umphs of antichriftian Rome: in attempting to throw off their fetters they often wreathed them more fast about them: much they wished, long they groaned and fighed for deliverance in vain, until the happy jubilee, the appointed year of release approached, which fome know not how to value or enjoy now when they have heard the joyful found! Ungrateful Britons!

✪ fortunos nimium, fua fi bona norint.

"

Though it is evident that the church of Rome did not attain to that strange height of infolence and wanton tyranny, or establish her temporal monarchy but by degrees; yet to establish and fupport it has been the great and ultimate object in view, and invariably adhered to from the beginning. That fpirit of worldly greatnefs and dominion. conftitutes one chief character of her antichriftianifm. Some degree of temporal power united with and grafted upon the ecclefiaftical is effential to the Papacy. Until that union took place, the kingdom of the beast did not formally exift in the world: from thence it derived its form and ftrength-they grew up together, and attained to maturity at the fame time: in the fame connection have they decreased and fallen,—and never can they be entirely feparated till the Papacy is finally destroyed. The mitre and the crown are fo firmly confolidated together, that it is vain to think to divide them. The temporal fupremacy of the popes, direct or indirect, has been fo long avowed,-it enters fo deeply into all their acts, and appears fo much in the whole tenor of their administration, and has been fo cften established and ratified by the highest authority of their church, that it refts on the fame bottom with any

other

* As there are some who exalt the authority of councils above that of the Popes, though not very confiftently with the genuine principles of Popery, it may be reckoned a defect if we do not show that the acts and decrees of councils

have

other article of her, and it cannot be renounced without endangering the whole fyftem: if this fall, infallibility falls

with

have been directly in favour of the temporal jurifdiction of the See of Rome. This we are at no loss to do: besides what hath been occafionally noticed already to this purpose, we find many councils both general and particular, countenancing and concurring with the Popes in the exercife of the highest parts of that power, even to the depofing of fovereigns. In the council of Rome held in the year 1076, in which there were 1 fo bishops prefent, it was determined, that the Pope had caufe to deprive the emperor of his crown, to abfolve all the princes and members of the empire from their oaths to him, and to forbid them to have any communication with him; which fentence was immediately put in execution. In the council of Rome ro8o another fentence of excommunication and depofition was paffed against Henry ;-all Chriftians were forbid to obey him; his kingdom was given to Rodolph, and all injoined to take up arms against him. In confequence of a council held in the fame place by Pascal II. 1102, the following fentence was emitted by the Pope: "In regard Henry "hath not ceased to tear the robe of Jefus Chrift, that is, to waste the church

by rapine, etc.-for which caufe he was excommunicated by Pope Gregory "of happy memory, and by Urban our predeceffor, we have again anathema. "tized him for ever in our last fynod by the judgment of the whole church," etc. The fame thing was done to another emperor in the first general council of Lyons, 1245, in which were prefent 146 prelates, the emperor of Conftantinople, the ambassadors of the kings of France and England, with deputies from almost every nation in Chriftendom. Pope Innocent IV. preĥded in person, and opened the council by a difcourfe from these words in the Lamentations ; Bebold and fee if there be any forrow like unto my forrow. He told them he had five forrows which he compared to the five wounds of Chrift-these were the diforders of the church and churchmen; the fchifm of the Greeks ;— the infolence of the Saracens ;the incurfions of the Tartars, and the perfecution of the emperor Frederick, whom he accused among other things of herefy, facrilege, and with the crimes of having built a city in the land of Chriftians and peopled it with Saracens, and in having friendship with the fultan of Babylon and the Saracen princes. Frederick having been fummoned and not appearing, notwithstanding the defences of his commiffioners, was, with the unanimons voice of all prefent, excommunicated and degraded, and all were declared excommunicated, ipfo facto, who obeyed him; another emperor was appointed to be chofen, referving to the Pope to provide for the kingdom of Sicily. This fentence was folemnly denounced with lighted can'dles, and, when the Pope extinguished bis, all the bishops did the fame in token of their approbation. If these inftances were not fufficient, we might refer the reader to the following councils and fynods, which either directly or indirectly have established or practifed the temporal power we speak of.

I

Ann.

with it:-Rome's golden profpects vanifh: the fpiritual fupremacy will become a feeble and defpicable thing, if not a mere nothing: it will be of as little confequence or advantage to its poffeffor as the idle titles of King of Jerufalem, or Emperor of the moon, with which fome kings have adorned their fcutcheon

The Papal authority in every view has been greatly weakened fince the Reformation: the court of Rome fince that happy period has more sparingly infifted upon, and afferted their high pretenfions, nor have they dared with the fame tone of arrogance to dictate to princes, or rule the affairs of kingdoms, as in fome preceding ages: yet it has not ceased to discover, on many occafions, the fame spirit, inclination and principles; so often have they attempted to interfere by the rude way of authority, and more often till by intrigue and fineffe, that the nations of Europe may know that their safety and tranquillity, on that quarter, is to be imputed more to inability than to any effential change in the Popish fyftem. Every catholic country, if a few fouthern Rates are excepted, have reduced the exorbitant power of Rome within narrower limits, and in fo far they partake of the beneficial effects of the Reformation; but in none of them is it fully abolished: nor is it poffible to exempt themselves entirely ̋ from the tyranny and encroachments of the court of Rome, without a separation from the church of Rome. In none of thefe has the Papal fupremacy been more vigorously oppofed, nor the temporal rights of the crown more fully fupported and established, than in France; though it must be confeffed the honours were only fnatched from the brow of one tyrant to adorn the head of another. Yet what they have done there has engaged them in perpetual demelez, and involved them in fcenes of trouble and danger, often to the hazard of a total breach with Rome. They have gone contrary to the genius of their religion, contrary to the fentiments of the more zealous Catholics, and contrary to the

