under absolute monarchies; for it cannot be but that order and policy must decay where one man holds such an extent of government." Comment. in Dan. ii. 39. By degrees he expressed more openly his aversion to kings, and endeavoured to disgrace their characters by the most scurrilous abuse. "These kings," says he, “are, in a manner, all of them a set of blockheads, and brutish men." Ibid vi. 3. Thus, he trod upon the steps, and imitated the language of his forerunner, Luther. Again; "Princes," says Calvin, "forfeit their power when they oppose God, in opposing the Reformation; and it is better, in such cases, to spit in their faces than to obey." Ibid vi.

22.

What can be the purport of such doctrine, but to inspire a contempt for sovereigns, and to encourage the people to cast off their government, under the cloak of religion? Theodøre Beza, Calvin's scholar and successor at Geneva, supported his master's doctrine, and enforced it by his own writings, as may be seen in the preface to his translation of the New Testament; and again, in his book, "Vindicia contra Tyrannos," where he says; "We must obey kings, for God's sake, when they obey God; but otherwise, as the vassal loses his fief or tenure, if he commit felony, so does the king lose his right and realm also." Thus speaks our modern Junius Brutus. In this same work may be seen a hundred other assertions of the same nature, the natural tendency of which can be no other, but to arm

subjects against their sovereign, and to intro duce anarchy and confusion into the world.

"Let

How different is the doctrine of these two modern apostles from that of the ancient great apostles, SS. Peter and Paul! "Be ye subjects," says St. Peter, "to every human creature for God's sake: whether it be to the king, as excelling; or to governors, as sent by him for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of the good." 1 Ep. ii. 13. 14. every soul," says St. Paul, "be subject to higher powers; for there is no power, but from God, and those that are ordained of God. Therefore he that resists the power, resists the ordinance of God. And they that resist, purchase to themselves damnation." Ep. ad. Rom. xii. 1, 2.

Geneva, having settled the plan of her principles according to the instructions of Calvin and Beza, became schools of rebellion to the western parts of Europe, and the principal nursery of the civil wars in France. This country soon found its bowels convulsed by the poisonous seeds of the Reformation, that had clandestinely been sown and taken deep root, in Dauphiné, Gascony, Languedoc, and other provinces.

In 1560, the Calvinists, or Huguenots, formed what is called "the conspiracy of Ambrose," which was a scheme to seize the person of Francis II. king of France, and to murder the duke of Guise, and his brother the cardinal of Lorrain, who had the chief management of affairs in the kingdom, and were attached to the

Catholic religion.

They had prepared a body of troops for the purpose, but the plot was discovered and prevented from taking effect. However, a civil war broke out in 1562, in which the prince of Condé was declared chief of the Huguenots. This great general, at the head of a body of them, surprised and took the city of Orleans, while other Protestant corps made themselves masters of Rouen, and several other towns. But the constable Montmorency and the duke of Guise advancing against them, at the head of the Catholics, for Charles IX. who had succeeded Francis II., a battle ensued near the town of Dreux, in which the Huguenots, who gave the attack, were defeated, and their commander, the prince of Condé, taken prisoner.

Though the Protestants had thus miscarried in their rebellion against their sovereign, yet Beza, who for his warmth in the cause had accompanied them, and been present at the battle of Dreux, boasted of that battle, as having served to lay the foundation of the Reformation in France.

Thus he addressed queen Elizabeth, in the preface to his translation of the New Testament: "Upon which day," the day of the battle at Dreux, "two years since, the nobility and gentry of France, under the command of his excellency the prince of Condé, being assisted with your majesty's auxiliary troops, and some others from the princes of Germany, laid the first foundation of the true reformed religion in France, with their own blood." He in the

same place commends the rebellious transac1 tions of the Huguenots at Maux, Orleans, &c. and glories in having had a share in them. "Which I speak," says he, "the more freely, because I myself, as it pleased God, was present at most of those deliberations and actions. The year a after the battle of Dreux, the duke of Guise was assassinated by Poltrot, a fanatic Calvinist. Notwithstanding the bad success the Huguenots had met with, they resolved not to rest, till they should compel the king to come into their own terms. They therefore contrived another scheine to seize his person, on his going from Maux to Paris; but the design being discovered and frustrated, the civil war recommenced, and they were vanquished a second time near St. Dennis, in 1567. They were worsted again, at Jarnac, in 1569, and the same year were overthrown in a very bloody engagement at Moncontour.

Many were the insurrections and rebellions of the Calvinists, in France, in the subsequent reigns, which created infinite perplexities to the kings, and produced inexpressible calamities in that kingdom. It is sufficient in this place, to have shown their origin from the principles of the Reformation, and their first progress. And what has been said, is no more than is acknowledged by Protestants themselves, of other sects.

Thus are the Calvinists described by Dr Heylin, a learned Protestant of the church of England, in his Cosmography, book I. "Rather than their discipline should not be admit

ted, and the episcopal government destroyed in all the churches of Christ, they were resolved to depose kings, ruin kingdoms, and to subvert the fundamental constitutions of all civil states."

When people proceed upon such schemes of violence, can they wonder, that princes, or their officers, in their wrath, sometimes retaliate upon them? Violence necessarily gives provocation, which in its turn exerts itself, though perhaps by unjustifiable methods. When sovereigns perceive their lives to be in danger from conspiracies, when they see their states ransacked, and thrown into confusion by the arms of rebellious subjects, can we be surprised if these sovereigns, without consulting religion, sometimes repel the evil by rough and cru means? Such was the so much talked of massacre of the Huguenots, at Paris, and other places in France, in 1562, on St. Bartholomew's day, in the reign of Charles IX. However, it is universally condemned by all Catholic authors, that ever wrote of it; and any other crime, committed by any Christian in the world, may as well be charged upon the religion he is of, as that massacre upon the principles of Catholics.

They had already maintained a rebellion of above ten years against their lawful sovereign. They had brought an army of foreigners into the very heart of his country, and delivered up Havre de Grace to the English. They had at last compelled the king to a shameful peace, and obliged him to submit to conditions incon sistent both with his honour and safety.