Ferdinand, growing infirm, the Pope sent Vergerius three years after as his representative at the court of that prince; where, while he publicly professed the willingness of Rome to accede to the measure of a council, he secretly resorted to political stratagem to prevent it. His belief, that he was employed by Christ's Vicar upon earth, might reconcile him to the duplicity required in this negociation; but assuredly, no honest and unsophisticated mind could have pursued a regular system of intrigue, like that of Italian ecclesiastical envoys of the sixteenth century, without subjection to the influence of the darkest prejudice.

It

was

Ön the accession of Cardinal Farnese to the pontifical dignity by the name of Paul the Third, he was recalled from his German commission to give the court of Rome an oral account of the state of ultramontane affairs. The new pope "consulted with the cardinals," says Sleidan, " by what means they might best prevent the calling of a national council; till, by private and unsuspected contrivances, they should have embroiled the emperor and other princes in a war.' was resolved to employ again the same able, negociator, who charged to assure the Protestants of Paul's desire of a council, and even to name Mantua as the place of meeting; but at the same time to recommend such qualifications in the voters, such forms of voting, and such modes of disputation, as would be inadmissible to the real lovers of Reformation. So that the odium of opposition to a public measure, desired by all Europe, would be thrown upon those who least deserved it. He was to carry on an underplot against Henry the Eighth of England, exasperating the princes of the empire against him, and hinting the disposition of the Pope to confer the sovereignty of his dominions on those, who should previously wrest them from

him by temporal arms. In addition to all this subtilty, he was to endeavour by promises and bribes to gain over to the party of the Romanists those two great champions of the Protestant cause, Luther and Melancthon. It is well known, happily for the interests of Christendom, that he failed in every object of his mission and returned to his employers in 1536 to report his ill success. "He that sitteth in the heavens laughed them to scorn; the Lord had them in derision." The lips of antichrist spoke lies in hypocrisy; but the God of truth confounded his devices. The Protestant princes were bound together by firmer union; and the advocates of a purer faith were too sincere to be purchased to its renunciation.

As Duke George of Saxony, however, advised an alliance of the papal and imperial forces against the obnoxious Lutherans, Vergerius was dispatched to Naples, to have an interview on the subject with the Emperor, then staying in that city, who went to Rome, and earnestly proposed the calling of a general council. The Pope persuaded him to agree to the nomination of Mantua as the place, and the twentythird of May as the time; ordering a summons to be prepared to that effect by the six cardinals, Campegio, Cesio, Simoneta, Ginucio, Contareno, and Pole, with the Archbishop of Brindisi, the Bishop of Rhegio, and Vergerius himself, rewarded for his services with the See of Capo d'Istria. But the Protestants were too well aware of the policy of the Apocalyptic beast and false prophet to yield obedience to the summons, and this negociation proved as fruitless as the former.

Vergerius was employed again in a convention at Hagenau, and a diet at Wormes, in 1541; on which occasion he printed and circulated a speech" on the Unity and Peace of the Church." At this period some staunch Papists were offended at his familiar intercourse with the

Lutherans, and the qualified terms in which he spoke of the power and dignity of the Roman See. Certain however it is, that, if he had then any misgivings on the papal pretensions, the love of vain glory and the pride of life had as yet too firm a grasp on his affections to suffer him to express his doubts. The time, nevertheless, was not far distant, when it was the purpose of a gracious Providence to make him acquainted with religious truth and to constrain his heart to acknowledge his convictions.

When he returned from Wormes to Rome, the Pope, in reward of his services, designed his exaltation to the cardinalate, with other favoured dignitaries; but was diverted from his purpose by the representations of some ecclesiastics, at the head of whom was Cardinal Aleander, who assured his Holiness that Vergerius was suspected of Lutheran propensities. Cardinal Ginucio, a friend of the bishop, told him that Paul had given this suspicion as the reason of witholding the red cap; to clear himself of which charge he retired to his See, and began the composition of a treatise "against the German Apostates." In order to confute the arguments of the Protestants, he found it necessary to give them strict examination; but in pursuing this course, a Divine light broke in upon his mind, and discovered the subjects in controversy in their true colours. He perceived that he was seeking to defend a cause in itself indefensible. In alarm and anxiety he fled to his brother John Baptist, who was Bishop of Pola, at the southern extremity of their native land. This prelate, seeing his agitation, and conscious that he was taking the most effectual method to destroy his prospects of preferment, feared that his intellect was disordered, and in his own perplexity knew not what advice to give his revered and beloved relative. But Peter exhorted his brother to read the

Scriptures diligently, to compare one passage with another, and particularly to examine them with reference to the doctrine of Justification. The result was, that his brother became convinced of the errors in which the generality of the clergy were involved on the most important point: and the Holy Spirit carrying on with power the work begun on their hearts, they were led to more extensive views of the prevalent superstition; and, joining in thanksgiving to that Sovereign Grace who had called two out of their family to a knowledge of salvation, they felt deeply for the perishing condition of the Istrian population, and, instead of quietly going round an unmeaning circle of ceremonies in their respective churches at either end of the province, went forth in a missionary spirit to proclaim to the townsmen and villagers the unsearchable riches of Christ.

