[Footnote 071:  A dialogue on the Reformation was also in the contemplation of Mr. Gibbon:  “I have,” he says in the Memoirs of his life and writings,[072] “sometimes thought of writing a dialogue of the dead, in which Luther, Erasmus and Voltaire should mutually acknowledge the danger of exposing an old superstition to the contempt of the blind and fanatic multitude.”]

[Footnote 072:  Vol. i. p. 269, of the 8vo. edition of his works.]

[Footnote 073:  A full account of the writings of Wicelius, and of his projects of Pacification, is given by Father Simon in the Biblioteque Critique, par M. de Sainjore, Tom. ii. ch. 18.  He concludes it, by observing, that

“the great love which Wicelius had for the peace of the church, might induce him to use expressions, somewhat harsh, but which really ought not to be censured with too much rigour.  It is evident that his only view was to be useful to persons of his own time, to whom he consecrated the latter part of his life.—­I do not recollect to have read that he was censured at Rome, and the Spanish Inquisitors seem to have observed the same moderation in his regard.”]

[Footnote 074:  XVI.  Cent.  Book V. p. 41, in the Englsh translation.]

[Footnote 075:  See Mosheim’s Ecclesiastical History, Cent.  XVII. ch. ii. sect. ii.  Part II.]

[Footnote 076:  Eccles.  Hist.  Cent.  XVI. ch. ii. sect. iii.  Part.  II.]

[Footnote 077:  Observat.  Hallen, 15 t. p. 341.]

[Footnote 078:  It is a prayer addressed to Jesus Christ, and suited to the condition of a dying person who builds his hope on the Mediator. M.  Le Clerc has inserted it at length in the Sentimens de quelques Theologiens de Hollande, 17 Lettre, p. 397.]

[Footnote 079:  Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson, 2d Vol. p. 502. 2d Edition.]

[Footnote 080:  The author’s “Confessions of Faith,” mention this convention, its dissolution, and the subsequent union of the Helvetian, and Bohemian protestant congregations, in the Synods, held at Astrog, in the years 1620, and 1627.  The original settlement of these churches, was in Bohemia, and Moravia.  Persecution scattered the members of them:  a considerable number of the fugitives, settled at Herrenhut, a village in Lusatia.  There, under the protection and guidance of Count Zinzendorf, they formed themselves into a new community, which was designed to comprehend their actual and future congregations, under the title of “The Protestant Church of the Unitas Fratrum, or United Brethren of the Confession of Augsburgh.”  That Confession is their only symbolic book; but they profess great esteem for the eighteen first chapters of the Synodical Document of the church of Berne in 1532, as a declaration of true Christian Doctrine.  They also respect, the writings of Count Zinzendorf, but do not consider themselves, bound by any opinion, sentiment, or expression, which these contain.