Now, changes like these, by which society has been, in no ordinary degree, improved, and by which innumerable blessings have been diffused among its members, are eminently calculated, when beheld in their due importance, to draw forth, to the revolution that produced them, the grateful and venerating feelings of every heart in which there is philanthropy enough to regard the augmentation of human happiness as an object of delight. And, had the friends of the Reformation been assiduous, as they ought to have been, in bringing these momentous bearings of that event prominently before the world-had they roused themselves as they ought, to vindicate the extent of its importance, there would not have existed respecting it-at least there would not have existed so widely-the unfounded and illiberal opinions by which, in a multitude of minds, its glory is obscured, and its interest greatly destroyed :-instead of being regarded simply as an event which, occasioning the adoption over a great part of Christendom of a purer theological creed, merits, on that ground, the attention and gratitude of the man of religion, it would have been seen to have borne with so much energy on man's social destiny— to have affected so deeply his present felicity, as well as his immortal hopes, that there would have been attracted towards it the homage of all who wish to be

deemed the friends of humanity, as well as the veneration of the disciples of genuine Christianity.

Nor let it be affirmed that this view of the subject is one of trivial importance. For, although it is true, that the present is a scene which will, ere long, fade from our sight, and give place to the sublime and unchanging realities of another, and although it is also true, that the operations of that Providence which superintends human affairs have an especial respect to man as an immortal being, we are not warranted, on these accounts, to deem unworthy of our notice whatsoever bears not directly on our future destination. To do this, would be to fall into one of those very delusions, which, in the ages that preceded the Reformation, exerted such a ruinous influence on mankind, ---cherishing and strengthening the most monstrous power by which the world has ever been oppressed. Of small moment as the present is, when compared with that scene of inconceivably deeper interest which is to succeed, it is, nevertheless, one about which the providence of the Great Supreme is exercised, and in the government of whose affairs his glorious attributes are displayed; and if He deems it not too mean for his regard, and morcover has enjoined his rational offspring to meditate upon his works, and to consider the operations of his hand, the investigation of events in which His agency is eminently conspicuous, in reference to

their effect on man's present as well as on his future destiny, must be at once a laudable and a profitable employment ;-laudable, because it is an acquiescence in the will of Him whose requirements ought to regulate our whole conduct; and profitable, because it habituates the mind to recognize" a God employed in all the good and ill that chequer life," and because it furnishes occasion for deeper and more lively gratitude to that wise and beneficent Being, whose plan of government, among the objects which it proposes, has obviously in view the promotion of human happiness, and the progressive melioration of human society.

Sentiments similar to those which have been expressed in these introductory remarks, seem to have suggested the question, which, in the following pages, we have attempted to answer; and if the statements which they contain shall be the means of inducing or cherishing in a single mind a high regard for the cause of the Reformation, the design of the learned proposers of the question, and of the author of this Essay, will not have proved abortive.

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CHAPTER I.

OF THE EFFECT PRODUCED BY THE REFORMATION ON CIVIL LIBERTY.

Of the various modes in which the Reformation has operated with powerful effect on the social condition of man, the promotion of civil liberty is one, which, from its importance to human happiness, is entitled to peculiar regard. Than liberty-that is to say, all that freedom from constraint which is consistent with the existence and welfare of the social union-there is no earthly blessing of more importance to the intellectual and social improvement of mankind. It is the nurse of genius—the guardian of domestic comfortthe parent of all that is great in national character.

From this precious gift of heaven, the nations of modern Europe had been long estranged. It had been their fate to be the victims of unfeeling despotism, the prey of one or of many tyrants. In this state, almost without exception, they were beheld at the commencement of the sixteenth century—some lorded over by one, others groaning beneath the yoke of many oppressors. In not a few of the European states, the monarch was absolute, and the people were in reality his slaves; nor, in those other states where,

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