tion,-legalized idolatry in a christian land,-dragged in idolaters to sit as legislators for a christian people,-who have also advocated the cause of the Manufacturers and Worshippers of Wafer Gods,we will merely repeat the words of De Lolme, which that impartial and excellent writer used, so many years beforehand, to mark out the detestable characters of those aspiring demagogues, who, as the democratical

wit.). Now St. Bernard published two remarkable treatises, in one of which he exposes the corruption of the Pontiffs and Bishops (Bernard. "Considerationum Libri v. ad Eugenium Pontificem :"-the Pontiff Eugenius III., was once the Saint's favourite pupil, and, certainly, one of the best and holiest of the Popes); and in the other he describes the enormous crimes of all the monastic orders (Bernard. "Apologia ad Gulielmum Abbat."). In these treatises, the Saint enumerates the most flagrant marks of licentiousness and fraud, ignorance, and luxury, pervading all ranks of the church; so that their whole business was to satisfy their lusts, increase their opulence, diminish the authority, and encroach upon the privileges of princes and magistrates, to the entire neglect of the interests of religion, and the cure of souls. Bernard in his well-known Apology for his own conduct, in relation to the vices of the monks of Clugni, states, with a pious concern, that he knew many abbots, each of whom had more than sixty horses in his stable; and such a prodigious variety of wines in his cellar, that it was scarcely possible to taste the half of them at a single entertainment! (Bernard. Apologia in Oper. Fleury, Hist. Ecclesiast. liv. lxxvii. tom. xiv. p. 351. edit. Bruxelles.). I will translate, verbatim, St. Bernard's full and hideous sketch of the Papacy. "The clergy (says the intrepid monk) are called Pastors, but, in good truth, are Robbers, who, unsatisfied with the fleece, thirst for the blood of the flock; and merit the appellation, not of Shepherds, but of Traitors, who do not feed, but slay and devour the sheep. The Saviour's reproach, scourges, nails, spear, and cross, all these-His Ministers,— who serve Antichrist, melt in the furnace of covetousness, and expend on the acquisition of filthy gain, differing from Judas only in the magnitude of the sum, for which they sell their Master. The degenerated ecclesiastics, prompted by avarice, dare, for gain, even to barter assassination, adultery, incest, fornication, sacrilege, and perjury! Their extortions, they lavish on show, pomp, and folly. These patrons of humility, appear at home, amid royal furniture, and exhibit themselves abroad, in meretricious finery and theatrical dress. Sumptuons food, splendid cups, overflowing cellars, drunken banquets, accompanied with the harp, the lyre, and the violin, are the means by which these Ministers of the Cross, evince their self-denial, mortification, and indifference to the world!" (Bernard. Oper. p. 1725-1728. “Dicemini pastores, &c." edit. of Paris, 1632.). And

influence allows them, tear down-that they may mount up; destroy-that they may devour; and plunder-that they at least may be recompensed; and thus in the midst of their achievements, that they may revel on the ill-gotten spoil !" Though they " (i. e. the defenders of democratical and republican principles) "may have arisen, as we may suppose (says De Lolme), from the humblest stations, and such as seemed

again, our ingenuous Saint, antithetically exclaims,-"The Bishops to whom the Church of Christ is now entrusted, are not Teachers but Deceivers, not Pastors but Impostors, not Prelates but Pilates !" (Epistola ad Eugenium "Non Doctores, sed Seductores; non Pastores, sed Impostores; non Prælati, sed Pilati."). And again, in the same Epistle, he plainly tells the Pope himself,—“ 'your Palace receiveth good men, but maketh none: the wicked thrive there, the virtuous are neglected." But of Rome and its inhabitants,-basking, though they were in the sunbeams of Infallibility, and honoured with the residence of the Spiritual and Temporal Vicegerents of Heaven,—he eloquently and indignantly breaks forth-"Who is ignorant of the vanity and arrogance of the Romans? A nation nursed in sedition, cruel, untractable, and scorning to obey, unless they are too feeble to resist. When they promise to serve, they aspire to reign; if they swear allegiance, they watch the opportunity of revolt; yet they vent their discontent in loud clamours, if your doors, or your counsels, are shut against them. Dextrous in mischief, they have never learnt the science of doing good. Odious to earth and heaven, impious to God, seditious among themselves, jealous of their neighbours, inhuman to strangers, they love no one, by no one are they beloved; and while they wish to inspire fear, they live in base and continual apprehension! They will not submit; they know how to govern; faithless to their superiors, intolerable to their equals, ungrateful to their benefactors, and alike imprudent in their demands and their refusals. Lofty in promise, poor in execution: adulation and calumny, perfidy and treason, are the familiar arts of their policy!!!" (de Considerat. lib. iv. cap. ii.-above cited.). And again " we cannot now say, as is the people, so is the priest; for the people are not so bad as the priest" (In Conv. S. Pauli. Ser. I.). Nor was St. Bernard's opinion of the monstrous vices in the Papacy, by any means singular: for one of their own Cardinals applies the words of the Prophet Jeremiah to the Prelacy of that period. "A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land; the Prophets prophesy falsely, and the Priests bear rule by their means, and my people love to have it so." -Jer. v. 30-31. (Johannes Vitalis, "de Prælatis et Sacerdotibus."). Nor can all this appear surprising to any person, tolerably conversant with the horrid state of the Holy (!) Mother Church, either at this period, or during the preceding centuries. From an innumerable number of testimonies at my hand; it can only be necessary to ad

