the scandal was in a manner universal; nor was there a country, province, or city of note, where there were not frequent murmurs against the exorbitant power and wealth, and the consequent laziness and arrogance, of churchmen. And if their idolatries and superstitious usages did not excite the like general offence, it is more to be ascribed to this consideration, that the knowledge of the scriptures had hardly yet descended to the lower ranks. But we may rest assured of it, that the increase of this knowledge, and the decrease of superstition and idolatry, must have accompanied each other.

When a man enters keenly into controversy on any subject, it is impossible to say (unless he is uncommonly circumspect) how far it may carry him. It generally leads to the discussion of questions little connected with that which began the dispute. In this warfare, a man is so much at the mercy of his antagonist, that if he enter into it with more warmth than circumspection, he will follow his enemy that he may fight him, wheresoever he shall shelter himself; and in this way, both combatants come to be soon off the ground on which the combat began. Exactly such a disputant was Luther. And this may be said, in a great measure, of all who had a leading hand in the reformation. To conquer the foe, wherever he was, came, ere they were aware, to be more an object to them, than to drive him off the field, and keep possession of it. In consequence of this tendency, they were often diverted from the subject. From plain and practical questions, both parties soon turned aside into the dark recesses of metaphysicks, where they quickly bewildered themselves in a labyrinth of words. Such was the unhappy consequence of their dogmatizing on abstruse, not to say unintelligible, points of scholastick theology, wherein it might often admit a doubt, whether the same thing was meant by them under different expressions, or different things under the same expression; nay, sometimes whether either party had any meaning at all to what he said. Though the reformers, and Luther in particular, were far from being deficient in the powers of reasoning, they were men of strong passions, and great ardour of spirit. This rendered them liable to be drawn off from the subject; and, when heated with contradiction, to go such lengths as cool reflection could not justify. We ought to remember too, that, being ecclesiasticks, some of them regulars, they had been inured to all the scholastick quibbles and chicanery in vogue at the time, and from which it was impossible, that, without a miraole, they should entirely emancipate themselves. We ought, also, to make allowances for some theological opinions, with

which their minds had been strongly prepossessed, long before they thought of a breach with Rome.

Óf this sort of rooted prejudices was the doctrine of the real presence, as it was called with the reformer Luther. This, on the one hand, seems with him to have been a favourite principle, at the same time that, on the other, the hatred he had contracted to Rome, made him that he could not bear to think of agreeing with her almost in any thing. Therefore, though he would have a real presence of Christ in the eucharist, it must not be the popish real presence. His ingenuity soon devised another. Accordingly, transubstantiation was rejected, and consubstantiation adopted in its stead. That is, the bread and wine were not transubstantiated, or changed into the substance of the body and blood of Christ, but the body and blood of Christ were consubstantiated, that is, actually present in, with, and under, the elements of bread and wine, and were therefore literally eaten and drunk by the communicants. In no part of Luther's conduct does he appear so extravagant as in this absurd conceit, as to which I agree with the bishop of Meaux, that it has all the disadvantages which the Romanists, and the Sacramentarians, charge on one another, without having a single advantage that can be claimed by either. It has all the absurdity which the latter charge upon the former, inasmuch as it represents the same body existing in different places at the same time, and inasmuch as it represents a substance existing without its accidents, or under the accidents of another substance, but has not the advantage of simplicity which the Romish doctrine has, in interpreting literally the words, This is my body. The expression on the Lutheran hypothesis, ought to have been, not This is my body, but In, with, and under, this is my body. For they maintain, that the bread remains unchanged, and is that which is seen, touched, and tasted; but that the body of Christ, the same which he had upon the earth, and has now in heaven, accompa nies the bread. It has all the obscurity which the Romanists charge upon the Sacramentarians, nay, a great deal more, inasmuch as the words are to be understood neither according to the letter, nor according to any figure of speech ever heard of before. For, by their account, it is neither literally Christ's body, nor figuratively the sign or symbol of his body; but it is something with which his body is accompanied. Indeed, this novel hypothesis is, in every view, so extravagant, that it is impossible to conceive whence it could have originated, but from the collision (if I may so express myself) of a strong prejudice in favour of the real presence, and a violent inclination to dissent from Rome, as much as possible, on every subject.

The controversies in which this novelty of consubstantiation involved him, not only with the papists, but with the Zuinglians, and other reformers, drew him at last to take refuge in a doctrine, if possible, still more extraordinary, the ubiquity, that is, the omnipresence, and consequently, the immensity, of the body and human nature of Christ: hence they were called ubiquitarians. This monstrous hypothesis was imagined to remove all difficulties; as though a less absurdity (if there be degrees in absurdities) could be removed by substituting a greater in its place. But if this did in fact solve the difficulty, in regard to the presence of Christ in the eucharist, it solved it by annihilating the sacrament. For what, I pray, on that hypothesis, were the sacramental elements? They will not call them signs, or figures, for that suits only the language of those whom they denominated sacramentarians. They could not, with the church of Rome, call them the identical body and blood of Christ; for they do not think the elements changed or transubstantiated. They remain as they were. And if they should call them barely accompaniments of the body and blood of Christ, wherein do they raise them above any other kind of food; for according to the ubiquitarian doctrine, the body and blood of Christ being every where, may be justly said to be in, with, and under, every morsel we eat, and every drop of liquor we drink, and every breath we draw. Instead of raising the sacrament, therefore, by this extravagant conception, they destroy the distinction between it and every ordinary meal. Nothing more common, when one attempts to explain what is inexplicable, and to defend what is absurd, than to multiply absurdities, as one advances, and to give one's self every moment more nonsense to explain, and more to defend.