:

The monks soon took the alarm, and gave notice to the Inquisition of the proceedings of the two brothers. Two officers of that infernal tribunal, which the Papists (as if to carry their misnomers to the greatest possible extent) denominated 'most holy, Hannibal Grison and Jerome Mutio, came to Istria. The former arriving at Pola visited the places of worship, and inquired after all prohibited works, and especially the Scriptures, which the Council of Trent had refused to the common people he ascended the pulpit, and made a long address on the evils of heresy, excommunicating all persons who neglected to give information of such as were suspected of Lutheranism, but promising forgiveness on the payment of a small penalty to all who would come in, and acknowledge their defection from holy mother church; adding, on the other hand, that if any knew themselves to be guilty, and did not confess, they would, upon discovery, be committed to the flames. He then entered private houses, terrifying the inmates. Many indi

clearest conviction, and could find no rest for his agitated spirit; but his friends represented in lively colours the distress into which he would throw his wife and children, and the ruin which he would bring on his estate, if he refused compliance. In a state of agony he yielded obedience to the legate's injunction.

No sooner was the act performed, than he was judicially given over of God to the most horrible despair. He declared himself damned without hope of mercy, and perpetually vented the language of fiends. His afflicted relatives removed him to Padua, that he might have the benefit of the physicians of that place; and also the opportunity of convers. ing with its learned professors. It It was confessed by the physicians that his malady was beyond the reach of the medical art, and they recommended the spiritual advice of the clergy. Many pious priests waited on him, and exhorted him to reflect on the abundant forgiveness promised to returning and penitent sinners. Vergerius, in particular, set before him the freedom and fulness of Divine grace, and urged the instances of David and Peter, who had been pardoned of God after the most grievous falls. He quoted those passages of Scripture which exhibit the love of God in Christ. Spira admitted the force of these quotations, but observed, that however consoling they might be to others, they did not apply to him, who had sinned against light, and was justly condemned to everlasting burnings, which were already begun, feeling as he did a red-hot coal of Divine wrath in his very heart. He said, the expectation of further torments so much increased those he was experiencing, that he wished to be in hell, to prove the worst. Vergerius assured him that God was all love, all excellence, and all sufficiency. "True," replied the writhing apostate," and therefore I hate him the more!"

He persisted in refusing the sustenance offered by his attendants, and at length expired in indescribable wretchedness!-If it be true, according to the suspicions of some of the correspondents of Vergerius, that he seemed to waver in his resolution of breaking off all connexion with Rome, such interviews, as he was called to witness by the couch of this unhappy being would tend to increase an abhorrence of unfaithfulness. The result, however, was a striking exemplification of the awful Scripture; "One shall be taken, and the other left."

As Vergerius disregarded the papal summons, he was declared contumacious, and sentence of deprivation pronounced against him in 1549. He sought, in a humble retreat among the Grisons, that tranquillity which had been denied him under more lordly roofs; and subsequently collected a number of Italians in the Valteline, to whom he became a faithful and affectionate pastor. During his sojourn in the Grisons, the Emperor and Pope endeavoured to persuade the Swiss to send representatives to the Council of Trent; but the French King, from considerations of opposing policy, instructed La Morliere, his minister to the Cantons, to dissuade them to the contrary, who applied to Vergerius for his assistance. He not only furnished the envoy with arguments, but published a treatise on the inexpediency of attending the council; in which he described the pride, ambition, luxury, and dissoluteness of the Roman See; and averred, that the council itself was not convened to establish the doctrine of Christ, but those human inventions which had been introduced into the church: that this was evident, from their refusal to the inferior clergy of the right of voting, and permission to such bishops and abbots alone as would take an oath prescribed by the Roman ceremonial; and that it was vain to expect that any corruption should be reme

died, though to remedy corruptions was the express end for which the council was pretended to be called. After passing a few years in the Valteline, he was invited to Tubingen by Christopher, Prince of Wurtemburg, where he spent the remainder of his days, writing at intervals against the antichristian character of the Romish See, and the unscriptural nature of many of its doctrines. He translated likewise some of the more useful productions of Melancthon, for the benefit of the Italians.-His brother died suddenly before he left Italy, not without suspicion of poison. Vergerius followed him into an eternal state, as it is trusted, of bliss and glory, on the 4th of October 1565. His funeral sermon preached at St. George's church, the place of his interment, on the seventh of the same month, by the rector of the university, Dr. Andreas, from 1 Tim. i. 12, 13: "I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry, who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and in

was

jurious: but I obtained mercy, be cause I did it ignorantly in unbelief." He drew from this passage the parallel between our Reformer and the great Apostle of the Gentiles; observing that Vergerius was worthy to be had in honour as a minister who knew the truth as it is in Jesus, but that he could not take high rank as a controversialist. It had happened about four years before, that Vergerius was omitted in a commission of divines sent to France by the Duke of Wurtemburg; and thinking that this had been occasioned by Dr. Andreas, he had been led to express himself in private letters to Paris respecting that theologian with too much acrimony: it was therefore considered a proof of the amiable spirit of the preacher, that he rejoiced to bury all sense of private injury in a public testimony to the excellence of his departed brother. Vergerius had his weakness, but Andreas had his grace; and in every age, believers will need to bear in mind the apostolic injunction, " Bear ye one another's burden, and so fulfil the law of Christ."

DIDYMUS,