enter the church must go in by the golden gate, and tread in the steps of Simon. But how can the Holy Spirit be dispensed by those who receive money for it, and who are in danger of that sentence of the Lord by Malachi, I will curse your blessings? What can be more fraudful than the act of that merchant who sells what is not his own, and which he cannot convey to the buyers? Christ drove the traffickers from the temple, and what he said of his house then, is true of his Church now. It is the place of traffic and robbery. The sacraments, orders, priesthood, graces, dispensations, offices, benefices, and even sins are venal, and even the mass itself, and the administration of the Lord's body is exposed to sale. If one seeks a prebend or any grade of dignity, the question is, not of the meritoriousness of his life, but the money in his chest is the measure of his prospects of success. Many things-Clemengis declareshe is compelled to pass over-things too disgraceful to be spoken of. But in a most searching and indignant manner, he appeals to the guilty prelates, demanding of them what is their official duty, and how it is fulfilled. He exposes the excuse, that they only do as others have done before them, and brands the custom which annuls the law of God, as the invention and doctrine of Antichrist. He bids those who transgress, see what a damnation awaits them if they put their enactments in place of God's law. But let us see-he says-with what a fine cloak they cover up their sin. We do not, say they, sell the order, nor are these things given for the order, but for the letter, seal and notary. Iniquity, remarks Clemengis in reply, is accustomed to lie to itself, and this excuse is feigned, and not truly spoken. For some, to escape this sin, refuse to have letters, and yet the payment of money has been enforced. After further exposing the vanity of the excuse, Clemengis proceeds to trace to the causes he has specified, the lack of devotion on the part of the people, the contempt for the priesthood, the usurpations upon the Church of the secular power, the filling of the ecclesiastical orders with men of the vilest character, utterly unworthy of their position. Yet he only is accounted unwor

De libera pro certâ annuâ summâ permissione fornicandi, publicâque tolerantia scortorum et concubinarum quæ valgatâ jam appelatione vaccæ animales dicuntur.

thy who has not the money to pay for his promotion. Hence men utterly illiterate and every way unfit, are elevated to the priesthood. They fly to the Church for ease, or to indulge their indolence. They yield themselves to gluttony, gambling, and all kinds of vice. The picture drawn by Clemengis, is one which we cannot transfer to these pages. His indignation seems to glow at a white heat, against all the abuses which connect themselves with the simony of the prelates, and he closes his treatise by an appeal and prayer to the head of the church for its relief, in a style worthy the pen of Milton, and of which we can think of no fitter parallel than the close of his plea for "Reformation in England."

The familiar and official letters of Clemengis-more voluminous than all his other writings-are an invaluable contribution to the historic picture of his age. A sagacious and profound observer of passing events-well informed in regard to the great movements of his time in church and state, he has noted down those incidents which most interested him in their bearing, or the cause of civil, social and religious reform, to which he was so ardently devoted. The characters of the prominent actors on the world's stage at that period are presented to us. The Papal court at Avignon, the policy which it pursued, the character of the courtiers, the vices of the ecclesiastics, and the sufferings of the common people from the prevalent violence and anarchy, are passed in review. We have ludicrous pictures of that extravagance in dress which Huss also so severely reproved. We meet with accounts of the plague, which depict its progress and the terror which it inspired. The wonderful success of Vincent of Ferrara, that Whitefield of his age, is presented in a style, if not so frigid as that of a Franklin, yet not less calculated to excite our wonder and admiration of its object. We are led to see the strength of that dominant, deep rooted and pervading iniquity in the Church, which encouraged and strengthened the schism, and which rendered all the attempts of successive Councils to restrain it, utterly futile.

In the letters of Clemengis we discern his character-in these as well as in his treatises-the uncompromising foe of all wrong or injustice, however cloaked by hallowed names or ecclesiastical usage. Some of them are addressed to his more

