Book I.

History of the Papacy.

By Rev. J.A. Wylie, LL.D.
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 stupendous 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 themselves 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
general terms, the main causes that contributed to the rise of this tremendous Power, and
the successive stages that marked the course of its portentous development.

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 materialize whatever was spiritual. Society was pervaded on all
sides with sensuous and material influences. These absolutely unfitted the age for
relishing, and especially for retaining, 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 inward 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 voluptuous poetry
and sensuous mythology had unfitted the intellect 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 passions; and the latter, though lightened by occasional
gleams of heroic virtue and patriotism, exerted, on the whole, a degrading 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 in this complex
corruption,--the degeneracy of the individual and the degeneracy of society, owing to the
unspiritualizing 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
encountered 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 predominating 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 doctrines 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, recoiled 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 endowed 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
spiritual,--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 had imposed certain laws
upon the growth of the species, as on that of the individual,--upon the development of the
social, 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 progress: "The
kingdom of heaven cometh not with observation;" "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 inaugurate itself in their room. It was to progress in
obedience 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 persecutions 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 infantile 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 consequence, grievous
sufferings, before it could attain the faculty of broad, independent, clear, spiritual
conception, and become 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 the Fall has plunged it, is both a
slow and a laborious process. The instrumentality which God has ordained for its
elevation is knowledge. Great truths are discovered, 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 adherents 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 monuments 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 a record of the follies and wickedness of mankind, as it is a series of moral
demonstrations,--a slow process of experimental and convincing proof,--in reference to
great principles, 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 combined. The first may be done in a day or an hour; the
second is the slow operation of an age. Thus human progression 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 retrograde. The first is known, in ordinary
speech, as reformation or revolution; the second is termed re-action. There is, however, in
point of fact, no retrogression: what we mistake 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 altogether
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 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 presents 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 prejudices 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, preparation 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 silently 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 progressive, 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 the very beginning the two have been the counterparts of
each other, and so will it be, doubtless, while they exist together upon the earth. In the
early ages idolatry was unsophisticated in its creed and simple in its forms, just as the
truths then known were 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 degree, idolatry is also more fully
developed than in any preceding 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
invention of the opposite error. In proportion as truth multiplies 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 government. 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, 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, forming the link between Asia and Europe, and
combining the contemplative and subtile character of the Eastern idolatries 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 long 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
organization,--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, before 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 extremely 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, recognising 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 principles 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 ancient 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
decrepitude 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
burden 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 recognized. Each brought her something of its own, which, it
pretended, was necessary to the perfection of Christianity. Judaism brought her dead
symbols; the Magian and Greek philosophies brought her refined 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.

Two things might have been expected to happen. First, that the rising corruption would
reach its maturest proportion 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
exactly 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 oevo, grew up. By a law similar to that
which guides the seed to the spot best fitted for its germination, did the modern Paganism
strike its roots in the soil which the ancient Paganism had most largely impregnated with
its influences and tendencies. The surrounding heresies were speedily overshadowed and
dwarfed. The Gnostic, and other errors, declined in the proportion in which Romanism
waxed in stature, its mighty trunk drawing to itself all those corrupt influences 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
idolatries 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 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 predominating traits of the Grecian philosophy, more especially in the subtile
casuistry of the Popish schools, combined with a sensuous ritual, the celebration of which
is often accompanied, as in Greece of old, with gross licentiousness. And last of all, there
is palpably present in Popery the polytheism 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 complete than ever. To add one other
illustration to those already given, the Papacy is a gigantic realization of our Lord's
parable. The Roman empire, on the introduction of Christianity, was swept and
garnished; the unclean spirit which inhabited it had been driven out of it; but the demon
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 combined into one. But the Roman
apostacy acquired ultimately the dominion, and, marshalling the other heresies beneath
its banner, gave its own name to the motley host, and became 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 Christianity, was healed. Its oracles had been silenced, its shrines
demolished, and its gods consigned to oblivion; but the deep 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 developments 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 transgression. It is just
the early idolatries ripened and perfected. It is manifestly an enormous expansion of the
same intensely malignant and fearfully destructive principle which these idolatries
contained. The ancient Chaldean worshipping 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 corrupt imaginations, and
to become a god unto itself. That principle received the most fearful development which
appears 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 plus ultra of
man's wickedness, and the chef d'oeuvre of Satan's cunning and malignity. It is the
greatest 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.[1]

Having thus indicated the origin of Romanism, we shall attempt in the three following
chapters to trace its rise and progress.

[1] 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 Church of Rome bears the same relation
to the Church of Christ which the hierarchy of Baal bore to the institute of Moses; and
Popery 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 incontestible. Popery is the gospel transubstantiated into the flesh and blood of
Paganism, under a few of the accidents of Christianity.

Chapter II.

Rise and Progress of Ecclesiastical Supremacy.

The first pastors of the Roman Church aspired to no rank above their brethren.[1] 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 evangelist. All of them were eminent for their piety; and some of them to the graces
of the Christian added the accomplishments 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.[2] 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 embark in this undertaking, not
from the worldly and ambitious views which began, in course of time, to actuate their
successors, but from that pure zeal for the diffusion of Christianity 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 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 rendered 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.[3] These
beginnings of assumption were small; but they were beginnings, 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 imperceptible 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[4]--did not extend beyond the limits of the
congregation to which they ministered. But in the second century another element began
to operate. In that age it became customary to regulate 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 prospects 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
exhibited of a centralized and universal despotism did not suggest 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 vigor, 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 individuality and their powers of
self-government to the metropolitan see, in order to form one mighty Catholic Church?
Why should not Christian 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 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? 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 conferred the dignity on the throne of
the presbyter of Rome, because that was the imperial city."[5] The mission of the gospel
is to unite all nations into one family. Satan presented 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.[6] In order to temper the deliberations and to execute the
resolutions 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 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 unfrequently 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.[7]

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. Under
Constantine the empire was divided into four prefectures, these four prefectures into
dioceses, and the dioceses into provinces.[8] 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.[9] Pious emperors
believed that, in assimilating the two, they were doing both the State and the Church a
service,--and the imperial wishes were powerfully seconded and formally sanctioned by
ambitious prelates and intriguing 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 according to the rank of the city in which his
charge lay. 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 Constantine. 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 recognition of
the order occurs in the Council of Constantinople, A.D. 381.[10] 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 prerogative, next after the Bishop of Rome, because his
city was called New Rome."[11] In the following century the Council of Chalcedon
declared the bishops of the two cities on a level as regarded their spiritual rank.[12] But
the practice of old Rome was more powerful than the decree of the fathers. Despite the
rising grandeur of her formidable rival, the city 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 between 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.[13]

This gradation of rank necessarily led to a gradation of jurisdiction and power. First came
the Bishop, who exercised 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,
moreover, the privilege of having his consent asked to the ordination of bishops within
his province. Next came the Exarchs or Patriarchs, who exercised authority over the
metropolitans 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.[14]
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
foreseen, the seat of the prince of the patriarchs was Rome. A gradation which aimed at
making the civil and ecclesiastical arrangements exactly to correspond, and which fixed
the chief seats of the two authorities at the same places, made it inevitable that the
primate of all Christendom should appear nowhere but at the metropolis of the Roman
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-
patriarch; 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 obstruction 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 common 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 principle, the subserviency of the other, and the corruption and injury of both. If, on
the other hand, we aim at effecting a total disseverance, we not less really violate the
constitution 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, therefore, there is the secular jurisdiction and the
spiritual jurisdiction; 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
recognition of its independence. Had the constitution of society been understood, and the
principle of co-ordination recognised, the Papacy could not have arisen.[15] But,
unhappily, 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 vast designs;-
-the rivalship of sects, the jealousies of churchmen, the intrigues of courts, the growth of
ignorance and superstition find 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 continued 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 southern 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 victorious 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 Saracens brought to an end the patriarchate of
Alexandria and of Antioch; thus leaving the see of Rome, more especially after the
breach with Constantinople, undisputed mistress 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 development of the Papacy.

