INTRODUCTION. 



ment of arts, government, and commerce, which, after many ages 

 of barbarity, made their way into Europe. The scandalous lives 

 of those who called themselves the " ministers of Jesus Christ" 

 their ignorance and tyranny, the desire natural to sovereigns of 

 delivering themselves from a foreign yoke, the opportunity of ap- 

 plying to national objects the immense wealth which had been di- 

 verted to the service of the church in every kingdom of Europe, 

 conspired with the ardour of the first reformers, and hastened 

 the progress of the reformation. The unreasonableness .of the 

 claims of the church of Rome was demonstrated ; many of 

 her doctrines were proved to be equally unscriptural and irration- 

 al ; and some of her absurd mummeries and superstitions were 

 exposed both by argument and ridicule. The services of the re- 

 formers in this respect give them a just claim to our veneration ; 

 but, involved as they had themselves been in the darkness of su- 

 perstition, it was not to be expected that they should be able whol- 

 ly to free themselves from errors : they still retained an attach- 

 ment to some absurd doctrines, and preserved too much of the in- 

 tolerant spirit of the church from which they had separated them- 

 selves. With all their defects, they are entitled to our admiration 

 and esteem ; and the reformation, begun by Luther in Germany, 

 in the year 1517, and which took place in England, A. D. 1534, 

 was an event highly favourable to the civil as well as to the reli- 

 gious rights of mankind. 



We shall now proceed to the principal part of our work, begin- 

 ning with Europe. , 



