THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES WORKS BY THE REV. J. A. WYLIE, LL.D. I. THE PAPACY ; its History, Dogmas, Genius, and I'ro- SPECTS. Being the Evangelical Alliauce Prize Essay on Popery. Demy 8vo, cloth, price 8s. 6d. \_Fourth Edition. Opinions of the Press. " The book of the age on the question."— iJei'. Mr. Broclclehurst, in Com Exchange, Manchester. " It would be difficult to determine which to admire most — the breadth and comprehensiveness of the plan, the method of the argument, the clearness and copiousness of the details, the vividness and tact of the gi'ouping, the fine healthy air of its high Christian philosophy, or the vigjrous eloquence, rich imagery, and moral earnestness of its style." — Glasgow Constitutional . "Dr. Wylie's volume is learned, philosophical, and eloquent." — British Quarterly Review. " This able and finished production combines at once the rare qualities of clear statement, vigorous logic, and eloquent style. Its tone and spirit are worthy of an Evangelical Alliance." — Baptist Magazine. II. PILGRIMAGE FROM THE ALPS TO THE TIBER ; or, THE Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge. Post 8vo, price 6s. 6d. [Second Thoiisand. CONTENTS. 1. The Introduction. 2. The Passage of the Alps. 3. Rise and Progress of Constitutionalism in Piedmont. 4. Structure and Characteristics of the Vaudois Valleys. 5. State and Prospects of the Vaudois Church. 6. From Turin to Novara — Plain of Lombardy. 7. From No vara to Milan - — Dogana — Chain of the Alps. 8. City and People of Milan. 9. Ai'co della Pace — St. Ambrose. 10. The Duomo of Milan. 11. Milan to Brescia — The Reformers. 12. The Present the Image of the Past. 13. Scenery of Lake Garda-^Peschiera— Verona. 14. From Verona to Venice — The Tyi'olese Alps. 15. Venice. — Death of Nations. 16. Pachia — St. Anthony — The Po — Arrest. 17. Ferrara — Eenee and Olympia Morata. 18. Bologna and the Apennines. 19. Florence and its Young Evangelism. 20. From Leghorn to Rome — Civita Vecchia. 21. Modern Rome. 22. Ancient Rome — The Seven Hills. 23. Sights in Rome — - Catacombs— Pilate's Stairs — Pio Nono, &c. 24. Influence of Romanism on Trade. 25. Influence of Romanism on Trade — (continued). 26. Justice and Liberty in the Papal States. 27. Education and Knowledge in the Papal States. 28. Mental State of the Priesthood in Italy. 29. Social and Domestic Customs of the Romans. 30. The Argument from the whole ; or, Rome her own Witness. Opinions of the Press. " We are presented with the gist of the Popish controversy, freshened by new and very striking examples, and lightened by amusing incident and graphic description." — -Hugh Miller. " The Pilgrimage, both in matter and expression, is by far the most finished performance of the sort that has ever issued from the pen of an English traveller. I was unspeakably interested in its perusal, and in the sublime and awful delineations which it gives of the effect of the doctrines of Anti- christ in the very centre of the Papal dominions." — Eev. Dr. Campbell of London. "Replete with interest." — Athenceum. London : HAMILTON, ADAMS, & CO. Edinburgh : A. ELLIOT, 15 Princes Street. III. THE C4REAT EXODUS; or, "The Time of the End. How NEAR ARE WE TO IT ?" Price 6s. 6d. [Second Thousand. Opinions of the Press. " Dr. Wylie does not follow the ordinary beaten path so commonly trodden by the feet of ' students of prophecy.' He is neither literalist, spiritualist, nor futurist. He thinks out of his own method, and follows his own course, and is rather, if we might coin a word, a typologist. His scheme of inter- pretation is worked out with great skill, precision, and clearness." — London jRecord. " This work is not only one of great ability, but it is in many respects a remarkable production : it is so with regard to the amount of research which is everywhere visible in its pages : it is, too, a remarkable work, viewed in relation to the hypothesis, if we may use the word, which the volume develops, and which is so ably supi)orted. In many respects Dr. Wylie differs on important points connected with prophecy, and with the past history of the Church, from most, if not all, of our most popular writers on prophetic questions. . . . The style of the work is, indeed, from the beginning to the end, characterized by great affluence. It is one of the most interesting and valuable which has appeared for a long time past on the subject of prophecy, and is destined to occupy a permanent place in the category i^f our Protestant theology." — London Morning Advertiser. IV. ROME AND CIVIL LIBERTY ; or, The Papal Aggres- sion IN Its Relation to the Sovereignty of the Queen AND the Independence of the Nation. Price 2s. 6d. \TioeIfth Thousand. Opinions of the Press. " The author's charge is not that our statesmen have tolerated the religion of the Pope, but that they have sanctioned the jurisdiction of the Pope : not that they have permitted the spread of another faith, but that they have permitted the erection of another government. This is a serious charge ; but the most serious part of the matter is that it is here substantiated, not by a process of reasoning, but by a statement of facts. None can rise from a perusal of these facts without a profound apprehension of the dangers that threaten our liberties. To all who would see how Popery is playing its master-trick of shrouding the stiletto, meant for the heart of British freedom, under the garb of religion, we earnestly recommend the study of this eloquent volume." — British and Foreign Evangelical Review. " As an able and eloquent expositor of the principles and working of the Papacy, Dr. Wylie has earned for himself a reputation second to none of our living authorities. . . . This volume is necessarily somewhat miscellaneous ; but it has the unity of principle as a display of Romanism in one of its leading peculiarities — this, namely, that it is not properly a religion, but rather a system that knows nothing of the separation of things political, civil, temporal, from things spiritual. It goes fully into the whole matter of the rise, growth, and gradual evolution of the Papal Aggression, and shows its true bearing on all (piestions affecting both civil and religious liberty. If anything could open the eyes of our statesmen to the madne.ss of the course they are pursuing with so eager speed, surely the facts so eloquently expounded by Dr. Wylie might do 80." — London Ricord. London : HAMILTON, ADAMS, & CO. Edinburgh : A. ELLIOT, 15 Princes Street. THE PAPACY; ITS HISTORY, DOGMAS, GENIUS, AND PROSPECTS : BEING THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE FIRST PPJZE ESSAY ON POPERY. BY THE REV. J. A. WYLIE, LL.D., AUTHOR OP "ROME AND CIVIL LIBERTY," "THE AWAKENING OF ITALY," ETC. "Causa latet, vis est notissima." — Ovid. " Ovpai'O) 6JTi)ptfe Kapyj, /cai ctti \6ovi, /Satvei. " — HOMER. FOURTH EDITION. LONDON : HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. EDINBURGH : ANDREW ELLIOT. 1867. i*RINTED BY R. SANSON, HORSE WYND, NORTH COLLEGE STREET, EDINBURGH. TO THE PKESIDENT AND JJEMIiERS OF THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE, THIS ESSAY, AND NOW PUBLISHED UNDER THEIR AUSPICES, IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR. 1350503 EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE. COMMITTEE OF THE GLASGOW SUB-DIVISION. Excerpt from Minute of Meeting on March 25, 1851. The Report of the Adjudicators of the Prizes for Essays on Popery was received and read as follows : — " We the undersigned having been requested to act as Adjudicators of Prizes proposed for Essays on Popery by the Committee of the Evangeli- cal Alliance, are unanimously of opinion,— " That ihe first prize should be awarded to the Essay marked No. 6, hav- ing the motto, 'Causa latet, vis est notissima.' — Otid. 'Owjavft; iiTTr.pi^i xa^ri, Kai i-ri ^6'ovi ;3a/v£;.' — Homer. " That the second prize should be awarded to the Essay marked No. 5, liaving the motto, 2 Thess. ii. 3. E. G, B. " And that the third pmze should be awarded to the Essay marked No. 4, having the motto, ' 'EXiv^soiav ai/ToT; i'JrccyyiXXofitviij, awroi OoZXoi vTap^ovrtg Tns ipSopa,;.^ — ^■jTiffToXvi TliT^ou, B. ii. 19. • For now the field is not far oflF, Where we must give the world a proof Of deeds, not words, and such as suit Another manner of dispute.' — Hudibras. (Signed) " Ralph Wardlaw, " War. Cunningham. *■ John Eadie. " Murcli 21, 1851. "The sealed letters bearing the above mottos were then opened by the Chairman and read, from which it appeared that the following gentlemen were the successful Essayists, viz. :— First Prize Essay, The Rev. J. A. Wylie, Edinburgh. Second Prize Essay, The Rev. Rohert Gault, Killyleagh, County Down, Ireland. Third Prize Essay. The Rev. James Bryce, Free Church of Scotland, Aberdeen. The Secretaries were instructed to communicate the result of this ad- judication to the writers of the Essays, and to the Committee of Council in London, recommending that the First of the Essays be published under the sanction of the Alliance." CONTENTS. BOOK I. HISTORY OF THP: PAPACY. CHAPTER I. ORIGIN OF THE PAPACY. Extent of the Subject. — State of the Greek, Roman, aud Jewish Worlds. — Materializing Influences. — ^^Danger to Christianity there- from. — Transition from the Symbolic to the Spiritual. — Inability of the World to make the Transition in one Age. — Theory of Hu- man Progress. — Tendency to a Revival of the Old Paganisms. — The Magian, the Greek, the Roman Idolatries unite under a Chris- tian Form. — Popery revived Paganism I CHAPTER ir. RISE AND PROGRESS OF ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY. Original Equality of Pastors. — Rome gives Pre-eminence to her Pas- tor. — Provincial Councils. — Church and State assimilated in Fourth Century. — Rise of ^Metropolitans.^ — The Four Patriarchs. — Incorpo- ration and Co-ordination. — Reference of Disputes to Rome.— Grow- ing Superstition. — Edict of Valentinian II. gives the Roman Bishop Supremacy over the Western Clergy. — Code of Justinian.— Edict of Phocas, AD. G06. — Dextrous Policy of Popes. — Fall of the West- ern Empire. — Claim of Popes to be Christ's "Vicar. — The Admis- sion of this Claim consolidates the Supremacy 15 VI. CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE TEMPORAL SOVEREIGNTY. Conversion of the Northern Nations. — Grants of Pepin and Charle- magne in the Eighth Century. — The Triple Crown. — "Wealth, Arrogance, and Ignorance of Clergy. — Rise of Monkery. — Image "Worship. — Iconoclast Disputes. — Italy throws off the authority of the Eastern Emperor.— The Pope becomes virtual Sovereign of Rome. — Christianity displaced by Paganism 39 CHAPTER IV. RISE AND PROGRESS OP THE TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. Principles of the Bupremacy. — Decline of the Carlovingian Dynasty. — Frank Emperors surrender their Right to nominate the Popes. — Decretals of Isidore. — Dreadful Disorders of the Papal See. — Rise of the German Power. — Transference of the Empire. — Enor- mous "Wealth of the Church. — Hildebrand. — AVar of Investitures. — Triumph of the Mitre over the Empire. — Innocent III. — Gran- deur and Dominion of the Popedom. — The Papal Noon and the "World's Midnight. — The Albigenses and "Waldenses. — The Cru- sades 58 CHAPTER V. FOUNDATION AND EXTENT OF THE SUPREMACY. Mixed Constitution of the Papacy. — It arrogates Temporal Supre- macy. — Syllogism of the Papacy. — The Supremacy not an Acci- dent. — Supremacy a Logical Deduction from the Constituent Prin- ciples of the Papacy. — Excommunication of jMonarchs. — Bellar- mine's Theory, or Indirect Authority. — Gosselin's Theory, or Di- rection. — Direction but disguised Supremacy. — Proofs and Vlus- trations. — Popish Concordats with Spain and Germany. — Spiritual Direction in Ireland. — Oscillations in the Theory of the Supremacy. — Cardinal's Oath. — Pontifical Railway Train 94 CHAPTER VI. THE CANON LAW. The Complete Code of the Church. — Origin and History of the Canon Law. — Spiritual Supremacy its Key-note. — The Canon Law on Con- stitutions of Princes ; on Oaths ; on Clerical Immunities ; on He- resy. — Oath of Bishops. — Incompatibility with British Law. — De- velopment of Canon Law 128 CONTENTS. VII. CHAPTER VII. CHURCH OF ROME NEITHER HAS NOR CAN RENOUNCE HER PRINCIPLES ON THE SUPREMACY. Supremacy claimed and exercised in former Ages. — Has not been renounced. — Cannot, because Roman Church is Infallible. — Can- not, without violating her Fundamental Principles. — The Papacy unchanged in fact. — Growing worse. — Recent Illustrations. — Popes still claim to be Christ's Vicars. — Pius IX. — Scheme of popu- larizing the Papacy. — Re-union of Hierarchical and Dynastical Powers. — Papacy and Democracy. — Critical position of Europe 14G BOOK n. DOGMAS OF THE PAPACY. CHAPTER I. THE POPISH THEOLOGY. Professedly based on the Truths of Revelation. — Policy of this. — Doctrines all perverted. — Order and Plan stated. — Depth and In- genuity of Popery. — Importance of the Study 1G4 CHAPTER II. SCRIPTURE AND TRADITION. Popish Rule of Faith. — Tradition. — Decree of Council of Trent. — Tradition equally authoritative with the Scriptures. — Church an Infallible Interpreter. — Apocrypha. — Arguments of Papists ; from Scripture ; from Transmission of Scriptures by the Church j from alleged Insufficiency of Private Judgment 170 CHAPTER III. OF READING THE SCRIPTURES. Bible translated at the Reformation. — Its Reading Interdicted j wholly in some countries ; partially in others. — A mortal Sin to read the Scriptures without a Licence. — Bulls of Popes. — Bible and Irish Priests. — Bible in Italy. — Rome afraid of the Bible ISO VIII. CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV, UJNITY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. Protestant Idea of; Popish Idea of. — Marks of the true Churcli. — Unity ; Definition of by Bellarmine, Dens, and Milner. — Doctrinal Variations of Popery. — Character of Popish Unity. — Combination not Unity 191 CHAPTER V. CATHOLICITY OP THE CHURCH OP ROME. Catholicity as defined by Roman Catechism, by Dens, &c. — Misappro- priation of Scripture Promises. — Non-Catholicity of Roman Church in Doctrine ; non-Catholicity in Time ; non-Catholicity in Place. — True Catholicity promised to the Church 199 CHAPTER VI. APOSTOLICITY, OR PETEIl's PRIMACY. Apostolic Succession. — Argument of BellarminefromMatthe\v,xvi.l8. — Averments of Dens and Milner. — Rome's Corner-Stone.— Mat- thew, xvi. 18, examined. — Peter's Primacy unknown to Christ ; un- known to Peter himself ; unknown to the Apostles. — No Trace of Primacy in Scripture nor in History ; no Foundation in Reason. — Was Peter Bishop of Rome ? — Was Apostleship ti'ansmissible ? — Breaks in the Apostolic Chain. — Apostolicity of Rome fabulous 210 CHAPTER VII. INFALLIBILITY. Progression Law of Nature.— Immobility the Slotto of the Church of Rome. — Claim of Infallibility. — Infallibility versus Revelation. — Popish Circle. — Infallibility versus Reason. — Papists divided as to the Seat of Infallibility. — Question, Are the Fathers Infallible ? are Councils Infallible ? are Popes Infallible ? are Councils and Popes conjointly Infallible ?— When the Pope is and is not Infallible. — Seven Tests of the Infallibility ; Impossibility of observing them. — " Bullarium" the Papist's Bible. — Papal Infallibility resembles the Indian Cosmogony 241 CONTENTS IX. CHAPTER VIII. KO SALVATION OUT OF THE CHURCH OP ROME. Doctrine of Exclusive Salvation held by Roman Catholic Church. — Taught in Creed of Pius IV. — Pope Boniface. — Bull in Cceno Do- mini. — Taught in Romish Catechisms. — Attempted Concealment of the Doctrine in Britain.— Openly taught at Rome. — " Mornings among the Jesuits." — " Invincible Ignorance." — Intense Sectarian- ism of Rome 263 CHAPTER IX. ORIGINAL SIN. Debates in the Coimcil of Trent. — Decree. — Transmission of Original Sin. — Decree. — Remedy.^ — Popish Doctrine of the Fall. — Popish Doctrine of Grace. — Opinions of Cajetan, Bellarraine, and Perrone. — State of pure Nature.— Fall virtually denied. — Point of Di- vergence betwixt Popish and Protestant Theologies. — Immaculate Conception of Virgin. — O^us Ojaeratum 271 CHAPTER X. OF JUSTIFICATION. Justification by Faith oldest Theological Truth. — Essential and eter- nal Difference between the Gospel and Popery.— Definition of Coun- , oil of Trent. — Co-operation of Man. — Merit of Congruity. — Infused Righteousness. — Formal Ground of Justification. — Christ merited that we might merit. — Rome's Scheme, Salvation by "Works 286 CHAPTER XI. OF THE SACRAMENTS. End of a Sacrament. — Seven Sacraments of Rome. — Sacraments con- fer Grace ex Opere Operato. — Indelible Impression. — Intention of Priest. — Recognition of Protestant Baptism by Romanists. — Into- lerance of Romanism 2.04 X. CONTENTS. CHAPTER XII. BAPTISM AND CONFIRMATION. Rites of Administration ; essential to Salvation ; remove the Guilt of Original Sin ; communicate an ineiFaceable Impression. — Confirma- tion. — Forms. — Popery simple Magic. — Exorcism 300 CHAPTER XIII. THE EUCHARIST TRANSUBSTANTIATION THE MASS. Unequalled by any Pagan Rite. — Origin of Term. — Established by Council of Lateran, 1215. — Transubstantiation. — Tridentine Defini- tion. — Cliange of Elements into the Real Body and Blood, together with Soul and Divinity, of Christ. — Revolting Consequences. — Transubstantiation opposed to Scri2:)ture ; to Reason ; to the Senses. — Adoration of the Host. — Worship of Latvia. — Gross Ido- latry. — Mass a Sacrifice. — Traverses all the leading Doctrines of Scripture. — The Cup withheld. — Private Masses SC] CHAPTER XIV. OP PENANCE AND CONFESSION. For Pardon of Sins committed after Baptism. — Alleged Scripture Grounds. — Necessary to Salvation. — Contrition and Attrition. — Confession. — All Sins confessed. — Atrocities of Confessional. — Im- piety of Confessional 325 CHAPTER XV OF INDULGENCES. Theory. — Treasury of tlie Church. — Superabundant Merits of Christ, of Martyrs, of Saints, and of the Virgin. — Indulgences remit the Temporal Punishment. — Power of Indulgences. — Examples.— Sale of Indulgences before the Reformation. — In Modern Times. — Apos- tolic Tariff". — Licence to Sin. — Year of Jubilee. — Papal California.... "iSS CONTENTS. XI. CHAPTER XVI. OP PURGATORY. Four Divisions of the Future World. — Locality of Purgatory. — For Venial Sins and Temporal Punishment. — Purgatory intended to make Indulgences and Masses saleable. — Alleged Proof. — Real Origin of Purgatory. — Purgatorial Societies. — Masses at Funerals. —Frauds 347 CHAPTER XVII. OF THE WORSHIP OF IMAGES. Practice of Roman Church stated. — Object worshipped through the Image. — Paganism equally justifiable with Romish Image-worship. — Decree of Trent. — Divine "Word condemns the Practice as Ido- latry 355 CHAPTER XVIII. OP THE WORSHIPPING OF SAINTS. Saints of Rome. — Dulia and Latria. — Distinctions incomprehensible to the Vulgar. — Saints Mediators of Intercession. — Decree of Trent. — Prayers to Saints in Roman Missal. — God our Mediator to the Saints. — Absurdity of Saint-worship 361 CHAPTER XIX. THE WORSHIP OF THE VIRGIN MARY, Perverted Principle. — Wish for a Man-God. — Names given to Mary, — Worship given to INIary. — Scriptural Passages applied to Mary. — Saints worshipped with Dulia, Mary with Hyperdulia. — First Prophecy applied to Mary. — Redemption ascribed to Mary. — Encyclical Letter of Pius IX. of February 1849. — Mary the Savi- 0U1-. — Mariolatry on the Increase in Church of Rome 368 Xll. CONTENTS. CHAPTER XX. FAITH NOT TO BE KEPT WITH HERETICS. Enormity of the Doctriue. — Proof. — Promulgated by the Third La- teran Council. — Decreed by the Council of Constance.— Exempli- fied. — Confirmed by the Council of Trent.— Avowed by innumerable Popes and Popish Writers. — Practice of Rome. — Instances of Vio- lated Faith in War with Albigenses ; in the struggles in Poland ; in the HuiTuenot Wars in France. — Massacre of St Bartholomew. — Re- vocation of Edict of Nantes. — Present Revolutions in France trace- able to that Policy. — Disclaimers of Modern Papists. — Jesuitry of these Disclaimers. — Modern Writers on Morality of Romanism 37S BOOK m. GENIUS AND INFLUENCE OF THE PAPACY, CHAPTER I. GENIUS OF THE PAPACY. Difficulty and Utility of the Enquiry.— Distinction between Popei-y and the Papacy. — Character, Extent, and Perfection of the Organi- zation of the Papacy. — Real though Invisible Author of the Papacy. — Key to the Papacy. — In the First Temptation the Counterfeit Sub- stituted for the Real. — Analogy traced. — All Idolatries the Coun- terfeits of the Real.— Popery the Counterfeit of Christianity. —This shown in all its Parts. — Papacy viewed as of ]\Ian. — Aims at Go- verning the World, and all its Affairs. —Fortunate in the Choice of a Seat. — Pretends to an Apostolic as well as an Imperial Source. — Lowers God and exalts the Priest. — Converts all the Functions of Government into Organs of its own. — Enlists all the Passions and Faculties of Human Nature in its Service. — Accommodating Spirit. — Extraordinary Combination of Qualities 395 CONTENTS. XIII. CHAPTER II. INFLUENCE OF POPERY ON THE INDIVIDUAL MAN. Influence of Religion on the Moral Nature and Intellectual Powers. — Intellectual Rank of Nations determined by their Religious Con- dition. — Induction of Particulars.— Popery not Christianity.— Does not therefore possess the Influence of Christianity. — Popery an- tagonistic to Christianity ; therefore exerts an antagonistic In- fluence. — Influence of its several Doctrines traced. — Of the In- fallibility. — Of Unreserved Submission to Superiors. — Of Opus Ope- rrt^?/?».— Destroys Mental Activity and Independence. — Destroys Self-reliance.— Dissociates Religion from Jlorals.- Characters which Popery produces 417 CHAPTER III. INFLUENCE OF POPERY ON GOVERNxMENT. Law the Expression of Opinion. — Opinion moulded by Christianity. — As is the Christianity of a Country, so will be its Law and Govern- ment. — Popery has corrupted the Theory of Government. — Popery confounded and incorporated the two Jurisdictions, Civil and Spi- ritual. — This Corruption grew directly out of its essential Principle ■ that the Pope is Christ's Vicar, and by consequence Supreme over Temporal as over Spiritual Affairs. — The Papacy centralized all Power in one Man. — Being Infallible, the Pope can have no Partner in his Power. — Papacy, from its essential Principles, repugnant to the Constitutional Element. — Papacy multiplied itself in all the Kingdoms of Europe. — Corrupted the Practice of Government. — ■ Retained its Subjects in Ignorance. — Hostile to Science. — An Anti- educationist.- Employed Espionage. — Punished for Opinion. — Pros- trated the Civil Power by employing it to extirpate Heresy. — Perse- cution of the Albigenses. — Persecutions of France and Spain. — In- curable Wounds inflicted thereby on the Cause of Industry and Order. — Past Crusades and Modern Revolutions. — Inquisition. — Origin. — Countries where set up ; Venice ; Spain. — Castle of Chillon. — The Seven Tortures. — Papacy delayed for Ages the Advent of Consti- tutional Government 427 XIV. CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV, INFLUENCE OP POPERY ON THE MORAL AND RELIGIOUS CONDITION OP NATIONS. Proof from Experience. — Difference between Protestant States and Popish States in point of Morality. — ProLabilism and Intention. — Popish Nations inferior in Tnithfulness. — Prevalence of Perjury. — Of Assassination. — Of Concubinage. — Popish Nations inferior in respect for Woman. — The Confessional and the Domestic Affec- tions. — Prevalence of Gambling. — No Sabbath in Popish Lauds. — The Sabbath in Cologne; in Lyons; in France. — General View.... 456 CHAPTER V. INFLUENCE OF POPERY ON TUE INTELLECTUAL AND POLITICAL CONDITION OF NATIONS. Popish Nations inferior in respect of general Prosperity. — Popery has stereotyped the Condition of every Nation where it exists. — General View of the Protestant and Popish Worlds. — Individual Countries.— Holland contrasted with Ireland ; contrasted with Bel- gium. — Palatinates on the Rhine. — Protestant and Popish Cantons of Switzerland. — Decadence of France ; of Spain ; of Italy ; of Venice. — States of the Church. — Ireland. — Contrast between Italy and Scotland. — Testimony of Experience on Popery. — Britain dur- ing the past Hundred Years 474 BOOK IV. PRESENT POLICY AND PROSPECTS OF THE PAPACY. CHAPTER I. SHAM REFORM AND REAL RE-ACTION. State of Papal Affairs at Accession of Pius IX. — The Sword of the Revolution. — Constitutional Movement in Italy. — Reform of Pius intended to check that Movement. — Scheme of restoring the As- CONTENTS. XV. cendancy of the Papacy. — Papacy drops the Mask of Reform ; be- takes itself to Re-action and the Sword. — Jesuits recalled. — The Virtual Governors of Europe at present. — Their present Policy one in all Countries. — Attack the Press. — Attempts on Education. — New School-Books. — Dismissal of Schoolmasters. — Miracles. — Arguments adapted to all Classes. — Alliance of Governments with the Priesthood 495 CHAPTER II. NEW CATHOLIC LEAGUE AND THREATENED CRUSADE AGAINST PROTESTANTISM. The Modern Sphinx. — Simultaneous Crusade against Liberty. — The Catechism and the Bayonet. — The Jesuit and the Gendarme. — The Prisons of Rome. — The Twenty Thousand Captives of Naples. — Tuscan Concordat. — Jesuit Tactics in Fi-auce ; in Austria ; in Prussia. — Aggression ou Britain. — UUnhers preaches a Crusade against Protestantism.— Ghost of the Middle Ages 510 CHAPTER III. GENERAL PROPAGANDISM. The Propaganda follows in the Wake of the British Power. — Missions to Semi-barbarous Regions. — Britain mainly struck at. — Jesuit Operations in Ireland ; in England , in Scotland ; in Edinburgh. — Romanist Clubs. — Malta and Australia. — Rome in the Pacific 522 CHAPTER IV. PROSPECTS OP THE PAPACY. Atheism and Communism. — Popery the ^Mother of Revolutions. — Evangelistic Agencies in Germany ; in France. — State of Spain. — Bohemian Church. — AValdensian Church. — Native Protestantism in Italy.— The "Red Spectre;" its probable ilission.— Duty of British Christians. — Blow at Rome. — Proposal to give to Italy Five Millions of Bibles. — Creation groaneth for the Fall of the Papacy.... 636 BOOK I. HISTOKY OF THE PAPACY. CHAPTER I. ORIGIN OF THE PAPACY. The Papacy, next to Christianity, is the great Fact of the modern world. Of the two, the former, unhappily, has proved in some respects the more powerful spring in human affairs, and has acted the more public part on the stage of the world. Fully to trace the rise and development of this stu- pendous system, were to write a history of Western Europe. The decay of empires, — the extinction of religious systems. • — the dissolution and renewal of society, — the rise of new States, — the change of manners, customs, and laws, — the policy of courts, — the wars of kings, — the decay and revival of letters, of philosophy, and of arts, — all connect them- selves with the history of the Papacy, to whose growth they ministered, and whose destiny they helped to unfold. On so wide a field of investigation neither our time nor our limits permit us to enter. Let it suffice that we indicate, in gene- ral terms, the main causes that contributed to the rise of this tremendous Power, and the successive stages that mark- ed the course of its portentous development. B 2 ORIGIN OF THE PAPACY. The first rise of the Papacy is undoubtedly to be sought for in the corruption of human nature. Christianity, though pure in itself, was committed to the keeping of imperfect beings. The age, too, was imperfect, and abounded with causes tending to corrupt whatever was simple, and mate- rialize whatever was spiritual. Society was pervaded on all sides with sensuous and material influences. These abso- lutely unfitted the age for relishing, and especially for re- taining, truth in its abstract form, and for perceiving the beauty and grandeur of a purely spiritual economy. The symbolic worship of the Jew, heaven-appointed, had taught him to associate religious truth with visible rites, and to attribute considerably more importance to the observance of the outward ceremony than to the cultivation of the in- ward habit, or the performance of the mental act. Greece, too, with all its generous sensibilities, its strong emotions, and its quick perception and keen relish of the beautiful, was a singularly gross and materialized land. Its volup- tuous poetry and sensuous mythology had unfitted the in- tellect of its people for appreciating the true grandeur of a simple and spiritual system. Italy, again, was the land of gods and of arms. The former was a type of human pas- sions ; and the latter, though lightened by occasional gleams of heroic virtue and patriotism, exerted, on the whole, a de- grading and brutalizing effect upon the character and genius of the people, withdrawing them from efforts of pure mind, and from the contemplation of the abstract and the spiritual. It was iu this complex corruption, — the degeneracy of the individual and the degeneracy of society, owing to the un- spiritualizing influences then powerfully at work in the Jewish, the Grecian, and the Roman worlds, — that the main danger of Christianity consisted ; and in this element it en- countered an antagonist a thousand times more formidable than the sword of Rome. Amid these impure matters did the Papacy germinate, though not till a subsequent age did it appear above ground. The corruption took a different form, according to the prevailing systems and the predomi- MATERIALIZING INFLUENCES. 3 nating tastes of the various countries. The Jew brought with him into the Church the ideas of the synagogue, and attempted to graft the institutions of Moses upon the doc- trines of Christ ; the Greek, unable all at once to unlearn the lessons and cast off the yoke of the Academy, attempted to form an alliance between the simplicity of the gospel and his own subtile and highly imaginative philosophy; while the Roman, loath to think that the heaven of his gods should be swept away as the creation of an unbridled fancy, re- coiled from the change, as we would from the dissolution of the material heavens ; and, though he embraced Christianity, he still clung to the forms and shadows of a polytheism in the truth and reality of which he could no longer believe. Thus the Jew, the Greek, the Roman, were alike in that they corrupted the simplicity of the gospel ; but they differed in that each corrupted it after his own fashion. Minds there were of a more vigorous cast originally, or more largely en- dowed with the Spirit's grace, who were able to take a more tenacious grasp of truth, and to appreciate more highly her spirituality and simplicity ; but as regards the majority of converts, especially towards the end of the first century and the beginning of the second, it is undeniable that they felt, in all their magnitude, the difficulties now enumerated. The new ideas had a painful conflict to maintain with the old. The world had taken a mighty step in advance. It had accomplished a transition from the symbolic to the spi- ritual, — from the fables, allegories, and myths, which a false philosophy and a sensuous poetry had invented to amuse its infancy, to the clear, definite, and spiritual ideas which Christianity had provided for the exercise of its manhood. But it seemed as if the transition was too great. There was a felt inability in the human mind, as yet, to look with open face upon Truth ; and men were fain to interpose the veil of symbol between themselves and the glory of that Majestic Form. It was seen that the world could not pass by a single step from infancy to manhood, — that the Creator fiad imposed certain laws upon the growth of the species, as 4 X ORIGIN OF THE PAPACY. on that of the individual, — upon the development of the so- cial, as on that of the personal mind ; and that these laws could not be violated. It was seen, in short, that so vast a reformation could not be made ; it must grow. So much had been foreshadowed, we apprehend, by those parables of the Saviour which were intended as illustrative of the nature of the gospel kingdom and the manner of its pro- gress : " The kingdom of heaven cometh not with observa- tion ;" " It is like a grain of mustard-seed, the least of all seeds ; but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree ;" " It is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened." Not in a single day was the master idea of Christianity to displace the old systems, and in- augurate itself in their room. It was to progress in obe- dience to the law which regulates the growth of all great changes. First, the seed had to be deposited in the bosom of society ; next, a process of germination had to ensue ; the early and the latter rains of the Pagan and the Papal per- secutions had to water it ; and it was not till after ages of silent growth, during which society was to be penetrated and leavened by the quickening spirit of the gospel, that Christianity would begin her universal and triumphant reign. But as yet the time was not come for a pure spiritual Christianity to attain dominion upon the earth. The in- fantile state of society forbade it. As, in the early ages, men had not been able to retain, even when communicated to them, the knowledge of one self-existent, independent, and eternal Being, so now they were unable to retain, even when made known to them, the pure spiritual worship of that Being. From this it might have been inferred, though prophecy had been silent on the point, that the world had yet a cycle of progress to pass through ere it should reach its manhood ; that an era was before it, during which it would be misled by grievous errors, and endure, in conse- quence, grievous sufferings, before it could attain the faculty TRANSITION FROM THE SYMBOLIC TO THE SPIRITUAL. 5 of broad, independent, clear, spiritual conception, and be- come able to think without the help of allegory, and to worship without the aid of symbol. This reconciles us to the fact of the great apostacy, so stumbling at first view. Contemplated in this light, it is seen to be a necessary step in the world's progress towards its high destinies, and a necessary preparation for the full unfolding of God's plans towards the human family. The recovery of the world from the depth into which tho Fall has plunged it, is both a slow and a laborious process. The instrumentality which God has ordained for its eleva- tion is knowledge. Great truths are discovei-ed, one after one ; they are opinion first, — they become the basis of action next ; and thus society is lifted up, by slow degrees, to the platform where the Creator has ordained it shall ultimately stand. A great principle, once discovered, can never be lost; and thus the progress of the world is steadily onward. Truth may not be immediately operative. To recur to the Saviour's figure, it may be the seed sown in the earth. It may be confined to a single bosom, or to a single book, or to a single school ; but it is part of the constitution of things; it is agreeable to the nature of God, and in harmony with his government; and so it cannot perish. Proofs begin to gather around it ; events fall out which throw light upon it : the martyr dies for it ; society suffers by neglecting to shape its course in conformity with it ; other minds begin to embrace it ; and after reaching a certain stage, its ad- herents increase in geometrical progression : at last the whole of society is leavened ; and thus the world is lifted a stage higher, never again to be let down. The stage, we say, once fully secured, is never altogether lost ; for the truth, in fighting its way, has left behind it so many monu- ments of its power, in the shape of the errors and sufferings, as well as of the emancipation, of mankind, that it becomes a great landmark in the progress of our race. It attains in the social mind all the clearness and certainty of an axiom. The history of the world, when read aright, is not so much b ORIGIN OF THE PAPACY. a record of the follies and wickedness of mankind, as it is a series of moral demonstrations, — a slow process of experi- mental and convincing proof, — in reference to great princi- ples, and that on a scale so large, that the whole world may see it, and understand it, and come to act upon it. Society can be saved not otherwise than as the individual is saved : it must be convinced of sin ; its mind must be enlightened ; its will renewed ; it must be brought to embrace and act upon truth ; and when in this way it has been sanctified, society shall enter upon its rest. This we take to be the true theory of the world's progress. There is first an objective revelation of truth; there is second a subjective revelation of it. The objective revelation is the work of God alone ; the subjective revelation, that is, the reception of it by society, is the work of God and man com- bined. The first may be done in a day or an hour ; the second is the slow operation of an age. Thus human pro- gression takes the form of a series of grand epochs, in which the world is suddenly thrown forward in its course, and then again suddenly stands still, or appears to retro- grade. The first is known, in ordinary speech, as reforma- tion or revolution ; the second is termed re-action. There is, however, in point of fact, no retrogression : what we mis- take for retrogression is only society settling down, after the sun-light burst of newly-revealed truth is over, to study, to believe, and to apply the principles which have just come into its possession. This is a work of time, often of many ages; and not unfrequently does it go on amid the confusion and conflict occasioned by the opposition offered to the new ideas by the old errors. Among the epochs of the past, — • the grand objective revelations, — we may instance, as the more influential ones, the primeval Revelation, the Mosaic Economy, the Christian Era, and the Reformation. Each of these advanced the world a stage, from which it never alto- gether fell back into its former condition : society always made good its advance. Nevertheless, each of these epochs was followed by a re-action, which was just society struggling THEORY OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 7 to lay hold upon the principles made known to it, thoroughly to incorporate them with its own structure, and so to make ready for a new and higher step. The world progresses much as the tide rises on the beach. Society in progress pre- sents as sublime and fearful a spectacle as the ocean in a storm. As the mountain billow, crested with foam, swells huge and dark against the horizon, and comes rolling along in thunder, it threatens not only to flood the beach, but to submerge the land ; but its mighty force is arrested and dissolved on its sandy barrier : the waters retire within the ocean's bed, as if they had received a counter-stroke from the earth. One would think that the ocean had spent its power in that one effort ; but it is not so. The resistless energies of the great deep recruit themselves in an instant : another mountain wave is seen advancing ; another cataract of foaming waters is poured along the beach; and now the level of the tide stands higher than before. Thus, by a series of alternate flows and ebbs does the ocean fill its shores. This natural phenomenon is but the emblem of the manner in which society advances. After some great epoch, the new ideas seem to lose ground, — the waters are diminished ; but gradually the limit between the new ideas and the old pre- judices comes to be adjusted, and then it is found that the advantage is on the side of truth, and that the general level of society stands perceptibly higher. Meanwhile, prepara- tion is being made for a new conquest. The regenerative instrumentalities with which the Creator has endowed the world, by the truths which He has communicated, are si- lently at work at the bottom of society. Another mighty wave appears upon its agitated surface; and, rolling onwards in irresistible power against the dry land of superstition, it adds a new domain to the empire of Truth. But while it is true that the world has been steadily pro- gressive, and that each successive epoch has placed society on a higher platform than that which went before it, it is at the same time a fact, that the development of superstition has kept equal pace with the development of truth. From 8 ORIGIN OF THE PAPACY. the very beginning the two have been the counterparts of each other, and so will it be, doubtless, while they exist to- gether upon the earth. In the early ages idolatry was un- sophisticated in its creed and simple in its forms, just as the truths then known w:;re few and simple. Under the Jewish economy, when truth became embodied in a system of doctrines with an appointed ritual, then, too, idolatry provided its system of metaphysical subtleties to ensnare the mind, and its splendid ceremonial to dazzle the senses. Under the Christian dispensation, when truth has attained its amplest development, in form at least, if not as yet in de- gree, idolatry is also more fully developed than in any pre- ceding era. Papal idolatry is a more subtle, complicated, malignant, and perfected system than Pagan idolatry was. This equal development is inevitable in the nature of the case. The discovery of any one truth necessitates the in- vention of the opposite error. In proportion as truth mul- tiplies its points of assault, error must necessarily multiply its points of defence. The extension of the one line infers the extension of the other also. Nevertheless there is an essential difference betwixt the two developments. Every new truth is the addition of another impregnable position to the one side ; whereas every new error is but the addition of another untenable point to the other, which only weakens the defence. Truth is immortal, because agreeable to the laws by which the universe is governed ; and therefore, the more it is extended, the more numerous are the points on which it can lean for support upon God's government ; the more that error is extended, the more numerous the points in which it comes into collision and conflict with that go- vernment. Thus the one develops into strength, the other into weakness. And thus, too, the full development of the one is the harbinger of its triumph, — the full development of the other is the precursor of its downfall. Idolatry at the first was one, and necessarily so, for it drew its existence from the same springs which were seated in the depth of the early ages. But, though one originally, IDOLATROUS RE-ACTION CONSEQUENT ON CHRISTIANITY. 9 in process of time it took different forms, and was known by different names, in the several countries. The Magian philosophy had long prevailed in the East ; in the West had arisen the polytheism of Rome ; while in Greece, form- ing the link between Asia and Europe, and combining the contemplative and subtile character of the Eastern idola- tries with the grossness and latitudinarianism of those of the West, there flourished a highly imaginative but sensuous mythology. As these idolatries were one in their essence, so they were one in their tendency ; and the tendency of all was, to draw away the heart from God, to hem in the vision of man by objects of sense, and to create a strong disrelish for the contemplation of a spiritual Being, and a strong incapacity for the apprehension and retention of spiritual and abstract truth. These idolatries had lonir since passed their prime ; but the powerful bent they had given to the human mind still existed. It was only by a slow process of counteraction that that evil bias could be overcome. So long had these superstitions brooded over the earth, and so largely had they impregnated the soil with their evil principles, that their eradication could not be looked for but by a long and painful conflict on the part of Christianity. It was to be expected, that after the first flush of the gospel's triumph there would come a recoil ; that the ancient idolatries, recovering from their panic, would rally their forces, and appear again, not in any of their old forms, — for neither does superstition nor the gospel ever revive under exactly its old organ'zation, — but under a new form adapted to the state of the world, and the character of the new antagonist now to be confronted ; and that Satan would make a last, and, of course, unexampled struggle, be- fore surrendering to Christ the empire of the world. It was to be expected also, in the coming conflict, that all these idolatries would combine into one phalanx. It was extreme- ly probable that the animosities and rivalships which had hitherto kept them apart would cease ; that the schools and sects into which they had been divided would coalesce ; that, 10 ORIGIN OF THE PAPACY. recof^nising in Christianity an antagonist that was alike the foe of them all, the common danger would make them feel their common brotherhood ; and thus, that all these false systems would come to be united into one comprehensive and enormous system, containing within itself all the prin- ciples of hostility, and all the elements of strength, formerly scattered throughout them all ; and that in this combined and united form would they do battle with the Truth. It was not long till symptoms began to appear of such a move on the part of Satan, — of such a resuscitation of the an- cient Paganisms. The shadow began to go back on the dial of Time. The spiritual began to lose ground before the symbolic and the mythological. The various idolatries which had formerly covered the wide space which the gospel now occupied, — subjugated, but not utterly exterminated, — • began to pay court to Christianity. They professed, as the handmaids, to do homage to the Mistress ; but their design in this insidious friendship was not to aid her in her glorious mission, but to borrow her help, and so reign in her room. Well they knew that they had been overtaken by that de- crepitude which, sooner or later, overtakes all that is sprung of earth ; but they thought to draw fresh vitality from the living side of Christianity, and so rid themselves of the bur- den of their anility. The Magian religion wooed her in the East; Paganism paid court to her in the West: Judaism, too, esteeming, doubtless, that it had a better right than either, put in its claim to be recognised. Each brought her some- thing of its own, which, it pretended, was necessary to the perfection of Christianity. Judaism brought her dead sym- bols ; the Magian and Greek philosophies brought her re- fined and subtile, but dead speculations and doctrines ; and the Paganism of Rome brought her dead divinities. On all hands was she tempted to part with the substance, and to embrace again the shadow. Thus did the old idolatries muster under the banner of Christianity. They rallied in her support, — so they professed ; but, in reality, to unite their arms for her overthrow. UNION OF FORMER IDOLATRIES IN POPERY. 1 1 Two things might have been expected to happen. First, that the rising corruption would reach its maturest propor- tion in that country where external influences most favoured its development ; and second, that when developed, it would exhibit the master traits and leading peculiarities of each of the ancient paganisms. Both these anticipations were ex- actly realised. It was not in Chaldea, nor in Egypt, the seats of the Magian philosophy, nor was it in Greece, that Popery arose, for these countries now retained little besides the traditions of their former power. It was in the soil of the Seven Hills, amid the trophies of unnumbered victories, the symbols of universal empire, and the gorgeous rites of a polluting polytheism, that Romanism, velut arbor wvo, grew up. By a law similar to that which guides the seed to the spot best fitted for its germination, did the modern Pagan- ism strike its roots in the soil which the ancient Paganism had most largely impregnated with its influences and ten- dencies. The surrounding heresies were speedily over- shadowed and dwarfed. The Gnostic, and other errors, de- clined in the proportion in which Pomanism waxed in sta- ture, its mighty trunk drawing to itself all those corrupt in- fluences which would otherwise have afforded nourishment to them. In process of time they disappeared, though rather through a process of absorption than of extinction. The result presents us with a sort of Pantheism, — the only sort of Pantheism that is real, — in which the expiring idola- tries returned into the bosom of their parent divinity, and had their existence prolonged in its existence. The Papacy is a new Babel, in which the old redoubtable idolatries are the builders. It is a spiritual Pantheon, in which the local and vagrant superstitions find again a centre and a home. It is a grand mausoleum, in which the corpses of the defunct Paganisms, like the mummied monks of Kreutzberg, are laid out in ghastly pomp, while their disembodied spirits still live in the Papacy, and govern the world from their grave. Analyse Popery, and you will find all these ancient systems existing in it. The Magian philosophy flourishes 12 ORIGIN OF THE PAPACY. anew under the monastic system ; for in the conventual life of Rome we find the contemplative moods and the ascetic habits which so largely prevailed in Egypt and over all the East ; and here, too, we find the fundamental principle of that philosophy, namely, that the flesh is the seat of evil, and, consequently, that it becomes a duty to weaken and mortify the body. In Popery we find the predominat- ing traits of the Grecian philosophy, more especially in the subtile casuistry of the Popish schools, combined with a sensuous ritual, the celebration of v/liich is often accom- panied, as in Greece of old, with gross licentiousness. And last of all, there is palpably present in Popery the poly- theism of ancient Rome, in the gods and goddesses which, under the title of saints, fill up the calendar and crowd the temples of the Romish Church. Here, then, all the old idolatries live over again. There is nothing new about them but the organization, which is more perfect and com- plete than ever. To add one other illustration to those al- ready given, the Papacy is a gigantic realization of our Lord's parable. The Roman empire, on the introduction of Cliristianity, was swept and garnished ; the unclean spii'it which inhabited it had been driven out of it ; but the de- mon had never wandered far from the region of the Seven Hills ; and finding no rest, he returned, bringing with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, which took possession of their old abode, and made its last state worse than its first. The name of Popery, truly, is Legion ! " There are many Antichrists,'" said the apostle John ; for in his days the various systems of error had not been com- bined into one. But the Roman apostacy acquired ultimate- ly the dominion, and, marshalling the other heresies beneath its banner, gave its own name to the motley host, and be- came known as the Antichrist of prophecy and of history. Popery, then, we hold to be an after-growth of Paganism, whose deadly wound, dealt by the spiritual sword of Christi- anity, was healed. Its oracles had been silenced, its shrines deniolished, and its gods consigned to oblivion ; but the deep THE FALL CONSUMMATED IN POPERY. 13 corruption of the human race, not yet cured by the promised effusion of the Spirit upon all flesh, revived it anew, and, under a Christian mask, reared other temples in its honour, built it another Pantheon, and replenished it with other gods, which, in fact, were but the ancient divinities under new names. All idolatries, in whatever age or country they have existed, are to be viewed but as successive de- velopments of the one grand apostacy. That apostacy was commenced in Eden, and consummated at Rome. It had its rise in the plucking of the forbidden fruit; and it attained its acme in the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, — Christ's Vicar on earth. The hope that he would " be as God," led man to commit the first sin; and that sin was perfected when the Pope "exalted himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped ; so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." Popery is but the natural development of this great original trans- gression. It is just the early idolatries ripened and per- fected. It is manifestly an enormous expansion of the same intensely malignant and fearfully destructive principle which these idolatries contained. The ancient Chaldean worship- ping the sun, — the Greek deifying the powers of nature, — and the Roman exalting the race of primeval men into gods, — are but varied manifestations of the same evil principle, namely, the utter alienation of the heart from God, — its proneness to hide itself amid the darkness of its own cor- rupt imaginations, and to become a god unto itself. That principle received the most fearful development which ap- pears possible on earth, in the Mystery of Iniquity which came to be seated on the Seven Hills ; for therein man deified himself, became God, nay, arrogated powers which lifted him high above God. Popery is the last, the most matured, the most subtle, the most skilfully contriven, and the most essentially diabolical form of idolatry which the world ever saw, or which, there is reason to believe, it ever will see. It is the ne j^his ultra of man's wickedness, and the chef (Toeuvre of Satan's cunning and malignity. It is the greatest 14 ORIGIN OF THE PAPACY. calamity, next to the Fall, which ever befell the human family. Farther away from God the world could not exist at all. The cement that holds society together, already greatly weakened, would be altogether destroyed, and the social fabric would instantly fall in ruins.* Having thus indicated the origin of Romanism, we shall attempt in the three following chapters to trace its rise and progress. * It follows from the principles taught in this chapter, that the Church (so called) of Rome has no right to rank amongst Christian Churches. She is not a Church, neither is her religion the Christian religion. We are accustomed to speak of Popery as a corrupt form of Christianity. We concede too much. The Cliurch of Rome bears the same relation to the Church of Christ which the hierarchy of Baal bore to the institute of INIoses ; and PojDery stands related to Christianity only in the same way in which Paganism stood related to primeval Revelation. Popery is not a corruption simply, but a transformation. It may be difficult to fix the time when it passed from the one into the other ; but the change is incon- testible. Popery is the gospel transubstantiated into the flesh and blood of Paganism, under a few of the accidents of Christianity, RISE OF ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY. 15 CHAPTER 11. RISE AND PROGRESS OF ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY. The first pastors of the Roman Church aspired to no rank . above their brethren.* The labours in which they occupied themselves were the same as those of the ordinary ministers of the gospel. As pastors, they watched with affectionate fidelity over their flock; and, when occasion offered, they added to the duties of the pastorate the labours of the evan- gelist. All of them were eminent for their piety; and some of them to the graces of the Christian added the accom- plishments of the scholar. Clemens of Rome may be cited as an instance. He was the most distinguished Christian writer, after the apostles, of the first century. Even after the gospel had found entrance within the walls of Rome, Paganism maintained its ground amongst the villages of the Campagna.f Accordingly, it became the first care of the pastors of the metropolis to plant the faith and found churches in the neighbouring towns. They were led to em- bark in this undertaking, not from the worldly and ambi- * Paul's 1st Epistle to the Romans was written about a.d. 5S, which was five years before his first visit to Rome. It is probable that the gospel was first carried to that city by a disciple. t Calamy, in his Life of Baxter, tells us that the main difficulty which lie (Baxter) had to contend with in the town of Kidderminster, was not the Popery, but the Paganism of its inhabitants. So long do traditions and customs retain their hold. 16 RISE OF ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY. tious views which began, in course of time, to actuate their successors, but from that pure zeal for the diffusion of Chris- tianity for which these early ages were distinguished. It was natural that churches founded in these circumstances should cherish a peculiar veneration for the men to whose pious labours they owed their existence ; and it was equally natural that they should apply to them for advice in all cases of difficulty. That advice was at first purely paternal, and implied neither superiority on the part of the person who gave it, nor dependence on the part of those to whom "^z it was given. But in process of time, when the Episcopate at Rome came to be held by men of worldly spirit, — lovers of the pre-eminence, — the homage, at first voluntarily ren- dered by equals to their equal, was exacted as a right; and the advice, at first simply fraternal, took the form of a command, and was delivered in a tone of authority.* These beginnings of assumption were small ; but they were be- ginnings, and power is cumulative. It is the law of its nature to grow, at a continually accelerating rate, which, though slow at the outset, becomes fearfully rapid towards the end. And thus the pastors of Rome, at first by imper- ceptible degrees, and at last by enormous strides, reached their fatal pre-eminence. Such was the state of matters in the first century, during which the authority of the presbyter or bishop — for these two titles were employed in primitive times to distinguish the same office and the same order of men-f- — did not ex- tend beyond the limits of the congregation to which they * Eusebius, Eccl. Hist, book V. chap, xxiii. p. 92. London: 1650. We find the monk Barlaani declaring that bishops and presbyters were ori- ginally the same, and that the difference of rank aiiiongst bishops was o;" human, not divine institution. " Casterum ab institutione omnes pares esse debncrnnt, tarn potestate quam auctoritate. Ea institutio quaj epis- copos fecit non divina sed huraana. Nam divino institute iidem cum pres- byteris facti." — Barlaami Tractatus, p. 297. t Gibbon, vol. ii. p. 331. Edin. 1832. Mosheim, cent. i. part ii. chap, ii. sec. 8. PRESBYTERIAL PARITY BROKEN. 1 *J ministered. But in the second century another elenient-~^ began to operate. In that age it became customar^^ to re- gulate the consideration and rank which the bishops of the Christian Church enjoyed, by that of the city in which they resided. It is easy to see the influence and dignity which would thence accrue to the bishops of Rome, and the pro- spects of grandeur and power which would thus open to the aspiring prelates who now occupied that see. Rome was ^^ the mistress of the world. During ages of conquest her dominion had been gradually extending, till at last it had become universal and supreme ; and now she exercised a mysterious and potent charm over the nations. Her laws were received, and her sway submitted to, throughout the whole civilized earth. The first Rome was herein the type of the second Rome ; and if the spectacle which she exhi- bited of a centralized and universal despotism did not sug- gest to the aspiring prelates of the capital the first ideas of a spiritual empire alike centralized and universal, there is no question that it contributed most material aid towards the attainment of such an object, — an object which, we know, they had early proposed, and which they had begun with great vigour, steadiness, and craft, to prosecute. It acted as a secret but powerful stimulant upon the minds of the Roman bishops themselves, and it operated with all the force of a spell upon the imaginations of those over whom they now began to arrogate power. Herein we discover one of the grand springs of the Papacy. As the free states that formerly existed in the world had rendered up their wealth, their independence, and their deities, to form one colossal empire. Why, asked the bishops of Rome, should not the various churches throughout the world surrender their indi- viduality and their powers of self-government to the metro-; politan see, in order to form one mighty Catholic Church Why should not Chi-istian Rome be the fountain of law and^ of faith to the world, as Pagan Rome had been ? Why should not the symbol of unity presented to the world in the secular empire be realized in the real unity of a Christian c 18 RISE OF ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY. empire ! If the occupant of the temporal throne had been a king of kings, why should not the occupant of the spiritual chair be a bishop of bishops I That the bishops of Rome -reasoned in this way is a historical fact. The Council of Chalcedon established the superiority of the Roman see on this very ground. " The fathers," say they, " justly con- ferred the dignity on the throne of the presbyter of Rome, because that was the imperial city."* The mission of the gospel is to unite all nations into one family. Satan pre- sented the world with a mighty counterfeit of this union, when he united all nations under the despotism of Rome, that thus, by counterfeiting, he might defeat the reality. The rise of Provincial Ecclesiastical Councils wrought in the same way. The Greeks, copying the model of their Amphictyonic Council, were the first to adopt the plan of assembling the deputies of the churches of a whole province to deliberate on affairs of consequence. The plan in a short time was received throughout the whole empire. The Greeks called such assemblies Synods ; the Latins termed them Councils^ and styled their laws or resolutions Canons.'\- In order to temper the deliberations and to execute the reso- lutions of the assembly, it was requisite that one should be chosen as president ; and the dignity was usually conferred on the presbyter of greatest weight for his piety and wisdom. That the tranquillity of the Church might not be disturbed by annual elections, the person raised by the suffrages of his brethren to the presidential chair was continued in it for * Can. xxviii., Harduini Collectio Conciliorum, torn. ii. p. 613 ; Parisiis, 1715. The words of the canon are remarkable, and we shall here quote them : — Ka; ya.^ nu (l^ovto tyis ^^nrfiun^as '^t-'l^ytS, S/a TO fiairiXiviif T'/iv voXtv ix.iivnv, 01 -rxTi^i; tixoras aTiiSs^axairi ra v^i(rjiiia. We find another testimony to the same fact in the Tractate of the Monk Barlaam, prefixed to Salmasius De Primatu Papse : — " Sed longe sujira coeteris Jletropolea emicuit iirbium toto orbe maxiraarum eminentia, quae et suis episcopis tribucrunt eandem supra cajteros totius ecclesiaj Episcopos u!r£g«;^;>i». (BarlaJimi Tractatus, p. 278 ; Lugd. Batav. anno 1G45.) t Gibbon, vol. ii. chap. ii. : Moslieim, cent. ii. chap, ii. CHURCH ASSIMILATED TO THE EMPIRE. 19 life. He was regarded only as the first among equals ; but the title of Bishop began now to acquire a new significance,' and to raise itself above the humble appellation of Presbyter. The election to the office of perpetual president fell not un- frequently upon the bishop of the metropolitan city; and thus the equality that reigned among the pastors of the primitive Church came to be still farther disturbed.* The fourth century found the primitive simplicity of the Church, as regards the form of her government, but little encroached upon. If we except the perpetual president of the Provincial Synod, a rank of equal honour and a title of equal dignity were enjoyed by all the pastors or bishops of the Church. But this century brought great changes along with it, and paved the way for still greater changes in the centuries that followed it. Unde r_C onstantine the emp ire wa s divided into four_prefectu res, these four prefectures into dioceses, and the dioceses into provinces.-f- In making this arrangement, the State acted within its own province ; but it stepped out of it altogether when it began, as it now did, to fashion the Church upon the model of the Empire. The ecclesiastical and civil arrangements were made, as nearly as possible, to correspond. | Pious emperors believed that, in assimilating the two, they were doing both the State and the Church a service, — and the imperial wishes were power- fully seconded and formally sanctioned by ambitious prelates and inti'iguing councils. The new arrangements, impressed by a human policy upon the Church, became every day more marked, as did likewise the gradation of rank amongst the pastors. Bishop rose above bishop, not according to the eminence of his virtue or the fame of his learning, but ac- cording to the rank of the city in which his charge lay. * Gibbon, vol. ii. pp. 337, 338. + Ibid. vol. iii. pp. 30-50. t So much so, that the Council of Chalcedon decreed that hereafter ar- rangements in the State, made by royal authority, should be followed by corresponding alterations in the Church. (Concl. Chalced. can. xvii., Har- duin. vol. ii. p. 607.) 20 RISE OF ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY. The chief city of a province gave the title of Metropolitan, and likewise of Primate, to its bishop. The metropolis of a diocese conferred on its pastor the dignity of Exarch. Over the exarchs were placed four presidents or patriarchs, corresponding to the four praetorian prefects created by Constantino. But it is probable that the title of Patriarch, which is of Jewish origin, was at first common to all bishops, and gradually came to be employed as a term of dignity and >^ eminence. The first distinct reco gnition of the order occu rs in the Council of Constanti nople, a^d^_38L* At that time we find but three of these great dignitaries in existence, — the Bishops of Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria ; but a fourth was now added. The Council, taking into consideration that Constantinople was the residence of the Emperor, decreed " that the Bishop of Constantinople should have the prero- gative, next after the Bishop of Home, because his city was called New Rome."-}- In the following century the Council o-f Chalcedon declared the bishops of the two cities on a level as regarded their spiritual rank.;}: But the prestige of old Rome was more powerful than the decree of the fathers. Despite the rising grandeur of her formidable rival, the eit}'' on the Tiber continued to be the one city of the earth, and her pastor to hold the foremost place among the patriarchs of the Christian world. In no long time wars broke out be- tween these four spiritual potentates. The primates of Alexandria and Antioch threw themselves for protection upon the patriarch of the west ; and the concessions they made as the price of the succour which was extended to them tended still more to enhance the importance of the Roman see.§ * Socrates, Eccles. Hist, book V. chap. viii. ; Lond. 1649. Salmasius De Primatu Papro, cap. iv. p. 48 : — " Aliud genus patriarchum cognitum in ccclcsia non fiiit usque ad Concilium Constantinopolitanum." ■\ " Junior Roma." (Concl. Constan. can. iii., Ilarduin. vol. i. p. 809.) X A.D. 451. " Sanctissimo Novio Ilom;e throno a?qualia privilegia tri- buerunt." (Concl. Chalced. can. xxviii., Harduin. vol. ii. p. 614.) § Salmasius has compendiously enumerated the successive stages of tho BISHOP, METROPOLITAN, AND PATRIARCH. 21 This gradation of rank necessarily led to a gradation of jurisdiction and power. First came the Bishop, who exer- ' cised authority in his parish, and to whom the individual members of his flock were accountable. Next came the Metropolitan, who administered the ecclesiastical affairs of the province, exercised superintendence over all its bishops, convened them in synods, and, assisted by them, heard and determined all questions touching religion which arose within the limits of his jurisdiction. He possessed, more- over, the privilege of having his consent asked to the ordi- nation of bishops within his province. Next came the Ex- archs or Patriarchs, who exercised authority over the metro- politans of the diocese, and held diocesan synods, in which all matters pertaining to the welfare of the Church in the diocese were deliberated upon and adjudicated.* There needed but one step more to complete this gradation of rank and authority, — a primacy among the exarchs. In due time an arch-Patriarch arose. As might have ^ been fore see n, the seat of the prince of the pat riarcEsw'as Rome. A gradation which aimed^ at making the civil and ecclesias- tical arrangements exactly to correspond, and which fixed the chief seats of the two authoi'ities at the same places, made it inevitable that the primate of all Christendom should appear nowhere but at the metropolis of the Roman Pontiff's rise, " Per hos gi-adus ventum est ab infimo usque ad supre- raum sacerdotalis potential fastigium. Ex primo presbytero fiactus est episcopus, ex primo episcopo metropolitanus, ex primo metropolitano pa- triarcha, ex prima denique patriarcha episcopus ille qui nunc dicitur PajKi^^ (De Primatu Pap£B, cap. v. p. 61.) * Concl. Antioch, can. ix., Ilarduini Collectio Conciliorum, torn. i. p. 596. " Per singulas regiones episcopos convenit nosse, metropolitanum episcopum solicitudinem totius provincite gerere." Nisi ea tantum quae ad suam dicecesim pertinent possessionesque subjectas. Unusquisque enim episcopus habeat suae j^arochia) potestatem, ut regat juxta reverentiam singulis competentem et providentiam gerat omnis pos- sessionis, que sub ejus est potestate, ita ut presbyteros et diaconos ordinet, et singula suo judicio comprehendat. Amplius autem nihil agerere tenet pra;ter antistitom metropolitanum, nee metropolitanus sine ca^terorum gerat consilio sacerdotum." 22 PROGRESS OF ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY. «-^ world. It was now seen what a tower of strength was Rome. Her prestige alone had lifted her bishop from the humble rank of presbyter to the pre-eminent dignity of arch-patri- arch ; and in this she gave the world a pledge of the future dominion and grandeur of her popes. A gradation of rank and titles, however suitable to the genius and conducive to the ends of a temporal monarchy, consorts but ill with the character and objects of a spiritual kingdom : in fact, it forms a positive and powerful obstruc- tion to the development of the one and the attainment of the other. It is only as a spiritual agent that the Church can be serviceable to society: she can make the task of government easy only by eradicating the passions of the human heart. A sound policy would have dictated the necessity of preserving intact the spiritual element, seeing the Church is powerful in proportion as she is spiritual. With a most infatuated persistency, the very opposite policy was pursued. Religion was robbed of her rights as a co- ordinate power. She was bound round with the trappings of state; the spiritual was enchained, the carnal had free scope given it, and then the Church was asked to do her office as a spiritual institute ! A defunct organization, she was required to impart life ! The condition under which alone it appears possible for both Church and State to preserve their independence and vigour, is not incorporation^ but co-ordination. God created society as he created man at the beginning, not one, but TWAIN. There is a secular body and there is a spiritual body upon the earth. We must accept the fact, and deal with it in such a way as will allow of the great ends being gained which God intended to serve by ordaining this order of things. If we attempt to incorporate the two, — the com- mon error hitherto, — we contradict the design of God, by making one what he created twain. All former attempts at amalgamation have ended in the dominancy of the one prin- ciple, the subserviency of the other, and the corruption and injury of both. If, on the other hand, we aim at effecting CONFORMITY LEADS TO INCORPORATION". 23 a total disseverance, we not less really violate the constitu- tion of society, and arrive at the same issue as before : we virtually banish the one principle, and install the other in undivided and absolute supremacy. Co-ordination is the only solution of which the problem admits ; and it is the true solution, just because it is an acceptance of the fact as God has ordained it. It declares that society is neither matter solely nor spirit solely, but both ; that, there- fore, there is the secular jurisdiction and the spiritual juris- diction ; that these two have distinct characters, distinct objects, and distinct spheres ; and that each in its own sphere is independent, and can claim from the other a re- cognition of its independence. Had the constitution of society been understood, and the principle of co-ordination recognised, the Papacy could not have arisen.* But, unhap- pily, the State drew the Church into conformity first, which ended inevitably in incorporation ; and this, again, in the dominancy of the spiritual over the secular element, as will always be the case in the long run, the spiritual being the stronger. The crime met a righteous punishment ; for the State, which had begun by enslaving the Church, was itself enslaved in the end by that very arrogance and ambition which it had taught the Church to cherish. But we pursue our melancholy story of the decline of Christianity and the rise of the Papacy. Rome had the art to turn all things to her advantage. / There was nothing that fell out that did not minister to her growth, and help onward the accomplishment of her * The germ of the distinction is contained in Constantine's address to the bishops : — " Ye are bishops within the Church, and I am a bishop without the Church." (Euseb. De Vita Constantini, lib. iv. cap. xxiv.) The impression on the author's mind, by perusing the edicts and actions of Con- stantine, as narrated by Eusebius, is, that he was the Cromwell of his age ; inferior, no doubt, in his views on both religion and toleration to the great puritan, but still, like him, greatly in advance of the majority both of the clergy and laity of his day. The mischiefs that followed were mainly owing to the bishops and emperors that succeeded him. 24 PROGRESS OF ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY. vast designs; — the rivalship of sects, the jealousies of church- men, the intrigues of courts, the growth of ignorance and superstition, r.nd the triumph of barbarian arms. It seemed as if the natural operation of events was suspended in her case, and that what to other systems wrought nought but evil, to her brought only good. The great shocks by which powerful empires were broken in pieces, and the face of the world changed, left the Church unscathed. While other systems and confederations were falling into ruin, she conti- nued steadily to advance. From the mighty wreck of the empire she uprose in all the vigour of youth. She had shared in its grandeur, but she did not share in its fall. She saw the barbaric flood from the north overwhelm south- ern Europe ; but from her lofty seat on the Seven Hills she looked securely down on the deluge that rolled beneath her. She saw the crescent, hitherto triumphant, cease to be vic- torious the moment it approached the confines of her special and sacred territory. The same arms that had overthrown other countries only contributed to her grandeur. The Sa- racens brought to an end the patriarchate of Alexandria and of Antioch ; thus leaving the see of Rome, more espe- cially after the breach with Constantinople, undisputed mis- tress of the west. What could be concluded from so many events, whose issues to the Papacy were so opposite from their bearing on all besides, but that, while other states were left to their fate, Rome was defended by an invisible arm ? Instinct she must be with a divine life, otherwise how could she survive so many disasters ? No wonder that the blinded nations mistook her for a god, and prostrated themselves in adoration. We cannot write the history of the period ; but we may be permitted to point out the general bearing of the occurrences which we have classified as above, upon the de- velopment of the Papacy. The disputes which arose in the churches of the east fa- voured the pretensions of the Roman Church, and helped to pave her way to universal domination. Desirous to silence an opponent by citing the opinion of the western Church, RISE AND GROWTH OP SUPERSTITION. 25 the eastern clergy not unfrequently submitted questions at issue among themselves to the judgment of the Roman bishop. Every such application was registered by Rome as a proof of superior authority on her part, and of submission on the part of the east. The germinating superstition of the times, — owing principally to the prevalence of the Platonic philosophy, from the subtile disquisitions and specious rea- sonings of which Christianity suffered far more than she did from the persecuting edicts of emperors and pro-consuls, — likewise aided the advance of the Papacy. This supersti- tion, which was in truth, as we have already explained, nothing but the revived Paganism of a former age, conti- nued to increase from an early part of the third century and onward. The simplicity of the Christian faith began to bo corrupted by novel and heathenish opinions, and the wor- ship of the Church to be burdened by ridiculous and idola- trous ceremonies. When the Church exchanged the cata- combs for the magnificent edifices which the wealth, the policy, and sometimes the piety of princes erected, she ex- changed also the simplicity of life and purity of faith, of which so many affecting memorials remain to our day, for the accommodating spirit of the schools, and the easy man- ners of the court. Already, in the fourth century, we find images introduced into churches, the bones of martyrs hawked about as relics, the tombs of saints become the re- sort of pilgrims, and monks and hermits swarming in the various countries. We find the pagan festivals, slightly disguised, adopted into the Christian worship ; the homage offered anciently to the gods transferred to the martyrs ; the Lord's Supper dispensed sometimes at funerals ; the not improbable origin of masses; and the churches filled with the blaze of lamps and tapers, the smoke of in- cense, the perfume of flowers, and the goodly show of gor- geous robes, crosiers, mitres, and gold and silver vases ; reminding one of the not unsimilar spectacles which might be witnessed in the pagan temples. " The religion of Constantino," remarks Gibbon, " achieved in less than a 26 PROGRESS OF ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY. century the final conquest of the Roman empire ; but the victors themselves were insensibly subdued by the arts of their vanquished rivals,"* And as it had fared with the worship of the Church, so had it fared with her government. First, the peoplo were excluded from all share in the ad- ministration of affairs ; next, the rights and privileges of the presbyters were invaded ; while the bishops, who had usurped the powers of both people and presbyters, contend- ed with one another respecting the limits of their respective jurisdictions, and imitated, in their manner of living, the state and magnificence of princes. •!- At last the Church elected her chief bishop in the midst of tumults and fearful slaughter.;!: " Hence it came to pass,*" says Mosheim, *' that at the conclusion of this century there remained no more than a mere shadow of the ancient government of the Church." § Notwithstanding that the Church con- tained every man of the age who was distinguished for erudition and eloquence, we look in vain for any really serious attempt to check this career of spiritual infatua- tion. There was one moment peculiarly critical, inas- much as it offered signal opportunities of retrieving the errors of the past, and preventing the more tremendous errors of the future. Galled by the yoke of ceremonies, the Christian people began to evince a desire to return to the simplicity of early times. There needed only a powerful voice to call that feeling into action. Many eyes were al- ready turned to one whose commanding eloquence and vene- rable piety made him the most conspicuous person of his times. The destiny of ages hung on the decision of Augus- tine. Had he declared for reform, the history of the Papacy might have been cut short ; the ambition of a Hildebrand and a Clement, the bigotry and despotism of a Philip and a * Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. v. p. 136. + Euscbius, Hist. Eccles. lib. vii. cap. i. J Socrates, Hist. Eccles. lib. iv. cap. xxiii. xxiv. § Mosheim, cent. iv. chap. ii. SUPREMACY RECOGNISED BY EDICT. 27 Ferdinand, the fanaticism and cruelties of a Dominic, and the carnage of a St Bartholomew, might never have existed. But the Bishop of Hippo, alas ! hesitated, — gave his voice in favour of the growing superstition. All was lost. The history of the Church becomes from that hour little better than the history of superstition, hypocrisy, knavery, and blood.* Poisonous plants thrive best amid corruption ; and thus the young Papacy drew nutriment from the follies and superstitions of the age. The time was now come when the empire should fall. Hosts of barbarians from the deserts of the north were al- ready assembled on its frontier. The distracted State, threatened with destruction, leant for aid upon the arm of the Church, whose infancy it had first attempted to crush, and next condescended to shelter. Thus the decline of the imperial accelerated the rise of the spiritual power. In the year 378 came the law of Gratian and Valentinian U., em- powering the metropolitans to judge the inferior clergy, and empowering the Bishop of Rome (Pope Damasus), either in person or by deputy, to judge the metropolitans. An ap- peal might be carried from the tribunal of the metropolitan to the Roman bishop, but from the judgment of the pontiff there was no appeal ; his sentence was final. This law was addressed to the praetorian prefects of Gaul and Italy, and thus it included the whole western empire, for the latter prefect exercised jurisdiction over western Illyricum and Africa, as well as over Italy .-[• Thus did the Roman bishop acquire legal jurisdiction over all the western clergy. When the bishops applied to the Pope in doubtful cases, his let- ters conveying the desired advice were styled Decretal Epis- tles ; and to these decretals the Roman canonists came after- wards to attach as much importance as to the Holy Scrip- tures. In order to the due publication and enforcement of these decrees, bishops were appointed to represent the Pope * Taylor's Ancient Christianity, p. 443. + See the Edict in Harduin. vol. i.p. 842, 843 28 PROGRESS OP ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY. in the various countries ; and it became customary to ordain no bishops without the sanction of these papal vicars. The jurisdiction thus conferred on the Roman bishop over the west was submitted to with reluctance : it received only a partial submission from the churches of Africa, and was successfully resisted for some considerable time by those of Britain and Ireland.* The edict of Gratian and Valentinian II., which was coin- cident, as respects the date of its promulgation and the powers which it conferred, with the decree of a synod of Italian bishops, forms a marked epoch in the growth of the ecclesiastical supremacy. Up till this time the jurisdic- tion of the Bishop of Rome had been exercised within the somewhat narrow limits of the civil prefect. His direct power extended only over the vicarage of Rome or the ten suburban provinces.-f* However, within this territory his authority was of a more absolute kind than that which * Britain does not owe its conversion to the Pope. In truth, tlie churches of Britain are more ancient than the Papal Church, In a d. 190, Tertullian speaks of" divers peoples of Gaul, and those parts of Bri- tain which were inaccessible by the Romans, having been subdued by Christ." In Diocletian's persecution Britain had its martyrs. In 313 it sent bishojis to the Council of Aries. In a.d. 431 Palladius was sent from Rome " to the Scots believing on Christ." The first professors of Christianity in Britain were the Culdees, the most probable origin of whom is, that they were refugees from the pagan persecutions. They settled in Scotland, beyond the limits of the Roman empire, and thence propagated Christianity among the Celts of Ireland and the Saxons of England. The object of Augustine and his brigade of forty monks, which Gregory the Great sent into England in the seventh century, was not to plant Christianity, but to drive it back into those remote and inaccessible parts of Scotland where it had first found refuge, and to replace it with the Papacy. (See Du Pin, Hist. Eccles. vol. i. p. 575; Dublin, 1723 : Elliot's Horao Apocalypticre, vol. iii. p. 138: Jameson's History of the Culdees, pp. 7, 8 : Ilethcrington's History of the Church of Scotland, chap, i.) + " Suburbicaria loca." Sixth Canon of Nicene Council, as quoted by Rufinus. (See Du Pin, Eccles. Hist. vol. i. p. 600 : Salmasius De Pri- matu Papro, cap, iii. p. 37, et cap. vii. pp. 103, 104.) POLICY OF THE PONTIFFS. 29 the exarchs of the east exercised within their dioceses. The latter functionaries could ordain only their metropoli- tans, whereas the Roman prelate possessed the right to or- dain every bishop within the limits of his jurisdiction.* Thus, if his authority was less extensive than that of the oriental patriarch, it was already of a more solid kind. But now it underwent a sudden and vast enlargement. By the edict of the Emperor, and the sanction of the Italian bishops, the Roman prelate took his place at the head of the western clergy. A post so distinguished, though conferring as yet, on the whole, but a nominal authority, must have offered vast facilities for acquiring real and substantial power. AVhen was it that the occupants of Peter's chair lacked either the capacity to comprehend or the tact to improve the advantages of their position ? Ambition and genius have ever alike seemed intuitive to them. Lifted thus to the supremacy of the west by royal favour and clerical subserviency, — twin elevatory powers at all stages of the rise of this terrible despotism, — the pontiff began to arro- gate all the prerogatives which ecclesiastical law confers upon patriarchs, and to exercise them in an arbitrary and irresponsible manner. He obtruded his interference in the ordination of all bishops, even those of humblest rank ; thus passing by, and virtually ignoring, the rights of metropoli- tans. He encouraged appeals to his see, in the well-found- ed hope of drawing into his own hands the management of all affairs. He convoked synods, but rather to display the magnificence and power of Peter's see, than to benefit by the counsel of his brethren in difficult cases. Usurping the legislative as well as the judicial functions of the Church, he dictated to his secretary whatever he believed, or pre- tended to believe, to be right and fitting in matters pertain- ing to the Church ; and the decretal, to which all submitted, was equally authoritative with the canons of councils, and finally with the commandments of Holy Scripture. Thus * Tractatus Barlaami, p. 2S4. so PROGRESS OF ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY. did the occupant of the fisherman'^s chair craftily weave the intricate web of his tyrannical and blasphemous power over all the churches and clergy of the west. Another well-marked stage in the rise of the ecclesiastical supremacy is a.d. 445. In that year came the memorable edict of Valentinian III. and Theodosius II., in which the Ro- man pontiff was styled the "■ Director of all Christendom,"* and the bishops and universal clergy were commanded to obey him as their ruler.-f- It is believed that the decree was issued on the application of Pope Leo. Amongst other advantages enjoyed by the pontiff was that of ready access to the Court, and thus he sometimes became the prompter of the imperial policy. The suggestions noted down by his secretary, sub- mitted to the Emperor, and approved of by him, were ushered into the world with the customary forms and the full authority of an imperial edict. " Henceforth," that is, from the publication of the decree we have just noted, " the power of the Roman bishops," says Ranke, " advanced be- neath the protection of the Emperor himself.";]: At about the distance of a century from the decree of Theodosius § came the celebrated letter of Justinian to the Pope, in which the Emperor still farther enlarged the prerogatives which previous edicts had conferred upon the Bishop of Rome. These imperial recognitions of a rank which the councils of the Church had previously conferred, tended greatly, as may easily be conceived, to consolidate and advance the arrogant assumptions of the Roman bishop. They gave solidity to his power, by investing him with a positive and legal jurisdiction. The code of Justinian, which had been published a few years before this time,|| was now the law of western Europe. Its influence, too, was favourable to the growth of the ecclesiastical supremacy. Contemporarily * " Rector totius Ecclesia3." (D'Aiibignd's History, vol. i. p. 42.) t Sir J. Newton on Daniel, p. 120. t Ranke's History of the Popes, book i. chap, i, sec. i. ; Bohn's edition, 1847. § Dated March 533. || Dated a.d. 529. EDICTS OF JUSTINIAN AND PHOCAS. 31 with the publication of Justinian's code, was the rise of the Benedictine order,* In the course of a century the Bene- dictines had spread themselves over the west, preaching everywhere the doctrine of implicit submission to the see of Rome. Last of all came the edict of the Emperor Phocas, in A.D. 606, constituting Boniface III. Universal Bishop. This was the last in a series of edicts which had for their object to make the Bishop of Rome " Lord over God's heritage." In so infamous a cause no one was so worthy to perform the crowning act as the tyrannical and brutal Phocas.-f- It was the hand of a murderer which placed upon the brow of Boniface the mitre of a universal episcopate. The ecclesiastical supremacy had now a legal existence, but it must become real also. So vast a power, extending over so many interests, and over such a multitude of per- sons, and covering so large a portion of the globe, no im- perial fiat could create ; it must grow. Planted by coun- cils, buttressed by edicts, with a congenial element of vitali- ty and increase in the thickening superstition of the times, it henceforward made rapid progress. It throve so well, in fact, and shot up into such portentous height, that be- fore all was over, the authority that had evoked it would fain have bidden it away, but could not ; like the necro- mancer who forgets his spell, and is unable to lay the spirit he has raised. The suckling in the cradle to which the State offered its breasts could never surely grow into * Their founder was Benedict of Nursia. His first monastery was on Moimt Cassino, in Italy. The forty monks that invaded England in the seventh century were Benedictines. (Mosheim, cent. vi. part ii. p. 2-6.) + The authorities on which this rests are, Paul Diaconus and Anas- fasius. The words of the latter, in his Ecclesiastical History on a.d. 606, are, — " Hie (Bonifacius) obtinuit apud Phocam priiicipem ut sedes apostolica beati Petri Apostoli caput esse omnium ecclesiarura ; quia ecclesia Gonstantinopolitana jjrimam se omnium ecclesiarum scribebat." "Phocas was the real founder of this fabric of fraud, though no monu- ment proclaims it save a column in the Forum ; but patriarchs, like bishops, often forget their maker," (Gavazzi, Oration vii.) S2 PROGRESS OF ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY. the hydra that was to strangle the empire ! Power, when once it has begun to grow, enlarges its volume like the rolling river, and accelerates its speed like the falling ava- lanche. On a sudden all things become favourable to it. At every turn, it finds, ready-made to its hand, helps to speed it onward. Its faults, be they ever so great, never lack apologists ; and its excellencies, however small they be, always find willing and eloquent panegyrists. Its wealth converts enemies into friends ; the timid grow courageous in its cause ; and the indifferent and lukewarm find a hun- dred reasons for being active and zealous in its service. The cause of Rome was the rising cause, and therefore it enjoyed all these advantages, and many more besides. With a dexterity and skill which have never elsewhere been equalled, the Vatican could manufacture, out of ma- terials the most heterogeneous and unpromising, props and defences of its ill-gotten supremacy. The incautious admission of an opponent, the exaggerated and high-flown language of a eulogist, were alike accepted by Rome as for- mal and measured acknowledgments of her right. The hy- perbolical and sycophantish terms in which a prelate sued for protection, or a heretic implored forgiveness, were re- gistered as documentary proofs of the prerogatives and powers of the Roman see. The sectary was encouraged or put down, just as it suited the policy of the pontiffs; and the shield of the vanquished heretic Rome hung up as a trophy of her prowess. Monarchs were incited to quarrel with one another : Rome stood by till the conflict was ended; and then, siding with the stronger party, she divided the spoils with the victor. The clergy even, who might naturally have been supposed to be averse to the rise of such a domination, were conciliated by being taught to find their own dignity in that of the Roman see, and to share with the pontiff" dominion over the laity. By these, and an hundred other arts, which triumphantly vindicate to the Roman pontiffs an unquestionable supremacy in knavery and hypocrisy, it came to pass, that in process of time, the FALL OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE. S3 one Bishop of Rome had absorbed all the bishops of the west. There was but one huge episcopate, with its head upon the Seven Hills ; while its hundred limbs, like those of the giant Briareus of classic mythology, were stretched out over Europe, forming a monster of so anomalous and nondescript a character, that nowhere shall we find a figure adequately to depict it, save among the inspired hierogly- phics of the Apocalypse, where it is porti'ayed under the symbol of a beast, of lamb-like mien but dragon-ferocity.* At last the empire of the west was dissolved. The seat which had been occupied so long by the master of the world was now empty. This had been noted beforehand in prophecy as the instant sign of the coming of Antichrist, that is, of his full revelation; for, as we have already seen, the Mystery of Iniquity was operative in the apostles'* days. " He who now letteth will let,"'"' said Paul, alluding to the imperial power, which, so long as it existed, was an effectual obstruction to the papal supremacy, — " he who now letteth will let, till he be taken out of the way ; and then shall that Wicked be revealed. "•f- The overthrow of the empire contri- buted most materially towards the elevation of the Bishop of Rome; for, ^rst, it took the Caesars out of the way. " A secret hand," says De Maistre, ■"' chased the emperors from the Eternal City, to give it to the head of the Eternal ChurclL^J Second, It compelled the bishops of Rome, now deprived of the imperial influence which had hitherto helped them so mightily in their struggles for pre-eminence, to fall back on another element, and that an element which consti- tutes the very essence of the Papacy, and on which is founded the whole complex fabric of the spiritual and temporal do- mination of the popes. The rank of Rome, as the seat of government and the metropolis of the world, had lifted her bishop to a proud pre-eminence above his peers. But Rome was the head of empire no longer : the prestige of * Revelations, xiii. 11. t 2 Thessaloaians, ii. 7, 8. J Du Pape, liv. ii. c. vl. p. ISO ; Lyon. 1S45. D o-i PROGRESS OF ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY. her name, which in all ages has struck the imagination so powerfully, and through the imagination captivated the judgment, she still retained; for by no change could she be- come bereft of her immortal memories : but the subject nations no longer called her Mother and Ruler. With Rome would have fallen her bishop, had he not, as if by anticipation of the crisis, reserved till this hour the master- stroke of his policy. He now boldly cast himself upon an element of much greater strength than that of which the political convulsions of the times had deprived him, namely, that the Bishop of Rome is the successor of Peter, the prince of the Apostles, and, in virtue of being so, is Christ's Vicar on earth. In making this claim, the Roman pontiffs vaulted at once over the throne of kings to the seat of gods : Rome became once more the mistress of the world, and her popes the rulers of the earth. The principle had been tacitly adopted by many of the clergy, and more especially by the bishops of Rome, before this time ; but now it was formally and openly advanced, as the basis of a claim of authority over all churches and bishops, and ultimately of dominion over sovereigns. Of this we adduce the following testimonies. In the middle of the fifth century, we find the fundamental dogma of the Papacy, that the Church is founded on Peter, and that the popes are his representatives, proclaimed by the papal le- gate in the midst of the Council of Chalcedon, and virtu- ally sanctioned by the silence of the fathers who were sitting in judgment on the case of Dioscorus. " For these causes," said the legate, " Leo, archbishop of Old Rome, doth by us and by the Synod, with the authority of St Peter, who is the rock and foundation of the Church, and the ground of faith, depose him (Dioscorus) from his episcopal dignity."* We find the fathers of the same council hailing with accla- mation the voice of Leo as the voice of Peter. A shout followed the reading of the Pope's letter : — " Peter speaks in * Du Pin, Hist. Eccles. vol. i. p. 672. CLAIM TO BE G0D''S VICAR. 35 Leo."* As a farther proof that the Popes had now shifted their dignity from an imperial to a pontiUcal foundation, we may instance the case of Hilary, the successor of Leo, who accepted from the Terragonese bishop, as a title to which he had unquestionable right, the appellation " Vicar of Peter^ to whom, since the resurrection of Christ, belonged the keys of the kingdom."-f- In a spirit of equal arrogance, we find Pope Gelasius, bishop of Rome from A.D. 492 to 496, asserting that it became kings to learn their duty from bishops, but especially from the " Vicar of the blessed Peter"! We find the same Pope asserting, in a Roman council, A.D. 495, that to the see of Rome belonged the primacy, in virtue of Christ^s own delegation; and that from the authority of the keys there was excepted none living, but only (mark how modest Rome then was !) the dead. The council in which these lofty claims were put forth con- cluded its session with a shout of acclamation to Gelasius, — " In thee we behold Christ''s Vicar."§ In the violent contention which raged between Syrama- chus and Laurentius, both of whom had been elected to the pontificate on the same day, we are furnished with another proof that at the beginning of the sixth century not only was this lofty prerogative claimed by the popes, but that it was generallyacquiesced in by the clergy. AVe find the council convoked by Theodoric demurring to investigate the charges alleged against Pope Symmachus, on the grounds set forth by his apologist Ennodius, which were, " that the Pope, as * Harduin. vol. ii. p. 306. " Haec apostolorum fides. Anathema ei qui ita non credit. Petrus per Leonera ita locutus est. + See the Bishop's letter to Pope Hilary, Hai-duin. vol. ii. p. 7S7. X Ilarduin. vol. ii, p. SSG : " A pontilicibus, et praecipue a beati Petri Vicario." § " Sancta Romana ecclesia nuUis synodicis constitutis caeteris ecclesiis prselata est, sed evangelica voce Domini nostri primatum obtinuit, Tu es Petrus," &c. When the council was about to break up, " Onmes episcopi et presbyteri surgentes in synodo, acclamavoruut, ' Vicarium Christi te vi- demus." (Harduin. vol. ii. p. 494-498.) o6 PROGRESS OF ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY. God's Vicar, was the judge of all, and could himself be judged by no one.""* " In this apology," remarks Mosheim, " the reader will perceive that the foundations of that enor- mous power which the popes of Rome afterwards acquired were now laid." Thus did the pontiffs, providing timeously against the changes and revolutions of the future, place the fabric of the primacy upon foundations that should be im- moveable for all time. The primacy had been promul- gated by synodical decrees, ratified by imperial edicts ; but the pontiffs perceived that what synods and emperors had given, synods and emperors might take away. The enact- ments of both, therefore, were discarded, and the Divine right was put in their room, as the only basis of power which neither lapse of years nor change of circumstances could overthrow. Rome was henceforward indestructible. *' Dum domu«s ^neos capitoli iniitjobile saxum Accolet, imperiumque Romanus pater liabebit."+ Thus was accomplished in the destinies of the Papacy a change of so vast a character, that the imagination can with difficulty realize it. Quickened with a new life, Rome re- turned from her grave to exercise universal dominion a second time. The element of power which was lost when the empire fell was at best of an extraneous kind: it was influence reflected from without upon Rome, — foreign in its character and earthly in its source. But the element on which she now cast herself was of a nature analogous to the Papacy, and so, incorporating with it, that element became its life. It made Rome self-existent and invincible, — invin- cible to every principle save one, and that principle was to remain in abeyance for a full thousand years. The day of Luther was yet afar off*. It was this element that gave to Rome the superhuman power she wielded over the world. * Moslieim, cent. vi. part ii. chap. ii. " Vice Dei judicare pontificem, a luillo Tnortaliuni in jus vocari posse docuit." Adopted by the Roman Synod, under Synniiaclius, a.d. 503. (Ilarduin, vol. ii. p. 9S3.) t Virgilius, iEneid. lib. ix. ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY CONSOLIDATED. 37 It was this which enabled her to phint or to pkick up its kingdoms, to bind monarchs to her chariot-wheel, to throw reason and intellect into chains, and to restore once more the dominion of the pagan night. In so subtle a device we can discover a deeper policy and a more consummate craft than that of man. It was Rome's invisible director that counselled so bold a step. This step was as successful as bold. It opened a new career to the ambition of Rome, and revealed to her, though yet at a great distance, and with many an intervening change and struggle, that seat of god- like power to which she was ultimately to attain, and to- wards which she now began, with slow and painful steps, to climb. Most marvellous and astonishing it truly was, that at a time when Rome was placed in most imminent jeopardy, and society itself was perishing around her, she shouhl lay the foundations of her power, and by her prompt interposi- tion save herself and the world from the dissolution to which both appeared to be tending. Her adherents in all ages have seen in this nothing less than a proof, alike incontro- vertible and marvellous, of her Divinity. The Cardinal Earonius speaks the sentiments of all Roman Catholics when he breaks out in the following impassioned strain, in reference to a supposed grant of the kingdom of Hungary, by Stephen, to the Roman see : — " It fell out, by a wonder- ful providence of God, that at the very time when the Romish Church might appear ready to fall and perish, even then distant kings approach the apostolic see, which they acknowledge and venerate as the only temple of the uni- verse, — the sanctuary of piety, the pillar of truth, the im- moveable rock. Behold kings, not from the east, as of old they came to the cradle of Christ, but from the north : led by faith, they humbly approach the cottage of the fisher, the Church of Rome herself offering not only gifts out of their treasures, but bringing even kingdoms to her, and asking kingdoms from her."* * Baroniusj anuo 1000. I S8 PROGRESS OF ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY. Thus have we traced the history of the Papacy, from its rise in primitive times, to its formal though but partial de- velopment in the sixth century. Aided by the various in- fluences we have enumerated, — the prestige and rank of Rome, — the institution of the order, first of metropolitan, and next of patriarch, — the edicts of emperors, — the reference of disputed questions by other Churches to the Bishop of r Rome, — and, most of all, the pretence that the occupant of the Roman see was the successor of Peter and the Vicar of Christ, — together with that crafty, astute, and persevering policy which enabled the Roman bishops to make the most of apparent concessions to them of pre-eminence and autho- rity, — the pastors of Rome were now supreme over the great body of the clergy of the west ; and thus the ecclesiastical supremacy was attained. They were now in a fair ^vay^'inTo, oTbecomhig the superiors of kings, for there was no usurpa- tion of prerogative, no exercise of dominion, temporal or spiritual, which the claim now put forth by the Roman bishop to be Christ's Vicar would not cover. We are now to follow the several steps by which the Papacy gradually rose to the height of power in which we find it shortly be- fore the breaking out of the Reformatioij. RISE OF THE TEMPORAL SOVEREIGNTY, SO CHAPTER III. RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE TEMPORAL SOVEREIGNTY. Over the abyss in which the Roman empire of the west had been engulphed there now floated the portentous form of the Papacy. If the idolatrous nations, in their victorious march from the Upper Danube to southern Europe, had not brought the gods of their ancestors along with them, they were not on that account the less pagan. Their con- version to Christianity was merely nominal. Ignorant of its doctrines, destitute of its spirit, and captivated by its splen- did ceremonial, they were scarcely conscious of any change, when they transferred to the saints of the Roman Church the worship they had been accustomed to pay to their Scandinavian deities. The process by which these nations, from being pagan, became Christian, may be adequately likened to the contrivance by which the statue of Jupiter at Rome was converted from the representative of the prince of pagan deities to the representative of the prince of Christian apostles, namely, by the substitution of the two keys for the thunderbolt. After the same manner the newly- arrived nations were taught to wear the outward badges of the Christian faith, but at heart they were as much pagan as before. Most of the new tribes became professors of the Arian faith. In this heresy were involved the barbarians which occupied Italy, Africa, Spain, and Gaul ; and the 40 RISE OF THE TEMPORAL SOVEREIGiVTY. popes were obliged to exercise the utmost circumspection and management, in order to surmount the perils and pro- fit by the advantages presented by the new order of things. The convulsions, combinations, and heresies of the times, formed a maze so intricate and dangerous, that no power less wary and sagacious than the papal could have threaded its way with safety through it. The bark of Peter was now navigating a sea full of rocks and maelstroms, and had to shape its course, " Harder beset, And more endangered, than when Argo passed Through Bosphorus, betwixt the justling rocks. Or when Ulysses on the larboard shunn'd Charybdis, and by the other whirlpool steer'd." Paradise Lost. In A.D. 496, an event took place destined to exercise a mo- mentous influence on the fate of the Papacy and of Europe. In that year Clovis, king of the Franks, in fulfilment of a vow made on the field of Tolbiac, where he was vic- torious over the Alleraanni, was baptized at Rheims. " On the memorable day," observes Gibbon, " when Clovis ascended from the baptismal font, he alone in the Chris- tian world deserved the name and prerogatives of a catho- lic king."* Rome hailed the auspicious event as a token of a long series of similar triumphs ; and she rewarded the de- votion of Clovis by bestowing upon him the title, — which he has transmitted downward through ] 400 years to his suc- cessors the kings of France, — of Eldest Son of the Church. During the course of the sixth century, others of the bar- barian kings, — the Burgundians of southern Gaul and Savoy, the Bavarians, the Visigoths of Spain, the Suevi of Portugal, and the Anglo-Saxons of Britain, — presented themselves before the apostolic throne as its spiritual vas- sals. Thus, the dominion which their swords had taken * Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. vi. p. 320 : also Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. i. chap. i. j Lond. 1841. CONVERSION OF THE NORTHERN NATIONS. 41 away, their superstition restored to Rome. The various 1 nations who were now masters of the western empire I found in the Papacy, and nowhere else, to use Muller's f words, " a point of union.""* The sagacious measures of j Pope Gregoi-y the Great contributed at this juncture ma- terial assistance to the rising Papacy. The barbarian kings being now submissive to the Roman faith, Gregory exerted himself, with a large measure of success, to esta- blish it as a law throughout their kingdoms, that the metro- politan should receive the sanction of the pontiff. For this end it now became the practice to send from Rome a palliumf to the metropolitan, in token of investiture ; and without the pall he could not lawfully enter on the exercise of his functions. The zeal of Boniface, the apostle of Ger- many a century later, completed what Pope Gregory had commenced. This man, a Briton by birth, travelled through- out Germany and Gaul, preaching profound submission to Peter and his representative the Roman bishop ; and he succeeded in inducing the German and Frank bishops to take the vow he himself had taken of implicit obedience to the Roman see. Henceforward, without the pallium no metropolitan entered upon the duties of his office.^ How much this tended to consolidate the spiritual supremacy, and to pave the way for the temporal usurpations of the popes, it is not difficult to perceive. In the seventh century, we find a prevalent disposition among the princes of the west to submit themselves impli- citly, in all matters that pertained to religion, to the Roman see. In their pagan state they had been accustomed to undertake no affair of consequence without the advice and consent of their priests, by whom they were held in the most degrading vassalage ; and after their conversion they * Universal History, vol. i. p. 412. t The pall is formed of the fleece of certain lambs selected for that pur- pose, and is manufiictured by the nuns of St Agnes, :f Eanke's History of the Popes, vol. i. pp. 11, 12. 42 RISE OF THE TEiAIPORAL SOVEREIGNTY. transferred tliis implicit obedience to the Roman clergy, who most willingly accepted the implied superiority and power, and used every means to improve and extend their influence. " It was the sturdy shoulders of these children of the idolatrous north," remarks Dr D'Aubigne, " that suc- ceeded in placing on the supreme throne of Christendom a pastor of the banks of the Tiber."* The people venerated the clergy, and the clergy were bound to implicit obedience to the pontiff". By this time, too, the unit^ of the Churchy not in the Scriptural, but Romish sense, — not as consisting in one baptism, one faith, one hope ; but as consisting in one outward body governed by a visible head, the Roman pon- tiff*, — had established itself in the minds of men. The term Pore or Father, originally a divine, and next an imperial title, formerly given to all bishops, now came to be restricted to the Bishop of Rome,-f according to the saying afterwards employed by Gregory VIL, that there was but one pope in the world. The overthrow of the Ostrogoths and Vandals about this time, by the arms of Belisarius, contributed also to the expansion of the Papacy. The former had establisjied themselves in Italy, and the latter in Sardinia and Corsica ; and their near presence enabled them to overawe the pope- dom ; but their extirpation by the victorious general of Jus- tinian rid the Pope of these formidable neighbours, and tended to the authority as well as the security of the Roman see. But it was in the eighth century that the most consider- able addition was made to the temporal power of the popes. A singular combination of dangers at that period threatened the very existence of the Papacy. The iconoclast disputes, then raging with extreme violence, had engendered a deep and lasting variance between the Roman see and the empe- rors of the east. The Arian kings of Lombardy, intent on the conquest of all Italy, were brandishing their swords be- * History of the Reformation, vol. i. p. 43. + Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. vii. p. 39. GRANTS OF PEPIN AND CIIARLEMAGXE. 43 fore the very gates of Rome ; while in the west, the Sara- cens, who had overrun Africa and conquered Spain, were arrived at the passes of the Pyrenees, and threatened to enter Italy and plant the crescent on the Seven Hills. Pressed on all sides, the Pope turned his eyes to France. He wrote to the mayor of the palace, and so framed the terms of his letter, that Peter, with all the saints, suppli- cated the Gallic soldier to hasten to the rescue of Ms chosen city, and of that church where his bones reposed. The suc- cour was not more earnestly craved than it was cordially and promptly granted. The bold P epin had just seated himself_ on the __thro ne of the pusillanimous Childe nn,* a^nd needed the papal confirmation of his usurped dignity. Bar- gaining for this, he girded on the sword, crossed the Alps, defeated the Lombards, and, wresting from them the cities they had taken from the Greek emperor, he laid the keys of the conquered towns upon the altar of St Peter. This wa s jn the year _Iaai_ and by this act \m aJaid thefou'ndation of the tempoi ;ajj20W£iLjQLthej}opes/|' The gifts th us besto wed_ by Pepin were confirmed by his yet more di stinguished son Charlem agnfi- The Lombards had again become troublesome to the Pope ; in fact, they were besieging him in his city of Pome. The pontiff again supplicated the aid of France ; and Charlemagne, in answer to his prayer, entered Italy at the head of his army. De- feating the Lombards, he visited the Pope in his capital ; and so profound was his deference for the see of Rome, that he kissed the steps of St Peter as he ascended, and, at the interview that followed, ratified and enlarged the donations of his father Pepin to the Church.^ A second * Pope Zachary had probably given his express sanction beforehand to the usurpation of Pepin, (Du Pin, vol. ii. pp. 33-39 : INIosheim, cent. vii. part ii. p. 2-7 : Bower's History of the Popes, vol. iii. p. 332 ; Lond. 1754.) t Mosheini, cent. viii. part ii. chap. ii. sec. vii. viii. : Ranke's History of the Popes, vol. i. p. 14 : Hallam's ISIiddle Ages, vol, i. p. 7. J Ranke's History of the Popes, vol. i. p. 14. 44 PROGRESS OP THE TEMPORAL SOVEREIGNTY. time Charlemagne appeared In the Eternal City.* The factions that now reigned in Rome threatened to put an end, by their violence, to the authority of the pontiff ; and a third time did France interpose to save the Papacy from apparent destruction. Charlemagne, says Machiavelli, de- creed, " that his Holiness, being God's Vicar, could not be subject to the judgment of man.'"'!- _Charlemagne was now master of nearly all the E,omano-Germanic~ nations' of the west^ and, as a recompense for these "T epeated_succours, t jie Pope (Leo IIL) , on Christma s eve, A.D. 800, placed upon the head of the French king the~crown of the western empire.:}: In this~acF the~ ]5ontp rdispTayedTiis power not less tha n his^rat rtiTde^ As one who liaTCTOwns aiicTTcing- doms at his disposal, we behold him selecting the son of Pepin, and placing upon his brow the imperial diadem. In this light at least have the partizans of Rome regarded the act. They have " generally maintained," says Mosheim, " that Leo. III., by a divine rifjht^ vested in him as Bishop of Rome, transported the western empire from the Greeks to the Franks."" § " Whereas formerly," says Machiavelli, in his History of Florence, " the popes were confirmed by the emperors, the emperor now, in his election, was to be be- holden to the pope ; by which means the power and dignity of the empire declined, and the Church began to advance, and by these steps to usurp upon the authority of temporal princes." || One thing at least is clear, that great advan- tages accrued to both parties from this proceeding. It added new lustre to the dignity of Charlemagne, and gave the title to him who already possessed the power ; while, on the other hand, it greatly enlarged the temporal posses- * First so called by Ammianus Marcellinus, the well-known historian and soldier. + Works of Nicolo Machiavelli, p. 8 ; Lond. ed. 1679. X Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empii-e,vol. ix. pp. 159-176 : Du Pin, Eccles. Hist. vol. ii. p. 49. § Mosiieim, cent. viii. part ii. chap. ii. sec. X, !1 Works of Nicolo Machiavelli, p. 8. THE TRIPLE CROWN. 