totally to preclude them from all ambitious views, they have no sooner reached a certain degree of eminence, than they begin to aim higher. Their endeavours had at first no other object, as they professed, and perhaps with sincerity, than to see the laws impartially executed their only view now is to set themselves above them; and seeing themselves raised to the level of a class of men who possess all the power and enjoy all

duce that of Cardinal Baronius. Should any unlearned Romanist cast his eye upon the description of his church, and be struck with wonder, that the depository of Infallibility and Divinity, should ever have been so grossly debased, and impiously prostituted, it may not be irrelevant to remind such an individual, that Cardinal Baronius, is an author of the highest celebrity, and most unimpeached veracity, of any that have ever hazarded, or dedicated their genius and talents, to defend or protect the doctrines of Romanism. He was elected Superior of the Congregation of the Oratory; and about the latter end of the sixteenth century, Pope Clement VIII. made him his Confessor; to which he afterwards added the situation of Apostolical Prothonotary, and, subsequently the dignity of Cardinal. He was also appointed Librarian to the Roman See, and had at one time thirty-one votes in favour of his election to the vacant Papal chair (Moreri). In his "Annales Ecclesiactici," which is now received in every Romish University in Europe, as their noblest bulwark of learning, research and genius;-the writer there dared not have the hardihood to suppress the disgusting account of those early ages. Discoursing upon the state of the church in the tenth century, Baronius says, What then was the face of the Roman Church? How very filthy, when the most powerful and sordid Harlots (!) then ruled at Rome, at whose pleasure Sees were changed, and Bishopricks were given; and-which is horrible to hear, and most abominable-their Gallants (!) were obtruded into the See of Peter, and made False Popes; for who could say that those men are lawful Popes who were obtruded by such harlots without law? There was no mention of the Election or consent of clergy; the Canons were silent, the Decrees of Popes suppressed, the Ancient Traditions proscribed,-lust, armed with the secular power, challenged all things to itself!!! What kind of Cardinals, do you imagine, must be then chosen by those monsters (!) when nothing is so natural as for like to beget like? Who can doubt, but they all in all things did consent to those that chose them? Who will not easily believe that they animated them, and followed their footsteps? Who understands not, that such men must wish that our Lord would have slept continually, and never have awoke to judgment to take cognizance of, or punish their iniquities!!!" (Annal. Eccles. vol. x. A. D. 912. No. 8.). In short, Baronius, with an extraordinary degree of historical faithfulness, labors, it would appear, for adequate terms to express the base

the advantages in the state, they make haste to associate themselves with them!" (De Lolme, chap. ix. as above.). Now thus with good truth, this acute, political writer, observed, that, "the people are necessarily betrayed by those in whom they trust ;" and he furnishes as with a remarkable example in the case of the Roman Republic-an example, it cannot but be noted,-extremely apposite to that furnished in the

