sured the errors of the Apostacy. The authority and supremacy of the Pope he rejected, with almost all the other antichristian farrago, anterior to the period of Luther's liberation from the minor trammels of the papacy. The Swiss reformer was a man of most enlarged intelligence, and possessed of vast penetration and sagacity; accompanied with a resolute spirit of gospel heroism which knew no dread, and through the exercise of which, at once he disentangled himself from educational prejudices and the absurdities with which he had been deluded. His noble qualities were called into ample exercise by the same cause which excited Luther's opposition to the Pope. A most abandoned Monk from Italy, named Samson, was selling his indulgences to sin in Switzerland in 1519, with the same impudent effrontery that Tetzel had displayed at Wittemberg. Zuingle opposed him with strenuous exertions and correspondent success. Aided by the independent state of the cantons, their views of civil freedom, the impossibility of impeding his cause except by exterior force which the convulsed state of Europe precluded, and by a host of teachers who promulged his pure tenets of truth to a people already prepared to receive them with inconceivable avidity; in a few years, the Pope's supremacy and the stupid credulity of the people, through the blessing of the Holy Ghost upon their instructions and writings, were banished from many parts of Switzerland.

In 1521, the light of the resuscitated Gospel shone upon Denmark. Christiern II., a furious tyrant, was solicitous to exterminate the Romish superstitions from among his subjects; the Lord thus directed his ambition to burst the barriers of spiritual vassalage for his people. After his exile, for his cruelties raised a conspiracy against him, and forced him to leave his dominions, Frederic his successor, issued an edict, declaring every Dane at

liberty, either to adhere to the Roman tenets, or to profess the doctrine of the Protestants without molestation; and permitted the marriage of the clergy.— Thus stimulated, the Reformers zealously and successfully promulged their opinions; and Christiern III., having suppressed the odious hierarchical authority; having despoiled the ecclesiastical voluptuaries of their enormous wealth; having returned to their original owners the property of which they had been divested by every species of artifice and stratagem; and having organized a platform of religious doctrine, discipline and worship, after the model established at Wittemberg, convoked a general assembly of all orders in the state, who solemnly sanctioned the royal measures, and thus within twenty years, with little commotion, the dragon's beast with all his authority and jurisdiction was dethroned in the kingdom of Denmark.

During the civil dissatisfactions excited by the cruelties of Christiern the Danish king; the Swedes having refused longer subjection to the Danes, elevated to the royal office, Gustavus Vasa; who had imbibed the doctrines of the Reformation, and who perceived their importance to the people of his dominions. Every measure which that patriot adopted was equally wise and successful. In him the Bible Societies hail a powerful coadjutor. He primarily commanded that a Swedish translation of the Scriptures should be universally diffused. When the minds of his people had become in some measure illuminated, by the perusal and exposition of the oracles of truth; he appointed a public disputation at Upsal in 1526, in which Olaus Petri the Protestant champion obtained a splendid triumph over the cavils and follies of his opponent. The publication of that renowned debate confirmed the minds of all who were attached to Luther's cause, and with astonishing rapidity multiplied the converts to the truth.

Nothing was necessary, but some trifling occurrence which the bishops were ever ready to seize, to transform the kingdom into one universal Aceldama, where between the Protestant attachments and the Popish bigotry, the ancient hierarchy might be enabled to infix themselves more firmly in their terrific sway. At that crisis, in 1527, Gustavus summoned a general convocation of the senators, bishops, nobles, clergy and the commons; in which he proposed by the chancellor the reformation of the church. The bishops having previously entered into a solemn compact to defend their craft, with one voice rejected the royal proposal. Immediately after their clamour had subsided, Gustavus entered the assembly, and avowed his determination to resign the government and migrate from his country, rather than rule a people enslaved by the Pope. This decided the commons, whose love for Gustavus in consequence of his having liberated them from Danish bondage, knew no bounds; for they instantly menaced the refractory bishops and their vassals with the popular vengeance, if they did not without delay, submit to their sovereign; and thus the Beast's" power and great authority" in Sweden were completely and irrevocably exterminated.

The crooked policy of Francis I. king of France, impeded the influence of the Protestant cause in that nation. Persecution and toleration continually succeeded each other, until during a number of years that vast country resembled a charnel house. One benefit however followed even the terrors of the French king's murderous edicts, it transferred Calvin to a place of security, where he employed all his mighty genius in sending abroad the light and the truth.

Had not the secular power supported the tottering edifice, the Papal doctrines and authority would have been demolished. Even in the Netherlands, such prodigious

numbers of Protestant Christians arose, that persecution at last induced the seven united provinces to revolt, and become independent of the Imperial and Papal jurisdiction.

In Italy, the progress of truth was arrested by the In quisitors, who perpetrated so many murders, that the Reformed exiled themselves into the regions where the Gospel and its professors were unmolested; although that engine of anguish could never enter the kingdom of Naples. By the same process, the influence of the reformation was not experienced in Spain; for the "Lords of the Holy office" there reigned triumphant, and every spark of the Gospel was extinguished. From that period to the present day, the history of Spain in connection with Christianity is like Ezekiel's vision, "a roll of a book written within and without, with lamentation and mourning and wo."

Notwithstanding all the attempts to eradicate the seed sown by Wiclif and his successors in England, the pure truth was tacitly admitted by many of the Lollards, all of whom avowed their attachment to Luther's opinions as soon as they were promulged in the island. The success with which Luther combated the weak arguments of Henry, aided also to inspire a great veneration for the man who trampled with equal scorn, upon a Pope's dread anathema, a King's authoritative volume, and a University's solemn decretal. Henry appealed to the Pope to annul his matrimonial conenant with Catharine his wife. The Pope was afraid to comply with Henry's request, lest he should affront Charles V., who was Catharine's nephew; and equally dreaded a refusal, on account of the king's wrath. Henry was long tantalized with hope that the Pontiff would accede to his wishes; but having at length obtained an almost unanimous decision, that the marriage of his brother's widow was unlawful, and the

Pope having forbidden him to marry Anne, he do fied the papal excommunication, banished the Pontifical legate, rejected the Pope as head of the church, and by elevating Cranmer to the Archbishoprick of Canterbury, encouraged the reformation. Many Festivals were immediately abolished. Images, relics and pilgrimages were destroyed. Abbeys and monasteries were desolated. The orders of Friars, Monks and Nuns were suppressed; and the Bible was translated and partially dispersed. But the progress of the Reformation in England was very small during Henry's reign; for he enacted by law the most contradictory tenets, so that Papists and Protestants were consumed in the same fire; the former for denying Henry's supremacy over the church; and the latter for not believing transubstantiation. The grand object attained at that period was the cessation of the Pope's authority; and although in the doctrines, little alteration was perceptible, yet in the forms of worship an obvious difference existed. Much of the exterior idolatry was removed; and the most strenuous partizans of the hierarchy, the Monks and Nuns, being divested of their revenues and habitations, lost that influence among the ignorant multitudes, by which the Romish superstition and corrup→ tion had been sustained.

By the death of Henry, his son Edward was exalted to the English throne, who became the brightest ornament, and the most effectual support of the Protestant cause.He encouraged literature; maintained Cranmer, Ridley, Hooper, Latimer and their brethren in their exertions; opposed with all mildness, but energy, his power to the ancient superstitions; dispersed the scriptures, and established a regular missionary system through the island. After a reign of six years he died, and was succeeded by Mary, a merciless bigot; who restored, as far as practicable, the whole papal corruption; and whose whole reign