all their glory. The history of all states connected with the church clearly establishes one important fact-that affairs, which relate to the gospel of Christ, are never attended to, until the interests of the commonwealth have been first consulted. No great hopes, therefore, ought ever to be entertained of much good accruing to the church from the interference of the state, since the prosperity of the former will, in all human probability, always be postponed to that of the latter. Governments forget that the God of Israel is he, who giveth strength and power unto his people: blessed be God.

(k) Calvin, in a letter to Farel, says of himself, “that he was not of that passionate race of lovers, who, when once captivated with an external form, eagerly embraces also the moral defects that it conceals. I expect chastity, frugality, patience, and solicitude for my personal health and prosperity, in that lady who delights me with her beauty." The Rev. Mr. Robinson, of Cambridge, in his Ecclesiastical Researches, attacks Calvin for marrying an Anabaptist without ever making the slightest allusion to her own conversion, or that of her husband. This is merely one specimen of the numerous false statements concerning Calvin, with which this uncandid and unfair historian has thought fit to delude his English readers.* Calvin had one child, who died in 1545, and he could not be more than five years old. Calvin, at the close of a letter to Virel, consoles himself on this occasion in the following manner :-" The Lord has inflicted a heavy and severe wound on us by the death of our little son; but he is our Father, and knows what is expedient for his children." Mrs. Calvin ejaculated on her dying bed the following expressions :-"O glorious resurrection! God of Abraham, and of all our fathers! not one of the faithful, who have hoped in thee for so many ages, has been disappointed I will also hope."

(1) Beza's remark, that Zebedee's confession of his error was a better decision than if a thousand decrees of the senate had issued these orders, proves how desirous even the advocates for persecution are to secure a triumph to their cause without having recourse to such an irrational and shocking system. Even the most inveterate disciples of the church of Rome are not now disposed to go all lengths in advocating the Inquisition, and other horrid methods of cruelty, by which Antichrist has for so long a period kept his slaves under the most dreadful thraldom.

Yet Robinson adopts as a motto-"Let every thing said or written against truth be unsaid and unwritten "

"Almost every page of ecclesiastical history is polluted with the blood of men sacrificed on the altars of bigotry and intolerance. That is deemed heresy, in every age and country, which is opposite to the doctrines of the established church. We have at present oppugners of the doctrines of the establishment; and though they are not burned for their belief, yet they are by some spoken of with disrespect, and tolerated with reluctance. Notwithstanding this, the present church of England, we are confident, had she the power, would be as far from treading in the sanguinary footsteps of the former church of England, as the British Legislature would be now from granting her that authority of doing it, which was so superstitiously conceded to her in an age of ignorance, and ecclesiastical domination."* The period is fast arriving when every thing like intolerance on religious subjects will be banished from our shores, and the great principles of immutable truth be supported, not by the iron arm of power, but the invincible evidence of reason, religion, and love. Party names and distinctions, whether arising from establishments or other causes, will be merged in the glorious appellation of Christian, and the doctrines of the cross be supported and extended, as they were in the first ages of the gospel, by the wisdom, industry, piety, sobriety, purity, and holiness of its professors.

The crimes of nations and of ages will, it is to be hoped, henceforth be viewed in the glass presented to us by the Friend of sinners, and no attempts be made to gloss over the transgressions even of the best of men, by apologies derived from the ignorance, or superstition of the period in which they lived. Future ages, no doubt, will look back with wonder on the infidelity, immorality, drunkenness, and Sabbath-breaking of this boasted nineteenth century, in this boasted land of liberty. It is high time for all Christians to do their utmost among us, to stem the torrent of irreligion and iniquity that is sweeping over our land, and unite in the great cause of promoting genuine Christianity by a spirit of harmony and of concord, which would paralyze all the efforts of its vilest enemies.

*Bishop Watson.

The whole amount of spirit and wine-merchants, taverns, inns, beershops, &c, in London, consisting of 1,500,000 inhabitants, is nearly 6000, while the places of worship do not much exceed 600. Can Government be said to do its utmost for religion under such circumstances, when the active operations of the ministers of the gospel, compared with those of the venders of wine, spirits, ale, &c., can only be as one to ten?

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NOTES ON THE LIFE OF CALVIN.

An interested selfishness, with which all parties look merely to themselves, is one of the worst and most lamentable symptoms of the present times, since it proves that the cause of Jesus is forgotten, and some paltry worldly objects of the most fleeting nature, preferred to the glory of the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world. The same noble disinterestedness, which made Paul support himself as a tent-maker, must resume its dominion among us, if we ever expect to hear infidels and atheists, who now blazon forth their own shame even in our courts of justice, cry out," See how these Christians love." By showing our faith by our works, the blasphemy of unbelievers would cease, and the powers of a future and coming world resume that authority and influence, which neither scepticism nor infidelity would be able to gainsay or resist.

THE END.

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W. Tyler, Printer, Ivy-lane, St. Paul's, London.