200

ART. VII. (1.) Die Deutsche Reformation der Kirche nach ihrem Wesen und ihrem werthe historisch dargestellt. Von BRETSCHNEIDER. Leipsic 1844.

(2.) Canones et Décreta S.S. Concilii Tridentini, ad optimorum libror. fidem accuratissime recudi curavit A. BISPING. Munster. 1845-6.

(3.) Pü Noni Sanct. Epistolæ Encyclicæ ad omnes, &c. Bonn. 1847,

1850.

1839.

(4.) Kampf und Siege des Glaubens. Sulzbach. (5.) Glaubens-Einheit als Grundlage des Christenthums, in bezug auf ältere und neuere häresien. Von D. KITT. Luzern. 1839. (6.) The Errors of Romanism, &c. By ARCHBISHOP WHately. London. 1830, 1845.

UNDENIABLE as it is that the Church of Rome is at this moment as inveterately and as bitterly hostile to all who are not within her pale, as she has been in any past age, the aspect of the hour seems to require that we should submit to our readers some evidence bearing on the fact. And as we write for Englishmen chiefly, it may be proper briefly to state in what position England stands to the Papal see. England, at this moment, is a condemned and excommunicated kingdom; and had the present Pope the power, he would transfer the crown from the brows of Queen Victoria, as certainly as Innocent III. gave the sceptre of John Lackland, king of England, in 1208, to the then Catholic king of France.

First, we will set down one or two facts of a general bearing. The Pope claims, in virtue of his being God's vicegerent, to have and to hold supreme power over all lands, countries, kingdoms, and commonwealths, throughout the whole earth. This claim, of course, includes the British dominions. In the view of the Papal court, Victoria has no rightful authority in these realms, because she does not hold her crown as a vassal of the Pope, her liege lord. Proof sufficient on this point was given in our last number. This claim was renewed and repeated by Pius V., when the Spanish and Portuguese chose him as an arbitrator in their rival claims to the American colonies. On that occasion, the Vicar of God and Christ' spoke, in terms conformed to his commanding position, thus:-We, of our own free will, and of our liberality, by the "authority of the omnipotent God, and of the Vicarship of Jesus 'Christ, which we hold on the earth, give, in virtue of the present 'act, to you and to your heirs for ever, all islands and continents, 'and make and appoint you their proprietors.'t Here is actually

Popery in its Nature and Development.

+ See the Original, in Bullarium Magnum Romanum, i. p. 459.

TEMPORAL SOVEREIGNTY CLAIMED BY THE POPES. 201

exerted the assumed power of the Popes to give and take away lands, countries, dominions, and crowns; to raise up and pull down; to elevate and abase at their own good pleasure, and in right of their spiritual office. The wide extent to which this usurpation is carried may be learnt from the famous Bull, termed In Cana Domini, or Maundy-Thursday's Bull.' As early as the fourteenth century the popes celebrated Thursday in Passion week by publishing a bull, in which they pronounced a ban and a curse on all who disowned the assumed rights of the Roman see. The several bulls issued on that day were in succession enlarged. Pius V. made the bull known anew, and ordered that every Maundy Thursday it should be publicly read in all Catholic churches of all countries. In the year 1627 it was renewed by Pope Urban VII., and this is the last edition.* Herein the Pope, 'on the part of God, and by his own authority, and the authority of the apostles Peter and Paul,' excommunicates and curses all the disciples of Huss, Wycliffe, Luther, Zwingle, Calvin; all Huguenots, Anabaptists, Trinitarians, and all other heretics; lays under his ban all who believe in them, all who receive them, all who give them shelter; read, possess, print, or in any way publicly or privately defend their heretical books without express permission obtained from himself; as well as all schismatics who withdraw from communion with the Romish church. The same curse is pronounced on all universities, colleges, chapters, and all who appeal from a Papal decision to a general council, or give advice and support to any appeal of the kind. In the same way, (so runs the bull,) we 'excommunicate and condemn all princes who in their lands 'demand, impose, or augment taxes, except in such cases as they 'are allowed by right or the express permission of the apostolic 'chair.' Further, the same penalty is pronounced on all who attempt to stop provisions or other necessaries in their way to the Papal court; on all who attack cardinals, legates, and other prelates; on all who apply to civil tribunals in consequence of any papal ordination; compel the clergy to appear before any civil tribunal; make laws against the independence of the church (or the state); hinder the bishops in the exercise of their jurisdiction; seize the revenues of the apostolic chair due from churches and monasteries, even though they were emperors and kings: also, all magistrates and subordinate authorities who interfere with the penal administration of the clergy; and all who assail, disturb, or take possession of the papal territory. In order to give the greater efficacy to this bull, it was decreed that no one except the pope, and he only on the approach of death, should have

• Bullarium Magnum Romanum, iv. p. 113, seq.

power to absolve from the curses therein pronounced; that all privileges which stand in the way of its execution were abrogated; and that every bishop should make the bull public in the churches once or oftener every year. This decree has never been revoked. It is the Magna Charta of the papacy. It is one of its fundamental laws. Summum jus summa injuria. The pope's rights are the wrongs of the world. Had the bull In Coena Domini been fully carried into effect, it would have turned the whole civilized world upside down, and laid Europe, nay Christendom, bound hand and foot at the base of St. Peter's chair. This result has been prevented only by stern and ceaseless opposition on the part of all governments, Catholic as well as Protestant. But as Rome's motto is Nulla vestigia retrorsum, it only bides its time;' there is the sword ready to be drawn whenever a promise may appear of its being efficiently employed. Again and again has it been drawn. Times almost without number has it been drawn. On July 13, 1528, Clemens VII. empowered the Bishop of Brixen, in the Tyrol, 'to com'mand all believers to seize the goods of the Lutherans, and to 'reduce their persons into perpetual slavery." "* Paul III., by a bull bearing date August 30, 1536, required all princes, in 'virtue of the holy obedience they owed to him, to compel the 'King of England (Henry VIII.) and his adherents to return to 'their allegiance to the successor of Saint Peter, and gave "authority to the said princes to strip the disobedient of their 'property, and make them into slaves.' (Rom. Bull. i. 530.)

