t and modern, Catholics and Protestants; and amongst these Fleury
is the most impartial and moderate.]

[Footnote 31: The Acts (Liber Sententiarum) of the Inquisition
of Tholouse (A.D. 1307-1323) have been published by Limborch,
(Amstelodami, 1692,) with a previous History of the Inquisition in
general. They deserved a more learned and critical editor. As we must
not calumniate even Satan, or the Holy Office, I will observe, that of a
list of criminals which fills nineteen folio pages, only fifteen men and
four women were delivered to the secular arm.]

[Footnote 3111: The popularity of "Milner's History of the Church"
with some readers, may make it proper to observe, that his attempt to
exculpate the Paulicians from the charge of Gnosticism or Manicheism
is in direct defiance, if not in ignorance, of all the original
authorities. Gibbon himself, it appears, was not acquainted with the
work of Photius, "Contra Manicheos Repullulantes," the first book of
which was edited by Montfaucon, Bibliotheca Coisliniana, pars ii. p.
349, 375, the whole by Wolf, in his Anecdota Graeca. Hamburg 1722.
Compare a very sensible tract. Letter to Rev. S. R. Maitland, by J G.
Dowling, M. A. London, 1835.--M.]

A philosopher, who calculates the degree of their merit and the value of
their reformation, will prudently ask from what articles of faith, above
or against our reason, they have enfranchised the Christians; for such
enfranchisement is doubtless a benefit so far as it may be compatible
with truth and piety. After a fair discussion, we shall rather be
surprised by the timidity, than scandalized by the freedom, of our first
reformers. [32] With the Jews, they adopted the 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 ta