proscription throughout all reformed churches; his rescripts and answers of as great authority as decretal epistles; his grace in preaching the meanest of all other gifts in him, yet even that way so had in honour and estimation, that an hearer of his being asked wherefore he came not sometimes to other men's sermons, as well as Calvin's, answered, that if Calvin and St. Paul himself should preach both at one hour, he would leave St. Paul to hear Calvin.'-(Hooker, i. 166, ed. 1836.) *

We find him called in as arbiter in the disputes of the English congregation at Frankfort (1555);† he corresponds with the King of Poland, and endeavours to guide the Reformation of that country; he influences the change of religion in Scotland by means of Knox; his discipline is adopted by the church of the Palatinate in 1560; he is in high regard with eminent members of the ruling party in England after the accession of Elizabeth, and at the same time is the very oracle of the Puritans; he directs the great movement which for the time seemed likely to prevail over Romanism in France.

In the controversies of his last years, the asperity of his tone was greater than ever. One of his antagonists was Baudouin, a man of eminent ability as a jurist, but of faithless and fickle character. This person had been an inmate of Calvin's house, had insinuated himself into his especial favour, and then rewarded him by absconding with some of his papers, and appearing on the Romish side at the conference of Poissy. Even Calvin himself appears to have felt, that in his writings against Baudouin he had lowered himself too much to the level of his adversary; nor was he more temperate in a renewed controversy with the extreme Lutheran party, which now found a champion in Heshus. § He was, however, at the same time engaged on worthier labours the final revision of his 'Institutions, and the continuation of

*Of what account the Master of Sentences was in the Church of Rome,' says Hooker, the same and more among the preachers of reformed Churches Calvin had purchased; so that the perfectest divines were judged they which were skilfullest in Calvin's writings.' (Eccl. Pol., Pref. ii. 8, p. 173.) What shall we say as to the honesty of the persons who endeavoured to enlist subscribers to a Calvin Translation Scheme,' by quoting the first part of this sentence as a motto-thus turning Hooker's complaint into a sanction of the superstitious reverence paid to the authority of Calvin! We are happy to see that this device has been given up in the later prospectuses.

The Troubles at Frankfort are fully and well related by Mr. Dyer. Calvin, of course, sided with the Puritanical party, but he did not go the full length of their views; and it is remarkable that our Puritans, both under Edward VI. (in the affair of Hooper), during the exile, and after their restoration to their country, far outran the foreign divines to whom they looked for sympathy and counsel.

See the article on him in Bayle.

§ Dr. Henry argues, by way of apology for the violence of the Reformers, that 'they were obliged to live and to labour for the people, and consequently to adopt a rough language, such as the people could understand (iii. 561). This is, at the best, a poor excuse for persons who professed to be religious teachers; and it is quite inapplicable to the Latin writings in favour of which it is advanced.

those

those commentaries on which theologians most strongly opposed to the Calvinistic doctrines have bestowed the praise of signal merit. The commentary on the Pentateuch was completed within the last year of his life. That on Joshua was the work of his deathbed. In the summer of 1563 he found himself suffering from a complication of disorders. His health had never been strong; and it had been much injured by excessive study. He preached for the last time in the beginning of February, 1564; and on Easter-day (April 2) he appeared for the last time at church, and received the communion from the hands of Beza. It is pleasing to read the details of his peaceful decay. His great sufferings were borne with exemplary patience; he retained all the clearness of his intellect, and his temper acquired a calmness to which he had been too much a stranger in former days. The magistrates of Geneva attended on him in his chamber to take a solemn farewell; he spoke to them at some length, exhorting them to the performance of their duties, and desiring their forgiveness for such errors as his natural vehemence might have led him to commit. In the beginning of May, Farel arrived from Neufchatel, for the purpose of a last interview with his revered friend and associate, whom he himself was soon to follow to the grave.* On the 19th of the same month, Calvin finally bade farewell to the clergy of Geneva; and on the 27th he died. On that night and the following day,' says Beza, Geneva seemed plunged in universal mourning. The state had to regret the loss of one of its wisest citizens; the church its pastor; the academy its teacher; whilst private persons felt as if deprived of a common parent and comforter.'

