ON THE.

EFFECT OF THE REFORMATION

ON

CIVIL SOCIETY IN EUROPE.

BY WILLIAM MACKRAY,

MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL, STIRLING.

"TIS THE CAUSE OF MAN."

COWPER.

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, EDINBURGH; AND

T. CADELL, STRAND, LONDON.

MDCCCXXIX.

ΤΟ

THE VERY REVEREND AND LEARNED

THE PRINCIPAL AND PROFESSORS OF MARISCHAL COLLEGE,

WITH THE OTHER TRUSTEES OF

THE LATE MRS BLACKWALL,

THIS VOLUME,

BEING THE ESSAY, MUCH ENLARGED, TO WHICH

THEY, IN MDCCCXX, AWARDED HER BIENNIAL PRIZE,

IS, WITH GREAT RESPECT, INSCRIBED

BY

THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

WHILE the Author of this work was pursuing his Academical studies in the University of Aberdeen, the Trustees of the late pious and benevolent Mrs BLACKWALL, proposed, as the subject of her Biennial Prize-Essay, the Question" What has been the effect of the Reformation in Religion, on the state of Civil Society in Europe?" A few pages, chiefly with a view to his own improvement, he wrote on this subject, and, unexpectedly to himself, proved the successful Candidate. After his Essay was publicly read in Marischal College, several of those respectable persons who heard it, expressed their desire, that, in consideration of the great importance of the subject, it should be published; but with this desire, on