The disputes which arose in the churches of the east favored 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, 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 reasonings 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 superstition, which was in truth, as we have
already explained, nothing but the revived Paganism of a former age, continued to
increase from an early part of the third century and onward. The simplicity of the
Christian faith began to be corrupted by novel and heathenish opinions, and the worship
of the Church to be burdened by ridiculous and idolatrous ceremonies. When the Church
exchanged the catacombs for the magnificent edifices which the wealth, the policy, and
sometimes the piety of princes erected, she exchanged 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 manners 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 resort 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
incense, the perfume of flowers, and the goodly show of gorgeous 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 Constantine," remarks Gibbon,
"achieved in less than a century the final conquest of the Roman empire; but the victors
themselves were insensibly subdued by the arts of their vanquished rivals."[16] And as it
had fared with the worship of the Church, so had it fared with her government. First, the
people were excluded from all share in the administration 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, contended with one another respecting the limits of their
respective jurisdictions, and imitated, in their manner of living, the state and
magnificence of princes.[17] At last the Church elected her chief bishop in the midst of
tumults and fearful slaughter.[18] "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."[19] Notwithstanding that the Church contained 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 infatuation. There was one moment
peculiarly critical, inasmuch 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 already turned to one whose commanding eloquence and venerable piety made
him the most conspicuous person of his times. The destiny of ages hung on the decision
of Augustine. 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 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.[20] 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 already 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 II., empowering 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 appeal 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.[21] Thus did the Roman bishop
acquire legal jurisdiction over all the western clergy. When the bishops applied to the
Pope in doubtful cases, his letters conveying the desired advice were styled Decretal
Epistles; and to these decretals the Roman canonists came afterwards to attach as much
importance as to the Holy Scriptures. In order to the due publication and enforcement of
these decrees, bishops were appointed to represent the Pope 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.[22]

The edict of Gratian and Valentinian II., which was coincident, 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 jurisdiction 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.[23] However, within this territory his authority was
of a more absolute kind than that which the exarchs of the east exercised within their
dioceses. The latter functionaries could ordain only their metropolitans, whereas the
Roman prelate possessed the right to ordain every bishop within the limits of his
jurisdiction.[24] 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. When 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 arrogate 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 metropolitans. He encouraged appeals to his see, in
the well-founded 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
pretended to believe, to be right and fitting in matters pertaining 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 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
Roman pontiff was styled the "Director of all Christendom,"[25] and the bishops and
universal clergy were commanded to obey him as their ruler.[26] 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, submitted
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 beneath the protection of the Emperor himself."[27] At about the
distance of a century from the decree of Theodosius[28] 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,[29] was now the law of western Europe. Its
influence, too, was favourable to the growth of the ecclesiastical supremacy.
Contemporarily with the publication of Justinian's code, was the rise of the Benedictine
order.[30] In the course of a century the Benedictines 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.[31] 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 persons, and
covering so large a portion of the globe, no imperial fiat could create; it must grow.
Planted by councils, buttressed by edicts, with a congenial element of vitality 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 before all was over,
the authority that had evoked it would fain have bidden it away, but could not; like the
necromancer 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
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
avalanche. 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 hundred 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 materials 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 formal and measured acknowledgments of her
right. The hyperbolical and sycophantish terms in which a prelate sued for protection, or
a heretic implored forgiveness, were registered 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 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
these 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 hieroglyphics of the Apocalypse,
where it is portrayed under the symbol of a beast, of lamb-like mien but dragon-
ferocity.[32]

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."[33] The
overthrow of the empire contributed most materially towards the elevation of the Bishop
of Rome; for, first, 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
Church."[34] 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 constitutes the very essence of
the Papacy, and on which is founded the whole complex fabric of the spiritual and
temporal domination 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 preeminence above his peers.
But Rome was the head of empire no longer: the prestige of 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 become 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 masterstroke 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 legate in the
midst of the Council of Chalcedon, and virtually 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."[35] We find the fathers of the same council
hailing with acclamation the voice of Leo as the voice of Peter. A shout followed the
reading of the Pope's letter:--"Peter speaks in Leo."[36] As a farther proof that the Popes
had now shifted their dignity from an imperial to a pontifical 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."[37] 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."[38] 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 concluded its session with a shout of acclamation to Gelasius, "In
thee we behold Christ's Vicar."[39]

In the violent contention which raged between Symmachus 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 generally acquiesced in by the clergy. We 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 God's Vicar, was the judge of all, and could himself be judged by no one."[40]
"In this apology," remarks Mosheim, "the reader will perceive that the foundations of that
enormous 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 immoveable for all time. The
primacy had been promulgated 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 enactments 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 domus Aeneae capitoli immobile saxum

Accolet, imperiumque Romanus pater habebit."[41]

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 returned
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,--invincible 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. It was this which
enabled her to plant or to pluck 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 godlike power to which she was ultimately to attain, and
towards 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 should lay the foundations of
her power, and by her prompt interposition 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 incontrovertible and marvellous, of her Divinity. The
Cardinal Baronius 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 wonderful 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 universe,--the sanctuary of piety, the pillar of truth, the
immoveable 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."[42]

Thus have we traced the history of the Papacy, from its rise in primitive times, to its
formal though but partial development in the sixth century. Aided by the various
influences 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 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 preeminence and
authority,--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
way, too, of becoming the superiors of kings, for there was no usurpation 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 before the breaking out of the Reformation.

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 conversion
to Christianity was merely nominal. Ignorant of its doctrines, destitute of its spirit, and
captivated by its splendid 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 Popes were obliged to exercise the utmost circumspection and
management, in order to surmount the perils and profit 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 momentous 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 victorious over the Allemanni, was
baptized at Rheims. "On the memorable day," observes Gibbon, "when Clovis descended
from the baptismal font, he alone in the Christian world deserved the name and
prerogatives of a catholic king."[1] Rome hailed the auspicious event as a token of a long
series of similar triumphs; and she rewarded the devotion of Clovis by bestowing upon
him the title,-which he has transmitted downward through 1400 years to his successors
the kings of France,-of Eldest Son of the Church. During the course of the sixth century,
others of the barbarian 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 vassals. Thus, the
dominion which their swords had taken away, their superstition restored to Rome. The
various nations who were now masters of the western empire found in the Papacy, and
nowhere else, to use Muller's words, "a point of union."[2] The sagacious measures of
pope Gregory the Great contributed at this juncture material 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 establish it as a law throughout their
kingdoms, that the metropolitan should receive the sanction of the pontiff. For this end it
now became the practice to send from Rome a pallium[3] 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 Germany a century later, completed what
Pope Gregory had commenced. This man, a Briton by birth, travelled throughout
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.[4] 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 implicitly, 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 transferred this 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'Aubigné, "that succeeded in
placing on the supreme throne of Christendom a pastor of the banks of the Tiber."[5] The
people venerated the clergy, and the clergy were bound to implicit obedience to the
pontiff. By this time, too, the unity of the Church, 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 pontiff,-had established itself in the
minds of men. The term POPE 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,[6]
according to the saying afterwards employed by Gregory VII., 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
established themselves in Italy, and the latter in Sardinia and Corsica; and their near
presence enabled them to overawe the popedom; but their extirpation by the victorious
general of Justinian 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 considerable 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
emperors of the east. The Arian kings of Lombardy, intent on the conquest of all Italy,
were brandishing their swords before the very gates of Rome; while in the west, the
Saracens, 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, supplicated the Gallic
soldier to hasten to the rescue of his chosen city, and of that church where his bones
reposed. The succour was not more earnestly craved than it was cordially and promptly
granted. The bold Pepin had just seated himself on the throne of the pusillanimous
Childeric,[7] and needed the papal confirmation of his usurped dignity. Bargaining 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 was in the year 755; and by this act was laid the
foundation of the temporal power of the popes.[8]

