tury, and knew the obligations of religion, as well as any of his successors, writes to a bishop who had beaten one of his clergy for heresy, that it is an unheard of and novel method of preaching the Gospel, to enforce faith with the cudgel.-' Nova et inaudita prædicatio, quæ baculo adigit fidem.' No heretics more dangerous in a state than the Priscillianists, whose maxim was--to swear and forswear themselves, sooner than betray their secrets. Their doctrine was condemned in a Council in Spain, but their persons left at liberty. Two Spanish bishops, Ithacus and Ursatius, solicited the tyrant Maximus to put Priscillian to death. Hence St. Martin of Tours, and all the bishops of Gaul and Spain, would never communicate with those sanguinary prelates, who were afterwards banished. Even a council that was held, would not admit any bishop who would communicate with one Felix, who concurred in the accusation of Priscillian, and whom the fathers call, 'a murderer of heretics.'

The Council of Toledo forbids the use of violence to enforce belief: 'because,' add the fathers, God shews mercy to whom he thinks fit; and hardens whom he pleases. Præcipit sancta synodus nemini deinceps ad 'credendum vim inferre. Cui enim Deus vult, miseretur; et quem vult, indurat.'* And the Council of Lateran, under Pope Alexander the Third, acknowledges, that the church rejects bloody executions, on the score of religion: which proves to demonstration, that the canon charged to the fourth Council of Lateran, under Innocent the Third-in which canon 'the secular powers are addressed to make an oath, to extirminate all heretics out of their territories, and, in case of refusal, to have their subjects absolved from their allegiance, and the lands of the heretics to be seized by the Catholics,' &c.—is spurious. Collier, the Protestant historian, in his fifth volume of ecclesiastical history, acknowledges that it is not found in any copy coeval with the Council. Some hundred years after the Council, it was produced to light by a German: and we know full well, that, at that time, several spurious pieces were produced, to serve the purposes of rancour.

Cap, de Judæis, dist. 43,

DD

Were even such a decree, or any other of a similar nature, genuine, the Catholics would reject them, without any breach of faith because the church has no power over life, limb, the rights of sovereigns, the property of individuals, or any temporal concern whatsoever. Her bishops, then, whether separately, or in a collective body, cannot graft any such power into their spiritual commission. They would act in an extrajudicial manner, and beyond the limits of their sphere. This I have proved in my Remarks on Mr. Wesley's letters, and elsewhere.

Far from countenancing cruelty, death, and oppression, 'the spirit of the church was, in such a manner, the spirit of 'meekness and charity, that she prevented, as much as in her 'power, the death of criminals, and even of her most cruel 'enemies,' says Fleury. You have seen how the lives of the * murderers of the martyrs of Aunania were saved; and St. "Austin's efforts to preserve the Donatists (who had exer. 'cised such cruelties against the Catholics) from the rigour 'of the Imperial laws. You have seen how much the church 'detested the indiscreet zeal of those bishops, who persecuted 'the heresiarch Priscillian to death. In general, the church 'saved the lives of all criminals, as far as she had power. St. Augustine accounts for this conduct, in his letter to Mace 'donius, where we read, that the church wished there were no pains in this life, but of the healing kind, to destroy not man, but sin, and to preserve the sinner from eternal 'torments.'*

If, in after ages, some Popes and bishops deviated from this plan of meekness and moderation, their conduct should not involve a consequence injurious to the principles of the Catholic church, which condemns such proceedings. The religion of Catholics and Protestants condemns frauds, fornications, drunkenness, revenge, duelling, perjury, &c. Some of their relaxed and impious writers have even attempted not only to palliate, but even to apologize for such disorders.The children of the Christian religion daily practise them : is the Christian religion accountable for the breach of her own laws?

*Fleury, Discourse 2, No. 9.

We prefer, then, the primitive fathers of the church, to Sylvester á Prieris, and some other canonists; and we presume as much knowledge and zeal for the Catholic religion in Gregory the Great and his predecessors, as in any of his successors, in ages less refined.

The opposition given in Catholic countries to the esta blishment of the inquisition-the death of the inquisitors by the hands of the people and the general odium it raisedprove that sparks of the moderation and meekness recommended in the Gospel, and practised in the primitive times, with regard to people of a different persuasion, were not quite extinct, even in the ages of darkness and barbarism. Popes themselves opposed its introduction into Venice: and whether from policy or piety, I shall not take on me to determine.

*

But Berkley remarks, that, if policy induced a Pope to oppose its introduction in a certain state, policy might have induced another Pope to introduce it into his own.'* I am convinced he was not mistaken in his conjectures.

