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of an ecclesiastical kingdom out of a secular empire: but I can form no idea how it is possible, that the papal horn should be considered as the last head of the secular beast, when that head is declared to be the same at its first rise as the whole secular beast himself. The Pope can only be the last head of the secular beast either in his spiritual or in his secular character. He cannot in his spiritual: because the last head of the beast is to be the whole beast; and no ingenuity can shew, that an ecclesiastical kingdom, as such, is the same as a secular empire. He cannot in his secular, as sovereign of St. Peter's patrimony : both because it is unreasonable to esteem a petty temporal prince the head of a great secular empire; and because, as I have just observed, the last head was to be the whole secular beast at its first rise, which the Pope as a temporal prince

never was.

I am perfectly aware, that to this objection Bp. Newton would reply, that the Pope is "the head "of the state as well as of the church, the king «of kings, as well as the bishop of bishops*;" that there is no contradiction in a person being at once the head both of the state and the church; and consequently that the Pope, although a spiritual character, may be justly esteemed the head of the secular beast in his capacity of "king of kings." I am aware likewise that the canonists

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*Bp. Newton's Dissert, on Rev, xiii.

assert,

assert, that "there is no sovereign power but in "the Pope;" and that the Popes have repeatedly maintained, that all regal authority is derived from them, as in that remarkable instance when Boniface the eighth wrote to Philip the Fair, "We will "have thee know that thou art subject to us both "in temporals and spirituals*." But to all such arguments as these the answer is sufficiently obvious: there is a very wide difference between only claiming and really possessing temporal supremacy. Now the Popes have been sufficiently importunate in claiming the title and authority of "king of kings;" and, had they succeeded in establishing such a claim, I could readily have allowed that they might be, what Bp. Newton supposes them to be, the last head of the secular beast: but, if we

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* Whitaker's Comment. p. 229—234, 256, 257.

consult

+ Mr. Whitaker, who marrs Bp. Newton's much more simple interpretation by supposing that the Papacy is the Dictatorial head revived, cites Dr. Barrow as asserting, that, in the last Lateran council," one bishop styled the Pope prince of the "world; another orator called him king of kings, and monarch "of the earth; another great prelate said of him, that he had "all power above all powers both of heaven and earth” (Whitaker's Comment. p. 256.). He likewise cites a sermon of Pope Innocent the third, as containing the following passage

66 'The

church, who is my spouse, does not at her marriage come "to me empty handed. She has bestowed a precious, an "invaluable, dowry on me; an absolute power in spirituals, "an extensive authority in temporals. She has given me "the mitre for the ensign of my spiritual, and the crown of my temporal, jurisdiction; the mitre as priest, the crown.

consult history, we shall find that the very reverse is the case the claim has often been made, but it

has

"as king; constituting me his vicar, who bears this inscrip"tion written on his thigh and his vestment, King of kings, "and Lord of lords" (Ibid. p. 234.). He further cites a bull of Sixtus the fifth against the king of Navarre and the Prince of Condé, wherein it is declared that "the authority delegated "to St. Peter and his successors, by the infinite power of the "Eternal, is above all power of the kings of the earth; that "theirs it, is to inforce the observance, and to punish the "infringers of it, by pulling them from their thrones, how

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powerful soever they be, and casting them to the earth as "ministers of Satan" (Ibid. p. 229.). In all these declarations however I can discover nothing like a proof, that the Pope is head of the state, and therefore a head of the secular beast. I learn from them most undeniably, that the Popes have repeatedly claimed a temporal, no less than a spiritual supremacy : but, before I can allow that they constitute a head of the beast, I must have it shewn to me that their claim has been allowed. Till this be done, we are only informed what the Popes have been styled by themselves and their flatterers, not what they really are and have been. Exactly the same remark applies to Mr. Sharpe's observations upon the same subject. The Pope may call himself Rector Orbis, and claim an authority over all the kings of the earth, so long as he pleases; but this alone will never prove that he is the ruler of the world, or that any such authority is allowed to him (Append. to an Inquiry into the description of Babylon, p. 11.). It is not unworthy of notice, that even the claim of temporal supremacy was not made by the Popes, till a considerable period after they had been declared supreme head of the Church. The insolent Gregory the second, throughout his whole quarrel with Leo Isauricus respecting image-worship in the year 727, though he vehemently claimed the power of excommunicating even sovereign princes, presumed not to assert that he possessed any temporal

supremacy

has never been allowed by the great European powers: consequently, if it has never been allowed, but on the contrary strenuously resisted, with what propriety can we admit the scheme, which makes the Pope to be the last head of the secular beast, as being "the head of the state as well as of the "church, the king of kings, as well as bishop of bishops ?"

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When Pope Hildebrand excommunicated and deposed the Emperor Henry, that prince called an assembly, and asked their opinion respecting the pretended right of the Pope to depose an Emperor: upon which, all, both Germans and Italians, unanimously pronounced, that the Pope, instead of having power over the Emperor, owed him obedience t. So likewise, although the Emperor Frederic

supremacy over the Emperor. In one of his epistles to Leo, "the limits of civil and ecclesiastical powers are defined by "the Pontiff. To the former he appropriates the body; to "the latter, the soul: the sword of justice is in the hands of "the magistrate: the more formidable weapon of excommu"nication is entrusted to the clergy; and, in the exercise of "their divine commission, a zealous son will not spare his

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offending father: the successors of St. Peter may lawfully "chastise the kings of the earth" (Hist. of Decline and Fall,

vol. ix. p. 135.). Indeed several years afterwards, it is

sufficiently manifest, that the Pope was a mere feudal vassal of Charlemagne, whom he acknowledged to be his rightful. sovereign. See Mosheim's Eccles. Hist. vol. ii. p. 236, 237.

* At least never allowed with any continuance, and cer tainly never allowed by all the great powers at the same

time.

+ Modern Univ. Hist. vol. xxix, p. 86.

Frederic condescended to hold the Pope's stirrup, he first declared, that this was no mark of homage, but only a compliment paid to his holiness as the spiritual representative of Christ *. The same Emperor, in order to shew his independence of the Pope, repudiated his wife by his own authority t: and, when the Pope had presumed to assert that he bestowed upon him the Empire as a fief of the holy see, he published a manifesto, in which he openly gave the lie to all those who should dare to say, that he held his crown of any other than God himself, declaring that he would rather resign it altogether, than suffer it to be debased in his possession. In a similar manner, when Pope Innocent the third excommunicated and deposed the Emperor Philip, the German nobility of his party complained in a letter to the Pope, that his holiness had intermeddled in the election of a king of the Romans, contrary to the rights of the German princes, and the duty of his own pontificate, which originally depended upon the imperial crowns. So again, when Pope Honorius threatened to excommunicate the Emperor Frederic the second on account of his expelling from their sees some bishops who were creatures of the Pope, he was plainly informed that the Emperors had always possessed an authority and sovereign jurisdiction over the ecclesiastical state, that his

+ Ibid. p. 117.

* Mod. Univ. Hist. vol. xxix. p. 118.
Ibid. p. 120, 121, § Ibid. p. 168.

19

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