45 sions of the Church, and secured a powerful friend and pro- tector to the Pope in the person of the Emperor. Thus the perils which had threatened to destroy the Papacy tended ultimately to consolidate it ; and thus did Rome, skilled to profit alike by the weakness and the strength of monarchs, steadily pursue that profound scheme of policy, the object of which was to chain kings, priests, and people, to the pontifical chair. Henceforward the Pope takes his place among the monarchs of the earth. First the Vandals and Ostrogoths, and now the Lombards, had fallen before him. Their territories were given to the Church, and formed the patrimony of St Peter ; and the haughty pastor by whom these powers had been supplanted, unaware that prophecy had pointed very significantly to the fact, and marked it as a noted stage in the rise of Antichrist,"" now appeared in the glories of the triple crown. While the Papacy was laboriously building up its external defences, conciliating princes, contracting alliances with powerful monarchs, and intriguing to acquire in its own riglit temporal sovereignty, let us mark the growth of that superstition in which lay the life and strength of the Pope- dom. These two, — the inward principle and the outward de- velopment, — we find ever advancing pari p)assu. By the time the barbarians arrived in southern Europe, Christianity had been grossly corrupted. It lacked, as a consequence, the power to dispel the ignorance or to purify the morals of those whom the convulsions of the times brought into con- tact with it. As they issued from their native forests, so were they received within the pale of the Church, — unin- structed, unreformed, unchristianized. The only change the Christianity of the age exacted had respect to the names of those divinities in whose honour the invading nations con- tinued to celebrate the same rites, slightly modified, which they had been accustomed to pay to their Druidical and Scandinavian idols. It follows that the term Christendom * Dauiel, vii. 8, 20-24. 46 PROGRESS OF THE TEMPORAL SOVEREIGNTY. is simply a geographical expression. The nations that in- habit western Europe have not till this hour been evan- gelized, if we except the partial enlightenment of the Re formation. The barbarism of the times had extin<2:uished the light of philosophy and of letters. No polite study, no elegant art, no useful science, helped to tame the fierceness, refine the manners, or expand the intellect, of these nations. The clergy, wallowing in wealth, and abandoning themselves to dissolute pleasures, were grossly and shamefully ignorant, and unable to compose the homilies which they recited in the presence of the people. The genius of Charlemagne saw and bewailed these evils ; but neither his power nor his munificence, — and both were largely employed, — could avail to reform these gross abuses."' The singular infelicity of the times rendered all his attempts at reformation abortive. If we except a few individuals, belonging chiefly to Ireland and Britain, where the enlightened and beneficent patronage of Alfred the Great maintained a better order of things, no illustrious names illumined the darkness of that barbarous night. Till partially restored by the Saracens in the tenth century, learning and science were unknown in the west.-f- The state of matters as regards religion was even more deplorable. We have already seen the height to which su- perstition had risen in the fourth century. We will search in vain, amid the ignorance, the follies, the vices, of the eighth and ninth centuries, for the early purity of the gospel, the simple grandeur of its worship, or the attractive virtues of its first confessors. A general dissolution of manners clia- * See the summary of his Capitularies, or Ecclesiastical Laws, in Du Pin, Eccles. Hist. vol. ii. p. 43. + IVIosheim, cent. vii. part i. chap. i. sec. ii. iii. The reader will find a fair specimen of the literature and intellect of the age in Du Pin's short notice of Joannes Moschus, a presbyter of the seventh century, and author of the " Spiritual Meadow." Joannes Moschus having visited the monas- teries of the east, returned to Rome, where he published in one book what he had learned of " the life, actions, sentences, and miracles of the monks of divers ountries." (See Du Pin, Eccles. Hist. vol. ii. p. 11.) SUPERSTITION AND BARBARISM. 47 racterized the age : the corruption had infected all classes, not excepting even the clergy, who, instead of being exam- ples of virtue, were notorious for their impieties and vices. In the same proportion in w-hich they declined in piety and learning, did they increase in riches and influence. A no- tion now began to be propagated, that crimes might be ex- piated by donations to the Church at the moment of death. This proved a fertile source of wealth to the clergy. Rich legacies and ample donations of lands and houses flowed in upon the churches and monasteries, the gifts of men who hoped by these generous deeds, performed at the expense of their heirs, to obliterate the sins of a lifetime, and purchase salvation for their souls.* By and by, bequests on a yet larger scale began to be made. It was at this time custo- mary for princes to distribute munificent gifts among their followers, partly as the reward of past services, and partly with a view to secure their support in future. The great credit which the clergy enjoyed with the people made it a matter of the last importance to secure their influence. Whole provinces, with their cities, castles, and fortresses, were not unfrequently bestowed upon them ; and over the domains so bestowed they were permitted to exercise sove- reign jurisdiction. Raised thus to the rank of temporal princes, they vied with dukes and sovereigns in the splen- dour of their court and the number of their retinue. They raised armies, imposed taxes, waged bloody wars, and by their ceaseless intrigues and boundless ambition plunged Europe into interminable broils and conflicts. Those men who were bound by their sacred calling to preach to the world the vanity of human grandeur, furnished in their own persons the most scandalous examples of worldly pride and ambition. To fulfil their sublime mission as ministers of Christ, — to instruct the ignorant, reclaim the wandering, suc- cour the distressed, and console the dying, — formed no part * D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation, vol. i. p. 61 : Mosheim, cent, vii. part ii. cliap. ii.-iv. 48 PROGRESS OP THE TEMPORAL SOVEREIGNTY. of their care. These duties were forsaken for the more tempting paths of pleasure and wealth, the intrigues of courts, and the tumults of camps. A crafty priesthood, more- over, made it an inviolable rule, that property gifted to the Church should be regarded as the property of God, and be held for ever inalienable. Henceforward to touch it was sacrilege ; and whoever adventured on so bold an act was destined to experience the full measure of the Church's ven- geance. The natural law which limits the growth of bodies corporate was set aside by this kind of spiritual entail ; and the wealth of the Church, and, by consequence, her power, grew to be enormous.* The evils of the time were Legion ; but all flowed from one colossal error : the cardinal truth of Christianity, that salvation is of grace, was completely obscured. By the most plausible pretexts and the most subtle devices was man led away from God, and taught to centre all his hopes in him- self. Faith was overthrown, and works were put in its room. The sacrifice of Christ was neglected, and man became his own saviour. We trace the operation of this grand erroi- in the superstitious and burdensome rites in which all holi- ness now began to be placed. Sanctification was no longer sought in a pure heart and a mind enlightened by divine truth, but in certain external rites, which were seldom either important or dignified. To nourish the passions and morti- fy the body was now the grand secret of holiness. Pilgri- mages were undertaken, and their merits were regulated by the length and the perils of the way, and the renown of the shrine visited. Penances were imposed, fasts were enjoin- ed ; and in proportion to the severity of the suffering and the rigour of the abstinence, was the efficacy of the act to atone for sin, and recommend to the favour of God.-f- A mind debased by ignorance, and not unfrequently by vice, and a body emaciated by flagellations and fastings, was a * [Moslicizn, cent. viii. part ii. chap. ii. sec. iv.-vi. + D'AubigiK^'s Ilistoiy of the llefurmation, vol. i. pp. 5S-G0. RISE OF MONKERY. 49 sure sign of eminent sanctity. Piety no longer consisted in love to God and obedience to his will, but in the observance of the most frivolous ceremonies, to which there attached an extraordinary value and a mysterious influence. To endow a convent or erect a cathedral was among the most illus- trious deeds which one could perform. To possess a finger or a toe of a saint was a rare privilege ; and the owner of so inestimable a treasure derived therefrom unspeakably more benefit than could possibly accrue from the possession of any moral or spiritual excellence, however exalted. Relics so precious were sought for with a perseverance and a zeal that set all difficulties at defiance ; and what was so eagerly sought was in most cases happily found. The caves of Egypt, the sands of Libya, and the deserts of Syria, were ransacked. The bones of dead men, and, if history may be credited, of the lower animals, were exhumed, were hawked over Christendom, and purchased at a high rate. They w ere w^orn as amulets, or enshrined in cabinets of silver and gold; and, being placed in cathedrals, were exhibited at stated times to the devout. To abandon society, with the obliga- tions it imposes and the duties it exacts, and to consume life in the midst of filth, indolence, and vice, was accounted an effort of uncommon holiness. To shirk the plough and the loom, and mount the wallet of the beggar, — to abscond from the ranks of honest industry, and fleece the labouring classes in predatory bands or as single sorners, — was to be heroically self-denied and virtuous. Such holy men were rather un- pleasantly common ; for the west, as formerly the east, now began to swarm with monks and hermits. Such of the pagan sophists as lived to witness the rise of this superstition, no less amazed than indignant, pointed the keen shafts of their powerful satire against that filthy race, which had renounced the beautiful mythology of Greece and the martial gods of Rome, to fall prostrate before the bones and mouldering relics of the dead.* * Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. v. pp. 124-130. " Alany of the eminent fathers, both for learning and devotion, made E 50 PROGRESS OF THE TEMPORAL SOVERElGxNTY. So wretched did man"'s condition become, so soon as he turned away from God, and sought salvation in himself. In the same hour in which he forsook the light he lost his liberty. When he surrendered his faith he parted with his peace. From that moment his life became barren of all good, because he strove to produce by an effort of his will, what God had ordamed to spring only from love. Hope, too, forsook the breast, in which she found no solid footing ; and a " doubtsome faith," the result partly of scepticism and partly of indifference, took her place. The overmaster- ing force of evil desires began now to be felt; and man found his own strength but a feeble substitute for the grace of God. Having taken upon himself the burden of his own salvation, he laboui'ed, in a round of mortifying and painful acts, to accomplish a task utterly beyond his power. His success was far indeed from being in proportion to his efforts. But in this lay one of the deep artifices of Popery. That system employed the defilement of guilt, the slavery of fear, the thrall of sensuality, to complete its conquest over man. Having put out his eyes. Popery led man away to grind in her prison-house. The perfection of error is the perfection of slavery; and man surrendered himself with- out a struggle to the dominion of this tyrant. It was not till Truth came at the Reformation, that his prison-doors were opened, and that the bondman was loosed and led forth. But the master corruption of the age was image-worship. Blinded by error, and grown carnal in their imaginations, men saw not the true glory of the sanctuary, and sought to beautify it with the fictitious splendour of statues and pic- tures. The promise, " Lo, I am with you," was forgotten ; rhetorical panegjTics of the Cliristians deceased, wherein, by apostrophes and prosopopeias, they seemed to invoke souls dei^arted." Thus St Je- rome, in his epitaph of Paula, saith, " Farewell, Paula ; and by thy prayers help the decrepit age of him that honours thee," And so Na- zianzen, in his invectives against Julian, saith, " Hear, 0, thou soul of great Constautine." cDu Piu's Ecclcs. Hist. vol. ii. p. 45.) INTRODUCTION OF IMAGE WORSHIP. 51 and when the worshipper ceased to realize the presence of a spiritual Being, the hearer of his prayer, he strove to stimulate his flagging devotion by corporeal representations. The churches, already polluted with relics, began now to be disgraced with images. Pictures of the saints and the mar- tyrs covered the walls, while the vestibules and niches were occupied with statues of Christ and the apostles. These were first introduced under pretext of doing honour to those whom they represented ; but the feeling, by a natural and unavoidable process, rapidly degenerated into worship. This was a master-stroke of the enemy. In no other way could he so effectually have withdrawn the contemplation of man from the region of the spiritual, and defaced, and ultimate- ly destroyed in his mind, all true conceptions of the invisible Jehovah. It trained man, even in his devotions, to think only of what he saw ; and from thinking only of what he sees, the step is an easy one to believe only in what he sees. It brought man from the heavens, and chained him to the earth. The rise of image-worship was the return of the ancient idolatry. The body ecclesiastic had ceased to be Christian, and had become pagan. The Church, planted by the labours of the apostles, and watered by the blood of martyrs, had disappeared ; and an idolatrous and polytheis- tic institute had been substituted in its room. There was not less cause than formerly for the lament, " I planted thee a noble vine ; how then art thou become the degenerate plant of a strange vine V We enter at greater length on the subject of image- wor- ship, because it forms an important branch of the idolatry of Rome, and because it is intimately connected with the rise of the temporal sovereignty. It was in the east that this superstition first arose, but it was in the west that it found its most zealous patrons and champions ; and none discover- ed greater ardour in this evil cause than the popes of Rome. Its rise was as early as its progress was gradual. " The first notice," says Gibbon, " of the use of pictures is in the censure of the Council of Illiberis, three hundred years aftiT 52 PROGRESS OF THE TEMPORAL SOVEREIGNTY. the Christian era.'"* " The first introduction of a symbolic worship," continues the historian, " was in the veneration of the cross and of relics. ....... But a memo- rial more interesting than the skull or the sandals of a departed worthy, is a faithful copy of his person and fea- tures, delineated by the arts of painting or sculpture. . . By a slow though inevitable progres- sion, the honours of the original were transferred to the copy ; the devout Christian prayed before the image of a saint, and the pagan rites of genuflexion, luminaries, and incense, again stole into the Catholic Church The use, and even the worship, of images was firmly established before the end of the sixth cen- tury. -|- From this time the idolatry rapidly increased. Writing of the seventh century, we find Gibbon stating that " the throne of the Almighty was darkened by a cloud of martyrs, and saints, and angels."! In this Gibbon is con- firmed by the testimony of Mosheim, who states that " in this age, {i. e. the seventh century), they who were called Christians worshipped the wooden cross, the images of saints, and bones of men, they knew not whom." A century later, the famous dispute between the eastern emperors and the western popes had broken out. The Christians of the east, alarmed by the magnitude of the abuse, and stung by the reproaches of the Jews, and the railleries — all the more severe that they were merited— of the Mussulmans, who now reigned at Damascus, strove to effect a partial reformation. Their wishes were powerfully seconded by the Emperor Leo III., who proscribed by edict the worship of images, and ordered the churches to be cleansed. These proceedings roused the ire of the reigning pontiff", Gregory II. The eloquence of the monks was evoked, and the thunders of excommunication were hurled against the imperial iconoclast ; and Leo was pronounced * Decline and Full of tlio Eoman Eminre, vol. ix. pp. 117, US. t Ibid. vol. ix. p. 119. J Ibid. vol. ix. p. 2G2. ICONOCLAST DISPUTES. 53 nn apostate, because he worshipped as the apostles and primitive Christians had worshipped, and because he sought to lead back his people to the same scriptural model. When it was found that the spiritual artillery had failed to take ef- fect, earthly weapons were employed. Italy was excited to revolt, and a contest was commenced, which was continued for a hundred and twenty years. The Italians were absolved by the pontiff from their allegiance to the Emperor, and the revenue of Italy ceased to be sent to Constantinople, To chastise these rebellious proceedings, Leo despatched his fleet to the coast of Italy ; but the Italians, inspired by fanaticism and rebellion, made a desperate resistance, and after a vast loss of life, and the ravage of several of the fairest provinces of the empire, the expedition was forced to return without having accomplished its object. The quar- rel was taken up by successive emperors on the one side and successive popes on the other, and prosecuted with un- abated violence and various success. Councils were con- voked to give judgment in the matter. The Council of Constantinople, a.D. 754,* summoned by Constantino Co- pronymus, condemned the worship, and also the use, of images. The Council of Nice, in Bithynia, A. D. 786, known as the second Nicene Council, convoked by the fair but fla- gitious Irene, the widow and murderess of Leo IV., reversed the sentence of the Council of Constantinople, and restored the worship of images. *f* Leo V. condemned these idols to a second exile, but they were recalled by the Empress Theo- dora, A.D. 842,1 never more to be expelled from the east, till they and their worshippers were extirpated toa^ether in * Du Pin, Eccles. Hist. vol. ii.. Councils of the Church, p. 32. The cause of images was su^jported then, as now, by a goodly array of miracles. One woman was smitten with " a pain in the back, for speaking with little respect of the relics of St Anastasius ;" Avhilc another woman, pos- sessed with a devil, was cured by reverently touching Anastasius' image at Rome. (See Du Pin, nt siqyra) f See Second Council of Nice, Du Pin, vol. ii. p. 32. i Du Pin, Eccles. Hist. vol. ii. p. 43. 54 PROGRESS OF THE TEMPORAL SOVEREIGNTY. the fourteenth century by the sword of the Turks. Rome and Italy yielded in this matter the most profound sub- mission to the Popes, who showed themselves throughout the zealous and truculent defenders of image-worship. The churches of France, Germany, England, and Spain, held a middle course. They condemned the adoration of images, but they adopted the perilous course of tolerating them in their churches as " the memorials of faith and history."* Of these sentiments was Charlemagne, who endeavoured, but in vain, to stem the torrent of superstition. The unanimous decree of the Council which he assembled at Frankfort, A. D. 794, could not counteract the influence arising from the example and authority of the pontiff. Charlemagne found that the power which had enabled him to become master of all the western nations, was not sufficient to enable him to cope successfully with the rising superstition of the age. The cause of image-worship continued silently to progress, and it speedily attained in the west, as it had already done in the east, a universal triumph. Though the quarrel, as regards the main point in dispute, had the same issue, both in the east and in the west, it led nevertheless to a final separation between the two churches. It directly contributed, as we have already said, to lay the foundation of the Pope's temporal sovereignty. In the heat of the conflict, the Italian provinces were torn from the emperor, and their government was virtually assumed by the pontiffs. " In that schism," says Gibbon, " the Ro- mans had tasted of freedom, and the popes of sovereignty ."•!- * Mosheim, cent. viii. part ii. chap. iii. sec. xiv. : Gibbon, vol. ix. p. 171. Anastasius, an abbot of the monastery of St Euthemius, in Palestine, and who flourished about a. d. 740, observes, in a work on the Christian reli- gion, a copy of Avhich is found in Greek in the Vatican Library, — " When Christians honour images, they do not adore the wood, but their respect refers to Christ and his saints ; and that they are so far from adoring images, that when they are grown old and spoiled, they burn them to make new ones." (Du Pin, Eccles. Hist. vol. ii. p. 35.) t Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. ix. p. 172. REAL ORIGIN OF TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. 55 " Rome raised her throne," to use D'Aubigne's words, " be- tween two revolts." On the one side Italy threw off the yoke of the eastern emperors; on the other, France discarded her ancient dynasty, and both revolts M-ere zealously encou- raged and formally sanctioned by the popes. It is difficult to say which of the two, — the Greek schism or the Gallic usurpation, — contributed most to elevate the Papacy to tem- poral sovereignty. Such is the real origin of the Pope''s power. According to his own claim, it is of heaven ; but history refuses to let the claim pass current, and points unequivocally to a differ- ent quarter as the source of his prerogative. Of the two branches of his power, — the sacerdotal and the regal, — it is hard to determine which is the most disreputable and in- famous in its beginnings. His mitre he had from the mur- derer Phocas ; his crown from the usurper Pepin. A spot- less and noble lineage forsooth ! The pontifical trunk has one stem rooted rankly in blood, and the other foully grafted on rebellion. As a priest, the Pope is qualified to minister in the ensanguined temples of JNIoloch ; as a sovereign, his title is indisputable to act the satrap under the arch-rebel and " anarch old." No one can glance a moment at the contour of his character, as seen in history, without feeling that the hideous likeness on which he gazes is that of the Antichrist. Every line of his visage, every pas- sage of his history, is full of antagonism, is the very counter- part, of that of the Saviour. "All these things will I give thee," said the tempter to Christ in the wilderness, " if thou wilt fall down and worship me." " Get thee hence, Satan," was the reply. The fiend returned after three hundred years, and, leading the pontiff to the summit of the Roman hill, showed him " all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them." " All these," said he, " will I give thee, if thou wilt fdll down and worship me." No second denial awaited the tempter : instantly the knee was bent, and the pontiff raised his head crowned with the tiara. Twice has Christianity been crowned in bitter derision and mockery of her cha- 56 PROGRESS OF THE TEMPORAL SOVEREIGNTV. racter. Once with a crown of thorns by the blasphemers of Caiaphas"* hall ; and now again with the tiara, in the person of the pontiff. Never did she demean herself with such divine dignity as when the thorns girt her brow ; but, ah ! the burning shame of the tiara. It is farther worthy of notice, that at the same time, and to a great degree by the same acts, did the bishops of Rome establish the worship of images, and consolidate their own jurisdiction as temporal sovereigns. These two form ana- logous stages in the career of the Papacy. They mani- fest an equal decline and advance, — a decline in the spiri- tual, and an advance in the secular element. By the first, Rome perfected the corruption of her worship ; by the se- cond, she perfected the corruption of her government. There was a meetness, therefore, in the two being attained at the same period. These two constitute the leading branches of the Romish apostacy, — idolatry and tyranny. These are the two arms of the Papacy, — superstition and the sword: both arms were now grown ; and thus Rome was equipped for her terrible mission. Her inglorious task was to bow down the world in ignominious thraldom, and her two-edged sword made it equally easy to enslave the mind and to ty- rannize over the body. Her idolatry was to display itself m yet grosser forms, and her political power was to be vastly enlarged by new accessions of dominion and influ- ence ; but the world had now a fair specimen of the leading principles and organization of the Roman Catholic Church. Rome was to be a temple of idols, not a sanctuary of truth ; a hierarchy, not a brotherhood. Were we called upon to fix on a period when Rome completed her transi- tion from Christianity to Paganism, we would fix on this era. Henceforward she did not deserve to be regarded in any sense as a Church. She was not simply a corrupt Church ; she was a pagan institute. The symbols of the Apocalypse had now found their verification in the corrup- tions of Europe : the temple had been measured ; the outer court and the city had been given over to the Gentiles ; and CHRISTIANITY DISPLACED BY PAGANISM, 57 the Church was restricted to the select company which ministered at the altar within. Into this sad condition had the Roman Church now come. She had begun in the spirit and been made perfect in the flesh. The spiritual she had renounced, as contain- ing neither truth, nor beauty, nor power. An impassable gulph now divided her from the form not less than from the spirit of the early Church. She stood before the world as the legitimate successor of those systems of error and idolatry which in former ages had burdened the earth and affi'onted heaven. Her members kneeled before idols, and her head wore an earthly crown. She " had left hea- ven and its spheres of light, to mingle in the vulgar interests of citizens and princes."* An hundred and twenty years (the period of the iconoclast disputes) had God striven with the men of the western Church, as he strove with the an- tediluvians in the days of Noah, when the ark was a-build- ing ; but his waiting had been in vain ; and henceforward Rome was to pursue her career without let or hinderance. The spirit had ceased to strive with her. The Gothic scourge, sent to turn her from these dumb idols, had failed to induce repentance or reformation. Righteously, there- fore, was she given over to the dominion of grosser delusions, to the commission of more aggravated crimes, and to the infliction, at last, of an unspeakably tremendous doom. * D'Aubigne, vol. i. p. 71. 58 RISE OF THE TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. CHAPTER IV. RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. We left the Papacy, at the opening of the ninth century, reposing beneath the shadow of the Carlovingian monarchy. One grand stage in its progress had been accomplished. The battle for the temporal sovereignty had been fought and won. A ci'owned priest now sat upon the Seven Hills. From this time another and far mightier object began to occupy the ambition and exercise the genius of Eome. To occupy a seat overshadowed by the loftier throne of the emperors would not satisfy the vast ambition of the pon- tiffs, and accordingly there was now commenced the struggle for the temporal supremacy. There was an obvious incompatibility between the lofty spiritual powers claimed by the pontiffs, and their subordina- tion to secular authority ; nevertheless, at this time, and for some ages afterwards, the popes ivere subject to the emperors. Charlemagne was lord paramount of E-ome, and the territories of the Church were a fief of the Emperor. The son of Pepin wore the imperial diadem, and, in the words of Ranke, " performed unequivocal acts of sovereign authority in the dominions conferred on St Peter."* Never- Ranke's History of the Popes, vol. i. p. 15. PRINCIPLES OF THE SUrREMACY. 59 theless he had received the empire in a way which left it undecided whether he owed it more to his own merit or to the pontiff's favour, and whether he held it solely in virtue of his own right, and not also, in good degree, as the gift of Leo. The Pope was nominally subject to the Emperor, but in many vital points the first was last ; and he who now wrote himself " a servant of servants," was fulfilling in a bad sense what our Lord intended in a good, — " Whosoever will be the greatest among you, let him be the servant of all." The popes had not yet advanced a direct and formal claim to dispose of crowns and kingdoms, but the germ of such a claim was contained, first, in the acts which they now performed. They had already taken it upon them to sanction the transference of the crown of France from the Merovingian to the Carlovingian famil}^ And on what principle had they done so? Why did the Pope, rather than any other prince, profess to give validity to Pepin"'s right to the throne of France ? Why, seeing, as a temporal ruler, he was the least powerful and independent sovereign in Europe, did he, of all men, interpose his prerogative in the luatter? The principle on which he proceeded was plainly this, — that in virtue of his spiritual character he was superior to earthly dignities, and had been vested in the power of controlling and disposing of such dignities.* The same principle is yet more clearly involved in the bestowal of the imperial dignity on Charlemagne. That the popes themselves held this principle to be implied in these pro- ceedings, though as yet they kept the claim in the back- ground, is plain from the fact that, at an after period, and in more favourable circumstances, they founded on these acts in proof of the dependence of the emperors, and their own right to confer the empire. It was the usual manner of the Papacy to perform acts which, as they appeared to * It is still vmdecided among Romanist writers whether the Pope's re- jection of Childeric was a point of authority or a point of casuistry. The Ultra-raontanists maintain the former. CO RISE OF THE TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. contain no principles hostile to the rights of society or the prerogatives of princes, were permitted to pass unchallenged at the time ; but the Popes took cai-e afterwards to improve them, by founding upon them the most extravagant and am- bitious claims. In nothing have the plausibility and artifice of the system and its patrons been more plainly shown. But, second, the principle on which the whole system of the popes was founded, virtually implied their supremacy over kings as well as over priests. They claimed to be the successors of Peter and the vicars of Christ. But Christ is Lord of the world as well as Head of the Church. He is a King of kings ; and the popes aimed at exhibiting on earth an exact model or representation of Christ^s government in heaven ; and accordingly they strove to reduce monarchs to the rank of their vassals, and assume into their own hands the management of all the affairs of earth. If their claim was a just one, — if they were indeed the vicars of Christ and the vicegerents of God, as they affirmed, — there were plainly no bounds to their authority, either in temporal or spiritual matters. The symbol which to pontifical rheto- ric has alone seemed worthy to shadow forth the more than mortal magnificence of the popes is the sun, which, they tell us, the Creator has set in the heavens as the representa- tive of the pontifical authority ; while the moon, shining with borrowed splendour, has formed the humble symbolization of the secular power. According to their theory, there was strictly but one ruler on earth, — the Pope. In him all authority was centred. From him all rule and jurisdiction emanated. From him kings received their crowns, and priests their mitres. To him all were accountable, while he was accountable to no one save God alone. The pontiffs, we say, judged it premature to startle the world as yet by an undisguised and open avowal of this claim : they ac- counted it sufficient, meanwhile, to embody its fundamental principles in the decrees of councils and in the pontifical acts, and allow them to lie dormant there, in the hope that a better age would arrive, when it would be possible to avow POPES NOMINATE THE EMPERORS. 61 in plain terms, and enforce by direct acts, a claim which they had put forth only infcrentially as yet. But to make good this claim was the grand object of Rome from the beginning ; and this object she steadily pursued through a variety of fortune and a succession of centuries. The vast- noss of the object was equalled by the ability and perse- verance with which it was prosecuted. The policy of Rome was profound, subtle, patient, unscrupulous, and audacious. And as she has had no rival as respects the greatness of the prize and the qualities with which she has contended for it, so neither has she had a rival in the dazzlino- success with which at last her contest was crowned. With Charlemagne expired the military genius and poli- tical sagacity which had founded the empire. His power now passed into hands too feeble to save the state from convulsions or the empire from dissolution. Quarrels and disputes arose among the inheritors of his dominions. The popes were called in, and asked to employ their paternal authority and ghostly wisdom in the settlement of these diflPerences. With a well-feigned coyness, but real delight at having found so plausible a pretext for advancing their own pretensions, they undertook the task, and executed it to such good purpose, that while they took care of the interests of their clients, they very considerably promoted their own. Hitherto the pontiff had been raised to his dignity by the suffrages of the bishops, accompanied by the acclamation of the Roman people and the ratification of the emperor. For till the imperial consent had been signified, the newly-elected pontiff could not be legally consecrated. But this badge of subordination, if not of servitude, the popes resolved no longer to wear. Was it to be endured that the vicegerent of God should reign only by the sufferance of the French emperor? Must that authority which came direct from the great apostle be countersigned by a mere dignitary of earth ? These ambitious projects the popes had found it prudent to repress hitherto ; but now the sword of Charle- magne was in the dust, and they could deal as they listed 62 RISE OF THE TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. with the puppets who had stood up in his room. A course of policy was adopted, consisting of alternate cajolery and browbeating, in which the emperors had decidedly the worst of it. Their privilege of giving a valid and legal right to the tiara was wrested from them ; and the popes ma- noeuvred so successfully as to keep the imperial preroga- tive in abeyance till the times of Otho the Great. Inimi- table adroitness did the Papacy display in turning to account the troubles of the times. Like a knowing trader at a com- mercial crisis with plenty of ready cash in hand, the popes did such an amount of business in Peter's name, that they vastly increased the credit and revenues of his see. So wisely did they lay out their available stock of influence, that their house now became, and for some time afterwards continued to be, the first establishment in Europe. Of the many bidders for a share in the trade of the great Fisher- man, none were admitted into the concern but such as brought with them, in some shape or other, good solid capi- tal ; and thus the business went on every day improving. Monarchs were aided, but on all such occasions the popes took care that the chair of Peter should receive in return sevenfold what it gave. The posterity of Charlemagne at this time contested with one another, in a sanguinary war, their rights to the throne of their illustrious father. By large presents, and yet larger promises, Charles the Bald was fortunate enough to engage the reigning pontiff, John VIIL, in his interests. From that moment the contest was no longer doubtful. Charles was proclaimed Emperor by the Pope in A.D. 876. A service so important deserved to be suitably acknow- ledged. The monarch's gratitude for his throne was embo- died in an act, by which he surrendered for himself and his successors all right of interfering in the election to the pon- tifical chair. Henceforward, till the middle of the tenth cen- tury, the imperial sanction was dispensed with, and the pon- tiffs mounted the chair of Peter without acknowledging in the matter either king or kaisir. In this the pontificate FALSE DECRETALS OF ISIDORE. 63 had achieved a great victory over the empire. Nor was this the only advantage which the pontiffs gained in that struggle with the imperial power into which they had been temptingly drawn by the unsettled character of the times. In the case of Charles the Bald the Pope had nominated the Emperor. The same act was repeated in the case of his successors, Carloman and Charles the Gross. It was con- tinued in the contests for the empire which followed the reigns of these princes. The candidate who was rich enough to offer the largest bribe, or powerful enough to appear with an army at the gates of Rome, was invariably crowned emperor in the Vatican. Thus, as the State dis- solved, the Church waxed in strength. What the one lost the other drew to herself. The popes did not trouble the world with any formal statement of their principles on the head of the supremacy; they were content to embody them in acts. They were wise enough to know, that the speediest way of getting the world to acknowledge theoretic truth is to familiarize it with its practical applications, — to ask its approval of it, not as a theory, but as a fact. Thus the popes, by a bold course of dexterous management, and of audacious but successful aggression, laboured to weave the doctrine of the supremacy into the general policy of Europe. But for the rise, in the tenth century, of a new power supe- rior to the Franks, Rome would now have reached the sum- mit of her wishes.* No weapon was too base for the use of Rome. Her hand grasped with equal avidity the forged document and the hired daffcrer. Both were sanctified in her service. In the beginning of the ninth century came the decretals of Isidore. These professed to be a collection of the decrees and re- * As the author's object here is simply to trace the influence of admitted facts upon the development of the Paimcy, he thinks it enough to refer generally to his authorities. His leading authorities are, Eanke, vol. i. ; Gibbon, vol. ix. ; INIosheim, cent. ix. and x. ; Ilallam's Hist, of the Middle Ages, vol. i. chap. vii. ; Sismondi's Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. xix. XX,; &c. &c. 64) RISE OF THE TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. scripts of the early councils and popes, the object of their infamous author, who is unknown, being to show that the see of Rome possessed from the very beginning all the pre- rogatives with which the intrigues of eight centuries had in- vested it. Their style was so barbarous, and their ana- chronisms and solecisms were so flagrant, that in no age but the most ignorant could they have escaped detection for a single hour. Rome, nevertheless, infallibly decreed the truth of what is now universally acknowledged to be false. These decretals supported her pretensions, and that with her decided the question of their authenticity or spuriousness. There are few who have earned so well the honours of ca- nonization as this unknown forger. For ages the decretals possessed the authority of precedents, and furnished Rome with appropriate weapons in her contests with bishops and kings.* The French power was declining ; that of the Germans had not yet risen. The pontifical influence was, on the whole, the predominating element in Europe; and the popes, having now no superior, and freed from all restraint, began to use the ample license which the times afforded them, for purposes so infamous, that they transcend description, and well-nigh belief. With the tenth century commence the dark annals of the Papacy. The popes, although wholly devoted to selfish and ambitious pursuits, had found it prudent hi- therto to maintain the semblance of piet}' ; but now even that pretence was laid aside. Thanks to Rome, the world was now prepared to see the mask thrown off. Europe had reached a pitch of ignorance and superstition, and the Papacy a height of insolence and truculence, which enabled the popes to defy with impunity the fear of man and the power of God. Not only were the forms of religion contemned; the ordinary decencies of manhood were flasfrantlv outraged. We dare not pollute our page with such things as the pon- tiffs of this ago practised in the face of Rome and the world. • See Du Pin, cent. ix. j Hallam, vol. i. pp. 523, 524. DISORDERS OF THE PAPAL SEE. Go The palaces of the worst emperors, the groves of pagan wor- ship, saw nothing so foul as the orgies of the Vatican. ISIen sat in the chair of Peter, whose consciences were loaded with perjuries and adulteries, and whose hands were stained with murders ; and claimed, as the vicars of Christ, a right to govern the Church and the world. The intrigues, the fraud, the violence, that now raged at Rome, may be conceived of from the fact, that from the death of Benedict IV., a.d. 903, to the elevation of John XII., A.D. 956, — an interval of only fifty-three years, — not fewer than thirteen popes held succes- sively the pontificate. The attempt were vain to pursue these fleeting pontifical phantoms. Their brief but flagi- tious career was ended most commonly by the lingering hor- rors of the dungeon, or the quick despatch of the poignard. It is enough to mention the names of a John the Twelfth, a Boniface the Seventh, a John the Twenty-third, a Sixtus the Foui'th, an Alexander the Sixth (Borgia), a Julius the Second. These names stand associated with crimes of enormous mag- nitude. This list by no means exhausts the goodly band of pontifical villains. Simony, the good-will of a prostitute, or the dagger of an assassin, opened their way to the pontifical throne; and the use they made of their power formed a worthy sequel to the infamous means by which they had obtained it. In the chair of Peter, the pontiffs of this and succeeding eras revelled in impiety, perjury, lewdness, sacrilege, sorcery, rob- bery, and blood ; thus converting the palace of the apostle into an unfathomable sink of abomination and filth. " A mass of moral impurity," says Edgar, " might be collected from the Roman hierarchy, sufficient to crowd the pages of folios, and glut all the demons of pollution and malevolence." The age, too, was scandalized by frequent and flagrant schisms. These divided the nations of Christendom, engendered san- guinary wars, and unhinged society itself. For half a cen- tury rival pontifical thrones stood at Rome and Avignon ; and Europe wo,s doomed daily to listen to the dreadful vol- lies of spiritual thunder which the rival infallibilities. Urban and Clement, ever and anon launched at one another, and F 66 RISE OP THE TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. which, in almost one continuous and stunning roar, reverbe- rated between the Tiber and the Rhone.* There is no need to darken the horrors of the time by the fable (if fable it be) of a female pope, who is said about this time to have filled St Peter's chair. The traditionary Pope Joan is found, perhaps, in the sister-prostitutes, the well-known Marozia and Theodora, who now governed Rome. Their influence, founded on their wealth, their beauty, and their intrigues, enabled them to place on the pontifical throne whom they would ; and not unfrequently they promoted, without a blush, their paramours to the holy chair. Such were the dark transactions of the period, and such the scenes that signal- ized the advent of the Papacy to temporal power. The revels of Ahasuerus and Haman were concluded with the bloody decree which delivered over a whole nation to the sword. The yet guiltier revels of the Papacy were, in like manner, followed in due time by ages of proscription and slaughter.-f- In tracing the rise of the temporal supremacy, we are now brought to the middle of the tenth century. Otho the Great appears upon the stage. With a vigorous hand did these German conquerors grasp the imperial diadem which the degenerate descendants of Charlemagne were no longer either worthy to wear or able to defend. Otho found the Papacy running a career of crime, and in some danger of perishing in its own corruption. He interposed his sword, * Romanist historians have drawn this part of the pontifical annals in colours as dark as those employed by Protestant writers. Tlie best friends of the Popedom, such as Petavius, Luitprand, Baronius, Hermann, Labbe, Du Pin, &c. &c. labour for language to depict the enormous abuses of the papal rule. Baronius speaks of these pontiffs entering as thieves, and dying, as tliey deserved, by the rope. Of the three candidates which occa- sioned the schism of a.d, 1044, Binius and Labbe remark, " A three-headed Beast, rising from the gates of hell, infested in a woful manner the holy cliair," This monster, of course, is a link in the chain of apostolic succes- sion, (See Edgar's Variations, chap, i.) + See G ibbon, vol, ix. p, 200 ; and even the papal historians of the period. RISE OF THE GERMAN POWER. 67 and averted its otherwise inevitable fate. It did not suit the designs of the German emperors that the Papacy shoukl suffer a premature extinction. It might be turned, they were not slow to perceive, to great account in the way of consolidating and extending their own imperial dignity, and therefore they strove to reform, not destroy, Rome. They rescued the chair of Peter from its worst foes, its occupants. They deposed several popes notorious for their vices, and exalted others of purer morals to the pontifical dignity.* Thus the Papacy had found a new master; for Otho and his descendants were as much the liege lords of the popedom as the monarchs of the Carlovingian line had been.-f- The popes were now obliged to surrender the powers they had usurped during the time that the imperial sceptre was in the feeble hands of the last of the posterity of Charlemagne. In particular, the rights of which Charles the Bald had been stripped were now given back.j The emperors again nomi- nated the pope.§ When a vacancy occurred in the chair of St Peter, envoys from Rome announced the fact at the court of the emperor, and waited the signification of his will respecting a successor. This substantial right of interfering when a new pope was to be elected, which the emperors possessed, was very inadequately balanced by the empty and nominal power enjoyed by the popes, of placing the impe- rial crown on the emperor's head. " The prince elected in the German Diet," says Gibbon, " acquired from that in- stant the subject kingdoms of Italy and Rome ; but he might not legally assume the titles of Emperor and Augus- tus, till he had received the crown from the hands of the Roman pontiff," II — a sanction that could be withheld with difficulty so long as the emperor was master of Rome and her popes. But the intimate union now existing between * Sismondi's Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. ii. p. 244. ; Lond. 1834. + Ranke, vol. i. p. 18. J Ilallam, vol. i. p. 538. § Ranke, vol. i. chap. i. sec. iii. II Gibbon's Decline and Fall, vol. ix, pp. 193, 194. 68 RISE OF THE TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. the empire and the pontificate was productive of reciprocal advantages, and tended greatly to consolidate and extend the power of both. The rise of the French monarchy had been owing in no small degree to the favourable dispositions which the kings of France discovered towards the Church. The western Goths and Burgundians were sunk in Arian- ism ; the Franks, from the beginning, had been truly Ca- tholic; and the popes did all they could to foster the growth of a power which, from similarity of creed, as well as from motives of policy, was so likely to become their surest ally. The miraculous succours vouchsafed to the arms of the French resolve themselves, without doubt, into the mate- rial aids given by the popes and their agents to a people in whose success they felt a deep interest. Hence the legend, according to which St Martin, in the form of a hind, disco- vered to Clovis the ford over the Vienne ; and hence also that other fable which asserts that St Hillary preceded the Frank armies in a column of fire.* The St Martin and the St Hillary of these legends were doubtless some bishop, or other ecclesiastic, who rendered important services to the Frank monarch and his army, on the ground that, with the triumph of their arms was identified the progress of the Church. The same influence was vigorously exerted, from the same motive, in behalf of the German power. Monks and priests preceded the imperial arms, especially in the east and north of Germany ; and the annexation of these countries to the empire is to be attributed fully as much to the zeal of the ecclesiastics as to the valour of the soldiers. Nor did the German chiefs show that they were either unable to ap- preciate or unwilling to reward these important services. They lavished unbounded wealth upon the clergy, their po- licy being to bind thereby this important class to their inte- rests. No one was more distinguished for his munificence in this respect than Henry H. This monarch created numc- * Ranke's History of the Popes, vol. i. p. 11. TEMPORAL JURISDICTION OF BISHOPS. CU rous rich benefices ; but the rigour with which he insisted upon his riirht to nominate to the livings he had endowed betrayed the motives that prompted this great liberality. Abbots and bishops were exalted to the rank of barons and dukes, and invested with jurisdiction over extensive territo-. ries. " The bishoprics of Germany," says Gibbon, " were made equal in extent and privilege, superior in wealth and population, to the most ample states of the military order."* " Baronial, and even ducal rights," says Ranke, " were held in Germany by the bishops and abbots of the empire, not within their own possessions only, but even beyond them. Ecclesiastical estates were no longer described as situated in certain counties, but these counties were described as situated in the bishopricks. In upper Italy, nearly all the cities were governed by the viscounts of their bishops. ""f* Military service was exacted of these ecclesiastical barons, in return for the possessions which they held ; and not un- frequently did bishops appear at the head of their armed vassals, with lance in hand and harness on their backs. They were, moreover, addicted to the chase, of which the Germans in all ages have been passionately fond, and for which their vast forests have afforded ample scope. " Rude as the Germans of the middle ages were," observes Dunham, " to see a successor of St Peter hallooing after his dogs certainly struck them as incongruous. Yet the bishops, in virtue of their fiefs, were compelled to send their vassals to the field; and no doubt they considered as somewhat incon- sistent, a system which commanded them to kill men, but not beasts." J The acquisition of wealth formed an important element in the growth of the Papacy. The Roman law did not per- mit lands to be held on mortmain ; nevertheless the empe- rors winked at the possession by the Church of immoveable possessions, whose revenues furnished stipends to her pas- * Gibbon's Decline and Fall, vol. ix. p. 212. + Ranke, vol. i. p. 17. t Dunham's Europe during the Middle Ages, vol. ii. p. 100. 70 RISE OF THE TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. tors and alms to her poor. No sooner did Constantino embrace Christianity, than an imperial edict invested the Church with a legal right to what she had possessed hither- to by tolerance only,* Neither under the empire, nor under any of the ten kingdoms into which the empire was ulti- mately divided, did the Church ever obtain a territorial establishment ; but the ample liberality, first of the Christian emperors, and next of the barbarian kings, did more than supply the want of a general provision. For ages, wealth had been flowing in upon the Church in a torrent; and now, from being the poorest, she had become the wealthiest cor- poration in Europe. A race of princes had succeeded to the fishermen of Galilee ; and the opulent nobles and citi- zens of the empire represented that society whose first bonds had been cemented in the catacombs under the city. Un- der the Carlovingian family, and the Saxon line of emperors, " many churches possessed seven or eight thousand mansi," says Hallam. " One with but two thousand passed for only indifferently rich.-f- This vast opulence represented the accumulations and hoardings of many ages, and had been acquired by innumerable, and sometimes not very honour- able, means. When a wealthy man entered a monastery, his estate was thrown into the common treasury of the bro- therhood. When the son of a rich man took the cowl, he recommended himself to the Church by a donation of land. To die without leaving a portion of one's worldly goods to the priesthood came to be rare, and was regarded as a fraud upon the Church. The monks sometimes supplemented the incomes of their houses by intromitting with the funds of charities placed under their control. The wealthy sinner, when about to depart, expressed his penitence in a well- filled bag of gold, or in a certain number of broad acres ; and the ravening baron was compelled to disgorge, with abundant interest, on the bed of death, the spoliations of * Euseb. Vita Const, lib. ii. cap. xxi. xxxix. f Ilallam's Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 501. ENORMOUS WEALTH OP THE CHURCH, 71 church-property of which he had been guilty during his life- time. The fiefs of the nobility, who had beggared themselves by profligacy, or in the epidemic folly of the crusades, were not unfrequently brought into the market; and, being offered at a cheap rate, the Church, which had abundance of ready money at her command, became the purchaser, and so aug- mented her possessions. It is but fair to state also, that the clergy helped, in that age, to add to the wealth and beauty of the country, by the cultivation of tracts of waste lands which were frequently gifted to them. The Church found additional sources of revenue in the exemption from taxes, though not from military service, which her lands enjoyed, and in the institution of tithes, which, in imita- tion of the Jewish law, was originated about the sixth century, formed the main topic of the sermons of the eighth, and finally obtained a civil sanction in the ninth, under Charlemagne. But, not content with these varied facilities of getting rapidly and enormously rich, the monks betook themselves to forging charters, — an exploit which their knowledge of writing enabled them to achieve, and which the ignorance of the age rendered of very difficult detection. " They did nearly enjoy," says Hallam, " one half of England, and, I believe, a greater proportion in some countries of Europe.*"* This wealth was far beyond the measure of their own enjoyment, and they had no families to whom they might bequeath it. Such rapacity, then, does seem as unnatural as it was enormous. But, in truth, the Church had fallen as entirely under the do- minion of an unreasonable and uncontrollable passion as the miser; she was, in fact, a corporate miser. This vast wealth, it may easily be apprehended, inflamed her insolence and advanced her power. The power of the Church became greater every day, — not its power as a Church, but as a con- federation, — and might well excite alarm as to the future. Here was a body of men placed under one head, bound to- Ilallam's Middle Ages, vol. i. chap. vii. 72 RISE OP THE TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. getlier by a community of interest and feeling, superior in intelligence, and therefore in influence, to the rest of the empire, enormously rich, and exercising civil jurisdiction over extensive tracts and vast populations. It was impos- sible to contemplate without misgivings, so numerous and compact a phalanx. It must have struck every one, that upon the moderation and fidelity of its members must de- pend the repose of the empire and the world in time to come. The emperors, secure, as they imagined themselves, in the possession of the supremacy, saw without alarm the rise of this formidable body. They looked upon it as one of the main props of their power, and felicitated themselves not a little in having been so fortunate as to entrench their prerogative behind so firm a bulwark. The appointment to all ecclesiastical benefices was in the emperor's hands ; and in augmenting the wealth and grandeur of the clergy, they doubted not that they were consolidating their own autho- rity. It required no prophet to divine, that so long as the imperial sceptre continued to be grasped by a strong hand and guided by a firm mind, which it had been since it came into the possession of the German race, no danger would arise ; but that the moment this ceased to be the case, the pontificate, already almost on a level with the empire, would obtain the mastery. Rome had been often baulked in her grand enterprise ; but now her accommodating, pa- tient, and persevering policy was about to receive its re- ward. The hour was near when her grandest hopes and her loftiest pretensions were to be realized, — when the throne of God's vicegerent was to display itself in its fullest propor- tions, and be seen towering in proud supremacy above all the other thrones of earth. The emergency that might have been foreseen had arisen. We behold on the throne of the empire a child, Henry IV. ; and in the chair of St Peter, the astute Hildebrand. We find the empire torn by insurrections and tumults, whilst the Papacy is guided by the clear and bold genius of Gre- gory VII. Savoy had the honour to give birth to this man. HILDEBRAND. 73 He was the son of a carpenter, and comprehended from the first the true destiny of the Papacy, and the height to which its essential principles, vigorously maintained and fearlessly carried out, would exalt the popedom. To emancipate the pontificate from the authority of the empire, and to estab- lish a visible theocracy with the vicar of Christ at its head, became the one grand object of his life. He brought to the execution of his task a profound genius, a firm will, a fear- less courage, and a pliant policy, — a quality in which the popes have seldom been deficient. From the moment that he chid Leo IX. for accepting the tiara from the hands of the secular power, his spirit had governed Rome.* At length, in a.d, 1073, he ascended the pontifical throne in person. " No sooner was this man made Pope," says Du Pin, " but he formed a design of becoming lord, spiritual and temporal, over the whole earth ; the supreme judge and de- terminer of all affairs, both ecclesiastical and civil ; the dis- tributer of all manner of graces, of what kind soever ; the disposer not only of archbishopricks, bishopricks, and other ecclesiastical benefices, but also of kingdoms, states, and the revenues of particular persons. To bring about this resolu- tion, he made use of the ecclesiastical authority and the spi- ritual sword."-f- The times were favourable in no ordinary degree. The empire of Germany was enfeebled by the dis- affection of the barons ; France was ruled by an infant sovereign, without capacity or inclination for affairs of state; England had just been conquered by the Normans ; Spain was distracted by the Moors ; and Italy was parcelled out amongst, a multitude of petty princes. Everywhere faction was rife throughout Europe, and a strong government ex- isted nowhere. The time invited him, and straightway Gre- gory set about his high attempt. His first care was to as- semble a Council, in which he pronounced the marriage of * Du Pin, Eccles. Hist. vol. ii. p. 209 : Dunham's Europe during tlie !Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 150. t Du Pin, Eccles. Hist. vol. ii. p. 211. 74 PROGRESS OF ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY. priests unlawful. He next sent his legates throughout the various countries of Europe, to compel bishops and all eccle- siastics to put away their wives. Having thus dissevered the ties which connected the clergy with the world, and given them but one object for which to live, namely, the exaltation of the hierarchy, Gregory rekindled, with all the ardour and vehemence characteristic of the man, the war between the throne and the mitre. The object at which Gregory YH. aimed was twofold: — 1. To render the election to the pon- tifical chair independent of the emperors ; and, 2. To re- sume the empire as a fief of the Church, and to establish his dominion over the kings and kingdoms of the earth. His first step towards the accomplishment of these vast designs was, as we have shown, to enact clerical celibacy. His second was to forbid all ecclesiastics to receive investiture at the hands of the secular power.* In this decree he laid the foundation of the complete emancipation of the Church from the State ; but half a century of wars and bloodshed was required to conduct the first enterprise, that of the in- vestitures, to a successful issue ; while a hundred and fifty years more of similar convulsions had to be gone through before the second, that of universal domination, was attained. Let us here pause to review the rise of the war of investi- tures which now broke out, and which " during two centuries distracted the Christian world, and deluged a great portion of Italy with blood.^f In the primitive age the pastors of the Roman Church were elected by the people. When we come down to those times, still early, when the office of bishop be- gan to take precedence of that of presbyter, we find the election to the episcopate effected by the joint suffrages of the clergy and people of the city or diocese. After the fourth cen- tury, when a regular gradation of offices or hierarchy was set up, the bishop chosen by the clergy and people had to be ap- proved of by his metropolitan, as the metropolitan by his ♦ Du Pin, Kccles. Hist. vol. ii. p. 212 Gibbon, vol. ix. p. 201, 202. t Dunham's Europe during the Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 158. WAR OF INVESTITURES. 75 primate. It does not appear that the emperors interfered at all in these elections, farther than to signify their accept- ance or rejection of the persons chosen to the veiy highest sees, — the patriarchates of Rome and Constantinople. In this their example was followed by the Gothic and Lombard kings of Italy. The people retained their influence in the election of their pastors and bishops down till a compara- tively late period. We find popular election in existence in the end of the fourth century. A canon of the third Council of Carthage, in A.D. 397,* decrees that no clergy- man shall be ordained who has not been examined by the bishop and approved of by the suffrages of the people. Even at the middle of the sixth century popular election had not disappeared from the Church. We find the third Council of Orleans, held in A.D. 538, regulating by canon the. elec- tion and ordination of metropolitans and bishops. As re- garded the metropolitan, the Council enacted that he should be chosen by the bishops of the province, with the consent of the clergy and people of the city, " it being fitting," say the fathers, " that he who is to preside over all should be chosen by all." And, as respected bishops, it was de- creed that they should be ordained by the metropolitan, and chosen by the clergy and people.*f" " The people fully preserved their elective rights at Milan," observes Hallam, " in the eleventh century ; and traces of their concurrence may be found in France and Germany in the next age."| From the people the right passed to the sove- reigns, who found a plausible pretext for granting investi- tures of bishops, in the vast temporalities attached to their * Concil. Carthag. can. xxii. " Ut nuUus ordinetur clericus, nisi probatus vel episcoporum examine vel populi testimonio." (Harduin. vol. i.p- 963.) + Concil. Aurelian. can. iii. " Ipse tamen metropoatanus a couiiirovin- cialibus episcopis, sicut decreta sedis Apostolica3 continent, cum consensu cleri vel civiuni eligatur ; quia teqiium est,sicut ipsa sedes Apostolica dixit, ut qui prfcponendus est omnibus, ab omnibus eligatur." (Harduiu. vol. ii. p. 1424.) J Hallam's :Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 535. 76 PROGRESS OF ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY. sees. These possessions, which had originated mostly in royal gifts, were viewed somewhat in the light of fiefs, for which it was but reasonable that the tenant should do homage to the lord paramount. Hence the ceremony in- troduced by Charlemagne of putting the ring and crosier into the hands of the newly consecrated bishop. The bishops of Rome, like their brethren, were at first chosen by popular election. In process of time, the consent of the emperor was used to ratify the choice of the people. This prerogative came into the possession of Charlemagne along with the imperial crown, and was exercised by his posterity, — if we except the last of his descendants, during whose feeble reigns the prerogative which the imperial hands had let fall was caught up by the Roman populace. This right came next into the possession of the Saxon emperors, and was exercised by some of the race of Otho in a more abso- lute manner than it had ever been by either Greek or Car- lovingian monarch. Henry IH., impatient to put down the scandal of three rival popes, assembled a council at Sutri, which deposed all three, placed Henry's friend, the Bishop of Bamberg (Clement H.), in Peter's chair, and added this substantial boon, that henceforward the imperial throne should possess the entire nomination of the popes, without the intervention of clergy or laity.* But what the magna- nimity of Henry HI. had gained came to be lost by the tender age and irresolute spirit of his son Henry IV. Nicolas II., in 1059, wrested the prerogative from the empe- rors, to place it, not in the people, but in a new body, which presents us with the origin of the conclave of cardinals. According to the pontifical decree, the seven cardinal bishops holding sees in the neighbourhood of Rome were henceforward to choose the pope.f A vague recognition * Dunham's Europe during the Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 147, 148 : Du Pin, Eccles. Hist. vol. ii. p. 206. t Machiavelli's History of Florence, book i. : Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 539. GREGORY VII. AND HENRY IV. 77 of some undefinable right possessed by the emperors and the people in the election was made in the decree, but it amounted in reality to little more than a permission to both to be present on the occasion, and to signify their acquies- cence in what they had no power to prevent. The real author of this, and of similar measures, was Hildebrand, who was content meanwhile to wield, in the humble rank of a Roman archdeacon, the destinies of the Papacy, and to hide in the monk's garb that dauntless and comprehensive genius which in a few years was to govern Europe. Hilde- brand in no long time took the quarrel into his own hands. He ascended the pontifical throne, as we have already stated, in 1073, under the style of Gregory VH. He com- prehended the Emperor's position with regard to the princes of Germany better than the Emperor himself did, and shaped his measures accordingly. He began by promulgat- ing the decree against lay investitures, to which we have already adverted. He saw the advantage of having the barons on his side. He knew that they were impatient and envious of the power of Henry, who was at once weak and tyrannical ; and he found it no difficult matter to gain them over to the papal interests, — first, by the decree of the Pope, which declared Germany an electoral monarchy ; and, second, by the influence which the barons were still per- mitted to retain in the election of bishops. For although Gregory had deprived the Emperor of the right of investi- ture, and in doing so had broken the bond that held together the civil and spiritual institutions, as Ranke re- marks, and declared a revolution,* he did not claim the direct nomination of the bishops, but referred the choice to the chapters, over which the higher German nobility exer- cised very considerable influence. Thus the Pope had the aristocratic interests on his side in the conflict. Henry, reckless as impotent, proceeded to glye mortal off^ence to his great antagonist. Hastily assembling a number of bishops * Eankes History of the Popes, vol. i. p. 21. 78 PROGRESS OF ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY. and other vassals at Worms, he procured a sentence de- posing Gregory from the popedom. He mistook the man and the times. Gregory, receiving the tidings with derision, assembled a council in the Lateran palace, and solemnly ex- communicated Henry, annulled his right to the kingdoms of Germany and Italy, and absolved his subjects from their allegiance. Henry ""s recklessness was succeeded by panic. He felt that the spell of the pontifical curse was upon him ; that his nobles, and bishops, and subjects, were fleeing from him or conspiring against him ; and in prostra- tion of spirit he resolved to beg in person the clemency of the Pope. He crossed the Alps in the depth of winter, and, arriving at the gates of the castle of Canossa, where the Pope was residing at the time, shut up with his firm ad- herent and reputed paramour the Countess ISIatilda, he stood, during three days, exposed to the rigours of the season, with his feet bare, his head uncovered, and a piece of coarse woollen cloth thrown over his person, and forming his' only covering. On the fourth day he obtained an audience of the pontiff; and though the lordly Gregory was pleased to absolve him from the excommunication, he straitly charged him not to resume his royal rank and functions till the meeting of the Congress which had been appointed to try him.* But the pontiff" was humbled in his turn. Henry rebelling a second time, a furious war broke out between the monarch and the pontiff'. The armies of the Emperor passed the Alps, besieged Rome, and Gregory, being obliged to flee, ended his days in exile at Salerno, be- queathing as a legacy to his successors the conflict in which he had been engaged, and to Europe the wars and tumults into which his ambition had plunged it.-f* * Du Pin, Eccles. Hist. vol. ii. p. 212-216 : Dunham's Europe in the Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 158. t The extensive gap in the city of Rome, extending from the Lateran to the Coliseum, formerly covered with ruins, but now witii vineyards, remains a monument of the war of investitures. IIILDEBRAND S SUCCESSORS. 79 Gregory was gone, but his principle survived. Ho had left the mantle of his ambition, and, to a largo extent, of his genius also, to his successors, Urban II. and Paschal IT. Urban maintained the contest in the very spirit of Gregory; the opposition of Paschal may deserve to be accounted as partaking of a higher character. A conviction that it was utterly incongruous in a layman to give admission to a spiri- tual office, seems to have mainly animated him in prosecuting the contest. He actually signed an agreement with Henry V. in 1110, whereby all the lands and possessions held by the Church in fief were to be given back to the Emperor, on con- dition that the Emperor should surrender the right of investi- ture. The prelates and bishops of Paschal's court, who saw little attractive in the episcopate save the temporalities, be- lieved that their infallible master had gone mad, and raised such a clamour, that the pontiff was obliged to desist from his design.* At length, in 1122, the contention was ended by a compromise between Henry and Calixtus II. According to this compact, the election of bishops was to be free, their investiture was to belong solely to ecclesiastical function- aries, while the Emperor was to induct them into their tem- poralities, not by the crozier and ring, as before, but by the sceptre. It is not improbable that the sovereigns and barons of the age believed that this concordat left the substantial power in the election of bishops still in their own hands. With our clearer light it is not difficult to see that the advantage greatly preponderated in favour of the Church. It extricated the spiritual element from the control of the secular. It was a solemn ratification of the principle of spi- ritual independence, which, in the case of a church spurning co-ordinate jurisdiction, and claiming both swords, was sure speedily and inevitably to grow into spiritual supre- macy. The temporalities might come in some cases to be lost ; but in that age the risk was small ; and granting that Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 542. 80 PROGRESS OF ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY. it was realized, the loss would be more than counterbalanced by the greatly enlarged spiritual action which was now se- cured to the Church. The election of bishops, in which the emperors had ceased to interfere, was now devolved, not upon the laity and clergy, whose sufiFrages had been deemed essential in former times, but upon the chapters of cathe- dral churches,* which tended to enlarge the power of the pon- tiff and the higher clergy. In this way was the conflict car- ried on. The extent of supremacy involved in the principle that the Pope is Chrisfs Vicar, had been fully and boldly pro- pounded to the world by Gregory ; and, what was more, had been all but realized. Rome had tasted of dominion over kings, and was never to rest till she had securely seated herself in the lofty seat which she had been permitted for so brief a season to occupy, and which she only, as she believed, had a right to possess, or could worthily and usefully fill. The popes had to sustain many humiliations and defeats ; nevertheless, their policy continued to be progressively tri- umphant. The power of the empire gradually sank, and that of the pontificate steadily advanced. All the great events of the age contributed to the power of the popedom. The ecclesiastical element was universally diffused, entered into all movements, and turned to its own purposes all en- terprises. There never perhaps was an age which was so completely ecclesiastical and so little spiritual. Spain was reclaimed from Islamism, Prussia was rescued from Pagan- ism, and both submitted to the authority of the Roman pontiff. The crusades broke out, and, being religious enter- prises, they tended to the predominance of the ecclesiastical element, and silently moulded the minds and the habits of men to submission to the Church. Moreover, they tended to exhaust the resources and break the spirit of kingdoms, and rendered it easier for Rome to carry out her scheme of aofofrandizement. The same effect attended the wars and convulsions which disturbed Europe, and which grew out of * Ilallam's Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 546. TRIUMPH OF THE MITRE. 81 the struggles of Rome for dominion. These weakened the secular, but left the vigour of the spiritual element unim- paired. The deepening ignorance of the masses was exceed- ingly favourable to the pretensions of Rome. It formed a basis of power, not only over them, but, through them, over kings. Add to all this, that of the two principles between which this great contest was waged, the secular was divided, whereas the spiritual was one. The kings had various in- terests, and frequently pursued conflicting lines of policy. The most perfect organization and union reigned in the ranks of the Papacy. The clergy in all countries were thoroughly devoted to the papal see, and obeyed as one man the behests which came from the chair of St Peter. It is also to be borne in mind, that in this conflict the emperors could contend with but secular weapons; whereas the popes, while they by no means disdained the aid of armies, fought with those yet more formidable weapons which the power of superstition furnished them with. Is it wonderful that with these advantages they triumphed in the contest, — that every successive age found Rome growing in influence and dominion, — and that at last her chief was seen seated, god-like, on the Seven Hills, with the nations, tribes, and languages of the Roman world prostrate at his feet ? " After long centuries of confusion," says Ranke, — " after other centuries of often doubtful strife, — the independence of the Roman see, and that of its essential principle, was finally attained. In effect, the position of the popes was at this moment most exalted ; the clergy were wholly in their hands. It is worthy of remark, that the most firm-minded pontiff's of this period, — Gregory VII. for example, — were Benedictines. By the introduction of celibacy, they converted the whole body of the secular clergy into a kind of monastic order. The vuiiversal bishop- ric now claimed by the popes bears a certain resemblance to the power of an abbot of Cluny, who was the only abbot of his order ; in like manner, these pontiffs aspired to be the only bishops of the assembled Church. They interfered, without scruple, in the administration of every diocese, and G 82 PROGRESS OF THE TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. even compared their legates with the pro-consuls of ancient Rome ! While this closely-knit body, so compact in itself, yet so widely extended through all lands, — influencing all by its large possessions, and controlling every relation of life by its ministry, — was concentrating its mighty force under the obedience of one chief, the temporal powers were crumbling into ruin. Already, in the beginning of the twelfth century, the Provost Gerohus ventured to say, ' It will at last come to this, that the golden image of the empire shall be shaken to dust ; every great monarchy shall be divided into tetrar- chates, and then only will the Church stand free and un- trammelled beneath the protection of her crowned high priest."""* Thus did Rome seize the golden moment when the iron of the German race, like that of the Carlovingian before it, had become mixed with miry clay, to complete her work of five centuries. She had watched and waited for ages ; she had flattered the proud and insulted the humble ; bowed to the strong and trampled upon the weak ; she had awed men with terrors that were false, and excited them with hopes that were delusive ; she had stimulated their passions and destroyed their souls ; she had schemed, and plotted, and intrigued, with a cunning, and a malignity, and a success, which hell itself might have envied, and which certainly it never surpassed ; and now her grand object was within her reach, — was attained. She had triumphed over the empire ; she was lord paramount of Europe ; nations were her footstool ; and from her lofty seat she showed her- self to the wondering tribes of earth, encompassed by the splendour, possessing the attributes, and wielding the power, not of earthly monarchs, but of the Eternal Majesty. Accordingly, we are now arrived at the golden age of the Papacy. In a.d. 1197, Innocent ascended the papal chair. It was the fortune of this man, on whose shoulders had fallen the mantle of Lucifer, to reap all that the popes his pre- decessors had sowed in alternate triumphs and defeats. • Ranke's History of the Popes, vol. i. p. 22. INNOCENT III. 83 The traditions and principles of the papal policy descended to him matured and perfected. The man, too, was equal to the hour. He had the art to veil a genius as aspiring as that of Gregory VII. under designs less avowedly temporal and worldly. He affected to wield only a spiritual sceptre ; but he held it over monarchs and kingdoms, as well as over priests and churches. " Though I cannot judge of the right to a fief," wrote he to the kings of France and England, " yet it is my province to judge where sin is committed, and my duty to prevent all public scandals.""* So lofty were his notions of the spiritual prerogative, and so much did he re- gard temporal rule as its inseparable concomitant, that he disdained to hold it by a formal claim. He exercised an omnipotent sway over mind, and left it to govern the bo- dies and goods of men. We find De Maistre comparing the Catholic Church in the days of Charlemagne to an ellipse, with St Peter in one of the foci, and the Emperor in the other.-f- But now, in the days of Innocent, the Church, or rather the European system, from being an ellipse, had become a circle. The two foci were gone. There was but one governing point, — the centre ; and in that centre stood Peter's chair. The pontificate of Innocent was one conti- nued and unclouded display of the superhuman glory of the popedom. From a height to which no mortal had before been able to climb, and which the strongest intellect be- comes giddy when it contemplates, he regulated all the affairs of this lower world. His comprehensive scheme of government took in alike the greatest affairs of the greatest kingdoms, and the most private concerns of the humblest in- dividual. We find him teaching the kings of France their duty, dictating to the emperors their policy, and at the same time adjudicating in the case of a citizen of Pisa who had mortgaged his estate, and to whom Innocent, by spiri- tual censures, compelled the creditor to make restitution of * Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 552. "t" Du Pape, Discours Preliminaire. 84 PROGRESS OF THE TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. the goods on receiving payment of the money ; and writing to the Bishop of Ferentino, giving his decision in the case of a simple maiden for whose hand two lovers contended.* Thus the thunder of Rome broke alike over the heads of puissant kings and humble citizens. The Italian republics he gathered under his own sceptre, and, binding them in leagues, cast them into the political scale, to counterpoise the empire. The kings of Castile and Portugal, as they hung on the perilous edge of battle, were separated by a single word from his legate. The king of Navarre held some castles of Richard's, which his power did not enable him to retake. The pontiff hinted at the spiritual thun- der, and the castles were given up. Monarchs, intent only on a present advantage, failed to see that, by accept- ing the aid of such a power, they were the abettors of their own future vassalage. The King of France had of- fended the Pope by repudiating his wife and contracting a new marriage. An interdict fell upon the realm. The churches were closed, and the clergy forbore their offices to both the living and the dead. The submission of the power- ful Philip Augustus illustrated the boundless spirit and ap- peased the immeasurable pride of Innocent. After this great victory, we name not those which he gained over the kings of Spain and England, the latter of whom he excom- municated, placing his kingdom under interdict, and com- pelling him to hold his crown and realm as the vassal of the Roman see. But the coronation of the Emperor Otho IV., and the varied and substantial concessions included in the oath which Otho took on that occasion, are worthy of being enumerated among the trophies of this mighty pope. The terror of his name extended to distant lands, — to Bohe- mia, to Hungary, to Norway. The pontifical thunder was heard rolling in even the latter northern region, where it smote a certain usurper of the name of Swero. As if all those labours had been too little, Innocent, from his seat on Du Pin, Eccles. Hist. vol. ii. p. 402. GRANDEUR AND DOMINION OF THE POPEDOM. 85 the Seven Hills, guided the progress of those destructive tempests which swept along the shores of Syria and the Straits of the Bosphorus. Constantinople fell before the crusaders, and the kings of Bulgaria and Armenia acknow- ledged the supremacy of Innocent. " His legs bestrid the ocean ; his reared arm Crested the world ; his voice was propertied As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends ; And Avhen he meant to quail and shake the orb. He was as rattling thunder In his livery Walked crowns and crownets." But the mightiest efforts of Innocent were reserved for the extirpation of heresy. He was the first to discover the danger to the popedom which lurked in the Scriptural faith, and in the mental liberty of the Albigenses and Waldenses. On them, therefore, and not on eastern schismatics or re- calcitrating sovereigns, fell the full storm of the pontifical ire. Assembling his vassal kings, he pointed to the peace- ful and thriving communities in the provinces of the Rhone, and inflamed the zeal and fury of the soldiers by holding out the promise of immense booty and unbounded indul- gence. For a forty days' service a man might earn paradise, not to speak of the worldly spoil with which he was certain to return laden home. The poor Albigenses were crushed beneath an avalanche of murderous fanaticism and inap- peasable rapacity. To Innocent history is indebted for one of her bloodiest pages, — the European crusades ; and the world owes him thanks for its most infernal institution, — the Inquisition. He had for his grand object to bestow an eternity of empire upon the papal throne ; and, to accom- plish this, he strove to inflict an eternity of thraldom upon the human mind. His darling aim was to make the chair of Peter equally stable and absolute with its fellow-seat in pandemonium.* * Du Pin, Eccles. Hist. vol. ii. pp. 401-422 : Sismondi's Italian Repub- lics, pp. 60-64 ; Loud. 1832 : Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman 86 PROGRESS OF THE TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. The noon of the Papacy synchronises with the world"'s midnight. Innocent III. was emphatically the Prince of the Darkness. There was but one thing in the universe which he dreaded, and that was light. The most execrable shapes of night could not appal him ; these were congenial terrors : he knew they had no power to harm him or his. But the faintest glimmer of day on the horizon struck terror into his soul, and he contended ceaselessly against the light, with all the artillery of anathemas and arms. During the whole century of his pontificate the globe was seen reposing in deep shadow, girdled round with the chain of the papal power, and corruscated fearfully with the flashes of the pon- tifical thunder. Like a crowned demon. Innocent sat upon the Seven Hills, muffled up in the mantle of Lucifer, and governed earth as Satan governs hell. At a great distance below, realizing by anticipation the boldest vision of the great poet, were the crowned potentates and mitred hier- archies of the world over which he ruled, lying foundered and overthrown, like the spirits in the lake, in the same de- grading and shameful vassalage. Princes laid their swords, and nations their treasures, at the foot of the pontifical throne, and bowed their necks to be trodden upon by its oc- cupant. Innocent might say, as Csesar to the conquered queen of Egypt, — " I'll take my leave." And the subject nations might reply with Cleopatra, — " And may, through all the world : 'tis yours ; and we Your scutcheons, and your signs of conquest, shall Hang in what place you please." The boast better became his mouth than it did the proud Assyrian who first uttered it. " By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom ; for I am prudent: and I have removed the bounds of the people, and have Empire, vol. xi. p. 145 : Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. i. pp. 551-556 : Sis- moudi's Crusades, pp. 10-20 ; Lond. 1S2G. THE PAPACY AND MILTON's FIEND. S7 robbed their treasures, and I have put down the inhabitants like a valiant man. And my hand hath found, as a nest, the riches of the people ; and as one gathereth eggs that are left, have I gathered all the earth ; and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped.""' Thus have we traced the course of the papal power, from its feeble rise in the second century, to its full development in the thirteenth. We have seen how the infant pontiff was suckled by the imperial wolf (for the fables of heathen mythology find their truest realization in the Papacy, and, from being myths, become vaticinations), and how, waxing strong on the pure milk of Paganism, he grew to manhood, and, being grown, discovered all the genuine pagan and vul- pine qualities of the mother that nursed him, — the passion for images and the thirst for blood. The Ethiopian cannot change his skin ; and the world has now found out that the beast of the Roman hill is but a wolf in sheep"'s clothing. How often have slaughter and carnage covered the fold which he professed to guard ! Take it all in all, the story of the papal power is a dismal drama, — the gloomiest that darkens history ! We look back upon the past ; and, as we behold this terrible power growing continually bigger and darker, and casting fresh shadows, with every succeeding age, upon the liberty and religion of the world, till at last both came to be shrouded in impenetrable night, we are re- minded of those tragedies and horrors with which the ima- gination of Milton has given grandeur to his song. To nothing can w-e liken the progress of the Papacy, through the wastes of the middle ages to the universal domination of the thirteenth and succeeding centuries, save to the passage of the fiend from the gates of pandemonium cO the sphere of the newly-created world. The old dragon of Paganism, broken loose from the abyss into which he had been cast, sallied forth in quest of the world of young Chris- tianity, as Satan from hell, with the like fiendish intent of * Isaiah, x. 13, 14. 88 PROGRESS OF THE TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. marring and snbjugating it. He had no " narrow frith'" to cross ; but he hekl his way with as cautious a step and as dauntless a front as his great prototype. His path, more especially in its first stages, was bestrewn with the wrecks of a perished world, and scourged by those tempests which attend the birth of new states. On this hand he shunned the whirlpool of the sinking empire, and on that guarded himself against the fiery blast of the Saracenic eruption. There he buffeted the waves of tumultuous revolutions, and here he planted his foot on the crude consistence of a young and rising state. Now " the strong rebuff of some tumul- tuous cloud'" hurried him aloft, and, " that fury stayed,"" he was anon " quenched in a boggy Syrtis.''"' Now he was up- borne on the shield of kings ; and now his foot trode upon their necks. Now he hewed his way with the bloody brand ; and now, in more crafty fashion, with the forged document. Sometimes he wore his own shape, and showed himself as Apollyon ; but more frequently he hid the hideous linea- ments of the destroyer beneath the fair semblance of an angel of light. Thus he maintained the struggle through the weary ages, till at last the thirteenth century saw " His dark pavilion spread Wide on the wasteful deep ; with him enthroned Sat sable vested night, eldest of things. The consort of his reign ; and by them stood Oreus and Ades, and the dreaded name Of Demogorgon." The scheme of Rome, viewed simply as an intellectual con- ception, is the most comprehensive and gigantic which the genius and ambition of man ever dared to entertain. There is a unity and vastness about it, which, apart frpm its moral aspect, compels our admiration, and awakens a feeling of mingled astonishment and terror. The depth of its essen- tial principles, the boldness of the design, the wisdom and talent brought into play in achieving its realization, the per- severance and vigour with which it was prosecuted, and the, marvellous success with which it was at last crowned, were all equal, and were all colossal. It is at once the grandest and THE WALDENSES AND ALBIGENSES. 89 the most iniquitous enterprise in which man ever embarked. But, as we have shown in our opening chapter, we ought not to regard it as a distinct and separate enterprise, spring- ing from principles and contemplating aims peculiar to itself, but as the full development and consummation of man''s original apostacy. The powers of man and the limits of the globe do not admit of that apostacy being carried higher ; for had it been much extended, either in point of intensity or in point of duration, the human species would have perished. A corruption so universal and a tyranny so overwhelming would in due time have utterly depopu- lated the globe. In the domination of the Papacy we have a glimpse of what would have been the condition of the world had no scheme of salvation been provided for it. The history of the Papacy is the history of the rebellion of our race against Heaven. Before dismissing this subject, let us glance a moment at another and different picture. What became of Truth in the midst of such monstrous errors 2 Where was a shelter found for the Church during storms so fearful ? To under- stand this, we must leave the open plains and the wealthy cities of the empire, and retire to the solitude of the Alps. In primitive times the members of the then unfallen Church of Rome had found amid these mountains a shelter from per- secution. He who built an ark for the one elect family of the antediluvian world had provided a retreat for the little company chosen to escape the mighty shipwreck of Chris- tianity. God placed his Church aloft on the eternal hills, in the place prepared for her.'' Nature had enriched this abode with pine forests, and rich mountain pastures, and rivers which issue from the frozen jaws of the glacier, and made it strong as beautiful by a wall of peaks that pierce the clouds, and look down on earth from amidst the firma- ment's calm, white with everlasting snows. Here it is that we find the true apostolic Church. Here, far from the mag- * Revelations, xii. 6. 90 PROGRESS OF THE TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. iiificence of Dom, the fragrance of incense, and the glitter of mitres, holy men of God fed the flock of Christ with the pure Word of Life. Ages of peace passed over thera. The storms that shook the world, the errors that darkened it, did not approach their retreat. Like the traveller, amid their own mountains they could mark the clouds gather and hear the thunders roll far below, while they enjoyed the uninterrupted sunshine of a pure gospel. An overruling Providence made the same events which brought trouble to the world to minister peace to them. Rome was entirely engrossed with her battles with the empire, and had no time to think of those who were bearing a testimony against her errors by the purity of their faith and the holiness of their lives. Besides, she could see danger only in the material power of the empire, and never dreamt the while that a spiritual power was springing up among the Alps, before which she was destined at last to fall. By and by these professors of primitive Christianity began to increase, and to spread themselves over the surrounding regions, to an extent that is but little known. Manufactures were estab- lished in the valley of the Rhone, and in those provinces of France which border on the Mediterranean or lie contio-uous to the Pyrenees ; as also in Lombardy and the towns of northern Italy. Li fact, this region of Europe became in those ages the depot of the western world as regards arts and manufactures of all kinds. Villages grew into cities, new towns sprung up, and the population of the surrounding districts were insufficient to supply the looms and forges of these industrial hives. The pious mountaineers descended from their native Alps to find employment in the workshops of the plains, just as at this day we see the population of the Highlands crowding to Glasgow and Manchester, and other great manufacturing centres ; and, as they brought their intelligence and steadiness along with thera, they made admirable workmen. The workshop became a school, con- versions went on, and the pure faith of the mountains ex- tended itself over the plains, like the dawn, first seen on the THEIR NUMBERS AND MANUFACTURING SKILL. HI hill-tops, but soon to descend and gladden the valley. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries manufactures and Chris- tianity, — the loom and the Bible, — went hand in hand, and promised to achieve the peaceful conquest of Europe, and rescue it from the hands of those pontifical and imperial barbarians who were doing their best to convert it into an unbroken expanse of solitudes and ruins. These manu- facturing and Christian societies took possession of the whole of the Italian and French provinces adjoining the Alps. The valley of the Rhone swarmed with these busy and intelligent communities. They covered with population, industry, and wealth, the provinces of Dauphine, Provence, Languedoc, and, in short, all southern France. They were found in great numbers in Lombardy. Their factories, churches, and schools, were spread over all northern Italy. They planted their arts and their faith in the valley of the Hhine, so that a traveller might journey from Basle to Cologne, and sleep every night in the house of a Christian brother. In some of the dioceses in northern Italy there were not fewer than thirty of their churches with schools attached. These professors of an apostolic creed were noted for leading pure and peaceful lives, for the pains they took in the instruction of their families, for their readiness to benefit their neighbours both by good offices and religious counsel, for their gift of extempore prayer, and for the large extent to which their memories were stored with the Word of God. Many of them could recite entire epistles and gos- pels, and some of them had committed to memory the whole of the New Testament. The region which they occupied formed a belt of country stretching on both sides of the Alps and the Pyrenees, from the sources of the Rhine to the Garonne and the Ebro, and from the Po and the Adriatic to the shores of the Mediterranean. Monarchs found that this was the most productive and the most easily governed part of their dominions. Amid the wars and feudalism that oppressed the rest of Europe, in which towns were falling into decay, and the population in some spots were becoming 92 PROGRESS OF THE TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. extinct, and little appeared to be left, especially in France, " but convents scattered here and there amid vast tracts of forest,"* this populous tract, rich in the marvels of industry and the virtues of true religion, resembled a strip of verdure drawn across the wastes of the desert. Will it be believed that human hands rooted out this paradise, which a pure Christianity had created in the very heart of the desert of European Catholicism ? Rome about this time had brought to an end her wars with the empire, and her popes were re- posing, after their struggle of centuries, in the proud con- sciousness of undoubted supremacy. The light had been spreading unobserved, and the Reformation was on the point of being anticipated. The demon Innocent III. was the first to descry the streaks of day on the crest of the Alps. Horror-stricken, he started up, and began to thun- der from his pandemonium against a faith which had al- ready subjugated provinces, and was threatening to dis- solve the power of Rome in the very flush of her victory over the empire. In order to save the one half of Europe from perishing by heresy, it was decreed that the other half should perish by the sword. The monarchs of Europe dared not disobey a summons which was enforced by the most dreadful adjurations and threats. They assembled their vassals, and girded on the sword, not to repel an invader or to quell insurrection, but to extirpate those very men whose industry had enriched their realm, and whose virtue and loyalty formed the stay of their power. Lest the work of vengeance should slacken, Rome held out dazzling bribes, equally compounded of paradise and gold. She could afford to be prodigal of both, for neither cost her anything. Paradise is always in her gift for those who will do her work, and the wealth of the heretic is the lawful plunder of the faithful. With such a bank, and per- mission to draw upon it to an unlimited amount, Rome had no motive, and certainly would have had no thanks, for * Sismondi's Fall of the Eoraan Empire, vol. ii. p. 169. THEIR PERSECUTION. 93 any ill-judged economy. The fanatics who mustered for the crusade hated the person and loved the goods of the heretic. Onward they marched, to earn heaven by desolat- ing earth. The work was three centuries a-doing. It was done effectually at last, however. " Neither sex, nor age, nor rank, have we spared," says the leader of the war against the Albigenses; " we have put all alike to the sword."'- The churches and the workshops, the Christianity and the in- dustry, of the region, were swept away by this simoom of fanaticism. Before it was a garden, behind it a desert. All was silent now, where the solemn melody of praise and the busy hum of trade had before been so happily blent. Monarchs had drained their exchequers to desolate the wealthiest and fairest portion of their dominions ; neverthe- less they held themselves abundantly recompensed by the assurance which Home gave them of ci'owns and kingdoms in paradise. • Eanke's History of the Popes, vol. i. p. 24. d-i' FOUNDATION AND EXTENT OF THE SUl'UEMACY. CHAPTER V. FOUNDATION AND EXTENT OF THE SUPEEMACY. This is the favourable point for taking a view of the charac- ter of the Papacy, — its lofty pretensions and claims, and the foundation on which all these are based. The conflict waged by the seventh Gregory, and which ended in disaster to him- self, but in triumph to his system, brings out in striking re- lief the essential principles, the guiding spirit, and the un- varying aims, of the popedom. When intelligently contem- plated, the Papacy is seen to be a monarchy of a mixed kind, partly ecclesiastical and partly civil, founded profess- edly upon divine right, and claiming vmiversal jurisdiction and dominion. The empire which Gregory VII. strove to erect was of this mixed kind ; the dominion he arrogated and exercised extended directly or indirectly to all things temporal and spiritual ; and this vast power he claimed/«r(3 divino. This it now becomes our business to show. The Pope had now made himself absolute master in the Church. There was, in fact, but one bishop, and Christen- dom was his diocese. From this one man flowed all eccle- siastical honours, offices, acts, and jurisdiction. The pon- tiffs presided in all councils by their legates ; they were the supreme arbiters in all controversies that arose respecting religion or church discipline. " Gregory VII.," remarks D'Aubigne, " claimed the same power over all the bishops TEMPORAL SUPREMACY ARROGATED. 95 and priests of Christendom that an abbot of Chmy exer- cises in the order in which ho presides.'"'^ And all this they claimed as the successor of St Peter. But it is unnecessary to spend time on a point so universally admitted as that the popes now possessed ecclesiastical supremacy, and professed to hold it by divine right, that is, as the successors of St Peter, the prince of the apostles. But the point to be de- monstrated here is, that the popes, not content with being supreme rulers in the Church, and having all ecclesiastical persons and things subject to their absolute authority, claimed to be supreme in the State also ; and, in the charac- ter of God's vicegerents presumed to dispose of crowns and kingdoms, and to interfere in all temporal affairs. The foundation of this power was laid when the popes claimed to be the successors of St Peter and the vicars of Christ, which they did, as we have already shown, as early as the middle of the fifth century ; but the universal and uncon- trolled dominion implied in this claim they did not seek to wield till towards the times of Gregory VII., in the eleventh century. But that they did then arrogate this power in the most open and unblushing manner, does not admit of doubt or denial. There exists a vast body of proof to the effect that the popes of the eleventh and succeeding centuries at- tempted to prostrate beneath their feet the temporal as well as the spiritual power, and that they succeeded in their at- tempt. The history of Europe from the era of Hildebrand to that of Luther must be blotted out before the condemna- tory evidence — for condemnatory of the Papacy it certainly is, as irreconcileably hostile to the liberties of nations and the rights of princes — can be annihilated or got rid of. It has put this claim into a great variety of forms, and at- tempted in every possible way to make it good. It taught this claim in its essential principles; and, when the character of the times permitted, it advanced it in plain and unmis- takeable statements. It spent five centuries of intrigue in • D'Aubign^'s History of the Reformation, vol. i. p. 48. 96 FOUNDATION AND EXTENT OP THE SUPREMACY. the effort to realize this claim, and five centuries more of wars and bloodshed in the effort to retain and consolidate it. It was promulgated from the doctor's chair, ratified by synodical acts, embodied in the instructions of nuncios, and thundered from the pontifical throne in the dreadful sentence of interdict by which monarchs were deposed, their crowns transferred to others, their subjects loosed from their alle- giance, and their kingdoms not unfrequently ravaged with fire and sword. Acts so monstrous may appear to be the mere wantonness of ambition, or the irresponsible doings of men in whom the lust of power had overborne every other consideration. The man who reasons in this way either does not understand the Papacy, or wilfully perverts the question. This was but the sober and logical action of the popedom ; it was the fair working of the evil principles of the system, and no chance ebullition of the destructive passions of the man who had been placed at its head ; and nothing is capable of a more complete and convincing demonstration. The foundation of our proof must of course be the constitution of the Papacy. As is the nature of the thing, — as are the elements and prin- ciples of which it is made up, — so inevitably must be the cha- racter and extent of its claims, and the nature of its action and influence. What, then, is the Papacy ? Is it a purely spiritual society, or a purely secular society ? It is neither. The Papacy is a mixed society : the secular element enters quite as largely into its constitution as does the spiritual. It is a compound of both elements in equal proportions; and, being so, must necessarily possess secular as well as spiritual jurisdiction, and be necessitated to adopt civil as well as ecclesiastical action. But how does it appear that the Church of Rome combines in one essence the secular and spiritual elements ? for the point lies here. It appears from the fundamental axiom on which she rests. There are but a few links in the chain of her infernal logic ; but these few links are of adamant ; and they so bind up together, in one composite body, the two principles, the spiritual and the tern- SYLLOGISM OF THE PAPACY. 97 poral, and, by consequence, the two jurisdictions, that the moment Rome attempts to cut in twain what her logic joins in one, she ceases to be the popedom. Her syllogism is in- destructible if the minor proposition be but granted ; and the minor proposition, be it remembered, is her fundamental axiom : — Christ is the Vicar of God, and, as such, pos- sesses HIS power ; BUT THE PoPE IS THE ViCAR OF ClIRIST ; THEREFORE THE POPE IS God'S YiCAR, AND POSSESSES HIS POWER. To Christ, as the Vicar of God, all power, spiritual and temporal, has been delegated. All spiritual power has been delegated to Him as Head of the Church ; and all tem- poral power has been delegated to Him for the good of the Church. This power has been delegated a second time from Christ to the Pope. To the Pope all spiritual power has been delegated, as head of the Church, and God's vice- gerent on earth ; and all temporal power also, for the good of the Church. Such is the theory of the popedom. This conclusively establishes that the Papacy is of a mixed cha- racter. We but perplex ourselves when we think or speak of it simply as a religion. It contains the religious ele- ment, no doubt; but it is not a rehgion; — it is a scheme of domination of a mixed character, partly spiritual and partly temporal ; and its jurisdiction must be of the same mixed kind with its constitution. To talk of the popedom wielding a purely spiritual authority only, is to assert what her fundamental principles repudiate. These principles compel her to claim the temporal also. The two authori- ties grow out of the same fundamental axiom, and are so woven together in the system, and so indissolubly knit the one to the other, that the Papacy must part with both or none. The popedom, then, stands alone. In genius, in con- stitution, and in prerogative, it is diverse from all other so- cieties. The Church of Rome is a temporal monarchy as really as she is an ecclesiastic body ; and in token of her hybrid character, her head, the Pope, displays the emblems of both jurisdictions, — the keys in the one hand, the sword in the other, H 98 FOUNDATION AND EXTENT OF THE SUPREMACY. Pope Boniface VIII. was a much more logical expounder of the Papacy than those who now-a-days would persuade us that it is purely spiritual. In a bull " given at the palace of the Lateran, in the eighth year of his pontificate," and inserted in the body of the canon law, we find him claiming both jurisdictions in the broadest manner. " There is," says he, " one fold and one shepherd. The authority of that shepherd includes the two swords, — the spiritual and the temporal. So much are we taught by the words of the evangelist, ' Behold, here are two swords,*" namely, in the Church. The Lord did not reply, It is too much, but, It is enough. Certainly he did not deny to Peter the temporal sword : he only commanded him to return it into its scab- bard. Both, therefore, belong to the jurisdiction of the Church, — the spiritual sword and the secular. The one is to be wielded for the Church, — the other by the Church ; the one is the sword of the priest, — the other is in the hand of the monarch, but at the command and sufferance of the priest. It behoves the one sword to be under the other, — the temporal authority to be subject to the spiritual power."* Whatever may be thought of this pontifical gloss, there can be no question as to the comprehensive jurisdiction which Boniface founds upon the passage. It cannot be argued, then, with the least amount of truth, or of plausibility even, that this claim was the result of a kind of accident, — that it originated solely in the ambition of an individual pope, and was foreign to the genius, or disal- lowed by the principles, of the Papacy. On the contrary, nothing is easier than to show that it is a most logical de- duction from the fundamental elements of the system. It partakes not in the slightest degree of the accidental ; nor was it a crotchet of Hildebrand, or a delusion of the age * Corpus Juris Canonici (Colonize. 1631), Extravag. Commun. lib. i. tit. viii. cap. i, " Utcrquo ergo est in potestato ecclesia?, spiritalis, scilicet, gladius, et materialis. Scd is quidom pro ecclcsia, ille vero ab ecclcsia, exerceudus." THE SUPKEilACY NOT ACCIDENTAL. 99 in which he lived ; as is manifest from the fact, that its de- velopment was the work of five centuries, and the joint ope- ration of many hundreds of minds who were successively em- ployed upon it. It was the logical consequence of principles which had been engrafted in the Papacy, or rather, as we have just shown, which lie at the foundation of the whole system ; and accordingly, it was steadily and systematically pursued through a succession of centuries, and engaged the genius and ambition of innumerable minds. As the seed bursts the clod and struggles into light, so we behold the principle of papal supremacy struggling for development through the slow centuries, and in its efforts overturning thrones and convulsing society. We can discover the su- preraac}' in embryo as early as the fifth century, and can trace its logical development till the times of Hildebrand. We see it passing through the consecutive stages of the dogma, the synodical decree, the papal missive, and the in- terdict, which shook the thrones of monarchs, and laid their occupants prostrate in the dust. The gnarled oak, whose lofty stature and thick foliage darken the earth for roods around, is not more really a development of the acorn depo- sited in the soil centuries before, than were the arrogant pretensions and domineering acts of the Papacy in the age of Innocent the result of the principle deposited in the Pa- pacy in the fifth century, that the Pope is Christ's vicar. The Pope's absolute dominion over priests is not a more legitimate inference from this doctrine than is his dominion over kings. If the pontiffs have renounced the temporal supremacy, it is on one of two grounds, — either they are not Christ's vicars, or Christ is not a King of kings. But they have claimed all along, and do still claim, to be the vicars of Christ ; and they have likewise held all along, and do still hold, that Christ is Head of the world as well as Head of the Church. The conclusion is inevitable, that it is not only over the Church that they bear rule, but over the world also; and that they have as good a right to dispose of crowns, and to meddle in the temporal affairs of kingdoms, as they have 100 FOUNDATION AND EXTENT OF THE SUPREMACY. to bestow mitres, and to make laws in the Church. The one authority is as essential to the completeness of their assumed character as is the other. The popes have understood the matter in this light from the beginning. Some writers of name are at present en- deavouring to persuade the world that the pontiffs (some few excepted, who, they say, transgressed in this matter the bounds of Catholicism as well as of moderation) never claimed or exercised supremacy over princes ; that this is not, and never was, a doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church ; and that she repudiates and condemns the opinion that the Pope has been invested with jurisdiction over tem- poral princes. But we cannot grant to Rome the sole right to interpret history, as her members grant to her the right to interpret the Bible. We can examine and judge for ourselves ; and when we do so, we certainly find far more reason to admire the boldness than to confess the prudence of those who disclaim, on the part of Rome, this doctrine. The proofs to the contrary are far too plain and too nume- rous to permit of this disclaimer obtaining the least credit from any one, save those who are prepared to receive with- out scruple or inquiry all that popish writers may be pleased to assert in behalf of their Church. Popes, canonists, and councils have promulgated this tenet ; and not only have they asserted that the power it implies rests on Divine right, but they have inculcated it as an article of belief on all who would preserve the faith and unity of the Church. " We," says Pope Boniface VIIL, " declare, say, define, and pronounce it to be necessary to salvation, that every human creature be subject to the Roman pontiff.