The gifts thus bestowed by Pepin were confirmed by his yet more distinguished son
Charlemagne. The Lombards had again become troublesome to the Pope; in fact, they
were besieging him in his city of Rome. The pontiff again supplicated the aid of France;
and Charlemagne, in answer to his prayer, entered Italy at the head of his army. Defeating
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.[9] A
second time Charlemagne appeared in the Eternal City.[10] The factions that now reigned
in Rome threatened to put an end, by their violence, to the authority of the pontiff; and
the third time did France interpose to save the Papacy from apparent destruction.
Charlemagne, says Machiavelli, decreed, "that his Holiness, being God's Vicar, could not
be subject to the judgment of man."[11] Charlemagne was now master of nearly all the
Romano-Germanic nations of the west; and, as a recompense for these repeated succours,
the Pope (Leo III.), on Christmas eve, A.D. 800, placed upon the head of the French king
the crown of the western empire.[12] In this act the pontiff displayed his power not less
than his gratitude. As one who had crowns and kingdoms 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 partisans of Rome regarded the act. They have "generally maintained," says
Mosheim, "that Leo. III., by a divine right, vested in him as Bishop of Rome, transported
the western empire from the Greeks to the Franks."[13] "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 beholden 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."[14] One thing at least is clear, that great
advantages 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 possessions of the Church, and
secured a powerful friend and protector 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,[15] 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 right
temporal sovereignty, let us mark the growth of that superstition in which lay the life and
strength of the Popedom. These two,-the inward principle and the outward development,-
we find ever advancing pari passu. 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 contact with it. As they issued from their native forests, so were they
received within the pale of the Church,-uninstructed, 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 continued 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 is simply a geographical
expression. The nations that inhabit western Europe have not till this hour been
evangelized, if we except the partial enlightenment of the Reformation. The barbarism of
the times had extinguished 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.[16] 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.[17]
The state of matters as regards religion was even more deplorable. We have already seen
the height to which superstition 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 characterized the age: the corruption had
infected all classes, not excepting even the clergy, who, instead of being examples of
virtue, were notorious for their impieties and vices. In the same proportion in which they
declined in piety and learning, did they increase in riches and influence. A notion now
began to be propagated, that crimes might be expiated 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.[18] By and by,
bequests on a yet larger scale began to be made. It was at this time customary 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
sovereign jurisdiction. Raised thus to the rank of temporal princes, they vied with dukes
and sovereigns in the splendour 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, succour the distressed, and console the dying,-formed
no part 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,
moreover, 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 vengeance. 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.[19]

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 himself. 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 error in the superstitious and burdensome rites in which all
holiness 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 mortify the body was now the grand
secret of holiness. Pilgrimages 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 enjoined; 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.[20] A mind debased by ignorance, and not unfrequently by vice, and a
body emaciated by flagellations and fastings, was a 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
illustrious 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 were worn 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
obligations 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 unpleasantly 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.[21]

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 ordained 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 overmastering 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 laboured, 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 without 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 pictures. The promise, "Lo, I am
with you," was forgotten; 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 martyrs 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 ultimately
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 polytheistic 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?"
We enter at greater length on the subject of image-worship, 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 discovered 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 after the Christian era."[22] "The first
introduction of a symbolic worship," continues the historian, "was in the veneration of
the cross and of relics. . . . . But a memorial more interesting than the skull or the sandals
of a departed worthy, is a faithful copy of his person and features, delineated by the arts
of painting or sculpture. . . . . By a slow though inevitable progression, 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 century."[23] >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."[24] In this Gibbon is
confirmed 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 know 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 an 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 effect, 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 quarrel was taken up by successive
emperors on the one side and successive popes on the other, and prosecuted with
unabated violence and various success. Councils were convoked to give judgment in the
matter. The Council of Constantinople, A.D. 754,[25] summoned by Constantine
Copronymus, 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
flagitious Irene, the widow and murderess of Leo IV., reversed the sentence of the
Council of Constantinople, and restored the worship of images.[26] Leo V. condemned
these idols to a second exile, but they were recalled by the Empress Theodora, A.D.
842,[27] never more to be expelled from the east, till they and their worshippers were
extirpated together in the fourteenth century by the sword of the Turks. Rome and Italy
yielded in this matter the most profound submission 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."[28] 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 Romans had tasted of freedom, and the popes of sovereignty."[29] "Rome
raised her throne," to use D'Aubigné's words, "between 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 were zealously encouraged 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 temporal 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 different
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 infamous in its
beginnings. His mitre he had from the murderer Phocas; his crown from the usurper
Pepin. A spotless 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 Moloch; 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 passage of his history, is full of antagonism, is the very counterpart 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 fall 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 character. 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 further 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 analogous stages in the career of the
Papacy. They manifest an equal decline and advance,-a decline in the spiritual, and an
advance in the secular element. By the first, Rome perfected the corruption of her
worship; by the second, 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 apostacy,-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 tyrannize over the body. Her idolatry was to display itself in yet grosser
forms, and her political power was to be vastly enlarged by new accessions of dominion
and influence; 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 transition 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 corruptions of Europe: the temple had been
measured; the outer court and the city had been given over to the Gentiles; and 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 containing 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 affronted heaven. Her members kneeled before idols, and her head wore an
earthly crown. She "had left heaven and its spheres of light, to mingle in the vulgar
interests of citizens and princes."[30] 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 antediluvians in the days of Noah, when the ark was a-building; 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 those dumb idols, had failed to induce repentance or reformation. Righteously,
therefore, 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.
 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 crowned 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 Rome. To occupy a seat overshadowed by the loftier
throne of the emperors would not satisfy the vast ambition of the pontiffs, 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 subordination to secular authority; nevertheless, at this time, and for
some ages afterwards, the popes were subject to the emperors. Charlemagne was lord
paramount of Rome, 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."[1] Nevertheless, 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 family. 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
matter? 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.[2] 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 proceedings, though as yet they kept
the claim in the background, 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 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 care afterwards to improve them, by founding upon them the most
extravagant and ambitious 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 rhetoric 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 representative 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 accounted 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 in plain terms, and enforce by direct
acts, a claim which they had put forth only inferentially 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 vastness of the
object was equalled by the ability and perseverance 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 dazzling success with which at last
her contest was crowned.

With Charlemagne expired the military genius and political 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 differences. 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 bad 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
Charlemagne was in the dust, and they could deal as they listed 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
manoeuvred so successfully as to keep the imperial prerogative in abeyance till the times
of Otho the Great. Inimitable adroitness did the Papacy display in turning to account the
troubles of the times. Like a knowing trader at a commercial 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 Fisherman, none were admitted into the concern but such as brought with them, in
some shape or other, good solid capital; 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
VIII., 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 acknowledged. The monarch's gratitude for his throne was embodied in an act,
by which he surrendered for himself and his successors all right of interfering in the
election to the pontifical chair. Henceforward, till the middle of the tenth century, the
imperial sanction was dispensed with, and the pontiffs mounted the chair of Peter without
acknowledging in the matter either king or kaisir. In this the pontificate 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 continued 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 dissolved, 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 superior to the Franks,
Rome would now have reached the summit of her wishes.[3]

No weapon was too base for the use of Rome. Her hand grasped with equal avidity the
forged document and the hired dagger. 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 rescripts 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 prerogatives with which the intrigues of eight centuries had
invested it. Their style was so barbarous, and their anachronisms 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 canonization 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.[4]

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 hitherto
to maintain the semblance of piety; 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
flagrantly outraged. We dare not pollute our page with such things as the pontiffs of this
age practised in the face of Rome and the world. The palaces of the worst emperors, the
groves of pagan worship, saw nothing so foul as the orgies of the Vatican. Men 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 successively the pontificate. The attempt were vain to pursue these
fleeting pontifical phantoms. Their brief but flagitious career was ended most commonly
by the lingering horrors 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 Fourth, an Alexander the Sixth (Borgia), a Julius the Second.
These names stand associated with crimes of enormous magnitude. 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, robbery, 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 sanguinary wars, and unhinged society itself. For half a century
rival pontifical thrones stood at Rome and Avignon; and Europe was doomed daily to
listen to the dreadful vollies of spiritual thunder which the rival infallibilities, Urban and
Clement, ever and anon launched at one another, and which, in almost one continuous
and stunning roar, reverberated between the Tiber and the Rhone.[5] 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 scones that signalized 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.[6]

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, and averted its otherwise inevitable fate. It did not suit the
designs of the German emperors that the Papacy should 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.[7] 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.[8] 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.[9] The emperors again nominated the
pope.[10] 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 imperial crown on the emperor's
head. "The prince elected in the German Diet," says Gibbon, "acquired from that instant
the subject kingdoms of Italy and Rome; but he might not legally assume the titles of
Emperor and Augustus, till he had received the crown from the hands of the Roman
pontiff,"[11]--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 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
Arianism; the Franks, from the beginning, had been truly Catholic; 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 material 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, discovered 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.[12] 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 appreciate or unwilling to reward
these important services. They lavished unbounded wealth upon the clergy, their policy
being to bind thereby this important class to their interests. No one was more
distinguished for his munificence in this respect than Henry II. This monarch created
numerous rich benefices; but the rigour with which he insisted upon his right 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 territories. "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."[13] "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."[14] Military service was exacted of these ecclesiastical barons, in return for the
possessions which they held; and not unfrequently 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
inconsistent, a system which commanded them to kill men, but not beasts."[15]

