where the reformed doctrine was taught by the well known Zuinglius, and the still more famous Calvin. The former began to preach the Reformation at Zurich about 1518, and disputed publicly with one Sampson, a friar, whom the Pope had sent thither to distribute indulgences. Zuinglius was persecuted by the bishop of Constance; but, being protected by the magistrates of Zurich, he set him at defiance, and in 1523 held an open disputation before the senate, with such success, that they commanded the traditions of the church to be thrown aside, and the gospel to be taught through all their canton. Zuinglius, in some respects, merited the epithet of fiery, which Dryden has given him; he was an ardent lover of liberty, and dissuaded his countrymen from a league with the French, by which it must have been endangered; he vindicated, from Scripture, the doctrine of resisting oppressors and asserting liberty, of which he said God was the author, and would be the defender; and, finally, he was killed in battle between the inhabitants of Zurich and those of the five small cantons. The conquerors, being Catholics, treated his dead body with the most shameless indignity. The history of Calvin is too well known to need recital in this place. He was expelled from France, his native country, on account of his having adopted the doctrines of the reformers, and, taking refuge in Geneva, was appointed professor of divinity there in 1536. But being afterwards obliged to retire from thence, on account of a quarrel about the administration of the communion to certain individuals, Calvin taught a French congregation at Strasburgh. He may be considered as the founder of the Presbyterian doctrine, differing from that of Luther in denying consub an envious eye on those costly hangings, that massy plate, and other rich and precious utensils, which adorned those altars. And what need all this waste? said Judas, when one poor chalice only, and perhaps not that, might have served the turn. Besides, there was no small spoil to be made of copes, in which the priest officiated at the holy sacrament; some of them being made of cloth of tissue, of cloth of gold and silver, or embroidered velvet; the meanest being made of silk, or satin, with some decent trimming. And might not these be handsomely converted into private use, to serve as carpets for their tables, coverlids to their beds, or cushions to their chairs or windows. Thereupon some rude people are encouraged under-hand to beat down some altars, which makes way for an order of the council-table, to take down the rest, and set up tables in their places; followed by a commission, to be executed in all parts of the kingdom, for seizing on the premises to the use of the king." "Quo animo ipsum quoque Paulum dicere existimo, si potes liber fieri utere potius, 1. Cor. 7. Quod eternum Dei concilium, patres nostri, fortissimi viri, infracto animo secuti, miris victoriarum successibus ut Sempachii," &c. And again," Ipse Dominus libertatis author exstitit, et honestam libertatem querentibus adest."-Pia et Amica Paranæsis ad Suitensium rempublicam. stantiation, and affirming, in a large extent, the doctrine of predestination, founded upon election to grace. The poet proceeds to describe the progress of this sect: With teeth untried, and rudiments of claws, } The citizens of Geneva, before they adopted the reformed religion, were under the temporal, as well as the ecclesiastical, authority of a bishop. But, in 1528, when they followed the example of the city of Berne, in destroying images, and abolishing the Roman ceremonies, the bishop and his clergy were expelled from the city, which from that time was considered as the cradle of Presbytery. As they had made choice of a republican form of government for their little state, our author infers, that democracy is most congenial to their new form of religion. It is no doubt true, that the Presbyterian church government is most purely democratical; which perhaps recommended it in Holland. It is also true, that the Presbyterian divines have always preached, and their followers practised, the doctrine of resistance to oppression, whether affecting civil or religious liberty. But if Dryden had looked to his own times, he would have seen, that the Scottish Presbyterians made a very decided stand for monarchy after the death of Charles I.; and even such as were engaged in the conspiracy of Baillie of Jerviswood, which was in some respects the counter-part of the Ryehouse-plot, refused to take arms, because they suspected that the intentions of Sidney, and others of the party in England, were to establish a commonwealth. I may add, that, in latter times, no body of men have shewn themselves more attached to the king and constitution than the Presbyterian clergy of Scotland. There is room for criticism also in the poetry of these lines. I question whether fenny Holland and fruitful Tweed, in other words, marsh and a river, could form a favourable medium for communicating the influence of the quickening fire below. Note IX. From Celtic woods is chased the wolfish crew; It is remarkable how readily sentiments of toleration occur, even to the professors of the most intolerant religion, when their minds have fair play to attend to them. The edict of Nantes, by which Henry IV. secured to his Huguenot subjects the undisturbed exercise of their religion, was the recompense of the great obligations he owed to them, and a sort of compensation for his having preferred power to conscience; an edict, declared unalterable, and which had even been sanctioned by Louis XIV. himself, so late as 1680, was, in 1685, finally abrogated. The violence with which the persecution of the Protestants was then pushed on, almost exceeds belief. The principal and least violent mode of conversion, adopted by the king and his minister