SECT. III. PART I. CENT. Adrian VI. whose characters and transactions XVI. have been already taken notice of; Clement VII. of the house of Medicis,-Paul III. of the illustrious family of Farnese [c], Julius III. [d]; whose name was John Maria Giocci,-Marcellus II.-Paul IV. [e], whose name, before his [c] The sentiments and character of Paul III. have given rise to much debate, even in our time, especially between the late Cardinal Quirini, and Keisling, Schelhorn, and some other writers. The cardinal has used his utmost efforts to defend the probity and merit of this pontiff; while the two learned men above-mentioned represent him as a perfidious politician, whose predominant qualities were dissimulation and fraud. See Quirinus, De gestis Pauli III. Farnesii Brixiæ, 1745, in 4to. Among the res gesta of Paul III. were two bastards, whose offspring, Farnese and Sforza, were made cardinals in their infancy. See Keislingii Epist. de gestis Pauli III. Schelhorn. Amanitates Hist. Eccles. et Liter. But the licentious exploits of this pope do not end here. He was reproached, in a book published before his death under the name of Ochino, with having poisoned his mother and his nephew, with having ravished a young virgin at Ancona, with an incestuous and adulterous commerce with his daughter Constantia, who died of poison administered by the pope, to prevent any interrup tion in his odious amours. It is said, in the same book, that, being caught in bed with his niece Laura Farnese, who was the wife of Nic. Quercei, he received from this incensed husband a stab of a dagger, of which he bore the marks to his death. See Skeidan, Comment. de Statu Relig. et Republicæ, Carolo Quinto Cæsare, lib. xxi. p. 667. edit. Argentor. [d] This was the worthy pontiff, who was scarcely seated in the papal chair, when he bestowed the cardinal's hat on the keeper of his monkeys, a boy chosen from among the lowest of the populace, and who was also the infamous object of his unnatural pleasures. See Thuan. lib. vi. & xv.-Hof fing. Hist. Eccl. tom. v. p. 572.-and more especially Sleidan, Histor. lib. xxi. Folio, m. 609.-When Julius was reproached by the cardinals for introducing such an unworthy member into the sacred college, a person who had neither learning, nor virtue, nor merit of any kind, he impudently replied by asking them, "What virtue or merit they had found in him, that could induce them to place him (Julius) in the papal chair ?" [e] Nothing could exceed the arrogance and ambition of this violent and impetuous pontiff, as appears from his treatment XVI. SECT. III. PART I. his elevation to the pontificate, was John Peter Ca- CENT. raffa,-Pius IV. who was ambitious of being looked upon as a branch of the house of Medicis, and who had been known, before his promotion, by the name of John Angeli de Medicis,-Pius V. a Dominican, called Michael Ghisleri, a man of an austere and melancholy turn of mind, by which, and other similar qualities, he obtained a place in the kalendar,-Gregory XIII. who was known previously by the name of Hugo Buoncompagno [ƒ], -Sixtus V. otherwise named Felix Peretti di Montalto, who, in pride, magnificence, intrepidity, and strength of mind, and in other great virtues and vices, surpassed by far all his predecessors,-Urban VIII. Gregory XIV. Innocent IX. the shortness of whose reigns prevented them from acquiring reputation, or falling into reproach. Among these pontiffs there were better and worse [g]; but they were all men of exemplary characters, treatment of Queen Elizabeth. See Burnet's History of the Reformation.It was he who, by a bull, pretended to raise Ireland to the privilege and quality of an independent kingdom; and it was he also who first instituted the Index of prohibited books, mentioned above, sect. IX. [f] See Jo. Petr. Maffei Annales Gregorii XIII. Rom. 1742, in 4to. [g] Pius V. and Sixtus V. made a much greater figure in the annals of fame, than the other pontiffs here mentioned; the former on account of his excessive severity against heretics, and the famous bull In Cana Domini, which is read publicly at Rome every year on the Festival of the Holy Sacrament; and the latter, in consequence of many services render ed to the church, and numberless attempts, carried on with spirit, fortitude, generosity, and perseverance, to promote its glory, and maintain its authority.-Several modern writers employed their pens in describing the life and actions of Pius V. so soon as they saw him canonised, in the year 1712, by Clement XI. Of his bull, entitled, In Cana Domini, and the tumults it occasioned, there is an ample account in Giannone's Histoire Civile de Naples, tom. iv. p. 248. The life of Sixtus V. has been written by Gregory Leti, and translated VOL. IV. into PART I. CENT. characters, when compared with the greatest part XVI. of those who governed the church before the ReSECT. III. formation. The number of adversaries, both foreign and domestic, that arose to set limits to the despotism of Rome, and to call in question the authority and jurisdiction of its pontiff, rendered the college of cardinals, and the Roman nobility more cautious and circumspect in the choice of a spiritual ruler; nor did they almost dare, in these