the danger of his giving way to innovations, and advised him, in consideration of the times, to confine himself to the safer task of clothing the Peripatetic ideas in elegant language. This prudential advice was not altogether congenial to the open mind of Paleario, and the devotion which he felt for truth. The freedom with which he censured false pretenders to learning and religion irritated a class of men who scruple at no means to oppress and ruin an adversary, and who eagerly seized the opportunity to fasten on him the charge of heresy....Cotta asserts' (says he, in one of his letters), ' that, if I am allowed to live, there will not be a vestige of religion left in the city. Why? Because, being asked one day what was the first ground on which men should rest their salvation, I replied, Christ; being asked what was the second, I replied, Christ; and being asked what was the third, í replied, Christ.' But Paleario gave the greatest offence by a book which he wrote on the benefit of the death of Christ, of which he gives the following account in his defence of himself pronounced before the senate of Sienna. There are some

persons so sour, so morose, so censorious, as to be displeased when we give the highest praise to the Author and God of our salvation, Christ, the King of all nations and people. When I wrote this very year in the Tuscan language, to shew what great benefits accrue to mankind from his death, it was made the ground of a criminal accusation against me! Is it possible to utter or conceive any thing more shameful? I had said, that since he, in whom the Divinity resided, has poured out his life's blood so lovingly for our salvation, we ought not to doubt of the goodwill of Heaven, but may promise ourselves the greatest tranquillity and peace. I had affirmed, agreeably to the most un questionable monuments of antiquity, that those who turn with their souls to Christ erucified, commit themselves to him by faith, acquiesce in the promises, and cleave with assured confidence to him who cannot deceive, are delivered from all evil, and enjoy a plenary pardon of their sins. These things appeared so grievous, so detestable, so execrable to the twelve (Inquisitors)-I cannot call them men, but inhuman beasts-that they judged that the author should be committed to the flames. If I must undergo this punishment for the foresaid testimony, (for I deem it a testimony rather than a libel); then, senators, nothing more happy can befal me. In such a time as this I do not think a Christian ought to die in his bed. To be accused, to be dragged to prison, to be scourged, to be hung up by the neck, to be sewed up in a sack, to be exposed to wild beasts, is little let me be roasted before a fire, provided only the truth be brought to light by such a death..... The eloquent defence of Paleario triumphed CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 308.

over the violence and intrigues of his adversaries. He was, however, obliged soon after to quit Sienna; but, though he changed the place of his residence, he did not escape from the odium which he had incurred, and we shall afterwards find him enduring that martyrdom which he early anticipated, and for which it appears to have been his object all along to prepare his thoughts.... He was condemned, after an imprisonment of three years, to be suspended on a gibbet and his body to be given to the flames; and the sentence was executed on the 3d of July 1570, in the 70th year of his age..... His tract on the Benefit of the Death of Christ was uncommonly useful, and made a great noise at its first publication. Forty thousand copies of it were sold in the course of six years." pp. 125-8, 130, 299, 303.

Dr. M'Crie's fourth chapter récords "Miscellaneous Facts respecting the State of the Reformed Opinions in Italy."-The first of these relates to the lamentable sacramentarian controversy, which caused so mischievous a schism among the Reformers, and which had spread its influence even into Italy. And here the conduct of Luther, in fomenting this dispute among the Italian Protestants, comparatively "few in number and rude in know

ledge," calls forth the severe, and in the main not unjust, censures of our author. Perhaps a little more allowance should have been made for the

sincerity of the Reformer's convictions upon the subject, and for the importance which he most unhappily attached to his erroneous dogma.

The Trinitarian controversy is the subject next noticed by Dr. M'Crie, who is of opinion that Servetus first introduced anti-Trinitarian opinions into Italy; where they diffused their baneful influence to a considerable extent; though other writers have thought that the Spaniard acquired his notions by intercourse with Italian heretics.

"Illustrious females who favoured the new opinions, although their names are not associated with any public transaction in the progress of the Reformation," and "learned men who never left the communion of the Church of Rome, but were favourable, in a greater or less degree, to the views and sentiments

3 Q

of the first Reformers," form the remaining heads of this chapter.

Under the latter division, the reader will be surprised at the statements made concerning our countryman, Cardinal Pole; and the length to which he, with Cardinal Contarini and others, went, in their convictions, and at times in their avowals, in favour of Protestant doctrines. But we will confine ourselves here to a single quotation relative to Marco Antonio Flaminio, who is said, as a poet, to discover" the simplicity and tenderness of Catullus without his licentiousness, and to melt the heart with sweetness."

