ject with CALVIN to form a general union of all the Protestant churches. This he never could have proposed without a full conviction that they were sufficiently united in principle to be united in fact; and to reciprocate, by agreement, the most liberal and ample communion in the things of Christ. The idea of reducing them all exactly to his own standard of propriety never entered his mind. He was too much of a Christian to ask for so huge a sacrifice; and too much of a statesman to suppose it possible. His plan, as is clear from the whole drift of his writings and advices, would have been to bind them up in a great confederation; bringing them as near to each other as the state of public habit, under the influence of mutual candour and concession, should permit; fixing them firmly there, and leaving all the rest to evangelical liberty. So that, as in old time, a Christian, passing from his own church and country to another, should be welcomed as a citizen of the kingdom of God, and should conform peaceably to the order of that province of the kingdom which should thus receive him. Could he have succeeded in removing the grosser offences which remained in some of the churches, his wishes had been fulfilled-his holy triumph completed. For as no one, more thoroughly detested, or pertinaciously re

sisted, whatever tended, even remotely, to ensnare conscience, or to reconcile the minds of men to the superstitions and idolatry of Rome; so no one ever treated, with more majestic disregard, those unessential peculiarities about which so much heat is kindled by vanity. His critics have set down such things to the score of his pride, mostly if not merely, because they could not rise to the level of his magnanimity: just as they have mistaken for arrogance, that manly and subduing spirit which walks in the upper regions of light and truth. He, in effect, said to the Lutheran and English churches, Keep your "smaller observances;" let us have no discord on their account; but let us march, in one solid column, under the Captain of salvation; and, with undivided counsels, pour in the legions of the cross upon the territory of darkness and death. "I wish," says he, in a letter to CRANMER, "I wish it could be brought about, that men of learning and dignity from the principal churches might have a meeting; and, after a careful discussion of the several points of faith, might hand down to posterity the doctrine of the scripture settled by their common judgment. But among the greatest evils of our age this also is to be reckoned, that our churches are so distracted one from another, that human society scarcely flou

rishes among us, much less that holy communion between the members of Christ, which all profess in words, and few sincerely cultivate in fact. Thus it happens, that, by the dissipation of its members, the body of the church lies prostrate and mangled. As to myself, were I likely to be of any service, I should not hesitate, were it necessary, to cross TEN seas for such a purpose. If the question were only concerning giving aid to England, that would be with me a sufficiently powerful reason. Now, when the object is to obtain such an agreement of learned men upon strict scriptural principles, as may accomplish an union of churches in other respects widely asunder, I do not think it lawful for me to decline any labours or troubles."*

The reader will take notice, that this letter was

* Atque utinam impetrari posset, ut in locum aliquem docti et graves viri ex præcipuis Ecclesiis coirent, ac singulis fidei capitibus diligenter excussis, de communi omnium sententia certam posteris traderent scriptaræ doctrinam. Cæterum in maximis seculi nostri malis hoc quoque numerandum est, quod ita aliæ ab aliis distractæ sunt Ecclesiæ, ut vix humana jam inter nos vigeat societas, nedum emineat sancta membrorum Christi communicatio, quam ore profitentur omnes, pauci reipsa sincere colunt.Ita fit, ut membris dissipatis, lacerum jaceat Ecclesiæ corpus. Quantum ad me attinet, siquis mei usus fore videbitur, ne decem quidem maria, si opus sit, ob eam rem trajicere pigeat. Si de juvando tantum Angliæ regno ageretur, jam mihi ea fatis legitima ratio foret. Nunc cum quæratur gravis et ad scripturæ normam probe compositus doctorum hominum consensus, quo Ecclesiæ procul alioqui dis

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written in 1551, several years before some of the principal Protestant confessions were published. The consequence was, that the churches had no proper publick understanding. The mighty business of the reformation was carried on, and the connexion of its interests maintained, chiefly by the correspondence of individuals in different parts of Europe. It is this state of things in which churches, as such, hardly knew one another, that CALVIN describes, deplores, and wished to amend. Nothing is further from his meaning, than that their respective members would not commune with each other in all Christian ordinances, as they had opportunity. Repugnancies on that head were then confined to the Lutherans and Anabaptists. When the Protestant churches had, with one voice, glorified God in their good confessions of his truth, one of the measures which lay so near CALVIN'S heart was partially executed. He would have preferred a joint-confession, as the bond of visible union and communion. Such a confession must necessarily have excluded all local peculiarities-all minute and secondary matters: and instead of

sitæ inter se coalescant, nullis vel laboribus vel molestiis parcere fås mihi esse arbitror.

Calv. Epist. p. 61.

arguing the several classes of confessors to be of different religious races on account of things which depend upon climate, habit, state of society, and such like incidents, would have marked their common origin by their essential resemblance. Varieties not affecting the substance of religion would have been no better reason with them for questioning a man's relation to them, and his claim upon their holiest fellowship, than tawny skin or crisped hair is, with believers in God's word, for denying to be of their own species and entitled to their kind offices, one who has their bones, sinews, flesh, face, voice, faculties, and other proper attributes of human nature. This is a scheme worthy of reformers. It was CALVIN'S: it is the BIBle's.

What this lover of peace with truth projected upon a large scale, was actually attempted and executed, after his death, upon a smaller one; sufficient, however, to shew which way the current of Christian charity was setting in.

The agreement of Poland, (Poloniæ consensus) at the Synod of Sendomir, in 1570, six years after CALVIN'S decease, embracing the churches of greater and lesser Poland, which were organized under the Augsburgh or Lutheran confession, and under the Helvetic or Swiss confession, what would now be called Calvinistic; as also under