The enjoyment of secular power and pride by the Vicegerent of Him whose kingdom is not of this world, is justified on the ground of his independence. It is plausibly maintained,

Argument for the Pope's Secular Monarchy.

that the Chief of the Ecumenic Church, scattered throughout so many nations, ought to stand unconstrained by any earthly potentate, and owe no other allegiance than that to heaven. The principle, which would prevent him from being a subject, compels him to be a monarch,-no other condition can be conceived, which could secure him from the control of the temporal sceptre. The above argument acquires some confirmation from the decline which did, in fact, take place in the pontifical domination during the exile at Avignon, though the Pope was there resident rather as a guest than as a subject, free from the direct authority of the prince, the slave only of his influence. In truth, the Catholic, after he has assumed the divine establishment of one spiritual universal monarchy, wants not sufficient plea for the maintenance of the temporal government, as secondary and subsidiary. the Protestant, thoughtfully surveying the perplexities, the intrigues, and the crimes in which a Christian Prelate is thus necessarily involved-the armies which he levies, the contributions which he extorts, the blood which he sheds-receives from the sad spectacle only fresh reason to doubt, whether the family of Christ has really been consigned to the rule of one, who can scarcely rule it in innocence.

But

And this remark is the more striking, because, when we reflect on the different wars which the Popes have waged in Italy, it really appears that they had, for the most part, the plea of justice. It was generally their object, (notwithstanding some deplorable exceptions,) not to make conquests in the dominions of others, but to defend or to recover their own. There was no province in Europe so harassed by rebellions and usurpations as the states of the Church. We need not pause to account for this circumstance; but it is unquestionably true that no other prince was so commonly liable to depredation and insult as the Pope. Accordingly, his wars were usually defensive, and (it may be) necessary—but that very necessity annihilated the pastoral character, and despiritualized the Vicar of Christ.

Again, these contests were not carried on without great expense; and the holy See, despoiled of its patrimony, was at the same The Tributes time deprived of its natural resources. Thence arose which he levied. an obligation to seek supplies in other quarters*; and with an obedient clergy and a superstitious people it was not difficult to make the whole of Christendom tributary. Once in possession of this ample treasury, and of the keys which unlocked its innumerable chambers, the Pontiffs explored and ransacked it without restraint, without decency, without discretion. Their emissaries were dreaded as the tax-gatherers of the Christian world. Their name was associated with donations, fees, contributions, exactions-with every name that is most vile and unpopular in secular governments. And thus, besides the great scandal thereby reflected upon themselves, they exhausted the affection, the endurance, and almost the credulity of the faithful. It is not that the monies thus levied were applied entirely to the defence of the Ecclesiastical States, or even that they were generally levied under that pretence;

This system no doubt began soon after the eleventh age, when the Popes were so commonly expelled from Rome, to Orvietto, Viterbo, Anagni, &c., and obliged to look to all parts of Christendom for their resources.

but in the first instance, during the thirteenth century, and afterwards, more especially under the Avignon succession, a very large proportion was certainly absorbed by the temporal exigencies of the See, and the increasing demands and extravagance of the Court of Rome. The same system was continued through the Schism and the century which followed it, as far as the Popes had power to continue it; and therefore, when we admire their final success in erecting a permanent principality, we shall, at the same time, recollect the methods which they had so long and so vainly employed on that object, and the deep disaffection towards their Government which those methods had every where created.

The Spiritual
Supremacy of
Rome.