On the whole we could hardly sum up this great but unlovely character in language more just than that of Mr. Dyer :

"In any circumstances, his wonderful abilities and extensive learning would have made him a shining light among the doctors of the Reformation; a visit to Geneva made him the head of a numerous and powerful sect. Naturally deficient in that courage which forms so prominent a trait in Luther, and which prompted him to beard kings and emperors face to face, Calvin arrived at Geneva at a time when the rough and initiatory work of reform had already been accomplished by his bolder friend Farel. Some peculiar circumstances in the political condition of that place favoured the views which he seems to have formed very shortly after his arrival. By the extent of its territory, and the number of its population, a small city; by its natural and artificial strength, and by its

*He died in August, 1565, at the age of seventy-six. Since we last mentioned him, he had married the daughter of his housekeeper when in his seventieth year; and Calvin had exerted himself to mitigate the scandal.-Dyer, 467.

Swiss alliances, an independent state, secure from the attacks of its powerful neighbours; by its laws and institutions, a republic tending towards an oligarchy; and by the enthusiasm of a new religion, which had helped to establish its civil liberties, disposed to bow its neck to the yoke of the Gospel ;--Geneva offered every facility to a mastermind like Calvin's, which had conceived the idea of establishing a theocracy, of which he himself was to be the oracle, the prophet, and the dictator; and from which, as from a common centre, his peculiar opinions were to spread in successive and still expanding circles through the rest of Europe. The tact and skill, the fortitude, the consistency of purpose and energy of will, which he displayed in carrying out his design, are worthy of all admiration. That a man who devoted himself so ardently to the study of divinity, and who laboured with such industry and warmth to defend and propagate the Reformation, should have been influenced solely by the hope of attaining reputation and power by these means, is scarcely credible; whilst, on the other hand, there are parts of his conduct which it would be difficult to refer to purely religious motives. An irritable pride is one of the salient traits of his character. This feeling particularly betrayed itself where his literary reputation, or his authority as a teacher, was concerned; for these were the instruments of his power and influence. . . . Beza admits Calvin's proneness to anger, which, however, is sometimes more correctly characterized by Calvin himself by the name of morosity. And, indeed, not only his conduct, but the tenor of the greater part of his controversial tracts, show that a man may be a profound theologian, and yet not comprehend the true spirit of Christianity.

'Calvin's mode of life was frugal and temperate, and he was untainted with the mean passion of avarice. The last, indeed, is peculiarly the vice of little minds; and it may be safely affirmed that no man of enlarged understanding and commanding genius ever loved money merely for its own sake. Calvin's ambition was of a different kind. He rather sought to leave his name and principles to posterity, than a few thousand dollars, more or less, to his heirs."

'Like all men of truly deep thought, he never leaves his reader at a loss for his meaning. His Latin style is not marked by unnecessary verbiage, merely for the sake of rounding a period, nor by the affectation of Ciceronian purity, the besetting sin of the writers of that age; and, if it be truly said that the best test of modern Latin is that it should be read with facility and pleasure by a scholar, Calvin's may be pronounced excellent.

6

The merits of Calvin as a commentator have been universally recognised, even by those opposed to some of his peculiar views. His Institutes bear the impress of an independent and comprehensive study of Scripture; from which, aided by the works of the Fathers, and especially of St. Augustine, Calvin built up his system; which deserves the praise of originality, rather for the coherence and symmetry

* The whole value of his estate, including his library, was only 255 gold crowns (Dyer, 529).

with which it is arranged, and which show it to be the work of a single mind, than for any novelty in the views which it developes. Probably his best claim to originality, with regard to any single part of his doctrine, rests on that of the Lord's Supper.'

In obedience to Calvin's wishes, his contemporaries abstained from marking his grave by any memorial. From a different feeling their descendants have allowed it to remain undistinguished, so that the spot is not now known with certainty. The prophet whom modern Geneva has honoured by erecting his bronze effigy in the island of the Rhone, is not Calvin, but Rousseau... And the church which was founded on the rigid and minutely detailed theology of the 'Institutions' has in our time formally declared that it renounces all confessions of faith.'—(Henry, ii. 150.) Eccl. Mist - Cathol.

