the pages of the Exile of Bâsle, with the same facility as our supposed sophist of the primitive age detected an immoral tendency in the Apostolic Epistles.

themselves, they were modified and With regard to the Institutes enlarged by the compiler, in various successive editions, from the first in 1536, to the last published by

Calvin himself in 1559, (a space of three and twenty years), when they received his final corrections, and appeared as we now find them. It is a sufficiently curious circumstance to be under the necessity of informing certain divinity students of the nineteenth century, respecting a book, which, as Heylin himself tells us, was a kind of second Bible, (at least, the accredited interpreter of the first), to the aspirants after ordination in the Church of England, during the early part of the seventeenth century. Without stopping to inquire into the causes of this ignorance or forgetfulness, it shall be our endeavour, in some succeeding paragraph, to give a brief statement - a statement so brief that it may be borne without irritation of the contents of the Genevese body of divinity; premising, that our report is founded upon a straight-forward perusal of every page and section in the Institutes of Calvin. Whether we came to the task with prejudices favourable or hostile, we profess to have completed it with a full conviction, that our author, in common with other masters of theological science, has many human excellencies and many human defects; that he deserves neither to be canonized as an

inspired instructor, nor to be viewed as the evil genius of religious anarchy; but that unquestionably he occupies a station in the very first rank among the learned, industrious, and devout teachers of mankind, and that (giving such average credit to the representations of biography as is required by the courtesy of the lettered world,) he illustrated by his own example the strength and purity of his faith, exacting from his opponents a concession that his life was at least equal in practical godliness to the lives of any who have dissented from the peculiarities of his creed. Most unequivo. cally did this great man display to his professed adherents such a pattern of consistent holiness as, by their concurrence with his princi

ples, they surely bind themselves to imitate, and to hold up to the imitation of their associates in the field of controversy, and to all in their families or churches who acknowledge their domestic or pastoral influence.

If, in obedience to the impression made by a recent study of the life and writings of Calvin, we have sketched a too-flattering outline of his moral lineaments, the dissatisfied spectator may wander from our exhibition to examine a portrait drawn by a Raphael of the Anglican Church, in the sixteenth century, -a portrait familiar to all who have walked and studied in the galleries and schools of that church; and, whether faithful or otherwise, deriving every claim to patient and impartial criticism from its having proceeded from the pencil of the great and accredited apologist of our Ecclesiastical Polity.

“A founder it had,” (referring to the Genevese discipline established by Calvin), "whom, for mine own part, I think incomparably the wisest man that ever the French church did enjoy, since the hour it enjoyed him. His bringing up was in the study of the civil law. Divine knowledge he gathered not by hearing or reading, so much as by teaching others. For though thousands were debtors to him, as touching knowledge in that kind, yet he to none, but only to

God, the Author of that most blessed fountain, the book of life, and of the admirable dexterity of wit, together with the helps of other learning which were his guides." "Two things of principal moment there are which have deservedly procured him honour throughout the world: the one, his extion of Christian Religion; the other, ceeding pains in composing the Institu his no less industrious travels for exposi tion of holy Scripture, according to the same Institutions. In which two things, whosoever they were that after him bestowed their labour, he gained the advantage of prejudice against them, if they gainsayed; and of glory above them, if they consented.

Of what

account the master of sentences was in the Church of Rome, the same and more amongst the preachers of reformed churches, Calvin had purchased; so that the perfectest divines were judged they

to be those of the pugnacious age in which he wrote; an age in which all parties were irritated and stiffened by systematic opposition. He is dogmatical in stating his own opinions, and too often manifests much contemptuous asperity towards his opponents. The man who burned the body of Servetus * seems to have uniformly borne in mind, that the monks of an earlier age burned the mouldering bones of Wickliffe; that Luther, by a similar process refuted the bull of Leo; and Craumer, the heretics of the reign of the Sixth Edward; and the induction seems to have been, that it was quite necessary to carry the fiery system into the retirements of theological literature. There was, however, in the written controversy of his age, one advantage over later disputants which deserves our notice; we mean, that the Protestant apologists of the sixteenth century usually spoke out all they really intended; whereas, more recent debaters among Protestants themselves, adopt in numberless instances a mode of conducting their discussions, as though "more were meant than met the eye." How desirable is it, in every species of hostility, to be distinctly apprised of the enemy's aim and movements; and, at all events, not to fight in the dark! The controversialist may exclaim with the .warrior,

-if it be thy will That we should perish, we thy will obey, But let us perish by the light of day!

standing as a quiescent theory, one practical inquiry is found to be perpetually emerging from the deeps of argumentation. The student is constantly excited to inquire, what should be the fruit of all this discussion; the living, daily consequence to himself. On this account, there is some difficulty in supposing that the study of the undisputed points of the Gospel, in the writings of this divine, can be attractive to any but those who are afraid of giving a cold and unproductive assent to the faith of Jesus Christ; who are afraid of lowering into intellectual speculation, what ought to form the lives, and spiritualize the souls of immortals; and who, instead of consuming their days in efforts to measure what no efforts of theirs can measure, are anxious to understand what is intelligible, and what is necessary to their salvation. It should be observed in common justice to Calvin, that his very highest notions of absolute decrees are, by his own representations, as entirely practical in their results as any opinion gathered from the Decalogue; that he himself would be the last man to defend the religion of a licentious Predestinarian; nay, that he would utterly deny any such character to be possessed of a particle of genuine faith; but, on the contrary, would view him as a practical Atheist, whose speculations about grace were only a species of more elaborate blasphemy.

Another excellence of the Institutes consists in their author's uniform appeal to the decisions of Scripture. With relation to this, the reader will have seen the sentiments of Hooker. Consistently timents of Hooker. with the fundamental principle of the Reformation, Calvin went directly to the Bible, and not by

the circuitous route of councils and

fathers; although he frequently refers to them with much veneration, and has indeed constructed the work before us in the order of