Again, when a fierce band of unbelieving Jews and idolatrous Romans laid violent

hands on the Lord of Life,' and the apostle drew his sword in his Master's personal defence, the Lord said to him, "Put up again thy sword into his place; for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword!" (MATT. xxvi. 52.) But when the pope's dignity is insulted, in the directest opposition to this plain injunction and threat, the successor of St. Peter instantly unsheaths the instrument of death, and sends forth armies of executioners, sparing neither sex nor age! It is true that, without claiming the "sword," as well as "the keys" of St. Peter, the temporal kingdom of the pope must long ere this have ceased to exist. But can we believe that our Redeemer granted to the bishop of Rome an authority and a kingdom which he denied to his apostles and himself? Such an authority, and such a dominion, are utterly incompatible with Christianity, and can only be supported, as we

have seen, by the subversion of its faith and practice.

"Jesus called his apostles, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them; but it shall not be so among you! (MATT. xix. 25, 26.) The highest possible temporal authority" and "dominion" are, however, claimed and exercised by the pope!

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Can this church teach the truth, if she possess it not herself? "Can the blind lead the blind?" Protestants

need not appeal to the sentiments of a Luther, in order to condemn the church of Rome. Hundreds of her own bishops,*

• Roman Catholics, many of them, imagine that only protestants exclaim against the church of Rome and her popes. But it would be difficult to discover an error to which the members of her own communion have not directed the attention of the world. Many of these members were eminent divines, some of them of the highest clerical rank and dignity. For instance, there would not be any

ages before the reformation, protested against her corruptions. Have we not spread out before our eyes the evidence

difficulty in producing the testimonies against image-worship of four, and five, and perhaps six hundred Romish bishops. If, again, Protestants wish for papistical evidence that the dominion of the pope is that of antichrist, they have the testimony of an archdeacon, an abbot, a bishop, an archbishop, and a saint, immediately adduced. Thus, Archdeacon Berengarius declared "the church of Rome" to be "the seat of Satan." Abbot Joachim of Calabria preached before Richard Cœur de Lion, that the pope is antichrist. Fluentius, Bishop of Florence, Gerbert, Archbishop of Rheims, (afterwards Pope Sylvester II.) and the bigoted St, Barnard, proclaimed the same opinion; and the latter asserted, moreover, that the pope was "the man of sin," and the “ apocalyptic beast." But that facts should not be wanting to confirm the assertions of these celebrated papists, their great historian has left it upon record, that for the space of one hundred and fifty years, the abominations committed by the successors of St. Peter were so outrageously wicked, that they were more like apostates than apostles! Fifty popes sustained this character, and proved the truth of the historian's assertion! These are the words of the original, viz. "Hoc vero uno infelix, quod per annos

1

of centuries? Hear we not the expiring cries of myriads whom she hath tortured and slain? Do they not hand down to us the scroll of accusation, written on both sides, in letters of blood, that Rome hath erred from the faith of Christ in faith and works, and that both testify against her? O Rome, Rome, the voice of blood crieth unto heaven against thee from the ground! Behold then, our Roman Catholic brothers, the produce of this tree under whose shadow you are content to sit! Behold in Germany, in France, in England, in Ireland, in Spain, in Portugal, and in Italy, the produce of its deadly branches!

Some persons, we are told, have by custom inured themselves to the most

active poisons. We quarrel not with

fere 150 Pontifices circiter 50 a virtute majorum prorsus defecerint, apotactici apostaticive potius quam apostolici ! For the above facts the author cites the Decline and Fall of Gibbon, the Ecclesiastical Histories of Milner and Mosheim, and Newton's Dissertation on the Prophecies.

Genebrard Chron. lib. 4. in initio x. Sæc.

the man who seeks a shelter under the dreadful upas; but when he endeavours to thrust its hateful roots into the very soil whence, in ages past, it was torn by our ancestors and rejected, it is high time to bestir ourselves, unless we choose to acquiesce in the destruction of those whom it is our sacred duty to protect. We may be accused of oldfashioned prejudices; but can we cast them off with safety to our temporal and eternal interests? Rome will bear us out in the stiffness of our opinions; for is she not unchangeable in her laws, her creed, her constitution, and her policy? The inquisition will tell us whether or not she is changed in her spirit. The continuance of the "Holy Office" will offer a sufficient apology to the Protestant who strives to keep alive in the memory of every individual, who holds this antichristian spirit in just abhorrence, that she is indeed unchanged. History declares, that wherever the crucifix hath been upraised, persecution hath followed in its