More could be faid; but I am afraid that my readers already blush: and whoever dignifies the Albigenfes with the title of Protestants, in order to inflame the rage, and kindle the rancour of fellow-fubjects, by a recital of the ill treatment of those pretended martyrs, should not only blush, but hide himself.

Let none imagine, that whatever is mentioned in the feffions of a general council, is an article of faith. There are decrees of discipline which are at the discretion of kingdoms or provinces either to reject or adopt. There are articles of faith which, in our opinion, neither time, place, or circumftances can alter. Thus, the council of Trent which commands the Roman Catholics under pain of anathema, or curfe, to believe the neceflity of baptifm and the reality of original fin, is univerfally received in all Catholic countries, as far as it confines itself to the decifion of fpeculative points, and propofes them as articles of belief: but, where the fame council decrees, that the manor or land on which a duel is fought, with the connivance of the owner, fhould be confifcated and applied to pious ufes, it is rejected. Though the motive of the decree is laudable, as it tends to suppress vice and restrain the paffions: yet, as the means, fuch as the forfeiture of lands, &c. are

But

quite out of the fpiritual line, this decree of difcipline is not received. By the fame rule, two things are to be confidered relative to the council of Lateran, often quoted, and as often mifapplied. The fathers of that council have anathematized the errors of the Albigenfes fo repugnant to reafon, morality, and the principles of revealed religion, and every fimilar error extolling itself against the orthodox faith. So. far they confined themselves within the limits of their fpiritual provinces, and fo far every Roman Catholic fubmits to their decrees. when they proceeded further, and granted the lands of the perfons whom they condemned as beretics, to the Catholics who would take poffeffion of them, no Roman Catholic is concerned in a verdict that difpofes of temporal property: for, neither popes nor councils have been ap-. pointed as the fupreme and infallible arbiters of fucceffion to thrones, the transfer of property, or temporal affairs, by Him who refused to compromise matters between two brothers, and declared, that his kingdom is not of this world. Nor is it to be prefumed, that the ambaffadors who affifted at the council, would betray the interefts

The author speaks in the fuppofition of the genuinenefs of the decree. For it is fpurious, as well as the fecond decree about fafe-conducts attributed to the Council of Conftance, and which L'Enfant afferts to have been found in a manufcript in the Vienna library.

interests of their kings, who often excepted against the competency of fpiritual tribunals, as to the decifion of temporal rights. And as to the diftinction between articles of faith, and canons of difcipline, we find it even in the New Teftament.

The fame apofiles, who preached the divinity of Chrift, which we all believe, decreed in a council, that the Chriftians fhould abstain from the use of blood, and the flesh of strangled animals. * We believe the doctrine they preached: we overlook the difcipline they established, because the prohibition was temporary. The Doctrine is permanent: opinions are fugitive: las, difcipline and decrees vary with time. We are but little concerned in the tranfactions of the twelfth or thirteenth century. We are a new world raised on the ruins of the former, and if hitherto we could not agree as Chriftians, it is high time to live together as men. If fpeculative errors be punishable, there is a day of reckoning and eternity is long enough for retribution, But during the fhort fpan of life, checkered with so many anxious cares, let us not resemble thofe favages who glory in difpeopling the earth, and carrying the mangled heads of their fellow-creatures on the tops of their reeking fpears, as fo many trophies of their barbarous victory.

• Acts, 15th chap.

my, perfpective, &c. or that Gallileo's doctrine of the motion of the earth was condemned by a numerous tribe of divines, headed by feven Cardinals, under the eyes of the Roman pontiff, muft it be obtruded on the public, that the Roman Catholics muft confider the motion of the earth round the fun, as herefy? or firmly believe that there is magic or witchcraft in the Camera obfcura, because father Bacon, who defcribed it, was seven years confined in prifon? Hence from the opinions of men, or the actions of popes, or the disciplinary canons of councils, or the proceedings of bishops who compofed them, in one age, there is no arguing to the belief of men in another. Popes have attempted to abfolve fubjects from their allegiance to their fovereigns it is no more an article of my belief that they could do it by the authority of the keys, than it is an article of my belief, that I can ftrike a king on the cheek, because Calvin teaches, that," Earthly princes abdicate their "authority when they erect themselves against 'God," and that "we ought rather spit in "their faces, than obey them.' Mr. Wefley

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and the Affociation would do well to analyse fome of that doctor's writings, and Knox's fermons, and to insert them in their Appeal, as a contraft to the obfolete canons which they have extracted

* Calvin in Daniel, chap. 6. v. 22.

1

extracted from Sir Richard Steele's appendix:Erect themselves against God, is a phrase meerly fpiritual, and of a fatal tendency, because the broachers of fuch doctrines think it a fufficient plea against kings not inclined to receive the truths, they themselves are prompted to preach; and as every one thinks himself in the right, error has many chances for the fword of authority.

If empire be founded in grace, and not in the rights of nature, or the laws of civil fociety; if a deviation from the immutable truth that faw the world in its cradle, and is to prefide at its diffolution, be a plea against kings; let them be eternally armed with the fcales of the Leviathan, against the barbed irons to which they are expofed, from those who think themselves the only perfons enlightened with the rays of gofpel knowledge. Nothing then is to be apprehended from popes. Lefs is to be apprehended from fpurious canons, or the memory of councils which gave up the ghoft fix hundred years ago. And any inference from the proceedings of the fathers of the council of Lateran, or obsolete texts of the canon law, against former heretics, to alarm the Proteftants of our days, is the fruit of ignorance or malice, or both.-The Proteftants of our days fway the fceptre of authority. Kingdoms and republics, laws and inftitutions, federal unions, and civil compacts,

bleffings