"They were declared eligible to all offices; their poor were to be received into the hospitals; and for their protection mixed chambers were to be established in all the parliaments."-Browning's History of the Huguenots, ch. 1. The revocation of the edict was preceded by the famous Dragonnades, the cruelties of which can be but faintly conceived. An account of some of them has appeared in the narrative of the sufferings of a French Protestant family, by Jean Migault, published in London, 1824, and reprinted in Paris, in the original French, in 1825. Through these cruelties, whole families, and even villages, abjured. At the same time, large sums were distributed to those who voluntarily changed their profession. Already, in 1682, thirtyfour thousand conversions were said to have taken place, and within three years afterwards twelve thousand more were reported, resulting from similar measures, which a Catholic writer, in his Histoire du Calvinisme, has called "replete with mildness." At length, all previous hardships-the forced separation of Protestant children from their parents, the legal prohibition of Protestant trade and labour, the imprisonment, torture, and execution of Protestant ministers, the demolition of Protestant temples, &c.-were followed by the express revocation of the charter (a powerless one indeed!) by which their religious liberties had been secured. In the edict of revocation, which declares that as the greater part of the Protestants had embraced the Catholic religion, the edict of Nantes was useless, the said edict, with every royal declaration in favour of the Protestants, is annulled; their Protestant worship is prohibited under severe penalties; ministers, refusing to be converted, are to quit the kingdom within fifteen days, and to abstain from preaching and exhortation under pain of condemnation to the galleys; and schools for the instruction of Protestant children are forbidden. Fugitives are, at the same time, invited to return, and emigration interdicted, under penalty of the galleys and confiscation of property. In the last clause, which was intended only to prevent emigration, and gave great offence to the violent party, it was declared that Protestants "might continue their trade and enjoy their property without being troubled under pretext of their religion, on condition only of abstaining from worship."

It is not necessary here to give lengthened particulars concerning the cruelties which preceded or followed the edict of revocation. As Guerike observes, "It was the signal for the most terrific persecution. Sixteen hundred churches were destroyed, thousands of Protestants executed, . . . hundreds of thousands, after enduring the greatest perils in eluding the spies on the frontiers, became self-exiled. All needful information will be found respecting this period of French Protestant history in Browning's History of the Huguenots, chapters lx. and lxi.

The purchase made by Bishop Tonstall, through Packington, of

Tyndale's New Testament, and the unexpected consequences in the appearance of a new, amended version, are well known. The terms of the order issued by Tonstall, some years before, for the suppression of it are, however, less known, though not undeserving to be kept in memory. They serve to show that the enemies of Bible circulation have, from the beginning, used the same flimsy arguments, and that if they were indeed the friends of Scripture which they pretend to be, the Bible, above all other victims, would have reason to complain of its friends. The preamble of Tonstall's order is as follows:—

"We having understanding that many children of iniquity, maintainers of Luther's sect, blinded through extreme wickedness, wandering from the way of truth and the Catholic faith, craftily have translated the New Testament into our English tongue, intermeddling therewith many heretical articles and erroneous opinions, pernicious and offensive, seducing the simple people, attempting by their wicked and perverse interpretations to profane the majesty of Scripture, which hitherto hath remained undefiled, and craftily to abuse the most holy word of God, and the true sense of the same of the which translation there are many books imprinted, some with glosses and some without, containing in the English tongue that pestiferous and most pernicious poison dispersed throughout all our diocese of London in great numbers: which truly, without it be speedily foreseen, will contaminate and infect the flock committed unto us with most deadly poison and heresy, to the grievous peril and danger of the souls committed to our charge, and the offence of God's Divine Majesty. Therefore we," &c.

Then follows the order to the archdeacons of the diocese, to bring in and deliver to the vicar-general all copies of the translation they could lay hold of. In respect to Tonstall's subsequent purchase of the whole impression, it was speedily understood by himself, as well as others, how entirely he had been outwitted. But Burnet has observed that in the whole affair judicious persons discerned the moderation of Tonstall. The mild and good-natured prelate was certainly, unlike many of his brethren, much less willing to burn men than books, and in the affair of the Testament, it is not improbable that he was well contented to approve his zeal in the old cause at so cheap and harmless a rate.

