1808.] 
Iiterature of modern Europe, and which 
has conferred on the last century its 
noblest features, be strictly and justly, 
ascribed to the Protestant Reforination? 
Has it been imbibed, from. the sacred 
books, then first evulgated? Has it been 
imbibed from the writings of the leading 
reformers? Alas,no! The protestants, 
like the catholics, read in the *Scriptures 
the. precepts. of intolerance; they em- 
ployed licencers for the press, and exe- 
eutioners fur heresy, ‘Calvin was the 
most generally influencing writer among 
the reformers; and he acted up to the 
atrocity of his doctrine, by burning alive 
Serveto, 
mation, it so owes the bark to fever. After 
trying the vivlently irritating remedies 
against fanaticism in vain, a feebler but 
more permanently active specific is dis- 
coyered to avail. ‘Tolerance really grows 
gut of the sceptical philosophy, it is the 
‘appropriate truit of that tree; every peo- 
ple, in proportion to their religiosity, 
‘have withstood the magistrate in realizing 
the political equality of religious sects, 
The English and the Spanish are the must 
ious and the least tolerant of all the 
ede ; 
. Bayle was the great diffuser of the 
sceptical philosophy. His opinions are 
but in a small degree the result of the 
Reformation. They are mostly derived, 
either from the antient classics which 
he studied, or from the Latin writers of 
modern Italy, such as Pomponatius, &c, 
it may be presumed theretore, that the 
sceptical philosophy, with all its effects, 
would,in the person of some other Prench- 
man or Italian, have blossomed and 
scattered its seeds among the ruling clas- 
ses of society, whether the Protestant 
Reformation had or had not taken place. 
The predisposing causes which were to 
provide it with apostles, lay in a literature 
independent of the Reformation. 
The liberty of the press, however fa- 
 youred by scepticisn:, is less a result of 
opinion, than of the multiplication of 
independent jurisdictions. Ten years 
ago, the liberty, or licence, of the press in 
‘Germany, exceeded that of Britain, A 
wider arc of oscillation was open to opi- 
nion. Now that the country is overawed 
hy a single sovereign, the conduct of 
*Jobnc.xv.v.6 If a man abide not in 
ge, lie shall be cast out as a severed branch, 
and shal] wither; and men shall gather toge- 
ther such branches, and cast ‘hem into the fire, 
and they shall be burned. Improved Version. 
The Enquirer.—No. XXYV. 207 
princes may be freely criticized no longer.’ 
The fiberty of the press enjoyed by the 
ollanders, and the contiguous provitices, 
during the whole zgra'of Dutch indepen- 
dence, arose from the very narrow extent 
of the power of controul in any given 
body of magistrates. A hich degree of 
liberty of tie press was finding room iit 
Italy, when the disorders of the Reformas: 
tion broke loose, and confederated \the 
Italian church-alarmists of the different 
principalities into one strong party of 
inquisitors. The earliest index expurga- 
forius is subsequent to: the protestant 
troubles.. But for the German Reforma- 
. tion, either the literary taste of ‘the Me- 
. If Europe owes tolerance to the Refor-. 
dici, or the hostility of the Venetians to 
the Romish see, or the commercial libe~ 
rality of the Genovese, or the philoso- 
phic courage of the professors of Padua, 
would have established in Italy’a free 
press, and have habituated the people to 
bear with bold controversy. There is 
much of habit in liberty of all kinds; 
those who begin, should begin gently =’ 
but the habit once formed, it might have 
detied suppression. Aud what then would 
have been the refyrmation - achieved ?! 
By removing the focus of discussion and’ 
emanation, the whole character of the’ 
revolution would have been changed.» 
The tellow-thinkers of the eloquent 
and accomplished Socini, in their sue’ 
cessive conventions. st Vicenza, would: 
have shapen, into a severely beautiful 
consistency, the articles of a narrower, 
simpler, purer, and sublimer creed.. They 
would have evulgated the holy SCriptured, 
more carefully picked over than by the.) 
council of Trent, and accompanied with 
expositions, not tending, like those of 
the northern .reformers, to revive. and: 
diituse the absurdest superstitions of the 
most ignorant Jews. Formed in the 
bosom of [talian taste, stationed on its 
classic soil, surrounded by a refined peo- 
ple, whose poetry an Ariosto and a Tasso, 
whose art a Michael Angelo and a Ra~ 
phaei were illustrating, they would not! 
have enlisted, like the barbarian protes= 
tants, among the destroyers of the beau- 
tiful, but would have preserved in all its 
majesty the antique ritual of Rome; they 
would have associated religion with our 
noblest pleasures... Reducing the esta- 
blished hagiolatry to that posthumous 
veneration for the benefactors of the 
human race, which is the natural religion 
of every grateful heart, and the strongest 
incentive to future excellence, they oleh 
have encouraged the people to superadd. 
hew 
