How much better was Luther's opinion of his own pure doctrine, than is yours of Universalism?

Bucer. "The greater part of the people seem only to have embraced the gospel, in order to shake off the yoke of discipline, and the obligations of fasting, which lay upon them in time of popery; and to live at their pleasure, enjoying their lust and lawless appetites without control. They therefore lend a willing ear to the doctrine that we are justified by faith alone, and not by good works, having no relish for them." Another inquires" to what else does the greater part pretend, except by shaking off the heavy yoke of superstition, to launch out more freely in every kind of lasciviousness?"

Strype, though an advocate for the reformation, gives a horrid picture of his times under the following heads "Covetousness of the nobility and gentry; oppressions of the poor; no redress at law; the judges ready to barter justice for money; impunity of murders; the clergy very bad from the bishops to the curates; and above all, the increase of adulteries and whoredoms."

Notwithstanding Luther renounced the supremacy of the Pope, he had no scruple in applying a title of pre-eminence to himself, with the reasons therefor, in the following words; "Martin Luther, Ecclesiastes of Wittemburg; for, it is not fitting that I should be without a title, having received the work of the ministry, not from man, or by man, but by the gift of God, and the revelation of Jesus Christ."

And yet it is remarkable that with all this boasting, by his own account, he had frequent conferences with the devil, through whose influence he was induced to leave the mass! The truth is, that Luther was an unprincipled, hot-headed leader, who had no concern either for purity of doctrine or morals. That he had none for the former is evident by a reference to his

writings, in which he acknowledges much was done to spite the Pope! As to the purity of his morals, he was a perjured monk, who hesitated not to mutilate the scriptures in the translation, for the purpose of maintaining his own opinions, or more properly his innovations for the injury of the Romish church, and the promotion of a rebellious spirits. Zuinglius, addressing Luther, concerning his scriptural works says, in the following energetic language," Thou dost corrupt the word of God, Luther. Thou art seen to be a manifest and common perverter of the scriptures!" When reproached for interpolation in translating Rom. 3. 28, he thus arrogantly and impudently defends the corruption;

"So I will, so I command. Let my will be law. So Luther wills, and says he is a doctor above all doctors in the Pope's dominions. Therefore the word [sola, only, alone] should remain in my New-Testament; although all Papists be provoked to madness, they shall not expunge the word. I am sorry that I did not add, without any of the works of the law."

Should you not be satisfied with the above free translation, you are welcome to a perusal of the original Latin.

How much succeeding reigns added to the spirit of toleration, may be seen by the following, copied from Buck and others;

"James I. succeeded Elizabeth; he published a proclamation commanding all Protestants to conform strictly, and without any exception, to all the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England. Above 500 clergymen were immediately silenced, or degraded for not complying. Some were excommunicated, and some banished the country. The dissenters were

distressed, censured, and fined in the Star Chamber. Two persons were burnt for heresy."

"Nor were the Presbyterians, when their government came to be established in England, free from the charge of persecution. In 1645, an ordinance was published subjecting all who preached or wrote against the Presbyterian Directory for public worship, to a fine not exceeding 501. and imprisonment for a year, for the third offence, in using the episcopal book of common prayer, even in a private family. In the following year they petitioned parliament, pressing the enforcement of uniformity in religion, and to extirpate popery, prelacy, heresy, schism, &c. In 1643, the parliament, ruled by them, published an ordinance against heresy, the infringement of which subjected to death. Among the heresies, were denying the Trinity, in any way, and denying that Christ had two natures. "In the reign of Charles II. the act of uniformity passed, by which two hundred clergymen were deprived of their livings. Then followed the Conventicle, and Oxford acts, by which about eight hundred persons were reduced to want, and many to the grave. Quakers were also imprisoned, and suffered severely."

The

I shall now pass over the insurrection of Munster, the massacres of the priests and religious orders in France by the Calvinists at the procession of Corpus Christi, the mob called Lord Gordon's, to intimidate the parliament of Great Britain, in case any relief was intended by that body for the oppressed Catholics, and the abominable usurpations of our fathers, the Pilgrims, over the conscience, with a host of other concerns appertaining to the subject. Indeed, it is not necessary to the argument, that every year since the commencement of the reformation should be reviewed in particular, to prove the existence of a persecuting spirit, either in your order, or in those fundamentally similar. The existence of persecution in Switzerland at the present moment, under the auspices of a Protestant priesthood and secular government, in posses

sion of "an orthodox but inefficient faith," is a fact which may silence all who contend, with Cecil, that "Christianity is the wisdom from above, which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and with

out hypocrisy.

If this is the christian religion, and I am full in the faith that it is, what shall we term that religion, which is based on an impure, a warlike foundation, claiming to dictate and rule the conscience, and damning with fiend-like barbarity those who cannot worship the image set up by monsters in human shape, and continued in power by the most unsanctified and cruel methods? What shall we term that religion, the abettors of which, so far from being gentle and easy to be entreated, shun the sight and conversation of those who are stigmatized by them as infidels and heretics, whose principles they do not understand, or which, knowing, they misrepresent? Shall we, can we truly say, that that religion is from God, which, instead of producing mercy and good fruits, bears the evil fruits of cruelty, treachery, persecution, falsehood-and whose first apostles were mere moral firebrands? And can we followship those principles as without partiality and without hypocrisy, which every day's experience teaches us are full of both? Truly, if christianity be intended as an exhibition of heavenly wisdom, the tenet which we have had under examination is anti-christian, and has no part nor lot in the matter.

The evils to which allusion has been made, are the fruits of your doctrine, and however much it is softened by assuming the Arminian form, and thereby approximating towards the Catholic principles, enough is witnessed to convince every man, who has not a beam in his eye, that, but for the safeguard of our political institutions, our land would either swarm with hypocrites, or the country would be deluged with

the misery and blood of her citizens. That this spirit of domination lives in the minds of the orthodox clergy, is plain from a few facts which are too notorious to be controverted. Two of these will now be recorded.

When Congress appointed Mr. Sparks chaplain for the session, a hue-and-cry was set up by the clergy, because he was a Unitarian-because he believed with the prophets, Christ, and his apostles, that the Lord our God is one Lord. No other circumstance was alleged for their virulent abuse of the National Legislature, than this. If this appear a trifling mark of the dominating spirit of the clergy, in your mind, it does not in mine. I think it but the herald of what we may expect, if the society, which is daily accumulating concentrated strength in our country, should finally gain that ascendancy over our elections, which it is at least possible for them to attain.

The Legislature of Vermont also dared to appoint a Universalist chaplain, and the whole clerical fraternity was in awful alarm. The spirit of wounded pride was again let loose, and our vocabulary could hardly furnish epithets of abuse, expressive of their abhorrence of this transaction. But do you, does any man suppose, that the chaplainship to a legislature, or court, is of any possible avail in the inculcation of religious sentiment in general? It is hardly probable— then why all this outcry? Just this is the reason. You term these people heretics-you wish them to be considered monsters, that you may be justified in the eyes of others for hunting them as such. While you fear to meet either the one or the other, fairly, you would willingly smother them in a dungeon, or expose them to the fate of heretics, left to the tender mercies of a bigoted and vindictive clergy. I speak not this personally, but I allude to that thirst for power, both