Louvois, was by quartering upon those of the reformed religion large parties of soldiers, who were licenced to commit every outrage in their habitations short of rape and murder. When, by this species of persecution, a Huguenot had been once compelled to hear mass, he was afterwards treated as a relapsed heretic, if he shewed the slightest disposition to resume the religion in which he had been brought up. James II., a two letters to the Prince of Orange, beseeching toleration for the regular priests in Holland, fails not to condemn the conduct of Louis towards his Protestant subjects; yet, with gross inconsistency, or the deepest dissimulation, he was at the same time congratulating Barillon on his Most Christian Majesty's care for the conversion of his subjects, and hoping God would grant him the favour of completing so great a work. * And just so our author, after blaming the persecution of the Huguenots, congratulates Italy and Spain upon possessing such just and excellent laws, as the rules of the inquisitorial church courts. Note X. A slimy-born and sun-begotten tribe, Who far from steeples, and their sacred sound, In fields their sullen conventicles found.-P. 129. The dregs of the fanaticism of the last age fermented, during that of Charles II, into various sects of sulien enthusiasts, who * Dalrymple's Memoirs, Vol. II. p. 108. distinguished themselves by the different names of Brownists, Families of Love, &c. &c. In many cases they rejected all the usual aids of devotion, and, holding their meetings in the open air, and in solitary spots, nursed their fanaticism by separating themselves from the more rational part of mankind. Dryden has elsewhere described them with equal severity; A numerous host of dreaming saints succeed, Of the true old enthusiastic breed; 'Gainst form and order they their powers employ, In Scotland, large conventicles were held in the mountains and morasses by the fiercest of the Covenanters, whom persecution had driven frantic. These men, known now by the name of Cameronians, considered popery and prelacy as synonymous terms; and even stigmatized, as Erastians and self-seekers, the more moderate Presbyterians, who were contented to exercise their religion as tolerated by the government. Note XI. Her novices are taught, that bread and wine Received by those who in communion join; But the inward grace, or the thing signified, His blood and body, who to save us died, &c.-P. 133. The poet alludes to the doctrine of the church of England concerning the eucharist, thus expressed in the twenty-eighth article. of faith: "The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another, but rather it is a sacrament of our redemption by Christ's death; insomuch, that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith receive the same, the bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Christ, and likewise the cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ. "Transubstantiation, or the change of the substance of bread and wine, in the Supper of the Lord, cannot be proved by holy writ; but it is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions. "The body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the supper only, after an heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean, whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the supper, is faith." Dryden insists upon a supposed inconsistency in this doctrine; but his argument recoils upon the creed of his own church. The words of our Saviour are to be interpreted as they must have been meant when spoken; a circumstance which excludes the literal interpretation contended for by the Romanists: For, by the words "Hoc est corpus meum," our Saviour cannot be then supposed to have meant, that the morsel which he gave to his disciples was transformed into his body, which then stood before their eyes, and which all but heretics allow to have been a real, natural, human body, incapable, of course, of being multiplied into as many bodies as there were persons to partake of the communion, and of retaining its original and identical form at the same time. But unless such a multiplied transformation actually took place, our Saviour's words to his apostles must have been emblematical only. Queen Elizabeth's homely lines are, after all, an excellent comment on this point of divinity: His was the word that spake it; Note XII. True to her king her principles are found; Oh that her practice were but half so sound!- P. 133. The pretensions of the church of England to loyalty were carried to a degree of extravagance, which her divines were finally unable to support, unless they had meant to sign the destruction of their religion. This was owing to the recollection of the momentous period which had lately elapsed. The interest of the church had been deeply interwoven with that of the crown; their struggle, sufferings, and fall, during the civil wars, had been in common, as well as their triumphant restoration: the maxim of "no king no bishop," was indelibly imprinted on the hearts of the clergy; in fine, it seemed impossible that any thing should cut asunder the ties which combined them. In sanctioning, therefore, the doctrines of the most passive loyalty, the English divines probably thought, that they were only paying a tribute to the throne, which was to be returned by the streams of royal bounty and grace towards the church. Even the religion of James did not, before his accession, shake their confidence, or excite their apprehensions. They were far more afraid of the fanatics, under whose iron yoke they had so lately groaned, than of the Roman Catholics, who, for three generations, had been a depressed, and therefore a tractable body, whose ceremonies and church government resembled, in some respects, their own, and who had sided with them during the |