PREFACE.

ths 50th year of his reign. Our melancholy task has been to expose the odious flatteries, so peculiarly disgraceful to a free and virtuous people, which have distinguished not only the usual herd of adulators in church and state, but the sermons of those divines, both of the establishment, and of Protestant Dissenters, who profess sentiments peculiarly enlightened, and evangelical! The state of Britain resembles that of Israel of old, when most degenerated: when the priests were the most forward in flattering their rulers, civil and ecclesias tical, and thereby accelerating the rain of their country.

In such circumstances the only encouragement and support to a writer who is feelingly alive to the real state of our na tional affairs, and who cannot swim with the polluted stream, arises from the consciousness of persevering in the path of integrity, and the reflection, that the GREAT GOVERNOR OF THE UNIVERSE is, in spite of all the machinations of men and devils, accomplishing his own vast and glorious designs, and perpetually educing good out of evil. With the firmest conviction, therefore, that those principles of REFORM, and of POLITICAL, CIVIL, and RELIGIOUS LIRERTY which have uniformly characterised the POLITICAL REVIEW, are of the utmost importance to the welfare, yea to the salvation of the British empire, we close the sixth volume by expressing our determination to persevere in the undeviating course we have hitherto pursued.

That virtuous part of the public who entertain sentiments similar to those we have inculcated; the friends of the genuine British Constitution, and of peaceable reform; the enemies of abuses, and of priestcraft in all its windings and ramifications, in whatever church or sect it may rear its odi'ous and unblushing front, will, we doubt not, persevere in encouraging a publication, which we may with truth pronounce, the only one of its kind.

We return our thanks to those of our friends, who have favoured us with their communications. More able discussions on the constitutional rights of Britons, we may › venture to affirm, will not be found in any publication of the present day.'

Harlow, Dec. 29. 1809.

: 15

A MIDST

FALL OF THE PAPAL HIERARCHY.

MIDST all the disorders and calamities which have attended the various revolutions on the continent during the past twenty years, there is one event that has been gradually accomplishing, and which we ardently hope is at length accomplished; an event, which al though it appears to be contemplated with indifference, if not with disgust, by a majority of our countrymen, of all parties and sects, political and religious, demands the attention of the philosopher, the politician, and more especially of the christian; an event, the distant prospect of which was once contemplated with satisfaction by every friend of mankind, and with delight by every believer in divine revelation. Our limits will only allow us, for the present, to make a few general observations, on a subject of equal importance with any in which the world at large has been interested, from the commencement of the christian era to the present day.

By a recent decree of the Emperor of France, it is declared,— "That the states of Rome are united with the French empire, and "that the temporal power and authority of the Pope is annihilated.” The reasons assigned for this decree on the part of NAPOLEON, are as follow: When our illustrious predecessor, Charlemagne, "presented to the bishops of Rome, various lands, he resigned them only as leaseholds to strengthen the loyalty of his subjects, and "with a view that Rome should form a part of his empire." To found a claim to the papal states on the plea of the design of the founder of those states, eleven hundred years since, affords additional evidence to that recorded in the historic page of almost every age and country, that Emperors and Kings, when they have an inclination to extend their power, or dominions, are never at a loss for a pretence, which, although it may not be satisfactory to the world, is sure to be satisfactory to themselves. The sword of NAPOLEON has given him the papal states, and it is of little consequence to inquire what were the views of Charlemagne in bestowing a patri

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mony on the see of Rome, and transferring the government to its bishops.*

"

The second reason assigned for this measure is "The union "of the two powers, the spiritual and temporal, which has been "since that period, as it is still at this day, the source of incessant disputes; the spiritual princes have studied nothing but to aug "ment the influence of a power which enabled them to support the assumption of others; and for that reason the spiritual powers "which were invariable in their policy have interfered with the temporal, which change according to the circumstances and policy of "the times:" and "that all attempts to reconcile the safety and tranquillity of the French empire with the temporal pretension "of the spiritual princes have proved in vain." The truth of most of the positions stated in this paragraph will not be disputed, by any one who has read with common attention the history of the church of Rome. Indeed these positions will admit of a more extended application than that made by the French Emperor. "The ff union of the two powers, the spiritual and temporal" in the bishop of Rome, has led to an assumption of power" utterly irreconcilable, not only “with the safety and tranquillity of the French empire

and people," but of every empire, state, and people of Christen dom. This assumption of power has enabled the Popes of Rome to enslave Sovereigns, to rob them of their dominions, to plunder mankind, in every succeeding age and nation, of their property, and of every right, natural or acquired; this assumption of power" has caused the massacre of countless millions of the human race, while it has enabled the perpetrators of that massacre to riot in every species of luxury and lust; and although owing to the light of the reformation, and to the wisdom of the sovereigns and people of Europe, this assumed power" has been considerably diminished, yet, in proportion to its exercise, misery and disgrace have been the certain consequence. The cities of Naples and of Rome, were, until