The acquisition of wealth formed an important element in the growth of the Papacy. The
Roman law did not permit lands to be held on mortmain; nevertheless the emperors
winked at the possession by the Church of immoveable possessions, whose revenues
furnished stipends to her pastors and alms to her poor. No sooner did Constantine
embrace Christianity, than an imperial edict invested the Church with a legal right to
what she had possessed hitherto by tolerance only.[16] Neither under the empire, nor
under any of the ten kingdoms into which the empire was ultimately 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 corporation in Europe. A race
of princes had succeeded to the fishermen of Galilee; and the opulent nobles and citizens
of the empire represented that society whose first bonds had been cemented in the
catacombs under the city. Under 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.[17] This vast opulence represented the
accumulations and hoardings of many ages, and had been acquired by innumerable, and
sometimes not very honourable, means. When a wealthy man entered a monastery, his
estate was thrown into the common treasury of the brotherhood. 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 church-
property of which he had been guilty during his lifetime. 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
augmented 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 imitation 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."[18] 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 dominion 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 confederation,--and might well excite
alarm as to the future. Here was a body of men placed under one head, bound together 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 impossible 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 depend 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 authority. 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, patient, and persevering policy was about
to receive its reward. 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 proportions, 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 Gregory VII. Savoy had the honour to give birth to this man. 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 establish 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 fearless 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.[19] 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 determiner of all affairs, both ecclesiastical and civil;
the distributer 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 resolution, he made use
of the ecclesiastical authority and the spiritual sword."[20] The times were favourable in
no ordinary degree. The empire of Germany was enfeebled by the disaffection 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 existed
nowhere. The time invited him, and straightway Gregory set about his high attempt. His
first care was to assemble a Council, in which he pronounced the marriage of priests
unlawful. He next sent his legates throughout the various countries of Europe, to compel
bishops and all ecclesiastics 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 VII. aimed was twofold:--1. To render the election to the
pontifical chair independent of the emperors; and, 2. To resume 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.[21] 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 investitures, 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 investitures which now broke out, and
which "during two centuries distracted the Christian world, and deluged a great portion of
Italy with blood."[22] 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
began 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 century, when a regular gradation of offices or hierarchy was set up, the bishop
chosen by the clergy and people had to be approved of by his metropolitan, as the
metropolitan by his primate. It does not appear that the emperors interfered at all in these
elections, farther than to signify their acceptance or rejection of the persons chosen to the
very 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 comparatively 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,[23] decrees that no clergyman 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 election and ordination of metropolitans and bishops. As regarded 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 decreed that they should be ordained by the metropolitan, and chosen by
the clergy and people.[24] "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."[25] >From the people the right passed to the
sovereigns, who found a plausible pretext for granting investitures of bishops, in the vast
temporalities attached to their 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 introduced
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 absolute manner than it had ever
been by either Greek or Carlovingian monarch. Henry III., 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 II.), 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.[26] But what the
magnanimity of Henry III. 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
emperors, 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.[27] A vague recognition 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 acquiescence
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. Hildebrand 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 VII. He comprehended 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 promulgating 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 permitted to retain in the election of bishops. For
although Gregory had deprived the Emperor of the right of investiture, and in doing so
had broken the bond that held together the civil and spiritual institutions, as Ranke
remarks, and declared a revolution,[28] he did not claim the direct nomination of the
bishops, but referred the choice to the chapters, over which the higher German nobility
exercised very considerable influence. Thus the Pope had the aristocratic interests on his
side in the conflict. Henry, reckless as impotent, proceeded to give mortal offence to his
great antagonist. Hastily assembling a number of bishops and other vassals at Worms, he
procured a sentence deposing 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 excommunicated 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 prostration 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 adherent and reputed
paramour the Countess Matilda, 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.[29] 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, bequeathing 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.[30]

Gregory was gone, but his principle survived. He had left the mantle of his ambition, and,
to a large extent, of his genius also, to his successors, Urban II. and Paschal II. 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 spiritual 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 condition that the Emperor should surrender the right
of investiture. The prelates and bishops of Paschal's court, who saw little attractive in the
episcopate save the temporalities, believed that their infallible master had gone mad, and
raised such a clamour, that the pontiff was obliged to desist from his design.[31] 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 functionaries, while the Emperor was to induct them into
their temporalities, 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 spiritual 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 supremacy. The temporalities might come in some
cases to be lost; but in that age the risk was small; and granting that it was realized, the
loss would be more than counterbalanced by the greatly enlarged spiritual action which
was now secured 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 suffrages had
been deemed essential in former times, but upon the chapters of cathedral churches,[32]
which tended to enlarge the power of the pontiff and the higher clergy. In this way was
the conflict carried on. The extent of supremacy involved in the principle that the Pope is
Christ's Vicar, had been fully and boldly propounded 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
triumphant. 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 enterprises. There never perhaps was an age which was so
completely ecclesiastical and so little spiritual. Spain was reclaimed from Islamism,
Prussia was rescued from Paganism, and both submitted to the authority of the Roman
pontiff. The crusades broke out, and, being religious enterprises, 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 aggrandizement. The same effect attended the wars and convulsions which
disturbed Europe, and which grew out of the struggles of Rome for dominion. These
weakened the secular, but left the vigour of the spiritual element unimpaired. The
deepening ignorance of the masses was exceedingly 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 interests, 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 pontiffs 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 universal bishopric
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 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
tetrarchates, and then only will the Church stand free and untrammelled beneath the
protection of her crowned high priest.'"[33] 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 herself 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 predecessors had sowed in alternate
triumphs and defeats. 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."[34] So lofty were his
notions of the spiritual prerogative, and so much did he regard 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 bodies 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.[35] 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 continued 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 becomes 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 individual. 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 spiritual censures, compelled the creditor to make restitution of 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.[36] 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 thunder, and the castles were
given up. Monarchs, intent only on a present advantage, failed to see that, by accepting
the aid of such a power, they were the abettors of their own future vassalage. The King of
France had offended 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 powerful Philip Augustus
illustrated the boundless spirit and appeased 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 excommunicated, placing his kingdom under interdict,
and compelling 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
Bohemia, 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
these labours had been too little, Innocent, from his seat on 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 acknowledged 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 when 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 recalcitrating sovereigns, fell the full storm of the pontifical ire.
Assembling his vassal kings, he pointed to the peaceful 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 indulgence. 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 inappeasable 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 accomplish 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.[37]

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
pontifical 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 hierarchies of the world over which he ruled, lying foundered and
overthrown, like the spirits in the lake, in the same degrading 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 occupant. Innocent might say, as Caesar
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 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."[38]

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 vulpine 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 reminded of those tragedies and horrors with which the
imagination of Milton has given grandeur to his song. To nothing can we 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 to 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 Christianity, as Satan from with the like fiendish intent of marring and
subjugating it. He had no "narrow frith" to cross; but he held 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
tumultuous cloud" hurried him aloft, and, "that fury stayed," he was anon "quenched in a
boggy Syrtis." Now he was upborne 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 lineaments 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
Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name
Of Demogorgon."

The scheme of Rome, viewed simply as an intellectual conception, 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 from its moral aspect,
compels our admiration, and awakens a feeling of mingled astonishment and terror. The
depth of its essential principles, the boldness of the design, the wisdom and talent brought
into play in achieving its realization, the perseverance 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 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, springing 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 depopulated 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? Where was a shelter found
for the Church during storms so fearful? To understand 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 persecution. 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 Christianity. God placed his Church aloft on the eternal hills, in the
place prepared for her.[39] 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 firmament's calm, white with everlasting snows. Here it is that we find the true
apostolic Church. Here, far from the magnificence 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 them. 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 established in the valley of the Rhone, and in
those provinces of France which border on the Mediterranean or lie contiguous to the
Pyrenees; as also in Lombardy and the towns of northern Italy. In 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 them, they made
admirable workmen. The workshop became a school, conversions went on, and the pure
faith of the mountains extended itself over the plains, like the dawn, first seen on the hill-
tops, but soon to descend and gladden the valley. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries
manufactures and Christianity,--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 manufacturing 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 Rhine, 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 gospels, 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 extinct, and little appeared to be left,
especially in France, "but convents scattered here and there amid vast tracts of
forest,"[40] 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 reposing, after their
struggle of centuries, in the proud consciousness 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 thunder from his Pandemonium against a
faith which had already subjugated provinces, and was threatening to dissolve 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
permission to draw upon it to an unlimited amount, Rome had no motive, and certainly
would have had no thanks, for 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 desolating 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."[41] The
churches and the workshops, the Christianity and the industry, 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; nevertheless they held themselves abundantly
recompensed by the assurance which Rome gave them of crowns and kingdoms in
paradise.

Chapter V.

Foundation and Extent of the Supremacy.

