greater activity and intensity in the Papacy than in Protestant sects, owing to a theological error peculiar to the former.

When the Patriarch of Rome usurped the title of Universal Bishop, which he had previously refused to accord to the Patriarch of Constantinople, the other bishops of the West made a feeble resistance, but at length yielded to his supremacy. The Greek bishops, who almost all refused to admit the priority of any other except that of the apostolic province within whose jurisdiction their own sees lay, were denounced by the Bishop of Rome as schismatics; that is, persons guilty of breaking the Unity of the Church. As these died out, the Bishop of Rome advanced a step further in his usurpation, and declared that the consecration of no bishop was valid who did not receive it by the authority of the See of Rome; and, as the Greek bishops positively refused to submit to this, the Bishop of Rome declared their consecration invalid, and, consequently, the ordination of all priests by their hands invalid; and, as a necessary result, the sacraments administered by such priests invalid also. Hence the Greek, which is the oldest, and was at that period the most numerous part of the Christian Church, is called, by all Papists and Protestants, schismatic; whereas, the true schismatics are the Church of Rome, and all

those Protestant sects which have sprung out of her. An attempt was made at reuniting the Greek bishops to the Latin; but the Latin tried to entrap the Greek, at the Council of Florence, by the introduction of two new words into the Creed to which all had previously agreed without these words, and from that time the Greek and Roman sects have remained at open war. When the Protestant sects subsequently broke off from the Roman sect, of course the Bishop of Rome denied still more the rights of the separated bishops, and down to this day maintains that no religious rites whatever can be duly performed by Protestant ministers; and therefore when Protestants join the Church of Rome they are compelled to be re-baptized, as if they were heathen, and, if clergy, to be re-ordained. Thus, in consequence of his first usurpation, the Pope has been led through a series of measures to maintain that his sect alone is the Church of Christ. This monstrous proposition has, however, staggered many of the best of the popes; and their common sense, their benevolence, and the silent influence of Christian feeling, have led them to devise all sorts of quibbles to mitigate the absurdity of their theory; and they do not consign to eternal perdition any who are ignorant, who have not the means of informing themselves, and who do not attack the doctrines of the Church.

It has been already observed, that, when the Patriarch of the East claimed the title of Universal Bishop, the Bishop of Rome declared that that was to make himself Antichrist; so soon, therefore, as he took it himself, it was necessary to find out some justification which his brother of the East had never thought of. He, therefore, devised the hitherto unheard-of scheme of St. Peter's supremacy over the. rest of the Apostles; of Peter's bishopric of Rome; and of the bequest of his authority, as Apostle, to his successors, the Bishops of Rome. Monstrously false as this was however, he did not stop here; he went on to declare that all the world was to become converted to Christianity; that so far from the clergy being submissive to the civil power, as our Lord had been, and as the Apostles enjoined all Christians to be, the civil powers must be submissive to the Bishop of Rome; that the emperor and all kings held their thrones of the See of Rome; that the Bishop of Rome had the right to depose any of whom he disapproved, and to appoint others; that he might dissolve all oaths, and especially those of subjects to their sovereigns; that he was Christ's vicar; that he might do on earth all that Christ could; that he was infallible; that he was not amenable to any law; and that no one could say to him, "What doest thou?”

In all estimates of the doings of the Bishop of Rome it is necessary to bear this their theory ever in mind. According to it, and losing sight of the meaning of the word Church, all who were under the Pope were in the true Church, and would be saved; all who rejected the Pope's supremacy were out of the Church, and would be lost. Hence all inducements were employed to draw men into the Church, and to keep them in it; and all vices were considered slight, and even justifiable, which should be the means of drawing men into the Roman fold.

Now observe that this whole tissue of falsehood, blasphemy, and absurdity is not, properly speaking, theological; for whether it be true or false the doctrines of Christianity remain the same. It does, indeed, involve the question of ecclesiastical discipline, but this more in appearance than in reality; and the whole might be rejected and the Roman religious system of Christianity remain untouched. To reject the lie, and to retain the truth, was doubtless the object of the Reformers; but unfortunately the bad passions of men, avarice, ambition, and hatred, combined with zeal against imposture; truth and error were mingled, and both the lie and the truth were adopted, or rejected together.

The Anglican sect, the heads of which were the most free from evil, feeling likewise the necessity of

unity, discovered the headship of the Church in the head of the state. The Greek Churches were the first to seek to the civil power to enforce ecclesiastical censures; and this they did whilst acknowledging that it was the duty of the clergy to pay obedience to that power. The difference, then, in the matter of the union of Church and State lay in this: the Roman Church asserted the supremacy of the clergy over the civil power; the Greek Church admitted the supremacy of the Emperor over the clergy but both agreed that the sword of the civil magistrate is to be used to enforce ecclesiastical decrees.

Amongst the many proofs which might be brought forward that the Saxons received Christianity from Greece, and not through Rome, (such as their time of keeping Easter, their declaring to Augustine, who was sent as missionary to England, that they had never heard of the Pope and many others,) this also is to be added, namely, that the coronation robes of the Saxon kings of Britain were ecclesiastical, consisting of cope and dalmatic, and they are so to this day. All the ancient law books of England assert that the king is, by the common law of the land, a spiritual person. Henry VIII. in claiming to be the head of the English Church, and denying the Pope's jurisdiction in this island, did no more than