The peculiar position of Queen Elizabeth seemed to present a very favourable opportunity to the pope. Bastardized by her own father, she succeeded to a crown whose foundations were ill settled, and whose honours were claimed by Mary Queen of Scots, then the great centre of papal hopes and aspirations. Around that centre, with the Guises and the Medici for its chief promoters, was formed a great papal conspiracy, of which the object was the dethronement of Elizabeth and the suppression of protestantism. At the head of that conspiracy stood the pope. And now let us observe how faithfully he attempted to give effect to the curse of the Maundy-Thursday Bull, and to what the effort led. In the year 1569, Pius V., who was afterwards canonized, declared that Elizabeth had, as a heretic, lost all her rights to the crown of England, that she was to be regarded as a heathen, and that obedience was not due to her. In 1570, she was laid under an excommunication, which more than once occasioned outbreaks among her Catholic subjects. Still more dangerous was it for her and her realm, when, in 1588, at the * Bullarium Magnum Romanum, (ed. 1742,) vol. i. p. 675.

BULLS AGAINST PROTESTANT PRINCES.

203

time when King Philip of Spain was preparing the armada for the conquest of England, Pope Sixtus V. repeated that excommunication in a special bull, declared the queen dethroned, commanded every one to withdraw from her, and promised England to Philip if he was willing to hold his kingdom as a fief from the Roman court. To assist the Spaniard in his aggression, the pope contributed a million of scudi; and to aid in the spiritual subjugation of Englishmen, the pope put on board the fleet a vicar-general of the Inquisition, and above one hundred monks and Jesuits. What a wonderful providence was that by which this nation was saved from the jaws of the leviathan! May our gratitude make us cautious and wary! The monster has not been destroyed; still does he crouch in his lair, ready at any moment to spring forth. These curses and acts of deposition have never been annulled. Should Prince Louis Napoleon, from prudential considerations, turn the warlike impulses of the French against England, attack our colonies or our country, and find favour with Pope Pius IX. in his enterprise, he would not want either a religious pretext or a religious sanction; nor should he, in his riot of despotism, see fit to place himself at the head of a Catholic league, would he have any difficulty to find in the papal archives documents which authorize or command all good Catholics to seize the lands of Protestant princes, and cast them down from their thrones. It is equally certain, that should he, or any other reckless despot, resolve, in conjunction with the pope, to invade the dominions of any Catholic power, he might readily be provided with a papal sanction from the numerous bans, interdicts, and bulls which Rome has issued. True it is, that now for a long time the popes have not hurled their thunders at Protestant nations, except so far as they are included in such general bulls as the bull In Coena Domini; but this abstention is owing merely to their want of civil power in those countries. Let popery make converts and become dominant in England, and the sceptre of its queen will be transferred by the Camarilla of Rome to whomsoever it may appoint.

In proof that it is the power, and not the will, that is wanting at Rome, we adduce the excommunication levelled against Napoleon Bonaparte, by Pius VII., on the 10th of June, 1809, 'by the authority of Almighty God, of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own.'

The commencement of the revolutionary period, indeed, which opened at the close of the last century, which still endures, and of which, in some sense, Bonaparte may be considered as the military representative, applied a touchstone to the essential principles of the papal polity. That period has brought

into prominence the claims of the people to govern themselves. The manner in which these claims have been asserted we here neither justify nor condemn. We mark the claims, and we characterize them. They were claims to self-government. As such, they stood in direct hostility with the claims of Rome. If the people had a right to construct their own forms of government, and directly or indirectly to administer the laws, then the popes were no longer God's vicegerents on earth, and could in no way pretend to bestow crowns or take crowns away, punish subjects for their rebellion, or absolve subjects from their allegiance. Hence ensued an internecine war between the papal claims and the people's rights. Into that war Rome has entered without the smallest abatement of its pretensions, without the slightest qualification of its claims. And ever, as the strife has proceeded, has Rome pursued its own changeless, adamantine purpose of bringing all the world into complete subjugation to its authority; augmenting, on all occasions, its aggressive forces in every possible way, down to the present hour, when, under Pius IX., the court of cardinal princes' has assumed unwonted activity, and has dispatched its emissaries into all parts, nor least into these lands, charged with the duty of uprooting and destroying every thing that is not in origin, essence, and operation, papal.

These facts from the recent history of Romanism are enough to suggest what the social influence of this system must be in relation to the civilized world. They set forth the popes and their fellow-workers as an Ishmaelite race, whose hand is against every one not linked with themselves. They exhibit Rome as one of the piratical states, like Tunis and Algiers, recognising no rights but its own, bound by no obligations but such as promote its aggrandizement, and ever ready to assail friend or foe if any booty is likely to be thereby gained. In the present state of the nations of the world, in which are found professors of very diverse forms of faith, all of which forms of faith are condemned and their adherents anathematized, and in theory disinherited of their goods by the papal see,-we can regard that court, that sovereign, only as outlaws, who, because they ever watch for their prey, are never to be lost sight of, never to be encouraged, never to be treated with, but to be withstood by all honourable and Christian resources, for the sake of God, our country, and the common good.

That such a court has been, is, and ever must be, hostile to civil liberty, is a mere corollary from the preceding positions. Constitutional government is, of necessity, incompatible with the papacy. Self-government is the essence of constitutional govern