youthful friends, who had in view the sacred calling. It is in these especially, that we are led to remark his truly evangelical spirit, and his high ideal of the duties that belonged to the Christian ministry. Had they issued from the prison cell of Huss at Constance, they could scarcely have been more deeply characterized by the devout spirit and solemn earnest tone that pervade them. They are eminently scriptural, and we are struck by the aptness of the quotations from the Bible with which they abound. It is evident that from this sacred source Clemengis derived those views of the urgency and methods of reform so vividly presented, and so urgently enforced in his writings. Upon this theme, his words kindle and glow like. those of the ancient prophets, with an almost superhuman fervor. He speaks to the conscience like an impersonation of divine justice, holding up to the eyes of men an ideal of truth, justice and duty at once strange, startling and authoritative. The fearlessness of his pen, and his freedom of rebuke for the age in which he lived, are truly wonderful. Wherever he meets iniquity, in high places or low, he brands it. From the Pope downward to the priests and mendicants, he spares none. dealing with the traffickers in holy things, and scourging them from the temple, his words sting like scorpions. It would be difficult to find in any age, anterior or subsequent, such a flood of scathing invective against the abuses of the Romish Church. His sentences pour along like streams of molten lava, scorching and withering all the vain opposition of apology and excuse. In reading them, we seem to forget the man that utters them. We scarce think of him as a being of flesh and blood. The impalpable impersonal essence of violated holiness seems to urge its remonstrance and rebuke. In every line there is that earnestness and solemnity, so manifestly devoid of mere personal motive or self-interest, that we feel that we are listening not to the testimony of a witness on the stand, but the sentence of a judge from the bench.

In

The character of Clemengis undoubtedly enforced his words. In an age distinguished beyond most others by lawlessness, license and general corruption, he was the Elijah of his time. Not a stain attaches to his fame. Moving amid scenes where all the actors were unprincipled and vile, he not only stood aloof

from the drama of their iniquity, but reproved it. Pressed to accept the means that would gratify his darling passion of literary luxury, his poverty refused the bribe that would seal his lips. In an age of prevalent simony, he persistently refused to be a pluralist. "If," says he, to those who sought to add benefice to benefice while farming them out to curates-"if each that labors is to receive the reward of his labor, then as you feed your sheep by another's tongue, and rule them by another's hand, so the reward will be vicarious, and those who have taken your place, if they have labored in truth and love, shall-while you are cast from Paradise down to Hell-enter into your place by a vicarious service."* In accordance with. such convictions, he refused even by silence to sanction the efforts of friends who sought to procure for him another prebend. "I have no wish," said he, "to multiply ecclesiastical titles."t

The attachment, life-long and ever increasing, which bound Clemengis to his friends and them to him, does honor to him as a man, while it exhibits those lovelier traits that mingled with the more stern and rigid features of his integrity. His practical good sense moreover, is manifest in all his writings. Some of them betray a statesman-like sagacity, and all show that his views of things, however expressed with all the brilliance of genius, are ever characterized with justness and solidity. With all his fearlessness, he is cautious and deliberate. Among all the prominent actors of his age, there is scarce another who better deserves to be known and studied. A translation and publication of his writings would open to the world a treasure whose historical and instructive value would repay the labor, as well as gratify the curiosity and interest of the Christian scholar.

* Letter 73.

† Letter 76.

VOL. V.-41

ARTICLE VI.

The Bible and Science; or, the World Problem. By TAYLER LEWIS, Professor of Greck, Union College, Schenectady, 1856.

[The relation of Natural Science to Biblical Theology, is so real and important, that we have admitted the following Article, although it discusses some questions of personal opinion and argument, not likely to interest the majority of our readers. We are not to understand the writer as contending that well ascertained facts in science are not to be admitted as fixed truths; or that no weight is to be given to fair deductions from adequate premises; or that scientific truth is not so in harmony with what God has revealed as ultimately to strengthen our faith in the Divinity of the Bible. He does contend that such is the overwhelming testimony, internal and external, of the truth of Revelation, that any conflict it may seem to hold with scientific conclusions, must be ascribed to the poverty of our scientific attainments, the defects of our exegesis or the perversity of our hearts.] EDITORS.

LAST year appeared a work, whose title is in the margin,* from the pen of Professor Lewis, of Union College. The design of the book was to show what simple philological exegesis applied to the Mosaic account of the creation would teach, without the aid of Inductive Science. To this work, Professor Lewis brought a mind not only thoroughly stored with classical and philological learning, but one accustomed to vigorous and logical thought, and deeply imbued with religious faith. He stood on the rock of God's word. He believed that, on all subjects whereof the Bible professed to be a teacher, its teachings were immeasurably superior to the results of any mere human investigation. He saw that the Bible did profess to teach the wonders of this world's formation. It gave a detailed history of its career from Chaos to Cosmos. Therefore, he would have men take the Divine Record as the guide in relation to this high subject, and would bid all inductive investigators follow in humility the Heavenly Leader. He saw that there was an alarming tendency in the proud heart of man to reverse this order, and that whenever science appeared to discover a fact or a law contrary to the Mosaic record, the latter was either scouted as an

*The Six Days of Creation, or the Scriptural Cosmology, with the ancient idea of Time-worlds, in distinction from Worlds in Space. By Tayler Lewis, Professor of Greek in Union College, Schenectady, 1855.