Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

gate_particulars; the Chancellor Du Pradt, who was Cardinal and Legate, investing them with similar authority. The brethren were now compelled to go to Paris, but no satisfactory answers could be drawn from them. They were confined in separate apartments, and the novice, who had acted the principal part, refused to make any discovery, apprehensive of being murdered by his elders; but assurance being given him that he should not return to the convent, he confessed the whole. The perpetrators were ordered to be taken back to Orleans, and brought before the cathedral, to acknowledge the imposture; but this sentence, mild as it was, passed without execution, lest the government should appear to countenance the reformed doctrines, or offend the order of St. Francis*.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

Many such farces were played by the friars, who used to pretend that the spirits of the deceased often troubled this world, to induce their surviving relatives to discharge vows which they had made to the saints, or pay for masses to be repeated, that they might be delivered out of purgatory. Luther had written against these fraudulent practices, and exposed the false doctrines with which they were connected. Calvin also was led by this affair to publish a treatise, entitled, " Psycho-pannychia;" by which word is signified, that the soul wakes throughout the whole night of death, with all the consciousness and sensibility necessary to the enjoyment of happiness. He denounced the error of those who believe that the soul sleeps till the day of judgment, whom he called Hypnologists, and accused of departing from the sense of Scripture. Because some had objected to his system the silence of the word of God concerning rewards and punishments, excepting

*Sleidan, L. ix.

66

those of a final judgment, he observed, Christ is our head, whose kingdom and glory have not yet appeared. If the members were to go before the head, the order of things would be perverted and preposterous. But we shall follow our Prince, when he comes in the glory of his Father, sitting on the throne of his majesty. In the mean time that liveth, which is in us, of or from God, even our Spirit, because Christ liveth, who is our life; for it would be absurd, that we should perish while our life existeth. And because our life is in God, it is therefore with God and happy *."

[ocr errors]

This sentiment seems correct; and perhaps the opposite_notion arises from not making the due discrimination between the animal soul, which man has in common with the brute, and the spirit peculiar to him as man. However this be, Archdeacon Blackburne, Bishop Law, and some other divines of, the English Church, who seem to have been ensnared by a love of philosophical speculation, have entertained sentiments concerning the sleep of the soul, resembling those against which our Reformer employed his pen. The Archdeacon, in particular, has noticed his treatise with considerable asperity in the "Historical View of the Controversy concerning an Intermediate State." He allows him, however, the honour, of laying the basis of most of the arguments used by theologians who have been considered the more orthodox. Such have declared that notion cheerless, unscriptural, and Sadducean, which would deprive the spirit of a departing Christian (such as Le Fevre) of the sweet hope of an immediate interview with his Saviour.

The persecution continuing in France, Calvin deemed it expedient to leave the kingdom, and

Psychop. fol. 35.

fixed on Basle as the place of his retreat. Accompanied by his brother Anthony, and his friend Du Tillet, he took a circuitous route through Lorraine. On their arrival at Metz, they were brought into great difficulties through the perfidy of one of their servants, who contrived to rob them of their money, and being mounted on the fleetest horse made his escape. But borrowing ten crowns from another servant, they were enabled to proceed to Strasburg, and from thence to their place of destination. Here he contracted a friendship for Simon, Grynous and Wolfgang Capito, and prosecuted the study of Hebrew.

His intention was to remain at Basle with all possible privacy; but circumstances soon brought him again into public notice. The French monarch caused great disgust by his cruelties among those German princes who were favourable to the Reformation, which the Emperor, opposed to Francis in his Italian politics, endeavoured to inflame: he therefore sent William de Bellay-Langey, his Chamberlain and Councillor, to whom the management of ecclesiastical affairs was principally confided, to assure them that the persons proscribed and punished were guilty of seditious practices; that he wished for an accommodation on the subject of religion by a meeting of Parisian and German divines; and that he was particularly desirous of a visit from Philip Melancthon." He also employed him to draw up a tract in Latin and in High Dutch, which was dispersed over France and Germany, declaring that he had merely taken necessary measures against certain Anabaptists, who set up their own fanatic spirit in opposition to Scripture, and despised government. Calvin could not endure this reproach on the professors of a pure faith, and took occasion to publish his " Institutes of the

Christian Religion," with a preliminary dedication to his sovereign, whom he still regarded as a prince open to conviction, but blinded by evil advisers. It is, however, suspected that this publication never met the eye of the monarch.

