death by burning.-And "those who receive, defend, or favour heretics, are to be excommunicated, and if they do not give satisfaction within a year, they become, ipso jure, infamous, inadmissible to any public offices, or councils, not allowed to vote at any elections, nor to give evidence, nor to make a will, nor take an inheritance.”

OBSERVATIONS.

(1.) To this doctrine may be imputed the jealousy of Princes,—the divisions among the people, the fury of civil war. To this we may impute all that interference in the temporal polity of states, on the part of the Popes, and the subsequent resistance of Princes, which has often made the Church of Rome the enemy of the civilized world; and rendered the history of so many ages a continued narrative of tumult, crimes, and bloodshed. The decisions of our judgment, and the principles of our religion, influence men's conduct; and the doctrine that allegiance of any kind is due to the Pope, however guarded and limited, explained and palliated, it may be, has uniformly been productive of misery, by dividing or alienating the attachment and obedience of the people, from the sovereign and laws of their respective countries. Both theory and experience unite to convince the world, that spiritual allegiance, without temporal power, is an utter impossibility; for it is a motive of conduct, and affects, therefore, the happiness of every individual in the whole community.

The Supremacy of the Pope was gradually established-of which the following is a brief outline. As Rome was the principal city in the world, which at first governed the Church, the Bishop of Rome, after the fall of Jerusalem, exercised jurisdiction over greater, nobler, wealthier converts than any Bishop of the empire. Appeals in civil matters were usually brought to Rome, and many strangers consequently resorted from all parts. As the Bishop of Rome was enabled to maintain greater state, and possessed greater influence than others, the custom of civil appeals was made a precedent for ecclesiastical appeals. When the title of Universal Bishop, which Gregory I. had rejected, was

assumed by his ambitious successors, these various precedents were made the law over those churches, which had, hitherto, preserved their independence; until, at length, monarchs were laid prostrate by the exercise of ecclesiastical power. Witness the Emperor, Henry III., dispossessed of his empire, and of the allegiance of his subjects, by the decree of a haughty Pope, who concluded the sentence of deposition in these characteristic terms, "it is meet that he be deprived of dignity, who endeavoureth to diminish the Majesty of the Church." Witness the same Emperor, after he was deposed, waiting in the frost three days, at the entrance of a city where the Pope, " clothed in purple and `fine linen, fared sumptuously every day," while the fallen monarch begged with most abject entreaties, a pardon which he with difficulty, at length, obtained. Even our own Henry II. performed penance at the shrine of a haughty and domineering prelate; and in order to obtain absolution from the ecclesiastical functionaries, was obliged to endure scourging by the whips of monks. Another of our kings was constrained to surrender his regal dignity into the hands of the Pope's representative, and to hold the crown of England as a tributary of the See of Rome. "Is not the King of England our vassal," said the haughty Pontiff, "and I say more, our slave, who can with our nod imprison him, and enslave him to reproach?" Another of the Popes, inflamed with ambition, and maddened by a military spirit, disdaining the employment of weapons not carnal, flung the keys of St. Peter into the Tiber, and declared that henceforward he would wield only the sword of St. Paul.

"What shall we say or think of the Pope's intolerable pride? Can any man then, which either hath or shall read the Popes' lives, justly say that they had the Holy Ghost within them? First, as touching that they will be termed Universal Bishops and Heads of all Christian Churches throughout the world: we have the judgment of Gregory expressly against them; who, writing to Mauritius the Emperor, condemneth John, Bishop of Constantinople, in that behalf, calling him the prince of pride, Lucifer's successor, and the forerunner of Antichrist. St. Bernard also, agreeing thereunto, saith, what greater pride can there be, than that one man should prefer his own judgment before the whole congregation, as though he only had the Spirit of God? And Chrysostom pronounceth a terrible sentence against them; affirming plainly, that whosoever seeketh to be chief on earth shall find confusion in

heaven; and that he which striveth for the supremacy, shall not be reputed among the servants of Christ. Again he saith, to desire a good work, it is good; but to covet the chief degree of honour, it is mere vanity. Do not these places sufficiently evince their outrageous pride, in usurping to themselves a superiority above all others, as well Ministers and Bishops, as Kings also and Emperors?

"But as the lion is known by his claws," so let us learn to know these men by their deeds. What shall we say of him, that made the noble King Dandalus to be tied by the neck with a chain, and to lie flat down before his table, there to gnaw bones like a dog? Shall we think that he had God's Holy Spirit within him, and not rather the spirit of the Devil? Such a tyrant was Pope Clement VI. What shall we say of him, that proudly and contemptuously trod Frederick the Emperor under his feet, applying the verse of the Psalm unto him, "Thou shalt go upon the lion, and the adder, the young lion, and the dragon thou shalt tread under thy feet." Shall we say that he had God's Holy Spirit within him, and not rather the spirit of the Devil? Such a tyrant was Pope Alexander III. What shall we say of him, that armed and animated the son against the father, causing him to be taken and to be cruelly famished to death, contrary to the law both of God, and also of nature? Shall we say that he had God's Holy Spirit within him, and not rather the spirit of the Devil? Such a tyrant was Pope Pascal II. What shall we say of him, that came into his popedom like a fox, that reigned like a lion, and died like a dog? Shall we say that he had God's Holy Spirit within him, and not rather the spirit of the Devil? Such a tyrant was Pope Boniface VIII. What shall we say of him, that made Henry the Emperor, with his wife and his young child, to stand at the gates of the city in rough winter, bare-footed and barelegged, only clothed in linsey woolsey, eating nothing from morning to night, and that for the space of three days? Shall we say that he had God's Holy Spirit within him, and not rather the spirit of the Devil? Such a tyrant was Pope Hildebrand; most worthy to be called a firebrand, if we shall term him as he hath best deserved.