degeneracy of the Popes, and the frightful deformity of the Popedom. Of this same century, he says, many shocking Monsters thrust themselves into the Pontifical chair, who were guilty of robbery, assassination, simony, debauchery, tyranny, sacrilege, perjury, and all kinds of abominations!!!" (Ibid. Plurima horrenda in eam Monstra intruserunt, &c. &c."). It may furnish a sufficient explanation to the reader, to remind him, of the facts, that induced Baronius thus to declare, that the electors and elected, were kindred spirits. The Electors were neither, as Baronius says, the clergy, nobility, or people, but two Courtezans, Theodora and Marozia, mother and daughter, women distinguished by their rank, wit, and beauty, and, at the same time, though of Senatorial family, notorious for their rregularity, debauchery, and prostitution! These polluted patrons of licentiousness, according to their pleasure, passion, humour, whim, or caprice, elected Popes, collated Bishops, disposed of diocesses, and in reality were possessed of the whole administration of the Church!!! (Baron. ibid. Bruys' Histoire des Papes," vol, ii. p. 209, 222.). It was these vile harlots, which obtruded their filthy gallants, or spurious offspring, on the Pontifical throne. The proceedings of these infamous wretches pollute the pages of every ecclesiastical chronicler of the times. Theodora raised John X. her paramour to the papacy (A. D. 912,); but his Holiness (!) fell a victim to the bloody-mindedness of her intriguing daughter-Marozia. Marozia, in her turn, had her gallant-Sergius III. elected to the Popedom (A. D. 907); and she brought her Pontifical paramour, a son; and this hopeful scion of bastardy and the Popedom, was, by his precious mother, raised to the Papal dignity, under the name of John XI. (A. D. 931); and consequently became to the Romish church a Vicegerent of Heaven, and an Infallible guide!!! To these horrid enormities, so disgraceful to human nature, as well as to Religion, we have the unanimous testimony of all the ancient and modern historians; nor have the warmest advocates of Popery itself, attempted to disprove of such an awful, and melancholy picture of the Popedom. Among these we may mention Platina, Panvinius, Luitprand, Genebrard, Stella, Bini, Pagi, Fleury, Labbé, Du Pin, Giannone, Agobard, Sabellius, Sigonius, Gerbert, Werner, Bruys, Spondanus, Petavius, Bellarmine, &c. &c.-writers of the highest authority, and esteemed as oracular in the Roman Communion; who All unanimously, bear their reluctant testimony, to the fact, that in

present day. "At Rome (says De Lolme) after the feeble barrier which excluded the people from offices of power and dignity had been thrown down" (or, as it may now be interpreted, after all the TESTS had been abolished, which excluded Papists, Dissenters, and Infidels), "THE GREAT PLEBEIANS, whom the votes of the people began to raise to those offices, were immediately received into the senate. From that period their families began to form, in conjunction with the ANCIENT PATRICIAN FAMILIES, a new combination or political association of persons; and this combination was formed of no particular class of persons, but of all those who had influence enough to gain admit

this century, the overwhelming inundations of every species of impurity, poured on the Christian world, through the channel of the Roman Hierarchy. I can myself also declare this unanswerable fact, from a personal reference, and close review of the original works of these celebrated writers. In the whole range of historians of all ages, and of all countries, there is but one, and only one, who even attempts to draw a palliating veil over these monstrous crimes. It is Eccard, a German historian and antiquary; who, to show the sincerity of his conversion from the Protestant to the Romish communions, in his work entitled (" Origines Guelphicæ," tom. i. lib. ii.), ventured to clear Marozia of the greater crime of an adulterous commerce with Sergius III., and maintained the lesser papal crime, of this infamous woman being, before his elevation to the Pontificate, his lawful and first wife! The attempt however is as super-extravagant, as it is super-impudent, to pretend to make a discovery in the eighteenth century, of Marozia's virtue, in despite of all the corroborating authorities of preceding ages, and such a host of Romish authors;-and this, likewise, without adducing one single proof, or testimony of her innocence. Of the authors, whose names have been just mentioned, Genebrard says,- fifty popes, in 150 years, from John VIII. i. e. (A. D. 872.), to Leo IX. i. e. (A. D. 1049.), entirely degenerated from the sanctity of their ancestors, and were Apostatical, rather than Apostolical!" ("Sacra Chronologia," lib. iv.-"Apostatici potius quàm Apostolici, &c."). Gerbert declares," Roman morality was at this time the horror of the world!" (Epist. 40.). The learned and elegant scholar Sigonius records," the foulest and blackest (i. e. the 10th Century), both in respect to the wickedness of the princes and madness of the people, that is to be found in all antiquity!" (De Regn. Ital. lib. vi.). The learned Platina, whom Sixtus IV. patronized, and appointed Librarian of the Vatican (Tiraboschi), in his great work "History of the Popes," designates the Pontiffs of this age as "Monsters" (Ibid. p. 128.).

[To be continued.]