Activate Javascript or update your browser for the full Digital Library experience.
Next Page
OCR
oh
it
rseeninmrn
oe seinen
et
Tete
NEW-YORK, SATURDAY, AUGUST 20, 1825.
samumonrsnnsisseteti® Mensuasctnnn
recent oe
AND WILL PREVAIL.
NO. 24
ae (From Cobbett’s Last Register.)
These two names are by no means ill associated. : : Ever,
* thing selish and insincere belonged to the character of Luther;
- anid L have read in this Morning Chronicle, not only an apology
“for, but a defence, an absolute justification of * greediness” and
‘of fypocrisy j andl one the ‘Morning Chronicle to deny
oitifhe “ft
ss (From the Morning Chronicle, 9th June.)
°“ The Provincial Newspapers have long been occupied with a
) publication, which appears to have kindled a strong flame in the
\ country, though it has not been much noticed by ‘the Metropo-
Jitan Press... We allude to ‘ Cobbett’s History of the Reforma-
tion,’ of which we have now the seventh number before us, and
: @ vf which a great Controversialist in Glasgow, the author of a
ork of some celebrity in that part of thé country, called ° The
Protestant,’ has expended already thirteen letters in the Glas
gow Chronicle, each of which i: is at Jeast equal in length toa
r of this historian.
History Ks the Reformation i is certainly a curious Pro-
°* duction in its way.» Its author has chosen, t, rat
» hackneyed subject for his fist tempt in this importaat depart
tment of fiterature; but he 1 means gone to work ina
~ hackneyed manners We ‘il Make the liberty of surprising our
*-* “"\Syeaders with the way in which he dashes off the characters of the
‘ _ Jeading Reformers -—
Ne “et Perhaps the sora has never, in any, age, seen a nest of
such atrocious mis B
vr.
uther, Zuingluius, Calvin, Beza,
4 and the rest of the Gistinguisted Reformers of the Catholic Reli-
Every one of them was notorious for the most seanda lous
even according to the full confession of his own followers.
. “thes agreed in nothing but in the doctrine, that good works
i “yp were useless; and their lives proved the sincerity of theirteach-
‘ing; for there was not a man of them whose acts did not meri
alte
fs
ue ‘And this is history !
vot & The first of these Reformers, Lnther, was one of the best of
“men that ever lived.” The Catholics of Ger
oe hop of W urtzburg, vat the bead of education in his territories, in
1771, and was mae a dignitary of the Church, and who wrote
the best history of Germany, deemed, however, by the Protest
, Ants, too favourable to the Catholics, allows that ¢ Luther pos.
‘sessed, undeniably, a great fund of honesty, di disinteresteducss,’
anda ‘ove of religion and of country, coupled with the utmost
‘firmness oo j’ and expressly says of him, that ‘among
_his other goo ties, it was not the Smallest that he abhor-
‘red wor, and never advised it, as far as is known,’ The best
‘proof of is disinterestedness is afforded by the ‘circumstance of
~his leaving his wife with four children utterly unprovided for,
. more generous, kind-hearted man than Luther never existed.
sos ‘ite was a gentleman as well as a theologian, social and bospita-
‘ sble, fond of music, pootry, a and whatever gives acharm to life.
im in the Table Talk, affords a proof of
liberality far beyond his rage brother and sister, ignorant of
._ their yelationship to each other, having married, their case was
, * privately brought before Luther, and some othe divines. Lu-
“ther said it wonld be a cruel thing to make these poor ¥ people
« tiserable, by disclosing to them their real sitnation, and by hi
advice they were suffered to remain in their i ignorance.
soi‘ Allthe Reformers, however, mentioned by this new histo-
wy vian of the Reformation, as meriting a haltey for their vices,
. ere men of excellent lives, though s some of thein, it must be
vontessed, were not merely Sour, but too foud of burning bere-
tics, the great vice of the tims Calvin was an excellent logi-
cian, but te was too fond of resorting to the arm of flesh.
“Now, is it not amazing, that in the year 1825, such a work
+ ‘a3 the above should be written? , It becomes of importance, not
' with reference to the author, but as indicative of an astonishing
ae legree of ignorance in those for whom it is intended. . Maki ing
n knows better where pig’s meat is most
, Wanted. | There is not a Bishop in the land has a better nose.
»* We think the No Popery Clergymeu must regret very
« much, that the historian of the Reformation was not on their
. file, fox, though it is impossible to surpass them in the art of be-
<Spattering, and though there was not a single Prejudice which
they ‘neglected, yet Mr. Cobbett goes about his work in a more
ing manwer, * Much often depends on the way of doing a
thing, “We would, therefore, recommend it to some of the Can-
* didates for Church promotion, to take a lesson from an enem:
. bear in mind ghat @ want of charity is not set off by a
« ‘want of easy assuray
. 4 Mr. Cobbett addres oe history to ‘all Sensible and just
lishmen are fully as obstinate as they are just, enough to dis-
courage a less sanguine Mr. Cobbett has the misfortune
to be ‘ia and A fleshy 5 yet ‘he i is as enterprising and irritab‘e, as
any of th skinned nervous men to whom the French
Pigsiologists, ‘woul limit the possession of physical ands moral
excellence. ‘If his skin were as bronzed as that of a Scotch
Highlander, or bis hair as black as that of a County of Kerry.
