As Rome was the natural mistress of the whole world, and as the prince who had so long resided at Rome was the head of the empire, it was evident that the bishop of Rome ought also to be the head of the church. By machinations, and plans skilfully formed, and steadily pursued, this primacy of the Roman pontiff was by degrees, but not without difficulties and trouble, established. Afterwards, when Rome came to be without an emperor, the dignity of the pontiff only increased. He was now the principal figure in Rome, where he had formerly been only the second. And when the princes at the head of the Franks and Romans became inspired with the singular ambition of being crowned emperors in the city of the Cæsars, it was the popes who performed the honours of the empire, and who appeared to confer it by crowning its new rulers. As soon as the pope was invested with the office of crowning the emperors, Europe, besotted, no longer regarded as such any but those who received the crown from the papal hands; hence the flatteries, the submissions, the concessions of the princes who aspired to the imperial dignity, to obtain the favour of the pontiff. Disposing of the first of crowns, this important personage thence concluded that the rest were in the same manner at his disposal, The sovereign of a numerous clergy, rich, active, and spread over all the nations,-reigning by this means over all men's consciences, it was easy to establish himself in the general opinion, as the depository of the power of God upon earth, the vicar of Jesus Christ, the ruler of kings. If any prince dared attempt to escape from this authority, proceeding from heaven, the pontiff anathematized him, threw him out of the communion of the faithful; and bis miserable subjects abandoned him as

one infected with the pestilence. He generally went to beg pardon of the angry vice-god, to appease him by the meanest submissions, and by the acknowledgment of all the rights which the haughty pontiff assumed; after which the contrite prince was re-established in his authority and honours; and by every similar experiment, the power of the popes, sanctioned and enhanced, was established more firmly than ever.

Religious superstition, which had more or less tormented all the nations of Europe, began to abate in some places; and enlightened men everywhere appeared who successfully attacked it. The doctrine of the Waldenses and Albigenses was not forgotten in France. Wickliff had lifted up his voice in England, and had been heard.

The princes and kings all bore with more or less impatience the pride and pretensions of the Roman pontiff. Some of them ventured to oppose him openly; and the university of Paris more than once served as the instrument of the royal power in answering the menaces of Rome. The courage was even acquired of appealing to a future council, which thus was plainly set above the pope. Other princes, whether from conviction or policy, still bent the knee before Rome, and appeared to make common cause with the head of the church. Charles V., for example, could not avoid remaining connected with the Holy See. It was his interest to conciliate its support in Italy, where he wished to rule. His subjects in Spain, where the Inquisition had been lately introduced, and where the terror of the Moors, which they had so long endured, had confirmed the people in the most superstitious Catholicism, would have instantly revolted against him if he had appeared a less zealous Catholic than they.

The countries which enjoyed a republican constitution, and which maintained among them a bolder sentiment of liberty, were those too which showed themselves least timid with regard to Rome. It is well known with what noble firmness the senate of Venice opposed a constant barrier to her usurpations. Some cantons, essentially republican, as Holland, Holstein, and Lower Germany, were never entirely Popish, and the Reformation found them already reformed.

The eyes of men, moreover, began to open. The impolitic violence of some popes, the scandalous lives of others, the shameless profligacy of their court and capital, the bad morals of the clergy, the ignorance and impudence of several of the mendicant orders, those faithful satellites of the papal throne; the seventy years of captivity at Avignon; the schism of forty years which succeeded, when two popes, and even three were seen, all having their partisans, all reviling and excommunicating one another, loading each other with disgusting reproaches and imputations of the basest crimes, lively exposures, which covered with ignominy both rivals at once; the multiplied exactions of the church, particularly indulgences, the monstrous abuse of the most monstrous of powers; the intolerance and cruelties of the Inquisition ; these are causes abundantly sufficient to explain that hatred and contempt of the Romish hierarchy which secretly lurked in every corner. But what was to become of a power founded entirely upon opinion, the moment opinion was withdrawn from it? To doubt of its rights was to annihilate them; to inspect its foundations was to undermine them; to examine was to destroy.

The popes, in the meantime, who knew better perhaps than any one else the deep wounds by which their authority suffered, allowed no appearance of this consciousness to escape, and affected that security which imposes upon opinion. They knew how to yield at times, and to bend when necessity

VOL. XX.

constrained them to it; but they changed their tone as little as possible, always hoping that a better time would return, a time of bigotry and of darkness, in which they might display, in all its magnificence, their obstinate system of Lamaism. The irascible Paul III., as audacious as Hildebrand, summoned the king of England to appear before him; and, on the refusal of the no less irascible Henry VIII, declared him to have forfeited his crown for himself and his descendants for ever. Pius IV. treated the king of Naples in the same manner; Alexander VI. pronounced a similar sentence against the high-minded Elizabeth of England; and on each of these occasions the vicar of Jesus Christ held forth with assurance his incontestable rights over all thrones and all the earth.