66

Many other examples might here be alleged; as of Pope Joan the Harlot, that was delivered of a child in the high street, going solemnly in procession; of Pope Julius II., that wilfully cast St. Peter's keys into the river Tiberius; of Pope Urban VI., that caused five Cardinals to be

put in sacks, and cruelly drowned; of Pope Sergius III., that persecuted the dead body of Formosus, his predecessor, when it had been buried eight years; of Pope John XIV. of that name, who having his enemy delivered into his hands, caused him first to be stripped stark naked, his beard to be shaven, and to be hanged up a whole day by the hair, then to be set upon an ass, with his face backward toward the tail, to be carried round about the city in despite, to be miserably beaten with rods, last of all, to be thrust out of his country, and to be banished for

ever,

"But to conclude, and make an end, ye shall briefly take this short lesson: wheresoever ye find the spirit of arrogance and pride, the spirit of envy, hatred, contention, cruelty, murder, extortion, witchcraft, necromancy, &c., assure yourselves that there is the spirit of the devil, and not of God, albeit they pretend outwardly to the world never so much holiness.

"Such were all the Popes and Prelates of Rome for the most part; as doth well appear in the story of their lives; and, therefore, they are worthily accounted among the number of false prophets, and false Christs, which deceived the world a long while. The Lord of heaven and earth defend us from their tyranny and pride, that they never enter into his vineyard again, to the disturbance of his silly poor flock; but that they may be utterly confounded and put to flight, in all parts of the world."-Hom. for Whitsunday.

(2.) Bellarmine's (De Rom. Pont. Lib. IV. c. 3.) elucidation of this power is as follows: "That the Pope cannot err, when teaching the whole Church in a matter of faith, or delivering precepts of morals, which are prescribed to the whole Church, and which relate to matters necessary to salvation, or good or evil in themselves. He is the judge of controversies, and his judgment is certain and infallible." Hence, it is a point universally admitted in the Catholic Church, that, as Bishops in their own Dioceses, so the Pope throughout the whole Church, can make laws which bind the conscience.

(3.) That this is no unmeaning claim will appear evident to those who recollect the case of Childeric III., whom Zachary, at the solicitation of Pepin, deposed. The deposition of John, King of England, by

4

4

Innocent III., was a practical comment on that extravagant maxim, "That no Princes or Bishops, Civil Governors, or Ecclesiastical Rulers, have any lawful power, in Church or State, but what they derive from the Pope." Bellarmine's summary of the matter of the Pope's temporal power is this, "That when on the same point, the laws of the State and those of the Pope are found to be contrary, if the matter of the law concern the danger of souls, the law of the State is abrogated by that of the Pope: but when the matter of the law is a temporal thing, not concerning the danger of souls, the law of the Pope cannot abrogate the law of the State, but both are to be kept, the one in foro ecclesiastico, the other in foro civili."

(4.) That the supremacy of the Roman Pontiff was unknown in the beginning of the fourth century, may be inferred from the following Extracts from St. Jerome in Ess. Evangel. tom. V. p. 802. "Wheresoever there is a Bishop, be it at Rome, at Eugubrium, at Constantinople, or at Rhegium, at Alexandria or at Taxis, he is of the same worth, and of the same priesthood; the power of wealth, and the lowliness of poverty render not a Bishop more high or low; for all of them are successors of the Apostles." It is also undeniable that for 600 years after Christ, no Church of Christ in the world believed any Pope of Rome to be universal Bishop, and no Pope claimed it. The Bishop of Rome, from his station and influence, sometimes assumed a tone of authority and power; but no Bishop of Rome ever attempted to interfere in the regulations of any other Churches, till the dispute arose about the time of keeping Easter. Victor, then Bishop, took upon him to censure the Churches of Asia on this subject; but not only did they despise and disregard this intrusion, but Irenæus, in the name of the Churches of France, as well as other Bishops, as Eusebius the historian tells us, sharply reproved him. Stephen went farther in the year 250, and attempted to restore two Bishops that had been deposed; but the Churches of Spain and Africa, with Cyprian at their head, opposed and frustrated his attempt. Soon after, a controversy arose between Stephen and Cyprian, about the rebaptizing of those who had been baptized by heretics; Stephen excommunicated Cyprian and the African Churches,— that is to say, he withdrew from their communion; but they despised his censures, and were joined by the whole of the Eastern Churches. So