proceeded to at this period, from their new conceived notion of "liberty," that the Emperor Charles V. found it very difficult to stem the torrent, nor could he effectually compass it till many years after. These transactions may be seen more at large in Sleidan, Cochlæus, and other historians.

The Lutherans of Germany, who received the name of Protestants, from their protesting against a decree made in favour of the Catholic religion in the diet held at Spires in 1529, drew up in opposition to it, their confession of faith, called the Augsburg Confession, and entered into a league of fensive and defensive at Smalstald against the Emperor and Catholic princes of Germany. Luther had sounded the trumpet of war, and set all Germany in a flame.

The heads

of this formidable league were, the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburgh, the Landgrave of Hesse, the Dukes of Wirtemburg and Lunenburg, and the Prince of Anhalt. Allured by the boundless liberty and enjoyment of the Church possessions, which they acquired by the reformation, they resolved to secure them by the point of the sword. They therefore assembled troops, and brought into the field an army of seventy thousand men, commanded by the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse, and a hundred and twelve pieces of cannon. Some other German princes, besides the above-mentioned, either joined them personally, or sent them forces. They likewise received succours from the imperial towns of Augsburgh, Ulm, Strasburgh, and Frankfort. Thus they were prepared to depose the Emperor Charles V. and to extirpate from Germany the Catholic faith, which had been the established religion of the empire for many ages past. The eyes of all Europe were intent upon the issue of this The emperor with a much smaller army marched with resolution against them, engaged them near the Elbe, and gained a complete victory in 1547. The two generals, the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse, were taken prisoners. Thus was the Catholic religion secured in the empire, and Protestantism, though checked, kept its ground. A similar scene was acted in Switzerland, where Zuinglius had introduced the reformation, as we have already related. The reformed cantons, not content with having themselves adopted Zuinglianisın, would also force it upon the other cantons that remained Catholic. This occasioned a war to ensue, and a battle was fought, in which the Protestants were defeated, and Zuinglius himself at their head slain in 1531.

war.

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Calvin's reformation at Geneva began by ejecting the prince bishop of the place, and dispossessing him of his sovereignty and temporal dominions. Calvin, who modelled the state of Geneva, declared himself an enemy to monarchical government, and ever commended the advantages of a commonwealth. They are," said he, "beside their wits, quite void of sense and understanding, who desire to live under absolute monarchies; for it cannot be, but that order and policy must decay, where one man holds such an extent of government." Comment. in Dan. c. 2. v. 39. By degrees he expressed more openly his aversion to kings, and endeavoured to disgrace their characters by the most scurrilous abuse. These kings," says he, are in a manner all of them a set of blockheads and brutish men." Ibid. c. 6. v. 3. Thus he trod upon the steps, and imitated the language of his forerunner Luther. Again; "Princes," says Calvin, "forfeit their power when they oppose God in opposing the reformation, and it is better, in such cases, to spit in their faces than to obey." Ibid. v. 22. What can be the purport of such doctrine, but to inspire a contempt for sovereigns, and to encourage the people to cast off their government, under the cloak of religion?

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Theodore Beza, Calvin's scholar and successor at Geneva, supported his master's doctrine, and enforced it by his own writings, as may be seen in the preface to his translation or the New Testament; and again in his book, "Vindica contra Tyrannos," where he says: "We must obey kings for God's sake, when they obey God;" but otherwise, "as the vassal loses his fief or tenure, if he commit felony, so does the king lose his right and realm also;" thus speaks our modern Junius Brutus. In this same work may be seen a hundred other assertions of the same nature, the natural tendency of which can be no other, but to arm subjects against their sovereign, and to introduce anarchy and confusion into the world. How different is the doctrine of these two modern apostles from that of the ancient great apostles, SS. Peter and Paul! "Be ye subject," says St. Peter, "to every human creature for God's sake: whether it be to the king, as excelling; or to governors, as sent by him for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of the good." Ep. 1. c. 2. v. 13, 14. Let every soul," says St. Paul, “be subject to higher power: for there is no powers, but from God: and those that are, are ordained of God." Therefore he that resists the power, resists the ordinance of God. And they

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that resist purchase to themselves damnation." Ep. ad Rom. xiii. 1, 2.

Geneva, having settled the plan of her principles according to the instructions of Calvin and Beza, became a school of rebellion to the western parts of Europe, and the principal nursery of the civil wars in France. This country soon found its bowels convulsed by the poisonous seeds of the re formation, that had clandestinely been sown, and taken deep root, in Dauphine, Gascony, Languedoc, and other provinces. In 1560, the Calvinists, or Huguenots, formed what is called "the conspiracy of Amboise," which was a scheme to seize the person of Francis II. king of France, and to murder the duke of Guise and his brother the cardinal of Lorrain, who had the chief management of affairs in the kingdom, and were attached to the Catholic religion. They had prepared a body of troops for the purpose; but the plot was discovered, and prevented from taking effect. However a civil war broke out in 1562, in which the prince of Conde was declared chief of the Huguenots. This great general at the head of a body of them, surprised and took the city of Orleans, while other protestant corps made themselves masters of Rouen and several other towns. But the constable Montmorency and the duke of Guise advancing against them at the head of the Catholics, for Charles IX., who had succeeded Francis II., a battle ensued near the town of Dreux, in which the Huguenots, who gave the attack, were defeated, and their commander, the prince of Conde, taken pri

soner.