This is the favourable point for taking a view of the character 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 himself, but in triumph to
his system, brings out in striking relief the essential principles, the guiding spirit, and the
unvarying aims, of the popedom. When intelligently contemplated, the Papacy is seen to
be a monarchy of a mixed kind, partly ecclesiastical and partly civil, founded professedly
upon divine right, and claiming universal 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 jure 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 Christendom was his diocese. From this one man flowed all
ecclesiastical honours, offices, acts, and jurisdiction. The pontiffs 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'Aubigné, "claimed the same
power over all the bishops and priests of Christendom that an abbot of Cluny exercises in
the order in which he presides."[1] 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 demonstrated
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 character 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 uncontrolled 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 attempted to prostrate beneath their feet the temporal
as well as the spiritual power, and that they succeeded in their attempt. The history of
Europe from the era of Hildebrand to that of Luther must be blotted out before the
condemnatory 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 attempted
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 unmistakeable
statements. It spent five centuries of intrigue in 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 allegiance, 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 principles of which it is made up,--so inevitably must be the character 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 temporal, 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 indestructible
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,
POSSESSES HIS POWER; BUT THE POPE IS THE VICAR OF CHRIST;
THEREFORE THE POPE IS GOD'S VICAR, 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 temporal
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 vicegerent 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 character. We but perplex ourselves when we
think or speak of it simply as a religion. It contains the religious element, no doubt; but it
is not a religion;--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 authorities 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 constitution, and in
prerogative, it is diverse from all other societies. 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.

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 scabbard. 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."[2] 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 disallowed by the principles, of the
Papacy. On the contrary, nothing is easier than to show that it is a most logical deduction
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 in which he lived;
as is manifest from the fact, that its development was the work of five centuries, and the
joint operation of many hundreds of minds who were successively employed 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 supremacy 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 interdict, 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 deposited 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 Papacy 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 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 endeavouring 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 temporal
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 numerous to permit of this disclaimer obtaining the
least credit from any one, save those who are prepared to receive without 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 VIII., "declare, say, define, and pronounce it to be necessary to salvation, that
every human creature be subject to the Roman pontiff.[3] 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."[4] These sentiments are re-echoed by
Leo X. and his Council of Lateran. "We," says that pope, "with the approbation of the
present holy council, do renew and approve that holy constitution."[5] 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."[6]

"He who reigneth on high," says Pius V., in his introduction 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 Roman 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 whatsoever in regard of dominion,
fidelity, and obedience."[7]

"Snatch up, therefore, the two-edged sword of Divine power committed to thee," was the
address of the Council of Lateran to Leo X., "andenjoin, 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 iron
manacles of censures; for to thee is given all power in heaven and in earth."[8]

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 together we see the popes
reigning over Europe, and demeaning 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 dependence 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 lieutenants 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.[9] But it is improper to despatch in a single sentence what
occupies so large a space in history, and has been the cause of so much suffering,
bloodshed, and war to Europe. Nothing can convey a better or truer picture of the
insufferable arrogance and pride of the pontiffs than their own language on these
occasions.

"For the dignity and defence of God's holy Church" says Gregory VII. (Hildebrand), "in
the name of the omnipotent God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I depose from imperial
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 Christians 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 endeavour to diminish the
majesty of the Church.

"Go to, therefore, most holy princes of the apostles, and what 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? 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."[10]

"We therefore," says Innocent IV. in the Council of Lyons (1245), when pronouncing
sentence of excommunication upon the Emperor Frederick II.,[11] "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 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 wrath,--is conceived in the loftiest pontifical style. "The
authority 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 admonitions, laws, or commands."[12]

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 history of
Europe, not excepting that of our own country, is filled,--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 Christ's vicar. If this be granted,
the pontiff is as really the temporal as the spiritual chief of Europe; and in dethroning
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 supremacy 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 natural 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 ghostly terrors and her material resources to
enforce them. She trampled with inexorable pride upon the dignity 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 nations. Nothing, however
exalted, nothing, however venerable, 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 disposing of but her own; and in
assuming the supreme authority in their kingdoms, she was exercising a right inherent 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 arrogant acts of Gregory and Innocent
did not exceed by a 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 undergone. 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 theory and practice 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; furnishing an instructive specimen of that very peculiar
infallibility which Rome possesses. We distinctly recognise three well-defined and
different opinions, not to mention minute shades and variations, among Romish doctors
on this important 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 sovereigns) 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 postulate, that the Pope is Christ's
vicar. Prior to the Reformation there was scarce a single dissentient from this view of the
supremacy in the Romish Church, if we except the illustrious defenders of the "Gallican
liberties." Theologians, 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 divino, over the
whole world, in both ecclesiastical and civil affairs."[13] "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."[14]

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
temporal 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 accordingly 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, however, lost nothing, in point of fact,
by the Cardinal's logic; for Bellarmine took care to teach, that that indirect temporal
power would carry the pontiff as far, and enable him to do as much, as the direct
temporal authority. This indirect temporal power, the Cardinal taught, was supreme, and
could enable the Pope, for the welfare of the Church, to annul laws and depose
sovereigns.[15] 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,
concealed by the folds of his pontificals. He could knock monarchs on the head with the
spiritual bludgeon; and, having 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? Nothing.

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
subject of the supremacy have undergone a corresponding limitation. 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. There 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 present Pope, who is possessed of so little
temporal power, that he is compelled to submit to the ridicule of the Roman citizens.[16]
De Maistre conveniently forgets that the question 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 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 hold by the Church regarding the papal
supremacy."[17] What sort of power, then, is it which these writers attribute to the Pope?
A purely spiritual power, which, however, may, as they themselves admit, and must, 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 view,
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 occupies 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 sbirri 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 are banished, and a
count[18] of the realm, along with others, whose only crime is attendance at Protestant
worship, and reading the Word of God in Italian, are thrown into the Bargello or common
prison. The sentence of excommunication 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 toleration 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 apostolic see, stand Naples and Austria. The knife of De 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 authors seek to lead the public mind, namely, that the pontifical
direction is not connected, either directly or consequentially, 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 monuments 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 Gosselin and 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;[19] but to the amount to which these acts embodied temporal
jurisdiction, or differed in their mode from direction, the adherents of the modern 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.[20] Now, to this view of the subject there are many
and insuperable objections. The popes themselves give quite a different account of the
matter. When they pronounced sentence of 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 spiritual 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 attached 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
tribuinals. 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 punishment; 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
Hungary because his legate had been stopped in passing through that kingdom. Wherever
duty is involved, there the Pope 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 religion 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 in 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 direction is not tendered in the shape of advice, and so left to guide the
man by its moral force: it is delivered as an infallible 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 kingdom 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 everywhere, and can at a given signal commence simultaneously a system
of opposition and agitation over the whole kingdom. 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 Franzoni lately did to the minister Rosa, and the threat 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 infallible spiritual direction
things sacred and civil are inseparably 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
Edinburgh Review,[21] to cut out Shylock's pound of flesh without spilling a drop of
blood. The recent concordat between the Pope and the Spanish government[22] shows
what a powerful engine the "spiritual jurisdiction" is for the government of a nation in all
its affairs, temporal and spiritual. That concordat 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 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, colleges, seminaries, and public or
private schools, shall be conformable 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 religious education of youth, even in the public schools.

"Art. 3. 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 sufficient 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. 30 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 directs 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; religious 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 the exercises of education or of charity which should be established in them.

The 35th article declares that the government shall provide, 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 returned to the bishops in whose dioceses
it is, as their representatives.[23]

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 concordat 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 concordat 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,--despite 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 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 exchanged 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 concordat 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 exclusive 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, Wurtemberg, Nassau, Hamburg, Frankfort,--all Protestant States; and
of Baden, a semi-Protestant State. The document in which these demands are contained is
entitled, "The Assembled 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.[24] 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 dioceses.

"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 jurisdiction, of the right of
appeal to the secular tribunals. This shall extend from the simple remonstrance to the
removal from office and the loss of emolument. Every attempt 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 excommunicatio latae sententiae.

