after procure regular ordination. Several other Calixtine ministers gave them the same advice.

“The brethren felt the importance of this advice, and were led to submit the matter wholly to Him who has promised that "wherever two or three agree together upon earth to ask anything in his name, he will give it to them." They therefore met together for prayer to God, to be directed whether it was his will that they should withdraw from that church, which had now become a spiritual Sodom and Babylon, and to form a church among themselves more consistent with his word. They received what they believed to be an intimation of the Divine will in answer to their prayers, and immediately commenced the work. This took place in 1457. They then assumed the name of UNITED BRETHREN, and chose from their own number three provisional elders, of whom Gregory, before mentioned, the nephew and colleague of Rockyzan, was one, a man eminent for his piety, wisdom, and experience in Divine things."-Bost's History.

Thus arose a church whose subsequent history, till its almost entire destruction, in the thirty years' war, might be written with tears and blood. It furnished a great number of faithful martyrs, and excellent men and the Herrnhuters, who distinguish the offices of bishop and elder, derived their episcopacy from Commenius and Jablonsky, its last bishops. But the episcopacy of the Moravians, as those who have visited them at Herrnhut, or have even read the life of Gambold, know, is of a very simple, inoffensive character, and if not absolutely primitive, is sufficiently near it to escape all appearance of spiritual arrogance and usurpation. The history of the origin of the United Brethren, written in Latin by Lusatius, and of which Commenius published an abstract in German, with an appendix containing an exposition of the constitution and discipline of the church, is, we can testify, a very valuable work; but Bost has perhaps given enough to satisfy the curiosity of general readers. "For our brethren and companions' sakes, let us now say, Peace be with them, and because of the house of the Lord our God, let us seek their good."

The history of persecution, alas! again supplies its quota to our list; and Protestantism (sad to say) resorts to treachery, and even lights the brand. The scattering of the English church at Frankfort, by Cox and his party, is an indelible blot upon their characters. Determined, in opposition both to the wishes of the brethren, who received them, and the concession of the Frankfort magistrates, to force king Edward's liturgy upon a church which was rejoicing in the liberty wherewith Christ had made them free, they were not contented with disturbing and interrupting the public service, but denounced the pastor of the church as a traitor! Sensible of the treachery of Cox and his confederates, and assured that Knox was a "learned, grave, and godly man;" but fearful of risking the emperor's displeasure, and believing that they would be compelled to give him up, either to the Diet of the Empire, or the Queen of Great Britain and her Spanish consort, they advised him to retire from the city.

On the 25th of March, therefore, Knox delivered his farewell discourse "to about fifty members of the congregation, who assembled at his lodgings in the evening, and the next day left the city," attended, as Paul was from Ephesus, "by the same friends who bade him farewell with many tears." Had he, as too many have done on such occasions, consulted with flesh and blood, and thought only of his private injuries, he might have preached from David's complaint, "It was not an enemy that reproached me," &c.; but the great-souled man chose a more excellent way, and followed after love.

The spirit of Cox and his companions appeared under Elizabeth, in the condemnation of Barrowe, Greenwood, and the other Protestant martyrs of her reign. We do not approve of all the practices or all the principles of Elizabeth's and Whitgift's victims. We do not justify the Puritans or Brownists in all things. But we must regard the sufferers of both classes as men who were before their age in some great truths, and as martyrs and confessors, who asserted, at the expense of their lives or liberties, the royal prerogatives of our Divine Redeemer.

But where, then, shall we place the Arian, Bartholomew Legate, who in 1611-12 was delivered over to the secular power, by Bishop King, as "a contumacious and obdurate heretic," and burnt at Smithfield, under King James's writ De hæretico comburendo? "He was," says Neal, after Fuller, "a comely person, . . . about forty years of age, of a fluent tongue, excellently well versed in the Scriptures, and of an unblameable conversation." He lay a considerable time in Newgate; "and a pardon was offered him at the stake, if he would recant; but he refused it."

