amore than liberty. 
_ 206 
and rational than the eternal future pu- 
nishments of the reformers. ‘The practice 
of auricular confession, if derogatory in 
adults, opposed among the young a 
wholesome obstacle to premature and 
solitary indulgence. The consubstan- 
tiation of the Lutherans is not at all less 
absurd than the old trausubstantiation of 
the Catholics; the one sect imagines the 
transmutation of the elements to take 
piace in the mouth of the communicant, 
and the other in the chalice of the pricst. 
The invocation of saints was defended by 
the Catholics with stronger arguments 
than the Protestants advanced to the 
attack: the'use of pictures and statues in 
places of worship was ativantageoos to 
the progress of taste, of art, of commerce, 
of refinement; the void left, by abolishing 
iolatry, was ill supplied by mysticism 
and.gloom. 
. On politicalinstitution, the effects of the 
Reformation are still! more uncreditable. 
Except in Scotland, in Holland, and at 
Geneva, civil liberty suffered every where 
byits intrusion. ‘The power of the Swe- 
dish, Danish, and British, kings, was great- 
ly and mischievously increased, for the pur- 
pose of protecting this rude religious 
revolution. {In all the catholic countries, 
except Poland, the power of the sove- 
reign was likewise augmented, almost to 
despotism, for the opposite purpose of 
enabling him to suppress the new heresy 
ofthe Protestants: The territory eman- 
cipated is less extensive far, than the 
territory which was more heavily yoked. 
“Order and tranquillity suffered. still 
The first century 
and half of the Reformation was univer- 
sally a scene of Confiscation, persecution, 
proscription, and civil war. The refor- 
mers were no where content that the old 
gpinions should die out with the incum- 
hents of benefices; tliey «ccelerated the 
course of nature to the utmost limits of 
their power: even the old bishop of 
Iceland was beheaded, to make room for 
@ protestant successor. © The antagunist 
cruelties of Henry VIL. of England, and 
of his daughter Mary, both grew out of 
the Reformation. ‘Lhe sudden proscrip- 
ticn of Saint Bartholomew in France, 
and the deliberate persecutions of queen 
Flizabeth ia England, who hanged up, 
one by one, merely for teaching their 
hereditary religion, a hundred and se- 
venty-five catholic priests, alike grew out 
of the Reformation. The civil wars of 
the British against. Charles T./originated 
in parties formed by the Reformation. 
The thirty-years war mn Germany, and 
View 
~ 
The Enquirer.—No. XXV. 
that pernicious separation of the German 
empire into independent provinces, which 
paralyzed the proper antagonist of French: 
power, were other great and lasting poli- 
tical evils, which Europe owed to the 
Reformation. ; 
The new forms of charch-government, 
which were substituted for popery, had* 
the merit of favouring patriotism. By” 
conferring eeclesiasic supremacy on 
the national magistrate, the church and 
state acquired a common centre of alle- 
giance. Butthisis not an unmixed good, 
for the popish clergy were less dependent 
and servile, and were more cosmopoli- 
tical, With the progress. of humani- 
zation, they were likely to employ an 
all-pervasive power, in promoting the 
common iaterests of countries; sometimes 
by reforming the calendar ; sometunes by 
uniformalizing coins, weights and mea- 
sures ; sometimes by enfore.ng the law of 
nations and laying under interdict a re- 
fractory people, 
It is chiefly in services to literature, 
that the utility of the Reformation must 
be suught. Controversy is itself a great 
good; it is the awakener of intellect and 
the scatterer of instruction. Whether 
the audience be in a humour to applaud. 
the iconoclast or the idolater, the liber- 
tarian or the necessariau, the monottieist 
or the polytheist, matters little; if they 
do but listen and interfere. Stagnant 
water putrefies, but, whether it ebbs or 
flows, it diffuses lustre and fertility: it is 
so with opinion; be the’ motion toward 
atheism or toward superstition, the agi- 
tation is still of value. Why sank the 
catholic countries, after the Reformation, 
into literary insignificance? Becalise their 
precautions against innovation operated 
to crush enquiry and discussion. ‘Those 
games of mind were prohibited, in which 
intellect wrestles itself into vigor. Why 
rose the protestant countries, after the 
Reformation, into literary eminence? They | 
admired and rewarded their polemic ‘au- 
thors; they opened a career of ascent to 
eloquence and Jearning; they read the-’ 
ology at least, and became content to- 
trust in the liberty of the press for the 
eradication of error and the dissemination 
of truth. Tolerance, and the liberty of 
the press; these were the blessings, which, © 
during the third century of the reforma- 
tion, were to remiunerate protestant Pu- 
rope for the sufferings of the two prece-- 
ding centuries. } 
But can this religious toleration, this 
freedom of opinion, this philanthropic ’ 
liberality, which distinguishes the higher 
idle - © Ohterature~ 
10s 
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