"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 pastoral 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 enjoyment 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 filling 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, 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 governments of
Germany she retains her exclusive and intolerant spirit, not less than amid the medieval
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 congelation holds fast the Papacy, let the world advance as it may. In the middle
of the nineteenth century it starts up grizzly, ferocious, and bloodthirsty, 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
Germany 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 of 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 tyrannize 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 jurisdiction" transmuting itself immediately and directly into temporal
supremacy. Let us look across St. George's Channel. The British government, pitying the
deep ignorance of the natives of Ireland, wisely resolve to erect a number of colleges in
that dark land, in the hope of mitigating the wretchedness of its people. The priesthood
discover that this scheme interferes with the Church, whose vested right 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 effectually as could be done by a physical
intervention. He issues a bull, denouncing the Irish colleges as godless, and forbidding
every good Catholic, as he values his salvation, to allow his child to enter them. This bull,
given at the Quirinal, makes frustrate the intention of the Queen, and renders 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 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 sovereign 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 paramount 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 of
king, but in his capacity of Christian. The unhappy monarch, we say, would find but little
solace in this nice distinction; and, even at the risk of adding to both his offence and his
punishment, might denounce it as a wretched quibble.[25]

These, then, are the two points between which the supremacy 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 at the one or at the other of these
points, it is supremacy still. We have already indicated[26] 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 between 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 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 century, 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 supremacy, 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 a jurisdiction, and so continued down till the Reformation. Since
that time it has been slowly returning through the intermediate stages of indirect 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 modern theory, to go no higher, all Christendom holds its
conscience 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
governing 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 conscience. 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 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 Caesars 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 motion made up of but a succession of jerks and bounds; here is the Neapolitan
vehicle and the Tuscan vehicle, and others 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
tradition 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 contend 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 and sabres, and that these are often had recourse to to
execute the determinations of infallibility, how can he help it? He must needs discharge
his office as the world's 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 carrying 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.

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
Romish ecclesiastic 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 bottom to the surface of the
ocean. One race of these little builders 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 which 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, but of innumerable minds, all working
intently and laboriously 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 questions 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 infallibility 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 inventions, can regulate with equal ease the affairs of a kingdom
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, seeing 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 be 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 bear
upon the subject we are now discussing,--the 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 complete 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 justice.

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 century, 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 published 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.
Succeeding popes flung their decretals upon the world with a prodigality with which the
diligence of compilers who gathered them up, and formed them into new codes, toiled to
keep pace. Innocent III. and Honorius III. issued numerous 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 jurisprudence, 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 extravagate, or straddle,
outside the others. Succeeding pontiffs, down to Sixtus IV., added their extravagating
articles, which came under the name of Extravagantes Communes. The government of
the world was in some danger of being 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 even 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
materials 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
deliverance 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
permitted 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?[1]
"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 temporal power, or at least the absolute
independence of the former, may be considered as a sort of key-note which regulates
every passage in the canon law. It is expressly declared, 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."[2] "Legislation
quailed," says Gavazzi,[3] "before the new-born code of clerical 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 predominance of the popedom, was ipso facto inimical to heaven and
the God of eternal justice. In virtue of this preposterous prerogative, universal manhood
became a priest's footstool; this planet a huge game-preserve for the Pope's individual
shooting." We repeat, it is this law which Dr. Wiseman 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 ecclesiastical constitutions, but

subordinate to them."[4]

"The law of the emperors cannot dissolve the ecclesiastical law."[5]

"Constitutions (civil, we presume) cannot contravene good manners and the decrees of
the Roman prelates."[6]

"Whatever belongs to priests cannot be usurped by kings."[7]

"The tribunals of kings are subjected to the power of priests."[8]

"All the ordinances of the apostolic seat are to be inviolably observed."[9]

"The yoke which the holy chair imposes must be borne, although it may seem
unbearable."[10]

"The decretal epistles are to be ranked along with canonical scripture."[11]

"The temporal power can neither loose nor bind the Pope."[12]

"It does not belong to the Emperor to judge the actions of the Pope."[13]

"The Emperor ought to obey, not command, the Pope."[14]

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 textbook
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 world. . . . . 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 spiritual 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."[15] But we pursue our quotations.
"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
before God as transgressors against the Catholic faith."[16]

"The Bishop of Rome may excommunicate emperors and princes, depose them from their
states, and assoil their subjects from their oath of obedience to them."[17]

"The Bishop of Rome may be judged of none but of God only."[18]

"If the Pope should become neglectful of his own salvation, 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."[19]

This surely is license enough; and should the pontiff complain 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 allegiance, 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."[20]

"The pontifical authority absolves some from their oath of allegiance."[21]

"The bond of allegiance to an excommunicated man does not bind those who have come
under it."[22]

"An oath sworn against the good of the Church does not bind; because that is not an oath,
but a perjury rather, which is taken against the Church's interests."[23]

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."[24]

"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."[25]

"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."[26]
"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."[27]

Should the Romish priesthood ever come to be a twentieth 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 numerous 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 machinery of the confessional and purgatory to convey the
nation's property into the treasury of their Church; and once there, there for ever. It is
useless henceforth, unless to feed "holy men,"--the term by which Rome designates her
consecrated bands of idle, ignorant, sorning monks, and vagabondising friars and priests.
No wonder that Dr. Wiseman is so anxious to introduce the canon law, which brings with
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 judgment 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 argument, is led away and dissents from the orthodox faith and
Catholic religion which is professed by the Church of Rome."[28] 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 personally, 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 heresy. 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 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.[29]

Pope Honorius II., in his Decretals, speaks in a precisely similar style. Under the head De
Hereticis 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 hostility 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.[30]

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 faithful, so, for the defence of the faith, they publicly make oath that they will
endeavour, bona fide, with all their might, to extirpate from their territories all heretics
marked by the Church; so that when any one is about to assume any authority, 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 heretical pravity, the metropolitan and other
provincial bishops shall bind 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 exterminated, may possess them
unchallenged, and preserve them in the purity of the faith."[31]

"Those are not to be accounted homicides who, fired with zeal for Mother Church, may
have killed excommunicated persons."[32]

We shall add to the above the episcopal oath of allegiance 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 oath only down to the famous clause enjoining the persecution of heretics:--
"I. N., elect of the church of N., from henceforward will be faithful and obedient to St.
Peter the apostle, and to the holy Roman Church, and to our Lord the Lord N. Pope N.,
and to his successors, canonically coming in. I will neither advise, consent, or do
anything that they may lose life or member, or that their persons may be seized, or hands
anywise laid upon them, or any injuries offered to them, under any pretence whatsoever.
The counsel which they shall intrust me withal, by themselves, their messengers, or
letters, I will not knowingly reveal to any to their prejudice. I will help them to defend
and keep the Roman Papacy, and the royalties of St. Peter, saving my order, against all
men. The legate of the apostolic see, going and coming, I will honourably 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 observe with all my might, and
cause to be observed by others. Heretics, schismatics, and rebels to our said lord, or his
foresaid successors, I will to my power persecute and oppose."[33]

Such is a sample of Rome'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 it is by this law that she is desirous
especially to govern Britain. This explains what Rome understands by a spiritual
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 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, combining the laziness of Turks
with the rapacity of Algerines, would speedily spring up; and, to enable them to live in
idleness, 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 is to them only that Dr. Wiseman,
making a virtue of necessity, proposes meanwhile to extend it. Having formed a colony
governed by the code of Rome in the heart of a nation under the code of Britain, the agent
of the Vatican would be able thus to inaugurate his system.. His imperium in imperio,
once fairly set up, would be daily extending by conversions. A Jesuit's school here, a
nunnery and cathedral there, would enlarge the sphere of the canon law, and fasten
silently but tenaciously its manacles upon the community. Give Rome darkness enough,
and she can do anything,--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 subjects 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 continue to obey the
civil laws, they would do so simply because there is an army in 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 require. 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 conducting a parliamentary
opposition down to heading a street brawl, must be done with a view to the account to be
rendered 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.

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. Rome 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 prefers 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 presumption 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 character 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 hierarchy; and many Protestants profess to see not a little
force in his reasoning. But suppose we should grant 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
conform them to the canon law. "You allowed me," would the doctor say, "to introduce
the canon law, and yet you forbid me 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 repelled. It will use the Constitution to undermine the
Constitution. 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 canon law.
Surveying 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 forgo 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.

[1] This account of the canon law is compiled from the Horae Juridicae Subsecevae of
Butler, pp. 145-184; Lond. 1807. "The modern period," observes Butler, "of the canon
law begins with the Council of Pisa, and extends to the present time." Its principal parts
are the canons of modern 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. [Back]

[33] "Haereticos, schismaticos, et rebelles eidem domino nostro, vel successoribus

praedictis, pro posse persequar et impugnabo." This form of the oath is quoted from
Barrow, who 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 enlarged and made more stringent,--illustrative of the encroaching spirit of
the popes. (See Decret. Gregorii, lib. ii. tit. xxiv.)

