Agreeable to all this was one fingular mafter-stroke of infolence which deferves particular notice. It fo happened, that many of the popish inftitutions were directly contrary to the precepts and examples recorded in the New Teftament: one thing therefore was neceffary, which once admitted obviates entirely this difficulty to their reception, and that was to decree, as pope Nicholas did about the year 870, that the pope's laws and letters fhould be of equal authority with the Scriptures.

And again, whereas the fecurity of the kingdom of this fpiritual fovereign ftood in darkness and ignorance, he and his adherents finding it neceffary, in order to maintain themfelves in the peaceable poffeffion of this their kingdom, did arrogate unto themfelves a right of cenfuring and licensing all forts of books whatsoever; by which means, they were effectually empowered to hinder any thing from coming to light, which might be prejudicial to their own intereft.

But it was not fufficient for this mighty prince, thus to have established to himself an empire over the confciences of men in fpiritual matters, but he must exercise it also in temporals, and over kings and emperors.

Indeed the example of him who was Lord of all, who was the most perfect pattern of humility and meeknefs, ftood in his way, as did also that exprefs declaration of his to his difciples, (Mark x.) "Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercife lordship over them, and their great ones exercise authority upon them; but fo it fhall not be among you; but whofoever will be great among you, fhall be your minifter, and whofoever will be the chiefeft fhall be fervant of all;" and therefore it feemed to him but decent, to put on the cloke of humility, and call himself Servus Servorum; but if one were to judge from his conduct, he were in

reality rather King of kings, and Lord of lords, viz. when he took upon him the difpofal of kingdoms and empires, as is well known of pope Adrian IV. who gave this kingdom of Ireland unto Henry II. king of England, and of pope Innocent III. who A. D. 1195, crowned Otho the emperor, and afterwards depofed him again, faying, It lies in my power to fet up and pluck down emperors, kings, and princes, at my pleasure, for all power is given unto me both in heaven and in earth.' And by the fame pope was the kingdom of England interdicted, king John excommunicated, and his fubjects abfolved from their oaths of allegiance; and in the year of our Lord 1212, the king was depofed, 'and the kingdom of England and lordship of Ireland, by him refigned unto the pope: and the fame king did thenceforward acknowledge himself a vaffal to the holy fee, and as fuch bound himself to pay the yearly tribute of one thousand marks, viz. feven hundred for England aud three hundred for Ireland.* That the popes did really, in fome of the most effential concerns, invade the rights of princes to a great degree, may appear from hence, that pope John XXII. by his fole authority published a truce between England and Scotland, against the confent of one of the parties, and empowered his legates to conclude a peace between the two kingdoms, upon what terms they pleased, with orders to compel the two kings and their subjects punctually to keep it, under pain of excommunication.†

Next to the pope's pride, it remains that I give fome account of his cruelty.

The great and glorious event of the birth of our Lord Jesus Chrift, was introduced by that angelic acclamation, (Luke xi 14.) "Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace and good will to men;" and Christ himself was the author of the new commandment, (John xiii. 34, 35), "Love one another," and laid

down this as a standing characteristic by which his difciples fhould be diftinguished, viz. that they loved one another.

Now, if war, bloodshed, and the deftruction of one another (even among the profeffors of faith in the fame Jesus) be inftances of peace and marks of love and good-will to men, then the pretended vicar of Christ Jefus had them; but if these things be marks of hatred, he wants the diftinguifhing badge of a disciple of Chrift; and fince, in the language of the apostle John, (1 John iv. 20.) "If a man fay, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar," this appellation fuits him better, whilft, under the profeffion of being. a reprefentative of the Lamb of God, he is fpreading defolation and deftruction among men.

Again the apostle faith, (2 Tim. ii. 24, 28) "The fervant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness inftructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the Truth." And the weapons of the welfare of the primitive Christians were not carnal: but the weapons and methods the pope ufually had recourfe to for the overcoming of those who opposed him were carnal, and the reverse of gentlenefs, patience, and meekness; for whereas it is notorious, that especially from the year 1160, to the year 1170, divers were by God's good Providence raised up to bear a publick teftimony against the many grofs corruptions that had crept into the church, these were fure to do this with the hazard of their lives and liberties, among whom were the followers of Wickliff, called Lollards in England, and the Waldenfes in France, many of whom were burned to death, and others fcattered into divers countries by perfecution; and a few years after thofe rofe the Albigenfes in the city of Tholoufe, against whom the pope incenfed fent Dominic, with feveral miffionaries called inquifitors, into the county

of Tholoufe, and employed armies against them, and destroyed above two hundred thousand in the space of fome months.*

In the maffacre of Paris, A. D. 1572, the number deftroyed is computed at one hundred thoufand, the news whereof, as Thuanus tells us, they received at Rome with tranfports of pleasure, and the pope and cardinals inftantly repaired to St. Mark's to thank God for fo great a favour conferred on the fee of Rome, and appointed a Jubilee over the whole Chriftian world for this flaughter of thofe called Hereticks in France.

In the Irish maffacre one hundred and fifty thousand Proteftants, according to the most moderate computation, were murdered in cold blood. Nor are there wanting later inftances of the continuance of the fame cruel difpofition, parlicularly the perfecution in France under Lewis XIV. the cruelties at Thorn in Poland, and on the poor Saltzburghers ftripped of all they had and driven from their habitations, and ftill more recent examples might be produced to the fame purpose.

In fhort, we are affured from good authority that far more blood hath been fhed by the papal empire and its agents, than ever was fhed by Rome heathen: and indeed perhaps it may with too much truth bet obferved, that when ecclefiaftical men once become corrup they feem zealous to outstrip not only laymen, but even heathens and infidels, and to have exercised far more cruelty in inflicting their punishments than either of thefe; for, in fome of the courts of inquifition (erected firft in the kingdom of him called the Catholick king, about the year 1479) any one not convicted, but barely fufpected of herefy, is by various tortures tempted to accufe himself (contrary to common law) and his goods are confifcated

*Sermons against Popery, A. D. 1735. ↑ The Life of Oliver Cromwell.

(not after conviction, but) when they first apprehend him; and whatever process is carried on against him no perfon knoweth, but only the holy fathers and the tormentors who are fworn to execute the torments. The accufation is fecret, the crime is fecret, and so is the witnefs; and even the prifoner in his examination fwears inviolably to keep fecret the affairs of the inquifition, a method of procedure which the ancient heathens would undoubtedly have abhorred, as we may learn from the xxiv. xxv. and xxvi. chapters of the Acts. And although Chrift Jefus exprefsly forbids his difciples to call for fire from heaven to confume fuch as would not receive him, yet his profeffed reprefentative hath (by his agents) frequently called for and actually applied fire to the confuming the bodies of fuch as would not receive his impofitions; and with refpect to the torments of the inquifition, it is obferved that the final execution is not by common burning, but by a flow fire; and moreover, if the fuppofed heretick has been dead, though many years, the procefs is carried on against him as if he were alive, and he is burnt in effigy with his bones, even as were the bones of that eminent reformer John Wickliff, after he had been dead forty-one years, taken out of the grave by a decree of the fynod of Conftance, and publickly burnt, and the afhes thrown into the river.*

And when John Hus, another reformer, was condemned to be burnt by the fynod of Conftance, seven bishops degraded him, and then a proper mitre was put on his head, &c. and the prelates delivered his body to be burnt, adding these words: And we devote thy foul to the devil in Hell.' Such was the cruelty peculiar to ecclefiafticks, whereas when our temporal judges pronounce fentence against the worst

See the Hiftory of the Inquifition at Goa, and the History of the English Martyrs.