Defective in many parts as Luther’s character really was, he appears to have been, nevertheless, one of the best among the original and leading reformers. There seemed to be a frankness or unreservedness about him that was somewhat pleasing, and which it is not easy to discover in many of his coadjutors. He was also apparently not so bloodyminded as some of them were, at whose head, it is presumed, we may venture to place the apostle of Geneva, _Calvin_. This man (as is evinced by the tragical case of _Servetus_,) when his favourite dogmas were opposed, and his wisdom, learning, and infallibility set at naught, nothing would satisfy but the _obstruction_ of his opponent: but Luther, (as appears from the affair of Carlostadius,) would be pretty well satisfied with the _banishment_ only of those who happened so to offend him. The spirit of Luther, however, though less vindictive and diabolical than that of Calvin, was yet very dissimilar to that of Jesus Christ, whose followers they both professed themselves to be. It seems to have been then the case, that those reformers who had gone the furthest from the church of Rome in _doctrine_, such as Calvin and the Swiss divines, who denied the real presence, were yet the nighest to that church in _spirit_: for they seemed more addicted to the practice of consigning to destruction those whom they deemed heretics than the Lutherans, though the latter did not depart near so far as the former from the grand popish doctrine of _transubstantiation_. Odd as this may be considered, it appears to be a fact; though to account for it may, perhaps, be attended with considerable difficulty. It cannot however, be supposed, that the denial of the real presence could have any tendency to make people more bloodthirsty, vindictive, or intolerant. The reformers, in retaining the bigotry and intolerance, or the _spirit_ of popery, retained in fact its very worst part, and what may be called its marrow and substance; which the world had most need to get rid of. All therefore that they did, or could do, in such a case, was only like giving a new edition, or an abridgment of an old and bad work, which still contained the essence of the former, and must, of course, have the same defective and evil tendency. They appeared like people undertaking the cure of a demoniac without casting out the demon, or pretending that the evil or scrophula may be healed and eradicated by the royal touch. In short, they began the work at the wrong end, and never meddled with that part at which they ought to have begun.