"His writings prove, beyond all reasonable doubt, that he entertained sentiments, on the principal points of controversy, coinciding with the Protestant creed, and at variance with the decisions of the Council of Trent. It would be

easy to establish this by a multiplicity of extracts; but the following may suffice. Human nature' (says he) was so depraved by the fall of Adam, that its corruption is propagated to all his posterity; in consequence of which we contract in our very conception a stain and an incredible proneness to sin, which urges us to all kinds of wickedness and vice, unless our minds are purified and invigorated by the grace of the Holy Spirit. Without tnis renovation, we will [shall] always remain impure and defiled, although to men, who cannot look into the inward disposition of others, we may appear to be pure and upright. In these words (Psalm xxxii. 1) the Psalmist pronounces blessed, not those who are perfect and free from the spot of sin (for no man is so in this life), but those whose sins God has pardoned in his mercy; and he pardons those who confess their sins, and sincerely believe that the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ is an expiation for all transgressions and faults. God, for the sake of Christ his Son, adopted them as his sons from all eternity; those whom he adopted before they were born he calls to godliness; and having called them, he confers on them, first, righteousness, and then everlasting

life.

-The creature, considered in itself, and in the corruption of its nature, is an impure mass; and whatever is worthy of praise in it is the work of the Spirit of Christ, who purifies and regenerates his elect by a living faith, and makes them creatures by so much the nobler and more perfect, that they are disposed to count themselves as nothing, and as having nothing in themselves, but all in Christ." pp. 168-170.

We conclude our notice of the

history of the progress of the Re formation, with a passage which, considered as written in Italy about the year 1540, and compared with what we may hear in London, and many other places, in the present day, cannot fail forcibly to impress the mind.

was hailed with still more enthusiastic

"No wonder that the ardent friends of the Reformation should at this period have cherished the sanguine hope that Italy would throw off the Papal yoke. 'See' (says one) 'how the Gospel, even in Italy, where it is so much borne down, exults in the near prospect of bursting forth, like the sun from a cloud, in spite of all opposition.' Whole libraries (writes Melancthon to George Prince of Anhalt) have been carried from the late fair into Italy, though the Pope has pubtruth cannot be wholly oppressed: our lished fresh edicts against us. But the Captain, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, will vanquish and trample on the dragon, the enemy of God; and will liberate and govern us. This issue of the religious movement in his native country feelings by Celio Secundo Curio, in a dialogue composed by him at the period now referred to, and intended to prove is more extensive than that of the devil, that the kingdom of God, or of the elect, interlocutor, Mainardi, as saying: If the or of the reprobate. He introduces his Lord shall continue, as he has begun, to grant prosperous success to the Gospel, the delectable embassy of reconciliation and grace, we shall behold the whole world thronging, more than it has ever done at any former period, to this asylum and fortified city, to Jesus Christ, the Prince of it, and to its three towers, faith, hope, and charity: so that with our own eyes we may yet see the kingdom of God of much larger extent than that which the enemy of mankind has acquired, not by God. O blessed day! O that I might his own power, but by the providence of live to see the ravishing prospect realized!' exclaims Curio. You shall live, Celio, be not afraid; you shall live to see it. The joyful sound of the Gospel has within our own day reached the Scythians, Thracians, Indians, and Africans. Christ, the King of kings, has taken possession of Rhotia and Helvetia: Germany is under his protection: he has reigned, and will again reign, in England: he sways his sceptre over Denmark and the Cymbrian

nations: Prussia is his: Poland and the whole of Sarmatia are on the point of yielding to him he is pressing forward to Pannonia: Muscovy is in his eye: he beckons France to him: ITALY, OUR NATIVE COUNTRY, IS TRAVAILING IN BIRTH; and Spain will speedily follow. Even the Jews, as you perceive, have abated their

former aversion to Christianity. Since they saw that we acknowledge one God, the Creator of heaven and earth, and Jesus Christ whom he sent; that we worship neither images, nor symbols, nor pictures; that we no longer adore mystical bread or a wafer as God; that they are not despised by us as formerly; that we acknow. ledge we received Christ from them; and that there is access for them to enter into that kingdom from which they are secluded, as we once were-their minds have undergone a great change, and now at last they are provoked to emulation."" pp. 186-188.

"The striking contrast," remarks Dr. M'Crie, "between this pleasing picture and the event which soon after took place, admonishes us not to allow our minds to be dazzled by flattering appearances, or to build theories of faith on prospects which fancy may have sketched on the deceitful horizon of public opinion; and we should recollect, that, though persecution is one means, it is not the only one, by which the march of Christianity has been, and may yet again be, checked and arrested." -The passage thus commented upon may well, indeed, teach us caution, especially in attempting to assign "the times and the seasons, which God hath put in his own power:" but it must not be suffered to shake our faith in the assurance divinely given us, that "the kingdoms of this world shall "eventually "become the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ." Anticipations not followed up by corresponding exertions and prayers, have failed, but it does not follow that all anticipations will do so. Only let us be "stedfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord," and we are assured that "our labour shall not be in vain in the Lord."-The admonition, also, that other means than persecution have checked or arrested the march of Christianity, and may do it again, is salutary and seasonable. The successors of the Reformers soon pressed matters, in different ways, into extremes, and became involved in fierce controversy concerning points of inferior importance; and, thus occupied, they slackened their diligence in