The university of Wittenberg, founded by Frederick the Wise, in 1502, and endowed by him, at the request of Spalatinus, with a public library, in 1514, no longer exists. After the long continental war which closed in 1814, that part of Saxony of which Wittenberg is the principal town, was transferred by the allied sovereigns to the King of Prussia; and as that monarch had already two universities,-Berlin and Halle,-distant only one hundred English miles from each other, and Wittenberg lay on the road between them, he suppressed that st Wittenberg, and erected in its stead a theological seminary, which he placed in the old Augustinian convent, where Luther had resided. Though Wittenberg had, long before this, lost the renown which it

enjoyed in its early days, as the principal school of the evangelical theology, it is impossible to overlook the remarkable providence by which Frederick, not knowing what he did, was led to prepare a cradle for the Reformation years before it appeared. Here it was that Luther, who, six years after the foundation of the university, was appointed professor of philosophy in it, acquired that thorough knowledge of the Aristotelian system, which assisted him at a subsequent period in overthrowing many of the subtle errors of the schoolmeu, and here that he spent that life of active resistance to the authority and doctrine of Rome, which commenced with the publication of his famous theses on the door of the castle-church, and reached its climax in the burning of the pope's bull without the city walls. When the university was removed, a colossal statue of Luther under a Gothic canopy was erected in the market-place by the king, to commemorate the days of Luther's activity in Wittenberg: and hitherto, the seminary which was established in its stead in the Augustinian convent, being placed by the king under the superintendence of teachers distinguished both for their superior learning and for their evangelical sentiment, has worked far more in the spirit of Luther and his times, than the university had done probably since the death of Melancthon.

The Savoy Confession which, according to our list, was made on the 12th of October, was agreed to at a meeting of elders and messengers from above one hundred Congregational churches. The majority of the messengers were brethren not devoted to the ministry; the rest were pastors of churches, and, as Neal says, "some younger divines about the court, as the reverend and learned Mr. John Howe, at that time chaplain to the young Protector, and others." The synod was opened with a day of fasting and prayer. The declaration was drawn up and arranged by six brethren, whose names (with those of the secretary or scribe, as he was then called, George Griffith,) were attached to the preface published with it. These brethren were John Owen, Thomas Goodwin, Philip Nye, William Bridge, Joseph Caryl, and William Greenhill. The heads of doctrine, agreed to by the committee, were presented to the synod every morning, being read by the scribe, after which they were discussed. Great unanimity prevailed, though there were occasional speeches and debates upon particular words and phrases; and after a conference of eleven or twelve days, the declaration, as afterwards published, was agreed upon. Not having the original 4to. edition at hand, we must describe it as it appears in the 12mo. reprint of 1729, in which the declaration itself occupies ninetysix well-filled pages, and is introduced by a preface of thirty-six more. We need not say that it is needlessly prolix, and comprises not a few doubtful points. It also bears the character of the age in which it was produced, in two other respects, -its rigid systematic character, and the prominence given to the secret will of God over his revealed will.

It is still a monument of the evangelical faith, holy profession, and profound, diligent study of the men who penned and consented to it, though less useful, and less in accordance with the spirit and habit of our times than it would have been, had it possessed a less scholastic and a more biblical form and structure. We have noticed it here, however, not so much for the purpose of characterising and commending the declaration itself, as the spirit in which it was drawn up. The preface abounds with noble sentiments and declarations worthy to be held and reiterated by Congregationalists in every age. The following are from the commencement of it :

"Confession of the faith that is in us, when justly called for, is so indispensable a due all owe to the glory of the sovereign God, that it is ranked among the duties of the first commandment, such as prayer is; and therefore is by Paul yoked with faith itself, as necessary to salvation: 'With the heart man believeth to righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.'-Rom. x. 10.

"When confessions are made by a company of professors of Christianity, jointly meeting to that end, the most genuine and natural use of such confessions is, that, under the same form of words, they express the substance of the same common salvation, or unity of their faith; whereby 'speaking the same things, they show themselves perfectly joined in the same mind, and in the same judgment.” — 1 Cor. i. 10.