* The one sword must be under the other ; and the temporal authority must be subject to the spiritual power : hence, if the earthly power go astray, the spiritual shall judge it."*}* These sen- * First taught as an axiom by Thomas Aquinas, in his work against tlie Greeks ; converted into law by Pope Boniface ; and attempted to be applied by the same pope in the way of deposing King Pliilip of France. + Extravag. Commun. lib. i. tit. viii. cap. i. " Porro subcsse Romano MONARCHS EXCOMMUNICATED. 101 timcnts are re-echoed by Leo X. and his Council of Lateran. " We," says that pope, " with the approbation of the pre- sent holy council, do renew and approve that holy consti- tution."* To that doctrine Baronius heartily subscribes : " There can be no doubt of it," says he, " but that the civil principality is subject to the sacerdotal, and that God hath made the political government subject to the dominion of the spiritual Church."-f- " He who reigneth on high," says Pius V., in his intro- duction to his bull against Queen Elizabeth, " to whom is given all power in heaven and in earth, hath committed the one holy Catholic Church, out of which there is no salvation, to one alone upon earth, that is, to Peter, the prince of apostles, and to the Homan pontiff, the successor of Peter, to be governed with a plenitude of power. This one he hath constituted prince over all nations, that he may pluck up, overthrow, disperse, destroy, plant, and rear." The Italian priest, therefore, thunders against the English monarch in the following style : — " We deprive the Queen of her pretended right to the kingdom, and of all dominion, dignity, and privilege whatsoever; and absolve all the nobles, subjects, and people of the kingdom, and whoever else have sworn to her, from their oath, and all duty what- soever in regard of dominion, fidelity, and obedience."^ " Snatch up, therefore, the two-edged sword of Divine power committed to thee," was the address of the Council of Lateran to Leo X., " and enjoin, command, and charge, that a universal peace and alliance, for at least ten years, be made among Christians ; and to that bind kings in the fetters of the great King, and firmly fasten nobles with the pontifici omni humanaj creaturse, declaramus, dicimus, finimus, et pronun- ciamus omnino esse de necessitate salutis." * Concil. Lateran. sess. xi. p. 153. + Baron, anno 57, sec. 23-53. J Pope Pius V. in bull coi^tra Reg. Eliz., quoted from Barrow. 102 FOUNDATION AND EXTENT OF THE SUPREMACY. iron manacles of censures ; for to thee is given all power in heaven and in earth."* So speak the popes and councils of Rome. Here is not only the principle out of which the supremacy springs enunciated, but the claim itself advanced. Not in words only have they held this high tone ; their deeds have been equally lofty. The supremacy was not permitted to remain a theory ; it became a fact. For several centuries to- gether we see the popes reigning over Europe, and demean- ing themselves in every way as not only its spiritual, but also its temporal lords. We see them freely distributing immunities, titles, revenues, territories, as if all belonged to them ; we see them sustaining themselves arbiters in all disputes, umpires in all quarrels, and judges in all causes; we see them giving provinces and crowns to their favourites, and constituting emperors ; we see them imposing oaths of fidelity and vassalage on monarchs ; and, in token of the de- pendence of the one and the supremacy of the other, we see them exacting tribute for their kingdoms in the shape of Peter''s pence ; we see them raising wars and crusades, summoning princes and kings into the field, attiring them in their livery, the cross, and holding them but as lieu- tenants under them. In fine, how often have they deposed monarchs, and laid their kingdoms under interdict ? History presents us with a list of not less than sixty-four emperors and kings deposed by the popes.-f But it is improper to despatch in a single sentence what occupies so large a space in history, and has been the cauge of so much suff'ering, bloodshed, and war to Europe. Nothing can convey a bet- ter or truer picture of the insufferable arrogance and pride of the pontiffs than their own language on these occasions. * Concil. Lateran. sess. x. p. 132. + See a list of these sovereigns in Free Thoughts on the Toleration of Popery, pp. 50, 51 ; Edin. 1780. This Avork is from the pen of the late Professor Bruce of Whitburn. It displays immense research, sound learn- ing, and great eloquence. THE POPE VERSUS KINGS. 103 " For the dignity and defence of God's holy Church,"" says Gregory VII. (Hihlebrand), " in the name of the omnipo- tent God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I depose from im- perial and royal administration, Henry the king, the son of Henry, formerly emperor, who, too boldly and rashly, has laid hands on thy Church ; and I absolve all Chris- tians subject to the empire from that oath by which they were wont to plight their faith unto true kings ; for it is right that he should be deprived of dignity who doth en- deavour to diminish the majesty of the Church. " Go to, therefore, most holy princes of the apostles, and w^hat I said, by interposing your authority, confirm ; that all men may now at length understand, if ye can bind and loose in heaven, that ye also can upon earth take away and give empires, kingdoms, and whatsoever mortals can have ; for if ye can judge things belonging unto God, what is to be deemed concerning these inferior and profane things I And if it is your part to judge angels who govern proud princes, what becometh it you to do towards their servants ? Let kings now, and all secular princes, learn by this man's example what ye can do in heaven, and in what esteem ye are with God ; and let them henceforth fear to slight the commands of holy Church, but put forth suddenly this judgment, that all men may understand, that not casually, but by your means, this son of iniquity doth fall from his kingdom."" " We therefore," says Innocent IV. in the Council of Lyons (1245), when pronouncing sentence of excommunica- tion upon the Emperor Frederick II.,f "having had previous and careful deliberation with our brethren and the holy council respecting the preceding and many other of his wicked miscarriages, do show, denounce, and accordingly deprive of all honour and dignity, the said prince, who hath rendered himself unworthy of empire and kingdoms, and of * Concil. Rom. vii. apiid Bin. torn. vii. p. 491. (Barrow), t Du Pin, Eccles. Hist. vol. ii. p. 400. 104 FOUNDATION AND EXTENT OF THE SUPREMACY. all honour and dignity ; and who, for his sins, is cast away by God, that he should not reign nor command ; and all who are bound by oath of allegiance we absolve from such oath for ever, firmly enjoining that none in future regard or obey him as emperor or king ; and decreeing, that whoever yields him in these characters advice, assistance, or favours, shall immediately lie under the bond of excommunication." The following bull of Sixtus V. (1585) against the King of Navarre and the Prince of Conde, — the two sons of lorath^ — is conceived in the loftiest pontifical style. " The autho- rity given to St Peter and his successors by the immense power of the Eternal King, excels all the power of earthly princes ; it passes uncontrollable sentence upon them all ; and if it find any of them resisting the ordinance of God, it takes a more severe vengeance upon them, casting them down from their throne, however powerful they may be, and tumbling them to the lowest parts of the earth, as the ministers of aspiring Lucifer, We deprive them and their posterity of their dominions for ever. By the authority of these presents, we absolve and free all persons from their oath [of allegiance], and from all duty whatever relating to dominion, fealty, and obedience ; and we charge and forbid all from presuming to obey them, or any of their admoni- tions, laws, or commands.*" '•■ But it were endless to bring forward all that might be adduced on the point. The history of the middle ages abounds with instances of the exercise of this tremendous power, of the disgrace and disaster it entailed on monarchs, and the confusion and calamity it occasioned to nations. But instead of citing instances of these, — of which the his- tory of Europe, not excepting that of our own country, is full, — we think it of more consequence here to observe, that the most high-handed of these acts grew directly out of the fundamental principle of the Papacy, — that the Pope is Chrisfs vicar. If this be granted, the pontiff is as really * Bulla Sexti V. contra Hen. Navarr. Rex. (Barrow). ULTRAMONTANISM LOGICAL. 105 the temporal as the spiritual chief of Europe ; and in de- throning heretical kings, and laying rebellious kingdoms under interdict, he is simply exercising a power which Christ has lodged in his hands ; he is doing what he is not only entitled, but bound to do. Nothing could display greater ignorance of the essential principles of the Papacy, or greater incompetence to deduce legitimate inferences from these principles, than to hold, as some do, that the supre- macy was an accident, or had its origin in the ambition of Gregory, or in the superstitious and slavish character of the times. True, it was only at times that the Papacy dared to assert or to act upon this arrogant claim. In itself the claim is so monstrous, and so destructive of both the natu- ral rights of men and the just prerogatives of princes, that the instinct of self-preservation overcame at times the slavish dictates of superstition, and princes and people united to oppose a despotism that threatened to crush both. When the state was strong the Papacy held its claims in abeyance ; but when the sceptre came into feeble hands, that moment Rome advanced her lordly pretensions, and summoned both her ffhostlv terrors and her material resources to enforce them. She trampled with inexorable pride upon the dig- nity of princes ; she violated without scruple the sanctity of oaths ; she repaid former favours with insult ; and treated with equal disdain the rights and the supplications of na- tions. Nothing, however exalted, nothing, however vene- rable, nothing, however sacred, was permitted to stand in her way to universal and supreme dominion. She became the lady of kingdoms. She was God"'s vicegerent, and could bind or loose, build up or pull down, as seemed good unto her. In disposing of the crowns of monarchs, she was dis- posing of but her own ; and in assuming the supreme authority in their kingdoms, she was exercising a right in- herent in her, and with which she could no more part than she could cease to be Rome. Such is the principle viewed logically. The most arro- gant acts of Gregory and Innocent did not exceed by a lOG FOUNDATION AND EXTENT OF THE SUPREMACY. single hairbreadth the just limits of their power, judged according to the fundamental axiom out of which that power springs. But we are not to suppose that Romanists have all been of one mind respecting the nature and extent of the supremacy. On this, as on every other point, they have differed widely. By a curious but easily explained coincidence, the Romanist theory of the supremacy has been enlarged or contracted, according to the mutations which the supremacy itself, in its exercise upon the world, has un- dergone. The papal sceptre has been a sort of index-hand. Its motions, whether through a larger or a narrower space, have ever furnished an exact measure of the existing state of opinion in the schools on the subject in question. In fact, the risings and fallings of tlieory and iwactice on the head of the supremacy have been as coincident, both in time and space, as the turnings of the vane and the wind, or as the changes of the mercury and the atmosphere ; fur- nishing an instructive specimen of that very peculiar infalli- bility which Rome possesses. We distinctly recognise three well-defined and different opinions, not to mention minute shades and variations, among Romish doctors on this im- portant question. The first attributes temporal power to the Pope on the ground of express and formal delegation from God. We are, say they, Peter's representative, God's vicegerent, possessors of the two keys, and therefore the rulers of the world in both its spiritual and temporal affairs. This may be held, speaking generally, as the claim of the popes who lived from Gregory VII. to Pius V., as expressed in their bulls, and interpreted (little to the comfort of sove- reigns) in their acts. They were the world's priest and monarch in one person. And, we repeat, this, which is the high ultra-montane theory, appears to us to be the most consistent opinion, strictly logical on Romanist principles, and, indeed, wholly impregnable if we but grant their pos- tulate, that the Pope is Christ's vicar. Prior to the Refor- mation there was scarce a single dissentient from this view of the supremacy in the Romish Church, if we except tho bellarmine's theory, or indirect authority. 107 illustrious defenders of the "Galilean liberties." Theolo- gians, canonists, and popes, with one voice claimed this prerogative. " The first opinion," says Bellarmine, when enumerating the views held respecting the Pope's temporal supremacy, " is, that the Pope has a most full power, jure dhnno, over the whole world, in both ecclesiastical and civil affairs."* " This," he adds, " is the doctrine of Augustine Triumphus, Alvarus Pelagius, Hostiensis, Panormitanus, Sylvester, and others not a few." The same doctrine was taught by the " Angelical Doctor," as he is termed. Aquinas held, that " in the Pope is the top of both powers," and " by plain consequence asserting," says Barrow, " when any one is denounced excommunicate for apostacy, his subjects are immediately freed his dominion, and from their oaths of allegiance to him."-f- The second opinion is, that the Pope"'s immediate and direct jurisdiction extends to ecclesiastical matters only, but that he possesses a mediate and indirect authority over tem- poral affairs also. This opinion found its best expositor and its ablest champion in the redoubtable Cardinal Bellarmine. The Cardinal had sense to see, that the monstrous and colossal Janus, which turned a cleric or laic visage to the gazer, according to the side from which he viewed it, — which sat upon the seven hills, and was worshipped in the dark ages, — could no longer be borne by the world ; and accord- ingly he set himself, with an adroitness and skill for which he had but little thanks from the reigning pontiff, — for the Cardinal narrowly escaped the Expurgatorius, — to show that the Pope had but one jurisdiction, the spiritual ; and could exercise temporal authority only indirectly, that is, for the good of religion or the Church. The Pope, how- ever, lost nothing, in point of fact, by the Cardinal's logic ; for Bellarmine took care to teach, that that indirect tem- * Bellarm. De Romano Pontifice, lib. v. cap. i. ; Cologne edit. 1620. + Barrow on the Supremacy, Barrow's Works, vol. i. p. 539 ; Lond. 1716. 108 FOUNDATION AND EXTENT OF THE SUPREMACY. poral power would carry the pontiff as far, and enable him to do as much, as the direct temporal authority. This indi- rect temporal power, the Cardinal taught, was supreme, and could enable the Pope, for the welfare of the Church, to annul laws and depose sovereigns.* This was dexterous management on the part of the Jesuit. He professed to part the enormous power which had before centred in Peter''s chair, between the kings and the pope, giving the temporal to the former and the spiritual to the latter ; but he took care that the lion''s share should fall to the pontiff. It was a grand feat of legerdemain ; for this division, made with such show of fairness, left the one party with not a particle more power, and the other with not a particle less, than before. Bellarmine had not broken or blunted the temporal sword ; he had simply muffled it. He had left the pope brandishing in his hand the spiritual mace, with the temporal stiletto slung conveniently by his side, con- cealed by the folds of his pontificals. He could knock monarchs on the head with the spiritual bludgeon ; and, hav- ing got them down, could despatch them with the secular poignard. What was there then in Bellarmine's theory to prevent the great spiritual freebooter of Rome doing as much business in his own peculiar line as before? No- thing. But Bellarmine''s opinion has become antiquated in its turn. The papal sceptre now describes a narrower political circle, and the opinions of the Romish doctors on the sub- ject of the supremacy have undergone a corresponding limi- ■* " Pontificem, \it pontificem, non habere directe et immediate ullam temporalem potestatem, sed solum spiritualem, tamen ratione spiritualis habere saltern iiidirecte potestatem quamdam, eamque summam, in tempo- ralibus." (De Rom. Pont. lib. v. cap. i.) " Quantum ad personas, non potest papa, ut papa, ordinarie temiJorales iDrincipes deponere, etiam justa de causa, eo mode, quo deponit episcopos, id est, tamquam ordinarius judex : tamen potest mutare regna, et uni auferre, atque alteri conferre, tamquam summus princops spiritualis, si id necessarium sit ad animorum salutem." (Idem, lib. v. cap. vi.) cosselin's theory or direction. 109 tation. A third opinion is that of those who hold the pope's indirect temporal power in its most mitigated and attenuated form, — in so very attenuated a form, indeed, that it is all but invisible ; and accordingly the authors of this opinion take leave to deny that they grant to the pope any temporal power at all. These are the views propounded by Count de Maistre and Abbe Gosselin on the Continent, and by Dr Wiseman in this country, and now generally received by all Roman Catholics. De Maistre strongly condemns the use of the term temporal supremacy to indicate the power which the popes claim over sovereigns; and maintains that it is in virtue of a power entirely and eminently spiritual that they believe themselves to be possessed of the right to excommunicate sovereigns guilty of certain crimes, without, however, any temporal encroachment, or any interference with their sovereignty. He instances the case of the pre- sent Pope, who is possessed of so little temporal power, that he is compelled to submit to the ridicule of the Roman citizens.* De Maistre conveniently forgets that the ques- tion is not what the popes possess, but what they claim, either directly or by implication. The matter is stated in almost precisely similar terms by Dr Wiseman, in his " Lectures on the Doctrines and Practices of the Catholic Church." " The supremacy which I have described," says he, " is of a character purely spiritual, and has no connexion with the possession of any temporal jurisdiction. Nor has this spiritual supremacy any relation to the wider sway once held by the pontiffs over the destinies of Europe. That the headship of the Church won naturally the highest weight and authority, in a social and political state, grounded * " L' exercise d'un pouvoir purement et eminemment spirituel, en vertu duquel ils se croyaicnt en droit de frapper d'excommunication dcs princes coupables des certains crimes, sans aucune usurpation materiolle, sans aucune suspension de la souverainete, et sans aucune derogation an dognie de son origine divine. . . . Je crois que la verity ne se trouve que dans la proposition contraire, savoir, gwe la 2^'uissaiice dont il s'agit est pure- ment s^irititelle." (Du Pape, liv. ii. chap. viii. pp. 225, 226.) no FOUNDATION AND EXTENT OF THE SUPREMACY. on catholic principles, we cannot wonder. That power arose and disappeared with the institutions which produced or supported it, and forms no part of the doctrine held by the Church regarding the papal supremacy."'"'* What sort of power, then, is it which these writers attribute to the Pope ? A purely spiritual power, which, however, vtiay^ as they themselves admit, and mud^ as we shall show, carry very formidable temporal consequences in its train. A single term expresses the modern view of the supremacy, — direction. It is not, according to this \\e\\^ jurisdiction^ but direction., which rightfully belongs to the pontiff. He sits upon the Seven Hills, not as the world's magistrate, but as the world's casuist. He is there to solve doubts and guide the consciences, not to coerce the bodies, of men. It is not as the dictator, but as the doctor of Europe that he occu- pies Peter"'s chair. But this is just Bellarmine''s theory in a subtler form. The mode of action is changed, but that action in its result is the very same : we are led, in no long time, and by no very indirect path, to the full temporal supremacy. If the Pope be the director and judge of all consciences ; if he be, as Romanists maintain, an infallible director and judge ; must he not require submission to his judgment, — implicit submission, — seeing it is an infallible and supreme judgment ? Suppose this infallible resolver had such a case of conscience as the following submitted to him, — it is no hypothetical case : — The Grand Duke of Tuscany solicits the papal see to direct his conscience as to whether it is lawful to permit his subjects to read the Word of God in the vernacular tongue, or to permit Protestant worship in the Italian language in his dominions ; and he is told it is not. The Pope does not send a single shirri to Florence ; he simply directs the ducal conscience. But the Grand Duke, as an obedient son of the Church, feels himself bound to act on the advice of infallibility. Immediately the gens d'^armes appear in the Protestant chapel, the Waldensian ministers * Wiseman's Lectures, lect. viii. pp. 264, 265. DIRECTION BUT DISGUISED SUPREMACY. Ill are banished, and a count* of the realm, along with others, whose only crime is attendance at Protestant worship, and readinsr the Word of God in Italian, are thrown into the Bargello or common prison. The sentence of excommuni- cation thundered from Gaeta against the Romans was the precursor of the French cannon which the Jesuits of the cabinet of the Elysee sent to Rome. The excommunication was a purely spiritual act; but the gaps in the Roman wall, filled with gory masses of Roman and French corpses, had. not much of a spiritual character. Laws favourable to to- leration and Protestantism, the succession of Protestant sovereigns, and all other acts of the same kind, must be condemned by this supreme spiritual judge, as hostile to the interests of religion. Of course, every Catholic conscience throughout the world is directed by the judgment of the pontiff, and must feel bound to carry that judgment out to the best of his power. Were the Catholics of Ireland to propound such a case of casuistry as this to the papal see, — Whether it is for the good of the Church in Ireland that a heretic like Queen Victoria should bear sway over that island, — who can doubt what the reply would be \ Nor can it be doubted that Irish Catholic consciences would take the direction which infallibility indicated, if they thought they could do so to good purpose. This autocrat of all consciences in and out of Christendom may disclaim all temporal power, and affect to be head of but a spiritual organization ; but well he knows that, on the right and left of Peter's chair, as turnkey and hangman to the holy apos- tolic see, stand Naples and Austria. The knife of Do * Guicciardini (May 1851). His story is well known. He is the descendant of the great historian of that name. His ancestors had ren- dered important services to the Roman see. The present Count Guicci- ardini has been a Protestant for years ; he is of unblemished reputation, has never meddled with politics ; and simply for reading Diodati's Bible with a few fellow-citizens, he was sentenced to die in the poisonous air of the Maremme. He was permitted, however, with six others, to make his escape. 112 FOUNDATION AND EXTENT OF THE SUPREMACY. Maistre, fine as its edge is, has but lopped off the branches of the tree of supremacy ; the root is in the earth, fastened with a band of iron and brass. The artillery of Romanist logic plays harmlessly upon the fabric of the papal power. It veils it in clouds of smoke, but it does not throw down a single stone of the building. The spectator, because it is blotted from his sight, thinks it is demolished. Anon the smoke clears away, and it is seen standing unscathed, and strong as ever. History is a great bar in the way of the reception of this theory, or rather of the general conclusion to which its au- thors seek to lead the public mind, namely, that the ponti- fical direction is not connected, either directly or conse- quentially, with temporal power ; and that the popes simply pronounce judgment in abstract questions of right and wrong, leaving their award, as any other moral and religious body would do, to exercise its legitimate influence upon the opinion and action of the age. The reception of such a view of the supremacy as this is much impeded, we say, by the monu- ments of history. But what can be neither blotted out nor forgotten, it may be possible to explain away ; and this is the task which De Maistre, and especially Gosselinand other modern Romanist writers, have imposed upon themselves. De Maistre admits, as it would be madness to deny, that the popes of a former age did depose sovereigns and loose subjects from their oath of allegiance;'"' but to the amount to which these acts embodied temporal jurisdiction, or dif- fered in their mode from direction, the adherents of the mo- dern theory maintain that they grew out of the spirit and views of the middle ages, and that they were founded, not on divine right, but on public right, that is, on the general consent of the sovereigns and people of those days.-f- Now, to this view of the subject there are many and insuperable objections. The popes themselves give quite a different ac- comit of the matter. When they pronounced sentence of * Du Pape, liv. ii. chap. ix. p. 230. f Idem, pp. 231, 232. SPIRITUAL DIRECTION INCLUDES TEMPORALITIES. 113 excommunication on monarchs, in the middle ages, on what ground did they rest their acts ? On the constitutional law of Europe ? On rights made over to them by a convention, express or tacit, of sovereigns and people ? No ; but on the highest style of divine right. They gave and took away crowns, as the vicars of Christ and the holders of the keys. These popes did not act as casuists, but as rulers. They did not decide a point of morality, but a point of policy. One can easily imagine the measureless indignation of Gregory or Innocent, had any one then dared to propound such a theory, — how quickly they would have smelt heresy in it, and summoned the pontifical thunders to purge out that heresy. Jurisdiction they did claim then, and on the theory of infallibility they claim it still ; nor does it mend the matter though one should grant that that jurisdiction is of a spiri- tual nature, with the indirect temporal power attached ; for, as we have already shown, this is but adding one step more to the logic, without adding even a step more to the process by which the act becomes thoroughly temporal. Nay, it does not mend the matter though we should drop the at- tached indirect temporal power, and retain only the spiritual jurisdiction. That jurisdiction is infallible and supreme, and extends to all things affecting religion, that is, the Church, the popes being the judges. We have had a modern proof how little this would avail to curb the excesses of pontifical ambition. We have seen the Pope, solely by the force of the spiritual jurisdiction, endeavouring to compel Piedmont to alter its laws, and to restore the lands to monasteries, and again extend to the clergy immunity from the secular tribu- nals. Even De Maistre grants the right of excommunicating sovereigns guilty of great crimes. But the Pope is to be the judge of what crimes do and do not merit this dreadful pun- ishment ; and the notions of pontiffs on this grave point are apt to differ from those of ordinary men. Innocent III. threatened to interrupt the succession to the throne of Hun- gary because his legate had been stopped in passing through that kingdom. Wherever duty is involved, there the Pope I 114 FOUNDATION AND EXTENT OF THE SUPREMACY. has the right to interfere. But what action is it that does not involve duty ? There is nothing a man can do, — scarce anything he can leave undone, — in which the interests of re- ligion are not more or less directly concerned, and in which the Pope has not a pretext for thrusting in his direction. He can prescribe the food a man is to eat, the person with whom he is to trade, the master whom he is to serve, or the menial whom he is to hire. One can marry only whom the priest pleases ; and can send one''s children to no school which the Pope has disallowed ; he must be told how often to come to confession, and what proportion of his goods to give to the Church ; above all, his conscience must be directed iu the important matter of his last will and testament. He cannot bury his dead unless he is on good terms with the Church. Whether as a holder of the franchise, a municipal councillor, a judge, or a member of parliament, he must give an account of his stewardship to Rome. From his cradle to his grave he is under priestly direction. That direc- tion is not tendered in the shape of advice, and so left to guide the man by its moral force : it is delivered as an in- fallible decision, the justice of which he dare not question, and to hesitate to obey which would be to peril his salvation. Thus, in every matter of life and business the Church comes in. But the Church can as thoroughly direct a whole king- dom as she can direct the individual man. The whole affairs of a nation, from the state secret down to the peasant's gossip, lie open before her eye. Her agents ramify every- where, and can at a given signal commence simultaneously a system of opposition and agitation over the whole king- dom. Any decision in the cabinet, any law in the senate, unfriendly to the Church, is sure in this way to be met and crushed. In directing national affairs, Rome has dropt the bold, blustering tone of Hildebrand : she now intimates her will in blander accents and politer phrase, but in a manner not less firm and irresistible than before. She has only to hint at withholding the sacraments, as the Archbishop Fran- zoni lately did to the dying minister Rosa, and the threat THINGS CIVIL AND SACRED BLENDED. 115 generally is successful. Governments cannot move a step but they are met by this tremendous spiritual check. They cannot make laws about education or about church lands, — they cannot regulate monasteries or take cognizance of the clergy, — they cannot extend civil privileges to their subjects, or conclude a treaty with foreign states, — without coming into collision with the Church. Every matter which they touch is Church, and before they can avoid her they must step out of the world. Under the plea of directing their consciences, their power, they find, is a nullity, and the real master of both themselves and their kingdom is the Bishop of Rome, or his cowled or scarlet-hatted representative at their court. Thus there is nothing of a temporal kind which is not drawn within the jurisdiction of the Pope's constructive empire ; and the " purely spiritual power" is felt in practice to be an intolerable secular thraldom. Under Rome's scheme of in- fallible spiritual direction things sacred and civil are inse- parably and hopelessly blended; and the attempt to separate the two would be as vain as the attempt to separate time from the beings that live in it, or space from the bodies it contains, or, as it is well expressed by a writer in the Edin- hurgh Review^^' to cut out Shylock's pound of flesh without spilling a drop of blood. The recent concordat between the Pope and the Spanish governmentf shows what a powerful engine the " spiritual jurisdiction" is for the government of a nation in all its affairs, temporal and spiritual. That con- cordat puts both swords into the hands of Pius IX. as truly as ever Gregory VII. or Innocent III. held them. Let the reader mark its leading provisions, and see how it subjects the temporal to the spiritual power : — " Art. 1 declares that the Roman Catholic religion, being the sole worship of the Spanish nation, to the exclusion of all others, shall be maintained for ever, with all the rights * Number for April 1851. t Ratifications were exchanged April 23, 1851. 116 FOUNDATION AND EXTENT OF THE SUPREMACY. and prerogatives which it ought to enjoy, according to the law of God and the dispositions of the sacred canons. " Art. 2 deposes that all instruction in universities, col- leges, seminaries, and public or private schools, shall be con- formable to Catholic doctrine ; and that no impediment shall be put in the way of the bishops, &c. whose duty is to watch over the purity of doctrine and of manners, and over the re- ligious education of youth, even in the public schools. " Art. o. The authorities to give every support to the bishops and other ministers in the exercise of their duties ; and the government to support the bishops when called on, whether ' in opposing themselves to the malignity of men who seek to pervert the minds of the faithful and corrupt their morals, or in impeding the publication, introduction, and circulation of bad and dangerous books.'" The 29th article provides for the establishment by the government of certain religious houses and congregations, specifying those of San Vicente Paul, San Felipe Neri, and " some other one of those approved by the Holy See ;" the object being stated to be, that there may be always a suffi- cient number of ministers and evangelical labourers for home and foreign missions, &c., and also that they may serve as places of retirement for ecclesiastics, in order to perform spiritual exercises and other pious works. Art. 80 refers to religious houses for women, in which those who are called to a contemplative life may follow their vocation, and others may follow that of assistance to the sick, education, and other pious and useful works ; and di- rects the preservation of the institution of Daughters of Charity, under the direction of the clergy of San Vicente Paul, the government to endeavour to promote the same ; reliarious houses in which education of children and other works of charity are added to a contemplative life also to be maintained ; and, with respect to other orders, the bishops of the respective dioceses to propose the cases in which the admission and profession of noviciates should take place, and SPANISH CONCORDAT WITH ROME. 117 the exercises of education or of charity which should bo established in them. The 35th article declares that the government shall pro- vide, by all suitable means, for the support of the religious houses, &c. for men ; and that, with respect to those for women, all the unsold convent property is at once to be re- turned to the bishops in whose dioceses it is, as their repre- sentatives.* Here, then, is the supremacy, not as portrayed in the ingenious theories of De Maistre and Gosselin, but as it exists at this moment in fact. Stript of the sanctimonious phraseology with which it has always been the policy of Rome to veil her worst atrocities and her vilest tyrannies, the document just means that the Pope is the real sovereign of Spain, that his priests are to rule it as they list, and that the court at Madrid, and the other civil functionaries, are there merely to assist them. The first article of this con- cordat declares freedom of conscience eternally proscribed in the realm of Spain ; the second decrees the extinction of knowledge and the perpetual reign of ignorance ; the third takes the civil authorities bound and astricted to aid the clergy in searching for Bibles, hunting out missionaries, and burning converts ; and the following articles grant license for the erection of sacerdotal stews, and the institution of clubs all over the country, the better to enable the clergy to coerce the citizens and beard the government. The con- cordat means this, and nothing else. It is as detestable and villanous an instrument as ever emanated from the gang of conspirators which has so long had its head- quarters on the Roman hill. It is meant to bind down the conscience and the manhood of Spain in everlasting slavery ; and it shows that, despite all the recent exposures of these men, — de- spite all the disasters which have befallen them, and the yet more terrible disasters that lower over them, — their hearts are fully set upon their wickedness, and that they are resolved * Gaceta de Madrid of May 12, 1851. 1 IS FOUNDATION AND EXTENT OF THE SUPREMACY. to present to the last a forehead of brass to the wrath of man and the bolts of heaven. This concordat has been shelved, meanwhile, — no thanks to the imbeciles who ex- changed ratifications with Rome, but to the revolution which broke out at that moment in Portugal, and to the mutterings, not loud, but deep, which began to be heard in Spain itself, and which convinced its rulers that even a con- cordat with the Pope might be bought at too great a price. Not in the high despotic countries of Italy and Spain only do we meet these lofty notions of the sacerdotal power : in constitutional and semi-Protestant Germany we find the bishops of the Church of Rome advancing the same exclu- sive and intolerant claims. The triumph of Austrian arms and of Austrian politics in the south of Germany has already made the Romish priesthood of that region predominant, and led them to aspire to the supremacy. Accordingly, demands utterly incompatible with any government, and especially constitutional and Protestant government, have been put forth by the bishops of the two Hesses, Wurtem- berg, Nassau, Hamburg, Frankfort, — all Protestant States ; and of Baden, a semi-Protestant State. The document in which these demands are contained is entitled, " The As- sembled Bishops of the Ecclesiastical Province of the Haut- Rhin, to the several Governments." A copy has been sent over by our ambassador. Lord Cowley, and published by order of Parliament.* Its leading claims are as follows : — " The repeal of all religious concessions made since March 1848. " The free nomination to all ecclesiastical employments and benefices by the several bishops in their respective dio- ceses. " The right of the bishops to subject their subordinates to a special examination, and to punish them according to the canon law. " The abolition, in the exercise of the ecclesiastical penal * Juue 1S51. PAPAL CLAIMS IN GERMANY. 119 jurisdiction, of the right of appeal to the secular tribunals. This shall extend from the simple remonstrance to the re- moval from office and the loss of emolument. Every at- tempt to appeal in these matters to the secular authority shall be looked upon as an act of disobedience to the legal authority of the Church, and shall be punished by excommu- Qiicatio latcG sententice. " The establishment of seminaries for young boys. " Episcopal sanction for the nomination of masters for religious education in the colleges and universities. " Abolition of the right of placet of the secular authority as regards the publication of papal bulls, of briefs, and pas- toral letters of the bishops to the members of the clergy. " Permission for the bishops to preach to the people in public, and to hold exercises for the instruction of priests. " Permission to collect men and women for prayer, for contemplation, and for self-denial. " The re-instatement of the bishops in the entire enjoy- ment of their ancient penal jurisdiction as against such of the members of the Church as shall manifest contempt for ecclesiastical ordinances. " Free communication between the bishops and Rome. " No interference of the secular power in questions of fill- ing up the appointment to the chapter of canons. " Independent administration of the property of the Church and of foundations." Can any man peruse these two documents, appearing as they do at the same moment in widely-separated quarters of Europe, yet identical in their spirit and in the claims they put forth, and fail to see that the Papacy has plotted once more to seize upon the government of the world ; and that its priests in all countries are working with dauntless audacity and amazing craft, on a given plan, to accomplish this grand object ? In every country they insolently claim independence of the government and of the courts of law, with unlimited control of the schools. They would override all things, and be themselves controlled by no one. Rome, 120 FOUND ATIOxV AND EXTENT OF THE SUPREMACY. through her organs, bids Europe again crouch down beneath the infallibility. How strikingly also do these documents teach that Popery is as unchangeable in her character as in her creed. Amid the liberal ideas and constitutional go- vernments of Germany she retains her exclusive and intole- rant spirit, not less than amid the mediaeval opinions and barbaric despotism of Spain. The glacier in the heart of the Swiss valley lies eternally congealed in the midst of fruit, and flowers, and sunshine. In like manner, an eternal con- gelation holds fast the Papacy, lot the world advance as it may. In the middle of the nineteenth century it starts up grizzly, ferocious, and blood-thirsty, as in the fifteenth. As a murderer from his grave, or a wild beast from his lair, so has it come back upon the world. The compilers of these documents breathe the very spirit of the men who, in former ages, covered Spain with inquisitions and Germany with stakes. They lack simply opportunity to revive, and even outdo, the worst tragedies of their predecessors. In Ger- many they attempt by a single stroke of the pen to sweep away all the guarantees which flowed from the treaty of Westphalia ; and in southern Europe they strike down with the sabre the rights of conscience and the liberties of states. How long will princes and statesmen permit themselves to be misled by the wretched pretext that these men have a divine right to commit all these enormities and crimes, — that heaven has committed the human race into their hands, — and that neither the rights of man nor the prerogatives cf God must come into competition with their sacerdotal will ? How long is the world to be oppressed by a confederacy of fanatics and ruffians, who are only the abler to play the knave, that they rob under the mask of devotion, and tyran- nize in the awful name of God ? But we have no need to go so far from home as to Spain and Germany, for an instance of " a purely spiritual jurisdic- tion" transmuting itself immediately and directly into tem- poral supremacy. Let us look across St George's Channel. The British government, pitying the deep ignorance of the SPIRITUAL DIRECTION IX IRELAND. 121 natives of Ireland, wisely resolve to erect a number of col- leges in that dark land, in the hope of mitigating the wretch- edness of its people. The priesthood discover that this scheme interferes with the Church, whose vested riofht in the ignorance of the natives it threatens to sweep away. The Pope does not throw down a single stone of any of these colleges. His interference takes a purely spiritual direction, but a direction that accomplishes his object quite as effec- tually as could be done by a physical intervention. He is- sues a bull, denouncing the Irish colleges as godless, and for- bidding every good Catholic, as he values his salvation, to allow his child to enter them. This bull, given at the Qui- rinal, makes frustrate the intention of the Queen, and ren- ders the colleges as completely useless to the Irish nation, — at least to that large portion of it for whose benefit they were specially intended, — as if an army had been sent to raze the obnoxious buildings, and not leave so much as one stone upon another. It matters wonderfully little whether we term the Pope the director of Ireland or the dictator of Ireland : while Ireland is Catholic, the pontiff is, and must be, its virtual sovereign. The British power is limited in that unhappy island to the work of imposing taxes, — imposing, not gathering, for the taxes are taken up by the priests and sent to Rome ; while to us is left the duty of feeding a country which clerical rapacity and tyranny has made a country of beggars. Thus the Pope's yoke is not a whit lighter that, instead of calling it temporal supremacy, we call it " spiritual jurisdiction," or even " spiritual direction." It would yield, we are disposed to think, wonderfully little consolation to the unhappy sove- reign whose throne is struck from under him, and whose kingdom is plunged into contention and civil war, to be told that the Pope in this has acted, not by jurisdiction, but by direction; that he exercises this power, not as lord para- mount of his realm, but as lord paramount of his conscience; that, in fact, it is his conscience, and not his territory, that he holds as a fief of the papal see ; and that he is enduring this castigation from the pontifical ferula, not in his capacity 122 FOUNDATION AND EXTENT OF THE SUPREMACY. of king, but in his capacity of Christian. The unhappy monarch, we say, wouhl find but little solace in this nice distinction ; and, even at the risk of adding to both his of- fence and his punishment, might denounce it as a wretched quibble.* * In December last (1S50), Lord Palmerston addressed from theForeiffii Office to her Majesty's representatives abroad, a circular, instructing them to transmit copies of any concordat or equivalent arrangement between the court of Rome and the particular government to which each representa- tive was accredited. The replies form the substance of a Blue Book of about 350 pages, which has recently been published. We extract from the enclosures received by government in January last, from the Hon. Ralph Abercromby, our representative at Turin, the copy of the oath re- quired to be taken by new cardinals in Sardinia. It entirely, and for all governments, settles the question of what a cardinal really is, — proving him to be the sworn emissary, spy, and creature of the court of Rome. He so pledges his allegiance to a foreign prince as palpably to rescind the allegiance due to his own sovereig-n. ^o " I, 5 cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, do promise and swear that, from this hour until my life's end, I will be faithful and obedient unto St Peter, the Holy Apostolic Roman Church, and our Most Holy Lord the Pope and his successors, canonically and lawfully elected ; that I will give no advice, consent, or assistance against the Pontifical Majesty and person ; that I will never knowingly and advisedly, to their injury or disgrace, make public the counsels entrusted to me by themselves, or by messengers or letters (from them) ; also that I will give them any assist- ance in retaining, defending, and recovering the Roman Papacy and the Regalia of Peter, all my might and endeavour, so far as the rights and privileges of my order will allow it, and will defend against all, their honour and state ; that I will direct and defend, with due favour and honour, the legates and nuncios of the apostolic see, in the territories, churches, monasteries, and other benefices committed to my keeping ; that I will cordially co-operate with them, and treat them with honour in their coming, abiding, and returning ; and that I will resist unto blood all persons whatsoever who shall attempt anything against them ; that I will by every way, and by every means, strive to preserve, augment, and ad- vance the rights, honours, privileges, the authority of the Holy Roman Bishop our Lord the Pope, and his before-mentioned successors ; and that at whatever time anything shall be devised to their prejudice, which it is out of my power to hinder, as soon as I shall know that any steps or mea- sures have been taken (in the matter), I will make it known to the same THE EXTREMES OF THE SUPREMACY. 123 These, tlien, are the two points between wliich the supre- macy oscillates, — direction and divine right. It never sinks lower than the former; it cannot rise higher than the latter. But it is important to bear in mind that, whether it stands our Lord, or liis before-mentioned successors, or to some other person by whose means it may be brought to their knowledge. " That I will keep and carry out, and cause others to keep and carry out, the rules of the Holy Fathers, the decrees, ordinances, dispensations, reservations, provisions, apostolical mandates, and constitutions, of the Holy Pontiff Sixtus, of happy memory, as to visiting the thresholds of the apos- tles, at certain prescribed times, according to the tenor of that which I have just read through. " That I will seek out and oppose (persecute and fight against ?)* here- tics, schismatics, against the same our Lord the Pope and his before-men- tioned successors, with every possible effort. When sent for, from what- ever cause, by tlie same our JNIost Holy Lord, and his before-mentioned successors, tliat I will set out to present myself before them, or, being hin- dered by a legitimate impediment, will send some one to make ray excuses ; and that I will i^ay them due reverence and obedience. That I will by no means sell, bestow away, or pledge, or give away in fee, or otherwise alienate, without the advice and knowledge of the Bishop of Rome, even with the consent of the said chapters, convents, churches, monasteries, and benefices, the possessions set apart for the maintenance of the churches, monasteries, and other benefiges committed to my keeping, or in any way belonging to them. That I will for ever maintain the constitution of the blessed Pius V., which begins ' Admonet,' and is dated from Rome on the 4th of the calends of April, of the year of our Lord's incarnation 1567, and the second of his pontificate ; together with the declarations of the holy pontiffs his successors, particularly of Pope Innocent IX., dated at Rome the day before the nones of November, of the year of our Lord's in- carnation 1591, of the first of his pontificate, and of Clement VIII, of happy memory, dated at Rome on the 16th of the calends of ISIarch, in the year 1592, and the tenth of his pontificate, on the subject (in the matter) of not giving away in fee or alienating the cities and places of the Holy Roman Church. Also, I promise and swear to keep for ever inviolate the decrees and incorporations made by the same Clement VIII. on the 26th day of June of the before-mentioned year 1592, on the 2d day of November 1592, and on the 19th of January and the 11th day of February 1698, in the matter of the city of Ferrara and the whole duchy thereof, as well as * This double translation stands so in the Parliamentary Book : the original is omni conatii persecuturum et inqnignaturum. 124 FOUNDATION AND EXTENT OF THE SUPRE:MACY. at the one or at the other of these points, it is supremacy still. We have already indicated* that the temporal and spiritual jurisdictions are co-ordinate. This, we believe, is the only rational, as it is undoubtedly the scriptural view of the subject. The liberties of society can be maintained only by maintaining the divinely-appointed equilibrium be- tween the two. If we make the temporal preponderate, we have Erastianism, or the slavery of the Church. If we make the spiritual preponderate, we have Popery, or the slavery of respecting all other cities whatsoever, and places recovered by him, and ■which fell in by the death of Alphonso, of happy memory, the last Duke of Ferrara, or otherwise to the Holy Roman Church and apostolic see. Also the decrees and incorporations made by Urban VIII. of happy me- mory, on the 12th day of May 1631, i-especting the cities of Urbiuo, Eugu- bio, Carlii, Jorisemx^ronium, of the whole duchy of Urbino, as well as in the matters of the cities of Pisauri, Sinogallia, S. Leo, the state of Monte Feltro, the vicariate of Mondovi, and of the other cities and places what- soever recovered by and having devolved to the Holy Roman Apostolic Church by the death of Francis Maria, the last duke, or otherwise. Also the decree of incorporation made in Consistory on the 20th day of Decem- ber 1660, by Alexander VII. of happy memory, in the matter of the duchy of Castri and the state of Roncilioni, and otiier places, lands, and proper- ties sold to the Apostolic Chamber by Rainuintius, duke of Parma ; and the constitution of the same Alexander VII. of happy memory, with the reason of, and allocution upon, the decree for incorporations of this kind, published on the 24th of January 1660, together with the contirmation, innovation, extension, and declaration of the other decrees and constitu- tions of the holy pontiffs, issued in prohibition of parting with them in fee ; and in no way and at no time, either directly or indirectly, whatever cause, colour, or occasion, even of evident necessity or utility may present itself, to act against them or to give advice, counsel, or consent against them in any way ; but, on the contrary, always and constantly to dissent from, oppose, and reveal every device and practice against them, whatever may come to my knowledge by myself or by any messenger, immediately to his Holiness, or his successors, lawfully entering, under the penalties (in case of neglect or disobedience) contained in the said constitutions, or any other heavier ones that it may seem fit to his Holiness and his before-mentioned successors (to inflict) I will not seek absolution from any of the foregoing articles, but reject it if it should be offered me (or in no way accept it when offered). So help me God and these most holy gospels," * See chap. ii. OSCILLATIONS OF THE SUPREMACY. 125 the State. The popish element entered into the jurisdiction of the Church when spiritual independence was transmuted into spiritual supremacy. This happened about the sixth cen- tury, when the Bishop of Rome claimed to be Christ's vicar. From that time the popes began to interfere in temporal matters by direction ;. for it is curious to note, that the supre- macy, as defined in the modern theory, has come back to its beginnings, to run, of course, the same career, should the state of the world permit. At the period of Gregory VII. it ceased to be direction, and became jurisdiction, and so con- tinued down till the Reformation. Since that time it has been slowly returning through the intermediate stages of in- direct temporal power, — of purely spiritual jurisdiction, — to its original form of direction, at which it now stands. But the root of the matter is the claim to be Christ's vicar ; and till that is torn up, the evil and malignant principle cannot be eradicated. The supremacy may change shapes ; it may go into a nutshell, as some philosophers have held the whole universe may do ; but it can develope itself as suddenly ; and, let the world become favourable, it will speedily shoot up into its former colossal dimensions, overshadowing all earthly jurisdiction, and claiming equality with, if not supremacy above, divine authority. We repeat, according to the mo- dern theory, to go no higher, all Christendom holds its con- science as a fief of the Roman see ; and we trust pontifical dignities will forgive the homely metaphor by which we seek to show them the extent of their own power. The govern- ing power in the world is conscience, or whatever else may occupy its place ; and he who governs it governs the world. But the pontiff" is the infallible and supreme director of con- science. He sits above it, like the driver of a railway train behind his engine. An ingenious apologist might make out a case of limited powers in behalf of the latter, showing how little he has to do with either the course or velocity of the train. " He does not drag the train," might such say; " he has not power enough to move a single carriage; he but regulates the steam.'" Here is the Pope astride his famous ecclesiastical 126 FOUNDATION AND EXTENT OF THE SUPREMACY. engine, with all the Catholic states of Europe dragging at his heels, and careering along at a great rate. Here is the Bourbon family-coach, which upset so recently, pitching its occupant in the mud, looking as new as it is possible for an old battered vehicle to do by the help of fresh tri-colour paint and varnish ; here is the old imperial car which Austria picked up for a trifle when the Ctesars had no longer any need for it, — here it is, blazoned with the bloody beak and iron talons of the double-headed eagle ; here is the Spanish state-coach, hurtling along in the tawdry and tattered finery of its better days, its wheels worn to their spokes, and its mo- tion made up of but a succession of jerks and bounds ; here is the Neapolitan vehicle and the Tuscan vehicle, and others equally lumbering and crazy; and here, in front, is the famous engine St Peter, snorting and puffing away ; and here is Peter himself as engineer, with superstition for a propelling power, and excommunication for a steam-whistle, and tradi- tion for spectacles, to enable him to keep on the rails of apostolic succession, and prevent his being bogged in heresy. It would be very wrong to say that he drags along this great train. No ; he only turns the handle, to let on or shut off the steam ; shovels in coals, manages the valves, blows his whistle at times with eldrich screech, and catches at his three -storied cap, which the wind blows off now and then. It is not jurisdiction^ but direction^ with which he favours the members of his tail : nevertheless, it moves where, when, and as fast as he pleases. But something in a somewhat more classic vein would doubtless be deemed more befitting the pure and lofty function of the pontiff. The Romanists have exalted their Father, as the Pagans did their Jove, into an empyrean, far above sublunary affairs. In that eternal calm he issues his infallible decisions, thinking, the while, no more of this little ball of earth, or of the angry passions that con- tend upon it, than if it had yet to be created. Or if at times the thought does cross the pontifical mind that there are such things in the world beneath him as cannon PONTIFICAL RAILWAY TRAIN. 127 and sabres, and that these are often had recourse to to exe- cute the determinations of infallibility, how can he help it? He must needs discharge his office as the worWs spiritual director ; he dare not refrain from pronouncing infallibly on those high questions of duty which are brought before him ; and if others will have recourse to material weapons in car- rying out his advice, he begs the world to understand that this is not his doing, and that he cannot be justly blamed for it. One cannot but wonder at the admirable distribution of parts among the innumerable actors by whom the play of the Papacy is carried on. From the stage-manager at Rome, to the lowest scene-shifter in Clonmel or Tipperary, each has his place, and keeps it too. When an unhappy monarch is so unfortunate as to incur the displeasure of mother church, the pontiff does not lay a finger upon him ; he does not touch a hair of his head ; no, not he ; he only gives a wink to the bullies who, he knows, are not far off, and whose office it is to do the business ; and thus the wretched farce goes. 128 THE CANON LAW. CHAPTER VI. THE CANON LAW. It would be bad enough that a system of the character we have described should exist in the world, and that there should be a numerous class of men all animated by its spirit, and sworn to carry into effect its principles. But this is not the worst of it. The system has been converted into a code. It exists, not as a body of maxims or principles, though in that shape its influence would have been great ; it exists as a body of laws, by which every Eomish ecclesias- tic is bound to act, and which he is appointed to administer. This is termed Canon Law. The canon law is the slow growth of a multitude of ages. It reminds us of those coral islands in the great Pacific, the terror of the mariner, which myriads and myriads of insects laboured to raise from the bot- tom to the surface of the ocean. One race of these little build- ers took up the work where another race had left it; and thus the mass grew unseen in the dark and sullen deep, whether calm or storm prevailed on the surface. In like fashion, monks and popes innumerable, working in the depth of the dark ages, with the ceaseless and noiseless diligence, though not quite so innocently as the little artificers to whom we have referred, produced at last the hideous formation known as the canon law. This code, then, is not the product of one large mind, like the Code Justinian or the Code Napoleon, THE COMPLETE CODE OF THE CHURCH. 129 but of innumerable minds, all working intently and labo- riously through successive ages on this one object. The canon law is made up of the constitutions or canons of councils, the decrees of popes, and the traditions which have at any time received the pontifical sanction. As ques- tions arose they were adjudicated upon ; new emergencies produced new decisions ; at last it came to pass that there was scarce a point of possible occurrence on which infalli- bility had not pronounced. The machinery of the canon law, then, as may be easily imagined, has reached its highest possible perfection and its widest possible application. The statute-book of Rome, combining amazing flexibility with enormous power, like the most wonderful of all modern in- ventions, can regulate with equal ease the affairs of a king- dom and of a family. Like the elephant's trunk, it can crush an empire in its folds, or conduct the course of a petty intrigue, — fling a monarch from his throne, or plant the stake for the heretic. Like a net of steel forged by the Vulcan of the Vatican and his cunning artificers, the canon law encloses the whole of Catholic Christendom. A short discussion of this subject may not be without its interest at present, see- inof Dr Wiseman had the candour to tell us, that it is his intention to enclose Great Britain in this net, provided he meets with no obstruction, which he scarce thinks we will be so unreasonable as to offer. Seeing, then, it will not be Dr Wiseman's fault if we have not a nearer acquaintance with canon law than we can boast at present, it may bo worth while examining its structure, and endeavouring to ascertain our probable condition, once within this enclosure. Not that we intend to hold up to view all its monstrosities ; the canon law is the entire Papacy viewed as a system of government : we can refer to but the more prominent points which, boar upon the subject we are now discussing, — tho supremacy ; and these are precisely the points which have the closest connection with our own condition, should the agent of the pontiff in London be able to carry his intent into effect, and introduce the canon law, " the real and com- K ISO THE CANON LAW. plete code of the Church," as he terms it. Here we shall do little more than quote the leading provisions of the code from the authorized books of Rome, leaving the canon law to commend itself to British notions of toleration and jus- tice. The false decretals of Isidore, already referred to, offered a worthy foundation for this fabric of unbearable tyranny. We pass, as not meriting particular notice, the earlier and minor compilations of Rheginon of Prum in the tenth cen- tury, Buchardus of Worms in the eleventh, and St Ivo of Chartres in the twelfth. The first great collection of canons and decretals which the world was privileged to see was made by Gratian, a monk of Bologna, who about 1150 pub- lished his work entitled Decretum Gratiani. Pope Eugenius III. approved his work, which immediately became the highest authority in the western Church. The rapid growth of the papal tyranny soon superseded the Decretum Gratiani. Suc- ceeding popes flung their decretals upon the world with a prodigality with which the diligence of compilers who ga- thered them up, and formed them into new codes, toiled to keep pace. Innocent III. and Honorius III. issued nume- rous rescripts and decrees, which Gregory IX. commissioned Raymond of Pennafort to collect and publish. This the Dominican did in 1234; and Gregory, in order to perfect this collection of infallible decisions, supplemented it with a goodly addition of his own. This is the more essential part of the canon law, and contains a copious system of jurispru- dence, as well as rules for the government of the Church. But infallibility had not exhausted itself with these labours. Boniface VIII. in 1298 added a sixth part, which he named the Sext. A fresh batch of decretals was issued by Clement V. in 1313, under the title of Clementines. John XXII. in 1340 added the Extravagantes, so called because they ex- travagate, or straddle, outside the others. Succeeding pon- tiffs, down to Sixtus IV., added their extravagating articles, which came under the name of Extravagayites Communes. The government of the world was in some danger of being CREATION OP THE CANON LAW. 131 stopped by the very abundance of infallible law ; and since the end of the fifteenth century nothing has been formally added to this already enormous code. We cannot say that this fabric of commingled assumption and fraud is finished oven yet : it stands like the great Dom of Cologne, with the crane atop* ready to receive a new tier whenever infallibility shall begin again to build, or rather to arrange the mate- rials it has been producing during the past four centuries. While Rome exists, the canon law must continue to grow. Infallibility will always be speaking ; and every new deliver- ance of the oracle is another statute added to canon law. The growth of all other bodies is regulated by great natural laws. The tower of Babel itself, had its builders been per- mitted to go on with it, must have stopped at the point where the attractive forces of earth and of the other planets balance each other; but where is the canon law to end ?* " This general supremacy," says Hallam, " effected by the Roman Church over mankind in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, derived material support from the promulgation of the canon law. The superiority of ecclesiastical to tem- poral power, or at least the absolute independence of the former, may be considered as a sort of key-note which regu- lates every passage in the canon law. It is expressly de- clared, that subjects owe no allegiance to an excommunicated lord, if after admonition he is not reconciled to the Church. And the rubric prefixed to the declaration of Frederick II.'s deposition in the Council of Lyons asserts that the Pope may dethrone the Emperor for lawful causes.*"*^ " Legislation quailed,"" says Gavazzi,J " before the new-born code of cle- * This account of the canon law is compiled from the Ilorw JiiridiccB Suhsecevce of Butler, pp. 145-184 ; Lend. 1807. " The modern period," observes Butler, " of the canon law begins with the Council of Pisa, and extends to the present time." Its principal jiarts are the canons of mo- dern oecumenical councils, especially Trent, the various transactions and concordats between sovereigns and the see of Rome, the bulls of Popes, and the rules of the Roman Chancery. + Hallam's History of the Middle Ages, vol. ii. pp. 2-4. J Gavazzi, Oration vi. 1 32 THE CANON LAW rical command, which, in the slang of the dark ages, was called canon law. The principle which pollutes every page of this nefarious imposture is, that every human right, claim, property, franchise, or feeling, at variance with the predo- minance of the popedom, was ipso facto inimical to heaven and the God of eternal justice. In virtue of this preposte- rous prerogative, universal manhood became a priest's foot- stool ; this planet a huge game-preserve for the Pope's indi- vidual shooting." We repeat, it is this law which Dr Wise- man avows to be one main object of the papal aggression to introduce. Its establishment in Britain implies the utter prostration of all other authority. We have seen how it came into being. The next question is, What is it ? Let us first hear the canon law on the subject of the spiritual and civil jurisdictions, and let us take note how it places the world under the dominion of one all-absorbing power, — a power which is not temporal certainly, neither is it purely spiritual, but which, for want of a better phrase, we may term pontifical. " The constitutions of princes are not superior to ecclesi- astical constitutions, but subordinate to them."* " The law of the emperors cannot dissolve the ecclesiasti- cal law.""!- " Constitutions (civil, we presume) cannot contravene good manners and the decrees of the Roman prelates. *":|: " Whatever belongs to priests cannot be usurped by kings."§ " The tribunals of kings are subjected to the power of priests." II " All the ordinances of the apostolic seat are to be invio- lably observed." IT * Corpus .Juris Canonici, Decreti, pars i. distinct, x. + Idem, Decreti, pars i. distinct, x. can. i. X Idem, Decreti, pars i. distinct, x. can iv. § Idem, Decreti, pars i. distinct, x. can, v. II Idem, Decreti, pars i. distinct, x. can. vi. II Idem, Decreti, pars i. distinct, xix. can. ii. PLACES PRIESTS ABOVE KINGS. 133 " The yoke which the holy chair imposes must be borne, although it may seem unbearable."* " The decretal epistles are to be ranked along with cano- nical scripture."""}" " The temporal power can neither loose nor bind the Pope."+ " It does not belong to the Emperor to judge the actions of the Pope.'"§ " The Emperor ought to obey, not command, the Pope."!! Such is a specimen of the powers vested in the Pope by the canon law. It makes him the absolute master of kings, and places in his grasp all law and authority, so that he can annul and establish whatever he pleases. It is instructive also to observe, that this power he possesses through the spiritual supremacy ; and, as confirmatory of what we have already stated respecting the direct and indirect temporal supremacy, that the two in their issues are identical, we may quote the following remarks of Reiffenstuel, in his text- book on the canon law, published at Rome in 1831 : — " The supreme pontiff, or Pope, by virtue of the power immediately granted to him, can, in matters spiritual, and concerning the salvation of souls and the right government of the Church, make ecclesiastical constitutions for the whole Christian v.orld It must be confessed, notwithstanding, that the Pope, as vicar of Christ on earth, and universal pastor of his sheep, has indirectly (or in respect of the spi- ritual power granted to him by God, in order to the good government of the whole Church) a certain supreme power, for the good estate of the Church, if it be necessary, OF JUDGING AND DISPOSING OF ALL THE TEMPORAL GOODS OF ALL Christians." H But we pursue our quotations. * Corpus Juris Canonici, Decreti, pars i. distinct, xix. can. iii. + Idem, Decreti, pars i. distinct, xix. can. vi. X Idem, Decreti, pars i. distinct, xcvi. can. vii. § Idem, Decreti, pars i. distinct, xcvi. ecu. viii. II Idem, Decreti, pars i. distinct, xcvi. can. xi. U Quoted from INrCaul's " What is the Canon Law I" 134 THE CANON LAW. " We ordain that kings, and bishops, and nobles, who shall permit the decrees of the Bishop of Rome in anything to be violated, shall be accursed, and be for ever guilty be- fore God as transgressors against the Catholic faith.""* " The Bishop of Rome may excommunicate emperors and princes, depose them from their states, and assoil their sub- jects from their oath of obedience to them.""-!- " The Bishop of Rome may be judged of none but of God only."t " If the Pope should become neglectful of his own salva- tion, and of that of other men, and so lost to all good that he draw down with himself innumerable people by heaps into hell, and plunge them with himself into eternal torments, yet no mortal man may presume to reprehend him, forasmuch as he is judge of all, and is judged of no one.'"§ This surely is license enough ; and should the pontiff com- plain that his limits are still too narrow, we should be glad to know how they could possibly be made larger. But let us hear the canon law on the power of the Pope to annul oaths, and release subjects from their allegiance. " The Bishop of Rome has power to absolve from alle- giance, obligation, bond of service, promise, and compact, the provinces, cities, and armies of kings that rebel against him, and also to loose their vassals and feudatories." || " The pontifical authority absolves some from their oath of allegiance." IT " The bond of allegiance to an excommunicated man does not bind those who have come under it."** " An oath sworn against the good of the Church does not * Decreti, pars ii. causa xxv. quest, i. can. xi. f Decreti, pars i. distinct, xcvi. can. x., and Decreti, pars ii. causa xv. quest, vi. can. iii. iv. v. J Decreti, pars ii. causa iii. quest, vi. can. ix. § Decreti, pars i. distinct, xl. can. vi. II Clementin. lib. ii. tit. i. cap. ii. U Decreti, pars ii. causa xv. quest, vi. can. iii. ** Decreti, pars ii. causa xv. quest, vi. can. iv. CLERICAL IMMUNITIES. 135 bind ; because that is not an oath, but a perjury rather, which is taken against the Church's interests."* We may glance next at the doctrine of the canon law on the subject of clerical immunities. " It is not lawful for laymen to impose taxes or subsidies upon the clergy. If laics encroach upon cleric immunities, they are, after admonition, to be excommunicated. But in times of great necessity, the clergy may grant assistance to the State, with permission of the Bishop of Rome.""-!- " It is not lawful for a layman to sit in judgment upon a clergyman. Secular judges who dare, in the exercise of a damnable presumption, to compel priests to pay their debts, are to be restrained by spiritual censures."^ " The man who takes the money of the Church is as guilty as he who commits homicide. He who seizes upon the lands' of the Church is excommunicated, and must restore four- fold."§ " The wealth of dioceses and abbacies must in nowise be alienated. It is not lawful for even the Pope himself to alienate the lands of the Church."|| Should the Romish priesthood ever come to be a twenti- eth of the male population of Britain, as is well nigh the case in Italy and Spain, it is not difficult to imagine the comfortable state of society which must ensue with so nu- merous a body withdrawn from useful labour, exempt from public burdens, paying their debts only when they please, committing all sorts of wickedness uncontrolled by the ordinary tribunals, and plying vigorously the ghostly ma- chinery of the confessional and purgatory to convey the nation"'s property into the treasury of their Church ; and * Decret. Gregorii, lib. ii. tit. xxiv. cap. xxvii. + Decret. Gregorii, lib. iii. tit. xlix. cap. iv. and vii. i Decret. Gregorii, lib. ii. tit. ii. cap. i. ii. vi., and Sexti Decret. lib. ii. tit. ii. cap. ii. § Decreti, pars ii. causa xii. quest, ii. can. i. iv. ^^i. Ii Decreti, pars ii. causa xii. quest, ii. can. xii, xix. xs. 136 THE CANON LAW. once there, there for ever. It is useless henceforth, unless to feed " holy men," — the term by which Rome designates her consociated bands of idle, ignorant, sorning monks, and vagabondising friars and priests. No wonder that Dr Wise- man is so anxious to introduce the canon law, which brings M'ith it so many sweets to the clergy. There is but one other point on which we shall touch : What says the canon law respecting heresy? In the judg- ment of Rome we are heretics ; and therefore it cannot but be interesting to enquire how we are likely to be dealt with should the canon law ever be established in Britain, and what means the agents of the Vatican would adopt to purge our realm from the taint of our heresy. There is no mistaking the means, whatever may be thought of them. The Church has two swords ; and, in the case of heresy, the vigorous use of both, but especially the temporal, is strictly enjoined. In the decretals of Gregory IX., a heretic is defined to be a man " who, in whatever way, or by whatever vain ar- gument, is led away and dissents from the orthodox faith and Catholic religion which is professed by the Church of Rome."* The circumstance of baptism and initiation into the Christian faith distinguishes the heretic from the infidel and the Jew. The fitting remedies for the cure of this evil are, according to the canon law, the following : — It is commanded that archbishops and bishops, either per- sonally, or by their archdeacons or other fit persons, go through and visit their dioceses once or twice every year, and inquire for heretics, and persons suspected of heres3\ Princes, or other supreme power in the commonwealth, are to be admonished and required to purge their dominions from the filth of heresy. This goodly work of purgation is to be conducted in the following manner : — I. Excommunication. This sentence is to be pronounced * Dccrct. Grcgorii IX. lib. v. tit. vii. De Ilercticis. PUNISHMENT OF HERETICS. 137 not only on notorious heretics, and those suspected of heresy, but also on those who harbour, defend, or assist them, or who converse familiarly with them, or trade with them, or hold communion of any sort with them. II. Proscription from all offices, ecclesiastical or civil, — from all public duties and private rights. III. Confiscation of all their goods. IV. The last punishment is death ; sometimes by the sword, — more commonly by fire.* Pope Honorius II., in his Decretals, speaks in a precisely similar style. Under the head De Ilereticis we find him enumerating a variety of dissentients from Rome, and thus disposing of them : — " And all heretics, of both sexes and of every name, we damn to perpetual infamy ; we declare hos- tility against them ; we account them accursed, and their goods confiscated ; nor can they ever enjoy their property, or their children succeed to their inheritance ; inasmuch as they grievously offend against the Eternal as well as the temporal king." The decree goes on to declare, that as regards princes who have been required and admonished by the Church, and have neglected to purge their kingdoms from heretical pravity a year after admonition, their lands may be taken possession of by any Catholic power who shall undertake the labour of purging them from heresy .*}* We shall close these extracts from the code of Rome's jurisprudence with one tremendous canon. " Temporal princes shall be reminded and exhorted, and, if need be, compelled by spiritual censures, to discharge every one of their functions ; and that, as they would be accounted * The above Decretals respecting heresy are quoted from the Jus Cano- NicuM ; Digestum et Emicleatum juxta Ordinem Librorum et Titulorum qui in Decretalibus Epistolis Gregorii IX. P. M. Georgii Adami Struvi, pp. 359-363 : Lipsifo et Jena?, 16SS. + Quinta Conipilatio Epistolarum Decretalium Honorii III. P. 51. In- nocentii Cironii, Juris Utriusque Professoris, Canonici ac Ecclesia?, et Academise Tolosante Cancellarii, Comp. v. tit. iv. cap. i. p. 200 ; Tolosie, 1645. 138 THE CANON LAW. faithful, so, for the defence of the faith, they imllldy make oath tliat tliey will endeavour^ bona fide, with all their might, to extirpate from, their territories all heretics marked hy the Church ; so that when any one is about to assume any autho- rity, whether of a permanent kind or only temporary, he shall be held bound to confirm his title by this oath. And if a temporal prince, being required and admonished by the Church, shall neglect to purge his kingdom from this hereti- cal pravity, the metropolitan and other provincial bishops shall hind him in the fetters of excommunication ; and if he obstinately refuse to make satisfaction within the year, it shall be notified to the supreme pontiff, that then he may declare his subjects absolved from their allegiance, and bestow their lands upon good Catholics, who, the heretics being ex- terminated, may possess them unchallenged, and preserve them in the purity of the faith."* " Those are not to be accounted homicides who, fired with zeal for Mother Church, may have killed excommunicated persons.'"-j- \Ve shall add to the above the episcopal oath of allegi- ance to the Pope. That oath contemplates the pontiff in both his characters of a temporal monarch and a spiritual sovereign ; and, of consequence, the fealty to which the swearer binds himself is of the same complex character. It is taken not only by archbishops and bishops, but by all who receive any dignity of the Pope ; in short, by the whole ruling hierarchy of the monarchy of Rome. It is " not only," says the learned annotator Catalani, "a profession of canonical obedience, but an oath of fealty, not unlike that which vassals took to their direct lord." We quote the cath only down to the famous clause enjoining the persecu- tion of heretics : — " /. N., elect of the church of '^.,from henceforimrd ivHl he faithful and obedient to St Peter the apostle, and to the * Decret. Grcgorii, lib. v. tit. vii. cap. xiii. + Decreti, pars ii. causa xxiii. qutost. v. can. xlvii. OATH OF BISHOPS. 139 Tiohj Roman Church, and to our Lord the Lord N. Pope iV., and to his successors^ canonicalhj coming in. I loill neither advise, consent, or do anytliing that they may lose life or mem- ber, or that their persons may he seized, or hands anywise laid upon them, or any injuries offered to them, under any pre- tence whatsoever. The counsel ichich they shall entrust me withal, hy themselves, their messengers, or letters, I will not "knowrngXy reveal to any to their prejudice. I ic ill help them to defend and Jceep the Boman Papacy, and the royalties of St Peter, saving my order, against all men. The legate of the apostolic see, going and coming, I will honourahly treat and help in his necessities. The rights, honours, privileges, and authority of the holy Roman Church, of our lord the Pope, and his foresaid successors, I will endeavour to preserve, defend, increase, and advance. I will not be in any council, action, or treaty, in which shall be plotted against our said lord, and the said Roman Church, anything to the hurt or prejudice of their persons, right, honour, state, or power ; and if I shall know any such thing to be treated or agitated by any whatsoever, I will hinder it to my power ; and, as soon as I can, will signify it to our said lord, or to some other, by whom it may come to his knowledge. The rules of the holy fathers, the apostolic decrees, ordinances, or disposals, reservations, provisions, and mandates, I will ob- serve with all my might, and cause to be observed by others. Heretics, schismatics, and rebels to our said lord, or his fore- said S2iccessors, I icill to my power persecute and oppose.''''* * " Hajreticos, schisraaticos, et rebelles eidem domino nostro, vel succes- soribus iirtcdictis, pro posse persequar et impugnabo." This form of the oatli is quoted from Barrow, wlio takes it from the Roman Pontifical. The oath, in its more ancient form, as enacted by Gregory VII., is extant in the Gregorian Decretals. Since his time it has been considerably en- larged and made more stringent, — illustrative of the encroaching sjiirit of the popes. (See Decret. Gregorii, lib. ii. tit. xxiv.) We subjoin (Ex Bullario Laertii Chernbini ; Rompe 163S) the more re- markable clauses of the bull in Coence Domini, annually published at Rome on Maunday Thursday, in order, as we are informed in the preface, " to 140 THE CANON LAW. Such is a sample of Ilome''s infallible .code. The canon law cannot cease to be venerated while hypocrisy and tyranny bear any value among men. It is by this law that Rome would govern the world, would the world let her ; and exercise the spiritual sword of ecclesiastical discipline and wliolesome weapons of justice by the ministry of the supreme apostolate, to the glory of God and salvation of souls." "1. AVe excommunicate and anathematize, in the name of God Al- mighty, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and by the authority of tlie blessed apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own, all Hussites, Wicliphists, Lu- therans, Zuinglians, Calvinists, Hugonets, Anabaptists, Trinitarians, and apostates from the Cliristian faith, and all other heretics, by wliatsoever name they are called, and of whatsoever sect they be ; as also their ad- herents, receivers, favourers, and generally any defenders of them ; toge- ther with all who, without our authority, or that of the apostolic see, knowingly read, keep, print, or anywise, for any cause whatsoever, publicly or privately, on any pretext or colour, defend their books containing heresy or treating of religion ; as also schismatics, and those who with- draw themselves or recede obstinately from the obedience of us, or the Bishop of Rome for the time being. " 2. Further, we excommunicate and anathematize all and singular, of whatsoever station, degree, or condition they be ; and interdict all univer- sities, colleges, and chapters, by whatsoever name they are called ; wlio appeal from the orders or decrees of us, or the pope of Rome for the time being, to a future general council ; and those by whose aid and favour the appeal M"as made. "15. Also those who, under pretence of their office, or at the in- stance of any party, or of any others, di-aw, or cause and procure to be drawn, directly or indirectly, upon any pretext whatsoever, ecclesiastical persons, chapters, convents, colleges of any churches, before them to their tribunal, audience, chancery, council, or parliament, against the rules of the canon law ; as also those who, for any cause, or under any pretext, or by pretence of any custom or privilege, or any other way, shall make, enact, and publish any statutes, orders, constitutions, pragmatics, or any other decrees in general or in particular ; or shall use them when made and enacted ; whereby the ecclesiastical liberty is violated, or anyways injured or depressed, or by any other means restrained, or whereby the rights of us and of the said see, and of any other churches, are any way, directly or indirectly, tacitly or expressly, prejudged. " 16. Also those who, upon this account, directly or indirectly hinder archbishops, bishops, and other superior and inferior prelates, and all other ordinary ecclesiastical judges whatsoever, by any means, either by irapri- INCOMPATIBILITY WITH BRITISH LAW. 141 it is by this law that she is desirous especially to govern Britain. This explains what Rome understands by a spiri- tual jurisdiction. She disclaims the temporal supremacy, and professes to reign only by direction ; but we can now understand what a direction, acting according to canon law, and working through the machinery of the confessional, would speedily land us in. The moment the canon law is set up, the laws of Britain are overthrown, and the rights soning or molesting their agents, proctors, domestics, kindred on both sides, or by any other way, from exerting their ecclesiastical jurisdiction against any persons whatsoever, according as the canons and sacred eccle- siastical constitutions and decrees of general councils, and especially that of Trent, do appoint ; as also those who, after the sentence and decrees of the ordinaries themselves, or of those delegated by them, or by any other means, eluding the judgment of the ecclesiastical court, have recourse to chanceries or other secular courts, and procure thence jirohibitions, and even penal mandates, to be decreed against the said ordinaries and dele- gates, and executed against them ; also those who make and execute these decrees, or who give aid, counsel, countenance, or favour to them. " 17. Also those who usuriJ any jurisdictions, fruits, revenues, and emoluments belonging to us and the apostolic see, and any ecclesiastical persons upon account of any churches, monasteries, or other ecclesiastical benefices ; or who, upon any occasion or cause, sequester the said reve- nues without the express leave of the Bishop of Rome, or others having lawful power to do it." This curse, annually pronounced at Rome, includes the whole realm of Britain, those few excepted who own the jurisdiction of the Roman see. All we in this land are cursed, — so far as the pontiff can, — trebly cursed, in this bull, published annually in presence of the Pope and the Cardinals. Our great crime is, that we obey not canon law. In violation of that law, we print, publish, and read books which contain heresy or treat of religion, and therefore we are cursed. In violation of canon law, we hold amenable to the civil tribunals, all persons, not excepting the clergy of Rome, and therefore we are cursed again. We possess and use, in not a few in- stances, lands and inheritances which once belonged to the Romish Church in Britain, and which that Church claims as still belonging to her, and therefore we are cursed a third time. We hinder archbishops and other prelates from " exerting their ecclesiastical jurisdiction against any jjersous whatsoever," according to the canons, and especially those of Trent, and so we are cursed a fourth time. All classes, from the throne downwards, are included in almost all the curses of this maledictory roll. 142 THE CANON LAW. and liberties which they confer would henceforth be among the things that were. The government of the realm would become priestly, and the secular jurisdiction would be a mere appanage of the sacerdotal. Red hats and cowls would fill the offices of state and the halls of legislation, and would enact those marvels of political wisdom for which Spain and Italy are so justly renowned. A favoured class, com- bining the laziness of Turks with the rapacity of Algerines, would speedily spring up ; and, to enable them to live in idle^ ness, or in something worse, the " tale of bricks"" would be doubled to the people. Malefactors of every class, instead of crossing the Atlantic, as now, would simply tie the Franciscan's rope round their middle, or throw the friar''s cloak over their consecrated shoulders. The Bible would disappear as the most pestiferous of books, and the good old cause of ignorance would triumph. A purification of our island on a grand scale, from three centuries of heresy, would straightway be undertaken. As Protestants (the worst of all heretics) our lives would be of equal value with those of the wolf or the tiger ; and it would be not less a virtue to destroy us, only the mode of despatch might not be so quick and merciful. The wolf would be shot down at once ; the Protestant would be permitted to edify the Catholic by the prolongation of his dying agonies. Our Queen would have a twelvemonth's notice to make her peace with Rome, or abide the consequences. Should she disdain becoming a vassal of the Roman see, a crusade would be preached against her dominions, and every soldier in the army of the Holy League would be recompensed with the promise of paradise, and of as much of the wealth of heretical Albion as he could appropriate. These consequences would follow the introduction of the canon law, as certainly as darkness follows the setting of the sun. But these effects would not be realized in a day. This tremendous tyranny would overtake the realm as night overtakes the earth. First the Roman Catholics in Britain would be habituated to the government of this code ; and it BRITAIN UNDER CANON LAW. 143 is to them only that Dr Wiseman, making a virtue of neces- sity, proposes meanwhile to extend it. Having formed a colony governed by the code of Rome in the heart of a na- tion under the code of Britain, the agent of the Vatican would be able thus to inaugurate his system. His imjyeriiim in imperio, once fairly set up, would be daily extending by conversions. A Jesuit's school here, a nunnery and cathe- dral there, would enlarge the sphere of the canon law, and fasten silently but tenaciously its manacles upon the commu- nity. Give Rome darkness enough, and she can do any- thing, — govern by canon law, with equal ease, a family or the globe. We must look fairly at the case. Let us suppose that this law is put in operation in Britain, though confined at first to members of the Romish Church. Well, then, we have a colony in the heart of the country actually released from their allegiance to the sovereign. They are the sub- jects of canon law, and that teaches unmistakeably the supremacy of the pontiff, and holds as null all authority that interferes with his ; and especially does it ignore the authority of heretical sovereigns. Should these persons con- tinue to obey the civil laws, they would do so simply because there is an army ia the country. Their real rulers would be the priesthood, whom they dared not disobey, under peril of their eternal salvation. All their duties as citizens must be performed according to ghostly direction. Their votes at the poll must be given for the priest's nominee. They must speak and vote in Parliament for the interests of Rome, not of England. In the witness-box they must swear to or against the fact, as the interests of the Church may re- quire. And as a false oath is no perjury, so killing is no murder, according to canon law, when heresy and heretics are to be purged out. Thus, every duty, from that of con- ducting a parliamentary opposition down to heading a street brawl, must be done with a view to the account to be ren- dered in the confessional. Allegiance to the Pope must override all other duties, spiritual and temporal. Popery, a deceiver to others, is a tyrant to its own. 144 THE CANON LAW. Should we, then, permit the introduction of the canon law, the Greek who opened the gates to the Trojan horse will henceforward pass for a wise and honest man. We must not have our understandings insulted by being told that this law is meliorated. It is the code of an infallible Church, and not one jot or tittle of it can ever be changed. Korae and the canon law must stand or perish together. Besides, it is only twenty years since it was republished in Rome, under the very eye of the Pope, without one single blasphemy or atrocity lopped off. Nor must we listen to the assurance that the laws of Britain will protect us from the canon law. We may have perfect confidence in the strength of our fortress, though we do not permit the enemy to plant a battery beneath its walls. But the trust is false ; — the law of Britain will not be a sufficient protection in the long run. Dr Wiseman demands permission to erect a hierarchy in order that he may govern the members of his Church in England by canon law. We refuse to grant him leave, and the doctor raises the cry of persecution, and pre- fers a charge of intolerance, because we will not permit him to give full development to the code of his Church, — a code, be it remembered, which teaches that the Pope can annul the constitutions of princes, — that it is damnable presump- tion in a lay judge to compel an ecclesiastic to pay his debts, — and that it is no crime to swear a false oath against a heretic, or even to kill him, if the massacre of his charac- ter or his person can in anywise benefit the Church. The doctor, we say, even now raises the cry of persecution against us, because we will not permit him to put this code into effect by erecting the hiei"archy ; and many Protestants profess to see not a little force in his reasoning. But sup- pose we should ^ant leave to erect the hierarchy, and so help Dr Wiseman to put the canon law into working gear ; what would be his next demand? Why, that we should subject the laws of England to instant revision, so as to confoi'm them to the canon law. " You allowed me," would the doctor say, " to introduce the canon law, and yet you DEVELOPMENT OF CANON LAW. 145 forbid mo to give it full development. Here it is perpetually checked and fettered by your enactments. I demand that these shall be rescinded in all points where they clash with canon law. You virtually pledged yourselves to this when you sanctioned the hierarchy. Why did you allow me to introduce this law, if you will not suffer me to work it? I insist on your implementing your pledge, otherwise I shall brand you as persecutors." The Protestants who gave way in the former instance will find it hard to make good their resistance here. In this manner point after point will be carried, and a despotism worse than that of Turkey, and growing by moments, will be established in the heart of this free country. All lets and hindrances in its path will crumble into dust before the insidious and persistent attacks of this conspiracy. Its agents will act with the celerity and combination of an army, while the leaders will remain invisible. It will attack in a form in which it cannot be re- pelled. It will use the Constitution to undermine the Con- stitution. It will basely take advantage of the privileges which liberty bestows, to overthrow liberty : and it will never rest content till the mighty Dagon of co-mingled blasphemy and tyranny known as canon law is enthroned above the ruins of British liberty and justice, and the neck of prince and peasant is bent in ignominious vassalage. Were Lucifer to turn legislator, and indite a code of jurisprudence for the government of mankind, he would find the work done already to his hand in the canon law. Sur- veying the labours of his renowned servants with a smile of grim complacency, — sorely puzzled what to alter, where to amend, or how to enlarge with advantage, — unwilling to run the risk of doing worse what his predecessors had done better, — he would wisely forego all thoughts of legislative and literary fame, and be content to let well alone. Instead of wasting the midnight oil over a new work, he would confine his labours to the more useful, if less ambitious, task of writing a recommendatory preface to the canon law. L 146 PRINCIPLES OF SUPREMACY UNCHANGEABLE. CHAPTER VII. THAT THE CflURCH OF ROME NEITHER HAS NOR CAN CHANGE HER PRINCIPLES ON THE HEAD OF THE SUPREMACY. We have shown in the foregoing chapter, that nothing in all past history is better authenticated than the fact that the Papacy has claimed supremacy over kings and kingdoms. We have also shown that this claim is a legitimate inference from the fundamental principles of the Papacy, — that these principles are of such a nature as to imply a Divine right, — and that the arrogant claim based on these principles Rome has not only asserted, but succeeded in establishing. Her doctors have taught it, her casuists have defended it, her councils have ratified it, the papal bulls have been based upon it, and her popes have reduced it to practice, in the way of deposing monarchs, and transferring their kingdoms to others. " Seeing it hath been current among their divines of greatest vogue and authority," reasons Barrow, " the great masters of their school, — seeing by so large a consent and concurrence, during so long a time, it may pre- tend (much better than divers other points of great import- ance) to be confirmed by tradition or prescription, — why should it not be admitted for a doctrine of the holy Roman Church, the mother and mistress of all churches ? How can they who disavow this notion be the true sons of that SUPREMACY EXERCISED IN FORMER AGES. 147 motlier, or faithful scholars of that mistress! How can they acknowledge any authority in that Church to be in- fallible, or certain, or obliging to assent. No man appre- hending it false, seemeth capable, with good conscience, to hold comnuniion with those who profess it ; for, upon sup- position of its falsehood, the Pope and his chief adherents are the teachers and abettors of the highest violation of Divine commands, and most enormous sins of usurpation, tyranny, imposture, perjury, rebellion, murder, rapine, and all the villanies complicated in the practical influence of this doctrine."* But does the fact, so clearly established from history, that the Church of Rome not only claimed, but succeeded in making good her claim, to universal supremacy, suggest no fears for the cause of public liberty in time to come ? Has the Papacy renounced this claim ? Has she confessed that it is a claim which she ought never to have made, and which she would not now make were she in the same cir- cumstances I So far from this, it can be shown, that though Gosselin and other modern writers have attempted to apo- logise for the past usurpations of the Papacy, and to ex- plain the grounds on which these acts were based, as being not so much definite principles as popular beliefs and con- cessions ; and though they have written with the obvious intention of leading their readers to infer that the Papacy would not so act now were it placed in the same circum- stances as before ; yet it can be shown that the Papacy has not renounced this claim, — that it never can renounce it, — and that, were opportunity to offer, it would once more take upon itself the high prerogative of disposing of crowns and kingdoms. How does this appear? In the first place, if Rome has renounced this alleged right, let the deed of re- nunciation be produced. The fact is notorious, that she did depose monarchs. When or where has she confessed that in doing so she stepped out of her sphere, and was betrayed * Barrow's Works, vol. i. p. 548. 148 PRINCIPLES OF SUPREMACY UNCHANGEABLE. by a guilty ambition into an act of flagrant usurpation? The contrition must be as public as the crime is notorious. But there exists no such deed ; and, in lieu of a public and formal renunciation, wo cannot accept the explanations and apologies, the feeble and qualified denials, of modern writers. It is the interest of these writers to keep discreetly in the shade claims and pretensions which it would be dangerous meanwhile to avow. And even granting that these dis- avowals were more explicit than they are, and granting, too, that they were sincerely made, they carry no authority with them. They are merely private opinions, and do not bind the Church ; and there is too much reason to believe that they would be repudiated by Rome whenever she found it safe or advantageous to do so. The case stands thus: — the Church of Rome, in violation of the principle of a co-ordi- nate jurisdiction in spiritual and civil affairs, and in violation of her own proper character and objects as a church, has claimed and exercised supremacy over kings and kingdoms ; but she has not to this hour acknowledged that she erred in doing so, nor has she renounced the principles which led to that' error; and so long as she maintains an attitude which is a virtual defence and justification of all her past pretensions, both in their theory and their practice, the common sense of mankind must hold that she is ready to repeat the same aggressions whenever the same occasions and opportunities shall occur. It is also to be borne in mind, that though the Church of Rome is silent on her claims meanwhile, we are not war- ranted to take that silence for surrender. They are not claims renounced ; they are simply claims not asserted. The foundation of these claims, and their desirableness, remain unchanged. Moreover, it is important to observe, that wherever the action of the Romish Church is restrained, it is restrained by a power from without, and not by any prin- ciple or power from within. Her prerogatives have some- times been wrested from her, but never without the Church of Rome putting on record her solemn protest. She has CHURCH CANNOT RENOUNCE TIIEM. HO declared that the authority of which she was deprived was rightfully hers, and that to forbid her to use it was an un- righteous interference with her just powers ; which means, that she was purposed to reclaim these rights the moment she thought she could make the attempt with success. In those countries where she still bears sway, we find her giv- ing effect to her pretensions to the very utmost which the liberty allowed her will permit ; and it is certainly fair to infer, that were her liberty greater, her pretensions would be greater too, not in assumption only, but in practice also. But, second, the Church of Rome cannot renounce this claim, because she is infallible. We shall afterwards prove that that Church does hold the doctrine of the infallibility, and that it is one of the fundamental principles on which her system is built. Meanwhile we assume it. Being in- fallible, she can never believe what is false, or practise what is wrong, and is therefore incapable in all time coming of renouncing any one doctrine she ever taught, or departing from any one claim she ever asserted. To say that such an opinion was taught as true ages ago, but is not now recog- nised as sound, or held to be obligatory, is perfectly allow- able to Protestants, for they make no claim to infallibility. They may err, and they may own that their fathers have erred ; for though they have an infallible standard, — the Word of God, — in which all the fundamental doctrines ap- pertaining to salvation are so clearly taught, that there is no mistaking them on the part of any one who brings ordinary powers and ordinary candour, with a due reliance on the Spirit''s promised aid, to their investigation, yet there are subordinate matters, especially points of administration, on which a longer study of the Word of God will throw clearer light. Protestants, therefore, may with perfect consistency amend their system, both in its theory and in its practice, and so bring it into nearer conformity with the great standard of truth. They have built up no wall of adamant behind them. Not so Rome. She is infallible ; and, as such, must stand eternally on the ground she has taken up. 150 PRINCIPLES OF SUPREMACY UNCHANGEABLE. It is a double thraldom which she has perpetrated : she haa enslaved the human understanding, and she has enslaved herself. The dogma of infallibility, like a chain which mor- tal power cannot break, has tied her to the bulls of popes, and the decrees of councils and canonists ; and it matters not how gross the error, how glaring the absurdity, or how manifest the contradiction, into which they may have fallen; the error is part of her infallibility, and must be maintained. The Church of Home can never plead that she believed so and so, and acted agreeably thereto, six hundred years ago, but that she has since come to think differently on the point, — that a deeper knowledge of the Bible has corrected her views. Infallibility was infallibility six hundred years ago, as really as it is so to-day. Infallibility can never be either less or more. To an infallible Church it is all one whether her decisions were delivered yesterday or a thou- sand years ago. The decision of ten centuries since is as much a piece of infallibility as the decision of ten hours since. With Rome a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years are but as a day. Nor can the Church of Rome avail herself of the excuse, that such an opinion was held by her in the dark ages, when there was little knowledge of any sort in the world. There was infallibility in it, however, according to the Church of Rome. In those ages, that Church taught as infallible that the earth was stationary, while the sun rolled round it, and that the earth was not a globe, but an extended plain. The apology that this was before the birth of the modern astro- nomy, however satisfactory in the mouth of another, would in her mouth be a condemnation of her whole system. The ages were dark enough, no doubt ; but infallibility then was still infallibility. Why, it is precisely at such times that we need infallibility. An infallibility that cannot see in the dark is not worth much. If it cannot speak till science has first spoken, but at the risk of fLilling into gross error, why, wo think the world might do as well without as with infallibility. A prophet that restricts his vaticinations to CREED OF PAPACY INFALLIBLE. 151 what has already come to pass, possesses no great share of the proplietic gift. The beacon whose light cannot be seen but when the sun is above the horizon, will be but a sorry guide to the mariner ; and that infallibility which cannot move a step without losing itself in a quagmire, except when science and history pioneer its way, is but ill fitted to govern the world. The infallibility has made three grand discoveries, — the first in the department of astronomy, the second in the department of geography, and the third in the department of theology. The first is, that the sun revolves round our earth ; the second is, that the world is an ex- tended pkiin ; and the third and greatest is, that the Pope is God's vicar. If the Church of Rome be true, these three are all equally infallible truths. To dwell a little longer on this infallibility, and the un- changeableness with which it endows the Church of Home, — that Church is not only infallible as a church or society, but every separate article of her creed is infallible. In fact, Popery is just a bundle of infallible axioms, every one of which is as unalterably and everlastingly true as are the theorems of Euclid. How impossible that a creed of this character can be either amended or changed ! Amended it cannot be, for it is already infallible ; changed still less can it be, for to change infallible truth would be to embrace error. What would be thought of the mathematician who should affirm that geometry might be changed, — that though it was a truth when Euclid flourished, that the three angles of a triangle were together equal to two right angles, it does not follow that it is a truth now? Geometry is what Popery claims to be, — a system of infallible truths, and therefore eternally immutable. Between the trigonometri- cal survey of Britain in our own times, and those annual measurements of their fields which were wont to be under- taken by the early Egyptians on the reflux of the Nile, there is an intervening period of not less than forty centu- ries, and yet the two processes were based on the identical geometrical truths. The two angles at the base of an 152 PRINCIPLES OF SUPREMACY UNCHANGEABLE. isosceles triangle were then equal to one another, and they are so still, and will be myriads of ages beyond the present moment, and myriads and myriads of miles away from the sphere of our globe. Popery claims for her truths an equally necessary, independent, universal, and eternal exist- ence. When we talk of the one being changed, we talk not a whit more irrationally than when we talk of the other being changed. There is not a dogma in the bullarium which is not just as infallible a truth as any axiom of geometry. It follows that the canon law is as unchange- able as Euclid. The deposing power having been received by the Church as an infallible truth, must be an infallible truth still. Truth cannot be truth in one age and error in the next. The infallibility can never wax old. To this at- tribute has the Church of Rome linked herself : she must not shirk its conditions. Were she to confess that in any one instance she had ever adopted or practised error, — above all, were she to grant that she had erred in the great acts of her supremacy, — she would virtually surrender her whole cause into the hands of Protestants. We find Cardinal Perron adopting this precise line of ar- gument on a very memorable occasion. After the assassi- nation of Henry IV. by the Jesuits, it was proposed, for the future security of government, to abjure the papal doc- trine of deposing kings for heresy. When the three estates assembled in 1616, Cardinal Perron, as the organ of the rest of the Gallican clergy, addressed them on the subject. He argued, that were they to abjure the pope''s right to de- pose heretical sovereigns, they would destroy the communion hitherto existing between them and other churches, — nay, even with the church of France before their own time : that seeing the popes had claimed and exercised this right, they could not take the proposed oath without acknowledging that the Pope and the whole Church had erred, both in faith and in things pertaining to salvation, and that for many ages the Catholic Church had perished from the earth : that they behoved to dig up the bones of a multitude PAPACY STEREOTYPED BY INFALLIBILITY. 153 of French doctoi's, even the bones of St Thomas and St Bonaventure, and burn them upon the altar, as Josiah burnt the bones of the false prophet. So reasoned the Cardinal ; and we should like to see those who now attempt to deny the Pope's deposing power try to answer his argu- ments. The infallibility is the iron hoop around the Church of Rome. In every variety of outward circumstances, and amid the most furious conflicts of discordant opinions, that Church is and must ever be the same. Change or amend- ment she can never know. She cannot repent, because she cannot err. Repentance and amendment are for the fallible only. Far more marvellous would it be to hear that she had changed than to hear that she had been destroyed. It will one day be told the world, and the nations will clap their hands at the news, that the Papacy has fallen ; but it will never be told that the Papacy has repented. She will be destroyed, not amended. But, in the third place, the Papacy cannot renounce this claim without denying its essential and fundamental prin- ciples. Between the dogma that the Pope is Christ's vicar and the claim of supremacy, there is, as we have shown, the most strict and logical connection. The latter is but the former transmuted into fact ; and if the one is renounced, the other must go with it. On the assumption that the Pope is Christ's vicar is built the whole fabric of Popery. On this point, according to Bellarmine, hangs the whole of Christianity ;* and one of the latest expounders of the Papacy re-echoes this sentiment : — " Wanting the sovereign pontiff," says De Maistre, " Christianity wants its sole foundation."'''-f- Anything, therefore, that would go to anni- hilate that assumption, would raze, as Bellarmine admits, the foundations of the whole system. The Papacy, then, has it in its choice to be the superior of kings or nothing. * Bellarra. Prefatio in Libros do Summo Pontifice. t Du Pape : Discours Preliminuire. 154 PRINCIPLES OF SUPREMACY UNCHANGEABLE. It has no middle path. Aut Cwsar auf nullus. The Pope is Chrisfs vicar, and so lord of the earth and of all its em- pires, or his pretensions are unfounded, his religion a cheat, and himself an impostor. It is necessary here to advert to the popular argument, — a miserable fallacy, no doubt, but one that possesses an in- fluence that better reasons are sometimes found to want. The world is now so greatly changed that it is impossible not to believe that Popery also is changed. It is incredible that it should now think of enforcing its antiquated claims. We find this argument in the mouths of two classes of per- sons. It is urged by those who see that the only chance which the Papacy has of succeeding in its present criminal designs is to persuade the world that it is changed, and who accordingly report as true what they know to be false. And, second, it is employed by those who are ignorant of the character of Popery, and who conclude, that because all else is changed, this too has undergone a change. But the question is not, Is the world altered ? — this all admit ; but. Is the Papacy altered ? A change in the one gives not the slightest ground to infer a change in the other. The Papacy itself makes no claim of the sort ; it repudiates the imputation of change ; glories in being the same in all ages ; and with this agrees its nature, which shuts out the very idea of change, or rather makes change synonymous with destruction. It is nothing to prove that society is changed, though it is worth remembering that the essential elements of human nature are the same in all ages, and that the changes of which so much account is made lie mainly on the surface. The question is, Is the Papacy changed ? It cannot be shown on any good ground that it is. And while the system continues the same, its influence, its mode of ac- tion, and its aims, will be identical, let the circumstances around it be what they may. It will mould the world to itself, but cannot be moulded by it. Is not this a universal law, determining the development alike of things, of systems, and of men ? Take a seed from the tomb of an Egyptian THE PAPACY GROWING WORSE. 