man, he could not be more alive to all that is going on in the
world.» For sensible and just Englishmen, he writes histories ;
and. for the pretty girls in Suffolk, whom he says he likes, he
finds materials for bonnet-making; and for. Scotchmen, whom
he hates as cordially as he likes the Suttoll sits, he would, we
suppose, have no objection to find brimston
Of the above paragraphs, [ sha notice, particulary, that
which relates to Luther. - First observing, t ast
words of the last paragraph, I by no means accede to the pro-
position of the Chronicle, ; or rather to what he supposes
should accede to; for though the article of brimstone is ch
in proportion to its quantity, that quantity would vastly exceed
my means of supply.’ The writer is a little mistaken, too, in im-
puting to me a hatred to Scotchmen. ave known many very
worthy and very humane Scotchmen, and very generous ones,
too; and it so happens, that of all the Roman Catholics, of all
the ‘three bodies, Irish, English, and Scotch, the only one from
whom I have received a forntal, an official vote of thanks, is the
Scotch, as will be seen by a reference to the last Register, page
630.
Ihave no hatred. to Scotchmen; but, for the charact ter of
Scotland, it unfortunately happens ‘that she has produced a set
of the most lying historians, as Buchanan, Robertson, Burnet,
and Hume, and that she has sent forth a set of wretches calling
themselves philosophers, who seen to be bent on destroying eve-
ry thing that condaces to human happiness, not excepting even
the propagation of the species, All their doctrines tend to teach
cratt, insincerity, perfidy, and every thisg hostile to virtue, jus-
tice, and truth. This being the ca ase, E cannot stop at every mo
ment to discriminate and make exceptions. | hate not the Se etch,
but Lhate the pestiferous . principles generally imported | “from
Scotland; ‘and above all, I hate the impudent pretensions to su-
periority 3et up for the ‘Scotch nation, by every creature capa-
of gauging a barrel; or rummaging the pockets of every
crane that dares to set his foot on our shores. '
‘This matter brushed out of the way, I come to the complaint
of the Chronicle (for it is evidently in the way of complaint),
that the country newspapers and Scotch newspapers have been
so much occupied with my ‘ History of the’ Protestant Refor-
mation:’ and in this plaintive spirit he tells us, in his first para-
graph, that a Scotch author. of some celebrity ¢ has expeaded
already thirteen letters in the Glasgow Chronicle, each of which
is, at least, equal in length to a number of this historian? Now,
thoughT have not read uny of these letters, and though of then,
1 have never heard before, the fact is likely enough to be trae;
for it requives not a Jittle to make out any thing of an answer,
any thing of 2 commentary. upon matter so true and so home
put as every part of my little Bistory in which there is more
useful information, more matter. worthy of the attention of the
people of England, Ireland, and Scotland, than all the bulky vo-
lumes of th ose e who. have written what are called histocies of
Englan
Some of my readers may remember, that when I was in Long
Island, I notified to my readers, that nothing was more wanted
than a'true History of the Church of England, ‘They may also
recollect, that the then proprietor of the Chronicle, who was
‘cotcbman, and who. edited the paper himself, [ mean the Tate
Mr. Perry, laughed, or affected to‘ laugh, at my writing such a
*| history, which 1 expressed any intention to do at some future
time. .If that gentleman had lived to this day, he would. hav,
seen "that i it was no such laughing matter; and I hardly think
that even he would have attempted to rake a poor silly jest of
my ‘finding materials for making straw bonnets.’ Now we are
come to the subject matter of this article. I said, , in the seventh
number of the ‘ History of the Protestant Reformation,” that the
rst r.formers, as they called theinselves, Luther, Calvin, Zu-
inglius, Beza, ‘and the rest of the crew, were a nest of atrocious
miscreants, such as the world had never seen before; that the
quarrelled immediately amongst themselves; that each con-
demned the doctrine of all the rest; that they agreed in nothing
but that good works. were useless; and that their lives proved | w
the sincerity of their teaching, for there was notaman ©
whose acts did not merit a hal Iter.
Now, in contradiction to this, the Chronicle asserts, that, ‘ the
first of these reformers, Luther, was one of the best men that
r lived.’ Here, then, we are at issue, the Chronicle and I
care nothing for bis anecdotes; I care nothing for w!
der writers, even Catholics, have thought it convenient t to say
about this man. T stick to the facts, which are either notorious
to ail the world, w as undeniable as that England is Eng-
land, and to the fe related by Luther himself, or by bis own
followers and adhe:
In the first place, iG is) nolp prions that Luther was an Augustine
Friar, of Wertenburgh, in
preference to an order of Monks to which Luther did not belong
that he publicly acknowledg:d, that he did not believe: in the
necessity of good works; that he said in his work, that free-will
was an empty name, that it was like a horse, and if ridden by
the Devil, it moved as
as to his practice, he said that he had tried
to persuade himself that Christ was not present in the Sacra-
ment; that he did’ this purposely to spite the Pope. He signed
a decd or paper of some sort, together with seven other divines
of his tribe, to allow Philip, ‘Landgreve of Hesse, to have two
wives at onetime. He says, in his published writings, that he
had divers conferences with the Devil ; that the Devil slept with
hin oftencr than his own wife did.