We subjoin (Ex Bullario Laertii Cherubini; Romae 1638) the more remarkable clauses of
the bull in Coenae Domini, annually published at Rome on Maunday Thursday, in order,
as we are informed in the preface, "to exercise the spiritual sword of ecclesiastical
discipline and wholesome weapons of justice by the ministry of the supreme apostolate,
to the glory of God and salvation of souls."

"1. We excommunicate and anathematize, 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, Wicliphists, Lutherans, Zuinglians, Calvinists, Hugonets, Anabaptists,
Trinitarians, and apostates from the Christian faith, and all other heretics, by whatsoever
name they are called, and of whatsoever sect they be; as also their adherents, receivers,
favourers, and generally any defenders of them; together 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 withdraw
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 universities, colleges, and chapters, by
whatsoever name they are called; who 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 was made.

"15. Also those who, under pretence of their office, or at the instance of any party, or of
any others, draw, 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 imprisoning 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 ecclesiastical 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 prohibitions, and even penal mandates, to be decreed against the said
ordinaries and delegates, 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 usurp 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 revenues 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 instances, 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 persons
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. [Back]

Chapter VII.

That the Church 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 pretend (much better than divers
other points of great importance) 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
mother, or faithful scholars of that mistress? How can they acknowledge any authority in
that Church to be infallible, or certain, or obliging to assent. No man apprehending it
false, seemeth capable, with good conscience, to hold communion with those who profess
it; for, upon supposition 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."[1]

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 circumstances? So far from this, it
can be shown, that though Gosselin and other modern writers have attempted to apologise
for the past usurpations of the Papacy, and to explain the grounds on which these acts
were based, as being not so much definite principles as popular beliefs and concessions;
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 circumstances 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 renunciation be produced.
The fact is notorious, that she did depose monarchs. When or where has she confessed
that in doing so she stopped out of her sphere, and was betrayed 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, we 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 disavowals 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-ordinate
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 warranted 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 principle or power from within. Her prerogatives have sometimes been
wrested from her, but never without the Church of Rome putting on record her solemn
protest. She has declared that the authority of which she was deprived was rightfully hers,
and that to forbid her to use it was an unrighteous 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 giving 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 infallible, 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 recognised as sound, or held to be obligatory,
is perfectly allowable 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 appertaining 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. It is a double thraldom
which she has perpetrated: she has enslaved the human understanding, and she has
enslaved herself. The dogma of infallibility, like a chain which mortal 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 Rome 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 thousand 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 astronomy, 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 falling into gross error, why, we think
the world might do as well without as with infallibility. A prophet that restricts his
vaticinations to what has already come to pass, possesses no great share of the prophetic
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 extended plain; 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 unchangeableness with which it
endows the Church of Rome,--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
trigonometrical survey of Britain in our own times, and those annual measurements of
their fields which were wont to be undertaken by the early Egyptians on the reflux of the
Nile, there is an intervening period of not less than forty centuries, and yet the two
processes were based on the identical geometrical truths. The two angles at the base of an
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 existence. 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 unchangeable 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 attribute 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 argument on a very memorable
occasion. After the assassination of Henry IV. by the Jesuits, it was proposed, for the
future security of government, to abjure the papal doctrine 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 depose 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 of French doctors, 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 arguments.

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 amendment 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 principles. 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;[2] 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."[3] Anything, therefore, that would go to annihilate 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. It has no middle path. Aut Caesar aut
nullus. The Pope is Christ's vicar, and so lord of the earth and of all its empires, 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 influence 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 persons. 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 action, 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 mummy, carry it into the latitude of
Britain, and bury it ill 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 dispositions 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
kingdoms.

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 growing 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
the rely for rendering the Papacy milder in spirit, and more tolerant in policy, are the very
influences which are communicating a more defined stamp to its bigotry and a keener
edge to its malignity. By an inevitable consequence, 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 very 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 of 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
introduce 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 progress 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 pontificate, was the primary
principle of the Papacy more vigorously or unequivocally asserted, than it has been by
the present pontiff. In his encyclical letter against the circulation of the Bible[4] 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
apostles, 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 might 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 belong 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 transient 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 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 certain than this, that the essential principles of the
system being the same, they will, in the same circumstances, practice 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 principles, 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 is 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? Is not universal dominion as tempting an object 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 spiritual 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
authority and influence of the Church? In times like the present, pontiffs may affect to
undervalue the temporal supremacy; 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 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 retreat at Gaeta
the bitterest execrations and the most dreadful anathamas against all who had been
concerned in the act of stripping him of his sovereignty. So far was Pius from betaking
himself to the spiritual solace for which he had so thirsted, that he plunged headlong into
the darkest intrigues and conspiracies against the independence of Italy, and sent his
messengers 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 advocates 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 independence 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 objects 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 inconveniences and
dangers than those likely to arise from the loss of the latter? When we confound the
distinction between things civil and sacred, or rather,--for the error of Rome properly lies
here,--when we deny the co-ordinate jurisdiction of the two powers, and subordinate the
temporal to the spiritual, there is no limit to the amount of temporal power which may not
be possessed and exercised by spiritual functionaries. If to possess any degree of
temporal jurisdiction conduce to the authority of ecclesiastical rulers and the good of the
Church, then the 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 supremacy over thrones. The glory
of his court, and the numbers of his returns, 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 rebellions nations,
and reduce to obedience heretical sovereigns, when able to point against them the
combined temporal and spiritual 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 cardinals be able to take high ground at foreign courts, when they
can tell their sovereigns, "The Pope is as much your master as ours?" 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 that, were
the times favourable, they 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
Reformation. 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 extinguished 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 revolutionary wave, and be floated to
the lofty seat it had formerly occupied. "Your Holiness has but one choice,"
Cicerovacchio 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 astonished 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 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-
measures 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, dominant Papacy once more. In order that it may
exist, it must reign. We may therefore expect to witness some combined 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 herself 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 revolution 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 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 expedition 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 counselled 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 revolution 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 no where 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 where 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 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
equilibrium 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 antagonist,--the supremacy is
again in her hands. With Democracy collapsed, with the State exhausted and owing its
salvation to the Church, and with a priesthood burning to avenge the disasters and
humiliations of three centuries, wo to Europe!--the darkest page of its history would be
yet to be written.

THE PRIESTHOOD
By Richard Bennett of Berean Beacon

INTRODUCTION TO THE PRIESTHOOD BY A CONVERTED PRIEST

A common thread that runs throughout the experiences of former priests is this: we had a
great yearning to be different from those around us. We wanted to be more pure, nearer to
God. We wanted to be free in conscience before God, and we sought the priesthood in
which we thought we could administer salvation stage by stage to our fellow man.

The nobility and charm of the priesthood also drew us, as priests around us were signally
honored with special privileges and dignity. Hearing confessions, forgiving sins, bringing
Christ down upon the altar, the wonder of being "another Christ", all of these attracted us.
In the words of Graham Greene's novel on the subject, we were drawn by "the power and
the glory".

We did not question:

1. That there is an office of sacrificial priesthood in the New Testament.

2. That the priest's life revolves around the sacraments.

3. That we were fit subjects to be elevated to this honor. We had all worked hard at being
"holy" so we took for granted that a right standing with God was something that we could
merit.

1. The Office of the Priesthood

In the early 1970s we who gloried in being priests were shocked to read the word of one
of our best Roman Catholic Scripture scholars, Raymond E. Brown:

When we move from the Old Testament to the New Testament, it is striking that while
there are pagan priests and Jewish priests on the scene, no individual Christian is ever
specifically identified as a priest. The Epistle to the Hebrews speaks of the high
priesthood of Jesus by comparing his death and entry into heaven with the actions of the
Jewish high priest who went into the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle once a year with a
offering for himself and for the sins of his people (Hebrews 9:6-7).

But it is noteworthy that the author of Hebrews does not associate the priesthood of Jesus
with the Eucharist or the Last Supper; neither does he suggest that other Christians are
priests in the likeness of Jesus. In fact, the once-for-all atmosphere that surrounds the
priesthood of Jesus in Hebrews 10:12-14, has been offered as an explanation of why there
are no Christian priests in the New Testament period.1

Later in the same chapter Brown argues for a priesthood like that of the Levitical class in
the Old Testament. He makes his case for the development of such a doctrine by means
of tradition. Even those of us who knew very little of the Bible knew that the Pharisees
counted tradition superior to the clear Word of God. Brown did more to demolish the
conviction that we were indeed priests than to ease our troubled minds.