II. It is not necessary to retrace the process, by which the spiritual supremacy of Rome was engendered and nourished. We have observed with sufficient distinctness, how equivocal and circumscribed it was in nature and dimensions, when it entered into the ages of gloom and ignorance, how it grew and dilated in its mysterious passage through them; -how portentous in magnitude and majesty it emerged from the cloud, We have followed it through its meridian course of disastrous glory; and we have seen that, even in its decline, it did not suddenly lose either its fierceness or its ascendancy. Indeed, however strange it may seem, that an authority, so predominant in its power, so universal and searching in its influence, so extravagant in its pretensions, should have been at all created, and out of materials seemingly so incongruous; it would have been much more strange, had it been easily or hastily extinguished. An authority, which claimed the sanction of Heaven, and which stood on human imposture; which pleaded the holiness of antiquity, and which innovated every hour; which combined, in its composition, learning with fanaticism, the use of reason with its grossest abuse, extreme austerities with lawless licentiousness, much true piety with much vulgar and impious superstitionand which so applied those various qualities, as at length to acquire an influence in the policy of every Court, in the institutions of every Government, in the morals of every people, in the habits of every family, in the bosom of almost every individual an authority, so constructed, supported, acknowledged, and felt, could not possibly fall in pieces without a protracted struggle and a final convulsion. It was impressed by the perseverance of fraud upon credulous, abject ignorance; but so deeply impressed, that, before it could be effaced, the substance whereon it was engraven must first change its nature; so that ages of gradual improvement were required to repair the mischief, which ages had conspired to inflict.

For if we examine the extent of this power, with respect to the objects on which it was more immediately exerted, shall we find any department. religious or moral, into which, in its triumphant days, it did not penetrate? In the first place, the Pope was the fountain of all ecclesiastical legislation. All the Canons and Constitutions of the Church were subject to him*. He

*Immediately after burning the Pope's bull, Luther published several propositions, extracted from the Decretals, among which are the following:- that the successors of St. Peter are not subject to the commandment of the apostle to obey the temporal powers; that the power of the emperor is as much below that of the Pope as the moon is below the sun; that the Pope is superior to councils, and can abolish their decrees; that all authority resides in his person; that no one has a right to judge him or his decrees; that God has given him sovereign power over all the kingdoms of the earth, and that of heaven; that he can depose kings, absolve all oaths and vows; that he is not dependent

could enact, suspend, abrogate, as might seem good to him, and that, not only with the advice or cousent of the Consistory, or (as it sometimes happened) merely in its presence, but in the plenitude of his power, and by his own spontaneous movement *. At the same time, while he was supreme in his dominion over the laws, he claimed an entire exemption from their control, and found a powerful party in the Church to support his claim.

In the next place, he was the source of all pastoral jurisdiction. The final determination of every spiritual cause rested with him, He was the object of appeal from all the episcopal Courts; and he delivered, confirmed, or reversed decisions, according to the arbitrary dictates of his justice, or his interest.

The apostolical character of the ministry, perpetuated by the uninterrupted communication of the Holy Spirit, was held to centre in the successor of St. Peter: and thus not only did all sacerdotal sanctity emanate from him, but all the offices and dignities of the Church were vested in his See. We may observe, however, that there was not one among his pretensions which

cost him so much toil and conflict to substantiate, as this. Usurpation In his earliest attempts to usurp the ecclesiastical patronage of Church he was contented to proceed by simple recommendation; Patronage. and, as he had already great power, his applications were seldom despised. Hence arose the practice; and from the practice, the right. The prerogative of institution, of which he had gradually despoiled the Metropolitans for the augmentation of his own dignity, was serviceable as an instrument of further encroachment. The fierce and protracted contest respecting investitures, between the See and the empire, was inflamed by the same design in the former; and when it terminated, the Pope found himself in legal possession of that power of occasional interference in the collation of benefices, which it needed no great address to improve and extend. Still, time and boldness were required to complete the usurpation; and the merit of achieving that work is perhaps justly attributed to Innocent III. † Soon afterwards the Pragmatic Sanction of St. Louis was levelled against it; and in later periods it has been obtruded so commonly upon our attention, as almost to convert the

