present, and the future, decides at once most mercifully and most justly. Senshi feradri Theology has injured religion in endeavoring to reduce to a science that which never has been and never can be a science. The great truths of religion are of an order much above what our understandings are able to comprehend with sufficient clearness to make them submit to the proof of a rigorous method, or to reduce them to a system. The perceptions of our inward feelings, the secret warnings of our consciences, the oracles of revelation both positive and supernatural, can never become the elements of precise demonstration. Whatever we most truly feel, whatever we are most inclined to believe, whatever we best understand, although in a manner more or less obscure and more or less vague, and however true, however undoubtedly true, it may be in fact, ceased in a degree to be so when we study to express it with a precision which cannot exist in our own ideas, in the only ideas that we are capable of forming on the subject. The earliest documents of the Christian religion, our canonical books, contain only facts, precepts, promises, hopes, and a few arguments so simple that they need no explanation; and a total subversion of their meaning has been necessary, before the subtle dogmas and profound reasonings, so wonderfully unintelligible, that have been invented by our theologians, could be deduced. The most certain means of destroying the most salutary truths is by giving them that explanation, or form, which seems least calculated to their very nature. There are sects in the Christian church who have changed the simplest and most august into the most minute and most puerile of worships; and there are others, who, wishing to reform, have reduced this worship to nothing, and stripped it of all that could touch the heart or strike the imagination: though it is by its sanctity, and by the majesty of its form of worship, rather than by the sublimity of its doctrines, that a fixed religion affords to morality its strongest support, that celestial sanction which it so much needs, in order to obtain and preserve the strength and activity of its influence over the happiness of individuals and of nations. It is deplorable, said my father to me sixty years ago, and he was a tolerably orthodox theologian, to think that for nearly sixteen centuries a single word has been furiously contested, which cannot be found either in the Old or the New Testament. The very passage in St. John, on which is chiefly rested the doctrine of the Trinity, does not contain this word, rendered unhappily so famous by long contests, desolating wars, and schisms probably still more scandalous. No one can be ignorant that the authenticity of this too famous passage has been strongly disputed: but, supposing it to be doubtful, what does it say?" There are three who bear witness in Heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, and these three are one. There are three also who bear witness on earth, the spirit, the water, and the blood, and these three are likewise The Father, the Word, and the Spirit, are thus distinct objects, which in fact represent one only principle under three different relations; and which do not form one single substance, any more than the spirit, the water, and the blood, although these three last objects are likewise called one. God the Father has from eternity manifested his power, his wisdom, and his goodness, in the infinite wonders of his creation; and Jesus Christ, his only Son, which name expresses all the mysterious relations with God the Father that characterize him alone, has revealed to us in the fullest and most affecting manner the sublime order of Divine justice, grace, and mercy. The Holy Ghost is the representative of the power by which God enlightens the minds of those who worship him in spirit and in truth; that is to say, with a pure love for truth, and a firm and humble reliance on the promises made by Jesus Christ to those who believe in him. Spirit, the emblem of a marvellous and invisible power, water, the symbol of a holy and pure life, blood, a symbol too of the devotion and constancy of the most august of martyrs, have the same design, and do not form a more mysterious trinity than the three Christian virtues, faith, hope, and charity. Might we not express in the same manner that the four cardinal virtues make a quadrinity?' We do not expect this passage to obtain the approbation of our orthodox readers, but shall leave it to its fate with them and with others. ་ ART. VIII. Musée des Protestans célèbres, &c.; i. e. The Museum of celebrated Protestants; or Portraits and Biographical Particulars of the most eminent Persons in the History of the Reformation and of Protestantism. Compiled by a Society of Literary Men, and published by M. G. T. DOIN. Vol. I. in Two Parts, and Vol. II. Part I. 8vo. Paris. 1821. Imported by Treuttel and Co. Price 17. 1s. WE E are very much gratified by the appearance of the present portion of this work, which is to be completed in seven or eight volumes. In the existing state of politics and religion in France, it is at least consolatory to find men of ability exerting themselves to instil more liberal principles into the community than the government has chosen to adopt, and to shew the evils which have often been caused to governments themselves by the treacherous co-operation of priestcraft with king-craft. Great service, doubtless, has been rendered to mankind by the extraordinary individuals who brought about the Reformation, in purifying religion, and recalling the attention of men in some degree to the simplicity and the unworldly views of the Founder of our faith: but the indirect advantages resulting from the Reformation are of a much wider and more comprehensive sphere. Man was thus taught to to assert the prerogative of reason, and to maintain the right of private judgment in matters of religion; to investigate the utility of actions; to find some criterion of morality more satisfactory to reason than the merit of perverseness and mortification; to study the works as well as the word of his great Creator; to recognise the impressions of nature in those habits and sympathies which education may modify but cannot create; and to perceive that its tendency to produce public good was the only genuine test of any political measure. From the freedom of religious discussion have emanated the extraordinary discoveries of later times in physical science, and somewhat more intelligible systems of moral and political philosophy. It is true that the very able men who effected the Reformation had no such objects in contemplation; for even in matters of religion their views, generally speaking, were very contracted, and