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    will our readers believe is the evangelical answer to this ? That it is not true that opposition thus increases the stl ^ ug ^ of ^ hfi ^ riwcrib ed opinions . And , in proof of the denial , it is aJIege ^ ttWtii ^ Uie oppositioa to the progress of the Reformation in Spain and Italy djd ; not promote , it , " lathis iHtrstration is worth anything , it must be similarly acted upon ; and does Mr . Mendham really wish to prevent the reaction which persecution creates * by what reason and experience point out as the only means , however horrid , of obviatipe . it , —the extinction and extermination of the sufferer ?

    Both Catholic and Protestant polemics deprive us of much oi the gratification which might be derived from a more dispassionate contemplation of the many singular combinations of good and evil principles , by which religion was in the midst , and often it would appear by means , of its corruptions preserved , diffused , and brought to operate beneficially upon society , during the middle ages . Both parties do their utmost to confound the past with the present . ; the Catholic—by lauding even those very institutions of the church which most directly arose out of , and owed their only apology to 9 a

    defective frame of society—would seem to be striving to bring us back to a state of discipline which knowledge , civilization , and common sense disavow ; while the Protestant selects all the most revolting features of that religion which necessarily partook of the barbarism of the age in which it prevailed , argues every thing as if the question was , whether we were now to adopt plans which might suit the world very well six hundred years ago , and endeavours to blind us to all those unspeakable blessings which Christianity ( painted in as hideous lines of deformity as he will ) preserved and

    diffused over ages , when , without her , all had been rapine , murder , and devastation . Why may we not be allowed ( without reference to any ques-r tions about present times and the institutions which are adapted to them ) to look upon times past with at least a neutral , perhaps even a favouring , eye ; not expecting so unnatural a combination as would have been that of a religion of purity and simplicity with a state of society in almost all other respects barbarous and savage , and rather blessing that Providence which wisely adapts means to ends , and out of seeming evil deduces good;—* in no respect , as we humbly conceive , more manifestly than in the

    permission of that singular ecclesiastical system by which religion was , during the storm , armed with the means of counteraction , by which the power of the sword was met by the temporal authority of the church , and the turrets of the castle found a counteracting influence in the cloisters of the convent ? Surely we can look upon and bless some of the proud gifts which our forefathers have left us , even in their superstition , without either fearing that we shall be seduced into their extravagancies , or thinking it our duty as Protestants to caricature and expose their weaknesses , and to resist all sympathy with their devotional feelings , as the allurements of the lady who dresses in scarlet raiment ! .

    If we abstain from those feelings of religious and political antipathy which induce zealots to heap slander on the victims of tneir bad passions , and are satisfied that we can preserve ourselves from the risk of conversion , without keeping up our polemical hatreds by perpetual anti-papist stimulants , we shall find little difficulty in admitting that many great benefits resulted from the ecclesiastical institutions of the early ages , even those which , considered in themselves , or as connected with a more improved state of things , we should be most disposed to blame and reject . We may smile , for instance , in perusing Dr . Lingard's panegyrics on the virtues of the Anglos

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    312 Review . —Cvnybeat e's \ Ang Uf Saa } on Poetry .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1828, page 312, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2560/page/24/