The Pope was in possession of a city which formerly gave birth to so many heroes, besides a good territory bestowed on him by several sovereigns. He thought it high time to look about him, when all Europe was in one general blaze. The liberty of the Gospel, preached by Muncer and several other enthusiasts, threw all Germany into a flame, and armed boors against their sovereigns. As he was a temporal prince, he dreaded for his sovereignty, as well as other crowned heads in his neighbourhood; and the more so, as his soldiers were better skilled in saying their beads, than handling the musket.

Great events, the downfal of empires, and the rise or destruction of extraordinary characters, are commonly foretold in oracles, both sacred and profane; and he found himself in the same dubious and critical situation with Montezuma, when the Spaniards landed in America,

"Old prophecies foretel our fall at hand,

"When bearded men in floating castles land."+

Long before the reformation, the dimensions of his city

✦ Minute Philosopher.

+ Dryden's Indian Queen.

were taken; the line was extended over its walls; and it was discovered that it was the 'great city, built on seven ' hills, the harlot that had made the kings of the earth drunk 'with her cup; and that her sovereign was Antichrist, the 'man of sin,' mentioned by St. Paul, in his epistle to the Thessalonians. Wickliff, Huss, and Jerome of Prague, had laid down a rule, many years before, that 'Popes, princes and bishops, in the state of mortal sin, have no power :' and a state of grace was, doubtless, incompatible with the character of Antichrist. Jerome of Prague, who was burnt afterwards at Constance, to shew that Rome was the harlot of the Revelations, after beating a monk, and drowning another, dressed one day, a prostitute in a Pope's attire, with the threecrowned cap, made of paper, on her head, and in her headdress, without being so careful of the rest of her body; leads the female pontiff, half naked, in procession through the streets of Prague, in derision of a religion professed by the magistrates.

Some well-bred divines there are, who justify such proceedings, on the principle that it was requisite, at that time, 'to cry aloud, and use a strong wedge to break the knotty 'block of Popery.' I do not believe there is a well-bred Protestant living, who would applaud either martyr or divine who would exhibit such a merry spectacle in the streets of Dublin or London; or who would shed a tear for his loss, if, after exhibiting such a show in Rome or in Paris, he fell into the hands of the inquisition, or were sent to the gallies. The gospel truth is no enemy to decency.

St. Paul, in pleading his cause before Festus, did not inveigh against his vestal virgins, the adulteries of their gods, or the wickedness of his emperors. Let a religion of state be ever so false, the magistrate who professes it, will feel himself insulted, when it is attacked in a gross, injurious manner: and, if apologies can be made for indecencies and seditious doctrines, under pretence of overthrowing idolatry, some allowance must be made for men who think themselves insulted by such attacks.

The Pope, then, as a sovereign prince, had every thing to dread, when the thrones of the German princes began to totter from the shocks of inspiration: but what still increased

his alarms, was-the unfolding of the Revelations, which held him up to all Europe, as the Antichrist, the general enemy of Christians, who should be destroyed. Lest any one should miss his aim, it was proved from the Revelations, that he was the beast with ten horns; and, in bearing down such a game, the world was to be renewed, and the peaceful reign of the millennium, during which Christ was to reign with the saints on earth, was to begin. The time was approaching. Old John Fox, the martyrologist, says, that after long study and prayers, God had cast suddenly into his mind, by divine inspiration, that the forty-two months must be referred to the church's persecution, from the time of 'John the Baptist.' This calculation was to bring on the Pope's destruction about the year sixteen hundred. Brightman was more precise, and foretold the final downfal of the Pope, in the year fifteen hundred and fortysix others in fifteen hundred and fifty-six: and others in fifteen hundred and fifty-nine. Luther came closer to the famous æra; and published his prophecy, in which it was revealed to him, that the Pope and the Turk would be destroyed in two years after the date of his oracle. This certainly, was a close attack on the Pope, who in all appearance, did not like to die so soon, even of a natural death. He apprehended the accomplishment of the oracles the more, as at that time almost every one was inspired, and ready to do any thing for the destruction of Antichrist.

Alexander Ross, in his view of religion, describes numbers of those prophets, and amongst the rest one Hermannus Sutor, a cobbler of Optzant, who professed himself a true prophet, and the Messiah Son of God: a very dangerous neighbour for Antichrist! This man, to receive the prophetic inspiration, stretched himself naked in bed; and, after ordering a hogshead of strong beer to be brought close to him, began to drink in the source of inspiration, and to receive the spirit by infusion; when on a sudden, he,' to use the words of Alexander Ross, with a Stentor's voice and a horrid 'howling, among other things, often repeated this: Kill, cut throats, without any quarter, of all those monks,

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