the defender of his fubjects. The war, in which Louis IX. ultimately embarked with the utmost ardour, continued many years with various fuccefs, but with unrelenting barbarity against the oppofers of the pontiff. Victory at length crowned the fupporters of the church. And the earl of Thouloufe faw the pious labours of the pope and the French king rewarded with no fmall portions of his dominions (q). (q) In this century Robert Greathead, bishop of Lincoln, diftinguished himself by his exertions against papal tyranny and the vices of ecclefiaftics. Matthew Paris, a contemporary monk of St. Albans relates his dying difcourfes, in which the prelate ftigmatifed the pope as an heretic and antichrift; and concludes with ftyling him "the refuter of the pope, reprover "of prelates, corrector of monks, director of priests, instructor "of the clergy, and the hammer to beat down the Romans into વડ contempt." When excommunicated by the pope, he appealed to the tribunal of Christ. See bishop Newton's Differfations, vol. iii. p. 181. CHAP. XI. CONTINUATION OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY TO THE PRESENT TIME. THOUGH the Chriftian world had still continued, during the two preceding centuries, overwhelmed with the darkness of papal night; fome glimmerings of twilight had begun to appear. We now advance to times in which the indications of approaching dawn continually grew ftronger; until at length it broke forth, and brightened into the radiance of perfect day. During the fourteenth century several pontiffs laboured to rekindle the flame of the crufades against the Saracens. But after several antecedent difappointments, they had the mortification to fee the laft of the armies about to be embarked for Palestine difperfed, A. D. 1363, by the death of its leader John, king of France. In China, whose capital, Cambalu, the present city of Pekin, had been conftituted an archbishopric, A. D. 1307 by Pope Clement V.; the Chriftian faith was nearly nearly, if not totally, extinguished by the irruptions of new invaders from Tartary: and, on the expulfion of the laft emperor of the race of Gengis Chan, by the establishment on the Chinese throne of another dynafty, which, prohibiting A. D. 1369 the entrance of foreigners into its dominions, precluded any future fucceffion of prelates and miffionaries from Italy. The Mahometan power in different quarters daily became more formidable. Among the Afiatic Tartars, one of whofe chans had now honoured the pope with a folemn embaffy to Avignon, Chriftianity was extirpated by the victorious Timur Beg; who faithfully exerted against the profeffors of the Gofpel the perfecuting spirit of the Koran. In Conftantinople the neceffity of the affiftance of the Weft to withstand the encroaching hoftility of the Turks was fo apparent, that scarcely any facrifices for the purpose of obtaining it were thought too great. Three fucceffive embaffies were fent to different pontiffs to prepare the way for the union of the two churches. Rome, at length, beheld within her walls, A. D. 1367, the Grecian patriarch negotiating for his own fubmiffion to the pope. The patriarch was followed two years afterwards by a nobler fuitor, the Greek emperor himfelf. But the majority majority of his fubjects dreaded and abhorred the Turk lefs than the pontiff: and the treaty evaporated in furious debates. Though feveral of the pontiffs of this century exerted themfelves no less fiercely than their predeceffors in excommunicating and depofing emperors and kings; and extended under the names of referves and provifions the claims of the papacy to fill up ecclefiaftical vacancies of all kinds and in every quarter: the authority of the holy fee encountered fome fhocks by which it was manifeftly impaired. The first of these concuffions took place in the quarrel between the popes and the king of France. Boniface VIII. having acquainted the world in a memorable bull, that the fucceffor of St. Peter ruled the earth, by Divine right, with the temporal fword, no less than the church with the fpiritual; and that every man who prefumed to question this doctrine was excluded from the poffibility of falvation: was accused, A. D. 1303, of herefy and other crimes, by the command of the French monarch Philip the Fair; and was afterwards feized and wounded by one of the officers of Philip. On the fubfequent vacancy of the papal chair, A. D. 1305, Philip, by his manœuvres procured the election of Clement V. a French prelate; who, who, at the defire of the king, transferred the papal refidence from Rome to Avignon, where it continued during feventy years, denominated by the Italians the Babylonian captivity. By this long abfence the power of the pontiffs experienced in Italy confiderable diminution. Formidable factions eftablished themselves even in Rome: and many cities revolted from their allegiance. French ecclefiaftics continued to fucceed to the popedom; until another event gave a fresh blow to the papal authority. On the death of Gregory XI. A. D. 1378, Urban VI. was chofen to fucceed him. But a party of the cardinals, speedily repenting of the choice, profeffed to discover a flaw in the election; and raised a rival, Clement VII. to the pontificate. Thus began the great fchifm, which divided the Western church during fifty years. The reverence of the Catholic world was claimed at the fame moment by two, fometimes by three, competitors; each afferting his own plenary apoftolical authority, and fulminating anathemas against his oppofers. A third fource of detriment to the papal domination may be traced to the new hoftilities which raged between its moft ufeful adherents, the Dominicans and the Francifcans, concerning the antient fubject of their diffenfions, the abfolute poverty |