ground of hope for salvation, than the atoning sacrifice of Christ Jesus. Priestly indulgences, priestly pardon, priestly penances, priestly masses and priestly ceremonies, were not the means to which the Waldenses, and Bohemian christians resorted to obtain the absolution of their sins. They looked to God himself for pardon through the blood of his Son. This struck at the root of the papal corruption, wealth and power, and irritated to the highest pitch the wrath of the see of Rome. These commotions awakened a spirit of inquiry and general excitation, and a general council was called. It was composed of Roman catholic clergy. Before it appeared John Huss, and Jerome of Prague, two of the most distinguished advocates for the truth. Their eloquent defence, especially that of Jerome, astonished all who heard it, and challenged the applause even of their adversaries. But it could not save them. The fire had been kindled before, and they were marked out as victims to be offered up. By an order of this sanguinary council, they were led to the stake, and died martyrs to the truth of the atonement. This took place early in the sixteenth century.

The crushing of the Bohemian armies and the cutting off of the most distinguished divines by the sword, did not destroy the cause in which they were engaged. It provoked discussion and opened the eyes of thousands to the corruptions which had for ages been accumulating in the church. All these, or nearly all, may be traced to erroneous views of the atonement, and of the person and character of him by whom it was made. Long the pilgrimages, the penances, the ceremonies, &c. prescribed by the priests were thought to be sufficient to procure pardon. Some doubt, however, existed. Other means, or additional supports must be devised, to secure the confidence of the multitude, and assure them that their salvation was safe. Confession of sin to the priests, and their granting of pardon, had been practised for many ages. At first these pardons were attempted to be justified on the ground of the commission given by Christ to his disciples; and as an auxiliary to fortify such a stretch of power, the doctrine relative to works of supererogation was in

vented. The substance of this monstrous invention, was that many saints by their fastings, pilgrimages, penances, prayers, benefactions to the church, &c. had done much more than was necessary to their own personal justification. These works were termed, "works of supererogation," which taken together, it was pretended, formed an extensive fund of merit, deposited in the hands of priests. When any one applied for absolution, so much of the stock was measured out to him as the priest thought sufficient to ensure his pardon, which he pronounced accordingly. But these corrupters of the religion of Jesus, did not stop here. Not only did they arrogate to themselves the right to remit past sins, they also professed to have a right to grant dispensations to commit them with impunity. These were called "indulgences." A scale was graduated, by which they measured the amount of the sin to be committed, and the price to be paid for the license. A privilege to commit the very highest crimes might be purchased. These indulgences constituted a source of extraordinary profit to the Roman pontiffs and their dependants, and missionaries were appointed and sent out into the various kingdoms of Europe, to sell them on commission, for the see of Rome.

No empire was more infested with these harpies than Germany. The most distinguished of them was John Tetzel, and Germany was his field of operation. He extolled, with the most pompous declamation, the merit and efficacy of indulgences, and in the warmth of his zeal he declared that they were more efficacious than the merits of Christ Jesus. The kings of Europe, as well as the petty princes, were indignant at the impositions that were thus practised upon their subjects, by means of which the bishop of Rome laid their states under such heavy contributions, as exhausted their wealth. But so potent was the spell which bound princes and emperors to the car of the pontiff, that few of them dared to prohibit the sale of indulgences in their dominions. As the evil had originated in the church, from the bosom of the church the remedy proceeded. The spirit of enquiry which was diffused over Europe, by the persecuted chris

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tians, who had fled from the Alps, had become too bold, to permit such absurd and extravagant pretensions to pass without examination.