urging on the warfare against the common enemy. By this means the Reformation itself was disparaged, and its advancement stopped. Let, then, all Christians watch sedulously against imitating so fatal an example. While they contend zealously for whatever is great and fundamental, (for a spurious liberality may prove as fatal as a false and fiery zeal), let them hail as brethren "all them that love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity," treat gently and kindly all minor differences with such persons, and earnestly strive together with them for the faith of the Gospel. Thus shall the church be internally happy and prosperous, "as a city at unity within itself;" and externally, towards the kingdom of sin and Satan, formidable" as an army with banners."

We proceed to the suppression of the Reformation in Italy. And here scenes and tales of woe unfold themselves. The details, indeed, of the proceedings of the Roman Inquisition have never come to light, in the manner that those of the Inquisition in Spain have done. It was the policy of the Court of Rome to affect to condemn the severity with which "the holy office" was conducted in the latter country, and to hold out that the system sought to be introduced into Italy was to be of a much milder and more forbearing kind: and, through the influence of these fallacious professions, combined with an ignorance of the exact circumstances of the case, many have been led to suppose that the Inquisition in Italy and the Inquisition in Spain were very different in their character. The very reason of the case, however, might have led us to distrust such representations: and from what is known, Dr. M'Crie finds ground to conclude, that the chief difference between the Italian and Spanish Inquisitions, in the sixteenth century, lay in their policy respecting their mode of punishment. The latter sought to inspire terror by the solemn spectacle of a public

act of justice, in which the scaffold was crowded with criminals. Except in the case of the remote and friendless Calabrians, it was the ob ject of the former to avoid all unnecessary publicity. The report of the autos da fé of Seville and Valladolid blazed at once over Europe: the executions at Rome made less noise in the city, because they were less splendid, as well as more frequent; and the rumour of them died away before it could reach the ear of foreigners.

It was in the year 1542 that the court of Rome first became serious ly alarmed at the progress of the Reformed opinions in Italy; and on the first of April 1543, Paul III. founded at Rome the Congregation of the Holy Office. Individual inquisitors, acting in subordination to the bishops of the several dioceses, had long existed in Italy, as well as in France; but now first the title and rights of " Inquisitors General of the Faith" were granted to six cardinals, and authority was given them "on both sides of the Alps, to try all causes of heresy; with the power of apprehending and incarcerating suspected persons, and their abettors, of whatsoever state, rank, or order; of nominating officers under them; and appointing inferior tribunals in all places, with the same or limited powers." It was the great object of the Popes, during the remainder of the century, to extend the power of the Inquisition over Italy. And with such effect did it pursue the objects of its institution, that Popish historians, Dr. M'Crie "do more homage to truth than credit to their cause, when they say that the erection of the Inquisition was the salvation of the Catholic religion in Italy." pp. 200—205.

says,

"A horde of commissioned spies was spread over the country, who, by means of the recommendations with which they were furnished, got admission into familes, insinuated themselves into the confidence of individuals, and conveyed the secret information which they obtained in this way to the inquisitors" p. 211.

"No sooner was this engine of tyranny

and torture erected, than those who had rendered themselves obnoxious to it by fled in great numbers from a country in the previous avowal of their sentiments, which they could no longer look for protection from injustice and cruelty. The prisons of the inquisition were every where filled with those who remained behind, and who, according to the policy of that court, were retained for years in silent and dark durance, with the view of inspiring their friends with dread, and tation of their sentiments. With the exof subduing their own minds to a recanception of a few places, the public profession which had been made of the Protestant religion was suppressed. Its friends, them were animated by the most ardent however, were still numerous; many of attachment to the cause; they continued to encourage and edify one another in their private meetings; and it required all the exertions and violence of the inquisitors during twenty years to discover and exterminate them." pp. 205, 206.

Next to the dominions of the Duke of Ferrara, the Papal court felt most anxious for the suppression of the Reformed doctrines within the territories of the Venetian republic; and the senate issued orders in conformity with their wishes. The following account of one, who has been already mentioned as a correspondent of Luther*, leaves his fate in that degree of obscurity which only deepens the interest attached to his history.

"In the year 1548, an edict was published, commanding all who had books opposed to the Catholic faith to deliver them up within eight days, at the risk of being proceeded against as heretics; and offering a reward to informers. This was followed by great severities against the ritories of that republic. The persecution Protestants in Venice, and in all the terhere increases every day,' writes Altieri.

