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    Sir Thomas More for denying the supremacy , if it had been requisite , would have been so scrupulous as to hesitate about construing the refusal of the oath a denial ? When it is objected to Henry as a cruelty , that many were put to death for not swearing to his supremacy , without doubt every denial of it , whether implied by refusing the oath or expressly by words , was

    meant . Therefore it is foreign to the spirit of the remark to say , that they * were thus punished for denying the supremacy , not for refusing to swear to it . So verbal an answer to the animadversion of Henry ' s enemies would scarcely have escaped the learned Bishop if he had not been insensibly influenced by a fear lest the justice and propriety of the Reformation should

    be prejudiced by the cruelty of Henry ' s measures in us commencement . But the cause of truth is never finally helped by an ill-founded argument . The Reformation rests on a better foundation than the humanity of Henry's actions , nor is there any necessary connexion between the one and the other ; bad and cruel princes being frequently the casual instruments of great good to society . " Howell ' s State Trials ^ Vol . I . p . 47 J .

    The writings of Mr . Turner have been so long before the public that it is perhaps unnecessary for us to make any observations upon the style of the volume before us , which is greatly deficient in simplicity . The same error may be remarked in the writer ' s sentiments , which are frequently far-fetched and sometimes fantastical . We cannot name a more striking example of this than the parallel between the Deity and Cardinal Wolsey , Vol . I . p . 198 :

    < In contemplating such an extravagant specimen of human arrogance and vanity as Wolsey in his mature age chose to become , it is delightful and consoling to the mind to remember , that the most stupendous Being in nature is peculiarly distinguished by the absence of all pride , and by the perpetual practice of that amenity in himself which he has enjoined to his creatures /' occ .

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    Art . III . —Primitive Christianity , or the Religion of the Jlncient Chris * tians hi the First Ages of the Gospel . By William Cave , D . D . Abridged , &c , by John Brewster , M . A . Rivington . 1825 . This is a pious little work , abridged with some care , and accompanied by practical and doctrinal observations ; but from the plan of its arrangement , it is not very interesting to the reader , and certainly not very well calculated to impress on the mind a distinct view of the singular state of

    society which it is designed to illustrate . The latter object is indeed a very difficult one to accomplish , especially in a work of strictly historical detail . The whole frame of society , in the first age of Christianity , must be so essentially dissimilar , the same names and words must often represent subjects so totally different in reality from the ideas which they now convey to the mind , and the points on which any thing like detailed views of the social state are preserved , must be so insulated and disjointed , that any exposition becomes either so laboriously erudite as tp fatigue the ordinary reader , or so

    meagre and vague as to disappoint instead of satisfying the curiosity . It need hardly be observed , that the materials for an accurate description of the rise and progress of the church , the state of society , and the formation and establishment of opinions and discipline on many subjects during the greater part of the first two centuries , are very scanty , and the closest research tends greatly to diminish the number of direct sources on which we can rely with confidence in their authenticity . The Patres apostoloci must , it is now very generally admitted , be confined within considerably smaller limits than Lardner w 6 uld wish to assign ; and Rosenmuller , Michaelis , and

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    Review . — -Cave * s Primitive Christianity . 43 ?

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1827, page 437, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1797/page/45/