of every kind appear less shocking than in a living language, whose idioms and phrases seem gross, because they are familiar.

"In passing judgment upon the characters of men, we ought to try them by the principles and maxims of their own age, not by those of another. For although virtue and vice are at all times the same, manners and customs vary continually. Some parts of Luther's behaviour, which to us appear most culpable, gave no disgust to his contemporaries. It was even by some of those qualities, which we are now apt to blame, that he was fitted for accomplishing - the great work which he undertook. To rouse mankind, when sunk in ignorance or superstition, and to encounter the rage of bigotry · armed with power, required the utmost vehemence of zeal, as well as a temper daring to excess. A gentle call would neither have reached, nor have excited those to whom it must have been addressed. A spirit more amiable, but less vigorous than Luther's, would have shrunk back from the dangers which he braved and surmounted. Towards the close of Luther's life, though without any perceptible diminution of his zeal or abilities, the infirmities of his temper increased upon him, so that he grew daily more peevish, more irascible, and more impatient of contradiction. Having lived

to be a witness of his own amazing success; to see a great part of Europe embrace his doctrines; and to shake the foundation of the papal throne, before which the mightiest monarchs had trembled, he discovered, on some 'occasions, symptoms of vanity and self-applause. He must have been, indeed, more than man, if, upon contemplating all that he actually accomplished, he had never felt any sentiment of this kind rising in his breast.

"Some time before his death he felt his strength declining, his constitution being worn out by a prodigious multiplicity of business, added to the labour of discharging his ministerial function with unremitting diligence, to the fatigue of constant study, besides the composition of works as voluminous as if he had enjoyed uninterrupted leisure and retirement. His natural intrepidity did not forsake him at the approach of death; his last conversation with his friends was concerning the happiness reserved for good men in a future life, of which he spoke with the fervour and delight natural to one who expected and wished to enter soon upon the enjoyment of it. The account of his death filled the Roman catholic party with excessive, as well as indecent joy, and damped the spirit of all his followers; neither party sufficiently considering that his doctrines were now so

firmly rooted, as to be in a condition to flourish independent of the hand which first had planted them. His funeral was celebrated by order of the Elector of Saxony, with extraordinary pomp. He left several children by his wife, Catherine a Boria, who survived him. 'Towards the end of the last century, there were in Saxony, some of his descendants in decent and honourable stations."

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MELANCTHON (Philip), whose support, though deficient in that energy which distinguished other reformers, promoted to a considerable degree, the cause of the reformation; was born in 1497, at Bretten, in the palatinate of the Rhine. At the university of Heidelberg, he made a remarkably rapid progress in his studies, and removing from thence to Tubingen, he continued his studies six years in that situation. Being afterwards made Professor of Greek at Wittemberg, he formed a close intimacy with Luther, whose attempts to deliver pure and primitive theology from the jargon of the

schools, met with his cordial approbation, if not with his vigorous co-operation. In 1527, he was appointed by the Elector of Saxony, to visit the churches in his territories; but his greatest labour was that of drawing up the confession of faith, called the Ausburg Confession. In drawing up this confession, he shewed a due regard to the counsels of Luther. The judg ment and the taste of Melancthon were equally conspicuous in this performance, in which the most accurate statements were expressed in a style at once plain, elegant, and perspicuous. The extreme caution and timidity which he invariably evinced, exposed evinced, exposed him not unfrequently to the pointed censure of Luther, in whose estimation we may suppose decision of character to have held an important rank. In the year 1539, Melancthon assisted in the conferences at Spires, and in his journey thither, visited his mother, a pious woman, who asked him what she should believe, and how she should pray amid these religious disputes, at the same time repeating her simple creed and form of devotion: Continue,' said her son, to believe and to pray as you do at present, and do not trouble yourself about controversies.' He distinguished himself in the conferences held at Ratisbon, in 1541, and 1548. He wrote, also, a censure of the interim, and all the papers pre'sented at those conferences.

"His greatest enemies," says Mosheim, "have borne testimony to his merit. They have been forced to acknowledge, that the annals of antiquity exhibit very few worthies that may be compared with him; whether we consider the extent of his knowledge in things human and divine, the fertility and elegance of his genius, the facility and quickness of his comprehension, or the uninterrupted industry that attended his learned and theological labours. He rendered to philosophy and the liberal arts the same eminent service that Luther, had done to religion, by purging them from the dross with which they had been corrupted; and by recommending them, in a powerful and persuasive manner, to the study of the Germans. He had the rare talent of discerning truth in all its most intricate connections and combinations, of comprehending at once the most abstract notions, and expressing them with the utmost perspicuity and ease. And he applied this happy talent in religious disquisitions with such unparalleled success, that it may safely be affirmed, that the cause of true Christianity derived from the learning and genius of Melancthon, more signal advantages and a more effectual support, than it received from any of the other doctors of the age. His love of peace and concord; which was partly owing to the sweetness of his natural temper, made him