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AS IT AFFECTED PHILOSOPHY. 007justly place next after Luther Melancthon. "I desire/'says he in his discourses, "a sound philosophy; not thoseempty words to which nothing real corresponds. For onlyone system of philosophy can be allowed, and that must bethe least sophistic, and must pursue the true method."These are, in truth, golden words of thine, Melancthon, andof which one might well say, that they had been written forour times ! But the papal authority once shattered andbroken, the tie once dissolved which had bound philosophyso closely to the doctrines of the church how could it beotherwise than that its progress, like that of religion, shouldbe more free and unconstrained? To endeavour fully totrace this out would require too much digression and bebut we may be allowed toalien to this place and occasion ;point out that which the annals of philosophy most clearlyshow, viz. that it has shed a new light upon those countriesalone, in which religion was cleared of its errors by the Reformers, Among the Spaniards, and in other nations towhom these were denied all access, the doctors of the schoolsstillreign triumphant and we in vain look among them;for a Leibnitz, a Hume, a Locke, or Kant, and others, wholike these opened out the fountains of a purer philosophy.Can this be a mere accident? Or must we not rather admitthat it resulted from the nature of the Reformation ? Lest,however, any one should still doubt, we will endeavour in afew words to show more plainly the advantages which philosophy owes to the Reformation.We mayit fairly begin by laying down that the Reformerscaused it to be thought allowable to speculate freelyas toGod, and what appertainsto Him. We are willing to admit that questions touchingthe Divine nature and substance[as the phrase ran) were frequently proposed by the schoolmen, and answered in a variety of ways but whoever reads;their works must allow, that they sought much more frequently to exercise their ingenuityin subtle and often impertinent questions, than to propose any thing worthy of themajesty of the Godhead. For as they were obliged to keepthemselves within the limits prescribed by the Church, in3tder to avoid the charge of heresy, what else could be expected than that they should lose themselves in curious anddie investigations?On the other hand, the propagators ofx 2