s _De Monade, etc._ (Frankfort, 1591, 8vo). He is the most
thorough-going Copernican possible, and throws out almost every opinion,
true or false, which has ever been discussed by astronomers, from the
theory of innumerable inhabited worlds and systems to that {62} of the
planetary nature of comets. Libri (vol. iv)[73] has reprinted the most
striking part of his expressions of Copernican opinion."

THIS LEADS TO THE CHURCH QUESTION.

The Satanic doctrine that a church may employ force in aid of its dogma is
supposed to be obsolete in England, except as an individual paradox; but
this is difficult to settle. Opinions are much divided as to what the Roman
Church would do in England, if she could: any one who doubts that she
claims the right does not deserve an answer. When the hopes of the
Tractarian section of the High Church were in bloom, before the most
conspicuous intellects among them had _transgressed_ their ministry, that
they might go to their own place, I had the curiosity to see how far it
could be ascertained whether they held the only doctrine which makes me the
personal enemy of a sect. I found in one of their tracts the assumption of
a right to persecute, modified by an asserted conviction that force was not
efficient. I cannot now say that this tract was one of the celebrated
ninety; and on looking at the collection I find it so poorly furnished with
contents, etc., that nothing but searching through three thick volumes
would decide. In these volumes I find, augmenting as we go on, declarations
about the character and power of "the Church" which have a suspicious
appearance. The suspicion is increased by that curious piece of sophistry,
No. 87, on religious reserve. The queer paradoxes of that tract leave us in
doubt as to everything but this, that the church(man) is not bound to give
his whole counsel in all things, and not bound to say what the things are
in which he does not give it. It is likely enough that some of the "rights
and liberties" are but scantily described. There is now no fear; but the
time was when, if not fear, there might be a looking for of fear to come;
nobody could then be so {63} sure as we now are that the lion was only
asleep. There was every appearance of a harder fight at hand than was
really found needful.

Among other exquisite quirks of interpretation in the No. 87 above
mentioned is the following. God himself employs reserve; he is said to be
decked with light as with a