on Scripture, but, on the other hand, Scripture derives all its authority, force, and dignity, from him,' &c. (See Beausobre, Hist. Réform. liv. iii.) It is unnecessary to repeat, that the above propositions were either drawn from the False Decretals, or were of subsequent origin. Till the time of Valentinian III. neither the Eastern nor Western Church had any other collection of canons than the Code of Canons of the universal Church,' compiled by Stephen, bishop of Ephesus. In the first year of Justinian, the Collection of Dionysius the Little' was published. He was a monk, living at Rome-the same who introduced the practice of computing time from the birth of Christ-a friend, fellow-monk, and fellow-student of Cassiodorus. His collection contained the fifty Apostolical Canons, the Canons of Chalcedon, Sardica, and the African Councils; and the Decretals of Pope Siricius (who died in 398); and it had authority in the West under the name of 'Codex or Corpus Canonum.' Some other collections, of little repute, or only partial authority, were published soon afterwards. (See Giannone, Stor. Napol. lib. iii. c. v.) Then came the forgeries of the eighth age, and the pretensions-first proceeding from them, presently surpassing them-though it was scarcely till the twelfth century that the new maxims and principles came into full operation.

*De motu proprio. It appears that Bulls proceeding de motu proprio were received with great hesitation in France. But they were held by the high Papists to be as valid as any other Decrees or Canons.

+ See Mosheim, Cent. xiii. p. ii. ch. ii. It was probably at this time that a new pretext for this extension of the papal authority was discovered: viz. that through the Pope's vigilance, the gates of the Church might be secured against the intrusion of any Heretic.

records of Christ's Church into a detail of disgusting squabbles about its temporalities. A new vocabulary was introduced into the history of religion; and as the magnificence of the Court of Rome kept pace with the majesty of the monarch, and as its avarice emulated his ambition, the field of Reservation and Provision* was enlarged with no limit, and the whole patronage of the universal Church seemed to be absorbed by the cupidity of one man.

The same power which thus created Cardinals and Bishops, and all other dignitaries, presumed by the same right to confirm, censure, suspend or depose themf; so that the whole hierarchy of the west was placed at its arbitrary disposal. And though this inordinate despotism was continually resisted and restrained by the princes and parliaments of Europe, it had no effectual check within the Church, nor was there any country in which it was not sometimes practically felt.

But,

held at any par

On the Personal

Infallibility of the Pope.

It is more difficult to determine, how far the Pope was ticular period to be personally absolute in matters of faith. No doubt, disputed points were perpetually referred to his decision, and the decision was considered as final. on the other hand, there have been Popes at various times, who have incurred the charge of heresy from very faithful Catholics. Now the very suspicion of error presumes the fallibility of the person suspected, at least in the opinion of the accusers; and in the affair of John XXII. and the process against Boniface VIII., we have not observed that the friends of those Popes denied their liability to error. Again, in somewhat later times, in the councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basle, we find it a principle admitted by both parties, that a Pope might

* Even by the more moderate and acknowledged claims of the Popes, all benefices in the possession of Cardinals, or any of the officers of the Court of Rome; those held by persons who happened to die at Rome, or within forty miles from it; and all such as became vacant by translation, were reserved. The invention of mental reservation demanded the more refined ingenuity of the sixteenth century; it is ascribed to Leo X., or at least, to his predecessor. Respecting provisions, we may refer to the history of our own Church, to see with what pertinacity the battle was fought, and how the statutes enacted against them were perpetually confirmed, and perpetually eluded or violated. We may observe, however, that the Kings of Europe were not uncommonly neutral or lukewarm in this quarrel; the Pontiffs were sometimes found more tractable than the chapters, and a concession seasonably made to the former might become the means of reciprocal advantage. Again, we sometimes find the Universities on the side of the Pope-not from any abstract conviction of his right, but because his appointments were often more judicious, more encouraging to the hopes of learned men, than those of the Ordinaries, who usually chose their own relatives or dependents. The Popes had procurators established in England, and probably in all other countries, to look after their interests; and the fury with which they pursued them during the fifteenth century, is strongly depicted by Giannone, lib. xxx. cap. 6.

