gravated cruelty.* The survivors flew to arms, and five years afterwards, the famous Catholic League was formed against the Protestants; who, under Henry, King of Navarre, withstood its fiercest efforts.

This prince was assisted with money by Queen Elizabeth; but on succeeding to the throne of France, in 1589, with the title of Henry IV., he soon sacrificed conscience to policy, and renounced the faith which he had so ably defended.

In 1598, however, he granted to the Protestants, by the Edict of Nantes, the secure enjoyment of their religion, and their civil rights: yet during the minority of Louis XIV., this edict was revoked by Cardinal Mazarine, in 1685, since which time the Protestants have often been cruelly persecuted, and those of them who fled into Holland have been since known by the name of Refugees; nor was the profession of the reformed religion in France at any time, before the late revolution, so safe as in most other countries of Europe.†

DISTINGUISHING DOCTRINES.-The active spirit of enquiry, natural to men who had just

* See an account of this massacre in Sully's Memoirs, and also a fine description of it in the second canto of Voltaire's Henriade.

See Seckendorf's Commentar. Histor. Apologet. de Lutheranismo, sive de Reformatione Religionis, &c. The 4th vol. of Dr. Mosheim's Eccl. Hist. Bishop Burnet's History of the Reformation, and Dr. Robertson's History of Charles the Fifth.

broken loose from the despotism of Popery, operating differently on different intellects and dispositions, almost necessarily produced a variety of sects; and, in some cases, gave birth to extreme wildness and extravagance of unscriptural doctrine and practice. One great source of contention respected church government and ceremonies. Some Protestant Churches, regarding with abhorrence whatever had been an appendage of the Romish religion, renounced, together with ancient rites, the primeval institution of Episcopacy. Others were of opinion, that it was more wise to preserve whatever was in itself innocent, and to be content with the removal of corruptions. Points of doctrine too caused divisions; and these controversies among the reformers, some of whom long retained a portion of the virulent spirit of popery, were too often conducted, even when they related to matters of secondary importance, with the violence and acrimony by which, in opposing the Roman Catholics, a good cause had been disgraced. They afforded no small matter of triumph to the adherents of the Church of Rome, and impeded, in no small degree, the progress of the reformation.

We are not to expect then, that Protestants are unanimous in all points of doctrine, discipline, worship, or church government; on the contrary, while they agree only in receiving the scriptures as the supreme rule of their faith and practice, and in rejecting the distinguishing doctrines of the Church of Rome, in many other respects they still differ not more widely from that church

than they do from one another: and to ascertain their doctrines, we must examine the public standards, or the Confessions and Articles of the different churches, sects, and parties, into which the professors of the reformed religion are now subdivided.*

All Protestants who are Trinitarians, and I believe, most Protestant Churches, receive the Apos tles', Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, or the substance of the doctrine contained in them, together with the first four General Councils, viz. the first assembled at Nice, A. D. 325; the first of Constantinople in 381; that of Ephesus, which met in 431; and that of Chalcedon, held in 451.

Mr. Chillingworth, addressing himself to a writer in favour of the Church of Rome, speaks of the Religion of Protestants in the following terms,

* These standards are collected in the "Corpus et Syntagma Confessionum Fidei, quæ in diversis Regnis et Nationibus, Ecclesiarum nomine, fuerunt authenticè editæ," &c. and some of the most noted of them in the "Sylloge Confessionum sub Tempus reformanda Ecclesia editarum," &c. printed at the University press, Oxford, in 1804.

The former collection contains thirteen confessions, viz. the Helvetic, or Swiss, the French, the English, the Scotch, the Belgic or Netherlands, the Polish, the Strasburgh, the Augsburgh, the Saxon, the Wittenbergh, the Palatinate, and the Bohemian, together with the Consensus of the churches of Greater and Less Poland and Lithuania.

The Oxford Sylloge contains, besides the Trent Confession of Faith, these Protestant confessions,-the Helvetic, the Augsburgh, the Saxon, and the Belgic; and also the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of the synod of Dort.

worthy, as has been well observed, to be inscribed in letters of gold. "Know then, Sir, that when I say the Religion of Protestants is, in prudence, to be preferred before yours; on the one side, I do not understand by your religion the doctrine of Bellarmine, or Baronius, or any other private man amongst you, nor the doctrine of the Sorbonne, or of the Jesuits, or of the Dominicans, or of any other particular company among you, but that wherein you all agree, or profess to agree, The doctrine of the Council of Trent: so accordingly, on the other side, by the Religion of Protestants, I do not understand the doctrine of Luther, or Calvin, or Melancthon, nor the Confession of Augsburgh, or Geneva, nor the Catechism of Heidelberg, nor the Articles of the Church of England, no, nor the harmony of Protestant Confessions; but that wherein they all agree, and which they all subscribe with a greater harmony, as a perfect rule of faith and action, i. e. the Bible.

"The Bible, I say, the Bible only, is the religion of Protestants. Whatsoever else they believe besides it, and the plain, irrefragable, indubitable consequences of it, well may they hold it as a matter of opinion; but as a matter of faith and religion, neither can they with coherence to their own grounds believe it themselves, nor require belief of it of others, without most high and most schismatical presumption.

"I, for my part, after a long, and (as I verily believe and hope) impartial search of the true way

to eternal happiness, do profess plainly, that I cannot find any rest for the sole of my foot, but upon this rock only. I see plainly, and with my own eyes, that there are Popes against Popes, and councils against councils; some fathers against other fathers, the same fathers against themselves; a consent of fathers of one age, against a consent of fathers of another age: traditive interpretations of scripture are pretended, but there are few or none to be found no tradition, but that of scripture, can derive itself from the fountain, but may be plainly proved either to have been brought in, in such an age after Christ, or that in such an age it was not in. In a word, there is no sufficient certainty but of scripture only, for any considering man to build upon. This, therefore, and this only, I have reason to believe. This I will profess: according to this, I will live; and for this, if there be occasion, I will not only willingly, but even gladly lose my life, though I should be sorry that Christians should take it from me.

Propose me any thing out of this book, and require whether I believe or no, and seem it never so incomprehensible to human reason, I will subscribe it with hand and heart, as knowing no demonstration can be stronger than this, God hath said so, therefore, it is true. In other things, I will take no man's liberty of judging from him; neither shall any man take mine from me."*

* Chillingworth's Works, Fol. 1742. It may be proper to observe here, that Mr. Chillingworth, who lived about