others in it, yet perhaps it is but little for our advantage, and undoubtedly new. But of all other objections I conceived you would make answer to his sixteen or seventeen instances, that simple Priests have ordained. I will never let you be at quiet till you have done it.' "This latter part I am resolved to think unreasonable, and I confess I wonder the former should be so new. For though till you cozened me out of the fear, I apprehended it unsafe to say it, yet I have a long time thought it, yet learnt it not from Petavius. I do not concur with you in wishing myself an obligation to the trouble of a reply; there were dregs enough in the last draught, to take off my appetite from sucking out more. I am this week put in mind by Gilbert] Sh[eldon] to be a remembrancer to some of those who are concerned, to think of doing somewhat to preserve a Church among us, lest it perish with their order, which is now reduced to a small number, and those literally рeσ Búтeрos. If you have had any thoughts on πρόσωπον τῆς γενέσεως, Jam. i. 23, I should be glad to know how you render it. I have lately formed some few discourses,-1. Of the way of deciding controversies, not decided in Scripture. 2. Of marrying the wife's sister, propinquities, and divorce. 3. Of pædo-baptism, answering Dr. Taylor's plea for the Anabaptists, in his Lib [erty] of Proph[esying]. 4. Of ordination. 5. Of Christmas-day, which I wish were improved by you without giving you too much trouble; but now the approach of winter days discourages me from sending them. Have you seen Mr. Hobbes' Leviathan, a farrago of Christian Atheism? With my daily prayers for you, I am, most humbly and heartily your "Sir,-Some things I perceive to have been so hastily thrown down in my last, that they have caused some mistake. As when you conceive Petavius hath seventeen instances, that Priests have ordained. For it is Blondell hath so, and then that will be no news to you. Which yet to reply to will not be fit for the discourse of ordination in my last mentioned to you; 1. because it is in English; 2. because that being designed to these times, which quite cast off all ministerial or ecclesiastical function, is only to prove ordination and succession in the Church, not descending to the Presbyterians' pretensions. The book wherein Petavius joins with, and is of mine opinion, is first that to which Walo Messal [inus] is an answer, and 2, a great volume de Ordine Ecclesiastico in answer to which Salmasius de Primatu was designed as preparatory. The first I read twelve years since; the second I never saw. G[ilbert] Sh[eldon] which you cannot interpret, is your grandchild in the Closet.] And having mentioned his proposal to you, which I acknowledge will want conference and advice, I leave it to you as you see occasion. Mr. Hobbes is the author of the book De Cive, in which he entitles himself a studiis to the king; but having in France been angered by some Divines, and having now a mind to return hither, hath chosen to make his way by this book, which some tell me takes infinitely among the looser sons of the Church, and the king's party, being indeed a farrago of all the maddest divinity that ever was read, and having destroyed Trinity, Heaven, Hell, may be allowed to compare ecclesiastical authority to the kingdom of fairies. "Oct. 21, [16]51. Sir, I am assuredly yours, [Wrenn, 5.] "Sir,-You have now rectified him in the affirmative part, that Blondell it is who hath these instances of Presbyterian ordinations. And you have satisfied him in the negative part so far, as why you cannot fitly meddle therewith in your English discourse. But yet, this is not why you should not meddle at all. He rests not therefore to thrust you still upon it, as far as his advice may, upon this reason, that he hath been told by a discreet friend or two since your book came out, that that paralogism doth still sway too much with many abroad. For they think they are safe against Nil dat quod non habet, because though they be but Presbyters that do ordain, they have the order; and as for the other rule of Nemo assumit, nisi qui vocatus, they do not hold it so well applied against them; for they which are ordained by them, make account they are well enough called, and so non assumunt sibi, much less are they that do ordain thought guilty of assuming, when they had the order before. Never considering that they have not the power, but misapplying CHRIST'S phrase, ὃ εἶχεν αὕτη ἐποίησε, and so going on to give what they have, and to do what they can, become what will of Id possumus quod jure possumus; though they would surely condemn a knight or a lord that should take upon themselves to make knights or lords. What weight is in Blondell's instances he remembers not, reading him but once very cursorily, and now hath not the book. But if there be aught in any of them he could weigh it down. And for an opportunity, what think you of telling (in a word) that friend beyond the seas, that wrote to you to challenge it of you, that you would not have done it more now than at first, but upon his instance. Nor that neither, but that at the same time your printer sends to you to crave leave and order for a new impression. So may you well make it an additional to your brief Præmonitio ad lectorem, and (if you so think fit), remove it to the end of your book, and make an admonition of it with a touch thereof in the title page. So have you his opinion and all his best wishes. Do as you think best. For the having mentioned the proposal of Gilbert] Sh[eldon] to him, and there leaving it, he says might be repented as much as no mention, he being only avaxexwpnxas, and never having opportunity of advice or discourse, with any whom that matter may concern. "To God's blessing he recommends you, as himself, and desires you if you write to G[ilbert] Sh[eldon] to say no less to him from the Anchorite. "October 25th, [16]51. "For the title page, to that motto Qui sequitur me non ambulat in tenebris, why is not the speaker expressed, or the citation added? For fear of envy's misconstruction ?" [Wrenn, 6.] Sir, I am bid to tell you that he hath done as you bade him; but that he did it no sooner, is because he was bidden no sooner. For though your note to him bore date January 12, yet it came not to his hand till February 21, towards evening. Then Mr. Barrow brought it, and a loose moiety of your papers, your three first queries, which he hath now sealed up and sent