The Dedication has ever been esteemed a masterpiece of composition. He speaks with the freedom of a man conscious that he is engaged on the side of truth, but at the same time with a tone of respect becoming his station; and forcibly illustrates the enmity which the world will ever entertain against the spirituality of the Gospel. The work itself is divided into four books, and subdivided into eighty chapters. Of the latter, three are preparatory to the study of revelation; two refer to those who depreciate the written word in comparison of private persuasion; five defend the peculiarities of the system usually called Calvinistic; seventeen argue against papal superstitions; and the remaining fiftythree give an able account of the doctrine and practice of the Universal Church of Christ. The longest chapter is, an " Exposition of the Moral Law;" containing abundant proof that there is no necessary connexion between Calvinism and Antinomianism.

"The third use of the Law," he observes, "which is the principal one, and which is more nearly connected with the proper end of it, relates to the faithful, in whose hearts the Spirit of God already lives and reigns. For although the Law is inscribed and engraved on their hearts by the finger of God; that is, although they are so excited and animated by the direction of the Spirit, that they desire to obey God, yet they derive a twofold advantage from the Law. For they find in it an excellent instrument to give them from day to day a better and more certain understanding of the Divine will to which they aspire, and to confirm them

in the knowledge of it; as, though a servant be already influenced by the strongest desire of gaining the approbation of his master, yet it is necessary for him carefully to inquire and observe the orders of his master in order to conform to them. Nor let any one of us exempt him'self from this necessity: for no man has already acquired so much wisdom, that he could not, by the daily instruction of the Law, make new advances into a purer knowledge of the Divine will. In the next place, as we need not only instruction but also exhortation, the servant of God will derive this far ther advantage from the law; by frequent meditation on it he will be excited to obedience, he will be confirmed in it, and restrained from the slippery path of transgression.

"Now, because the Law in regard to the faithful has the force of an exhortation, not to bind their consciences with a curse, but by its frequent admonitions to arouse their indolence, and reprove their imperfection; many persons, when they design to express this liberation from the curse, say that the Law (I still speak of the moral law) is abrogated to the faithful: not that it no longer enjoins upon them that which is right; but only that it ceases to be to them what it was before, no longer terrifying and confounding their consciences, condemning and destroying them. And such an abrogation of the Law is clearly taught by Paul. 1t appears also to have been preached by our Lord, since he would not have refuted the opinion concerning his abolishing the Law, unless it had prevailed among the Jews. Now as this opinion could not prevail without any pretext, it

is probable that it proceeded from a false interpretation of his doctrine; in the same manner as almost all errors have usually taken some colour from the truth. But lest we ourselves fall into the same error, let us accurately distinguish what is abrogated in the Law, and what still remains in force. When our Lord declares that he came not to destroy the Law, but to fulfil it,' and that till heaven and、 earth shall pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the Law, till all be fulfilled,' he sufficiently proves that his advent will detract nothing from the observance of the Law; and with sufficient reason, since the express end of his advent was to heal its transgressions. The doctrine of the Law remains therefore inviolable; which by tuition, admonition, reproof, and correction, forms and prepares us for every good work."

This excellent body of divinity was designed by its author as introductory to a larger work. It was issued in 1536, but modified and enlarged by the compiler in successive editions down to 1559. It continued to be the great standard of theology to what was called the Reformed Church on the Continent; and the man who presented himself for ordination to an English Bishop in the early part of the seventeenth century, ignorant of "Calvin's Institutes," would have been considered as obnoxious to only one worse charge of ignorance—that of the Bible itself.

[To be continued.]

* Allen's Translation, B. ii. c. vii. pp.

12-14.

BIBLE MEETING AT CARRICK-ON-SHANNON.

MR. EDITOR,

[ocr errors]

Being confined at home to-day by indisposition, I took up The Morning Herald of yesterday, which was lying on my table, when I cast my eye on a paragraph from The Freeman's Journal, giving an additional account of the proceedings at the Bible meeting at Carrick-on-Shannon. I could not help lamenting that brevity (so essential at public meetings) should restrain the defenders of the general reading of the Scriptures from mentioning many of the most cogent reasons for indiscriminate reading of that Sacred Book, which the young as well as the old, the ignorant as well as the learned, may find to be a light unto their feet and a lamp unto their path;" and I speak from my own personal experience.

[ocr errors]

mory; but the seed was sown; and it remained for Him, whose word it is, to cause it to spring up and bear fruit according to his good pleasure. I reached the age of fifteen, when temptations thick and strong began to assail me from within and without; and what could I have done at a time when my own heart joined in league with the tempter, had it not been for the fulfilment of that promise, that "when the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.”

