belief and defence
of all the Hebrew Scriptures, with all their prodigies, from the garden
of Eden to the visions of the prophet Daniel; and they were bound, like
the Catholics, to justify against the Jews the abolition of a divine
law. In the great mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation the reformers
were severely orthodox: they freely adopted the theology of the four, or
the six first councils; and with the Athanasian creed, they pronounced
the eternal damnation of all who did not believe the Catholic faith.
Transubstantiation, the invisible change of the bread and wine into the
body and blood of Christ, is a tenet that may defy the power of argument
and pleasantry; but instead of consulting the evidence of their senses,
of their sight, their feeling, and their taste, the first Protestants
were entangled in their own scruples, and awed by the words of Jesus in
the institution of the sacrament. Luther maintained a _corporeal_, and
Calvin a _real_, presence of Christ in the eucharist; and the opinion
of Zuinglius, that it is no more than a spiritual communion, a simple
memorial, has slowly prevailed in the reformed churches. But the loss
of one mystery was amply compensated by the stupendous doctrines of
original sin, redemption, faith, grace, and predestination, which have
been strained from the epistles of St. Paul. These subtile questions had
most assuredly been prepared by the fathers and schoolmen; but the final
improvement and popular use may be attributed to the first reformers,
who enforced them as the absolute and essential terms of salvation.
Hitherto the weight of supernatural belief inclines against the
Protestants; and many a sober Christian would rather admit that a wafer
is God, than that God is a cruel and capricious tyrant.

Yet the services of Luther and his rivals are solid and important; and
the philosopher must own his obligations to these fearless enthusiasts.
I. By their hands the lofty fabric of superstition, from the abuse of
indulgences to the intercession of the Virgin, has been levelled with
the ground. Myriads of both sexes of the monastic profession were
restored to the liberty and labors of social life. A hierarchy of saints
and angels, of imperfect and subordinate deities, were stripped of their
temporal power, and reduced to the enjoyment of celestial happiness;
their images and relics were banished from the church; and the credulity
of the people was no longer nourished with the daily