back to him. But those few animadversions which he made in perusing them, come here to you by your stationer, as you desired they should: yet referring to the paragraph as they do, he supposes they will be of small use to you without your papers; but the loss is small, because with your papers you would not find much in them. However, if the rest of the papers be sent to him as Mr. Barrow said they should be, he intends to show you what he conceives of them also. All happiness he wishes you, and so commends you to the blessings of the ALMIGHTY. "In Sti Matthiæ, 1651." [Wrenn, 7.] "Sir,-On St. Matthias' Day, the first half of your papers were delivered in Chancery Lane, and somewhat written for yourself, was then left with your stationer, if yet you have it. On Shrove Tuesday Mr. Bar[row] brought the other half of your papers to him. But they found him so engaged in another business, that he had no leisure till the Friday. But then he fell upon them. And Mr. Bar[row] coming again to him yesterday, (upon another occasion,) he had then just ended and delivered your papers again to him. His strictures upon them he now sends you, such as they are, by your stationer. He says he could advise it should be so contrived that the three last queries, (if not the rest,) when they come forth may be to be had severally, every one alone by itself, by any that desire it so. They will vend much the more, and so be the more profitable to the Church. Many a one that hath no mind or occasion to peruse all, or not leisure to read them all, or not money to buy them all, yet would gladly have one of them, (some this one, some that one,) as his present interest or affection leads him. This is all I have now in command to write, but his desire to hear sometimes how and his daily desires of all blessings upon you. "March 9th, 1651[-2].” [Wrenn, 8.] you do, "Sir,-He said he made account that his notes, till you had the papers of them would be of no use to you; yet he presumed they will then be of thus much use, as to let you see he deals freely with you, desiring to prefer truth, as far as he wots, above all things. Touching the two advertisements, he may guess, he says, somewhat concerning the second. But fully apprehend you he does not in it, much less in that greater liberty which you say might now be useful. But for the former advertisement of yours, it is no stranger to him, there having been three or four addresses to him. from abroad about it, whereof two very lately. But the business being of so great weight and length, he also committing nothing to that uncertain bearer, pen and ink, and the parties that came to him not being capable of carrying it in their breasts, all the answer that he returned was, that till he were fitted with a living conveyance, he could send nothing but the tender of his duties there. And this is all that he hath now to send to you, more than the continuance of his prayers for you. "March 18, 1651[-2]. By your servant, We promised our readers that it would appear from internal evidence, (and we possess no other,) who the writer of these letters to Hammond was. The expression, "" your successor in the cl[oset]" in the first, and "your grandchild in the cl[oset]" in the second, is alone nearly proof enough that Wrenn was the writer, as he was Clerk of the Closet till 1635, in which office he was succeeded by Dr. Richard Steward, and he by Dr. Gilbert Sheldon about 1638; so that the latter could be spoken of by Hammond as the grandson of the former in that capacity. It is a little remarkable that Wrenn should not have had the sagacity to guess at the initials of G. Sh. The bearer of these letters was the celebrated Dr. Isaac Barrow, at that time a young man about twenty-one. He had been admitted at Peter-house in 1643, but was removed from the college to Trinity, after his uncle had been ejected from his fellowship. Though so young, he stedfastly refused to take the covenant, but afterwards took the oath of the engagement. Of this he presently repented, and went back to the commissioners to declare his change of mind, when his name was erased from the list of subscribers. He took his degree in 1649, and was elected Fellow of Trinity the same year, and for some time studied physic; but afterwards, upon the advice of his uncle, Dr. Isaac Barrow, Bishop of S. Asaph, changed his profession. Why it was that he was not ejected from Cambridge, together with the other Royalists and Episcopalians, does not appear. It seems probable that he was not in residence, but the account of his life has no mention of his mode of living between the years 1649 and 1654. He had been educated at Cambridge by Hammond's liberality, and the above letters show that he was at this time employed in his benefactor's service; but he was not ordained till the year 1659, by Brownrigg, Bishop of Exeter. (To be continued.) JOHN CALVIN. The Life of John Calvin, compiled from authentic sources, and particularly from his correspondence. By THOMAS H. DYER. London: Murray, 1850. Ir is a curious fact that the opinions of Calvin, who was later in the field and had fewer personal qualifications than any of the foreign reformers, should have obtained a firmer hold and acquired a more lasting influence with posterity than the opinions of Zuingle or Luther have gained. Yet so it is. While mere naked Zuinglianism has disappeared even from the soil which gave it birth, and exists only with Mr. Gorham and his clique, and while Lutheranism scarcely even lingers in Germany, Calvinism has at times impressed itself upon every portion of western Christendom. Not indeed that the western Church has ever as a body acknowledged the heresy of Calvin, nor can that heresy ever combine with Catholic truth, otherwise than as oil mingles with water and clay with gold; still the churches both under the Roman and Anglican rule have felt its influence. In our own country indeed from the time that Calvin sought to convert the Marian exiles at Frankfort to his opinions, has the virus of his heresy been eating as a canker into the vitals of the English Church. It was the poison which jeopardised the existence almost of the Church in Elizabeth's time. It was the evil genius which the Hampton Court conference bad to exorcise. The crosier of Laud was scarcely able to crush it, and at the Savoy Conference the hopes of its entire annihilation were, it seems, a little premature. For recent events have shown that "the |