ly hath laid hands on thy church; and I absolve all Christians subject to the empire, from that oath whereby they were wont to plight their faith to true kings; for it is right that he should be bereft of all honour, who is the cause of derogating from the majesty of the church."*

"The quarrels that broke out between the popes and the emperors, caused very great commotions and disorders in the western empire. During these commotions, the popes took occasion to establish their temporal sovereignty in Rome, and endeavoured to make themselves independent of the emperors. Gregory VII. extended his pretensions yet farther, and used his utmost efforts to persuade the world that he was rightful sovereign of the whole universe, as well in civil as in ecclesiastical affairs."†

"In the twelfth century, the popes established their sovereignty at Rome and their independence of the emperor, and even assumed to themselves the right of conferring the imperial crown. They extended their jurisdiction and authority over the churches farther than they had hitherto done, and met with much less opposition in their attempts than in former times. The most part of the councils were called either by them or by their legates, and they were the authors of the constitutions that were made therein, and to which the bishops scarce did any thing else than to give their consent. Appeals to the pope in all sorts of cases, and in favour of all sorts of persons, were become so frequent, that no affair was transacted, the determination of which was not immediately referred to the court of Rome."+

* Plat. in Greg. VII. Rom. 3, p. 484. See Barrow on the Pope's Supremacy, vol. i. p. 542.

+ Du Pin, vol. x. p. 126.

Ibid. vol. ix. p. 117.

Pope Innocent III., in the thirteenth century, maintained that the difference was as great between popes and kings, as between the sun and the moon. Acting on that creed, he disposed, in Asia and Europe, of crowns and sceptres with the most wanton ambition. In Asia, he gave a king to the Armenians. In Europe, he raised to royalty, and constituted as kings, the dukes of Bohemia, of Bulgaria, and Wallachia, and also of Arragon. He crowned, in 1209, the emperor Otho IV. but afterwards denounced him as a rebel against the holy see, anathematized and deposed him; and, in 1212, raised the more compliant Frederic II. to the imperial throne.-In England too, he did according to his will. After the regular election by the convent and confirmation by the king of an archbishop of Canterbury, the authority of the pope was interponed; and he gave his mandate to the monks, with whom the election lay, to make choice of Lanton, and consecrated him to the office. The convent was obsequious, but the king would not obey; and the kingdom was threatened with an interdict. In reluctant submission to an authority greater even in England than his own, the king, John, consented to undo his own act, and to confirm the election of the nominee of the pope; but, preserving some show of regard to the rights of royalty, he protested that he should not be held as thereby abandoning or infringing the prerogatives of the crown. Unconditional acquiescence could alone satisfy the pope; and any defence of his rights on the part of the king, was deemed a daring and unpardonable opposition to the papal will. An interdict was laid upon the kingdom. The churches were shut, the public worship of God was prohibited, because the pope was offended. The dead were not laid in consecrated ground, but were buried in the highways. And the nation lay for three years under

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the interdiction of religious privileges. When the interdict proved unavailing, other means were tried to bring the refractory king to submission; and the throne of England was shaken by the thunders of the vatican. Sentence of excommunication was denounced against John. A bull was issued absolving all his subjects from their oaths of allegiance, and all intercourse with him was forbidden, on pain of excommunication. The right of reigning was held as abrogated, when kings would not obey the vicegerent of him by whom they reigned; the throne of England was pronounced vacant, and all Christian princes were exhorted to dispossess the heretic of his kingdom. A legate of the pope arrived in England, and induced the king, as the only means of saving his dominions, to place them under the protection of the Roman see. "He did homage to Innocent, resigned his crown to the legate, and received it again as a gift from the see of Rome, to which he rendered his kingdoms tributary, and swore fealty as a vassal and feudatory." The legate retained possession for five days, of the crown and of the sceptre; and in the proud and domineering spirit of his master, trampled under his feet the money which, in token of vassalage, was submissively given him by the king. Innocent III. who thus exalted himself above the monarchs of the earth, overlooking more apposite predictions, applied to the Roman pontiff the word of the Lord by Jeremiah i. 10, "See, I have set thee over the nations, and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant."

Innocent IV. held the emperor Frederick II. as his vassal, and, in virtue of his occupying the place and authority of Jesus Christ, bereaved the monarch of all honour and dignity, absolved for ever all who were bound by oath to yield him obedience, and

transmuting an act of sworn fidelity into an unpardonable crime, excommunicated all who would aid him as their monarch.* Pope Boniface VIII. reached the summit of papal arrogancy towards the close of the thirteenth century, and declared himself to be -"King of kings, monarch of monarchs, and sole lord and governor both in spirituals and temporals." The pope exalted and magnified himself above all. And every code on earth is outrivalled by the canon law, in which this decree by Boniface is extant. "We declare, assert, define, and pronounce, that it is essentially necessary to salvation, for every human creature to be subject to the Roman pontiff." He was to do in all things according to his will, and claimed to himself a double sword-the dominion of the church and jurisdiction over all temporal authority. "One sword," says Boniface," must be subservient to another, and the temporal authority must be subject to the spiritual; wherefore if the earthly authority act amiss, it must be subjected to the spiritual." These aphorisms, in illustration, perhaps, of the meekness of his wisdom, and the infallibility of his interpretations, he proves by scriptures, as Barrow remarks," admirably expounded for that purpose." The time was, and long did it continue, when the authority of the pope, and of the church, was not an empty name, nor an idle jest, but the dread of monarchs, the death of martyrs, and the ban of kingdoms. The rise of the papacy was marked and promoted by all deceivableness of unrighteousness; and the gradual assumption and extension of its power may thus be traced through many ages, till the bare recital of a few of the most prominent events becomes wearisome and painful. The mystery of iniquity was long at work ere the hierarchy of Rome was exalted

Pope Innocent III. in Decret. Greg. lib. i. tit. 33, c. 6..

to its height. But no sooner had it reached that high elevation, than the priest's lance was truly raised above both the royal diadem and the imperial crown. The head of that church which vindicates the tenet that the end justifies the means, was as unsparing in the exercise of power, as unscrupulous in regard to the mode of its attainment. The minds of men, throughout many nations, were spell-bound by a strong delusion to believe a lie. And in traversing the dark ages of papal domination, it is painful to behold how the human mind was prostrated by superstitious fears, and how the nominal successors of an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, the light of the world, ruled only to deepen the ignorance by which their own power was upheld.

In addition to the preceding extracts from the canons of councils, and the bulls of popes, it may be enough to shew how the pope did according to his will, and exalted and magnified himself in a manner diverse from that of other kings and above them all, to state, that the emperor Henry IV. stood for the space of three days at the gate of the fortress of Canusium, and, as a humble supplicant, ready to discharge the office of a menial, waited there, bare-headed and bare-footed, with nothing but a coarse cloth to cover him, before his lordly holiness, Hilderbrand, Gregory VII. would grant him absolution. At the command of another pope, Henry II. of England walked bare-footed to do penance at the tomb of Becket. Pope Celestin dashed with his foot the crown of Henry VI. from his head; and, though on somewhat doubtful authority, it has been often said that pope Alexander III. trode upon the neck of the Emperor Frederick I. These acts of marvellous haughtiness, which it would be neither manly nor meet for a king to exercise towards a beggar, would be only tantamount to the marvellous words which, in magnifying himself above all,