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rulers. By a train of vices they were sunk in luxury and voluptuousness, puffed up with vanity, arrogance, and ambition, possessed with a spirit of contention and discord, and addicted to many other vices. The bishop assumed a princely authority, was exalted above his equals, and had a throne surrounded by minisPresbyters followed their example, neglected their duty, and abandoned themselves to the indolence and delicacy of an effeminate and luxurious life. Deacons imitated their superiors, and the effects of a corrupt ambition were spread through every rank of the sacred order.' Yet to dissent from these corrupt professors of the gospel subjected a man to the charge of heresy or schism.

The reformation rescued many names from undeserved obloquy and contempt, and enrolled them in the noble army of martyrs, who, but for that important event, had still been reckoned among perverse and obstinate heretics: and it is hoped the day will soon come when many others who have labored and suffered in the cause of christian truth and liberty, will have equal justice done them.

Albigenses and Waldenses, though names long and generally execrated, as having every

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thing associated with them that is heretical and bad, cannot now be heard without the idea of firm adherents to and martyrs in the cause of truth, virtue and liberty, presenting itself to the mind. All protestants will acknowledge that the people who bore those names were the best men that lived during the dark ages of superstition. Yet long did they labor under the stigma of heretical pravity, long had they to suffer the cruel lash of persecution: and in Dr. Dupin's history of the church they are still numbered with heretics.

John Wickliff, though now only heard of, among protestants, as an eminent servant of Jesus Christ, and a great reformer, had his books condemned and cast into the fire: kings, popes, and councils held in various places, vented anathemas against him and his doctrine. The council of Constance condemned him with this sentence, 'That John Wickliff being a notorious heretic, and obstinate, and dying in his heresy, his body and bones, if they may be discerned from the bodies of other faithful people, should be taken up out of the ground, and thrown away far from the burial of the church.' Forty one years after his burial, the tomb of this venerable person was rifled, his bones burnt, and cast into a neighbouring brook.

John Huss and Jerome of Prague, though justly regarded by protestants as faithful martyrs, were burnt for heresy, and the generality of christians then, and for many years after, supposed them justly punished: in that light would they have still been thought of had not the reformation changed men's ideas. Wickliffites and Hussites are still among Dr. Dupin's heretics.

At the time of the reformation, and long since, by popish writers, Luther, Calvin, and the rest of the reformers, were charged with heresy, and treated as heretics. Had the po

pish party succeeded in their attempts to quash the reformation, extirpate the reformers, and render popery universal and permanent, we should have heard of those great men, whose praise is in all the churches, only as vile heretics and blasphemers. Had the protestant cause failed there had been no protestant martyrs; those who now bear that honorable name would have been rendered infamous by being enrolled in the list of heretics. The agents of a successful reformation, if they perish in effecting it, are all saints and martyrs. Those who are active in promoting a reformation that fails, are heretics, miscreants, enemies to Christ and

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religion: if they perish in the attempt the cruel death inflicted on them is deemed a just punishLuther and Calvin attempted a reformation, they succeeded, and are spoken of as saints and great reformers. Servetus also attempted a reformation of what he thought a corruption of the christian doctrine, he was for carrying reform further than Luther and Calvin had carried it; had he succeeded he too had been acknowledged a saint and reformer; but as he failed, and fell a martyr to the cause, his name has been execrated, and he has continued to be spoken of as a heretic and blasphemer. Cranmer and his associates were saints and martyrs, but those they persecuted, and whose death they promoted, were not martyrs, for their opinions were deemed heretical; and so were those of Cranmer and his associates by the church of Rome. Thus, by ignorance, prejudice, and a perversion of language, things are misrepresented, and mankind imposed on from age to age.

The English Puritans, or Nonconformists, were another set of reformers: and though their memory is justly respected, and their praise continues in the churches, they did not escape the lash of bigotry, when for conscience sake they withdrew from the national church, and

preached the word of God in unauthorized places. They renounced worldly honors and emoluments, took joyfully the spoiling of their goods, many of them submitted to bonds and imprisonment, for the sake of a good conscience, by which they proved themselves the best, men of their day, still the cry of heresy and schism pursued them.

It has fallen to the lot of Unitarians, commonly called Arians and Socinians, to labor under the opprobrium of heretical pravity longer than any other party of christians. They were charged with heresy, and bitterly persecuted by the successful reformers, To the present day, by many of their reputed orthodox brethren, their name is cast out as evil. Yet they have not had less learning, virtue and piety among them, in proportion to their numbers, than any ether denomination of christians. Some of the most respectable of their opponents have given them credit for great learning, uncommon abilities, a high degree of the christian temper, a strictly virtuous conduct, and firm attachment to what they believe to be the truth, even when they have been representing their opinions as false and dangerous. This praise they have justly deserved. Their literary labors,

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