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Untitled Article
t&e charm in his belief ; and thus debasing delusions were falsely interwoven with the most ennobling patriotic associations . Dn M'Crie ' s first chapter contains a brief review of the ecclesiastical history of Spain before the sera of the Reformation . In this we have little that is new eves to general readers , and no attempt is made at elucidating some very interesting points of early Spanish history , as connected with diversity
of religious opinions arnong the great parties whose contentions occupy the romantic pages of the older annals of that country . In the second chapter the author gives an equally general view of the state of Spanish literature before the proper sera of the Reformers . The reader will perhaps find more acceptable matter in this chapter than in the first ; but he will probably ask wh y Dr . M'Crie has left Ludovicus Vives with nothing but a casual reference . Was his orthodoxy too questionable to entitle him to appear in the group of early Reformers ?
The third chapter contains a short history of the establishment of the Inqtiisition , which Llorente B pages have rendered familiar , in all its details , and thence we come to the four chapters which trace the " history , " if so we are to call it , of ** the Reformation in Spain * " The two first names commemorated are those of Virves and Juan Valdes , to whom little influence on public opinion can , however , be attributed ; and the author then proceeds to one who may , with more propriety , be commemorated as an apostle of reform .
" Valdes left his native country at an early period , but lie contributed greatly to the spread of the reformed opinions in it by his writings , several of which were published in Spanish . Though he had remained , his personal presence would most probabl y have produced little effect . It required a person of leBS caution and more adventurous spirit to burst the terrible barrier which opposed the entrance of the gospel into Spain , and to raise the standard of truth within sight of the flames of the Inquisition . Such a person was found in the
man of whom I am now to speak . " Rodrigo de Valer , a native of Lebrixa , distant about thirty miles from Seville , had spent his youth in those id \ 6 and dissipated habits which were common among the nooility and gentry of Spain . The love of dress , and of horses and sports , engrossed his attention ; and in Seville , which was his favourite residence , he shone in the first rank among the young men of fashion in every scene of amusement and feat of gallantry . All of a sudden he
disappeared from those places of entertainment of which he had been the life and ornament . He was in good health , and his fortune had sustained no injury . But his mind had undergone a complete change ; his splendid equipage was laid aside ; he became negligent of his dress ; and , shut up in his closet , he devoted himself entirely to reading and meditation on religion . Had he become unexpectedly pious , and immured himself in a convent , his conduct ivould not have excited general surpr ise among his countrymen ; but to retire from the world , and yet to shun those consecrated abodes , the choice of
Which was viewed as the great and almost exclusive mark of superior sanctity , appeared to them unaccountable on any other supposition than that of mental derangement . Valer had acquired a slight acquaintance with the Latin language In his youth . He now procured a copy of the Vulgate , the only translation of the Bible permitted in Spain ; and having by dint ojf application , by
day and by night , made himself master of the language , he , in a short time , became so wen acquainted with the contents of the Scriptures , that he could repeat almost any passage in them from memory , and explain it with wonderful promptitude and intelligence . Whether ne had any other means of instruction , or what these were , must remain a secret ; but it is certain that
Jie Was led to form a system of doctrine not different from that of the reiformers of Germany , and to lay the foundations of a church in Seville which was Lutheran in till the main articles of its belief .
Untitled Article
1 K ) ftefdfmation in Spain .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1830, page 110, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2581/page/38/
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