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those of Germany. The best edition is that of Francfort, 1706, two vols. folio; to which my references are made.

6. Du Pin, the ecclesiastical historian, was born at Paris in 1657, and died in 1719. "Of all the papal advocates, he is, in general, by far the most candid, and the most to be relied upon." I refer to the volumes and pages of the folio edition, London, 1710, &c.

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7. Luther's Letters have been published in four separate volumes. His friend Aurifaber collected two volumes in quarto, Jena 1556 and Eisleben 1565. Buddeus added a third in quarto, Halle 1703 and 1717; and Strobelius a fourth, in octavo, Nuremberg 1814.2 The two first are so rare that Dr. Milner informed me he had been able to procure them only from the Archbishop of Canterbury's library at Lambeth. I have been more successful, but the letters contained in them come down no lower than the year 1529.-For Melancthon's Epistles, I refer to the folio edition, London 1642, which contains also those of Erasmus. A scarce octavo volume, in two parts, compiled by Pezelius, and printed at Neustadt, 1600, entitled "Melancthonis Consilia Theologica, itemque Responsiones ad Quæstiones," &c. has been interesting and useful to me. It exhibits the judgment of Melancthon, and occasionally that also of Luther and others, on most of the principal questions and transactions connected with the reformation, from the year 1521 to 1560. -In the course of my progress, first Scultetus failed me, and now Seckendorf himself does the same but Sleidan, Father Paul, Melchior Adam, and, in his "Epistles and Deliberations," Melanc

1 Dr. Milner.

o

Perhaps there is a fifth volume by Sagittarius, Altenb. 1663; andeven a six th by Schülz, 17-.

thon himself will still be ready to attend and guide me,-besides fresh writers who will now take up the subject.

8. With respect to other authors, I will only add that, in referring to Milner's History, I have usually (for the reader's convenience,) pointed out the pages of the earlier as well as of the later editions-including the former within parentheses; and that the editions of Mosheim and Robertson made use of are those of London 1768 and 1787, respectively.1

August, 1826.

1 I have discovered one mistake which I must request the reader to correct. The address of the elector of Brandenburg (p. 9. l. 28.) was made to the pope's legate, not to the

emperor.

My attention has just been attracted to the following sentence of Dr. Robertson. "Luther, Calvin, Cranmer, Knox, the founders of the reformed church in their respective countries, as far as they had power and opportunity, inflicted the same punishments upon such as called in question any article in their creeds, which were denounced against their own disciples by the church of Rome." Charles V. iv. 186. I am induced to shew how untrue this modish statement (to a considerable degree fallacious as to all the parties implicated in it,) is with respect to Luther, by placing before the reader a specimen of the passages referred to below, p. 493. Luther himself writes: These, illustrious prince, are the chief doctrines which I would wish you most strenuously to patronise in public, as indeed you have already begun to do. But let there be no compulsion let there be no recourse to the sword: in that way nothing will prosper." Again: "It is not my wish that any persons, no not even these fanatics, should be hindered from preaching. Let them teach, but keep their hands from violence." Yet again: "I am alarmed when I reflect on the conduct of the papists, who have so often abused the statutes of capital punishment against heresy, to the effusion of innocent blood. Among the protestants, in process of time, I foresee a great probability of a similar abuse, if they should now arm the magistrate with a similar power, and there should be left on record a single instance of a person having suffered legally for the propagation of false doctrine."

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