far was the Church of Rome from being the centre of unity to the whole Church of Christ, that there was not even admitted a right of appeal to her, as to a superior authority. The Epistles of St. Cyprian are most copious on this subject.

When Christianity became the established religion of the empire, the Bishops of Rome, the Imperial city, and seat of government, increased in influence, their judgment was courted, and the way was prepared for the antichristian usurpations that followed: yet even in the sixth century, after the seat of empire had been transferred from Rome to Constantinople, and the Bishops of Constantinople in consequence rivalled the Bishops of Rome, in the unholy contest for dominion,-even then, when John, Bishop of Constantinople, under the auspices of the Emperor Maurice, assumed the title of Universal Bishop,-Pope Gregory, surnamed the Great, wrote to the Emperor, remonstrating against it as an unchristian usurpation, and declaring that he who should assume it, was "either antichrist or his forerunner." And writing to John, he said, "What wilt thou answer unto Christ, who is the true head of the universal church, in the day of judgment, seeing that by this name, Universal, thou seekest to enthral all the members of his body to thyself? Whom dost thou imitate herein, save Lucifer, who, in contempt of those legions of angels who were his fellows, sought to mount aloft to the top of singularity, where he might be subject to none, and all might be subject to him?" (See Greg. Epist.) By and by, this Maurice was dethroned and murdered by Phocas, one of his own centurions; and Pope Boniface III., the second in succession after Gregory, obtained from Phocas the murderer, in the year 606, the right that the Church of Rome should thenceforth be the head of all other Churches, and the Bishop of Rome be called Sovereign and Universal Bishop. Thus six hundred years elapsed before the claims of the Church of Rome to supremacy were admitted, and these claims were sanctioned-not by the Lord Jesus Christ, but by the Emperor Phocas, who waded to the throne through the blood of his master. For the establishment of these claims, the gradual corruptions of six centuries were requisite. Thus, in what way soever we contemplate the subject, we find the claims of the Pope of Rome, as opposed to the authority of Jesus Christ as they are contrary to the rights of conscience, and hostile to the interests of religion. It is ground of rejoicing that the diffusion of the

ear,

Scriptures, and the progress of scriptural knowledge, are fast dissipating that darkness in which, and in which only, the unscriptural claims of the Popedom could have been admitted and sanctioned. Men are beginning to disregard usage and custom, and to ask, What saith the Scripture?-assured that Jesus Christ and his Apostles are better guides than antiquity, with its Canons and its Councils. Let this spirit be perpetuated, and that event is not far distant, of which the tidings break upon the Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen: the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ.” We may pause here, (says Dr. Grier,) in order to take a brief retrospect of the regular, though slow advances of the Bishops of Rome to sovereign power. While the Church continued militant, her chief Pastors were strangers to ambition, and only to be distinguished by the holiness of their lives: but as soon as its first dignities were accompanied with honour and reward, the Bishops of Rome, and of the other great cities, Constantinople, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Antioch, began to raise themselves each above the other. In this race of ambition, many causes concurred to give the Bishop of Rome the ascendancy over his brethren of the East.

Thus, to begin with the reign of Justinian :

At the period in which Belisarius was engaged in the extirpation of the Arians in the West, some of the northern Kings, who had penetrated into Italy, entered into the Romish Communion, after they became converts to Christianity. The royal Ethelbert, of England, followed their example. In the commencement of the seventh century Mahomet appeared, and threatened the Emperor of the East with destruction, which his followers were afterwards able to effect. These two extrinsic causes operated materially to the advantage of the Romish See.

For the internal causes, we must look to the conduct of the Pontiffs themselves. Passing over the assumption of Universal Bishop, as of itself it imparted no power; we find Stephen III., in the eighth century, raised to the rank of a temporal Prince, by Pepin, King of France. This Monarch, having afforded him the assistance he sought for against the Lombards, after his conquest over them, put him in possession of the territory he had retaken. Charlemagne confirmed the donation of his father.

The next step which led to a further aggrandizement of the Roman

See, was on Pope Stephen's appointment as judge of the disputes which arose between the grandsons of Charlemagne, on the right of inheritance. The Bishop of Rome became then in reality a Sovereign, when recognised as an arbiter between temporal Princes. It had, in fact, been his uniform practice from the earliest age, to act in the capacity of judge, when disputes ran high on controverted points. On those occasions he decided, not according to the merits of the case, but in favour of those who were most submissive to his authority; so that between whomsoever the dissension arose, he took care to turn it to his own advantage. Papal ambition was also at this time aided by the appearance of false Decretals, which, being admitted as authentic, tended to detach Bishops from the jurisdiction of their respective Metropolitans, and make them dependent on the Roman See.