He allotted America as fast as

it was discovered, and even before it was discovered; and he had his legion of authors, of theologians, and of lawyers, who demonstrated with intrepidity all the sanctity and evidence of his rights. The grateful church has placed the names of several of them in the calendar.

This disastrous system, which subjected civil society to the iron sceptre of an exclusive church; a church, out of which there was no salvation; could not fail to alienate from her by degrees the superior order of minds. Remonstrances, complaints, arose on all sides. A thousand voices joined together to demand a Reformation of the church in the head and in the members, in faith and in morals; these are the consecrated terms. Three councils in rapid succession, at Pisa, Constance, and Basle, had disclosed the wounds of that aged body, and probed them to the bottom. The general constraint and dissatisfaction had become more visible than ever at the beginning of the sixteenth century; and in this state of affairs it was that the young and voluptuous Medicis ascended the pontifical throne. A friend to the fine arts, from which he expected only celebrity and

F

enjoyment, an artful, but presumptuous politician, prepossessed with contempt for the unpolished coarseness of Germany, under which he was unable to discern a penetration and manliness of character, the energy of which he was

soon to experience, Leo X. was not possessed of powers to contend with Luther; and the haughty weakness of the one prepared abundant success to the intrepid firmness of the other.

What

IN all matters of obligation towards God, duty and privilege are one. ever God enjoins on any creature, it is that creature's high privilege to perform. Duty is a powerful motive, and has accomplished noble deeds, but man reaches his highest performances when he merges duty in privilege. Duty is often mystified and evaded; its claims being silenced or but feebly met. The sense of privilege hastens to perform what duty has neglected, with joyful step and liberal hand. When a sovereign deigns to visit a subject, any reasonable outlay is deemed a privilege. Shall the maintenance of the divine institutions of the Gospel for man's own benefit, be deemed less an honour and distinction?

The

The cause of God in the world! stupendous enterprise of man's eternal well-being undertaken by Christ, to save, bless, and dignify man! Can the Christian deem expenditure for this object. less than a most exalted privilege? It is sense of privilege, rather than duty, that will do what is needed. Israel's sense of privilege placed before God more than sufficed for the erection of the tabernacle. Subsequently, David's feeling of privilege accumulated vast treasures to rear a temple to the Lord; and again, it induced the cheerful forfeiture of personal interests, for the sustenance and honour of the early church. Privilege has ever performed the noblest deeds of time. Abraham would not bury his beloved Sarah in another's field, he would first make it his own by purchase. David

would not worship God on the ground, and at the cost of Araunah. He would first buy them at their fair value. Ought not the privilege of living for the honour of Christ, to exercise the fullest dedication of the Christian's resources to his glory?

1. There is the privilege of being able to contribute to such an object. Multitudes pine and perish without these advantages. Shall not those who have them so abundantly rejoice in the honour of extending them to the destitute? Myriads who prize them, can do little to extend them. Shall not those who prize and can extend them, delight so to do within the range of their power? Have we an education which enables us to appreciate rational existence? Are we blessed to know the joyful sound, and to possess the means of spiritual refreshment to our fullest desire? And shall we not exult to be able in any degree to furnish the same to millions who are partially or entirely destitute of them!

2. The privilege of being entrusted with the Gospel, to promote the salvation of

men.

A position of trust implies confidence on the part of him who confers the trust in him on whom it is conferred. Not to every one will a man commit his treasures and interests. God condescends to put Christians in trust with the Gospel, as His agents to employ His instrument, by the teaching and power of the Holy Spirit, to renovate, heal, and save the world. He has handed them this trea sure to enrich and bless mankind. He

has given them the talents of labour, property, and influence, to be increased by use for their own and others' eternal advantage. Shall the Christian prove faithless or indifferent to this trust? Can God confer on man a greater honour than this implies? Is not this giving man an affinity with himself--honouring him to become a dispenser of the highest good-making him a channel of infinite blessings? Is not this privilege adapted to raise to the loftiest degree the Christian's estimate of the worth of his own soul in the sight of God? Is it possible that untold millions of immortal beings are in need and ruin, while their fellows are in plenty and security-knowing of this condition-having the means of relief at hand, and being commissioned to apply them-and yet leave these millions to perish? Are there any bearing the hallowed name of Christian, who can, for gain or ease, perpetrate such heartless cruelty and base unfaithfulness? Shall not a sense of privilege engage their whole heart and energies to this blessed work, as the noblest end in life, and as the best application of their resources?

3. The privilege of co-operating with God in the highest forms of beneficence, and of thereby preparing for the dignity and felicity of heaven.

