Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

and to infuse into his soul one solemn doubt as to its real and eternal safety.

"You have waked me too soon, I must slumber again."

Still, to "unsettle" such a mind is a matter of absolute necessity, and of real charity. Witness the unnumbered calls to repentance and faith contained in the oracles of truth ;-the threatenings of the Lord, whether spoken by Prophets, or Apostles, or even by the Saviour of the world ;— their tender entreaties to come to Him for pardon and salvation; their earnest exhortation to "turn" to God and live; their promises to every awakened and believing soul. For instance, in the prophecy of Joel (ii. 13), sinners are called upon to "rend their hearts.' In Ezekiel (xviii. 31), to make them "a new heart;" in St. John's Gospel (iii. 7), they are told by Christ himself, "Ye must be born again;" and by his Apostle in writing to the Ephesians (v. 14), "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." Therefore is it also said, "Woe to them that are at ease in Zion," (Amos vi. 1); and "I will punish the men that are settled on their lees," (Zephaniah i. 12.) Such self-deceivers cry, "Peace, peace, when there is no peace ;" and, scripturally regarded, are so miserable, that to attempt to rouse them from their slumbers is the most fervent charity. Therefore, though it is the work of the Holy Ghost, it will in his strength be instrumentally undertaken by every true follower of Christ.

And should such an effort be effectual; should the Spirit, whether by the voice of the minister, the parent, the relative, or the friend, cause "the dry bones to live," till the self-justifying moralist, or the hardened profligate, begins to call upon the Saviour; is not such a change as this productive of "joy and peace," and of the liveliest gratitude and love that can animate the human heart? The change referred to is nothing less than a transition from the darkness of the moral grave to the light of Christian life, and therefore from a state of degradation and misery to one of honour and happiness. For are we not "the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ," (Gal. iii. 26) and consequently "heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ?" (Rom. viii. 17.) Our's is then "the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." (Rom. viii. 15.) Surely to be unsettled in our minds-our carnal and deluded minds-to such purposes as these, is not to lose but to gain, for time and also for eternity; an opposite conclusion can proceed from our great and infernal "adversary," and from him only.

Yet as "the Spirit of Life" alone can accomplish this change, and "raise us from the death of sin to the life of righteousness," how important, how necessary, how blessed is the work of prayer. By "prayer" his all-sufficient grace is happily secured; and the more earnest our supplications in the name of Jesus, the more abundant will the answer be. (Matt. xi. 12.) Who, then, can calculate the effect of such living, believing communion with the Lord our God? Who that so waits on him can ultimately expect too much as it regards the spiritual awakening, whether of friends, relatives, or children? To pretend, with Antinomian infallibility, that such prayers are unavailing, and that they would take the work of conversion out of the hands of God, is to refer to any standard rather than that of Revelation; and, in fact, to defraud our souls, and the souls of our fellow men, of much spiritual profit. This will be manifest at the great day. Then thousands will discover how much they have lost by the neglect of Scriptural study and persevering prayer. "Ye have not because ye ask not," is a divine saying which will then

be intelligible to all the enemies of Christ. Then they will wish too late that their minds had been "unsettled" by the threatenings of God, and so had been prevailed on to embrace his precious promises. But there is yet hope for those who still enjoy the day of grace. The merciful and mighty God rescue them from their self-delusions, till they can say with adoring gratitude "at the feet of Jesus," "We were dead, but are alive again; we were lost, but are found."

Nor should the wish of my sainted friend that "all his parishioners were awakened," be forgotten by the ministers of Christ. Few as may be the seals set to their devoted labours, still ought they not, must they not, desire, like the Apostle Paul, (Gal. iv. 19) that all whom they address, whether publicly or privately, may be saved? And never can a true evangelist rest satisfied with his success, however thankful for the measure of it, so long as even one of his flock remains a "captive of the mighty, a prey of the terrible;" still wearing his heavy yoke, and doing his disgraceful work. In such a miserable state, surely the vine-dresser (if I may change the figure) will enquire, "What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it?" (Isa. v. 4 ;) and by more intense prayer, more wakeful vigilance, more active exertion, and by a fuller exhibition of the grace of Christ to sinners, will endeavour, in the humility of faith, to win their souls to Him. Well may that minister tremble who can look with unconcern on any one who is sleeping in his sins. Of his own spiritual slumber there could then be no reasonable doubt. (Isai. lvi. 10.)