But what finally and firmly established the power of those spiritual monarchs, arose from the abject servility of Charles the Bald, one of Charlemagne's descendants, who loaded with splendid gifts John VIII., no less a personage, according to some authors, than Pope Joan herself; in order that he might receive at her hands the Imperial Diadem! From this time forward the Roman Pontiffs, elevated to the rank, and possessing the power of temporal Princes, contemptuously slighted the authority to which they had hitherto crouched. Hence arose violent contests between Popes and Emperors: the former discharging their spiritual artillery in the form of excommunication, anathema, and the dissolution of the ties of allegiance, which bound the subject to his Sovereign;—and the latter, in retaliation, imprisoning and deposing their opponents; or, what was no less galling to them, setting up rival claimants to the Pontifical Chair. Thus did they inflict on each other the most deadly wounds. In the midst of this fermentation, was engendered the furious Hildebrand, who, while yet in a private capacity, had the address to prevail on Nicholas II., whom he seated on the Papal Throne, to ordain that the election of Pope should be confined to the Bishops and Curates of the city of Rome; (all of whom assumed the title of Cardinals;) a step, by which the rights of both the Emperor and his subjects were trampled on, and the civil, brought under the control of ecclesiastical, authority.

Ignorance and superstition now became the order of the day with the lords of the Vatican: knowing, as they did, that they were the most

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effectual way of keeping from public view their crimes and usurpations. The degenerate Monks contributed their share to this work of darkness. While it lasted, no heresy appeared, no controversy took place; because none thought differently from the See of Rome: the people contented themselves in yielding an implicit faith to what was delivered from the pulpit, without enquiry as to the nature of it. Passive obedience to the Roman Pontiff being the leading principle of the religion of the age; there was no necessity for any mental exercise whatever. In a word, at that period, there was no such thing as thinking. As might be expected, the humility and piety, which constituted the chief ornaments of the clerical character in the early ages of the Church, became gradually fainter, according as the restraints on it were removed; until the tenth age witnessed their entire disappearance.

On the general character and conduct of the Roman Pontiffs, Mr. Southey observes, The learned Jews, says South, still made this one of the ingredients that went to constitute a Prophet, that he should be perfectus in moralibus, a person of exact morals, and unblamable in his life; the gift of prophecy being a ray of such a light as never darts itself upon a dunghill.

Can we suppose, if the Roman Pontiff were what his advocates represent him, that less would be required for a Pope than for a prophet? Might it not be expected that heaven would so far interfere in the choice of its own accredited representative and plenipotentiary on earth, as always to provide, that the election should fall upon one whose former life had been at least blameless; or, by an unequivocal manifestation of its consent, that it should have made regeneration a necessary consequence of the appointment; so that the newly created Pope with the title of Holiness should receive the grace, and put on sinless perfection as well as Infallibility with his pontificals? If God delivered over the power and dominion in heaven as well as earth to the Roman Pontiff; if that Pontiff be indeed the living and oracular depositary of the faith, the unerring expounder of what is written, and the sure preserver of those unwritten interpretations and additions which in the Romish Church are held of equal authority with Scripture,-if upon the Pope, under God, the salvation of all the faithful depends,-is it possible that these stupendous prerogatives should co-exist with imbecility, with vice, with flagitious profligacy,—with flagrant unbelief? Would the offence have

been less for Cossa or Borgin to take upon themselves such an office, than for Uzzah to approach the ark! The Holy Ghost, says Bishop Taylor, never dwells in the house of passion. Will it dwell with ambition, with avarice, with impiety, with all the Cardinal sins? For in their company the Holy Spirit must have dwelt-with all these sins in monstrous hypostasis it must have been united, if the pretensions of the Papal Church were true.

It is not through these broken conduits, through these sinks and sewers that we can be content to receive the waters of life! We drink of them at the living well, at the fountain head, at the Rock of Scripture, from whence they flow pure, and will for ever flow. In Scripture it was that the truths of Christianity were preserved when the Popes were, what Baronius confesses them to have been, monsters of wickedness; when, in St. Bernard's words, "they had wolves instead of sheep for their flock, and Rome was the Devil's own pasture." It is not there that we must look for that Church to which the promise was made, nor for the head of that Church who made it. That Church is neither to be found under the Eastern Patriarch nor the Western Pope. It existed among the Pyrenees and the Alps, where the Albigenses have been destroyed with fire and sword, and where, at this day, the Vaudois, in patience and in poverty, bear testimony to the Gospel. It existed in Bohemia and in Britain; wherever two or three were gathered together in their Saviour's name, wherever the covenant of grace was accepted in meekness and in truth. It existed even among heretics and monks and friars, -more erring than all heretics,-wherever the errors of belief were involuntary and unavoidable, wherever the sacrifice was offered of a broken spirit and of a contrite heart. There was the Church of Christ; not in the ship of St. Peter when that ship was manned by pirates, or floating at the mercy of the winds upon the Dead Sea, while the crew were carousing with harlots, or engaged in brawls and blood. If the gates of hell could have prevailed against the Church, it would have been by the agency of such a crew; and if by means of crusades, inquisitions, leagues, massacres, conspiracies, assassinations, and armadas, they had prevailed, and the Reformation had been suppressed, England would now have been what Spain and Italy are, divided between superstition and atheism, in a state of moral leprosy and intellectual darkness.

(5.) But the Churches of Jerusalem and Antioch existed before