155 mummy, carry it into the latitude of Britain, and bury it in the earth ; the climate, and many other things, will all be different, but the seed is the same. Its incarceration of four thousand years has but suspended, not annihilated, its vital powers ; and, being the same seed, it will grow up into the same plant ; its leaf, and flower, and fruit, will all be the same they would have been on the banks of the Nile under the reign of the Pharaohs. Or let us suppose that the mummy, the companion of its long imprisonment, should start into life. The brown son of Egypt, on looking up, would find the world greatly changed ; — the Pharaohs gone, the pyramids old, Memphis in ruins, empires become wrecks, which had not been born till long after his embalmment ; but amid all these changes he would feel that he was the same man, and that his sleep of forty centuries had left his dispo- sitions and habits wholly unchanged. Nay, will not the whole human race rise at the last day with the same moral tastes and dispositions with which they went to their graves, so that to the characters with which they died will link on the allotments to which they shall rise ? The infallibility has stereotyped the Papacy, just as nature has stereotyped the seed, and death the characters of men ; and, let it slumber for one century, or twenty centuries, it will awake with its old instincts. And while as a system it continues unchanged, its action on the world must necessarily be the same. It is not more accordant with the law of their natures that fire should burn and air ascend, than it is accordant with the nature of the Papacy that it should claim the supremacy, and so override the consciences of men and the laws of king- doms. Nay, so far is it from being a truth that Popery is growing a better thing, that the truth lies the other way : it is grow- ing rapidly and progressively worse. So egregiously do the class to which we have referred miscalculate, and so little true acquaintance do they show with the system on which they so confidently pronounce, that those very influences on which they rely for rendering the Papacy milder in spirit 156 PRINCIPLES OF SUPREMACY UNCHANGEABLE. and more tolerant in policy, are the very influences wliich are communicating a more defined stamp to its bigotry and a keener edge to its malignity. By an inevitable conse- quence, the Papacy must retrograde as the world advances. The diffusion of letters, the growth of free institutions, above all, the prevalence of true religion, are hateful to the Papacy ; they threaten its vei-y existence, and necessarily rouse into violent action all its more intolerant qualities. The most cursory survey of its history for the past six centuries abundantly attests the truth of what we now say. It was not till arts and Christianity began to enlighten southern Europe in the twelfth century, that Rome unsheathed the sword. The Reformation came next, and was followed by a new outburst of ferocity and tyranny on the part of Rome. Thus, as the world grows better, the Papacy grows worse. The Papacy of the present day, so far from being set off by a comparison with the Papacy of the middle ages, rather suffers thereby ; for of the two, the latter certainly was the more tolerant in its actings. No thanks to Rome for being tolerant, when there is nothing to tolerate. No thanks that her sword rusts in its scabbard, when there is no heretical blood to moisten it. But let a handful of Florentines open a chapel for Protestant worship, and the deadly marshes of the Maremme will soon read them the lesson of the Papacy's tolerance ; or let a poor Roman presume to circulate the Word of God, and he will have time in the papal dungeons to acquaint himself with Rome's new-sprung liberality ; or let the Queen's government build colleges in Ireland, to in- troduce a little useful knowledge into that model land of sacerdotal rule, and the anathemas which will instantly be hurled from every Popish altar on the other side of the Channel will furnish unmistakeable evidence as to the pro- gress which the Church of Rome has recently made in the virtue of toleration. Assuredly Rome will not change so long as there are fools in the world to believe that she is changed. At no former period, and by no former holder of the pon- ENCYCLICAL LETTER OF PIUS IX. 157 tificatc, was the primary principle of the Papacy more vigo- rously or unequivocally asserted, than it has been by the present pontiff. In his encyclical letter against the circu- lation of the Bible* we find Pius IX. thus speaking : — " All who labour with you for the defence of the faith will have especially an eye to this, that they confirm, defend, and deeply fix in the minds of your faithful people that piety, veneration, and respect towards this supreme see of Peter, in which you, venerable brothers, so greatly excel. Let the faithful people remember that there here lives and presides, in the person of his successors, Peter, the prince of the apos- tles, whose dignity faileth not even in his unworthy heir. Let them remember that Christ the Lord hath placed in this chair of Peter the unshaken foundation of his Church ; and that he gives to Peter himself the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and that he prayed, therefore, that his faith nn'ffht fail not, and commanded him to confirm his brethren therein ; so that the successor of St Peter holds the primacy over the whole world, and is the true vicar of Christ and head of the whole Church, and father and doctor of all Christians." There is not a false dogma or a persecuting principle which Rome ever taught or practised, which is not contained, avowedly or implicitly, in this declaration. The Pope herein sets no limits to his spiritual sway but those of the world, — of course excommunicating all who do not be- long to his Church ; and claims a character, — " true vicar of Christ and head of the whole Church," — which vests in him temporal dominion equally unbounded and supreme. The popes do not now send their legates a latere to the court of London or of Paris, to summon monarchs to do homage to Peter or transmit tribute to Rome. The Papacy is too sagacious needlessly to awaken the fears of princes, or to send its messengers on what, meanwhile, would be a very bootless errand. But has the Pope renounced * Letter to the archbishops aud bishops of Italy, dated Portici, Decem- ber S, 1849. 158 PRINCIPLES OF SUPREMACY UNCHANGEABLE. these claims ? We have shown a priori that he cannot ; and with this agrees the fact that he has not : therefore he must, in all fairness, be held as still retaining, though not actually asserting, this claim. No conclusion is more cer- tain than this, that the essential principles of the system being the same, they will, in the same circumstances, pro- duce the same evils and mischiefs in future which they have done in the past. What has been may be. In the sixth century, had any one pointed out the bearing of these prin- ciples, affirming that they necessarily led to supremacy over kings, one might have been excused for doubting whether practically this result would follow. But the same excuse is signally awanting in the nineteenth century. The world has had dire experience of the fact ; it knows what the Papacy \& practically as well as theoretically/. Moreover, are not the modern chiefs of the Papacy as ambitious and as devoted to the aggrandizement of the Papacy as the pontiffs of the past I Is not universal dominion as tempting an ob- ject of ambition now as it was in the eleventh century ? and, provided the popes can manage, either by craft or force, to persuade the world to submit to their rule, is any man so simple as to believe that they will not exercise it, — that they will modestly put aside the sceptre, and content themselves with the pastoral staff? There is nothing in that dominion, on their own principles, which is inconsistent with their spi- ritual character ; nay, the possession of temporal authority is essential to the completeness of that character, and to the vigour of their spiritual administration. Is it not capable of being made to subserve as effectually as ever the autho- rity and influence of the Church ? In times like the pre- sent, pontiffs may affect to undervalue the temporal supre- macy ; they may talk piously of throwing off the cares of State, and giving themselves wholly to their spiritual duties ; but let such prospects open before them as were presented to the Gregories and the Leos of the past, and we shall see how long this horror of the world's pomps and riches, and this love of meditation and prayer, will retain possession of rSES OF TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. 159 their breasts. The present occupant of the pontifical chair talked in this way of his temporal sovereignty; but the moment he came to lose that sovereignty, instead of venting his joy at having got rid of his burden, he filled Europe with the most dolorous complaints and outcries, and fulminated from his re- treat at Gaeta the bitterest execrations and the most dreadful anathemas ajrainst all who had been concerned in the act of stripping him of his sovereignty. So far was Pius from betak- ing himself to the spiritual solace for which he had so thirsted, that he plunged headlong into the darkest intrigues and con- spiracies against the independence of Italy, and sent his mes- sengers to every Catholic court in Europe, exhorting and supplicating these powers to take up arms and restore him to his capital. The result, as all the world knows, was, that the young liberties of Italy were quenched in blood, and the throne of the triple tyrant was again set up. " The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep," — so wrote they on the gates of Notre Dame ; — " Pius IX. kills his." Accordingly, the doctrine now maintained by the pontiff and the advo- cates of the Papacy in every part of Europe is, that the sacerdotal and temporal sovereignties cannot be disjoined, and that the union of the two, in the person of the Pope, is indispensable to the welfare of the Church and the inde- pendence of its supreme bishop. But if it be essential to the good of the Church and the independence of its head that the Pope should be sovereign of the Roman States, the conclusion is inevitable, that it is equally essential for these ob- jects that he should possess the temporal supremacy. Will not the same good, but on a far larger scale, flow from the possession of the temporal supremacy that now flows from the temporal sovereignty ? and will not the loss of the former expose the Papacy to similar and much greater inconve- niences and dangers than those likely to arise from the loss of the latter I When we confound the distinction between things civil and sacred, or rather, — for the error of Pome properly lies here, — when we deny the co-ordinate jurisdic- tion of the two powers, and subordinate the temporal to the IGO PRINCIPLES OF SUPREMACY UNCHANGEABLE. spiritual, there is no limit to the amount of temporal power which may not be possessed and exercised by spiritual func- tionaries. If to possess any degree of temporal jurisdiction conduce to the authority of ecclesiastical rulers and the good of the Church, then tlie more of this power the better. The temporal supremacy is a better thing than the temporal sovereignty, in proportion as it is a more powerful thing. Thus, every argument for the sovereignty of the Pope is a fortiori an argument for the supremacy of the Pope. Why does he cling to the temporal sovereignty, but that he may provide for the dignity of his person and office, maintain his court in befitting splendour from the revenue of St Peter''s patrimony, transact with kings on something like a footing of equality, keep his spies at foreign courts in the shape of legates and nuncios, and by these means check heresy, and advance the interests of the universal Church ? But as lord paramount of Europe, he will be able to accomplish all these ends much more completely than merely as sovereign of the Papal States. His spiritual thunder will possess far more terror when launched from a seat which rises in proud su- premacy over thrones. The glory of his court, and the num- bers of his retinue, will be far more effectually provided for when able to subsidize all Europe, than when dependent simply on the limited and now beggared domains of the fisherman. With what vigour will he chastise rebellious nations, and reduce to obedience heretical sovereigns, when able to point against them the combined temporal and spi- ritual artillery ! How completely will he purge out heresy, when at his powerful word every sword in Europe shall again leap from its scabbard ! Will not bishops and car- dinals be able to take high ground at foreign courts, when they can tell their sovereigns, " The Pope is as much your master as ours V But this is but a tithe of the power and glory which the supremacy would confer upon the Church, and especially upon its head. To grasp the political power of Europe, and wield it in the dark, is the present object the Jesuits are striving to attain ; and can any man doubt CATHOLICISM AND DEMOCRACY. 161 that, were the times favourable, tliey would exercise openly what they are now trying to wield by stealth ? Never will the Papacy feel that it is in its proper place, or that it is in a position to carry out fully its peculiar mission, till, seated once more in absolute and unapproachable power upon the Seven Hills, it look down upon the kings of Europe as its vassals, and be worshipped by the nations as a God ; and the turn that affairs are taking in the world appears to be forcing this upon the Papacy. A crisis has arrived in which, if the Church of Rome is to maintain herself, she must take higher ground than she has done since the Peformation, She has the alternative of becoming the head of Europe, or of being swept out of existence. A new era, such as neither the Pope nor his fathers have known, has dawned on the world. The French Revolution, after Napoleon had extin- guished it in blood, as all men believed, has returned from its tomb, refreshed by its sleep of half a century, to do battle with the dynasties and hierarchies of Europe. The first idea of the Papacy was to mount on the revolu- tionary wave, and be floated to the lofty seat it had formerly occupied. " Your Holiness has but one choice," Cicero- vacchio is reported to have said to the Pope : " you may place yourself at the head of reform, or you will be dragged in the rear of revolution." The pontifical choice was fixed in favour of the former. Accordingly, the world was asto- nished by the unwonted sight of the mitre surmounted by the cap of liberty ; the echoes of the Vatican were awakened by the strange sounds of " liberty and fraternity ;" and the Papacy, wrinkled and hoar, was seen to coquette with the young revolution on the sacred soil of the Seven Hills. But nature had forbidden the banns ; and no long time elapsed till it was discovered that the projected union was monstrous and impossible. The Church broke with the revolution ; the harlot hastened to throw herself once more into the arms of her old paramour the State ; and now commenced the war of the Church with the democracy. It is plain that the issue of that war to the Papacy must be one of 1G2 PRINCIPLES OF SUPREMACY UNCHANGEABLE. two things, — complete annihilation, or unbounded dominion. Rome must be all that she ever was, and more, or she must cease to be. Europe is not wide enough to hold both the old Papacy and the young Democracy ; and one or other must go to the wall. Matters have gone too far to permit of the contest being ended by a truce or compromise ; the battle must be fought out. If the Democracy shall triumph, a fearful retribution will be exercised on a Church which has proved herself to be essentially sanguinary and despotic ; and if the Church shall overcome, the revolution will be cut up root and branch. It is not for victory, then, but for life, that both parties now fight. The gravity of the juncture, and the eminent peril in which the Papacy is placed, will probably spirit it on to some desperate attempt. Half-mea- sures will not save it at such a crisis as this. To retain only the traditions of its power, and to practise the comparatively tolerant policy which it has pursued for the past half-century, will no longer either suit its purpose, or be found compatible with its continued existence. It must become the living, do- minant Papacy once more. In order that it may exist, it must reign. We may therefore expect to witness some com- bined and vigorous attempt on the part of Popery to recover its former dominion. It has studied the genius of every people ; it has fathomed the policy of every government ; it knows the principles of every sect, and school, and club, — the sentiments and feelings of almost every individual ; and with its usual tact and ability, it is attempting to control and harmonize all these various and conflicting elements, so as to work out its own ends. To those frightened by revolutionary excesses the Church of Rome announces her- self as the asylum of order. To those scared and shocked by the blasphemies of Socialist infidelity she exhibits herself as the ark of the faith. To monarchs whom the revo- lution has shaken upon their thrones she promises a new lease of power, provided they will be ruled by her. And as regards those fiery spirits whom her other arts cannot tame, she has in reserve the unanswerable and silencing arguments JESUITISM AND RE- ACTION. 1G3 of the dungeon and the scaffold. Popery is the soul of that re-action that is now in progress on the Continent, though, with her usual cunning, she puts the State in the foreground. It was the Jesuits who instigated and planned the expedi- tion to Rome. It was the Jesuits who plotted the dreadful massacres in Sicily, who have filled the dungeons of Naples with thousands of innocent citizens, who drove into exile every Roman favourable to liberty and opposed to the Pope, who closed the clubs and fettered the press of France, Tuscany, Germany, and Austria; and, in fine, it was the Jesuits of Vienna who crushed the nationalities and coun- selled the judicial murders of Hungary. History will lay all this blood to the door of the Papacy. It has all been shed in pursuance of a plan concocted by the Church, — now under the government of Jesuitism, — to recover her former ascendancy. The common danger which in the late revolu- tion threatened both Church and State, has made the two cling closely together. " I alone," — so, in effect, said the Church to the State, — " can save you. In me, and nowhere else, are to be found the principles of order and the centre of union. The spiritual weapons which it is mine to wield are alone able to combat and subdue the infidel and atheistic principles which have produced the revolution. Lend me your aid now, and promise me your submission in time to come, and I will reduce the masses to your authority." This reasoning was omnipotent, and the bargain was struck. Accordingly there is not a court of Catholic Europe Mhere the Jesuit influence is not at this moment supreme. And it is happening at present, as it has happened at all former periods of confusion, that in proportion as the State loses the Church acquires strength. Although its companion in trouble, the Church is acting at this moment as the State's superior. She extends to the civil powers the benefit of her matchless policy and her universal organization. So stands the case, then. It must force itself upon the conviction of all, that this relation of the Church to the State is fraught with tremendous danger to the independence of the secular 1 64 PRINCIPLES OF SUPREMACY UNCHANGEABLE. authority and the liberties of the world. In no fairer train could matters be for realizing all that Rome aspires to. And soon would she realize her aim, were it not that the present era differs from all preceding ones, in that there is an antagonist force in existence in the shape of an infidel Democracy. These two tremendous forces, — Democracy and Catholicism, — poise one another ; and neither can reign so long as both exist. But who can tell how soon the equili- brium may be destroyed ? Should the balance preponderate in favour of the Catholic element, — should Popery succeed in bringing over from the infidel and democratic camp a sufficient number of converts to enable her to crush her an- tagonist, — the supremacy is again in her hands. With De- mocracy collapsed, with the State exhausted and owing its salvation to the Church, and with a priesthood burning to aveno;e the disasters and humiliations of three centuries, wo to Europe ! — the darkest page of its history would be yet to be written. DOGJIAS OF THE PAPACY. 165 BOOK 11. DOGMAS OF THE PAPACY. CHAPTER I. THE POPISH THEOLOGY. The Popish theology is based on the great fundamental truths of revelation. So far it agrees with the evangelical and Protestant scheme. Any attempt on the part of the Church of Rome to obscure or extinguish those doctrines which form the ultimate foundations of religion wovdd have been singularly imprudent, and as futile as imprudent. By retaining these truths, and founding her system upon them, the Romish Church has secured to that system an authority and power which it never otherwise could have possessed. Building so far upon a divine foundation, she has been able to palm her whole system upon the world as divine. Had she come denying the very first principles of revealed truth, she would scarce have been able to obtain a hearing ; — she would have been at once repudiated as an impostor. Popery saw and avoided the danger ; and it has shown in this its usual dexterity and cunning. The system is not the less opposed to Scripture on that account, nor the less es- 166 THE POPISH THEOLOGY. sentically superstitious. Paganism was essentially a system of idolatry, notwithstanding that it was founded on the great truth that there is a God. It has been a leading charac- teristic of Satan's policy from the beginning, to admit truth up to a certain point, but to pervert it in its legitimate ap- plications, and turn it to his own use and purpose. So is it with Popery : it does not raze the great foundations of religion ; but if it has left them standing, it has spared them, not for their own sake, but for the sake of what it has built upon them. The Popish theology includes the ex- istence of a self-existent and eternal Jehovah, the Creator of the universe, of man, and of all things. It teaches that in the Godhead there are three distinct persons. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the same in substance, and equal in power and glory; that man was created in God's image, holy and immortal, but that he fell by eating the forbidden fruit, and became, in consequence, sinful in condition and life, and liable to death, temporal and eternal. It holds that the posterity of Adam shared in the guilt and conse- quences of his sin, and that they come into the world " children of wrath." It embraces the doctrine of man's redemption by Jesus Christ, who for this end became in- carnate, and endured the cursed death of the cross, to satisfy the justice of God for the sins of his people. It teaches that he rose from the dead, ascended to heaven, and will return at the Last Day. It teaches, farther, that Christ has set up a Church upon the earth, consisting of those who are baptized in his name and profess obedience to his law ; that He has appointed ministers to instruct and govern his Church, and ordained ordinances to be dispensed in it. It embraces, in fine, the doctrine of a resurrection of the body, and of a general judgment, which will issue in the acquittal of the righteous, and their admission into " life eternal," and in the condemnation of the wicked, and their departure into " everlasting punishment." We find these great and important truths lying at the foundation of the popish system. It will afterwards be ap- ORDER AND PLAN STATED. 167 parent that they are permitted to occupy this place, not from any vahie which the Church of Rome puts upon them as connected with the glory of God and the salvation of man, but because they afford her a better foundation than any she could invent on which to rear her system of super- stition. For certainly no system bearing to be a religious system would have obtained any credit with men, in the circumstances in which the Church of Rome was placed, which ventured on repudiating these great truths. But that Church has so overlaid these glorious truths, so buried them beneath a mass of mingled falsehood, absurdity, and blas- phemy, and has so turned them from their peculiar and proper end, that they have become altogether inoperative for man's salvation or God's glory. In her hands they are the instruments, not of regenerating, but of enslaving the world. The only purpose they serve is that of imparting the semblance of a supernatural origin and a divine autho- rity to what is essentially a system of superstition and im- posture. It is as if one should throw down a temple to liberty, and on its foundations proceed to rear a dungeon. On the everlasting stones of truth Rome has built a bastilc for the human mind. This will very plainly appear when we proceed briefly to state the leading tenets of the Popish theology. In following out our brief sketch of Romanism, it may conduce somewhat to perspicuity and conciseness that we adopt the following order : — We shall speak first of the Church ; second, of her Doctrine ; third, of her Sacra- ments ; and fourth, of her WoRsnn\ This method will enable us to embrace all the more salient points in the sys- tem of Romanism. Our task is one mainly of statement. We are not to aim, save in an indirect and incidental way, either at a refutation of Popish error or a defence of Pro- testant truth ; but must restrict ourselves to giving a concise, though tolerably complete, and, above all, an accurate and candid, statement of what Popery is. Though this forbids that we should indulge in proofs, or illustrations, or argu- 168 THE POPISH THEOLOGY. ments, yet it demands that we adduce from the standard works of the Roman Church the authorities on which we base our portraiture of her S3'stem. We shall mostly permit Popery to paint herself. We shall take care at least to adduce nothing which the Church of Rome may be able on good grounds to disavow. It also appears to us that this is the proper place for a distinct exhibition of the system of Popery. It is necessary to be shown the ingenuity, compact- ness, and harmony of her system of doctrine, before proceed- ing to point out the adroitness and vigour with which she made it the instrument of accomplishing her ambitious and iniquitous designs. The popish theology was the arsenal of Rome. Here hung the bows, and spears, and swords, wherewith she did battle against the armies of the living God. Here were stored up the weapons with which she combated religion and liberty, subjugated the understand- ing and conscience, and succeeded for a while in subjecting the world to her iron yoke. The system of Popery is worthy of being made the subject of profound study. It is no crude, ill-digested, and clumsily constructed scheme. It possesses an amazing subtlety and depth. It is pervaded by a spirit of fearful potency. It is the product of the com- bined intellects of many successive ages, acute, powerful, and crafty, intently occupied in its elaboration, and aided by Satanic cunning and power. Wo to the man who falls under its power! Its adamantine chain no weapon has an edge so keen as to be able to cut through, but the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Once subjected to its dominion, no power but Omnipotence can rescue the man. Its bitings, like those of Cleopati'a's asp, are immortal. " There was in some of my friends," says Mr Seymour, speaking of the priests whom he met at Rome, " an extra- ordinary amount of scientific attainment, of classical erudi- tion, of polite literature, and of great intellectual acumen ; but all seemed subdued, and hold, as by an adamantine grasp, in everlasting subjection to what seemed to them to be the religious principle. This principle, which regarded DErXII AND INGENUITY OF TOrERY. IGO the voice of the Church of Rome as the voice of God liiin- self, was ever uppermost in the mind, and held such an in- fluence and a mastery over the whole intellectual powers, over the whole rational being, that it bowed in the humility of a child before everything that came with even the ap- parent authority of the Church. I never could have be- lieved the extent of this if I had not witnessed it in these remarkable instances.""* As a piece of intellectual mechan- ism Popei'y has never been equalled, and probably will never be surpassed. As the pyramids have come down to our day, and bear their testimony to the skill and power of the early Egyptians, so Popery, long after its day is over, will be seen towering across the interval of ages, a stupendous monument of the power for evil which lies in the human soul, and of the prodigious efforts the mind of man can put forth, when impelled to action by hatred to God and the de- sire of self-aggrandizement. * Moi-nings among the Jesuits at Rome, by the Rev. M. H. Seymour, pp. 5, 6 J London, 1849. 1 70 SCRIPTURE AND TRADITION. CHAPTER 11. SCRIPTURE AND TRADITION. Papists concur with Protestants in admitting that God is the source of all obligation and duty, and that the Bible contains a revelation of his will. But while the Papist ad- mits that the Bible is a revelation of the will of God, he is far from admitting, with the Protestant, that it is the only re- velation. He holds, on the contrary, that it is neither a sufficient rule of faith, nor the only rule; but that tradition, which he terms the ummntten word, is equally inspired and equally authoritative with the Bible. To tradition, then, the Papist assigns an equal rank with the Scriptures as a divine revelation. The Council of Trent, in its fourth ses- sion, decreed, " that all should receive with equal reverence the books of the Old and New Testament, and the tradi- tions concerning faith and manners, as proceeding from the mouth of Christ, or inspired by the Holy Spirit, and pre- served in the Catholic Church ; and that whosoever know- ingly, and of deliberate purpose, despised traditions, should be anathema."* In the creed of the Council of Trent is the following article: — "I do most firmly receive and embrace the apostolical and ecclesiastical traditions, and other usages, of the Roman Church." " The Catholics," says Dr * Can. et Dec. Concilii Tiidcutini, p. 16 ; Lij^sia) (1S46.) POPISH RULE OF FAITH. 171 Milner, " hold that tlie Word of God in general^ hoth written and imicritten, — in other words, the Bihle and tradition taJcen together^ — constitute the rule of faith, or method appointed by Christ for finding out the true religion.""* " Has tradition any connection with the rule of faith V it is asked in Keenan's Controversial Catechism. " Yes," is the answer, " because it is a part of God's revealed Word, — properly called the unwritten Word, as the Scripture is called the written Word." " Are we obliged to believe what tradition teaches, equally with what is taught in Scripture V " Yes, we are obliged to believe the one as firmly as the other.""!- We may state, that the traditions which the Church of Rome has thus placed on a level with the Bible are the supposed sayings of Christ and the apostles handed down by tradition. Of course, no proof exists that such things were ever spoken by those to whom they are imputed. They w^ere never known or heard of till the monks of the middle ages gave them to the world. To apostolical is to be added ecclesiastical tradition, which consists of the decrees and constitutions of the Church. It is scarcely a true account of the matter to say that tradition holds an equal rank with the Bible : it is placed above it. While tradition is always employed to determine the sense of the Bible, the Bible is never permitted to give judgment on tradition. What, then, would the Church of Rome lose were the Bible to be set aside ? Nothing, clearly. Accordingly, some of her doctors have held that the Scriptures are now unnecessary, seeing the Church has determined all truth. In the second place, Papists make the Church the infal- lible interpreter of Scripture. The Church condemns all private judgment, interdicts all rational inquiry, and tells her members that they must receive the Scriptures only in the sense which she is pleased to put upon them. She re- quires all her priests at admission to swear that they will * Milner's End of Controversy, letter viii. ; Dublin, 1827. + Controversial Catechism, by the Rev. S. Keenan, — Rule of Faitb, chap. vi. ; Edin. 1846. 1 72 SCRIPTURE AND TRADITION. not interpret the Scriptures but according to the consent of the fathers, — an oath which it is impossible to keep otherwise than by abstaining altogether from interpreting Scripture, seeing the fathers are very far indeed from being at one in their interpretations. " How often has not Jerome been mistaken V said Melancthon to Eck, in the famous disputa- tion at Leipsic ; " how frequently Ambrose ! and how often their opinions are different ! and how often they retract their errors V* The Council of Trent decreed, that " no one confiding in his own judgment shall dare to wrest the sacred Scriptures to his own sense of them, contrary to that which hath been held, and still is held, by holy Mother Church, whose right it is to judge of the true meaning and interpretation of the sacred writ." And they further enact, that if any disobey, they are to be denounced by the ordinaries, and punished according to law.-j- In accordance with that decree is the following article in Pope Pius's creed : — " I receive the holy Scripture according to the sense which holy Mother Church (to whom it belongeth to judge of the true sense of the holy Scriptures) hath held and doth hold ; nor will I ever receive and interpret it otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of the fathers."* " Without the authority of the Church," said Bailly the Jesuit, " I would believe St Matthew no more than Titus Livius." So great was the fervour for the Church, of Cardinal Hosius, who was appointed president of the Council of Trent, that he declared, in one of his pole- mical writings, that were it not for the authority of the Church, the Scriptures would have no more weight than the fables of iEsop.| Such are the sentiments of modern Papists. Dr INIilner devotes one of his letters to show that " Christ did not intend that mankind in general should learn his religion from a book."§ " Besides the rule," says he, * D'Aubign^'s History of the Reformation, vol. ii. p. 71. + Concil. Trid. sess. iii. J Bayle's Dictionary, art. Hosius. § JMiiuer s End of Controversy, letter viii. AN INFALLIBLE INTERPRETER, 173 " he has provided in his holy Church a living, speaking judge, to watch over it, and explain it in all matters of con- troversy.""* Such is the rule of faith which E-ome furnishes to her members, — the Word of God and the traditions of men, both equally binding. And such is the way in which Rome permits her members to interpret the Scriptures, — only by the Church. And yet, notwithstanding that the Church for- bids her members to interpret Scripture, she, as a Church, has never come forward with any interpretation of the Word of God ; nor has she adduced, nor can she adduce, the slightest proof from the Word of God that she alone is authorized to interpret Scripture ; nor is the consent of the fathers, according to which she binds herself to interpret the Word of God, a consent that has any existence. Her claim as the only and infallible interpreter of Scripture im- plies, moreover, that God has not expressed, or was not able to express, his mind, so as to be intelligible to the generality of men, — that he has not given his Word to all men, or made it a duty binding on all to read and study it. The Church of Rome has farther weakened the authority and polluted the purity of God's holy Word, by assigning to * M. J. Perrone, the present Professor of Theology in the Collegio Ro- mano at Rome, says :— " To the Church, that is, to the clergy, as forming one body with the Roman pontiff, their head, has been given the power of infallibly publishing the gospel, of truly interpreting it, and inviolably preserving it." These high prerogatives he founds upon JMatthew, xxviii. 19,_« Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations," &c. " Christ does not say to his apostles," argues Perrone, " go and icrite, but, go and teach : nor does he say, ' I am with you for a time only, but always.' " By the " all things whatsoever I have commanded you," we are to understand not only what is written in the New Testament, but what tradition has handed down as the sayings of Christ, The Professor makes great account of the variety of interpretations to which written language is liable, but no ac- count at all of the far greater variations, not in interpretation only, but in the subject-matter also, to which traditionary language is liable. (Prajlec- tiones Theologica?, quas in Collegio Romano Societatis Jesu habebat J. Perrone, tom. i. p. 171-174 ; Parisiis, 1842.) 174 SCRIPTURE AND TRADITION. the Apocrypha a place in the inspired canon. The inspira- tion of these books was not made an article of the popish faith till the Council of Trent. That Council, in its fourth session, decreed the divine authority of the Apocrypha, not- withstanding that the books are not found in the Hebrew Bible, were not received as canonical by the Jews, are never quoted by Christ or by his apostles, were repudiated by the early Christian fathers, and contain within them- selves manifold proofs that they are not inspired. At the same moment that the Church of Rome was exposing her- self to the curse pronounced on those who shall add to the words of inspiration, she pronounced an anathema on all who should refuse to take part with her in the iniquity of maintaining the divine authority of the Apocrypha. The Roman Catholic arguments in support of tradition as a rule of faith resolve themselves into three branches : first, passages from Scripture ; second, the office of the Church to attest the authenticity and genuineness of the Bible ; and third, the insufficiency of private judgment. First, we are presented with a few texts which seem to look with some favour upon tradition. These are either utterly inconclusive, or they are plain perversions. " Hear the Church^'' from the frequency with which it is quoted, would seem to be regarded by Roman controversialists as one of their greatest strongholds. The words, as they stand by themselves, do look as if they inculcated submission to the Church in the matter of our belief. When we examine the passage in connection with its context, how- ever, we find it refers to a supposed dispute between two members of the Church, and enjoins the appeal of the mat- ter to the decision of the Church, that is, of the congrega- tion, provided the off'ending party refuse to listen to the remonstrances of the offended ; which is a different thing altogether from the implicit submission of our judgments in matters of doctrine. Common sense teaches every man that there is no comparison between a written and an oral account of a matter, as regards the degree of reliance to be RIGHT OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 175 placed on each. Every time the latter is repeated, it ac- quires a new addition, or variation, or corruption. It is inconceivable that the truths of salvation should have been conveyed to us through a medium so inaccurate, fluctuating, and doubtful. Was it not one main design of Christ and his apostles, in committing their doctrine to writing, to guard against the uncertainties of tradition ? In places in- numerable, are not traditions, as a ground of faith, explicitly and pointedly condemned, and the study of the Scriptures strenuously enjoined I Besides, why should the Church of Rome offer proofs from Scripture on this or any other point 1 Does she not act inconsistently in doing so, inas- much as she at the same instant forbids and requires the exercise of private judgment I But, in the second place, from the Church, say the Ro- manists, you received the Bible ; she transmitted it to you, and you take her authority for its authenticity and genuine- ness.* We admit the Church, that is, the universal Church, and not exclusively the Church of Rome, to be a main wit- ness as to the authenticity and genuineness of the Scrip- tures, on the ground that they have come down to us through her ; but that is another question altogether from her right to solely and infallibly interpret Scripture. The messenger who carries a letter may be a very competent witness as to its authenticity and genuineness. He had it from the writer; it has not been out of his possession since; and he can speak very confidently and authoritatively as to its expressing the will of the person whose signature it bears ; but is he only, therefore, entitled to interpret its meaning ? He may be a very competent authority on its authenticity, but a very incompetent authority on its sense. The Church of Rome has confounded the question of authenticity and the question of interpretation. Because the Church carried this divine letter to us, we will listen to what she has to say on its authenticity ; but inasnmch as • Miliier's Eud of Couti-oversy, letter ix. 176 SCRIPTURE AND TRADITION. this letter is addressed to- us, and touches questions which involve our eternal welfare, and contains not the slightest hint that it needs to be either interpreted or supplemented by the bearer, we will use the right and responsibility of in- terpreting it for ourselves. As regards the insufficiency of private interpretation, it is hard to say whether Rome has conjured up more difficul- ties on the side of the Bible or on the side of man. She has made the most of the few difficult passages which the Bible contains, overlooking its extraordinary plainness and clearness on the great matters of salvation, and has laboured to show that, however the Bible may be fitted for a higher order of intelligences, it is really of no use at all to those for whom it was written. When a Romanist declaims on this topic, we cannot help fancying that we are listening to the pleadings of some acute, ingenious, and thoroughly in earnest infidel. And, as regards man, to believe Rome, one ■would think that reason and right understanding is a gift which has been denied the human family, or, at most, is confined to some scores of bishops and cardinals whom she denominates the Church. The Bible is to be subjected to the same rules of criticism and interpretation to which we daily subject the statements of our fellow-men and the works of human composition, and by which we search out the hidden principles and fundamental laws of physical and moral science. The faculties which can do the one can do the other. The moral obliquity which prevents the heart from receiving: what the intellect can discover in the field of revelation, and which sheds darkness upon the under- standing itself, is not to be overcome by papal infallibility, but by the promised assistance of the Divine Spirit. The Roman Catholic Church has also found a specious argu- ment against the sufficiency of private judgment, in the differences of opinion on subordinate matters which exist among Protestants. These she has greatly magnified ; but whatever they may be, she is not the party to reproach us, as we shall afterwards show. It is well known what a nest APOSTOLIC MODE. 177 of diverse, unclean, and monstrous things is that over which the mighty Roman motlier, Infallibility, sits brood- ing. Peter, it is maintained, frowned upon private inter- pretation, when he wrote as follows respecting the Epistles of Paul: — " In which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction." Now, first, this shows that they who so wrested the Scrip- tures had free access to them ; and, second, the statement is limited to the Epistles of Paul, and in these it is only some things that are hard to be understood, showing that the i7ian9/ are not so. But what preservative does the apostle recommend for this evil? Does he blame those negligent pastors who allowed their people to read the Scriptures ? Does he enjoin Christians to hear the living authority in the Church ? — and there were then some really infallible men in her : no ; he has recourse to no such ex- pedient ; but, seeing they were the unlearned and the un- stable who so wrested the Scriptures, he enjoins them to " grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." But how are men to grow " in the knowledge of Jesus Christ V Unquestionably by the study of that book that reveals him ; agreeably to his own injunction, " Search the Scriptures ; they are they which testify of me." " Prove all things ; hold fast that which is good." But the Church of Rome, in the very act of forbidding the exercise of private judgment, and demanding of men im- plicit submission to her own authority, requires of them the exercise of their faculties. She makes her appeal to those very faculties which she forbids them to use, and calls upon them to exercise their private judgment in order that they may see it to be their duty not to exercise their private judgment. The appeal of Rome is, that men should submit to her infallibility ; but she herself shows that she is con- scious that a rational being can submit to this appeal only in the use of reason, because she recommends her appeal with arguments. Why does she urge these arguments, if 178 SCRIPTURE AND TRADITION. our reason be unfit to determine the question ? Before we can submit to infallibility, we must first satisfy ourselves as to several things, such as the truth of Christianity, the vicarship of Peter, and the transmission of the supremacy down to the living pontiff; for on these grounds is the infalli- bility based. The private judgment that can determine these momentous points might, one should think, compe- tently decide others. To affirm that the sound judgment of men can conduct them so far, but no farther, looks very like saying, that the moment men submit to the infallibility they take leave of their sound judgment. Their reason is unfit, says the Church of Rome ; and yet they are required, with an unfit reason, to reason fitly out the unfitness of their reason. If they succeed in reasoning out this propo- sition, does not their very success disprove the proposition ? and if they do not succeed, how can they know the proposi- tion to be true ? And yet the Church of Rome continues to exhort men to use their reason to discover that reason is of no use ; which is just as sensible as to bid a man walk a few miles along the highway, in order to discover that his limbs are incapable of carrying him a single yard from his own door. This conclusion, that reason is of no use, is true, or it is false. If it is true, how come men to ar- rive at a sound conclusion with a reason that is altogether useless? and if it is false, what becomes of the dogma of Rome ? To tell a man, " Your reason is useless, but here is infallibility for your guide, only you must reason your way to it,"" is very like saying to a man in a shipwreck, " True, friend, you cannot swim a single stroke ; but there is a rock half a league off; you can take your stand on it." The Protestant rule is the Scripture. " To the Scripture the Roman Catholic adds, first, the Apocrypha ; second, traditions ; third, acts and decisions of the Church, em- bracing numerous volumes of the popes'* bulls, ten folio volumes of decretals, thirty-one folio volumes of acts of councils, fifty-one folio volumes of the Acta Sanctorum, or the doings and sayings of the saints ; fourth add to these ABSURDITY OF INFALLIBILITY. 179 at least thirty-five volumes of the Greek and Latin fathers, in which, he says, is to be found the unanimous consent of the fathers; fifth, to all these one hundred and thirty-five volumes folio add the chaos of unwritten traditions which have floated to us down from the apostolic times. But we must not stop here ; for the expositions of every priest and bishop must be added. The truth is, such a rule is no rule; unless an endless and contradictory mass of uncertainties could be a rule. No Romanist can soberly believe^ much less learn, his own rule of faith."* But even granting that all this infallibility is centred in the person of the pontiff", and that, practically, the guide of the Romanist is the dictum of the Pope ; how is he to inter- pret its meaning, unless by an operation of judgment of the same kind with that by which the Protestant interprets the dictum of Scripture ? Thus there is no scheme of infallibility which can supersede the exercise of private judgment, un- less that of placing an infallibility in the head of every man, which shall guide him, not through his understanding, but in the shape of an unreasoning, unquestioning instinct. * Elliott's Delineation of Romanism, p. 13; London, 1851. 180 OF READING THE SCRIPTURES. CHAPTER III. OF READING THE SCRIPTURES. One would have thought that the Church of Eome had re- moved her people to a safe distance from the Scriptures. She has placed the gulf of tradition between them and the Word of God. She has removed them still farther from the sphere of danger, by providing an infallible interpreter, whose duty it is to take care that the Bible shall express no sense hostile to Rome. But, as if this were not enough, she has laboured by all means in her power to prevent the Scrip- tures coming in any shape into the hands of her people. Before the Reformation she kept the Bible locked up in a dead language, and severe laws were enacted against the reading of it. The Reformation unsealed the precious volume. Tyndale and Luther, the one from his retreat at Vildorfe in the Low Countries, and the other from amid the deep shades of the Thuringian forest, sent forth the Bible to the nations in the vernacular tongues of England and Germany. A thirst was thus awakened for the Scriptures, which the Church of Rome deemed it imprudent openly to oppose. The Council of Trent enacted ten rules regarding prohibited books, which, while they appeared to gratify, were insidiously framed to check, the growing desire for the Word of God. In the fourth rule, the Council prohibits any one from reading the Bible without a licence from his bishox) READING THE BIBLE INTERDICTED. 181 or inquisitor ; that licence to be founded on a certificate from his confessor that he is in no danger of receiving injury from so doing. The Council adds these emphatic words: — " That if any one shall dare to read or keep in his possession that book, without such a licence, he shall not receive absolution till he has given it up to his ordinary."* These rules are followed by the bull of Pius IV., in which he declares that those who shall violate them shall be held guilty of mortal sin. Thus did the Church of Rome attempt to regulate what she found it impossible wholly to prevent. The fact that no Papist is allowed to read the Bible without a licence does not appear in the catechisms and other books in com- mon use among Roman Catholics in this country; but it is incontrovertible that it forms the law of that Church. And, in accordance therewith, we find that the uniform practice of the priests of Rome, from the popes downwards, is to pre- vent the circulation of the Bible, — to prevent it wholly in those countries, such as Italy and Spain, where they have the power, and in other countries, such as our own, to all the extent to which their power enables them. Their uni- form policy is to discourage the reading of the Scriptures in every possible way ; and when they dare not employ force to effect this object, they scruple not to press into their ser- vice the ghostly power of their Church, by declaring that those who presume to contravene the will of Rome in this matter are guilty of mortal sin. No farther back than 181 6, Pope Pius VII., in his bull, denounced the Bible Society, and expressed himself as "shocked" by the circulation of the Scriptures, which he characterizes as a " most crafty device, by which the very foundations of religion are undermined ;" * Concil. Trid. de Libris Prohibitis, p. 231 of Leipsic ed. Tho Latin Vulgate is the authorized standard in the Church of Rome, and that to the disparagement of the original Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. These are omitted in the decree, and a translation is substituted. All Protes- tant translations, such as our authorized English version, Luther's trans- lation, &c. are prohibited. (See Concil. Trid., decretum de editione et usu saci'orum librorum.) 182 OF READING THE SCRIPTURES. "a pestilence," which it behoves him "-to remedy and aboHsh ;" " a defilement of the faith, eminently dangerous to souls."" He congratulates the primate, to whom his let- ter is addressed, on the zeal he had shown " to detect and overthrow the impious machinations of these innovators ;" and represents it as an episcopal duty to expose " the wick- edness of this nefarious scheme," and openly to publish " that the Bible printed by heretics is to be numbered among other prohibited books, conformably to the rules of the index ; for it is evident from experience, that the holy Scriptures, when circulated in the vulgar tongue, have, through the temerity of men, produced more harm than benefit."* Thus, in the solemn judgment of the Church of Rome, expressed through her chief organ, the Bible has done more evil than good, and is beyond comparison the worst book in the world. There is only one other being whom Rome dreads more than the Bible, and that is its Author. The same Pope issued a bull in 1819 on the subject of the circulation of the Scriptures in the Irish schools. He speaks of the circulation of the Scriptures in the schools as a sowing of tares ; and that the children are thereby infested with the fatal poison of depraved doctrines ; and exhorts the Irish bishops to endeavour to prevent the wheat being choJced hy the tares.'\' In 1824 Pope Leo XII. published an encyclical letter, in which he adverts to a certain society, vulgarly termed the Bible Society, as spreading itself throughout the whole world ; and goes on to term the Protestant Bible the " Gos- pel of the Devil." The late Pope Gregory XVI., in his encyclical letter, after referring to the decree of the Council of Trent, quoted above, ratifies that and similar enactments of the Church : — " Moreover, wo confirm and renew the de- * Given at Rome, June 29th, 1816 ; and addressed to the Archbishop of Gnczn, primate of Poland. + M'Gavin's Protestant, vol. i. p. 2G2, Sth ed. IRISH PRIESTS AND BIBLE. 183 crecs recited above, delivered in former times by apostolic authority, against the publication, distribution, reading, and possession of books of the holy Scriptures translated into the vulgar tongue." That this hostility to the Word of God is not confined to the occupant of the Vatican, but per- vades the entire body of the Romish clergy in all parts of the world, is evident from the recent well-authenticated in- stances of the burning of Bibles by priests in Belgium, in Ireland, and in Madeira. Not less significant is the fact, stated in evidence before the Commissioners of Education, that among the four hundred students attending the Col- lege of Maynooth, there we^e not to be found more than ten Bibles or Testaments; while every student was required to provide himself with a copy of the works of the Jesuits Bailly and Delahogue.* Dr Doyle, in his instructions to priests regarding Kildare Place Society, says, that if the parents sent their children to a Bible school, after the warning of the priest, " they would be guilty of mortal sin ;"''' or if any of them suffered their children to go to an Hiber- nian school, he should think it proper "to withhold the sacra- ment from them when dying ;" and he adds, " the Scriptures being read and got by heart, is quite sufficient in order to make the schools obnoxious to us."*!- And to the use of the Bible without note or comment in these schools, Lord Stanley directly attributes their failure : the priests, says he, exerting " themselves with energy and success against a system to which they were in ^^^inciple opposed."]: The hostility of the priests " does not appear to be against the versions of Protestants only, but against Scripture itself; as is manifest from their decided opposition to a Catholic version [the Douay], without note or comment, which the Bible Society proposed printing for the use of Catholics, but which was absolutely refused by their clergy?" ]\lr Nowlan, in a debate with some Protestant clergymen in * Ireland in 1S46-7, p. 33. By Pliilip Dixon Hardy, 31, R. I. A. f Idem. + Lord Stanley's Letter to the Duke of Leinster. 18-i OF READING THE SCRIPTURES. 1824, says, " If the Bible Society came to distribute copies of the Bible, even of that version which the Catholic Church approves of, on this principle [that of the Bible Society], we should still consider it our duty to oppose them,"'"'* Since the 1st of June 1816, four pontiffs in succession, including Pius IX., have distinctly and formally intimated to the world, that by the distribution and reading of the holy Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, " the very foundations of their religion are under mined. ''"''f In the face of these facts, — of their written creed plainly prohibiting the reading of the Scriptures without a licence, under pain of being held guilty of mortal sin ; of anathemas against Bible Societies, thundered forth by the pontiffs ; of the burning of the Bible by the hands of priests, as if it were " the book of heresy," as it was termed by the public prose- cutor, when he pulled the New Testament from the sleeve of the " Vicar of Dollar ;" in the face of the refusal of the sacrament to the dying, for the crime of sending their children to a school where the Bible was read ; and the at- tempts both in Edinburgh, as in the case of the Ragged Schools, and in Ireland, as in the case of the Kildare Place Society schools, to defeat and overthrow schemes devised for the reclamation of the ignorant, the vicious, and the outcast, because these schemes included the reading of the Scriptures without note or comment, — it requires, as- * Elliott's Delineation of Romanism, pp. 21, 22. + Doubtless the most effectual way of extirpating heresy would be to extirpate the Bible ; and this object Rome has striven to effect, not only by pontifical bulls, but by stigmatizing the Bible in every possible way, to bring it into general contempt. Pighius called the Scriptures a nose of wax, which easily suffers itself to be drawn backward and forward, and moulded this way and that ivay, and however you like. Turrian styled them a shoe that will ft any foot, a sj^hinx riddle, a matter for strife, Lessius, imperfect, doiditful, obscure, ambiguous, and perplexed. The author De Tribus Veritatibus desig- nates them a forest for thieves, a shop of heretics. How different the estimate which Djivid had formed of them : — " The law of the Lord is perfect, con- veiijng the soul ; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise tlie eiuiplc." ITALIAN PRIESTS AM) BIBLE. 185 suredly, no small amount of hardihood to maintain, as we find priests of the Church of Rome doing, " that it is a great mistake, and, indeed, a calumny against the Catholic Church, to say that she is opposed to the full and unrestricted use and circulation of the Scriptures." We do not know that we have ever met with a more barefaced attempt of this kind than the following, made, too, in circumstances where, one would have thought, the most reckless audacity would have shrunk from such an attempt. The words we have quoted, charging it as a calumny on the Church of Rome to say that she is opposed to the " full and unrestricted use and circulation of the Scriptures," were uttered at Rome in the midst of millions sunk in the grossest ignorance of the sacred volume. They fell from the professor of dogmatic theology in the Collegio Romano, in a conversation held with the Rev. Mr Seymour, a clergyman of the Church of England, who visited Rome a few years ago, and who has recorded his experience of Popery, as he found it existing in the metropolis of Roman Catholicism, in his work entitled " Mornings among the Jesuits at Rome." " The answer I made to this," says Mr Seymour, " was, that having resided many years among a Roman Catholic population in Ireland, I had always found that the sacred volume was forbidden to them ; and that since I came to Italy, and especially to Rome, I observed the most complete ignorance of the holy Scriptures, and that it was ascribed by themselves to a pro- hibition on the part of the Church. " He at once stated that there must be some mistake, as the book was permitted to all who could understand it, and was, in fact, in very general circulation in Rome. " I said that I had heard the contrary, and that it was impossible to procure a copy of the holy Scriptures in the Italian tongue in the city of Rome, — that I had so heard from an English gentleman who had resided there for ten years, — that I looked upon the statement as scarcely credi- ble, — that I wished much to ascertain the matter for my own information, — that I had one day resolved to test this 186 OF READING THE SCRIPTURES. by visiting every bookselling establishment in the city of Rome, — that I had gone to the book-shop belonging to the Propaganda Fide, — to that patronized by his holiness the Pope, — to that which was connected with the CoUegio Ro- mano, and was patronized by the order of Jesuits, — to that which was established for the supply of English and other foreigners, — to those who sold old and second-hand books, — and that in every establishment, without exception, I found that the holy Scriptures were not for sale ; I could not procure a single copy in the Roman language, of a portable size, in the whole city of Rome ; and that when I asked each bookseller the reason of his not having so im- portant a volume, I was answered, in every instance, e pro- hibifo, or non e permesso, — that the volume was prohibited, or that it was not permitted to be sold. I added, that Mar- tini''s edition was offered to me in two places, but it was in twenty -four volumes, and at a cost of 105 francs (that is, £4: sterling) ; and that, under such circumstances, I could not but regard the holy Scriptures as a prohibited book, at least in the city of Rome. " He replied by acknowledging that it was very probable that I could not find the volume in Rome, especially as the population of Rome was very poor, and not able to pur- chase the sacred volume ; and that the real reason the Scriptures were not at the booksellers, and also were not in circulation, was, not that they were forbidden or prohibited by the Church, but that the people of Rome were too poor to buy them. " I replied that they probably were too poor, whether in Rome or in England, to give one hundred and five francs for the book ; but that the clergy of Rome, so numerous and wealthy, should do as in England, namely, form an associa- tion for cheapening the copies of the Scriptures. " He said, in reply, that the priests were too poor to cheapen the volume, and that the people were too poor to purchase it. " I then stated, that if this was really the case, — that if BIBLE UNKNOWN IN ITALY. 187 there was no prohibition against the sacred volume, — that if they would be willing to circulate it, — and that really and sincerely there was no other objection than the difficulties arising from the price of the book, — that difficulty should at once be obviated : I would myself undertake to obtain from England, through the Bible Society, any number of Bibles that could be circulated ; and that they should be sold at the lowest possible price, or given freely and gratuitously, to the inhabitants of Rome. I stated that the people of Eng- land loved the Scriptures beyond all else in this world ; and that it would be to them a source of delight and thanksgiving to give for gratuitous circulation any number of copies of the sacred volume that the inhabitants of Rome could require. " He immediately answered, that he thanked me for the generous offer; but that there would be no use in accepting it, as the people of Rome were very ignorant, were in a state of brutal ignorance, were unable to read anything; and therefore could not profit by reading the Scriptures, even if we supplied them gratuitously. " I could not conceal from myself that he was prevaricat- ing with me, — that his former excuse of poverty, and this latter excuse of ignorance, were mere evasions ; so I asked him whose fault it was that the people remained in such universal and unaccountable ignorance. There were above five thousand priests, monks, and nuns, besides cardinals and prelates, in the city of Rome ; that the whole popula- tion was only thirty thousand families ; that thus there was a priest, or a monk, or a nun, for every six families in Rome ; that thus there were ample means for the education of the people; and I asked, therefore, whether the Church was not to blame for this ignorance on the part of the people ? " He immediately turned from the subject, saying, that the Church held the infallibility of the Pope, to whom it therefore belonged to give the only infallible interpretation of the Scriptures."* * Mornings among the Jesuits at Rome, pp. 132-135, 1 88 OF READING THE SCRIPTURES. But a more authoritative confirmation still of all that we have advanced against Popery on this head has lately ap- peared. It is the Encyclical Letter of Pius IX. (issued in January 1850). The document is such a compound of despotism and bigotry as Leo XII. might have conceived, and Gregory XVI. signed. It is in itself such an exposure, that we add not a word of comment. After condemning the '"''neio art of printing," the Pope goes on to say, — " Nay, more ; with the assistance of the Biblical Societies, which have long been condemned by the holy chair, they do not blush to distribute holy Bibles, translated into the vulgar tongue, without being conformed to the rules of the Church." " Under a false pretext of religion, they recommend the reading of them to the faithful. You, in your wisdom, perfectly vmderstand, venerable brothers, with what vigilance and solicitude you ought to labour, that the faithful may fly with horror from this poisonous reading; and that they may remember that no man, supported by his own prudence, can arrogate to himself the right, and have the presumption, to interpret the Scriptures otherwise than as our holy mother the Church interprets them, to whom alone our Lord has confided the guardianship of the faith, judgment upon the true sense and interpretation of the divine books."* So much for the doctrine and practice of the Church of Rome on this vital point. The world does not contain to her a more dangerous book than the Bible, or one from * The following toucliing anecdote, for the truth of which the writer can vouch, illustrates well the spirit of modern Popery as regards the Bible. The wife of a clergyman of the Church of England died at Rome. The following epitaph was prepared by her husband for her tomb-stone : — " To her to live was Christ," &c. " She is gone to the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense, till the day break," &c. This was submit- ted to the censor, — struck out : an ajjpeal was carried to Pius IX. himself: he confirmed the censor's act on two grounds ; 1st, " It was unlawful to express the hope of immortality over the grave of a heretic ;" 2d, "It was contrary to law to publish in the sight of the Roman people any portion of the Word of God." ROME AFRAID OF THE BIBLE. 180 which she recoils with more instinctive dread. She neither dare disavow its authority, nor vontui-e an open appeal to it by putting it into the hands of her people. With all her impudence and audacity, she trembles at the thought of appearing before this tribunal, well knowing that she cannot " stand in the judgment." Thus Rome is constrained to do homage to the majesty of the Bible. She has done her utmost to exile that book from the world, with all the treasures it contains, — its thrilling narratives, its rich poetry, its profound philosophy, its sublime doctrines, its blessed promises, its magnificent prophecies, its glorious and immortal hopes. Were any being so malignant or so powerful as to extinguish the light of day, and condemn the successive generations of men to pass their lives amid the gloom of an unbroken night, where would words be found strong enough to execrate the enormity. Far greater is the crime of Home. After the day of Christianity had broke, she was able to cover Europe with darkness, and, by the exclusion of the Bible, to perpetuate that darkness from age to age. The enormity of her wickedness cannot be known on earth. But she cannot conceal from herself that, despite her anathemas, her indices expiirgatorii, her tyrannical edicts, by which she still attempts to wall round her terri- tory of darkness, the Bible is destined to overcome in the conflict. Hence her implacable hostility, — a hostility found- ed, to a large extent, upon fear. We find her members at times making this unwilling confession. The Bible, said Richard du Mans, in the Council of Trent, " ought not to be made a study, because the Lutherans only gain those who read it." And in more modern times we find Mr Shiel asserting, on a stage not less conspicuous than that of the Council of Trent, that " the reading of the Bible would lead to the subversion of the Roman Catholic Church." The Popish divine and the British senator, at an interval of three centuries, unite in declaring that Popery and the Bible cannot stand together. How like are these vaticina- tions to the words spoken to Haman by Zeresh his wife ! — 190 OF READING THE SCRIPTURES. " Then said his wise men and Zeresh his wife unto him, if !Mordecai be of the seed of the Jews, before whom thou hast begun to fall, thou shalt not prevail against him, but shalt surely fall before him." The world is not wide enough to contain both the Bible and the Pope. Each claims an un- divided empire. To suppose that the two can live together at Rome, is to suppose an impossibility. The entrance of the one is the expulsion of the other. To Popery a single Bible is more dreadful than an army of ten thousand strong. Let IT enter, and, as Dagon fell before the ark of old, so surely shall tlie mighty Dagon which has sat enthroned so long upon the Seven Hills fall prostrate and be utterly broken. Unseal this blessed page to the nations, and fare- well to the inventions and the frauds, to the authority and the grandeur, of Rome. This is the catastrophe she already apprehends. And therefore, when she meets the Bible in her path, she is startled, and exclaims in terror, " I know thee, whom thou art : art thou come to torment me before the timer UNITY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. 191 CHAPTER IV. UNITY OF THE CHURCH OF ROilE. The Church is not the work of man : It is a special crea- tion of God. Seeing it is wholly supernatural in its origin, we can look nowhere for information respecting its nature, its constitution, and its ends, but to the Bible. The New Testament declares that the Church is a spiritual society, being composed of spiritual, that is, of regenerated men ; associated under a spiritual head, the Lord Jesus Christ ; held together by spiritual bonds, which are faith and love ; governed by spiritual laws, which are contained in the Bible ; enjoying spiritual immunities and privileges, and entertaining spiritual hopes. This is the Church invisible ; so called because its members, as such, cannot be discover- ed by the world. The Church, in this sense, cannot be bounded by any geographical limits, nor by any denomina- tional peculiarities and distinctions. It is spread over the world, and embraces all, in every place and of every name, who believe in the Lord Jesus, and are united to him as their head, and to one another as members of the same body, by the bond of the Spirit and of faith. " By one spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, and have been all made to drink into one spirit." Protestants wil- lingly concede to the Church of Home what, as we shall 192 UNITY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. afterwards show, that Church will not concede to them, — that even within the pale of Popery there may be found members of the Church of Christ, and heirs of salvation. But the Church may be viewed in its external aspect, in which respect it is called the Church visible, which consists of all those throughout the world who profess the true reli- gion, together with their children. These are not two Churches, but the same Church viewed under two different aspects. They are composed, to a great degree, of the same individuals. The Church visible includes all who are members of the Church invisible ; but the converse of this proposition is not true ; for, in addition to all who are genuine Christians, the Church visible contains many who are Christians onlv in name. Its limits, therefore, are more extensive than those of the invisible Church. Such are the views generally held by Protestants on the subject of the Church. From these the opinions held by Papists on this important subject differ very materially. Papists hold that the Church of Rome is emphatically tlie Church;* that she is the Church, to the exclusion of all other communities or Churches bearing the Christian name. They hold that this Church is ONE ; that she is catholic or universal ; that she is INFALLIBLE ; that the Roman pontiff, as the successor of Peter and the vicar of Christ, is her visible head ; and that there is no salvation beyond her pale. The Church, say the Papists, must possess certain great marks or characters. These must not be of such a kind as to be discoverable only by the help of great learning and after laborious search ; they must be of that broad and palpable cast that enables them to be seen at once and by * Perrone uses the term Church sometimes in a restricted sense, to de- note only the clergy who have been vested in infallibility, and sometimes in a more enlarged sense ; but even that larger sense is restricted to those congregations of the faithful whose oversight is managed by lawful pastors under the Roman pontiff. (Perrone's Prselectioncs Theologicoc, torn. i. p. 171.) POPISH DEFINITION OF UNITY. 193 all. The Church must resemble the sun, to use Bellarmine's illustration, whose resplendent beams attest his presence to all. By these marks is the important question to be solved, — " Which is the true Church V Papists hold, and endea- vour to prove, that in the Church of Rome alone are these marks to be found ; and therefore that she, to the exclu- sion of all other societies, is the holy Catholic Church. The first indispensable characteristic of the true Church, possessed by the Church of Rome alone, as Papists hold, is Unity. Bellarmine places the unity of the Church in three things, — the same faith, the same sacraments, and the same head, the Roman pontiff.* This unity is defined by Dens-f- to consist " in having one head, one faith, in being of one mind, in partaking of the same sacraments, and in the com- munion of the saints." With regard to the first, — the unity of the head, — Dens holds that the Church of Rome is signally favoured ; for nowhere but in her do we find one visible head " under Christ," namely, the Roman pontiff, " to whom all bishops, and the whole body of the faithful, are subjected." In him, continues Dens, the Church has a " centre of union," and a source of " authority and discipline, which extends in its exercise throughout the whole Church." " What is the Church ?" it is asked in Dr Reilly's Catechism. It is an- swered, " It is the congregation of the faithful, who profess the true faith, and are obedient to the Pope."J Romanists lay much stress likewise upon the fact, that the same creed, particularly that of Pope Pius IV., drawn up in conformity with the definitions of the Council of Trent, is professed by Roman Catholics in all parts of the world ; that the same articles of faith and morality are taught in all her catechisms; that she has one rule of faith, viz. " Scripture and tradition;" * Bellarm. Opera, torn. ii. lib. iv. cap. x., — De Notis Ecclesioe ; Colon. 1620. + Theologia Mor. et Dog. Petri Dens, torn. ii. p. 120, — De Nota Eccle- sise, qua dicitur una ; Dublin, 1832. J Reilly's Cat. lesson viii. 194 UNITY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. and that she has " the same expositor and interpreter of this rule, — the Catholic Church."'"'* " Nor is it in her doctrine only,"" says Dr Milner, " that the Catholic Church is one and the same : she is also uniform in whatever is essential in her liturgy. In every part of the world she offers up the same unbloody sacrifice of the holy mass, which is her chief act of divine worship; she administers the same seven sacraments.""-|- As regards the communion of saints, we find it defined in Ileilly"'s Catechism to consist in the members of the Church " being partakers of the spiritual blessings and treasures that are to be had in it ;" and these, again, are said to con- sist in " the sacraments, the holy sacrifice of the mass, the prayers of the Church, and the good works of the just."'"'^ Generally, Papists, in deciding this point, discard altogether the graces and fruits of inward Christianity, and found en- tirely on outward organization. Bellarmine asserts that the fathers have ever reckoned communion with the Roman pon- tiff an essential mark of the true Church ; but when he comes to prove this, he leaps at once over the apostles and inspired writers, and the examples of the New Testament, where we find numerous churches unquestionably indepen- dent, and owning no subjection to Rome, and comes to those writers who were the pioneers of the primacy. When one man only in the world is permitted to think, and the rest are compelled to agree with him, unity should be of as easy attainment as it is worthless when attained. Yet despite the despotism of force and the despotism of ignorance, which have been employed in all ages to crush free inquiry and open discussion in the Church of Rome, serious differences and furious disputes have broken out in her. AVhen wq name the Pope, we indicate the whole extent of her unity. Here she is at one, or has usually been so ; on every other point she is disagreed. The theology of Rome has differed materially in different ages ; so that her members have be- * Milner's End of Controv. let. xvi. ; Dublin, 1827. + Idem. X Reill^'s Cat. lesson viii. DOCTRINAL VARIATIONS OF POPERY. 195 lieved one set of opinions in one age, and another sot of opinions in another age. What was sound doctrine in the sixth century, was heresy in the twelfth ; and what was suf- ficient for salvation in the twelfth century, is altogether in- sufficient for it in our day. Transubstantiation was invented in the thirteenth century ; it was followed, at the distance of three centuries, by the sacrifice of the mass ; and that again, in our day, by the immaculate conception of the Virgin. In the twelfth century, the Lombardic* theology, which mingled faith and works in the justification of the sinner, was in re- pute. This had its day, and was succeeded in about a hun- dred years after by the scholastic theology. The schoolmen discarded faith, and gave works alone a place in the im- portant matter of justification. On the ruins of the scholastic divinity flourished the monastic theology. This system ex- tolled papal indulgences, adoration of images, prayers to saints, and works of supererogation ; and on these grounds rested the sinner's justification. The Reformation came, and a modified theology next became fashionable, in which the grosser errors were abandoned to suit the newly risen light. But now all these systems have given place to the theology of the Jesuits, whose system differs in several im- portant points from all that wont before it. On the head of justification the Jesuitical theology teaches that habitual righteousness is an infused grace, but that actual righteous- ness consists in the merit of good works. Here are five theologies which have successively been in vogue in the Church of Rome. Which of these five systems is the or- thodox one I Or are they all orthodox ? But not only do we desiderate unity between the successive ages of the Ro- mish Church ; we desiderate unity among her contemporary doctors and councils. They have differed on questions of ceremonies, on questions of morals, and they have differed * So called from Peter Lombard, who collected the opinions of the fa- thers into one volume. The differences he had hoped to reconcile he but succeeded, from their proximity, in making more apparent. 1D6 UNITY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. not less on the questions of the supremacy and infallibility. Oonti'ariety of opinion has been the rule ; agreement the exception. Council has contended with council ; pope has excommunicated pope ; Dominican has warred with Fran- ciscan ; and the Jesuits have carried on ceaseless and furious battles with the Benedictines and other orders. What, indeed, are these various orders, but ingenious con- trivances to allay heats and divisions which Rome could not heal, and to allow of differences of opinion which she could neither prevent nor remove ? What one infallible bull has upheld as sound doctrine, another infallible bull has branded as heresy. Europe has been edified with the spec- tacle of two rival vicars of Christ playing at football with the spiritual thunder ; and what we find one holy father, Nicholas, commending as an assembly of men filled with the Holy Ghost, namely, the Council of Basil, we find another holy father, Eugenius, depicting as " madmen, barbarians, wild beasts, heretics, miscreants, monsters, and a pandemo- nium."* But there is no end of the illustrations of papal unity. The wars of the Romanists have filled history and shaken the world. The loud and discordant clatter which rose of old around Babel is but a faint type of the intermi- nable din and furious strife which at all times have raged within the modern Babel, — the Church of Rome. Such is the unity which the Romish Church so often and so tauntingly contrasts with what she is pleased to term "Pro- testant disunion." As a corporation, having its head at Rome, and stretching its limbs to the extremities of the earth, she is of gigantic bulk and imposing appearance ; but, closely examined, she is seen to be an assemblage of heterogeneous materials, held together simply by the compression of force. It is a coercive power from without, not an attractive influ- ence from within, that gives her being and form. The ap- pearance of union and compactness which she puts on at a distance is altogether owing to her organization, which is of * Elliott's Delineation of Romanism, p 4G3. CHARACTER OF ROMISH UNITY. ID 7 the most perfect kind, and of the most despotic character, and not to any spiritual and vivifying principle, whoso influ- ence, descending from the head, moves the members, and results in harmony of feeling, unanimity of mind, and unity of action. It is combination, not incorporation ; union, not unity, that characterizes the Church of Home. It is the unity of dead matter, not the unity of a living body, whoso several members, though performing various functions, obey one will and form one whole. It is not the spiritual and living unity promised to the Church of God, wliich preserves the liberty of all, at the same time that it makes all one : it is a unity that degrades the understanding, supersedes rational inquiry, and annihilates private judgment. It leaves no room for conviction, and therefore no room for faith. It is a unity that extorts from all submission to one infallible head, that compels all to a participation in one monstrous and idolatrous rite, and that enchains the intellect of all to a farrago of contradictory, absurd, and blasphemous opinions. This is the unity of Rome. Men must be free agents before it can be shown that they are voluntary agents. In like manner, the members of the Church must have liberty to differ before it can be shown that they really are agreed. But Rome denies her people this liberty, and thus renders it impossible that it can ever be shown that they are united. She resolves all into absolute authority, which in no case may either be questioned or opposed. Dr Milner, after striving hard, in one of his letters,""' to show that all Catholics are agreed as regards the "■ fundamental articles of Christi- anity,"" is forced to conclude with the admission, that they are only so far agreed as that they all implicitly submit to the infallible teaching of the Church. " At all events," says he, " the Catholics, if properly interrogated, will confess their belief in one comprehensive article, namely this, " / heliece whatever the Holy Catholic Church believes and teaches.'''' So, then, this renowned champion of Roman Catholicism, forced * Milner's End of Controversy, lot. xvi. lyS UNITY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. to abandon all other positions as untenable, comes at last to rest the argument in behalf of his Church*'s unity upon this, even the unreasoning and unquestioning submission of the conscience to the teaching of the Church. In point of fact, this " one comprehensive article*" sums up the entire creed of the Papist : the Church inquires for him, thinks for him, reasons for him, and believes for him ; or, as it was expressed by a plain-speaking Hibernian, who, making his last speech and dying confession at the place of execution, and resolved not to expose himself to purgatory for want of not believing enough, declared, " that he was a Roman Catholic, and died in the communion of that Church, and believed as the Catholic Church ever did believe, now doth believe, or ever shall be- lieve.*"''' Put out the eyes of men, and there will be only one opinion about colour ; extinguish the understandings of men, and there will be but one opinion regarding religion. This is what Rome does. With her rod of infallibility she touches the intellect and the conscience, and benumbs them into torpor. There comes thus to reign within her pale a deep stillness, broken at times by ridiculous disputes, furious quarrels, and serious differences, on points termed funda- mental, which remain unsettled from age to age, — the famous question, for instance, touching the seat of infallibility ; and this profound quiescence, so like the repose of the tomb, ac- complished by the waving of her mystic rod, she calls unity .■[- * Free Thoughts on the Toleration of Popery, p. 12. Similar is tlie collier's catechism, or, as it is called in Italy, fides carbonaria, — collier's faith, — from the noted story of a collier, who, when questioned concerning his faith, answered as follows : — Q. What do you believe ? yl. I believe what tlie Church believes. — Q. What does the Church believe ? A. The Ciiurch believes what I believe. — Q. Well, then, what is it that both you and the Church believe ? A . We both believe the very same thing. t That Church which makes unity her boast dare not at this moment convene a General Council. Why ? Because she knows the conflict of opinions and parties would issue in a break up of the popedom. The unity of the Church of Rome is not an organism, but a petrifaction. CATHOLICITY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. 199 CHAPTER V. CATHOLICITY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. Catholicity, apostolicity, and infallibility, are other marks, borne only, as Papists affirm, by the Church of Rome, and attesting her claim to be the true Church. Let us briefly state these marks in their Roman sense ; and still more briefly inquire whether, in truth, they are to be found in that Church. Finding numerous passages in the Psalms and the prophets promising universal and perpetual dominion to the Church, Papists infer that the Church must be catholic or universal, at least since the age of the apostles ; and that any diminu- tion of her numbers, or any contraction of her limits, so as to leave her in a minority, would invalidate her claim to be the true Church. " The Church," says the Catechism of the Council of Trent, " is rightly called Catholic, because, as St Augustine saith, from the east even unto the west it has shed abroad the splendour of one faith. Nor is the Church confined to the commonwealths of men, or the conventicles of heretics; it is not bounded by the limits of a single king- dom, or composed of but one tribe; but it embraces all with the bond of love, whether they be Barbarian or Scythian, bond or free, male or female."* " The term Catholic im- * Catecliismus Romanus, p. 82 j Antverpice, 1596. 200 CATHOLICITY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. plies," says Dens, " that the Church is diffused over the world, or is universal in point of place, nation, and time ;" and he quotes, in proof, the song of the redeemed in the Revelations, that is, according to the current of Protestant interpreters, the song of those who had triumphed over Anti- christ : — " Thou hast redeemed us out of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation." " That this mark belongs to our Church," continues Dens, " appears from the circum- stance that in all places and in every nation Catholics are found, who, although divided in respect of place, are joined under the government of the Roman pontiff. Moreover, there have been, and there will be, Catholics in all ages."* The same writer, following Bellarmine,-f- repudiates the claim of other bodies to rank as members of the Church, on the ground that they are limited to certain districts, — that the time when they took their rise is known, — and that they are diverse in name, taking their appellatives generally from their founders. " We trace our descent from Peter, the prince of the apostles, say the Romanists, and our Church has spread and flourished in the earth ever since the fisherman founded it at Rome : you come from Germany, and were not, till Luther gave you being." There is one question, which, ac- cording to the Rev. Stephen Keenan, will effectually gravel every Protestant. " Ask him," says he, " where the true Church was before the time of Luther and Calvin? "J It is sufficient to ask in return. Where were the wells which Abra- ham had digged, before Isaac cleared out the rubbish with which the Philistine herdsmen had filled them ? Rome, to show that she has existed in all ages since the apostolic era, * Theologia Mor. et Dog. Petri Dens, vol. ii. p. 122. Romanist writers, and Bellarmine among the rest (torn. ii. lib. iv. cap. iv.), sometimes hold the name as proof of the thing. They are called Catholics; therefore they are so. We are likewise entitled to reason, — We are called Refonmd ; tlierefore we are so. " We be Abraham's seed," said the Jews. " Ye are of your father the devil," replied Christ. t Bellarm. Opera, tom. ii. lib. iv. cap. v. vi. X Controversial Catechism, or Protestantism Refuted, chap. iii. WISAPrROrRIATION OF SCRIPTURE. 201 appeals to history. It requires assuredly no little courage to look history in the face, deeply indented as it is with her bloody foot-prints. She delights to recall to her own and to others'" recollection her palmy state in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, when, by the help of fire and sword, she had succeeded in suppressing all public profession of the truth ; and to show that the savage spirit of vengeance which persecuted these men to the death still lives in certain mem- bers of the Roman Church in our day, we find the Rev. Stephen Keenan stigmatizing those confessors whom his Church compelled to inhabit the " dens and caves of the earth," and whom she slew with " the edge of the sword," as " hypocrites, dastardly traitors to their religion, utterly incapable of composing the holy, fearless body of the true Church of Christ."* We deny, in the first place, that the pro^nises appropriat- ed by the Church of Rome refer to her ; we deny, in the second place, that that Church is catholic in point of doc- trine ; we deny, in the third place, that she is catholic in point of time ; and we deny, in the fourth place, that she is catholic in point of place. First, as regards the promises applied to herself by the Church of Rome, we deny that it is anywhere foretold in Scripture that the Church, commencing with the apostolic era, would continue uninterruptedly to progress and triumph. We have several plain intimations to the contrary. We find the apostle Paul predicting the rise of a great apostacy,-f- of which a temporary and comparative catholicity was to form one of the more obvious marks. In the one prophetic book of the New Testament it is expressly said of Antichrist, whose marks Rome, if she examine, will find written upon her forehead, " all the world wondered after the beast."| What the passages in question foretell is, that after ages of conflict and oppression, and especially after the ovcr- * Controversial Catechism, chaji. iii. t Thessalouiaus, ii. 3-10 ; 1 Tim. iv. 1-3. J Rev. xiii. 3, 4, S, 15. 202 CATHOLICITY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. throw of that great system of error which was not only to arrest the progress of the Church, but actually to make her retrograde, she should surmount the opposition of her foes, and become triumphant and ascendant. Then would the prophet"'s words be fulfilled, " The Gentiles shall see thy light, and all kings thy glory." Rome has had her " life- time," in which she has received her " good things," — glory, and dominion, and the worship of " all that dwell upon the earth, whose names are not written in the Book of Life." And whilst she clothed herself " in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day," the poor members of Christ's body lay at her gate, glad of such crumbs of toleration as she was pleased to let fall, and thankful when the dogs of her household licked their sores. It is meet, therefore, that when the one is tormented the other should be comforted. But we deny that these promises refer to the Church of Rome. These promises were given to the Church of Christ; and the question, which is the Church of Christ, is to be de- termined, not by numbers, but by the fact of possessing the spirit of Christ and the doctrine of Christ. This brings us to the second point, that of doctrine^ in which we deny ca- tholicity to the Church of Rome. Though the Roman pon- tiff could show that every knee on earth is bent to him, that would prove nothing. He must show that he preaches the doctrines which Christ preached, and governs the Church by the laws which Christ instituted. Now Rome will not, and dare not, appeal this question to the Bible. Her in- variable policy here is to raise a cloud of dust, by presenting a formidable list of the names and sects of the Protestant world, and in this way to cover her retreat. But, though she could prove that we are wrong, it does not follow that she is right. It is with the Bible alone that she has to do. And when tried by this test, — and we are entitled to do so, seeing Roman Catholics admit that the Bible is the Word of God, — when tried, we say, by this test, the Church of Rome is scriptural neither in her constitution, nor in her KON-CATIIOLICITY OF DOCTRINE. 203 government, nor in her doctrine. Scriptural in her consti- tution she is not. The true Church is founded upon the doctrine of Christ''s divinity, whereas the Church of Rome is founded upon the doctrine of Peter"'s primacy. The pri- macy, as Eellarmine says, is the very germ of Christianity;* a stei-ling truth, if for Chrhtianity we substitute Catholicism. Nor i^L' she scriptural in her government. It is an undeni- able historical fact, that neither in scriptural times nor in primitive times was she governed as she has been governed since the sixth century. Where in all the Bible do we find a warrant for placing the government of the Church in the hands of one man, possessed of both a temporal and a spiritual crown, governing according to a code of laws which virtually ignores the New Testament, and through a splen- didly equipped and richly salaried hierarchy of cardinals, archbishops, and bishops, formed on the model of the em- pire, and exhibiting, at the best, but an impious travesty of the equality and simplicity of the New Testament Church \ There is no mistaking the lordsMp of Rome for the episco- pate of the Scriptures. The one is the exact counterpart of the other. Their stations are at the opposite poles of the ecclesiastical sphere. Nor is the Church of Rome scriptu- ral in doctrine. This is the great test by which she must stand or fall. " They do not possess the inheritance of Peter who do not possess the faith of Peter," says Ambrose. The Church of Rome may wear the same name, occupy the same territory, possess continuity of descent and similarity of organization ; she may have every outward mark of apos- tolicity under heaven ; but if she wants this mark, she wants all. And it is precisely here, in this the most vital point, that she comes most decidedly short. As the various branches of the Romish theology come successively under our view, it will be seen how far the Church of Rome has erred from the faith of the apostles. At present we can only * "Etenim de qua re agitur, cum de primatu pontificis agitur? brevis- sirae dicam, de summa rci Cbristiaua\" (De Romano Pont. Pra^fatio.) 20 i CATHOLICITY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. indicate the main directions in which her apostacy has lain. For the sacrifice of the cross the Church of Rome has sub- stituted the sacrifice of the mass. For the' one Mediator between God and man that Church has substituted innumer- able mediators, — angels and saints. For the gospel method of justification, which is by grace, the Church of Rome has substituted justification by worh. For the agency of the /Spirit In the sanctification of men she has substituted the agency of the Sacrament. These are the four cardinal doc- trines of Christianity, and on each of them the Church of Rome has grievously erred. She has erred as regards that grand fundamental truth on which the scheme of redemp- tion is based, — the one all-meritorious sacrifice of Christ ; she has erred as regards the way by which sinners have ac- cess into the presence of God ; she has erred as regards the ground on which sinful men are made just in the sight of God; and she has erred as regards that divine agent by whom men are made holy, and prepared for the blessedness of heaven. There cannot be a doubt as to the teachings of the New Testament on these four heads ; as little can it be doubted that the Church of Rome on all these points teaches the very opposite. The doctrine and its opposite cannot both be true. If the deliverances of the Bible are truths, the dogmas of the Romish Church must be errors. The Church of Rome, therefore, is unknown to the New Testament. She is the Church of the Pope, — not the Church of Christ. But, in the third place, we deny that the Church of Rome is catholic in point of time. It is indeed a foolish question, " Where was your Church before the time of Luther V What though we should reply, She dwelt amid the eternal snows of the Alps ; she lay hid in the caves of Bohemia ? They were " hypocrites, dastardly traitors to their religion," for doing so, exclaims the Rev. Stephen Keenan. Ah ! had they been hypocrites and dastardly traitors, they needed not have been wretched outcasts ; they might have dwelt in palaces, and ministered in gorgeous cathedrals, like the kings and priests who persecuted them. Do those who put this NOX-CATIIOLICITY IX TIME. 20-5 question know that the " men of old, of whom tho worhl was not worthy," inhabited " dens and caves of the earth ;" and that the early apostolic, not apostate, Church of Rome, to save herself from the fury of the- emperors, actually made her abode in the catacombs beneath the city?* But the question to which we have referred, if it means anything, implies that Luther was the inventor of the doctrines now held by Protestants, and that these doctrines were never heard of in the world till he arose. This, indeed, is ex- pressly taught in Keenan's Catechism : — " For fourteen hundred years," says the writer, " after the last of the apos- tles left this world, Protestant doctrines were unknown amongst mankind."-!- The cardinal truth of Luther's teach- ing was "justification by faith alone." This truth Luther certainly did not invent : it was the very truth which Paul preached to Jew and Gentile. " Therefore we conclude," says Paul, writing to the Church at Rome, " that a man is justified by faith, without the deeds of the law."j This was the truth which was revealed to the patriarchs, and pro- claimed by the prophets. " And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached the gospel before unto Abraham."§ The doctrine of Pro- testants, then, is just Christianity, and Christianity is as old as the world. That Christianity Luther did not invent ; he was simply God"'s instrument to summon it from the grave to which Popery had consigned it. But with what force may it be retorted upon the advocates of Roman Ca- tholicism, "Where was your Church before the middle ages?" Where was transubstantiation before the days of Innocent IIL ? Where was the sacrifice of the mass before the Coun- cil of Trent ? When we go back to tlie twelfth, eighth, and • We would recommend to the Rev. Stephen Keenan the study of " Maitland's Church in the Catacombs," (i. e. provided it is not in tlie In- dex Expurgatorius.) He will find among the brief but instructive inscrip- tions of these early Christians, numerous traces of A2>ostoUcism, but not a single trace of Rommmm. t Contro. Cat. p. 22. J Romans, iii. 31. § Galatians, iii. S. 206 CATHOLICITY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. even the fifth century, we find palpable proofs of Popery ; but when we pass much beyond that limit, we lose all trace of the system ; and when we go as far down as the apos- tolic age, we find that we have passed utterly beyond the sphere of Romanism ;— we find that there is, in fact, a well- defined middle region, to which Romanism is limited, and beyond which, on one side at least, it does not extend. We search in vain the pages of the earliest Christian fathers, and, above all, the pages of inspired men, for the peculiar doctrines of the Roman Church. Where, in these venera- ble documents of early Christianity, — where, in the inspired canon, — do we read of the mass, or of purgatory, or of the worship of the Virgin, or of the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome ? When Paul indited his epistles, and Peter preach- ed to the Gentiles " remission of sins," these doctrines were unknown in the world. They were the growth of a later age. Thus, in digging downwards, we find that we have come at last to the living and eternal rock of Christianity, and have fairly got through the superincumbent mass of rude, ill-compacted, and heterogeneous materials which have been deposited in the course of ages from the dark ocean of superstition. Protestantism is old truth, — Popery is medi- aeval error. If the Church of Rome takes her appeal to antiquity, even Paganism will carry it against her. Its rites were celebrated upon the Seven Hills long before Popery had there fixed its seat. The Roman Church has played off upon the world the same trick which was practised so suc- cessfully by the Gibeonites of old : she has put tattered garments upon her back, and clouted shoes upon her feet, and dry and mouldy bread into her sacks, and laid them upon the backs of her asses, and taken advantage of the obscurity of her origin to say, " We be come from a far country." It is not the number of years, but the weight of arguments, that must carry the point. In fine, we deny that the Church of Rome is Catholic in point 0^ place. Catholicity, in the absolute sense of the NON-CATIIOLICITY OF PLACE. 207 word, as Turrettin remarks,* can be predicated only of that society that inchides the Church triumphant in heaven, as well as militant on earth, — that society that comprehends all the elect, reaching back to the days of Abel, and on- ward to the last trumpet. But the great matter with Rome is to make it appear that she has achieved a terrestrial catholicity. Now certainly it is not Rome's fault if she have not done so. Her efforts to extend her dominion have been of no ordinary kind : they have been skilfully con- triven and vigorously prosecuted. And if in this great work she has made but little use of the Bible, she has made abundant use of the sword. Her missionaries have been soldiers, who have pressed the pike and the musket into the service of Christianity, and spread the faith of Rome as Mahomet spread the religion of the Koran. The weapons she has wielded have been the false miracle, the forged document, the lying legend, the persecutor''s brand. At no time has she been particulai'ly nice as to the charac- ter of her converts, — receiving hordes within her pale who had nothing of Christianity but the name ; and yet, after all, that empire which she calls catholic or universal is very far, in point of fact, from being so. She boasts that at this day she can count upwards of two hundred millions of subjects. We do not stay to inquire how many of these are real Papists. The Pope has of late excommunicated en masse whole cities and provinces. Do these count as chil- dren of the Church ? But the Church of Rome parades the number of her followers, and asks, is it possible that all these millions can be mistaken 1 She forbids her members to make use of their reason in judging of their religion, and then claims weight for their testimony, as if they had used their reason in the matter. This is simply to practise a de- lusion. The very smallest Protestant sect would furnish far more real witnesses in favour of Protestantism than the Roman Catholic Church could do in favour of Roman- * Institutio Theologiaj Elenctica?, Francisco Turrettino, vol. iii. quest, vi. ; Genevaj, 1688. 208 CATHOLICITY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. ism. In a court of justice, the latter would be counted but as one witness. They have not examined the matter for themselves ; they believe it on infallibility ; their evidence, therefore, is simply hearsay, and in a court of law would be held as resolving itself into the evidence of but one man. If he be right, they are right ; but if he be mistaken, they all are necessarily mistaken. But in a Protestant Church every member acts on his own judgment and belief. Such a body, therefore, contains as many independent, intelligent, and real witnesses as it does members. That Church, then, which boasts of Catholicism and numbers is, as far as testi- mony goes, the smallest sect in Christendom. But, giving her the matter her own way, she includes within her pale a decided minority of the human family. The one pagan empire of China alone greatly outnumbers her. The Greek Church, an older Church than that of Rome, never owned her supremacy; nor the other numerous Churches in Asia, nor the great and once famous Church in Africa, nor the Church in the Russian empire. And, considering how many kingdoms have broken off from her since the Reforma- tion, the communion of Rome is now reduced to a very small part of the Christian Church. Around her limited and restricted territory, which includes, it is true, many a fair province in Europe, there extends a broad zone of Mahommedanism and Hinduism, which merges into an- other and a darker zone, which, as it stretches away to- wards the extremities of the earth, deepens into the un- broken night of heathenism. Surveyed from the Seven Hills, the empire of Rome does indeed seem ample, — alas ! too ample for the repose and progress of the world ; but to the eye that can take in the globe, it dwindles into an insignificant speck, lying embosomed in the folds of the pagan night.* But the dominion promised to the Church * It is computed, that of the inhabitants of the globe, little more than cue-third are Christians even nominally. Of the nine hundred and ei^'hty millions of mankind, about six hundred millions are Pagans. If, then, we permit numbers to decide the question, we cannot remain Chris- PROMISED CATHOLICITY. 209 is universal in a sense which cannot be affirmed of any do- minion which Rome ever attained, or is likely ever to attain. It is a dominion from which no land or tribe under the cope of heaven is excluded. " Behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people ; but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory."'''* " He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth. They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him ; and his enemies shall lick the dust. The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents ; the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Yea, all kings shall fall down before him ; all nations shall serve him."-f-| tians. And there is not anywhere in the Pagan world a sect which may not give us an assurance of infallibility, if we wish it, on quite as good grounds as Rome. * Isaiah, Ix. 2, and Ixii. 2. f Psalm Ixxii. 8-11. J " Whereas the Papist boasts himself to be a Roman Catholic, it is a mere contradiction ; as if he should say, universal particular, or Catholic schismatic." (]Milton's Tracts on True Religion.) 210 APOSTOLICITY, OR PETER's PRIMACY. CHAPTER VL APOSTOLICITY, OR PETER'S PRIMACY. Seated on the throne of the Csesars, and drawing the pecu- liar doctrines of their creed, and the peculiar rites of their worship, from the fount of the pagan mythology, the Ro- man pontiffs have nevertheless sought to persuade the world that they are the successors of the apostles, and that they wield their authority and inculcate their doctrines. Apos- tolicity is a peculiar and prominent claim of Rome. Pro- testants lay claim to apostolicity in the sense of holding the doctrines of the apostles ; but the popes of Rome assert an uninterrupted lineal descent from the apostle Peter, and on the ground of this supposed lineal succession they sustain themselves the heirs of the powers and functions of Peter. The doctrine held by the Church of Rome on this head is briefly as follows : — That Christ constituted Peter the prince of the apostles and the head of the Church ; that he raised him to this high dignity when he said to him, " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church."* " Jesus saith unto him, feed my sheep ;""-!- that Christ in these words committed to Peter the care of the whole Church, pastors as well as people ; that Rome was the seat of the bishoprick of Peter ; that the popes succeeded him in • Matth. xvi. 18. + John, xxi. 17. bellarmine's argument. 211 his see, and, in virtue of this succession, inherited all the royalties and jurisdiction, the functions and virtues, with which Peter became invested when Christ addressed him in the words we have quoted ; that this " mystic oil" has flowed down through the "pjolden pipes," — the popes, — to our day ; that it resides in all its fulness in the present oc- cupant of Peter*'s chair ; and that it is thence diffused by innumerable lesser pipes, formed by the bishops and priests, to the remotest extremities of the Roman Catholic world, vivifying and sanctifying all its members, giving authority to all its priests, and validity and efficacy to all their official acts. Bellarmine, as was to be expected, has entered at great length into this question. He lays it down as an axiom, that Christ has adopted for the government of his Church that particular mode which is the best ; and then, having determined, that of the three forms of government, — mo- Qiarchi/, aristocracy/, and democracy/, — monarchy is the most perfect, he concludes that the government of the Church is a monarchy. This inference he bases not simply on general reasonings, but also on particular passages of Scripture, in which the Church is spoken of as a house, a state, a king- dom. It is not enough that the Church has a head and king in heaven, with a code of laws on earth, — the Bible, — to determine all causes and controversies. That king, says Bellarmine, is invisible ; the Church must have an earthly and visible head.* Having thus paved the way for the erection of the papal despotism, Bellarmine proceeds to show, from the passage quoted above, that Peter was con- stituted sole head and monarch of the Church under Christ. " Of that passage," remarks Bellarmine, " the sense is plain and obvious. Under two metaphors the primacy of the whole Church is promised to Peter. The first metaphor is that of a foundation and edifice ; for what a foundation is in a building, that a head is in a body, a ruler in a state, a * Bellarm. de Roman. Pont. lib. i. cap. 1-9. 212 APOSTOLICITY, OR PETER's PRIMACY. king in a kingdom, a father in a family. The latter meta- phor is that of the keys ; for he to whom the keys of a kingdom are delivered is made king and governor of that state, and has power to admit or exclude men at his plea- sure."* We merely state at present the interpretation of this famous passage given by the learned Jesuit : we shall examine it afterwards. The two main reasons assigned by Dens why the Roman Church is termed apostolic are, frst., That " the doctrine delivered by the apostles is the same which she has always held, and will continue to hold ;" and, second, Because that Church " possesses a lawful and uninterrupted succession of bishops, especially in the chair of Peter."-}- " Messiah founded the kingdom of his holy Church in Judea," says Dr Milner, " and chose his apostles to propagate it throughout the earth, over whom he appointed Simon as the centre of union and head pastor, charging him to feed his whole flock, sheep as well as lambs, giving him the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and changing his name into that of Peter or Rock ; adding, ' On this rock I icill build my Church? Thus dignified, St Peter first established his see at Antioch, the head city of Asia ; whence he sent his disciple St Mark to establish and govern the see of Alex- andria, the head city of Africa. He afterwards removed his own see to Rome, the capital of Europe and the world. Here, having with St Paul sealed the gospel with his blood, he transmitted his prerogative to St Linus, from whom it descended in succession to St Cletus and St Clement."^ In Dr Ohalloner''s Grounds of the Catholic Doctrine, as con- tained in the profession of faith published by Pope Pius IV., it is asserted " that the Church of Christ must be apostolical by a succession of her pastors, and a lawful mission derived from the apostles ;" and when it is asked, * Bellarm. de Roman. Pont. cap. x. ct seq. + Theologia Mor. et Dog. Petri Dens, torn. ii. pp. 123, 124. J Milner's End of Controversy, part ii. p. 132. ROME^S CORNER-STONE. 2 I o " How do you prove this f it is answered ; 1st, Because only those who can derive their lineage from the apostles are the heirs of the apostles ! and, consequently, they alone can claim a right to the Scriptures, to the administration of the sacraments, or anj- share in the pastoral ministry : it is their proper inheritance, which they have received from the apostles, and the apostles from Christ.""' " Her [Catholic Church] pastors, says Keenan, are the only pastors on earth who can trace their mission from priest to bishop, and from bishop to pope, back through every century, until they trace that mission to the apostles.""!- This is a vital point with Rome. The primacy of Peter is her corner-stone ; and if that is removed, the whole fabric tumbles into ruin. It is reasonable, then, to ask some proof of that long chain of facts by which she attempts to link the humble fisherman with the more than imperial pontiffs. We are entitled to demand that the Church of Rome produce conclusive and incontrovertible proof of the following points : — That Christ constituted Peter prince of the apostles and head of the whole Church ; that Peter went to Rome, and there esta- blished his see ; that, dying at Rome, he transmitted to his successors in his charge the rights and prerogatives of his sovereignty; and that these have been handed down through an unbroken series of bishops, every one of whom possess- ed and exercised Peter's powers and prerogatives. If the Church of Rome fail in establishing any one of these points, she fails as regards the whole. The loss of one link in this chain is as fatal as the loss of all. But, doubtless, in a matter of such consequence, where not much simply, but all^ is at stake, Rome is ready with her evidences, full, clear, and incontrovertible ; with her proofs from Scripture so plain and palpable in their meaning; and with her docu- ments from history all endorsed and countersigned by co- temporary writers and great collateral facts. It is her cita- * Grounds of Catholic Doctrine, by Challoner, chap. i. sect. V. + Controversial Catechism, p. 22. 