And what is necessary in the state, and even in each family, would you exclude from the church? Would you by some revolution drive away one of these two elements? Impotent conspirators! Could you succeed in destroying the element of the Reform, you would be compelled to become Reformed yourselves!

But undoubtedly Lutheranism had much to suffer in the sixteenth century for having carried its principles too far. Halting between the Bible and the church, between that which it should retain and that which it should reject, its progress was in consequence somewhat impeded, its Reformation could not attain the height to which it had before aspired, and Luther, naturally of a gay character, and joyful temperament, ended his days in sadness and weariness. Whilst the Reform, possessing a visible and unclouded aim, in the Bible, and nothing but the Bible, advanced with power; Calvin, Farel, Knox, and even Zwingle, died joyfully and triumphantly. What a death was Calvin's; how touching his dying words!

Lutheranism, paralyzed from the beginning, witnessed, after the death of Luther, its conservativeness turned into stagnation.

The Lutheran Princes, unfaithful to the glorious memory of the Diet of Spire, (1529,) opposed every extension of Protestantism, and were but too well seconded by their theologians.

Even now a new Society, which we hail with affection and respect, the Society of Gustavus Adolphus, faithful to this Lutheran principle, endeavors, it is true, to support the Protestant churches, which are tottering, yet declares itself opposed to any activity beyond the sphere of acknowledged Protestantism, as well as to all proselytism.

It is not thus with the Reform. It advances, it gains every where. Our Evangelical Societies of Paris and Geneva, with their essentially proselyting characteristics, all our Missionary Societies, are the fruits of the Reformed spirit.

But it is principally in the relation between these two

churches and the Papacy that we see the characteristic which distinguishes them. Lutheranism, which took the offensive with regard to the Reform, rested on the defensive with regard to the Pope; whilst the Reform, holding out the right hand of fellowship to Lutheranism, boldly and courageously took the offensive toward Rome. Melancthon, at Augsburg, in 1530, said to the Cardinals, that but a trifle separated him from the Pope; but an immense abyss separated him from Zwingle. Lutheranism, to which the visible church is of so much moment, could capitulate with Rome. The Reform, which will have nothing but the Bible, must fight Rome boldly. Wherever are found superstitious fears of a struggle with Papacy, wherever extreme circumspection is observed, wherever it is supposed, for instance, that prudence should keep Protestants from offering a fraternal hand to priests who reject the Pope, and confess Jesus Christ, there you will perhaps find ultra-Lutheranism; but there most assuredly the spirit of the Reform is not.

Inspired with a holy love for souls, and a deep conviction that Rome leads them to perdition, the Reform seized the sword of the Word three centuries ago, and commenced with the Papal power a war, the issue of which is life or death. Notwithstanding the constant and violent opposition of the most powerful monarchs of Europe, notwithstanding the redoubled efforts of that hierarchy which fettered the whole world, the Reform has advanced like little David against that gigantic Goliath, having nothing in its sling but a few round pebbles of God's Word. And it conquered in the name of the Lord of Hosts.

We certainly acknowledge all that Christian Princes have done, especially the immortal Gustavus Adolphus. But that was the work of a prince, and perhaps was done with political views. With us it is the business of the faith

Dogma nullum habemus diversum ab ecclesia romana. Parati sumus obedire ecclesiae romanae. (Legato Pontificio Melancthon.) Ambeunt (reformati) colloquium cum Philippo; sed hic hactenus recusavit.—BRENTIUS.

ful, and the work of faith. It is the Reform which saved the Reformation in troublous times, and the Reform shall save it yet in our days.

It is true that it saved it at the price of its blood. Whilst the Lutheran church numbers scarcely any martyrs, ours are counted by thousands, and their faithfulness filled the best Lutherans with respect and admiration, such Lutherans as the sympathizing Spener and Zinzendorf. In Switzerland, Scotland, England, and especially in Belgium and France, the Inquisition, the daggers and the scaffolds of Popery have covered with corpses the soil of the Bible. The Reform witnessed it, but it bowed not its head. It saw its children joyfully shed their blood trusting in Jesus Christ, and it continued its onward march.