[ocr errors]

There are however those who, in no ironical sense, endeavour to unsettle men's minds upon religion, as Satan did Eve, "Yea, hath God said?" They represent regeneration, holiness, "the life of God in the soul of man," as fancy, folly, superstition. They would draw back to the world those who appear to have escaped from its snares. Let the youthful Christian especially be on his guard against such seducers. How different the conduct of the truly faithful. Thus the Apostle John had "no greater joy" than to see his spiritual children "walk in truth." (3 John 4.) While we should shake, if possible, to its foundation, every worldly system of religion, we should endeavour to strengthen that which, in "godly sincerity," is based on Holy Scripture. Those only who rest upon the sand, would I alarm by representing the dangers which surround them, from the descending "rain," the rising "wind." The true child of God is often prone, under circumstances of trial, to ask, "Am I indeed His?" and to argue against his spiritual safety. To such it is the office of ministers, and indeed of all Christians, to shew, on scriptural grounds, the reality of their past hopes, and the unreasonableness of their present fears. To them it may be truly said, "Fear not ye; I know that ye seek Jesus which was crucified." (Matt. xxviii. 7.) In one sense only I would desire to unsettle the mind even of the true believer; that is, by more thoroughly awakening him, through divine grace, to a perception of his own helplessness as a sinner in the sight of God, and to a more exclusive, vital, and practical reliance on the Saviour. Thus would I desire to "stir up " his " pure mind by way of remembrance" (2 Pet. iii. 1); and refer him to the faithfulness of Christ, as a cordial unto the drooping and dejected spirit. May the Lord of all grace and consolation settle us if we are built on Him, and unsettle us if we are not.

Πιστις.

MISTRANSLATION OF PROVERBS XVI. 1.

For the Christian Observer.

WE translate Proverbs xvi. 1, "The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the Lord." There is no verb in either clause in the Hebrew. Our translators insert "is" in the second clause; but in Italic characters, to shew that it is not in the original. The Hebrew runs, "In man (are) the preparations of the heart; but the answer of the tongue (is) from the Lord." Man wishes, and devises; but God disposes and overrules. Is not this the obvious sense of the passage? The next verse in like manner distinguishes between what belongs to man and what to God. "All the ways of a man are right in his own eyes; but the Lord weigheth the spirits."

G. G.

THE SUPPRESSED PROTESTANT REFORMATION IN ITALY:-LIFE AND WRITINGS OF PALEARIO.

For the Christian Observer.

THE rise, progress, and suppression of the Protestant Reformation in Italy in the sixteenth century, is a painfully interesting and instructive story. In our Number for September, p. 532, we presented a few sketches, chiefly as connected with the life of Mark Anthony Flaminio, one of whose letters, preserved in a scarce collection, and hitherto untranslated into English (though translated into Latin in Schelhorn's Amænitates) we gave as a specimen of his doctrines and opinions; and we purpose rendering a few others upon some future occasion. For the present, we turn our regards to one of his beloved friends, the learned, the eloquent, the devout Aonio Paleario, (Latinised into Aonius Palearius) who was not only, like Flaminio, a confessor for the pure faith of his divine Lord, but was honoured with the crown of martyrdom; being one of the victims who were tortured and murdered by the Inquisitors, upon the accession to the popedom of that cruel persecutor, the Dominican Michele Ghislieri,-best known by his assumed name, and his title of canonization, as Saint Pius the Fifth. The extent of the massacres which took place during the pontificate of this gloomy fanatic, will never be known till the day of final account; but the persecution raged till it expired for want of victims; and the Protestant Reformation in Italy was quenched in the blood of multitudes of the most learned, honourable, and holy, men and women of that country. "During the whole of this century," says Dr. M'Crie, "the prisons of the Inquisition in Italy, and particularly at Rome, were filled with victims, including persons of noble birth, men and women, men of letters and mechanics. Multitudes were condemned to penance, to the galleys, or to other arbitrary punishments; and from time to time individuals were put to death. Several of the prisoners were foreigners, who had visited the country in the course of their business or their travels. Englishmen were peculiarly obnoxious to this treatment. In the year 1595 two persons were burned alive in Rome, the one a native of Silesia, and the other of England. The latter having in a fit of zeal offered an indignity to the host when it was carrying in procession, had his hand cut off at the stake, and was then committed to the flames. The nobleman from whom this fact is taken adds in a postcript that he had just heard that some other Eng

