nipped by frosts, and torn by tempests.

Long

before this, however, certain of the monastic orders, in consequence of their too ample revenues, had deviated from their primitive austerity, and were, in the language of the day, totally given up to luxury and indolence.

About the beginning of the thirteenth century, the four orders of the mendicant, or begging friars, were introduced, commonly denomi nated Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites, and Augustins; who, by being destitute of fixed possessions, by the severity of their manners, by

professed contempt of riches, and by an unwearied perseverance in the duties of preaching and prayer, might restore respect to the monastic institutions, and recover the honours of the church. The intent, indeed, failed; and from the transcendent degree of authority which the Franciscans and Dominicans in particular acquired, and, exactly as it has since happened with respect to the Jesuits, they became gall ing, and universally odious. For nearly three centuries, their ambition was unbounded, and their arrogance intolerable. Ball, who was himself a Carmelite, says, "These orders began to lose their estimation about the year 1460.

The extravagancies committed by the clergy, in the middle ages, are, in reality, scarcely to be credited. The deans of many cathedrals in France, for instance, entered on their dignities, habited in the surplice, girt with a sword, in boots and gilt spurs, and with a hawk on the hand. Nay, we sometimes find them conferring the rank and title of secular nobility even on the saints. Saint James was actually created a baron at Paris. These absurdities, however, of the clergy, and the high pretensions of the court of Rome, were very early attacked. Pierre de Valdo, in the twelfth century, rose up against them. Wickliffe, in the thirteenth century, followed his example. And John Huss, besides many others in the fifteenth century, were burnt for their heretical doctrines. Happily for mankind, truth was not for ever buried with the ashes of her advocates.

The title of Pope, or Papa, was originally given indiscriminately to all bishops and patriarchs; and it was only towards the end of the eleventh century, that Gregory VII. obtained, at a general council, that this appellation should be confined to the see of Rome. In the Greek church, the ancient mode continues to this day.

* Du Cange.

+ Froissart.

By

By this assumption, however, and its co-relative impositions, all true religion, which can be founded only in inward conviction and free choice, was effectually discarded, and the infallible morality of a tainted conclave was substituted in its room. By pretending to be the Catholic, or universal church, and to have received the power of the keys, or the right of damning and saving from St. Peter, the Pope thus usurped a dominion over consciences, lorded it over God's heritage, and claimed and exercised a power, absolutely inconsistent with private judgment, rational enquiry, and freedom of choice: and all this, under the pretence of a sacred deposition, left with the holy see, and derived to it by an uninterrupted, regular, visible and lineal succession of bishops from St. Peter; though it never could be proved, by any authentic evidence, that Peter ever was at Rome, or that his apostolical office and character could ever have admitted of his being bishop there.

L

At Antioch, in Syria, this hierarchical form of government began, and not at Rome. Antioch was the mother church, till the conversion of the Roman emperors shut her out, and established those of Rome and Constantinople. But the bishops and emperors, in truth, behaved universally

so ill, that in process of time it was thought necessary, that there should be something more than the invisible operation of the spirit. An infallible living judge was accordingly appointed; who,-vested with supreme authority, arrogated to himself all power in heaven and earth, and declared himself the only vicar and vicegerent of Christ.

This, it was hoped, would produce peace and unity; for most were content to believe, as the church believed, without knowing what or why. No man, in such days, and under such coercion, it was well known, could be damned but for want of money; and the church kept at first a reasonable market, where little else was talked of but buying and selling of souls. In all this, of course, damnation, though certainly commutable at small expence, was the great and useful engine. Nothing less, it was denounced, than the eternal torments of hell could be the portion of those, who wilfully refused obedience to the church. In other concerns, we know that superstitious errors have only the patronage of superstitious individuals; that men examine them, unrestrained by any authority claimed under a sanction from God or religion; and that they even take a pleasure in laying open every weakness and folly of unreasonable

unreasonable opinions. But here the grossest, and the most monstrous fallacy was sanctified.. Human reason was chained in the most abject state of degradation; and falsehood was placed in the chair of truth.

But whence comes this weakness, that men, with complacency, can reconcile themselves to fraud, and with inflexible constancy, can persevere even in the support of knavery? It has been believed, that truth must receive strength from age; while error must dissolve at its approach; opinionum commenta delet dies, nature judicia confirmat. And I hope it in general is so. But we have unhappily too much experience to instruct us, that if, agreeably to mythologists, truth be the daughter of time, time is as inevitably the vassal of error. Transported as it were, to more than a third heaven, the hierarchy thus vauntingly strode over the trembling and prostrate Christian world. Casting her eyes around, from her lofty Olympus, she saw mankind every where her slaves. Thus finding herself enshrouded in decrees and confessions, bulls and creeds, she smiled contemptuously on all inferior powers, and in the delirium of self-sufficiency, fancied her reign eternal. U 4

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