duals, and in the ultimate prevalence of pure and practical religion:-but there is not a single passage of them all, on which an unbiassed man of plain good sense and moderate biblical knowledge, could ever hang the monstrous dogma, that INFALLIBILITY in religious doctrines should be the certain, exclusive, hereditary, possession of a body of clergymen not the most honoured in history for their wisdom or their morality!

(2.) They appeal to it as a known and incontrovertible FACT, that "the members of the Roman Catholic Church,-though exceeding

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numerous, and spread throughout the whole "known world, and differing from one another "in almost every thing else, yet are all most perfectly united in religion; they every where "believe the same divine truths, profess the "same faith, teach the same doctrine, preach "the same gospel.".

What confidence must these writers have in the credulity or the ignorance of their readers!The whole Roman Catholic church, taken either with or without its lay-members, never did, and never could, explicitly and with rational understanding, agree on any point whatever: for at no period of time has it been possible for them to congregate, propose, understand, deliberate, and

unanimously conclude. The very supposition is ridiculous. Their boasted councils have never included all the bishops of their own communion. Those assemblies have been managed with all kinds of intrigue and violence; and their determinations have been, at best, but the opinions of the majority. The existing agreement, represented as a "most perfect union," is notoriously nothing more than the dictation of the few, and the tame, compulsory, and usually ignorant acquiescence of the many. Popes and councils have often disagreed with each other and with themselves, altering and rescinding their decrees and decisions. During what Roman Catholics themselves call the great schism,* there were two, and at one time three, rival popes, cursing and excommunicating each other and their respective adherents, each claiming infallibility, and filling Europe with the misery of their contentions. On many points of doctrine and practice, most violent dissensions have raged in the Church of Rome; and have been accompanied with no small measure of persecution. Obvious examples occur in the intestine feuds of the Franciscans, in the disputes of that order with the Dominicans, in the quarrels of the scholastic parties, and in the celebrated controversy in the seventeenth century between the Jesuits and

* From 1378 to 1417.

the Jansenists on predestination and grace. In these disputes, different popes have taken opposite sides, and the same pope has changed his side.

Thus groundless is the pretence of infallibility, on an alleged perpetual uniformity; an uniformity which, if it had existed, would have been indeed a marvellous thing, but could have supplied no real argument of either truth or falsehood.

4. We deny the lawfulness of the office of POPE itself, and maintain that it is an unreasonable, unscriptural, and most pernicious usurpation.

Our reasons for thus maintaining, as they apply to the pretension of a divine right, have been stated. But some modern Catholics, distrusting, perhaps, the old-fashioned claim, have advanced an argument from expediency.

We may discover, says M. Chateaubriand, "something sublime in the establishment of a "common father in the very centre of christen"dom, within the precincts of the eternal city

once the seat of empire, now the metropolis "of christianity; to annex to that venerable "name sovereignty and princely power; and to "intrust him with the high commission of ad

vising and rebuking monarchs, of repressing. "the ardour and intemperance of rival nations, "of of raising the pacific crosier between the

Ꭰ

"swords of warring sovereigns, and checking "alike the fury of the barbarian and the

venge

Fair picture, but visionary and treacherous! -We appeal to all history and ask, When has it been, in any respectable degree, realized? The dominion of the Popes has been any thing but the reality of this representation. When has the Roman crosier been lifted up to promote peace, benevolence, or even common equity, among the nations of Europe?-No: to stir up the vilest passions of men, to foment national dissensions, to promote usurpations, assassinations, persecution, war, and public misery;→ these have, in fact, been the usual objects to which the influence of the Popes has been applied, till the modern diminution of their power, in consequence of the prevalence of Protestant principles, taught them some lessons of moderation.

The Pope is the True Vicar, or Vicegerent, of Jesus Christ!-Audacious and impious pretence! It plainly involves that Christ is absent from his charge, though he has promised to be with it "all the days" of time," to the end of "the world;"† or that he is negligent; or that

* Cited by an accomplished catholic priest, who, with more eloquence than justice, labours in the same cause :-See Mr. Eustace's Classical Tour through Italy, vol. ii. p. 649.

+ Matt. xxviii. 20.

he is incompetent.-No, my christian brethren, Christ needs no such officer as this impostor

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pretends to be. My kingdom," he saith, "is "not of this world: if my kingdom were of this "world, then would my servants fight." "The princes of the gentiles exercise dominion over έσ them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it SHALL NOT BE SO “ among you.”*

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REASON II.

The Roman Catholic religion tends to weaken and destroy the very ESSENTIAL principles of personal religion.

In making this charge, I do not advance the statements which are very commonly adduced, that, according to the Roman Catholic doctrine, the power of dispensing with moral obligations, and the forgiveness of sins in the proper and full sense of the term forgiveness, are in the competency and at the disposal of priests, bishops, or the pope.-It is, however, an unquestionable fact, that such claims have been made, and carried to the most horrid length of impiety, by casuists, canonists, and divines; and have been published

* John xviii. 36. Matt. xx. 25, 26.-For a complete refutation of the pretences from antiquity, the reader will be well' rewarded by consulting Dr. Isaac Barrow's Treatise of the Pope's Supremacy.