Many are seized, of whom some have been sent to the galleys, others condemned to perpetual imprisonment, and some, alas! have been induced, by fear of punishment, to recant. Many also have been banished, along with their wives and children; while still greater numbers have to that pass, that I begin to fear for myfled for their lives. Matters are come self; for, though I have frequently been able to protect others in this storm, there is reason to apprehend that the same hard terms will be proposed to me; but it is the will of God that his people be tried by such afflictions.' Altieri exerted

Scott's Contin. of Milner, I. 315. M'Crie, 143...

wearied zeal in behalf of his brethren.... After mentioning the discouragements he had met with from those of whom he had hoped better things,he exclaims: Thus do the minds of men now cleave to the world!

:

If the Spirit of the Lord had not long ago taken possession of my heart, I would [should] have followed the common example, and, hiding myself in some corner, would [should] have attended to my private affairs, instead of taking an active part in the cause of Christ, But God forbid that I should entertain the blasphemous thought of desisting to labour for him, who never ceased labouring in my cause, until he had endured the reproach of the cross. Therefore I return to Italy, as ready as before to encounter whatever may befall me, and willing to be bound for the name of Christ. Before leaving the Grisons, he received intelligence that the persecution was daily waxing hotter at Venice. It is not, therefore, without danger that I return,' says he, for you know how much I am hated by the Papists and wicked. I do not undertake the journey rashly God will preserve me from all evil: do you pray for me.' On his arrival at Venice, he found that his enemies. had incensed the magistrates against him, and on refusing to renounce his religion, he was ordered instantly to quit the territories of the republic. Without hesitation he chose the latter; but, being unwilling to despair of the reformation of his native country, and anxious to be at hand to lend succour to his suffering brethren, he lingered in Italy, wandered from one city to another; and when he durst no longer appear in public, sought an asylum in a retired place for himself, his wife, and an only child. Soon after his banishment from Venice, he wrote to Bullinger. Take the following particulars concerning my return to Italy. I am well, with my wife and little child. As to other things, all the effect of my commendatory letters was an offer on the part of the senate, that I should be allowed to remain in safety among them, provided I would yield conformity to their religion, that is, the Roman; otherwise it behoved me to withdraw without delay from all their dominions. Having given myself to Christ, I chose exile rather than to enjoy pleasant Venice, with its execra ble religion. I departed accordingly, and went first to Ferrara, and afterwards to Florence. In another letter, written from his place of hiding somewhere in the territory of Brescia, he says, 'Know that I am in great trouble, and danger of my life; nor is there a place in Italy where I can be safe with my wife and boy. My fears for myself increase daily, for I know the wicked will never rest till they have swallowed me up alive. Give me a share in your prayers. These are the last accounts we have of this excel

escaped from Italy, and that his fate will remain a secret until the horrid mysteries of the Roman Inquisition shall be disa closed." pp. 220-224.

The mode of execution adopted at Venice, and some other places, is thus described.

"Drowning was the mode of death to which the senate doomed the Protestants, either because it was less cruel and odious, than committing them to the flames, or because it accorded with the customs of Venice. But if the autos da fé of the Queen of the Adriatic were less barbarous than those of Spain, the solitude and silence with which they were accompanied was calculated to excite the deeper horror. At the dead hour of midnight the prisoner was taken from his cell, and put into a gondola, or Venetian boat, attended only, besides the sailors, by a single priest, to act as confessor. He was rowed out into the sea beyond the Two Castles, where another boat was in waiting. A plank was then laid across the two gondolas, upon which the prisoner, having his body chained, and a heavy stone affixed to his feet, was placed; and on a signal given, the gondolas retiring from one another, he was precipitated into the deep." p. 232.

The most distinguished of those who thus suffered death at Venice, was the venerable Fra Baldo Lupetino. The following account is given of him by his nephew, in a book now become very rare.

"The reverend Baldus Lupetinus, sprung from a noble and ancient family, a learned monk, and provincial of the order to which he belonged, after having long preached the word of God in both the vulgar languages (the Italian and Sclavonian) in many cities, and defended it by public disputation in several places of celebrity, with great applause, was at last thrown into close prison at Venice, by the inquisitor and papal legate. In this condition he continued, during nearly twenty years, to bear an undaunted testimony to the Gospel of Christ: so that his bonds and doctrine were made known, not only to that city, but almost the whole of Italy, and by it to Europe at large, by which means evangelical truth was more widely spread. Two things, among many others, may be mentioned as marks of the singular providence of God towards this person during his imprisonment. In the first place, the princes of Germany often interceded for his liberation, but without success. And secondly, on the other hand, the papal legate, the inquisitor, and even the pope himself, laboured with all their might, and by repeated applications, to have him from the very first committed to the flames, as a noted heresiarch. This