A law of imitation operates throughout existence. Inferior creatures imitate superiors; barbarians imitate the civilized; children, parents; persons of lowly, those of loftier station. God, the supreme, is alone worthy of universal imitation, for He only is perfect. His glorious perfection is disclosed to excite man's admiration and imitation. In His dignity and power He stands alone, above all imitation, glorious in majesty. In His goodness and benignity, He allures man to imitate Him. The cultivation of beneficence is essential to man's enjoyment of God now, and to His approval in eternity; in a word, to man's likeness to, and then his happiness in, God. God realizes boundless felicity, in incessant and unlimited giving. He, the unwanting one, cannot receive from any creature.

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Seeing He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things." Could He be prevented giving, His bliss would be contracted. The bliss imparted to creatures by His ceaseless bounty affords Him rich, complacent delight. "The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works." The Saviour taught the Samaritan woman to give to all who should ask, on the godlike plan, "If thou knewest the gift of God:" God's method of giving to His friends and foes alike bountifully. He then illustrated His lesson, by conferring on her blessings of infinite worth-pardon and salvation. To receive is creature-like. To give is godlike. Man can only be blessed and noble by recovery to similar dispositions and acts, in his degree, to those of the inflnite God. For man to have, if it were possible, for himself alone, boundless wealth, were no true blessedness. He must be like God, in gracious dispositions and actions, to be truly happy. If Christians really believed the grand lesson of the Saviour's lips and life-"It is more blessed to give than to receive"-what a revolution would instantly follow in the measure of their gifts and the tone of their happiness! This glorious maxim is rescued from oblivion, as if to engage Christians to cultivate and enjoy this divine blessedness of giving, rather than the creature pleasure of receiving.

4. The privilege of employing the treasures of earth for the glory of God, for the full satisfaction of Christ, and for the Christian's fullest enjoyment of heaven.

The one commanding and sufficient object of divine action is the glory of God in the admiration and love of intelligent creatures. This, as secured by the salvation of man, was the grand object of the self-devotion of Christ, in His obedience and death for man. This obedience completed by Him on earth, where never man had performed it perfectly, He could say with complacent joy, "I have glorified thee on the earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self,

with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." Next only to the Father's commendation, as a reward of the Saviour's agony and death for man, is the salvation of sanctified millions. "For the joy that was set before Him"-of rescuing them from woe, and of raising them to heaven through His love" He endured the cross, despising the shame." In their eternal perfection and bliss, "He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied."

There is one object that a wise interest would realize from the treasures of time ---some lasting issues of the fact of being, and some resulting advantage for everlasting enjoyment. There is one use of them having this issue: "Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations." The pursuit of this is the Christian's duty and privilege. If others could procure it for him, would he not wish they would? Shall he not then seek it for himself? These three objects are all concurrent, forming one grand, harmonious, enduring product of the possessions of time. No services of man so promote the glory of God, and the satisfaction of Christ, as those that tend to save souls. The measure of selfdenying devotion of substance, and of loving labour to this object, will be the measure of the redeemed soul's reward of grace in the presence of the Lord.

is love. Love is at once the spring of noblest actions, and the motive of largest sacrifices. Love prompts to the taskwork of life, cheering the heart under the burdens of daily toil. For the loved ones of his household, man holds on with courage and joy, amid otherwise exhausting fatigue and difficulties, the pressure only deepening the love towards those on whose behalf it is borne.

Love has had one manifestation, which puts every other into the shade-the love of God for man. Love for him, too, in perverseness, debasement, and infamy. Love of compassion for him in his guilt, and love of complacency in his recovery. Here is the grandest possible instance and manifestation of love: "Herein is love; not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins!" The cost and expression of divine love was vast and unutterable. The Father spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all. Loving Him immensely beyond every creature, and delighting in His satisfaction and joy, He nevertheless gave Him up to exile, ignominy, sorrow, and death. Yea, himself presented the bitter cup, and inflicted the heart-breaking stroke on His best beloved. Oh, what wondrous love of God to man was this! If Abraham's heart shrank from slaying Isaac, with what emotions must God have surrendered His well-beloved! What were a gift of treasure-stored and peopled worlds compared with this! The love of Christ to man is rich, infinite, divine. The most that any one can give for another is himself. Christ gave Himself for man; and exercised His own boundless merit and resources to reclaim and bless him. He surrendered joys, and endured agonies unutterable, to rescue mortals from sin and woe, and to confer on them life, dignity, and happiness. Was ever love like this? The Holy Spirit deigns to renew, purify, and prepare the guilty and stubborn heart of man for heavenly life and glory. What marvellous love of Deity is here displayed! What race of beings is so distinguished by the love of God as man?