its place another body of laws, more advantageous to the papacy, which were imposed upon his subjects under the title of the Concordate, and received with the utmost indignation and reluctance.

The avarice of the popes.

VIII. The raging thirst of dominion that consumed these pontiffs, and their arrogant endeavours to crush and oppress all that came within the reach of their power, were accompanied with the most insatiable avarice. All the provinces of Europe were, in a manner, drained to enrich these ghostly tyrants, who were perpetually gaping after new accessions of wealth, in order to augment the number of their friends and the stability of their dominion. And indeed, according to the notions commonly entertained, the rulers of the church seemed to have a fair enough pretext, from the nature of their character, to demand a sort of tribute from their flock; for none can deny to the supreme governors of any state, and such was the character assumed by the popes, the privilege of levying tribute from those over whom they bear rule. But as the name of tribute was every way proper to alarm the jealousy and excite the indignation of the civil magistrate, the pontiffs were too cunning to employ it, and had recourse to various stratagems and contrivances to rob the subject without shocking the sovereign, and to levy taxes under the specious mask and pretext of religion. Among these contrivances, the distribution of indulgences, which enabled the wealthy to purchase impunity for their crimes by certain sums applied to religious uses, held an eminent rank. This traffic of indulgences was constantly renewed whenever the coffers of the church were exhausted. On these

The king went in person to the parliament to offer the Concordate to be registered, and letters patent were made out requiring all the judges and courts of justice to observe this act, and see it executed. The parliament, after deliberating a month upon this important matter, concluded not to register the Concordate, but to observe still the Pragmatic Sanction, unless the former edict was received and established in as great an assembly as that was, which published the latter in the reign of Charles VII. And when by violence and force they were obliged to publish the Concordate, they joined to this publication a solemn protest, and an appeal from the pope to the next general council, into both which measures the university and the clergy entered with the greatest alacrity and zeal. But royal and papal despotism at length prevailed. The chancellor De Prat, who was principally concerned in promoting the Concordate, has generally been regarded as an enemy to the liberties of the Gallican church. The illustrious and learned president Hainault has not, however, hesitated to defend his memory against this accusation, and to justify the Concordate as an equitable contract, and as a measure attended with less inconveniences than the Pragmatic Sanction. He observes, that by the king's being invested, by the Concordate, with the privilege of nominating to the bishoprics and vacant benefices of the first class, many corruptions and abuses were prevented, which arose from the simoniacal practices that prevailed almost everywhere, while, according to the Pragmatic Sanction, every church chose its bishop, and every mo

nastery its abbot. He observes, moreover, that this nomination was the natural right of the crown, as the most considerable part of the great benefices had been created by the kings of France, and he insists particularly on this consideration, that the right which Christian communities have to choose their leaders, cannot be exercised by such large bodies without much confusion and many inconveniences; and that the subjects, by entrusting their sovereign with the government of the state, invest him, ipso facto, with an authority over the church, which is a part of the state, and its noblest branch. See Hainault, Abrégé Chronologique de l'Histoire de France, in the particular remarks that are placed at the end of the reign of Lewis XIV.

The most specious objection that was made to the Concordate was this: that in return for the nomination to the vacant benefices, the king granted to the popes the annates, or first-fruits, which had so long been complained of as an intolerable grievance. There is, however, no mention of this equivalent in the Concordate. And it was by a papal bull that succeeded this compact, that the pontiffs claimed the payment of the first-fruits, of which they had put themselves in possession in the year 1316, and which had been suspended by the Pragmatic Sanction. See the Histoire du Droit Ecclésiastique François. As this substitution of the Concordate, in the place of the Pragmatic Sanction, was a most important transaction, and had a very great influence upon the minds of the English, the translator judged it necessary to give here, some account of that matter.

occasions, they were recommended warmly to the ignorant multitude under some new, specious, yet fallacious pretext, and were greedily sought after, to the great detriment both of individuals and of the community.

The pope's authority held inferior to that of a council.

IX. Notwithstanding the veneration and homage that was almost every where paid to the Roman pontiffs, they were far from being universally reputed infallible in their decisions, or unlimited in their authority. The wiser part of the German, French, Flemish, and British nations, considered them as liable to error, and bounded by law. The councils of Constance and Basil had contributed extremely to rectify the notions of the people in that respect; and from that period all Christians, except the superstitious monks and parasites of Rome, were persuaded that the pope was subordinate to a general council, that his decrees were not infallible, and that the council had a right to depose him, whenever he was convicted of gross errors or enormous crimes. Thus were the people in some measure prepared for the reformation of the church; and hence that ardent desire, that earnest expectation of a general council, which filled the minds of the wisest and best Christians in this century. Hence, also, those frequent appeals that were made to this approaching council, when the court of Rome issued out any new edict, or made any new attempt repugnant to the dictates of piety and justice.

