passed away without any open claim or acknowledgment of supremacy, as belonging to the bishop of Rome. Surely this must be a wide and fatal chasm to those, who make their whole cause depend on maintaining an uninterrupted succession to Peter, as supreme head of the church. Six hundred years the Christian church existed without a pope, in the proper sense of the term, and the papists may be asked, where was the true church in their view, before Boniface was declared universal bishop?

SECTION V.

THE PROGRESS OF POPERY DURING THE TWELVE CENTURIES SUCCEEDING ITS RISE.

HAVING ascertained, by the testimony of authentic history, that no trace of popery existed during the six first centuries of the Christian era, and having seen that it originated early in the seventh century, by the united influence of the tyrant Phocas, and Boniface III., bishop of Rome, in proclaiming the latter universal bishop; we now proceed to trace the progress of this grand apostacy from the Christian church, through the course of succeeding ages. In this survey it will be necessary to study brevity, as far as can be consistent with perspicuity of statement, as there are several other important topics relative to popery, which claim attention before reaching our prescribed limits.

The beginning of the seventh century was marked by three important events in the history of the church and of the world. The proclaiming of the bishop of Rome universal bishop, the establishment of image worship in the Christian church, and the rise of the Mahometan delusion.

In regard to the newly created and proclaimed pope, scarcely a year elapsed from the commencement of this sacerdotal empire, when the very idolatry which had been so strenuously opposed by preceding bishops, was publicly established and patronized by the sovereign pontiff. The ancient Pantheon, formerly the general sink of all the abominations of paganism, was now restored, though under a different name, to its original destination. The mediatory demons of corrupted christianity, occupied the vacant places of the mediatory demons of the gentiles. Instead of Jupiter and his kindred deities, the virgin mother of Christ, and all his martyred saints, received the blind adoration of the revived tenhorned beast. The holy city was trodden under foot of a new race of gentiles, differing from their pagan predecessors in name rather than in nature, and the witnesses began to prophecy in sackcloth, during the long period of 1260 years, the same period indeed as that, during which the saints were given into the hand of the little horn. (See Rev. xi. 2, 3.) From this period forward, therefore, the papal church must be considered as apostate from true christianity, because it renounced the ess ential features of the Christian church, and became the real and implacable enemy of all the true followers of Christ. This is not empty declamation, or unfounded assertion. Let the history of subsequent ages, for more than twelve hundred years, bear witness. Let every reader examine the subject carefully and candidly, and if he does not find evidence sufficient to satisfy his mind that the papal church is now, and has been for twelve centuries, a mere modified and concealed form of paganism, and an apostate body from the whole Christian faith, then evidence has no weight, and the powers of perceiving truth wholly fail and deceive. By this, however, is not meant that the papal church does not in theory admit some speculative truths. Pagans do this, and even devils believe in one God. But the meaning is, that the popish system,

taken as a whole, is radically corrupt and anti-christian; that nothing is wanting but the universal prevalence of this system, to ensure the utter extinction of all true religion, and therefore, that whatever of truth is embraced in this system is held in unrighteousness, and practically perverted. This will appear to be the true state of the case from all authentic and impartial history.

With this general view, the chain of historical narrative will be pursued, until we have a comprehensive view of the progress of this apostate church. Then its influence and fruits will come under examination.

The elevation of the bishop of Rome to the station of pope, or universal bishop, was followed by a great increase of power and corruption, so far as his influence extended; while vital religion, and all useful knowledge declined in the same proportion. Every writer of note, respecting the seventh century, admits that the clergy of inferior rank, and all who were entrusted with the sacred offices, as well those in the monasteries, as those without, lived in the practice of many enormities. In all places, simony, avarice, pious frauds, intolerable pride, insolence to the people at large, and even vices worse than these, might be seen reigning in the stations consecrated to piety and virtue. Between the monks and the bishops, many bitter quarrels arose in different places. For the latter laid their greedy hands on the rich possessions of the monks, that they might support their own luxury and dissipation. And the monks, feeling this very sensibly, first applied to the emperors and kings for redress, but not finding sufficient protection, they next resorted to the pope of Rome. He took them under his protection, and gradually exempted them from the jurisdiction of the bishops. The monks in return defended the interests of the pope as their own. They recommended him as a kind of god to the ignorant multitude, over whom their hypocritical sanctity gave them great influence. That these exemptions of the monks, were the cause of many

of their vices and disorders, is the opinion of many of the best writers. In the mean time the monks, from the favor of the popes, and the display of fictitious piety, were every where making great progress in numbers and wealth; especially among the Latins. Parents eagerly consecrated their children to God, with good portions of their property made over to the monasteries; that is to say, they devoted them to what was considered the highest bliss on earth, a life of solitude. Those who had spent their lives in guilty deeds, hoped to expiate their crimes by conferring the greater part of. their property on some company of monks. And immense numbers, impelled by superstition, robbed their heirs of their richest possessions, to render God propitious to them through the prayers of the monks. Such was popery in the

seventh century.

The history of the eighth century opens with the following humiliating testimony, respecting the votaries of papal superstition. Those who had the care of the church, both in the east and the west, were utterly corrupt in their morals. The eastern bishops wasted their lives in various controversies and quarrels; and, disregarding the cause of piety, they disquieted the state with their senseless clamors and seditions. Nor did they hesitate to imbrue their hands in the blood of their dissenting brethren. Those in the west, immediately under the jurisdiction of the pope, who pretended to be luminaries, gave themselves up to various kinds of profligacy, to gluttony, to lust, to sensuality and to war. Nor could they be reclaimed, though the civil rulers, such as Pépin, Carloman, and especially Charlemagne, enacted various laws against their vices.

The ninth century exhibits popery as in the ascendant, and that with increasing strength; and at the same time it shows a thicker and darker gloom resting on the morals and manners of the clergy, the church and the world. It is indeed a remarkable fact, that the greatest

increase and glory of papal power was witnessed in that age, when the lights of science and religion were most obscured; showing that ignorance and superstition are the congenial atmosphere of the papal dominion. Indeed, the supremacy of the pope has always flourished in exact proportion to the moral and intellectual degradation of man, and has always been an efficient agent in producing that degradation. The abettors of popery may be challenged to produce a solitary example of a country, brought under the full influence of popery, in which the principles of civil liberty, the blessings of social life, as well as the light of science and religion, have not been well nigh extinguished. In the regular course of historical events, we are now approaching a period which has been distinguished in the history of the world, as the dark age. And it will be proper to bear in mind the influence which popery exerted to produce this dark age; and thence to gather the evidence, that the prevalence of popery in any age or country, will certainly produce the same darkness.

The voice of history thus testifies concerning the state of teachers and the church, in the ninth century. The ungodly lives of most of those entrusted with the spiritual interests of men, and the government of the church, in this century, are a subject of complaint with all the ingenuous and honest writers of this age. The bishops attached to the papal dominion are described as hanging around the courts of princes, and indulging themselves in every species of voluptuousness. The inferior clergy of course were extremely sensual, and corrupted the very people whom they were set to reform. The ignorance of the clergy in many instances was so great, that they could neither read nor write. Hence, whenever a letter was to be penned, or any thing of importance was to be committed to writing, recourse was had to some one individual, who was supposed to excel common men, by possessing some dexterity in such matters. At the