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Hereditary Genius
259
Middleton's “Biographia Evangelica,” 4 vols. 8 vo. 1786, is exactly
the kind of work that suits my inquiries. The biographies contained in
it are not too numerous, for there are only 196 of them altogether,
extending from the Reformation to the date of publication. Speaking
more precisely, the collection includes the lives of 196 Evangelical
worthies, taken from the whole of Europe, who, with the exception of
the four first—namely, Wickliffe, Huss, Jerome of Prague, and John
of Wesalia—died between 1527 and 1785. This leaves 192 men
during a period of 258 years; or 3 men in every 4—a sufficiently
rigorous, but not too rigorous, selection for my purposes. The
biographies are written in excellent English, with well-weighed
epithets; and though the collection is, to some extent, a compilation of
other men's writings, it may justly be viewed as an integral work, in
which a proportionate prominence has been given to the lives of the
more important men, and not as a combination of separate memoirs,
written without reference to one another. Middleton assures the
reader, in his preface, that no bigoted partiality to sects will be found
in his collection; that his whole attention has been paid to truly great
and gracious characters of all those persuasions which hold the
distinguishing principles of the Gospel. He does not define what, in his
opinion, those principles are, but it is easy to see that his leaning is
strongly towards the Calvinists, and he utterly reprobates the Papists.
I should further say, that, after reading his work, I have gained a
much greater respect for the body of Divines than I had before. One
is so frequently scandalized by the pettiness, acrimony, and fanaticism
shown in theological disputes, that an inclination to these failings may
reasonably be suspected in men of large religious profession. But I
can assure my readers, that Middleton's biographies appear, to the
best of my judgment, to refer, in by the far
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