The corruption of

Nor

X. The licentious examples of the pontiffs were zeathe lower orders lously imitated in the lives and manners of the subordinate of the clergy. rulers and ministers of the church. The greatest part of the bishops and canons passed their days in dissolute mirth and luxury, and squandered away, in the gratification of their lusts and passions, the wealth that had been set apart for religious and charitable purposes. were they less tyrannical than voluptuous; for the most despotic princes never treated their vassals with more rigour and severity, than these ghostly rulers employed towards all such as were under their jurisdiction. The decline of virtue among the clergy was attended with the loss of the public esteem; and the most considerable part of that once-respected body became, by their sloth and avarice, their voluptuousness and impurity, their ignorance and levity, contemptible and infamous, not only in the eye of the wise and good, but also in the universal judgment of the multitude.i Nor could the case be otherwise as matters were now constituted; for, as all the offices and dignities of the church were become venal every where, the way of preferment was inaccessible to merit, and the wicked and licentious were rendered capable of rising to the highest ecclesiastical honours. The state of the XI. The prodigious swarms of monks that overspread monastic orders. Europe were universally considered as cumberers of the ground, and occasioned murmurs and complaints every where. And, nevertheless, such was the genius of the age, of an age that was but just emerging from the thickest gloom of ignorance, and was suspended, as it were, in a dubious situation between darkness and light, that these monastic drones would have remained undisturbed, had they taken the least pains to preserve any remains even of the external air of decency and religion, that used to distinguish them in former times. But the Benedictine and the other monkish fraternities, who were invested with the privilege of possessing certain lands and revenues, broke through all restraint, made the worst possible use of their opulence, and forgetful of the gravity of their character, and of the laws of their order, rushed headlong into the

iSee Cernelii Aurelii Gaudani Apocalypsis, sen Visio Mirabilis super miserabili Statu Matris Ecclesiæ, in Caspar. Burmanni Aualect.

Hist. de Hadriano VI. p. 245, printed in 4to at Utrecht in 1727.

shameless practice of vice in all its various kinds and degrees. On the other hand, the Mendicant orders, and especially those who followed the rule of St. Dominic and St. Francis, though they were not carried away with the torrent of licentiousness that was overwhelming the church, yet they lost their credit in a different way; for their rustic impudence, their ridiculous superstitions, their ignorance, cruelty, and brutish manners, alienated from them the minds of the people, and diminished their reputation from day to day. They had the most barbarous aversion to the arts and sciences, and expressed a like abhorrence of certain eminent and learned men, who endeavoured to open the paths of science to the pursuits of the studious youth, recommended the culture of the mind, and attacked the barbarism of the age in their writings and in their discourse. This is sufficiently evident from what happened to Reuchlinus, Erasmus, and other learned men. XII. Among all the monastic orders, none enjoyed a The Dominicans. higher degree of power and authority than the Dominican friars, whose credit was great, and their influence universal. This will not appear at all surprising, when we consider that they filled very eminent stations in the church, presided every where over the terrible tribunal of the inquisition, and had the care of souls with the function of confessors, in all the courts of Europe; a circumstance this, which, in these times of ignorance and superstition, manifestly tended to put the most of the European princes in their power. But notwithstanding all this credit and authority, the Dominicans had their enemies; and about this time their influence began to decline. Nay, several marks of perfidy, that appeared in the measures they employed to extend their authority, exposed them justly to the public indignation. Nothing could be more infamous than the frauds they practised to accomplish their purposes, as may be seen, among other examples, by the tragedy they acted at Bern, in the year 1509. They

This most impious fraud is recorded at length by Ruchet, at the end of the sixth volume of his Histoire de la Reformation en Suisse; and also by Hottinger, in his Histor. Eccles. Helvet, tom. p. 334. There is also a compendious, but distinct, narration of this infernal stratagem, in Bishop Burnet's Travels through France, Italy, Germany, and Switzerland, p. 31. The stratagem in question was the consequence of a rivalship between the Franciscans and Dominicans, and more especially of their controversy concerning the immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. The former maintained, that she was born without the blemish of original sin the latter asserted the contrary. The doctrine of the Franciscans, in an age of darkness and superstition, could not but be popular; and hence the Dominicans lost ground from day to day. To support the credit of their order, they resolved, at a chapter held at Vimpsen in the year 1504, to have recourse to fictitious visions and dreams, in which the people at that time had an easy faith; and they determined to make Bern the scene of their operations. A person named Jetzer, who was extremely simple, and much inclined to austerities, and who had taken their habit as a lay brother, was chosen as the instrument of the delusions they were contriving. One of the

