irritations of earthly feuds and political schisms shall be tranquillised by time, the philosophy of this whole question will take an inverse order. The credentials of a church will not be put in first, and the quality of her doctrine discussed as a secondary question. On the contrary, her credentials will be sought in her doctrine. The protesting church will say, I have the right to stand separate, because I do stand; and from my holy teaching I deduce my title to teach. Jus est ibi summum docendi, ubi est fons purissimus doctrinæ. That inversion of the Protestant plea with Rome is even now valid with many; and, when it becomes universally current, then the principles, or great beginnings of the controversy, will be transplanted from the centre, where Phil. places them, to that very locus which he neglects. One church may say-My doctrine must be holy, because it is admitted that I have the authentic commission from Heaven to teach. But equally another church may say My commission to teach must be conceded, because my teaching is holy. The first deduces the purity of her doctrine from her divine commission to teach. But the second, with logic as forcible, deduces her divine commission to teach from the purity of her doctrine.

There is another expression of Phil.'s to which I object. He describes the doctrines held by all the separate Protestant churches as doctrines of Protestantism. I would not delay either Phil. or myself for the sake of a trifle; but an impossibility is not a trifle. If from orthodox Turkey* you pass to heretic Persia, if from the rigour of the

*"Orthodox Turkey:"-At Mecca, or more probably throughout the Mussulman world, the Ottoman Sultan is regarded as the true filial champion ed deen [i. e., of the faith]. He is the right-hand pillar; whereas the Shah of Persia is a heterodox believer, and therefore an unsound pillar. But it illustrates powerfully the non-spirituality of this religion (though pirated chiefly from the Bible), that this great schism

Sonnees (orthodox Mussulmans) to the laxity of the Sheeahs (Mahometan heretics), you could not, in explaining those schisms, go on to say, "And these are the doctrines of Islamism;" for they destroy each other. Both are supported by earthly powers; but only one could be supported by a central organ of Islamism, if such there were. So of Calvinism and Arminianism; you cannot call them doctrines of Protestantism, as if growing out of some reconciling Protestant principles; one of the two, though not manifested to human eyes in its falsehood, must secretly be false; and a falsehood cannot be a doctrine of Protestantism. It is more accurate to say that the separate creeds of Turkey and Persia are within Mahometanism; such-viz., as that neither excludes a man from the name of Mussulman; and, again, that Calvinism and Arminianism are doctrines within the Protestant Church-as a church of general toleration for all religious doctrines not demonstrably hostile to any cardinal truth of Christianity.

Phil., then, we all understand, is not going to traverse the vast field of Protestant opinions as they are distributed through our many sects; that would be endless; and he illustrates the mazy character of the wilderness over which these sects are wandering,

"Ubi passim

Palantes error recto de tramite pellit,"

by the four cases of-1. the Calvinist; 2. the Newmanite; 3. the Romanist;* 4. the Evangelical enthusiast-as holding

in Islamism does not turn upon any point of doctrine, but simply upon a most trivial question of historic fact-viz., who were de jure the immediate successors of Mahomet.

"The Romanist: "-What, amongst Protestant sects? Ay, even so. It's Phil.'s mistake, not mine. He will endeavour to doctor the case, by pleading that he was speaking universally of Christian error; but the position of the clause forbids this plea. Not only in relation to what immediately precedes, the passage must be supposed to contemplate Pro

systems of doctrine, "no one of which is capable of recommending itself to the favourable opinion of an impartial judge." Impartial! but what Christian can be impartial?

testant error; but the immediate inference from it-viz., that "the world may well be excused for doubting whether there is, after all, so much to be gained by that liberty of private judgment, which is the essential characteristic of Protestantism; whether it be not, after all, merely a liberty to fall into error," nails Phil. to that construction-argues too strongly that it is an oversight of indolence. Phil. was sleeping for the moment, which is excusable enough towards the end of a book, but hardly in section 1. P.S.-I have since observed (which not to have observed is excused, perhaps, by the too complex machinery of hooks and eyes between the text and the notes involving a double reference-first, to the section; second, to the particular clause of the section) that Phil. has not here committed an inadvertency; or, if he has, is determined to fight himself through his inadvertency, rather than break up his quaternion of cases. "In speaking of Romanism as arising from a misapplication of Protestant principles, we refer, not to those who were born, but to those who have become members of the Church of Rome." What is the name of those people? And where do they live? I have heard of many who think (and there are cases in which most of us, that meddle with philosophy, are apt to think) occasional principles of Protestantism available for the defence of certain Roman Catholic mysteries too indiscriminately assaulted by the Protestant zealot; but, with this exception, I am not aware of any parties professing to derive their Popish learnings from Protestantism; it is in spite of Protestantism, as seeming to them not strong enough, or through principles omitted by Protestantism, which therefore seems to them not careful enough or not impartial enough, that Protestants have lapsed to Popery. Protestants have certainly been known to become Papists, not through Popish arguments, but simply through their own Protestant books; yet never, that I heard of, through an affirmative process, as though any Protestant argument involved the rudiments of Popery, but by a negative process, as fancying the Protestant reasons, though lying in the right direction, not going far enough; or, again, though right partially, yet defective as a whole. Phil. therefore seems to me absolutely caught in a sort of Furcæ Caudinæ, unless he has a dodge in reserve to puzzle us all. In a different point, I, that hold myself a doctor seraphicus, and also inexpugnabilis upon quillets of logic, justify Phil., whilst also I blame him. He defends himself rightly for distinguishing between the Romanist and Newmanite on the one hand, between the Calvinist and the Evangelican man on the other, though perhaps a young gentleman, commencing his studies on the Organon, will fancy that here he has Phil. in a trap; for these distinc