214 APOSTOLICITY, OR PETER's PRIMACY. del, — the arx causcc pontificiw^ as Spanlieim terms it,* — for which she is to do battle : doubtless she has taken care to make it impregnable, and "esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood. Darts are counted as stubble ;"" she " laugheth at the shaking of a spear." So one would have thought. But alas for Rome ! Not one of the positions above stated has she proved to be true, and not a fev; of them can be shown to be false. The words of our Lord to Peter, already quoted,f are the anchor by which Rome endeavours to fasten the vessel of her Church to the rock of Christianity : " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church ; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." As it happens that, in the original, the term Peter and the term roch closely resemble each other, the Church of Rome has taken advantage of this, dexterously, and by a kind of sleight of hand, to substitute the one for the other, and thus to read the passage substan- tially as follows : — Thou art Peter ; and upon thee, Peter, will Iluildmy Church. The reader who is just breaking ground * Spanhemii VindicijB BlblicEe, lib. ii. loc. xxviii. ; Frankfort, 1663. t The Douay version of the Bible has this note on ]Matt. xvi. 18 : " The words of Christ to Peter, spoken in the vulgar language of fhe Jews, which our Lord made use of, were the same as if he had said in English, Thou art a roch, and upon this rock I mil build my Church. So that by the plain course of the words, Peter is here declared to be the rock upon which the Church was to be built, Christ himself being b oth tlie principal foundation and founder of the same." This commentar is at direct variance with the original, which runs thus : — lu $7 XIitjio;, xai It/ ra-vrn tTi Tr'tT^ot, otKohoi;t,viffu fiov tjjv ly^xXriiriaii. It also Contradicts the "Vulgate, which is the authorized version of tlie Church of Rome. In the Vulgate, the words are : — " Tu es Petrus, et super banc petram a:>dificabo ecclesiam meam." The German has it thus : — " Du hist Petrus, und auf diesen Felsen will ich bauen meine Gemeine." The Italian thus : — " Tu sei Pietro, e sopra questa pietra io edifichero la mia chiesa." And the French thus : — " Tu es Pierre, et sur ccttc pierre je battirai mon Eglise." Of all these versions, the only one in wliich the resemblance between the two terms " Peter" and " rock" is complete is the French ; and in that version, in order to maintain the play upon the term " pierre," the ord rock is mistranslated by a term that signifies a stone. (See Cookesley's Ser- mons on Popery ; Eton, 1847. ROMISH IIERMANEUTICS. 215 in the popish controversy learns with astonishment that this is the sole foundation of the Papacy, and that if the Church of Rome fail to make good that this is the true meaning of the text, her cause is lost. In no other case has so slender a foundation been made to sustain so ponderous a structure ; nor would it have sustained it for a single five minutes, had it not been more indebted for its support to credulity and superstition, to fraud and compulsion, than to either reason or Scripture. " If the whole system of the Ro- man Catholic Church be contained in this passage," remarks the Rev. J, Blanco White, " it is contained like a diamond in a mountain ;"* and, we may add, this diamond would have remained buried in the mountain till the end of time, had not the Romish alchymists arisen to draw it forth. We look upon such feats of interpretation much as we gaze upon the feats of the juggler. Who but the Roman doctors could have evolved from this plain passage a whole race of popes ? But why did they not go farther, and infer that each of these pontiffs would rival the sons of Anak in stature, and Mathu- selah in longevity ? The passage would have borne this marvel equally well. After proceeding a certain length in interpreting Scripture, it is easy to go all lengths ; for that interpretation that proceeds on no fixed principles, and is regulated by no known laws, may reach any conclusion, and establish the possibility of any wonder. But the Protestant may ask an hundred questions on this point, which it will baffle the ingenuity and sophistry of all the doctors of Rome satisfactorily to answer. Why was so important a fact, so vital a doctrine, — for let it be borne in mind, that they who do not believe in the infallibility of the Pope cannot be saved, — why was so important a fact as the primacy of Peter revealed in so obscure a passage ? Why is there no other passage corroborating its sense, and help- ing out its meaning 1 Why, even with the aid of papal spectacles, or tradition, which discovers so many wonderful * Practical and Internal Evidence against Catholicism, p. 76. 21 G APOSTOLICITY, OR PETER's PRIMACY. tilings In Scripture never seen by the man who examines it simply with the eyes of his understanding, do we fail to make out this sense from the passage ? For the opinion of the fathers on the words of our Lord to Peter is directly opposed to the interpretation which the Church of Rome has put upon them ; and every priest swears at his ordination that he " will not interpret the Scriptures but according to the unanimous consent of the fathers." Peter but a moment before had made his great confession, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.""* And, says Poole, in his exa- mination of the Church's infallibility, " the fathers generally understood this rock to be, not Peter's person, but his con- fession, or Christ as confessed by hira. Vide St Cyril, Hilary, Hierom, Ambrose, Basil, and Austin, who are proved by Moulins, in his discourse entitled ' The Novelty of Popery,' to have held this opinion .""-f Of the same sentiments was Chrysostom, Theodoret, Origen, and others. Here, then, we have the priests of Rome taking a solemn oath at their or- dination that they will not interpret Scripture except with the unanimous consent of the fathers, and yet interpreting this passage in a sense directly contrary to the concurrent opinion of the fathers. What, then, are we to understand by the " rocF'' on which Christ declared that he would build his Church ? Whether are we to understand Peter, who afterwards thrice denied hira, or the great truth which Peter had just confessed, even the eternal deity of Christ ? The fathers, we have seen, in- terpreted " this rock*" of Christ himself, or of the confession of his deity by Peter ;:[ and so will every man, we venture to affirm, who is competent to form an opinion, and has no ob- * Matt. xvi. 16. + A Blow at the Root of the Romish Church, chap. ii. prop. ii. J Tiirrettine, in his treatise "De Necessaria Secessione nostra ab Eccle- sia Romana," and Barrow, in his great work " On the Supremacy of the Pope," have given copious citations from the fathers, showing their per- fect agi-eement on tlie point, that the " rock" referred to the truth Peter had just confessed, or to Christ himself. MATTHEW XVI. IS EXAMINKD. 217 ject to serve but the discovery of truth. Our Lord and his disciples were now on a northward journey to Cesarea Phi- lippi. They were already within its coasts ; the snowy peaks of Lebanon gleamed full in their sight ; and nearer to them, indenting the bottom of " the goodly mountain," were the wooded glens where the Jordan has its rise. Our Lord, knowing the time of his death to be nigh, thought it well, as they journeyed onward, to direct the current of the conver- sation to topics relating to the nature and foundation of that kingdom which was so shortly to be visibly erected in the world. " Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am V* said he to his disciples. To this interrogatory the disciples replied by an enumeration of the various opinions held re- specting him by the people at large. " But," said he, direct- ing his question specially to the disciples, — " But whom say ye that I am V " And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Pleased to find his true character so clearly understood, so firmly believed in, and so frankly avowed, our Lord turned to Peter and said, " Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona ; for flesh and blood hath not revealed IT unto thee." What it? Un- questionably the truth he had just acknowledged, that Jesus is " the Christ, the Son of the living God," — a truth which lay at the foundation of his mission, which lay at the foun- dation of all his teaching, and, by consequence, at the foun- dation of that system of truth, commonly called his kingdom, which he was to erect in the world, and which, therefore, was a fundamental truth, if any truth ever merited to be called such ; for unless it be true that Jesus was " the Christ, the Son of the living God," there is nothing true in Christi- anity, — it is all a fable. We must bear in mind, then, in proceeding to the next clause, that it was on this truth, which both Papist and Protestant must confess to be the very Jirst truth in Christianity, that the minds of our Lord and his disciples were now undividedly fixed. " And I say * Matt. xvi. 13-20. 218 APOSTOLICITY, OR PETEr's PRIMACY. also unto thee," continues our Lord, " that thou art Peter ; and upon this rock will I build my Church." Upon what rock ? Upon Peter, say Romanists, grounding their interpre- tation upon the similarity of sound, " Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petmm.'''' Upon the truth Peter had just confessed, say Protestants, grounding their interpretation upon the higher principles of sense, and the reason of the thing. " Upon this rock," says our Lord, not upon thee, the rock, but upon this rock, namely, the truth you have now enunciated in the words, " the Christ, the Son of the living God," — a truth which has been matter of special revelation to thee, the be- lief in which has made you truly blessed, and a truth which holds a place so fundamental and essential in the gospel kingdom, that it may be well termed " a rock." What is the Church ? Is it not an association of men holding certain truths ? The members of the Church are united, not by their belief in certain men, but by their belief in certain principles. As is the building, so must be the foundation : the building is spiritual, and the foundation must be spiritual also. And where, in the whole system of supernatural truth, is there a doctrine that takes precedence, as a fundamental one, of that which Peter now confessed ? Remove it, and no- thing can supply its place ; the whole of Christianity crumbles into ruin. This truth formed the foundation of our Lord's personal teaching ; it was this truth which he nobly confessed when he stood upon his trial ; this truth formed the sum of the sermons of the apostles and first preachers of Christianity; and this truth it was that constituted the compendious creed of the primitive Church. Thus, in opposition to an inter- pretation which has nothing but an agreement in sound to support it, we can set an interpretation which is strongly supported by the reason of the thing, by the constitution of the Church as revealed in the New Testament, and by the whole subsequent actings and declarations of the apostles and primitive believers. To choose between these two in- terpretations appears to us to involve little difficulty indeed, — at least to the man in quest of the single object of truth. PETERS KEY. 219 To make the meaning, as we have evolved it, still more undoubted, it is added in the following clause, " And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven." This power is manifestly given to Peter. But mark how our Lord points directly to him, — names him, — " I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven." Had he, in the pre- ceding clause, meant to intimate that he would build his Church on Peter, doubtless he would have said so as plainly and with as little circumlocution as now, when giving: him the keys. As regards this last, we shall permit Peter him- self to explain the authority and privilege implied in it. " Brethren," said he, addressing the meeting at Jerusalem,* " ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe." On Peter this great ho- nour was conferred, that he was the first to " open the door"f of the gospel Church to both Jews and Gentiles. The power which Romanists assign to Peter over the apo- cryphal world of purgatory, founding upon this verse, and also his sole right to open or shut the gate of paradise, is a gross and palpable misapprehension of its meaning. Peter himself tells us it was " the door of faith" which he was honoured to open, by the discharge of an office which those who are the most forward to claim kindred with him are the least ready to fulfil, — the preaching of the gospel. It is not the man who sits as sentinel at the fabulous portal of pur- gatory that carries the key of Peter, but the man who, by the faithful preaching of the everlasting gospel, " opens the door of faith" to perishing sinners. He is the real successor of Peter ; he holds his key, and opens and shuts, on a higher authority than Peter's, — even that of Peter's master. Far- ther, we must bear in mind that Christ spoke in the ver- nacular tongue of Judea ; and that not only are the Vul- gate and English versions translations, but the Greek of the evangelist is a translation also ; but it is inspired, and Acts, XV. 7. t Acts, xiv. 27. 220 APOSTOLICITY, OR PETERS PRIMACY. therefore as authoritative as the very words that Christ ut- tered. Now, it is not difficult to show that the most literal and correct rendering of the Greek would run thus : — " Thou art a stone (petros)^ and on this rock (petra) I will build my Church." When Peter was called to be an apostle, his name was changed from Simon to Cephas. Cephas is a Syriac* word, and synonymous with Peter. This is indubi- table, from the account we have of his call : " When Jesus beheld him, He said, thou art Simon the son of Jona : thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, a stone /'f or, as it is in the original, Peter. Both names (x>5pas and ffsrgos) signify a stone, — a stone that may be rolled about, or shifted from place to place, and therefore very proper to be used in building, but altogether unsuitable for being built upon.J But the word used in the second clause of the pas- sage, and translated " rock," is the word that strictly signi- fies a rock, or some mass which, from its immobility, is fitting for a foundation. Two different words, then, are employed, each having its appropriate signification. Now, it may be asked, if one person only, namely, Peter, is meant, why is not the same word employed in both clauses \ Why, in the first clause, employ that word which denotes the material used in building ; and, in the second, that word which de- notes the foundation on which the building is placed \ There is a nice grammatical distinction in the verse which the Pro- testant interpretation preserves, but which the Romanist in- terpretation violates. As Turrettine remarks,§ \X\q iMros of the first clause is masculine ; whereas the petra of the second clause is feminine, and cannot, therefore, denote the person * For some centuries before and after our Saviour's time the vernacular dialect of Judea was a compound of Hebrew, Chaldaic, and Samaritan, with a slight intermixture of Persian, Egyptian, Greek, and Latin words. t John, i. 42. X Such is the rendering given to these terms by Stocklus and Schleusner, who quote, in support of their opinion, instances of this use of the terms by the best Greek writers. § Turrettine, vol. iv. p. 116. THE STONE AND THE ROCK. 221 of Peter. If our Lord did indeed intend that petros^ the stone, should form the roch or foundation of his Church, ho would undoubtedly have repeated the masculine peiros in the second clause. Why obscure the sense and violate the grammar by using the feminine /Jc^ra?* or why not use petra in both clauses, and so call Peter a rock, instead of a stone, if such was his meaning, and so preserve at once the fiffure and the 2;rammar? It is clear that there are two persons and two things in this verse. There is Peter, a stone, and there is " the Christ, the Son of the living God,"" a rock. The words insinuate, delicately yet obviously, a contrast between the two. The Papists have confounded them, and have built upon the stone, instead of the rock. Even were the passage dubious, which we by no means grant, its sense would fall to be determined by the great principles taught in other and plainer passages, about which there is not, and cannot be, any dispute. In the New Tes- tament we find certain great principles on this subject, which the papal interpretation of the verse violates and sets at nought. It is impossible that in the New Testament, which was written to make known the existence and constitution of the Church, its foundation should not be clearly and unraistake- ably indicated. And, in truth, it is so in numerous passages. In his first epistle to the Corinthians we find Paul discours- ing on this very topic, in a way to leave no room for doubt or cavil.-f- He calls himself a master builder, and says, " I have laid the foundation." What was that foundation ? Was it Peter''s primacy, — the true foundation, according to Rome ? Paul himself, in terms which do not admit of being misunderstood, tells us what that foundation is : " Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." The question at issue is. On what foundation is * The clause should have run, to justify the Poi)ish interpretation, cti t 1 Cor. iii. 10,11, 222 APOSTOLICITY, OR PETER's PRIMACY. the Church, that is, Christianity, built ? On Jesus Christ, replies the apostle. If these words do not definitely settle that question, we despair of words being found capable of settling it. " It is here," says Calvin, " abundantly evident on what rock it is that the Church is built." Bellarmine, unable to meet this plain testimony, attempts to turn aside its ^orce by saying, that it is granted that Christ is the pri- mary foundation of the Church, but that Peter is the foun- dation of the Church in the room of Christ, or as Christ's vicar ; and that it is proper to speak of the Church as im- mediately and literally built upon Peter.* Now, no enlight- ened Protestant affirms that Romanists make Peter the sole and primary author of Christianity, or that they utterly ig- nore the person and work of the Saviour : the question, they admit, is regarding vicarship. But to make Peter the foun- dation of the Church in the room of Christ, or as Christ's vicar, is just to make him the foundation of the Church. To devolve upon a second party the immediate and literal government of the realm, would be a virtual dethronement of the real monarch, more especially if the party in question bad no patent of investiture to exhibit. The more enlight- ened heathens willingly allowed the existence and supremacy of an infinite and invisible Being, only they put idols in his room. Romanists have dealt in the same way by the divine foundation of the Church . reserving the empty name to Onrist, they have put him aside, and substituted another. The Bible furnishes not a tittle of evidence that the person of Peter can in any sense, or to any extent, be denominated the foundation. Nay, it explicitly asserts that Christ is that foundation, to the exclusion of all participation on the part of any one. " Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." To the same mp ort is the passage, " And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone."-f- Romanists some- * De Roman. Pont. lib. i. cap. x. + Ephesians, ii. 20. THE " TWELVE FOUNDATIONS. 223 times quote this passage, as if it favoured their theory of Christ being the primary foundation and Peter the imme- diate foundation of the Church. The passage overthrows this view. Romanists must admit that there are but two senses which can bo put upon the words " the foundation of the apostles and prophets ;" they can mean only the persons of the apostles and prophets, or the doctrine of the apostles and prophets ; but either sense is opposed to the Romanist theory. If it be said that by the words " the foundation of the apostles and prophets" is meant their persons, what then becomes of Peter's primacy ? He appears here simply as one of the twelve ; nay, his name is not seen at all ; and no hint is given that one is superior to another. If per- sons ave here meant, then all the twelve are foundations; and, on the doctrine of transmission, each of the twelve ouo-ht to have his representative ; we ought to have not only a Peter, but a James, a John, and a Paul in the world. Nay, we ought to have an Isaiah, a Jeremiah, an Ezekiel, and others also; for with the apostles of the New are joined the prophets of the Old Testament. If it be said that by " the foundation of the apostles and prophets'" we are to understand their doctrines, this is just what we maintain, and is but another way of stating that Christ is the foundation.* * It is well remarked by Spanheini, in his admirable commentary on Matthew, xvi. 18, which contains the germ of almost all that has been written since on this famous passage, that not only are the twelve apostles grouped together when spoken of as foundations, but they are men- tioned singly also, as well as Peter. " Nee tantura omnes simul sumpti, sed et singuU, seque ac Petrus totidem fundamenta. Hinc Bifiixiei iuhxa, re- spondentes roig ^uhxa Atoo-toXoi;" (Apoc. xxi. 14.) " Et ratio plana, quia singuli aeque ac Petrus, nullo discrimiue habito, fundarunt universali missione Christianam ecclesiam quaa domus et civitas Dei." (Spanhemii Vindiciae Biblicoe, lib. ii. loc. xxviii." We are not aware that it has ever been remarked that the apocalyptic symbol here is framed in exact agreement with our interpretation of Jlat- thew, xvi. 18, and in flat contradiction to the papal interpretation. The gospel Church is seen by John in millennial glory, under the sj-mbol of a city. The city has twelve foundations, with the name of an apostle in- scribed on each ; showing that the Church is built on the doctrine wliich 224? APOSTOLICITY, OR PETER\s PRIMACY. It is clear that when Paul wrote this passage he was ig- norant of Peter"'s primacy ; and it is equally undeniable that every other writer in the New Testament was as ignorant of it as Paul. Amazing, that Peter should have been the Church''s foundation, the Church"'s head, and that his super- angelic dignity should have been unknown and unsuspect- ed by his brethren ! Or, if any man affirms the contrary, he must have had his knowledge through inspiration ; for not the slightest allusion to it has come from the apostles themselves. The prophets may be excused for being igno- rant of it. Although Isaiah spoke of a foundation which God was to lay in Zion, — " a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation,"* — there is nothing to lead us to suppose that he had the least idea that Peter was here meant. More marvellous still, Peter himself knew nothing of it ; for we find him applying to another than himself these words just cited. -f* And we find him, too, in his ignorance of his own primacy, misapplying another pas- sage : — " The stone which the builders refused," said the Psalmist, "is become the head stone of the corner.";]: So far was Peter from believing that himself was that stone, that we find him charging their rejection of Christ upon the chief-priest and his council as a fulfilment of the pro- phecy, " Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the all twelve had been employed in preaching. The city had twelve gates, showing that all twelve, and not Peter only, had been honoured to open the " door of faith" to the world. On the papal interpretation the city ought to have had but one foundation and one gate ; or, if there must needs be twelve foundations, the name of Peter ought to have been in- scribed on all of them. It may be objected that this is too figurative. Ro- manists at least are not entitled to bring this objection, seeing their great champion Bellarmine has built his famous argument on the metaphor of a building employed in Mattliew, xvi. 18. * Isaiah, xxviii, 16. + 1 Peter, ii. 6, 7. + Psalm cxviii. 22. UNKNOWN TO THE APOSTLES. 225 corner."* Nay, more, our Lord himself knew not that the passage referred to Peter''s primacy, otherwise he surely never would have claimed the honour to himself, as we find him doing. " Did ye never read in the Scriptures," said he to the representatives of those evil husbandmen who slew the Son, " the stone which the builders rejected, the same has become the head of the corner Vf Thus, He who conferred the dignity, the person on whom that dignity was conferred, and those who were the witnesses of the act, all, on their own showing, were ignorant of the important transaction. The apostles preach sermons and write epistles, and omit all mention of the fundamental article of Christianity. They delivered to the world but a mutilated gospel. They kept back, through ignorance or through perversity, that on which, according to Bellarmine and De Maistre, hangs the whole of Christianity, and the belief in which is essential to salvation on the part of every human being. Paul preached " Christ crucified" when he ought to have preached " Peter exalted." He gloried in the " cross" when he ought to have gloried in the " infallibility." The profession of the Ethio- pian eunuch to Philip ought to have run, not " I believe that Jesus Chtist is the Son of God," but " I believe that Peter is prince of the apostles and Christ's vicar." The writer of the epistle to the Ephesians,]: when he enumerates apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, and omits the pontiff, leaves out the better half of his list, and passes over an office-bearer who had much more to do with the perfecting of the saints and the unity of the Church than all the rest put together. And, in fine, when the survivor of the twelve, the beloved disciple, indited his epistles, exhorting to love and unity, recommending for this purpose an earnest atten- tion to those things which they had heard from the begin- ning, he altogether mistook his object, and ought to have reminded those to whom he wrote that Peter's successor was reigning at Rome, and that the perfection of Christian duty * Acts,iv. 10, 11. + Matthew, xxi. 42. J Ephesians, iv. 11, 12. 226 APOSTOLICITY, OR PETER'S PRIMACY. was implicit obedience to the infallible dictates of the apos- tolic chair. But all the apostles went to their graves and carried this secret along with them. Peter's primacy was not so much as whispered in the world till Rome had bred a I'ace of infallible bishops. Nevertheless, we have so much of the spirit of apostolical succession in us as to prefer being in error with the apostles to being in the right with the popes. To help out the sense of this obscure passage, the Church of Rome has called in the assistance of other passages still more obscure, — obscure, we mean, not in themselves, but un- der the sombre lights of Rome's hermaneutics. Not a little stress has been laid upon the words that follow those on which we have been commenting, — " And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven ; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shalt be bound in heaven ; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." We have already adverted to these words, and have here only to remark, that, even granting the affirma- tion of the Papists, that the keys of the kingdom of heaven were given to Peter, to the exclusion of the other apostles, his tenure of sole authority must have been brief indeed ; for we find our Lord, after his resurrection, associating all the apostles in the exercise of these keys. " Receive ye the Holy Ghost : whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained.*"* Here no primacy is conferred on Peter. He ranks with the other apostles, and receives but his own share of the gift now conferred by his Master on all. If, then, Peter ever had sole possession of the keys, which we deny, he must from this time forward have admitted his brother apostles to a parti- cipation with him in his power, or usurped what did not be- long to him, and was in no degree more his right than it was the right of all. If the former, how could Peter trans- mit to his successors what himself did not possess ? and if the latter, he transmitted a power that was unlawful, be- * John, XX. 22, 23. UNIVERSAL PASTORATE EXAMINED. 227 cause usurped ; and therefore the Popes are still usurpers. " I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not," said our Lord to the same apostle, when predicting that he should fall, but not finally apostatize ; and Papists have built much upon the words, especially as regards the infallibility of the Pope. The words refer us back to a part of Peter's history which one would have thought those seeking to establish a primacy for him would have prudently avoided. They at- test, as a historical fact, Peter's fallibility ; and it does seem strange to found upon them in proof of the infallibility of the popes. If the ordinary laws which regulate the trans- mission of moral qualities operated in this case, and if Peter begot popes in his own likeness, how comes it that from a fallible man proceeded a race of infallible pontiffs ? It is one of Rome's many mysteries, doubtless, which is to be be- lieved, not explained. But to an ordinary understanding such arguments prove nothing but the desperate straits to which those are reduced who make use of them. And what, moreover, are we to think of the Council of Basil, which, by solemn canon, decreed that a pope might be deposed in case of hei'esy, — a most necessary provision, verily, against an evil W'hich, on the principles of the papists, can never happen ! Once more, we are referred in proof of Peter's primacy to these words in John, — " Jesus saith unto him [Peter], feed my sheep.""' " At most, the words do only," as St Cyril saith, " renew the former grant of apostleshijy, after his great offence of denying our Lord."-f- But according to the Ro- man interpretation of these words, Peter was now consti- tuted UNIVERSAL PASTOR of the Church. Now, certainly, as a doctor of the Sorbonnej argues, if these words prove SiX\y- i\nng peculiar to Peter, they prove that he was sole pastor of the Church, and that there ought to be but one Church in the world, St Peter's, and but one preacher, the Pope. "The * John, xxi. 1(), I7. t Barrow's Works, vol. i. p. 586. t Stillingfleet's Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome, by Dr Cunningham, p. 217 ; Edin. 1845. 228 APOSTOLICITY, OR PETER'S PRIMACY. same office," says Barrow, in his incomparable treatise on the supremacy of the Pope, " certainly did belong to all the apos- tles, who (as St Hierom speaketh) were the princes of our dis- cipline and chieftains of the Christian doctrine ; they at their first vocation had a commission and command to go unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel, that were scattered abroad like sheep not having a shepherd ; they, before our Lord's ascension, were enjoined to teach all nations the doctrines and precepts of Christ, to receive them into the fold, to feed them with good instruction, to guide and govern their con- verts with good discipline. Hence all of them (as St Cyprian saith) were shepherds. But the flock did appear one, which was fed by the apostles with unanimous agree- ment. Neither could St Peter's charge be more extensive than was that of the other apostles, for they had a general and unlimited care of the whole Church. They were oecumenical rulers (as St Chrysostom saith), appointed by God, who did not receive several nations or cities, but all of them in common were entrusted with the world.""* The proofs of what is here asserted are not difficult to seek for. The very same charge here given by Christ to Peter, on which the Romanists have reared so stupendous a struc- ture of exclusive and universal jurisdiction, does the Holy Ghost, through the instrumentality of Paul, give to the elders of the Church of Miletus. The apostle bids them " take heed to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made them overseers, to feed the Church of God."-f" Nay, we find Peter himself, the holder, according to the Roman idea, of this universal pastorate, writing to the Asiatic churches thus : — " The elders I exhort, who am also an elder : feed the flock of God.""^ Nor can we mistake the import of the last solemn act of Christ on earth, which was to commit the evangelization of the world — to whom? To Peter ? No ; to all the apostles. " Go ye into all the * Barrow's Works, vol. i. pp. 586, 587. t Acts, xx. 28. t 1 Peter, v, 1, 2. NO TRACE OF TRIMACY. 229 world and preach the gospel to every creature.""'* " And surely," says Poole, " Peter's diocese cannot be more ex- tensive, unless perhaps Utopia be taken in, or that which is in the same part of the world, I mean purgatory "f On the supposition that Peter possessed the primacy, he must have exercised it ; and if so, how comes it that not the slightest trace of such a thing is to be discovered, either in the New Testament or in Ecclesiastical History? The rest of the apostles were entirely ignorant of the fact Even after the words on which we have been commenting were addressed to Peter, we find them raising the question, with no little warmth, " who should be the greatest" in their master's kingdom 1 — a question which Romanists be- lieve had already been conclusively settled by Christ. Ar- dent in temper and fearless in disposition, Peter was on some occasions more prominent than the rest ; but that was a pre-eminence springing from the man, not from the office. His whole intercourse with the other apostles does not fur- nish a single instance of official superiority. When " Judas by transgression fell," Peter did not presume to nominate to the vacant dignity ; and yet, as prince of the apostles, and the fountain of all ecclesiastical dignity, he ought to have done so. We do not find him, as arch-apostle, appoint- ing the ordinary apostles to their spheres of labour, or summoning them to his bar, to give an account of their mission, or reproving, admonishing, and exhorting them, as he might judge they required. In the synod holden at Jerusalem, to allay the dissensions which had sprung up on the subject of circumcision, it was James, and not Peter, that presided.:]: Paul, in the matter of the Gentile converts, withstood Peter "to the face, because he was to be blamed."§ "We find," says Stillingfleet, "the apostles sending St * Mark, xvi, 15. t Blow at the Root of the Romish Church, chap. ii. prop. ii. t Acts, XV. § Gal. xi. 11. 230 APOSTOLICITY, OR PETER'S PRCIACY. Peter to Samaria, which was a very unmannerly action, if they looked on him as head of the Church.*"* Minis- ters do not send their sovereign on embassies. What would be thought should Cardinal Wiseman order Pius IX. on a mission to the United States? Nor, though very conspicuous, was this apostle the most conspicuous mem- ber in the small but illustrious band to which he belonsred ? Peter was overshadowed by the colossal intellect and pro- digious labours of the apostle Paul. The great and indis- putable superiority, in these respects, of this apostle, has been acknowledged by the popes themselves. The following may be cited as a curious sample of that unity which Rome claims as her peculiar attribute : — " He was better than all men," says Chrysostom, " greater than the apostles, and surpassing them all." Pope Gregory I. says of the apostle Paul, — " He was made head of the nations, because he ob- tained the principate of the whole Church.""^ Nor is it less unaccountable, on the supposition that Peter was head of the whole Church, that we fail to discover the remotest trace of this sovereignty in his epistles. Address- ing the members of the Church on a variety of subjects, one would have thought that he must needs have occasion at times to remind them of his jurisdiction, and the duty and allegiance which they in consequence owed. But nothing of this sort occurs. " No critic perusing those epistles," remarks Barrow, " would smell a pope in them."j Peter does not say, — " It is our apostolic will and command," as is now the style of the popes. The highest style he assumes is to speak in the common name of the apostles, — "Be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour."§ A pontifical pen employed on these * Rational Account of the Grounds of the Protestant Religion, p. 456. + See Barrow on the Supremacy, Barrow's Works, vol. i. p. 592. t Barrow's Works, vol. i. p. 6G8. § 2 Peter, iii. 2. THE PRIMACY AN IMPOSTURE. Sol letters could not but have left traces of itself. The Epistles of Peter emit the sweet perfume of apostolic humility, — not the rank effluvia of papal arrogance. Thus the primacy of Peter is without the least founda- tion, either in Scripture, in ecclesiastical history, or in the reason of the thing; and unless we are good enough to accept the word of the pontiff, given ex cathedra^ in the room of all other evidence, this pretence of primacy must be given up as a gross delusion and imposture.* The argu- ment ends hero of right ; for all other reasons, urged from such considerations as that Peter was Bishop of Rome, are plainly irrelevant, seeing it matters not to the authority of the popes in what city or quarter of the world Peter exer- cised his office, unless it can be shown that he w^as primate of the apostles and head of the Church. But granting that that difficulty is got over. Papists are instantly met by other difficulties equally great. It is essential to the Roman scheme to establish as a fact, that Peter was Bishop of Rome. This no Romanist has yet been able to do. Now, in the first place, we are not prepared to deny that Peter ever visited Rome, any more than Papists are able to prove * As Roiiianists now ascribe to Mary the work of redemption, so they have begun to put the primacy of Peter in the room of the mission of Christ, by speaking of it as the grand proof of God's love to the world. In a "pastoral" issued upon the festival of St Peter, by '^ Paul, by the grace of God and favour of the apostolic see. Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland;' given in the Tablet of June 28, 1851, we find the writer conmienting on the words, tliou art Peter, ^c, and speaking of " the virtues and glory of him to irhom they were addressed. The visible image of the Divine paternity which encircles heaven and earth in its embrace, nowhere does the provi- dence of God shine forth with so much splendour, whilst impressing into the hearts of the faithful the most ineffable confidence and consolation, as in the guardianship of his Church, entrusted to Peter and his successors." And then follows the blasphemous application of Ephesians, iii. IS, to Peter's primacy, "and particularly, that in the most glorious and touching manifestation of his paternal love towards us in the guardianship of this Church, ' you may be able to comprehend with all the saints, what is its ' breadth and length, and height and depth; " 232 APOSTOLICITY, OR PETER'S PRIMACY. that he did. In the second place, the improbability of Peter having been Bishop of Rome is so exceedingly great, amounting as near as may be to an impossibility, that we would be warranted in denying it. And, in the third place, we do most certainly deny that Peter was the founder of the Church of Rome. With regard to the averment that Peter was Bishop of Rome, it is as near as may be a demonstrable impossibility. To have been Bishop of Rome would have been in plain op- position to the great end of his apostleship. As an apostle, Peter had the world for his diocese, and was bound, by the duty which he owed to Christianity at large, to hold himself in readiness to go wherever the Spirit might send him. To fetter himself in an inferior sphere, so that he could not fulfil his great mission, — to sink the apostle in the bishop, — to oversee the diocese of Rome and overlook the world, — would have been sinful ; and we may conclude that Peter was not chargeable with that sin. Baronius himself confesseth that Peter's office did not permit him to stay in one place, but required him to travel throughout the whole world, con- verting the unbelieving and confirming the faithful.* To have acted as the Romanists allege, would have been to de- sert his sphere and neglect his work; and it would scarce have been held a valid excuse for being " unfaithful in that which was much," that he was " faithful in that which was least." And if it would have been inconsistent on our prin- ciples, it would have been still more inconsistent on Roman- ist principles. On their principles, Peter was not only an apostle, — he was primate of the apostles ; and, as Barrow observes, " it would have been a degradation of himself, and a disparagement to the apostolic majesty, for him to take upon him the bishoprick of Rome, as if the king should be- come mayor of London."-f* On other grounds it is not difficult to demonstrate the extreme improbability of Peter having been Bishop of Rome. * Baron, anno 58, sec. li. t Barrow's Works, vol. i. p. 699. WAS PETER AT ROME? 233 Peter had the Jews throughout the world committed to him as his especial charge.* He was the apostle of the cir- cumcision, as Paul w\T,s of the Gentiles. This people being much scattered, their oversight was very incompatible with a fixed episcopate. His regard to the grand division of apostolic labour, to which we have just alluded,-}- would have restrained him from intruding into the bounds of a brother apostle, unless to minister to the Jews ; and at this time there were few of that people at Rome, a decree of the Emperor Claudius having, a little before, banished them from the metropolis of the Roman world ; and, as Barrow remarks, " He was too skilful a fisherman to cast his net there, where there were no fish.""! If Peter ever did visit Rome, of which there exists not the slightest evidence, his residence in that metropolis must have been short indeed, — by far too short to admit of his acting as bishop of the place.§ Paul passed several years at Rome : he wrote several of his epistles (the epistle to the Galatians, that to the Ephesians, that to the Philippians, * Galatians, ii. 7, 8. t There was a formal arrangement among the apostles touching this matter. Peter, along with James and John, gave his hand to Paul, and struck a bargain with him that he (Paul) " should go unto the heathen, and they (James, Cephas, and John) unto the circumcision." If, then, Peter became Bishop of Rome, he violated this solemn paction. (See Gal. ii. 9.) t Barrow's Works, vol. i. p. 599. § The Romanists aflSrm that Peter was Bishop of Rome during the twenty-five years that preceded his martyrdom. His residence in the capital began, according to them, in a.d. 43. He was martyred in a.d. 68. But on Paul's first visit to Jerusalem, in a.d. 51, he found Peter there, when, according to the Romanist theory, he should have been at Rome. It appears also, from the 1st and 2d chapters of Galatians, that from Paul's conversion till bis second visit to Jerusalem, that is, seventeen years, Peter had been ministering to the Jews ; and, as shown in the text, he was not at Rome at the time of Paul's imprisonment and martyrdom. If he was indeed Bishop of Rome, he must have been sadly guilty of non- residence, — a practice strictly forbidden by the decrees of the primitive Cliurch. 234 APOSTOLICITY, OR PETER's PRIMACY. that to the Colossians, and the second to Timothy) from that city ; and though these abound with warm greetings and re- membrances, tiie name of Peter does not once occur in them. In the epistle which he wrote to the Church at Rome, he sends sahitations to twenty-five individuals, and to several whole households besides ; but he sends no salutation to Peter, their bishop ! It is plain, that when these epistles were written, Peter was not at Rome. " Particularly St Peter was not there," argues Barrov/, in his matchless trea- tise, " when St Paul, mentioning Tychicus, Onesimus, Aris- tarchus, Marcus, and Justus, addeth, ' these alone my fellow-workers unto the kingdom of God, who have been a comfort unto me.' He was not there when St Paul said, 'at my first defence no man stood with me, but all men for- sook me.' He was not there immediately before St Paul's death (when the time of his departure was at hand), when he telleth Timothy that all the brethren did salute him, and, naming divers of them, he omitteth Peter."* Nor have the Romanists been able to establish in Peter's behalf that he was the founder of the Church at Rome. It is no uncertain inference, that the apostle Paul, if not the first to carry Christianity within the imperial walls, was the first to organize a regular Church at Rome. When the epistle to the Romans was written, there was a small company of believers in that metropolis, partly Jews and partly Gentiles ; but they had never been visited by any apostle. Of this we find a proof in the opening lines of his epistle, where he says, " I long to see you, that I may im- part unto you some spiritual gift."-|- To an apostle only belonged the power of imparting such gifts; and we may * Barrow's Woilig, vol. i. p. 600. We have eight instances of Pa'il's communicating with Rome, — two letters to, and six/;-o»i, that city, — during the alleged episcojiate of Peter there ; and yet not the slightest allusion to Peter occurs in any one of these letters. This is wholly inexplicable on the sujiposition that Peter was at Rome. + Romans, i. 11. APOSTLESniP NOT TRANS.AIISSIDLE. 235 conclude that, had the Christians at Rome been already visited by Peter, these gifts would not have been still to bestow. That they had as yet been visited by no apostle is indubitable, from what Paul assigns as the cause of his great desire to visit them, namely, " that I might have some fruit among you also, as among other Gentiles.""' Now, it was PauFs wont never to gather where he had not first planted ; for, resuming, in the end of his epistle, the subject of his long-cherished visit to Rome, he says, " Yea, so have I strived to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another man"'s foundation."-}- By the hand of Paul then, and not of Peter, was planted the Roman Church, — " a noble vine," whose natural robustness and vigour of stock was abundantly attested by the renown of its early faith, | as well as by the magnitude of its later corruptions. But though we should concede the question of Peter's Roman bishoprick, as we formerly conceded the point of his primacy, .the Romanist is not a whit nearer his object. He is immediately met by the question, Were the arch-aposto- lical sovereignties and jurisdiction of Peter of a kind such as he could bequeath to his successor, and did he actually so bequeath them I This is a point which can be determined only by' a consideration of the nature of these powers, and of what is related in the New Testament respecting the in- stitution of offices for the future government of the Church. In the first place, Romanists found the gift of primacy to Peter upon certain acts done by Peter, and upon certain qualities possessed by Peter; but it is abundantly clear that these acts and qualities Peter could not communicate to his successors ; therefore he could not communicate the dignity which was founded upon them. His office was strictly personal, and therefore expired with the person who had been clothed with it. In the second place, the * Rom. i. 13, + Ibid. xv. 20. t Rom. i. 8, " Your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world." 236 APOSTOLICITY, OR PETER's PRIMACY. apostlesliip was designed for a temporary purpose : it was therefore temporary in its nature, and ceased whenever that purpose had been served. In the next place, no one could assume the apostlesliip unless invested with it directly by Christ. The first twelve were literally called by Christ. The appointment of Matthias was by an express intimation of the Divine will, through the instrumentality of the lot ; and that of Paul, perhaps the most powerful intellect which has ever been enlisted in the service of Christianity, by the miraculous and glorious appearance of Christ to him as he travelled to Damascus. Hence it is, that on this proof the apostle so often rests the validity of his great office, — " Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ."* In the last place, it was essential on the part of all who bore the apostleship, that they had seen the Lord. This renders it impossible that this office could have validly existed longer than for a certain number of years after the death of Christ. The popes have at no time been very careful to keep their pretensions within the bounds of credi- bility ; but we are not aware that any of them have ever gone so far as to assert that they had received investiture directly from Christ, or that literally they had seen the Lord. It may also be urged with great force against Papists, as Barrow does,f that "if some privileges of St Peter were derived to popes, why were not all ? Why was not Pope Alexander VI. as holy as St Peter 1 Why was not Pope Honorius as sound in his private judgment 1 Why is not every pope inspired I Why is not every papal epistle to be reputed canonical I Why are not all popes endowed with power of doing miracles ? Why did not the Pope, by a ser- mon, convert thousands? [Why, indeed, do popes never preach ?|] Why doth he not cure men by his shadow ? [He * Galatians, i. 1. f Barrow's Works, vol. i. p. 596, t Amongst the other concessions to the spirit of the age which marked the early part of the pontificate of Pius IX., was that of preaching, which PETER APPOINTED NO SUCCESSOR. 237 is, say they, himself his shadow.] What ground is there of distinguishing the privileges, so that he shall have some, not others ? Where is the ground to be found V The practice of the apostles was in strict accordance with what we have now proved respecting the nature and end of the apostleship. They made no attempt to perpetuate an of- fice which they knew to be temporary. They never thought of conveying to their contemporaries, or transmitting to their successors, prerogatives and powers which were re- stricted to their own persons, and which they knew would expire with themselves. They planted churches throughout the greater part of the then civilized world, and they or- dained pastors in every place; but throughout the vast field which they covered with Christianity and planted with pas- tors and teachers, we do not find a single new apostleship created. One by one did these Fathers of the Christian Church descend into the tomb ; but the survivors took no steps to supply their place with men of equal rank and powers. It is not alleged that even Peter invested any with the apostleship ; and yet no sooner does he breathe his last, than, lo ! there springs from his ashes, as Romanists assure us, a whole race of popes. Most marvellous is it that the dead body of Peter should possess more virtue than the living man.-f- In fine, though we should concede this point, as we have conceded all that went before it, the difficulties of the Ro- lie did once in St Peter's. "We know not what loss literature may have sustained, but theology has sustained a great loss, doubtless, ft'om the want of short-hand writers at Rome ; for the sermon, like the preacher, was, we may presume, infallible. t The chair of Peter has a festival in its honour. We have all heard of the statement of Lady Morgan, that the chair is inscribed with the creed of the Mussulman, — " There is one God, and Mahomet is his pro- phet." It is also related, that when, in 1662, the chair was cleaned, the twelve labours of Hercules appeared carved upon it. A Romanist divine, however, unwilling that the unlucky characters should militate against the authenticity of the chair, interpreted them as emblematical of the ex- ploits of the popes. 238 APOSTOLICITY, OR PETER's PRDIACY manists are by no means at an end. Granting that Peter did possess this dignity, — granting that ho made Rome its seat, — and granting, too, that he could and did transmit it to his successor when he died, — Romanists have still to show that this dignity has descended pure and entire to the pre- sent occupant of the pontifical throne. It is not enough that the mystic waters existed on the Seven Hills eighteen centu- ries ago; we must be able to trace the continuity of the chan- nel which has conveyed them over the intervening period to our day. Pius IX. is the two hundred and fifty-seventh name on the pontifical list; and, in order to prove that in him re- sides the plenitude of pontifical power, the Romanist must showthat everyone of his predecessors was duly elected, — that none of them fell into heresy, or into simony, or into any other error which the Roman councils have declared to be inconsist- ent with being valid successors of Peter, or, indeed, members of the Church at all. But is there a man living who has the least acquaintance with history, who will undertake this, or who, on the question of genuineness, would stand surety for the one-half of those who have sat in the chair of Peter ? Is it not notorious that that chair has been gained, in in- stances not a few, by fraud, by bribery, by violence, — that the election of a pope has often led to the deluging of Rome with blood, — that men who have been monsters of iniquity have called themselves the vicars of Him who was without sin, — that there have been violent schisms, numerous vacan- cies, and sometimes two, or even three, pretenders to the popedom, each of whom has endeavoured to establish his pretensions by excommunicating his rival, — thus affording a fine specimen of Catholic unity, as they have also done of Catholic infallibility, when, as in cases not a few, one pope has flatly contradicted another pope, and that in circumstances where it was quite possible that both popes might be wrong, but altogether impossible that both could be right? It is notorious also, that in many instances popes have fallen into what the Church of Rome accounts heresy, and have ceased, in consequence, not only to be BREAKS IN THE APOSTOLIC CHAIN. 239 genuine popes, but even members of the Church. What be- came of the apostoHc dignity in these cases I How was it preserved, and how transmitted ? Sometimes we find the chair of Peter vacant, at other times it is filled with a here- tical pope,* at other times it is claimed by two or more popes, each of whom is as like or as unlike Peter as his rival. So far is the line of succession from being continuous, that we find it broken, at short intervals, by wide gaps, through which, if there be any truth in Romanist principles, the mystic virtues must have lapsed, leaving the Church in a most deplorable state, her popes without pontifical autho- rity, her priests without true consecration, and her sacra- ments without regenerating efficacy. The great geographi- cal problems which have been undertaken in our day, iii which mighty rivers have been traced up to their source, through tangled forests, and low swampy flats on which the miasma settles thick and deadly, and through the burning sands of the trackless desert, have been of easy achieve- ment, compared with that of the man who would trace up to its source that mystic but powerful influence which is held to pervade the Church of Rome. And even when some bold spirit does adventure upon the onerous task, and pushes resolutely on through the moral wastes, the tangled controversies, and the perplexed and devious paths of the Papacy, and through the dense clouds of superstition and vice that overhang the pontifical annals, what is his disap- pointment to find that, instead of being conducted at last to the pellucid waters of the apostolic fount, he is landed on the mephitic shores of some black and stagnant pool, — some Acheron of the middle asres ! Thus have we examined, severally, the assumptions of Rome on this fundamental point. Some of them are utter- ly false, the rest are in the highest degree improbable, and not one of them has Rome been able to establish. This * Pope Liberius avowed Arianism, aud Pope Honorius was a Mono- thelite. 2 iO APOSTOLICITY, OR PETER's PRIMACY. forms her foundation ; and what is it but a quicksand ? Though we should agree to concede the point to Rome on condition that she made good but one of these propositions, she would fail ; and yet it is essentially necessary to the success of her cause that she should establish every one of them. If but one link be awanting in this chain, its loss forms an impassable gulf, which eternally divides Popery from Christianity, and the Church of Rome from the Church of Christ. PROGRESSION A UNIVERSAL LAW. 241 CHAPTER VII. INFALLIBILITY. ThK crowning attribute claimed by the Church of Rome is infallibility. This forms a wide and essential distinction between that Church and all other societies. It is her crowning blasphemy, as Protestants hold ; her peerless ex- cellence, as Romanists maintain. These are the locks in which the great strength of this modern Sampson lies, and to which are owing, in no small degree, the prodigious feats that Rome has performed in enslaving the nations. If these locks are shorn, she becomes weak as others. Progression, and consequently change, which excludes the idea of infalli- bility, is an essential condition in the existence of all created beings. It is the law of the material universe : it is not less that of the rational creation. Man, whether as an in- dividual or as formed into society, is ever advancing. In science he drops the crude, the vague, and the false, and rises to the certain and the true. In government he is gradually approximating what is best adapted to the con- stitution of society, the nature of the human mind, and the law of God. In religion he is dropping the symbolical, and rising to the spiritual ; he is gradually enlarging, correcting, and perfecting his views. Thus he advanced from the Pa- triarchal to the Mosaic, — from the IMosaic to the Christian ; and to this condition of his being the Bible is adapted. The 242 INFALLIBILITY. Bible, like no other book in the world, remains eternally immutable, notwithstanding it is as completely adapted to each successive condition of the Church and of society as if it had been written for that age, and no other. Why so? Because that book is stored with great principles and comprehensive laws, adapted to every case that can arise, and capable of being applied to all the conditions and ages of the world. The Church, so far from having got beyond the Bible, is not yet abreast of it. Rome, on the other hand, is an iron circle, within which the human mind may revolve for ever without progressing a hairbreadth. That Church is the only society that never progresses. She never abandons a narrow view of truth for one more enlarged ; she never corrects what is wrong or drops what is untrue ; be- cause she is infallible. Had she been able to render society as fixed as herself, it might have been safe to adopt, as her policy, immobility. But society is in motion ; she can nei- ther go along with the current nor arrest it, and therefore must founder at her moorings. Thus, in the righteous pro- vidence of God, that which was the source of her power will be the cause of her destruction. We are fully warranted in affirming that the Church of Home has claimed infallibility. If not directly and formally asserted, it is manifestly implied, in the decrees of general councils, in the bulls of popes, and in canons and articles of an authoritative character. The Catechism of the Coun- cil of Trent, after the assumptions we have already discussed, lays it down as a corollary, that " the Church cannot err in faith or morals.*"* Infallibility is universally and formally claimed in behalf of their Church, by all Romanists ; it is taught in all their Catechisms, and in all their text-books and systems of theology ;-|- and forms so prominent a point in all their defences of their system, that it is quite fair to assert that Papists hold and teach that their Church is in- * Cat. Rom. p. 83. + See Dens' Theol. torn. ii. p. 126, — De Infallibilitate Ecclesiae. CLAIM OP INFALLIBILITY. 243 fallible. Romanists do not bold tbat all persons and pastors in their Church are infallible, but only tbat the " Church" is infallible. To this extent Romanists are agreed on the question of infallibility, but no farther. The seat or locality of that infallibility remains to this hour undecided. The Jesuits and the Italian bishops hold that this infallibility resides in the Pope, as the head of the Church, and the organ through which she makes known her mind ; the French bishops place it in general councils ; while a third party exists which holds that neither popes nor councils separately are infallible, but that both conjointly are so. The Roman Catholics of England used anciently to side with the Italians on this question, but latterly they have gone over to the opinions of the French.* Those who place infallibility in the Pope do not maintain that he is infallible either in his personal conduct or in his private opinions, but only when ex cathedra he pronounces on points of faith and decides controversies. Then he speaks infallibly, and every Roman Catholic is bound, at his peril, to receive and obey the decision. The compendious creed of the Romanist, ac- cording to Challoner, is as follows : — " I believe in all things, according as the Holy Catholic Church believes \''-\' and he " promises and swears true obedience to the Roman bishop, the successor of St Peter, the prince of the apostles, and vicar of Jesus Christ ; and professes and undoubtedly re- ceives all things delivered, defined, and declared, by the sacred canons and general councils, and particularly by the holy Council of Trent ; and condemns, rejects, and anathe- matizes all things contrary thereto, and all heresies whatso- ever condemned and anathematized by the Church.";): " ' A general council, rightly congregated,' says Alphonsus de Castro, ' cannot err in the faith." ' Councils,' says Eccius and Tapperus, ' represent the Catholic Church, which can- not err, and therefore they cannot err.' Costerus says, * Rrornings among the Jesuits at Rome, p. 96. + Garden of the Soul, p. 35. J Pope Pius IV.'s Creed. 214 INFALLIBILITY. ' The decrees of general councils have as much weight as the holy gospel.' ' Councils,'' says Canus, ' approved and confirmed by the Pope cannot err.' Bellarmine seconds him. Tannerus alleges, that ' councils, being the highest ecclesiastical judicatories, cannot err.' And Stapelton says, ' The decrees of councils are the oracles of the Holy Ghost.' " * That Rome receives from her members the entire submission which she claims on the ground of her infallibility, appears from the following description, given by Mr Blanco White, of his state of mind while a member of that Church : — " I grounded my Christian faith upon the infallibility of the Church. No Roman Catholic pretends to a better founda- tion I believed the infallibility of the Church, because the Scripture said she was infallible ; while I had no better proof that the Scripture said so than the assertion of the Church that she could not mistake the Scripture .""j* The texts of Scripture on which Romanists rest the in- fallibility are mainly those we have already examined in treating of the supremacy. To these they add the follow- ing : — " Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."j " I am with you always, unto the end of the world."§ " He that heareth you heareth me ; and he that despiseth you despiseth me."|| " The Comforter, the Holy Ghost, shall abide with you for ever."1[ But these passages fall a long way short of the infallibility. Fairly interpreted, they amount only to a pro- mise that the Church, maugre the opposition of hell, shall be preserved till the end of time, — that the substance of the truth shall always be found in her, — and that the assistance of the Spirit shall be enjoyed by her members in investigat- ing truth, and by her pastors in publishing it, and in exer- cising that authority with which Christ has invested them. ■* Poole's Blow at the Root of the Romish Church, chap. iv. prop. iv. •f Practical and Internal Evidence, pp. 9, 10. :|: Matt. xvi. 18. II Luko, x. 16. § Matt, xxviii. 20. T John, xiv. 16. INFALLIBILITY VERSUS REVELATION. 24-5 But Romanists hold that it is not in the words, but in the sense of these passages that the proof lies ; and that of that sense the Church is the infallible interpreter. They hold that the Scripture is so obscure, that we can know nothing of what it teaches on any point whatever, but by the inter- pretation of the Church. It was the saying of one of their distinguished men, Mr Stapelton, " that even the Divinity of Christ and of God did depend upon the Pope."^' This is a demand that we should lay aside the Bible, as a book utterly useless as a revelation of the Divine will, and that we should accept the Church as an infallible guide.-f* It is a proposition which, in fact, puts the Church in the room of God. It is but reasonable that we should demand proof clear and conclusive of so momentous a proposition. Romanists, in their attempts to prove infallibility, commonly begin by alleging the necessity of an infallible authority in matters of faith. This Protestants readily grant. They, not less than Papists, appeal every matter of faith to an in- fallible tribunal. But herein they differ, that while the in- fallible tribunal of the Protestant is God speaking in the Bible, the infallible tribunal of the Papist is the voice of the Church. Now, even a Papist can scarce refuse to admit that the Protestant ground on this question is the more certain and safe. Both parties — Protestants and Papists — acknow- ledge the inspiration and infallibility of the Scriptures ; while one party only, namely, the Papist, acknowledges the infal- libility of the Church. But the Romanist is accustomed to urge, that Scripture is practically useless as an infallible guide, from its liability to a variety of interpretations on the part of a variety of persons ; and he hence infers the neces- sity of a living, speaking judge, at any moment, to determine infallibly all doubts and controversies. The Bible, accord- * Poole's Blow at the Boot of the Romish Church, chap. ii. prop. ii. t Richard du Mans asserted in the Council of Trent, " that the Scrip- ture was become useless, since the Schoolmen had established the truth of all doctrines." 246 INFALLIBILITY. ing to the Romanist, is the written law,— the Church is the interpreter or judge ;* and the example of England and other countries is appealed to as an analogous case, where the written laws are administered by living judges. The analogy rather bears against the Eomanist ; for while in England the law is above the judge, and the judge is bound to decide only according to the law's award, in the Church of Rome the judge is above the law, and the law can speak only ac- cording to the pleasure of the judge. But the argument by which it is sought to establish this living and speaking infal- lible tribunal is a singularly illogical one. From the great variety of interpretations to which the Scriptures are liable, such a living tribunal, say the Romanists, is necessary ; and because it is necessary, therefore it is. Was there ever a more glaring non sequitur ? If Romanists wish to establish the infallibility of the Church of Rome by fair reasoning, there is only one way in which they can proceed : they must begin the argument on ground common to both par- ties. What is that ground ? It is not the infallibility, be- cause Protestants deny that. It is the holy Scriptures, the inspiration and infallibility of which both parties admit. The Romanist cannot refuse an appeal to the Bible, because he admits it to be the Word of God. He is bound by clear and direct proofs drawn from thence to prove the infallibi- lity of his Church, before he can ask a Protestant to receive it. But the texts advanced from the Bible, taken in their obvious and literal import, do not prove the infallibility of the Church ; and the Romanist, who is unable to deny this, maintains, nevertheless, that they do amount to proofs of the Church's infallibility, because the Church, who cannot possibly mistake the sense of Scripture, has said so. The thing to be proved is the CJmrclis infalliUlity ; and this the Romanist proves by passages from Scripture which in them- selves do not prove it, but become proofs by a latent sense contained in them, which latent sense depends upon the in- • Milner's End of Controversy, part i. p. 116. POPISH CIRCLE. 247 fallibility of the Church, which is the very thing to be proved. This famous argument has not inaptly been termed the " Labyrinth, or Popish Oircle.""* " Papists commonly al- lege," says Dr Cunningham, " that it is only from the testi- mony of the Church that we can certainly know what is the Word of God, and what is its meaning ; and thus they are inextricably involved in the sophism of reasoning in a circle ; that is, they profess to prove the infallibility of the Church by the authority of Scripture ; while, at the same time, they establish the authority of Scripture, and ascertain its mean- ing, by the testimony of the Church, which cannot err."-}- "We do not deny that God might have appointed an in- fallible guide, and that, had he done so, it would have been our duty to submit implicitly to him ; but it is reasonable to infer, that in that case very explicit intimation would have been given of the fact. In giving such intimation, God would have acted but in accordance with his usual method. His own existence he has certified to us by great and durable proofs, — creation without us, and conscience within. He has attested the Bible as a supernatural revelation by many infallible marks stamped upon it. Analogy, then, warrants the conclusion that, had the Church of Rome been appointed the infallible guide of mankind, at least one very distinct in- timation would have been given of the fact. But where do we find the slightest proof, or even hint, of such a thing ? Not in the Bible certainly. We may search it through and through without learning that there is any other infallible guide on earth but itself. If we believe the infallibility at all, it must be either because it is self-evident, or because it rests on proof. If it were self-evident, it would be vain to think of bringing proof to make it more evident, just as it would be vain to think of bringing evidence to prove that things that are equal to the same thing are equal to one another, or that * See Episcopius's Labyrinthus, sive Circulus Pontificius. + Stillingfleet's Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome, with Notes by Dr Cunnhigham, p. 20S. 218 INFALLIBILITY. the whole is greater than its part. But in that case there would be as little difference of opinion among rational men about the infallibility, as about the axioms we have just stated. But we find great diversity of sentiment indeed about the infallibility. Not one in ten professes to believe it. It is not, then, a self-evident truth ; and seeing it is not self-evident, we must demand proof. It is usual with the Church of Rome to send us first to the Scriptures. We search the Scriptures from beginning to end, but can discover no proof of the infallibility ; and when we come back to com- plain of our bad success, we are told that it was impossible we could fare otherwise ; that we have been using our reason, than which we cannot possibly commit a greater crime, rea- son being wholly useless in discovering the true sense of Scripture ; and that the sense of Scripture can be discovered only by infallibility. Thus the Romanist is back again into his circle. We are to believe the infallibility because the Scriptures bid us, and we are to believe the Scriptures be- cause the infallibility bids us; and out of this circle the Romanist can by no means conjure himself. An attempt at escape from an eternal rotation round the two foci of Scripture and infallibility the Romanist does make, by what looks like an appeal to reason. Of various possible ways, it is asserted, God always chooses the best ; and as the best way of leading men to heaven is to appoint an infallible guide, therefore an infallible guide has been appointed. This is but another form of the argument of necessity, to which we have already adverted. But this can- not answer the purpose of the Roman Catholic Church. The Greek Church might employ this argument to prove its infallibility ; or the professors of the Mahommedan faith might employ it. They might say, it is inconsistent with the goodness of God that there should not be an infallible guide; it is plain that there is no other than ourselves ; therefore we are that infallible guide. But a better way still would have been to make every man and woman infallible ; and we humbly submit that, according to the argument of the Ro- INFALLIBILITY VERSUS REASON. 2-i9 manist, this is the plan that God ought to have adopted. The theory of the Roman Catholic Church proceeds on the idea that there is but one man in the world possessed of his sound senses. Accordingly, he has charged himself with the safe keeping of all the rest ; and for this benevolent end he has established a large asylum called Catholicism. The design of this establishment is not to restore the inmates to reason, but to keep them away from their reason. Here men are taught that never are they so wise as when most completely bereft of their faculties ; nor do they ever act so rationally as when least aided by their senses. But by this line of argument the Roman Catholic Church undeniably falls into the deadly sin of requiring men to use their private judgment. Granting that the best way of leading men to heaven is to provide them with a living infallible guide ; what have they to discover that guide but their reason ? But if we may trust our reason when it tells us that an infallible guide is necessary, why may we not trust it when it tells us that the Bible is silent as to the Church' of Rome being that infallible guide? Why is rea- son so useful in the one case, — why so useless in the other 1 Can our belief in anything be stronger than our belief in the reason that assures us of its truth ? Can we possibly repose greater confidence in the findings of our reason than in our reason itself ? But our reason is useless ; therefore its find- ing that an infallible guide is necessary, and that that guide is the Roman Catholic Church, is also useless. If it is answered, that the Scriptures, rightly interpreted by the Church, bid us believe this guide, this, we grant, is renoun- cing the inconsistency of grounding the matter on private judgment ; but it is a return to the circle within which the infallibility rests upon the Scriptures and the Scriptures upon the infallibility. If the Protestant cannot use his rea- son within that circle, it is plain the Romanist cannot use his out of it. He never ventures far from it, therefore, and on the first appearance of danger flies back to it. The ar- gument would be greatly more brief, and its logic would be 250 INFALLIBILITY. equally good, were it to run thus : " The Church of Rome is infallible because she is infallible ;"''' and much unnecessary wrangling would be saved, were the Romanist, before com- mencing the controversy, to tell his opponent, that unless he conceded the point, he could not dispute with him.* Moreover, the boasted advantage of this infallible method of determining all doubts and controversies is a gross illu- sion. When the person closes the Bible, and sets out in quest of this infallible tribunal, he knows not where to seek it. To this day Romanists have not determined where that infallibility is lodged ; and whether the person goes to the canon law, or to the writings of the fathers, or to the de- crees of councils, or to the bulls of the popes, he is met by the very same difficulties, but on a far larger scale, which Romanists urge, though on no good ground, against the Bible as a rule of faith. These all have been, and still are, liable to far greater diversity of interpretation than the holy Scriptures; and if the objection be valid in the one case, much more is it so in the other. That the fathers are not only not infallible, but are not even exempt from the faults of obscurity and inconsistency, is manifest from the voluminous commentaries which have been written to make their meaning clear, as well as from the fact, that the fathers directly contradict one another, and the same father some- times contradicts himself. We do not find one of them claiming infallibility, and not a few of them disclaim it. If they are right in disclaiming it, then they are not infallible ; and if they are wrong, neither are they infallible, seeing they err in this, and may err equally in other matters. " The sense of all these holy men" [the fathers], says Melchior Canus, " is the sense of God's Spirit." " That which the fathers unanimously deliver," says Gregory de Valentia, " about religion, is infallibly true".*f" So say the monks; but * See " The Case stated between the Church of Rome and the Church of England," pp. 30-40 ; London, 1713. See also "A Discourse against tlio Infill libility of the Roman Church," by William Chillingworth. + Poole's Blow at the Root of the Romish Church, chai5. iii. prop. iii. VARIATIONS RESPECTING INFALLIBILITY. 251 the fathers themselves give a very different account of tlie matter, " A Cliristian is bound,*" says Bellarmine, " to re- ceive the Church's doctrine without examination." But Basil flatly contradicts him. " The hearers,"" says he, " that are instructed in the Scriptures must examine the doctrine of their teachers ; they must receive the things that are agree- able to Scripture, and reject those things that are contrary to it." " Do not believe me saying these things," says Cyril, " unless I prove them out of the Scriptures."* If, then, we appeal to the fathers themselves, — and those who believe them to be infallible cannot certainly refuse this appeal, — ■ the infallibility of tradition must be given up. But not a few Romanists, when hard pressed, give up the infallibility of the fathers,-)- and take refuge in that of gene- ral councils. But whence comes the infallibility of these councils? The men in their individual capacity are not infallible : how come they to be so in their collective capa- city ? We do not deny that God might have preserved the councils of his Church from error ; but the question is not what God might have done, but what He has done. Has He signified his intention to infallibly guide the councils of the Church I If so, in two ways only can this intention have been made known, — through the Bible, or through tradition. Not through the Bible, for it contains no promise of infalli- bility to councils ; and Papists produce nothing from Scrip- ture on this head beyond the texts on which they attempt to base the primacy, which we have already disposed of. Nor does tradition reveal the infallibility of general coun- cils. No father has asserted that such a tradition has de- scended to him from the apostles ; and not only did the fathers reject the notion of their own infallibility, but they also rejected the infallibility of councils, and demanded, as * For the concurrence of the fathers of the first three centiiries in the Protestant method of resolving faith, see Stillingfleet's Rational Account, part i. chap. ix. + See Seymour's debates with the Roman Jesuits, in his Mornings among the Jesuits. 252 INFALLIBILITY. Protestants do, submission to the holy Scriptures. "I ought not to adduce the Council of Nice,"' says St Augus- tine, "nor ought you to adduce the Council of Ariminum; for I am not bound by the authority of the one, nor are you bound by the authority of the other. Let the question be determined by the authority of the Scriptures, which are witnesses peculiar to neither of us, but common to both." Thus this father rejects the authority of fathers, councils, and churches, and appeals to the Scriptures alone.* Unless, then, we are good enough to believe that councils are infalli- ble simply because they say they are so, we' must give up this infallibility of councils as a chimera and a delusion. It not unfrequently happens that councils contradict one an- other. How perplexing, in such a case, for the believer in their inftillibility to say which to follow ! Nor is this his only difficulty. It has not yet been decided what councils are, and what are not, infallible. It is only in behalf of general councils that infallibility is claimed ; but the list of general councils varies in different countries. On the south of the Alps some councils are received as general and infallible, whose claim to rank as such is denied in France. " When the Popish priests," asks Dr Cunningham, " of this country swear to maintain all things defined by the oecumenical councils, whether do they mean to follow the French or the Italian list Vf There are some E-omanists who place this wonderful pre- rogative in the Pope and councils acting in conjunction. Bellarmine, an unexceptionable authority, though on the subject of the infallibility he delivers himself with some little inconsistency, says, "All Catholics constantly teach that general councils confirmed by the Pope cannot err ;"" and again, " Catholics agree that the Pope, with a general council, cannot err in establishing articles of faith, or gene- ral precepts of manners."| " Doth the decree," asks Stil- * See Aug. De Unitate, c. xvi. t Stillingflcct's Doctrines and Practices, &c., by Dr Cunuingliani, p. 201. t Cell, de Couc, lib. ii. cap, ii. SEAT OF INFALLIBILITY WIIERE! 253 lingflcet, when confuting this notion, " receive any infalli- bility from the council or not ? If it doth, then the decree is infallible, whether the Pope confirm it or no. If it doth not, then the infallibility is wholly in the Pope."* The de- cree, when presented to the Pope for his confirmation, is either true, or it is not. If it is true, can the pontifical con- firmation make it more true ? and if it is not true, can the Pope's confirmation give it truth and infallibility ? When infallibility is lodged in one party, it is not difficult to con- ceive how decrees issued by that party become infallible ; but when, like Mahommed's coffin, this infallibility is sus- pended betwixt two parties, — when, equally attracted by the gravitating forces of the Pope above and of the council be- low, it hangs in mid air, — it is more difficult to conceive in what way the decree becomes charged with infallibility. At what point in the ascent from the council to the Pope is it that the decree becomes infallible ? Is it in the middle pas- sage that this mysterious property infuses itself into it ? or is it only when it reaches the chair of Peter ? In that case the infallibility does not rest in a sort of equipoise between the two, according to the theory we are examining, but at- taches exclusively to the pontiff. This is the only part of the theory of infallibility, viz., that it resides in the Pope, which remains to be examined. This fleeting phantom, which we have pursued from fathers to councils and from councils to popes, we shall surely be able to fix in the chair of Peter. No, even here this phantom eludes our grasp. It is a shadow which the Romanist is des- tined ever to pursue, but never to overtake. That there is such a thing he never for a moment doubts, though no mortal has ever seen its form or discovered its dwelling-place. The majority of Romanists agree that it haunts the Seven Hills, and is never far distant from the pontifical tiara. But, though it is impossible to fix the seat of this infalli- bility, it is not difficult to fix the period when it first came * Stillingfleet's Rational Account, part. iii. chap. i. 254 INFALLIBILITY. into existence. Infallibility was never heard of in the world till a full thousand years after Christ and his apostles. It was first devised by the pontiffs, for the purpose of support- ing their universal supremacy and enormous usurpations. For about three hundred years after it was first claimed, it was tacitly acknowledged by all. But the unbounded am- bition, the profligate lives, and the scandalous schisms and divisions of the pontiffs, came at last to shake the faith of the adherents of the Papacy in the pretensions of its head, and gave occasion to some councils, — as those of Basle and Constance, — to strip the popes of their infallibility, and claim it in their own behalf. Hence the origin of the war waged between councils and pontiffs on the subject of the infallibility, in which, as we have said, the Jesuits and the bishops south of the Alps take part with the successor of Peter. The Gallican Church generally has taken the side of councils in this controversy. Three or four councils have ascribed infallibility to the Pope, especially the last Lateran and Trent. At the last of these, the legates were charged not to allow the council to come to any decision on the point of infallibility, the Pope declaring that he would rather shed his blood than part with his rights, which had been established on the doctrines of the Church and the blood of martyrs. Now, in the Pope the infallibility is less dif- fused, and therefore, one should think, more accessible, than when lodged in councils ; and yet Papists are as far as ever from being able to avail themselves practically of this infal- libility for the settlement of their doubts and controversies. Before we can make use of the Pope''s infallibility, there is a preliminary point. Is he truly the successor of Peter and Bishop of Home l for it is only in so far as he is so that he is infallible. This, again, depends upon his being truly in orders, truly a bishop, truly a priest, truly baptized. And the validity of his orders depends, again, upon the intention of the person who administered the sacraments to him, and made him a priest or a bishop. For, according to the coun- cils of Florence and Trent, the right intention of the admi- POPES INFALLIBLE L\ CATHEDRA. 255 nistrator is absolutely necessary to the validity of these sacraments,* So it is quite possible for some evil-minded priest, — some Jew, perhaps, in priesfs orders, of which there have been instances not a few in the Church of Rome, — to place a mere Sham in Peter's chair, — to place at the head of the Roman Catholic world, not a genuine pope, but, as Carlyle would say, a Simulacrum, Not only is the Catho- lic world exposed to this terrible calamity, but, before the Romanist can avail himself of the infallibility, he must make sure that such a calamity has not actually befallen it in the person then occupying Peter's chair. He must assure himself of the right intention of the priest who ad- mitted the Pope to orders, before he can be certain that he is a true Pope. But on such a matter absolute certainty is impossible, and moral assurance is the utmost that is at- tainable. But, granting that this difficulty is got over, there are twenty behind, Romanists do not hold that the Pope is infallible at all times and under all circumstances. He is not infallible in his moral conduct, as history abun- dantly testifies. Nor is he infallible in his private opinions, for there have been popes who have fallen into the worst heresies. In the theses of the Jesuits, in the college of Clermont, it was maintained, " that Christ hath so commit- ted the government of his Church to the popes, that he hath conferred on them the same infallibility which he had him- self, as often as they speak ex cathedra. ''''■f " The Pope," says Bellarmine, " when he instructs the whole Church in things concerning the faith, cannot possibly err ; and, whether he be a heretic himself or not, he can by no means define anything heretical to be believed by the whole Church ;" j a doctrine which has given occasion to some to remark, that it is no wonder that they can work miracles at Rome, when they can make apostacy and infallibility dwell * See Stillingfleet's Rational Account, part. iii. chap, iii. f Quoted in Free Thoughts on Toleration of Popery, p, 200. J Bell, de Rom. Pont., lib. iii. c. ii. 256 INFALLIBILITY. together in the same person. We have the autliority of the renowned Ligouri, that the Pope is altogether infallible in controversies of faith and morals. " The common opinion," says he, " to which we subscribe, is, that when the Pope speaks as the universal doctor, defining matters ex cathedra^ that is, by the supreme power given to Peter of teaching the Church, then, we say, he is WHOLLY infallible.""* Mr Seymour a few years ago was told by the Professor of Canon Law in the Collegio Romano at Rome, in a con- versation he had with the Professor on the subject of Pope Liberius, who, the Professor admitted, had avowed the heresy of the Arians, that had he " proceeded to decide anything ex cathedra^ the decision would then have been in- fallible."-!- " A good tree bringeth forth good fruit," said our Saviour ; but it appears that the soil of the Seven Hills possesses this marvellous property, that a bad tree will bring forth good fruit; and there men may gather grapes of thorns. So, then, the case as respects the Pope"'s infallibility stands thus : — When he speaks ex cathedra^ he speaks infallibly : when he speaks non ex cathedra, he speaks fallibly. This is the nearest approach any one can make to the seat of the oracle, and yet he is a long way short of it. For now arises the important question, How are we to ascertain an infal- lible bull from a fallible one, — a pope pronouncing ex cathe- dra from a pope pronouncing non ex cathedra ? The process, certainly, is neither of the shortest nor the easiest, and we shall state it at length, that all may see how much is gained by forsaking the volume of the holy Scriptures for the volume of the papal bulls. The method of ascertaining an infallible from a fallible bull we give on the authority to which we have just referred, that of the Professor of Canon Law in the Collegio Romano at Rome, — a gentleman whose important position gives him the best opportunities of * Ligouri, torn i.p. 110. t Mornings among the Jesuits at Rome, p. 162. THE SEVEN TESTS. 257 knowing, and who is not likely to represent the matter un- fairly for Rome, or to make the process more difficult and intricate than it really is. Well, then, according to the statements of the Professor, who is one of the most learned and accomplished men at Rome, there are seven recjuisites or essentials by which a bull is to be tested before it is re- cognised as ex cathedra or infallible.* " I. It was necessary, in the first place, that before com- posing and issuing the bull, the Pope should have opened a communication with the bishops of the universal Church," in order to obtain the prayers of the bishops and of the universal Church, " that the Holy Spirit might fully and infallibly guide him, so as to make his decision the decision of inspiration. " II. It w'as necessary, in the second place, that before issuing the bull containing the decision, the Pope should carefully seek all possible and desirable information touch- ing the special matter which was under consideration, and which was to be the subject of his decision, from those persons who were residing in the district affected by the decision called in question. " III. That the bull should not only be formal, but should be authoritative, and should claim to be authoritative : that it should be issued not merely as the opinion or judgment of the Pope in his mere personal capacity, but as the deci- sive and authoritative judgment of one who was the head of that Church which was the mother and mistress of all Churches. " IV. That the bull should be promulgated universally ; that is, that the bull should be addressed to all the bishops of the universal Church, in order that through them its dc- * It is interesting to observe, that the method of procedure indicated in these rules appears to have been followed by the present pontiff, in pre- paring for his contemplated decision on the subject of the " immaculate conception of the Virgin JIary." S 258 INFALLIBILITY. cisions might be delivered and made known to all the mem- bers or subjects of the whole Church. " V. That the bull should be universally received ; that is, should be accepted by all the bishops of the whole Church, and accepted by them as an authoritative and in- fallible decision. " VI. The matter or question upon which the decision was to be made, and which was therefore to be the subject- matter of the bull, must be one touching faith or morals, that is, it must concern the purity of faith or the morality of actions. " VII. That the Pope should be free, — perfectly free from all exterior influence, — so as to be under no exterior com- pulsion or constraint."* By all these tests must every bull issued by the popes be tried, before it can be accepted or rejected as infallible. Assuredly the Protestant has no reason to grudge the Pa- pist his " short and easy method" of attaining certainty in his faith. If the Romanist, in determining the infallibility of the papal bulls, shall get through his work at a quicker rate than one in every twenty years, he will assuredly display no ordinary diligence. Most men, we suspect, will account the solution of a single bull quite work enough for a life- time, while not a few will prefer taking the whole matter on trust, to entering on an investigation which they may not live to finish, and which, granting they do live to finish it, is so little likely to conduct to a satisfactory result. Let us suppose that a pope''s bull, containing a deliverance ne- cessary to be believed in order to salvation, is put into the hands of a plain English peasant : it is written in a dead language ; and he must acquire that language to make sure that he knows its real sense, or he must trust the transla- tion of another, — the very objection on which Papists dwell so much in reference to the Bible. He must next endea- * Mornings among the Jesuits at Rome, pp. 165-169. DIFFICULTIES OF THE INFALLIBILITY. 2oi) vour to ascertain that the Pope has sought and obtained the prayers of the universal Church for the infallible guid- ance of the Holy Spirit in the matter. This he may pos- sibly do, though not without a good deal of trouble. Ho has next to assure himself that the Pope has been at pains to obtain all possible and desirable information in regard to the subject of the bull, and more especially from persons living in the district to which that bull has reference. Now, unless he is pleased to take his information at second hand, he has no possible means of attaining certainty on this point, unless by leaving his occupation, and perhaps also his country, and making personal inquiries on the spot as to the Pope's diligence and discrimination in collecting evi- dence. Having satisfied himself as to this, he has next to assure himself that the bull has been universally accepted, that is, that all the bishops of the whole Church have re- ceived it as an authoritative and infallible decision. This opens up a wider sphere of inquiry even than the former. On nothing is it more difficult to obtain certain information, for on nothing are the bishops of the Roman Church so divided, as on the infallibility of particular bulls. It is a fortunate decision indeed which carries along with it the unanimous assent of the Romish clergy. A bull may be held to be orthodox in Britain, but accounted heretical in France ; or it may be accepted as most infallible in France, but repudiated in Spain ; or it may be revered as the dic- tate of inspiration by the Spanish bishops, but held as counterfeit by those of Italy. Not a few bulls are in this predicament. Thus the person finds that this infallibility, instead of being a catholic, is a very provincial affair ; that by crossing a particular arm of the sea, or traversing a cer- tain chain of mountains, he leaves the sphere of the infal- lible, and enters into that of the fallible ; that as he changes his place on the eartVs surface, so does the pontifical de- cree change its character ; and that what is binding upon him as the dictate of inspiration on the south of the Alps, he is at liberty to disregard as the effusion of folly, of igno- 2G0 INFALLIBILITY. ranee, or of heresy, on the north of these mountains. What is the man to do in such a case 1 If he side with the Frencii bishops, he finds that the Italians are against him ; and if he takes part with the Italians, he finds that he has arrayed himself against the Iberian and Gallican clergy. Truly it may be said, on the subject of the in/allihilit^, that " he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." But granting the possibility of the man seeing his way through all these conflicting opinions, to something like a satisfactory conclusion : he finds he has come so far only to encounter fresh and apparently insuperable difficulties. He has, last of all, to satisfy himself in reference to the state of the pontifical mind when the decree was given. Did the Pope''s judgment move in obedience to an influence from above, which guided it into the path of truth and infalli- bility ? or was it drawn aside into that of error by some ex- terior and earthly influence, — a desire, for instance, to serve some political end, a wish to conciliate some temporal po- tentate, or a fear that, should he decide in a certain way, he might cause a rent in the Church, and thus shake that infallible chair from which he was about to issue his decree? How any man can determine with certainty respecting the purity of the motives and influences which guided the pon- tifical mind in coming to a certain decision, without a very considerable share of that infallibility of which he is in quest, we are utterly at a loss to conceive. And thus, though the Romish doctrine of infallibility may do well enough for infallible men who can do without it, it is not of the least use to those who really need its aid. We have imagined the case of a man engaged on a single bull, and attempting to solve the question of infallibility with an exclusive reference to it. But the foundation of a Papist's faith is not any one bull, but the Bullarium. This must necessarily form an important item in every estimate of the difficulties attending the question of infallibility. The Bullarium is a work in scholastic Latin, amounting to be- tween twenty and thirty folio volumes. To every one of THE BULLARIUM. £G1 its many hundred bulls must these seven tests be applied. Now, if, as we have seen, it is so difficult, or indeed so im- possible, to apply these tests to the bulls of the day, the idea of applying them to the bulls of a thousand years ago is immeasurably absurd. Would any man in his five senses take up the bulls of Pope Hildebrand, or of Pope Innocent, and proceed to test, by these seven requisites, whether they are or are not infallible ? No man ever did so, — no man ever thought of doing so ; and we may affirm with the utmost confidence, that while the world stands, no man who is not utterly bereft of understanding and sense will ever under- take so chimerical and hopeless a task. The twelve labours of Hercules were as nothing compared with these seven labours of the infallibility. And then we have to think what a monument of folly and inconsistency, as well as of arro- gance and blasphemy, is the Bullarium. Not only is it in a dead language, and has never been translated into any living tongue, and therefore is utterly unfit to form the guide of any living Church, but it is wanting even in agree- ment with itself. We find that one bull contradicts an- other, or rescinds that other, or expressly condemns it. We find that these bulls are the source of endless disputes, and the subject of varied and conflicting interpretations, on the part of the Romish doctors. What a contrast does the simplicity, the harmony, and the conciseness of the Bible form to the twenty or thirty volumes of the Bullarium, — the Bible of the Papist, but which few if any living Papists have ever read, and the authority and infallibility of which no living Papist certainly has ever verified according to tho rules of his Church ! And yet we are asked to renounce the one, and to submit ourselves to the guidance of the other, — to abandon the straight and even path of holy Scripture, and to commit ourselves to the endless mazes and the inex- tricable labyrinths of the Bullarium. A modest request, doubtless, but one which it will be time enough to consider when Papists agree among themselves as to where this in- fallibility is placed, and how it may be turned to any practi- 262 INFALLIBILITY. cal end. Till then we shall hold ourselves fully warranted to follow the dictates of that book which Christ has com- manded us to " search," which " is able to make wise unto salvation," and which Papists themselves acknowledge to be the Word of God, and therefore infallible. We have examined at great length the two questions of the primacy and the infallibility, because they are funda- mental ones in the Romish system. They are the Jachin and Boaz of the Papacy. If these two principal pillars are overthrown, not a single stone of the ill-assorted, hetero- geneous, and grotesque fabric which Rome has built upon them can stand. We have seen how little foundation the primacy and infallibility have in Scripture, in history, or in reason. Romanism stands unrivalled alike for the impu- dence and the baselessness of its pretensions. To nothing can we compare it, unless to the famous system of Indian cosmogony. The sage of Hindustan places the earth upon the back of the elephant, and the elephant upon the back of the crocodile ; but when you ask him on what is the croco- dile placed ? you find that his philosophy can conduct him no farther. There is a yawning gulph in his system, like that which opens right beneath the feet of the sorely bur- dened and somewhat insufficiently supported crocodile. The great props of the Papacy, like those fabled animals which support the globe, lack foundation. The Romanist places the Church upon the Pope, and the Pope upon the infallibi- lity ; but when you ask him on what does the infallibility rest ? alas ! his system provides no footing for it ; and if you attempt to go farther down, you are landed in a gulph across whose gloom there has never darted any ray of light, and whose profound depths no plummet has ever yet sounded. Over this gulph floats the Papacy. KO SALTATION OUT OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. 200 CHAPTER VIII. NO SALVATION OUT OF THE CHURCH OP ROME. On all other Christian societies the Church of Rome pro- nounces a sentence of spiritual outlawry. She alone is the Church, and beyond her pale there is no salvation. She recognises but one pastor and but one fold ; and those who are not the sheep of the Pope of Rome, cannot be the sheep of Christ, and are held as being certainly cut off from all the blessings of grace now, and from all the hopes of eternal life hereafter. In the hands of Peter's successor are lodged the keys of heaven ; and no one can enter but those whom he is pleased to admit ; and he admits none but good Catholics, who believe that a consecrated wafer is God, and that he himself is God's vicegerent, and infallible. All others are heathens and heretics, accursed of God, and most certainly accursed of Rome. This compendious anathema, it is true, gives Protestants no concern. They know that it is as im- potent as it is malignant; and it can excite within them no- thinff but o-ratitude to that Providence which has made the power of this Church as circumscribed as her cruelty is vast and her vengeance unappeasable. God has not put in sub- jection to Rome either this world or the world to come ; and the Pope and his Cardinals have just us much power to con- sign all outside their Church to eternal flames, as to forbid the sun to shine or the rain to fall on all who dare reject the infallibility. 264 NO SALVATION OUT OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. But while it is a matter of supreme indifference to Pro- testants how many or how dreadful the curses which the pontiff may fulminate from his seat of presumed infallibility, it is a very serious matter for Home herself. It is a truly fearful and affecting manifestation of Rome's own character. It exhibits her as animated by a malignity that is truly measureless and quenchless, and actually gloating over the imaginary spectacle of the eternal destruction of the whole human race, those few excepted who have belonged to her communion. Not a few Papists appear to be conscious of the odium to which their Church is justly obnoxious, on ac- count of this wholesale intolerance and uncharitableness ; and accordingly they have denied the doctrine which we now impute to their Church. The charge, however, is easily sub- stantiated. The tenet that there is no salvation out of the Church of Rome is of so frequent occurrence in the bulls of their popes, in their standard works, in their catechisms, and is so openly avowed by foreign Papists, who have not the same reason to conceal or deny this tenet which British Papists have, that no doubt can exist about the matter. Their own memorable argument, whereby they attempt to prove that the Romish method of salvation is the safer one, conclusively establishes the fact that they hold the doctrine of exclusive salvation, and that we do not. That argument is, in short, as follows : — That whereas we admit that men may be saved in the Church of Rome, and whereas they hold that men cannot be saved out of that Church, therefore it is safer to be in communion with that Church. Here the Ro- manist makes the doctrine of exclusive salvation the basis of his argument. Equally explicit is the creed of Pope Pius IV. That creed embraces the leading dogmas of Romanism ; and the follow- ing declaration, which is taken by every Popish priest at his ordination, is appended to it : — " I do at this present freely profess and sincerely hold this true Catholic faith, loitliout which no one can he saved ; and I promise most constantly to retain and confess the same entire and unviolated, with ANNUAL EXCOMMUNICATION OF PROTESTANTS. 265 Crod's assistance, to the end of my life." To the same pur- port is the decree of Pope Boniface VIII. : — " We declare, assert, define, and pronounce, that it is necessary to salva- tion for every human being to be subject to the Pope of Home." Nor is there any mistaking the condition of those to whom the bull in Ccena Domini has reference. This is one of the most solemn excommunications of the Romish Church, denounced every year on Maunday Thursday against heretics, and all who are disobedient to the Holy See. In that bull is the following clause, which has been inserted since the Reformation : — " We excommunicate and anathe- matize, in the name of God Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and by the authority of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own, all Hussites, Wickliffites, Lutherans, Zuinglians, Calvinists, Huguenots, Anabaptists, Trinitarians, and apostates from the faith, and all other heretics, by whatsoever name they are called, and of what- soever sect they be." If the words of the bull are not suffi- cient to indicate, with the requisite plainness, the fearful doom that awaits all Protestants, the action that follows certainly does so : a lighted candle is instantly cast on the ground and extinguished, and the spectators are thus taught by symbol, that eternal darkness is the portion which awaits the various heretical sects specified in the bull. The cere- mony is concluded with the firing of a cannon from the castle of St Angelo, which the Roman populace believe (or rather did believe) makes all the heretics in the world to tremble. The very children in the popish schools are taught to lisp this exclusive and intolerant doctrine. " Can any one be saved who is not in the true Church V it is asked in Kee- nan'*s Catechism ; and the child is taught to answer, " No ; for those who are not in the true Church, — that is, for those who are not joined at least to the soul of the Church, — there can be no hope of salvation."* The true Church the writer afterwards defines to be the Roman Catholic Church.-f" * Keenan's Conti'ov. Cat. p. 11, f Idem, cliap. i. and ii. ^GG NO SALVATION OUT OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. " Are all obliffed to be of the true Church V it is asked in Butler's Catechism. " Yes ; no one can be saved out of it."* Thus has the Church of Rome made provision that her youth shall be trained up in the firm belief that all Protestants are beyond the pale of the Church of Christ, are the objects of the divine abhorrence, and are doomed to pass their eternity in flames. An ineradicable hatred of Protestants is thus implanted in their breasts, which often, in after years, breaks out in deeds of violence and blood. Papists who live in Britain, though they really hold this doctrine, are careful how they avow it. They know the danger of placing so intolerant a doctrine in contrast with the true catholic charity of Protestant Britain. Accord- ingly they endeavour, by equivocal statements, by Jesuitical evasions and explanations, and sometimes by the fraudulent use of the phrase " fellow-Christians,"'"'-|- addressed to Pro- testants, to conceal their true principles on this head ; but foreign Papists, being under no such restraint, avow, with- out equivocation or concealment, that the doctrine of exclu- sive salvation is the doctrine of the Church of Rome. We cannot quote a more authoritative testimony as to the opi- nions held and taught on this important question by leading Romanists, than the published lectures of the Professor of Dogmatic Theology in the Collegio Romano at Rome. We find M. Perrone, in a series of ingenious and elaborately- reasoned propositions, maintaining the doctrine of non-sal- vability beyond the pale of his own Church. On the assump- tion that the Church of Rome has maintained the unity of faith and government which Christ and his apostles founded, he lays down the proposition, that " the Catholic Church * Butler's Catechism, lesson x. [A Catechism in very common use in Ireland.] t The following, from the Tablet of July 19th, 1851, may explain the sense in which Protestants are termed Christians by Romanists : — " As the suhjects of a temporal crown, when engaged in open rebellion, are still subjects, so are baptized heretics still Christians when living and dy- ing in open rebellion to the faith and discipline of God and of his Church." EXCLUSIVE SALVATION TAUGHT AT ROME. 2o7 alone is the true Church of Christ," and that " all commu- nions which have separated from that Church are so many synagogues of Satan." A following proposition pronounces " heretics and schismatics without the Church of Christ."" M. Perrone then proceeds to argue that this character be- longs to Protestants, and that it is plain that their faith is false, from their recent origin, and the little success which has attended their missions among the heathen. He then closes the discussion with the proposition, that " those who culpably fall into heresy and schism [i.e. into Protestant- ism], or into unbelief, can have no salvation after death." This is very appropriately followed by a short dissertation, showing that " religious toleration is impious and absurd."* The same sentiments which he has given to the world in his published prelections, we find M. Perrone reiterating in language if possible still more plain, in a conversation with Mr Seymour. " The truth of the Church was," said the reverend Professor, " that no man could be saved unless he was a member of the Church of Rome, and believed in the supremacy and infallibility of the popes as the successors of St Peter." " I said," replied Mr Seymour, " that that was going very far indeed ; for, besides requiring men to be members of the Church of Rome, it required their belief in the supremacy and infallibility of the popes." " He [the Professor] reiterated the same sentiment in language still stronger than before ; adding, that every one must be damned in the flames of hell who did not believe in the supremacy and infallibility of the Pope." " I could not but smile at all this," says Mr Seymour, " while I felt it derived considerable importance from the position of the person who uttered it. He w^as the chief teacher of theology in the Collegio Romano, — the University of Rome. I smiled, however, and reminded him that his * Perrone's Prselectiones Theologicoe, torn. i. pp. 163-278, — De Vera E-eligione adversus Heterodoxos. 2G8 NO SALVATION OUT OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. words were consigning all the people of England to the dam- nation of hell." " He repeated his words emphatically.'"* From a statement which dropped at the same time from the learned Professor, it would seem that those even within the pale of Rome who deny this doctrine of the Church, do so at the risk of being disowned by her, and incurring the doom of heretics. Mr Seymour was urging that the Roman Catholics of England and Ireland do not hold that doctrine, when his assertion was met by a decided negative. " He [the Professor] said that it was impossible my statement could be correct, as no man was a true Catholic who thought any one could find salvation out of the Church of Rome. They could not be true Catholics."-!- The solemn judgment of Rome, that no one can be saved who does not swallow an annual wafer, and live on eggs in Lent, gives us no more serious concern than if the head of Mahommedanism should decree that no one can enter para- dise who does not wear a turban and suffer his beard to grow. It is equally valid with the dictum of any society among ourselves that might claim infallibility and so forth, and adjudge damnation to all who did not choose to conform to the fashion of buttoning one's coat behind. What ideas can those have of the Almighty, who can believe that he will determine the eternal destinies of his creatures according to such ridiculous niceties and trifles ? " God so loved the world," says the apostle, " that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish ;" but perish you must, says the Church of Rome, unless you believe also that a wafer and a little wine, conse- crated by a priest, are the real flesh and blood of Christ. When we ask the reason for this compendious destruction of the whole human race save the fraction that belongs to Rome, we can get no answer beyond this, that the Pope has * Mornings among the Jesuits at Rome, p. 138. + Idem, p. 136. INVINCIBLE IGNORANCE, 269 said it (for certainly the Bible has nowhere said it), and therefore it must be so. This may be an excellent reason to the believer in infallibility, but it is no reason to any one else. It may be possible that this half-foundered craft named Peter, with its riven sails, its tangled cordage, its yawning seams, and its drunken crew, may be the one ship on the ocean which is destined to ride out the storm and reach the port in safety ; but before beginning the voyage, one would like to have some better assurance of this than the mere word of a superannuated captain, never very sound in the head, and now, partly through age and partly through the excesses of his youth, to the full as crazy as his vessel. It is fair to mention, that Romanists are accustomed to make an exception in the matter of non-salvability beyond the pale of their Church, in favour of those who labour under " invincible ignorance!''' The Professor in the Collegio Ro- mano, when pressed by Mr Seymour on the subject of his own personal salvation, gave him the benefit of this excep- tion ; and we doubt not that all Protestants will be made abundantly welcome to it. How far it can be of any use to them is another question. The hopes it holds out are of the slenderest ; for, so far as Romish writers have defined this invincible ignorance, none can plead the benefit of it save such as have had no means of knowing the faith of Rome, but who, if they had, would willingly embrace it. This ex- ception of " invincible ignorance" may include a few hea- thens, so benighted as never to have heard of the Church of Rome and her peculiar dogmas ; and it may comprehend also those Protestants who are absolutely idiots ; but it can be of no use to any one else. Such is the whole extent of Rome's charity.* * The notes on the Popish Bible, published in Dublin in 1816, under the sanction of Dr Troy, and declared to be equally binding as the text itself, show the light in which Protestants are regarded by the Church of Rome. They are called heretics of the worst kind (note on Acts, xxviii. 22). They are described as in rebellion and damnable revolt against the truth (on John, x. 1). And they may and ought, by public authority, to be chas- tised and executed (on ^Matt. xiii. 19). 