her composed a rhapsody of theological questions, than a commentary
upon the scripture text: to which we may add, that he wanted
understanding, and usually followed his senses instead of his reason."

This is the language of those in the church of Rome who speak of Luther
with any degree of moderation; for the generality allow him neither
parts, nor learning, nor any attainment intellectual or moral. But let
us leave these impotent railers, and attend a little to more equitable
judges. "Luther," says Wharton, in his appendix to Cave's Historia
Literaria, "was a man of prodigious sagacity and acuteness, very warm,
and formed for great undertakings; being a man, if ever there was one,
whom nothing could daunt or intimidate. When the cause of religion was
concerned, he never regarded whose love he was likely to gain, or whose
displeasure to incur." He is also highly spoken of by Atterbury and
others.

_John Calvin._

This reformer was born at Noyon in Picardy, July 10, 1409. He was
instructed in grammar learning at Paris under Maturinus Corderius, and
studied philosophy in the college of Montaign under a Spanish professor.
His father, who discovered many marks of his early piety, particularly
in his reprehensions of the vices of his companions, designed him at
first for the church, and got him presented, May 21, 1521, to the chapel
of Notre Dame de la Gesine, in the church of Noyon. In 1527 he was
presented to the rectory of Marieville, which he exchanged in 1529 for
the rectory of Pont l'Eveque, near Noyon. His father afterward changed
his resolution, and would have him study law; to which Calvin, who, by
reading the scriptures, had conceived a dislike to the superstitions of
popery, readily consented, and resigned the chapel of Gesine and the
rectory of Pont l'Eveque, in 1534. He made a great progress in that
science, and improved no less in the knowledge of divinity by his
private studies. At Bourges he applied to the Greek tongue, under the
direction of professor Wolmar. His father's death having called him back
to Noyon, he stayed there a short time, and then went to Paris, where a
speech of Nicholas Cop, rector of the university of Paris, of which
Calvin furnished the materials, having greatly displeased the Sarbonne
and the parliament, gave rise to a persecution against the protestants,
and Calvin, who narrowly escaped being taken in the college of Forteret,
was forced to retire to Xaintonge, after having had th