of communion, much less those of charity, between Christian
brethren of the same essential principles. Some of them,
however, were not inconsiderable, and numerous inducements
concurred to give them an extraordinary interest in their eyes.
When that portentous system of abuses, the Papal dominion,
was overturned, a great variety of religious sects arose in its
stead in the several countries, which for many centuries before
had been screwed beneath its subjection. The fabric of the
Reformation, first undertaken in England upon a contracted
basis, by a capricious and sanguinary tyrant, had been
successively overthrown and restored, renewed and altered,
according to the varying humors and principles of four
successive monarchs. To ascertain the precise point of division
between the genuine institutions of Christianity and the
corruptions accumulated upon them in the progress of fifteen
centuries, was found a task of extreme difficulty throughout
the Christian world.

Men of the profoundest learning, of the sublimest genius, and
of the purest integrity, after devoting their lives to the research,
finally differed in their ideas upon many great points, both of
doctrine and discipline. The main question, it was admitted on
all hands, most intimately concerned the highest interests of
man, both temporal and eternal. Can we wonder that men who
felt their happiness here and their hopes of hereafter, their
worldly welfare and the kingdom of heaven at stake, should
sometimes attach an importance beyond their intrinsic weight
to collateral points of controversy, connected with the all-
involving object of the Reformation? The changes in the forms
and principles of religious worship were introduced and