ART. VIII.-Lord John Russell. pp. 10. Ridgway, London, 1851. THE little pamphlet with this emphatic title is a signal of

distress, announcing that the crew of the Lord John Russell is in a state of mutiny-the vessel leaky-breakers all around, and total wreck all but inevitable. Poor Admiral Byron did not better deserve the sobriquet of Foul-weather Jack than our Premier. His mishaps have almost exhausted metaphor. One day he overturns the coach-another he swamps the boat-there he breaks down-here he blows up-in council he is squirrelminded-and finally, it is impossible to sleep soundly while he has command of the watch. And these are not the stabs of adversaries, but the gentle reproaches of his own friends. We, however, though strong political opponents, will do him the justice to admit that these frequent failures and affronts are not attributable—or at least not essentially to any personal deficiency on his part. He has, besides his birth and accomplishments, many valuable qualities:-he is never wanting in vivacity or spirit; in details of business he generally shows judgment and tact and, though too often rash and presumptuous, has undoubtedly approached more nearly than any of his party to the character of a statesman. The grand misfortune is simply that his whole political creed has been founded on views and principles which, however convenient for an Opposition leader to profess, are the very reverse of what a Minister should practise. He lays the foundation of his Government on popular quicksands, and wonders that his edifice is rickety he sets all his sails to catch the aura popularis, as if it were a monsoon

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* It is remarkable that something like his doctrine on this head had been anticipated by Servetus in one of his early works.

盟

never to change; and when he is unexpectedly taken aback, down he goes! Errors' his panegyrist confesses he has committed, and grave ones' (p. 4). We differ very widely from the panegyrist as to what deserve to be called the errors, and what the merits, of Lord John Russell; but his admission recognizes at least that inconsistency between Opposition principles and Ministerial duties which has been the real cause of all his failures. Lord John's apologist considers that, as regards the present crisis, the most prominent and serious of those errors has been the Letter to the Bishop of Durham. We think so too; but he treats it as an accident which he hopes may be repaired: we see in it the symptom of an organic and incurable disorder.

To explain why we thus concur in blaming a manifesto in a sincere practical development of which we should cordially concur, we must beg leave to recall the attention of our readers to our number for December, 1847, in which we announced even the details of this usurpation on the part of Pius IX.

'his creating of dioceses and provinces in Great Britain-a bishopric of BIRMINGHAM, an ARCHBISHOPRIC of WESTMINSTER!'—Q. R., vol. 82, p. 306—

and to the article in our last number, in which we exposed the impolicy and illegality of the official conduct of Lord Clarendon in Ireland, and Lord Grey in the Colonies, in conferring on Roman Catholic Prelates the style, dignity, and precedence which legally belong to the Bishops of the Established Church alone; and in which we further expressed our belief that the Roman Pontiff would not have dared to prepare in 1847, and still less to ratify and formally consummate in 1850, this unparalleled aggression on the Constitution and Sovereignty of England, if he had not reckoned on the acquiescence, if not the approbation, of the English ministry. The degree of knowledge which Lord Minto, in his celebrated visit to Rome in 1847-8, may have had of this measure, is not very clearly defined. Cardinal Wiseman asserts and reasserts that it was communicated to his Lordship. Lord Minto asserts and reasserts that it was not. Both these reasserted assertions, though seemingly contradictory, appear to us to have a certain degree of Jesuitical latitude which may be stretched to such an approximation to truth as is the fashion at Rome-Lord Minto, like a prudent traveller and well-bred gentleman, adopting the proverbial maxim of doing at Rome as Rome does. There seems reason to believe that his Holiness showed his Lordship a piece of parchment, which his Lordship nonchalamment declined to read. How far his Holiness may have explained, or how far his Lordship may have conjectured, its import and object, we have no direct evidence; but the probability seems to be, that his Holiness