lishmen were thrown into the Inquisition at Rome. Yet, notwithstanding all these severities, persons secretly attached to the Reformed doctrines were to be found in that country during the seventeenth century; and some of our own countrymen, who had been induced to expatriate themselves out of zeal for Popery, were converted to the Protestant faith during their residence in Italy." The idol which appeared so fascinating at a distance, revolted them when seen at hand in its grim and gloating features.

Mosheim devotes to the interesting facts respecting the rise, progress, and suppression of the Reformation in Spain and Italy, only two paragraphs; it remained for Dr. M'Crie to prove that they were well worthy of two volumes. The following is his paragraph on Italy :—

"The Reformation made a considerable progress in Spain and Italy soon after the rupture between Luther and the Roman pontiff. In all the provinces of Italy, but more especially in the territories of Venice, Tuscany, and Naples, the religion of Rome lost ground, and great numbers of persons, of all ranks and orders, expressed an aversion to the Papal yoke. This gave rise to violent and dangerous commotions in the kingdom of Naples in the year 1546, of which the principal authors were Bernard Olhino and Peter Martyr, who, in their public discourses from the pulpit, exhausted all the force of their irresistible eloquence in exposing the enormity of the reigning superstition. These tumults were appeased with much difficulty by the united efforts of Charles the Fifth and his viceroy, Don Pedro di Toledo. In several places the Popes put a stop to the progress of the Reformation, by letting loose upon the pretended heretics their bloody inquisitors, who spread the marks of their usual barbarity through the greatest part of Italy. These formidable ministers of superstition put so many to death, and perpetrated on the friends of religious liberty such horrid acts of cruelty and oppression, that most of the Reformists consulted their safety by a voluntary exile, while others returned to the religion of Rome, at least in external appearance. But the terrors of the Inquisition, which frightened back into the profession of Popery several Protestants in other parts of Italy, could not penetrate into the kingdom of Naples, nor could either the authority or entreaties of the Roman pontiffs engage the Neapolitans to admit within their territories either a court of inquisition, or even visiting inquisitors."

Untrue therefore is the declaration of Voltaire, that very few persons in Italy embraced the Protestant Reformation. On the contrary, the new doctrines, as they were called, made a powerful and extensive impression in that country; and they were not suppressed without such violent efforts as Rome in her gigantic power was able to put forth in the vicinity of her usurped domination; but which could not be carried into effect in places not so directly under her despotic rule.

In a paper by Mr. Macaulay on "The Revolutions of the Papacy," in the Edinburgh Review for October, 1840, is the following statement: "It was not on moral influence alone that the Catholic Church relied. In Spain and Italy the civil sword was unsparingly employed in her support. The Inquisition was armed with new powers, and inspired with a new energy. If Protestantism, or the semblance of Protestantism, shewed itself in any quarter, it was instantly met, not by party teasing persecution, but by persecution of that sort which bows down and crushes all but a very few select spirits. Whoever was suspected of heresy, whatever his rank, his learning, or his reputation, was to purge himself to the satisfaction of a severe and vigilant tribunal, or to die by fire. Heretical books were sought out and destroyed with unsparing rigour. Works which were once in every house were so effectually suppressed, that no copy of them is now to be found in the most extensive libraries. One book in particular, entitled' Of the Benefits of the Death of Christ,' had this fate. It was written in Tuscan, was many times reprinted, and was eagerly read in every part of Italy. But the Inquisitors detected in it the Lutheran doctrine of Justification by faith alone. They proscribed it; and it is now as utterly lost as the second decade of Livy."