Whatever the temptation was, passages of Scripture, long forgotten, came fresh into my mind, and with such power as to suffuse my cheeks with a blush which I could feel rising upon them! And had it not been for these convictions, brought on by having read the Scriptures, I had many years ago been numbered with the slain; another melancholy proof that ignorance is the ready handmaid to vice, and to those vices in particular that lead so many youths to the chambers of the grave. There are many most important truths which may be read in private, which, as society is now constituted, no minister would ever venture even to hint at in public*; Dictionary. public*; and, therefore, if the Bible is not read in our retirement, we shall be ignorant of many things, without a knowledge of which we cannot please God, nor shall we seek an interest in the Redeemer; for those who believe in him must repent of all their sins; and how can they repent of those sins which they do not know to be such?

I was born, Sir, of poor parents, so poor, that they could not afford to send me to school; they taught me to read as well as they were able, in which I have improved myself by degrees. I was sent out at the tender age of twelve years as a shop-boy. The only book I possessed was a small pocket Bible, the gift of my pious grandmother; to which I added, with the first half-crown I could spare, an Entick's Dictionary. The persons with whom I had been placed paid no attention to my morals, nor did they enforce the observance of the Sabbath ; so that I seldom attended a place of worship, and subsequently for years I never entered the house of God. But I had been made to read my Bible at home, and I venerated the book, and often read it to pass away the time, when left at home by my employers to keep the house while they visited on the Sabbath; but I did not understand it when I read it, nor did I take pains to treasure it up in my me

JAN. 1825.

And, Sir, I would remind those who say that the Scriptures are difficult to be understood, that they

See Prov. ii. 16-19; vi. 24-35; vii. 5-27; ix. 13-18, &c.

C

[ocr errors]

are quite as difficult to the learned as the unlearned, where both are unenlightened by the Spirit of God; for "the wisdom of this world is foolishness in the sight of God." It is promised, that "the Spirit shall take of the things of Christ and show them unto us." "The Spirit of truth shall lead you into all truth." And our Lord assures us, that his Father is more willing to give his Holy Spirit to them that ask it, than a father is to give bread to his child. Let the poor man kneel over his Bible and pray for the enlightening influence of the Holy Spirit, and then the wayfaring man, though a fool as to learning, shall not err therein.

I would ask those gentlemen who oppose the diffusion of the Sacred Scriptures, why any minister, who professes to preach the truth, should object to his hearers imitating the Bereans, whom our Lord commends as being more noble than those of Thessalonica, because they searched the Scriptures daily to see if those things were so? Surely it would tend to establish and confirm sound doctrines, and strengthen the hands of those whose preaching accords with the word of God. And I feel persuaded that the eyes of the Roman Catholics, and others, will be opened by the opposition their teachers are making to the dissemination of the Scriptures.

Sir, If a man suspects that the bread he eats is adulterated for gain, has he not a right, if he can, to see the materials of which it is made? Much more, then, if he suspects that the bread of life is adulterated for the same mercenary purpose.

Far, very far be it from me to undervalue learning, for to learning we owe much. But for it, we had not had the Scriptures in our own tongue. But what one set of learned men have done as instruments in the hands of God, other learned men of the present day are

desirous of undoing. But men by wisdom know not God, or Haller had been as good a Christian as Newton; but one was taken and the other left. The Bible, Sir, never robs our churches and chapels of hearers, where the Gospel is preached; but many, on the contrary, would never have attended there but for reading that book, which admonishes us not to forsake the assembling ourselves together, as the manner of some is.

And the more we read the Bible, the more we shall desire to have its sacred truths enforced and explained to us. We do not comprehend every part as soon as we read it, for perhaps the time for its applicability to us is not yet come. But it is recorded, "Then shall ye know, if ye follow on to know the Lord."

The Scriptures afford to every man a portion of meat in due season; but there may be portions of it not intended for me but for others; for there is milk for babes, and meat for strong men. The essentials for faith, doctrine, and practice are written as with a sunbeam; and if more be needful for the sincere believer to know, God will reveal even that unto him.

66

66

And, Sir, as to some wresting the Scriptures to their own destruction, it is what is foretold in those Scriptures, that they would prove a savour of life unto life" unto some, while they proved a savour of death unto death" to others. But this happened to priests, Levites, Scribes, and Pharisees, as well as to the ignorant and unlearned. Nay, even while the common people heard the Gospel gladly, these learned lawyers and, teachers rejected that Gospel, persecuted those who received it, and pronounced them cursed because they knew not the law, mixed up as it was with the traditions: of the fathers; which is too much the case in the present day, when men are forbidden to read the

« AnteriorContinuar »