Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

position that the spirit which enjoined them is by any means extinct.

It is worse than nothing to say that they are of force only where they are received. The safety of Protestants requires that they should not be received at all, under any pretext or in any case. Until this is so, the Protestant must ever be insecure, where there is the power to put them in force.

Once for all, be it permitted here to consider how partial and inadequate any other appeal than that to the articles and canons of the church of Rome must be, as to the questions agitated concerning the doctrines maintained by the Roman Catholics. What the doctrines of any church, as such, are, can be known, so as to be relied upon, only by its articles and canons. They are the code of its legislation; and though, as in every other code, there may be points, which may be suffered to lie dormant, interpreted occasionally with lenity, or wished abrogated by individuals; still, whilst the letter of the statute subsists unaltered, it is in force, and nothing but the formal repeal by the competent power annuls it,

Hence then it follows, that the opinions and actions of individuals may vary considerably, without affecting the force of the law; that individuals of one age may not persecute, nor wish it, and yet that those of the next may do it with all their might, and not act. contrary to the decrees of the church of Rome. The divines or universities of that church individually may declare their opinions, that faith ought to be kept with those whom they esteem as heretics, that

[ocr errors]

such ought not to be exterminated, and that "the Pope has no power to depose Kings; but what force is there in such declarations beyond that of merely private opinions? Certainly none whatsoever. When this argument therefore is so strongly urged, let it be considered whether the See of Rome defers to such declarations before its validity be admitted.

In the various contests for power, which this See has, from the time that Christianity became the established religion of the Roman state, maintained, its conduct is marked by a persevering and inflexible adherence to its purposes. Urged on by the insatiable lust of power, its first object was universal spiritual supremacy, and this naturally induced the extension of the wish to a political supremacy as universal.

In vain did council after council, and sovereign after sovereign, endeavour to repress its attempts. If councils opposed the Popes, the Popes did not confirm the acts that opposed their power; nay, they frequently fulminated their anathemas against them. The Popes, having thus made themselves independent of the sovereigns, the sovereigns were first robbed of their rights of investiture, and some, at length, even of their sovereignty itself. The contest with the Gallican church is well known. It began at least as early as the ninth century, and was not con

* A remarkable instance of this inflexibility is noticed by Mr. Villiers, in his excellent Essay on the Effects of the Reformation. The Romish See never acknowledged the King of Prussia formally as a King. See the note, p. 133. The whole passage is a good lesson on the subject.

eluded till the seventeenth. As much stress appears to have been laid on several professions, which are in reality nothing more than what was, and may yet be maintained by the Gallican church; it is necessary to introduce here the articles respecting the liberties of that church, confirmed by the French clergy in their declaration, A. D. 1682. According to * Dupin they were these.

1. "That Kings and Princes are not subject to the ecclesiastical power as to their temporals; and that they cannot be deposed directly, or indirectly, by the authority of the Keys of the church, nor their subjects absolved from the allegiance which they owe them.

2. The decrees of the council of Constance, concerning the authority of general councils, ought to remain in force and virtue; and that the church of France does not approve † those who say that those decrees are doubtful, or that they have not been approved, or that they were made only for times of schism.

Cent. 17. chap. 19. ed. Lond. 1724.

+ Caranza's words (in his Summa Conciliorum) as to the councils of Basle and Constance are these. Quæ in his duabus congregationibus, Constantiensi et Basiliensi, constituta sunt non habent aliquod authoritatis robur, nisi duntaxat illa quæ in bullâ Martini 51. aut Nicolai 5i. Pontificiâ authoritate probata sunt.

The acts of the two councils of Basle and Constance have no authority whatsoever, excepting such as were confirmed by Pontifical authority, in the Bull of Martin 5th, or Nicolis 5th.

These Popes certainly did not confirm the decrees, that the council was superior to, and could punish, the Popes.-Con. Bas. Sess. 33. and Con. Constan. Sess. 4.

3. "That the use of ecclesiastical power ought to be moderated by the Canons; that the rules, customs, and laws, received in the Gallican church, ought to be observed.

4. "That although the sovereign Pontiff has the first place in matters of faith, though his decrees regard all churches, and each in particular, yet his judgment is not always infallible, unless it be followed with the consent of the church."

Such were the liberties asserted by the Gallican church in 1682. But if the declaration was satisfactory to France, to Rome it was as much the reverse. Almost immediately after it was made, Malagola, a Dominican, publicly defended * "the sovereignty of the Pope in temporals and spirituals ;" and the Archbishop of Strigonia, in a mandate, asserted that "the power of judging of controversies of faith, by a divine and immutable privilege belongs solely to the holy and apostolical See."

The Pope himself was so irritated by it, (says Dupin,) that he refused Bulls for the investiture of several French Bishops who had signed it, and also refused Franchises for the King of France's Ambassadors at Rome, nor was the affair settled during the life of this Pope (Innocent XI.). His successor (Alexander VIII.) at length having obtained from the King part of the right of the Franchises, ceased to dispute the King's rights during the vacancies of

* Dupin Hist. of the Church, cent. 17. chap. 20. + Ibid.

Ibid. chap. 19.

E

Sees; and thus it was, after seven years more of contention, dropped, but still open to a revival, as it ever must be whilst a Pope is allowed to have any species of jurisdiction over another territory than his own.

With respect to these liberties, the Gallican church is distinct from the Romish church in general; and as many, if not most of the Catholic clergy of these kingdoms were probably ordained in France, those who were so may of course hold the same principles. But there may also be many others, whose principles are, on the contrary, the same with those of Father Malagola, the Archbishop of Strigonia, and perhaps the whole conclave. A distinction that seems imperiously required to be ascertained, exclusive of the consideration of the Catholic Question itself, as the principles of the latter must be much more dangerous than those of the former.

From the above articles it is very evident, that the personal safety of the King was their principal object in their being established, as the first is the only article which is absolute and definite in its expression. In the rest there is very little that is either. The second only says that the decrees of the two councils ought to be observed, and that the Gallican church does not approve those, who say they are doubtful. So likewise in the third, "the use of ecclesiastical power ought to be moderated, &c." whereas it is positively declared, that Kings and Princes are not subject, &c. A difference which clearly shews that, had it not been for the first article, the remainder would be but a poor security for these boasted liber

« ForrigeFortsæt »