+ The Council of Sardica in 347 (not a General Council) allowed a bishop, deposed by his neighbouring prelates, to appeal to the Bishop of Rome-it likewise permitted this last to send legates, to re-examine the case together with those prelates.... These decrees (if they be genuine, which Mosheim sees reason to doubt), prove that the power of deposition was not then exercised by the Roman bishop, but by the provincial synods; but they also indicate a disposition in the western clergy even thus early to distinguish the prelate of the imperial city, and to confer greater power on him than on any of his brethren. This inference no one can reasonably dispute, neither can any one reasonably infer more than this from the canons in question. See Dr. Cook, Historical View of Christianity, book iii. chap. ii.

The object of the Oath of Fidelity' to the Pope, taken by the higher clergy on their admission to benefices, was to bind them-that henceforward they would be faithful and obedient to St. Peter, the apostle, and to the Holy Roman Church, and to the Pope and his successors; that he should suffer no wrong through their advice, consent, or connivance; that they would maintain and promote all his rights, honours, privileges, and authorities, and resist and denounce all attempts against him.

be deposed on conviction of heresy; whence we may draw the same inference respecting other periods of Papal history. The claim of infallibility was not preferred in the deliberations at Florence, though conducted in the presence of the Pope and his Court, and entering very deeply into the subject of papal authority; nor was it advanced at any later period in the same century. So that, however clearly it might be deduced from the general expressions of various bulls and constitutions, and even though it should have been asserted by some individuals and acknowledged and maintained by others, yet it would be too much to account it among the authorized pretensions of the Roman See*. Howbeit the doctrines which proceeded from the chair (ex Cathedrâ) were seldom disputed; and the Pontiff might forget the possibility of error in the reverence which awaited and embraced his most questionable decisions.

Again, in the regulation of the moral duties of the faithful, the same searching hand interposed with the same rigorous inquisition. A general power of dissolving obligations was claimed by the successors of St. Peter, and they applied it in various manners, as suited their policy, or, it might be, their conscience-sometimes in divorcing a prince from his queen, sometimes in separating a nation from its monarch. The most sacred oaths were annulled with the same ease, which dispensed with the slightest promise; and as there were many who profited, or might hope to profit, by that papal prerogative, and as it was made familiar by constant exercise, so were there few who cared to question it, however shameful the ends to which it was sometimes applied.

Penance and
Purgatory.

It is the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church that, besides the eternal punishments denounced against sin, there are also temporal penalties attached to it, which are still due to the justice of God, even after he may have remitted the former; and that those penalties may consist either of evil in this world, or of temporal suffering in the next and intermediate condition of purgatory. It is also an article of faith, that a satisfaction in their place has been instituted by Christ, as a part of the Sacrament of Penance, and that the jurisdiction of the Church as exercised by the Pope, extends to the remission of that satisfaction. The act of remission is called an Indulgence; it is partial or complete, as the indulgence is for a stated time or plenary, and the conditions of repentance and restitution are in strictness annexed to it. Through this doctrine, the Popes were, in fact, invested with a vast control over the human conscience, even in the moderate exercise of their power, because it was a power which overstepped the limits of the visible world. But when they proceeded, as they did soon proceed, flagitiously to abuse it, and when, through the progress of that abuse, people at length were taught to believe, that perfect absolution from all the penalties of sin could be procured from a human being; and procured too, not through fervent prayer and deep and earnest contrition, but by military service, or by pilgrimage, or even by gold-it was then that the evil was carried so far, as to leave the

The claim to infallibility is not contained in the Creed of Pius IV., compiled out of the Canons of Trent, which Roman Catholics consider as the most accurate summary of their faith; and the Universities have generally opposed it. But it has been maintained (as a matter of opinion, however, not of faith) by many distinguished individuals, among whom the most notorious is, perhaps, Bellarmine. It is mortifying to humanity to observe the genius of Pascal stooping to draw elaborate distinctions between infallibility in matters of faith and in matters of fact, and exhausting itself to prove, that, though the Pope does really possess the former, it does not follow that he is also invested with the latter-that is, that though he cannot err in judgment, he may possibly be deceived by falsehood!