but there are few or none to be found : no tradition but that of scripture can derive itself from the fountain, but may be plainly proved either to have been brought in, in such an age after Christ, or that in such an age it was not in. In a word, there is no sufficient certainty but of scripture only for any considering man to build upon. This, therefore, and this only, I have reason to believe. This I will profess: according to this, I will live; and for this, if there be occasion, I will not only willingly, but even gladly lose my life, though I should be sorry that Christians should take it from me.

"Propose me any thing out of the book, and require whether I believe or no, and seem it never so incomprehensible to human reason, I will subscribe it with hand and heart, as knowing no demonstration can be stronger than this, God hath said so, therefore it is true. In other things I will take no man's liberty of judging. from him; neither shall any one take mine from me. I will think no man the worse man, nor the worse Christian; I will love no man the less for differing in opinion from me. And what measure I mete to others, I expect from them again. I am fully assured that God does not, and therefore men ought not, to require any more of any man than this:-" To believe the scripture to be God's word; to endeavour to

find the true sense of it, and to live according to it." Chillingworth's Works, fol. edit. 1742. It may be proper to add, that Chillingworth was a learned divine of the church of England,

*Our English translation of the Bible was made in the time and by the appointment of James the First. According to Fuller, the list of the translators amounted to forty-seven. This number was arranged under six divisions, and several parcels of the Bible assigned them. Every one of the company was to translate the whole parcel; then they were to compare these together, and when any company had finished their part they were to communicate it to the other companies, so that nothing should pass without general consent. The names of the persons and places where they met together, with the portions of scripture assigned each company, are to be found in Johnson's Historical Account of the several Translations of the Bible. These good and learned men entered on their work in the spring 1607, and three years elapsed before the translation was finished.

From the mutability of language, the variation of customs, and the progress of knowledge, several passages in the Bible require to be newly translated, or to be materially corrected. Hence, in the present age, when biblical literature has been assiduously cultivated, different parts of the sacred volume have been translated by able hands. The substituting a new translation of the Bible in the room of the one now in common use, has been much debated. Dr. Knox, in his ingenious essays, together with others, argues against it; whilst Dr. Newcome, the late Lord Primate of Ireland, the late Dr Geddes, of the Catholie persuasion, and the late Rev. Gilbert Wakefield, contended strenuously for it. The correction of several passages, however, would deprive Deists of many of their objections, prevent Christians from being misled into some absurd opinions, and be the means of making the scriptures more intelligible, and consequently more beneficial to the world.

and lived in the reign of Charles the First. In the earlier part of life he embraced the Romish religion; but having found, after the most impartial investigation, that it was false and inconclusive, he returned to the communion of the church of England, and vindicated the Protestant religion, in a work, entitled The Religion of Protestants a Safe Way to Heaven. This work, though a folio volume, has gone through many editions, and continues to be held in estimation even to the present day. He died at Chichester, and was buried in the cathedral. I saw his mo

nument there in the cloisters during the last summer, and beheld it with veneration.

Before we quit the subject of the REFORMATION, it may not be improper to add a short account of the Lutherans. It has been already said, that the Protestants were at first divided into the Lutherans, who adhere to Luther's tenets, and the Reformed, who follow the doctrine and discipline of Geneva. In other words, Lu

Dr. Alexander Geddes, at his decease, had got as far as the Psalms in the translation of the Old Testament. Dr. Newcome and Mr. Wakefield published entire translations of the New Testament. The Rev. Edmund Butcher, also, of Sidmouth, has laid before the public a Family Bible, in which many of the errors of the common translation are corrected, and notes added by way of illustration, whilst the text, broken down into daily lessons, is happily adapted to the purposes of family devotion.

ther was at the head of one party; Calvin, the chief of the other. The tenets of the latter have been specified; those of the former, therefore, are the present subject of enquiry.

LUTHERANS.

THE Lutherans, of all Protestants, are those who differ least from the Romish church, as they affirm that the body and blood of Christ are materially present in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, though in an incomprehensible manner; they likewise represent some religious rites and institutions, as the use of images in churches, the distinguishing vestments of the clergy, the private confession of sins, the use of wafers in the administration of the Lord's Supper, the form of exorcism in the celebration of baptism, and other ceremonies of the like, nature, as tolerable, and some of them useful. The Lutherans maintain with regard to the divine decrees, that they respect the salvation or misery of men in consequence of a previous knowledge of their sentiments and characters, and not as founded on the mere will of God, which is the tenet of the Calvinists. Towards the close of the last century, the Lutherans began to entertain a greater liberality of sentiment than they had before adopted, though in many places they persevered longer

in severe and despotic principles than other Protestant churches. Their public teachers now enjoy an unbounded liberty of dissenting from the decisions of those symbols of creeds, which were once deemed almost infallible rules of faith and practice, and of declaring their dissent in the manner they judge most expedient. Mosheim attributes this change in their sentiments to the maxim which they generally adopted, that Christians were accountable to God alone for their religious opinions; and that no individual could be justly punished by the magistrate for his erroneous opinions, while he conducted himself like a virtuous and obedient subject, and made no attempts to disturb the peace and order of civil society.

It may be added, that Luther's opinion respecting the sacrament, is termed Consubstantiation; and he supposed that the partakers of the Lord's Supper received, along with the bread and wine, the real body and blood of Christ. This, says Dr. Mosheim, in their judgment was a mystery, which they did not pretend to explain. But his translator, Dr. Maclaine, justly remarks, "That Luther was not so modest as Dr. Mosheim here represents him. He pretended to explain this doctrine of the real presence, absurd and contradictory as it is, and uttered much senseless jargon on the subject. As in a red-hot iron, said he,