Our answer shall be candid. We consider Arianism a very inconsistent creed, and, therefore, one which may be professed by persons of fundamentally opposite convictions respecting the requisites to salvation. It is (or perhaps we should rather say was, for as a profession it is almost obsolete) in some a careless intellectual theory, involving, on rationalist principles, the denial of the essential and necessary deity of the Son of God: in others the profession of it included faith in our Lord's death as an atonement for sin, and the offering of Divine worship to his name. In the former class we see mere Rationalism urging careless worldlings or high-minded sceptics to pour contempt on vulgar orthodoxy; in the latter, we believe that there have been not a few whose hearts were right in the main, and who trusted in, and loved their unseen yet omnipresent and omnipotent Saviour; though prevented by misguided speculation, partly by the misinterpretation of some striking passages, from receiving the mystery of "three in one." One of the latter class we consider to be a Christian, though an erring one; and if he were put to death for his whole faith, by infidels or heathens, we should account him a martyr; but if by other professed christians doctrinally orthodox, he were put to death for his denial of our Lord's

divinity, we should regard him as a murdered man, but not as a martyr, at least not in the Christian sense of the term. As Mr. Hall has said in his review of Belsham's Memoirs of Lindsey:

"We are cordially disposed to admire integrity wherever we perceive it; but we cannot permit ourselves to place sacrifices to error on the same footing as sacrifices to truth, without annihilating their distinction. If revealed truth possess anything of sanctity and importance, the profession of it must be more meritorious [we should prefer saying, of greater moral value,] than the profession of its opposite; and, by consequence, sacrifices made to that profession must be more estimable. He who suffers in the cause of truth is entitled to admiration; he who suffers in the defence of error and delusion to our commiseration: which are unquestionably very different sentiments. If truth is calculated to elevate and sanctify the character, he who cheerfully sacrifices his worldly emolument to the pursuit of it, [and much more he who sacrifices his life for the sake of it,] must be supposed to have participated, in no common degree, of its salutary operation. He who suffers equal privations in the propagation of error, evinces, it is confessed, his possession of moral honesty; but unless persuasion could convert error into truth, it is impossible it should impart to error the effects of truth. . . . . In a word, the nature of the doctrine professed must be taken into consideration, before we can determine that profession to be a Christian profession: nor is martyrdom entitled to the high veneration justly bestowed on acts of heroic piety, on any other grounds than its being, what the term imports, an attestation of the truth. It is the saint which makes the martyr, and not the martyr the saint."-Hall's Works, 8vo. edit. vol. iv. pp. 221, 224, 5.

In Legate's sacrifice of life, we see, then, whatever his views of the atonement or faith in it might be, no martyrdom, but only a legal murder perpetrated in the sacred names of law, truth, and religion. He did not suffer for the truth he may have held, but for the error which corrupted it. But we have reason to bless God, that in the times in which we live, the usurpation of rulers over individual consciences is not expressed in the sanguinary ways in which it once was; and the more so, since the last few years have proved, that the spirit of persecution, though long scared by public opinion into holes and corners, is by no means extinct, even in our Protestant country; but would, if permitted, truss up her victims for the fire, as cheerily as in the vaunted' olden time.'

Cuthbert Simpson suffered for his stedfast devotion to the cause of Christ and his pure gospel, in a day when multitudes abjured their religion, and many fled to foreign countries. He was deacon of a congregation which assembled for worship, frequently at night-time, in different parts of London and the neighbourhood, and sometimes on board ship in the Thames. By the treachery of a false brother, their worship was at length broken in upon, and the minister, Mr. John Rough, and Cuthbert Simpson, the deacon, were apprehended. A special providence, however, attended even these hard circumstances; for "whereas," says Neal, quoting Clarke's Martyrology,

"Simpson, the deacon, used to carry the book wherein the names of the congre gation were contained, to their private assemblies; he happened that day, through

the good providence of God, to leave it with Mrs. Rough, the minister's wife. When he was in the town, the recorder of London examined him strictly, and because he would neither discover the book nor the names, he was put upon the rack three times in one day. He was then sent to Bonner, who said to the spectators, 'You see what a personable man this is: and for his patience, if he was not a heretic, I should much commend him, for he has been thrice racked in one day, and in my house has endured some sorrow, and yet I never saw his patience moved.' But notwithstanding this, Bonner condemned him, and ordered him first into the stocks in his coal-house, and from thence to Smithfield, where, with Mr. Fox and Davenish, two others of the church taken at Islington, he ended his life in the flames."

Besides "bishop" Ferrar, who was burnt at Caermarthen, there were also burnt in the course of the same month, Neal tells us,

"Mr. Lawrence. a priest, at Colchester; Mr. Tomkins, a weaver, in Smithfield; Mr. Hunter, an apprentice of nineteen years of age, at Brentwood; Mr. Causton and Mr. Higden, gentlemen of good estate, in Essex; Mr. Wm. Pigot, at Braintree; Mr. Stephen Knight, at Maldon, Mr. Rawlings White, a poor fisherman, at Cardiff."

Thus the Gospel had its witnesses from various ranks and professions, as well as different parts of the land. "Many had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonments;" and many "were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection."

