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 ?" 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*. So likewise, although the Emperor 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: 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 * Modern Univ. Hist. vol. xxix. +. Ibid. p. 118, ‡ Ibid. p. 117. p. $6. §. Ibid. p. 120, 121. party 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 thẹ German princes, and the duty of his own pontificate, which originally depended upon the imperial crown*. 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 grand-father and father had maintained this jurisdiction in full force, and that he neither could nor would divest himself of it to the prejudice of the Empire and his successors †. The Emperor Albert indeed was compelled by the exigencies of the times to own, that kings and emperors received the power of the temporal sword from the Pope +: but afterwards, when Pope John declared the imperial dignity to be a fief of the holy see, the Emperor Louis assembled all the learned men of Germany, both of the clergy and the laity, to give their opinion of the bull which contained such a claim. These all concluded, that it was unjust, unreasonable, and contrary to the Christian religion, as tending to abolish the sovereign power of princes; and the states of the Empire requested the Emperor to take care that the imperial dignity should not be trampled upon, nor the Germanic liberty reduced to bondage*. Finding however that the Popes still from time to time renewed their pretensions, the princes of the Empire, ecclesiastical as well as secular, at length enacted the famous constitution by which the Empire was declared to be for ever independent of the Pope t If from the Empire we pass to Hungary, we shall find, that the temporal supremacy of the Pope was in the year 1303 so steadily resisted in that country, that his holiness himself was excommunicated by the Hungarian bishops, in consequence of his having presumed to lay the city of Luda under an interdict, because his pretended right to dispose of the crown of that kingdom was resolutely denied †. In our own country, when Pope Hildebrand summoned William the Conqueror to do homage for the kingdom of England, as a fief of the Roman see, William replied, that he held his crown only of God and his own sword; and, when the nuncio threatened him with the censures of the Church, he published an edict forbidding his subjects to acknowledge any Pope but such as he should approve, or to receive any order from Rome without his permission §. England indeed submitted to Mod. Univ. Hist. vol. xxix. p, 294, 295, 296, the the Pope in the disgraceful reign of king John but in that of his successor the English agents at the council of Lyons protested against the act, and declared that John had no right without the consent of his barons to reduce the kingdom to so ignominious a servitude*. As for France, when Boniface the eighth claimed a temporal superiority over Philip the Fair, the states of the kingdom formally disavowed the authority of the Pope, and maintained the independent sovereignty of that prince †. So likewise, when Gregory the seventh claimed the same superiority over the different kingdoms of Spain, Don Alonso and the other sovereigns unanimously declared, that they were independent princes, and would own no superior upon earth ‡. Thus it appears, when we descend to facts, upon what very slender grounds Bp. Newton makes the Pope to be the last head of the secular beast, "the head of the state as well as of the "church, the king of kings as well as the bishop of bishops." (3.) Nor is this the only objection to which the system of Bp. Newton is liable. In a prophecy of Daniel already considered, four great beasts, or universal empires, are described as rising succes sively out of the sea. The last of them, like the apocalyptic beast now under consideration, is said, * Mod. Univ. Hist. vol. xxxix. p. 174. + Ibid. vol. xxiii. p. 385. ‡ Ibid. vol. xx. p. 63. to have ten horns, to be exceeding terrible, and to be different from those which preceded it. Hence I collect, that the fourth beast of Daniel, and the first beast of St, John, are designed to symbolize the same power. No doubt however is entertained, that Daniel's fourth beast is the Roman empire: it follows therefore, agreeably to Bp. Newton's original proposition, that St. John's first beast is the Roman empire likewise. And this opinion is decidedly established by the express declaration of the latter prophet, that his ten-horned beast was not only in existence under his sixth head at the time when he wrote, but that he had even previously been in existence during an indefinite space of time under his five first heads*; a description, which plainly can accord with no power except the Roman empire. Now the fourth beast of Daniel is said to have a little horn, springing up among his ten larger horns; which little horn has been shewn to be the Papacy. If then the little horn be the Papacy, and if Daniel's fourth beast be not the Papacy, but the Roman empire out of which the Papacy sprung; St. John's first beast, being the same as Daniel's fourth beast, must assuredly be the Roman empire likewise, and therefore cannot be the Papacy. To me, I must be free to confess, it is a matter of no small wonder, that the first beast of St. John should ever have been * “ Five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come.” Rev. xvii. 10. thought |