CHAPTER V.

"The course of Christianity and the Christian Church may not unaptly be likened to a mighty river, which filled a wide channel, and bore along with its waters mud, and gravel, and weeds, till it met a great rock in the middle of its stream. By some means or other, the water flows purely, and separated from the filth, in a deeper and narrower course on one side of the rock, and the refuse of the dirt and troubled waters goes off on the other side in a broader current, and then cries out, We are the river.—Coleridge's Table Talk, vol. i.

THE tyranny of Papal Rome, under which the most powerful states of Europe had so long groaned, was fast approaching a crisis—the measure of iniquity was nearly filled up, and it was evident that clouds were gathering in the west, portentous of the coming storm. "Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee, O Lord! the remainder of wrath shalt Thou restrain !"

The long career of wickedness by which Popery had advanced to its present power was

drawing to a close, and the political troubles and animosities it had stirred up among its obsequious subjects in many of the more powerful states, were beginning to show signs of a reaction, which the increasing corruption and despotism of the Pope were tending rapidly to augment.

Pope Boniface VIII., who succeeded to the pontificate A. D. 1294, was disposed to outstrip all his predecessors in priestly 1294. arrogance and depravity, "He was born

to be the plague both of Church and State, a disturber of the repose of nations, and his attempts to extend and confirm the despotism of the Roman Pontiffs were carried to a length that approached to frenzy. From the moment that he entered upon his new dignity, he laid claim to a supreme and irresistible dominion over all the powers of the earth, both spiritual and temporal, terrified kingdoms and empires with the thunder of his bulls, called princes and sovereign states before his tribunal to decide their quarrels," and, in a word, "exhibited to the Church and to Europe a lively image of the tyrannical administration of Gregory VII., whom he perhaps surpassed in arrogance."* This was seen in one of his earliest acts; for he first showed himself in public, "girt with a

* Mosheim's Eccl. Hist. vol. iii. p. 186.

sword, and sustaining an imperial crown, and exclaimed, 'I am Cæsar, and also Pope; behold here are two swords!' alluding to his spiritual and temporal authority."

The throne of France was about the same

period occupied by Philip the Fair, a 1300. man of bold and enterprising spirit, and

in every way qualified to curb the madness of the Roman Pontiff. Of this Boniface was so sensible, that he determined on striking the first blow, and accordingly at once addressed a letter to that high-minded prince, in which he insisted on his divine right to the submission of all temporal kings. Philip's only reply was, "We give your fool's head to know, that in temporals we are subject to no person." The Pope rejoined by publishing the celebrated bull, “Unam Sanctam," in which he declared the king an heretic, and, as such, the servant of perdition. Philip, in the council held at 1303. Paris, A.D. 1303, caused the following

articles to be decreed against him: That he was guilty of simony; that he was a homicide, usurer, heretic, epicure, a despiser of religion, and guilty of incest; that he had bribed the Saracens to invade Sicily out of hatred to France. The Pope, on his part, answers the accusation by pronouncing the sentence of ex

Spanheim's Eccl. Ann. Cent. xiv.

communication against Philip and all his adherents he also absolved his subjects from their allegiance, and gave the kingdom to Albert of Austria.

The king could not quietly brook so great an insult; filled with indignation, and regardless of all consequences, he at once sent William de Nogaret, a bold and able lawyer, to Italy, with directions to seize the Pope, and carry him forcibly to Lyons, where he determined to hold a council in judgment upon him. Nogaret dexterously performed his part-seized his holiness at Anagni, and would have taken him to France, had he not been rescued and carried back to Rome, where, partly from mortification, and partly from a blow inflicted by Nogaret, he died a miserable death.

This event was quickly followed by another that proved equally fatal to the power of Rome. Philip, strong in his power, and quick in following up his advantage, succeeded in appointing Clement V., a Frenchman, to the pontificate; who transferred the papal residence to Avignon, in France, where it continued for seventy years. Clement proved himself but little inferior to Boniface, either in audacity or tyranny. He compelled Henry, emperor of Germany, to travel to Rome, and receive the imperial crown from the hands of cardinals. He afterwards gave all the emperor's dominions to Robert, king

of Sicily and Henry himself was deprived of life by a poisoned wafer administered to him at the Sacrament, by a Dominican friar. The ambassador also of the doge of Venice was compelled to prostrate himself, with a chain round his neck, under the table of this haughty Pope, while he was at supper.

The removal of the head-quarters of Popery contributed more than any other event at this time to shake the papal throne to its foundation. It led to many a struggle for the restoration of St. Peter's chair; but the issue of each fresh attempt only the rather accelerated that schism

in the popedom, which took place A.D. 1378. 1378. This great Western schism, as it was called, continued for fifty years, during which period the Roman Church had frequently two or three infallible heads at the same moment. In its consequences, however, it proved highly beneficial to the civil and religious interests of the world. The head of the dragon was smitten asunder-kings and princes once more began to recover their ancient independence, and the people, no longer blinded by the glare of a false lustre, began to find out that the "interests of true religion might be secured and promoted without a visible head, crowned with a spiritual supremacy."

But other diseases were preying on the vitals of Popery-the scandalous corruptions of the