four Dominicans, who had undertaken the management of this plot, conveyed himself secretly into Jetzer's cell, and about midnight appeared to him in a horrid figure, surrounded with howling dogs, and seemed to blow fire from his nostrils, by the means of a box of combustibles which he held near his mouth. In this frightful form he approached Jetzer's bed, told him that he was the ghost of a Dominican, who had been killed at Paris, as a judgment of heaven for laying aside his monastic habit; that he was condemned to purgatory for this crime; adding, at the same time, that, by his means, he might be rescued from his misery, which was beyond expression. This story, accompanied with horrible cries and howlings, frightened poor Jetzer out of the little wits he had, and engaged him to promise to do all that was in his power to deliver the Dominican from his torment. Upon this the impostor told him, that nothing but the most extraordinary mortifications, such as the discipline of the whip, performed during eight days by the whole monastery, and Jetzer's lying prostrate in the form of one crucified in the chapel during mass, could contribute to his deliverance. He added, that the performance of these mortifications would draw down upon Jetzer the peculiar protection of the Blessed Virgin and con

were perpetually employed in stigmatizing, with the opprobrious mark of Heresy, numbers of learned and pious men, in encroaching upon the rights and properties of others to augment their possessions, and in laying the

most iniquitous snares and stratagems for the destruction of their adversaries. And they were the principal counsellors, by whose instigation and advice Leo X. was determined to that most rash and imprudent measure, even the public condemnation of Luther.

The state of learn

XIII. The principal places in the public schools of learning, and of the ing were filled very frequently by monks of the Mendipublic schools. cant orders. This unhappy circumstance prevented their emerging from that ignorance and darkness which had so long enveloped them and it also rendered them inaccessible to that auspicious light of improved science, whose salutary beams had already been felt in several of the European provinces. The instructors of youth, dignified with the venerable titles of Artists, Grammarians, Physicians, and Dialecticians, loaded the memories of their laborious pupils with a certain quantity of barbarous terms, arid and senseless distinctions, and scholastic precepts, delivered in the most inelegant style; and all such as could repeat this jargon with a certain readiness and rapidity, were considered as men of uncommon eloquence and erudition. The whole body of the philosophers extolled Aristotle beyond all measure, while scarcely any studied him, and none understood him. For what was now exhibited as the philosophy of that famous Grecian sage, was really nothing more than a confused and motley heap of obscure notions, sentences, and divisions, which even the public doctors and heads of schools were unable to comprehend. And if, among these thorns of scholastic wisdom, there was any thing that had the appearance of fruit, it was crushed and blasted by the furious wranglings and disputes of the Scotists and Thomists, the Realists and Nominalists, whose clamours and contentions were unhappily heard in all the European academies.

logy.

The state of theo- XIV. The wretched and senseless manner of teaching theology in this century may be learned from many books yet extant, which were written by the divines it produced, and which, in reality, have no other merit than their enormous bulk. The expositors of the holy scriptures were very few in number during this century; and there were scarcely any of the Christian doctors that had a critical knowledge of the sacred oracles. This kind of knowledge was so rare, that when Luther arose there could not be found, even in the university of Paris, which was considered the first and most famous of all the public schools of learning, a single person qualified to dispute with him, or oppose his doctrine upon a scripture foundation. Any commentators, that were at this time to be found, were such as, laying aside all attention to the true meaning and force of the words of

immediately. At another time they poisoned the host, or consecrated wafer, but as he vomited it up soon after he swallowed it, he escaped once more. In short, there were no means of securing him, which the most detestable impiety and barbarity could invent, that they did not put in practice, till finding at last an opportunity of getting out of the convent, he threw himself into the hands of the magistrates, to whom he made a full discovery of this infernal plot. The affair being brought to Rome, commissaries were sent from thence to examine the matter; and the whole cheat being fully proved, the four friars were solemnly degraded from their priesthood, and were burned alive, on the last day of May, 1509. Jetzer died some time after at Con

scripture, which their profound igno- .

stance, having poisoned himself, as was believed by some. Had his life been taken away before he had found an opportunity of making the discovery already mentioned, this execrable and horrid plot, which, in many of its circumstances, was conducted with art, would have been handed down to posterity as a stupendous miracle. This is a very brief account of the matter; such as are desirous of a more circumstantial relation of this famous imposture, may consult the authors mentioned in the beginning of this note.

See Bilib. Pirkheimeri Epistola ad Hadrianum Pontif. Maxim. de Dominicanorum Flagitiis, in Opp. ejus, p. 372. This letter is also to be found in Gerdesii Introd. ad Histor. Renovati Evangelii, tom. i. p. 170, Append.