Now I see that what Brown stated in the section quoted is biblically and absolutely true.
Other than the royal priesthood, which applies to all true believers in Christ, there is no
office of priesthood in the New Testament. Rather, as Hebrews states so clearly of the
Old Testament priests, "And they truly were many priests, because they were not suffered
to continue by reason of death: But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an
unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that
come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them" (Hebrews
7:23-25) "Unchangeable priesthood" means just that in the Greek: aparabatos means
"untransferable". The reason it cannot be transferred to men is that its essence is Christ's
own, ..who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the
heavens" (verse 26).

2. The Priest's Life Revolves around the Sacraments

The second presupposition was that the Roman Catholic sacraments gave, as our
catechism books said, "outward signs of inward grace". Our mindset, in the words of
Canon 840, was that the sacraments "...contribute in the highest degree to the
establishment, strengthening and manifestation of ecclesiastical communion".2 In fact,
the sacraments themselves were for us the center of salvation and of sanctification.

For example, regarding confession to a priest, Canon 960 declared that it was "the only
ordinary way by which the faithful person who is aware of serious sin is reconciled with
God". Rather than proclaiming the finished work of Christ Jesus as the answer to the
problem of our sinful nature and personal sin record, our lives revolved around these
physical signs. Some of us were shocked to read in Dollinger (the most respected Roman
Catholic historian) that the sacrament of penance (confession) was unknown in the West
for 1,100 years and never known in the East.

Dollinger said, "So again with Penance. What is given as the essential form of the
sacrament was unknown in the Western Church for eleven hundred years, and never
known in the Greek."3 How could this be? The bishops were declared to be high priests
"first and foremost" (Canon 835). Were not we as priests also declared to be dispensers of
the sacramental system? In the light of God's Word, this was magic rather than the gospel
message.

The New Testament has two signs as instituted by the Lord; yet rather than the two signs,
center stage in the Bible is the proclaimed message. But for us the sacraments
themselves were of major importance. Every day began with Mass. Our doubts regarding
the physical sacraments as central to our life with God began from experience. Many of
us, priests for many years, had baptized countless infants, and had said the words, "I
absolve you," over countless heads. We had anointed many aged, sick and accident
victims with the words, "May the Lord who frees you from sin save you and raise you
up."

Year after year we saw the children we had baptized as infants grow up as pagan as the
pagans on the mission field. The myriads of people over whose heads we had pronounced
absolution came up off their knees as much sinners after our words as before them. When
the sick and the aged were neither saved nor "raised up", it was then that some of us
dared to check the Bible. Here we discovered: "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh
profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life" (John
6:63).

"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Not of works, lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9).
The verses in Ephesians shocked us most of all. Our standard definitions of sacraments
defined them as "works", as in the famous Canon 8 of the Council of Trent: "If anyone
says that by the sacraments of the New Law grace is not conferred ex opere operato [from
the work worked], but that faith alone in the divine promise is sufficient to obtain grace,
let him be anathema."4

It was difficult even to begin to doubt the sacraments. Much of our time was absorbed by
these and other physical signs. During Lent or Holy Week, for example, we had to make
arrangements for procuring and putting in order the newly blessed oils, the Pascal candle,
the Pascal fire, the palms, the ashes from last year's palms, the processional cross, the
thurible with its charcoals and incense, the purple, red and white vestments, and so on.
How could any of us dare to hear the Lord's principle stated so clearly in John 6:63: "It is
the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing."

But hear the words we did, as these testimonies bear witness. The Father drew us,
showing us our own worthlessness and the sufficiency of his Word. As Jesus said to the
Father, "Thy word is truth".(John 17:17).

3. Unfit Subjects for Honor

The last presupposition was the most deeply rooted within us. As a child, before ever
wanting to become a priest, I had labored at being "holy". During Lent I would "offer up"
candy and sweet drinks to be a better Catholic. I visited nine churches in one day praying
alternately "Our Father" six times, "Hail Mary" six times and "Glory Be" six times in
each church. Some of us played at being holy by giving white peppermints to our friends
when they would kneel down, as if we were the priest giving communion.

As priests, most of us were very enthusiastic about Vatican Council II. When the
documents were published, some of us preached from them. One of the most popular
documents was "The Church in the Modern World". But when the excitement had
calmed, those of us who studied it saw the same message we had lived and preached.
Paragraph. 14 states, "...Nevertheless man has been wounded by sin... When he is drawn
to think about his real self he turns to those deep recesses of his being where God who
probes the heart awaits him, and where he himself decides his own destiny in the sight of
God." Paragraph. 17 continues, "Since human freedom has been weakened by sin it is
only by the help of God's grace that man can give his actions their full and proper
relationship to God."5

This type of modern teaching seemed very much like the old message. The old message
was also contained in Vatican Council II documents in a less popular document, No. 6,
Indulgentiarum Doctrina, Paragraph. 6 which states: From the most ancient times in the
Church good works were also offered to God for the salvation of sinners, particularly the
works which human weakness finds hard...
Indeed, the prayers and good works of holy people were regarded as of such great value
that it could be asserted that the penitent was washed, cleansed and redeemed with the
help of the entire Christian people."6

All these teachings were endorsed by messages at Lourdes and at Fatima. That many
souls go to hell because there is no one to pray and to do penance for them was part of
our third and biggest presupposition. Grace was, of course, presupposed; but it is you
who by means of your suffering and good works merit salvation for yourself and for
others.

This is the net in which all of us who lived the works gospel so intensely were most
deeply entangled by Roman Catholicism. This two-fold presupposition; that we were
somehow holy and right before a holy God because we had prayed and suffered, and that
we would continue as holy and righteous men to practise our religion, became our biggest
undoing.

Mankind's Condition Before The Holy God Christ Jesus describes man's nature. "That
which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. For from within, out of the heart of
men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness,
wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these
evil things come from within, and defile the man" (Mark 7:20-23). See also Jeremiah
17:9: "The heart is deceitful above all things; and desperately wicked; who can know it?

Both Old and New Testaments tell us that we are spiritually dead to God. Adam's sin
brought death (Genesis 2:17). Ezekiel states, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die" (Ezekiel
18:20) and Romans 6:23 says, "The wages of sin is death." We are not simply "wounded"
as Roman Catholics believe. We are spiritually dead.

The Biblical Message of Salvation We find the remedy for this situation in both Old and
New Testaments. The prophet Isaiah declares: "But he was wounded for our
transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon
him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have
turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all".
Peter and John tell us: "ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold,
from your vain conversation received by tradition from our fathers; but with the precious
blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot". "And he is the
propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world" (I
Peter 1:18-19, I John 2:2)

The Bible clearly states that salvation was Christ's work and his alone: ". . .by himself
purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high" (Hebrews 1:3).

Romans 3:26 says that God is "just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus".
One is saved by God's work. Salvation is God's majestic, finished work. Woven through
these testimonies is the same scarlet thread of God's sovereign grace. Before him, each
person is dead in sin. By grace one is saved, through faith.
What the Bible has to say about priesthood becomes crystal clear in these personal
testimonies of men who experienced both the false and the true priesthood (the
priesthood of every believer in the once for all sacrifice of Christ Jesus).

The best summary of what happened to these men in the Roman Catholic priesthood is
found in the words of Paul in II Corinthians 4:1-2: "Therefore seeing we have this
ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not; But have renounced the hidden things
of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by
manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight
of God."

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR

Richard Bennett was trained by the Jesuits all of his elementary and high school years in
Ireland, where he was born. He had eight years of intense education and formation by the
Dominican Order, finishing at the Angelicum University in Rome, Italy, in 1964. He
spent twenty-one years as a Roman Catholic priest in Trinidad, West Indies.

In 1986, he was saved by God's grace alone and formally left the Roman Catholic Church
and its priesthood. He is married and settled in Portland, Oregon. Since 1990, he has been
director of the evangelistic outreach, Berean Beacon, whose primary task is to evangelize
the lost, particularly Roman Catholics, and to inform evangelical Christians by speaking
and by distributing literature and tapes concerning Roman Catholicism.

In 1994, he published the book, Far from Rome, Near to God: The Testimonies of Fifty
Former Catholic Priests, of which he and Martin Buckingham of England are the editors.
The book is presently in its second edition and is published by The Banner of Truth
Trust. It is also published in Italian, and Polish, and will soon be available in Spanish,
Chinese, and Tagalog. He has also published The Truth Set us Free: Twenty Former
Nuns Tell Their Stories. He has written several tracts for evangelizing Roman Catholics,
available in Spanish, English, and other languages.