270 NO SALVATION OUT OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. But though sectarian in her charity, Rome is truly catho- lic in her anathemas. What sect or party is it which she has not pronounced accursed ? What noble name is it which she has not attempted to blast ? What generous art which she has not laboured to destroy ? What science or study fitted to humanize and enlarge the mind on which she has not pronounced an anathema ? Those men w^ho have been the lights of their age, — the poets, the philosophers, the orators, the statesmen, who have been the ornaments and the blessings of their race, — she has confounded in the same tremendous doom with the vilest of mankind. It mattered not how noble their gifts, or how disinterested their labours : they might possess the genius of a Milton, the wisdom of a Bacon, the science of a Newton, the inventive skill of a "SVatt, the philanthropy of a Howard, the patriotism of a Tell, a Hampden, or a Bruce ; they might be firm believers in every doctrine, and bright examples of every virtue, incul- cated in the New Testament ; but if they did not believe also in the supremacy and infallibility of the Pope, all their wis- dom, all their philanthropy, all their piety, all their generous sacrifices and noble achievements, though, like another Wil- berforce, they may have struck from the arm of millions the chain of slavery, or, like another Cranmer or another Knox, conquered spiritual independence for generations unborn, — all, all went for nothing.* Rome could recognise in them no character now but the odious one of the enemies of God ; and she could afford to allow them no portion hereafter but the terrible one of eternal torments. And while she closed the gates of Paradise against these lights and benefactors of the world, she opened them to men whose principles and actions were alike pernicious, — to men who were the curses of their race, and who seemed born to no end but to devas- tate the world, — to fanatics and desperadoes, whose fierce zeal and fiercer swords were ever at the service of the Church. * Butler's End of Controversy, part ii. let. xxii. OF ORIGINAL SIN. 271 CHAPTER IX. OF ORIGINAL SIN. We have examined the rock on which the Church of Rome professes to be built, and find that it is a quicksand. Tlie infallibility is in the same unhappy predicament with the crocodile in the Indian fable, — it has not only to support itself, but all that is laid upon it to boot. Having disposed of it, we might be held, in point of form, as having disposed of the whole system. But our object being, first of all, to exhibit, and only indirectly to confute, the system of Popery, we proceed in our design, and accordingly now pass to the Doctrine of the Church. And, first, to her doctrine on the head of Original Sin. The doctrine of original sin was one of the first points to be debated in the Council of Trent ; and the discord and diversity of opinion that reigned among the fathers strik- ingly illustrates the sort of unity of which the Roman Ca- tholic Church boasts. In discussing this doctrine, the council considered, first, the nature of original sin ; second, its trans- mission ; and, third, its remedy. On its nature the fathers were unable to come to any agreement. Some maintained that it consists in the privation of original righteousness ; others, that it lies in concupiscence ; while another party held that in fallen man there are two kinds of rebellion, — 272 OF ORIGINAL SIN. one of the spirit against God; the other, of flesh against the spirit ; that the former is unrighteousness, and the latter concupiscence, and that both together constitute sin. After a lengthened debate, in which the fathers, not the Scrip- tures, were appealed to, and which gave abundant room for the display of that scholastic erudition which is so fruitful in casuistical subtleties and distinctions, the council wisely resolved to eschew the danger of a definition, and, despair- ing of harmonizing their views, promulgated their decree without defining its subject. " Whoever shall not confess," said the council, " that the first man, Adam, when he broke the commandment of God in Paradise, straitway fell from the holiness and righteousness in which he was formed, and by the offence of his prevarication incurred the wrath and indignation of God, and also the death with which God had threatened him, .... let him be accursed."* The council was scarce less divided on the subject of the transmission of original sin. Wisely avoiding to determine the manner in which this sin is conveyed from Adam to his posterity, the council decreed as follows : — " Whoever shall affirm that the sin of Adam injured only himself, and not likewise his posterity ; and that the holiness and justice which he received from God he lost for himself only, and not for us also ; and that, becoming polluted by his disobe- dience, he transmitted to all mankind corporal death and punishment only, but not sin also, which is the death of the soul ; let him be accursed.""-}- The council, then, were at one as regards the penalty of sin, which is death eternal ; they were not less at one as re- gards the remedy, which is baptism. And so efficacious is this remedy, according to the Council of Trent, that in bap- tism, — " the laver of regeneration," as they termed it, — all sin is washed away. In the regenerate, that is, in the baptized, there remains no sin. The council admitted that concu- * Concil. Trid. sess. quinta, — Dec. de Peccato Origiuali. t Idem, p. 19. DECREE OF TRENT. 273 piscence dwells in all men, and in true Christians among the rest ; but it also decided that concupiscence, which is a cer- tain commotion and impulse of the mind, urging to the de- sire of pleasures which it does not actually enjoy," is not sin. On this part of the subject the council decreed as follows : — " Whoever shall affirm that this sin of Adam .... can be taken away, either by the strength of human nature, or by any other means than by the merit of our Lord Jesus Christ, the one Mediator, ... or shall deny that the merit of Jesus Christ is applied both to adults and infants by the sacrament of baptism, administered according to the rites of the Church, let him be accursed."* And again, — " Whoever shall deny that the guilt of original sin is re- mitted by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, bestowed in baptism, or shall affirm that that wherein sin truly and pro- perly consists is not wholly rooted up, but is only cut down, or not imputed, let him be accursed."-}* The doctrine of the Fall must necessarily be a fundamental one in every system of theology : it formed the starting point in those meagre systems which existed in the pagan world. But it is not enough that we give it a place in our scheme of truth; — it must be rightly and fully understood, otherwise all will be wrong in our system of religion. Should we fall into the mistake of supposing that the injury sustained by man when he fell was less than it really is, we will, in the same proportion, underrate the extent to which he must be dependent upon the atonement of Christ, and overestimate the extent to which he is able to help himself. It may be seen, then, that an error here will vitiate our whole scheme, and may lead to fatal consequences. It becomes important, therefore, to state accurately, though succinctly, the opinions held by modern writers in the Church of Home on the doc- trines of the Fall and Divine Grace. The authors of those systems of theology which are used as text-books in the training of the priesthood have not very distinctly stated in * Can, et Dec. Concilii Tridentini, p. 19. t Idem, p. 20. X 274? OP ORIGINAL SIN. what tliey conceive original sin to consist. In this they have followed the example of the Council of Trent. Dens defines it simply to be disobedience.* Bailly cites the opinions which have been held on this question by various sects, and more especially the doctrine of the Standards of the Presbyterian Church, which make " the sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell" to consist " in the guilt of Adanfs first sin, the want of original righteousness, and the corruption of his whole nature, which is commonly called original sin ;"" and though he condemns all these opinions, he offers no defini- tion of his own, but takes farewell of the subject with some observations on its abstruseness, and the inutility of prying too curiously into the qualities of things.-f- We know of no writer of authority in the Roman Catholic Church, since the days of Bellarmine at least, who has spoken so frankly out on the doctrine of the Fall as the present occupant of the chair of theology in the University at Rome. We shall state the opinions of M. Perrone as clearly and accurately as we are able ; and this will put the reader in possession of the Roman Catholic doctrine on this important subject. M. Perrone, in his published prelections, teaches that the first man was exalted to a supernatural state by the sancti- fying grace of his Creator ; that this integrity or holiness of nature was not due to man, but was a gift freely conferred on him by the divine bounty ; so that God, had he pleased, might have created man without these endowments. Ac- cordingly, man, by his sin, says M. Perrone, lost only those superadded gifts which flowed from the liberality of God ; or, what is the same thing, man by his sin reduced himself to that state in which he would actuallv have been created had not God added other gifts, both for this life and for the other.| * Theol. Petri Dens, torn. i. p. 332, — Tractatus de Peccatis. + Theol. Moral. Ludovico Bailly, torn. i. p. 302,— "In c[uo posita sit peccati originalis essentia 1" Dublin, 1828. + We give M. Perrone's own words. " Jam vero juxta doctrinam Catho- licam superius vindicatani, turn elevatio primi homiuis ad statum super- POPISH DOCTRINE OF THE FALL. 27o M. Pcrrone fortifies his statement by an appeal to the opinions of Cardinals Cajctan and Bellarmine, both of whom have expressed themselves on the subject of the Fall in terms very similar to those employed by the Professor in the Collegio Romano. The difference, says Cajetan, be- tween fallen nature and pure nature, — not nature as it ex- isted in the case of Adam, who was clothed with super- natural gifts, but nature, as the Romish divines phrase it, in puris naturalibus, — may be expressed in one word. The difference is the same as that which exists between the man who has been despoiled of his clothing, and the man who never had any. " We do not distinguish between the two," argues the Cardinal, " on the ground that the one is more nude than the other, for that is not the case. In like man- ner, a nature in puris naturalibus, and a nature despoiled of original grace and righteousness, do not differ in this, that the one is more destitute than the other ; but the great difference lies here, that the defect in the one case is npt a fault, or punishment, or injury ; whereas in the other, — that of a fallen nature, — there is a corrupt condition, and the defect is to be regarded as both a fault and punishment."* When the Cardinal uses the phrase, " a corrupt condition," he means to express an idea, we apprehend, which Protes- tants would more fittingly designate by the terms " denuded condition ;" for certainly the Cardinal intends to teach that the constitution of man has not suffered more seriously by naturalem per gratiam sanctificantem, turn iutegritas naturae non fuerunt liumante naturae debita, sed dona fuerunt gratuita homini a divina largi- tate concessa, ita ut Deus potuerit absolute sine illis Iiominem condere^ Igitur homo per peccatum non amisit nisi ea qute superaddita a Dei liber- alitate illius naturae fuerunt. Sen, quod idem est, homo per peccatum ad eum se redegit statum in quo absolute creatus fuisset, si Deus caetera dona minime addidisset, tum pro hac turn pro altera vita." (Prajlectiones Theologicae, torn. i. p. 774.) * Card. Cajetan. in Comm. [quoted from Perrone's Pra^lectiones Theo- logicae, tom. i. p. 774.] " QuiE (differentia inter naturam in puris natu- ralibus et naturam lapsam), ut unico vex'bo dicatur, tanta est quanta est inter personam nudam ab initio et personam exspoliatam." 276 OF ORIGINAL SIN. his fall than would the body of man by being stript of its clothing. The same doctrine is taught by Bellarmine, who holds, that the nature of fallen man, the original fault ex- cepted, is not inferior to a human nature in puris naturali- lus* This point is an important one, and we make no apology for dwelling a little longer upon it. We would fain present our readers, in a few words, with a view of what the Church of Rome holds on the doctrine of grace as opposed to the sentiments of Protestant divines, premising that absolute accuracy is not easily attainable. Popish writers not having expressed themselves either very definitely or very consis- tently. In the following summary we take M. Perrone as our chief authority and guide, using almost his very words : — 1st, The Roman Catholic Church teaches, in respect of the integrity of man, and the supernatural state to which he was raised, that he fell from that condition by sin, and lost his original righteousness, with all the gifts connected there- with. 2d, In respect of the supernatural state and the sanctifying grace bestowed on man, the Church of Rome teaches, that by his fall the soul of man came into a state of death, and that in respect of his integrity, both his soul and his body were changed for the worse. 3d, That by the fall the free will of man was weakened and biassed. 4th, With respect to those privileges and gifts of grace which were added to man's nature, and which are accidental to it, the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church is, that fallen man has been denuded of these privileges and gifts, and has come into that state in which, not reckoning his fault, he would have been had God not willed to exalt him to a su- pernatural position, and to confer upon him uprightness and other endowments ; and has, moreover, sunk into that state * Bellarm. Lib. de Gratia Primi Horn. cap. v. sec. 12. " Non magis dif- fert status hominis post lapsum Adse a statu ejusdem in puris naturalibus, qiiam distet sjwliatus a nudo, neque deterior est liuinana natura, si culpain ori^inalcm detralias." POPISH DOCTRINE OF GRACE. 277 of feebleness which is incident to human nature of itself. 5th, Hence the Church teaches, says M. Perrone, that man is unable, by any strength, or effort, or wish of his, to raise himself to his former supernatural state ; and that for his recovery the grace of the Saviour is altogether necessary. 6th, This grace is wholly free, and is conferred on man, by the goodness of God, on account of the merits of Christ. 7th, Since, however, in man fallen, the free will, such as human nature viewed in itself demands, has been preserved, nor otherwise debilitated but as respects that state of up- rightness from which he was cut off, the Church teaches that man is able freely to co-operate, either in the way of com- plying with God, exciting and calling Him by his grace, or in the way of resisting Him, if he chooses. The Church, therefore, rejects the doctrine of irresistible grace. 8th, From the same principle, that man by his fall has not be- come boreft of the power of will, flows the doctrine of the Church, that man is able to wish what is good, and to do works morally right, and that works performed without grace are not so many sins. 9th, The Roman Catholic Church teaches likewise, that in difficult duties, and when assailed by strong temptations, fallen man stands in need of " medicinal ^ grace, to enable him to fulfil the one and overcome the other, just as some assistance would have been necessary to unfallen man, had God not conferred upon him the faculty of uprightness, and elevated him to a supernatu- ral condition.* Unless we greatly mistake, we have now reached the, fountain-head of the errors of Popery. We stand here be- side its infant source. Thence those waters of bitterness go forth to collect the tributaries of every region through which they flow, till at last, like the river seen by the pro- phet in vision, from being a narrow and shallow stream, which one might step across, they become " waters to swim in, — a river that could not be passed over." How near to * Perrone's Prselectiones Theologicue, torn. i. p. 1239. 278 OF ORIGINAL SIN. each other are situated the primal fountains of truth and error ! Like twin sources on the summit of some Alpine chain, which a few yards only divide, yet lying on opposite sides of the summit, the flow of the one is determined to- wards the frozen shores of the north, — the current of the other to the aromatic climes and calm seas of the south ; so between the Popish and the Protestant ideas on the doc- trine of the Fall there is no very great or essential difference which strikes one at first sight. The sources of the two systems lie close beside each other ; but the line that di- vides truth from error runs between them. From the first, therefore, they take opposite directions; and what was scarce perceptible at the outset becomes plain and palpable in the issue : the one results in the Roman papacy ; the other is seen to be apostolic Christianity. The divines of the Church of Rome conceive of humanity as existing, or capable of existing, in three states. The first is that of fallen man, in which we now exist ; the second is that of simple humanity, or, as they terra it, puris naturali- lus, in which man, they affirm, onight have been made ; the third is that of supernatural humanity, or man clothed with those special gifts with which God endowed Adam. By his fall man brought himself down from the third or highest state to the first or lowest. But the theologians of the Ro- man school teach that man's condition now is in no respect worse than if he were in the middle state, or in puris natu- ralihts, except that ho once was in a higher, and has fallen from it. His nature is not injured thereby : he has lost the advantages which he enjoyed in his higher condition ; he is to blame for having thrown away these advantages ; but as to any injury, or disorder, or ruin of nature, by the Fall, that he has not sustained ; — he has come scathless out of the catastrophe of Eden. Of two men totally destitute of cloth- ing, — to use Cardinal Cajetan's illustration, — the one is not more nude than the other; but the difference lies here, — the one never had clothing, — the other had, but has lost it, and therefore suffers a want he did not feel originally, STATE OF rURE NATURE. 279 and has acted very foolishly, or, if you will, very sinfully, in stripping off* his vestments. ]3ut the loss of raiment is one thing, — the injury of his person is another ; and just as a man may bo deprived of his raiment, and yet his body re- main sound, vigorous, and active as ever, so our deprivation of the supernatural gifts we enjoyed in innocence, in conse- quence of the Fall, has left our mental and moral nature as whole and sound as before. God might have made us in ^uris naturaUhiis at the beginning. And what has the Fall done ? just brought us into that state in which God might have created us ; except it be (and it is in this that original sin consists, according to the only consistent interpretation of the popish scheme) that it is our own fault that we are not in that higher state still. Whatever powers we would have had in puris naturalibus of loving God, of obeying his will, and resisting evil, we have in our fallen state. We need assisting grace in our more difficult duties and temp- tations now, and we would have needed it in puris naturali- bus. Thus we have fallen, and yet we have not fallen ; for we are now what God might have made us at the beginning. On this point, as on every other, Rome requires us to be- lieve contradictions and absurdities : her doctrine of the Fall is a denial of the Fall. God might have made man, say the divines of the Roman Church, in a state of simple nature. We will not answer for' the idea which Romanists may attach to this state ; but it is not difficult to determine what only that state can be, A state of positive corruption it cannot be ; for Romanists refuse this in the case even of fallen man. Neither can it be a state of positive grace, for this is the supernatural con- dition to which God raised him.* It can only be a state of * Tlieologia Mor. Ludovico Bailly, torn. v. p. 318. "Vel crearetu^ [homo] in ordine ad finom naturalem, sine peccato sine gratia. (Idem, toni. V. p, 320.) Possibilis est status naturae pume, niodo homo creari potu- erit sine gratia sanctificante et sine donis ad finem supernaturalem seu visionem intuitivara conducentibus." Man, notwithstanding his innocence, Builly holds, might have been liable to many miseries; and he appeals to the 2S0 OF ORIGINAL SIN. indifference, in which man is equally attracted or equally re- pelled by good and evil. We do not stay to enquire whe- ther it was due to the Divine character to make man in this state, — equally ready to engage himself to God or to Satan ; but we ask, was it possible I According to this theory, man's faculties are entire in their number and perfect in their func- tional action ; and yet they are utterly useless. They can- not act, — they cannot make a choice ; for if the man inclines to either side, it is because he is not in a state of indifference. If he chooses good, it is because he prefers it ; if he chooses evil, it is because he prefers it to good, and so is not indif- ferent. But it may be objected that the idea is, that till the object is put before the man he is indifferent. But till the object be put before the man, how can it be known that he is in a state- of indifference or no? Besides, existence is but a series of volitions ; and to say that the man is in a state of indifference till he begins to will, is just to say that he is in a state of indifference till he becomes a man. We are again called upon to believe contradictions. The scheme of indifference supposes a man with a conscience able to dis- criminate between good and evil, and yet not able to discri- minate between them, — with the faculty of will, and yet not able to will, — with the affection of love, and yet able neither to love nor hate ; which is just as rational as to speak of a human frame exquisitely strung to pleasure and pain, and yet incapable of either sensation. There is only one way of placing a man in a state of indifference, and that is, by strik- ing conscience and will dead in his breast. While the con- stitution of things is what it is, and while the powers of man are what they are, a state of indifference is an impossibility, God cannot make impossibilities. We repeat, the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Fall is a repudiation of the Scripture doctrine of the Fall. This must example of Christ and of the Virgin, who were without sin, and yet en- dured sufFerings. (Thcol. Mor. torn. v. p, 325.) Christ suffered as a surety; and, as regards the Virgin, Romanists have yet failed to prove that she was without sin. THE FALL VIRTUALLY DENIED. 281 necessarily affect the whole of the theology of that Church. It must necessarily alter the complexion of her views on tho subject both of the work of the Son and the work of the Spirit. Firsts If man has not fallen in the Scripture sense, neither has he been redeemed in the Scripture sense. Our redemption is necessarily the counterpart of our loss ; and in the proportion in which we diminish the one do we also di- minish the other. Our natures have escaped uninjured, the Romish divines teach. We can still do all which we could have done in 2yuris naturallbus, had we been created in that state. Man, if he but give himself to the work in earnest, may almost, if not altogether, save himself. He needs only divine gi\ace to help him over its more difficult parts. The atonement, then, was no such great work after all. Instead of presenting that character of unity and completeness which the Scriptures attribute to it, — instead of being the redemp- tion of lost souls from hopeless and irremediable bondage, by the endurance in their room of infinite vengeance due to their sins, — the work of Christ wears altogether the charac- ter of a supplementary performance. Instead of being a display of unbounded and eternal love, and of power also unbounded and eternal, it dwindles into a very ordinary manifestation of pity and good-will. Nay, it would not be difficult to show that it might have been dispensed with, with some not inconsiderable advantages ; that it has stood much in man"'s way, and prevented the exercise of his own powers, knowing that he had this to fall back upon. May not this help us to understand why Romanists can so easily associate Mary with the Son of God in the act of redemp- tion, and can speak of her sufferings as if they had been the better half of the work ? May it not account, too, for the ease with which the Church of Rome can find the material of satisfaction for sin in the works of those whom she calls saints ? May it not account also for the thoroughly scenic character which the death of Christ bears, as exhibited in the Church of Rome ? And may it not likewise account for the extent to which that Church has undervalued Christ 282 OF ORIGINAL SIN. in Ill's character of Mediator, by associating with Him in that august office so many of mortal origin ? For if man's nature be not inferior in its condition to that in which God right- eously might have made it, the work of mediating between God and m.an is not so pre-eminently onerous and dignified. But, in the second place, if man is not fallen in the Scrip- ture sense, neither does he need to be regenerated in the Scripture sense. Our regeneration is likewise the neces- sary counterpart of our fall. We have sustamed, say the Romish divines, no radical derangement or injury of nature by the Fall ;* we have been stript merely of those superadd- ed gifts which God bestowed; and all that we need, in order to occupy the same vantage ground as before, is just the re- storation of these lost accomplishments. Regeneration, then, in the Romish acceptation of the term, must mean a very different thini; indeed from what it does anions Protestants. With us it is a change of nature so thorough, that we can find no term to express it but that employed in the New Testament, — " a new creation." We believe that man has not only been stript of his raiment, — to use the metaphor which Romish rhetoric has supplied; — he has been wounded, he has bled to death, and he needs to be made alive again. But no such regeneration can be necessary in the view of those who believe that man has suffered no internal injury, and that he has lost only what he might have wanted from the beginning without prejudice to the soundness of his con- stitution. Now, may not this help us to understand the marvellous efficacy, as it appears to us, which Romanists ascribe to the sacrament of baptism ? We believe them to hold that baptism can regenerate the man ; but we are mis- led by their abuse of the term haptismal regeneration. They cannot hold this doctrine, for man needs no regeneration. Their error lies deeper than baptismal regeneration. It is * The following statement is decisive on this point :— " Attamen hsec ipsa natura, ctiam post lapsmn, ob amissioncm liujus doni accidentalis, cujusinodi justitiam originalem esse diximus, nihil amisit de suis essenti- alibus." (PciTone's Prajlectiones Theologiccc, tom. i. \}. I3S6.) IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF MARY. 283 not SO much an oiTor on the function of the baptismal rite, as an error on the yet more fundamental point of man\s state. They cannot realize man as fallen, and therefore they cannot realize him as regenerated. All the regenera- tion he needs is not the creating of him anew, but the clotli- inn of him anew, — the impartation of those superadded gifts which he has lost ; and this, they believe, the sprinkling of a little water by the hands of a priest can effect. Baptism, then, restores man to the state in which he existed before the Fall. By baptism, the Church of Rome holds, original sin is taken away, and sanctifying grace, of which the Fall denuded man, is restored. Every man who is baptized, ac- cording to this doctrine, begins life with the same advan- tages with which Adam began it, — he begins it in a state of spotless and perfect innocence. At this early stage, then, even that of the Fall, do the Popish and Protestant theolo- gies diverge, — diverge never more to meet. The one flows backward into the dead sea of Paganism, — the other expands mto the living ocean of Christianity. In the course of the debates in the Council of Trent, a momentous question was raised touching the conception of the Virgin. If, as the council had decreed, Adam had transmitted his sin to all his posterity, did it not follow that the Virgin Mary was born in sin ? It is well known that since the twelfth century at least the Church of Rome has leaned to the doctrine of the " immaculate conception," ac- cording to which the humanity of the Virgin is as untainted by sin, and as holy, as is the humanity of the Saviour. Con- flicting parties have always existed within the Church on this subject. Many and furious have been the wars they have waged with one another. The Franciscans have vio- lently maintained the immaculate conception, and the Do- minicans have as violently denied it. The most delicate management and the most skilful manoeuvring of the Pope have sometimes been unable to maintain the peace between these hostile parties, or to avert from the Church the fla- grant scandal of open schism. In the seventeenth century, 284 OF OJBIGINAL SIN. the kingdom of Spain was so violently convulsed by this question, that embassies were sent to Home to implore the Pope to put an end to the war, and restore peace to the kingdom, by a public bull. The conduct of the Pope on this occasion illustrates the species of juggling by which he has contrived to keep up the idea of his infallibility. He issued no bull, because he judged it imprudent in the circumstances ; but he declared that the opinion of the Franciscans had a high degree of probability in it, and must not be opposed publicly by the Dominicans as erroneous; while, on the other hand, the Franciscans were forbidden to treat the doctrine of the Dominicans as erroneous.* The Council of Trent, though they debated the question, would come to no decision, but left the matter undetermined. To this day the question remains undetermined, proving a fertile source of fierce polemical wars, which break out every now and then, and rage with great violence. The revolution at Rome having set free the Pope from the cares of government, he employed his leisure at Gaeta in attempts to settle this great question, which so many renowned popes and so many learned councils had left undecided. He took the regular course to obtain the prayers of the Church and the suffrages of the bishops, in order to promulgate his bull. The Pope was engrossed by these deep theological inquiries when the success of Oudinot before the walls of Rome recalled him from the study of the fathers to the not less grateful work of issuing incarcerations and signing death-warrants. Should a second period of exile intervene, which is not improbable, the pontiff may even yet gather up the broken thread of his thoughts, and elaborate the bull which is to crown the blas- phemies and idolatry of Rome, by decreeing that the Virgin Mary was as wonderfully conceived as was the Saviour, and that her humanity was as free from sin, as holy and unde- filcd, as is the humanity of our Lord. " Neither repented they of their idolatries." Moshcim, cent. xvii. sect. ii. part i. chap. i. s. 48. OPUS OPERATUM. 285 Thus have we come to a leading characteristic of the sys- tem of Popery, — one that is already sufficiently distinct, but which will become more fully developed as we proceed, — the disposition to substitute the ordinances of the Church for the gospel, — the symbol for the truth, — the form for the prin- ciple, — the sacraments for Christ. The great doctrine of salvation through faith in the free grace of God is set aside, and the opus operatum of a sacrament is put in its room. " That it is faith that worketh in the sacrament, and not the sacrament itself," say the Romanists, " is plainly false ; baptism giving grace, and faith itself, to the infant that had none before."* • Kheimish Testament, note on Gal. iii. 27. 286 OF JUSTlFiOATION. CHAPTER X. OF JUSTIFICATION. Of all questions, by far the most important to a fallen man, obnoxious to death, is, " How may I be reconciled to God, and obtain a title to eternal glory V The Bible answers, " By faith in the righteousness of Christ." It is here that the Church of Rome wholly misleads her members. She gives the wrong answer ; and therefore she is most fatally in error, where it behoved her, above all things, to be in the right. The doctrine of "justification through faith alone" is the oldest theological truth in the world. We can trace it, wearing the very form it still bears, in the patriarchal age. The apostle tells us that God preached this truth unto Abraham. It was preached by type and shadow to the Old Testament Church; and when the altars and sacrifices of the legal economy were no more, this great truth was pub- lished far and wide throughout the world by the pens and tongues of apostles. After being lost by all, save a chosen few, during many centuries, it broke out with a new and glorious effulgence upon the world in the preaching of Lu- ther. It is the grand central truth of Christianity : it is, in short, the gospel. Now it is on this vital point, we affirm, that the teaching of Rome is erroneous, and that, so far as that teaching is listened to and followed, it must needs SALVATION OF GOD. 287 destroy, not save, her members. The point of all others on which the Bible has spoken out with most emphatic plain- ness is, that Christ is the one only Saviour, and that his atonement upon the cross is the sole and exclusive ground of eternal life. There are parts of revelation about which we may entertain imperfect or erroneous views, and yet be saved ; but this truth is the chief corner-stone of the gospel, and an error here must necessarily be fatal. We forsake the one only foundation ; we go about seeking to establish a righteousness of our own ; we trust in a refuge of lies ; and cannot be saved. " For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ."* Herein we may trace the essential and eternal difference between the Gospel and Popery, — between the Reformation and Rome. The Reformation ascribed all the glory of man''s salvation to God, — Rome ascribed it to the Church. Salvation of God and salvation of man are the two opposite poles around which are ranged respectively all true and all false systems of religion. Popery placed salvation in the Church, and taught men to look for it through the sacra- ments ; the Reformation placed salvation in Christ, and taught men that it was to be obtained through faith. " By grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, — it is the gift of God."-f- The development of the grand primordial truth, — salvation of grace, — has constituted the history of the Church. This truth gave being to the patri- archal religion; it formed the vital element in the Mosaic economy; it constituted the glory of primitive Christianity; and it was it that gave maturity and strength to tlwi Re- formation. With one voice, Calvin, Luther, and Zuingle, did homage to God as the author of man''s salvation. The motley host of wrangling theologians which met at Trent made man his own Saviour, by extolling the efficacy and merit of good works. The decree of the council by which the doctrine of the * 1 Cor. iii. 11. f Eph. xi. S. 288 OF JUSTIFICATION. Church of Rome on the subject of justification was finally settled, partakes of not a little vagueness. On this, as on most other points that engaged the attention of the council, there existed a variety of conflicting opinions, which long and warm debates failed to reconcile. The somewhat im- possible object of faithfully reflecting all the sentiments of the fathers was aimed at in the decree, at the same time that it was intended pointedly to condemn the doctrine of the Protestants. But we believe the following will be found a fair statement of what the Romish Church really holds on this important subject. The Council of Trent defines justification to be "a trans- lation from that state in which the man is born a son of the first Adam, into a state of grace and adoption of the sons of God by the second Adam, Jesus Christ, our Savi- our ; which translation cannot be accomplished under the gospel, without the laver of regeneration, or the desire of it ; as it is written, ' Unless a man be born again of water and of the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven."" *"* The definition given by Dens is in almost the very same words.-}- Justification, says Porrone, is not the forensic remission of sin, or the imputation of Christ's right- eousness ; but it consists in the renovation of the mind by the infusion of sanctifying grace.;]: The Council of Trent teaches the same doctrine in almost the same words, and enforces it with its usual argument, — an anathema. " Justi- fication,"*"' says Bailly, " is the acquisition of righteousness, by which we become acceptable to God.''"'§ It is important to observe, that by the " laver of regeneration," the Roman Catholic Church means baptism. It is important also to observe, that this definition confounds justification with sanctification. But to this we shall afterwards advert. We * Con. Trid. sess. vi. cap. iv. + Theol. Mor. et Dog. Petri Dens, torn, ii., — Tractatus de Justificatione. t Perrone's Prselectiones Theologicae, torn. i. p. 1398. § Theologia Mor. Ludovico Bailly, torn. v. p. 454. SALVATION OF MAN. 289 proceed to state the way in which this justification is re- ceived. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that there is a preparation of the mind for its reception, and in that preparation the man who is to be justified has an active share. " Justification springs," the Romish Church holds, " from the preventing grace of God.'"* That grace excites and helps the man, who, by the power of his free will, agrees and co-operates therewith. Excited and aided by divine grace, men are disposed for this righteousness ; they are drawn to God, and encouraged to hope in him, by the consideration of his mercy ; they begin to love him as the fountain of all righteousness, and consequently to hate sin, that is, " with that penitence which must necessarily exist before baptism ; and, finally, they resolve to receive bap- tism, to begin a new life, and to keep the divine command- ments."-!- This constitutes the disposition or preparation of the mind for the reception of justification. Similar is the account which Dens has given of the matter. He states that the Council of Trent requires seven acts of mind in or- der to the justification of the adult through baptism. The first is divine grace, by which the sinner is excited and aided ; the second is faith ; the third is fear ; then hope, then love, then contrition, and lastly, a desire for the sa- crament.:|: Perrone mentions much the same graces, though in a slightly different order. " Besides faith," says he, " which all agree is required in order to justification, there must be fear, hope, love, at least begun, penitence, and a purpose of keeping the divine commandments."§ The faith that precedes justification, according to the Church of Rome, is not of a fiducial character, or a trust in the divine mercy exhibited in the promise, but a belief of all things taught in the Scriptures, that is, by the Church; and approaches very closely to what Protestants term a histori- * Concil. Trid. sess. vi. cap, v. + Ibid, sess. vi. cap, vi. t Theol. Mor. et Dog, Petri Dens, torn ii. p. 450, § Perrone's Praelectiones Tlieologicse, torn i, p, 1407. U 290 OF SALVATION. cal faith,* We are said to be "justified freely by his grace,^' says the Cliurch of Rome, inasmuch as the grace of God aids the sinner by these acts. She hokls, moreover, that these acts are meritorious. She does not hold that they possess the merit of condignlty^ as do the good works of the justified man ; but she hokls that these acts of faith and love, which prepare and dispose the mind for justifica- tion, possess the merit of congruity^ that is, they merit a divine reward, not from any obligation of justice, but out of a principle of fitness or congruity. The disposition for justification being thus wrought, the justification itself follows. This satisfaction, say the fa- thers of Trent, " is not remission of sin merely, but also sanctification, and the renovation of the inner man by the voluntary reception of grace and of gifts, so that the man, from being unrighteous, is made righteous." The decree then goes on to describe the cause of justification. The final cause is the glory of God ; the efficient cause is the mercy of God ; the meritorious cause is Jesus Christ, " who merited justification for us by his most holy passion on the cross;" the instrumental cause is the "sacrament of baptism, which is the sacrament of faith," says the Council of Trent, " without which no one can ever obtain justification." The formal cause is the righteousness of God ; " not that by which he himself is righteous, but that by which he makes us righteous ; with which, to wit, being endued by him, we are renewed in the spirit of our mind, and are not only reputed righteous, but truly are called, and do become righteous, receiving righteousness in ourselves, each accord- ing to his measure."-f- Such is the doctrine of justification as taught by the Church of Rome. It is diametrically opposed to the method of justifying sinners described in the epistles of * Perrone's Prrelectiones Theologicjc, torn. i. p. 1415 : Tlieologia Mor. Ludovico Bailly, torn. v. p. 456. t Concil. Trid. sess. vi. cap. vii. PROTESTANT AND POPISH JUSTIFICATION. 201 Paul, and more especially in his Epistle to the Romans. It is diametrically opposed to the doctrine of the reformers, and to the confessions of all the reformed Churches. All sound Protestant divines receive the term " justification" in a forensic sense. Nothing is changed It/ justification viewed in itself but the man's state, which, from being that of a criminal in the eye of the law, and obnoxious to death, be- comes that of an innocent man, entitled to eternal life. The source of justification they regard as being the grace of God ; its meritorious cause, the righteousness of Christ im- puted to the sinner ; and its instrumental cause, faith, by which the sinner receives the righteousness which the gos- pel offers. Thus nothing is seen in this great work but the grace of God. To Him is all the glory. The sinner comes into the possession of profound peace, because he feels that he is resting, not on his own good (jualities, but on the righteousness of the Saviour, which " has magnified the law and made it honourable ;"" and he abounds in works of righte- ousness, being now become " dead unto the law, but alive unto God ;" and these good fi'uits are at once the proofs of his justification and the pledges of his glory. But all this is reversed according to the Romish method. It is clear, according to the Church of Rome, that the ground of a sin- ner''s justification is not without him, but within him. He is justified, not because Christ has satisfied the law in his room, but because the man himself has become such as the law requires ; or, as Romish divines are accustomed to say, i\i(i formal cause of justification is inherent ov infused righte- ousness. The death of Christ has to do with our justifica- tion only in so far as it has merited the infusion of those good dispositions which are the formal cause of our justifica- tion,* and whereby we perform those good works which are meritorious of an increase of grace and eternal life. And, as regards faith, " we are not," says Bailly, " justified by faith alone ;" and its admitted connection with justification * See Concil. Trid. sess. vi. canons, 10-12. 292 OP JUSTIFICATION. he states to be, not that of an instrument, but of a good work, or part of infused righteousness.* The Roman Ca- tholic scheme, therefore, is very clearly one of salvation by good works. This is the " first justification," as the Roman Catholic divines are accustomed to speak, and in this justification the sinner has no absolute merit, but only that of congruity. It is different in the " second justification," which is thus defined : — " By the observance of the commandments of God and the Church, faith co-operating with good works, they gain an increase of that righteousness which was received by the grace of Christ, and are the more justified.""!- In this " second justification," the man rises to the merit of condignity^ his works being positively meritorious and de- serving of heaven. It is here that the Romish doctrine of good works is most clearly seen. For though there is a loose reference to the merits of Christ, yet if our good works be meritorious, as is affirmed, there must be a positive obli- gation, in respect of justice, on God to bestow heaven upon us, and thus salvation is of works. " The merits of men," says Bellarmine, " are not required because of the insuffi- ciency of those of Christ, but because of their own very great efficacy. For the work of Christ hath not only deserved of God that we should obtain salvation, but also that we should obtain it by our own merits. ":[ But the thirty-second canon of the sixth session of the Council of Trent puts the matter beyond controversy. " If any one shall say that the good works of a justified man are the gift of God in such a sense that they are not also the good merits of the justified man himself, or that a justified man, by the good works which are done by him through the grace of God, and the merit of Christ, of whom he is a living member, does not truly de- serve increase of grace, eternal life, and the actual posses- * Tlioologia ]\Ior. Ludovico Bailly, toni. v. pp. 45S, 462. + Concil. Tiid. sess. vi. cap. x. % Bellarm. de. Justific. lib. v. cap. v. ASSURANCE CONDEMNED. 293 sion of eternal life if he die in grace, and also an increase of glory, let him be anathema."* The Roman Catholic Church teaches that the justified man has no certainty of eternal life. He may fall, she holds, from a state of grace, and finally perish. Should he so fall, however, that Church has made provision for his recovery, and that recovery is through the sacrament of penance, -f — the " second plank after shipwreck," as the fathers term it. " Be mindful, therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and do penance."! Agreeably with this, that Church teaches that " no one can certainly and infallibly know that he has ob- tained the grace of God."§ To stand in doubt on this im- portant point she enjoins as a duty, and anathematizes the doctrine of " assurance" as a Protestant heresy. Thus the fact is incontrovertible, that the scheme of the Church of Rome is one of salvation by works. And the question is shortly this, — Is this scheme agreeable to Scrip- ture, or is it not ? Papists cannot refuse the authority of Scripture on this, or on any point, seeing they admit it to be the Word of God. Now, while the Scriptures speak of a reward of grace, they utterly repudiate, both by general principles and positive statements, what Papists maintain, — a reward of merit. If, then, we allow the Bible to decide the controversy, the Church of Rome errs in a point where error is necessarily fatal. Her scheme of scdcatlon by tcorJcs is a scheme which robs God of his glory, and man of his peace now and his salvation hereafter. * Concil. Trid. sess. vi. can. xxxii. The same doctrine is not less expli- citly taught ill tlie sixteenth chapter of same session, t Concil. Trid. sess. \'i. cap. xiv. :;: Rev. ii. 5, Eoman Catliolic veision. § Concil. Trid. sess. vi. cap. ix. 2d4t THE SACRAMENTS. CHAPTER XI. THE SACRAMENTS. It has pleased God, in condescension to our weakness, to confirm his promises by signs. The bow of heaven is a di- vinely-appointed token, confirmatory to the world of the pro- mise that there shall be no second deluge. The world has but one sign of its safety ; the Church has two of her perpe- tuity. The sacraments of Baptism and the Lord*'s Supper, — like two beauteous bows bestriding the heavens of the Church, — are seals of the covenant of grace, and give infallible cer- tainty to all who really take hold of that covenant, that they shall enjoy its blessings. But the Church of Rome has ac- counted that these two signs are not enough, and, accord- ingly, she has increased them to the number of seven. These seven sacraments are baptism, confirmation, the eucharist, penance, extreme unction, orders, and matrimony. That Church is accustomed to boast with truth that most of these sacraments are unknown to Protestants :* she might have added, with equal truth, that they are unknown to the New Testament. The institution of Baptism and the Supper is plainly to be seen upon the inspired page ; but where do we find the institution of these five supplementary sacraments ? Not a trace of them can be discovered in Scripture ; and the * Milncr's End of Controversy, let. xx. THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS. 295 attempt to adduce Scripture in their support is so hopeless, that it has seldom been made.* But what is it that Iloman infallibility will not attempt ? Dens proves in the following notable way from Scripture, that the sacraments must be seven in number. He quotes the passage, " Wisdom hath builded her house; she hath hewn out her seven pillars." "In like manner," says he, " seven sacraments sustain the Church." He next refers to the seven lamps on one candlestick, in the furniture of the tabernacle. These seven sacraments are the seven lamps that illuminate the Church.-f- The Jesuit would have rendered his argument irresistible, had he but added, there were seven evil spirits that entered the house that was swept and garnished. These seven sacraments are the seven spirits whose united power and wisdom animate the Roman Catholic Church. The Council of Trent rested the proof of these sacraments mainly on tradition, and a supposed hidden and mystical meaning in the number seven. And, in truth, there sometimes is a mystic meaning in that number ; as, for instance, when the seer of Patmos saw seven hills propping up the throne of the apocalyptic harlot. Protestants most willingly yield up to the Roman Catholic Church the entire merit of discovering these sacraments, as they also yield up to her the entire benefit flowing therefrom.j The first two, baptism and penance, confer grace ; the rest increase it. The first, therefore, are sometimes called the sacraments of the dead ; the others, the sacraments of the livinr/. The Roman Catechism defines a sacrament as follows : — * One of the above sacraments, viz. extreme unction, it is lawful to ad- minister on the top of a long stick to those who may be dying of pesti- lence. " Licet autcm judicio episcopi in eo casu inungere a?grotum adhi- bita oblonga virga, cujus in extrema parte sit gossypium oleo sacro imbu- tum." (Tlieol. Mor. et Dog. Petri Dens, torn. viii. p. IGG.) t Theol. Mor. et Dog. Petri Dens, tom. v. pp. 140, 141. J Cajetan and a host of Roman Catholic doctors admit that several of these sacraments were not instituted by Christ. (See authorities in Blakeney's Manual of Romish Controversy, pp. 37-44 ; Edin. 1S51.) INIar- riage is a sacrament of the new law (the gospel) ; yet it existed 4000 years before the gospel. 296 THE SACRAMENTS. " A thing subject to the senses, which, in virtue of the divine institution, possesses the power of signifying holiness and righteousness, and of imparting these qualities to the re- ceiver.""* There was considerable difference of opinion in the Council of Trent as to the way in which grace is con- veved alonsr with the sacraments ; but the fathers were una- nimous in holding that it is so conveyed, and in condemning the reformers, who denied the power of the sacraments to confer grace. Accordingly, in their decree they speak of " the holy sacraments of the Church, by which all true right- eousness is first imparted, then increased, and afterwards restored if lost."'*'-f' " The Catholic doctrine," says Dens, " is, that the sacraments of the new law contain grace, and con- fer it ex opere operato.''''^. And in this he is borne out by the Council of Trent, who declare, " If any one shall say that these sacraments of the new law cannot confer grace by their own power [ex opere operafo], but that faith alone in the di- vine promise suffices to obtain grace, let him be accursed.""§ Three of these sacraments, — baptism, confirmation, and or- ders, — confer an indelible impression, and therefore they are not, and cannot be, repeated. As to the seat of this indelible stamp or impression, the Romish divines are not agreed, || — some fixing on the mind, others on the will, while a third party make this wondrous virtue to reside in the hands and the tongue ; which gave occasion to Calvin to say, that " the matter resembled more the incantations of the magician than • Catechismus Romanus, pars ii. cap. i. s. ix. p. 114. Delahogue thus defines a sacrament : — " Signum sensibile a Deo permanenter institutum, et aliciijus sanctitatis seu justitia; operativum." (Delahogue, Tractatus de Sacramentis in genere, p. 2 ; Dublin, 1828.) + Concil. Trid. sess. vii., — Dec. de Sacramentis. t Theol. ]\Ior. et Dog. Petri Dens, torn. v. p. 90. § Concil. Trid. sess. vii. can. viii. II From a recent barbarity, we should infer that modern Romanists place the seat of this impression in the finger points. Ugo Bassi, the chaplain of Garibaldi, had the skin peeled oiF the tips of his fingers before being shot. INTENTION OF THE PRIEST. 297 the sound doctrine of the gospel." Not only do the .sacra- ments infuse grace at first, but they confer an increase of grace, and all that divine aid which is necessary to gain tlieir end.* This grace is contained in the sacraments, say the Komanists, " not as the accident in its subject, or as liquor in a vase (as Calvin has vilely insinuated), but it is conferred by the sacraments as the instrumental cause.""-|- One very important point remains, and that is, the vali- dity of the sacrament. In order to this, it is not enough that the forms of the Church be observed in the administra- tion of the sacrament ; the right direction of the intention of the administrator is an essential requisite. " If any one shall say," says the Council of Trent, " that in ministers, while they form and give the sacraments, intention is not re- quired, at least of doing what the Church does, let him be anathema.""! Any flaw here, then, vitiates the whole pro- ceeding. If the priest who administers baptism or extreme unction be a hypocrite or an infidel, and does not intend what the Church intends, the baptized man lives without grace, and the dying man departs without hope. The priest may be the greatest profligate that ever lived ; this will not in the least affect the validity of the sacrament ; but. should he fail to direct aright his intention, the sacrament is null, and all its virtue and benefit are lost, — a calamity as dread- ful as the difficulty of providing against it is great. For as the intention of another cannot be seen, it can never be known with certainty that it exists. It is not difficult to imagine the tremendous evil to which a single invalid act may lead. Take the case of a child whose baptism is invalid from the want of intention on the part of the priest. This child grows to manhood ; he takes orders ; but he is no priest. Every priestly act he does is null. Those he ordains are in the same predicament with * Theol. 3Ior. et Dog. Petri Dens, torn. v. p. 94. + Idem, torn. v. p. 90. X Concil. Trid. sess. vii. can. xi. 298 THE SACRAMENTS. himself; they neither possess nor can transmit the true apostolic ichor. Every host they consecrate, and which is first adored, then eaten, by the worshippers, is but a simple wafer. They cannot absolve ; they cannot give the viaticum. But even this is not the whole of the mischief. It may happen, that of these pseudo-priests, one may be chosen to fill Peter's chair. He wants, of course, the infallibility ; and so the Church loses her head, and becomes a corpse. There is no Romanist who can say with certainty, on his own prin- ciples, that there is a true catholic and apostolic Church on the earth at this day. Roman Catholics are accustomed to grant that the sacra- ments in general, and baptism in particular, administered by Protestants or by other heretics, are valid and efficacious as regards their effects.* This is a stretch of charity quite un- usual on the part of that Church ; and we may be sure that Rome has good reasons for being so very liberal on this point. Good reasons she verily has. She grants that bap- tism administered by heretical hands is valid, in order that when these children grow up she may have a pretext to seize upon them, and compel them to enter the Roman Catholic Church. And in the fourteenth canon of the seventh session of the Council of Trent, she pronounces an anathema on all who shall say that such children, when they grow up, are to be " left to their own choice, and not to be compelled to lead a Christian life,"" that is, to become Roman Catholics. Thus has the Pope converted an ordinance which was designed to represent our being delivered from the yoke of' Satan, and made the frecdmen of Jesus Christ, into a brand of slavery. As in the feudal times the lords of the soil were accustomed to put collars, with their names inscribed, upon the necks of their slaves, so baptism is the iron collar which Rome puts upon the necks of her slaves, that she may be able to claim her property wherever she may chance to find it. " Here- * Concil. Tiid. sess. vii. can. xii., et de Baptismo, can. iv, : Perrone's Pruclectioucs Tlieologica', torn. ii. p. 36. INTOLERANCE OF ROMANISM, 299 tics and schismatics," says the Catechism of Trent, " are ex- cluded because they have departed from the Church ; for they no more belong to the Church than deserters to the army they have left. Yet it is not to he denied that they are under the power of the Churchy as those loho may he called hy her to judgment^ punished^ and condemned hy an anathema^* In short, like deserters from the array, on being retaken they may be shot. And thus, as Blanco White remarks, " the principle of religious tyranny, supported by persecu- tion, is a necessary condition of Roman Catholicism : he who revolts at the idea of compelling belief by punishment is severed at once from the communion of Rome.''''-f If we may believe Bellarmine, the apostles would have burned all they failed to convert, had they had the use of the civil power. Their time would have been divided betwixt direct- ing Christians in their faith and morals, and drawing up rules for the trial and execution of pagans and heretics, had they seen the least chance of being permitted to act upon their plan. Think of Paul writing some such sentence as this : — " Now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three ; but the greatest of these is charity," — and laying down his pen, and going straight to assist at an auto dafe! * Cat. Rom. de Symbolo, art. ix. t Prac. and lut. Evidouce against Catholicism, p. 124. SOO BAPTISM AND CONFIRMATION CHAPTER XII. BAPTISM AND CONFIRMATION. Having considered the leading characteristics which belong to sacraments in general, according to the idea of the Roman Catholic Church, it only remains that we state the peculiari- ties proper to each. Nothing could be more simple as a rite, or more significant as a symbol, than baptism administered according to Scrip- ture ; nothing could be more foolish, ridiculous, or supersti- tious, than baptism administered according to the forms of the Roman Catholic Church. Water sprinkled on the body is the divinely-appointed sign ; but to the Scripture form a great many absurd additions have been made. The water is prepared and consecrated with " the oil of mystic unction ;" certain words and prayers are muttered over the child, to exorcise the devil ; salt is put into the mouth, to intimate the relish acquired by baptism for " the food of divine wis- dom," and the disposition communicated to perform good works. On the forehead, the eyes, the breast, the shoulders, the ears, is put the sign of the cross, to block up the senses against the entrance of evil, and to open them for the recep- tion of good and the knowledge of divine things. The re- sponses being made at the font, the child is next anointed with the oil of catechumens ; first on the breast, that his bosom may become the abode of the Holy Ghost and of the ESSENTIAL TO SALVATION. 801 true faith ; next on the shoulders, that he may become strong and active in the performance of good works ; the assent is then given, either personally or by sponsor, to the apostle's creed ; after which baptism is administered. The crown of his head is then anointed with chrism, to signify his engraft- ing into Christ. A white napkin is given to the infant, to signify that purity of soul and that glory of the resurrection to which he is born by his baptism. A lighted taper is put into his hand, to represent the good works by which his faith is to be fed and made to burn. And finally, a name is given, which is usually selected from some distinguished saint In the calendar, whose virtues he is to imitate, and by whose prayers he is to be shielded and blessed.* The Roman Catholic Church teaches that participation in this rite is essential to salvation. " Is baptism necessary to salvation V it is asked in Butler's Catechism. " Yes," is the reply ; " without it we cannot enter into the kingdom of God.""!- " Without baptism," says Liguori, " no one can enter heaven."| Dens states two exceptions, — that of the martyr, and that of the man labouring under invincible ig- norance. § The effects of baptism are great and manifold. The compilers of the Roman Catechism have enumerated seven of the more notable ones. It cleanses from the guilt both of original sin and actual transgression ; and nothing remains in the person but the infirmity of concupiscence. All punishment due on account of sin is discharged ; justifi- cation and adoption, and other invaluable privileges, are bestowed ; it implants the germ of all virtues ; it engrafts * Cat. Rom. pars ii. cap. ii. s. xlvi.-lxi., — " Quotuplices sunt Baptismi Ritus 1" + Butler's Catechism, lesson xxiv. J Instructions on the Commandments and Sacraments ; by Alplionsus M. Liguori ; part ii. cliap. ii. ; Dublin, 1844. § Theol. INIor. et Dog. Petri Dens, torn. v. p. 173. " Nisi per baptismi gi-atiam Deo renascantur, in sempiternam miseriam et interitum a paren- tibus, sive illi fideles sive infideles sint, procreantur." (Cat. Rom. pars ii. c. ii. s. XXV.) S02 BAPTISM AND CONFIRMATION. into Christ ; it stamps with an ineffaceable character ; and it constitutes the person an heir of heaven.* Next in order to baptism comes the sacrament of confir- mation. Baptism is the spiritual birth ; but the Roman Catholic Church, like a tender mother, desires and delights to see her children wax in stature and in strength; and this they do mainly through the mystic influence of confirmation, in which the grace of baptism is perfected. By baptism they become Christians ; by confirmation they become strong Christians. The one is the gate by which they enter the Christian state ; the other clothes them with the armour of a Christian soldier.-f- None are to be confirmed till they have attained at least the age of seven years. Its rites are simpler than those of baptism, but they are equally without warrant in Scripture, and therefore equally superstitious. This rite is to be administered by a bishop, who, making the sign of the cross upon the forehead of the person with chrism, compounded of oil and balsam, says, " I confirm thee, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." He next slaps the person on the cheek, to signify that, as a soldier of the cross, he must be prepared bravely to endure hardships ; and, lastly, he bestows the kiss of peace, to denote the impartation of that " peace that passeth all understanding."" With the chrism the person enjoys a mystic anointing. He is no longer a child ; he is now a perfect man, equipped for performing the labours and fio-hting the battles of the Church. In this sacrament the Iloman Catholic Church holds that the seven gifts of the Spirit are bestowed. These gifts are, — wisdom, understand- ing, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and the fear of the Lord. Like baptism, the sacrament of confirmation confers an ineff*aceable character, and is never to be repeated, j * Cat. Rom. pars ii. cap. ii. s. xxxi.-xlv. : Perrone's PrsBlectiones Theo- logical, torn. ii. p. 116, et seq. + Perrone's Prselectiones Theologicae, torn. ii. p. 130. J Cat. Rom. pars ii. cap. iii., — De Confirmationis Sacramento : Theol. !Mor. et Dog. Petri Dens, torn, v., — Tractatus de Sacramento Confirma- tionis ; Dutler's Cat. lesson xxv. POPERY SIMPLE MAGIC. 303 Rome has a fine histrionic genius. She has eclipsed all other actors that ever appeared in the world. What is the Papacy but a mighty raelo-drama, which, according to the vein of the hour, runs out into the humours and fooleries of comedy, or deepens into the horrors of tragedy. All the persons and verities of eternal truth pass in shadow before the spectator in Rome's scenic exhibition. She affects to play over again the grand dx'ama, of which the universe is the stage, and eternity the development, — redemption. And for what end ? That she may hide from man the reality. Her system is essentially counterfeit, and all she does is pervaded by a spirit of imposture and juggling. But in some of her rites she lays aside her usual disguise, thin enough at the best, and reveals her art to all as but a piece of naked witchcraft. If those are not spells which she com- mands her priests to operate with on certain occasions, He- cate herself never used incantation or charm. We open her missals, and find them but books of sorcery : they are filled with recipes or spells for doing all manner of super- natural feats, — exorcising demons, working miracles, and infusing new and extraordinary qualities into things ani- mate and inanimate. She has her cabalistic words, which, if uttered by a priest in the appropriate dress, will bind or loose men, send them to paradise or shut them up in pur- gatory ! What is this but magic ? What is the Church of Rome but a company of conjurors ? and what is her wor- ship but a system of divination l Has she not an order of exorcists, specially and formally ordained to the somewhat dangerous office of fighting with and overcoming hobgoblins and devils ? Has she not her regular formulas, by which she can change the qualities of substances, control the elements of air, earth, and water, and compel spirits and demons to do the bidding of her priests ? Can any man of plain under- standing take this for religion ? What is her grand rite, but an incantation, which combines more than the foulness of ancient sorcery with more than the blasphemy of modern atheism I And yet do not kings, presidents, and states- 304 BAPTISM AND CONFIRMATION. men, countenance its celebration 1 and, while themselves practising this foul sorcery, and leading others by their in- fluence to practise it, they affect to be shocked at the im- pieties of modern socialism ! We excuse not Voltaire and the other high priests of infidelity ; but it is indisputable that they treated the human understanding with more re- spect than do the stoled and mitred sorcerers, who first create, then eat their god. What are the rubrics of the Romish Church, but recipes for the manufacture of holy salt, holy mortar, holy ashes, holy incense, holy bells, holy oil, holy water, and we know not how many other things besides ? And the instructions regarding this unearthly kind of manu- facture are plentifully mixed with exorcisms for driving the devil out of oil, out of buildings, and out of infants. For, with striking but characteristic inconsistency, while, ac- cording to the theory of original sin, as we have explain- ed it, man's nature is entire and sound, according to the formula of baptism he is possessed by a demon. " Come out of this body, unclean spirit !" So runs the summons ut- tered by priestly lips, and addressed to the supposed occu- pant of every infant brought to the baptismal font. Accord- ing to the dogmatic view, man has no corrupt element in his constitution ; according to the ritual, he is a demoniac, and remains a demoniac till the baptismal vvater restores him to his right mind. What, in form or essence, is awanting in the following scene, to entitle it to be regarded as a piece of genuine witchcraft? It is the exorcism of water in order to its being used in baptizing. Following the classic model which the words of Hecate to the three weird sisters fur- nish, — " Your vessels and your spells provide, Your charms, aud everything beside," — the rubric proceeds : — " First, let the vessel be washed and cleansed, and then filled with clear water ; tlion lot the sacrificing priest, in his surplice (or alb) and stole, with the clerks or other priests, if thoy be at hand, with the cross, two EXORCISM OF WATER. SOo wax candles, the censor and incense, the vessels of the chrism, and the oil of the catechumens, solemnly advance to the font, and there, or at the al- tar of the baptistery, if there be one, say the following litany" [in Latin]. That litany consists of an invocation of all the saints in the Roman calendar ; for it is fitting that such an incanta- tion should open with the names of the " three hundred gods" of Rome in whose honour these rites are performed. After this comes the exorcism. " I exorcise thee, thou creature of water, By the living +, by the true f. By the holy f person who. By a word, without a hand, Parted thee from the dry land ; "Who did brood upon thy face. In the void and formless space ; Who did order thee to go. And from Paradise to flow, In four goodly rivers forth, Towards the south, east, west, and north," "Here let him with his hand divide the water, and then pour some of it outside the edge of the font, toward the four parts of the world." " Who, when bitter was thy flood. By the prophet's branch of wood. Made thee sweet ; who from the stone, In the desert parch'd and lone. Fainting Israel's thirst to cure. Brought thee forth . .... I thee conjure ; Be thou holy water, blest ; Cleanse the foul and guilty breast ; Wash away the filth of sin ; Make the bosom pure within. And ye devils, every one. Let what I prescribe be done. Where this water sprinkled flies. Thence eradicate all lies ; Every phantasm put to flighi ; Every dark thing bring to light. Let it be of life eternal. Fountain salient and supernal ; Laver of Regeneration For a chosen favoured nation. In the name, &c. — Amen." X so 6 BAPTISM AND CONFIRMATION. Then follow certain ceremonies, such as blowing three times into the water, incensing the font, and pouring in oil in the form of a cross ; after which the incantation is con- cluded as follows : — "Mingle, O thou holy chrism ; Blessed oil, I mingle thee ; Mingle, water of baptism. Mingle, all ye sacred three ; Slingle, mingle, mingle ye, In the name of +, and of t, and of +. Now this appears to us to embody the very soul of magic. The only two spiritual agencies known to man, — the moral and supernatural agency of the Divine Spirit, and the in- tellectual and natural agency of truth, — are here set aside, and a third sort of agency, that of spells and incantations, is called into requisition. Is not this witchcraft ? Of whom, then, are the priests of Rome the successors ? Manifestly of the ancient diviners and wizards. Nor could anything be finer, as a piece of the histrionic, than the scene just de- scribed. The ancient models have been carefully studied, and their forms as well as spirit preserved. The obscurity produced by the incense and the tapers, — the mystic dresses, with their hieroglyphical signs, — the crossings and blowings, — the mixing and mingling of various substances, — the inton- ed incantations, — the dread names employed to conjure with, — all combine to form a scene such as might have been beheld in the observatory of some ancient Chaldean astrologer, or in the cell of some Egyptian soothsayer ; or such as the poor infatuated monarch witnessed in the sorceress''s cot at End or ; or, to come nearer home, such as the great Hecate and her three bedlamite attendants celebrated at midnight on the bleak heath of Forres, so powerfully painted by the genius of Shakspeare. The one set of rites are equally important and dignified as the other ; and both occupy the mind with precisely the same feeling, — that feeling being one of vague, hurtful, and demoralizing awe. THE EUCHARIST, TRANSUBSTANTIATION, THE MASS. 307 CHAPTER XIII. THE EUCnAEIST— TRANSUBSTANTIATION— THE MASS. We now come to speak of the Eucharist. This rite, as practised by the Church of Rome, forms the centralization of Popish absurdity, blasphemy, and idolatry. The mass, in short, is Superstition's masterpiece. It takes precedence of all other idolatries that ever existed in this fallen world. It is without a rival among the polytheisms of ancient times. The groves of Greece, the temples of Egypt, witnessed the celebration of no rite at once so revolting and so impious as that which is daily enacted in the temples of the Roman Catholic Church. What the priests of pagan Rome would have blushed to perform, the priests of papal Rome glory in, as that which imparts a peculiar lustre to their office, and a peculiar sanctity to their persons. As the polytheisms of the past have produced nothing that can equal the mass, so we may safely affirm that, while the world stands, this rite will remain unsurpassed by anything which the combined folly and impiety of man is able to invent. The same place which the Pope occupies in the scheme of papal government does the host occupy in the scheme of papal worship. Each forms in its own department the cul- minating point of Rome's idolatry. Both are transformed into divinities. A mortal and fallible man, when seated in the chair of Peter, and crowned with the tiara, is straight- oOS THE EUCHARIST, TRANSUBSTANTIATION, THE MASS. way endowed with the attribute of infallibility, and is ad- dressed and obeyed as God. Bread and wine, when placed upon the altars of the Romish Church, with a few prayers mumbled over them by the priest, and a few muttered words of consecration, are straightway changed into the real flesh and blood of Christ, and are commanded to be adored with the worship that is due to God. What a difference between the Eucharist of the primitive Church and the mass of the popish Church ! And yet the latter is but the former dis- guised and metamorphosed by the evil genius of Popery. In nothing perhaps do we find a more striking illustration of the sad change that Romanism works on all that is pure, simple, and holy ! How completely has it succeeded in changing the character and defeating the end of the or- dinance of the Supper ! A memorial at once affecting and sublime, designed to commemorate the most wonderful event the world ever saw, it has transformed into a rite which re- volts by its absurdity and shocks by its impiety, and which robs of all its value and efficacy that death which it was designed to commemorate, and which, on the ground of its efficacy alone, was worthy of being commemorated. The sum of what the Church of Rome holds under this head is, that the bread and wine in the Eucharist are changed into the real flesh and blood of Christ the moment the priest pronounces the words, " This is my body ;" that the host is to be adored with the adoration usually given to God, and, in fine, is to be offered up to God by the priest, as a true propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the quick and the dead. The subject then resolves itself as follows : — firsts the dogma of transubstantiation ; second, the adoration of the host ; and third, the sacrifice of the mass. The origin of the term mass is involved in obscurity. The more common opinion is, that it signifies " a sending away." It was the custom anciently, at the conclusion of the sermon, and before proceeding to celebrate the Supper, for the offi- ciating deacon to pronounce aloud, " Ite, missa est,'''' in order that catechumens and strangers might retire. From this RISE OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 309 circumstance the service that followed was called " mass/'* It required several centuries to give to the rite its present form. Transubstantiation was broached as early as the ninth century, but it was not formally established till the Council of Lateran, 1215, under the pontificate of Innocent III. ;-f* nor was it till three centuries later that the Council of Trent decreed it to be a true propitiatory sacrifice. It is on the dogma of transubstantiation that the whole of the mass is founded. The Council of Trent thus defines tran- substantiation:^ — " If any one shall deny, that in the sacra- ment of the most holy Eucharist there are contained truly, really, and substantially, the body and the blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore whole Christ, and shall say that he is in it only by sign, or figure, or influence, let him be accursed." Still more explicit are the terms of the next canon : — " If any one shall say, that in the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist there remains the substance of bread and wine along with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and shall deny the wonderful and singular conversion of the whole of the substance of the bread into the body, and the whole of the substance of the wine into the blood, there re- maining only the appearances of bread and wine, which conversion the Catholic Church most appropriately calls transubstantiation, let him be accursed." Rome is care- ful to mark the complete and thorough character of the change effected by the consecrating words of the priest. There is no mixing of the bread and the wine with the body and the blood of Christ. The substance of the bread and the wine is annihilated ; and the very body and blood of Christ, — " that very body," Rome is careful to state, " which was born of the Virgin, and which now sits at the * Cotter on the Mass and Rubrics, pp. 12, 13 ; Dublin, 1845. + Mosheim, cent. xiii. part ii. chap. iii. sec. ii. ± Concil. Trid. sess. Kiii. can. i. SIO THE EUCHARIST, TRANSUBSTANTIATION, THE MASS. right hand of God,"* — that body which did all the miracles, uttered all the words, and endured all the agonies, which the evangelists record, — that very body it is which the priest reproduces, places upon the altar, and puts into the hands and into the mouths of the worshippers. Do the annals of the world contain another such wonder ? Nay, with a par- ticularity that sinks into the most offensive grossness, the authorized books of Rome are careful to explain that " the bones and sinews" of the body of Christ are contained in the host.-f- There is nothing to indicate to the senses the stu- pendous change which the creating fiat of the priest has ac- complished. To the eye it still appears as bread and wine; it smells as bread, it tastes as bread, and it can be eaten as bread; yet it is not bread: it is flesh; it is blood; it is the very body that eighteen centuries ago sojourned on earth, and that now sits enthroned in heaven. Christ has again re- turned to earth, not in glory, as he promised, and attended by his mighty angels; but summoned thither by the terrible power, or spell, or whatever it be, which the priest possesses, and for the purpose of undergoing a deeper humiliation than at first. Then he appeared as a man, but now he is com- pelled to assume the form of an inanimate thing ; and under that form he is again broken, and again offered in sacrifice ; and so his humiliation is not yet over, — his days of suffering and sacrifice are still prolonged : so eager has Rome been to identify herself with that Church predoomed in the Apo- calypse, and marked with this brand, " where also our Lord was crucified. "J It is scarce possible to state the many revolting conse- quences involved in the popish doctrine of transubstantia- tion, without an appearance of profanity. But the dread of * Catechismus Rom. pars ii. cap. iv. q. xxii. + Ibid, pars ii. cap. iv. q. xxvii. — " Quicquid ad veram corporis ratio- nem pertinet, reluti ossa et nervos" X Rev. xi. 8. ABSURDITY OP THE DOGMA. 311 this charge must not unduly deter us, Rome it is that must bear the responsibility. The awful profanation is hei's, not ours. The priests of the Church of Rome have the power not only of creating* the body of our blessed Lord, together with his divinity, as often as they will, but of multiplying it indefinitely. Every time mass is per- formed tico Chrhts at least are created. There is a whole Christ in the host, or bread ; and there is a whole Christ in the chalice, or cup. " It is most certain," says the Council of Trent, " that all is contained under either species, and under both ; for Christ, whole and entire, exists under the species of bread, and in every particle thereof, and under the species of wine, and in all its parts.f " The Jof/y,'' says Perrone, " cannot be separated from the blood, and soul, and divinity ; nor can the hlood be separated from the body, and soul, and divinity ; therefore, under each species, a whole Christ must of necessity be present."! ^^ follows that there are as many whole Christs as there are conse- crated wafers. It follows also, that should we divide the wafer, there is a whole Christ in each part ; should we divide it again, the same thing will take place ; and how many soever the times we divide it, or the parts into which we divide it, a whole Christ is contained in every one of the parts. The same thing is true of the cup. Should we pour it out drop by drop, in every one of the drops there is a whole Christ. But we are also to take into account that the mass is being celebrated at many thousand altars at the * It is right to state, that Dens (torn. v. p. 2S7) objects to calling the act of transubstantiation a creation. His argument being, that to create is to make something out of nothing, whereas the flesh and blood of Christ are made from the bread and wine. Dens also objects to saying that the substance of bread and wine are annihilated; but the Council of Trent (sess. xiii. can. ii.) pronoimces an anathema on all who shall affirm that the substance of bread and wine remains after the consecration. So, between the reasonings of Dens and the anathema of Trent one has some difficulty ill steering a safe course. + Concil. Trid. sess. xiii, cap. iii. X Perrone's Prselectiones Theologicse, torn, ii, p. 217. SI 2 THE EUCHARIST, TEANSUBSTANTIATION, THE MASS. same time. At each of these altars the body of our blessed Lord is reproduced. The priest whispers the potent word ; the bread and wine are annihilated ; the flesh and blood of Christ, the bones and nerves, — to use Ilome''s phrase, — to- gether with his divinity, take their place, are immolated in sacrifice, and then eaten by the worshippers. That body is locked up in sacraria, is carried about in mass-boxes, is put into the pockets of priests, is produced at the beds of the sick, is liable to be lost, to be trodden upon, to be devoured by vermin, to — but we forbear; the enormity and blasphemy of the abomination sickens and revolts us. But on what ground does Rome rest this doctrine ? She rests it simply on these words, spoken by Christ at the first supper, — " This is my body.'"' She holds that by these words Christ changed the bread and wine into his flesh and blood, and has transmitted the same power to every priest, in the celebration of the Eucharist, grounding this delegation of power upon the words, " This do in remem- brance of me." To assail such a position by grave argu- ment were a waste of time. We have nowhere met with so clear and beautiful an exposition of the true meaning of these words, " This is my body," and of the absurdity of the sense which Rome puts upon them, as in the life of Zwino;le. The mass was about to be abolished in the can- ton of Zurich, and the reformer had been engaged all day in debating the question before the great council. Am- Grutt, the under Secretary of State, did battle in behalf of the impugned rite, and was opposed by Zwingle, the sub- stance of whose reasoning, as stated by D'Aubigne, was, " that sffTi (is) is the proper word in the Greek language to express signijies, and he quoted several instances in which this word is employed in a figurative sense." " Zwingle," continues the historian, " was seriously en- grossed by these thoughts, and, when he closed his eyes at night, was still seeking for arguments with which to oppose his adversaries. The subjects that had so strongly occupied his mind during the day presented themselves before him in TRANSUBSTANTIATION UNSCRIPTURAL. 313 a dream. He fancied that ho was disputing with Am-Grutt, and that he coukl not reply to his principal objection. Sud- denly a figure stood before him, and said, ' Why do you not quote the eleventh verse of the twelfth chapter of Exodus, — Ye shall eat it (the lamb) in haste: it is the Lor(r s passomr T Zwingle awoke, sprung out of bed, took up the septuagint translation, and there found the same word, Ict) (is), which all are agreed is synonymous with signifies in this passage. " Here, then, in the institution of the paschal feast under the old covenant, is the very meaning that Zwingle defends. How can he avoid concluding that the two passages are parallel r* The canon of interpretation by which Rome finds tran- substantiation in the Bible, is, that the words " This is my body" must be taken literally. No one is so great an adept as herself at mystical and figurative interpretation ; but here it suits her purpose to insist on the literal sense. But are we bound to follow Rome's canon ? Certainly not. Should we do so, there is no book in the world which is so fraught with absurdity and unintelligibility as the Bible. There is no figure more common, whether in Scripture or in ordi- nary speech, than that by which we give to the sign the name of the thing signified. " The seven kine are seven * D'Aubign^'s " History of the Reformation," book xi. cliap. vi. Dr Wiseman, following in the steps of Professor Perrone, of the Collegio Ro- mano, has laboured to prove that by the " flesh" alluded to in John, vi. our Lord meant his literal body, notwithstanding his correction of the mistake at the time :— " It is the Spirit that quickeneth ; the flesh profit- eth nothing." These interpreters view the words in the fifty-first verse,- — " The bread which I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world," — as a prophecy which was fulfilled on the night when Christ " took bread" and instituted the Supper. The words of John, " I baptize you with water, but he that cometh after me . • shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost," might as well be viewed as a prophecy, and the doctrine founded on them that the water of baptism is now transubstantiated into the Holy Ghost. The reasonings of Dr Wiseman have been ably exposed by Mr Sheridan Knowles, in his work, " The Idol demohshed by its own Priest j" Edin. 1850. ol4 THE EUCHARIST, TRANSUBSTANTIATION, THE MASS, years," " I am the door," and a hundred other instances, which the memory of every reader can supply, — What would we make of these sayings on the literal principle ? " This is Calvin," say we, meaning it is his portrait. The veriest simpleton would scarce take us to mean that the lines and paint on the canvas are the flesh and blood, the soul and spirit, of Calvin. But, say the Romish doctors, these phrases occur in dreams and parables, where a figurative mode of speech is allowable ; while the words " This is my body" form part of a plain narrative of the institution of the Sup- per. Well, let us take the corresponding narrative in the Old Testament, — the institution of the Passover, — and see whe- ther a mode of speech precisely identical does not there oc- cur. " It (the lamb) is the Lord's Passover ;" that is, it is the token thereof. No one was ever so far bereft of under- standing and reason as to hold that the lamb was transub- stantiated into the Passover ; that is, into the Lord's pass- ing over the houses of the Israelites. The lamb, when eaten in after ages, was, and could but be, the memorial^ and no- thing more, of an event long since past. In these two ana- logous passages, then, we find a mode of speech precisely similar ; and yet Rome interprets them according to two different canons. She applies the figurative rule to the lamh^ the literal to the bread. But we need not go so far as to the Old Testament to convict Rome of violating her own canon ; we have only to turn to the second clause of the same text, — " He took the cup, . . . saying, . . . this is my blood." Was the CUP his blood I Yes, on the literal principle. But, says Rome, the " cup" is here, by a trope or figure of speech, put for what it contains. Undoubt- edly so ; but it is a trope or figure of the same kind with that in the first clause, — " This is my body ;" and Rome pays her canon but a poor compliment, when it is no sooner enacted than abandoned. We cannot be blamed, surely, if we follow her example, and abandon it likewise, along with the monstrous dogma she has built upon it. But, leaving canons of interpretation, let us betake our- IXCOMPREHENSIBLE BY REASON. 315 selves to the use of our reason and our senses. Alas ! the mystery is as insoluble as ever. Like those stars so im- mensely remote from our eavth, that the most powerful tele- scope cannot assign their parallax, this mystery moves in an orbit so immeasureably beyond the range of both our mental powers and our bodily senses, that these make not the smallest perceptible approach to its comprehension. Reason and transubstantiation are quantities which have no relation to one another. The bread and the wine, say the Romish theologians, are transubstantiated into the flesh and blood of Christ. Had, then, our Lord two bodies? Was he dead and alive at the same instant ? Did he break himself? Did he eat himself? Was he sacrificed in the upper room ; and was his death on the cross but a repeti- tion of his decease the evening before ? Yes ; on Rome"'s principle, all this, and more, is true. He rose to die no more, and yet it is not so. He rose to die many times every day. He is in heaven ; and yet he is not in heaven, for he is on earth. He is here on this altar ; and yet he is not here ; he is there on that altar : he is in neither place ; and yet he is in both places. He is broken ; and yet he is not broken, for in each part is a whole Christ. From the whole wafer he passes into the fractured part ; and yet he does not pass into it, for a whole Christ remains in the part from which it was disjoined. Here is motion and rest, ex- istence and non-existence, predicated of the same body at the same instant. Rome has good reason for exhorting her devotees to qualify themselves for the reception of this doc- trine by the following abjuration : — " Herein I utterly re- nounce the judgment of my senses, and all human under- standing ;" which is just a statement, in Romc''s peculiar way, of what we are contending for, that transubstantiation is a proposition which no man in his senses can believe. Reason, we have seen, grapples hopelessly with this mys- tery. It is equally baffling and confounding to the senses. To the sight, the touch, and the taste, the bread and wine are bread and wine still. It is our senses that mislead and SIG THE EUCHARIST, TRANSUBSTANTIATION, THE MASS, deceive us, says the infallible Church. The substance of the bread is gone, — the accidents^ that is, the colour, the smell, the taste of bread, remain. The substance gone and the accidents remain ! This is the one instance in the universe ■where accidents exist apart from their subject. In no other instance did we ever see whiteness but in a white body ; but here we see where there is nothing to be seen, we touch where there is nothing to be touched, and taste where there is nothing to be tasted. For this ingenious discovery a French physician was so unreasonable as to say, that the holy fathers of Trent ought to be doomed to live all their days after on the accidents of bread. In that case, we fear, both subject and accidents would have speedily gone the way of all the earth. The newest theory on the subject, as given by Dens, is, that the accidents exist in the air and in our senses, as in their subject. But behind this wonder rises another. While in the one case, that of the bread, the ac- cidents exist apart from the subject^ in the other, that of the body of our Lord, the subject exists without the accidents. That body is there, but it possesses none of the properties of a body. It is not extended ; it cannot be seen ; it can- not be touched nor tasted. We touch and taste only the accidents of bread ; for the host, we are taught, is received under the appearance of bread. But it were bootless far- ther to pursue a mystery which Romanists candidly tell us falls not within the scope of reason or sense. Rome is un- questionably in the right when she assures us that the judg- ment of the Church on this head cannot be believed till the judgment of the understanding has been renounced. One word more as regards the testimony of the senses. Rome knows perfectly that her doctrine cannot stand this test, and therefore she has straitly forbidden its application. If men will be so wicked as to use their senses in connec- tion with this mystery, they will be justly punished by being landed in dreadful impiety ; that is, they will learn to de- ride transubstantiation as an impious and iniquitous juggle. " First of all," says the Catechism of Trent, " inculcate on OPPOSED TO THE SENSES. 31 7 the faithful the necessity of using their utmost endeavour to withdraw their minds and understandings from the domi- nion of the senses ; for should they allow themselves to be led by what the senses tell them respecting this mystery, they will be drawn into the extreme of impiety.""' Rome, in this way, may save the dogma of transubstantiation ; but, like those creatures which launch their stings and their life to- gether in the effort of self-defence, she saves transubstantia- tion at the expense of Christianity. Her principle is one that would land us in universal disbelief. How know we that Christ existed ? We know it on the testimony of men who had simply the evidence of their senses for the fact, — of men who saw, and heard, and handled him. In the same way do we believe in his miracles : we receive them on the testi- mony of men who tasted the wine into which the water was converted, or spake with Lazarus after he was raised. How know we that there is a God ? The evidence of his works and of his Word, communicated through the senses, assures us that He exists. In fine, we have no evidence of any- thing which does not come through the senses ; and if we distrust them, we can believe in nothing. We cannot be- lieve that there is a univei'se, or indeed anything at all. We can stop short only at Hume''s principle, that there is neither body nor spirit beyond our own minds, and that all is ideal. Thus Rome, when she brings us before the shrine of her idol, insists on blindfolding us. We must submit to have our eyes put out in order that we may be able to worship ! Why is this ? Is it a God, or a monster, before whom she conducts us ? Does she drop this dark veil to temper the glory, or to hide the deformity, of her divinity ? The answer is not far to seek. The mass, like another great deity, Is a monster of such frightful mein. That, to be hated, needs hut to be seen. Catechismus, Rom. pars, ii. cap. iv. q. xxi. SIS THE EUCHARIST, TRANSUBSTANTIATION, THE MASS. How differently does the Bible treat us ! It addresses us through the powers God has endowed us with, and calls on us to exercise these powers. The faith of the Bible is the perfection of reason : the faith of Rome is based on the prostitution and extinction of all those faculties which are the glory of man. Considering that the dogma of transubstantiation lacks footing in both Scripture and reason, one might think that Rome would have shown great moderation in pressing it. Quite the reverse. The belief of it was enforced with a ri- gour which would not have been justifiable although it had been the plainest, instead of the most confounding, of propo- sitions. Rome endeavoured to make it plain by the help of racks and faggots. Transubstantiation defied belief not- withstanding ; and the consequence was the effusion of blood in torrents. Rome has inaugurated her leading dogmas, as the heathen did their idols, by hecatombs of human beings. So many confessors have been called to die for the mass, that it has come to be known as Rome''s " burning article." The monstrous juggle of transubstantiating the elements is immediately followed by an act of gross idolatry. The host being consecrated, the officiating priest kneels and adores it ; he next elevates it in the sight of the people, who like- wise kneel and adore it. The Church distinctly teaches that it is to be worshipped with that worship which is ren- dered to God himself ; because it is God. " It is therefore indubitable," say the fathers of Trent, " that all true Chris- tians, according to the uniform practice of the Catholic Church, are bound to venerate this most holy sacrament, and to render to it the worship of lafria, which is due to the true God. Nor is it the less to be worshipped that it was instituted by Christ the Lord, as has been stated ; for we be- lieve the same God to be present in it, of whom the eternal Father, when he introduces him into the world, thus speaks : — ' And let all the angels of God worship him.' "* The same * Concil. Trid. scss. xiii. cap. v. : Perrone's Prselectiones Theologicse, torn. ii. p. 222. GROSS IDOLATRY OF MASS. ol.9 decree goes on to enact that the host shall be cari-icd in public procession through the streets, that the faithful may adore it, and that heretics, seeing its " great splendour," may be smitten and die, or may be ashamed and repent. The host, then, is to be worshipped ; and how ? Not as images are worshipped ; not as saints are worshipped ; but as the eternal Creator himself is worshipped. The Church of Rome does not teach that God is worshipped through the host : she teaches that the host is God, — is the flesh, the blood, the soul and divinity of Christ, — and therefore the worship is given to the host, and terminates on the host. If that Church can prove conclusively, by fair argument, that what appears to us to be bread and wine is not bread and wine at all, but the body and divinity of Christ, we will at once admit that she does right, and at once acquit her of idolatrj', in rendering it divine honours ; but till she irre- fragably establish this, we must hold her guilty of the gross- est idolatry. It is no answer to say, that the Papist be- lieves that the wafer which he worships is God, and that if he did not believe it to be God he would not worship it. His so believing does not make it God ; nor can his mistake alter the nature of the act, which is that of giving to a wa- fer that worship and homage which is due to God alone. The question is, Is it, or is it not, God ? We deny that it is God, and challenge Rome to the proof; and till proof clear and conclusive is adduced, we shall hold, that in worship- ping the bread and wine of the Eucharist, she is guilty of one of the foulest and most monstrous forms of idolatry ever practised on the earth. Nor do the absurdity and impiety of the mass stop here. The priests of Rome not only create the body and divinity of Christ, — they actually offer it in sacrifice. The Church of Rome teaches that the mass is a true propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the quick and the dead.* So was it decreed to be by the Council of Trent. " The holy council teaches * The term " host," from hostia, a victim or sacrifice, indicates as much. S20 THE EUCHARIST, TRANSUBSTANTIATION, THE MASS. that this sacrifice is really propitiatory, and made by Christ himself. .... Assm'edly God is appeased by this ob- lation, and grants grace and the gift of penitence, and dis- charges the greatest crimes and inicjuities. For it is one and the same sacrifice which is now offered by the priests, and which was offered by Christ upon the cross, only the mode of offering is different Wherefore it is rightly ofi'ered, according to the tradition of the apostles, not only for the sins, punishments, satisfactions, and other necessities of living believers, but also for the dead in Christ, who are not yet completely purified."* The fathers of Trent establish this doctrine by the very peculiar logic with which they establish all the more unintelligible of their dogmas, that is, they present it to the understanding, and drive it home with an anathema. " Whoever shall affirm,*'*' say the i'athers, " that the sacrifice of the mass is nothing more than an act of praise and thanksgiving, or that it is simply com- memorative of the sacrifice offered on the cross, and not also propitiatory, or that it benefits only the person who re- ceives it, nor ought to be offered for the living and the dead, for sins, punishments, satisfactions, and whatever be- sides may be requisite, let him be accursed.*"-]- The prac- tice of the Church is in full accordance with the decree of Trent, The following prayer accompanies the oblation of the host : — " Accept, Holy Father, Almighty and Eter- nal God, this unspotted host, which I thy unworthy servant offer unto thee, my living and true God, for my innumerable sins, offences, and negligences, and for all here present ; as also for all faithful Christians, both living and dead ; that it may avail both me and them to everlasting life. — Amen.*"| It is the doctrine of the Church of Rome, then, as taught by her great council, that in the sacrifice of the mass atone- ment is made for sin.§ But we think that we can discover * Concil. Trid. sess. xxii. cap. ii. ; Perrone's Pro9lectiones Theological, torn. ii. p. 260. + Concil. Trid. sess. xxii. can. iii. J Ordinary of the Mass. § Theol. Mor. et Dog. Petri Dens, torn. v. p. 370. THE MASS A SACRIFICE. 321 a disposition on the part of the Papists of the present day to explain away the doctrine of Trent on this head. In their modern catechisms they no doubt state that the mass is a true propitiatory sacrifice, for otherwise they would impugn their 01iurch''s infallibility ; but when they come to describe its effects, they state in a cursory way, " the remission of sins," and dwell largely on its efficacy in applying to us the merits and benefits of the sacrifice of Christ.* But, not to speak of the absurdity of supposing that the merits of one sacrifice are applied to us by another sacrifice, the attempt to limit the nature and design of the mass to this is utterly inconsistent with all their other statements and reasonings respecting it. Why not also call baptism a " propitiatory sacrifice," seeing the benefits of Christ's death are applied to us by it ? The very same flesh and blood. Papists hold, are offered in the mass which were offered on the cross : it is the same person who offers, even Christ, who is represent- ed by the priest : it is one and the same sacrifice, the Church of Rome teaches, which was offered on the cross, and is now offered in the mass; the inference is therefore inevitable, that its design and effects are the same. It made a real atone- ment in the first instance; and, if still the same sacrifice, must still be, what the authorized expositors of the Romish creed declare it to be, a true propitiatory sacrifice. The Council of Trent pronounces an anathema against the man who shall affirm that the sacrifice of the mass blas- phemes or derogates from the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross.-f- But despite its anathema, we maintain that the mass is in the highest degree derogatory to the sacrifice of Christ, — is so derogatory to it as virtually to supersede it altogether. The glory of the cross lies in its efficacy, and the mass makes void that efficacy. Rome here is emphati- cally the enemy of the cross. As oft as this sacrifice is * See Keenan's Cat. on the Sacrifice of tlie Mass, chap. iii. ; and Butler's Cat. lesson xxvi. + Concil. Trid. sess. xxii. can. iv. Y o22 THE EUCHARIST, TRANSUBSTANTIATION, THE MASS. offered, Kome emphatically declares that the cross has fail- ed to accomplish the end which God proposed by it ; that, though Christ has suffered, sin remains unexpiated ; and that what he has failed to do by the pains of his body and the agonies of his soul, her priests are able to do by their unbloody'^ sacrifice. It is theirs to offer for the sins of the world, — theirs to mediate between earth and heaven. And. thus the dignity of the priesthood of Christ is completely eclipsed by the priesthood of Rome, and the glory of his cross by Rome"'s great sacrifice of the mass. Moreover, the doctrine of the mass traverses all the lead- ing principles and statements of the Bible on the subject of Christ"'s offering. The Bible teaches that the office and functions of priesthood are for ever at an end ; the sacrifico of the mass implies that they are still in being. The Bible teaches that the sacrifice of Christ was offered " once for all," and is never to be repeated \\ but in the mass, Christ continues to be offered in sacrifice every day at the thousand altars of Rome. The great law of the Bible on the subject of satisfaction is, that " without shedding of blood there is no remission." This law the mass contradicts, inasmuch as it teaches that there is " remission" by its unhloody sacri- fice, and so virtually affirms that the blood of Christ was uselessly shed. While on this subject, we may be permitted to remark, that the man who assumes to be a priest is chargeable with a blasphemy next to that of the man who assumes to be God. Priesthood is the next sacred thing to Deity. There • We are unable to see the consistency of the Roman Catholic doctrine on this head. All the standard works of the Church of Rome teach tliat the mass is an unbloody sacrifice ; but with the same distinctness tlicy teach that the wine is transubstantiated into literal blood. On Rome's own showing, the one-half of what constitutes the sacrifice is blood; liow then the mass can be an unhloody sacrifice, we are unable to comprehend. If it be unbloody, of what value is it I " Without shedding of blood tliere is no remission." t Hebrews, ix. x. THE CUP WITHHELD. 323 is only one priest in the universe ; there never was, and there never will be, any other ; for the circumstances of our world render it impossible that priesthood, in the true sense of the term, should be borne by any mere creature. The priests of the former economy were but types and figures. And as there is but one priest, so there is but one sacrifice. The sacrifices of the Mosaic dispensation were typical, like the priests; and now both are for ever at an end. Accord- ingly, in the New Testament, the term priest does not once occur, save in relation to a priesthood now abolished. The claim of priesthood, then, is sacrilegious and blasphemous, and the man who makes it is inferior in guilt only to the man who lays claim to Deity. There are several practices connected with the celebration of the mass, which our limits may permit us to indicate, but forbid us to dwell upon. The Council of Trent, which was the first to decree that the mass is a true propitiatory sacri- fice, also enacted that the cup should be denied to the laity. The King of France is (or rather was) the only layman in Christendom who, by virtue of a pontifical permission, is al- lowed the privilege of communicating in both kinds. Priests only were present at the first communion, say the Papists, and therefore the laity have no right to the cup. But this proves too much, and therefore proves nothing ; for if this warrants the exclusion of the laity from the cup, it equally warrants their exclusion from the bread, — from the sacra- ment altogether. Sensible that this ground would not sus- tain her practice of giving the cup to no one but the offi- ciating priest, the Roman Catholic Church has had recourse to tradition, but with no better success. It does not admit of doubt, that in early times the people were allowed the cup equally with the bread. But the practice has now come to be extremely common in the Church of Rome for the priest alone to partake sacramentally; so that, in point of fact, the people, in all ordinary cases, are debarred from both kinds. The writer has seen mass celebrated in most of the great cathedrals out of Italy ; but in no instance did he ever see S24 THE EUCHARIST, TRANSUBSTANTIATION, THE MASS. the worshippers permitted to partake. Attendance, how- ever, on such occasions, is earnestly enjoined ; and the people are taught that their benefit is the same whether they par- take or no. It is also a frequent practice of the priests of Rome to celebrate mass in their own closets, where not a single spec- tator is present. This custom is directly at variance with one leading end of the institution of the Supper, which, as a public memorial, was designed to commemorate a great public event. The priest, in this case, can apply the benefit of the mass to whomsoever he will ; that is, he can apply it to any one who chooses to hire him with his money. The ghostly necromancer, shut up in his own closet, can operate by his spells upon the soul of the person he intends to bene- fit, with equal effect, whether he is in the next room or a thousand miles off". Nay, though he should be beyond " this visible diurnal sphere," in the gloomy regions of pur- gatory, the mysterious and potent rites of the priest can benefit him even there. No magician in his cave ever wrought with spells and incantations half so powerful as those wielded by the priests of Home. The mysteries of ancient sorcery and the wonders of modern science are here left far behind. The electric telegraph can transmit intelli- gence with the speed of lightning across a continent, but the Romish priest can convey instantaneously the virtue of his spiritual divinations across the gulf that divides worlds. But we might write volumes on the mass, and not exhaust its marvels. How all this goes to enrich, and almost to deify, the Ro- mish priesthood, will be seen when we come to speak of the genius of Popery, OF PENANCE AND CONFESSION. 325 CHAPTER XIV. OF PENANCE AND CONFESSION. In baptism all sin is washed away, and more particularly the guilt of original sin. For the remission of sins done after baptism, the Roman Catholic Church has invented the sacrament of penance. That mystic machinery by which Rome perfects men for heaven, without any trouble or pains of their own, is complete in all its parts. Holiness is con- ferred by one sacrament and maintained by another ; and thus a mutual benefit is conferred. The people are enriched by the spiritual gifts of the Church, and the Church is am- ply recompensed and endowed with the temporal wealth of the people. " Penance is the channel through which the blood of Christ flows into the soul, and washes away the stains contracted after baptism,"* says the Catechism of Trent. It might have added with equal truth, that it is a main channel by which the gold of the people flows into the treasury of Rome, and repairs the havoc which the luxury and ambition of the clergy are daily making in the posses- sions of the Church. Penance Dens defines to be " a sacrament of the new law, by which those who have been baptized, but have fallen into sin, upon their contrition and confession obtain absolu- Cat. Rom. pars ii. cap. v. q. iz. 226 OF PENANCE AND CONFESSION. tion of sin from a priest having authority.'"* The Council of Trent requires all to believe, under pain of damnation, that " the Lord specially instituted the sacrament of pen- ance when, after his resurrection, he breathed on his dis- ciples, saying, " Receive ye the Holy Ghost : whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them ; and whoseso- ever sins ye retain, they are retained."-f- The fathers go on to argue, that the power of forgiving sins, which Christ un- doubtedly possessed and exercised, was communicated to the apostles and their successors, and that the Church had always so understood the matter.j Of this last, however, the council adduces no proof, unless we can regard as such the anathema with which it attempts to terrify men into the belief of this dogma. None can be saved, the Roman Catholic Church holds, without the sacrament of penance. It is " as necessary to salvation," says the Council of Trent, " for those who have sinned after baptism, as baptism itself for the unregenerate."§ " Without its intervention," says the Trent Catechism, " we cannot obtain, or even hope for, pardon." This sacrament, as regards its form, consists in the absolution pronounced by the priest ; and as regards its matter, it consists in contrition, confession, and satisfaction, which are the acts of the penitent. These are the several parts which are held to constitute the whole. Let us speak briefly of each of these. Contrition is defined by Dens to be " sorrow of mind and abhorrence of the sin, with a full purpose not to sin any more." II This differs little from what Protestant divines are accustomed to call godly sorrow ; and had the matter rested here, we might have congratulated Rome on retain- ing at least one portion of truth ; but she has spoilt all by the distinction which immediately follows of perfect and imperfect contrition. Perfect contrition flows from love to * Theol. Mor. et Dog. Petri Dens, torn. vi. p. 1. + John, xx. pp. 22, 23. t Concil. Trid. sess. xiv. cap. i. § Ibid. sess. xiv. cap. ii. II Theol. Mor. et Dog. Petri Dens, torn. vi. p. 47. CONTRITION AND ATTRITION. S27 God ; and tho penitent mourns for his sin chiefly because it has dishonoured God. This kind of contrition, the Council of Trent teaches, may procure reconciliation with God with- out confession and absolution ; but then perfect contrition, according to that Council, includes a desire for tho sacra- ment, and without that desire contrition cannot procure pardon.* Imperfect contrition, or attrition, as it is called, does not arise, according to Dens, from the love of God, or any contemplation of his goodness and mercy, but from tho desire of pardon and the fear of hell.-f- Attrition of itself cannot procure justification. It fails of its end unless it be followed by the sacrament ; that is, unless it lead the per- son to confession and absolution. It was attrition which the Ninevites showed on the preaching of Jonah, and which led them to do penance, and ultimately to share in the divine mercy. Perfect contrition, the Church of Rome ad- mits, may justify without the intervention of the priest. But such is the infirmity of human nature, that contrition is seldom or never attained, according to that Church. The sorrow of the sinner in rare cases, if in any, rises above at- trition ; and therefore the doctrine of Rome on the head of penance is, in point of fact, briefly this, — that without auri- cular confession and priestly absolution no one can hope to escape the torments of hell. The next act in the sacrament of penance is, confession. The Bible teaches the sinner to acknowledge his guilt to that Majesty against whom the offence has been done, "who is rich in mercy, and ready to forgive :" Rome requires all to make confession to her priests; and if any refuse to do so, she sternly denies them pardon, and shuts against them the gates of paradise. It is " incumbent on every penitent," says the Council of Trent, " to rehearse in confession all mortal sins which, after the most rigid and conscientious scrutiny of himself, he can recollect; nor ought he to conceal * Concil. Trid. sess. xiv. cap. iv. t Theol. Mor. et Dog. Petri Dens, torn. vi. p. 53, et seq. o28 OF PENANCE AND CONFESSION. even the most secret."* Perrone lays it down as a proposi- tion, that " the confession of every mortal sin committed after baptism is of divine institution, and necessary to sal- vation."