and absolved you will be, whether you have contrition or not." Again, in his 6th article: "The contrition that is acquired by examin ing, recollecting, and detesting one's sins; whereby a man calls to mind his life past in the bitterness of his soul, reflecting on the hei nousness and multitude of his offences, the loss of eternal bliss, and condemnation to eternal wo; this contrition, I say, makes a man a hy pocrite, nay, even a greater sinner than he was before." Thus, after the most immoral life, you have a compendious method of saving yourself by simply believing that your sins are remitted, through the merits of Christ. As to his sentiments in regard to the Pope, bishops, councils, &c. hear what he says in the preface to his book, de abroganda Missa privata"With how many powerful remedies and most evident scriptures have I scarce been able to fortify my conscience so, as to dare alone to contradict the Pope, and believe him to be Antichrist, the bishops his apostles, and the universities his brothel-houses." In his book, de judicio Ecclesiae de gravi doctrina; "Christ takes from the bishops, doctors and councils, both the right and power of judging controversies, and gives them to all Christians in general." Now, hear his modest censure on the council of Constance, and those that composed

it.

"All John Huss's articles were condemned at Constance, by Antichrist and his apostles," meaning the Pope and bishops, "in that synod of satan, made up of most wicked sophisters; and you, most holy vicar of Christ, I

tell you plainly to your face, that all John Huss's condemned doctrines are evangelical and Christian, but all yours are impious and diabolical."

Here I shall leave Luther for a while, and see what the other reformers are about. John Calvin, a Frenchman, the first contriver and architect of the Presbyterian discipline, is charged with crimes of the blackest hue, both by Lutherans and Catholics; nor are some of our English Protestants, in their writings, much more favorable to him. But setting all aside that is objected to him by his adversaries, his own writings will forever bear testimony that his spirit was not of God, but a proud, boasting, and vain-glorious spirit, like Luther, impatient of contradiction; ever breaking out into reproaches and injurious names, and such like bilingsgate rhetoric against his adversaries; treating with the utmost contempt all modern church guides, and preferring upon all occasions, his own new private lights to the unanimous consent of the ancient fathers, as may be seen in almost every page of his Institutions, &c. To which I must add his monstrous tenets, which could never be dictated by the spirit of God. As 1. "That God has created the greatest part of mankind on purpose to damn them, without any foresight of their sins or prevarications." See Collier's Dictionary, Calvinism. 2. That God is the author of all sin.

L. de Praedest. L. 1 Inst. C. 18, num. 1, L. 3, C. 23, n. 8, &c. 3. That man has no free will. L. 2 Inst., &c, 4. That al

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sins are mortal, even the first motions of concupiscence before the will consents, and that the best of our works deserve damnation. See Alex. Ross' View of Religions, p. 236, 237. 5. That the true faithful are infallibly assured of their justification and salvation, and must firmly believe it; and that being once arrived thus far, they cannot fall from justice, though they were to commit the most enormous sins. L. 3, Inst. C. 2, n. 16, &c. 24. In Antid. conc. Trid. in Sess. 6, C. 13, 14, Opusc. p. 185. That Christ was in the state of damnation upon the cross. 7. That when earthly princes erect themselves against God, (that is, when they oppose Calvinism,) they bereave themselves of their authority, and that we must rather spit in their faces than obey them, &c. In Danielis vi. 22, 25. What wonder after this, that his disciples, authorized by this doctrine of their grand patriarch, have filled all Europe with seditions, rebellions, deposing and murdering of princes, &c.

The above short detail shews a palpable reason, why our modern apostles set such a value on their new discovered principle of "evangelical liberty," as it opened so spacious a lawn, in which they could range at their ease. The hardships of mortification, the painful restrictions of penance, were not to be admitted into the Elysian fields; the sensual appetites claimed their right of abode. All Church authori ty was banished from this realm of liberty.

They professed themselves judges of every thing relating to religion, and its foundations

and fences they levelled at their pleasure. Tradition they totally abolished; and though they could not reject the whole canon of the scriptures, as being universally acknowledged to be the word of God, they had, however, the presumption to expunge some books of it, that did not coincide with their own opinions; and the rest they assumed a right to explain as they thought fit. Hence followed various arbitrary explications of the most important texts, which became so many fountains that issued out troubled streams of doctrine. But this was a natural consequence. For, if a man consults only himself, his passions and conceits will certainly dictate to him what may serve for his it own gratification, and which must, of course, is contradict the doctrine of Revelation, which tends to bridle them. What wonder, then, if 440 comments and glasses of these new interpreters have so much obscured and disfigured off the face of religion?

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However, to complete the work, and to conciliate people's minds more easily to their innovations, they pretend to charge the old doctrine with absurdities and errors, as if Christ had suffered his Church to be totally lost; whereas, he had told his apostles, and in them their successors, the pastors of his Church: "Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world," Matt. xxviii. 20. But it plainly appeared that the objected absurdities and errors had no reality, and were no more than misrepresentations contrived on purpose. In this view how many notorious

falsehoods were published, which were still kept up, concerning the Catholic worship.

Luther was first intoxicated with the reforming spirit, which presently after insinuated itself in Carlostadius, Zuinglius, Occolampadius, Melancthon, Bucer, Muncer, Calvin, Henry VIII. of England, Cranmer, and many others. These Reformers were unconnected, acknowledged no subordination among themselves, and even quarrelled with one another. They all taught different doctrines, and scarce agreed in any thing, but in their endeavours to destroy the ancient faith, and corrupt the Christian principles of morality.

This

The first man of note that adhered to Luther's Reformation, was Andrew Carlostadius, who was also the first that declared against the mass, and the elevation of the sacrament; the first priest that publicly married. happened in 1524, on which occasion a new mass was composed and published by him, of which the Introit was: "Dixit Dominus; non est bonum hominem esse solum," &c. and the collect ran as follows: "O Lord, who, after so long a blindness of unmarried priests, hast be stowed such grace upon blessed Andrew Carlostadius, that contemning papal laws, he hath presumed to take a wife; bring to pass that all other priests may follow his example," &c. and he was the first in these latter ages, who renewed the Iconoclasts' war against the images of Christ and his saints; and the first of the formers that denied the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the blessed eucharist,