"And accordingly such a transaction is to be looked upon only as a meet or fit medium, or means, whereby to express that their common faith and salvation, and no way to be made use of as an imposition upon any. Whatever is of force or constraint in matters of this nature, causes them to degenerate from the name and nature of confessions; and turns them from being confessions of faith, into exactions and impositions of faith.

"And such common confession of the orthodox faith, made in simplicity of heart by any such body of Christians, with concord among themselves, ought to be entertained by all others that love the truth as it is in Jesus, with an answerable rejoicing. For if the unanimous opinions and assertions in some few points of religion, and that when only two churches, namely that of Jerusalem, and the messengers of Antioch, met, assisted by some of the Apostles, were by the believers of those times received with so much joy, that it is said, they rejoiced for the consolation,' much more this is to be done, when the whole substance of faith, and form of wholesome words, shall be declared by the messengers of a multitude of churches, though wanting those advantages of counsel and authority of the apostles, which that assembly had.

*

"Further, as the soundness and wholesomeness of the matter give the vigour and life to such confessions, so the inward freeness, willingness, and readiness of the spirits of the confessors, contribute beauty and loveliness thereto. As in prayer to God, so in confession made to men, if two or three met, do agree, it renders both to either the more acceptable. The Spirit of Christ is in himself too free, great and generous a spirit, to suffer himself to be used by any human arm, to whip men into belief. He drives not, but gently leads into all truth, and persuades men to dwell in the tents of like precious faith,which would lose of its preciousness and value, if that sparkle of freeness shone not in it. The character of his people is to be a willing people in the day of His power' (not man's,) 'in the beauties of holiness,' which are the assemblings of the saints."-Preface, pp. i.-v. ed. 1729.

The same spirit pervades the document throughout. A few pages onward there occurs a noble defence of the liberty of individuals in non-essentials; which they thus assert to be the "constant principle" of the Congregational churches, and vindicate from the then frequent charge of licentiousness.

"This to have been our constant principle, we are not ashamed to confess to the whole Christian world. Wherein yet we desire we may be understood, not as if, in the abstract, we stood indifferent to falsehood or truth, or were careless whether faith or error, in any truths but fundamental, were to obtain or not, so we had our liberty in our petty and smaller differences, or as if, to make sure of that, we had cut out this wide cloak for it. No: we profess that the whole and every particle of that faith delivered to the saints, (the substance of which we have, according to our light, here professed,) is, as to the propagation and furtherance of it by all Gospel means, as precious to us as our lives, or what can be supposed dear to us; and in our sphere we have endeavoured to promote them accordingly. But yet withal, we have contended, and still contend, (and if we had all the power which any or all of our brethren of differing opinions have desired to have over us, or others, we should grant it to them all,) we have contended, and still contend for this: that in the concrete, the persons of all such gracious saints, they and their errors as they are in them, when they are but such errors as do and may stand with communion in Christ, though they should not repent of them, as not being convinced of them, to the end of their days-that those with these errors (that are purely spiritual, and intrench and overthrow not civil societies,) as concrete with their persons, should for Christ's sake, be borne with by all Christians in the world; and they be permitted to enjoy all ordinances and spiritual privileges, according to their light, as freely as any other of their brethren that pretend to the greatest orthodoxies: as having an equal and as fair a right in and to Christ, and all the holy things of Christ, as any other can challenge to themselves."

This is a noble testimony for the time when it was written, though it does not reach the point to which even our parliamentary statutes have since attained. The great value of it lies, however, not in what it recognises with respect to legal toleration, but in the principle of particular church communion which it developes. Proofs of the liberty enjoyed by individuals in the communion of the Congregational churches have been already laid before our readers, in Robinson's letter, and other documents, which we have quoted in the course of these papers.*

We must leave this preface when we have made one more extract, which is of admirable application to our own times, when so many of

We venture to append another of those simple documents whereby the Independent churches of that period strove to guard the Christian liberties of their members. It is the covenant of the church at Wattesfield, in Suffolk, settled in 1678. "We do covenant or agree in the presence of God, through the assistance of his Holy Spirit, to walk together in all the ordinances of the Lord Jesus, as far as the same are made clear to us, endeavouring the advancement of the glory of our Father, the subjection of our will to the will of our Redeemer, and the mutual edification of each other in his most holy faith and fear."