those of them who die in infancy, and in the way of encouraging themselves in a hearty and hopeful discharge of parental duty towards those of them who survive infancy, neither parents nor children, when the children come to be proper subjects of instruction, should regard the fact that they have been baptized, as affording of itself even the slightest presumption that they have been regenerated; that nothing should ever be regarded as furnishing any evidence of regeneration, except the appropriate proofs of an actual renovation of the moral nature, exhibited in each case individually; and that, until these proofs appear, every one, whether baptized or not, should be treated and dealt with in all respects as if he were unregenerate, and still needed to be born. again of the word of God through the belief of the truth.

JOHN CALVIN.

JOHN CALVIN was by far the greatest of the Reformers with respect to the talents he possessed, the influence he exerted, and the services he rendered in the establishment and diffusion of important truth. The Reformers who preceded him may be said to have been all men, who, from the circumstances in which they were placed, and the occupations which these circumstances imposed upon them, or from the powers and capacities with which they had been gifted, were fitted chiefly for the immediate necessary business of the age in which their lot was cast, and were not perhaps qualified for rising above this sphere, which, however, was a very important one. Their efforts, whether in the way of speculation or of action, were just such as their immediate circumstances and urgent present duties demanded of them, while they had little opportunity of considering and promoting the permanent interests of the whole scheme of scriptural truth, or the whole theory and constitution of Christian churches. After all that Luther, Melancthon, and Zwingle had done, there was still needed some one of elevated and comprehensive mind, who should be able to rise above the distraction and confusion of existing contentions, to survey the wide field of scriptural truth in all its departments, to combine and arrange its various parts, and to present them, as a harmonious whole, to the contemplation of men.

* British and Foreign Evangelical Review.

The Works of Calvin in English,

by the Calvin Translation Society. 52 vols. 8vo. 1843-1856.

Letters of John Calvin. By Dr JULES BONNET.

This was the special work for which God qualified Calvin, by bestowing upon him both the intellectual and the spiritual gifts necessary for the task, and this He enabled him to accomplish. God makes use of the intellectual powers which He bestows upon men, for the accomplishment of His own purposes; or rather He bestows upon men those intellectual powers which may fit them naturally, and according to the ordinary operation of means, for the purposes which He in His sovereignty has assigned to them to effect. He then leads them, by His grace, to devote their powers to His glory and service, He blesses their labours, and thus His gracious designs are accomplished.

Calvin had received from God mental powers of the highest order. Distinguished equally by comprehensiveness and penetration of intellect, by acuteness and soundness of judgment, his circumstances, in early life, were so regulated in providence, that he was furnished with the best opportunities of improving his faculties, and acquiring the learning and culture that might be necessary with a view to his future labours. Led by God's grace early and decidedly to renounce the devil, the world, and the flesh, and to devote himself to the service of Christ, he was also led, under the same guidance, to abandon the Church of Rome, and to devote himself to the preaching of the Gospel, the exposition of the revealed truth of God, and the organisation of churches in accordance with the sacred Scriptures and the practice of the apostles. In all these departments of useful labour his efforts were honoured with an extraordinary measure of success. Calvin did what the rest of the Reformers did, and, in addition, he did what none of them either did or could effect. He was a diligent and laborious pastor. He gave much time to the instruction of those who were preparing for the work of the ministry. He took an active part in opposing the Church of Rome, in promoting the Reformation, and in organising Protestant churches. Entering with zeal and ardour into all the controversies which the ecclesiastical movements of the time produced, he was ever ready to defend injured truth or to expose triumphant error. This was work which he had to do in common with the other Reformers, though he brought higher powers than any of them, to bear upon the performance of it. But in addition to all this, he had for his special business, the great work of digesting and systematising the whole scheme of divine truth, of bringing out in order and har

mony,

all the different doctrines which are contained in the word of God, unfolding them in their mutual relations and various bearings, and thus presenting them, in the most favourable aspect, to the contemplation and the study of the highest order of minds.

The systematising of divine truth, and the full organisation of the Christian church according to the word of God, are the great peculiar achievements of Calvin. For this work God eminently qualified him, by bestowing upon him the highest gifts both of nature and of grace; and this work he was enabled to accomplish in such a way as to confer the greatest and most lasting benefits upon the church of Christ, and to entitle him to the commendation and the gratitude of all succeeding ages.

The first edition of his great work, "The Institution of the Christian Religion," was published when he was twenty-seven years of age; and it is a most extraordinary proof of the maturity and vigour of his mind, of the care with which he had studied the word of God, and of the depth and comprehensiveness of his meditations upon divine things, that though the work was afterwards greatly enlarged, and though some alterations were even made in the arrangement of the topics discussed, yet no change of any importance was made in the actual doctrines which it set forth. The first edition, produced at that early age, contained the substance of the whole system of doctrine which has since been commonly associated with his name, the development and exposition of which has been regarded by many as constituting a strong claim upon the esteem and gratitude of the church of Christ, and by many others as rendering him worthy of execration and every opprobrium. He lived twenty-seven years more after the publication of the first edition of the Institutes, and a large portion of his time during the remainder of his life was devoted to the examination of the word of God and the investigation of divine truth. But he saw no reason to make any material change in the views which he had put forth; and a large proportion of the most pious, able, and learned men, and most careful students of the sacred Scriptures, who have since adorned the church of Christ, have received all his leading doctrines as accordant with the teaching of God's word.*

In a work published a short time | following statement upon this point, before Calvin's death, Beza made the a statement fully confirmed by all the

The "Institutio" of Calvin is the most important work in the history of theological science, that which is more than any other creditable to its author, and has exerted directly or indirectly the greatest and most beneficial influence upon the opinions of intelligent men on theological subjects. It may be said to occupy, in the science of theology, the place which it requires both the "Novum Organum" of Bacon, and the "Principia of Newton" to fill up, in physical science, at once conveying, though not in formal didactic precepts and rules, the finest idea of the way and manner in which the truths of God's word ought to be classified and systematised, and at the same time actually classifying and systematizing them, in a way that has not yet received any very material or essential improvement. There had been previous attempts to present the truths of Scripture in a systematic form and arrangement, and to exhibit their relations and mutual dependence. But all former attempts had been characterized by great defects and imperfections; and especially all of them had been more or less defective in this most important respect, that a considerable portion of the materials, of which they were composed, had been not truths but errors, not the doctrines actually taught in the sacred Scriptures, but errors arising from ignorance of the contents of the inspired volume, or from serious mistakes, as to the meaning of its statements. One of the earlier attempts at a formal system of theology was made in the eighth century, by Johannes Damascenus, and this is a very defective and erroneous work. The others which had preceded Calvin's "Institutes," in this department, were chiefly the productions of the schoolmen, Lombard's four books of "Sentences," and Thomas Aquinas's "Summa," with the commentaries upon these works; and they all exhibited very defective and erroneous views of scriptural truth. Augustine was the last man who had possessed sufficient intellectual power, combined with views, in the main correct, of the leading doctrines of God's word, to have produced a system of theology that might have been generally received, and he was not led to undertake such a work, except in a very partial way. The first edition of Melancthon's

facts of the case. "Hoc enin (Deo sit gratia) vel ipsa insidia Calvino tribuat necesse est, ut quamvis sit ipse ex eorum numero qui quotidie discendo consenescunt, nullum tamen dogma jam inde ab initio ad hoc usque tem

| pus, in tam multis et tam laboriosis scriptis, ecclesiæ proposuerit, in quo illum sententiam mutare et a semetipso dissentire oportuerit."—Abstersio Calumniarum, p. 263.