his works, page 77, he says that the Devil had numerous con-
ferences with him; that.they laughed and joked together;
that they walked about the room together; that he took connsel
of the Devil; that the Devil sometimes walked about his bed;
that they had often sat down to dinner together; that he had
eaten more than a bushel of salt with the Devil. Now all this
he says seriously. “If true, he was led by the Devil to separate
from the Church; if false, Luther is aliar. He says, in that
very ‘ rable Talk that the Chronicle refers to, that, while he was
@ observed chastity, obedienee, and poverty, and that
being ‘Tree from worldly cares, he gave
watching and prayer; and that, after he commenced Reformer,
he was raging with the most violent concupiscence. Te then
proceeded to teach permission, in certain cases of concudinage
and poliga: ¢ right which believers had to break their
oaths at their ‘lene secing that he had broken his, and seeing
that no breac , or any other deed whatever, could do
injury to the soul of him who believed in his. Luther’ + doce
trines, “Melancthpn, who was one of his chief disciples, calls
him ta brutal nan, void of pity and Pumanity, one more a Jew
than a Cir All agree that he was 2 common drunkard.
His bad faith was Couspicuo ays, in one of his letters,
that ‘if a council ordained, or permitted, bread and wine in the
Sacrament, in spite of the Council we would take but one, or
we would take neither, and curse those who acted otherwise.’
Ta another place, he says, ‘if a Council gave Churchmen leave
to marry, it would be more pleasing to God to keep three whores
than to marry under such permission, He says, ‘I have hitherto
thought it of sinall consequence whether the bread remained in
saerainent or not; but now in spite of the Papist, lam deter-
ed to believe that it does remain.’ Then again, ‘I knew
very well that the elevation of the Sacrament was isatrou,
but I retained it out of spite to that devil Carlostadias.’ Thess
passages are to be found in the second volume of his works, Tn
the seventh volume he says, in an address to the whole body of
Protestants, that, if they cam presume to consult together about
their common belief, he will return back to the ancient Church,
and revoke every word that he has ever written against it,
But it is useless | to tire the reader with more instane
villany. What more, than his saying most distit
ly, and in the ost 8 's manner, that he had frequent, lons,
and deep debates with, the Devil himself? He gives an account
of lorg dialogues between him and the Devil. He states the ar-
guments of the Devil and his own answers. If, then, what he
says be true, it was the Devil that convinced hin, that th
tholic religion was bad, and that he ought no longer to live in
that religion. If his stories about the Devil were not t rue, then
Luther was an impostor, Melancthon above-mentioned, says
he was ‘a brutal nan, void of pity and humanity, one more a
Jew than a Christian, one of his own disciples; and, not
merely a disciple, but'a a great, Doctor of the new religion, and
one of the nize, Luther being another, who under their hands,
e | granted a license, i in the year 1539, to the Landgrave of Hesse
to have two wives at one time. Melancthon was yery likely as.
infamous a wretch as himself; but, when Luther tells us that he
was in such good understanding with the Devil; and that he
took the Devil’s advice; and when we sce that he did act agrees .
ably to the advice, which he tells us the Devil gave him, w.
surely take his character from this his disciple, who was rothe,
Doctor in the new religion.
Thus, then, it appears, thet this man, ‘whom ¢ the Morning
Chronicle calls ‘one of the best men that ever lived? was an
apostate, a perjurer, a drunkard, a persecutor, and impious
retch, an inhuman man, more a Jew th: an a Christian, and
one who confessed that he was under the guidance of the
Devil; but we are not to be surprised that even this man finds
an eulogist in a writer who has not been ashamed to publish a
justification of greediness and hypocrisy, and who is constantly
hinting to the labouring classes that they ought to use the © prom
per means to preveot their wives from bringing children inta
the world. I could go through the characters of all the chief
beginners of the Protestant religion, and could show that protli-
gacy, that villany of aJl sorts, was practised by them ail. Be.
za, for instance, after endeavouring to effect, or cause to be ef.
fected, assassination in France, fled to that nest of vipers, Ge-
neva but, not without taking with hiot the wife of another
sman of Paris, This Beza went to join Calvin,
was the breaking of his oath oe celibacy; that he
ofa convent, and, after living with her for some time, married
“Tanglishmen.’ In si hopes to brivg us all round to St.
Ponte wathia a reasénabte timer tash, considering ‘hat ‘tne
her in breach of his oath of celihary. ‘That the eause of his se-
Paration from the Catholic Church was, that Pope had givea a
who was just such another as himself, with, perhaps, a little
more brutality and bloody-mindedness, But it is useless to
proceed with any thing The a history of these ruffians, their
proiligary is a matter notorious in history; and J shall show
In‘ the second volume of ait
reser econ’
Sp esr cement
rd
ee
Mg tt ee ere
AN
pesmi a
_ ga tng PEBMROIETE