A circular, written in the name of a priest, who calls himself Count of Lausanne, and Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, (although since the beginning of this century there has existed no Holy Empire,) has dared to say recently in that city: "Always, and every where, since the time of the Apostles, the church, (of Rome,) its pontiffs and its priests have been persecuted. The holy pontiffs and priests of Jesus Christ, laboring, from the origin of Christianity, for the conversion and sanctification of souls, have never employed other means than those which the Gospel, conscience, and reason approve.

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This is really too much, and a sigh escapes us. What! you dare hold such language in this city, in the midst of a people formed, so to speak, from the fragments that escaped. from your wheels, your racks, and your knives! We are accustomed to the effrontery of Rome, but we never had such a sample of it.

Men of no memory! to whom belongs the bloody application of these words, Constrain them to enter? By whose commands were shed those torrents of blood of the Waldenses, and the Albigenses, which inundated the middle ages?

1 Circular of the Bishop of Lausanne and Geneva, of 17th May, 1844.

Who, if not your Pope, on the night of the 24th August, 1572, amid nuptial festivals, caused the venerable Coligny, on his knees, and sixty thousand Reformed, to be cruelly butchered? Who ordered all the bells in Rome to be rung in merry peals, and the cannon of the Castle of St. Angelo to resound, and medals to be struck? Who, in 1685, razed to the ground more than sixteen hundred churches in France, slaughtered thousands and thousands of Protestants and forced others to flee? In our days, who forbids, in nearly all Romish countries, the preaching of the Gospel? Who compels the poor inhabitants of Zillerthal to leave their father-land? Who makes laws in Austria against conversion to Protestantism? Who condemned to prison that Maurette who struggled here last winter with the priests, charged with having merely read your circular from the pulpit? Who, two months since, in a village near our frontier, within three miles of this place, caused a poor peasant to be arrested, thrown into a dungeon, and condemned to the galleys, for having committed no other crime than that of reading his Bible? Who, not in the fourteenth or fifteenth century, but only a few weeks since, condemned to death Maria Joaquina for having refused to worship the Virgin, and to believe the doctrine of transubstantiation? And you speak of Rome as a persecuted church! And you assert that it has never employed other means than the voice of conscience and of persuasion! . . . Men of no memory! . . . Come, come! cute, you are consistent with yourselves. to be, and is, in fact, a dogma of yours. you that opprobrium, no one will rob you of that glory. . . . Your church is a church of murderers; our church is a church of martyrs.

when you persePersecution ought No one will envy

VI. We shall select but one more characteristic among all those which yet remain. It is a consequence of that characteristic on which we have just remarked. It is the difference which exists between these two communions, both as to liberty of the church and liberty of the state.

Whatever his enemies may say to the contrary, Luther was an humble and submissive monk; and however great may have been the power which he acquired by his language, he ever remained within the bounds of the most perfect obedience to his emperor and his prince. And even in 1530, Luther, who in 1522 had written a book entitled, "Against the State, falsely called spiritual, of the Pope and the Bishops," appeared, as did Melancthon also, entirely ready to acknowledge the authority of all bishops, provided those bishops would acknowledge the authority of the Gospel. Luther's Reformation was essentially monarchical in its relations to the state, and hierarchical in its relations to the church. The people are never brought forward in it otherwise than as modestly receiving that which is given them by the higher authorities. It is true that Luther at last made quite a proper distinction between the two swords of the church and the state; but after him, and even in his day, the Lutheran princes, invested with the territorial episcopacy, absorbed all liberties, and all ecclesiastical independence.

Is it necessary to observe that Lutheranism possesses peculiar excellence in this respect? The vehicle which bore the human mind, was in the sixteenth century at the top of a steep declivity. The Reform boldly seated itself on the coachman's box; with one hand it seized the reins, and with the other it used the whip; and away went the coach. What was necessary to prevent a terrible catastrophe at the foot of the mountain? To use a vulgar comparison the wheel-lock must be used; that lock was Lutheranism. By this means the progress is rapid, though safe; and if it is true that the dreaded danger has been realized, it is because both Lutheranism and the Reform have lost their essential characteristics, and their intrinsic excellence, during the past century; it is that the wheel-lock has been taken off, and the driver thrown to the ground.

In this, therefore, consists a new difference between the Reform and Lutheranism; and it was not unaptly that Bossuet said in presence of the court of Louis XIV: The Calvinists are bolder than the Lutherans.