that he converted the palace into a brothel, that he debauched the women that went to Rome for devotion's sake, whether married or unmarried; nay, that he did not spare them even in the churches,* that he drank the devil's health; that when he played at any game he invoked Jupiter, Venus, and the devils in hell; and in fine, that he was run through the body in the act of adultery.

Matthew Paris tells us, that Gregory VII. when on his death-bed, sent for his cardinals, and confessed to them, that by the instigation of the devil, he provoked the wrath of God against the whole human race. This pope, the once direful scourge of the christian world, since whose days nothing was more common than to see kings deposed, and their subjects absolved from their allegiance, has been canonized at Rome, and proposed as an object of adoration to the whole world, though he was no more a Christian than a Turk, as may be sufficiently seen in a letter he wrote to Anzir, king of Mauritania, where he fixes upon the mode of worshipping the Supreme Being, as the difference between his religion and the religion of that Mahometan prince, and wishes him eternal rest in Abraham's bosom.

All historians agree, that Silvester the Second was a necromancer and magician, that he made a

* In this he acted like the heathen gods, of whom it is said, that when they were enamoured of any woman, they either surprised her in their temples, or sent her an assignation. Thus, as the Roman historians tells us, when Mundus, a young Roman knight found that all his endeavours to conquer Paulini's virtue proved fruitless, he corrupted the priests of Anibuis, who persuaded her to believe that the god was struck with her beauty; on which she was that very night led by her husband to the temple. A few days after Mundus, whom she happened to meet, let her into the secret. Paulini, enraged with indignation, carried her complaint to Tiberus who ordered the priests to be burnt alive.

† See Fleury's Church History, L. 62, No. 34.

compact with the devil upon condition of obtaining whatever he desired, and that he was at last torn to pieces by the evil spirit.

The historian Mezeray tells us, in his life of Charles the Eighth of France, that the Roman purple was never so much dishonoured as it was by pope Alexander the Sixth; that he had no faith for God or man; that he trampled religion under his feet; that he prostituted his honour, and sold human and divine right to the highest bidders; that when he was only a cardinal, he kept several mistresses, by one of whom he had four sons, whom he called not his nephews (as others do) but his children; that he had a bastard-daughter, who was his wife and daughter and daughter-in-law.

The same historian says, that, when Charles the Eighth went to Rome, the cardinals assembled about him, and remonstrated that he must have been sent thither by divine Providence to defend the rights of the church against the usurpations of Alexander, who, in the chair of the apostles, practised daily the same crimes by which he procured his promotion; that he was a worthy successor, not of St. Peter, but of the traitor Judas and Simon Magus; that he was more allied to the Koran than to the Gospel; that, like a tiger, he forced into the fold of Christ with his fauns, his troop of bastards infamous for vice and licentiousness. The same author adds, that this monster of nature, as he calls him, poisoned himself, having, drank through mistake a poisonous draught he had prepared for cardinal Adrian.

All historians speak with the same horror of pope Julius the Second. Lewis the Twelfth of France having defeated that pope in battle, assembled a council in Tuscany where he declared the pope to be Antichrist, and caused money to be coined with this inscription, Perdam Babylonis nomen, as was observed before..

It is notorious to all Europe, what an unprincipled, profligate man Leo the Tenth was, who was often heard to say, as cardinal Bembo testifies, "What immense wealth we have amassed by this fable of Christ !"

It is not surprising that the popes should treat emperors and crowned heads with hautiness and contempt, obliging some of them to remain three days and as many nights barefoot at the gates of the pope's palace, and crowning others with their feet, and kicking off the crown again, &c. This I say is not surprising when we consider with what indignity and barbarity they treat each other.— The heathen gods were represented as cruel and unnatural; one dethroning his father, another devouring his own children, &c. the modern gods of Rome are represented in like manner.

Pope Stephen the Sixth ordered (as Platina Fluery and others tells us,) that the body of Formosus his predecessor should be taken up out of the grave stripped of his pontificals, and buried among the laity after cutting off the fingers he used to consecrate with. But his successor surpassed him in barbarity; for he ordered the same body to be taken up again, the head to be cut off, and the body thrown into the Tiber.*

* Abbe Gould, an Irish priest, in his defence of the Infallibility of the church, says, that God must have a hand in supporting and protecting the popish religion, otherwise that the gates of hell would have long since prevailed against it, through the wicked lives of the popes. Now if this argument were of any force, it would equally prove that God has a hand in protecting the mahometan and heathen religions; for, notwithstanding the profligacy of their founders and protectors, one has subsisted now near 1200 years, and the other near 4000. It was by sanguinary laws, persecutions and massacres, that the popish religion was upheld all along; it was by the same methods the other two were upheld; therefore if God has a hand in one, he has equally a hand in all three.

It was usual with the living to fulminate bulls of excommunication against the dead, and each other, denouncing and stigmatising one the other with the titles of heretic, schismatic, antichrist, &c. and filling all Europe with bloodshed, confusion and desolation. This was more or less the case in the several schisms, in all about thirty, that happened between the popes, one of which lasted about 50 years, when there were three popes seen at once contending for the pretended chair of St. Peter.

Now it is most astonishing that people can be so stupefied, so blinded by the prejudices of education, self-interest, or otherwise, as not to feel the absurdity of their own tenets (though the most palpable in the world) nor see the glaring contradictions that stare them in the face. We have heard and seen awhile ago, how the popes affected to be called gods, and piqued themselves upon the title; how they were acknowledged and adored as such; and therefore were not to be judged of mortal man quia Deus non judicatur ab hominibus. But now we find those pretended gods judged, deposed, &c. not only by each other, but also by bishops and other mortals. The bishops assembled at Basil and Constance were so much ashamed of the absurdity of the papal pretensions that they thought it necessary for the peace of the church, and the honour of human reason and common sense, to bring down those popes from their high thrones to the foot of earthly tribunals, and subject them, like other mortals, to the inquests and judgments

of human laws.

We have heard how the popes were called antichrists by each other, by the French king, &c. now we shall see that this charge is well grounded. St. Paul speaks of Antichrist thus:* Let no man * ii. Thessal. 2, 3, 4.

deceive you by any means; for that day (the day of judgment and general resurrection) shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped: "So that he as God sitteth in the temple (or church) of God, showing himself that he is God; giving heed to doctrines of demons,* (that is, angels and saints, as I proved before) speaking lies in hypocrisy, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thankfulness." Here antichrist is described. Now all these characters concentre in the bishop of Rome. He calls himself God, and exalteth himself above all that is called god, not only above all his heathen predecessors, but also all bishops, primates, crowned heads, and all mankind, nay, and above the God of heaven; for, at his coronation, he sits on the high altar in St. Peter's church and there receives adoration, whereby he makes the altar of God his footstool. He affects divine titles and attributes, as, holiness and infallibility, assuming divine powers and prerogatives in granting pardons and indulgences to the most abominable crimes, and that for as many thousands of years as he pleases. He asserts his decrees to be of the same, or greater authority than the word of God; for he says he has as much authority to make laws as St. Paul, for instance, ever had; nay, and to dispense with, or even to abrogate any law that the apostles ever made. He commands the worship of images, of angels, and saints, &c. contrary to the express law of God. He forbids the clergy and nuns to marry, and commands to

* i. Tim. 4.

+ It is evident, that if the clergy were allowed to marry, they would take care to give no offence to the established government of the place of their abode. Therefore, the Pope, by a masterly stroke of human policy, has

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