Though the protestants had thus miscarried in their rebellion against their sovereign, yet Beza, who for his warmth in the cause had accompanied them, and been present at the battle of Dreux, boasted of that battle, as having served to lay the foundation of the reformation in France. Thus he addressed Queen Elizabeth in the preface to his translation of the New Testament: "Upon which day, (the day of the battle at Dreux,) two years since, the nobility and gentry of France, under the command of his excellency the prince of Conde, being assisted with your majesty's auxiliary troops, and some others from the princes of Germany, laid the first foundation of the true reformed religion in France, with their own blood." He in the same place commends the rebellious transactions of the Huguenots at Meaux, Orleans, &c. and glories in having had a share in them. "Which I speak," says he, "the more freely, because I myself, as it

pleased God, was present at most of those deliberations and actions."

The year after the battle at Dreux, the duke of Guise was assassinated by Poltrot, a fanatic Calvinist. Notwithstanding the bad success the Huguenots had met with, they resolved not to rest, till they should compel the king to come into their own terms. They therefore contrived another scheme to seize his person, on his going from Meaux to Paris: but the design being discovered and frustrated, the civil war recommenced, and they were vanquished a second time near St. Dennis, in 1567. They were worsted again at Jarnac in 1569, and the same year were overthrown in a very bloody engagement at Moncontour.

Many were the insurrections and rebellions of the Calvinists in France in the subsequent reigns, which created infinite perplexities to the kings, and produced inexpressible calamities in that kingdom. It is sufficient in this place to have shown their origin from the principles of the reformation, and their first progress. And what

has been said, is no more than is acknowledged by protestants themselves of other sects. Thus are the Calvinists described by Dr. Heylin, a learned protestant of the Church of England, in his Cosmography, book I. "Rather than their discipline should not be admitted, and the episcopal government destroyed in all the churches of Christ, they were resolved to depose kings, ruin kingdoms, and to subvert the fundamental constitutions of all civil states.' When people proceed upon such schemes of violence, can they wonder, that princes or their officers in their wrath sometimes retaliate upon them! Violence necessarily gives provocation, which in its turn exerts itself, though perhaps by unjustifiable methods. When sovereigns perceive their lives to be in danger from conspiracies, when they see their states ransacked, and thrown into confusion by the arms of rebellious subjects, can we be surprised if these sovereigns, without consulting religion, sometimes repel the evil by rough and cruel means? Such was the so much talked of massacre of the Huguenots, at Paris and other places in France, in 1572, on St. Bartholomew's day, in the reign of Charles IX.

The massacre also of the protestants in Ireland in 1641, has been often objected against the Catholic Church. When people are driven to despair by excessive hardship and oppression, and even threatened with utter extirpation, what wonder if an insurrection follows? Such was the case with

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the Irish Catholics. The insurgents even were not the body of Catholics, they were no more than an exasperated rabble in the province of Ulster, who acted against the inclination. of the community, and in opposition to the exhortations of their clergy and indeed all such violences are utterly condemned by the Catholic doctrine. It is also clear from authentic records and testimonies, that this massacre has been exceedingly exaggerated, and that not one hundredth part of the number were murdered that were reported. These particulars are proved at length by a learned protestant writer of the kingdom of Ireland, in a book entitled: The trial of the cause of the Roman Catholics.Dublin, 1761." The nature of Calvinism being so opposite to the Catholic religion, it produced in its proselytes a rancorous aversion to every thing belonging to the latter communion. quence of this could be no other, when once they had arms in their hands, but to spread desolation, and exercise cruelties upon those whose religion they hated. And such was the real fact. It is impossible to read the history of the Calvinists, without being shocked at the disorders and barbarities committed by them. It is computed, that in the course of those wars, they destroyed twenty thousand churches. In the province of Dauphine alone, they killed two hundred and fiftyfive priests, and one hundred and twelve monks and friars, and burnt nine hundred towns and villages. If the maxims of Calvinism warranted such proceedings, could its gospel be the gospel of Christ?

The conse

As Beza had been the chief instrument of propagating Calvinism in France, and a great agent in fomenting the seditions and combustions it occasioned in that country; in like manner Knox, another disciple of Calvin, carried the same doctrine into Scotland, where he planted it by sedition and rebellion, by fire and sword. He, Buchanan, Goodman, and other associates, having consulted together, agreed to reform the Church of Scotland according to the standard of Geneva; when a sufficient party was formed, they began their work of reformation by murdering Cardinal Beaton in 1546, the principal supporter of the Catholic Religion. Knox harangued the people, declaimed against the ancient faith and clergy, and inflamed the multitude to that degree of rage, that they immediately ran to the Churches, overturned the altars, defaced the pictures, broke to pieces the statues, carried off the ornaments, and then proceeded against the monasteries, which they almost laid fevel with