Let it not be imagined, that by these free remarks on that first and most eminent reformer, I mean either to lessen his character, or to depreciate his work. Few, on the contrary, have a greater veneration for the one, or set a higher value on the other. Luther had certainly great qualities and virtues: he had also great faults; but the former much preponderated. His penetration and abilities were considerable. I mean his knowledge, his eloquence, his skill in disputation, and his readiness in finding resources, even in the greatest difficulties. But these are only intellectual talents; he was largely supplied with those active virtues, which are necessary for putting the afore-named qualities to the best account. An unconquerable zeal for what he believed to be truth, constancy in maintaining it, intrepidity in facing danger, an indefatigable industry in employing every opportunity that offered for exposing errour and superstition, and defending what he thought the un

adulterated religion of Jesus Christ. But his virtues were not without defects. Nay, his great qualities themselves were not untainted with those vices, to which they are thought to bear an affinity. His logical acuteness sometimes degenerated into chicane. But this was the fault of the age he lived in, and of his education. His zeal, and the warmth of his temper, often betrayed him into an unjustifiable violence. His magnanimity was not untinctured with pride and resentment. His transports of rage, and even his buffooneries, against the pope, did unspeakable injury to his cause with the wiser and more intelligent part of mankind; even with those who desired nothing more ardently than a reformation from the corrup tions which prevailed, and a defence of christian liberty against the too well established tyranny of ecclesiastical superiours. His perseverance would, perhaps, on some occasions, be more properly termed obstinacy. When he had once publickly supported a tenet, he seemed incapable of lending an impartial ear to any thing advanced in opposition to it. In short, what he did, and what he was, notwithstanding his errours, justly merit our admiration, especially when we consider the times in which, and the people amongst, whom he lived; I mayadd, the kind of education he had obtained.

No true protestant considers him, or any of the reformers, as either apostle or evangelist. It is a fundamental principle with such, to call no man upon the earth master, knowing that we have one master, one only infallible teacher, in heaven, who is Christ. All human teachers are no further to be regarded, than they appear, to the best of our judgment, on impartial examination, to be his interpreters, and to speak his words. The right of private judgment, in opposition to all human claims to a dictatorial authority, in matters of faith, is a point so essential to protestantism, that were it to be given up, there would be no possibility of eluding the worst reproaches, with which the Romanist charges the reformation; namely, schism, sedition, heresy, rebellion, and I know not what. But if our Lord, the great author and finisher of the faith, had ever meant that we should receive implicitly its articles from any human authority, he would never have so expressly prohibited our calling any man upon the earth master, ays, leader, or guide.

A general dissatisfaction prevailed at the time. By universal acknowledgment, things were not as they ought to be. Abuses and corruptions were on every hand complained of, and a cry for reformation was every where raised. Such men as Luther, at such a time, were well entitled to a fair and patient hearing. But, on the other hand, the hearers were also entitled to put this honour upon themselves; namely, to re

ceive what was spoken both by them, and by their antagonists, as spoken to wise men, to weigh and judge what was said. We are doubtless now, when the ferment of disputation is over, in a better situation for judging coolly and equitably of the merits of those extraord nary preachers, than the people who lived in that age. And upon the most deliberate examination, I believe the unprejudiced will admit, that, with all their imperfections, they did unspeakable service to the inte rests of knowledge, of christianity, and of human liberty.

Having said so much of their talents and virtues, I shall, with all the deference due to the judgment of my hearers, offer a few things in regard to their defects and blemishes, particularly considered as teachers. The first I shall observe is an unavoidable consequence of the education they had received, and the habits to which they were inured; a sort of metaphysical reasoning, or rather sophistry, the genuine spawn of the scholastick logick, which had for ages been in vogue, and which, in some measure, tainted all their disputes. This led them to dogmatize on every point, and was that which first produced dissension among themselves. As long as they confined their declamation to church tyranny, to the correction of superstitious and idolatrous practices, to those clerical artifices for enhancing power and wealth, which were subversive of sound morality, they concurred harmoniously in every thing; but no sooner did they enter on the endless and unprofitable discussion of abstruse and unedifying questions, of which holy writ has either said nothing, or given no decision, than their harmony was at an end. They subdivided immediately. They alarmed those who were inclined to think favourably of their cause. They made many retreat who had made advances. They supplied their enemies with arms against them, and made enemies of friends; inasmuch as many became enemies one to another. Then arose the distinctions of Lutheran, and Zuinglian, and Calvinist, and Sacramentarian, and Ubiquitarian: the first three as implying not barely the disciples of such particular teachers, but as the partisans of different systems. By this conduct, also, they furnished an argument to the common enemy, to which I do not find that any sect has yet given a satisfactory reply. "If these "nice and abstract questions," said the Romanist, "about which you make so great a bustle, are really so essential to salva"tion, as you pretend, it is impossible that the scriptures can "be so perspicuous as you account them, else you would ne"ver, after a careful examination, entertain sentiments so " opposite in regard to those questions." What made the impropriety of their conduct more flagrant, was, that they did