each seemed intolerant of any departure from his own precise model, or of any farther innovation than he had himself introduced. The establishment of articles of faith, the contests between the German and Swiss reformers on the subject of the sacrament, the destruction of Servetus, and many other circumstances, evince how little the true principles of religion were yet understood, or the real spirit of toleration attained, or those just views of government propagated, which hold a man to be responsible only for actions prejudicial to others, and leave him free both to inquire and to form whatever opinions he may choose. To believe in certain doctrines unconnected with moral conduct, or to practise certain rites, was considered as efficacious to salvation. New creeds, therefore, new articles of faith, and new rituals, were substituted. Still the conflict of opinions produced a spirit of inquiry; and if the Reformers individually brought with them many of the prejudices of the church from which they seceded, we ought not to forget the general ignorance of the age, and the still grosser prejudices from which they emancipated themselves. Their sincerity must insure for them our esteem, their courage extorts our admiration, and their zeal commands our applause, on all occasions except when it burst forth into excessęs destructive of the public peace, and violating those rights of private judgment in others which they themselves professed to advocate. Balancing their virtues and their errors, we cannot but revere their memory as persons among the principal benefactors of the human race. We therefore hail with joy the present attempt to record their worth, in a country in which the old monarchy was scarcely restored before the mysteries of Jesuitism were re-established; and in which a L13 mournful mournful experience seemed to have imparted to the governors no lesson of wisdom, but rather induced them to sacrifice every principle of sound policy and humanity for the restoration of intolerance and bigotry. After a very spirited and eloquent introduction, the first volume contains memoirs of Arnold of Brescia, Peter Waldo, John Wickliffe, John Huss, Jerome of Prague, John Ziska, Luther, Ulric of Hutten, Frederic the Third Elector of Saxony, Martin Bucer, Zwinglius, Philip Landgrave of Hesse, Melancthon, John Elector of Saxony, Sleidan, John Frederic Elector of Saxony, and Maurice of Saxony. The second volume, as far as it has reached us, includes Gustavus Vasa, Ecolampadius, Louis de Berquin, Lefèvre d'Etaples, Farel and Viret, Margaret de Valois, Clement Marot, and Renée Duchess of Ferrara. Among these sketches, we have been particularly pleased with those of the Reformers before Huss, written by M. Willm; in the course of which, besides some admirable remarks on the state of the times, brief notices are introduced of the exertions of Dante and Petrarch, and some sensible comments on the influence of the writings of Boccaccio: as also with the account of Zwinglius and John Frederic by the same author. The life of Luther, contributed by M. Boissard, though it contains a very just view of the gradual manner in which the abuses of the old system opened themselves to that great man's mind as he advanced in his researches, is too uniformly eulogistic, and exhibits, we think, too favorable a character of the talents as well as the temper of the intrepid theologian. The memoir of Hutten, though brief, is executed in a very able manner; and the anonymous contributor has very exactly depicted his peculiar turn of mind, and that hostility with which humanity inspired him against monastic • institutions and the abuses of religion. We trust that this publication will be speedily completed; and we cannot better express our approbation of the manner in which it has been hitherto conducted, than by stating our hopes that it may be finished in the same style and spirit. Each memoir is accompanied by a lithographed head, except that of Louis de Berquin, of whom no portrait could be discovered by the compiler. .. ART. M ART. IX. Rapport sur l'Origine, &c.; i. e. A Report on the Origin, Progress, Propagation by Means of Contagion, and Cessation, of the Yellow Fever which prevailed at Barcelona in 1821; presented on the 14th of March, 1822, to the Superior Political Chief of Catalonia,, in compliance with the Decree of the Special Cortes, by the National Academy of Medicine of Barcelona, Translated from the Spanish, by PETER RAYER, Physician attached to the Fourth Dispensary of the Philanthropical Society, &c. 8vo. pp. 99. Paris. 1822. Imported by Treuttel and Co. Price 3s. THIS HIS Report on the Yellow Fever of Barcelona is drawn up by eight members of the Academy of Medicine of that city, and its tendency is to support and explain the views of those who regard the disease as both contagious and of foreign origin: but the writers, with perfect candor, prefix a summary of the opinions held with regard to it by each of the fourteen members of the Academy. It is sufficiently remarkable that, of the eight physicians who subscribe the Report, and who unite in believing the disease to have been imported, only one declares it to be essentially and uniformly contagious; one other pronounces it to be essentially contagious, when the localities are favorable, as in Barcelona in 1821; and the remaining six state their belief that it was contagious in the city, but did not manifest this character in persons who had retired into the country, or who died there. Four of the members join in the opinion that the disease was of indigenous production, and not contagious; one expresses his ignorance as to the source of the disease, but coincides in regarding it as not contagious; while another asserts that the fever may have been either imported or indigenous, but was not contagious; and that, if it even exhibited that character, it was merely an accidental circumstance, and by no means essential to its nature. Under these circumstances of discrepancy of opinion, it was the duty of the public authorities, while they adopted every measure of precaution which a just dread of infection clearly required of them, to beware of being hurried by their fears into a harsh and unrelenting system of restrictions, such as are adopted during the known existence of the plague. Measures of this kind demand a rare union of firmness, judgment, and humanity, in carrying them into effect; since otherwise we are in danger of adding extreme distress and even famine to the horrors of disease, and thus aggravating instead of relieving the general calamity. Let us now proceed to trace the history of the fever of Barcelona, and of the means employed for its suppression: in order that we may be L14 enabled |