-|- The confession of venial sins, " by which we are not excluded from the grace of God, and into which we so often fall,''' the Church of Rome has not made obligatory ; nevertheless she recommends the practice as a pious and edifying one. For the confession of sins to man not even the shadow of proof can be produced from Scripture. But the Church of Rome proves to her own satisfaction the duty of auricular confession, by that convenient logic of which she makes such abundant use, and by which all her more diffi- cult and extraordinary positions are established : she first lodges in the priest the power to pardon sin, and argues from that, that it is necessary to confess to the priest, in or- der to obtain the pardon he is authorized to bestow.:): He is a judge, says Dens ; he sits there to decide the question whether such a sin is to be remitted or retained. But how can a judge pronounce sentence without hearing the case ? and he can hear the case only by the confession of the sin- ner, to whom alone the sin is known. § Those sins only that are confessed can be pardoned. Con- cealment is held to be mortal sin. And thus the sinner conceals his offences at the peril of his salvation. How Rome, consistently with this doctrine, provides for the par- don of those sins which the memory of the penitent does not enable him to recollect, she does not explain. Nor is it only the bare fact the penitent is bound to mention : he must state all the circumstances and peculiarities of his sin, whether these aggravate or extenuate it. Nor is the penitent to be left to his own discretion : the confessor is bound to interrogate and cross-question, and, in doing so, * Concil. Trid. sess. xiv. cap. v. + Perrone's Proelectiones Theologies, torn. ii. p. 340. t Concil. Trid. sess. xiv. cap. v. § Theol. Mor. et Dog. Petri Dens, torn. vi. p. 2. ATROCITIES OP THE C0>;FESSI0NAL. S29 is at liberty to suggest new crimes and modes of sinning hitherto unthought of, and, by sowing insidiously the seeds of all evil in the mind, to pollute and ruin the conscience he professes to disburden. There is no better school of wicked- ness on earth. History testifies, that for every offender whom the confessional has reclaimed, it has hardened thou- sands; — for one it may have saved, it has destroyed millions. And what must be the state of that one mind, — the confes- sor's, — into which is daily poured the accumulated filth and vice of a neighbourhood ? He cannot decline the dreadful office although he were willing. He must be the depository of all the imagined and of all the acted wickedness around him. To him it all gravitates, as to its centre. Every pur- pose of lust, every deed of vengeance, every piece of villany, flows thither, forming a fresh contribution to the already fearful and fathomless mass of known wickedness within him.* This black and loathly mass he carries about with him, — he carries within him. His bosom is a very sepulchre of rot- tenness and stench, — " a closet lock and key of villanous se- crets." Wherever he is, alone or in society, or at the al- tar, he is chained to a corpse. The rank effluvia of its putrescence encompasses him like an atmosphere. Miser- able doom ! He cannot rid himself from the corruption * The Rev. L. J. Nolan, who was many years a priest of the Church of Rome, but is now a Protestant clergyman in connection with the Esta- blished Church of Ireland, after his conversion published his experience of the confessional. He says, — "The most awful of all considerations is this, that through the confessional I have been frequently apprized of intended assassinations and most diabolical conspiracies ; and still, from the ungodly injunctions of secrecy in the Romish creed, lest, as Peter Dens says, the confessional should become odious, I dared not give the slightest intimation to the marked-out victims of slaughter." He then proceeds to narrate a number of cases in which he was made the deposi- tory, beforehand, of the most diabolical purposes of assassination, parricide, &c., all of which were afterwards carried out." (A Third Pamphlet, by the Rev. L. J. Nolan, pp. 22-27 ; Dublin, 1838.) See also " Auriculai- Con- fession and Popish Nunneries, by "W. Hogan j" Lond. 1851. SSO OF PENANCE AND CONFESSION. that adheres to him. His effcft'ts to fly from it are in vain. " Which way I fly is hell ; myself am hell." To his mind, we say, this mass of evil must be ever present, mingling with all his feelings, polluting all his duties, and tainting at their very spring all his sympathies. How ghastly and foul must society appear to his eye ! for to him all its secret wickedness is naked and open. His fellow- men are lepers foul and loathsome, and he sniffs their hor- rid effluvia as he passes them. An angel could scarce dis- charge such an office without contamination ; but it is al- together inconceivable how a man can discharge it and escape being a demon. The lake of Sodom, daily fed by the foul and saline springs of the neighbourhood, and giving back these contributions in the shape of black and sulphur- ous exhalations, which scathe and desolate afresh the sur- rounding region, is but a faint emblem of the action and re- action of the confessional on society. It is a moral malaria, — a cauldron from which pestiferous clouds daily ascend, which kill the very souls of men. Hell itself could not have set up an institution more ingeniously contriven to demora- lize and destroy mankind. But the crowning point in the blasphemy here is the par- don which the priest professes to bestow. Protestants grant that Christ has committed to the office-bearers in his house the power of " binding and loosing,'"* in the sense of exclud- ing from or admitting to the communion of the Church visible. But it is a very different thing to maintain that ministers have the power, authoritatively and as judges, to pardon sin. This is the power which Rome claims. There is no sin which her priests may not pardon ; only the re- mission of the more heinous offences she reserves to the higher orders of the clergy ; while the most aggravated of all, namely, those done against the persons and property of ecclesiastics, can be forgiven only by the Pope.* Neverthe- * Concil. Trid. sess. xiv. cap. vii. IMPIETY OF THE CONFESSIOXAL. 331 less, lest any true son of the Church should die in mortal sin, and so perish, the Church has given power to all her priests to administer absolution to persons in articuh mortis. But it is only in the article of death that they have such power; and then it is absolute, extending to all censures and crimes whatsoever. To pardon sin is the prerogative of God alone ; and it must needs be awfully criminal in a poor mortal to mount the tribunal of heaven's justice, and aifect the high preroga- tives of mercy and of condemnation. Of what avail is it that man forgives, if still we underlie the condemnation of heaven ? Will the fiat of a man like ourselves, standing in the same need of pardon with us, release us from the claims or shield us from the penalty of a violated law ? It is with God we have to do ; and if he condemn, alas ! it matters little that the whole world absolve. The pardon of Rome it is equally impious to bestow or to receive. It is hard to determine whether the priest or the penitent acts the more guilty part. Rome's scheme of penance entirely reverses that of the gospel. In the one case pardon is free ; in the other it must be bought. It is not of grace, but of merit ; for the penitent has complied with all the requirements of the Church, and is entitled to demand absolution. There is no discovery of the rich grace of God, nor of the boundless efficacy of a Saviour's blood, nor of the sovereign power of the Spirit ; all these are carefully veiled from the sinner, and he sees nothing but his own merit and the Church's power. In the holy presence of God the true penitent dis- covers at once his own and his sin's odiousness ; and he goes away with the steadfast purpose that, as he has done ini- quity, so, by the Spirit's help, he will do so no more for ever. In the impure atmosphere of the confessional the person is morally incapable of discerning either his own or his sin's enormity- He confesses, but does not repent ; is absolved, but not pardoned ; and departs with a conscience stupified, but not pacified, to resume his old career. He returns after a certain interval, laden with new sins, which are remitted So 2 OF PENANCE AND CONFESSION. on as easy terms, and to as little purpose, as before.* Thus is he deluded and cheated through life, till all opportunity of obtaining the pardon which the Bible offers, and which alone is of any value, is gone for ever. * Bellarmine (De Penit. lib. iv. c. xiii.) says, that " Papal pardons dis- charge us from obedience to the commandment of God, which enjoins to * do works worthy of repentance.' " Some Popish divines have maintained that absolution is to be withheld, if the person falls often into the same sin, and gives no hope of amendment ; but this is not the common opinion. " They ought not to be denied or delayed absolution," says Bauny (Theol. Jlor. tr. iv. q. xv. and xxii.), " who continue in habitual sins against the laws of God, nature, and the Church, though they discover not the least hope of amendment." " And if this were not true," adds Caussin (p. 211), " there would be no use of confession as to the greatest part of the world, and there would be no other remedy for sinners than the bough of a tree or a halter." By the help of the confessional, then, men can live easily under sins which otherwise would drown them in despair. To what a rank height must villains and villanies grow imder the friendly shade of the confessional ! OF INDULGENCES. S33 CHAPTER XV. OF INDULGENCES. To dispense a gift so inestimable as the pardon of sin, and derive no benefit therefrom on her own account, was not agreeable to the usual manner of the Papacy. At the be- ginning, Rome scattered with a liberal hand the heavenly riches, without reaping, in return, the perishable wealth of men. But it was not to be expected that a liberality so ex- traordinary and unusual should last always. In the thir- teenth century Rome began to perceive how the power of absolution might be turned to account as regards the mam- mon of unrighteousness. Formerly men had earned forgive- ness by penance, by fasting, by pilgrimage, by flagellation, and other burdensome and painful performances ; but now Rome fell upon the happy invention by which she contrives at once to relieve her votaries and to enrich herself; in short, she proclaimed the doctrine of indulgences. The an- nouncement spread joy throughout the Catholic world, which had long groaned under the yoke of self-inflicted penances. The scourge was laid aside, the fast was forborne, and money substituted in their room. The theory of indulgences is as follows : — Christ suffered more than was required for the salvation of the elect ; many of the saints and martyrs like- wise have performed more good works than were requisite for their own salvation ; and these, to which it is not un- 334 OF INDULGENCES. common to add the merits of the Virgin, have been all thrown into a common fund, which has been entrusted to the keep- ing of the Church. Of this treasury the Pope keeps the key, and whoever feels that his merits are not enough to carry him to heaven, has only to apply at this ghostly depot, whero he may buy, for a reasonable sum, whatever he needs to supplement his deficiencies. In this market, which Eome has opened for the sale of spiritual wai'es, money is not less indispensable than it is in the emporiums of earthly and perishable merchandise. The price varies, being regulated by the same laws which govern the price of earthly commodities. To cover a crime of great magnitude, a larger amount of merit is of course required, and for that it is but reasonable that a larger sum should be given. The Roman Catholic Church teaches, that by the sacrament of penance the guilt of sin and its eternal punish- ment are remitted, but that the temporal punishment is still due, and must be borne either in this life or in purgatory. This is the doctrine of Trent, in support of which the fathers bring their usual proof, an anathema, " Whoever shall af- firm that God always remits the whole punishment, together with the fault, let him be accursed."* The same is tauffht by the modern theological writers of Rome.f It is in this way that indulgences are useful. They procure remission of the temporal punishment, either in whole or in part, that is, the calamities inflicted in this life are alleviated, and the sojourn in purgatory is very much shortened. Some modern Papists, such as Bossuet, ashamed of the doctrine of indulgences, have sought to disguise it, or deny it altoge- ther, by representing it as nothing more than a remission of ecclesiastical penances or censures. This is shown incontro- vertibly to be a fraud ; first, by the fact that indulgences are held to benefit the dead, whom they release from purga- tory ; and, second, because this account of indulgences is in * Concil. Trid. scss. xiv. cap. ix. can. xii. + PciTonc's Prailectioncs Theologies^, torn. ii. p. 30'2. THEORY OF INDULGENCES. S35 plain opposition to the decrees of Trent on this suhjcct, to the deliverances of the Roman Catechism, and to the doc- trine taught in Dens and Perrone. The latter remarks, that " the power of forgiving every kind of sin by the sacra- ment of penance resides in the Church ; and consequently the absolving priest truly reconciles sinners to God by a ju- dicial power received from Christ." He repudiates the idea that it is a mere power of declaring that the sin has been forgiven that the priest exercises. The man, says he, who heals a wound or unties a chain does not merely pronounce the patient to be whole or the captive to be free ; he ac- tually makes him so. So the absolution of the Church is not the wiere declaring t\\Q sin to be forgiven; it is the remit- ting or retaining of the sin.* The statement of Bossuet is in plain opposition, moreover, to the notorious practice of the Church of Rome, which, before the Reformation espe- cially, kept open market in Europe, in which, for a little money, men might purchase the remission of all sorts of enormities and crimes. This scandalous traffic Rome un- blushingly carried on till it was denounced by Luther. Since that time she has exercised a little more circumspection. She no longer sends trains of mules and waggons across the Alps, laden with bales of pardons. This branch of her busi- ness is novi' carried on by her ordinary bishops. The trade is too shameful to be openly avowed, but too gainful to be given up. Her hawkers have ceased to perambulate Europe ; but her indulgences still circulate throughout it. The doctrine of indulgences, as explained by Leo. X., is, " That the Roman pontiff may, for reasonable causes, by his apostolic authority, grant indulgences out of the superabun- dant merits of Christ and the saints, to the faithful who are united to Christ by charity, as well for the living as for the dead All persons, whether living or dead, who really obtain any indulgences of this kind, are delivered from so much temporal punishment, due, according to divine * Perrone's Prajlectioncs Theologica?, torn. ii. p. 273, 274. S36 OF INDULGENCES. justice, for their actual sins, as is equivalent to the value of the indulgence bestowed and received." We might quote, did our space permit, numerous bulls of succeeding popes to the same effect, all showing that the Church of Rome holds that the matter of indulgences is the merits of Christ and the saints, and that they confer remission of sin and release from purgatory. We might quote the bull of Pius VI., pub- lished in 1794 ; the bull of Benedict XIII.* in 1724 ; and that of Benedict XlV.f in 1747 ; and the bull of " Indic- tion for the Universal Jubilee in 1825,""]: which grants, upon certain conditions, " a plenary indulgence, remission, and pardon of all their sins, to all the faithful of Christ." The Council of Trent strongly recommended indulgences as " sa- lutary to Christian people," and anathematized all who should assert the contrary.§ But as the scandal of Tetzel was still fresh in the recollection of Europe, the council recommend- ed no less strongly, discretion in the distribution of indul- gences, and forbade all " wicked gains'" accruing therefrom, — a decree that was to little purpose, seeing no priest would be forward to own that his gains, however great, were of the kind to which the Tridentine prohibition had reference. The Romish authorities, from the Council of Trent downwards, have been careful how they defined indulgences. Indeed, they have studiously involved the subject in obscurity. Their explanations remind us of the lucid reply given by a monk at Rome to a visitor in the eternal city, who asked him what an indulgence was. " An indulgence," said the friar, cross- ing himself, — " an indulgence is a great mystery !"|| Still, no reader of the least discrimination can fail to dis- cover, through all the ambiguities and generalities by which Popish writers seek to conceal the grosser features of this most demoralizing system, that indulgences carry all the * Theol. Mor. et Dog. Petri Dens, torn. viii. p. 429. + Ibid. p. 425. t Laity's Directory for 1825. § Concil. Trid. sess. xxv. dec. i., de Indulg. II Rome in the Nineteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 359. SALE OF INDULGENCES. C,o7 power we have attributed to them. Such is the virtue ascribed to them by Dens, who tells us that they not only stay the censures of the Church, but avert the wrath of God, and redeem the spirit from the fires of purgatory.* The same is the doctrine of those books which have been com- piled by the Church for the instruction of her members. It is asked inButler's Catechism, — " Q. Why does the Church grant indulgences ? A. To assist our weakness, and to supply our insufficiency in satisfying the divine justice for our transgres- sions. — Q. When the Church grants indulgences, what does it offer to God to supply our weakness and insufficiency, and in satisfaction for our sins ? A. The merits of Christ, which are infinite and superabundant ; together with the virtues and good works of his Virgin Mother, and of all the saints.""!- AVe have alluded to the open and shameless manner in which this traffic in sin was carried on before the Reforma- tion ; and to that period must we go back, in order to see the awful lengths to which the doctrine of indulgences has been, and still may be, carried ; and that, in point of fact, whatever distinctions Popish writers in modern times may make, it is an assumption of power on the part of the priests to pardon all sins, past and present, — to remit all punish- ment, temporary and eternal, — in short, to act in the matter of pardoning men with the full absolute authority of God. The preachers of indulgences at the beginning of the six- teenth century knew none of the distinctions of modern ca- suists, and for this reason, that they spoke before the Refor- mation. " Indulgences," said Tetzel, " are the most precious and the most noble of God's gifts. This cross [pointing to the red cross, which he set up wherever he came] has as much efficacy as the very cross of Jesus Christ. Come and I will * Tlieol. Mor. et Dog. Petri Dens, torn. vi. p. 418, See also Keenan's Catechism on IndulgcnceSj chap. i. : Grounds of Catholic Doctrine, chap. x. + Butler's Cat. lesson xxviii. : Delahogue, Tractatus de Sacramento Poenitentioe, p. 321. Z 838 OF INDULGENCES. give you letters, all properly sealed, by which even the sins that you intend to commit may be pardoned. " I would not exchange my privileges for those of St Peter in heaven ; for I have saved more souls by my indulgences than the apostle by his sermons. " There is no sin so great that an indulgence cannot re- mit ; and even if any one [which is doubtless impossible] had offered violence to the blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, let him pay, — only let him pay well, — and all will be forgiven him. " But more than this," said he ; " indulgences avail not only for the living, but for the dead. For that repentance is not even necessary. " Priest ! noble ! merchant ! wife ! youth ! maiden ! do you not hear your parents and your other friends who are dead, and who cry from the bottom of the abyss, ' We are suffering horrible torments ; a trifling alms would deliver us ; you can give it, and you will not V " At the very instant,'' continued Tetzel, " that the money rattles at the bottom of the chest, the soul escapes from pur- gatory, and flies liberated to heaven."* And even since the Reformation, and more especially in countries where its light has not penetrated, we find this trade as actively carried on as ever, though without the ex- travagance and grossness of Tetzel. " I was surprised," says the authoress of " Rome in the Nineteenth Century," *' to find scarcely a church in Rome that did not hold up at the door the tempting inscription of ' Tndulgenzia Plenaria!'' Two hundred days'* indulgence I thought a great reward for every kiss bestowed upon the great black cross in the Colos- seum ; but that is nothing to the indulgences for ten, twenty, and even thirty thousand years, that may be bought at no exorbitant rate in many of the churches; so that it is amaz- ing what a vast quantity of treasure may be amassed in the other world with very little industry in this, by those who * D'Aubignd's History of the Reformation, vol, i. pp. 241, 242. POWER OF INDULGENCES. S39 are avaricious of this spiritual wealth, into which, indeed, the dross or riches of this world may be converted with the happiest facility imaginable." " You may buy as many masses as will free your souls from purgatory for twenty-nine thousand years, at the church of St John Lateran, on the festa of that saint ; at Santa Bibiana, on All Souls'* day, for seven thousand years ; at a church near the Basilica of St Paul, and at another on the Quirinal Hill, for ten thousand and for three thousand years, and at a very reasonable rate. But it is in vain to parti- cularize, for the greater part of the principal churches in Konie and the neighbourhood are spiritual shops for the sale of the same commodity."* The writer may be permitted to state, that on the cathe- dral gates in the south of France, particularly at Lyons, he has seen handbills posted, announcing certain fttes^ and pro- mising to all who should take part in them, and repeat so many Ave Marias, a plenary indulgence; that is, a full re- mission of all their sins up to the time of the fete. Adrian VI. decreed a plenary indulgence of all his sins to whomso- ever should depart out of this life grasping in his hand a hallowed wax candle ! The same inestimable blessing did the pontiff promise to the man who should say his prayers on Christmas day in the morning in the church of Anastasia at Rome. Sixtus IV. granted an indulgence of twelve thou- sand years to every man who should repeat the well-known salutation of the Virgin, " Hail, Mary, &c.; deliver me from all evils, and pray for my sins." Burnet mentions that he had seen an indulgence for ten hundred thousand years. -f- In other cases, indulgences have been granted to the person and his kindred of the third generation ; so that it might b6 handed down to his posterity like an estate or other pro- perty. Nobles have obtained indulgences, including their retinue as well as themselves, — much as a wealthy man now- * Rome in the Nineteenth Century, vol. ii. pp. 267-270. + Burnet on the Articles, p. 228, fol. ed. SiO OF INDULGENCES. a-days, in travelling by steamer or rail, buys a ticket lor himself and all the members of his suite. Such companies, one should think, must have had a jovial journey to the other world, seeing, however many the debts of sin which they might contract by the way, they were sure of finding all scores clear at the end. Others have had blank indulgences given them, with power to fill in what names they pleased. The holders of such indulgences exercised a patronage of a very uncommon kind. They could appoint their friends and dependents to a place in paradise ; in which, it would seem, there are reserved seats, just as in terrestrial shows, to which the holders of the proper tickets are admissible, however late they may arrive.* There are also defunct indulgences, — the comfort of the dead, as well as of the living, having been studied. The process in this case is an extremely simple one. The name of the deceased is entered on the indulgence, and straightway a plenary remission is accorded him, and he is instantly discharged from the torments of the purgatorial fire.f Indulgences have been afiixed also to such things as medals, scapularies, rosaries, crucifixes. Of this we have a notable instance in the bull of indulgence granted by Pope Adrian VI. to certain beads which he blessed. This bull was afterwards confirmed by Gregory XIII., Clement VIII, , Urban VIII., and ran in the following terms : — " Whoso- ever has one of these beads, and says one Pater Noster and one Ave Maria, shall on any day release three souls out of purgatory ; and reciting them twice on a Sunday or holiday shall release six souls. Also reciting five Pater Nosters and five Ave Marias upon a Friday, to the honour of the five wounds of Christ, shall gain a pardon of seventy thousand years, and the remission of all his s^ws."| These are mere gleanings. With a little industry one might collect as many facts of this sort as would fill volumes.§ * Gavin's Master Key to Popery, vol. i. p. 111. + Pi-actical Evidence against Catholicism, p. 84. t Geddes's Tracts, vol. iv. p. 90. § Tako a modern instance. It was announced in the public prints that APOSTOLIC TARIFF. 341 So lucrcative a trade has not been left to regulate itself. An apostolic tariff was framed, so that all who frequented this great market of sin might know at what price to pur- chase the spiritual wares there exposed. A book was pub- lished at Rome, entitled " Taxes of the Apostolic Chan- cery," in which the price of absolution from every sin is fixed. Murder may be bought for so much ; incest for so much ; adultery for so much ; and so on through the long catalogue of abominations which it would pollute our page to quote. Sins unheard of and unthought of are here put up for sale, and generally at prices so moderate, that few can say they are beyond their reach. This book, the most atro- cious and abominable the world ever saw, sets forth and com- mends the wares in which Rome deals, and of which she claims a monopoly. Herein she unblushingly advertises her- self to the whole world as a trafficker in murders, parricides, incests, adulteries, thefts, perjuries, blasphemies, sins, crimes, and abominations of every kind and degree. Come hither, she says to the nations, and buy whatever your soul lusteth after. Let no fear of hell, or of the anger of God, restrain you : I will secure you against that. " Take^ eat ; ye shall not surely die.'''' So spoke the serpent to our first parents beneath the boughs of the interdicted tree ; and so does Rome speak to the nations. " Ye shall not surely die." He was indeed a true limner who drew Rome's likeness in the Apocalypse, " The mother of harlots and abomina- tions of the earth." In some indulgences the Church exercises the power of ahsoliition, and in others of simple loosing. The first has re- spect to the living ; the second to the dead, whom the indul- gence looses from purgatory, or strikes off so many days or on the 19th of January 1850, Cardinal Patrizi, vicar-general of the Roman Court, by public notification, informed the people of the Roman States that his holiness had prescribed a novene (nine days public prayer) to b« celebrated in all parochial churches, in honour of the purification of the Virgin Mary. Seven years' indulgences, and as many quarantaines, were granted to the faithful for every time they attended these public prayers. 342 OF INDULGENCES. years from the allotted period of suffering there. Indul- gences are also divided into 'plenary and partial. The in- dulgence is plenary when the whole temporal punishment due for sins committed prior to the date of the indulgence is remitted. In a partial indulgence, part only of the tem- poral punishment is discharged : in this case the period is generally stated, and ranges from a day to some hundreds of thousands of years ; which means that the person"'s future sojourn in purgatory will be less by the period fixed in the indulgence.* Romanists have affected a virtuous indignation at the charge which has not unfrequently been preferred against them, that their Church has established a system of selling licenses to commit sin. They have denounced this as a ca- lumny, because, forsooth, their Church does not take money beforehand, but allows the sinner first to gratify his passions, and then receives the stipulated price. But where is the difference ? If Rome tells the world, as she does, that for a certain sum, — which is generally a small one, — she will grant absolution for any sin which any one may choose to commit, and if the person finds that he has the requisite sum in his pocket, has he not as really a license to commit the sin as if the indulgence were already in his possession \ Besides, what does Rome say to those indulgences which extend over some hundreds of thousands of years I How easy would it be to buy a few such indulgences, and so cover the whole period allotted for suffering in purgatory ; and not only so, but to have a balance in one's favour. In such a case, let the person live as he lists ; let him commit all manner of sins, in all manner of ways ; is he not as sure as Rome can make him, that they are all pardoned before they are com- mitted ? Here is a license to sin with a vengeance. Could the evil heart of man, greedy on all wickedness, desire an ampler toleration, or could larger license be granted by the author of evil himself \ The foulest ef the ancient poly the- Perrone's Prselectiones Theological, torn. ii. pp. 417, 418. LICENSE TO SIN. 343 isms were immaculate and holy compared with Home. Their principles tended to relax the restraints of virtue, and gene- rally to debase human nature; but when did they proclaim to the world an unbounded liberty of sinning ? When did they trade in sin ? All this Rome has done. Although hell were to empty itself upon the earth, it could not inflict a worse pollution than this spawn of Rome. Though fiends were to walk up and down in the world, and with serpent tongue and hissing accents to prompt and solicit mortals, they could not lure and destroy more effectually than Rome's pardonmongers. When Rome took her way among the be- nighted nations, who could resist her offers ? A paradise of ein on earth, and a paradise of happiness hereafter, and all for a little money ! Yes ; of all the evil systems which have arisen to affront God, to mock man, and to do the work of hell, Rome is entitled to rank foremost. Others have done viciously, but she has excelled them all. She has invented sin, taught sin, acted sin, and traded in sin; and so has made good, beyond the possibility of doubt or question, her title to the name which stood on the page of prophecy as at once the ominous harbinger and the compendious descrip- tion of a system afterwards to arise, — " The Man of Sin." There is not a day in the year in which indulgences for any sin, and to any amount, may not be obtained ; but the year of jubilee is marked in the calendar of Rome as a year of special grace. The jubilee was instituted in the year 1300 by Boniface VIII.* It was to return every hundredth year, in imitation of the secular games of the Romans, which were celebrated once in an age. " A most j)lenary pardon " of all their sins was promised to those who should visit the churches of St Peter and St Paul at Rome. The same re- ward was to belono: to such as, unable to undertake so lonof a pilgrimage, should pay a certain sum, and to such as might die by the way. He who sat on the Seven Hills gave com- mandment to the angels to carry their souls direct to the * Mosheim, cent. xiii. part ii, chap. iv. oii OP INDULGENCES. glory of paradise, since they were absolved from the pains of purgatory. To the priests it was indeed a jubilee. The multitude of pilgrims filled Rome to overflow ; their wealth replenished the coffers of the pontiff". The most notorious sinners were transformed by the pontifical magic into saints, and sent away as pure as they came. From their long jour- ney, which had taxed alike the limbs and the purse, they reaped, as Rome had promised they should, " a plentiful Jiarvest of penitence!''' But most of all, it grieved the popes to think that a century must pass away before such another year should come round. It was not fit that the Church sliould so hoard her treasures, and afford to her sons only at long intervals, opportunities of evincing their gratitude by the liberality of their gifts. Considerations of this sort moved Clement VI. to reduce the term of jubilee to fifty years. It was found still to be too long, and was shortened by Urban VI. to thirty-three, and finally fixed by Sixtus V. at twenty-five. Thus every quarter of a century does a whole shower of indulgences descend upon the papal world. The last return of " the year of expiation and pardon, of re- demption and grace, of remission and indulgence," to use the terms of the bull of Leo XII., was 1850. The result is told by Gavazzi. " The late effort of Pio Nono to get up a pious enthusiasm, after the fashion of his predecessors, on the re- currence of the semi-secular year of 1850, had utterly failed throughout the Italian peninsula ; and though he held forth one hand filled with indulgences, the other was too palpably armed with the cudgel of the Croat to attract the approach of his countrymen."* But is not the prodigality with which Rome scatters in- dulgences among all who need or will receive them, a dan- gerous one ? In these evil times, a great deal must be flow- ing out of this treasury, and very little flowing in. Is there no risk of emptying it I Day and night there rolls a river of indulgences ample enough to supply the necessities of the * Gavazzi, Oration xviii. PAPAL CALIFORNIA. 345 Roman Catholic world ; yet century after century finds the source of this mighty stream undiminished. Here is an- other of Rome's wonders ! The ocean itself would in time become dry, were it not fed by the rivers. Where are the rivers that feed this spiritual reservoir 1 Where are the eminent living saints of the Roman Catholic Church, whose supererogatory virtues maintain a balance against the infi- dels, socialists, formalists, and evil characters of all kinds which, it is now confessed, abound within the pale of Rome ? We see all coming with their pitchers to draw, but none bringing contributions hither. We are reminded of those natural phenomena which have exercised and baffled the in- genuity of naturalists. We have here a phenomenon exact- ly the reverse of the Dead Sea, into which the floods of the Jordan are hourly poured, but from whose dark confine there issues no stream. And we have a direct resemblance in the Mediterranean, out of which a stream is ceaselessly flowing through the Straits of Gibraltar into the capacious bosom of the Atlantic, yet the shores of the former are ever full and undiminished. Doubtless in both cases there is a compensatory process going on, though invisibly. And per- haps Rome may hold, in like manner, that the rivers that feed her ocean of merit roll in secret, unseen and unheard. At all events, she teaches that it is wholly inexhaustible. A time will come when the mines of Peru and California shall be exhausted, and their last golden grains dug up. But a time will never come when the treasury of Rome shall be exhausted, and not a grain of merit more remain to be doled out to the faithful. What has she not al- ready drawn from that exhaustless treasury ! Not to speak of the kings, nobles, priests, and the countless millions of people of all conditions whom she has delivered out of pur- gatory, she has carried on with its help numerous crusades, waged mighty wars, raised sumptuous palaces, and built magnificent temples. .The dome of St Peter's remains an imposing monument of the exhaustless mine of wealth which 546 OP INDULGENCES. the indulgences opened to Rome.* Those magnificent Gothic structures that cover papal Europe, — what are they ? The monuments of the piety of former ages ? No : love did not place a stone in any one of them. The power which raised these noble piles, full of grandeur and beauty though they be, was that of superstition acting on a guilty conscience. Every stone in them expresses so much sin. Their beautiful marbles, their rich mosaics, their gorgeous paintings, their noble columns and towers, bespeak the remorse of the dying sinner, who vainly strove by these expiatory gifts to relieve a conscience which felt sorely burdened by the manifold crimes of a lifetime. Again Rome has been compelled, by the ne- cessities of these latter times, to betake herself to a resource which very shame had forced her to abandon. There are Italian exiles in London which she would have rewarded with a dungeon in their own country, but for whom she builds a church in ours. And with what ? With the sins of papal Europe. An indulgence of a hundred days, and a plenary indulgence of one day, are offered by the pontiff to all who shall contribute an alms for its erection. A temple of piety ! Faugh ! The structure will be redolent of abo- minations of all kinds. So profitable does Rome find this California of hers. After all that Rome has drawn out of the treasury of the Church, she declares with truth that this treasury is every whit as full as it ever was ; and she might add with truth, that when centuries more shall have passed away, and their unnumbered wants shall have been sup- plied, it will not be a whit more empty than it is at this moment. * Michelet remarks with reference to the building of St Peter's, that the Pope had not the mines of Mexico, but he had a mine even more pro- ductive, — old superstition. OF PURGATORY. 347 CHAPTER XVI. OF PURGATORY. Papists have mapped out the other world into four grand divisions. The lowest is hell, the region of the damned. There are the ever-burning fires ; there are Lutherans, and all other Protestant heretics ; and, in fine, there are all who have died beyond the pale of the Roman Catholic Church, with the exception of a few heathens, and a few Christians whose narrow intellects scarcely sei'ved to distinguish be- tween their right hand and their left, and who have escaped on the ground of " invincible ignorance.'" The next region in order is purgatory, of which we shall have occasion to speak more fully immediately. Immediately above purga- tory is limhus patriim, where the souls of the saints wljo died before our Saviour\s time were confined, till released by Him, and carried with Him to heaven at his ascension, when this region was abolished, and heaven substituted in its room. The last and remaining region is linibus infantum. To this receptacle the souls of children dying unbaptized are consigned ; it being a settled point among the doctors of the Romish Church, that such as die unbaptized are exclud- ed from heaven. It is the lowest save one of these four localities of which we are to speak, — purgatory. It is filled with the same fires, 84-8 OF PURGATORY. and is the scene of the same torments, as the region imme- diately beneath it, but with this important difference, that those consigned to it remain here only for a while.* It is the doctrine of the Church of Rome, that no one enters heaven immediately on his departure. A short purgation amid the fires of purgatory is indispensable in the case of all, unless perhaps of those who are protected by a mry special and most plenary indulgence. Even the pontiffs them- selves, infallible though they be, must take purgatory in their way, and pass a certain period amid its fires, before being worthy to appear at those gates at which St Peter keeps watch. All who die in mortal sin, — and of all mortal sins, heresy and the want of money to buy an indulgence are the most mortal, — are at once consigned to hell. Those who die in a state of grace, with the remission of the guilt of all their mortal sins, go to purgatory, where they are purified from the stain of venial sins, and endure the tem- porary punishment which remains due for their mortal of- fences. For it is a doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, that even after God has remitted the guilt and the eternal punishment of sin, a temporary punishment remains due, which may be borne either in this life or in the next. With- out this doctrine it would scarce be possible to maintain purgatory; and without purgatory, who would buy indul- gences and masses ? and without indulgences and masses, how could the coffers of the Pope be replenished ? The so- journ is longer or shorter in purgatory, according to circum- stances, being dependent mainly upon the amount of satis- faction to be given. But the period may be much shortened by the efforts made in behalf of the deceased by his friends on earth ; for the Church teaches that souls detained in that state are helped by the suffrages of the faithful, that is, by the prayers and alms offered for them, and principally by the indulgences and masses purchased for their benefit.-f* * For a succinct and graphic account of the various torments with which Papists have filled purgatory, see Edgar's Variations of Popery, pp. 452-460. t Sec the common catechisms of the Church of Home. PROOF OF PURGATORY. 84-9 The existence of purgatory is authoritatively taught and most surely believed among Roman Catholics. The doc- trine respecting it decreed by the Council of Trent,* and taught in the catechism of tliat council, as well as in all the common catechisms of the Church of Rome, is that which we have just stated. The Council of Trent decreed, " that there is a purgatory," and enjoined all bishops to " dili- gently endeavour that the wholesome doctrine of purgatory" be " everywhere taught and preached," — an injunction which has been carefully attended to. And so important is the belief of purgatory, that Bellarmine affirms that its denial can be expiated only amid the flames of hell. One would naturally expect that Rome would be prepared with very solid and convincing grounds for a doctrine to which she as- signs such prominence, and which she inculcates upon her people under a penalty so tremendous. These grounds, such as they are, we shall indicate, and that is all that our limits permit. The first proof is drawn from the Apocrypha; but as this is an authority that possesses no weight with Protestants, we shall not occupy space with it, but pass on to the second, which is drawn from Scripture, and which is made to support the chief weight of the doctrine, — with what justice the reader will judge. The following is the passage in which Papists unmistakeably discover purgatory: — "Who- soever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be for- given him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come."-f* Here, says the Papist, our Lord speaks of a sin that shall not be forgiven in the world to come ; which im- plies that there are sins that shall he forgiven in the world to come. But sins cannot be forgiven in heaven, nor will they be forgiven in hell ; therefore there must be a third place where sins are forgiven, which is purgatory. The an- swer which the Rev. Mr Nolan has given to this is much to the point, and is all that such an argument deserves. "Let me suppose," says he, " a person committed a most enor- * Coucil. Trid. sess. xxv. f Matli. xii. 32. S50 OF PURGATORY. mous offence against the laws of this country, and that the Lord Lieutenant said, it shall not be forgiven, neither in this country nor in England ; would any one be so irrational as to argue that the Lord Lieutenant meant to insinuate from this mode of expression that there was a middle place where the crime might be forgiven f* That our Lord meant simply to indicate the unpardonable character of the sin against the Holy Ghost, and not to teach the doctrine of purgatory, is incontrovertible, from the parallel passage in Luke, where it is said, " Whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man it shall be forgiven him ; but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven.^f Other passages have been adduced, which yield, if possible, a still more doubtful support to purgatory, and on which it were a waste of time here to dwell. The practice of the fathers, some of whom prayed for the dead, has been pled in argument, as if the unwarrantable customs of men lapsing into superstition could support a doctrine still more gross and superstitious. And, still farther to for- tify an opinion which stands in need of all the aid it can obtain from every quarter, and finds all too little, the vision of Perpetua, a young lady of twenty-two, has been employed to silence those who refuse on this head to listen to the fathers. But if there be indeed a purgatory, and if the be- lief of it be so indispensable, that all are damned who doubt it, as Papists teach, why was it not clearly revealed ? and why is the argument in its favour nought but a miserable patch-work of perverted texts, visions of young ladies, and the dotard practices of men whose Christianity had become emasculated by a nascent superstition? We can trace a purgatory nowhere but in the writings of the pagan philoso- phers and poets. The great father of poetry makes some not very obscure allusions to such a place : Plato believed in a middle state : it formed one of the compartments of * Pamphlet by the Rev. L. J. Nolan, third ed. 1S33, p. 52. + Luke, xii. 1. CONDEMNED BY SCRIPTURE. 551 VirgiPs Elysium; and there souls were purified by their own sufferings and the sacrifices of their friends on earth, before entering the habitation of joy. From this source did the Roman Catholic Cliurch borrow her purgatory. But we have a sure word of prophecy. The world beyond the grave has been made known to us, so far as we are able to receive it, by One who knew it better than either popes or fathers, because He came from it. When he lifts the veil, we discover only two classes and two abodes. And while we meet with nothing in the New Testament that countenances the doctrine of purgatory, we meet with much that expressly contradicts and confutes it. All the state- ments of the Word of God respecting the nature of sin, and the death and satisfaction of Christ, are condemnatory of purgatory, and conclusively establish that there neither is nor can be any such place. The Scripture authorizes no such distinction as Papists make between venial and mortal sins. It teaches that all sin is mortal, and, unless blotted out by the blood of Christ, will issue in the sinner"'s eternal ruin. It teaches, that after death there is neither change of character nor of state ; that God does not sell his grace, but bestows it freely ; that we are not redeemed with cor- ruptible things, as silver and gold ; that no man can redeem his brother, whether by prayers or by offerings ; that the law of God demands of every man, every moment of his be- ing, the highest obedience of which his nature and his facul- ties are capable, and that since the foundation of the world a single work of supererogation has never been performed by any of the sons of men ; and that therefore the source whence this imaginary fund of merit is supplied has no exist- ence, and is, like the fund itself, a delusion and a fable ; and it teaches, in fine, that God pardons men only on the foot- ing of the satisfaction of his Son, which is complete and suf- ficient, and needs not to be supplemented by works of human merit; and that when he pardons, he pardons all sin, and for ever. But the grand criterion by which Rome tests all her doc- S52 OF PURGATORY. trines is not their truth, nor their bearing on man's benefit and God's glory, but their value in money. How much will they bring? is the first question which she puts. And it must be confessed, that in purgatory she has found a rare device for replenishing her coffers, of which she has not failed to make the very most. We need go no farther than Ireland as an instance. For a poor man, when he dies, a private mass is offered, for which the priest is paid from two- and-sixpence to ten shillings. For rich men there is a HIGH or chanted mass. In this instance, a number of priests assemble, and each receives from seven-and-sixpence to a pound. At the end of the month after the death, mass is again celebrated. The same number of priests again as- semble, and receive payment over again.* Anniversary or annual masses are also appointed for the rich, when the same routine is gone through, and the same expenses are incurred. There are, moreover, in almost every parish in Ireland, purgatorial societies. The person becomes a mem- ber on the payment of a certain sum, and the subscription of a penny a-week ; and the funds thus raised are given to the priest, to be laid out for the deliverance of souls from purgatory. There is, besides. All Souls' Day, which falls on the 2d of November, on which an extraordinary collec- tion is taken up from all Catholics for the same purpose.-f- In short, there is no end of the expedients and pretences which purgatory furnishes to an avaricious priesthood for extorting money. Popery, says the author of Kirwan's Let- ters, meets men " at the cradle, and dogs them to the grave, and beyond it, with its demands for money ."J The writer * Both occasions, Mr Nolan informs iis, are concluded with a sumptuous dinner, consisting of flesh, and fowl, and of every delicacy, which is washed down with enormous potations of wine and whisky. Half the priests of a district often contrive to live on these dinners, (Nolan's Pamphlet, p, 46.) + Nolan's Pamphlet, pp. 44-48. + Letters to the Right Rev, John Hughes, by Kirwan, — letter v.; John- stone & Hunter ; Edin. 1851. DOCTRINE OF INTENTION. 353 was told in Belgium, by an intelligent English Protestant, who had resided many years in that country, that it is rare indeed for a man of substance to die without leaving from thirty to fifty pounds to be laid out in masses for his soul. No sooner is the fact known, than the priests of the district flock to the dead man''s house, as do rooks to carrion, and, while a centime of the sum remains, live there, singing masses, and all the while feasting like ghouls. Another of the innumerable frauds connected with purga- tory is the doctrine of intention. By this is meant that the priest offers his mass according to the intention of the per- son paying. The price varies, according to the circum- stances of the person, from half-a-crown to five shillings. These intentions, in many instances, are never discharged. Mr Nolan mentions the case of the Rev. Mr Curran, parish priest of Killuchan, in the county of Westmeath, an intimate acquaintance of his own, who at his death bequeathed to the Rev. Dr Cantvvell of Mullingar, three hundred pounds, to be expended on masses (at two-and-sixpence each) for such intentions as he (Mr Cun-an) had neglected to dis- charge. It thus appears that Mr Curran died owing twenty- four hundred masses, most of them, doubtless, for souls in purgatory.* " The frauds,"" says Dr Murray of New York, addressing Bishop Hughes, " which your Church has prac- tised on the world by her relics and indulgences are enor- mous. If practised by the merchants of New York in their commercial transactions, they would send every man of them to state-prison."'''-}* " In Roman Catholic countries,"" says Principal Cunningham " and in Ireland among the rest, the priests make the people believe that by the sacri- fice of the mass, that is, by their offering up to God the body and blood of Christ, they can cure barrenness, heal the diseases of cattle, and prevent mildew in grain ; and much money is every year spent in procuring masses to effect these * Nolan's Pamphlet, p. 47. + Kirwan's Letters, series ii. letter vi. 2jl 354 OF PURGATORY. and similar purposes. Men who obtain money In such a way, and upon such pretences (and this is a main source of the income of popish priests), should be regarded and treated as common swindlers.""* * Stillingfleet's Doctrine and Practice, by Dr Cunningham, p. 275. OF THE WORSHIP OF IMAGES. 355 CHAPTER XVII. OF THE WORSHIP OF IMAGES. Two things are here to be determined ; firsts the practice of the Church of Rome as regards images; and, second^ the judgment which the Word of God pronounces on that practice. Her practice, so far as pertains to its outward form, is as incapable of being misunderstood as it is of being defended. She sets up images which are representations of saints, or of angels, or of Christ ; and she teaches her members to prostrate themselves before these images, to burn incense, and to pray before them, to undertake pilgrimages to their shrine, and to expect a more than ordinary answer to the intercessions offered before them. There is not a church in any Roman Catholic country throughout the world where this manner of worship is not every day celebrated ; and, being open to all, no concealment is possible, and none is sought. The worshipper enters the cathedral, he selects the image of the saint whom he prefers, he kneels, he counts his beads, he burns his candle, and, it may be, presents his votive offering. As regards the letter of the practice of the Church of Rome, there is not, and there cannot be, any dispute. These facts being admitted, the controversy might here take end. This is what the Word of God de- oo6 OF THE WORSHIP OF IMAGES. nounces as image-worslilj) ; this It strictly prohibits ; and this is enough to substantiate the charge which Protestants have brought against the Church of Home as guilty of ido- latry. Her practice in this point is manifestly a revival of the pagan worship in one of its grossest and most offensive forms. She, as really as the ancient idolaters, " worships the creature more than the Creator." But let us hear what Rome has to say in her own behalf. She introduces the element of INTENTION, and on this mainly rests her defence. She pleads that she does not believe these images to be inspired with the Divinity, — she does not believe them to be gods. She pleads also, that she does not believe that the wood, or stone, or gold, of which they are composed, can hear prayer, or that the image of itself can bestow the blessings supplicated for; that she believes them to be only images, and therefore di- rects her worship and prayers past or beyond them, to the saint or angel whom the image represents. The Papist does not pray to, but through, the image. We accept this as a fair statement of what is the theoretic practice of the Church of Rome on the subject of images, but we reject it as a statement of what that practice is in fact, and espe- cially do we reject it as a defence of that practice. We do so for the following reasons. In the first place, if the Papist is acquitted of idolatry on this ground, there is not an idolater on the face of the earth who may not on the same ground demand an acquittal. None but the most ignorant and brutish ever mistook the stock or stone before which they kneeled for the Creator. This representative principle, on which the image- worship- per of the Popish Church founds his justification, pervaded the whole system of the pagan worship. It was this which led the world astray at first, and covered the earth with a race of deities of the most revolting character. Whether it was the heavenly bodies, as in Chaldea, or a class of demi- gods, as in Greece and Rome, it was the great First Cause that was professedly adored through these symbolizations and IMAGE-WORSHIP REVIVED PAGANISM. 857 substitutes. The vulgar, perhaps, failed to grasp this dis- tinction, or steadily to keep it before them, just as the mass of worshippers in the Roman Catholic Church fail practi- cally to apprehend the difference between praying to and praying he/ore, or rather heyond^ the image ; but such icas the system, and that system the Bible denounced as idola- try ; and the same system stands equally condemned when found in a popish cathedral as when found in a pagan temple. But, in the second place, it is not true that these images are simple helps to devotion, or mere media for the convey- ance of the worship offered before them to the object whom they represent. The homage and honour are given to the image immediately^ and to the object represented mediately, the worshipper assuming the power, by an act of volition or intention, of transferring the honour from the image to the object. But the image is honoured, and is commanded to be so on no less an authority than the Council of Trent. " Moreover,"" says the Council, " let them teach that the images of Christ, and of the Virgin, mother of God, and of other saints, are to be had and retained, especially in churches, and due honour and veneration rendered to them." And the decree goes on to say, that the person is to pros- trate himself before the image, to uncover his head before it, and kiss it, no doubt under the pretence, that by these marks of honour to the image he is honouring those whose likeness it bears.* This decree reduplicates on a former decree of the second Council of Nice, held in a.d. 787,t at which the controversy respecting images was finally settled. The Council of Nice decreed that the images of Christ and his saints are to be venerated and adored, though not with " true latria,'''' or the worship exclusively due to God.:]: The same doctrine is taught in the Catechism of the Council of Trent. There such acts of worship as we have already spe- * Concil. Trid. sess. xxv. + Moslaeim, book iii. part ii. chap. iii. X Cramp's Text Book of Popery, p. 338. S58 OF THE WORSHIP OF IMAGES. cified are recommended to be performed to images, for the sake of those whom they represent ; and it is declared that this is highly beneficial to the people, as is also the practice of storing churches with images, not for instruction simply, hiLt for worsMp* If, therefore, we find the divines of the Romish Church not adhering to their own theory, but blend- ing the image and the object in the same acts of adoration, — if we find them expressly teaching that images are to be worshipped, though not with the same supreme veneration that is due to God, — how can we expect that this distinc- tion should be observed by the people ? By the mass of the people this distinction is neither understood nor observed : the image is worshipped, and nothing more. That is their deity ; and in not one in a thousand cases do the thoughts or intentions of the worshipper go beyond it. Why, out of several images of the same saint, does the worshipper prefer one to the others ? Why does he make long pilgrimages to its shrine ? Why, but because he believes that a peculiar vir- tue or divinity resides in this his favourite image. This shows that it is more to him than simple wood and stone. There could not be grosser or more wholesale idolatry than the festival of the Bambino at Home, as described by Seymour.-f- When the priest on the summit of the Capitol elevates the little wooden doll which represents the infant Saviour, the thousands that cover the slope and bottom of the mount fall prostrate, and nothing is heard but the low sounds of prayer addressed to the image. The Rome of the Caesars never witnessed a more idolatrous spectacle. It is firmly believed that the image possesses miraculous powers ; the priests take care to encourage the delusion ; and not a day passes with- out an application for a cure. There are numerous images at Rome believed to possess the power of working miracles. Among the rest is that of INIary in S. Maria Maggiore. This picture was carried in procession through the streets * Cat, Rom. part iii. c. 2, s, 39, 40,—" Sed ut colantur." t Seymour's Pilgrimage to Rome, p. 288 ; Lond. 1851. IDOLATRY OF THE PRACTICE. S'.O of E,onie to suppress the cholera, the Pope (Gregory XVI.) joining barefooted in the procession.* And what, we may ask, is the change which the Papist believes passes upon the image in the act of consecration ? Is it not this, that where- as before it was simply a piece of dead and inefficacious mat- ter, it has now become filled or inspired with the virtue or divinity of the object it represents, who is now mysteriously present in it or with it ? But, in the third place, though this distinction were one that could be easily drawn, and though it could be shown that it always is clearly drawn by the worshipper, and though it could be shown also, that all the good effects which have been alleged do in point of fact flow from this practice, all this would make nothing as a defence. The Word of God denounces the practice as idolatrous, and plainly forbids it. The condemnation and prohibition of this practice form the subject of one entire precept of the Decalogue. " Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, &c. ; thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them ; for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God."-f- Till these words are revoked as plainly and solemnly as they were promulgated, — till the same mighty voice shall proclaim in the hearing of the na- tions that the second precept of the Decalogue has been abrogated, — the practice of Rome must stand condemned as idolatrous. The case, then, is a plain one, and resolves it- self into this. Whether shall we obey Rome or Jehovah? The former, speaking from the Seven Hills, says, " Thou mayest make unto thee graven images, and bow down thy- self to them, and serve them :" the latter, speaking in thun- der from Sinai, says, " Thou shalt not make unto thee any * Morninj^s among the Jesuits, pp. 35-38. + Exod. XX. 4, 5. Perrone contends that what the command forbids is the making of images to the pagan deities, and not the making of them to Christ and the saints. Of course, he is unable to produce any ground for this distinction, (Praelectiones Theologicte, torn. i. p. 1209,) o60 OF THE WORSHIP OF IMAGES. graven image . . . thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them and serve them."" Rome herself has confessed that these two commands, — that from the Seven Hills and that from Sinai, — are eternally irreconcileable, by blotting from the Decalogue the second precept of the law.* Alas ! will this avail her aught so long as that precept stands unre- pealed in the law of God i May God have mercy upon her poor benighted people, whom she leads blindfold into idola- try ; and may He remember this extenuation of their guilt when he arises to execute judgment upon those who, know- ing that they who do such things are worthy of death, not only do them, but teach others to do the same ! * In the ordinary catechisms used by the Eoman Catholics of this country, the second commandment is expunged from the Decalogue, and the tenth is split into two, to preserve the number of ten. OF THE WORSHIPPING OF SAIiNTS. 361 CHAPTER XYIII. OF THE WORSHIPPING OF SAINTS. The next branch of the idolatry of the Roman Catholic Church is her worship of dead men. These she denominates saints. Of this numerous and miscellaneous class some un- questionably were saints, as the apostles and others of the early Christians. Others may be accounted, in the judg- ment of charity, to have been saints ; but there are others which figure in the calendar of Roman apotheosis, whom no stretch of charity will allow us to believe were saints. They were unmistakeable fanatics ; and their fanaticism was far indeed from being of a harmless kind. It drew in its wake, as fanaticism not unfrequently does, gross immorality and savage and unnatural cruelty. In the list of Romish divini- ties we find the names of persons whose very existence is apocryphal. There are others whose incorrigible stupidity, laziness, and filth, rendered them unfit to herd even with brutes ; and there are others who, little to the world's com- fort, were neither stupid nor inactive, but who made them- selves busy, much as a fiend would, in inventing instruments of torture, and founding institutions for destroying mankind and devastating the earth, — St Dominic, for instance, the founder of the Inquisition. Prayers offered to such persons, and directed to heaven, run some risk of missing those of whom they are in quest. But the question here is, granting SG2 OF THE WORSHIPPING OF SAINTS. all the individuals of this promiscuous qrowd to have been saints, is it right to pray to them ? We do not charge the Church of Rome with teaching that the saints are gods, or are able by their own power to bestow the blessings for which their votaries pray. The Church of Rome distinguishes between the worship which it is warrant- able to offer to the saints, and the worship that is due to God. The former are to be worshipped with dulia ; the lat- ter with latria. God is to be worshipped with supreme vene- ration ; the saints are to be venerated in an inferior degree. They occupy in heaven, — that Church teaches, — stations of dignity and influence ; and on this ground, as well as on account of their eminent virtues while they lived, they are entitled to our esteem and reverence. It may be reasonably supposed, moreover, that they have great influence with God, and that, moved partly by pity for us, and partly by the homage we render to them, they are inclined to use that in- fluence in our behalf. We ought therefore, says that Church, to address prayers to them, that they may pray to God for us. This, then, is the function which the Church of Rome assigns to departed saints. They present the prayers of sup- pliants to God, and intercede with God in their behalf. They are intercessors of mediation, though not of redemption. But the Church of Rome has been little careful accurately to state her theory on this head,* — little careful to impress * In Layard's " Nineveh and its Remains" we have the following preg- nant passage. l\Ir Layard was at the time on a visit to the Nestoiians of the Kurdish hills. " The people of Behozi are amongst those Chaldeans who have Very recently become Catholics, and are hut a too common instance of the mode in which such proselytes are made. In tlie church I saw a few miserable prints, dressed iip in all the horrors of red, yellow, and blue, — images of saints and of the blessed Virgin, — and a hideous infant in swaddling clothes, under which was written, ' I'lddio, bambino.' They had recently been stuck up against the bare walls. * Can you understand these pictures V I asked. ' No,' was the reply ; ' M^e did not place tliem here. When our priest (a Nestorian) died a short time ago, Mutran Yus- up, the Catholic bishop came to us. He i)ut up these pictures, and told DULIA AND LATRIA. SG3 upon the minds of her people, that the only service they are to expect at the hands of the saints is that of intercession. She has used expressions of a vague character, if not pur- posely designed, yet obviously fitted, to seduce into gross idolatry ; nay, she allows and sanctions idolatry, by teaching that saints may be the objects of a certain sort of venera- tion, namely, dulia^ and instituting a distinction which is utterly beyond the comprehension of the common people ; so that, in point of fact, there is no difference between the worship which they offer to the saints, and the worship which they offer to God, unless, perhaps, that the former is the more devout and fervent, as it is certainly the more customary of the two. In the Papal Church, millions pray to the saints who never bow a knee to God. The Council of Trent* teaches that " the saints who reign together with Christ offer their prayers to God for men ;" and that " it is a good and useful thing suppliantly to invoke them, and to flee to their prayers, help, and assistance ;" and that they are " impious men" who maintain the con- trary. The caution of the council will not escape observa- tion. It teaches the dogma, but does not expressly enjoin the practice. It is usual for Papists to take advantage of this in arguing with Protestants, and to affirm that the Church has not enjoined or commanded prayers to saints." -f- This may be true in theory, but not in practice. Prayers to saints form part and parcel of her liturgy ; so that no man can join in her worship without joining in these prayers ; and thus she practically compels the thing. Moreover, they are obliged, under the penalty of being guilty of mortal sin, to celebrate certain fetes, — those, for instance, of the assump- tion of the Virgin, and All Saints' Day.J The Catechism of us that we were to adore them.' " (Vol. i. pp. 154, 155.) These simple Christians received uo initiation into the mystery of dulia, hyperdiilia, and latria. * Concil. Trid. sess. xxv. + Mornings among the Jesuits at Rome, p. 107. t Reasons for Leaving the Church of Rome, by C. L. Trivier, p. 191 ; Lond. 1851. 64 OP THE AVORSHIPPING OF SAINTS. Trent* teaches that we may pray to the saints to pity us; and if we join this with the " assistance and help"" on which we are encouraged to cast ourselves, and if we add the grounds on which we are taught to look for such help, namely, that the saints occupy stations of dignity and influence in heaven, we will feel perfectly satisfied that the Church of Rome is very willing that her people should believe that the function of the saints goes a very considerable way beyond simple ivi- iercession, and that the worship of which they are the objects should be regulated accordingly. This idea is strengthened by the fact, that the Roman Missal teaches that there are blessings bestovved upon us for the merits of the saints. Of such sort is the following prayer : — " God, who, to recom- mend to us innocence of life, wast pleased to let the soul of thy blessed Virgin Scholastica ascend to heaven in the shape of a dove, grant by her merits and prayers that we may lead innocent lives here, and ascend to eternal joys hereafter .'"-f* We add another example from the Missal : — " May the in- tercession, Lord, of Bishop Peter thy apostle render the prayers and offerings of thy Church acceptable to Thee, that the mysteries we celebrate in his honour may obtain for us the pardon of our sins ! "";]: But it matters little what is the exact amount of influence and power attributed to the saints by Roman Catholics, or what the refinements and distinctions by which they attempt to justify the worship they pay to them. Their practice is undeniable. In the same place where God is worshipped, and with the same forms, do Roman Catholics pray to the saints to pray to God in their behalf. M. Perrone distinctly says that the saints, on the ground of their excellence, are the just objects of religious worship ; and that if we reserve sacrifices, vows, and temples to God, we may approach the saints with prostration and prayer. Images and relics, he * Cat. Rom. pars iv. cap. vi. s. iii. + Roman Missal for the Laity, ji. 557 ; Lond. 1815. J Ibid. p. 539. PRACTICE IDOLATROUS. SG5 says, receive an improper worship and adoration, which passes through them to their prototypes ; not so the vene- ration paid the saints, which is not relative, but absohite.* Tried by the implicit principles and tho express declarations of the Bible, this is idolatry. There is not, either in the Old or in the New Testament, a solitary instance of such a wor- ship ; nay, on those occasions on which we find worship at- tempted to be offered to the saints, it was promptly and indig- nantly rejected. No doubt we are commanded to pray toith and/or one another, as is often pleaded by Papists : but there is a wide difference between this and praying to the dead. The vision in the Apocalypsef of the elders with the " vials full of odours," which are said to be " the prayers of saints," though often paraded by Homan Catholics as an unanswer- able proof, has no bearing upon the point. Commentators on the Revelations have shown by very conclusive reason- in o-s, that the vision has no relation to heaven, but to the Church on earth ; and Papists must overthrow this interpre- tation before the passage can be of any service to their cause. Right reason and the express declarations of Scripture com- bine in testifying that God alone is the object of worship, and that we cannot offer prayer or perform an act of adora- tion to any other being, however exalted, without incur- ring the highest criminality. " Thou shalt have no other gods before me."| The reply of our Lord to the tempter seems purposely framed so as to include both latria and dulia. " Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve."§ On the principles of the Roman Catholic Church, it is quite possible for a man to be saved without having performed a single act of devotion to God in his whole life. He has simply to entrust the saints with his case, who will pray for him, and with better success than he himself could obtain. And the tendency, not to say the design, of the Romish system is to withdraw our hearts and * Perrone's PrsDlectioues Tlieologiccc, torn. i. p. 1156. •\ Rev. V. 8. X Exod. xx. 3. § Matt. iv. 10, SG6 OF THE WORSHIPPING OF SAINTS. our homage altogether from God, and, under an affectation of humility, to banish us for ever from the throne of God's grace, and sink us in the worship of stocks and of dead men. Manifestly the popish divinities are but the resuscitation of the gods of the pagan mythology. Venus still reigns under the title of Mary, and Jupiter under that of Peter ; and so as regards the other gods and goddesses of the hea- then world ; — their names have been changed, but their dominion is prolonged. The same festivals are kept in com- memoration of them ; the same rites are celebrated in their honour, — slightly altered to suit the modern state of things ; and the same powers are ascribed to them. Like their pagan predecessors, they have their shrines ; and, like them too, they have their assigned limits within which they exer- cise jurisdiction, and their favourites and votaries over whom they keep special guard.* Papists have been often asked to explain how it is that the saints in heaven are able to hear the prayers of mortals on earth. They do not affirm that the saints are either om- nipotent or omniscient ; and yet, unless they are both, it is difficult to understand how they can know what we feel, or hear what we say, at so great a distance. Thousands are continually praying to them in all parts of the earth; — they have suppliants at Rome, at New York, at Pekin : and yet, though but men and women, they are supposed to hear every one of these petitions. The difficulty does indeed seem a formidable one ; and, though often pressed to explain it, Ro- man Catholics have given as yet no solution but what is ut- terly subvei'sive of the idea on which the system is founded. * St Francis is the God of travellers. St Koque defends from the plague, — St Barbara, from thunder and lightning. St Anthony the Ab- bot delivers from fire, — St Anthony of Padua, from water. St Bias cures disorders of the throat. St Lucia heals all diseases of the eye. Young women who wish to enter wedlock choose St Nicholas as their patron ; while St Ramon protects them in pregnancy, and St Lazaro assists them in labour. St Paloniae preserves the teeth. St Domingo cures fever. (See Middleton's Letter from Rome : Townscnd's Travels in Spain.) ABSURDITY OF SAINT-WORSHIP. 3G7 They usually tell us that the saints acquire the knowledge of these supplications through God. According to this theory, the prayer ascends first to God, God tells it to the saints, and the saints pray it back again to God. But what becomes of the boasted advantage of praying to the saints ? and why not address our prayers directly to God ? Why not go to God at once, seeing it turns out that He alone can hear us in the first instance, and that, but for his subsequent revelation of our prayers, they would be dissipated in empty space, and those pow-erful intercessors the saints would know nothing at all of the matter ? " You," said Mr Seymour, to a priest at Rome, who had favoured him with this notable solution of the difficulty, " make the Virgin INIary and the saints mediators of prayer. According to this system, God is our mediator to the saints, and not the saints our media- tors to God."* The path is strangely circuitous, — far too circuitous to be the right one. Nothing could be happier than the illustration of Coleridge, with special reference to the Virn-in. It is that of an individual of whom we wish to obtain a favour, and whose mother we employ to intercede for us. The man hears well enough himself, but his mother is deaf; so we tell him to tell her that we wish her to pray to him to bestow on us the favour we desire. • Mornings among the Jesuits at Eome, pp. 116, 117. 368 THE WORSHIP OF THE VIRGIN MARY. CHAPTER XIX. THE WORSHIP OF THE VIRGIN MARY. There seems to be on the part of fallen man an inherent sense of his need of a man-God. The patriarch of Uz gave expression to this feeling, when he intimated his wish for a " days-man,"" who " might lay his hand upon us both."" Our intellectual faculties and our moral affections are unable to traverse the mighty void between ourselves and the In- finite, and both unite in seeking a resting-place midway in One combining in himself both natures. The spirituality of God places Him beyond our grasp, and removes Him, in a manner, from the sphere of our sympathy. We are dazzled by his majesty and glory ; his holiness overawes us ; his greatness, seen from afar, and incomprehensible by us, seems to repel rather than invite confidence, and to chill the heart rather than expand it into love. " Is there no resting-place for our affections and sympathies," we instinctively ask, " nearer than the auijust throne of the Infinite V We need to have the divine attributes reduced to a scale, so to speak, which corresponds more nearly with our intellectual and moral range, and exhibited in One who to the nature of God adds that of man. This feeling has received nume- rous and varied manifestations ; and the effort to meet it has formed a prominent feature in every one of the great WISH FOR A MAN-GOD. 369 systems of idolatry which have arisen in the earth. The nations of antiquity had their race of demi-gods or deified men. In the modern idolatries it has operated not less powerfully. The Mahommedans have their Prophet, and the Roman Catholics have their Virgin. " Here," says Popery, " is a being who may be expected to be more in- dulgent to your failings than Deity can be, — who will be more easily moved to answer your prayers, — and whom you may approach without any overwhelming awe ;" and thus the false is substituted for the true Mediator. It is in the reli- gion of the Eible alone that this instinct of our nature has received its full gratification. The wish breathed of old by the patriarch, and expressed with singular emphasis in all the idolatries that successively arose on the earth, is ade- quately met only in the " mystery of godliness, — God mani- fest in the flesh." But what we are here to speak of is the abuse of this principle, in the idolati'ous worship of the Vir- gin. Papists may make a shift to prove that it is a mitigated worship which they offer to the saints, — that they allow them no rank but that of mediators, and no function but that of in- tercession, — though even this worship, both in its principles and in its forms, the Bible denominates idolatry. But the worship of the Virgin is capable of no such defence; — it is direct, undisguised, rank idolatry. Roman Catholics give the same titles, perform the same acts, and ascribe the same powers, to Mary as to Christ ; and in doing so they make her equal with God. To Mary are given names and titles which can be lawful- ly given to no one but God. She is styled " Mother of God;" " Queen of Seraphim, of Saints, and of Prophets ;" " Advo- cate of Sinners;" " Refuge of Sinners ;" " Gate of Heaven ;" " Morning Star;" Queen of Heaven." In Roman Catholic countries she is commonly addressed as the " Most Holy Mary." She is often styled the " Most Faithful," and the " Most INIerciful." In what other terms could Christ him- self be addressed ? The Papist alleges that he still regards 2b 370 THE WORSHIP OF THE VIRGIN. her as but a creature ; nevertheless he addresses her in terms which imply that she possesses divine perfections, power, and glory The whole psalter of David has been transformed by Bonaventura to the invocation of Mary, by erasing the name of Jehovah, and substituting that of the Virgin. We give an example of the work : — " In thee, Lady, have I put my trust : let me never be ashamed : in thy grace uphold me."" " Unto thee have I cried, Mary, when my heart was in heaviness ; and thou hast heard me from the top of the ever- lasting hills."" " Come unto Mary, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and she shall refresh your souls.*" In the second place, the same worship is rendered to Mary as to Christ. Churches are built to her honour ; her shrines are crowded with devotees, enriched with their gifts, and adorned with their votive offerings. To her prayers are offered as to a divine being, and blessings are asked as from one who has power to bestow them. Her votaries are taught to pray, " Spare us, good Lady," and " From all evil, good Lady, deliver us."* Five annual festivals celebrate her greatness, and keep alive the devotion of her worshippers. In Roman Catholic countries the dawn is ushered in with hymns to her honour ; her praises are again chanted at noon ; and the day is closed with an Ave Maria sung to the lady of heaven. Her name is the first which the infant is taught to lisp ; and the dying are dii'ected to entrust their departing spirits into the hands of the Virgin. In health and in sickness, in business and in pleasure, at home or abroad, the Virgin is ever first in the thoughts, the affec- tions, and the devotions of the Roman Catholic. The sol- dier fights under her banner, and the bandit plunders under her protection. •[• Her deliverances are commemorated by public monuments erected to her by cities and provinces. ♦ Stillingfleet's Popery, l)y Dr Cunningliam, pp. 92, 93. t The brigands in some parts of Italy and Spain wear a picture of the Madonna, suspended round the neck by a red ribbon. If overtaken un- expectedly by death, they kiss the image, and die in peace. MARY AND THE PSALTER. 371 In 1832, the cholera desolated the country around Lyons, but did not enter the city. A pillar, erected in the suburbs, commemorates the event, and ascribes it to the interposi- tion of the Virgin. When the pontiffs would bless with special emphasis, it is in the name of Mary ; and when they threaten most terribly, it is her vengeance which they de- nounce against their enemies.* In short, the Roman Ca- tholic is taught that none are so miserable but she can suc- cour them, none so criminal but she will pardon them, and none so polluted but she can cleanse them. There is scarce an act which it is lawful to perform to- wards God which the Roman Catholic is not taught to per- form towards the Virgin. One of the most solemn acts of worship a creature can perform is to give himself in cove- nant to God, — to make over himself to Jehovah, — for time and for eternity. The Papist is taught to make this solemn surrender of himself to the Virgin. " Entering into a so- lemn covenant with holy Mary, to be for ever her servant, client, and devotee, under some special rule, society, or form of life, and thereby dedicating our persons, concerns, ac- tions, and all the moments and events of our life, to Jesus, under the protection of his divine mother ; choosing her to be our adoptive mother, patroness, and advocate ; and en- trusting her with what we are, have, do, or hope, in life, death, or through eternity ."-f- Some of the most sublime and devotional passages of the Bible are applied to the Vir- gin Mary. From the work quoted above we may give the following illustrations, in which a strain of mingled prayer and praise suitable to be offered only to God, is addressed to the Virgin :| — * When the present Pope fled from Rome, he threatened the Romans with the vengeance of the Virgin. Finding her not so ready to espouse his quarrel as he expected, he solicited aad obtained 40,000 soldiers from France. t Contemplations on the Life and Glory of Holy Mary, A. x>. 1685, [quoted from Dr Cunningham's " Stillingfleet."] J Quoted from Dr Cunningham's " Stillingfleet," pp. 96-97, 372 THE WORSHIP OF THE VIRGIN. *' "Vers. Open my lips, O mother of Jesus. Resp. And my soul shall speak forth thy praise. Vers. Divine lady, be intent to my aid. Resp. Graciously make haste to help me. Vers. Glory be to Jesus and Mary. Resp. As it was, is, and ever shall be." To the Virgin Mary is likewise applied the eighth Psalm, thus : — " Mary, mother of Jesus, how wonderful is thy name, even unto the ends of the earth ! " All magnificence be given to Mary ; and let her be exalted above the stars and angels. " Reign on high as queen of seraphims and saints ; and be thou crowned with honour and glory," &c. " Glory be to Jesus and Mary," &c. It is true, the theologians of the Church of Rome pro- fess to distinguish between the worship offered to Mary and the worship offered to Christ. The saints are to be worshipped with dulia, the Virgin with hyperdulia, and God with latria.* But this is a distinction which has never yet been clearly defined : in practice it is utterly disregarded ; it seems to have been invented solely to meet the Protes- tant charge of idolatry ; and the mass of the common people are incapable of either understanding it or acting upon it. We not unfrequently find them praying in the very same words to God, to the Virgin, and to the saints. We may instance the well-known prayer to which, in 1817, an indul- gence of three hundred days was annexed. It is as follows : — " Jesus, Joseph, Mary, I give you my heart and soul ; Jesus, Joseph, Mary, assist me in my last agony ; Jesus, Joseph, Mary, I breathe my soul to you in peace." According to the theory of lower and higher degrees of wor- ship, three kinds of worship ought to have been here em- ployed, — latria for God, hyperdulia for Mary, and dulia for Mornings among the Jesuits at Rome, p. 52. REDEMPTION ASCRIBED TO MARY. 373 Joseph ; but all three, without the least distinction, or the smallest alteration in the words or in the form, are wor- shipped alike. In the third place, the same works are ascribed to Mary as to Christ. She hears prayer, intercedes w^ith God for sinners, guides, defends, and blesses them in life, succours them when dying, and receives their departing spirits into paradise. But passing over these things, the great work of Redemption, the peculiar glory of the Saviour, and the chief of God's ways, is now by Roman Catholics, plainly and with- out reserve, applied to Mary. The Father who devised, the Son who purchased, and the Spirit who applies, the salvation of the sinner, must all give place to the Virgin. It was her coming which prophets announced ;* it is her victory which the Church celebrates. Angels and the redeemed of heaven ascribe unto her the glory and honour of saving men. She rose from the dead on the third day ; she ascended to heaven ; she has been re-united to her Son ; and she now shares with Him power, glory, and dominion. " The eternal gates of heaven rolled back ; the king's mother entered, and was conducted to the steps of his royal throne. Upon it sat her Son 'A throne was set for the king's mo- ther, and she sat upon his right hand.' And upon her brow he placed the crown of universal dominion ; and the count- less multitude of the heavenly hosts saluted her as the queen of heaven and earth."-|- All this Romanists ascribe to a poor fallen creature, whose bones have been mouldering in the dust for eighteen hundred years. We impute nothing to the Church of Rome, in this respect, which her living theologians do not teach. Instead of being ashamed of their Mariolatry, they glory in it, and boast that their Church is becoming every day more devoted to the service and ado- ration of the Virgin. The argument by which the work of * Keenan's Catechism, pp. 106-107. + The Glory of Mary, by J. A. Stothert, Missionary Apostolic in Scot- land, pp. 145, 146 ; London, 1851. .*}74 THE WORSHIP OF THE VIRGIN. redemption is ascribed to Mary we find briefly stated by Fa- ther Ventura, in a conversation with M. Roussel of Paris, then travelling in Italy. " The Bible tells us but a few words about her"" [the Vir- gin Mary], said M. Roussel to the Padre, " and those few words are not of a character to exalt her." " Yes," replied Father Ventura, " but those few words express every thing ! Admire this allusion : Christ on the cross addressed his mother as woman ; God in Eden de- clared that the woman should crush the serpent\s head ; the woman designated in Genesis must therefore be the wo- man pointed out by Jesus Christ ; and it is she who is the Church, in which the family of man is to be saved." " But that is a mere agreement of words, and not of things," responded the Protestant minister. " That is sufficient," said Father Ventura.* Not less decisive is the testimony of Mr Seymour, as re- gards the sentiments of the leading priests at Rome, and the predominating character of the worship of Italy. The fol- lowing instructive conversation passed one day between him and one of the Jesuits, on the subject of the worship of the Virgin. " My clerical friend," says Mr Seymour, " resumed the conversation, and said, that the worship of the Virgin Mary was a growing worship in Rome, — that it was increasing in depth and intenseness of devotion, — and that there were now many of their divines — and he spoke of himself as agreeing with them in sentiment — who were teaching, that as a woman brought in death, so a woman was to bring in life, — that as a woman brought in sin, so a woman was to bring in holiness, — that as Eve brought in damnation, so Mary was to bring in salvation,— and that the effect of this opinion was largely to increase the reverence and worship given to the Virgin Mary." " To prevent any mistake as to his views," says Mr Sey- • New York Evangelist, Jan. 3, 1850. MARY THE SAVIOUR. 375 mour, " I asked whether I was to understand him as imply- ing, that as we regard Eve as the first sinner, so we are to regard Mary as the first Saviour, — the one as the author of sin, and the other as the author of the remedy." " He replied that such was precisely the view he wished to express ; and he added, that it was taught by St Alphon- so de Liguori, and was a growing opinion."* But we can adduce still higher authority in proof of the charge that Rome now knows no other God than Mary, and worships no other Saviour than the Virgin. In the Ency- clical Letter of Pius IX., issued on the 2d of February 1849, soliciting the suffi-ages of the Roman Catholic Church, preparatory to the decree of the pontiff on the doctrine of the immaculate conception, terms are applied to the Virgin Mary which plainly imply that she is possessed of divine ful- ness and perfection, and that she discharges the office of Redeemer to the Church. " The most illustrious prelates, the most venerable canonical chapters, and the religious congregations," says the Pope, " rival each other in solicit- ing that permission should be granted to add and pronounce aloud and publicly, in the sacred Liturgy, and in the pre- face of the mass to the blessed Virgin Mary, the word ' im- maculate ;' and to define it as a doctrine of the Catholic Church, that the conception of the blessed Virgin Mary was entirely immaculate, and absolutely exempt from all stain of original sin." The document then rises into a strain of commingled blasphemy and idolatry, in which the perfec- tions of God and the work of Christ are ascribed to the Virgin, who " is raised, by the greatness of her merits, above all the choirs of angels, up to the throne of God ; xoho has crushed under the foot of her virtues the head of the old serpent. -f The foundation of our confidence is in the Most Holy Virgin, since * Mornings among the Jesuits at Rome, pp. 43-45. + The doctrine of the pontifical bull we find re-echoed in the sermons and tracts of inferior priests. " It was sin that cost Mary all her sorrow ; not her own, but ours. For our disobedience she painfully obeyed." (The Glory of Mary, by James Augustine Stothert, p. 130.) 276 THE WORSHIP OF THE VIRGIN. it IS in Tier that God has placed the plenitude of all good, in such sort, that if there he in us any hope, — if there he any spiri- tual health, — zee l-now that it is from her that we receive it, — because it is the will of Him who hath willed that we should have all by the instrumentality of Mary." We need no other evidence of Rome's idolatry. The document, it is true, is not a formal deed of the Church ; but the difference is one of form only ; for the pontiff assures us that the senti- ments it contains are not his own only, but those of " the most illustrious prelates, venerable canonical chapters, and religious congregations ;" and of course the sentiments are shared in by a vast majority of the members of the Church. The document fully installs Mary in the office of Saviour, and exalts her to the throne of God ; for, in the first place^ it expressly applies to her the prophecy in Eden, and as- cribes to her the work then foretold, — crushing the head of the serpent ; and, in the second place, it applies to Mary the ascription of Paul to Christ, — " In him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily," and in doing so, exalts her to the throne of mediatorial power and blessing. The pontifical de- cree on the subject of the immaculate conception may after this be spared. Already Rome has consummated her ido- latry, and its evidence is complete. That Church has in- stalled Mary in the office of Redeemer, and exalted her to the throne of Deitv. To raise Mary to an equality with God, is virtually to place her above Him ; for God can have no rival. But Ro- man Catholic writers teach, in express terms, that she is superior. In invoking her, they hold it warrantable to ask her to lay her commands upon her Son, which implies her superiority in power to Him to whom, the Bible teaches, " all power in heaven and in earth has been committed." And, second, they teach that she is superior in mercy, and that she hears prayer, and pities and delivers the sinner, when Christ will not.* This doctrine has not only been taught in words, * See Seymour's Mornings among the Jesuits, pp. 46-56. THE TWO LADDERS. 377 but has been exhibited in symbol, and that in so grotesque a way, that for the moment wo forgot its blasphemy. In the dream of St Bernard, — which forms the subject of an al- tar-piece in a church at Milan, — two ladders were seen reach- ing from earth to heaven. At the top of one of the ladders stood Christ, and at the top of the other stood Mary. Of those who attempted to enter heaven by the ladder of Christ, not one succeeded, — all fell back. Of those who ascended by the ladder of Mary, not one failed. The Virgin, prompt to succour, stretched out her hand; and, thus aided, the as- pirants ascended with ease.* Mornings among the Jesuits, p. 56. o 78 FAITH NOT TO BE KEPT WITH HERETICS. CHAPTER XX. FAITH NOT TO BE KEPT WITH HEKETICS. There remains yet another matter, — a matter not strictly theological, it is true, yet one that enters deeply into the morality of the Church of Rome, and which is of vital mo- ment as regards society. The question we are now to dis- cuss discloses to our sight a very gulph of wickedness. It is as the opening of pandemonium itself. One wonders that the earth has borne so long a society so atrociously wicked, or that the lightnings of heaven have so long forborne to consume it. This doctrine of enormous turpitude is the dispensing power. The Church of Rome has adopted as a leading principle of her policy, thai faith is not to be kept with heretics when its violation is necessary for the interests of the Church. This abominable doctrine papists have disclaimed. This does not surprise us. A priori, it was to be expected that any society that was wicked enough to adopt such a principle would bo base enough to deny it. Besides, to con- fess to this policy would be the sure way of defeating its end. Who would contract alliances with Rome, if told be- forehand that she would keep to them not a moment longer than it suited her own purposes ? Who would entrust him- self to her promise, if he saw it to be the net in which he was to be caught and destroyed ? Were living Papists prepared ENORMITY OF DOCTRINE. 379 publicly to avow this doctrine, they would be prepared also to abandon it, for it would manifestly be useless a moment longer to retain it. Besides, they are not prepared to brave the odium which the avowal of a maxim so abhorrent and detestable would be sure to provoke. This is the very mark of hell. Rome may wear this mark in her right hand, where its partial concealment is possible; but were that mark to be imprinted on her forehead, she dare not hold up her face before the world, knowing that the damning evidence of her guilt was visible to every eye. The living writers and priests of the Church of Rome are plainly inadmissible as witnesses here. We appeal the matter to her canons and her history, — a tribunal to which she can take no ex- ception. At this bar do we sist her ; and here she stands condemned as the Cain of the human family, — the world's OUTLAW. The proof, — and nothing is more capable of easy and complete demonstration, — is briefly as follows: — The doc- trine that no faith is to be kept with heretics, when to do so would militate against the interests of the Church, was promulgated by the third Lateran Council, decreed by the Council of Constance, confirmed by the Council of Trent, and is sworn to by all priests at their ordination, when they declare on oath their belief of all the tenets taudit in the sacred canons and the general councils ; and it has been practised by the Church of Rome, both in particular cases of great flagrancy, and in the general course of her actings. The proof is as clear as the charge is grave and the crime e.iormous. The third Lateran Council, which was held at Rome in 1167 under the pontificate of Alexander III., and which all Papists admit to be infallible, decreed in its sixteenth canon, that " oaths made against the interest and benefit of the Church are not so much to be considered as oaths, but as perjuries." * The fourth or great Lateran Council ab- * " Non quasi juramenta, sed quasi perjuria." S80 FAITH NOT TO BE KEPT WITH HERETICS. solved from their oath of allegiance the subjects of heretical princes. The Council of Constance, which was holden in 1414; ex- pressly decreed that no faith was to be kept with heretics. The words of this decree, as preserved by M. KEnfant, in his learned history of that famous council, are, that " by no law, natural or divine, is it obligatory to keep faith with heretics, to the prejudice of the Catholic faith."* This fear- ful doctrine the council ratified in a manner not less fearful, in the blood of John Huss. It is well known that this re- former came to the council trusting in a safe-conduct, which had been given him under the hand of the Emperor Sigis- mund. The document in the amplest terms guaranteed the safety of Huss, in his journey to Constance, in his stay there, and in his return home. Notwithstanding, he was seized, imprisoned, condemned, and burnt alive, at the insti- gation of the council, by the very man who had so solemnly guaranteed his safety. When the Council of Trent assembled in the sixteenth century, it was exceedingly desirous of obtaining the pre- sence of the Protestants at its deliberations. Accordingly, it issued numerous equivocal safe-conducts, all of which the Protestants, mindful of the fate of Huss, rejected. At last the council decreed, that for this time, and in this instance, the safe-conduct should not be violated, and that no " autho- rity, power, statute, or decree, and especially that of the Council of Constance and Siena," should be employed against them. In this enactment of the Council of Trent, canons, decrees, and laws, to the prejudice of safe-conducts to here- tics, are expressly recognised as already existing. These decrees are not revoked or abjured by the council ; they are only suspended for the time, — " pro hac vice." This is a plain declaration, that on all other occasions Rome means to act upon them, and will, whenever she has the power. There * " Noc aliqua sibi fides, aut promissio de jure naturali, divino, et humano, fuerit in prcjudicium Catholicse fidei observanda." TAUGHT BY COUNCILS AND DOCTORS. 381 has been no general council since ; and as no decree of the Pope has repudiated the doctrine of these decrees and ca- nons, they must be regarded as still in force. The instances are innumerable in which popes and Ro- man Catholic writers have asserted and recommended this odious doctrine. It was promulgated by Hildebrand in the eleventh century. The cruel persecutions of the eleventh and twelfth centuries were based on this doctrine. Pope Martin V., in his letter to the Duke of Lithuania, says, Be assured that thou sinnest mortally if thou Tceep faith with heretics. " Gregory IX. made the following law : — ' Be it known unto all who are under the jurisdiction of those who have openly fallen into heresy, that they are free from the obligation of fidelity, dominion, and every kind of obedience to them, by whatever means or bond they are tied to them, and how securely soever they may be bound.' On which Bishop Simanca gives this comment : — ' Governors of forts and all kinds of vassals are by this con- stitution freed from the bond of the oath whereby they had promised fidelity to their lords and masters. Moreover, a Catholic wife is not obliged to perform the marriage contract with an heretical husband. If faith is not to be kept with tyrants, pirates, and other public robbers who kill the body, much less with obstinate heretics who kill the soul. Ay, but it is a sad thing to break faith. But, as saith Merius Salomonius, faith promised against Christ, if kept, is verily perfidy. Justly, therefore, were some heretics burnt by the most solemn judgment of the Council of Constance, although they had been promised security. And St Thomas also is of opinion, that a Catholic might deliver over an untractable heretic to the judges, notwithstanding he had pledged his faith to him, and even confirmed it by the solemnity of an oath.'' ' Contracts,' saith Bonacina, ' made against the canon law are invalid, though confirmed by oath ; and a man is not bound to stand to his promise, though he had sworn to it.' ' Pope Innocent VIII., in his bull against the Waldenses in 1487, by his authority apostolical declares, 582 FAITH NOT TO BE KEPT WITH HERETICS. that all those who had been bound and obliged by contract, or any other way whatever, to grant or pay anything to them, should not be under any manner of obligation to do so for the time to come.*' "* When Henry of Valois was elected to the throne of Po- land in 1573, Cardinal Hosius laboured ineffectually to pre- vent the newly-elected monarch confirming by his oath the religious liberties of Poland. He next openly recommended to him to commit perjury, maintaining " that an oath given to heretics may be broken, even without absolution." In the letter which he despatched to the King, ho desired him to "reflect that the oath was not a bond of iniquity, and that there was no necessity for him to be absolved from his oath, because, according to every law, all that he had inconsider- ately done was neither binding nor had any value."-f- But Solikowski, a learned Roman Catholic prelate, gave Henry more dangerous advice still. He counselled him to submit to the necessity, and promise and swear everything demand- ed of him, in the hope that, as soon as he ascended the throne, he would find himself in a condition to crush without violence the heresy he had sworn to maintain.j Thus have the councils, the popes, and the casuists of the Roman Ca- tholic Church enacted, defended, and promulgated this hor- rible doctrine. It is as undeniable as the sun at noon-day, that that Church holds it as a tenet of her faith, that it is unlawful to Jceep faith icith heretics, when the good of the Church requires that it should be violated. The practice of the Church of Rome has been in strict accordance with her doctrine. Faith she has not kept with heretics, whenever it could serve her purpose to break it. Compacts framed with the highest solemnities, and sanc- tioned by the holiest oaths, she has violated, without the least scruple or compunction, when the interests of Protes- * Free Thoughts on the Toleration of Popery, p. 119. t Lectures on Slavonia, by Count Valerian Krasinski, p. 277 ; Edin. 1849. X Ibid. p. 278. PRACTICE OF ROMAN CHURCH. S83 taiitlsm were concerned. What, we ask, is her history, but one long unvaried tale of lies, frauds, perfidies, broken vows, and violated oaths ? Every party that has trusted her she has in turn betrayed. It mattered not how awful the sanc- tions with which she was bound, or how numerous and sa- cred the pledges and guarantees of sincerity which she had given : these bonds were to Rome but as the green withes on the arm of Samson. Her wickedness is without parallel in the annals of human treachery. Perfidies which the most abandoned of pagan governments would have shuddered to commit, Rome has deliberately perpetrated and unblush- ingly justified. In the case of others, these enormities have been the exceptions, and have formed a departure from the generally recognised principles of their action ; but in the case of Rome they have formed the rule, and have sprung from principles deliberately adopted as the guiding maxims of her policy. We question whether an instance can be adduced of so much as one engagement that has been kept in matters involving the conflicting interests of Protestant- ism and Popery, when it could be advantageously broken. We do not know of any such. But time would fail, and space is wanting, to narrate even a tithe of the instances in which the most solemn engagements were most perfidiously violated, nay, made to be violated, — framed to entrap the confiding victims. The cases are innumerable, we say, in which Roman Catholics have made promises and oaths to individuals, to cities, to provinces, with the most public and solemn forms ; and the moment they obtained the advantage these oaths were intended to secure, they delivered over to slaughter and devastation those very men to whom they had sworn in the great name of GoD. Ah ! could the soil of France disclose her slaughtered millions, — could the snows of the Alps and the vales of Piedmont give up the dead which they cover, — these confessors could tell how Rome kept her oaths and covenants. Their voice has been silent for ages ; but history pleads their cause : it has preserved the vows solemnly made, but perfidiously violated ; and. S84< FAITH NOT TO BE KEPT WITH HERETICS. pointing to the blood of the martyr, it cries aloud to heaven for vengeance on the pei-fidy that shed it. In the Albigen- sian war, Louis of Franco having besieged the town of Avignon for a long time, and lost twenty-three thousand men before it, was on the point of raising the siege, when, the following stratagem was successfully resorted to. The Roman legate swore before the city gates, that if admission were granted, he would enter alone with the prelates, simply for the purpose of examining the faith of the citizens. The gates were opened, the legate entered, the army rushed in at his back, hundreds of the houses were razed, multitudes of the inhabitants were slaughtered, and of the rest, a great part were carried away as hostages. In the long and bloody war against the Waldenses in the thirteenth century, Rome never scrupled to employ treachery when the sword was unsuccessful ; and it may be affirmed that that noble people were crushed rather by perfidy than by arms. They had much more to dread from the oaths than from the soldiers of Rome. Again and again did the house of Savoy pledge its faith to these confessors; but every new treaty was followed by new dishonour to the one party and new calamities to the other. The power of France itself would never have subdued these hardy moun- taineers, but for the arts with which the arms of their power- ful foe were seconded. Pacifications were framed with them, purposely to throw them off their guard, and pave the way for another crusade and another massacre. In this way did they perish from those vales which their piety had sanctified, and from those mountains which their struggles had made holy. They fell unlamented and unavenged. The throne of the crafty Bourbon still stood, and the sway of the triple tyrant was still prolonged ; but in the silent vales where these martyrs had lived no trace of them now remained, save the ashes that blackened the site of their dwelling, and the bones that whitened the rocks by which it was overhung. Their names were unhonourcd, and their deeds were un- praised, by a world which knew not how to estimate the STRUGGLES IN POLAND. 385 greatness of their virtues or the grandeur of their cause. But not in vain did they offer themselves upon the altar of their faith. In the stillness that reigned throughout Eu- rope, a solitary voice from a distant isle was heard saying, " Avenge, Lord, thy slaughtered saints !" — the first ut- terance of a prayer in which a world shall yet join, and the first prophetic anticipation of a vengeance which, after the lapse of three centuries, God is now beginning to inflict up- on the blood-stained dynasties and thrones which slew his saints. It was the same in all the countries of Europe. Wher- ever Protestants existed they were assailed by arms and by treachery, and the latter weapon was a hundred times more fatal than the former. The butcheries of Alva in the Low Countries were preceded by promises and treaties of peace and conciliation oft and solemnly ratified. Philip II. pledg- ed the honour of Spain to his subjects in Flanders ; and the dungeons, the scaffolds, and the sanguinary troops by which that country was immediately thereafter inundated show how he redeemed the faith he had plighted. In the great struggle in Poland, in which for a while it seemed an even chance which of the two faiths should acquire the ascendancy, the Popish party kept their oaths only so long as they lacked opportunity of breaking them. When the struggle was at its height, Lippomani, the papal legate, arrived in Poland, and unscrupulously advised the sovereign, Sigismund Augus- tus, who pled that the laws of the kingdom forbade violence, to employ treachery and bloodshed to extirpate heresy.* To this policy is to be ascribed the ultimate triumph of the Jesuitical party in Poland. " As the laws of the country," says Krasinski, " did not allow any inhabitant of Poland to be persecuted on account of his religious opinions, they [the Jesuits] left no means untried in order to evade those salu- tary laws ; and the odious maxim that no faith should he Icept * Historical Sketch of the Rise, Progress, and Decline of the Reforma- tion in Poland, by Count Valerian Krasinski, vol. i. p. 293 ; Lond. 1836. 2 c 586 FAITH NOT TO BE KEPT WITPI HERETICS. with heretics was constantly advocated by them, as well as by other advocates of Homanism in our country."* In most of the southern German States the Protestant cause was overthrown by the same arts. In truth, this maxim of Rome, that faith is not to be kept when to keep it would tend to the advantage of Protestantism or the detriment of Popery, kept Germany in the flames of war, with short in- tervals, for upwards of a century. The advantages which the Protestants had secured by their arms, and which they had compelled their enemies to ratify by solemn treaty, were perfidiously denied and infringed ; they were thus forced again and again to take up arms ; and the successive wars in which Europe was involved, and which occasioned so great an expenditure of blood and treasure, grew out of Ilome''s maxim, which in almost all these particular cases was directly applied and enforced by pontifical authority, that such oaths and treaties " were from the very beginning, and for ever shall be, null and void ; and that no one is bound to observe them, or any of them, even though they have been often ratified and confirmed by oath.^-f- But the guiltiest land and throne in Europe, in respect of violated oaths, is France. In point of perfidy, the house of Bourbon has far exceeded the ordinary measure, we do not say of pagan governments, but of Boman Catholic govern- ments. The kings of France were the eldest sons of the ' Church, and bore most of the paternal likeness. Every one of their acts proclaimed them to be of their father the Pope, who was a liar from the beginning. Did the poor Hugue- nots ever trust them but to be betrayed by them ? Of the numerous engagements into which they entered with their Protestant subjects, was there one which they ever honest- ly fulfilled ? What were these treaties, with their ample * Historical Sketch of the Rise, Progress, and Decline of the Refor- mation in Poland, Ly Count Valerian Krasinski, preface, p. viii. t Letter of Clement XI. respecting tlie treaty of Alt Ilaustadt in 1707. The treaty was made by the Emperor with Charles XII. of Sweden, and contained some clauses favourable to Protestants. STRUGGLES IN FRANCE. S87 appendages of oaths and ratifications, but crafty devices for ensnaring, disarming, and then massacring the Protestants ? The first edict, guaranteeing them the exercise of their reli- gion, was granted in 1561. It was soon violated, and a worse persecution befell them. They were forced to take up arms, for the first time, to save their lives and vindicate their rights. They triumphed ; and their success obtained for them a new pacification. This was violated in like man- ner. " They [the Court] restrained," says INIezeray, " every day their liberty, which had been granted them by the edicts, until it was reduced almost to nothing. The people fell upon them in the places where tliey were weakest. In those where they could defend themselves the governors made use of the authority of the king to oppress them. Their cities and forts were dismantled ; there was no justice for them ; in the parliaments or king's council they were massacred with impunity ; they were not re-installed in their goods and charges. In fine, they had conspired their ruin with the Pope, the house of Austria, and the Duke of Alva."* Six times was the public faith of France plighted to the Protestants, in solemn treaty, ratified and sanctioned by solemn oath ; six times was the plighted faith of France openly dishonoured and violated ; and six times did civil war, the direct fruit of these broken vows, waste the trea- sure and the blood of that nation. The act of unparalleled crime which brought to an end the fourth pacification, that of 1570, merits our particular no- tice. Two years of profound dissimulation and hypocrisy paved the way for that awful tragedy, — the greatest of the crimes of Rome, — perhaps the most fearful monument of human wickedness which the history of the world contains, — the Massacre of St Bartholomeav. The chiefs of the Protestant party were invited to Court, caressed, and load- ed with honours. The Protestants generally seemed to be taken into special favour, and now shared the same privi- * Quoted from "Free Thoughts on the Toleration of Popery," p. 175. S88 FAITH NOT TO BE KEPT WITH HERETICS. leges with tlie Catholics. So bright was the deceitful gleam that heralded the dismal storm ! Not only were the fears of the Protestants laid at rest, but those of E,ome were awakened, thinking that either the King of France meant not to keep his engagement in the matter, or that he was overacting his part. But the cruel issue did more than make amends. In a moment the bolt fell. For three days and nights the work of human slaughter went on, and France became a very shambles. At length the dreadful business had an end. Seventy thousand corpses covered the soil of France. Paris shouted for joy, and the cannon of St An- gelo, from beyond the Alps, returned that shout. The Pope had some reason to rejoice. The blow struck at Paris de- cided the fortunes of Protestantism in Europe for two cen- turies. The Protestant faith was on the point of gaining the ascendancy both in Poland and France. The sagacious and patriotic Coligny meditated the project of a grand alli- ance between these two countries, and of giving thereby a powerful centre and a uniform action to the Protestant cause, and humbling the two main props of the Papacy, Spain and Austria.