To be free from all bias, and to begin his review of sects in that temper, he must begin by being an infidel. Vainly a man endeavours to reserve in a state of neutrality any preconceptions that he may have formed for himself, or prepossessions that he may have inherited from "mamma;" he cannot do it any more than he can dismiss his own shadow. Every man that lives, has (or has had) a mamma, who has made it impossible for him to be neutral in religious beliefs. And it is strange to contemplate the weakness of strong minds in fancying that they can. Calvin, whilst amiably engaged in hunting Servetus to death, and writing daily letters to his friends, in which he expresses his hope that the executive power would not think of burning the poor man, since really justice would be quite satisfied by cutting his head off, meets with some correspondents who conceive (idiots that they were!) even that little amputation not absolutely indispensable. But Calvin soon settles their scruples. You don't perceive, he tells them, what this man has been about. When a writer attacks Popery, it's very wrong in the Papists to cut his head off; and why? Because he has tions, he will say, do not entirely exclude each other as they ought to do. The class calling itself Evangelical, for instance, may also be Calvinistic; the Newmanite is not, therefore, anti-Romish. True, says Phil.; I am quite aware of it. But to be aware of an objection is not to answer it. The fact seems to be, that the actual combinations of life, not conforming to the truth of abstractions, compel us to seeming breaches of logic. It would be right practically to distinguish the Radical from the Whig; and yet it might shock Duns or Lombardus, the magister sententiarum, when he came to understand that partially the principles of Radicals and Whigs coincide. But, for all that, the logic which distinguishes them is right; and the apparent error must be sought in the fact, that all cases (political or religious) being cases of life, are concretes, which never conform to the exquisite truth of abstractions. Practically, the Radical is opposed to the Whig, though casually the two are continually in conjunction; for, as acting partisans, they work from different centres, and finally, for different results.

only been attacking error. But here lies the difference in this case; Servetus had been attacking the TRUTH. Do you see the distinction, my friends? Consider it, and I am sure you will be sensible that this quite alters the case. It is shocking, it is perfectly ridiculous, that the Bishop of Rome should touch a hair of any man's head for contradicting him; and why? Because, do you see, he is wrong. On the other hand, it is evidently agreeable to philosophy, that I, John Calvin, should shave off the hair, and, indeed, the head itself (as I heartily hope* will be done in this present case), of any man presumptuous enough

* The reader may imagine that, in thus abstracting Calvin's epistolary sentiments, I am a little improving them. Certainly they would bear improvement, but that is not my business. What the reader sees here is but the result of bringing scattered passages into closer juxtaposition, whilst, as to the strongest (viz., the most sanguinary) sentiments here ascribed to him, it will be a sufficient evidence of my fidelity to the literal truth, if I cite three separate sentences. Writing to Farrel, he says, Spero capitale saltem fore judicium." Sentence of the court, he hopes, will, at any rate, reach the life of Servetus. Die he must, and die he shall. But why should he die a cruel death? "Pœnæ vero atrocitatem remitti cupio." To the same purpose, when writing to Sultzer, he expresses his satisfaction in being able to assure him that a principal civic officer of Geneva was, in this case, entirely upright, and animated by the most virtuous sentiments. Indeed! what an interesting character! and in what way now might this good man show this beautiful tenderness of conscience? Why, by a fixed resolve that Servetus should not in any case escape the catastrophe which I, John Calvin, am longing for ("ut saltem exitum, quem optamus, non fugiat "). Finally, writing to the same Sultzer, he remarks that-when we see the Papists such avenging champions of their own superstitious fables as not to falter in shedding innocent blood, "pudeat Christianos magistratus [as if the Roman Catholic magistrates were not Christians] in tuendâ certá veritate nihil prorsus habere animi"-" Christian magistrates ought to be ashamed of themselves for manifesting no energy at all in the vindication of truth undeniable;" yet really, since these magistrates had at that time the full design, which design not many days after they executed, of maintaining truth by fire and faggot, one does not see the call upon them for blushes so very deep as Calvin requires. Hands so crimson with blood might compensate the absence of crimson cheeks.