The assassination of Juan Diaz by his brother was a mournful fulfilment of our Lord's words: "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I come not to send peace, but a sword. . . . . A man's foes shall be they of his own household." Juan Diaz was a native of Cuença, in Spain, who, having gone to Paris to prosecute his studies in the Sorbonne, fell in with the Holy Scriptures, and some of Luther's writings. Being thus imbued with the principles of the Reformation, and finding it unsafe to remain in Paris, he visited Geneva and Strasburg, in which cities he obtained the friendship of Calvin and Bucer. At Strasburg, he acquired a knowledge of the art of printing, made some progress in a Spanish translation of the Bible, and wrote some theological pieces. Being induced by Bucer's persuasion, and at the solicitation of the senate of Strasburg, to accompany him to Ratisbon, to assist in a conference held in that city with the Romish party, he distinguished himself so greatly by his learning and eloquence, that Malvenda, a Spanish priest, whom the Emperor had sent to attend the conference, declared, that the Protestants would triumph more through one Spaniard brought over to their party than ten thousand Germans, and attempted by repeated interviews, to dissuade him from continuing in their society.' Being, however, baffled by Diaz, who, with all the honest ardour of conviction, opposed the principles of the Gospel to those of the artful Jesuit, Malvenda wrote to the confessor of Charles V. giving him an account of their conferences, and urging stringent measures with the Protestants. This having been repeated to Juan's

brother Alphonso, who was an advocate in the papal court, he set off immediately for Ratisbon, accompanied by an assassin, and determined. either to convert his brother, or dispatch him. Finding on his arrival, that Juan had gone on to Neuburg, he followed him thither, bearing a letter from Malvenda, in which Juan was exhorted to obey his brother, who would give him good counsel. This letter, and all his arguments and promises, producing no effect, he at length pretended to be shaken in his own mind, by what Juan had said; and would have prevailed on him to return with him by way of Trent to Rome, by the promise of his aid in diffusing the principles of the Reformation, but for the interposition of Bucer, who suspected treachery. Concealing, however, his chagrin, Alphonso, before his departure, exhorted him to constancy;' expressed with much apparent feeling his happiness, that in so short a time he had profited so much by his conversation; then thrusting fourteen crowns in his hand for present exigencies, he bid him farewell with many tears on both sides.' What followed, we give from Middleton's Memoirs of the Reformers, vol. ii. pp. 284, 5.

"The insidious lawyer, with his assassin, proceeded to Augsburg; but the next day, having prevailed on the driver of the car in which they travelled, to linger awhile on the road, they returned privately, purchased an axe of a carpenter, and, disguising themselves, passed the night in a neighbouring village. Early on the following morning, March 27th, 1546, they entered Neuburg as soon as the gates were opened, like common pedestrians, having left their horses at a little distance. The ruffian, habited as a postman, knocked at the door of Diaz's lodgings, and was told by a lad who opened it, that his master was in bed. 'Tell him, then, immediately to rise,' said he, 'for I have intelligence for him from his brother.' Diaz, being awakened, threw a cloak about him, and, leaving his bedchamber, went into the next room to receive the messenger, who ascended the stairs, leaving Alphonso below. The letter was presented to him, purporting to be a warning from his brother, who had discovered some machinations against him at Augsburg, and advised him to beware of Malvenda, and others, who were enemies to Christ, and thirsted for the blood of his saints. While the amiable victim was poring over the paper, and endeavouring to decipher its contents by the glimmer of the morning, the assassin struck the axe, which he had concealed under his coat, with such force into the right side of his head, that it was fixed in the wound, and catching his body as he fell without a groan, laid it down, and softly stealing to his employer, they both instantly quitted the town. Mounting their horses without the gate, they rode full speed to Pottmes, half-way betwixt Augsburg and Neuburg, where they found a relay, which soon enabled them to rejoin their travelling-car. The murder was so silently committed, that Senarcli, who had slept in the same apartment with Diaz, heard nothing of it, till he was disturbed by the jingle of the murderer's spurs, as he descended the stairs; when, feeling alarmed, he sprung out of bed, and, rushing into the adjoining room, beheld the mangled corpse of his friend.

"Diaz, foreboding, perhaps, some peril in leaving Neuburg with Bucer, on his intended return to Strasburg, had just before written his will, and a confession of his faith. Senarcli relates, moreover, that he had spent great part of that very night in prayer on his bended knees, and that he had been earnestly and affectionately exhorting him, as they lay in bed, to a consideration of the works of God, and the cultivation of real piety."