critical circumstances of opposition and danger, to entrust such an important dignity to any ecclesiastic, whose bare-faced licentiousness, frontless arrogance, or inconsiderate youth, might render him peculiarly obnoxious to reproach, and furnish thereby new matter of censure to their adversaries. It is also worthy of observation, that from this period of opposition, occasioned by the ministry of the Reformers, the Roman pontiffs have never pretended to such an exclusive authority, as they had formerly usurped; nor could they, in deed, make good such pretensions, were they so extravagant as to avow them. They claim, therefore, no longer a power of deciding, by their single authority, matters of the highest moment and importance; but, for the most part, pronounce according to the sentiments that prevail in the college of cardinals, and in the different congre gations, which are entrusted with their respective parts in the government of the church. Nor do they any more venture to foment divisions in sovereign states, to arm subjects against their rulers, or to level the thunder of their excommunications at the heads of princes. All such proceedings, which were formerly so frequent at the court of Rome, have been prudently suspended since the gradual into several languages; it is however a very indifferent work, and the relations it contains are, in many places, inaccurate and unfaithful. XVI. SECT. III. PART I. of the gradual decline of that ignorance and superstition CENT. that prescribed a blind obedience to the pontiff, and the new degrees of power and authority that monarchs and other civil rulers have gained by the revolutions that have shaken the papal throne. XIV. That part of the body of the clergy, that The state is more peculiarly devoted to the Roman pontiffs, clergy. seemed to have undergone no visible change during this century. As to the bishops, it is certain that they made several zealous attempts, and some even in the council of Trent, for the recovery of the ancient rights and privileges, of which they had been forcibly deprived by the popes. They were even persuaded that the pope might be lawfully obliged to acknowledge, that the episcopal dignity was of divine original, and that the bishops received their authority immediately from Christ himself [h]. But all these attempts were successfully opposed by the artifice and dexterity of the court of Rome, which never cease to propagate and enforce this despotic maxim : "That the bishops are no more than the legates "or ministers of Christ's vicar; and that the au"thority they exercise is entirely derived from "the munificence and favour of the apostolic see :" a maxim, however, that several bishops, and more especially those of France, treat with little respect. Some advantages, however, and those not inconsiderable, were obtained for the clergy at the expence of the pontiffs; for those reservations, provisions, exemptions, and expectatives (as they are termed by the Roman lawyers), which before the Reformation had excited such heavy and bitter complaints throughout all Europe, and exhibited the clearest proofs of papal avarice and tyranny, were now almost totally suppressed. XV. Among 0 2 [h] See Paolo Sarpi's History of the Council of Trent. CENT. SECT. III. and morals of the clergy. XV. Among the subjects of deliberation in the XVI. council of Trent, the reformation of the lives and PART 1. manners of the clergy, and the suppression of the in scandalous vices that had too long reigned in The lives that order, were not forgot; nay, several wise and prudent laws were enacted with a view to that important object. But those who had the cause of virtue at heart, complained (and the reason of these complaints still subsists) that these laws were no more than feeble precepts, without any aveng ing arm to maintain their authority; and that they were transgressed, with impunity, by the clergy of all ranks, and particularly by those who filled the highest stations and dignities of the church. In reality, if we cast our eyes upon the Romish clergy, even in the present time, these complaints will appear as well founded now, as they were in the sixteenth century. In Germany, as is notorious to daily observation, the bishops, if we except their habit, their title, and a few ceremonies that distinguish them, have nothing in their manner of living that is, in the least, adapted to point out the nature of their sacred office. In other countries, a great part of the episcopal order, unmolested by the remonstrances or reproofs of the Roman pontiff, pass their days amidst the pleasures and cabals of courts, and appear rather the slaves of temporal princes, than the servants of Him whose kingdom is not of this world. They court glory; they aspire after riches, while very few employ their time and labours in edifying their people, or in promoting among them the vital spirit of practical religion and substantial virtue. Nay, what is still more deplorable, those bishops, who, sensible of the sanctity of their character and the duties of their office, distinguish themselves by their zeal in the cause of virtue and good morals, are frequently exposed to the malicious efforts of envy, often loaded |