From all which, this conclufion will be obvious, that, wherever the church of Rome exifts, there is a state within

a state;

re pect which the people are taught by their priests to entertain for the head of the church: consequently they have proceeded with hesitation and trembling, as if conscious of attempting some heinous thing, and not without both dreading and incurring the charge of herefy and schism; as a writer of their own expreffès it: On delibere, on craint même, on befite et on tremble, comme fi l'on n'avoit pas de principes sûrs paur borner les pretenfions de l'épiscopat en général, et de quelque eveque en particulier; on croit avoir trouvé un expedient admirable, quand afin d'eviter un tribunal qui embarraffe, on a imaginé d'en appeler à un autre qui n'existe point, et qu'on ne doit pas plus reconnoitre que celui qu'on decline, à moins qu'il ne s'agisse de la foi: ignore-t-on que les conciles ont fouvent enterpris fur la puissance temporelle, et qui ils ont fat des decifions qu'elle feule avoit droit de faire? "pourquoi tant biaiser, pourquoi ne pas declarer bautement ce qu'on a droit de penfer ?-The truth is, the boasted Gallican liberties are rather to be defended by the arrets of the grand monarque, and his fecular courts, than by either the bulls of Popes, or the canons of councils; and have been much better, vindicated by the point of the sword, than by all the arguments and writings of the doctors of the Sorbonne.

Their own clergy have often condemned fome of these rights as inconsistent with holding the faith and communion of the Roman catholic church; and except when principle has been overborne by court influence, they have publicly and ftrenuously opposed them, After the murder of Henry IV. an oath was propofed for the future fecurity of the government, whereby all should be obliged to abjure the doctrines that it may be lawful to affaffinate kings, or that for the cause of herefy or schifm they may be deposed, and their fubjects abfolved from their oath of fidelity: the clergy, with Cardinal Perron at their head, remonfrated against it; they maintained that, according to the principles of their religion, the Pope had a power of depofing princes; they infiled on various inftances of it with approbation, not forgetting the doubtful and controverted one of Chilperic; and when a prince was thus depofed and excommunicated, his subjects, they said, were obliged not to affaffinate him fecretly, but to make open war against him. Their fentimens were declared by the cardinal, in name of the reft, to the three estates affembled 1616, and in bis harangue on that oceafron he reprefented, "That, if. fuch a law were established, they would en

tirely deftroy that communion which they had hitherto maintained with all "other churches, and even with the church of France previous to that time, "seeing that, union would become thereby unlawful, and stained with heresy, "and an anathema; that fuch an oath could not be taken without acknow ledging that the Pope and the whole church had erred both in faith and inq things pertaining to falvation; that fchifm would be inevitable, and that's << France alone would be guilty of it; that they muft not only fall into schiẩm, i "but, must alfo precipitate themselves into an evident herefy, feeing they must "neceffarily be obliged to confefs that the Catholic church had perifhed for e many ages from the earth they must dig up again the bones of a multitude ....

" of

a ftate; that every Papist by incorporating with it, and depending upon a foreign head, not only forfeits his title to the protection and privileges of the commonwealth, but renders himself juftly an object of punishment; that for one to profefs himself a Papift is interpretatively to declare hoftility against his country; that the claims of the Pope and the rights of his prince, the good of that church, and the happiness and freedom of the civil ftate, being incompatible, it is impoffible for him to be faithful to both; and that no man continuing a Papist can bona fide promifè true and entire allegiance to his temporal fovereign.

This will be further manifeft from a view of the fubordinate and inferior parts of this ecclefiaftical monarchy, and the manner in which it preferves union and strength, its hierarchy, priesthood and numerous orders, with the train of privileges and immunities. which by the doctrine, the established laws and canons of that church have been annexed to them, were well adapted to the purpose of fupporting its tyrannical authority ;-securing its independence and promoting its grandeur and wealth, while they have in the fame proportion threatened the safety and peace of the civil ftate, and had a baneful influence upon its profperity: under the management of the fupreme defpot, are an innumerable band of inferior tyrants, engaged by office and intereft to promote the fame defign. The clergy are like the nerves and ligamants which unite the

" of French doctors, even to the bones of St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure, and burn them up upon the altar, as Jofias burnt the bones of the falfe prophets " and when that is done," added he, "where will be then the church? In "the wilderness of the Apocalypfe? And why then combat with so much "keenness the invifibility of the church of heretics? why defer to yield to them "the arms and the victory? what greater trophy could we erect for them than ☛ to avow that the kingdom of Chrift on the earth had perished, and that for "fo many ages there have been neither temples, nor God, nor fpouse of "Chrift, nor church, but throughout the reign of Antichrift, the fyr.agogue "of Satan, and the spouse of the Devil,”-Hist, du Droit, &c. tome ii. p. 346. Politique du clerge de France, p. 216, et fuiv, Perren, Opufs. p. 6cc, &c.