The statement of Napoleon, respecting the views of Charlemagne, appears to be correct. That excellent ecclesiastical historian, Mosheim, after stating his liberal grant to the see of Rome, remarks as follows:-" Upon "his elevation to the empire of the West, and the government of Rome, he "seems to have reserved to himself the supreme dominion, and the unalien"able rights of Majesty, and to have granted to the church of Rome, a "subordinate jurisdiction over that great city, and its annexed territory. That Charlemagne, in effect, preserved entire his supreme authority. over the city of Rome, and its adjacent territory; gave law to the citizens "by judges of his own appointment; punished malefactors, enjoyed the prerogatives, and exercised all the functions of royalty, has been demon"strated by several of the learned, in the most ample and satisfactory "manner, and confirmed by the most unexceptionable and authentic testi"monies."

they were conquered by France, the modern Sodoms and Gomorrah's of Europe; all the vices more peculiarly degrading to human na ture, some of which are held in abomination by almost all other states civilized or uncivilized, christian or heathen, there reigned triumphant: they were not only habitations of vice, but of cruelty. Modern travellers estimate the number of assassinations' in the city of Naples alone, at 11,000 annually. Such were the effects of the "assumed power" of the church of Rome, in which the toleration of crimes has produced a fund of wealth to the priesthood, and ab solution has been granted to the most abandoned of the human race, the pests of society.

The crimes which have marked some of the periods of the French Revolution, have, by their being perpetrated immediately before our eyes, and by the use made of them by crafty politicians, who when they have their own ambitious ends to answer, prove they can act in a manner equally criminal;-the crimes of some of the French statesmen have so appalled the people of this country, and of Europe, as frequently to occasion the general exclantation" Such "crimes are unparalleled!" Had the people who thus exclaimed, only turned over the pages of ecclesiastical history, they would have been convinced of the horrid truth, that no crimes have paralleled those of the papal see. The worst of men who have ever existed since the creation of the world, were, and that for a long succession, the Popes of Rome; who were such a compound of every species of wickedness, that, however justly we may hold in abhorrence the lives and the actions of those men of blood, ROBESPIERRE and MARAT, the latter may with truth be pronounced comparatively virtu2 ous characters.* The grand source of all these crimes was "the "union of the two powers, the spiritual and temporal," the fatal consequences of which have been from that day to the present, in cessant disorders; "those spiritual princes having studied nothing "but to augment the influence of a power which enabled them to "support and maintain the assumption of all others." The fall therefore of such a long established despotism, although it may be lamented by those corrupt politicians who have been in the habit of elassing it with other despotic systems amongst the "regular govern«ments of Europe," is an event which affords matter for satisfaction ́and triumph to every friend to the moral interests, and the civil and

* Baronius (a popish historian) acknowledges that for a succession of fifty Popes, not one pious or virtuous man sat in the pontifical chair: many of them were whoremongers and murderers, many others, adds the historian, were hominum portenta, monsters of men: there were eighteen popes successively one after another that were magicians, and in league with the devil. Another eminent popish writer owns-" There were scarce any sins "-except that of heresy, which the bishops of Rome were not guilty of!"

religious rights of mankind; and to the christian, he who is not merely nominally, but really such, no event that has taken place for many centuries past, is more calculated to confirm his faith in divine revelation, and in the consoling doctrine of a superintending Providence. The predictions respecting Antichrist, abounding in the New Testament, have (till at least within these few years, when the inclinations of certain time-serving priests have led them to adopt a different interpretation) by the generality of protestant divines of all churches and sects, been applied to the church of Rome, which has been justly considered as the grand apostacy from the christian faith: the fall of that church has been for ages the uniform subject of the most ardent prayers of pious protestants of all denominations. Several of the prelates, and other eminent divines of the established church of England have been distinguished as champions in defence of their common faith: they rejoiced to see, although at a distance, the day on which the church of Rome should be prostrated in the dust; and they have contemplated such an event as one of the most important, splendid, and glorious accomplishments of inspired prophecy. It must, however, be acknowledged, that the generality of our protestant divines in the present day, appear to entertain different sentiments and feelings. As the period for the accomplishment of the predictions respecting the church of Rome has more nearly approached, these divines, instead of congratulating the christian world, have manifested much dissatisfaction and uneasi ness; their hopes and wishes have attended certain projects, one of the ends of which is the "the restoration of the two powers, the spi "ritual and temporal in the Pope of Rome."* Were we to inquire into the reasons of their conduet on this occasion, the subject would, we fear, suggest some mortifying reflections. It might perhaps be suspected, that the priests of other establishments besides,' those of Rome, are conscious that some of the marks by which the grand apostacy has been distinguished, are too visible in their respec tive churches. It might be asked, whether all have not, to use the expressive language of inspiration, drank of the wine of the fornication of the whore of Babylon:—whether, as the reign of the only rightful head of the christian church, the King MESSIAH approaches, they are not somewhat apprehensive that the grand, the PRIMEVAL CORRUPTION of christianity-HUMAN AUTHORITY OVER CONSCIENCE, that mystery of iniquity which began to work long be fore its complete developement at Rome;-whether the "union of the two powers the spiritual and temporal," by which the established priesthood in all countries inveigled the civil magistrate to create, support, and maintain that "assumption of powers"

See the Proclamation of the Archduke John. Pol. Reg. Vol. V. p. 433,