* As matters then stood, the project would have been completely successful. The other Protes- tant states of Europe would have joined the alliance ; but, in truth, France and Poland combined could have easily made head against the Popish powers, and could have shaken the dominion of Rome. But the massacre of St Bartholomew was fatal to this great scheme. The vene- rable Coligny, as is well known, was its first victim ; and his project, big with the fortunes of Protestantism, perished witli him. The Protestants were panic-struck in France, and disheartened in other countries. The victory which had long trembled in the balance between the Reformation and Rome now inclined decidedly to the latter ; and from that day the Protestant influence declined in Europe. The two cen- * Krasinski's Rise, Progress, and Decline of the Reformation in Poland, vol. ii, p. 6. REVOCATION OF NANTES' EDICT. S89 turies of dominion which have been added to Rome she owes to her grand maxim, that no dissimulation is too profound, and no perfidy too gross, to be employed against Protestants. The last great national act of treachery on the part of France was the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. " Never was an edict, law, or treaty, more deliberately made, more so- lemnly ratified, more irrewcably established, more repeatedly confirmed ; nor one whereof policy, duty, or gratitude, could have more ensured the execution ; yet never was one more scandalously or absolutely violated. It was the result of three years' negotiation between the commissioners of the king and the deputies of the Protestants, — was the termination of forty years' wars and troubles, — was merited by the highest services, sealed by the highest authority, registered in all the parlia- ments and courts of Henry the Great, — was declared in the preamble to be perpetual and irrevocable.'"* It was confirm- ed by the Queen-mother in 1610, and repeatedly ratified by succeeding monarchs of France ; yet all the while the pur- pose of overturning it was secretly entertained and steadily and craftily prosecuted. The rights it conferred and the privileges it guaranteed were gradually encroached upon : oppressions cruel and manifold, contrary to the spirit and to the letter of the edict, were practised on the Protestants ; and at last, in 1685, it was publicly revoked. When the old Chancellor Tellier, the Jesuit, signed the edict of revo- cation, full of joy at this consummation of the intrigues and labours of his party, he cried out, — ''Lord, now lettest tliou thy s<^vant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy saha- ^iow."-f- The proscriptions, the banishments, the massacres, which followed, and which were second only to the St Bar- tholomew horror, are well known to every reader of history. This act consummated the woes of French Protestantism and the guilt of the house of Bourbon. Tellier, in signing the Revocation, had signed the death-warrant of France. * Free Thoughts on the Toleration of Popery, p. 177. + Voltaire's Age of Louis XIV. vol. ii. p. 197 j Glasgow, 1753. o90 FAITH NOT TO BE KEPT WITH HERETICS. A chain of causes, extending from 1685 to 1785, and which it requires but a slight study of the history of that gloomy period clearly to trace, links together the Huguenot proscrip- tions and massacres of the one period with the revolution- ary horrors of the other. Rome's favourite maxim, faith- fully acted out by the bigoted court of France, introduced at last the Reign of Terror. How could it possibly be other- wise 1 Great part of the trade of the kingdom was in the hands of the Protestants ; and when they were driven away, industry was paralyzed. The numerous and expensive wars waged against the Huguenots had exhausted the national ex- chequer, and new taxes had to be imposed, which pressed heavily on a crippled trade and a languishing agriculture. With religion had been extinguished the elements of mo- rality and order. A new and powerful element, engendered by the Romish idolatry, was next introduced, — infidelity, which passed, in numerous instances, into atheism. These terrible elements, which had their rise in the Huguenot per- secutions, gathered apace ; and at last, in little more than a century from the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, they burst over France in unexampled and desolating fury. All things were now changed, but so changed as to bear stamped upon them the awful mark of retributive vengeance. The Jesuit cabal was exchanged for the democrats' club. Rome's sanc- tified dagger was set aside for the guillotine of the Revolu- tion. The Bourbon was gone, and Robespierre reigned in his room ; bloodthirsty and revengeful, doubtless, but not more so than the tyrant he had succeeded, and certainly not so perfidious and hypocritical. Crowds of wretched fugi- tives were again seen on the frontier ; but this time it was the priesthood and the noblesse of France. By and by foreign war drew off into a new channel the energies of the Revolu- tion ; but soon they returned to their former sphere, de- scended on France, as eagles on the carcase, or as the fires on the sacrifice ; and now again are they seen preying with consuming fierceness upon that devoted country. Nor will they ever be quenched till the land of violated oaths and RETRIBUTION ON FRANCE. 391 blood unrighteously shed has become the Gomorrah of the nations. Read thus, the history of France is an awful de- monstration of God's moral government. Nations unborn will peruse her story, and learn to avoid her crimes and her woes. The persecutor of the past will be the beacon of the future. But, it may be objected, these dreadful crimes and per- juries are to be attributed to the bad faith and despotic ten- dencies of governments, and not to the evil principles of the Church of Rome. Not so. It is Rome that must confront the appalling charge. She it was that broke all these vows and shed all this blood. She has associates in crime, doubt- less, but she must not roll over on them the guilt she taught them to perpetrate. All the dreadful proceedings we have so briefly surveyed, — and they form scarce a tithe of the woes which constitute the history of Europe, — sprang direct- ly out of the detestable doctrine which the councils, pontiffs, and casuists of the Roman Church inculcated. In the abyss of her councils were these plots hatched. France and the other Catholic powers did but follow the policy which the Court of Rome chalked out for them. All their enterprizes were undertaken with the Church's sanction, often at her earnest solicitation ; and assuredly they were all undertaken in the Church's behalf, — for the extirpation of heresy and the aggrandisement of the priesthood. At her door, then, must be laid all this accumulated perfidy. The facts we have adduced undeniably prove that the doctrine that no faith is to be Jcept loith heretics is regarded by the Church of Rome, not simply as a speculative theory, but as a maxim to which practical effect is to be given on all occasions, and to all the extent which the opportunities and the power of Rome will allow. The recent history of Europe has furnished a fearful com- mentary on the Pope's " dispensing power." The sovereigns of southern Europe have of late been acting on this maxim, and, as a consequence, filling their dungeons with the most virtuous of their subjects ; only this time the doctrine has 392 FAITH NOT TO BE KEPT WITH HERETICS. been put in force, not against the confessors of religion solely, but also against the liberals in politics. A catechism, in which it is avowedly taught that " the head of the Church has authority to release consciences from oaths when he judges there is suitable cause for it," has been compiled by an ecclesiastic, is circulated by ecclesiastics, and taught to the youth in the schools of Naples. King Ferdinand, the bosom friend of Pio Nono, has taken the full benefit of this doctrine, by revoking the Constitution to which he solemnly swore in " the awful name of Almighty God," and has told his terror-stricken kiugdom, that what he did he had a right to do, — that sovereignty is divine, — that an oath infringing on sovereignty possesses no ^obligation, — and that he alone is judge when the Constitution encroaches on his rights.* The same " doctrine of devils'" is taught by Liguori, who teaches that men may swear with any amount of equivoca- tion or mental reservation, — that " any reasonable reason is enough" for violating an oath, — that an oath contrary to the rights of superiors or the interests of the Church is not to be kept with any party or on any occasion, and therefore, a fortiori, not to be kept with heretics. All this is taught by the " infallible" Liguori.f What, then, are we to say of the strong disclaimers of this doctrine by some modern Papists in behalf of their Church \ These disclaimers, it is manifest, possess not the smallest weight, when we put in opposition to them the vast body of evidence by which the charge is supported,— the decrees of councils, the bulls and rescripts of popes, the public and uniform actings of the Church for well nigh three hundred years, and the deliverances of modern writers in the Church of Rome, — of Dens, Liguori, and others. That this was the doctrine of the Church, no one can deny ; that it was also her practice so long as she possessed the power, is equally undeniable. K she has renounced it, let it be shown when * Two Letters to Lord Aberdeen, by Mr Gladstone ; Lond. 1851. t Liguori, torn. iv. p. 151, 152. JESUITICAL DISCLAIMERS. S93 and i6here. Renounced it she has not, and cannot, without overthrowing the infallibility, on which her whole system is founded. In truth, when popish divines abjure the doctrine that no faith is to he kept icith heretics^ they are guilty of prac- tising a wretched quibble. Their meaning is, that so long as the oath exists it must be kept ; but the Pope, in virtue of his dispensing power, may declare, on just grounds, — of which " the necessity and utility of the ChurcK''^' is one, — that the oath is null, and does not exist, and consequently is not to be kept. They then triumphantly ask, How can an oath be said to be violated that does not exist \ Were it their object to release the subjects of Great Britain from their oaths of allegiance, the procedure adopted would be as fol- lows : the people would be taught, that so long as the oath existed, it must be respected ; but then nothing is easier than to put it out of existence ! The Pope has only, on some '■''just ground^'' to declare our Queen no longer sovereign, and the oath would no longer exist. We know not which is the more astonishing, — the impiety of those who can juggle in this way, or the simplicity of those who can be deceived by such juggling. If those statesmen who are so desirous to form relations with Rome, can find comfort in this very peculiar mode of keeping faith, they are abundantly welcome to it. But plain it is, that when Romish priests disclaim on oath the lawfulness of the doctrine of not keeping faith with heretics, so plainly taught in those canons to which they have sworn, they are just exhibiting, as Dr Cunningham strikingly remarks, " in its most aggravated form, the very enormity which they profess to abjure."-f- This doctrine strikes at the foundation of society. If oaths do not bind, — if vows and treaties possess force only so far as it accords with the will and interests of one of the parties, — there is an end of society, and men must return to the condition of savages. And if saved from falling into this * Theol. Mor. et Dog. Petri Dens, torn. iv. pp. 134-138. •j- Stillingfleet's Popery, by Dr CuDniugham, p. 232. 394 FAITH NOT TO BE KEPT WITH HERETICS. state, it can only be by one man getting the start of the others, and making his will a law to the rest ; for men must have some standard of faith, — some ground of mutual action ; and if they do not find it in the eternal equity of things, they may find it in the necessity of a universal and infallible despotism. This Rome attempted to establish, and in no other way could the ultimate disorganization of the world have been averted. But this does not hinder our perceiving the heinous sin and the ruinous tendency of her maxim ; and it by no means surprises us, that some of the great mas- ters of ethical and moral science should have held that a community that contravenes the first and most essential con- ditions of society should be denied the first and most es- sential of social rights. " If there were in that age," says Macaulay, " two persons inclined by their judgment and by their temper to toleration, these persons were Tillotson and Locke. Yet Tillotson, whose indulgence for various kinds of schismatics and heretics brought on him the reproach of heterodoxy, told the House of Commons from the pulpit, that it was their duty to make effectual provision against the propagation of a religion more mischievous than irreli- gion itself, — of a religion which demanded from its followers services directly opposed to the first principles of morality. In his judgment, pagans who had never heard the name of Christ, and who were guided only by the light of nature, were more trustworthy members of civil society than men who had been formed in the schools of the popish casuists. Locke, in his celebrated treatise, in which he had laboured to show that even the grossest form of idolatry ought not to be prohibited under penal sanctions, contended that the Church which taught men not to keep faith with heretics had no claim to toleration.* * Macaulay's History of England, vol. ii. pj). 8, 9 ; Loud. 1850. GENIUS OF THE PAPACY. S9; BOOK III. GENIUS AND INFLUENCE OF THE PAPACY. CHAPTER I. GENIUS OF THE PAPACY. Volumes would scarce suffice to enable us to do justice to the incomparable genius of the Papacy. Thoroughly to ex- plore and fully to unfold it would form a life -long task to the man of profoundest intellect. Such an one might ex- pend all his strength and all his days in the study, and leave it at last with the confession that there are depths here which he has not fathomed, and mysteries which he must leave to be solved by his successors. Our limits are of the narrowest ; and truly it would be a bootless undertaking to attempt a full elucidation of so vast a subject within the stinted space of a few pages. Nevertheless, we may indi- cate the more salient points of the system. If unable here fully to trace out the sources of its strength, we may be per- mitted to point out the direction in which they lie. Nor shall we have done so in vain, if we succeed in impressing any one with the singular interest and surpassing impor- tance, as well as the great difficulty, of the study. Elements 396 GENIUS OF THE PAPACY. of great power there must have been in a system which has stood so long, and has exercised so great an influence ; and if we can but succeed in rescuing these from the wreck, so to speak, we might employ them with advantage in the re-con- struction of society and the re-edification of the Church of God. Whole cities have sometimes been built from the ruins of colossal structures which time or violence had thrown down : in like manner, we may take the stones and timber of the Papacy, and consecrate them anew to the good of society and the service of God. A new solution may be awaiting the ancient riddle, — " Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness." There is scarce a department of human knowledge on which the study of the Papacy does not throw light. It affords an amazing insight into the policy of Satan, its real author. It lays bare the innate depravity and the deceitful workings of the human heart ; for Popery is but the reli- gion of fallen human nature. It shows what an amount of mischief may grow out of a single evil principle, or out of a good one misapplied. It discloses to us the springs of error, and enables us to trace to the same source all errors, how- ever deep their disguises, various their names, or diverse their forms ; and it teaches by contrast the simplicity, con- sistency, grandeur, and substantial oneness of the ti'uth. It shows, too, that no false system can be eternal ; that it carries within itself the seeds of death ; and that neither the defences of external power nor the sanctions of a venerable antiquity can save it from the death to which from its birth it is doomed. It has no self-renovating power ; and, grant- ing even that it should be let alone from without, the atrophy within would in due time consign it to its grave. But the immorality which falsehood wants truth possesses. Its seeds, sown in the world by the author of Christianity, are inde- structible ; and though all should perish, and but one sur- vive, that one seedling would in time burst the clod and re- novate the world. One atom of truth has more power in it than a whole svstem of error. Wc live too near the Papacy POPERY AND PAPACY DISTINGUISHED. SO 7 to SCO all the ends why God has permitted this evil system to exist. Some are already known, but the more important are still veiled in mystery ; but we cannot doubt that ends there are, great, wise, and beneficent, and that what is dark to us will be clear to posterity. Nor can we doubt that, when these ends are disclosed, they will be found to be such as we have indicated, namely, a demonstration of the neces- sity of bringing the principles on which society is framed into harmony with those on which the divine government is carried on, in order that society may be saved, in its future stages, from the errors which have misled it hitherto, and the calamities which have overwhelmed it. Popery we have described pretty fully in its leading prin- ciples and aspects ; and we now pass from the subject of Po- pery, strictly considered, to that of the Papacy. We dis- tinguish between Popery and the Papacy, and on just grounds, as we believe. Popery is the principle or error which may be defined to be salvation of man, in opposition to the truth of the gospel, which may be defined salvation of God. The Papacy is the secular organization by which the principle or error became as it were incarnate. This or- ganization formed the body in which it dwelt, — the frame- work by which it sought to establish itself and reign in the world. The political system of Europe, as it has existed for the past thousand years and upwards, has been this framework. The soul that animated this system was Popery. It was the mind that guided it, and the powerful though invisible bond that gave it unity. Its head sat upon the Seven Hills ; and there was not a priest in Europe, from the scarlet cardinals of the Eternal City, down to the wan- dering Capuchin, with his dress of serge and his girdle of rope, nor was there a king in Europe, from the monarchs of France down to the petty dukes of Germany, who was not a part of that system. All strove together with one heart and soul for tlic same iniquitous object, namely, the exalta- tion of the priesthood, and especially of the high priest of Rome, to the dishonour of the High Priest in the heavens. 598 GENIUS OF THE PAPACY. Such was the Papacy. It was the labour of a million of minds, and the growth of a thousand years. For we hold it impossible that the genius of one man, however powerful, could have contriven such a system ; nay, we hold it impos- sible that the intellect of Satan himself, vast as it is, could have conceived beforehand so perfect and comprehensive a scheme. The entire plan, order, and government of the kingdom of heaven, that is, the Church, were sketched out from the beginning, and revealed in the New Testament. Thus, when the apostles began to build, they knew both how their work was to proceed, and to what it was to grow. But the author of the Papacy acted strictly on the develop- ment theory. The general outline of his system he plagiar- ised manifestly from the Scripture-revelation of the gospel kingdom. It is equally manifest, that the more fundamental principles of his scheme he obtained by a process of perver- sion ; that is, he made counterfeits of the leading doctrines of the gospel, and on these proceeded to build. But as the vt'ork went on, he introduced novelties both of principle and of form, according as the spirit of the age and the circum- stances of the times allowed or suggested. With a rare genius, the exigencies of the times were ever understood, and the modifications and amendments which they required were executed at the proper moment and in the happiest way. Working in this manner, Satan at last produced his masterpiece, — the Papacy. The Papacy is the most wonderful of all human systems. It stands alone, unrivalled and unapproached, throwing all former systems of error into the shade, and challenging alike the power of man and the cunning of Satan to pro- duce anything in after times that shall surpass it. The ancient polytheisms were comparatively simple in their plan and tolerant in their spirit. Not so the Papacy. It selects the worst passions of our nature, — the sensuality of the appe- tites, the idolatry of the heart, the love of wealth, the lust of dominion, pride, ambition, the desire to dictate to the faith of others. It gives to these passions the largest de- REAL AUTHOR OF PAPACY. 399 velopment of which they are capable ; it combines and ar- ranges them with exquisite skill, and thus enables them to act with the greatest effect. It is the most powerful or- ganization that ever existed on the side of error and against the truth. When perfected, the once humble pastor of E-ome occupied a seat which rose not merely above the thrones of earth, but above the throne of the Eternal. In Ms ex- altation Satan recognised his own exaltation. The reign of the servant was the reign of the master. The Pope was Satan's vicar, and Satan therefore had withheld nothing that could strengthen his power or enhance his magnifi- cence. He enthroned him on the wealth and dominion of Europe ; he commanded kings to obey him, and all nations to serve him ; he did more for him than he had done for the greatest of his servants before ; he did more for him than he will ever be able to do again for the best beloved of his servants ; he literally did his all, because the emergency was ffreat. Let us take this into account when we contem- plate the surpassing state and dazzling magnificence of these masters of the world. It is the very utmost which even Lucifer can do for a mortal. Like Judas, the pontiff had betrayed his lord, and behold the reward ! — all the king- doms of the world and the glory of them. In speaking of the genius of the Papacy, it is necessary to distinguish between the real though invisible author of Popery, which is Satan, and the secondary and visible author, that is, the Pope. Viewing the system as emanating from Satan, its genius is of course that of its invisible author. He has thrown into it his whole intellect. Just as the work of i-edemption is an exhibition of the character of God, and comes stamped with the glorious perfections of His nature, so the Papacy is an exhibition of the character of Satan : it is stamped with the great qualities of his mind ; and in studying the Papacy, we are just contem.plating those powerful but malignant attributes with which this mysterious spirit is endowed. We gaze into the abyss of the Satanic soul. But, to speak more strictly, the key of 400 GENIUS OF THE PAPACY. the Papacy, viewed as an emanation from Satan, is to be sought for in the history of the seduction of our first parents. Satan^s policy has been substantially the same from the be- ginning. Of course, that policy has been modified by cir- cumstances, and adapted in a masterly manner to each suc- cessive emergency. Its front of opposition has been more or less extended, according as it stood arrayed against but a single truth or a whole system of truths ; but it has em- ployed substantially the same policy throughout. The gene- ral may employ the same rule of military tactics in the pre- liminary skirmish as in the more complicated manoeuvres of the battle that succeeds. In like manner, Satan employed the identical policy in the assault in the Garden which he developed more fully in the secular and ecclesiastical domi- nation which he set up in an after age in Western Europe. The study of the simpler event, then, furnishes a key for the solution of the greater and more complicated. What, then, was his policy in the Garden I It may be summed up in one word : it was a dexterous substitution of the counterfeit for the t^eal. The real in this case was, that life was to come to our first parents through the tree as the sr/mholic cause; the counterfeit which Satan succeeded in palming upon them was, that life was to come to them through that tree as the efficacious cause. They were to have this life not from, but 5y the tree. The life was not in the tree, but beyond it, — in God, from whom they were to receive it, in the way of submitting to his ordinance. But by a train of subtle and fallacious argument, — not more subtle and fallacious, however, than that which Rome still employs, — the woman was brought to regard the tree as the efficacious cause of the life which she had been promised, and to which she had been bidden aspire ; she was brought to believe that the life was in the tree, and that she had only to eat of the tree, and this life would be hers. " When the woman saw,*" it is said, that it was " a tree to be de- sired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof." It is plain that she believed the tree able of itself to make her KEY TO THE PAPACY. 401 wise, and that it had been interdicted by God, eitlior be- cause he grudged her the good the tree had power to bestow upon her, or, what is more probable, that she had mistaken the command altogether. This, then, was the prime object of Satan''s policy. He admitted, at least he did not deny, that God had promised her life ; he admitted that that life was good, and that she should aim at enjoying it ; and he admitted farther, that it was in connection with the tree that that life was to be attained. But the question was made to turn on the sort of connection ; Whether did, or did not, the promised good reside in the tree itself? The command of God plainly intimated that it did not reside in the tree, but would be bestowed by himself, in the way of his ordinance, which took the form of a covenant, being ob- served. But the point which Satan laboured to establish was, that the good was in the tree, and that it was intended as the efficacious means of bestowing that good upon her. Such was the question the woman had to decide ; and ac- cording to her decision would one of two inevitable issues ensue, — her obedience and life, or her disobedience and death. If she should reject the doctrine of inherent efficacy^ so boldly and artfully pi-opounded, she would of course look elsewhere for life, even to God, and would respect his command. Should she, blinded and led away by the subtlety of the serpent, embrace the doctrine of inherent efficacy^ — should she come to believe that she had only to eat and to I'lve^ — she would of course look only to the tree, and w^ould straightway partake of its fruits. Unhappily she adopted the latter belief, and we know the issue. But here the whole policy of Satan stands revealed. Brought within the compass of this single transaction, we can study that policy to much more purpose than when dis- played along so extended a line of operations as the Papacy presents. Here is the key to Satan's policy of six thousand years, and especially the key to the Papacy. This trans- action exhibits unmistakeably all the worst features of that evil system. Here was the opus operatiun of a sacrament : 2 D 402 GENIUS OP THE PAPACY. the woman was taught that she had only to partake, and, in virtue of the act, would be as God, knowing good and evil. Here already were worTcs substituted in the room o^ faith : in- stead of the passive obedience which the covenant demanded, in the faith that God would bestow the life he had promised, the woman was taught to do a certain work by which that life was to be attained. And here was the doctrine of hu- man merit, — salvation of man substituted in the room oi sal- vation of God ; for the woman was led to look for life, not from God, but from the tree, in the way of using its fruits. All the master errors of the Papacy, — those errors which in the standard books of Rome take the form of canons or of pontifical bulls, and which in her temples take the form of gorgeous and idolatrous rites, — were promulgated for the first time in Eden, and by this preacher, not, indeed, in ex- press terms, but by implication : the policy of Satan pro- ceeded on a principle which embraced them all. Yet farther, we find Satan teaching Eve that she could not understand the command of God without note and com- ment, and offering himself as an infallible interpreter, and not more grossly perverting the text than Rome has done in innumerable instances since. The boastful claims of the Papist and the Puseyite to a high antiquity are not without some foundation after all. In one sense. Popery, and its modern Anglican form Puseyism, ar,e mediaeval error; in another they are but a development of that false principle by which Eve was seduced, and mankind precipitated into condemnation and death. We can clearly trace the policy of Satan in the early polytheisms ; and we find that policy in its essential princi- ples unchanged. The pagan idolatries were manifestly the substitution of the counterfeit for the real. Satan, their author, did not deny that there is a God, or that it is man's duty to worship him. He reserved these truths as a fixed point, on which to rest the lever by which he was to move the world. But in the room of God, one, invisible, and spiri- tual, he substituted those material objects which most re- POPERY A COUNTERFEIT. 403 fleet his glory, or most largely dispense his goodness; — tho sun, as in Chaldea ; eminent men, the founders of tribes or the inventors of the arts, as in Greece ; vile and creeping things, as in Egypt ; and, as the course of this idolatry is ever downward, in some tribes we find that the very idea of God had well-nigh perished. Falsehood is its own greatest enemy : its tendency is to destroy itself. Polytheism cor- rupted the nations ; it thus came to lose its power over tho human mind ; and the world had lapsed into scepticism, when Christianity, young, vigorous, and pure, came forth from her native mountains to renovate the earth, — to restore that faith which is the life of man, and that religion which is the strength of nations. This was the most powerful an- tagonist that had yet appeared in the field against the in- terests of Satan. It was the great original truth revived with new splendour, — man revolted from God, redeemed by the Son, and sanctified by the Spirit, — the truth which Satan had supplanted by his LIE of polytheism ; and, power- ful as true, it attested its power by planting its trophies and monuments above the abjured creeds and prostrate temples of paganism. This antagonist Satan could confront with but his old policy. That policy took a new form, to adapt itself to new circumstances : its edge was finer, its complications greatly more intricate, and its scale of operation vastly larger; still it was the old policy, radically, essentially unchanged, be- neath its new modifications and altered forms. Satan pre- sented over again to the world the counterfeit ; and he succeeded once more in persuading the world to accept the counterfeit and to banish the real. The great primal truth of God's unity and supreme and exclusive government was supplanted in the old world by the device of making men adore inferior deities, not as God, but as representatives and vicegerents of God. So in the modern world the lead- ing Christian truth respecting Christ, and the oneness of his mediation, has been supplanted by the device of other me- diators, and of another Christ, — Antichrist. Popery is the 404 GENIUS OF THE PAPACY. counterfeit of Christianity, — a most elaborate and skilfully contriven counterfeit, — a counterfeit in which the form is faithfully preserved, the spirit utterly extinguished, and the end completely inverted. This counterfeit Church has its high priest, — the Pope, — who blasphemes the royal priest- hood of Christ, by assuming his office, when he pretends to be Lord of the conscience. Lord of the Church, and Lord of the world; and by assuming his names, when he calls himself "the Light of the World," " the King of Glory," "the Lion of the tribe of Judah,"* Christ's Vicar and God"'s Vicegerent. This counterfeit Church has, too, its sacrifice, — the mass, — which blasphemes the sacrifice of Christ, by virtually teach- ing its inefficiency, and needing to be repeated, as is done when Christ's very body and blood are again offered in sa- crifice by the hands of the priests of Rome, for the sins of the living and the dead. This Church has, moreover, its Bible, which is tradition, which blasphemes the Word of God, by virtually teaching its insufficiency. It has its me- diators, — saints and angels, and especially the Virgin ; and thus it blasphemes the one Mediator between God and man. In fine, it blasphemes the person and the office of the Spirit as the sanctifier, because it teaches that its sacraments can make holy; and it blasphemes God, by teaching that its priests can pardon sin, and can release from the obligations of divine law. Thus has Popery counterfeited, and, by counterfeiting, set aside, all that is vital and valuable in Christianity It robs Christ of his kingly office, by exalting the Pope to his throne ; it robs him of his priesthood in the sacrifice of the mass ; it robs him of his power as Mediator, by substituting Mary ; it robs him of his prophetical office, by substituting the teachings of an infallible Church ; it robs God the Spirit of his peculiar work as the sanctifier, by at- tributing the power of conferring grace to its own ordi- nances ; and it robs God the Father of his prerogatives, by assuming the power of justifying and pardoning men. * Assumed by Pope Leo X. at his coronation. POPERY AS OF MAN. 405 Thus the counterfeit Christianity of Rome is as extensive as the real Christianity of the New Testament : it substi- tutes other objects of worship, other doctrines, other sacra- ments ; all of which, however, in the letter, have an exact correspondence with the true. The forms of Christianity have been faithfully copied ; its realities have been com- pletely set aside. Thus Satan has carried his object, not by erecting a system avowedly antagonistic, but by amusing and deluding men with the counterfeit. The policy adopted in Egypt of old to frustrate the mission of INIoses, was that of bringing forward a class of magicians to counterfeit the miracles of the Jewish lawgiver. The same expedient has been adopted a second time. Satan has brought forward the magicians and necromancers of Rome, who have imi- tated the miracles of the gospel. And as Moses was with- stood by Jannes and Jambres, so have the lying prophets of Rome withstood Christianity in its glorious mission of re- generating the world. Christianity has respect to time as well as to eternity; and in both departments of its mission has it been withstood by the Romish soothsayers, and that, too, exactly in the style of their Egyptian predecessors, who " did so with their enchantments." The temporal end of Christianity they have defeated, by persuading rulers that they were able to secure the good and order of society. Princes have listened to them, and refused to let the gospel have liberty ; and thus society has been corrupted and de- stroyed. The eternal end of Christianity they have defeated, by persuading men that, without parting with a single sin, or acquiring a single gracious disposition, they might attain to heaven. They have thus retained men under the power of corruption, and sealed them over to eternal damnation. But the Papacy may be viewed as of man. Primarily it is the emanation of satanic policy ; secondarily, it is the fabrication of human ambition and wickedness. In order to discover its genius, viewed as the creation of man, it is necessary to keep in view the grand aim of the Papacy. Without this we cannot appreciate its marvellous adaptation 406 GENIUS OF THE PAPACY. of means to their end, and the relation of each part to the whole. There is not one of its arrangements, however mi- nute, nor one of its doctrines, however unimportant it may seem, but has a direct reference to and a powerful bearing upon the object of the Papacy, In the vast and compli- cated machine there is not a useless cord or a superfluous wheel. The object of the Papacy is, in brief, to exalt a man, or rather a class of men, to the supreme, undivided, and ab- solute control of the world and its affairs. So vast a scheme of dominion the genius of Alexander had never dared to en- tertain. The ambition of the popes far outstripped that of the Csesars, and looked down with contempt upon their em- pire as insignificant and narrow. They aspired to be gods upon the earth. It was the majesty of the Eternal which they plotted to usurp. Pride can go no higher. Ambition finds nothing beyond for which it may pant. They reigned with equal power over the minds and over the bodies of men. They grasped the reins of secular as well as of ecclesiasti- cal jurisdiction. They made their opinions the standard of morals, and their wills the standard of law, to the universe. They claimed not merely to be obeyed, but to be worshipped. They were not monarchs, but divinities. We do not affirm that this object was definitely proposed by the bishops of Rome from the outset. Nay, had they seen to what their early departures from the faith would lead, — that the prin- ciples which they adopted contained within them the germ of a despotism beneath which the religion and the liberties of the world would lie crushed for ages, — they would have stopt short in their career. The Omniscient eye alone can trace things to their issues. It was not till ages had passed away, and numerous usurpations had taken place, that the object of their policy was clearly seen by the pontiffs them- selves, though the invisible prompter of that policy had doubtless proposed that end from the first. But by the time that object came to be clearly understood, all scruple was at an end. The pontiff" panted to place himself upon the throne of the universe, and to prostrate beneath his CHOICE OF A SEAT. 407 feet all other dominion. The object surpassed in grandeur all to which man had ever before aspired, and the means brouo-ht into operation were vast beyond all former example. A policy unmatched in dissimulation and craft, — a sagacity distino-uished alike by the largeness of its conceptions and the precision and accuracy of its conclusions, — a quiet irre- sistible energy, — a firm unalterable will, — a perseverance which no toil could exhaust, which no difficulty could dis- courage, which no check could turn from its purpose, which made all things give way to it, and which proved itself in- vincible, — a vast array of physical force when an antagonist appeared whom its other arts could not subdue, — lavishing its favours upon its friends with boundless prodigality, and visiting with vengeance equally unbounded its incorrigible enemies, — wielding these qualities, the Papacy saw its efforts crowned at last with a success which was as astonishing as it was unprecedented. In the first place. Popery was exceedingly fortunate in the choice of a seat, when it selected Rome. The possession of such a spot was almost essential to it. It was itself a tower of strength. In no other spot of earth could its gi- gantic schemes of dominion have been formed, or, if formed, realized. Sitting in the seat which the masters of the world had so long occupied, the Papacy appeared the rightful heir of their power. Papal Rome reaped the fruit of the wars and the conquests, the toils and the blood, of imperial Rome. The one had laboured and gone to her grave ; the other arose and entered into her labours. The pontiffs per- fectly understood this, and were careful to turn the advan- tage it offered them to the utmost account. By heraldic and symbolic devices they were perpetually reminding the world that they were the successors of the Caesars ; that the two Romes were linked by an indissoluble bond ; and that to the latter had descended the heritage of glory and dominion acquired by the former. Herein we may admire that extraordinary sagacity which fixed on this spot, — the first, and certainly not the least striking, indication of the 408 GENIUS OF THE PAPACY. profound and unrivalled genius of Popery, — showing what that genius would become when fully developed and matur- ed. The Seven Hills were the home of empire and the holy ground of superstition ; and when the barbaric kings and nations approached the spot, they were fascinated and sub- dued by its mysterious and mighty influence, as the pontiffs had foreseen they would be. Thus the young Papacy had the penetration to discover that the sway of old Rome had by no means ended with her life, and, by serving itself heir to her name, continued to exercise her power long after she had gone to her grave. The genius that could turn to so great account the traditional glory of a departed empire was not likely to leave unimproved the existing resources of contemporary monarchies. In the second place, the pontiffs claimed to be the suc- cessors of the apostles. This was a more masterly stroke of policy still. To the temporal dominion of the Csesars they added the spiritual authority of the apostles. It is here that the great strength of the Papacy lies. As the succes- sor of Peter, the Pope was greater than as the successor of Csesar. The one gave him earth, but the other gave him heaven. The one made him a king ; the other made him a king of kings. The one gave him the power of the sword ; the other invested him with the still more sacred authority of the keys. The one surrounded him w^ith all the adjuncts of temporal sovereignty, — guards, ambassadors, and ministers of State, — and set him over fleets and armies, imposts and revenues ; the other made him the master of inexhaustible spiritual treasures, and enabled him to support his power by the sanctions and terrors of the invisible world. While he has celestial dignities as well as temporal honours wherewith to enrich his friends, he can wield the spii-itual thunder as well as the artillery of earth, in contending with and dis- comfiting his foes. Such are the twin sources of pontifical authority. The Papacy stands with one foot on earth and the other in heaven. It has compelled the Ccesars to give it temporal power, and the apostles to yield it spiritual au- LOWERS GOD AND EXALTS THE PRIEST. 409 thority. It is the ghost of Peter, with the shadowy diadem of the old Csesars. Similar is the tendency and design of all the dogmas of the Papacy. These are but so many defences and outposts thrown up around the infallible chair of Peter: they are so many chains forged in the Vatican, and cunningly fa- shioned by Ilome''s artificers, for binding the intellect and the conscience of mankind. There is not one of the articles in her creed which is not fitted to exalt the priesthood and degrade the people. This is its main, almost its sole object. That creed, superstitious to the very core, exerts no whole- some influence upon the mind : it neither expands the in- tellect nor regulates the conscience. It does not set forth the grace of the Father, or the love of the Son, or the power of the Spirit. It has been framed with a far different ob- ject. It sets forth the grace of the pope, the power of the priest, and the efiicacy of the sacrament. The pope, the priest, and the sacrament, are the triune with the mystery of which the creed of Popery is occupied. We have already pointed out the tendency of each of the separate articles as they passed in review before us, and it becomes unnecessary here to dwell upon them. Let it suffice to remark, that by the doctrine of tradition the priests are constituted the ex- clusive channels of divine revelation, and by the doctrine of inherent efficacy they become the only channels of divine in- fluence. In the one case the people are entirely dependent upon them for all knowledge of the will of God ; and in the other, they are not less dependent upon them for the enjoy- ment of divine blessings. It is easy to conceive how this tends to exalt this class of men. They have power sinritual- ly to shut heaven, that it rain not upon the earth. By sprinkling a little water on the face of a child, the priest can remove all its guilt, and impart holiness to it. A whisper from the priest in the confessional can absolve from sin, or adjudge to eternal flames. By muttering a few words in Latin, he can create the flesh and blood, the soul and divinity, of Christ ; and in saying mass, he can so regulate his inten- 410 GENIUS OF THE PAPACY. tion as to direct its efficacy to any person he pleases, whe- ther in this \Yorld or in the next. At his word the doors of purgatory are closed, and those of paradise fly open. He can raise to immortal bliss, or sink into eternal woe. These are tremendous powers ; and the man who wields them, in the eyes of an ignorant people is not a mortal, but a god. " It is a most execrable thing,"" said Pope Paschal II., "that those hands which have received a power above that of an- gels, — which can by an act of their ministry create God him- self, and offer him for the salvation of the world, — should ever be put into subjection of the hands of kings."" The truths which the gospel makes known are intended to elevate the people ; the dogmas of Romanism are intended to exalt only the priesthood, and to put the people under their feet. The miraculous power with which the Romish clergy are invest- ed places them above kings ; — they are raised to a level with the Deity himself. Whatever order or government exists in society, Popery has had the art to seize and make subservient to her own aggrandizement. She infused herself into the governments of Europe. She possessed them, as it were, and made them really parts of herself. The various thrones of the west v/ere but satrapies of the fisherman"'s chair. The princes that oc- cupied them were always, in point of fact, and not unfre- quently in point of conventional arrangement, the lieute- nants and deputies of the Pope. They were taught that it was their glory to be so ; that their crowns acquired new lustre by being laid at the feet of the successor of the apostles; and that their arms were ennobled and sanctified by being wielded in his service. The pontiff taught them that their life was bound up with his life ; that without him they could not exist; and that in no way could they so effectually strengthen their own authority as by maintaining his. Thus did Popery poison at their source the springs of law and government, and bind the kings and kingdoms of Europe in one vast confederation against the interests of liberty and religion, and in support of that divinity who sat upon the LEANS ON HUMAN GOVERNMENT. 411 Seven Hills. No doubt the members of that confederation sometimes quarrelled among themselves, and sometimes re- volted against their sacerdotal master ; but even when they hated the person of the Pope, they remained true to his sys- tem. They warred, it might be, against the pontiff, but they still wore the yoke of the Papacy. They were revolters against Hildebrand or against Clement, but all the while they were obedient sons of the Church. In nothing does the genius of Popery appear more wonderful than in that it could bind to its chariot-wheel so many powerful and inde- pendent princes, and reconcile so many diverse and conflict- ing interests, and unite them all in support of itself. If Popery has leant for aid upon civil government, and has known how to convert its functions into organs of its own, it has leant not less decidedly upon human nature, and has had the art to draw from it most substantial support. The nature of man it has profoundly studied, and thoroughly understands. There is not a faculty of his soul, nor a feel- ing of his heart, which is not known to it. There is not a phase of character nor a diversity of taste among the whole human race, of which it is not cognizant. Whatever talent it be which any of the sons of men possess. Popery will speedily discover it, and instantly find a fitting sphere for its exercise. Whether the faculty in question be a good or an evil one, matters wonderfully little, seeing Popery knows the secret of making both alike serviceable. It is a system adapted to man as he is. It runs parallel with the entire range of his hopes and his fears, his virtues and his passions, his eccentricities, his foibles, his tastes. There is no one therefore who will not find in Popery something that cor- responds with his own predominant quality and taste. It is the most accommodating of all systems, and has therefore received an equal measure of attachment and support from men differing widely in their intellectual powers, their ac- quired tastes, and their moral dispositions. To the man of the world who delights in the glitter of show, and yields his submission only where he is dazzled by the splendour of 4J2 GENIUS OF THE PAPACY. rank, it presents a Church moulded on the pattern of earthly monarchies, — an imposing hierarchy, rising in successive ranks, throne above throne, from the barefooted friar up to Chrises vicar. To the man who is capable of being capti- vated with only an outward religion, here is a worship to his heart''s content, — a gorgeous ritual, performed amidst the glories of architecture, of statuary, and of painting, amid the perfume of incense, the glare of lamps, and the swell of noble music. There is no revelation of God's holi- ness ; there are no humbling views of the sinner''s unworthi- ness and guilt comnmnicated; everything is so contriven as powerfully to stir, not the conscience, which is left in its profound sleep, but the imagination ; and to gratify, not the longings of the spiritual nature, which do not exist, but the cravings of the senses. In short, every ingredient that could intoxicate and madden, that could weaken reason and drown the man in delirium, has Rome mixed in her " witch's cauldron." The figure is almost apocalyptic, — the cup of sorcery. To that large class of mankind who seek to reconcile their hopes of heaven with the indulgence of their passions, the religion of Popery is admirably adapted. The religion of Rome is not a principle, but a ritual ; and the observance of that ritual will secure heaven, let the morals of the man be ever so corrupt. It is not necessary to part with any sin ; no change of heart, no progress in holiness, is required; obedience to the Church is the one cardinal virtue. The want of this alone can damn a man. More lax and pliant than even Mahommedanism or Hinduism, there is not a ceremonial rite nor a moral duty in the system of Popery from which a few gold pieces may not purchase a dispensa- tion. It is the most demoralizing of all idolatries. It spares the indolent man the trouble of inquiry, by present- ing him with the infallibility. In fact, it makes his indolence a virtue, and thus, by sanctifying his vices, makes him more completely its slave. But farther, there is a lurking dis- position in the heart of man to claim heaven as a debt due, LEANS ON HUMAN PASSIONS. 413 rather than receive it as a free gift. This propensity Po- pery completely gratifies. Its grand characteristic, as a re- lifjioiis system, is worh, in opposition to faith, — salvation by merit, in opposition to salvation by grace. And thus, while it traverses the grand idea of the gospel, it enlists on its side the pride of the human heart. This lays open to us one of the main sources of Popery's success. While the gospel is met by the whole force of unsanctified human na- ture, because it seeks to eradicate those principles which are natui-ally the most powerful in the heart of man, and to implant their opposites, Popery takes man as he is, and, without seeking to eradicate a single evil principle, finds him a sphere and sets him a-working. Passions already strong Popery nurtures into yet greater strength, and so creates a vast moving force within the man. If her fund of heavenly treasure be imaginary, not so her fund of earthly power. There exist within her pale elements of diverse character and tremendous force, and these Popery knows right well how to guide. The forces are completely under her control; and however noxious in themselves, and how- ever destructive if left to act without restraint, she knows how to make them not only perfectly safe, but eminently serviceable. In few things is the genius of Popery more conspicuous than in this composition of forces, — this com- bination of elements the most various ; so that from the utmost diversity of action there is educed at last the most perfect unity of result, and that result the aggrandizement of the Church. That Church provides convents for the as- cetic and the mystic, carnivals for the gay, missions for the enthusiast, penances for the man suffering from remorse, sisterhoods of mercy for the benevolent, crusades for the chivalrous, secret missions for the man whose genius lies in intrigue, the Inquisition, with its racks and screws, for the man who combines detestation of heresy with the love of cruelty, indulgences for the man of wealth and pleasure, purgatory to awe the refractory and frighten the vulgar, and a subtile theology for the casuist and the dialectician. 414 GENIUS OF THE PAPACY. Within the pale of that Church there is work for all these labourers, and that too the very work in which each de- lights, while Rome reaps the fruit of all. " To him who would scourge himself into godliness," says Channing, speak- ing of the Church of Rome, " it offers a whip ; for him who would starve himself into spirituality it provides the mendi- cant convents of St Francis ; for the anchorite it prepares the death-like silence of La Trappe; to the passionate young woman it presents the raptures of St Theresa, and the marriage of St Catherine with her Saviour; for the restless pilgrim, whose piety needs greater variety than the cell of the monk, it offers shrines, tombs, relics, and other holy places in Christian lands, and, above all, the holy se- pulchre near Calvary. . . , When in Rome, the travel- ler sees by the side of the purple-lackeyed cardinal, the beg- ging friar ; when under the arches of St Peter, he sees a coarsely- dressed monk holding forth to a ragged crowd; or when beneath a Franciscan church, adorned with the most precious works of art, he meets a charnel-house, where the bones of the dead brethren are built into walls, between which the living walk to read their mortality. He is amazed, if he give himself time for reflection, at the infinite variety of machinery which Catholicism has brought to bear on the human mind."* " The unlettered entliusiast," says Iklacau- lay, "whom the Anglican Church makes an enemy, and, whatever the polite and learned may think, a most danger- ous enemy, the Catholic Church makes a champion. She bids him nurse his beard, covers him with a gown and hood of coarse dark stuff, ties a rope round his waist, and sends him forth to teach in her name. He costs her nothing ; he takes not a ducat away from the revenues of her beneficed clergy ; he lives by the alms of those who respect his spiri- tual character and are grateful for his instructions; he preaches not exactly in the style of Massillon, but in a way which moves the passions of uneducated hearers ; and all * Letter on Catholicism, pp. 10, 11. EXTRAORDINARY COMBINATION OF QUALITIES. 415 his influence is employed to strengthen the Church of which he is a minister. To that Church he becomes as strongly attached as any of the cardinals whose scarlet carriages and liveries crowd the entrance of the palace on the Quirinal. In this way the 'Church of Rome unites in herself all the strength of establishment and all the strength of dissent. With the utmost pomp of a dominant hierarchy above, she has all the energy of the voluntary system below."* But we have been able to unfold but a tithe of the won- derful and unrivalled genius of the Papacy. When one thinks of the amazing variety and endless diversity of quali- ties which here entered into combination, he feels as if the Papacy had summoned from their grave all the systems of policy and all the schemes of dominion which had ever existed, and, compelling them to lay bare the springs of their success and the elements of their strength, had selected the choicest qualities of each, and combined them into one system of unrivalled power. It united the subtile intellect of Greece with the iron strength of Rome. Qualities which never met before, Popery found out the means of reconciling and joining in harmonious action. The wildest enthusiasm and the soberest reason, tlie grossest sensuality and the most rigid asceticism, the most visionary genius and the cool- est and most practical sagacity, the extreme of fanaticism and the extreme of moderation. Popery taught to dwell to- gether in peace, and to work together in harmony. Nothing was so exalted as to be beyond its reach ; nothing was so low as to be beneath its care. It accepted the labours of the peasant and the serf, and it taught the titled noble to stoop to its service. It arrayed itself in purple, and dwelt in the palace of kings ; it put on rags, and comjjanied with the outcast. Its marvellous flexibility made either charac- ter equally easy and equally natural. It entered with like avidity into the projects of princes, the intrigues of states- men, the speculations of the learned, and the homely pur- Macaulay's Critical and Historical Essays, vol. iii. p. 241. 416 GENIUS OF THE PAPACY. suits of the artizan. In this way the spell of its power was felt by all ranks of society and by all grades of intellect. Its spirit was operative at all times and in every place. To elude its eye or resist its arm was alike impossible. So terrible a system never before existed on the earth ; and, once overthrown, it will, we trust, have no successor. Well may the Papacy be termed the perfection of human M'isdom and the masterpiece of satanic policy. INFLUENCE OF POPERY ON THE INDIVIDUAL MAN. 417 CHAPTER II. INFLUENCE OF POPERY ON THE INDIVIDUAL :MAN. The important question next presents itself, What is the INFLUENCE of this system? The system, we have shown, tried by the standard of Scripture and the test of reason, is thoroughly evil. Is the influence which it exerts also evil ? This is a curious and a most important inquiry. It opens up a wide field, which, like some that have gone before it, we must hastily traverse, selecting only the more prominent of the proofs and evidences, and indicating rather than fully illustrating them. The subject resolves itself into three branches': — I. The influence of Romanism on the individual man. IT. Its influence on Government. III. Its influence on society. We shall confine ourselves to the first of these in the present chapter, — the influence of Romanism on the indivi- dual man. Religion is by far the most powerful agent that can act on man, and that for the following reasons. In the first place, its objective truths and its impelling motives in- finitely transcend all others ; and it is a law, not less in the moral than in the natural world, that the greatest effect must flow from the greatest force. In the second place, with religion is bound up man''s own most important inte- rests. Other departments of knowledge are speculative, or at best touch only the interests of time ; but religion bears 2 £ 418 INFLUENCE OF POPERY ON THE INDIVIDUAL MAN. upon the entire of man's destiny. In the third place, it puts in motion the faculties of man in their natural order. As a moral being, man's moral sense is the moving faculty within him, and the intellectual powers are but its ministers and helps. Now, religion acts on the conscience, and the conscience calls into play the understanding, the affections, and the memory. In this way the mental powers act with the most ease and vigour, because this is their natural and healthful action. It is the action of life, not the action of spasmodic or galvanic effort. In the fourth place, religion acts soonest upon the mind. A child can feel its relations to God, and have its judgment and memory exercised about these relations, long before it is capable of a mental act in any other department of human knowledge. But for its religious exercises, which are always the earliest mental efforts of the child, years of intellectual dormancy would pass away, and when they came to an end, the child would bring to other subjects untrained and comparatively feeble powers. Be- sides, whatever makes the first, cwteris paribus, makes also the deepest impression upon the mind. In the fifth place, religion acts most frequently/ upon the mind. In early life especially, questions of duty must be of hourly occurrence. The decision of these questions involves the exercise of the reasoning powers. This is favourable to mental activity, and mental activity begets mental vigour. In the last place, religion acts upon the greatest mmiber. Science, poli- tics, and other subjects, have each their chosen disciples, but religion embraces all ; for where is the rational being who cannot feel the force of its motives, and the extent to which his highest interests are involved in it I On all these grounds, we do not hesitate to affirm that religion, both as a motive power and as a moulding agent, wields over man, whether viewed individually or socially, an influence of such universal and resistless energy, that, compared with it, all other agencies are insignificant and powerless. Emphati- cally it is religion, — keeping out of view at present the un- equal advantages of birth and of mental endowment, — it is INTELLECTUAL RANK OF NATIONS. 419 religion that determines the social place and the terrestrial destiny of a man; it is religion that determines the social place and the terrestrial destiny of a nation. But we have already proved that Popery is opposed to Scripture, and contradicts reason. In the proportion in which it does so it is not religion ; and in the proportion in which it is not religion, it does not possess and cannot exercise the influence we have described. It follows that the Papist is denied the benefit of an influence morally restorative and intellectually invigorating in an extraordinary degree, to all the extent to which Romanism comes short of religion. But we have al- ready established that Popery is not merely a defective sys- tem of Christianity, — it is a system antagonistic to Chris- tianity. It not only, therefore, does not possess the influ- ence we have ascribed to Christianity, but it possesses an in- fluence of a directly opposite character. It tends as much to degrade and pollute man''s moral constitution as Christia- nity tends to elevate and purify it ; and where the one quick- ens, expands, and strengthens the intellect, the other in- flicts feebleness and torpor. In proof of the vast intellectual quickening which Christi- anity always brings along with it, we may appeal to the state of the heathen world. The various nations of the earth oc- cupy places on the intellectual scale ranged according to the proportion in which the elements of religion are retained among them. First come the more remote tribes, to whom the existence of a God is scarcely known, and whose mental powers scarce suffice to enable them to count ten successive numbers ; next come the Hindoos of India, conspicuous alike for the grossness of their religious system and their utter in- tellectual and moral prostration; next in the intellectual scale come the various tribes of Western Asia, whose faith is ]\|ahommedanism ; then the popish nations of Southern and Western Europe ; then the semi-popish nations of Northern Germany ; and last of all, and very much in ad- vance of all the others, are the protestant nations of Britain and America. As is the religion of a people, the Bible being 420 INFLUENCE OF POPERY ON THE INDIVIDUAL MAN. the standard according to which we judge of religion, so is the intellectual development and the social advancement of that people. This order obtains over all the earth. It can- not be regarded as a mere coincidence. To regard it as such would be not less unphilosophical than to regard as a mere coincidence the connection between stinted food and a dwarf- ed body, or that other connection which is found to exist in all ordinary cases between sufficient aliment and visrorous phy- sical powers. A fact of such universal occurrence must neces- sarily have birth in some great and universal law. Neither cli- mate, nor race, nor government, can solve the phenomenon. Solutions have often been attempted on one or other of these principles ; but there are innumerable facts which defy solu- tion on all of them, and which are soluble only with reference to the influence of religion. Not to mention other instances, we find in the very heart of the Mahommedan empire a small Christian society, — the Chaldeans of the Kurdish mountains. Their lovely and well-cultivated valleys, their clean, thriving villages, their pure morals, and cultivated manners and tastes, form a striking but most agreeable contrast to the bar- barism, the sloth, the filth, and the vice, that on all sides surround tiiem. They are under the same climate and go- vernment as their neighbours : in one thing only do they differ froni them, and that is their religion. Thus, in all circumstances the influence of Christianity is the same. Here we find it, though existing in a very imperfect state, creating a very oasis of beauty in the midst of the waste wil- derness of Mahommedan idolatry.* And, to come nearer home, we have in Britain a striking fact standing; in direct antagonism to the theory which resolves all these great na- tional diversities into influence of race. We have the Celts of Ireland and the Celts of Scotland standing at the very an- tipodes of the moral and social scale. But we have not only the proof from analysis ; the proof from direct experiment * For a most interesting account of these Christians, see Layard's Nine- veh and its Remains, vol. i. pp. 147-173. QUICKENL\G POWER OF CHRISTIANITY. 421 is equally conclusive. All our missionaries declare, that when Christianity is brought to bear upon the native mind of India, it brings a striking intellectual change along with it. Even where it stops short of conversion, it elevates the man from the mass of his countrymen : even where it does not bestow the heart of the Christian, it bestows the intellect of the European. There is a visible quickening and expansion of all the powers, intellectual and moral.* The vast transfor- mation which Christianity wrought on the islands of the Pacific is well known. She found these islands the abode of cannibalism, and she made them the home of the moral and industrial virtues. In short, what clime or tribe has Christianity visited where she did not bring in her train all the elements of terrestrial happiness ? If, as a wide induction of facts establishes, the religion of the Bible is by far the most powerful agent in quickening the intellect, and starting nations in a career of progress, and if, as we have already proved, Eomanism is not the re- ligion of the Bible, it follows that Romanism is devoid of this life-dispensing power. But further, if Romanism be a system the spirit of which is antagonistic to the religion of the Bible, as we have shown it to be, it follows that its in- fluence on the mind of man is antagonistic also, — is as per- nicious and destructive as that of religion is wholesome and beneficial. We might safely rest the matter, as regards the * The following anecdote, than which nothing could better illustrate onr subject, the writer has from very excellent authority : — Not long since, Dr Duff was in ^Manchester prosecuting his grand mission. In com- pany one day witli some of the great cotton-spinners of the place, the conversation turned on the subject of cotton. The company were express- ing the desirableness of growing cotton in our Indian possessions, instead of importing it from America. " You must first Christianize India," said the doctor. " Why 2" it was asked. " Because cotton does not grow in India beyond the line of Christianity," replied the missionary. " What possible connection can there be between Christianity and the growth of cotton ?" " There is this connection," replied the doctor, " that Cliristi- anity gives the faculties to cultivate it, of which the Indian in his native fetate is destitute." 422 INFLUENCE OF POPERY ON THE INDIVIDUAL MAN. influence of Rome, on these general grounds ; but we shall go a little into particulars, and show, first, from the doctrines^ and, second, from the practice, of the Church of Rome, that the practical tendency and working of the system is ruinous in no ordinary degree. We take first the doctrine of infallibility. Can anything be conceived more fitted to crush all intellectual visrour than such a doctrine ? As an infallible Church, Rome presents her votaries with a system of dogmas, not a few of which are opposed to reason, and some of them even to the senses. These dogmas are not to be investigated ; the person must not attempt to reconcile them to reason, or to the evidence of his senses ; he must not attempt even to understand them; they are simply to be believed. If he demands grounds for this belief, he is told that he is committing mortal sin, and perilling his salvation. Here is all action of the mind inter- dicted, under the highest sanctions. The person is taught that he cannot commit a greater crime than to think ; that he cannot more grievously offend against his Creator than by using the powers his Creator has endowed him with. Thus, while the first effect of Christianity is to quicken the intellect, the first effect of Romanism is to strike it with torpor. She inexorably demands of all her votaries that they denude themselves of their understandings and their senses, and prostrate them beneath the wheels of this Jug- gernaut of hers. While the Protestant is occupied in inves- tigating the grounds of his creed, in tracing the relations of its various truths, and in following out their consequences, the mind of the Roman Catholic is all the while lying dor- mant. As the bandaged limb loses in time the power of mo- tion, so faculties not used become at length incapable of use. A timid disposition, an inert habit, is produced, which is not confined to religion, but extends to every subject with which the person has to do. His reason is shut up in a cave, and infallibility rolls a great stone to the cave"'s mouth. Not less injurious to the intellect is the doctrine of abso- lute and unreserved submission to ecclesiastical superiors. rOPERY DESTROYS ACTIVITY AND INDEPENDENCE. 423 If the former afflicts with mental imbecility, this deals a fatal blow to mental independence. The Church issues her command, and the person has no alternative but instant, unquestioning, blind obedience. He acts not from the power of motive, but, like the beast of burden, is urged forward by the rod. Here are the two prime qualities of man de- stroyed. The one doctrine robs him of his strength, the other of his freedom : the one makes him an intellectual paralytic, the other a mental slave. To this double depth of weakness and servility does Popery degrade her victims. The leading idea of Popery as a scheme of salvation is, that the sacraments impart grace and holiness, — the opus operatum. It is hard to say whether this inflicts greater in- jury upon the intellectual or the spiritual part of man. It injures vitally his spiritual part, because it teaches him not to look beyond the sacrament and the priest : it substitutes these in the room of the Saviour. The intellectual part it no less vitally injures : it cuts off that train of mental ac- tion, that intellectual process, to which the gospel so natu- rally and beautifully gives rise, by joining works with faith, — the sinner's own efforts with the grace of the Spirit, Under the system of Popery, not a single quality or disposition need be cultivated ; not the reason and judgment, for the Papist is forbidden to exercise these ; not the power of sustained and patient effort, for all for which the Christian has to pray, and labour, and wait, is in the case of the Papist conferred in an instant, in virtue of the opus operatum : his power of self-scrutiny, his self-denial, and his self-control, all lie dor- mant. Here are the noblest and most useful of the moral and mental faculties, which Christianity carefully trains and invigorates, all blighted and destroyed by Popery. The very idea of progress is extinguished in the mind. The man is stereotyped in immobility. He is given over to the domi- nion of indolence, and shrinks from the very idea of fore- thought and reflection, and effort of every kind, as the most disagreeable of all painful things. These qualities the man carries with him into every department of life and labour ; 424 INFLUENCE OF POPERY ON THE INDIVIDUAL MAN. for he cannot bo reflective, persevering, and self-denied in one thing, and slothful, self-indulgent, and devoid of thought in another. Need we wonder at the vast disparity between Papists and Protestants generally ? When called to compete with another man in the field of science or of industry, the Papist cannot, at the mere bidding of his will, call up those faculties so necessary to success, which the evil genius of his religion has so fatally cramped. Faith is one of the master faculties of the soul. It is in- dispensable to strength of purpose, grandeur of aim, and that indomitable persevering effort which guides to success. But faith Popery extinguishes as systematically as Christi- anity cherishes it. She hides from view the grand objects of faith. For a Saviour in the heavens, who can be seen only by faith, she substitutes a saviour on the altar. For the blessings of the Spirit, to be obtained by faith, she sub- stitutes grace in the sacrament. Heaven at last is to be ob- tained, not by faith on the divine promise, but by the mystic virtue of a sacrament operating as a charm. Thus Popery robs faitli of all her functions. That noble power which descries glory from afar, and which bears the soul on unfal- tering wing across the mighty void, to that distant land, teaching it in its passage the hardy virtue of endurance, and the ennobling faculty of hope and of trust in God, — lessons so profitable to the intellect as well as to the soul of man, — has under the Papacy no room to act. In the room of faith, Popery, as is her wont, substitutes the counterfeit quality, — credulity ; and a credulity so vast, that it receives without hesitation or question the most monstrous dogmas, however plainly opposed to Scripture and to reason. In short. Popery teaches her votaries to devolve upon the priesthood the whole responsibility and the whole care of their salvation. The well-known case of the late Duke of Brunswick is no caricature, but is simply a plain and honest statement, — though not such, we admit, as a Jesuit would have given, — of the real state of matters in the Bomish Church. " The Catholics to whom I spoke concerning my POPERY DESTROYS SELF-RELTAXCE. 425 conversion," says the Duke, when assigning his reasons for embracing the Roman Catholic religion, " assured me that if I were to be damned for embracing the Catholic faith, they were ready to answer for me at the day of judgment, and to take my damnation upon themselves, — an assurance I could never extort from the ministers of any sect in case I should live and die in their religion." Thus the Church teaches her votaries that religion is entirely dissociated from morals ; that it is to no purpose for one to put himself to the trouble of cultivating any one moral or spiritual quality, — to no purpose to deny one''s self any gratification, however sinful ; that one may live in the flagrant violation of every one of the commandments of God, provided only he be obe- dient to the commandments of the Church ; and the sum and substance of the Church's commandments is, that he practise a ritual associated with no act or feeling of the soul, and which produces in return no spiritual effect, and that whenever he fails in this somewhat monotonous and dreary task, he be ready with his money to pay for masses and in- dulgences. Thus the very first principles of morality are struck at. But the point we meant to bring mainly into view here is the habit of mind thus produced, which is that of sitting still, and leaving all which it belongs to one to do, to be done for him by others. This is fatal to the energy, not less than to the morality, of the man. It teaches him the needlessness of effort ; it extinguishes the principle of self-reliance, and teaches the duty of divesting one's self of all care and forethought, — a habit of mind which, when ac- quired in the important matter of salvation, is sure to be carried into other and inferior departments of life. It would form a curious subject of enquiry how far the feeling which leads Roman Catholics to lean so decidedly upon the priest- hood for the life to come, is akin to that which leads them to lean so decidedly upon governments, and so little upon themselves, as respects the present life. The fiat of a priest, without any labour of theirs, can give them heaven, with all its happiness : why should not the fiat of a statesman, without any labour of theirs, be able to give them earth, 426 INFLUENCE OP POPERY ON THE INDIVIDUAL MAN. with all its enjoyments ? We have only to transfer their modes of thinking and their habits of action on the subject of religion, to matters of this world, and we have the woeful picture of sloth, and decay, and want of forethought, which Roman Catholic countries almost uniformly indicate. The internal powers of the individual Catholic lying undeveloped and running to waste, form but the type of his country lying neglected, with all its rich resources locked up in its bosom, because the poor popery-stricken man has neither skill nor energy to develop them. The one is more than the type of the other : they stand related as cause and effect. Such are the characters whom Popery is fitted to create : ,?uch are the characters it does create. Every noble faculty it chills into torpor and death. The understanding of the man lies crushed beneath the dogmas of his Church : his independence is overborne by an infallible priesthood : his very senses are blunted ; for Popery judges it unsafe to leave her miserable victims in possession even of these, and therefore she systematically outrages them in some of the more awful of her mysteries. And conscience, which, did the moral sense survive, might rise in its strength, and, rending asunder these fetters of brass, set free the intellec- tual powers, Popery drugs, by her horrid opiates, into a death- slumber. A more pitiable and hopeless condition it is im- possible to imagine. The man is divested of almost all that is distinctive of man. He becomes a mere machine in the hands of Popery. He trembles to assert his manhood. And these unreflective and slavish habits are inwrought into the very being of the man by daily iterations, and they attend him in every avocation of life, proving a certain source of failure and mortification. Of the 'practice of Popery, as tending to degrade, we shall have a more legitimate opportunity of speaking when we come to exhibit the influence of Romanism upon society. And as regards the influence of the system upon the reli- gious character of the man, we have so fully entered into this already, when discussing the several dogmas of Popery, that we do not here return to it. INFLUENCE OF POPERY ON GOVERNMENT. 427 CHAPTER III. INFLUENCE OF POPERY ON GOVERNMENT. To religion must we ever assign the foremost place among those beneficent agencies which the Creator has ordained to mould the character and determine the destinies of indivi- duals and nations. She moves in her sphere on high, hav- ing no companion to share her place, and no rival to divide her influence. Nevertheless, there are secondary causes at work in moulding individual and national character, and amongst the most important of these we are to class govern- ment. Government, as regards its substance, though not its form, is an ordinance of God, intended, and eminently fitted, to conserve the order and promote the happiness of society. It is one of those things which must of necessity be a great blessing or a great curse. It will be the one or the other, according to its character ; and its character will be mainly dependent upon the action of religion upon it. Wherever Christianity exists, she creates a standard of pub- lic morals, and purifies the whole tone of opinion and feeling. These soon come to influence the acts of the national admi- nistration, and to be embodied in the laws of the state ; and as the stream can never rise higher than its source, so the morality of the law can never be higher than that to which Christianity has already elevated public sentiment and opi- nion. As is the Christianity of a country, so will be its laws and government. With a sound healthy Christianity, wo 428 INFLUENCE OF POPERY ON GOVERNMENT. will have wise laws, upright judges, independent and patri- otic rulers, who will maintain the national honour, guard the public rights, and keep inviolate the homes and altars of a country. With the departure or corruption of religion will come the depression of public sentiment and morals ; and the degeneracy rapidly extending to those who make and who execute the kws, there will soon be but too much reason to complain of the injustice of the one and the dishonesty of the other. The decay of religion has ever been signalized by the prostration of public principle, the betrayal of the national honour, the invasion of conscience, and the violation of the security and sanctity of the family. The decay of primitive Christianity and the rise of Popery were attended by all the evils we have now specified. The influence of the latter on law and government was of the most pernicious kind, and palpable as pernicious. As Popery waxed in strength, so did the corruption and oppression of government, till at last they grew to an intolerable height. The destruction which Popery works on individual charac- ter we have just had occasion to state ; but in the depart- ment of government it has had more room to operate, and here it has left traces of its evil genius, if not more frightful, at least more palpable. This opens to us a new aspect of Popery. Popery has corrupted government both in its theory and in its 'practice. It has corrupted the theory of government. God has or- dained twin powers in the moral firmament, — the civil and the ecclesiastical jurisdictions ; and on the due maintenance of this duality depends the liberties of the world. As the or- gans of the individual are double, so those of society are double also. The same precaution which God has taken to preserve those bodily organs on which the existence of the individual so much depends, has he taken to preserve those essential to the wcllbcing of society. If one is destroyed, the other remains. These two jurisdictions are distinct in their na- ture and in their objects. They occupy co-ordinate spheres, THE TWO LIBERTIES. 429 each being independent within its own province. This is a beautiful arrangement ; it maintains an admirable harmony of forces ; and so long as that balance remains un destroyed, the rights of society cannot be vitally or permanently injur- ed. These two co-ordinate jurisdictions resemble two friend- ly and independent kingdoms, between whom a league offen- sive and defensive has been formed ; so that whenever one is attacked and in danger of being overborne, the other hastens to its succour. The history of the world shows that civil liberty and ecclesiastical bondage cannot stand toge- ther, and that the converse of the proposition is true, — a people spiritually free cannot long remain politically enslav- ed. Thus has God provided a double safeguard for liberty. Driven from the one domain, she can retreat into the other. Expelled from the first ditch, she can make good her stand in the second. The outer rampart of civil independence may be demolished ; she can maintain the battle, and, it may be, conquer, from the inner citadel. The present eventful period demonstrates not less clearly than preceding ones, that the two liberties are bound up together, and that they must fight and conquer, or sink and perish, together. But the modern Delilah found out wherein lay' the great strength of the strong man. Popery confounded and incorporated the civil and the spiritual jurisdictions. This union, instead of bringing strength, as union generally does, brought weak- ness. It was a fatal blow aimed at the existence of both liberties. It put manacles upon the arm of both. Herein lay the great crime of Popery against the rights of society, and especially against the purity and efficiency of that order of government which God had ordained for the good of men. This act laid a foundation for the most monstrous usurpa- tions and the most intolerable oppressions. This error grew directly out of the fundamental principle of the Papacy. That principle is, that the Pope is the suc- cessor of the Prince of the Apostles, and the Vicar of Christ. In virtue of this assumed character, the pontiff" claimed to wield on earth the whole of that jurisdiction which Christ 430 INFLUENCE OF POPERY ON GOVERNMENT. possesses in heaven, — to stand at the head of the civil as well as of the spiritual estate, — and to be as really a king of kings as he was a bishop of bishops. From the moment this claim was advanced, all distinction between the two jurisdic- tions vanished, and a kind of government was set up in Europe which was neither secular nor spiritual, and which can be described only as a mongrel creation, in which the qualities of both were so mixed and jumbled, that while all the evil incident to both was carefully preserved, scarce an iota of the good was retained. This hybrid rule was of course styled government, but it had ceased to fulfil any one function of government, and it set itself systematically to oppose and defeat every end which a wise government strives to attain. This form of government was essen- tially, and to an enormous extent, irresponsible and arbi- trary. For, firsts it was a theocracy. God's vicegerent stood at the head of it. He was bound to render no rea- sons for what he did. He claimed to be an infallible ruler. He could plead divine authority for the most enormous of his usurpations and the most despotic of his acts. He had an infallible right to violate oaths, dethrone princes, and lay whole provinces waste. What would have been atro- cious wickedness in another man, was in him the emanation of infallible wisdom and immaculate holiness. Against a power so irresponsible and tremendous it was in vain that conscience or reason opposed their force, or law its sanc- tions. These were met by an authority immeasurably su- perior to them all, at whose slightest touch their obligations and claims were annihilated. Reason and law it utterly ignored. The necessary co-relative of infallible authority is unquestioning obedience. It was the right of one to com- mand, — the duty of all others to obey. He who presumed to scrutinize, or find fault, or resist, was taught that he was committing rebellion against God, and incurring certain and eternal damnation. A theocracy truly ! It was the reign of the devil, baptized with the name of God. But, in the second place, this scheme of government cen- DESPOTISM OF PAPAL GOVERNMENT. 431 tralized all power in one man. This centralization is of the very nature of the Papacy. The vicegerent of God can liave no equal ; none can share his power ; he must reign alone. It would be equally absurd to suppose that an infallible ruler could admit constitutional advisers, or take himself bound to follow their counsel. If the course they recommend is wrong, the infallible pontiff cannot follow it ; and if it is right, infallibility surely does not need fallible prompters to tell him so : this, it is presumed, is the very course in which the pontiff would move if left to the guidance of his own supernatural instincts. The popes cannot admit, there- fore, of a consulta, or popular assembly with judicial and legislative functions, such as those which in constitutional countries limit the prerogatives and divide the authority of the sovereign. In the hands of one man, then, all power under heaven came to be centred, — the legislative and the judicial, the temporal and the spiritual jurisdictions. The papal theory placed the fountain of law and authority on the Seven Hills, and there was not an edict passed nor an act done in wide Europe, but virtually the Pope was the doer of it. For ages as was the theory, so substantially was the fact. It would have been one of the greatest miracles the world ever saw if liberty had co-existed with this vast ac- cumulation of power. Even in the hands of the wisest of men, fettered by constitutional checks, and bound to assign the reasons of his procedure, such overgrown power could scarce have failed to be abused ; and if abused, the abuse could not be other than enormous ; but in the hands of men who claimed to reign by divine delegation, and who on that ground sustained themselves as above the necessity of vindi- cating, or so much as explaining, their proceedings, and who claimed from men an implicit belief that even the most out- rageous of their acts were founded on divine authority and embodied infallible wisdom, tlie abuse of this power far sur- passed the measure of all former tyrannies. The despotism of an Alexander, a Nero, or a Napoleon, was liberty itself compared with the centralized despotism of the Papacy. 432 INFLUENCE OF POPERY ON GOVERNMENT. In the third place, the theory of the papal government necessarily and stringently excluded every particle of the democratic element. Its pretensions to infallibility and to a divine origin made it arrogate all power to itself, and utterly repudiate the claims of all others to participation or control. It abhorred the popular element, whether in the shape of constitutional chambers or constitutional advisers, or checks of any kind. The people were debarred from all share, direct or indirect, in the government. Their place was blind, unreasoning, implicit submission. Nor could the Papacy have admitted them to the smallest privilege of this sort without renouncing the fundamental principler on which it is built. In the fourth place, though in one respect the most cen- tralized of all tyrannies, the Papacy was in another the most diffused. The great primal Papacy occupied the Seven Hills, but it had power to multiply itself, — to repro- duce its own image, — till Europe came to be studded and covered with minor Papacies. Each kingdom was a distinct Papacy on a small scale. This arrangement consummated the despotism of the papal rule, by making its sphere as wide as its rigour was intolerable. Had Rome not con- founded the temporal and spiritual jurisdictions, matters would not have been so bad. Had the pontiffs confined their pretensions as divine rulers within the ecclesiastical domain, men might have enjoyed some measure of civil free- dom, and that would have mitigated somewhat the iron yoke of ecclesiastical bondage ; but all distinction between the two provinces was obliterated ; the pretensions of the Pope extended alike over both, not leaving an inch of ground on which liberty might plant her foot. Practically throughout Europe the two domains were confounded. If the Pope was the vicegerent of God, the kings were the vicegerents of the Pope, and, of course, the vicegerents of God at the distance of one remove. The same twofold character which the pontiff possessed, he permitted, for his own ends, every monarch under him to assume. They were kings by divine THE MINOR PAPACIES. 433 right, — accountable only to the Pope, as he to God. Thus did the Pope succeed in extending his sway far beyond the limits of the States of the Church. He reduced the whole of western Europe under the rule of the Papacy, by plant- ing his system of government in each of its kingdoms, and by making its various kings dependents on the chair of Peter. There was not a single ruler, of whatever degree, from the monarch down to the petty subaltern, within the wide limits of the papal empire, who was not a limb of the Papacy, and who had not his place and his function assigned him in that vast and terrible organization which the popes set up for overawing and oppressing the world, and ag- grandizing themselves. How religion was desecrated by this unhallowed connection between Church and State, — this monstrous blending of things civil and sacred, — we need not explain. Heaven was sought only to obtain earth; and reli- gion was employed only to cover the basest practices, to palliate the most revolting crimes, and to vindicate the most enormous usurpations. The words of the poet are strikingly descriptive of a policy which, the more it pointed towards heaven, the more directly did it tend to hell. " Quanf um vertice ad auras j3Etherias, tantum radice in Tartara tendit."* But we dishonour religion by giving that holy name to what was so called within the Church of Rome. The piety of the times, as we have already shown, was essentially and un- disguisedly paganism. Religion, appalled by these gigantic corruptions, which had only borrowed her name the more effectually to counterwork her purpose, had fled, to bury herself in the caves of the earth, or to find a shelter amid eternal snows and inaccessible cliffs. A vast theocracy wielded the destinies of Europe. A blind, irresponsible, and infallible despotism, issuing its decrees from behind a veil which mortal dared not lift, sat enthroned upon the * Virg. -ffineid, lib. iv. 2 F 434 INFLUENCE OF POPERY ON GOVERNMENT. rights and liberties, the conscience and the intellect, the souls and the bodies, of men. Such was the Papacy ! — a monstrous compound of spiritual and temporal power, — of old idolatries and Christian forms, — of secret frauds and open force, — of roguery and simplicity, — of perfidies, hypocrisies, and villanies of all sorts and degrees, — of priests and soldiers, — of knaves and fools, — of monks, friars, cardinals, kings, and popes, — of mountebanks of every kind, hypocrites of every class, and villains of every grade, — all banded together in one fearful conspiracy, to defy God and ruin man ! So deeply did Popery corrupt the theory of government. First of all, it confounded the two jurisdictions, and then set over them a head claiming to be divine and infallible, thus paving the way for encroachments to any extent on the conscience on the one hand, and on civil rights and liberties on the other. It enabled the sacerdotal autocrat to support his temporal usurpations by spiritual sanctions, and his spi- ritual domination by secular arms. And this form of go- vernment, moreover, necessarily implied the accumulation of all authority in the hands of one man, forming a centra- lized despotism such as had never before existed. It was also of the nature of this government that it absolutely ex- cluded every iota of the constitutional or democratic element. Farther, being based on an element of a spiritual kind, it was not confined within political boundaries, but extended equally over all states, making Home everywhere, and the world but one vast province, and its various governments but one irresponsible despotism. These corruptions in the theory of government led neces- sarily and directly to grievous corruptions in its practice. In truth, the government of the Papacy, — the only govern- ment known for ages to Europe, — was but one enormous abuse. First, the Papacy, in self-defence, was compelled to retain its subjects in profound darkness. It knew that should light break in, its reign must terminate, seeing its pretensions were incapable of standing an hour's scrutiny. Obeying, therefore, the instincts of self-preservation, the REVIVAL OP BARBARISM. 435 Papacy was the great conservator of ignorance, — the un- compromising and truculent foe of knowledge. " Lot there be light," was the first coramaud issued by the Creator. " Let there be darkness," said Popery, when about to erect her dominion. The darkness fell fast enough, and deep enough. First, the great lights of revelation, kindled by God to keep piety and liberty alive on the earth, were ex- tinguished. Next, classical learning M'as discouraged, and fell into disrepute. History, science, and every polite study, shared the same fate. They were denounced as wolves ; and Rome, the mighty hunter, chased them from the earth. The arts perished. If painting, sculpture, and music sur- vived, it was solely because Popery needed them for her own base purposes. But their cultivation, so far from tending to refine or elevate the general mind, powerfully contributed to enfeeble and pollute it. These arts were the handmaids of superstition, resembling beautiful captives bound to the chariot- wheel of some dark Ethiopic divinity. Thus the earth came a second time to be peopled by a race of barbarians. Italy herself became ignorant of letters. The ancient poly- theisms possessed no such cramping effect on the genius of man. Greece and Rome established schools, patronized learning, and encouraged efforts to excell. Of all supersti- tions, that of Popery has been found the most injurious to the human intellect. She found the world civilized, and she sunk it into barbarism. She found the mind of man grown to man- hood comparatively, and she reduced it into second childhood. She polluted and emasculated it by her foul rites, and the singularly absurd, ridiculous, and childish doctrines which formed the scholastic theology, the only intellectual food of the middle ages. She was the enemy of science, as well as of the Bible. Some of its earliest and most brilliant dis- coveries she placed under anathema, and she rewarded with a dungeon some of its most illustrious pioneers. Had the Papacy had her will, our knowledge of the world would have been not a whit more extensive than was that of the an- cients. The Atlantic would have lain to this day unploughed 436 INFLUENCE OF POPERY ON GOVERNMENT. by keel ; and America would still have been hid in the mys- terious regions of the unexplored west. The great law of gravitation, which first certified to man the order and gran- deur of the universe, would still have been undiscovered ; and the whole furniture of the heavens, fixed in their crys- talline spheres, would have been performing a diurnal revo- lution round our little earth. We would have been trem- bling at eclipses, and helpless before the power of disease and pestilence. We would still have been engrossed in the pursuits of alchemy and judicial astrology, discussing quid- libets and quodlibets, and, for our spiritual food, listening to the mendacious legends of the saints. We would have been moved to compassion by the example of St Francis, who di- vided his cloak with the mendicant, — stimulated to zeal by the story of Anthony, who sailed to St Petersburg on a mill- stone to convert the Russians, — fortified against temptation by the courage of St Dunstan, who led Satan about with a pair of red-hot pincers, when he tempted him in the likeness of a fair lady, — exhorted against the fear of danger by the story of St Denis, who carried his head half a dozen miles after it was separated from his body, — and schooled into de- votion by St Anthony of Padua's mule, which, after three days' fasting, left his provender to worship the host. Had the Papacy had her wall, Milton would never have sung, Bacon and Locke would never have reasoned, the classic page of Erasmus and Buchanan would have remained unwritten, the steam-engine would still have been to be invented, and the age of mechanical marvels, which ennoble our cities, and give to man the dominion of the elements, would have been still to come. Our ships would have carried from our shores other products than those of our learning, our science, and our industry ; and would have returned laden, not with those varied commodities with which distant countries abound, and of which ours is destitute, but with papal bulls, beads, crucifixes, indulgences, dispensations, and occasionally ex- communications and interdicts. If our tempox'al wealth would have been less, our spiritual comforts would have been PAPAL RELICS AND PROTESTANT SCIENCE. 437 much greater. What rare and precious relics would have stocked our museums, sanctified our churches, enriclied our homes, and protected our persons ! We would have been able to boast of the legs, arms, toes, fingers, and skulls of great saints who flourished more than a thousand years ago, and eke the arms, fingers, and toes of saints who never flourished at all, but the virtue of whose relics is not a whit the less on that account. We would have possessed the pairings of their nails, the clippings of their beard, some locks of their hair, mayhap a tooth, or a rag of their raiment, or the thong with which they scourged themselves. We might have pos- sessed one of the many hundred legs of Balaam''s ass, a bit of the ark, or a nail from the true cross. In short, there would have been no end to the store of venerable lumber that might have enriched our island, but for our quarrel with Rome. True, we could not have had our science, to which nothing is impossible ; nor our commerce, which en- circles the globe. We could not have bored through moun- tains, or spanned mighty rivers and friths, or erected noble beacons amid the w'aves. We could not have bridged over the Atlantic, or brought India and China to our very doors, the products of whose climes stock our markets and lade our boards. Nothing of all this would we have had ; but we would have been more than compensated by the profit- able trade we should have driven with Rome in the spiritual wares with which she has enriched all those nations who have trafficked with her. For ages before the Reformation, the Church of Rome, with the wealth of western Europe at her command, did nothing for learning, beyond patronizing some of the fine arts mainly for her own ends. Since the sixteenth century, Rome has been obliged to alter her policy, not in reality, but in appearance,* The Jesuits, finding that the human mind had escaped from its dungeon, ostentatiously took up * " The clerical party wish to instract, and it may be therefore well to look at what it had done for centuries, when Italy and Spain were in 4S8 INFLUENCE OF POPERY ON GOVERNMENT. a position in the van of the movement, that they might lead the nations back to their old prison. In those countries, such as Spain and Italy, into which the Reformation had not introduced letters, these zealous educators, the Jesuits, made no effort to disturb the primeval night. Ignorance is the mother of devotion, and they were unwilling to deprive the natives of so great a help to piety. But in other coun- tries, such as Poland, where the Protestants had erected schools and colleges, the Jesuits dogged the steps of the protestant teacher. They opened schools, and professed to teach, taking care, however, to convey the smallest amount of knowledge. They kept the youth studying the grammar of Alvar for ten or a dozen years, and learning almost no- thing besides. The Augustan era of Polish literature, and that of the protestant ascendancy in Poland, were contem- poraneous. When the Jesuits began to educate, literature began to decline ; and the period of the Jesuit influence is the least intellectual and the least literary in the history of Poland. It has been the same in all other countries. The Roman Catholics kept Ireland as a preserve of ignorance for ages, and never thought of erecting school or college in it (Maynooth excepted), till the Protestants began to erect schools. And their teaching in the Irish schools is of such a kind as warrants us in saying, that the great outcry they have made is, not for liberty to educate, but for liberty not to educate. In St Patrick''s Roman Catholic school, Edin- burgh, instances have been frequent of children four years at school, and yet unable to put two letters together, and of others who had been at school for ten years, and who could not read. The Jesuits build schools, and appoint school- masters, not to educate, but to lock up youth in prisons, miscalled schools, as a precaution against their being edu- cated. But it is unnecessary to particularize. In all ages its hands. Thanks to it, Italy, that mother of nations, of poets, of genius, and of the arts, now knows not how to read." (Speech of Victor Hugo in the French Legislative Assembly.) PAPAL ESPIONAGE. 489 and in all countries the Papacy has leant upon ignorance. It has been one of the grand instruments by which it has ruled mankind. Its acme was the midnight of the world. Idolatry came in with Via])romhe ofknoicledge, — " Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil ;"" but it perpetuated its reign through ihefact of ignorance. The Papacy employed to an unprecedented extent espionage in its system of government. Despotism is always base; and the Papacy, as the most despotic, has also been the basest of governments. Former tyrannies employed spies and laid snares, to discover their subjects' secrets or anticipate plots; but the Papacy had the merit of establishing a regular sys- tem, by which it took cognizance of thought, and miide it as amenable to its tribunal as actions and words to other go- vernments. This it accomplished by the machinery of the confessional. All were obliged to confess. These confes- sions were sent to Rome ; so that there was not a thought or a purpose which was not known at head-quarters. This invested the Pope with omniscience. Not only did he know all that was done and spoJcen^ but all that was tlionght^ through- out his empire. From the Seven Hills he could see into every home and into every heart. Europe lay " naked and open" beneath his eye. What a tremendous power ! Hi- therto, under the most intolerable tyrannies, men's thoughts were free. Words the tyrant might punish ; thoughts de- fied his power. But under the Papacy no man dared to think. He felt that the eye of Rome was looking into his bosom. She could drag him into the confessional, and compel him, by the threat of eternal flames, to lay open his whole soul. From her eye nothing was hid. And to what pur- pose did she turn this knowledge of the secrets of men ? To the purpose of strengthening her own dominion, and sinking her foundations so deep, that every attempt should be in vain to unsettle or raze them. But again, the papal government effected the prostitution of the civil power to an enormous extent. The distinction between the functionaries of the Church and of the State 440 INFLUENCE OF POPERY ON GOVERNMENT. was maintained, doubtless, during the middle ages. But civil government as distinct from spiritual government was scarcely known in these times. There was, in fact, during the dominancy of the Papacy but one government in Europe, as we have already shown, — a heterogeneous compound of temporal and spiritual authority, which took cognizance of all causes, and arrogated jurisdiction over all persons and all kingdoms. The Papacy was the uniting bond and the animating spirit of this system. But from this parent cor- ruption, which we have already illustrated, there sprung in- numerable lesser corruptions. One of these was the subjec- tion and prostitution of the civil power to the ecclesiastical, and the perpetration of acts of tyranny in the State, in order to uphold a yet more odious tyranny in the Church. The Church of Rome felt that she could not reign by enlighten- ing the conscience, and therefore she reigned by coercing it. Her union with the State enabled her to employ, as often as she would, the secular arm for the somewhat anomalous purpose of compelling obedience and enforcing belief. The policy of every government within the limits of the Roman Catholic Church was prompted by Rome, was papal in its essence, and insidiously managed for the interests of the Vatican. Not only were kings themselves the slaves of Rome, and not only did they feel that to rebel against her was to rebel against heaven; but they laboured to make their subjects her slaves also, feeling that a people bound in the fetters of the Church were thereby more amenable to regal authority. This supposed identification of their interests with that of Rome made them zealous supporters of her pretensions. They willingly gave the force of law to her bulls ; they lent the pageantry of state to her worship ; well knowing that nothing awes the mind of the vulgar like state authority. The Pope and the King were the two divinities which the Europe of the dark ages adored. But furtiicr, not only did the vicious element of sacerdotalism infect the secular government, but that government was to a large degree administered by sacerdotal persons. Cardinals and THE SAXCTTFIED DAGGER. 441 priests wore in innumerable instances the public ministers and secret advisers of monarchs. This was to some extent a matter of necessity, inasmuch as in that age the know- led"-e of letters and of business was confined almost entirely to ecclesiastics. But the practice was encouraged by Rome, who was able thus to penetrate the secrets and control the policy of governments. Thus all things, great and small, ori- ginated with the Papacy. The wars that convulsed Europe grew out of the intrigues of Rome. Princes were exalted to thrones, or hurled from them, according as it suited her interests. The wealth of the state was employed to debauch conscience, and the arm of its power to punish opinion.* If any of the governments recalcitrated, and refused to degrade themselves by doing the vile work of Rome, she speedily found means to reduce them to obedience. She knew the power of the superstition which she wielded ; she knew that it placed in her hands the control of the masses, as well as of governments ; and thus she could employ the people to overawe the throne, as well as the throne to oppress the people. She had but to issue her interdict, and the ties that bound subjects to their sovereign were dissolved, their oaths of allegiance annulled, and rebellion against their persons and government preached as a sacred duty ; so that the unhappy prince had no alternative but to make his peace with Rome, or abdicate. At one time the Church of Rome has taught the doctrine of the divine * A traveller who visited Rome in 1817, speaking of Cardinal Gonsalez, the minister of the then reigning pontiff, and humane and enlightened be- yond tlie ordinary measure of cardinals, says that the High Churcli party were perpetually beseeching the Pope to remove a minister whose mea- sures they represented as calculated to " increase the number of the damned among the subjects of the Church." The measures fitted to have this alarming effect were, the admission of laymen into the administration of the state, the abolition of the right of murderers to take sanctuary in churches, and the abolition of torture. (Rome, Naples, et Paris, en 1817 ; ou Esquisses sur I'Etat actuel de la Society, des McBurs, des Arts, de la Litterature, &c., de ces Villes Celebi-es, p. 122.) 442 INFLUENCE OF POPERY ON GOVERNMENT. right of kings, and at another she hais propagated the opi- nion that the people are the source of sovereignty, as was done in France during the reign of Henry III., who joined the Protestants. So long as princes were submissive to the Romish see, their persons were sacred ; the moment they revolted, their assassination was recommended as a holy service, and the crown of glory was held out to the mur- derer. Rome, to use her own phraseology, laid " the axe at the root of the evil tree,"" with orders "to cut it down.""* Herein lay the real supremacy of Rome, — not in her theo- retic headship, which the kings of Europe acknowledged only at times, but in her actual headship, which was founded on the power of her all-pervading superstition. She filled Eu- rope with darkness, and through that darkness became om- nipotent. This made her the mistress of men's minds, and through that she became the mistress also of their bodies and their properties. When her voice sounded through the gloom, men heard it as if it had been the voice of God, — trembled, and obeyed. Another enormous abuse grew out of the sacerdotal go- vernment of Rome, namely, the maxim that princes are * The instances of Clement and Ravaillac are well known. The former assasshiated Henry III. in his own ajiartment, and the latter stabbed Henry the Great in the streets of Paris in open day. In both cases the assassinations were recommended by the poi>isli clergy beforehand as a most meritorious service ; when done, applauded from the pulpit, and compared to tlte most heroic acts in the sacred record ; and images and pictures of the regicides exhibited in chapels, and placed on altars, and treated as canonized saints. The Jesuits, it is said, have a solemn form of consecration in the case of regicides. Bathing the sword with which the deed is to be done with holy water, they put it into his hand, and pro- nounce the following exorcism : — " Come, ye cherubims, ye seraphims, thrones, and powers ! Come, ye holy angels, and fill up this blessed vessel with an immortal glory ! And Thou, O God ! who art terrible and invin- cible, and hast inspired him, in prayer and meditation, to kill the tyrant and heretic, to give his crown to a Catholic king, comfort, we beseech Thee, the heart of him we have consecrated to this office : strengthen his arm, that he may execute his enterprise," &c. THE " "WOMAN DRUNKEN WITH BLOOD."" 443 the constituted guardians of orthodoxy in their dominions, and are bound to employ their swords in the extirpation of heresy and heretics. This doctrine the Church of Rome wrote in blood in every country of Europe. A grievous perversion it was of the ends of civil government, and it led directly to persecution for conscience' sake. The Church of Rome has earned for herself unrivalled notoriety as a persecutor. Pagan Rome shed the blood of the saints, but Papal Rome was drunk with the blood of the saints. We have already alluded to the numbers who, in the twelfth century, in central Europe, held the pure doctrines of the New Testament, and protested against the Church of Rome as the Antichrist of Scripture. These confessors abounded in the southern provinces of France, in the valley of the Rhine, in Lombardy, and in Bohemia. They occupied a belt of country of considerable breadth on both sides of the Alps, stretching from the mouths of the Po to those of the Garonne. They were as distinguished from their neighbours by the skill and industry with which they prosecuted arts and manufactures, as by their extraordinary acquaintance with the Scriptures, and the pure morality of their lives. The Reformation would have broken out in that century, or in the first half of the next, but for the violent and bloody measures of Rome. She saw the danger ; she un- sheathed the sword; nor did she return it to its scabbard till scarce a man remained to carry tidings of the catastrophe to posterity. The three centuries that preceded the Refor- mation were one continued massacre. The armed force of western Europe, led on by Rome, was employed to crush a peaceful and industrious, a virtuous and a loyal people, guiltless, but for the crime of refusing to bow the knee to the Dagon of the Seven Hills. Southern France became a perfect shambles. The Alps were swept with fire and sword. Bohemia and the Rhine were overwhelmed with armies, with dungeons, and with scaffolds. Three centuries of crimes, of wars, of bloodshed, at length completed their revolution, and Rome was able to announce that heresy was ii-is INFLUENCE OP POPERY ON GOVERNMENT. now exterminated, — drowned in blood. Crime unparalleled! The French statesman would have said, folly unparalleled ; and in sooth it was so. It was the flower of their sub- jects which these princes had destroyed. The towns they had converted into smoking ruins were the seats of trade and industry. The men whose blood dyed the soil and the rivers of their land were the stay of order. The vast arma- ments and the successive wars maintained by these zealous vassals of Rome inferred enormous expense. This double damage, — the direct cost and the indirect loss, — drowned in debt and permanently crippled all the states of Europe. Philip II. of Spain, " a beast of priestly burden,"" is said t(S have declared to his son, a little before his death, that he had spent in enterprises of this sort no less a sum than five hundred and ninety- four millions of ducats.* The mil- lions that France lavished in these crusades, and the hun- dreds of thousands of virtuous and industrious citizens whom she banished from her territory, can never be accurately told ; but one thing is manifest, that in these proceedings she sowed the seeds of the frightful calamities she has since endured, and is now enduring. "Nearly fifty, thousand families," says Voltaire, writing of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, " within the space of three years, left the kingdom, an