It was in Switzerland, that a spirit of free enquiry, leading to important and glorious results, first manifested itself. There can be no doubt that this circumstance was in a great measure owing to the local position of that republic, in the neighborhood of those valleys where truth for many ages had found a place of refuge. The most distinguished of the divines who carried on their enquiries with freedom and boldness was Zuinglius. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, this excellent man dared to call in question the power of the catholic priests to forgive sin, and maintained that our iniquities are pardoned only in consequence of the atoning sacrifice of Christ Jesus, received by faith for our justification. Not long after the Swiss reformer erected the standard of truth upon the Alps, the impostures of the missionaries, whom the pontiff had sent into Germany to sell indulgences, were the occasion of bringing to light a very extraordinary man, destined of God to be a principal instrument in effecting the most beneficent revolution that the world has experienced since the days of the apostlesa man of great learning, uncommon zeal, ardent piety, and an intrepidity, that set at defiance the whole power of the Roman pontiff, though supported by all the crowned heads of Europe-a man who thought with so much freedom and boldness as to call in question opinions which for ages had been held most sacred, and the renunciation of which was thought by whole empires, to lead to inevitable perdition. I mean Martin Luther. He was born at Eisleben in Germany, was educated for the church, and took orders among the Austin monks. In his cell he found a portion of the New Testament in Greek, which he read with care. It awakened in him a desire to study the sacred scriptures in the original languages. His learning procured him a place in the college of Wittemburg. Tetzel, the vender of indulgences, came into his neighborhood, and declaimed in his usual style respecting their efficacy. The gross manner in which he

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outraged all truth and decency, aroused the indignation of Luther. He opposed him. At first the views of the great German reformer on the manner of a sinner's justification before God seem not to have been very distinct. He clearly perceived, however, that it could never be obtained, through the indulgences which were vending by the priests. He commenced a minute examination of the scriptures, with a view to ascertain the doctrine which it taught relative to the atonement. This doctrine, indeed, was the pivot upon. which the reformation turned. At every step new light burst upon his mind. His doctrines were eagerly embraced by thousands, who were delighted to find that any one had the boldness to call in question the dogmas of the bishop of Rome and his creatures. The effulgence shed upon the path of immortality attracted the gaze both of the common people and of princes. The elector of Saxony, the landgrave of Hesse, and many other German princes of distinction, embraced the truth as taught by Luther, and afforded him protection against the fury of the Roman pontiff, as well as against that of Charles V. emperor of Germany. Luther not only preached, but also published his opinions through the medium of the press. The truth which he enforced with the greatest earnestness, as the rallying point, in which the others concentred themselves, was, "that man is justified by faith alone without the deeds of the law." The extent of the atonement, he seems never to have examined with any great attention. Its truth, which had been obscured for many centuries, over a great part of those nations that called themselves christian, engaged so much of his powers of investigation and reasoning, that he had little time to devote to ascertain for whom precisely it was made. He maintained, however, most distinctly, that Christ was substituted in the room of sinners, and suffered the penalty of the broken covenant of works, which those who are saved would otherwise have suffered in their own persons; that his obedience to the precept of the law, and his suffering the penalty which it denounces, constitute that satisfaction which he offered to divine justice; and that there is no other way by which the sinner

can attain to a saving interest in this righteousness, than by receiving Christ Jesus by faith, which is therefore called saving or justifying faith. All these points are discussed with a perspicuity, and enforced by a soundness of argumentation, which may improve the most enlightened christian, even at the present time. His commentary on Paul's epistle to the Galatians, contains the substance of his views and reasonings on this all-important subject.

All the power of the German princes, who espoused the cause of the reformers, could not have saved them from destruction, had not the Head of the church caused the machinery of the nations to protect the friends of the atonement. He who on the cross, "bowed his head" and said of the atonement, it is finished, employed Solyman, the head of the Ottoman empire, Francis I. of France, and Henry' VIII. of England, to engage the attention of Charles V. until the instruments whom he had raised up for the illustration of the truth, had brought their work to a state of perfection, which nothing could destroy. Hence, though while Luther was diffusing from both the pulpit and the press, those obnoxious doctrines, the emperor had not leisure to direct the force of the empire against him and his adherents to crush them. Correct habits of thinking, relative to the atonement, had become habitual to the mass of the people, throughout some of the most extensive circles of the empire. Luther had translated the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments into German, and they were read with eagerness by millions. A powerful body of learned and industrious, zealous and pious clergy, had organized themselves into a society, separate from the Romish church. They, with many princes, had bound themselves by a solemn covenant, to adhere to the truth at every hazard. A catechism, composed chiefly by Luther, was considered a standard of orthodoxy in the faith, in the Lutheran churches, as they began to be styled. It was employed as a manual for the instruction of children and youth, who now drink in the doctrine of the atonement, almost with their mother's milk. Salvation through the righteousness of Christ alone, is not