The Edinburgh Reviewer does not seem to have been aware who was the writer of this suppressed work on "The Benefits of the Death of

Christ;" but it was Aonio Paleario, one of the most eminent and excellent men of his age and country. His published letters shew that he enjoyed the friendship of a large circle of distinguished scholars and devoted Christians in his own and other lands. Most of his works are extant, and have been several times printed ;—as his Latin poem on the Immortality of the Soul; his Epistles; his Orations; his Poems; and an Address which he drew up to be presented by the Emperor's ambassador, to the Council of Trent, and which is a detailed defence of the Protestants.

[ocr errors]

That the treatise on the Death of Christ is as utterly lost as the second decade of Livy," we will not undertake to assert; for one or more copies of it may possibly exist in the secret presses of the Vatican library, or in some unexplored, or inaccessible, Italian monastic repositories; or at least in the archives of the Inquisition. But certain it is, that though this treatise, for writing which its author was burned at the stake, was so extensively circulated that forty thousand copies were sold in the course of six years, not a single copy of it is now known to be extant. Those who possessed so fatal a book, were glad to destroy it, to prevent its being found in their possession by the familiars of the Inquisition, who might visit them in the darkness and silence of a winter's night, and hurry them off, with their prohibited treasure, to the dungeons of the Holy Office; and thence to the gibbet or the stake. The new Pope Pius V. had been himself personally, in his office of an Inquistor, an indefatigable midnight visitor of houses suspected of harbouring heretical persons or heretical books; and he was said to have a remarkable instinct for "smelling out" Lutheranism, and similar enormities, as a hound winds his prey. Mr. Mendham in his elaborate memoir of the life and pontificate of this " Supreme Inquisitor"a title which he was the first and the last to bear, the Popes having reserved that high distinction to themselves-mentions the following instance of his early zeal and sagacity.

"About 1543 the Grisons imbibed the medicine of Evangelic truth from their neighbourhood to the Swiss Cantons, which had been so enlightened. This to Rome was all venom and heresy. From the Grisons the doctrine penetrated to the Valteline and the Val di Chiavenna, principal portions of the diocese of Como, of the Duchy of Milan; and fears being entertained for Lombardy, as the most prompt and effectual remedy, F. Michele Ghislieri (afterwards named Pius V.) was selected to undertake the office of Inquisitor at Como. His diligence in an occupation so grateful to him was such as might be expected. His ubiquitous and nocturnal visitations to procure information were so successful, that his zeal was in no want of objects on which to employ itself. In the year 1550, the Inquisitor being then in his forty-sixth year, a circumstance occurred of some notoriety and import

ance. Books were the principal and most formidable weapons of Protestant warfare. Twelve bales of these obnoxious articles were discovered printed at Castel di Poschiave, which had been sent to a mercantile gentleman of Como for the purpose of distribution in the various cities of Italy, particularly in Cremona, Vicenza, Modona, Faenza, Sangenesi; in Calabria likewise, namely, Cosenza, and many castles in the diocese, where there was a correspondence between the parties. Michaele, rising to the exigency, seized the books, and detained them in the Holy Office; but the Vicar and the Chapter, to whom an appeal had been made, espoused the cause of the merchant, and the Inquisitor was compelled to restore his prey;— but he accompanied it with his excommunication. The offenders were cited to Rome; but their resentment put Michaele in such jeopardy, that he felt it prudent to retire as he could, amidst considerable danger and difficulty, travelling at one time by night on foot, until at length he arrived in safety, on the eve of the Nativity, 1550, at the Eternal City, which he thus visited for the first time."

Such being this furious Dominican's zeal against heretical books, it is not to be wondered at that upon his elevation to the popedom, he

« FöregåendeFortsätt »